UC-NRLF *B SOI M27 ERBBKka LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Class STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. Gbe Great Educator" Series. The Times. — "A Series of Monographs on 'The Great Educators' should prove of service to all who concern them- selves with the historv, theory, and practice of education." Each subject will form a complete volume, crown 8vo, 5s. Now ready. ARISTOTLE, and the Ancient Educational Ideals. By Thomas Davidson, M.A., LL.D. The Times. — "A very readable sketch of a very interesting subject." LOYOLA, and the Educational System of the Jesuits. By Rev. Thomas Hughes, S.J. Saturday Review. — " Full of valuable information." ALCUIN, and the Rise of the Christian Schools. By Pro- fessor Andrew F. West, Ph.D. FROEBEL. By. H. Courthope Bowen, M.A. In preparation . ABELARD, and the Origin and Early History of Univer- sities. By Jules Gabriel Compayre, Professor in the Faculty ot Toulouse. ROUSSEAU ; or, Education according to Nature. HERBART ; or, Modern German Education. PESTALOZZI ; or, The Friend and Student of Children. HORACE MANN, and Public Education in the United States. By Nicholas Murray Butler, Ph.D. BELL, LANCASTER, and ARNOLD ; or, The English Education of To-Day. By J. G. Fitch, LL.D., Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools. Others to follow. LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C. STUDIES RELIGIOUS HISTORY ERNEST RENAN I-ATE OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY. LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1893 \_All rights reserved.'] pf z ®m mm CONTENTS PAGE Preface Xl The Religions op Antiquity .... i The History of the People of Israel . . . .51 The Critical Historians of Jesus 94 Mahomet and the Origins of Islamism . . . .153 The Life of the Saints 211 The Author of the 'Imitation of Jesus Christ' . . 223 John Calvin 237 Channing and the Unitarian Movement in the United States . . , 251 M. Feuerbach and the New Hegelian School . . 284 'The Temptation of Christ,' by M. Ary Scheffer . 295 212190 PREFACE The custom of collecting into volumes, essays which have been published in periodicals — a custom which many per- sons regard as indicative of a vexatious tendency in con- temporaneous literature — is the inevitable consequence of the importance which reviews and the literary parts of some of the daily papers have assumed for some years past. It would be useless to reprint them as mere reports, designed simply to announce a work, and not confined to any particular study ; but from the moment when these criticisms, right or wrong, have ceased to be extracts and analyses, and have themselves become works, we can hardly blame the author when he desires to give a more lasting publicity to those fragments, which have oftentimes cost him more research and reflection than an original book. Perhaps this new kind of literature will be looked on, in the future, as something peculiar to our age, and conse- quently something in which our age has best succeeded. I do not stay to inquire whether this is a eulogium, or a criticism on the times, or on ourselves; it is sufficient if the fashion is admitted to be one of the most important forms of intellectual production at the present time, so that those authors who gather their works together cannot be accused of misplaced pretensions and an exaggerated idea of their own works — possibly of little merit — but to which they have devoted all their care. It is very true that the volumes thus formed, if one viii PREFACE. regards them as books, sin grievously against the rules of regular composition and against the laws of unity. But then, when one has endeavoured, like as in this work now presented to the public, to collect analogous works accord- ing to the subject forming a whole, it is impossible but that the fragments artificially brought together should pre- sent some features peculiar to a periodical, which they w T ould not have done, had they been prepared originally for a book. This would appear, above all, in the fragments now reproduced : some parts may be of a date somewhat ancient. Without disavowing anything, we can hardly read again fragments written eight years ago, when those years have been occupied by an idea, not very active, which presented the details in a somewhat different man- ner. Two rules ought to be observed in the reproduction of these kinds of essays : on the one side, it would be objec- tionable in the author if he thought he was obliged to change the original character of his work, and to bring it back exactly to the form which he would have given to it if he had composed it for the first time; on the other hand, the respect due to the reader forbids the publication of a work which is capable of being rendered less imper- fect. I have sought to reconcile these two duties, and I believe I can say that the present volume, whilst contain- ing all the fragments written a long time ago (besides, if we consider the events which have happened since their publication), includes nothing which does not accord with my present opinions. These observations apply particu- larly to the essay upon the Critical Historians of Jesus, and to some other pages composed in a manner different from that which I have since adopted. I cannot say that at the present time I shall write pages such as they are ; how- ever, I sign them again without any scruple, because they offer nothing which, as it seems to me, does not conform to the truth. PREFACE. ix The excellent custom of Retractationes, 1 so ingenuously practised in former times, no longer finds place among our literary manners. This criticism of one's self, which, with a little sincerity, should bear so much fruit, both for the author and the public, would be regarded nowadays as a refinement of vanity, and the writer who should practise it would indubitably suffer for his candour by the wrong he would do to himself as an authority. Theological dog- matism has led us to such a narrow idea of the truth, that whoever does not pose as an infallible authority risks the loss of all credit among his readers. The scientific mind, proceeding by delicate approximations, gradually grasping the truth, incessantly modifying formulas to bring them to an expression more and more strict, changing the points of view, that nothing may be overlooked in the infinite com- plexity of the problems presented in the universe, is in general but little understood, and its proceeding passes for an acknowledgment of want of power or of versatility. At the risk of exposing myself to these same reproaches, but thoroughly resolved not to sacrifice one iota of that which I believe to be true, to a vain pretension of infallibility, I shall here make two observations, of which the one concerns my religious conscience, the other my scientific conscience. The article upon Channing, at the time of its publication, provoked on the part of his admirers some objections, of which in some respects I recognise the justice. Doubtless, in addressing themselves to me, they overlooked the expres- sions of sympathy I had used in speaking of the American reformer. I recognise, however, that the misunderstanding was founded, up to a certain point, upon the unequal pro- 1 This word has not in Latin the sense which we attach to the word retractation: it indicates solely the work of the author resuming his task after a time, and noting the modifications which have been suggested during the progress of his thoughts. x PREFACE. portion allotted in the article to praise and to censure. Con- tent with having expressed, once and for all, my admira- tion for the excellent work of Channing, and presenting on the other side, with much elaboration, the objections from which his system cannot, any more than others, pre- tend to escape, I could let myself be credited with the fact that I did not place it in the rank which it deserves, of being the best religious movement which the present age has seen. In writing the article, my mind was engrossed with the disappearance of great cultivation and great genius as being the price at which progress in material order, and even in order of a certain morality, is but too often purchased. The honest and reasonable philosophy of the American school appeared mean, compared with the breadth of Catholicism, and the grand manner, at once critical, philosophical, and poetical, of Germany. It has been im- possible for me, on reperusal, to modify my first opinion upon this point, but I willingly add that it does not result in any reproach against Channing. Good things ought to be taken simply ; each order of greatness has a predomi- nance in part, and ought not to be compared to others. A philanthropist who, having to judge Goethe, should place him on a level with Vincent de Paul, would find in the greatest genius of modern times, nothing but an egotist who had done nothing for the happiness and moral amelio- ration of his contemporaries. The article upon the Eeligions of Antiquity appears to me to be equally susceptible of further addition, since I knew that the work carried on in Germany on the com- parative mythology of the Indo-European race — a work which did not exist, or which had not penetrated into Trance, at the time when I wrote my article. These works, the range of which does not seem to be as yet thoroughly understood, even by the authors, being brought together from parallel points of view to bear upon the PREFACE. xi Semitic religions according to the formula in which I have had some part, ought to exhibit the religions of antiquity under an aspect somewhat different from that which the Symbolic school and the purely Hellenic school show by their works. The unity of the Indo-European race, in opposition to the Semitic race, acknowledged in their reli- gion, as in their language, will serve hereafter as a basis for the history of the religions of antiquity. This does not touch the doctrine of the article in question, but it merely explains the silence I have preserved with regard to recent discoveries which constitute an epoch in science. If I have not tried to fill up this omission, it is because the discoveries of which I speak have not yet been suffi- ciently matured for presentation to the public as definite results. The fragments which compose the present volume all relate to the history of religions, and will be found to embrace the principal forms with which religious senti- ment has been clothed in ancient times, in the Middle Ages, and in modern days. These subjects have for me an attraction which I cannot conceal, and which I know not how to resist. Eeligion is certainly the highest and most interesting of the manifestations of human nature. Among all kinds of poetry, it is the one that best reaches the end essential to art, which is to raise man above the vulgar life and awaken in him the sense of his celestial origin. No part of the great instincts of the heart shows itself with better evidence. Even when one adopts in par- ticular, the teaching of any of the great religious systems, they divide themselves, or they divide the world ; from the whole of these systems results one fact, which constitutes to my mind the most consolatory guarantee of a myste- rious future, where the race and the individual will find again their works and the fruit of their sacrifices. A grave difficultv, I know, attaches to these studies, xii PREFACE. and causes timid people to impute to the authors that they occupy themselves with tendencies and objects to which they are strangers. The essence of all religions is to exact absolute belief, and consequently to place themselves above common right, and to deny to the impartial historian all competence when he seeks to judge them. Eeligions, in effect, in order to sustain the pretension of being beyond reproach, are obliged to have recourse to a particular system of philosophic history, founded upon the belief of a miraculous intervention of the Deity in human affairs — an intervention made solely for their profit. Eeligions otherwise are not able to dispose freely of their past ; the past must bend to the necessities of the present, and fur- nish a foundation for institutions more evidently brought about by the course of time. The critic, on the contrary, whose rule is to follow only sight, and fair deduction, with- out any political after-thought ; the critic, whose first prin- ciple is that the miracle has no part in the course of human affairs, any more than in the series of natural facts ; the critic, who begins by proclaiming that everything in history is capable of human explanation, even when that explana- tion escapes us by reason of insufficient teaching, would evidently not agree with the schools of theology, who employ a method opposed to his, and follow it with a different purpose. Susceptible, like all powers attributed to a divine source, religions naturally regard the expression, however respectful, of a difference of opinion as hostility, and look upon those as enemies, who place before them- selves the most simple duties of reason. This unfortunate misunderstanding, which will endure eternally between the critical spirit and the habitual doctrines imposed all of a piece, ought it to obstruct the human mind in the track of free research ? We think not. Firstly, human nature never consents to mutilate itself; however one may conceive, perhaps, that reason PREFACE. xiii consents to its own sacrifice, if it finds itself in the face of a doctrine which is unique, and adopted by all mankind. But one set of systems claims the absolute truth, which all can possess at the same time ; any one of these systems, showing a title by which it says it can reduce to nothing the pretensions of the others, the abdication of the critic will contribute nothing towards giving the world the benefit, so desirable, of peace and unanimity. In default of a conflict between religions and criticism, religions fight among themselves for the supremacy. If all the religions were reduced to a single one, the different fractions of that religion would each curse the other ; and even sup- posing that all the sects came to recognise a sort of catho- licity, the internal dissensions — twenty times more active and more hateful than those which separate religions and rival Churches — would serve to supply the eternal need which individual thought has to create, according to its fancy, the divine world. What are we to conclude from this ? That in suppressing criticism we shall not suppress the cause, but we shall suppress perhaps the only judge who can clear up the difficulty. The right which each religion insists on as absolute truth is a perfectly respect- able right, which no one ought to dream of contesting ; but it does not exclude a parallel right in other religions, nor the right of the critic, who regards himself as outside the sects. The duty of civil society is to maintain itself in the face of all these contradictory rights, without seek- ing to reconcile them. That would be to attempt the impossible, and, without permitting them to be absorbed, nullify, which could not be done without detriment to the general interests of civilisation. It is as well to remark, that in effect the critic, in exercising, with regard to the history of religions, the right which belongs to him, does not encroach, so that one might complain, I do not say only from the point of view as to equality of rights xiv PREFA CE. (that is too clear, since religious controversialists daily permit themselves to deliver against independent science attacks full of violence), but even in making conces- sions as large as possible to propriety and the majesty of established worship. Eeligion, at the same time that it reaches in its height the pure heaven of the ideal, stands for its base upon the unstable ground of human affairs, and participates in things which are fleet- ing and defective. Every work of which men furnish the matter being but a compromise between the opposing necessities which make up this transitory life, necessarily provides matter for the critic, and one has said nothing against an institution so much that one is limited to this inoffensive remark, that she has not completely escaped from the fragile nature which belongs to all structures here below. Eeligion must be of one manner, and not of another : that condition, essential to all existence, implies a limit — something excluded, a defect. Art, which, like religion, aspires to render the infinite under finite forms, does it renounce its mission because it knows of no image to represent the ideal ? Does it not disappear in the vague and the intangible, whenever it would be as bound- less in its forms as it is in its conceptions ? Eeligion, in the same way, only exists on the condition of its being a decided opinion, a fixed idea, very clear, very finite, and consequently very much liable to criticism. The narrow and peculiar side of each religion, which con- stitutes its weakness, constitutes also its strength ; for men are drawn together by their narrow thoughts rather than by their enlarged ideas. It would be a small matter to have shown that every religious form is enormously dis- proportionate to its divine object, if one did not hasten to add that it could not be otherwise, and that every symbol must appear insufficient and coarse when compared with the extreme delicacy of the truths which it represents. PREFACE. xv The glory of religion is precisely this : it provides a pro- gramme beyond human power for one to pursue the realisa- tion with boldness, and to nobly make the attempt to give a determinate form to the infinite aspirations of the heart of man. Eternal and sacred in their spirit, religions cannot be equally so in their forms and history : they would be muti- lated in their fairest parts if they were obliged to regard the dogmatic exigency which does not permit the sects to own to their weak sides. What do I say ? It should be suppressed; for the unreasonableness of different sects being contradictory, it would follow, in order that no one should be hurt, we ought to keep silence on the principal part of human development. In political affairs every government similarly affirms its right in an absolute man- ner, but no government has on that account forbidden history ; at least those States which have carried super- stition to this point have found in their moral deteriora- tion, that they have brought about their own punishment. Spain offers a striking example of intellectual decay, traceable to the exaggeration of respect shown by the political to the religious order. On the contrary, the breadth of mind and intelligence which distinguish the Catholics of Germany, are owing still more to the con- stant contact with the Protestant critic than to the supe- riority of the Germanic race in all that pertains to the wise cultivation of the mind. I protest once for all against the false interpretation which will be given to my works if the different essays upon the history of religions which I have published, or which I may in future publish, are taken as polemical works. Considered as polemical works, these essays (and I am the first to recognise the fact) are very unskilfully prepared. Polemics require a degree of strategy to which I am a stranger : one ou^ht to know how to select the xvi PREFACE. weak side of one's adversary ; to keep there, and never to touch upon any uncertain question ; to keep every con- cession — that is to say, to renounce that which consti- tutes the very essence of the scientific spirit. Such is not my method. The fundamental question upon which reli- gious discussion ought to turn — that is to say, the question of the fact of revelation and of the supernatural — I never touch ; 1 not but that these questions may not be solved for me with complete certainty, but because the discussion of such questions is not scientific, or rather because inde- pendent science supposes them to have been previously settled. Certainly if I should pursue an end, whether of polemics or of proselytism, this would be a leading fault: it would be to bring upon the ground of delicate and obscure problems a question to be dealt with on much more evidence in the common terms which controversial- ists and apologists usually lay down. Far from regretting these advantages which I have given as against myself, I rejoice at it, if it will convince theologians that my writings are of another order to theirs ; that they are the pure researches of erudition, assailable, as such, where one endeavours to apply those principles of criticism, equally to the Jewish religion as to the Christian, which one observes in the other branches of history and philology. As to the discussion of questions properly theological, I never enter upon it any more than MM. Burnouf, Creuzer, Guigniaut, and other critical historians of the religions of antiquity, who do not consider, themselves obliged to undertake the refutation or the apology of the worships on which they employ themselves. The history of humanity is to me a vast entirety, where everything is unequal and 1 Some passages of the article entitled The Critical Historians of Jesus are an exception to what I have said here, because this article was composed at a time when my manner of treating questions of religious history was not fixed as it is now. PREFACE. xvii diverse, but where all is of the same order, arises out of the same causes, and obeys the same laws. These laws I search out with no other intention than to discover the exact shade or degree of that which is. Nothing will make me exchange a part so obscure, but productive to science, for the part of controversialist — an easy part in this, that it gains for the writer an assured favour from those who believe in the duty of opposing war to war. This polemic, of which I am far from disputing the neces- sity, but which is neither to my taste nor my ability, satisfied Voltaire. One cannot be at the same time a good controversialist and a good historian. Voltaire, if weak as a scholar — Voltaire, who seems to us so destitute of the sentiment of antiquity, to us who are educated according to a better method — Voltaire is twenty times victorious over adversaries still more unprovided with critical power than he is himself. The new edition which is in preparation of the works of this great man will satisfy the need which seems to exist for an answer to the inva- sions of theology — an answer evil in itself, but useful to those who engage in the contest ; an answer much behind- hand to a science equally behind-hand. Let us do better ; we all possess the love of truth and great curiosity. Let us leave debating to those who are pleased with it ; let us work for the small number of those who march in the great line of the human spirit. Popularity, as I know, gives the preference to writers who, instead of pursuing the highest form of truth, apply themselves to combat the opinions of their times ; but by a just return they have no value when the opinions they have combated have ceased to exist. Those who refuted magic and judicial astrology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have rendered to reason an immense service, and yet, notwithstanding, their writings are unknown at the present day — their victory b xviii PREFACE. has caused them to be forgotten. On the contrary, the names of Scaliger, Bochart, Bayle, Richard Simon — whose works are, however, obsolete upon many points of detail — will remain inscribed for ever among those of the great promoters of human knowledge. The regretable but necessary difference of opinion which will always exist upon the history of a religion between the partisans of that religion and disinterested science, ought not, then, to give occasion to accuse science of anti-religious proselytism. That if in a moment of pass- ing impulse, a man devoted to critical research evinces something of the desire of St. Paul, " Cupio omnes fieri qualis et ego sum," there is a sentiment which effaces itself before a truer judgment of the limits and common range of the human spirit. Each person makes of religion a shelter to his measure and according to his needs. To dare to place hands upon this particular work of the faculties of each person is dangerous and rash, for no one has a right to penetrate deep enough into the conscience of another to distinguish the accessory from the principal. In seeking to extirpate beliefs which may be thought super- fluous, one risks the injury of the organs essential to religi- ous life and morality. Propagandism is out of its element when it undertakes high scientific culture or philosophy, and the most excellent intellectual discipline imposed upon persons who have not been prepared for it, cannot but have an evil effect. The duty of the learned man, then, is to express with frankness the result of his study, without seeking to trouble the conscience of persons who have not been called to the same life as himself, but also without regarding the interested motives and pretended proprieties which so often assume the expression of truth. There is, moreover, a way by which the most austere critic, if he has some philosophy, can sympathise with those who have not the right to be as tolerant as he is. PREFACE. xix He knows that with exalted beliefs disagreement almost always changes itself into anathema : if anathema excites repugnance, the motive which directs it induces respect, and thus the critic comes to understand, and almost to love, the anger he inspires. This anger, indeed, taking for granted a certain pettiness of spirit, comes from an excellent source, the vivacity of religious sentiment. The worst penalty which man pays in order to arrive at a life of reflection atones for his exceptional position, and is without doubt when he finds himself isolated thus from the great family of the religious where the better souls of the world are found, and dreams that the persons with whom he would like best to be in moral communion are those who think they ought perforce to regard him as perverse. He ought to be well sure of himself, so as not to be troubled when the women and children join their hands and say, " Believe like us ! " We may console ourselves by thinking that this schism be- tween the simple and the cultivated, is a fatal law belong- ing to the state through which we are passing, and that there is a higher region for lofty souls in which we shall often meet, without doubting, those who have anathematised us, the ideal city seen by the Seer of the Apocalypse, where thronged a crowd none could count, of every tribe, every nation, every tongue, shouting with one voice the symbol in which they all met, " Holy, holy, holy is he who is, who has been, and who will be I." The word religion being that under which, as it is here recapitulated in the eyes of the majority, the life of the spirit is comprised, a coarser materialism can only assail in its essence this happily eternal need of our nature. No- thing but our defective mode of speaking could confound with irreligion the refusal to adhere to such and such a creed professing to be as a revelation. The man who takes life seriously and employs his activity to a generous xx PREFACE. purpose, he is the religious man ; the frivolous, superficial man, without any high morality, he is the impious man. Those who adore something are brothers, or certainly less hostile than those who obey only their own interests, and pretend, with material enjoyment, to have a right under- standing of the divine instincts of the heart of man. The worst policy which religious passions can pursue is to seek in lightness or indifference, an ally against the dissen- ters, who seek the truth in Gjood faith and according to the particular need of their soul. For the great majority of mankind, the established religion provides all that is required towards the worship of the ideal. To suppress or weaken among the private classes, with their other means of education, this great and unique remembrance of nobleness, is to degrade human nature, and to take away the essential sign, which distin- guishes it from the animal. The popular conscience, in its grand and high spontaneity, only attaches itself to the spirit, and not distinguishing the dross from the gold, sanctifies the most imperfect symbol. Eeligion is always true in the belief of the people ; for the people, not being theologians, and hardly entering into the details of dogma, only take that which is true ; I would say, the breath and the high-flown inspiration. In this sense the philosopher is much nearer in understanding with the man simple of heart than with the half-educated man who carries into religious matters a kind of left-handed reflection. How charming to see in cottages and in vulgar houses, where utility crushes everything, ideal figures, images which represent nothing real ! How delightful for the man bowed down by six days' toil, to come on the seventh and rest upon his knees and contemplate the lofty columns, the vaulted roof, the arches, the altar, to hear and appreciate the hymns, to listen to words, moral and consolatorv ! The nourishment which PREFACE. xxi science, art, the elevating exercise of all his faculties, furnishes to the educated man, religion alone undertakes to supply to the illiterate. This elementary education, naturally brought to consider itself superior, has often the effect, I know, of dwarfing the minds confined by it. But the greater part of those dwarfed by religion are already small before they take to it ; narrow and limited by religion, they would probably have been wicked without it. Intellectual elevation will always be the lot of the few: provided that the few should develop freely, they would hardly trouble themselves with the manner in which the remainder approached the sublimity of God. What- ever there may be scanty or even dangerous in an estab- lished dogma, it does not exist for the people who have no vocation to be critical ; for see, why superstitions which are displeasing to the educated man have a charm for the common people. The simple faith is the true one, and I admit that I should be inconsolable if I knew that my writings would ever cause offence to one of those simple souls who worship so well in spirit. But they are pro- tected by their ignorance: the dogmas which are assailed not being for them the object of positive assertion, no difficulty occurs to them ; it is the privilege of pure sentiment to be invulnerable and to play with poisons without being hurt. The lofty separation, sometimes the reproach of philo- sophy, established between men in relation to their reli- gious capacities, is not in reality an injury to the majority nor an act of pride. Science, it is true, is not made for all : it presupposes a long intellectual education, years of study, mental ability, of which but few men are capable. But for all that, it does not exclude the ideal : the simple man finds in his spontaneous instincts full compensation for that which he wants on the side of reflection. Even then no one will believe that great intellectual cultivation, when it does not exclude religious sentiment, is superior to simple xxii PREFACE. faith. What is one to conclude ? Inequality, at the bottom more painful to the privileged than to the inferior, is the fault of Nature. Mary has the better part ; Martha may be blamed for it. The theological formula here preserves its perfect truth : all have sufficient grace to attain their salvation, but all are not called to the same degree of blessedness. Everv man has his ri^ht to the ideal ; but it would be falsifying evidence to pretend that all can equally participate in the worship of the perfect. This distinction in religion, understood in its general sense, and the particular forms that history shows us suc- ceeding one another with divers fortunes and divers merits, are essential to its maintenance. Far from seeking to weaken religious sentiment, I would help in some things, to elevate and purify it. It seems to me, indeed, that a consolatory result arises from the independent study of religion, which serves to calm the soul and furnish the foundation of a happy life. The result is, that religion, being an integral part of human nature, is true in its essence, and above particular forms of worship it is neces- sarily affected with the same defects which belong to the times and the country to which it belongs ; such is reli- gion — an evident sign that man has a superior destiny. Thus it is demonstrated that religion always has been and always will be that which inspires more love and hatred : thus it is demonstrated that man, by an invincible effort, raises himself to the conception and to the worship of the perfect; is not this the best proof of the divine spirit which is in us, and which answers by its aspirations to a transcendent ideal ? In my eyes, I confess it is not the most comforting thought ; and it is here we ought to pronounce the word of certainty that there is not any particular dogma or any philosophical or theological for- mula, but what may be challenged. The infinite should not be shut up in a system. How will the human spirit PREFACE. xxiii lay hold of it ? how will it translate the word, the essence of which is ineffable ? But this same impotence of lan- guage and of reason to exhaust the idea which we form of the divine world, is it not the greatest mark of adoration, the most significant act of faith ? Far from leading us to a negation, the philosophical history of religion shows us the constant faith of humanity in a celestial principle and a supreme order, and thus brings us to faith ; not that faith which materialises its object in coarse symbols, but that faith which believes in the ideal without the need of belief in the supernatural, and which, following the thought of St. Augustine, sees the divinity better in the immutable order of things than in derogations from the eternal order. Some facts which pass under our eyes, and will count in the history of the human mind, confirm me in this method, at once respectful and free, of knowing how to distinguish the form which passes away, from the spirit which remains for ever. Some allowances, indeed, should be made for the seriousness and depth of the religious reaction which w r e have witnessed — a reaction, like all movements of opinion, very often made to serve as a pretext for inferior estimates and weaknesses ; but we cannot deny that they hide a true event of moral order. If this reaction manifests itself almost everywhere under the form of conversion to Catho- licism, it arises less from Catholicism itself than from the religious sentiment. Catholicism being the most characteristic, and, if I dare say so, the most religious of religions, all religious reaction slightly tends necessarily to its profit. Let us say, how- ever, that Catholicism, for the majority of those who return to it, is less the vast and minute mass of beliefs which fill the volumes of a treatise on theology, than religion in its general acceptation. Among the neophytes who attach themselves to it with most zeal, there are few who con- xxiv PREFACE. sider seriously the dogmas they embrace ; when these dogmas are exhibited to them under a strict form, they decline them, or they extenuate them by complaisant explanations : almost all are heretics without knowing it. What brings them to the Church is the eternal in- stinct which induces man to adopt a religious belief, an instinct so imperious that it will not allow him to rest in doubt, but makes him accept, without examination, the faith which he finds ready-made. The eighteenth century, which had the mission of clearing the field of the human mind from a crowd of obstacles with which it had become encumbered during the course of ages, carried on the work of demolition with an ardour which may be taken as the fulfilment of conscientious duty. Scepticism and impiety (or rather, the appearance of scepticism and impiety, for at bottom few ages have proceeded in their work with as much conviction and religious devotion) please him in themselves, and he enjoys a kind of content at having acquitted himself of a task which might other- wise have cost him many tears to accomplish. But the generation following, having returned to the inner life, has found in it the need of belief, and to be in commu- nion of faith with other souls, no longer appreciates the joy of the first, and rather than remain in a state of nega- tion which has become intolerable, has tried to take up again the very doctrines which their fathers had exploded. When we know no longer how to knock down churches we restore them, and we imitate the ancients; for we can let religious originality go, but we cannot let go religion. Who has not stopped, when exploring our ancient cities, before those gigantic monuments of former faith, which alone claim notice in the midst of the level of modern vulgarity ? Everything is restored round about ; the cathedral alone remains, a little degraded from its pre- eminence by the hand of man, but deeply rooted in the PREFACE. xxv soil. It is so far true that in the fact of religious creation, the ages are brought to refuse the privilege they accord so freely to remote times ; it is so far true also that rational science being, by its nature, the lot of the few, cannot, in the actual state of society, press upon the belief of the world with any decided weight. We may understand now what distance separates the controversialist, who aspires to change existing religious forms, from the learned man who only proposes a specu- lative end, without any direct reference to the order of contemporaneous facts. Strangers to the causes which produce these abrupt varieties of opinion, which belong rightfully to the circle of men of the world, but which ought not to extend beyond the learned, they are not obliged to perform acts of faith according to the caprices of fashion, nor condemn themselves to silence because they have not brought their studies to bear upon ideas which such parties think most suitable to their views at the time. The government of affairs here below belongs, in fact, to other forces than science and reason ; the thinker believes himself to have but a small right to the direction of affairs in his planet, and, satisfied with the share allotted to him, he accepts his impotence without regret. A spec- tator in the universe, he knows that the world only belongs to him as a subject of study, and that the part of reformer requires almost always in those who undertake it, defects and qualities which he does not possess. Let us keep, then, each of the elements in their place, though often contradictory, yet without which the deve- lopment of humanity remains incomplete. Let us leave the religions to proclaim themselves unassailable, since without that they will not obtain from their adherents the respect of which they are in need ; but do not let us com- pel science to pass under the censure of a power which has nothing scientific about it. Do not let us confound xxvi PREFACE. legend with history ; but let us not endeavour to get rid of legend, since that is the form in which the faith of humanity is necessarily clothed. Humanity is not com- posed of the learned and the philologist. She deceives herself frequently, or. we should rather say, she deceives herself of necessity, upon questions of facts and persons : she often renders homage and bestows sympathy in the wrong place ; more often still she exaggerates the position of individuals, and heaps on the heads of her favourites, merits which belong to the entire generation ; but to see the truth of all this, one ought to have a delicacy of mind and a knowledge which is utterly wanting in her. But she does not deceive herself on the particular object of her worship : that which she adores is really adorable ; for what she adores in characters, what she has idealised, are the goodness and beauty she has put there. It may be affirmed that if a new religious phenomenon were to appear, the myth would find its place in the timid dispo- sition which characterises our age of reflection. Whatever care may be taken at first to repress everything which emanates from the purest rationalism, the second genera- tion would doubtless be less puritanical than the first, and the third less still. Thus we should introduce successive complications where the great imaginative instincts of humanity would give themselves full scope, and then the critic would again find, at the end of several ages, that he would have to undertake his work of analysis and research. Persons more influenced towards sentiment than towards science, and more richly endowed for action than for thought, understand with difficulty (I know it) the oppor- tunity of like researches, and receive them generally with displeasure. This is a respectable sentiment, which we ought to be slow to blame. To those who entertain it I would venture to advise not to read works composed from the point of view of the modern critic ; these writings can PREFACE. xxvii only provoke, as far as they are concerned, disagreeable feelings, and even the trouble that they feel in reading them proves that such reading is not good for them. The good spirit (or rather that which we so term), which keeps from the little minds the points necessarily for good, is essential to the government of this world ; a ship without ballast, carrying showy sails, is as ill fitted for the voyage as a hulk without sails and heavily laden. The incapacity of Germany in the field of action, is it not the consequence of the incomparable gifts with which nature has endowed her for intellectual speculation ? The practical man cannot have the breadth of mind of the man devoted to thought: on his side, the thinker, if he wishes to take part in worldly affairs, is bound by a crowd of compromise which weakens and destroys his originality. Here, as in all things, good government -of the human mind involves liberty. I wish people would leave these peaceable and inoffensive researches to be pursued in the obscurity which suits them. Science would be very rash if it should aspire to change opinion ; her proceedings interest only the few. Repulsive and without attraction, with what means could she resist so much power as retains the world, doubtless by the better right ? We only ask for liberty ; with liberty souls will divide themselves, and each one chose spon- taneously the view, which for it, is the truth. I do not overlook the misunderstanding to which I am liable every time I touch upon matters which are the objects of belief to a certain number of men ; but the delicate exercise of thought would be interfered with if I were obliged to consider the contrary meaning which pre- occupied minds could conceive in reading what they do not understand. Persons, but little familiar with intel- lectual matters, often imagine that they give themselves an air of profound wisdom in falsifying and exaggerating opinions at the expense of those who wish to have the xxviii PREFA CE. merit of moderation. For these persons writers should be classed in distinct categories ; by their favour one is pantheistic or atheistic without knowing it; they create schools by their own private authority, and one often learns from them with surprise, that one has been brought up by masters whom one did not know. Men of the world willingly believe themselves possessed of the attribute of good sense in summing up with some absurd terms, and who contradict of themselves the great theses of science and genius. Strauss has thus become a lunatic, who has denied the existence of Jesus ; Wolf is a fool, who has denied Homer; Hegel a mad fellow, who has said that yes is equal to no ; and if I might be permitted to say here, that so far from denying the existence of Jesus, Strauss admits it, and admits it in every page of his book; that Wolf only denies the artificial composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey ; that Hegel has not wished in his boldest for- mula anything more than to mark the relative and partial character of all our affirmations, I shall pass for a disciple of Strauss, whom I have strenuously opposed; of Wolf, whom I have never considered ; of Hegel, whose loftiness of mind I admire, but with whom I have few points in common. The inconvenience of this kind of thing is un- avoidable. The discernment of fine points will always be the lot of the few ; but this few, when they undertake works of the spirit, are the only persons whose suffrage one ought to seek. Among the objections which I foresee, is one to which I ought to make some answer beforehand. I should regret if, in enunciating certain ideas contrary to the opinions generally received in France, it should be considered that I ought to have made a greater display of demonstration. But this defect is inseparable from the very nature of the fragments which compose the present volume. The ques- tion here is not as to memoranda specially collected, in PREFA CE. xxix which, erudition and philology have full scope, but as to articles written for reviews and newspapers without any more scientific preparation than was necessary for their insertion, whether such ought to find a place. If we con- sult the works of which I have taken account, or those which I have cited on contested points, we shall find proofs which I could not set out at large, and which I should have had but little time to add elsewhere. Critical works destined for reviews would become impossible if in rendering an account of a book we were compelled to set up again the scaffolding which had been made use of by the author in constructing the edifice. In another series of works of a more technical character, my " General History of the Semitic Languages " in particular, I have endeavoured to treat under the more special form, some of the questions which I could not have dealt with here in a general way. I hope that what may now appear gratui- tous in the views I present to the public will appear some day in their full light and conformably to the plan of study I have laid down. After I have finished the history of the Semitic languages I may be permitted to contribute something towards clearing up the history of the Semitic religions and the origins of Christianity. I shall not then spare any of the details which the nature of the collected works forbids me now to give. I had at first resolved to answer here the recent criticisms which, by distortions of fact, mixed with strange reason- ing, rather than by their own value, seemed to require rectification. But the attack regulates the defence, and it would have been difficult for me to answer sophism and subtlety without being myself somewhat fastidious and subtle. The silence which I have kept until now, which has enabled my adversaries to triumph as for a victory, I desire still to keep. However, I am ready to receive with xxx PREFACE. gratitude j to discuss, and adopt, if need be, any observa- tions truly scientific which may be addressed to me. Moreover, I shall be firm in resisting the declamations of the sectarian spirit, and avoiding at any price those pitiable debates which too often make learning ridiculous in substituting personal questions for pure researches after truth. If it be thought that by injuries, by falsi- fied citations, anonymous denials which none dare avow, equivocations skilfully calculated to delude people un- acquainted with science, I shall be hindered in the object of research and reflection on which I am engaged, they deceive themselves. These researches have always had for me a supreme interest ; they will remain, under a form more and more enlarged, the principal object of my curi- osity. If I was, like many others, the slave of my desire, if self-interest or vanity guided me in the conduct of my works, they would by such means doubtless succeed in making me abandon my studies, which are generally re- compensed by injury. But desiring nothing, if this is not to do good, not demanding for study other reward than itself, I venture to affirm that no human motive has the power to make me say one word more or less than I have resolved to say. The liberty of which I have need, being that of science, it ought not to be wanting ; if the seven- teenth century had its Holland, it is difficult that, in the diminution of souls of our day, we cannot find a corner of the world where we can think at our ease. Nothing, con- sequently, will make me deviate from the plan I have laid down, and which seems to me to be the line of duty : inflexible research after truth, according to the measure of my strength, by all the means of legitimate investigation which are at the disposal of the human mind ; firm and frank expression of the results which seem to me probable or certain, without any after-thought of application and PREFA CE. xxxi all expedient formulas ; open to the correction which the criticism of competent persons or the progress of science may bring to bear upon me. The attacks of ignorance as well as fanaticism afflict me, without moving me when I think they are sincere. In the case where I cannot con- sider them as such, I hope to arrive by familiarity to the time when they will not even trouble me. OF THE OF FORT STUDIES OF BELIGIOUS HISTOEY. THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. Criticism is the birth of to-day, and it belongs only to the most delicate criticism to perceive the true importance of the study of religion outside all dogmatism as well as all polemics. If mankind acquire anything, it is when, being raised above the vulgarity of life, they reach by their moral and intellectual faculties a world of higher intuitions and disinterested enjoyment. Eeligion is the ideal portion of human life ; it is all comprised in this word : " Man does not live on bread alone." There is, I know, another power which assumes to regulate the spiri- tual life of humanity, but this moment would be improper to depreciate it. This, however, is not to deny Philosophy, but to give it its proper place, the only one where it can be great, strong, and unassailable, to assert that it is not suitable for the majority. Sublime if we regard it in the presence-chamber of the wise, to whom it is at once both food and entertainment, Philosophy is but an imperceptible fact in the face of the history of humanity. We may count the souls it has ennobled ; we can put into four pages the history of the little aristocracy who are grouped under its badge : the remainder, given up to the torrent of their dreams, their terrors, and their enchant- A 2 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. ments, are carried pell-mell into the dangerous valleys of instincts and madness, seeking their reasons for acting, and believing only in the dazzlings of the brain and the pal- pitations of the heart. The religion of a people, being the most complete expression of their individuality, is in one sense more instructive than their history. The history of a people does not belong entirely to themselves ; it includes a part, fortuitous or fatal, that does not depend on the nation, which sometimes tends to the contrary in its natural development ; but the religious legend is the actual and exclusive work of each race. India, for example, has not left us a single line of history properly so called : the learned sometimes regret this, and would pay a weight of gold for some chronicle, some series of kings ; but, in truth, we have better than all that ; we have her poems, her mytho- logy, her sacred books — we have her soul. In history we should have had some dry facts related, the true character of which, the critic would have had much difficulty in ascertaining: fable gives us, like the imprint of a seal, a faithful image of her style of feeling and thought; it is her moral portrait traced by herself. That which the eighteenth century regarded as a mass of superstition and puerility has thus become, in the eyes of the philosopher of history, the most curious of documents upon the bygone time of humanity. Studies which formerly seemed to belong to frivolous minds are now elevated to the plane of the highest speculations, and a book devoted to the interpretation of fables, which Bayle could not find worthy enough to amuse children, has taken a place among the most serious works of our age. In order to appreciate the importance of this book, we must mention the vast mythological encyclopaedia which one of the ablest representatives of French erudition lias grouped around a translation, lately finished, of the Sym- THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 3 bolique of Dr. Fr. Creuzer. 1 The time ought to be stated when this meritorious work was undertaken, to naturalise amongst us a whole series of studies, so flourishing among our neighbours and so neglected among ourselves. The first volume of the Religions of Antiquity appeared in 1825 ; it connected itself with the movement of curiosity which then agitated the minds of thinkers, and caused them to seek in more comprehensive history the solution of the problems in which the enlightened party were warmly interested. It is rarely that such works are finished in the midst of the movement they have origi- nated, but the last volumes of the Religions of Antiquity were met by the public with as much ardour and hope as the first had received. They have proved, too, that nothing has changed in the zeal of the scholar, who during a quarter of a century had been interpreting one of the most important branches of German erudition, and to whom no one will deny the title of reformer of mytho- logical studies in France. The translator of the Symbolique found these studies degraded among us to the last degree of mediocrity; it was the time when M. Petit-Kadel gravely made a dis- sertation upon the adventures of the cow Io, and set out in a memorandum the synoptical table of the lovers of Helen, with their ages in connection with that of the princess. Germany, on the contrary, initiated in the knowledge of antiquity by the grand generation of Wolf and Heyne, otherwise drawn nearer by inclination for the religious intuitions of the earlier ages, was rich already in excellent writings upon ancient mythology and upon the manner of interpreting it. What was more important than all was to bring up the .arrears of more 1 Religions of Antiquity, considered principally in their Symbolical and Mythological Forms. By Dr. Fr. Creuzer. Translated and edited by J. D. Guigniant. 10 vols, in 8vo. Paris, 1825-51. 4 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. than half a century and render accessible the treasures of wholesome learning which Germany had acquired, while France continued the traditions of the superficial criticisms of the eighteenth century. The Symbolique of M. Creuzer, by its imposing size, its European reputa- tion, the elevation of its views, the high philosophy and science which the author had displayed, offered everything at once. M. Guigniaut has understood that the translation of a single work, already surpassed in several points of detail by more recent works, would imperfectly attain the end which he proposed. He has resolved, then, to collect around the book of M. Creuzer the results of works of parallel or later date, so as to make, with the Symbolique as a text-book, a synthetical system embracing all the mythological studies of Germany. The opinion of learned Europe has been long since pronounced upon the value of this plan and upon the manner in which it has been car- ried out. Erance has recognised it as the model to follow in the introduction of the difficult work among the pro- ductions of German science. Germany, on her side, has accorded to the French edition the highest approbation, for she seems to have adopted on all important points the modifications introduced by the translator. The book of M. Guigniaut, courageously brought out under adverse circumstances — divergent and sometimes so con- trary — has become an indispensable manual, not only to the antiquarian and the philologist, but still more so to all those inquiring spirits who believe that the history of religions is one of the most essential elements of the history of the human mind — that is to say, of true Philosophy. THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. Eeligion has such a deep hold of the inner fibres of the human conscience that scientific interpretation becomes at intervals almost impossible. The efforts of the most subtle criticism could not retrieve the false position in which we find ourselves in face of these primitive works. Full of life, sense, and truth for the people who have been animated by their breath, they are nothing more in our eyes than dead letters, sealed hieroglyphics ; created by the simultaneous effort of all the faculties acting in the most perfect harmony, they are nothing more to us than an object for curious analysis. In order to frame the history of a religion, we ought to believe no longer, but we ought to have believed ; we ought to understand thoroughly the worship which has provoked in us the first sudden motion towards the ideal. Who can be just to- wards Catholicism who has not been lulled to sleep with that admirable legend, if in the accents of its hymns, in the arched roofs of its temples, in the symbols of its wor- ship he does not recall the first sensations of religious life ? The most essential condition for thoroughly appreciating the religions of antiquity will always be wanting to us ; for we ought to have lived in the midst of the religions, or at least reproduce in ourselves their sentiment with a profundity of which the most exceptional historical genius is hardly capable. Whatever efforts we may make, we shall never sufficiently cast off all our modern ideas, so as not to find the fables which are usually presented to us as the creeds of Greece and Eome absurd and unworthy of the attention of a serious man. To those persons who are but little acquainted with historical science, it is a con- stant subject of astonishment to see people who have been put forward as masters of the human mind worship 6 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. drunken and adulterous deities, and admit among their religious dogmas extravagant tales of scandalous adven- tures. The most simple believe themselves right to shrug their shoulders at such an extraordinary illusion. It is necessary, however, to start from this principle: the human mind is never wilfully absurd, and every time the spon- taneous acts of conscience appear to us to be devoid of reason, it is because we do not really understand. When a people has shown sufficient sense to produce works like those which Greece has left us, to put into practice a political plan such as that which gave to Eome universal domination, would it not be very strange if they should remain on the level of people given up to the grossest fetichism ? Is it not very probable that, if we were to place ourselves really at the same point of view as the ancients, this pretended extravagance would disappear, and we should discover that these fables, like all the produc- tions of human nature, had some degree of reason in them ? Good sense is homogeneous, and it would be inexplicable if those nations who in civil and political life, in art, poetry, and philosophy, have shown the measure of what they could do, should not in religion have passed beyond a worship of which the absurdity is in our own days revolting to the reason of a child. This misunderstanding, nevertheless, is of very old date, and it is not in modern times only that Paganism has begun to be an object of perpetual misconstruction. It is evident that antiquity itself had ceased to understand religion, and that the old myths, hatched in the primitive imagination, very early lost all significance. The idea of making these old fables into a connected chronology, a sort of amusing history, was conceived prior to Boccaccio or Demoustier. Ovid had realised it in a book less improper than the Letters to Emily. I do not wish to overlook the charming part in this endless garland of witty tales and THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 7 lively changes ; but what sacrilege, in a religious point of view, to play thus with symbols consecrated by time, and on which men had placed their first hopes of a divine world ! The design of Mascarille to turn into verse the whole of Roman history was more reasonable than the undertaking to make a travesty of theological anti- quities by turning them into equivocal stories, which are as like the primitive myths as old paper flowers, yellow and smoke-dried, are like to the flowers of the field. But such was the mode of treating the religions of anti- quity adopted by almost all the writers on mythology up to the present day. Mythology (that was the word by which they designated these compilations of grotesque narratives, which were almost always indecent) became a series of biographies, where, under the guise of sacred rubrics, one learned the scarcely edifying life of Mercury, the loose conduct of Venus, the domestic scenes between Jupiter and Juno. Far from regretting the discredit which our age has cast on the common use of these fables, the astonishment is that so many fine minds of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries should not have felt their insipidity. When science began to be seriously occupied with the interpretation of ancient symbols, its efforts, in France at least, were not very fortunate. France is not the country for mythological studies. The French mind is wanting in that kind of flexibility, in the faculty for reproducing in itself the intuitions of former ages which are so essential to the proper understanding of religions. The learned of former days — Jean Leclerc, Banier, Larcher, Clavier, Petit- Badel — did not raise themselves above a brutal evhemerism} or a system of allegorical explanations not less superficial. 1 We know that Evhemerism regarded the gods as men who had been deified. 8 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. Happy when, in resisting the prejudices by which Bochart, Huet, Bossuet, and the whole theological school were led away, they did not seek in Greek mythology a form altered from the traditions of the Bible ! The critics who were inspired with the philosophy of the eighteenth century — Boulanger, Bailly, Dupuis — did indeed depart from this method, but only to try a symbolism still less satisfactory. Sainte-Croix brought to bear upon the study of these mysteries a more solid learning, but power of penetration no better than his predecessors. At last Emeric David produced in his Jupiter the ornament of French symbolism. His system is very simple. It is exclusively allegory. "Mythology is a collection of enigmas intended to teach the nature of the gods and the dogmas of religion to those who can penetrate the secret." The word to guess is the religious dogma. Thus when for the name of Apollo we have substituted the word sun, and when in the place of Amphitrite we have said the sea, all is said, for the word to guess is a single word. After- wards, in endeavouring to free the religious dogmas hidden under these enigmas, Emeric David found seven which constitute Greek theology. Mythology is only a kind of catechism en rebus, made up of wit which consists in allu- sions. The fables have been only invented to cover dogmas ; each one has a sense very pure and fixed. How did this enigmatical form contribute to render dogma more in- telligible? How could the human mind, already in possession of a clear idea, have conceived the fancy of explaining it by an idea more obscure ? How could a race allow itself to be overcome by this love of riddles ? It is this we require to know from Emeric David. Has not Locke taught us that the human mind proceeds from the simple to the complex ; that in order for two ideas to be associated it is necessary that at first they should be separate one from the other? To pretend that in the THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. g human mind the notion of the thing signified does not preclude that of the sign, that before the created sym- bol man knew precisely what he puts in it, would have been verily to speak in an unintelligible language at a time when we were convinced that the human mind had always proceeded according to the rules drawn by Abbe* de Condillac. Whilst France sought to interpret the religions of anti- quity according to her superficial philosophy, Germany solved the difficulty rather by the analogy of her religious genius than by the solidity of her learning. Goethe placed the centre of his poetic life in Olympus. Lessing and Winckelmann, the Hebraist Herder himself, discovered the religion of beauty in the ancient worships. Gcerres sought there the depths of his mysticism. Schelling, in his writings on transcendental philosophy, discoursed seriously on the gods of Samothrace, though not happily. A crowd of philologists and antiquarians have sought, in the written and sculptured monuments of antiquity, to decipher the meaning of the great enigma bequeathed to science by the primitive world. The Symbolique of Dr. Frederic Creuzer, like a summary of this multi- plicity of facts and systems from 1810 to 18 12, forms a work in which we should find concentrated all the first movement of mythological study. This is a grand lesson, and like a revelation, to show for the first time reunited in a scientific pantheon all the gods of humanity — Indian, Egyptian, Persian, Phoenician, Etruscan, Greek, Eoman. The continuous elevation, the religious and profound tone, the feeling of the superior destiny of humanity, which breathes through the whole book, shows that a great revolution has been accomplished, and that an irreligious age, because it was exclusively analytical, is about to be succeeded by a better school, reconciled by synthesis with the whole of human nature. The Keo-platonic spirit of io STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Proclus seems to revive in this grand and philosophic method of explaining ancient sym- bols, and the shade of Julian ou^ht to thrill on hearing a doctor in Christian theology take up his thesis and pro- claim that Paganism could suffice for the deepest needs of the soul, and procure peace for those noble minds who, at the last hour, sought to take to their bosom the gods already about to depart. 1 There are, above all, in historical science qualities which, to speak truly, are in a measure defects, and what proves the truth and the force of a system shows also its error and weakness. This mystic enthusiasm, the first start off of the philosophy of nature then being born in Germany, this sympathetic manner, which showed a real progress in mythological studies, ought, if compared with the cold and unintelligent dissertations of the French school, to have its excesses, and in some sort its intoxica- tion. M. Creuzer has all the defects of his Alexandrian masters — the symbolic exaggeration, a too decided ten- dency to seek mysteries everywhere, and sometimes the most immoderate syncretism. Jamblichus by the side of Hesiod, Nonnus by the side of Homer, figure on the same page in the interpretation of the same myth. The Alex- andrians are, in his eyes, good interpreters, true restorers of Paganism, who are oftentimes recalled by philosophic intuition to the primitive sense of the dogmas. The orphic philosophers themselves, although suspected of charlatanism, had preserved the spirit of primitive reli- gion. It seems that there was no time for M. Creuzer. He seeks too high for his solutions, because he himself lives too high, because he has not the sentiment of life, innocent, simple, infantine, all- sensual and yet all-divine as it was, with the first Indo-Hellenic races. It required a soul intoxicated with poetry to comprehend the entrancing 1 See Religions de V Antiquity tome i. p. 3, and tome iii. p. 830. THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. II delight which men of those races felt at first in the face of Nature and themselves. Accustomed to seek something reasonable in everything, we insist on rinding profound combinations where there was nothing but instinct and fancy. Serious and positive, we exhaust our philosophy in following the traces of the dreams of a child. Greek mythology, or, in a more general sense, the mythology of the Indo-European race, seen in its first flight, is only the reflex of young and delicate organs, without anything dogmatic, anything theological, or any- thing resolved on : as well explain the sounds of bells or seek out the figures of the clouds as to seek for a precise sense in the dreams of the golden age. Primitive man saw Nature with the eyes of a child ; now the child frames everything on the wonders he finds in himself. The pleasurable intoxicating effect of life makes him giddy — makes him see the world through a softly-coloured mist : looking on everything with an inquisitive and joyous regard, he smiles on everything, and everything smiles on him. Disabused by experience, we no longer expect any extraordinary benefit from the infinite combination of things; but the child does not know what results from that which goes on before him ; he believes more in the possible because he hardly knows the actual. Hence his joys and his terrors ; he makes for himself a fantastic world, which enchants and frightens him alternately. He affirms his dreams ; he has no appreciation of the power of analysis, which, when we arrive at the age of reflection, makes us cold observers in the face of reality. Such was primi- tive man. Scarcely separated from Nature, he conversed with her, he spoke to her and heard her voice ; that great mother, to whom he held still through his arteries, appeared to him living and lively. At the sight of the phenomena of the physical world he experienced different impressions, which, being embodied in his imagination, became his 12 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. gods. He worshipped his sensations, or rather, to put it better, the vague and unknown object of his sensations ; for not separating as yet the object from the subject, the world was himself, and he himself was the world. In the face of the sea, for instance, which displayed to his mind voluptuous lines, colours dazzling and sombre by turns, sentiments of the indefinite, of sadness, of infinity, of terror, and of beauty, which arose in his soul, revealed to him a cycle of melancholy gods, capri- cious, multiform, intangible. Others were the impressions and gods of the mountains; others of the earth; others of the fires and volcanoes ; others of the atmosphere and various phenomena. The whole of Nature thus reflected in the primitive conscience became divinities yet unnamed. " It seems," says M. Creuzer, "that we have to do, not with men like ourselves, but with elementary minds endowed with a wonderful view of Nature and of things, with a power to feel everything and to comprehend everything in a sort of magnetic way." Thence those mysterious races the Telchines of Ehodes, the Curetes of Crete, the Dactyls of Phrygia, the Minyse and the Sintics of Lemnos, the Cabeiri of Samothrace, races ecstatic and magic like the Trolls of Scandinavia, in direct communication with the forces of Nature. Everything which struck the attention of man, everything which excited in his mind an impression of the divine, was a god or the element of a god — a great river, a great mountain, a star remarkable for its brilliancy or the peculiarity of its course, thousands of objects of which the symbolic sense is no longer perceptible to us. Examine the places which were considered sacred by antiquity, and it will be almost impossible for you to dis- cover the motive which led men to suppose that the divinity was there rather than anywhere else. We should say little about them but for the memories which attach to them. The Capitol, regarded as a mere hill, has little THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 13 character. The Lake Avernus, which struck the imagina- tion of the ancients so vividly, offers to us nothing more than a pretty little landscape. It would be something like the endeavour to trace the flight of a bird through the air to try to take hold of the fine traces of these first religious intuitions, and to describe the capricious ways of the imagination in these delicate creations to which man and Nature each contri- buted in the closest relationship. A historical fact, a moral thought, an appearance of phenomena atmospheric, geologic, astronomic, a lively sensation, a fear, were all expressed by a myth. Language itself, as M. Creuzer says, was a fruitful mother of gods and heroes. The trait which seems characteristic of wit in its most exhausted form, the play of words, the pun, was the most familiar source of primitive mythology. Many important myths of antiquity rest only on fictitious etymology, on alliterations like those which please the fancy of a child: thus the ivory shoulder of Pelops, Drepane and the scythe of Ceres, Tarsus and the winged sandals of Perseus. Others rest on mistakes, veritable blunders, engendered by fanci- ful tales. It is thus with the Nile vase, the Canopus surmounted by a human head, the image of which doubt- less struck the first Greeks who made a voyage to Egypt, and became by a long series of cock-and-bull stories a Greek hero who assisted at the siege of Troy. The hero Cantharus issues in the same way from a cantharus or drinking-glass, and was at the same time the drinking- cup and the companion of Bacchus. Oftentimes, however, inappreciable connection of ideas, rhythmic reasons, like those which determine the forms of an arabesque, govern the formation of these strange fables. Why should Nep- tune and the horse, Venus and the sea, be always asso- ciated ? Perhaps we ought not to seek for a similar compa- rison another reason than the infinite grace of the watery 14 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. element," tlie undulation of outlines, and the harmonious manner in which the curves are allied to the flexible lines of the finest type of animal nature. We see it is impossible to establish a classification among the srods drawn from the four winds of heaven. Indetermination of sense under the most entire determina- tion of form is the essential characteristic of art ; so it is with Greek mythology. Mythology is a second language, born, like the first, from the echo of Nature in the conscience, as inexplicable as the first by analysis, but the mystery reveals itself to those who comprehend the hidden strength of spontaneity, the secret accord between Nature and the soul, the perpetual hieroglyphic upon which the expres- sion of human sentiment is based. Every god appears to us as a completed cycle, a region of ideas, a tone of the harmony of things. It is not enough to say, with the old school of allegory : Minerva is wisdom, Venus is beauty. Minerva and Venus are feminine nature regarded from the two sides ; the one side spiritual and holy, the other side esthetical and voluptuous. If Mercury was only the god of thieves and Bacchus the god of wine, as we teach children, we should have fictions moderately ingenious, figures of rhetoric poor enough to serve for an epic of Boileau ; but antiquity never worshipped gods so grossly puerile.' Mercury is human nature regarded in its natural disposition and its industry — the youth such as he appears in the gymnasium, beautiful in strength and agility. On the contrary, all the ideas of youthfulness, pleasure, voluptuousness, adventurous expeditions, easy triumphs, terrible passions, group themselves round Bac- chus. This is the bright side of life; this is the child petted by the nymphs, always young, handsome, fortunate, surrounded with caresses and kisses : his soft langour, his impure forms, his rotundity, the feminine type degene- rating towards androgynism, disclose a less noble origin. THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 15 Compared with the god, Greek par excellence — with Apollo — he is still a stranger, who, in spite of his long stay in Greece, has not lost his Asiatic air; he is clothed with a hassara, for he has a fear of going naked ; his "brows are encircled with an Oriental mitre, for his hair does not suffice to cover his head. One of these myths, which seems to me the best to make one comprehend this' extreme complexity, these fleeting aspects, these numberless contradictions of ancient fables, is that of Glaucus, 1 — a humble myth, however, a myth of poor folks, but having at the same time better preserved its primitive and popular character. Those who have passed their childhood at the seaside know how many associations of profound and poetical ideas are formed by the lively sights which the shore affords. Glaucus is the personification and the re'sume' of those beliefs and impressions — a god created by sailors, who see in it all the poetry of life as it appears to these poor people. Old age bears him down; he becomes a prey to despair, and throws himself into the sea, and is changed into a pro- phet — the prophet of misfortune, the sad old man. We meet him everywhere, his body attenuated by the action of the water, covered with shell- fish and sea- weed. According to others, he threw himself into the waves in order to prove his immortality. Since then, he returns each year to visit the shores and the islands. In the evening, when the wind announces itself or begins, Glaucus (that is to say, the greyish-blue waves) rises and pronounces noisy oracles. The fishermen crouch at the bottom of their boats, and endeavour by fastings, prayers, and incense to turn away the evils which await 1 I take the more willingly this myth for an example, because it has been very fully discussed by one of the fellow- workers of M. Guigniaut, M. Ernest Vinet, in Les Annates de VInstitut Archceologique de Home, t. xv. 16 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. them. Glaucus, however, mounted on a rock, threatens in Eolic language their fields and their flocks, and utters lamentations on his own immortality. They recount his loves — sad unfortunate loves, finishing like an evil dream. He loved a beautiful mermaiden named Scylla One day, hoping to touch her, he brought some shells and young unfledged swallows to amuse her. She saw his tears and had pity on him ; but Circe, from jealousy, poisoned the bath of the young girl, and she became a barking monster, personifying the natural horror which is inspired by the squalls and dangers of the Sicilian sea. The poor Glaucus from this moment remained always awkward, dull, grum- bling and malevolent. We see him upon monuments with his beard of sea-weed, his fixed look and contracted brows. The Loves make fun at his expense ; one pulls his hair, another gives him a blow. Sometimes he is Glance, that is to say, the colour bordering upon green and blue which appears on the sea when it is shallow upon white sand ; the colour of the sea thus becomes a woman, like the mounting summit of the waves becomes the white heads of the Grees (old women), who make the sailors afraid. Sometimes it is Lamia who draws men and entices them with her attractions ; at other times a hawk which plunges in turning upon its prey ; then an insatiable siren holding a young man in each hand. Cast pell-mell all the ideas of the men of the sea, mix up the scattered branches of the dreams of a sailor, and you have the myth of Glaucus — melancholy pre-occupation, painful and deformed dreams, vivid sensibility to all the phenomena produced by the waves, perpetual inquietude, danger everywhere, enticement everywhere, the future uncertain, great im- pression of fatality. Glaucus is at once the colour and the noise of the sea, the wave which whitens, the reflection of the sun on the waters, the evening wind which forebodes the storm on the morrow, the movement of the diver, the THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. i 7 stunted form of the man of the sea, the impotent desires, the sad returns of the solitary life, the doubt, the dispute, the despair, the long dulness of a certainty exhausting itself against a sophism, and the sad immortality which can neither assure nor deliver itself ; painful enigma, echo of the melancholy sentiment which speaks to man of his unknown origin and of his divine destiny, a truth which, to his misfortune, it is impossible for him to prove, for it is superior to his understanding, and man cannot demonstrate it or escape from it. We feel how these delicate, scarcely tangible percep- tions, these remains of fleeting impressions, must appear unintelligible to a more advanced age. Oftentimes the ancients found themselves embarrassed with their mytho- logy in much the same degree as we find ourselves now. We desire to find reality in these vague images, so as to give a body to their dreams. But such was the indefinite character of the ancient fables that each one could find in them whatever he wanted. Some would adopt broadly the impious system of Evhemerus, who explained every marvellous tradition by historical facts. Others, deeply impressed with a more elevated philosophy, sought in the myths a symbolic interpretation of that philosophy. The gods of simple antiquity had part in the wants and pleasures of men ; they ate and they drank. That signi- fies, says Proclus, that they create incessantly by the mixture of the finite and the infinite ; ambrosia, the solid food, represents the finite ; nectar, the liquid, typifies the infinite. Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter are, according to Plotinus, the three principles of the intelligible world, the one, the intelligence, and the soul. Jupiter begets Venus ; she is the universal soul producing itself outside. Saturn devouring his children ; he is intelligence, the law of which is to re-enter incessantly into itself. Everything was thus allegory and metaphor. The flowers which the 18 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. sun causes to blow in the early days, the delightful child- ishness of the new-born conscience, becomes in the hands of the philosophy of pedantry cold and inelegant enigmas. If there be a myth in which is preserved, in the most transparent manner, beyond the exterior of anthropomor- phism, the trace of the primitive worship of Nature, it is without question that of the nymphs. It is scarcely needful to change their names and their attributes in order to find the fountains and the running streams in these deities, fresh, young, delicate, tripping, laughing, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, who dart from the midst of the rocks, in singing and turning like children, whose voice is sweet and mysterious, who never sleep, who spin wool coloured with the green of the sea, or weave purple stuffs among the rocks — compassionate god- desses who cure complaints, and who sometimes carried off by force and killed. See, however, from whence Por- phyry has drawn in his Autre des Nymphes an entire philo- sophy. The nymphs are the souls ; their veils are the bodies ; the cave is the world. The interior of the cave typifies the sensible side, being dark; the exterior, the intelligent side, light, &c. The essential defect of the system of M. Creuzer consists in his having considered Paganism too much under this mystic and philosophic form. It is as if with the works of the Neo-catholic school we should pretend to reconstruct the theory of primitive Christianity. Myths have only meaning really in those epochs when man believed him- self to live in a divine world without any knowledge of their being subject to the laws of Nature. But long before the end of Paganism this first simplicity had disappeared. The supernatural was only a miracle — that is to say, a derogation caused by the deity from the established order of things, a conception radically different from that of primitive man, for which there was no natural order, but THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 19 a continual play of living and free forces. At this antique age there was nothing which could be called dogma, positive religion, or sacred writing. The child does not dispute ; he has no need of solution, for he does not put a problem ; for him everything is clear. The aureole with which the world is adorned in his eyes, the deified life, the poetic cry of his soul, that is his worship — celestial worship — including an act of adoration without reflection and free from all premeditated subtlety. It is, then, a very grave error to suppose that it was a remote epoch when humanity created symbols to cover dogmas, and with the distinct view of the dogma and the symbol. All that is born simultaneously, of the same union, in an indivisible moment, like a thought or a word, an idea and its 'expression. Myths do not enclose two elements, an outside and something inside ; they are undivided. This question, Did primitive man understand or not the sense of the myths he created ? is got rid of, for in the myth the intention was not distinct from the thing itself. Man understood the myth without seeing anything in it, like a simple thing, and not like two things. The abstract language we are obliged to use for explaining the ancient fables ought not to cause any illusion. Our analytical habit compels us to separate the sign from the thing signified ; but to spontaneous man, moral and religious thought presents itself clothed in the myth as its natural form. The primitive age was neither grossly given to fetichism, for everything had a meaning for it, nor refined spiritually, for it had conceived nothing in the abstract or outside the obvious covering : it was an age of confused unity, when man saw one thing within another, and expressed each of the two worlds open before him. We have had in antiquity allegories properly so called, personifications of moral beings such as Hygeia, Victory, 20 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. Patrician Modesty, the Fortune of Women, the Dream, &c. We have had myths invented, or at least developed with reflection, as that of Psyche. This is absolutely in- contestable; but a deep line of demarcation existed between these clear, simple, spiritual allegories and the antique enigmas, true works of the Sphinx, where the idea and the symbol are entirely inseparable. M. Creuzer has thoroughly seen that the sense of the ancient symbols was lost in a remote epoch; that Homer was already a very bad theologian ; that his gods were only poetical personages on the same level as man, leading a noble and jolly life, divided between pleasure and action, like the chiefs of the Hellenic tribes ; that the most respectable myths be- come in his hands amusing histories, pleasant themes of narratives, tinged with a colour entirely human. Was it right, notwithstanding, to conclude that before the epic age there was a great theological age, during which Greece failed to become a sacerdotal country, with a profound religion, revered symbols, hierarchical institutions, and a depth of monotheism derived from the East ? We think not. We say as we wish, that the Hellenic period was a religious decadence, a triumph of the hero and the poet over the priest, of a religion popular, clear, easy, but void of sense — in a word, laic — over the sacerdotal arcana. It does not follow from that that the Pelassdans had had a fixed theology, learned symbols, and an organised priest- hood. "We always," says Ottfried Miiller, "start with this supposition, that a poet, a sage most ancient, would, with premeditation, have clothed in clear ideas symbols and allegorical myths which later on might have been taken for actual facts and developed under historic forms. But this epoch, representing to itself all the relations of the divinity — of Nature and of man as much of persons, as much of significant acts, what we call contempt or mis- understanding — existed in principle in the heart of the THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 21 myth itself, and has not come from the outside. But it would be an exaggeration as contrary to the truth of history as to sound notions of human nature, to pretend that the Hellenic religion was completely devoid of sacerdotal and dogmatic organisation. The oracles, that of Delphos in par- ticular, were like a permanent revelation, respected even by the statesmen who made use of it. What is the Theogony of Hesiod if it is not the first rudiment of a national theo- logy, an attempt to organise the city of the gods and their history, like the tribes and cities of Greece were organising themselves into a national body ? The name of Orpheus serves, as we cannot doubt, to cover an attempt of the same kind. Later on the mysteries concentrated in them- selves all the elements of a more developed religious life. It must be admitted, nevertheless, that the destiny of Greece did not require it to be a priestly country. All the great revolutions of Greece — the successive conquests of the Hellenes, the Heraclidse, the Dorians — are as much the triumph of the lay spirit as the uprising of the popular energy against an imposed sacerdotal form. The priest within the temple was not of much importance ; the poet had nothing more in common with him. In Homer the poet constantly appears exalted at the expense of the sac- rificers and the soothsayers. This constitutes the charm of the Homeric world. It is the dream of profane life, the freedom which basks in the sunshine ; humanity coming up from below the horizon and shaking off sleep to throw itself into the field of warlike activity, and enjoy itself in the thousand adventures of heroic life. The same revolu- tion operates in art. Priestly art, limited in its types, sacrificing form to sense, the beautiful for the mystical, gives way to a more disinterested art, which for its object excites the sentiment of beauty and not that of holiness. India believed she could best raise up her gods by heap- ing signs upon signs and symbols upon symbols. Greece, 22 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. better inspired, had fashioned them as an image like Helen, who, in honour of Minerva of Lindus, offered a cup of yellow amber made according to the shape of her bosom. Doubtless symbolism lost something by this transforma- tion. The modest Yenus of the earlier age had a character more holy than the deified courtesan who was enthroned on the altars when Praxiteles had made the folds of her robe fall with such an air of propriety as to still reveal the goddess. We may conceive also that, with a feeling very common to epochs of religious decadence, the adhe- rents of Paganism in its latter days were smitten with a retrospective admiration for the stiff forms of hieratic art. In our days the coarser art of the Middle Ages appears also to many persons to be the correct form of religious art. We can hardly deny that, in fact, the Christian mystery, so far as it is a mystery, was better understood by Giotto and Perugino than by Leonardo da Yinci and Titian. M. Creuzer, however, exaggerates a just idea in some respects when he sees a decadence, sacrilege in the contrary sense, in the transformation by which we deprive the gods of their significance as physical superiors in order to make of them purely human personages. It would be easy to show that this, even from the religious point of view, was a real progress. Phidias was not an impious man, as they would wish to make us believe, because he sought his type of Jupiter in his own mind, and not in tradition. Eespect- able testimony convinces us to the contrary, that this modification of art corresponds to a religious renaissance, and rekindled piety in their souls. We reckon those to be unhappy who died without having seen the image of the Olympian Jupiter, and we believe that something was wanting in their religious initiation, because they had never contemplated the highest realisation of the ideal. Is not the human form the most expressive of symbols ? Shall we say that the Canopus, the Yase gods, the THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 23 swaddled-up dwarfs of the age of the Cabeiri, are more expressive than the gods formed by the chisels of Praxi- teles and Phidias ? We must further bear in mind that Greece saw in human forms and pure ideas a thousand analogies which entirely escape us, and that the actual sense of Nature not interfering, all were transfigured in their eyes as living beings. The people who raised Philip of Crotona to the rank of a demigod because he was the most beautiful among the Hellenes of his time are the same who, to express the contrary, made the representation of a faun; who, to express a fountain, a shady place, water and verdure, represented a female head with fishes round her hair ; and who did not find a better epithet to give to a river than that of xaWnrapOevocs (to the beautiful virgins) : the sight of the whiteness of the waves they likened to young girls. II. The chief mistake M. Creuzer has made is in the title of his book. It is too symbolical. Thoroughly pre-occu- pied with theology and sacerdotal institutions, and over- looking the simple and common side of antiquity, he has sought for abstract and dogmatic ideas in fancy creations which are oftentimes nothing more than the playful follies of childhood. Fully persuaded that Greek religion, like others, ought to have a hieratic age, and not finding this character in the spontaneous works of Greek genius, he harks back upon the colonies and the influences imported from the East. To this double exaggeration two reactions correspond in the movement of mythological study in Germany : to the excess of symbolism is opposed a school entirely negative and anti-symbolic, represented by Yoss, G. Hermann, and Lobeck ; to the abuse of Oriental influ- 24 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. ences is opposed the purely Hellenic school of MM. Ottfried Miiller, Welcker, and others. J. H. Voss was beyond doubt the roughest adversary who at first came across the Symbolique. A zealous Pro- testant and a declared partisan of rationalism, he thought he saw in the work of Dr. Creuzer a dangerous tendency towards the mystical doctrines then beginning to arise in Germany. This book, which timorous consciences in France regard as a piece of intolerable hardihood, was considered in Germany in 1820 as a Catholic manifesto, an apology for priestcraft and theocracy. Some conver- sions which followed caused considerable sensation ; in particular that of Count Frederic de Stolberg served to increase the alarm of Yoss at the danger of the alliance which he supposed was about to take place between the symbolic system and Eomish proselytism. He thought he saw in M. Creuzer a disguised agent of the Jesuits, and undertook the investigation of his book in seven con- secutive numbers of the Literary Gazette of Jena (May 1 821). The bitter tone of his criticism aroused the indig- nation of the friends of M. Creuzer. The author of the Symbolique replied to the strictures of Yoss by a small pamphlet, in which he disdainfully declined to enter upon a discussion with an adversary incapable of comprehending the spirit of his theory, for the proper understanding of which feeling and poetic taste were as necessary as learn- ing and the power of analysis. Yoss returned to the charge, and published in 1824 at Stuttgard his Anti- Symbolique, a learned pamphlet, full of the most distress- ing personalities. From all parts there was a cry against polemics so violent. M. Creuzer thought he ought to keep silent. The Symbolique found in M. Lobeck an adversary more circumspect but not less exclusive. His Aglaophimus 1829) is the most complete negation of M. Creuzer's THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 25 system. Never did critic run more rapidly from one pole to the other; never did opposing qualities and defects establish a more complete dissonance between two men. Led away by the Neo-platonic exegesis, M. Creuzer has supposed that high antiquity was much more mystical than it really is; with a positive analytical mind, con- vinced that the horror of mysticism is the beginning of wisdom, M. Lobeck seems to take pleasure in finding it insignificant. Wherever M. Creuzer has desired to search out an honest and moral idea among holy and respectable rites, M. Lobeck sees only obscene buffoonery and childish- ness. The ancient Pelasgic religion, in which M. Creuzer thinks he has discovered an emanation from Oriental symbolism, is nothing in the eyes of M. Lobeck but absurd and gross fetichism. These mysteries, according to M. Creuzer the remains of a pure and primitive wor- ship, are for M. Lobeck only jugglery analogous to those practised in Masonic lodges. Full of holy indignation against what Voss calls allegorical rubbish, the lies of Plato, M. Creuzer, carried away by his vivid imagination, constantly passes beyond the limits of his own knowledge, and rejects boldly all interpretation bearing a religious seal. M. Lobeck is never more happy than when he can deny and show to his adversaries that they have affirmed too much. No mythologist has equalled him as a critic of original texts; but if he refers to the texts, it is not for the purpose of elucidation, but to use one against the other, and to show that the whole rests in darkness. The conclusion drawn in his book is that we know nothing about ancient religions, and that there is not even any ground for conjecture. His attacks do not stop at the religions of antiquity. It is not only in respect of Eleusis and Samothrace that M. Lobeck shows himself to be irreverent and scoffing; every religious form involving hierarchy and mystery, everything which in the slightest] 26 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. degree resembles Catholicism, creates antipathy in him. Pitiless with regard to popular superstitions, he is even more so to those interpreters who wish to find in them an elevated meaning. Eeligion and philosophy, according to him, have nothing to do with one another ; the Neo- platonists are impudent forgers, who have only succeeded in destroying the physiognomy of ancient religion without making it more acceptable. What is the good of seeking to be only half absurd ? What is the good of sweating blood and water to find a meaning where there is none ? If M. Lobeck does possess in an eminent degree the faculties of a critic, we must recognise that he is wanting in the sense for mythological interpretation, the sense of religious things. It will be truly said, on reading it, that Humanity has invented religions, like she has invented charades and conundrums, in order to amuse herself. M. Lobeck thinks that he triumphs in showing that ancient religion was merely a tissue of anachronisms and contradictions, that no one will find two mythologies which agree as to dates, places, or genealogies. But in truth, what does he prove by this ? One single thing : that mythology ought not to be treated as a reality ; that it is essentially contradictory. But it is precisely on this account that criticism shows an ill grace when she requires from history that which is not historical, and from reason that which does not profess to be reasonable. Certainly it is good that we should have minds of the stamp of that of M. Lobeck, but it is important to main- tain that a method like his will not satisfy either the philo- sopher or the critic. Nothing is proved by attacking religion with a positive spirit, for religion belongs to another order. Eeligious sentiment possesses a certainty within itself which reason cannot either strengthen or weaken. It is superfluous to reproach religion with absurdity in the common-sense point of view ; it is as if we should argue THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 27 upon love and prove the passion to be unreasonable. If the drama of Eleusis were represented before us, it would probably be but a wretched show; but notwithstanding, would you doubt the veracity of the thousands of witnesses who attest to the consoling effect and the moral efficacy of these sacred ceremonies ? Did Pindar speak seriously or not when he said of the mysteries of Ceres, " Happy is he who, after having seen this sight, descends into the depths of the earth ! he knows the end of life, he knows the divine origin " ? Was Andocides joking before the Athenians when, in order to exhort them to seriousness and justice, he said, " You have seen the sacred rites of the goddesses, so that you should punish impiety and save those who defend themselves from injustice " ? The sin- cere Protestant only evinces before Catholic ceremonies a feeling of indifference or repulsion, but these rites are full of charm for those who have been accustomed to them from infancy. This is why every contemptuous and light expression is out of place when exhibited towards the practices of religion. Nothing signifies in itself, and man only finds in the objects of his worship that which he puts there. The altar upon which the patriarchs sacrificed to Jehovah was in reality nothing but a heap of stones, but regarded in its religious signification, like a symbol of God, abstract and without form, of the Semitic race, this heap of stones was of the same value as a temple of Greece. We must not ask for reason with religious senti- ment. The spirit blows where it listeth. If it choose to attach the idea to this or to that, what have you to say ? While the sceptical professor of Konigsberg employed all the resources of his learning and his criticism to despoil the gods of their glory and depreciate the secret of the mysteries, mythological science strives more and more to seat itself upon the impartial base of history, at an equal distance from the mystic fancies of M. Creuzer and the 28 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. anti-religious prejudices of M. Lobeck. Buttman, Volcker, Schwenck, by philosophy and the study of texts ; Welcker, Gerhard, Ganofka, by archaeology and the study of monu- ments, endeavoured to seize amongst these different pre- occupations the exact shade of the truth. All, or almost all, agree to recognise, as against M. Creuzer, the originality of Greek mythology. All agree to reject as a blasphemy the proposition that Greece ever was a province of Asia ; that the Greek genius, so free, so easy, so limpid, could ever owe anything to the obscure genius of the East. Doubtless the primitive populations of Greece and Italy, like all branches of the Indo-European family, preserved in their religious ideas, as well as in their language, the common features of the race to which they belonged, and this primitive kinship may be recognised still in striking similitudes. 1 But that is not the question; for these identical principles, that all the people of the great race carried with them like their travelling gear, are to be found equally among the Germans, the Celts, and the Slavs, whom no one dreams of placing under the guardianship of the East. What is important to maintain is the independence of the development of the Hellenic mind in its essential parts ; excepting the first spark and some borrowing of secondary importance, Greece owes nothing except to her gods, her skies, and her mountains ; that this privileged corner of 1 Some leading discoveries, founded chiefly upon the study of the Vedas, have thrown upon this point a new and unexpected light. We allude to the works of Kuhn, Aufrecht, A. Weber, Roth, works hardly known as yet in France, and to which should be added the ingenious sketch of Baron D'Eckstein. These delicate researches have produced in the study of mythology a revolution analogous to the discovery of the comparative method used in the study of languages. I mean the creation of compara- tive mythology, where religions are classed by races and families, and where the transformation of primitive myths are described by processes truly organic, and in which the arbitrary has not any part. See, however, as a catalogue of these still fragmentary works, the Journal of Compara- tive Philology, by MM. Kuhn and Aufrecht. THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 29 the world, this divine mulberry-leaf cast in the midst of the sea, saw the chrysalis of the human conscience hatched for the first time in its native beauty. Behold why Greece is veritably a holy land for him whose worship is civilisa- tion. Behold the secret of the unconquerable charm she has always exercised over men initiated in liberal ideas. The true origins of the human mind are there : the aris- tocracy of intellect find there the country of their fathers. At the head of this exclusively Hellenic 1 school stands the rare man whom the sun of Delphos carried off too soon for science, and who, in a life of forty years, indicated or solved with a marvellous sagacity the most delicate problems in the history of the Hellenic races. I allude to Ottfried Miiller. Whilst admitting, like M. Creuzer, a mysterious worship among the most ancient populations of Greece, M. Miiller separates himself distinctly from the chief of the symbolic school by rejecting the worn-out hypothesis of the Oriental colonies, and by denying the sacerdotal and theological complexion of these primitive modes of worship. The religion of the Pelasgi was the worship of Nature, espe- cially comprised in the senses and imagination. The Earth-Mother (Da Mater) and earth-evolved divinities, such as Persephone, Hades, Hermes, and Hecate, of whom the worship is included in the Mysteries, were the gods of the Thracian and Pelasgian tribes, on which the Hellenes imprinted their mythological beliefs in order to transform them according to their method of conceiving the more moral and less cosmical. These modes of worship were 1 We could say now too exclusively Hellenic, for Ottfried Miiller, in rightly rejecting Oriental influences in the vague sense that M. Creuzer has given to that word, overlooked also the incontestable ties by which the religious traditions of the Greeks are attached to those of the Asiatics belonging to the Indo-European stock. It is true that the facts which have brought these relations in evidence were scarcely known in the time . of Ottfried Miiller. 30 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. neither a primitive religion nor an institution brought from abroad, but the genuine expression of the genesis, manners, and political life of each of the peoples of Greece. The distinction of races has also become, in the hands of Ottfried Miiller, the groundwork of mythological interpre- tation. From thence those excellent monographs of the Dorians, the Minyse, and the Etruscans, those investiga- tions so delicate into the nationality of each god and his successive conquests. The contest of Hermes and Apollo is the contest of the old rustic deities of Arcadia with gods more noble than the conquerors. The inferiority of the conquered races shows itself in the subordinate rank of their gods. Admitted by favour into the Hellenic Olympus, they never show themselves very high, and only attain to being the heralds and messengers of the others. What is Apollo in effect if he is not the incarnation of the Dorian genius ? Nothing mystic in his worship, nothing orgiastic, nothing of that wild enthusiasm which characterised the Phrygian modes of worship. Hostile to the industrious and agricultural gods of the Pelasgians, the ideal type of the Dorian has no other mission than that of the warrior, to avenge, to protect, and punish ; labour is beneath him. What is Artemis on her side if she is not the feminine personification of the same genius, the Dorian virgin whom a masculine education has rendered equal to man, chaste, proud, mistress of herself, and having no need of either protector or master? We are far from these Pelasgic gods, scarcely freed from the universe, covered with sweat and smoke, just as they have come from the workshops of Nature, displaying without shame their simple obscenity ! Here these are immaculate gods, free from striving and trouble ; physical phenomena no longer fill the canvas of divine myths ; humanity definitively takes the uppermost. Endowed with an admirable historic intuition, with a THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 31 mind just and refined, Ottfried Miiller has marked out the way for a truly scientific mythology, and we could believe that had it not been for the deplorable accident which deprived science of one so young, 1 he would have cor- rected that which was a little too fixed in his first method. Such is the fluidity and inconsequence of antique myths, that no exclusive system is applicable, and we cannot be allowed an affirmation in a matter so delicate without the condition to subject it to numberless limitations which may affect that which has been previously affirmed. When, for example, we say, Apollo is a Dorian god, Apollo does not at first present any solar character; nothing better, if we do not pretend by that to declare that it is merely a general trait. Otherwise, M. Creuzer will show that the identity of Helios and Apollo was not at first so apparent as it was later on ; that it did not the less exist at the bottom of the Greek idea, and that the arrows of the divine archer are also the rays of the planet which darts life and death. Alas ! the unhappy Ottfried ought to feel the fatal influence. " The unlucky," writes M. Welcker to the translator of the Symbolique, " he has always misunder- stood the solar divinity of Apollo. Was it necessary that the god should revenge himself by making him feel, in the very ruins of his temple, how many of his character- istics are still terrible to those who venture to defy them ?" M. Preller, 2 in all deference, may be considered as con- tinuing the method of Ottfried Miiller. In his eyes also the mystic element of Greek religion belongs to the Thracians and the Pelasgians. The fundamental idea of Pelasgic worship was the adoration of Nature, regarded as living and divine, of the earth, and above all, of the earth- born divinities. In opposition to the Naturalism of the 1 He died at Athens in 1849, of the consequences of a sunstroke, which he had when visiting the ruins of Delphos. 2 Demettr and Persephone. Hamburg, 1837. 32 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. Pelasgians M. Preller places the anthropomorphism of the Hellenes, represented by the Homeric age, where the national and popular mythology is founded in a definitive manner ; but when the torrent of that warlike epoch had passed off to the time of Solon and Pisistratus, there had been a kind of reaction in favour of ancient modes of worship, which expressed itself in two forms — Orphism and Mystery — both sufficiently modern, both mixed with some degree of imposture, both taken up later on by the ISTeo-platonists with eagerness. The distinction of the epochs is thus the foundation of the studies of M. Preller : the gods have their chronology as well as their nationality. In general, antiquity quickly wearies itself with its symbols ; a worship does not retain them for more than a hundred years ; fashion, as in our days, goes for much in devotion. Eeligion, being one of the living products of humanity, ought to live, that is to say, change with her. In our churches do the saints of the most ancient date and the best quality enjoy the most favours and receive the most vows and prayers ? Greece in this respect gives herself ample scope, and more often treats her gods, not according to their merits or their age, but according to their youth and their pleasing behaviour. The least god coming from abroad was soon sure to obtain more worshippers than those who had been longest in possession. It is thus that the Cabeiri, deformed dwarfs from Samothrace, were relegated to their forges and their bellows. Almost all the Pelasgic divinities had to undergo affronts of this kind. The old Pan is hardly allowed to come in with the retinue of Dionysus, a young god who is quite in the fashion. Hermes, the great Pelasgic god, stuck in his sheath, is reduced to keep the corner of the roads and to show the way to travellers. Honest Yulcan, the conscientious worker, only mounts to Olympus to be kicked by Jupiter and to be rebuffed by THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 33 Venus, he who was so serviceable and so laborious. All these ancient gods of an industrious people — smith-gods, agricultural gods, shepherd-gods, divinities sad, serious, useful, little endowed with beauty — become demigods, satellites, or servants of the more noble gods. In general, the heroes represent the foreign gods, who do not take rank among the national divinities or the unclassed divinities, who are no longer objects of popular supersti- tion. Earely, indeed, were the dethroned gods without compensation. The new mode of worship did not destroy the anterior worship, it only cast it into the shade ; more often they were assimilated by being brought, as it were, into a vast crucible where the myths and the attributes of the most ancient gods were recast under a new name. Thus the myths of Ceres and Proserpine absorbed almost all the others. Thus the Sabazian mysteries of Phrygia were fortunate when they were engrafted on those of Bacchus. It was on the occasion of the introduction of the Saba- zian mysteries, towards the seventh century before our era, that the Greeks displayed that singular curiosity as to foreign rites which St. Paul, an excellent observer, gives as one of the traits of their character. 1 * The worship of Atys, of Cybele, and of Adonis, with their noisy orgies, their shoutings, their wild and licentious genius, shocked the pure taste of the Greeks. There was, moreover, a dead god, Zagreus, who made all at once an enormous fortune. This was Dionysus himself, the god always young, who was supposed to be struck in his flower, like Adonis, whom they honoured with a bloody worship. Eepulsed with disgust by men of intelligence and honest people, these worships were conducted by coarse impostors {mystics, metragyrtes, oiyheotelists, theo- phorites), imitators of the shameful vices of the Phrygian 1 Acts of the Apostles, xvii. 22. 34 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. priests, who scoured the streets and crossways, and made dupes among the credulous crowds. They remitted sins for money ; they trafficked in indulgences ; they composed philtres and cured diseases. "After these friars of the mother of the gods," says one of the speakers at the banquet of Athene, " by Jupiter, this is the most detestable race I know." Thus we find the Oriental influence, which M. Creuzer has exaggerated so greatly, reduced to its proper value. If we abstract the origins, this influence has but a modern date, and shows the degradation rather than the progress of Hellenic worship. The barbarous element rather slips in at first by assuming the appearance and colour of the Greek myth. Later on, foreign worships hardly take the trouble to change their clothing. Isis, Serapis, Mithra come to be enthroned in Greece under their exotic apparel, like as it were a prelude to those monstrous amalgama- tions where the superstitions of the East and those of the West, the excesses of religious sentiment and those of philosophic thought, astrology and magic, theurgy and JSTeo-platonic ecstasy, seem to join hands. All the progress of mythological study since M. Creuzer, is limited, as we see, to distinguishing the times, the places, and the races, which the illustrious author of the Symbolique has too often confused. M. Creuzer makes the history of Paganism after the same method as the old school made the history of Christianity — like a body of doctrines always identical, and passing through the ages without any vicissitudes other than those which arise from external circumstances. But if modern criticism has revealed anything to us, it is that in the infinite variety of times and of places there is nothing substantial enough to be held fixed, as it were, under the eye, and that the history of the human mind, in order to be sin- cere, should offer the picture of perpetual motion. THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 35 III. With so rich a range of study before him, M. Guigniaut's method was already traced. The learned Academician could very well have added another system to those which Germany had created: he preferred to put aside hypotheses, and reserved to himself the more delicate task of discussing o them, not with the view of merely refuting, but with the intention of exercising high impartiality and intelligent conciliation. In doing that, he has only followed the line laid down by serious minds in France during the nineteenth century. The character of the nineteenth century is criticism; but the systems have been other- wise useful and necessary, for a great development of ideas in a given sense is not generally produced except by a contest of rival schools. History is the proof of this ; but the spectacle of the human mind of our days estab- lishes in a manner not less evident, that the day of systems has gone by, the masters not having authority enough to form a school, or the pupils docility enough to accept exclusive direction. Eclecticism is, in this sense, the obligatory method of our age, and of France in particular. The intellectual temperament of France is but a medium between oppo- site qualities, a compromise between extremes, something clear, simple, and temperate. We do not complain of this, for it is perhaps, after all, the combination of mental faculties to which is given the power of grasping the truth. Schools are in science what parties are in politics : each one is right by turns j it is impossible for an enlight- ened man to shut himself up in one of them so exclusively as to shut his eyes to what the others hold to be reasonable. It is, moreover, towards those questions relating to wor- 36 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. ships and mysteries that M. Guigniaut has considered he ought to direct the efforts of his criticism. These ques- tions, indeed, are on one side much more important than those which concern myths. The purely mythological part of ancient religions has for antiquity itself nothing dogmatic or definite. The same myth is never presented by two authors in exactly the same manner ; each reserves in this respect the liberty of embellishing at his pleasure, as if the myths were nothing more than romantic tales, which the author alters and shapes according as he thinks fit. Mysteries, on the contrary, appear to have been the really serious part of ancient religions. What, then, were these mysteries, around which imagination, the spirit of system, and false learning are pleased to collect the clouds ? What were the Eleusinian in particular, upon the majesty and holiness of which antiquity has but one voice ? Doubt upon this subject is not now permitted ; we can describe almost as well as if we had been initiated, the different scenes of that which Clement of Alexandria calls the mystic drama of Eleusis. Let us recall at first that the name of mystery has been borrowed by the Church from Pagan language, and we do not fear to have recourse for the explanation in the original sense to the means which the Church has employed, nor do we fear to commit an anachronism in referring to the mysteries of the Middle Ages. Let us represent the primitive Christian mystery, the prototype of the mass. What do we find it ? A grand symbolical act accompanied by significant cere- monies. Let us take the Christian worship at a more advanced period of its development; let us follow the ceremonies of the Holy Week in a cathedral of the Middle Ages. What do we see then ? A mystical drama, rites commemorative of an historical fact, or what is consi- dered as such, alternations of joy and grief continued for several days, a complicated symbolism, an imitation of THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 37 facts intended to be recalled, often even scenic representa- tions more or less direct, where the divine story is brought sensibly before the eyes of the spectators. Setting aside the immense superiority of the Christian dogma, and the spirit of high morality which pervades its legend, and to which nothing in antiquity can be compared, perhaps, if we were allowed to assist in an ancient mys- tery, we should not see any other thing: symbolic spectacles where the mystagogue was actor and spectator at the same time, a collection of representations founded on a pious fable and relating always to the passage of a god upon the earth, to his passion, to his descent into hell, to his return to life. So far this was the death of Adonis ; so far this was the mutilation of Atys ; so far the murder of Zagreus or of Sabazius. Above all, a legend lent itself marvellously to commemorative representations : such was that of Ceres and Proserpine. All the circumstances of this myth, all the incidents of the search for Proserpine by her mother, afford scope for a picturesque symbolism which powerfully captivated the imagination. They imitated the acts of the goddess, they felt in themselves the sentiments of joy or of grief which had successively animated her. There was at first a long procession, intermingled w^ith burlesque scenes, purification wakes, young people merrymaking, running with torches at night, representing the searches of the mother, circuits in the dark, terrors, anxieties, then all at once splendid brightness. The porches of the temples were opened, the actors were received in delightful places where they heard voices. Changes of scene, produced by theatrical machinery, added to the illusion; recitations (we have a type of them in the Homeric hymn to Ceres) completed the cycle of representations. Each day had its name, its exercises, its games, its stations, that the mystics did in company. One day it was a little war or lithoboly, when thev attacked one another with stones; another day 38 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. they rendered homage to the Mater Dolorosa (Da Mater Achosa), probably a statue representing Ceres in addolorata, a true pieta. Another day they drank the cyceon; they imitated the pleasantries by which old Iambus succeeded in cheering up the goddess ; they went in procession to places near Eleusis, to the sacred fig-tree, and to the sea ; they ate certain dishes ; they practised mystical rites, of which the sense was almost lost to those who did them. They mixed in ceremonial orgies, dances, nightly fetes, with symbolic instruments. On their return, they gave full vent to joy ; burlesque resumed its place in the gephyrisms or farces of the bridge of Cephisus. When the initiated arrived at the bridge over the Cephisus, the people of the neighbouring places ran from all parts to see the procession ; they spread themselves on the holy flock with sarcasms and licentious pleasantries, to which the others responded with equal freedom. Doubtless they all joined in these scenes of comic grotesque, a kind of mummery of which the influence on the first rough model of dramatic art remains perceptible. Ceremonies which comprehended a symbolism so vague under a realism so coarse had for the ancients a great charm, and left a deep impression ; they brought together again that which men like most in works of imagination — a very definite form and a hardly decided sense. Their repute depended in a great degree upon the manner in which they were performed, and this was with an exceptional magnificence, so that the mys- teries of Eleusis eclipsed all the others, and excited the envy of the whole world. Such, then, were these mysteries. We can hardly say that they were entirely mystical in the sense adopted by M. Creuzer, nor entirely devoid of meaning, as M. Lobeck would desire to make out. We ought not to seek in them either a superior revelation, or a high moral teaching, or a profound philosophy. The symbol there was in itself its . THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 39 proper end. Do you believe that the women who cele- brated the mysteries of Adonis thought much of the mys- terious sense of the acts they performed ? All this explains itself when we say that Adonis is the sun, passing for one six months through the superior signs of the zodiac, and for another six months through the inferior signs ; that the boar which kills him is the winter; that it is he himself on the other side who is the annual vegetation, with its different seasons of flower-time, hay-time, &c. Can we doubt that these abstract considerations had as many charms for the Greek women ? What was it made them rush in crowds to weep for Adonis ? The desire to weep for a young god blossomed so quickly, to see him laid on his funeral bier, exhausted in his bloom, his head hanging languidly, surrounded with oranges and plants of early vegetation which they had seen flower and die, to bury him with their hands, to cut their hair upon his tomb, and to lament and rejoice by turns, and, in a word, to experience all the impressions of fleeting joys and sad returns grouped around the myth of Adonis. Thus, so far from the worship being always the con- sequence of a mystic legend accepted as a dogma, it was often the myth which subordinated itself to the instincts of the mob and furnished a pretext. We must recollect, besides, that since Christianity the word faith has assumed a sense which makes it, in questions of religious symbolics, almost a matter of indifference whether people understand or not. The impression produced is from the whole, and not from the understanding of each particular. We follow with pleasure these dramas which appeal to the sight, without troubling ourselves with the metaphysical meaning: it is all significant, it is true, but not directly so. Among the peasants who assist at a mid- night mass, how many of them think of the mystery of the Incarnation ? "Aristotle," says Synesius, " is of opinion 40 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. that the initiate do not learn anything exactly, but they are brought into a certain disposition of soul." The teach- ing of the mysteries was a sort of indirect teaching, analogous to that which a simple man receives when lie assists in the offices of the Church without knowing Latin, and without comprehending the sense of all that he sees. It was like a sacrament operating by its own virtue, a pledge of salvation conferred by outward and visible signs and consecrated formulas. Baptism, in the first ages of the Church, was entirely open to all; but, nevertheless, it preserved the character of being an initiatory ceremony. M. Lobeck has well shown that the conditions imposed on the initiated were so vague and illusory that the mys- teries had neither privilege nor secrecy. It was truly haphazard. In order to be admitted, it was sufficient to be an Athenian or to have a godfather at Athens. Later on, the doors were entirely thrown open, and all those who could make the voyage were initiated. Without exagge- rating the moral and philosophical part of these mysteries, of which we must confess we think little enough, and without dwelling longer on those practices, which to us appear dull and insignificant, we cannot deny that they have powerfully helped to train religious tradition and human morality. " For a long time," says M. Guigniaut, " the mysteries quieted souls by these august ceremonies, wdiich revealed the destiny of man in the transparent history of the great goddesses of the initiation, and which, in purifying him, renders him worthy to live under their rule and to partake of their immortality." " It is certain that the mysteries of Eleusis in particular had a moral and religious influence, which comforted life in the present, and taught after a manner a life to come, which was promised as a reward to the initiated under certain conditions, not only of purity and piety, but also of justice ; and if they did not equally teach monotheism, THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 41 or that which would have been the negation of Paganism itself, they at least approached as near to it as Paganism was permitted to do. They led to and nourished in the soul, under the very title of mystery, a pure worship of Nature, a sentiment of the infinite and of God, which, after all, rests at the foundation of popular belief, but which mytho- logical anthropomorphism tends incessantly to overthrow." It is, however, on another ground, I wish to say, as having served for the transition between Paganism and the most holy religion which has replaced it, that the mysteries are worthy above all to fix the attention of the philosopher and the critic. Profound researches have shown that almost everything in Christianity not brought from the Gospel is but the baggage removed from the mysteries of Paganism in the hostile camp. 1 The primi- tive Christian worship was only a mystery. All the inte- rior management of the church, the grades of initiation, the prescription of silence, a number of the peculiarities of ecclesiastical language, 2 have no other origin. The revolu- tion which has destroyed Paganism seems at first sight to be an abrupt breaking away, entirely cut short as respected the past ; and such it was in effect, if we only consider the dogmatic inflexibility and the spirit of severe morality which characterised the new religion ; but as affecting modes of worship and exterior customs, the change ope- rated very gradually, and popular faith saved the most familiar symbols from the general shipwreck. Christianity at first brought so little change into the inner and social life, that it remains uncertain whether a great number of people in the fourth and fifth centuries were Pagans or 1 See the work of M. Creuzer, vol. iii. p. 774, and the note of M. Guig- niaut, p. 1205. 2 The word mystery is often used by St. Paul. That (epopte) that is initiated in the third and highest degree of the mysteries of Eleusis is to be found in the Second Epistle attributed to St. Peter. 42 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. Christians. Many appeared to have followed an undecided course between the two worships. Art, on its side, which formed an essential part of the ancient religion, had hardly broken with any of its traditions. 1 Primitive Christian art is really only Pagan art in decadence, when taken in the lower branches. The Good Shepherd of the Catacombs of Eome, copied from the Aristeus or the Apollo Nomios, who were sculptured in the same position upon the Pagan tombs, carries still the flute of Pan in the midst of the four half-naked Seasons. Upon the Christian tombs in the cemetery of St. Calixtus, Orpheus charms the animals ; elsewhere Christ as Jupiter Pluto, Mary as Proserpine, receive the souls brought to them in the presence of the three Fates. Mercury, with the winged hat and carrying in his hand the caduceus ; Pegasus, the symbol of deifica- tion ; Psyche, symbol of the immortality of the soul ; Heaven, personified by an old man ; the river Jordan, Vic- tory, were sculptured on a number of Christian monu- ments. Who can see without emotion those churches of Piome built from the remains of ancient temples, like the patchwork Proba Falconia made with the verses of Virgil ? It is thus with humanity. Collecting together old broken fragments out of the dust, she constructs a new edifice, full of originality. For her the spirit is every- thing, the materials are next to nothing. We must therefore look upon the mysteries as a great transformation, which religions of antiquity underwent from the moment when the infantile imaginations of the first ages could no longer satisfy the new requirements of conscience, and the human mind wished for a religion more dogmatic and more serious. Primitive polytheism, vague and indecisive, left to individual interpretation, was 1 This is what results from the collection of sculptured monuments by which M. Guigniaut has endeavoured to show the transition from Pagan symbolism to Christian symbolism. Vol. iv. fig. 908, and following. THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 43 no longer sufficient for a reflective epoch. Epicurean incredulity on the one side made sport of the innocent divinities ; on the other side, more elevated and more delicate religious ideas gained ground at the expense of ancient simplicity. The aspirations towards monotheism and moral religion — aspirations of which Christianity was the highest expression — gained on all sides. Paganism itself could not escape from them. I do not much admire, I confess, the attempt of which Julian, in the eyes of history, bears the responsibility. In whatever degree primitive mythology may appear amiable and beautiful to me in its simplicity, to such a degree is this Neo-paganism, this religion of the archaaologist and the sophist, dull aud insignificant. It seems to have lost the sense of beauty which constituted the foundation of Hellenic religion. The monstrous gods of the East, conceived beyond all pro- portion, replaced the harmonious creations of Greece. A god, Magnus Pantheus, a god hidden and without name, threatened to overwhelm everything. Worship ends in the bloody sacrifice of a bull ; religious sentiment seeks refuge in the scenes of the slaughter-house ; we have recourse to blood in Order to appease irritated and jealous gods; a profound terror seems to have dictated all the vows which have been transmitted to us by the inscrip- tions. 1 In the midst of all this there was an absolute impossibility of founding anywhere a moral teaching like the Christian homily. It is from not having looked upon antique religion until the time of its decadence that we have judged so ill of it. We must confess that at the time of Constantine or of Julian, Paganism was a very mediocre religion, and the attempts made to reform it ended in satisfying no one. Criticism could hardly at once confirm the sentence 1 See the Journal des Savants of the month of January 1850 (article of M. Hase). 44 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. which had been passed upon the old worship. If she accepts the ground of the judgment, she cannot but ex- claim against the partiality of the judges. The contest in which Paganism succumbed was dull, violent, and con- ducted in bad faith, as all polemical contests are con- ducted. Strange! nothing so much resembles it as the attack by which, in the eighteenth century, it was thought that an end had been put to Christianity. No dogma could withstand such assaults. Eead the Derision des Philosophes Paiens by Hermias, the writings of Tatian and Athenagoras against Paganism, and it becomes easy to understand Voltaire diverting his readers with the awkward things in the Bible. Controversialists in general, thinking only to find their opponents at fault, give way too often to the temptation of presenting as ridiculous the doctrine they should confute, in order to have the advan- tage of- exposing the absurdity — a convenient method, for there is nothing which cannot be taken in a ridiculous light; but it is a very dangerous method, for invariably it is returned against those who use it. Some Fathers of the Church have used it with frightful prodigality. For the most part, they seized on the evhemeristic system, and used it as a weapon against Paganism — a Paganism half understood. They attacked, hand to hand, gods the off- spring of fancy, and in this easy kind of combat triumphed over shadows. Others took up a system coarser still, the demonological hypothesis. The gods were only demons ; they were demons who uttered the oracles. " The demons," says Tertullian, '* took the place of gods ; they introduced themselves into the statues, they inhaled the incense and drank the blood of the victims." x Others, at last boldly joining hands with Lucretius and Epicurus, declared that the myths were only frivolous fables, invented for plea- sure, without an object and without meaning. It is very 1 Apologetique, chaps, xxii. xxiv. THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 45 remarkable (and this ingenious observation lias not escaped M. Creuzer) that the Fathers, born in the East, and edu- cated with a respect for Paganism, or in the schools of the philosophers, preserved something of the delicate senti- ment of Greece. This work of demolition by calumny and misunderstanding wounded them deeply, and they showed themselves almost as severe against the Evhe- merists as the honest Pagans themselves. Origen and St. Gregory of Nazianzen, for example, often judged Paganism with remarkable impartiality, and upon several points anticipated the most delicate sketches of the modern critic. Certainly we can believe that many of the re- proaches addressed to Paganism by the Fathers of the Church, and in particular to the mysteries, were not with- out foundation ; but was it fair to thus take Paganism on its lowest ground in the popular meaning? The most elevated religious ideas degenerate among sensual people into sensualism and superstition. It is as if we were to judge Catholicism by what we see at Naples and Loretto. The picture of the Thesmophoria and the Adonia, such as we find it in Aristophanes and Theocritus, presents nothing very immoral, but only something light and not very serious. Drunkenness is the gravest of the abuses we find there ; but he who has sometimes seen a pardon in pious Brittany may well believe that the principal object of the meeting is to drink. The feasts of the martyrs in the primitive Church afforded scenes as little edifying as those against which the Fathers energetically raised their voices. As to the symbols adopted by Paganism, and which would in our eyes be grossly obscene, we must say with M. Creuzer, " that which civilised man hides with modesty and carefully conceals from sight, simple man has made, by right of Nature, in name and figure, a religious symbol for public worship." With this faith, which places God in Nature, and with the freer manners of a Southern people, 46 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. above all of Greeks, all these distinctions of decent or indecent, worthy or unworthy of divine majesty, could not make themselves felt. From thence it is that these people, with an innocence already as foreign to the Eomans of the time of the Empire as to modern Europe, admitted into their religions those sacred legends which we think scan- dalous, and these emblems which we charge with obscenity. We are bound to believe that these emblems revealed to the ancients ideas entirely different from those with which they inspire us, since they only excited amongst them feelings of sanctity and religious respect. What more revolting, according to our notions, than to find at each crossway and the corner of the roads an obscene land- mark ? Yet that shocked the ancients so little that we find Hipparchus ordering moral sentences to be engraved on the Hermes for the edification of the passers-by. We must say thus much of the ridicule which has so large a place in Hellenic Paganism. Eeligions ought to represent in a most complete manner all the aspects of the human mind, and burlesque being one of the aspects under which we conceive life, burlesque is an element essential to all religions. Take the epochs and religious countries, for example, the Middle Ages, Italy and Spain. What irre- verence ! What a flood of fables on the Virgin, the saints, on God himself ! Those who have seen the Italian mode of worship, know how indefinite is the limit which separates the serious from the comic, and by what insensible transi- tion devotion passes into pleasantry. We are surprised to see upon 'the monuments of grave Etruria the most respectable scenes turned into caricature. We do not understand how a people who condemned Socrates on suspicion of impiety should have allowed Aristophanes to give drubbings to Bacchus on the stage, and transform Hercules into a kitchen drudge. The Southern people, more familiar with the gods than the reflective people of THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 47 the North, feel from time to time the necessity of laughing with them. In the unrestrained behaviour of the Nea- politans towards St. Januarius there is nothing which ought to surprise us. It is eighteen hundred years since the people of Pompeii, when they wished to obtain anything from their gods, made their conditions in writing, and for greater efficacy they threatened them with blows. Monotheism has become such an essential element of our intellectual constitution, that all our efforts to under- stand the polytheism of the ancients seem to be almost useless. The human mind becomes necessarily mono- theistic when it has arrived at a certain degree of develop- ment ; but this conception of the divinity is very far from being found equally in the infancy of all races. There are monotheistic races, like races of polytheists, and this difference is derived from an original diversity in the manner of regarding Nature. In the Arab or Semitic conception, Nature does not live — the desert is mono- theistic. Sublime in its immense uniformity, it reveals from the first the idea of the infinite, but not that senti- ment of fecund activity with which an incessantly creative Nature has inspired the Indo-European race. This, then, is why Arabia has always been the bulwark of monotheism. Nature takes no place in Semitic religions ; they are all of the head, all metaphysical and psychological. The extreme simplicity of the Semitic mind, without breadth, without diversity, without plastic art, without philosophy, without mythology, without political life and without progress, has no other cause : there is no variety in mono- theism. Exclusively struck with the unity of government which shines in the world, the Semitic people have only seen in the development of things the accomplishment of the will of a superior being. God is: God made the heaven and the earth — that is all their philosophy. Such 4 8 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. is not the conception of that other race, destined to exhaust all the conditions of life, who from India to Greece, from Greece to the extreme North and West, has everywhere animated and deified Nature, from the living statue of Homer to the living ship of the Scandinavians. For her the distinction of God and no God has always been undecided. Engaged in the world, the gods ought to share in its vicissitudes : they had a history, successive generations, dynasties, fights. Jupiter is now the king of the gods and men, but his reign will not be more eternal than that of Chronos. Prometheus enchained has pre- dicted that his art will be less strong than Time, and that some day he will have to give way to necessity. Religion of antiquity was, like ancient society, founded upon exclusion; it was a liberal and national religion; it was not made for the slave or for the stranger. The first condition exacted for admission to the mysteries was to declare that one was not a barbarian. Ancient Greece showed itself even more exclusive. There each promon- tory, each brook, each village, each mountain had its legend. The worship of the woman was not the worship of the man; the worship of the sailor was not that of the farmer; that of the farmer was not that of the soldier. Hercules and the Dioscuri, in order to take part in the Eleusinian mysteries, were obliged to get themselves adopted by the Athenians. Eome prepared the great idea of catholicity : all the gods became common to all civilised people ; but the barbarian and the slave were still under religious incapacity, and it was a singular novelty when St. Paul dared to say, " There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor master, there is neither man nor woman ; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." It would be to do violence to our association of the most decided ideas if we did not see progress in this ; but equality is always bought dear, and we may conceive that the conservative THE RELIGIONS OF ANTIQUITY. 49 party of the fourth and fifth centuries, composed of men well brought up and attached to the traditions of the past, would constantly repeat, " Oh, our fathers were happy ! Oh, our fathers were indeed favoured by the times I" 1 The grand liberal life of the five epochs of antiquity became impossible on the day (blessed, however, be that day !) when the slave was looked upon as a religious being and capable of merit. The gods of Olympus were only for the free ; not a wrinkle on their forehead, not a ray of sad- ness; human nature always taken in its nobility; no count of grief. But those who suffer wish their gods to suffer with them ; and this is why, to as many as have griefs in the world, Christianity will always be the explanation. Such is the secret of the divine paradox, " Happy are those who weep ! " Ear be it from me to attempt here one of those parallelisms in which we are obliged to be unjust to the past if we would not wish to do wrong to the present. Paganism, thanks to that great number of works in which France and Germany have so happily combined their efforts, ought not to be in our hands either a weapon for the polemic or mere food for the curious. For the edu- cated mind, the spectacle of such long aberrations causes neither disdain nor pity ; it is the conviction of a great fact. Humanity is religious, and the necessary form of all religion is symbolism. The symbol may from its nature be insufficient, and condemned to remain beneath the idea it represents. The attempt to define the infinite and to show it to the sight implies an impossibility j that is too clear to derive merit from saying it. All expression has a limit ; the only language which may not be unworthy of divine things is silence. But human nature does not resign itself to this. If man reflects in the presence of 1 See the fine work of M. Beugnot upon the Destruction of Paganism in the West. Paris. 1837. D 50 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. the mystery of the divine existence, he arrives in spite of himself at this question : Would it not be better to leave these figures where they are, and give up the idea of expressing the ineffable ? It is not less certain that humanity, left to its instincts, is not stayed by any such scruple ; it prefers to talk imperfectly about God to remaining silent; it likes better to trace a fantastic picture of the divine world than to resist the invincible charm which leads towards the invisible. \., Thus the immense work of which we have endeavoured to furnish the history, leads but to one conclusion, con- soling and religious at the same time ; for if a man by a spontaneous effort aspires to seize the infinite cause and strives to pass nature, is it not a great sign that by his origin and his destiny he goes beyond the narrow limit of finite things? In the view of these ceaseless efforts to scale heaven we .make an estimate of human nature, and we are persuaded that this nature is noble, and that it has grounds for being proud. Then, too, we assure ourselves against the menaces of the future. All that we love, all that constitutes in our eyes the ornament of life, liberal cultivation of the mind, science, grand art, may be destined to endure but for a time ; but religion will never die. It is the eternal protest of the soul against systematic or brutal materialism, which would imprison man in the lower region of the vulgar life. Civilisation has intermissions, but religion has not. THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. It is the property of great things to suffer themselves to be comprehended from several different points of view and to grow larger with the human mind itself, so that each one according to his degree of culture, and each age accord- ing as it understands the past more or less deeply, finds from different motives something to admire. When the critics of antiquity and those of the seventeenth century communicated to us the beauties which they thought they had discovered in Homer, the childishness of their aesthetics astonished us : we « admire Homer as much as they did, but for other reasons entirely. When Bossuet and M. de Chateaubriand think to admire the Bible in •admiring its misunderstandings and nonsense, 1 educated Germany has the right to smile. However, the admira- tion of Herder and Ewald, though being better founded, is not less free from it. The more we contemplate the world and the past as they are, without regard to conventional and preconceived ideas, the more we shall find true beauty ; and it is in this sense that we can say 1 ** In order to understand the beauty of the Vulgate," says M. de Maistre, 11 make choice of a friend who may not be a Hebraist, and you will see how a syllable, a word — / hardly know how to phrase it lightly enough — will bring before your eyes beauties of the first order " {Soirees de Saint Petersbourg, vii e entret.). Behold, certainly, a convenient sestheticism, fit for a gentle- man ! Would you, in order to understand the beauties of Homer, make choice of a friend who was not a Hellenist, and he will discover for you in the translation of Mme. Dacier a thousand beauties of the first order which Homer never dreamed of J 51 52 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. science is the first condition of real admiration. Jerusalem has come out more brilliant and more beautiful from the work of being apparently the destroyer of modern science ; the pious tales which amused our infancy whilst in the nursery have become, thanks to a wholesome interpreta- tion, great truths ; and it is to us, who now see Israel in her real beauty, it is to us the critics that it belongs to say truly : Stantes erant pedes nostri in atriis tuis, Jerusalem! Our feet were standing at thine altars, Jerusalem ! If we regard the development of the Hebrew mind in its entirety, we cannot but be struck with the high char- acter of absolute perfection which gives to its works the right to be regarded as classics, in the same sense as the productions of Greece, Eome, and the Latin people. Alone, among all the people of the East, Israel has had the privi- lege of writing for the whole world. The Vedas certainly constitute admirable poetry. However, this collection of the first songs of the race from which we take them will never replace in the expression of our religious sentiments the Psalms, the work of a race so different from our own. The literatures of the East cannot in general be read and appreciated by any except the learned. Hebraic literature, on the contrary, is the Bible, the book above all, the uni- versal reading. Millions of men know no other poetry. It must, without doubt, have made, in this astonishing destiny, the kind of religious revolution which, since the sixteenth century, has made us regard the Hebrew books as the source of all revelation. But we can affirm that if these books had not contained something profoundly universal they would not have attained such a degree of importance. Proportion, measure, and taste were in the East the exclusive privilege of the Hebrew people. Israel had, like Greece, the gift of enunciating perfectly its ideas, and of expressing them in a compact and complete THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 53 manner, and by that it succeeded in giving to thoughts and sentiments a general form acceptable to all human nature. Thanks to this universal adoption, no history is more popular than that of Israel, but no history has been longer in being understood. It is the fate of literature which becomes the foundation of religious belief to contract the rigidity of dogma and to lose its real character in becom- ing a recognised symbolism where one goes to search for arguments to support every cause. From the history of a people the most opposed to monarchy who have ever existed, Bossuet was able to draw a justification of the policy of Louis XIV. ; another has concluded from it in favour of a theocracy ; another in favour of a republic. Germany, from the very first, with that gift of historic intuition which seems specially adapted for the primitive epochs, perceived the truth, and framed the history of the Jewish people as a history like any other ; not according to theological views agreed on beforehand, but according to a critical and grammatical study of the texts. The work of Biblical exegesis, constructed stone by stone with a marvellous concatenation and an incomparable tenacity of method, is, without contradiction, the masterpiece of German genius, and the most perfect model we can pro- pose for other branches of philology. Already, several years before the Eeformation, Germany had made the science of Hebrew its own proper province, of which it has not since been dispossessed. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, criticism, checked in France by the narrow spirit of the theologians, 1 or led away by the want of intelligence which characterised the school of Voltaire 1 This check is the more regrettable because the seventeenth century had a superior man, Richard Simon of the Oratory, who, notwithstanding the obstacles which were raised, had created in France a healthy exegesis an age before Germany had begun it. 54 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. in matters of history, made marvellous progress among the Germans; and after the generations of Michaelis, Eichhorn, Eosenmiiller, De -Wette, Winer, and Gesenius, we may well believe that there was nothing more to be done within the circle of Hebraic studies. M. Ewald, however, has proved, in these later years, by numerous writings, and above all by his splendid History of the People of Israel, 1 that the part of the great critic in this ever new _v field is far from being exhausted. By the boldness of his views, his penetration of mind, his brilliant imagination, the marvellous sentiment he possesses with respect to religious and poetic things, M. Ewald has far surpassed all those who had previously occupied themselves with the history and literature of the Hebrew people. Some defects, it is true, may obscure these rare merits ; the extreme fineness of the sketches degenerates occasionally to subtlety ; he does not always stop soon enough in the way of conjecture. The origin of the people of Israel, the patriarchal epoch, the primitive fables, are treated too arbitrarily in the endeavour to reconcile them with mytho- logies entirely foreign to the Hebrew spirit. The de- scription of the later ages of Jewish history, of those which immediately preceded and prepared Christianity, is coloured throughout with the particular opinions of M. Ewald with regard to religion and philosophy — opinions to which we can hardly deny the character of a singu- lar originality, and in which the author believes he can combine a sort of Christian fanaticism with the most avowed rationalism. 2 The best part of the work of M. 1 Geschichte des Volkes Israel, 4 vols, in 8vo, 2nd edit. Gottingen, 1834. 2 There are above all the Jahrbilcher der biblischen Wissenchaft, an annual collection published by M. Ewald, and full of his ideas, which should be read to understand the singular part taken by him in the politi- cal and religious questions arising in German}'. This part, in which the savant and the historian combine in the strangest fashion with the preacher and the sectary, would be an inexplicable phenomenon if we did uot recall THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 55 Ewald is the narrative of the purely Hebraic period, from Samuel to the Maccabees. The history of David and Solomon, the part of the Prophets, the various religious revolutions of the epoch of the Kings, the time of the Captivity, the character of Hebraic poetry, and above all, that of the Psalms, constitute a marvellous exposition, which might possibly be rectified on some points, but not surpassed as a whole and general conception. Why should the learned professor of Gottingen commit the fault of mingling so many beautiful and brilliant sketches and pages full of enthusiasm with a bitter polemic against persons whose opinions often differ only by a shade from his own ? Why, in particular, should M. Ewald believe that he is obliged to lower a man like Gesenius, who could not in any wise compare with him for philosophy and aesthetic sentiment, but who has not been surpassed as a philologist and as a grammarian ? M. Ewald, if superior to his rival in poetic intelligence and elevation of mind, has no need to deny to him those solid qualities in order to shine himself in the first rank among the critics and exegetes of our age. I. . y A preliminary question dominates all these problems relative to the people of Israel: How were those documents which serve for the foundation of the history of the Hebrews reduced to writing? above all, the five most ancient parts of their annals, that we are accustomed to reunite under the name of the Pentateuch ? According to an hypothesis presented to the last age like a bold the strong impression which the study of the Prophets has made upon the mind of M. Ewald — an impression which betrays itself simply in his con- duct and his writings. $6 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. paradox, and which is now adopted by all the enlightened critics in Germany, 1 the Pentateuch was formed by the reunion of historic fragments from various sources. The distinction of basis and form is a distinction most essential in primitive literature, and above all in Hebraic literature, for none has undergone so much overrunning. 'CD O We can affirm, for example, that we found in the Books of Exodus and Numbers information at once authentic and contemporaneous upon the state and doings of the Israelites in the desert, from thence almost to Sinai. Must we con- clude from this that the Books of Exodus and Numbers such as we possess, date from that epoch ? No, certainly. The definitive compilation of the books which contain the ancient history of Israel does not go back probably to the eighth century before our era. By the side of ancient fragments, preserved in a manner almost textual, may be found parts much more modern, and to which ought to be applied principles of criticism entirely different. The keen and learned philologists who in Germany have devoted themselves to the discussion of this curious pro- blem have seen clearly that it is in the. latter times where they ought to seek the analogy of the laws which have governed the successive transformations of the historic writings of the Hebrews. It is in Arabic historiography. When we compare, indeed, the one with the other, the various classes of Mussulman historians, we recognise that almost all reproduce from an identical basis, of which the 1 This assertion, contrary to the notions generally entertained in France, has need of development, which ought not to find place here ; but one can read in the work of M. Ewald, and in Langerke, Kenaan, pref.; De Wette, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1 50 and following ; Stcehelin, Kritische Untersuchungen ilber den Pentateuch, 1843 ; Tuch, Kommentar iiber die Genesis, Halle, 1838. We can consult in French the Palestine of M. S. Munk (Paris, 1845), * n *he collection of L'Univers Pittoresque of Didot, p. 132 and following, where the question, with an excellent criticism, is treated in the sense we have indicated. THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 57 first compilation is found in the Chronicle of Tabari. The / work of Tabari itself is only a collection of traditions, arranged so as to follow each other, without the slightest regard to criticism, full of repetitions, contradictions, and derogations from the natural order of facts. In Ibn-al- Athir, who marks a degree of more advanced compilation, the account is continuous, the contradictions are scattered. The narrator has chosen a time for all the traditions which appear to him to be more probable, and passes over the others in silence. The more modern " they says " are in- serted here and there, but at the bottom it is always the same history as that in Tabari, with some variations, and also some misconceptions, as though the second compiler had not thoroughly understood the text which he had before him. In Ibn-Khaldoun at last the compilation has, if I may dare to say so, passed once more to the crucible. The author brings into his recital his personal views ; we see his opinions and the end he is seeking. It is a history arranged, completed, a view, as across a prism, of the ideas of the writer. The Hebraic historiographer has traversed analogous degrees. Deuteronomy presents to us history arrived at its last periods-history retouched with an oratorical view, where the narrator does not propose merely to recount, but to edify. The four preceding books enable us to perceive the seams of the most anGient fragments reunited, but not assimilated, in a text following. We can differ upon the division of the parts, upon the number and character of the successive compilations ; and we must avow that M. Ewald, in pursuing upon all these points a strictness im- possible to attain, has passed the limits which a severe critic ought to impose ; but we can no longer doubt as to the proceeding which brought the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua to their definitive state. It is clear that a Jehovist compiler (that is to say, employing in his narrative 58 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. the name of Jehovah) has given the last form to this great historic work in taking for its basis an Mohistic writing (that is to say, where God is designated by the word Elohim), of which we can at the present day reconstruct the essential parts. 1 As to the opinion, which attributes the compilation of the Pentateuch to Moses, it is above criticism altogether, and we have not to discuss it. This opinion, nevertheless, appears modern enough, for it is very certain that the ancient Hebrews never dreamed of regarding their legislator as an historian. 2 The narratives of the olden times appeared to them as works absolutely impersonal, to which they did not attach the name of any author. Thus was formed the fundamental writing of the Hebraic annals, that which M. Ewald calls the Book of the Origins, after which they grouped themselves successively —the annals of the Judges, the Kings, the time of the Captivity to Alexander. No people can boast assuredly of the possession of a body of history so complete, or of archives so regularly kept. That which is indeed impor- tant to maintain is, that in retouching the form the basis shall not be altered, so that the fragments thus reunited, which contain the history, whether historic or legendary, may have the value of original documents. The Penta- teuch contained, according to all appearance, the informa- tion imprinted on the archives of the people neighbouring to Israel, such as the narrative of the war of the Iranian 1 We ought to remark that this system, long since classical in Germany, has nothing in common with the unfortunate attempt of Dr. Donaldson to re-establish Jasher, one of the books cited in the most ancient annals of Israel. It is surprising that, in a recent article, we are presented, as the last word of the German exegesis, with a similar work, composed by a doctor of the University of Cambridge, and universally reprobated by the German critics. 2 The opinion that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch hardly appears established before the Christian era. M. de Wette believes that even at this epoch it was not entirely accepted. THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 59 kings against the kings of the valley of Siddim, where Abraham figures as a stranger — Abraham, the Hebrew, who dwelt in the oak grove at Mamre of the Amorite; the genealogy of the Edomites ; the curious synchronism established between the foundation of Hebron and that of Tanais in Egypt. The first pages, even, consecrated to antediluvian origins, all mythological as they appear, are certainly documents which bring us close to the origin of mankind. It is impossible to understand Israel well without re- attaching it to the group to which it belonged — I mean the Semitic race,, of which it is the highest and purest branch. The essential result of modern philology has been to show, in the history of civilisation, the action of a double current produced by two races entirely distinct in manners, language, and spirit — on the one part, the Indo- European race, embracing the noble populations of India, Persia, the Caucasus, and of all Europe; on the other, the race called by the very faulty name of Semitic, 1 compris- ing the populations indigenous to Asia west and south as far as the Euphrates. To the Indo-European race belong almost all the great military, political, and intellectual movements in the history of the world ; to the Semitic race, the religious movements. The Indo-European race, pre- occupied with the variety of Nature, did not by itself reach monotheism. The Semitic race, on the contrary, guided by its firm and sure views, cleared away all at once the disguises of the divinity, and, without reflection or reason- ing, adopted the purest religious form that humanity has ever known. Monotheism in the world has been the work of the Semitic apostolate in this sense, that before the 1 This name here denotes, not the people given in Genesis as the offspring of Shem, but the people who speak or have spoken the language wrongly styled Semitic, that is to say, the Hebrews, Phoenicians, Syrians, Arabs, and Abyssinians. 60 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. action and without any action on the part of Judaism, Christianity, or Islamism, the worship of God, one and supreme, had not been formulated distinctly to the multi- tude. But these three great religious movements are three Semitic facts, three branches of the same stem, three unequally beautiful versions of the same idea. There are only some leagues between Jerusalem and Sinai and between Sinai and Mecca. When and how did the Semitic race arrive at this notion of the divine unity which the world has admitted on the faith of their preaching ? I believe it was from primitive intuition, and from their earliest time. They did pot invent monotheism. India, which has thought with as much originality and depth, has not yet reached it, even in our time. All the strength of the Greek mind did not suffice to bring back humanity to it without the co-opera- tion of the Semitic people. We can affirm of these that they never would have acquired the dogma of the divine unity if they had not found it in the most leading in- stincts of their heart and soul. The first religions of the Indo-European race appear to have been purely physical. They were vivid impressions, such as those of the wind on the trees or the reeds, those of flowing waters, of the sea, which were embodied in the imaginations of these infant people. Th§ man of the Indo-European race is not so quickly able to separate himself from the world as the Semitic man. For a long time he adored his own sensa- tions, and until the Semitic religions introduced to him a more elevated idea of the Divinity, his worship was but an echo of Nature. The Semitic race, on the contrary, evidently arrived at the notion of a Supreme God without any effort. This grand acquisition was not in their case the effect of progress and philosophical reflection ; it was one of their first perceptions. Having soon separated his personality from the universe, they almost immediately THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 61 arrived at the third term — God, creator of the universe. Instead of a Nature animated and vivid in all its parts, they conceived, if I may dare to say so, a Nature dry and without fecundity. There is a considerable difference between this rigid and simple conception of a God isolated from the world with a world moulded like a vase in the hands of a potter, and the Indo-European theogony, ani- mating and deifying Nature, taking life as a struggle, the universe as a perpetual changing, and importing in some degree into the divine dynasties, revolution and progress. The intolerance of the Semitic people is the necessary consequence of their monotheism. The Indo-European people, before their conversion to Semitic ideas (Jews, Christians, or Mussulmans), never having taken their reli- gion as absolute truth, but as a sort of family or caste heritage, remained strangers to intolerance and proselytism. This is why we find among these people only, liberty of thought, the spirit of criticism and individual research. The Semites, on the contrary, seeking to realise a wor- ship independent of province and country, condemned all religions differing from their own. Intolerance is really in this sense an attribute of the Semitic race, and a part of the legacy, good or bad, which they have left to the world. The extraordinary phenomenon of the Mussulman conquest was only possible among a race incapable, like them, of appreciating diversity, and to whom the entire symbol was included in a word : God is God. Certainly Indo-European tolerance exhibits a more elevated idea of human destiny and grander liberality of soul ; but who will dare to say that in revealing the divine unity and in definitively suppressing local religions, the Semitic race has not laid the foundation-stone of the unity and progress of humanity ? We can understand now, how this race, so eminently endowed for creating and propagating religions, should 62 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. not have passed mediocrity in all heathen courses. A race incomplete from its very simplicity, it had neither plastic art, nor rational science, nor philosophy, nor poli- tical life, nor military organisation. The Semitic race has never comprehended civilisation in the sense which we attach to the word ; we do not find in her midst either great organised empires or public spirit, nothing which recalls the Greek city, nothing either which recalls the absolute monarchy of Egypt or of Persia. Questions of aristocracy, democracy, and feudalism, which include the whole secret of the history of the Indo-European peoples, have no meaning for the Semitic race. The Semitic nobi- lity was wholly patriarchal : they did not hold by conquest — the source of it was in their blood. The Jew, like the Arab, rigorously insisted that the only supreme power was in God. The military inferiority of the Semites arose from their utter incapacity for discipline and organisation. In order to create armies they were obliged to have recourse to mercenaries : David employed Phoenicians and Cartha- ginians, the Khalifs too did so. The Mussulman conquest was itself accomplished without organisation and without tactics. The Khalif was nothing of a sovereign nor of a military chief — he was a vice-prophet. The most illustri- ous representative of the Semitic race in our days, Abd- el-Kader, is a learned man, a man of religions meditation and strong passions, but not a soldier. History does not afford us any great empire founded by a Semitic people. Judaism, Christianity, Islamism, these are their work — work always directed towards the same end : to simplify the human mind, to banish polytheism, to write at the top of the Book of Eevelations this word, which has ren- dered to human thought the great service of effacing the mythological and cosmogonic complications in which pro- fane antiquity lost itself: "At the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." THE. HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 63 II. It is about two thousand years before our era when the regard of the historian rests with some certitude on this predestined family. An emigration of Semitic nomads, with whom the name of Thare or Terah was connected, quitted the mountains of Armenia and went towards the south. We may suppose that there had been for a long time in the mountains of the north, a focus of monotheistic aristocracy, which remained faithful to their patriarchal ^customs and their elevated worship. Even in departing from this sanctuary the emigrant tribes considered them- selves as bound to God by an alliance and special bargain; it is thus we see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob continuing in Canaan and in Egypt their noble avocation of shepherd — rich, proud chiefs of a numerous household, in possession of pure and simple religious ideas, and coming across the various civilisations without fusion, and without receiving anything from them. Abraham, a personage definitively historic and real, conducts the emigration into Palestine. He was not, .however, the first of his race, for, independently of the Canaanites, we find a chief, Semitic and monotheistic like him, Melchisedec, with whom he makes friends. However, -Mesopotamia remained for a long time the centre of the Terah family, and it was from thence that the aristocracy, faithful to Semitic ideas in respect of purity of blood, sent up to the time of their going into Egypt, to seek for wives for their sons. The life of Israel at this epoch was that of an Arab douar, with its prodigious development of individuality and poetry, but otherwise with its absolute want of poli- tical ideas, and of scarcely defined intellectual culture. 64 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. We hardly know what was the result of the first contact of the Israelite tribe with Egypt and the Canaanites. The strong antipathy displayed throughout Hebraic history against Canaan affords no reason for thinking that no in- fluence could have been exercised by Canaan upon Israel. The part taken by the Hebrews in not recognising the Canaanites as brethren, does it not indicate the desire to put the Canaanites from out of the chosen race of Shem in order to class them among the infidel family of Ham, contrary to the evident testimony of the language ? x The fraternal hatreds have never been stronger than among the Jewish race, the most contemptuous and the most aristocratic of all. Without admitting, with some learned men, that the Hebrews and the Canaanites had for a long time a religion nearly identical, we ought to recognise that it is only from a relatively modern epoch that the former attained that spirit of exclusion which characterises the Mosaic institutions. Several data of the Phoenician reli- gion are to be found in the ancient Hebrew worship. In the patriarchal epoch we see the descendants of Abraham accept as sacred the places and objects which the Canaan- ites received as such — trees, mountains, sources, betyles or beth-el. 2 Impenetrable darkness covers the first religious move- ment of Israel, that of which Moses was the hierophant and the hero. It would be as contrary to sound criticism to relegate to these remote times the complicated organi- sation we find described in the Pentateuch — an organisa- tion of which we do not find a trace in the epoch of the Judges, or even in the time of David and Solomon — as it would be rash to deny that Israel in going out of Egypt had undergone the operation of a grand religious organiser. 1 The Phoenician language was nearly pure Hebrew. 2 This name denotes sacred stones to which they attributed divine virtues. THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 65 The descendants of Abraham seem to have preserved in Egypt all the originality of their Semitic genius. In constant communication with the other Terachite tribes of Arabia Petrea, they conceived, under the influence of a lively antipathy to Egyptian idolatry, one of those monotheistic reactions so familiar to Semitic people, and generally so fruitful. Every religion naturally avoids its cradle. The movement we speak of, which appears to have had its focus in the tribe of Levi, was followed by a sort of Flight (Hegira) or emigration, and an heroic epoch which in the imagination of more modern times has assumed the proportions of an epic. Sinai, the holy mountain of all the country, was where the first act took place ; that was the point at which the revelation was made. A sacred name of the Divinity, including the most elevated notion of monotheism, two tablets upon which were inscribed ten precepts of the better kind of morality, some aphorisms, which formed with the ten precepts the law of Jehovah, some simple ceremonies suitable to the life of a nomadic people, such as the ark, the tabernacle, the passover, were probably the essential elements of this first institution, which afterwards became complicated at the same time as the part of the founder grew greater. M. Ewald 1 proves in a most ingenious manner that the glory of Moses underwent in Israel a long eclipse; that his name was almost unknown under the Judges and during the first ages of the Kings, and that the old founder did not come out of his tomb with the extraordinary idai which sur- rounds him until one or two ages before the fall of the kingdom of Judah. During the whole of the epoch of the Judges, and before monarchy was established, Israel presented the spectacle of Arab life in all its perfection : tribes without any other obligation than the remembrance of their brotherhood and 1 Vol. II. p. 44 and following. E 66 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. the hegemony (leadership) of one among them ; the most simple religion that had ever existed ; a poetry vivid, youthful, abrupt, of which the echo has come down to us in the wild and admirable song of Deborah ; no institu- tion but that of a temporary chief (judge when required)* and the power, still less definite, of the prophet or seer, supposed to be in communication with the Deity ; lastly, the priest, regarded as the exclusive right of the tribe of Levi, to such a point that those individuals who suffered themselves to relapse into idolatry believed themselves bound to engage a Levite for the service of their idol. Nothing as yet designates Israel as a predestined people : there were some people quite as advanced among the neighbouring tribes of Palestine, and the curious episode of Balaam proves to us that prophetism, religion, and poetry had among these tribes the same organisation as in Israel. It is towards the time of Eli and Samuel (about a thousand years before the Christian era) that the seal of divine election is stamped all at once upon Israel. This was the moment when the Israelite nation arrived at reflection, and passed from the tribal state, poor, simple, and ignorant of the idea of majesty, to the state of a kingdom with a constituted power, aspiring to become hereditary. Up till then Israel had lived in a state of patriarchal anarchy, excluding all regular government, and tempered only by the solidarity of the members of the family, which is the customary state of the Arab tribes. Such a state of things became impossible in the face of the development which occurred in social life in the East; the people, with loud cries, demanded a king, as other nations had. All this shows us that this revolu- tion was in imitation of the stranger, perhaps the Philis- tines or the Phoenicians, contrary to the wishes of the party conservative of traditions, to whom it appeared as a THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 67 kind of infidelity towards Jehovah. The narrative * which has come down to us is evidently the work of one in opposition ; royalty is there represented under an evil aspect, and placed very inferior to the ancient patriarchal form. It is not impossible but that this narrative may have been from the very hand of Samuel ; the chapters of the book which bears his name, where his political part is displayed, have a character so personal that we are tempted to believe that he himself was the author. This much is certain, that Samuel, withdrawing with one hand what he had given with the other, never departed from a system of fretf ulness against the royalty which he had inaugurated with repugnance, to give in to the exacting demands of the mob. Eoyalty, inexperienced, and not having any tradition, was at first his plaything. At last the man destined to sum up so many of the contrary needs, and to form the nucleus of the history of the Hebrew people by the reunion in his person of the priest, the prophet, and the king, David, appeared, and became the representative of the poetical, religious, intellectual, and political ideal of Israel. At first sight some odd contrasts strike him who attempts to describe the character of David according to the purified ideas of morality which we entertain. How was the man whom we find by turns agitated during the different epochs of his career, serving the stranger against his own country, associating with robbers, soiled with domestic crimes, cruel and vindictive even to atrocity, able to pass in the traditions of Israel as a king according to the heart of God, and as indeed an admirable political and religious organiser, the author of those psalms where the most delicate feelings of the heart are so finely ex- pressed ? How can the manners of a condottiere be com- bined with true greatness of soul, the most exquisite piety, 1 1 Samuel viii. 68 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. and the most sentimental poetry? How the man who sacrificed to a capricious adultery his most faithful ser- vant, could persuade himself with entire good faith that Jehovah was his special protector, obliged to make him succeed, and to avenge him of his enemies, as if God ex- isted only for him ? All these traits would be inexplicable if we did not refer them to the Semitic character, of which David is the accomplished type in its good as well as in its evil aspects. Essentially egotistic, the Semite knows hardly any duty except to himself. To pursue his vengeance, to recover what he believes to be his right, is in his eyes a sort of obligation. Religion with him is something quite apart from everyday morality. Hence these extraordinary characters of Biblical history who provoke so much objection, and for whom to apologise is as unnecessary as to disparage. Political acts of the least scrupulous description did not prevent Solomon from being recognised as the wisest of kings. The odd mixture of sincerity and falsehood, of religious exaltation and egotism, which strikes us in Mahomet, the facility which the Mussulmans admit that in many cases the Prophet obeyed his passions rather' than his duty, can only be explained by the species of laxity which makes Orientals profoundly indifferent as to the choice of means when they are persuaded that the end to be attained is the will of God. Our disinterested method, or, if we may say so, abstract mode of judging matters, is to them unknown. It would be contrary to fair criticism to discuss either with malevolence, like Bayle has done, and the fragment collector of Wolfenbuttel, or with buffoonery, as Voltaire has done, those acts of David's life which cannot be jus- tified according to the rules of morality. His conduct towards Saul was equivocal enough. After the death of , Saul the throne belonged to his son Ishbosheth ; all the tribes, with the exception of Judah, were grouped around THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 69 him : treason and assassination soon relieved David from, this rival. Thanks to priestly favour, and the strong military institutions which seem to have been borrowed from the Philistines, among whom he had made a long stay, perhaps also by means of the foreign soldiers x kept in pay, the new king realised his leading idea, the supre- macy of the tribe of Judah, a strong royalty hereditary in his line, and having its centre at Jerusalem. This future capital of the religious world had up till then been a small fortified town ; David made of it a city in which the houses were no longer detached. Before his death the old king had crushed all his enemies, realised all his projects, and could repeat with pride the war-song of his youthful days, which astonishes us by its proud and brutal energy :— " Jehovah has said to my master : Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies a stool for thy feet. " Jehovah shall extend over Sion the sceptre of thy power ; he rules in the midst of thine enemies. " Thy people have hastened to thy call in the brightness of the holy ornaments; the youth which surrounds thee is like a shower from the bosom of the dawn. " Jehovah has sworn it, and he will not repent of it : thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. " The Lord is at thy right hand ; in the day of his auger he crushes the kings. " He shall reign over the nations ; he will fill up with corpses ; he will break heads to a vast extent. " He will refresh himself on his road with the water of a torrent ; from thence he shall lift up his head." 1 This at least is the explanation given to the name Cari (Carians ?), and the Cherethites and Pelethites (Cretans and Philistines ?), who formed the bodyguard of David. The Carians in the ancient world carried on the business of mercenaries, and the Philistines, according to one very pro<- bable hypothesis, came from Crete. 70 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. This profane royalty, contrary in many respects to the true destiny of Israel, continued during the whole reign of Solomon. The throne of David, according to the rules of strict heredity, belonged to Adonijah. Solomon obtained it, thanks to the preference of his father and to an intrigue of the harem directed by his mother, Bathsheba, who was always the favourite wife. The matter was decided by the strong men of David, a small body of veterans of the rudest kind, who had the nerve of the preceding reign. The will of David was preponderant, so well had Israel been accustomed to obey him. The wisest of kings began his reign, following the custom of the East, by slaughter- ing Adonijah and his party. If Adonijah had succeeded, he would doubtless have treated the party of Solomon in the same way. However that may be, these disturbances were attended with serious consequences to heredity, and gave a blow to legitimacy in Israel from which it never recovered. If the idea of a conquering monarchy ever crossed the mind of David, accustomed to live with his warriors and the Philistines, it was an idea impossible of realisation, and was soon abandoned. The Hebrew people were incapable of a great military organisation, and indeed, under Solomon, all their great warlike preparations turn to peace. The reign of Solomon remains the profane ideal of Israel. His alliances with all the East, without regard to differences of religion, his superb seraglio, which com- prehended some seven hundred queens and three hundred concubines, the order and beauty of the services of his palace, the industrial and commercial prosperity of his times, aroused in the imagination that taste for comfort and worldly enjoyment to which Israel has abandoned itself whenever the sting of suffering has not forced it towards a higher destiny. The Song of Songs is the charming expression of the THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 71 joyous life of Israel, happy and delicately sensual during those moments, allowing divine thoughts to slumber, it gave itself up to pleasure. A profane literature, partly common to the neighbouring people of Palestine, took the upper hand of the lyric poetry of the psalmists and the seers. Solomon himself cultivated this worldly wisdom, almost foreign to the worship of Jehovah, and which is not likely to prosper here. Some works are attributed to him, and it is certain that he wrote. Less of a poet than his father, and not being gifted like him with the true sentiment of the vocation of Israel, he set himself to describe creatures from the cedar to the hyssop ; * then, if we are to believe the legend, he fell into a state of scepti- cism, disgusted with everything, and took refuge in hope- less wisdom. " Vanity of vanities ; nothing is new under the sun ; increase of knowledge is increase of trouble. I have desired to search out that which passes under the heavens, and I have seen nothing but vexation of spirit." We feel how far we are from the pure ideal of Israel. The vocation of Israel was neither philosophy, nor science, nor art (music excepted), nor industry, nor commerce. In opening these profane ways, Solomon did in some sense cause his people to deviate from their wholly religious destiny. It was the act of the true God if similar ten- dencies had prevailed. Christianity and the conversion of the world to monotheism being the essential work of Israel, to which the remainder ought to be brought back, everything which has interrupted that superior aim has 1 M. Ewald understands by this expression a cosmography like that of the Arab naturalist Kazwini, or a description of all creatures, commencing with the largest and ending with the smallest. I prefer to think that he descanted on the moral to be drawn from animals and plants, analogous to those we read of in Proverbs xxx., or to those of Physiologus and the Bestiair which were so popular in the Middle Ages. The idea of a science descriptive of nature was foreign to the Semitic people until they came in contact with the Greek spirit. 72 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. been only a frivolous and dangerous distraction in its his- tory. But so far from having advanced the great work, Solomon has done everything to compromise it. If he had succeeded, Israel would have ceased to be the people of God, and would have become a worldly nation like Tyre and Sidon. The prophets had but little influence under him. Carried away by his relations with the most diverse people and by his desire to please his Egyptian, Sidonian, and Moabitish women, he adopted a kind of tolerance for foreign worship. While the successor of David was passing his time in putting conundrums to the infidel Queen of Sheba, altars to Moloch and Astarte might be seen on the Mount of Olives. What could be more contrary to the first duty of Israel ? Guardian of an idea to which the world ought to rally, charged with the sub- stitution in the conscience of man of the worship of the Supreme God for that of the national divinities, Israel should have been intolerant, and have boldly affirmed that all worships save that of Jehovah were false and worthless. The reign of Solomon was thus in many respects an inter- val in the sacred career of Israel. The intellectual and commercial development which he had inaugurated was followed by nothing. Towards the end of his life the prophets, whom he had reduced to silence, regained the upper hand and began an active opposition. His works, considered profane, have been mostly lost. His memory remains doubtful, and the breadth of ideas which he had inaugurated have left in Israel but a vague and brilliant memory. We see here the great law of all the history of the Hebrew people manifesting itself, the contest of two opposing needs, which seems to have always carried this intelligent and passionate race with it in a contrary sense : on the one part, the breadth of mind aspiring to com- prehend the world, to imitate other people, to leave the THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 73 narrow surroundings in which the Mosaic institutions had enclosed Israel ; on the other, the conservative thought to which the salvation of humanity was attached. The pro- phets are the representatives of the exclusive tendency; the kings, of a thought more open to ideas from the outer world. Prophetism, better adapted to the genius and the vocation of the Hebrew people, ought necessarily to triumph and prevent the lay royalty from ever taking per- manent root in Israel. That which is important to remark is that the prophetic authority, so hostile to royalty, was hardly less so to the priesthood. The prophet 1 did not come out of the tribe of Levi ; he did not teach in the Temple, but in the market- places, the streets, and the squares. Far from enlarging upon observances, according to the custom of the priests, they preached pure worship, indifference to exterior prac- tices when they were not combined with adoration of heart. The prophet held his commission from God alone, and represented the popular interest as against the king and the priests, often allied with the king. From thence arose a power which has no analogy in the history of any other people, a sort of inspired tribunal devoted to the conservation of ancient ideas and ancient rights. We cannot deny that the general policy of the prophets does not present itself to us as being narrow or opposed to progress ; but this was the true policy of Israel. It appears troublesome at first, with voice austere and monotonous, always predicting ruin and anathematising those instincts which lead ancient man towards the worship of Nature. Often, in this long contest between the kings and the pro- 1 We regret to be obliged to use the word "prophet" which is only given by the Greek translators of the Bible, and would lead to the belief that the prediction of the future was the essential function of these inspired men. It would be preferable, at least for these ancient epochs, to call them seers, or to preserve the Semitic name Nabi. 74 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. phets, it is the kings whom we are disposed to think right. The proposition of Samuel to Saul is generally without much reason, and if the prophets sometimes addressed David with very just warnings when they recalled that great king to morality, which he was too ready to forget, we cannot deny that oftentimes their reproaches exhibit a very simple policy ; for example, when they presented as a capital crime the numbering of the people ordered by David, and sought to place before him the calamities which followed as a punishment for that doubtless un- popular measure. Many of the kings represented by the severe authors of the Book of Kings and of the Paralipo- menes as wretches, were perhaps reasonable and tolerant princes, parties to necessary alliances with strangers, obey- ing the necessities of the times, and with a certain leaning towards luxury and industry. The prophets, full of the old Semitic spirit, ardent foes of the plastic arts, furious iconoclasts, hostile to every- thing calculated to draw Israel into the movement of the world, demanded from the kings the persecution of all worships removed from monotheism, and denounced as crimes the sensible alliances which they had contracted outside. Never was opposition more bitter, more violent, more anarchical ; and yet at the bottom the opposition was right. Thence we find this principle, that Israel had but one vocation — the conservation of monotheism ; the direc- tion of its movements rightly belonged to the prophets. Israel could only rally humanity round the same faith by scrupulously separating itself first from all foreign influence. The conservation of monotheism required neither breadth nor variety of mind, but only an inflexible tenacity. THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 75 III. David and Solomon represented during sixty years (about six centuries before tbe Christian era) the highest degree of glory and temporal prosperity the Hebrews have ever reached. From that time all their dreams of happi- ness turn towards an ideal composed of David and Solomon — towards a king powerful and peaceful, who shall reign from the one sea to the other, and to whom all kings shall be tributary. At what moment does this fruitful thought, out of which shall arise the Messiah, make its appear- ance in Israel ? The critic should not say. These ideas, wrapped up in the depth of the conscience of a nation, have no beginning. Like all the profound works of Nature, they hide their origin in mysterious darkness. Was the idea of the dominion of the world born in Eome at a given moment? No; it was as ancient as Eome itself, and in some sort sealed up in the first stone of the Capitol. The faith in the Messiah, vague, obscure, inter- mingled with eclipses and neglect, slept all the same among the oldest associations of Israel. The unfitness of the Hebrews for a great political part disclosed itself more and more. Starting from Eehoboam, they are always in a state of vassalage — at first under Egypt, then under Assyria, then under the Persians, then under the Greeks, and then under the Eomans. One par- ticular cause accelerated the ruin of their temporal power. The tribe of Judah, although they gained a preponderance by the victory of David, never succeeded in stifling the individuality of the other tribes so as to unite the nation. The tribes in the north of Palestine grouped around that of Ephraim aspired to a separation, and supported impa- tiently the state of religious dependence under which they were held by Jerusalem. ?6 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. The great expenditure of Solomon, which weighed heavily on the provinces and only profited the capital, contributed to separate the interests of the North from the South. Ephraim with Mount Gerizim, the rival of Sion, the holy city of Bethel, the numerous memorials of the patriarchal age, was beyond contradiction the most considerable of the individualities which resisted the ab- sorbing action of Judah. The rivalry of these two prin- cipal families of Israel dates from the remotest period of their history. In the time of the Judges, by the sojourn of the Ark at Shiloh, and by its territorial importance, Ephraim truly held the hegemony of the nation. The idea of a monarchy failed for a moment to . be realised by Ephraim. 1 After the death of Saul, we find this tribe, grouping around it all the other tribes of the North, oppose without success Ishbosheth to David, the able and fortunate champion of the pretensions of Judah ; and at last, after the death of Solomon, the separatist tendency triumphs by the division of the kingdom of Israel and the acces- sion of an Ephraimite dynasty. Among the chiefs of the workmen whom Solomon employed in the construction of the rampart between Sion and Moriah, he noticed a robust young man of Ephraim, whose intelligent air struck him, and to whom he gave an important post under Government. This was the man destined to give a mor- tal blow to the house of David. Jeroboam during Solo- mon's lifetime raised the standard of revolt. The financial disorders which ensued on the death of the great king furnished an excellent opportunity for completing the separation which had become inevitable. We should not say that the schism of the ten tribes was, in view of the general destiny of the Hebrew people, a serious misfor- tune. Eeduced to a space of twenty leagues long by fifteen broad, Judah, left to itself, became purified and 1 See the narrative of the attempt of Abimelech (Judges ix.). THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 77 elevated — its religious ideas developed and became com- plicated. The North, on the contrary, delivered over to a brutal dynasty, became a prey to continual revolutions., and was soon disposed of — religious tradition became weak there. Harshly repulsed by the disdainful Jews of Jerusalem, when, after the Captivity, they volunteered their aid in rebuilding the Temple, the Samaritans could only copy at a distance the institutions of Judah. They took their revenge through Christianity. Christ found His most numerous disciples in the despised provinces (ill-fated as regards orthodoxy) of the ancient kingdom of the North, and in this sense we can fairly say that Samaria has had as much part in the work as Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. This old portion of the Hebrew people, which, if it has not had the brilliant destiny of Judah, has almost equalled it in perseverance and faith, is in our days on the eve of being extinguished, and affords to the world the singular spectacle of a religion about to die. Persecutions, misery, and the proselytism of more active sects — above all, Protestant missions- threaten every moment its frail existence. In 1820 the Samaritans numbered about five hundred. Kobin- son, who visited Nablous (the ancient Shechem) in 1838, did not find more than one hundred and fifty. In a petition which he addressed to the French Government in 1842, he states that they are reduced to forty families. Their old priest, Salami, the son of Tobias, who corre- sponded with Bishop Gregory and M. De Sacy, is still alive ; x but it does not appear that after him the know- ledge of the language and Samaritan traditions is likely to continue. At the present day, when all the world is seeking in the East for some one to protect, no one thinks of these poor Samaritans. 1 See the little work of M. l'Abbd Barges, entituled Les Samaritains de Kaplous. Paris, 1855, . . 78 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. It is further remarkable that prophetism in the kingdom of the North was at first an element of political disturb- ance still more serious than in the South, and rendered the law of succession almost impossible, whilst at Jerusalem the prestige of the House of David and the undisputed privilege of the Levites maintained a sort of right divine for the succession to the throne and the priesthood. Eli and his school represent to us the time when prophetism was all powerful, making and unmaking dynasties, govern- ing in reality under the name of kings in tutelage. The finest pages of M. Ewald's book are those where he shows the character and part of Eli. This giant among the prophets, by his ascetic life, the peculiar dress he wore, his invisible retreat in the mountains, from whence he issued like a supernatural being in order to launch his denunciations and to disappear as suddenly, assumed the more simple appearance of the ancient prophets with that of the ascetic school of the literary. A great revolution was not indeed slow to operate in the form of prophetism. The prophets of the school of Eli and Elisha did not write : to the ancient prophet, the man of action, succeeds the writing prophet, seeking his power in the beauty of his diction only. These wonderful publicists enriched the Hebrew Scriptures, heretofore limited to historical narra- tive, with canticles and parables of a novel kind ; theirs was a sort of political literature, maintained by the events of the day, and to which the press and the tribune of modern times can alone be compared. As the profane future of Israel seemed destroyed beyond hope of recovery, so the religious destiny became greater. The last days of the kingdom of Judah present one of the most wonderful religious movements in history. The first origin of Christianity is there. The ancient Hebrew religion, simple, severe, and without refined theology, is hardly anything but a negation. Towards the time of THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 79 which we speak, an exalted pietism, which led to the reforms of Hezekiah, and, above all, of Josiah, introduced new elements into Mosaism. Worship was centralised more and more at Jerusalem, prayers commenced. The word of devotion, which does not correspond to anything in ancient patriarchal religion, began to have a sense. New editions of the Mosaic code, conceived in a prophetic tone, and for which authority was obtained by certain pious artifices, were circulated •* certain canticles, composed by literary men and impressed with some measure of rhetoric, excited a zeal for Mosaism in the minds of the people. A loose style, prolix, but full of unction, of which we find a type in the works of Jeremiah, characterises these productions. It is not necessary to add that every fresh outbreak of piety was accompanied by a fresh outbreak of intolerance and persecution against all who did not con- form to the purest monotheism. A profound modification in the manner of feeling mani- fested itself at the same time — a spirit of mildness, a delicate sentiment of compassion for the weak, sympathy with the poor and the oppressed, with shades of character unknown in former times, appeared on all sides. The prophecies of Jeremiah and the. Deuteronomy are already recognised as Christian books. Love, charity, is born in the world. At the same time the cherished idea of Israel increases in strength, the expectation of a model king who will reign as God in Jerusalem and realise the ancient oracles. They believed that this perfect king was about to come ; but when they saw Josiah almost realise the • idea of a theocratic sovereign and then perish miserably, the hope gave way. The very simple system upon which the social edifice of Israel rests, the compact between God and the nation, by virtue of which, so long as the nation 1 V. Book of Kings (IV. according to the Vulgate), chaps, xxii., xxiii. 80 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. continued faithful to Jehovah, it should be happy and triumphant, this system, I say, could not fail of being attended with the severest disappointment. The prophets, who were charged with the application of this strange principle, must have had more than one struggle to main- tain against the reality. Oftentimes those epochs were the most unfortunate when piety was most lively, and we can say that the final catastrophe overtook Israel in the midst of a period of great fervour. Inured to deception, accus- tomed to hope against hope, Israel appealed from the letter to the spirit. The idea of a spiritual kingdom of God, and of a law written not upon stone, but in the heart, appeared to them like the dawn of a new future. Whilst the heart of Jerusalem was stirred with these delicate questions, on which depended the religious future of the world, immense and very powerful empires were being established in the East, to whom the destruction of Jerusalem hardly cost an effort. The Hebrews, with their ideas so simple on the subject of political and military organisation, showed a lively expression of surprise and fear when they found themselves for the first time in the presence of this formidable organisation of force, of impious and brutal materialism, of this despotism where the king usurped the place of God. The prophets, blind according to the flesh, clear-sighted according to the spirit, never ceased to reject the only policy which could save Israel, to batter the wall in order to attack royalty and to excite internal dissension by their threats and their puritanism. 1 We see them on the ruins of Jerusalem maintain their obstinacy, and almost triumph in the disasters which ful- filled their predictions. An ordinary policy would con- demn them and make them mainly responsible for the misfortunes of their country ; but the religious role of the Jewish people must always be fatal to their political role. 1 See, fpr example, Jeremiah xxxvi. THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 81 Israel must undergo the fate of people devoted to one idea, and parade its martyrs before the scorn of the world, whilst waiting for the rallied world to ask as a suppliant for a place in Jerusalem. IV. The Captivity only affected a small number of the inhabitants of Palestine, but it struck the head of the nation, and the whole class with whom religious tradition rested, in such a way that the whole spirit of Judea found itself transported to Babylonia. Such was the cause which brought to light, on the banks of the Euphrates, the most beautiful productions of Hebrew genius ; those psalms so touching, which enchant and penetrate the soul with sadness and hope; those incomparable prophetic odes which are added at the end of the works of Isaiah. 1 They dwelt outside Babylon, or rather in the little villages grouped round the great city, like a second capital of Judaism. The restorers of the institutions and of the ancient studies of Judea, like Esdras and Nehemiah, came from thence, and were surprised, on their arrival, at the ignorance and corruption of language they found among their co-religionists of Palestine. After the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, Babylon again became the principal centre of the intellectual culture of Israel, so that we may say that the continuation of Jewish tradi- tion was twice made through that city, following the two great catastrophes which, at a distance of seven centuries, entirely ruined Judaism at Jerusalem. I do not know whether there is, in the history of the human mind, a spectacle more strange than that of which Babylon was the witness in the sixth century before the Christian era — i Chaps, xl.-lxvi. The strongest proofs have established that these fragments are not by Isaiah, but of the time of the Captivity. F 82 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. that little group of exiles, lost in the midst of a profane crowd, feeling at the same time their material weakness and their intellectual superiority, and seeing around them the brutal reign of force and pride exalt itself and reach heaven. From so many divine oracles not yet fulfilled, from that mass of deceived hopes, from that struggle of faith and imagination against reality, the Messiah was definitively horn. In the presence of triumphant iniquity Israel appealed to the great day of Jehovah, and rushed resolutely into the future. Where did the nameless prophet 1 live who was at this decisive moment the interpreter of the mind of Israel? The dreams of the sick man, who, suffering from the delirium of fever, sees spread before him another world and another sun shining, never had a like ardour. We can only point out the motive of these divine hymns by which the illustrious nameless one saluted the New Jeru- salem. " Eaise thyself, radiant with light, Jerusalem ! A voice which cries in the desert : ' Prepare the ways of Jehovah, make smooth the paths ! • They are beautiful upon the mountains, the feet of him who announces salvation. Heavens, spread your dew, that the clouds may shed justice. What is he who comes from Edom, who comes from Bozrah with clothes red with blood ? " Then, in an obscure and mysterious vision, that sublime apotheosis of the man of grief, the first hymn to suffering the world had understood. The special gift of Israel — faith — the consciousness of his superiority surviving all his faults, the certainty of the future, which gave to a handful of captives the assurance that the world would some day belong to them, never shone more brilliantly than in the inspired pages of which we speak. " Eaise thine eyes and look around, Jerusalem, at the crowds who come and gather themselves together. Sons are brought to thee from far countries, and daughters 1 He whose works have been placed after the collection of Isaiah. THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 83 press upon thy bosom. A multitude of camels, the drome- daries of Midian and of Ephah, overflow thee ; those who come from Sheba, carrying gold and silver, and announc- ing the praises of Jehovah. The flocks of Kedar run towards thee; the rams of Nabioth offer themselves for thy sacrifices. Who are those who fly like the clouds, like doves to their shelter ? The isles of the sea are in hope ; the vessels of Tarshish are ready to bring sons to thee. Strangers offer themselves to build thy walls; kings become thy servants. Thy gates will be open night and day to allow the elect of the nations to enter, and the kings brought to do thee homage. The sons of those who have humiliated thee come bending before thee: those who despised thee shall kiss the ground of thy feet ; they shall call thee the City of God, the Holy Zion of Israel. Thou shalt suck the milk of nations ; thou shalt suckle at the breast of kings. No one shall hear speak of wicked- ness on the earth nor of disasters within thy frontiers: peace shall reign upon thy walls ; glory shall sit at thy gates. Thou shalt not need the sun to brighten thy days nor the moon to illumine thy nights : thy sun shall never set and thy moon shall no more decline; for Jehovah shall be thy light eternal, and the days of thy mourning shall pass away for ever." From this moment Israel appears to us to be exclusively possessed of the religious idea. Any of the profane distractions by which it had been occasionally hindered from henceforth troubled it no more. Above doubt, above revolt, above the tempta- tion to idolatry, Paganism inspired nothing more than the bitter and haughty derision of the Book of Wisdom. Judaism went on restraining and strengthening itself more and more. Liberty, the simplicity of the ancient Hebrew genius, so foreign to all scruples of theology and casuistry, gave place to the pettiness of Kabbinism. The scribe succeeded the prophet. A priesthood strongly organised 84 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. stifled all profane life : the Synagogue became what later on will be the Church, a sort of constituted authority, against which all independent thought is broken. Pietism became developed and produced a literature, very weak if we compare it with the productions of the classical epoch, but still full of charm : some touching and tender psalms, eternal food for pious souls, and the pretty romances of Tobit and Judith are of this period. We compare honest Tobit with Job, struck like him with undeserved misfor- tune : a world separates them. Here patience, virtue rewarded, sweet and consoling imagery; there revolt, obstinacy, dispute, and the proud feeling of the Arab say- ing in his misfortune, " God is great ! " a sentiment which has nothing in common with the entirely Christian virtue of resignation. A thorough indifference to political life was the conse- quence of the narrow and severe zeal which characterised the time at which we have now arrived. Israel was not charged with the duty of teaching liberty to the world ; thus we see that since the Captivity they willingly accom- modated themselves to the subordinate position, and availed themselves of the advantages offered by the situation with- out appearing to consider that there was anything shame- ful in it. Whilst Greece, with resources but little supe- rior to those of Palestine, gained her liberty by her first victory, Israel resigned itself to be only a province of the great King, and found it well enough. That is, we must confess, the bad side of Jewish historv. Beings onlv jealous for their religious liberty, the Jews submitted without much trouble to those powers who showed their worship some tolerance, and furnished to all the despotisms servants the more devoted because they were under no re- sponsibility towards the nation. The Chaldean empire, it is true, was hateful to them, and they hailed its ruin with cries of joy, because, doubtless, that military and wholly THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 85 profane empire had nothing which responded to their own nature. They accepted, on the contrary, as a benefit, the domination of the Persians, whose religion was the least Pagan of the Pagan world, and afforded by its gravity, its leaning towards monotheism, its horror for sculptured figures, much analogy with Mosaic worship. Cyrus was received by them as an envoy of Jehovah, and introduced as of right into the elect family of the people of God. We cannot deny that the Persians evinced considerable liberality towards Israel. Zorobabel, whom they estab- lished at the head of the nation, was of the house of David, and he was held out to the Jews to raise up through him their national dynasty ; but such was their political lukewarmness, that after Zorobabel they allowed the line to continue in obscurity, and recognised no other power than that of the high priest, which became hereditary. Israel followed its destiny more and more ; its history was no more that of a state, but of a religion. Such is the fate of those people who have to fill a mission, intellectual or religious, for other people, to pay for this brilliant and dangerous vocation with their own nationality. The Greek genius only acted powerfully upon the world for an age which had only a political role. It has been well shown that the first cause of the loss of Italy has been the uni- versal tendency of Italy : the supremacy which, in effect, she had exercised for so long, has had this effect, that wishing to be mistress everywhere, she has had nothing at home. Who knows if some day French ideas will not fill the world when Prance shall be no more ? Nationalities which hold strongly to their own soil, which do not seek to make their ideas prevail outside, are among themselves very tenacious, but they have little share in the general movement of the world. In order to act in the world we must die to ourselves: people who become missionaries of a religious thought have no other country than that S6 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. thought, and it is in this sense that too much religion kills a people and thwarts a purely national establishment. The Maccabees are admirable heroes, but their heroism does not excite in us the same impressions as Greek and Eoman patriotism. Miltiades fights for Athens without any after-thought of theology or of belief. Judas Macca- beus fights for a faith and not for a country, or at least for his country subordinated to faith. This is so true, that since the Captivity the soil of Palestine has become almost indifferent to the Jews. Their most flourishing, most enlightened, and most pious communities are spread in regions far distant from the East. A last trial, however, awaited Israel, and perhaps the most dangerous of all. I allude to the contact with Greek civilisation, which, starting from Alexandria, spread over all Asia. The first duty of the Jewish people was isolation. This duty they had been able to fulfil without too much trouble as regards Egypt, Phoenicia, and Assyria. Persia had exercised a sufficiently strong influence upon their imagination ; but, thanks to a singular analogy of institu- tions and genius, this influence, freely adopted, was not an infidelity. The temptation was much more serious before the incomparable fascination which the most noble part of the human race had to undergo from the influence of the Greek spirit. Israel at first was profoundly affected. The Jewish colonists in Egypt allowed themselves to be taken with the seductions of Hellenism ; they broke the communion with Jerusalem, and almost entirely went out of the Israelitish family. 1 Palestine itself at first suffered from the action of the Seleucides. A stadium and gymnasia were to be seen at Jerusalem. One powerful party, which included almost all 1 It is remarkable that Philo and the Jews of Egypt have not left any trace in the vast depot of doctrines which compose the Talmud. At the present day the true Jews hardly regard them as co-religionists. THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 87 the youth, favoured these novelties, and, fascinated by the splendours of the Greek institutions, held the worship and austere customs of their ancestors already in contempt. But this time again the conservative spirit prevailed. Some obstinate old men and a family of heroes saved the tradition around which the world was soon about to rally. The measure of danger may be estimated by the degree of hatred. Woe to those who try to oppose themselves to the free development of the religious needs of humanity. The most neglected historical memoirs are those of sove- reigns who, not having been able to foresee the future, or having foolishly endeavoured to stay the course of events, have become the persecutors of religious movements which were bound to succeed. Such were Antiochus, Herod, Diocletian, Julian, all great princes on the earth, whom the popular conscience has damned without pity. Antiochus Epiphanes, whose name is invariably associated with that of Nero, was a humane, enlightened prince, 1 who undoubtedly desired the progress of civilisation and the arts of Greece. The rude means which he employed were those which the Greeks and Eomans put into practice in order to bend to their purposes civilisations different from their own. After having remained for a long time as a hostage in Rome, Antiochus returned to Syria with his head full of ideas of Roman policy, and dreaming of an Eastern empire, founded, like that of Eome, upon the assimilation of nationalities and the extinction of pro- vincial varieties. Judea was the first obstacle he had to encounter in the execution of this project. The priesthood was at that time very weak ; the high priest, Jesus, who, to follow the fashion, called himself Jason, forgot himself so far as to send a theoria or deputation to the Herculean games at Tyre ; the Temple was pillaged ; at one time the Olympian Jupiter had his altar, and bacchanalians ran 1 See the evidence of the same Book of Maccabees, I. vi. 1 1. 88 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. through the streets of Jerusalem. Then began that heroic resistance which has given to religion its first martyrs. The priests and a great part of the population of Jeru- salem had given way, but it was the privilege and the secret of the strength of the Jewish people to maintain their faith independently of the priest, by keeping it in the conscience of a small number of heads of families attached to very simple ideas and governed by an invincible feel- ing of their own superiority. The destiny of humanity was risked then on the firmness of a few families. In consequence of this firmness the Greek spirit was reduced to impotence in Palestine, and deprived of all truly pro- ductive co-operation at the first budding of Christianity. An influence much more efficacious, because it was exercised without violence and by the effects of the moral conformity of the two people, was that of Persia. Persia is the only country which has exercised over the Jewish people a really profound religious action. One of the most important results of Oriental studies in these latter days has been to show the capital part which the insti- tutions of the Avesta have played in all Western Asia during the ages which preceded and those which imme- diately followed the Christian era. It is to Persia we must give the honour of so many of the new elements which we find in Christianity compared with Mosaism — elements which a superficial examination had at first attributed to Greece. Babylon, which continued to be one of the prin- cipal centres of Judaism, was the theatre of this comming- ling, which led to such serious results in the history of the human spirit, and of which the first consequences were for the Jews a most complicated theory of angels and demons, a refined spiritualism, if we compare it with the ancient Hebrew realism, a taste for symbols, confined to the Cabala, and gnosticism, ideas upon the terrestrial manifestations of the Deity, quite foreign to a Semitic people. The THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 89 belief in immortality and the resurrection of the body takes also more decided forms. The Hebrews had never, on this point, reached anything very decided. The immortality in which Israel has believed more than any other people was that of their race and their work, not that of the indi- vidual. At last these Messianic formulas assumed a form of much greater precision, and became connected with the belief that the end of the world was at hand, and would be accompanied by a renewal of everything. 1 A series of compositions written under the form of apocalyptic visions, which M. Ewald ri^htlv considers as a sort of revival of prophetism, such as the Books of Daniel, Enoch, the fourth Book of EsdraSj and the Sibylline verses, 2 were the product of this new taste, which, if we compare it with the style of the poets of the good epoch, represents a sort of roman- ticism. If we only look upon the form, these are the productions of a thorough decadence. However, we some- times meet with a singular vigour of thought. The Book of Daniel, in particular, may be considered as the most ancient essay upon the philosophy of history. The revo- lutions which passed over the East, the cosmopolitan habits of the Jewish people, and the intuition which that people have always had with regard to the future, gave them, under the circumstances, an immense advantage over Greece. Whilst political history — I should say, the history of the internal strife of the city — has found in Greece and in Italy its most excellent interpreters, Israel has had the glory of being the first to look upon humanity as a 1 See an excellent work upon the origin and formation of these apoca- lyptic beliefs among the Jews, recently published in the Revue de Tkeologie of M. Colani (October 1855) by M. Michel Nicolas, Professor of the Theo- logical Faculty of Montauban. The demonstration of that which is indi- cated here will there be found. 2 No doubt is possible with regard to the relatively modern date of the Book of Daniel. See the special works of M. Lengerke, Ilitzig, Liicke, Ewald. Part of the Sibylline verses is of Jewish origin. 90 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. whole, to see in the sequence of empires something more than a fortuitous succession, and reduce to a formula the development of human affairs. Incomplete though it may- be, this system of philosophy of history is at least that which has existed longest ; it has lasted since the epoch of the Maccabees until almost to our day. St. Augustine in the CiU de Dieu and Bossuet in the Histoire Universelle have found nothing essential to add to it. A new fact in Israel heralded the productive age which preceded the birth of Christ : numerous sects arose, intro- ducing a subtil ty of theological pretensions unknown until then. At the same time the practices of particular devo- tion, towards which the ancient Hebrews were never much attracted, spread, and, following the eternal law of religions, whilst developing the accessory, obliterated the original foundation. The synagogues or places of religious meetings, of which we find no trace before the Captivity, and of which the institution is but slightly in harmony with the spirit of Mosaism, became of great importance and multi- plied everywhere. The influence of Higher Asia made itself felt more and more ; but whilst opened on the Eastern side, Jerusalem remained closed on the side of Greece, and obstinately declined all intercourse with Western philosophy. A few enlightened men, too reasonable to succeed, the Sadducees, tried to constitute a sort of rational Mosaism. The unbelieving Herod caused the Temple to be rebuilt in the Greek style, and opposed to the fanatics a wholly worldly policy, based on the separation of Church and State and upon equal toleration of all the different sects. These timid remedies availed nothing against the mysterious evil which afflicted Israel. The Pharisees objected, but who were the Pharisees ? The continuators of the true tradition, the sons of those who resisted during the Captivity, who resisted, under the Maccabees, the ancestors of the Talmudists, and those who mounted on THE HISTe&F-OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 91 the pyres of the Middle Ages, the natural enemies of all those who aspired to make Abraham's bosom wider and more inclusive. Thus the grand law which governs the history of Israel was maintained to the end, the struggle between the liberal tendency and the conservative tendency — a struggle in which, for the happiness of the world, the conservative thought has always been uppermost. He who studies this history according to our modern ideas, reflected by the ideas of Greece and Eome, is scandalised at each step : he would be for Saul against Samuel, for Ishbosheth against David, for the kings against the prophets, for the Samaritans against the Jews, for the Hellenist party against the Maccabees, for the Sadducees against the Pharisees. However, if Saul and Ishbosheth had succeeded, Israel would have been nothing but a petty state, forgotten in the East, something like Moab and Idumea. If the kings had succeeded in stifling the prophets, perhaps Israel might have equalled in the order of profane things the prosperity of Tyre or of Sidon, but all the religious part would have been suppressed. If the Maccabees had not been found to resist the Seleucidse, Judea would have become a country like Bithynia or Cappadocia, absorbed first by Greece and then by Rome. It was, if we may say so, the obstinate Jews of Modin, with narrow and back- ward spirit, with minds closed to all idea of progress, devoid of feeling for art, and totally incapable of under- standing the brilliant civilisation of Greece. "We cannot deny that the Sadducees appear in many things to be superior to the Pharisees. The whole history of Israel proves, by a striking example, that victory here below does not belong to the causes which seem the most reasonable, the most liberal ; it is to those whom Jehovah has chosen to guide humanity towards the unknown countries which the divine oracles have promised. 92 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. The moment was come when enlarged thought and narrow thought were to have their last struggle, and when the two contrary tendencies which had agitated Israel were about to end in being rent asunder. One part, indeed, the Jewish people, had a mission essentially con- servative : the other boldly appropriated the future. The day when that future happened, it was easy to see that the synagogue would obey its eternal maxim : always to hope, always to resist. From that arises the false position of Israel in the presence of Christianity, and the origin of that irreconcilable hatred which eighteen centuries have scarcelv satisfied. Christ came from out of its midst, and in order to be faithful to its principle Israel ought to have crucified Him. Christianity was its natural development, and it ought to have repulsed it. Driven from the lap of his mother, this son ought to have grown big and gone without her to the destiny which awaited him. St. Paul has expressed, with the energy of his passionate genius, this situation, the most extraordinary that the religious history of the world has ever presented. Let us stay upon the threshold of this mysterious scene, in which the whole of the life of Israel is displayed in its entirety. Religions neither die nor abdicate, and Judaism, having produced its fruit, ought to continue its long and tenacious existence throughout the ages. Only the spirit of life is henceforth gone out of it : its history is beautiful and curious still, but it is the history of a sect; it is no longer specially the history of religion. "What if, in ending, we put this question : Has Israel ful- filled its vocation ? Has it maintained, amidst the great struggle of the people, the post originally assigned to it ? Yes, we answer without hesitation. Israel has been the stock upon which the faith of human kind has been grafted. No people have taken their destiny seriously like Israel; none have felt so vividly their national joys THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 93 and griefs; none have lived so entirely for one idea. Israel has conquered time, and made use of all its op- pressors. The day when, through false intelligence, the taking of Sebastopol was celebrated a year too soon, an old Polish Jew, who passed his days in the Imperial Library absorbed in reading the dusty manuscripts of his nation, accosted me, citing the passage from Isaiah, " She is fallen, she is fallen, Babylon!" The victory of the allies was in his eyes only the chastisement for the violence exercised towards his co-religionists by him whom he called the Nebuchadnezzar and the Antiochus of our times. I seem to see before me, in this sad old man, the living genius of this indestructible people: he has clapped his hands upon all the ruins ; persecuted by all, he has been avenged on all. One simple thing only was needful to him, but that one thing which man does not give to himself — to last. It is from that he has realised the boldest dreams of his prophets. The world which despised him has come to him ; Jerusalem, at the present hour, is truly " a house of prayer for all nations." Equally venerated by the Jew, the Christian, the Mussulman, she is the Holy City of four hundred millions of men, and the prophecy of Zachariah is fulfilled to the letter : " In that time then ten men shall attach themselves to the lappet of a Jew's coat, saying to him : We will go with you, for we have heard say that the Lord is with you ! " f THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. It is said that Angelico of Fiesole only painted the heads of the Virgin and of Christ when upon his knees : it would have been well if the critics had done the same, and modified the rays of certain figures before which the ages bow, after having adored them. The first duty of the philosopher is to unite the great band of humanity for the worship of goodness and moral beauty, as manifested in all noble characters and elevated symbols. The second is to search indefatigably for truth, with the firm conviction that if the sacrifice of our egotistical instincts can be agree- able to the Deity, it ought not to be so with regard to our scientific instincts. The timid credulity which, for fear of seeing the object of its faith vanish altogether, embodies every fancy, is as contrary to the harmony and sound discipline of the human faculties as the purely negative criticism which renounces the adoration of the ideal type because it has discovered that the ideal does not always conform to the actual. It is as well to understand that criticism, so far from excluding respect, and inferring, as timid people suppose it, a crime of divine and human treason, includes, on the contrary, acts of the purest wor- ship. May be it fears to be taken as irreverent when it seeks to withdraw the veil from the true physiognomy of the sublime Master, who has said, " I am the truth." An instinct so profound induces man to search for truth at the cost of his dearest beliefs. This instinct consti- tutes, with elevated natures, a duty so imperative that the ,94 THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 95 criticism of the origins of a religion is never the work of freethinkers, but of the most enlightened sectaries of that religion. The branch of Christianity which leans most essentially upon the Bible is precisely that which has created the rational interpretation of biblical texts. The boldest works upon the history of the founders of Chris- tianity have come from Christian theologians. When lay science began to occupy itself with these difficult subjects, it had only to recapitulate, from its own point of view, the works undertaken by clerical erudition, and which theology alone, we must say, had formerly the liberty to undertake. If the independent thinker of our days just dares to touch on these sufficiently formidable problems, what in the past would have been the fate of the historian who, without any regard for the faith of eighteen centuries, should cite before his tribunal him whose face appears to us to be surrounded with the aureole of the Deity ? It was not in the beginning that criticism could dream of such a bold enterprise. The day when, it places its hand upon this last sanctuary, it has then concluded a long series of onslaughts against received opinions, and planted its flag upon a place the outworks of which it has already destroyed. You should study, indeed, the march of modern criticism since the Renaissance. You will see it always following the line of its inflexible progress, replace one after another the superstitions of incomplete science with the true images of the past. Sorrow seems to attach itself to each of the steps it takes in that fatal path; but in reality there is not one of the gods dethroned by criticism who does not also receive from criticism more legitimate titles to adoration. It is at first the false Aristoteles of the Arabs and of the commentators, who falls under the blows of the Hellenists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and is made to give place to the authentic and original 96 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. Aristoteles ; then it is Plato raised against the scholastic peripateticism preached at Florence as the Gospel, but finds its true title to glory in descending from the rank of a revelation to that of a philosopher ; then it is Homer, the idol of ancient philology, who one fine day seems to have disappeared from his pedestal of three thousand years, and resumes his true beauty in becoming the imper- sonal expression of the genius of Greece ; then it is primi- tive history, received until then with a coarse realism, which happens to be so much better understood when it is more strictly examined. A courageous march from the letter to the spirit, painful deciphering, which substitutes for the legend a reality a thousand times more beautiful, such is the law of modern criticism. Wolf has done more for the true glory of Homer than generations of blind admirers, and I have always regretted not to see him figuring in the fine picture of M. Ingres, among those to whom the Iliad and the Odyssey owe the better part of their immortality. It was inevitable that criticism, in this passionate research into origins, should encounter that collection of works, the products, more or less pure, of the Hebrew genius, which, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, form, according to the point of view where we place them, either the most beautiful of sacred books or the most curious among litera- ture. After so many admirable works undertaken for the information of antiquity — Greek, Latin, and even Oriental — how was it that no one dreamed of the Bible ? How was it they refused to examine the most precious monument which remains to us of the most interesting of antiquities ? To stay the human mind upon this descent would have been an impossible thing. Nevertheless, whilst orthodoxy was still the law of external life, and even of the greater part of conscience, there were believers who at first tried biblical criticism. Simple illusion! THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 97 which proves at least the good faith of those who under- took the work, and still more the fatality which carries away the human mind engaged in the paths of rationalism to a rupture, which at first it endeavoured to avoid, with tradition. Criticism has two modes of attacking a marvellous story ; as to accepting it as such, it is not to be thought of, since its essence is the negation of the supernatural : x First, to admit the foundation of the story, but to explain, in taking count of the age and the persons who have trans- mitted it to us, and of the forms received at such and such epochs to express the facts ; secondly, to take the doubt upon the story itself, and consider its formation without according to it any historic value. On the first hypothesis, we adhere to it to explain the same as matters of history; we assume, consequently the reality of the matter. On the second, without expressing any opinion on the reality, we analyse the apparition of the narrative like a simple psychological fact ; we regard it as a poem created entirely by tradition, not having, or not being capable of having, any other cau^e than the instincts of the spiritual nature of man. In Biblical exegesis we give to those who follow the first method the name of ration- 1 An explanation has become necessary upon this word, since writers have adopted the habit of designating by the word supernatural the ideal and moral element of life, in opposition to the materialist and positive element. In this sense we could not deny the supernatural without falling into a coarse sensualism, which is as far as possible from my thought ; for I believe, on the contrary, that only intellectual and moral life has some value and full reality. I mean here by supernatural the miracle, a parti- cular act of the Deity being introduced in a series of events of the physical and psychological world, and deranging the course of circumstances in the face of a special government of humanity. G 9 3 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. alists, 1 because at first they only opposed the supernatur- alists, and we reserve to the partisans of the second the name of mythologists. The first mode of explanation, the employment of which could not fail to lead to views singularly narrow, was the only one known from antiquity. Evhemerus has left his name to the system which, in the interpretation of myths, substitutes natural facts for marvellous traditions. Pro- testant exegesis was at first pure evhemerism. 2 A man whose name does not occupy in the history of the human mind the place it deserves, Eichhorn, first applied this system of interpretation to the Bible. The progress of history and philosophy has brought about the alternative of admitting divine intervention among all people in the primitive age, or denying it among all. Among all the primitive people, he observes, that which was unexpected and not understood was attributed to the Deity; the learned always lived in communication with the superior beings. Outside Hebraic history no one is tempted to believe in the literal truth of similar narratives. But evidently, adds Eichhorn, reason requires that we should treat the Hebrews and the non-Hebrews after the same manner. In a manner, we ought to place all people during their infancy under the control of superior beings, or not to believe in a similar Influence among any of them. To admit a primitive supernaturalism common to all nations is to create a world of fables. What is to be done, then, 1 it is necessary to intimate that the name of rationalist is used here in a purely conventional sense, in order to designate those exegetes who first applied evhemeristic criticism to the Bible. The true rationalists, in our view, are neither the exegetes who were first called by that name, nor the mythologists, but those who applied, or will apply, to Jewish and Christian history a criticism free from all dogmatic bias. 2 The history of these first essays has been thoroughly treated by Strauss, Life of Jesus, Introduction. See also I! Introduction ti VAncien et au Nouveau Testament of M. l'Abbd Glaire, vol. i. p. 534 et seq. THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 99 is this : to consider the ancient narratives according to the spirit of the times which have left them to us. Without doubt, if they had been written with the precision of our age, we should have had either to recognise a real inter- vention of the Deity, or a lie invented for the purpose of creating a belief in such intervention ; but coming from an epoch when there was no criticism, these simple docu- ments express themselves without artifice, and conformably to the opinions received at the time when they were written down. In order to get at the truth, we have only to translate the language of the ancients into our language. So long as the human mind had not yet penetrated the true cause of physical phenomena it attributed everything to supernatural power: high thoughts, great resolutions, useful inventions, and, above all, dreams of lively imagery, came from a god. It was not only the people that took in these easy explanations; the superior men had not themselves any doubt in these respects, and boasted with perfect conviction of their relations with the Deity. Under these marvellous narratives of the Bible we must then, says Eichhorn, search for natural and simple facts expressed according to the habit of infant people. Thus the smoke and the flame of Sinai were nothing but a fire which Moses lighted upon the mountain to excite the imagination of the people, and with which, by chance, there coincided a violent storm; the luminous column was a torch which they carried in front of the caravan ; the radiant appearance of the face of the legislator was a consequence of the great overheating ; and he himself, ignoring the real cause, saw, with the people, something divine in it. It was an immense step to have subjected the body of Hebrew writings to the same method of interpretation as the rest of the works of the human mind, however defec- tive that method of interpretation might then be. It ioo STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. required some time to embolden one to treat the writings of the New Testament in the same way, composed as they were in an epoch nearer our own, and being, besides, objects of more special veneration. Eichhorn, like all reformers, hesitated at the first step, and applied very timidly only the rationalistic method to the evangelical facts ; he scarcely ventured to apply the natural sense to some of the narratives in the history of the Apostles, as the conversion of St. Paul, the miracle of the Pentecost, the angelic appearances. It was in 1 800 that Dr. Paulus entered full sail into this new sea, and laid the first foundations of a critical history of Jesus. Paulus distin- guished with much delicacy, what is done in a narrative (the objective element) from the judgment of the narrator (the subjective element). The fact, that is, the reality which serves to base the narrative ; the judgment of the fact, that is, the manner in which the spectator or the narrator views it, the explanation which is given of it to himself — the manner, in a word, in which the fact is refracted in his individuality. The Gospels, according to Paulus, are histories written by credulous men under the influence of a lively imagination. The Evangelists are historians after the fashion of those artless witnesses who, in relating the most simple matter, cannot help themselves from presenting it to us w T ith the additions of their chief. In order to get at the truth, we must place ourselves at the point of view of the epoch, and separate the real fact from the embellishments which a credulous faith and a taste for the marvellous have added to it. Paulus held firmly to the historic truth of the narratives ; he strove to introduce into the evangelical history a rigorous concate- nation of dates and facts; but these facts have nothing which requires a supernatural intervention. To him, Jesus is not the Son of God in the sense of the Church, but he is a wise and virtuous man : they are not miracles which THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 101 he does, but they are acts partly of goodness and philan- thropy, partly of medical skill, and partly of chance and good fortune. Some examples will serve to make it understood that such a mode of interpretation, however ingenious, was more often subtle and forced. Let us take first the Gospel narrative of the birth of John the Baptist. This narrative includes two supernatural, and, consequently, inadmissible circumstances — the appearance of the angel and the dumb- ness suffered by Zacharias. The exegetes, of whom we speak, explain the apparition of the angel by the constant laws of angelophania. To the one, it was a man who told the father of John the Baptist that which he himself attri- buted to a divine messenger. To the others, it was a ray of light which struck his imagination ; to others, it was a dream; to others, an ecstasy or hallucination caused by the mental state in which he was, and by the religious function he had performed. With his mind excited in the semi-obscurity of the sanctuary, he thought, whilst he was praying, of the object for which he most ardently wished; he hoped to be favourably heard, and he was in consequence disposed to see a sign in everything which could show itself. The smoke of the incense, shone upon by the lamps, formed figures; the priest imagined he saw a celestial being, who frightened him at first, but from the mouth of whom he soon believed that he heard consolatory promises. Scarcely does a slight doubt arise in his heart than the scrupulous Zacharias looks upon himself as guilty of unbelief, and feels himself repri- manded by the being sent from God. As to the dumb- ness, a double explanation is possible : either a sudden apoplexy really paralysed the tongue of Zacharias, which he regarded as a punishment of his doubts, or Zacharias, from a Jewish superstition, forbad himself the use for some time of words which he accused himself of having 102 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. employed in a wrongful manner. All the incidents of the narrative are thus accepted as real, but explained without a miracle : the new exegetes do not for one moment dream of asking if the narrative in question was not a fiction, conceived on the model of circumstances such as the Old Testament attributes to the birth of all the great men. Let us take, again, for example, the narrative of the Gospels as to the fasting which Jesus underwent for forty days. If we believe the rationalists, forty was a round number to signify several days, or the abstinence was not complete, and did not exclude herbs and roots. One of them even observed that it was well said that Jesus had eaten nothing, but not that he had drunk nothing ; but, added he. we have seen an enthusiast sustain himself during forty-five days with water and tea, without any nourishment. The other marvellous circumstances in the life of Jesus were explained in an analogous manner. The celestial light of the shepherds of Bethlehem was neither more nor less than a lantern which was carried before their eyes. The star of the Magi was a comet ; and if it was said that the star accompanied them on their voyage, that should be understood as the light they would carry before them during "the night. When they relate that Jesus walked upon the sea, these would say that He rejoined His disciples by swimming, or in walking along the shore. Another time He calmed the tempest by taking the helm with a firm hand. The multiplication of the loaves is explained by secret stores, or by the provisions which the congregation had brought with them in their pockets. The rich had too much of it ; the poor had too little, or they had none at all. Jesus, with true philanthropy, advised them to dine in common, and then every one had something. The angels of the Eesurrection were nothing else than the white THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 103 winding-sheets, which the pious women took for celestial beings. The Ascension was the same, reduced to the pro- portions of a natural fact, by the hypothesis of a mist, under cover of which Jesus adroitly escaped, and saved Himself on the other side of the mountain. This was certainly a narrow interpretation, but little fitted to preserve the dignity of the character of Jesus — an interpretation full of subtlety, founded on the mecha- nical employment of some proceedings (ecstasy, lightning, storm, cloud, &c.) — explanations otherwise inconsequent from the theological point of view; for if the sacred narrators deserve any faith under the circumstances, why hold so strongly to their veracity upon the base of the narrative ? Errors of detail are not more compatible with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit than impostures. We are not slow to feel the insufficiency of a method of in- terpretation so scanty. Eichhorn himself, the father of Biblical evhemerism, recognised the necessity for a larger exegesis in respect of some part of the books of the Old Tes- tament, and particularly for the traditions relating to the creation and the fall of man. After having tried different natural explanations of these traditions, and felt, as a scrupulous theologian, that it would have been unworthy of the Deity to have allowed the insertion of a mytho- logical fragment in a revealed book, he recognised the puerility of like attempts, and saw in the before-mentioned narrative only the mythical translation of this philoso- phical thought. The desire for a better state is the source of all the evil in the world. II. The explanation called rationalistic satisfied the first need of hardihood which the human mind experienced in taking possession of a territory so long forbidden. But io| STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. experience soon revealed its irremediable defects, its aridity and coarseness. There never was a better illustration of the ingenious allegory of the daughters of Minyas, who were changed into bats for having seriously criticised the vulgar beliefs of the age. There is as much good-nature and credulity, but much less poetry, in discussing legends clumsily in detail, as in accepting them in their entirety once for all. We rightly treat as barbarous the hagio- graphers of the seventeenth century, who, in writing the Vie des Saints, admit certain miracles, and reject others as being too difficult of belief. It is clear that upon this principle they ought to have rejected all ; and to a mean critic, who does violence to the text in order to be but half reasonable, we prefer, from the esthetic point of view, the manner of the Saint Elizabeth of M. Montalembert, where the fables are collected without distinction, in such a way that it is throughout doubtful whether the author believes all, or whether he believes nothing. At least we remain free to suppose that he does not wish to raise diffi- culties, and the book thus composed has an incontestable merit as a work of art. Such also was the fine and poetic method of Plato ; such is the secret of the inimitable charm which his half-believing, half-doubting dealing with the popular myths gives to his philosophy. 1 But to accept 1 "Phsedon : Tell me, Socrates, is there not here some part upon the banks of the Illissus where Boreas carried off the young Oreithyia ? Socrates : They say so. . . . But tell me, as a favour, do you believe in this fabulous adventure ? If I doubted it, like the learned, I should not be much embar- rassed ; I could subtilise, and say that the north wind made one of the neighbouring rocks fall when she played with Pharmaceia, and that this kind of death gave rise to the belief that she was ravished by Boreas. For myself, my dear Phaedon, I find these explanations very ingenious, but I confess they require too much labour and refinement, and they put a man in sufficiently sad position : for then he must be resigned also to explain in the same way the Hippocentaurs, after that the Chimera, then the Pegasus, the Gorgons, an innumerable host of other monsters, each more frightful than the other, who, if we refuse to believe in, and if we wish to bring THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 105 one part of these miraculous narratives and reject the other is perhaps only the act of a narrow mind. Nothing is less philosophic than to mate a part impossible, and apply a realistic criticism to narratives conceived outside of all reality. The study of comparative mythology produced new- ideas from all parts of Germany. Heyne, Wolf, Niebuhr, and soon Ottfried Muller, unveiled Greek and Latin anti- quity. India opened its treasures, and furnished invaluable documents, without which the history of the human mind would have been for ever incomplete. Heyne had pro- claimed this beautiful principle : "A mytliis omnis priscorum hominum cum historia turn philosophia procedit." Gabler, Bauer, Vater, and De Wette applied to sacred history the principles of criticism so delicately recognised as appli- cable to profane history, and in 1 802 Bauer brought out a Hebrew Mythology of the Old and New Testament The most ancient history of all people, said Bauer, is mythical: why should the history of the Hebrews form the only exception, when a glance at the books of the Bible proves that they contain legends like those of other people ? Here the new school triumphs easily, for where can we find mythological narratives more character- istic than those of the temptation of Eve, of Noah and the ark, of Babel, &c. ? Since 1805 Wecklein, the professor of theology at Munster, has taught that the carrying away of Enoch and Elijah had no more reality about it than that of Ganymede ; that the appearance of the angel to Hagar was of the same kind as that of Apollo to Diomedes ; that Jehovah helped Gideon and Samson like Jupiter did them to a probability, require subtleties almost as odd as themselves, and a great loss of time. I have not so much leisure. ... I give up then the study of all these histories, and restrict myse to believe as the common people believe. I occupy myself not with these indifferent things, but with myself." — Trans, of M. Cousin, vol. vi. pp. 7-9. 106 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. the Trojans. The new explanation soon becomes a com- plete theory. In the Bible there were myths, historical, philosophical, and poetical, and soon they found in the history of the Hebrews all the traits of that primitive age when the human mind, without calculation or artifice, only knows how to express the truth under the cover of fable. What absurdity, say the exegetes of the new school to the rationalists, to take away the marvellous from the Pentateuch, for example, whilst all the evidence shows that the writer, in a number of places, believed he was recounting miracles ! They wish to understand his words better than himself. Similar narratives ought not to be treated as historical ; they are legendary and traditional. Tradition, says De Wette, has no discernment ; its tendency is not historical, but patriotic and poetical. Most of the narratives are beautiful, honourable to the nation, and better received when marvellous. If here and there, some gaps are to be found, the imagination soon fills them up. It is an odd thing, and only understood in Germany, that such a system should be proposed by theologians as the only means of defending the Bible against the objections of its adversaries. As the evhemeristic interpretation had been applied to the narratives of the Old Testament before it was applied to those of the New, so some time elapsed before the mythological exegetes permitted themselves to touch the holy of holies. But the propensity was fatal. Bauer, with- out treating the Gospel as a mythic history at the end of the other, had already found there some isolated myths, and confessed that the narratives of the infancy of Jesus, for example, were not open to any other explanation. They were derived, said he, from the natural leaning which gives rise to so many marvellous anecdotes on the youth of celebrated men — anecdotes which find ready credence with posterity. Besides, the Evangelists could not have THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 107 had any historical document relating to his early years, because Jesus had not then excited any attention. Almost all the exegetes ingenuously admit that the narratives of the Gospels do not merit such confidence as those of the latter years of the life of Jesus, and the most timid confine themselves to regarding the chapters relating to the infancy in Luke and Matthew as apocryphal interpolations. Thus the mythological explanation, admitted at first on the threshold of the Old Testament, was now upon the threshold of the New ; but we were forbidden very seri- ously from proceeding farther. These barriers were not long in falling. The latter circumstances in the life of Jesus, above all the Ascension, appeared to be stamped with the same characteristics as those of the infancy, and seemed to require the same explanation. Thus the edifice was penetrated at both extremities, and, following the expression of a theologian, they entered into evangelical history by the triumphal arch of the myth, and went out of it by a similar way ; but for all the intermediate space, they had to content themselves with the tortuous and pain- ful byways of natural explanation. They were not content for long. Gabler thought he saw myths in all the miraculous circumstances of the public life. Indeed, says he, from the moment that the idea of the myth was introduced into the Gospel, no line of demar- cation could be traced, and from the beginning to the end the myth penetrates to the core of evangelical history. Why stop at the baptism of Jesus, when that scene itself is related in a manner evidently legendary ? If the Ascen- sion is placed among the myths, why not recognise the same character in the Eesurrection, the apparition of Gethsemane, &c. ? Thus disregarding the limits which they would impose upon it, the myth has made positive inroads on the history of Jesus. After this victory the mythological school, however a ioS STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. offered numberless varieties. Ou the side of mythical explanation, many still admitted the evhemeristic inter- pretation or intermingled the two in different proportions. They did not give up searching for history in the Gospel ; the more learned declared that it was scarcely possible to distinguish the part which ought to be considered real from the part which was symbolical. Criticism, they said, was not an instrument sharp enough to separate the two elements from each other ; all that they could arrive at was a kind of probability and say, " Here is more his- torical reality ; there myth and poetry predominate." Germany never stays upon the road of speculation, and almost always passes beyond the limit in the application of theory. The eclectic mythologists were succeeded by the absolute, who endeavoured to explain all the circum- stances of the Gospels as pure myths, and gave up the attempt to extract an historic residue. Dr. David Frederic Strauss has made himself a European reputation by pre- senting this system with a vast array of science and reason- ing in his celebrated book, The Life of Jesus. 1 " The ancient interpretation of the Church," says he in the preface to his first edition, " involves two suppositions — the first, that the Gospels include history ; the second, that this history is a supernatural history. Eationalism, rejecting the second of these propositions, fastens on to the first the more strongly as it finds in these books a history, but a natural history. Science cannot thus rest half way ; it must let go the other supposition ; it must ascertain if and where we are upon historical ground in the Gospels ; it is the natural course of things, and under these circumstances the appearance of a work of this kind is not only justified, but is moreover necessary." 1 The Life of Jesus, or Critical Examination of His History, by Dr. D. F. Strauss, translated by M. E. Littre\ of the Acaddmie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. 2nd edit., 2 vols. Paris, Ladrange, 1853. THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 109 Strauss is here perfectly right. We ought to thoroughly ignore the history of German theology for having heaped upon the name of a single man, as it has done, maledic- tions which result from all the intellectual work of which this is the recapitulation. To declaim against these inevit- able appearances, to authorise what is partial and incom- plete in order to deny what is legitimate, is to assail the destiny of reason on the necessary progress of the human mind. Strauss is one of the mooring-rings of modern science. The Prolegomena, the introductory observations to Homer of Wolf, were necessary to elucidate the life of Jesus. Certainly after Wolf the Homeric question, as after Strauss the evangelical question, has made much progress, but the errors even into which these two great critics have fallen are those which we ought to consider valuable as preparing us for the discovery of the truth. Of all the thinkers of Germany, Strauss is perhaps the most appreciated in France. The greater part only know him from the injurious observations of his adversaries, and from having heard that a mad fellow of that name had denied the existence of Christ ; for it is in terms equally absurd that they have characterised the Life of Jesus. On the other side, those who have regarded Strauss as an historian, freed from all prejudice foreign to science, have certainly mistaken his true character. Strauss, we must say — however surprising it may be to make this double asser- tion — Strauss is at once a theologian (to many, a timid one) and a philosopher of the school of Hegel. Yes ; we ought never to forget when we read the Life of Jesus that the book is a book of theology, a book of sacred exegesis, a book of the same order as those of Michaelis, Eichhorn, and Paulus, who pretend not to go out of the theological world. These are not the free and easy steps of independent science ; this is a system of hermeneutics which opposes itself to another system with a pedantic no STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. stiffness. In France, where the schism between theology and profane science is much more pronounced, where each of the two orders of study live apart and do not trouble each other, we cannot understand a phenomenon so singular. Voltaire would have been a professor in a theological faculty in Germany. The celebrated Gesenius, the boldest of ration- alists, explained some years ago at Halle the literature Jiebraique in the midst of the plaudits of more than eight hundred hearers, all future ministers of the Holy Gospel. Strauss had been a professor of theology, and could have taught his system from the sacred chair. Let us hear him officially express, in this respect, the scruples of his timid conscience. " The author," says he, in the preface to the first edition, " knows that the internal evidence of Christian belief is completely independent of his critical researches. The supernatural birth of Christ, his miracles, his resurrec- tion, and his ascension remain eternal truths, but the reality of these things as historical facts may be open to some doubts. This certainly alone can give repose and dignity to our criticism, and distinguish it from the natural ex- planations of former ages — explanations which, proposing to overturn religious truth with historical fact, were neces- sarily struck with a character of frivolity. However, some may feel affected in their faith by researches of this nature. If it was thus for theologians, they would have in their science a remedy for such injury, which could not be spared to them from the moment they wished to remain behind in the development of our epoch. As to the laity, it is true that the matter is not suitahly prepared for them. As to the present writing, it has been arranged so as to admit more than once the remark to the uninstructed laity that it is not meant for them; and if, from an imprudent curiosity or too much anti-heretical zeal, they are allowed to read it, they will carry it away (as Schleier- macher says under similar circumstances) with a pain in THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. in their consciences, for they cannot escape the conviction that they do not understand what we wish to talk about." Strauss, who has been introduced in France as a sort of antichrist, is then really a theologian ; let us add, at the risk of appearing to seek a paradox, that this theologian is a disciple of Hegel. The Life of Jesus is at bottom only the philosophy of the chief of the contemporaneous German school applied to the evangelical narratives ; the christo- logy of the theologian is only the symbolic translation of the abstract thesis of the philosopher. God is not an inaccessible infinity, who obstinately resides outside and above the finite ; who penetrates these in such a way that finite nature, that is to say, the world and the human mind, are only an alienation which he has made from him- self, and from which they go out again to re-enter into his unity. Man has truth only as a finite being; God, again, has no reality, inasmuch as he is infinite and is included in his infinity. The true and real existence of the spirit is not, then, either God in himself nor man in himself, but it is in the God-man. From the moment that humanity is mature enough to make its religion of this truth, that God is man and that man is of divine race, an individual must arise whom we know to be the present God, this God-man containing in a single being the divine essence and human personality, truly a divine spirit for father and a human mother. Man of divine essence, he is without sin and perfect ; he lords over nature ; he performs miracles, however by his humanity he is depen- dent on nature ; he is subject to suffering and to death. Opposed to men who do not overstep their finite nature, he ought to die by violence at the hand of the sinners ; but he knows the means of getting out of this abyss, and to take the road towards himself. The death of the man- God being only the suppression of his alienation, there is in that circumstance an elevation and a return to God ; ii2 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. consequently his death is necessarily followed by the resurrection and the ascension. This Christ a priori, one sees well, is still not the his- toric Christ, he who bore the name of Jesus. This is the human spirit, and the human spirit solely, which reunited all the attributes of the Hegelian Christ. There never has existed an individual, formed by a singular law from the divine essence and the human essence, dominating nature, performing miracles, resuscitated corporeally; there has never existed an individual more exclusively God, who has been before him, or who will be after him. That is not the proceeding by which the idea is realised. She does not waste all her riches on a single copy in order to be miserly towards the others. The unity of divine nature and of human nature, if we can conceive it, humanity like the incarnation, is it not real in a sense infinitely more elevated than if we limit it to an individual ? A continued incarnation from God, is it not more true than an incarna- tion limited to a point of time ? Placed in an individual, the properties and functions of Christ contradict them- selves ; they agree with the idea of species. Humanity is the reunion of the two natures, God-made man ; that is to say, the infinite spirit alienates from itself the finite nature, and the finite spirit which recollects its infinity. It is the child of the visible mother and of the invisible father, of the spirit and of nature. It is that which performs miracles ; for in the course of human history the spirit brings matter into subjection more and more. She is sinless, for the progress of her development is above re- proach. Impurity never attaches but to the individual ; it does not affect the species and its history. She it is who dies, is raised again, and ascends to heaven ; for in throwing off the finite, which confined it as the individual spirit, national and planetary, she unites with the infinite. Nevertheless, Hegelian christology, in placing its ideal THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 113 above Jesus as an historical personage, endeavours to make him take the part of Divine founder. At the head of all great acts of humanity are found individuals endowed with high faculties, whom we ordinarily designate by the title of genius, but who, when they act in religious move- ments, deserve a more holy name. Jesus was of this number. No man having had, and no man having, a more lively sentiment of his identity with the Celestial Father, it would not be possible to raise oneself above him in the matter of religion, whatever progress one might make in the other branches of intellectual culture. Without doubt we may perfect our religious faith after him, in getting rid of superstitions and of the belief in the supernatural ; but this progress cannot be compared with the gigantic steps which Jesus has made for humanity in the course of its religious evolution. The unity of God and man was never manifested in the past, nor will it be mani- fested in the future, with a power capable of thus trans- figuring a whole life. Discarding, then, the notions of sinlessness and of absolute perfection, the reality of which does not satisfy one, we conceive the Christ, says Strauss, like the being in the conscience of which the unity of the divine and the human is shown for the first time witli energy, so as to leave but an infinitely small amount of the contrary elements, and who, in this sense, is unique and without equal in the history of the world, so that the religious idea overcome and promulgated by him cannot, in the detail, subtract from the law of progressive development." 1 Certainly this is strange language to us, and hardly fit to satisfy either the theologian or the critic. The mistakes we find in the work of Strauss are, to a certain extent, 1 See in the Life of Jesus the final dissertation, and, above all, paragraph cxlvii., and see vol. ii., 2nd part, p. 744 et seq., of the translation of M. Littre\ H H4 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. explained by the defects of the author's method : it is not until the ridiculous charge is made against him, the denial of the existence of Jesus, which is really devoid of any serious foundation, that we can find any pretext in the abstract tone of the Life of Jesus. 1 Tailing the sentiment of history and facts, Strauss never goes into questions of myths and symbols. We say that, as far as he is concerned, the primitive events of Christianity have passed out of real existence and out of nature. Strauss has fully seen that the series of the Gospels invites criticism, and that all the narratives of the Evangelists cannot be accepted as certain ; and the contradictions of the four texts are a clear proof of this. Would any historian conclude from that circumstance that the evangelical narratives do not cor- respond to any reality ? Certainly not. Strauss, exclu- sively pre-occupied with the necessity of substituting one system of exegesis for another, does not regard small differences. The historic reality of some of the circum- stances related by the Evangelists being doubtful, all real- istic exegesis is compromised in his eyes, and he thinks it necessary to replace it by a theory which, without being liable to the same difficulties, he applies with inflexible rigour to the sacred text from one end to the other. We can see now why the book of Strauss, in spite of its perhaps exaggerated renown, has remained isolated, and has satisfied no one. The historian found it too empty of facts ; the critic, too uniform in its procedure ; the theo- logian founded on it an hypothesis subversive of Christia- nity. Let us say it boldly : it is not to one exclusive system that the solution of a problem so difficult as the origins of 1 This point has been thoroughly developed by M. Colani in the Revue de Theologie et de Philosophie Chretienne, January and March 1856, Paris and Geneva Cherbuliez. The two articles of M. Colani show beyond contradiction the best appreciation which has been shown in France of Strauss's bx>k. THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 115 Christianity can be given. A single method does not suffice to explain the complicated phenomena of the human mind. All primitive history and all the religious legends present the real and the ideal mixed in different propor- tions; and if India has been able to cut out from pure mythology, poems of two hundred thousand distiches, we may well believe that the same could have been done in. Judea. The Jewish people, indeed, have always had a power of imagination inferior to that of the Indo-European people, and in the epoch of Christ it was surrounded, and, as it were, penetrated by the historic spirit. I still believe that for epochs and for countries which are not entirely mythological, the marvellous is less often a pure creation of the human mind than a fantastic mode of represent- ing real facts. In these days of reflection we see things by the light of reason ; credulous ignorance, on the other hand, sees them by the light of the moon, distorted by an illusive and uncertain light. Timid credulity changes in this half light, natural objects into phantoms ; but it is only hallucination which creates beings in their entirety without exterior cause. The same with the ordinary unrefined country legends; they are more often made up from imperfect observation, from vague tradition, from the commonest hearsay, by distance between the circum- stance and the narrative, by the desire to glorify the heroes, than by pure creation or invention like that which serves to constitute almost all Indo-European mythology ; or, to express it better, all the processes have contributed in undistinguishable proportions to the tissue of these wonderful embellishments which confound all scientific categories, and over the formation of which the most exuberant fancy has presided. It is not, then, without many restrictions that we can use the word myth" as applicable to the evangelical narrative. 1 This expression, which has a complete aptitude when applied to India and n6 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. primitive Greece, which is already incorrect when applied to the ancient traditions of the Hebrews and the Semitic people in general, does not represent the true complexion of the phenomenon for an epoch as advanced as that of Jesus in the ways of a certain reflection. I should, for my part, prefer the words legends and legendary narratives, which, in giving a large share to the operation of opinion, leave the works and personal role of Jesus in their entirety. It would be unjust towards Strauss to pretend that he has desired to explain everything by myth ; for by the side of pure myth he recognises historical myth, legends, and additions by the writer, and furnishes rules in detail for the discernment of the historical from the fabulous. 1 All at once, the reaction against evhemerism has evidently carried him away too far. The contradictions of the Evan- gelists upon the circumstances of a narrative, appeared to him an objection against the historic truth of that nar- rative. But there are facts for which this divergence, on the contrary, supposes a foundation of reality; such, for example, are the three denials of St. Peter, related by the four Evangelists each in a different way, but always very characteristic. A reproach not less serious which, on the same principle, affects the book of Strauss is to have misunderstood the importance of the personal part of Jesus. It seems, on reading it, that the religious revolution which bears the name of Christ was effected without the Christ. Certainly, we should not deny that the proceeding by which he explains the formation of almost all these evangelical narratives has indeed had a certain degree of importance, and that some of the traits of the life of Jesus owe their light to reasoning analogous to these. The Messiah ought to be the son of David, but Jesus is the Messiah ; then Jesus is the son of David ; then there must be a genealogy by which he is connected with the royal 1 Life of Jesus Introduction, pp. xiv.-xv. THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. n 7 race. The Messiah ought to be born at Bethlehem, but Jesus is the Messiah; there must then be some circum- stances so as he, who passed almost all his life in Galilee, and probably was born there, should be born at Bethlehem. The Messianic idea, in its principal features, was copied from the life and character of the prophets and the great men of the ancient law; it was then inevitable that the life of Jesus should reproduce on many points these con- secrated types. 1 Thus the birth of Samuel, related at the beginning of the Book of Kings, and that of Samson, almost similar, 2 became the model of all the births of illustrious men. A sterility deplored for a long time, the appearance of an angel or annunciation, some kind of sacerdotal scene, a canticle, then the child consecrated to God and reserved or a great destiny — such was the indispensable frame- work. The whole narrative of the third Gospel as to the birth of John the Baptist, and several of the circumstances connected with that of Jesus — among others, the canticle of Mary, evidently imitated from that of Anne ; lastly, in the Apocryphal Gospels, which exaggerate the copy in the most tedious manner and surround the birth of Mary with an analogous scene. 3 But it would be a wrong to the comprehensive power of the human mind to explain the creation of the whole of the evangelic legend by this single method. Oftentimes, on the contrary, there were individual peculiarities of Jesus 1 This explains the offc-repeated formula iva ir\t)pu9 n t\ ypcuprj. The} have gratuitously distorted grammar to prove that iva in this phrase ought to be translated by so that with the indicative, instead of in order to. See Life of Jesus, by Kuhn, translated by M. Fr. Nettement, pp. 292-294. 3 Judges xiii. 2 See the Gospel of the Nativity of St. Mary, chap. iii. This composition, more modern and more thought out, gives the moral reason for the legend. It is in order to show that the child who is born, is a gift of God, and not the fruit of an unruly passion. The name of Anne, given to the mother of .Mary, is no doubt a reminiscence of that of Anne, the mother of Samuel. n8 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. which modified the idea of the Messiah. Many of the traits which are given by the Evangelists, and above all by St. Matthew (chaps, i. and ii.), as Messianic traits, far from belonging to the received ideal of the Jews and plainly drawn, are only artificial reconciliations, simple ornaments of style which are explained by the arbitrary manner of citing Scripture, of which the Talmud and St. Paul afford numerous examples. In the cases I speak of, it is a veritable fact in the life of Jesus which has given rise to the application of a Biblical text where no one would have thought, until then, of seeing allusions to the Messiah. When, for example, a circumstance of the Passion suggests to the Evangelist the citation of this verse of a psalm, " They have divided my garments, and they have cast lots for my coat" shall we say that it is the desire to show the accomplishment of a prophecy which has invented this circumstance ? It is much more probable, on the contrary, that it is a real incident which has given rise to the citation. At this distance of time, and deprived of historic monu- ments, we ought not to expect to distinguish plainly the reciprocal action and reaction of the personal character of Jesus and of the ideal portrait we have drawn of him in advance. Supposing even that all we should do by balanc- ing without profound thought these two syllogisms : The Messiah ought to do that ; but Jesus is the Messiah ; then Jesus has done that : Jesus has done that ; but Jesus is the Messiah; then the Messiah ought to do that — syllogisms founded on the minor premiss: Jesus is the Messiah, — it does not the less remain that this minor itself should be explained. Without doubt, as M. Colani has very well said, once that the Apostles have believed in Jesus being the Messiah, they could add to his real image some features borrowed from prophecy. But how came they to believe in his being the Messiah ? Strauss has not explained this. What he leaves subsisting in the THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 119 Gospels is not sufficient to account for the faith of the Apostles ; and although we may say that there was a dis- position among them to be content with the least degree of proof, it must be that these proofs had been very strong to overcome the distressing doubts occasioned by the death on the cross. It must have been, in other words, that the person of Jesus had singularly exceeded the ordinary pro- portions, it must have been that a great part of the evan- gelical narrative was true. As the apologists, in attributing to the first disciples of Jesus a degree of reflection and rational discussion which did not belong to their time, failed in the essential prin- ciples of criticism, so Strauss shows himself to be an unphilosophic historian when he neglects to explain how, in the eyes of the world in which he lived, Jesus attained a sufficient realisation of the ideal of the Messiah. We agree that this realisation was not positively explained ; that many of the features in which, later on, they saw a demonstration of the identity of Jesus with the Messiah were not yet conceived as features of the Messiah ; that the general credulity left the ground easy for affirmations and miraculous narratives ; but it is a fact that this was solely produced by the action of one powerful indivi- duality. This was the appearance of the new doctrine, the effect which it produced, the spirit of sacrifice, the devotion it inspired. We can affirm that if France, better endowed than Germany with the sentiment of practical life, and less subject to substitute in history the action of ideas foi the play of passion and individual character, had undertaken to write the life of Christ in a scientific manner, she would have employed a more strict method, and that, in avoiding to transfer the problem, as Strauss has done, into the domain of abstract speculation, she would have approached much nearer to the truth. i-o STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. III. The book of Strauss had an immense effect in Ger- many. Numerous adversaries, Protestant and Catholic, among whom we may name Hug, Neander, Tholuck, and Ullmann, came forward to defend the historic reality of the facts of the Gospels against the author of the Lift of Jesus. 1 All, or nearly all, endeavoured to prove, of the one part, that myth was impossible at the time when Christianity appeared ; of the other, that the work neces- sary for the formation of myth could not have taken place between the death of Jesus and the epoch when his history was reduced into writing ; all were thus struck with the truly weak points of the book of Strauss. The use of the word " myth " gave rise, as we have said, to the gravest objections. More than that, the system of Strauss as to the age and composition of the Gospels has always been uncertain and defective. It is an important point, indeed, in his theory that our four Gospels could not have been framed in their pre- sent form until the end of the second century. The most 1 The history of this polemic is very well told by M. Colani, Revue de Theologie, March 1856. I cannot do better than refer the reader to it. M. Colani has not thought proper to speak of the work of Dr. Sepp, trans- lated in part by M. Ch. Ste.-Foi (Paris, 1854). This work, indeed, has but little scientific value, but it is not without interest for the purpose of understanding the kind of Christian cabbala that the German apologists believed should be opposed to the researches of rational criticism. Never had the antiquated system, which pretends to discover under all the mythologies, been pushed to such an extent. We think we are dreaming when we see a man, otherwise very intelligent, making calculations as to the coming of the Messiah by the magnetic needle and the laws of electri- city, making the nervous system the seat of prophecy, seeking what he calls the year of the Lord in the mysteries of Indian, Chinese, Etruscan, and Babylonian chronologies, and saying to us seriously chronology is in its entirety like a harp, composed of several strings. When we touch one, we feel it resounds ; so in the chronological systems of other people we find sympathetic tones, as if one hand had mounted them all after the same THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 121 ancient testimonies of the second century only say that an apostle or an apostolic man had written a Gospel, but they do not establish the fact that the primitive Gospels were identical with those which we possess. We must admit, according to Strauss, that the legendary elements of the life of Jesus remained for about a century and a half in a state of ebullition, and did not begin to a<™rlo- merate until the disciples of the eye-witnesses had them- selves disappeared. We can understand the latitude which this interval affords to the mythological school for the elaboration of an entire cycle of the marvellous. The question of the precise age and of the system of compilation of the Gospels is so delicate, 1 that I would rather avoid treating it here ; it is sufficient for me to say that the more I have considered it, the more I am disposed to believe that the four texts recognised as canonical, carry us very near the age of Christ, if not for their last com- pilation, at least for the documents which compose them. Pure products of the Christianity of Palestine, exempt from all Hellenic influence, full of vivid sentiment direct from Jerusalem, they are undoubtedly an immediate echo of the sounds of the first Christian generation. The popular principle. . . . The mind which has constructed this vast edifice of num- bers is the divine revelation, of which the remains have been preserved in the sacerdotal traditions of the different people ; at least, we only say that those who have instinctively learned the science which supplies the har- mony of our solar system, and which reveals to us, in the order of the spheres in which the planets move, the prophetic numbers indicating the Messiah (vol. ii. pp. 417, 473, &c). See what M. Sepp calls mathematical and astronomical proofs, which ought to convince the Jews, if they do not shut their eyes to the truth, that Jesus is the Messiah ; and see the book which has been put forward as a hammer by which rationalism is to be smashed entirely. 1 The most recent work upon this point is that of M. Ewald in the Jahrbiicher der biblischen Wissenschaft, 1850-54. See also the observa- tions of M. Bun sen, Ilippolytus and his Age, pp. 35, 48, 199, 2nd edit., whilst awaiting the more developed works the same savant promises us on evangelical history 122 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. work which caused them to dawn, accomplished without any distinct consciousness and from several sides at once, could not have great unity. Here it was one genealogy, there it was another; here a marvellous narrative, there another; the fundamental type alone preserved, in spite of all contradictions, its identical physiognomy. The com- pilation was more fluctuating still, and, like that, it had a place in all the epic and religious cycles, but only of secondary importance. It is not until the end of the crea- tive period, at the moment when they come to preserve the tradition, that we see the disposition of the four texts perfectly settled J from that moment we can apply to these texts, considerations of authenticity and integrity which before had no strict sense. All at once the work of the legend is stayed. Every creation destined to captivate the admiration or the faith of human nature passes through two distinct phases : the truly fruitful epoch, where we find in the depth of the conscience of the masses grand poetical features, and the epoch of repairing, adjusting of verbal amplifications, where the faculty of invention being lost, we only develop pre- vious narratives according to conventional procedure. The first age which demands our attention in the order of traditions, is that which has produced the four Canonical Gospels, all stamped with the same character of sobriety, simplicity, grandeur, and plain truth. The second is that of the Apocryphal Gospels, artificial compositions, where the exhausted vein is only sustained by means of common- place and forced amplifications (apparitions of angels, can- ticles, imitations of the Old Testament). Nothing is more like the mechanism of the factitious epic poems composed during the ages of decadence. The apocryphal Gospels are to the canonical Gospels what the ante-Homerics and the post-Homerics are to Homer, what the Puranas in Hindu literature are to the more ancient mythological THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 123 poems. There is a fashion to rejuvenate primitive tradi- tions by inserting all the features of the original text in a new narrative, by adding what should most probably happen, by developing the situation at its junctions, by making (if I may use the word) a monograph of each minute detail ; all this without genius and without ever departing from the original theme. In a word, it is a reflected and literary composition, having for its founda- tion an artless and spontaneous work. These two periods in the life of the legend correspond in the main to the two ages of every religion; — the primitive age, when the new belief arises out of the popular instincts, like the ray arises out of the sun; the age of simple faith, without mental reserve, without objec- tion or refutation ; and the reflective age, when objection and apology are produced, when the requirements of reason are made evident, when the marvellous, heretofore an easy and harmonious reflex of the moral feelings of humanity, becomes timid, mean, and sometimes immoral. There is in primitive supernaturalism something so powerful and so elevated, that the most austere rationalism handles it sometimes with regret; but reflection is too advanced, the imagination too frigid, to permit henceforth these magnificent digressions. As for the timid compromise which seeks to reduce the supernatural in order to recon- cile it with an intellectual state which includes the nega- tion of the miracle, it only succeeds in clashing with the most imperious instincts of the scientific epochs, with- out reviving the wonderful old poetry exclusively reserved for certain ages and for certain states of the human mind. The history of religions presents some facts which, with- out being entirely analogous to precedent (Jesus is alto- gether unique, and nothing can be compared to him), can throw a little light upon the matters we are about to discuss. The legend of Buddha, Sakya Mouni is that 124 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. which most resembles by its mode of formation the legend of Christ, as Buddhism is the religion which by the law of its development bears the most resemblance to Chris- tianity. Sakya Mouni is a reformer whose real existence is not doubtful, although his life does not afford us more than the features of an ideal perfection. Sakya Mouni is conceived without stain, nursed without pain at the foot of a tree, recognised at his birth by holy personages. Sakya Mouni quits the world, is tempted by the devil, surrounds himself with disciples, performs innumerable miracles. 1 His reform, almost obliterated in India, produces immense results out of that country. He wrote nothing himself, but three of his disciples reduced to writing his doctrine and his legend. The one and the other remained fluctuating and susceptible of increase until the great council of Pataliputra : this council even did not prevent an ulterior work, which was closed definitively by another council held about four hundred years after the death of the founder. The enthusiast Chait- anya, who, at the beginning of the sixteenth century of our era, promoted a great religious movement in certain parts of India, had also a marvellous biography very much developed, and was regarded as an incarnation of Bhagwan. 2 The legend of Krishna has accounts not less striking in appearance than those of the Messiah. His first days are threatened by a massacre exactly like that of Herod ; his infancy amidst the shepherds is only a series of miracles; he dies nailed by an arrow to a fatal tree. 3 1 See L' Introduction a VHistoire du Bouddhisme Indien, by M. Eugene Bournouf, vol. i. p. 195 ; and the Lalita Vistara, or the Life of Buddha, translated by M. Edouard Foucaux (Paris, 1848). 2 See the Chaitanya Chandrodaya, published in the Bibliotheca Indica of the Society of Calcutta, Nos. 47, 48, 80, and Wilson's Essay upon the Religious Sects of the Hindoos in the Asiatic Researches of the Society of Calcutta, vol. xvi. p. 109 et scq. 3 See the Bhagavat dasam ashand, translated by M. Pa vie (Paris, 1852) THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 125 But these perhaps are rather external resemblances than analogies of procedure. 1 It is certain that, compared with the Bhagavat Purana, the Gospel presents us with a singular historic character, or, if it be preferred, with a very uniform procedure. The miracles of the Gospel are in general conceived according to natural analogies, and do not bid too much defiance to the laws of physics, like the marvellous of Indo-European mythology. The creation there is entirely moral, the invention of the facts and cir- cumstances has nothing bold about it, and is limited to a timid copy of the common-places of the Old Testament. The only episode in the history of Christ which has an epic character, the descent into hell, is not mentioned in the Canonical Gospels. Indicated for the first time in the Epistles of St. Peter (I. ch. iii. vers. 19-22), this circum- stance has only received great development in the later com- positions, above all in the Gospel of Nicodemus, a singular work, which seems to owe its origin to the metaphors by which the Fathers of the fourth century were pleased to ex- press the triumph of Christ over death. 2 It is, then, the name of legend, and not that of myth, that we ought to apply to the narratives of the first Christian origins : the ideal Gospel was the result of a transfiguration, and not of a creation. Shall we say that the Jewish people, having already gone through all the degrees of a literary development, were no longer in the intellectual condition which agrees with 1 Let us add that an hypothesis proposed at the beginning of the Indian Studies (since abandoned), according to which the legend of Krishna in- cluded borrowed facts from the Gospel of Infancy, a Gospel which had been so popular in the East, and which was doubtless carried to India by the Manicheans seemed to find favour with the most able philologists of Germany 2 See the work of M. Alfred Maury upon the age of this Gospel in the twentieth volume of the Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de France (Paris, 1850). 126 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. the appearance of legendary narratives ? Strauss has answered rightly that the Hebrew people have, to speak truly, never had a clear notion of positive history ; that their most recent historical books, those of the Maccabees, the same as those of Josephus, whose authors were initiated in Hellenic culture, are not free from marvellous narrative ; that the Mischna, later than the Gospels, hardly seems to be a work of the human mind, so full is it of fable ; that they have no history in which the non-reality of the miracle is comprehended. If rational education, which supposes a clear view of this non-reality, is wanting to so many people in the present day, how much more was it rare in the epoch of Jesus in Palestine, and generally among the masses in the Eoman empire ! Eeligious exalta- tion finds everything credible, and under the influence of a strong enthusiasm we have sometimes seen a new crea- tive faculty awakened among the most exhausted people. Humanity elsewhere is not synchronous in its develop- ment. For all places situated under the same meridian, the sun is not visible at the same moment: those who live on the summit of mountains perceive it sooner than those who dwell in the valleys. So it is with the epoch of reflection, of criticism, and of history ; it does not rise for all nations at the same hour. Our nineteenth century is not very mythological, and yet at this very time, among some portions of humanity who continue in the spon- taneous state, myths are produced as in ancient times. Napoleon is already, among the Arabs, a fabulous legend very inuch developed. When traces of La Perouse were discovered, it was found that he had become with the savages the object of strange and fantastic traditions. I do not know of any myths more characteristic than those which appear every day still from the effect of Chris- tian preaching among certain populations in the South of THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 127 Africa. 1 It is not the date of the ag*e which constitutes the intellectual state of humanity, it is the tradition of civilisation ; these are the numberless influences which bring;, sometimes from a^es of interval and from different points of space, states more or less analogous to those we have already passed through. This analogy, it is true, is never perfect, and there is in it a true inconvenience, for example, to apply the same name to the intellectual productions of the epoch of Jesus and to those of the primitive epochs of Greece or India. But when once we have remarked this, that such a denomination is inexact, we have the right to notice the common features which, in spite of notable differences, have at all times charac- terised the unsophisticated works of the human mind. After all, the hypothesis of Strauss, which at first pre- sents itself as being outrageous to the most sacred dogmas, leaves a great part to mystery. The mythological school, totally denying miracles and supernatural order, preserve a sort of psychological miracle. At least the god is not produced in full daylight, but like a winged insect under a web, which hides its dull appearance. We know that Nature alone has acted under this veil, but we have not seen these acts ; the imagination was free to surround the cradle of the nascent god with respect and admiration. There was something divine still there, like the beginning of all the great poems of which the formation is unknown, and which, born in the depths of humanity, show them- selves all complete in the full light of day. Strauss is essentially a moderate mind (what young Germany calls timid). 2 When the newspapers in 1848 1 See the voyage of an English Missionary, Robert Moffat, Twenty three Years of Sojourn in the South of Africa, translated by H. Monod, Paris, 1846, pp. 84, 157-158. We must distinguish, however, in this respect, two epochs in the life of Strauss. The one anterior t the revolution of Zurich (1839), during which he displayed, amid attacks often unjust and acrimonious much 128 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. tell us that the author of the Life of Jesus, called upon to take a political part, attached himself to the reactionary right, we naturally ask if in that fact we ought to see a conversion, like those which always bring about radical revolutions. It was in reality the natural development of his character. Strauss in theology is a liberal of the extreme left, and not a radical. At a certain time we have burned right divine in true revolutionary fashion, but we keep something which resembles it. Strauss ought then to be, as we have said, passed by : he has been so. Some years have sufficed to heap upon him three or four layers of ultra-Hegelians, who have outbid the paradox, and have called the author of the Life of Jesus orthodox and timo- rous, and a believer in the Holy Ghost. The great defect in the intellectual development of Germany is the abuse of reflection, I should rather say application, purposely done, to the present situation of the human mind, of laws recognised in the past. The philo- sophy of history, in verifying the necessary progress of the systems, the laws which succeed them, and the manner in which they oscillate towards the truth, until they follow their natural course, has brought to light a speculative truth of the first order, but which becomes very dangerous when we seek to draw from it consequences for that which passes under our own eyes. For to admit, without any examination, that such a light and superficial spirit as proposes to collect the inheritance of a man of genius is preferable to that which only comes after him, is to reduce the best part to mediocrity. See, however, the fault which moderation and good faith, giving way to objects with perfect sincerity, and modifying his system according to what appeared to him to be the truth ; the other, after the unhappy slander, which was the involuntary occasion when we feel the rebound of violence and the declamations of his adversaries. The polemical intention is no longer concealed, and it reappears in the concessions he has made, in particular, on the subject of the personal part of Jesus. THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 129 Germany often commits. After the appearance of a great work of philosophy or science, we are certain to see a whole swarm of critics come out who pretend to go beyond it, and often only spoil it or misconstrue it. Let us say it again, the law of progress of systems is only applicable when the production of systems is perfectly spontaneous, and their authors, without dreaming to advance one before the other, are only attentive to the intrinsic considera- tion of the truth. To neglect this important condition is to surrender the development of the human mind to chance, or to the caprices of some rash and presumptuous minds. Strauss has said that revelation is neither an inspiration from without nor an isolated act ; it is one and the same thing as the history of human kind. The appearance of Jesus Christ is only the implanting of a new and divine principle ; it is an offshoot from the very marrow of divinely gifted humanity. 1 The new school, on the contrary (if we can reunite under this name writings very dissimilar, but reunited by several features in common — Weisse, Wilke, and Bruno-Bauer), pretend to explain the appearance of Christianity by simple and natural means, and to reduce the formation of the legend of Jesus to the proportions of a very ordinary circumstance. Strauss had attributed everything to the slow and concealed action of a tradition unconscious of itself. The new school saw in the Gospels an individual work, an invention of the Evangelist Mark, made with reflection. The hypothesis of Strauss, says M. Bruno-Bauer, 2 is mysterious, for it is tautological. To explain evangelical history by tradition is to compel one to explain tradition itself, and to find for it an ante- rior base. The method- of Strauss is embarrassing and 1 Strauss, Die christliche Glaubenslehre. Tubingen, 1840-44, i. p. 68. 2 Kritik der Evangelischen Gcschichte de Synoptiker und des Johannes. Leipzig, vols. i. and ii., 1841, vol. iii., 1842. I i 3 o STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. orthodox, and it ought to be so. Criticism has, in the writing of Strauss, given up its last struggle with theology, everything remaining on theological ground. Every time the two foes are thus grappling one with the other, the con- quered always makes the conqueror bend a little. Strauss had supposed that the New Testament rested upon the- Old, and that the Jews at the epoch of Jesus had a Christo- logy complete, a Messianic type agreed on, from which the character of Jesus would have been copied, feature by feature. M. Bauer maintains, on the contrary, that all the acts by which they show Jesus as accomplishing the Messianic ideal, and the ideal itself, are the inventions of the first Christians. The Jews, according to him, had not at that time any strictly formulated ideal of Christ ; the history of Jesus has not been an ideal creation formed upon traditional types. The Gospels, in a word, are Chris- tian works, and not Judaic, as Strauss would have it. It is not Judaism which has lent the Messianic ideal to Christi- anity ; it is, on the contrary, the appearance and the deve- lopment of the Christian principle, the struggle between the Church and the Synagogue, which have familiarised the Jews with the idea of the Messiah, and have made of that faith the foundation of their religious system. 1 As to the historic Christ, says M. Bauer, who does not see that what is said about him belongs to the ideal, and has no connection with the real world ? If there had been a man to whom we could attribute the extraordinary revolution which has moved the world for eighteen cen- turies, we can at least affirm that he would not have been confined in the narrow mould of the evangelical Christ. The evangelical Christ, considered as an historic pheno- menon, is entirely beyond us. . . . He is not born like a man ; he does not live like a man ; he does not die like a man. It is sheer waste of trouble to criticise or apologise 1 Vol. i. p. 416. THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 131 for his acts ; for since he is placed outside the conditions of humanity, he ought not to care for the laws of human nature. More than that, this nature ought to be boldly denied by him. Hence this contrast between the human and the divine, which is the foundation of evangelical morality, and of which M. Bauer endeavours to follow the (according to him) fatal trace through all the history of Christian worship. We do not wish to say anything which may cause the work of M. Bauer to be taken more seriously than it deserves. We have sought in it in vain for that grand character of elevation and calm which constitutes the beauty of M. Strauss's book.' , : The blasphemy is conceivable, and almost excusable, by the epochs when, science not being free, the thinker re- venges himself on the shackles to which he has to submit by an ironical respect and by secret indignation. But we do not believe that M. Bauer has suffered enough perse- cution to give him the right to use the declamatory tone he sometimes adopts. Complete independence for the critic is, as far as the rest is concerned, the .best remedy for such errors. When the historian of Jesus shall be as free in his estimations as the historians of Buddha and Mahomet, he will not think of injuring those who do not think as he does. M. Eugene Bournouf has never exhibited anger against the authors of the fabulous life of $akya Mouni, nor have any of the modern historians of Islamism shown any violent spite against Abulfeda and the Mussul- man authors who have written, whilst truly believing, the biography of their prophet. IV. Has Israel itish tradition anything to teach us concern- ing Jesus ? Assuredly nothing authentic, and this is not one of the least surprising peculiarities of this mysterious 132 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. history, that absolute silence should be preserved by con- temporaneous documents, whether Jewish or profane, upon an event which has become colossal for the future. 1 The appearance of Christianity seems to have been a circum- stance hardly felt in the midst of Judaism; it had no resound, did not excite any reaction, and no remembrance of it remained. The Talmud, which sums up the whole intellectual movement of Judaism at the time of which we speak, does not contain a trace appreciable with certainty of even the indirect influence of Christ. 2 But in the Middle Ages, when the Church stood as a formidable foe before the Synagogue, it was necessary to have a system for this strange co-religionist which had arrived at such an in- comparable destiny. From thence there is an odd legend which, as we understand it, cannot be friendly. 3 If the Church anathematised those innovators who dared in her face to form religious societies which did not menace her existence, what would she say to the Synagogue, who, in addition to the crime of heresy, had been the chief of her persecutors ? When modern criticism was introduced among the Israel- ites, the enlightened men of Judaism ought to have been more curious than ever to construct a historic theory upon the origins of Christianity and upon the person of Jesus. In some respects they would have been better judges than the Christians ; in others, they were liable to exception. But indeed, if we except the illustrious Moses Mendelssohn, and some independent philosophers who 1 The passages of the historian Josephus relative to Jesus and the first Christians are, in the opinion of the most able critics, interpolations, or at least have been retouched by a Christian hand. 2 To understand the force of this circumstance, we must consider the pro- found action which the appearance of Protestantism has exercised upon Catholicism. There is scarcely a Catholic writer after the Reformation who does not feel the rebound of this great schism. 3 See the Bibliotheca Juclzica Ante- Christiana of Rossi (Parma, 1800, in Svo), pp. 64, 94, 114, 121. THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 133 belonged rather to the human mind in general than to any particular sect, the thinkers of the Israelitish religion have not been able to free themselves from the charge of par- tiality, and often even of ill-humour, against the founder of Christianity. Not only have they not allowed to pass as easily as ourselves that which idealises Jesus — that may be understood — but too often they have shown delight in seeking isolated features of the evangelical doctrine in the books of the Old Testament. 1 Mean enough criticism ; for we can show in detail all the maxims of the Gospel in Moses and the Prophets; and I will still maintain that there is in the doctrine of Christ a new spirit and an original stamp. If a religion consists in a certain number of dogmatic propositions, and a morality in some few apho- risms, it might perhaps be true to say that Christianity is only Judaism. But the fundamental principles of morality being for the most part simple and for all time, there is no room for discovery in this order of truths; originality is there reduced to a sentiment more or less delicate. But when we put before us the Gospels and the sentences of the Rabbins contemporary with Jesus as collected in the Pirkewothj and compare the impressions which result from these two books, the success elsewhere is here a decisive criterion : the Gospels have converted, whilst it is very doubtful whether the sentences of the Babbins would have had in themselves sufficient efficacy for that. The book of M. Salvador 2 is the most elevated ex- pression of Jewish criticism relating to the life of Jesus. The subject is broadly conceived ; the form is more free and finer than the writings of Strauss and the German exegetes. It is no longer a painful controversy with a 1 Seef urther a work, published in several numbers of the Archives Israel- ties (1849), by the learned Dukes, upon this question, "What is it that Christianity has taken from Judaism ? " 2 Jesus Christ et sa Doctrine. 2 vols. Paris, 1838. 134 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. theologian; it is an endeavour to explain the origins of Christianity, like any other great fact of the human mind, from the point of view of disinterested science. Unhappily the author, who deserves a distinguished rank as a philo- sopher and as a writer, leaves something to.be desired on the score of erudition and historic criticism. M. Salvador has only searched into Judaism ; he does not seem to have known the immense exegetical works of Germany upon the books of the Old and New Testament — works which have made such a complete revolution in the science of Hebraic antiquities. If he is thoroughly master of the Bible, Philo, and the Talmud, he makes but little use of the Apocrypha of Jewish and Christian origin; so, too, as regards the first Christian writers. When we pass from reading M. Strauss to M. Salvador, we are struck with the contrast of the German critic, subtle, light, and always suspicious of reality, with the other too confident critic, who accepts without discussion all the narratives of the past. M. Salvador has no suscep- tibility for the delicate laws which control the formation of great legends — laws which must be studied in their very diverse applications in order to understand them thoroughly. The Gospels are for him a history inter- mingled with some marvellous incidents ; he treats them a little like Kollin and the old school treated Titus Livius, discussing as real facts the circumstances of the birth of Jesus, of the flight into Egypt, &c. It is only in the narrative of the Passion that he admits there is any artifi- cial arrangement, and there he recognises the intention to represent the ideal sufferings which have excited, accord- ing to the Messianic interpretation, the lamentations of the prophets. This part of the evangelical descriptions, he says, has much less of the character of history than of poetry or the drama ; it neglects to suit the circumstances to the conditions of time and place, and it sacrifices all the THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 135 secondary personages, whether they be real or invented, to the dominant idea of the subject and to the highest personage. Then he shows how two of the principal actors of the Passion, Pilate and Barabbas, have seen their characters distorted for the purposes of the legend. 1 M. Salvador has here kept close to the mythical explana- tion, but without perceiving it, and otherwise guided by an interested view, which he does not disguise — that of clearing his co-religionists from the dishonourable part which the Evangelists make them play in the Passion. After that, M. Salvador always regards himself as in clear history. If he does not believe that Jesus left documents under his own hand upon his life and his history (he would not have beeu, however, much astonished 2 ), he admits at least an oral tradition from the first disciples as having a strict value. If Strauss doubts too much, it is certain that M. Salvador doubts too little. The primi- tive facts of great religious phenomena, passing in the spontaneous region of the human mind, do not leave any trace. Eeligions do not recall their infancy any more than does the individual man ; conscience does not com- mence for the living being until he is already adult and developed, that is to say, when the primitive facts have disappeared for ever. As to the question of the doctrinal origins of Christia- nity, M. Salvador has treated it in a generally satisfactory manner. All the antecedents of Christianity are, in his eyes, to be found in Judaism, modified by the East since the Captivity and by Greece since Alexander. Judaism is like the egg in which the new religion is first formed and nourished before it appears in full light and lives its own life. Greece could not have had any effect upon Jesus but by the indirect influence it had exercised upon Judaism — 1 Jesus Christ et sa Doctrine, vol. ii. chap. ix. 2 Ibid., vol. i. p. 169. 136 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. influence which we must not exaggerate in what concerns the Judaism of Palestine. There is hardly any considerable element in primitive Christianity which is not to be found in Philo, among the Essenians, or in the orthodox doctrine of the Synagogue. The fundamental idea of the new-born sect — to rally round Abraham the whole race of Adam — the idea which includes the secret of Christian proselytism, and conse- quently all the destiny of the Church — is to be found in the treatise De Nobilitate, where Philo, as a philosopher and as a Christian, develops for the first time this truth, that nobility arises from individual virtue, and not from the blood of Abraham. , The question of the wonder-working arts and of miracles in general, that of the miracle of the resurrection in par- ticular, the part of Simon the magician, and some other episodes, are treated by M. Salvador with much skill and reason. The criticism of the narrative of the Passion is above all remarkable for the precision which the author has brought to bear on it, by the boldness of the views he displays, and the singular controversy which he connects with it. In his work upon the institutions of Moses and the Hebrew people, M. Salvador has already attempted the apology of the Jewish council which condemned Jesus. According to him, the Sanhedrim could only have applied the existing laws. Jesus himself had sought death, and hence, regarding him as a citizen (such being necessarily the point of view taken by the Jews), he deserved it. The interest of the religious purity of history requires us to repeat under all forms that the Christian school is in no wise acceptable when it has brought that which regards the supreme council of the Jews into tins solemn conflict to a question of low jealousy, to a matter of jurisdiction ; when it has overwhelmed the Jewish nation, to whom it owes its birth, and whose finest ornaments it appropriates, THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 137 binder the pretext of a voluntary crime which their ances- tors might have committed in pronouncing against Jesus a judgment which had beforehand been announced and provoked, according to the whole theory of the Master in the fulfilment of the Scriptures. In that, the whole school of Christianity, Nazarene or Galilean, has given incontest- able evidence to the world that it carries with it the char- acteristic signs of a sect and a party ; it has given proof that its mission, even in its most legitimate, happiest splendour, only offers but one specialty ; it has given the proof at last that the universal judgment of things and men, the reign of God of the prophets, of the God of truth, without iniquity, does not belong exclusively either to the period, more or less prolonged, of his proofs, or to the depth of his nature. 1 The scandal which affected some strict minds when M. Cousin, in one of his wittiest fancies, dared to under- take the defence of the tribunal which condemned Socrates, to maintain that Anytus was a respectable citizen, the Areopagus an equitable and moderate tribunal, and that if we ought to be surprised at anything, it is that Socrates should have been accused so late, and should not have been condemned by a larger majority ; this scandal, I say, was nothing in comparison with what M. Salvador raised in pleading for Caiaphas and the Sanhedrim, condemned for ever so long by the Christian conscience. It was on the occasion when M. Dupin the elder undertook, in the Gazette des Tribunaux, the revision of the process of Jesus. 2 None of the grounds were left out by the pen of the liberal advocate upon which the judgment would have been quashed on appeal: hired disturbers of the peace, fraud, brigade grise, individual liberty violated without warrant, sequestration of persons, captious interrogatories, 1 Jesus Christ et sa Doctrine, vol. ii. pp. 168-169. 2 Jesus devant Ca'iphe et Pilate. Paris, 1828. 138 • STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. functions of accuser and judge combined in the same person, encroachment by the executive upon the judicial power. For ourselves, may God preserve us from issuing another opinion upon such a question than that of Jesus himself: "It must be that, the Son of man should die/" Without that he would not have represented* the ideal of the wise, odious to the superstitious as to the politician, and paying for his moral beauty with his life. A vulgar death to crown the life of Jesus ! What blasphemy ! As to searching into that which passed in the soul of those who condemned him, it is a vain and barren question, even if it would not be insoluble. Who knows if he is worthy of love or of hatred ? who can analyse what passes in the depth of his heart ? He who says, like Caiaphas, " It is expedient that one man should die for the people," is certainly a detestable politician, and, however sad to say, he may have been an honest man. More than once history has shown both persecutors and persecuted to be right at the same time, and doubtless in the life eternal the perse- cuted will thank the persecutors for having by suffering procured them the seal of perfection. V. If, renouncing the habit of mind which makes us familiar with the marvellous, we reflect upon the destiny of the revealers whom the religious conscience has raised above humanity, we shall be struck with astonishment, and we shall understand why, the objects of a fanatical love and hatred, they are so late in attaining their true place in history, that which they deserve in the eyes of the critic. A thousand motives of respect and timidity hinder rational discussion from being freely exercised respecting them, and in the end make their position in reference to science more unfavourable than advantageous. THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 139 They seemed to be placed under the ban of humanity, and the silence which is preserved in regard to them creates an illusion as to the importance of their part. A history of philosophy, where Plato would occupy a volume, ought, it seems, to devote two to Jesus ; and yet there is more than one history of philosophy in which this latter name does not once appear. Such is the fate of all those who have attained religious consecration. How much has the body of Hebraic literature, for example, not suffered in the eyes of science and taste by becoming the Bible ! It may be ill-humour, it may be a relic of faith, but the scientific and literary critic has some trouble to expect when making, the works which have been so sequestered for the profit of theology, a part of his domain. The author of that' charming little poem which they call the Canticle of the Canticles, could he doubt but that one day it would be drawn from the com- pany of Anacreon in order to make of it an inspiration which only sang of divine love? It is quite time that science should be accustomed to take the good wheresoever she finds it. The old philosophy, which seemed to accord to theologians that religions constitute an order apart, with which science has no concern, was brought to regard them in their turn as enemies raised by a rival power. In becoming more bold they will become more respectful; for how could reason be severe or disdainful towards one of the products of the human mind from the moment it is recognised in all these products without distinction or antithesis ? When criticism has been firmly fixed at this point of view of all the problems of history, Jesus will appear to it as the most extraordinary, and those will appear excusable who, overcome with so much mystery, have proclaimed him to be God : those at least have understood it, if not explained. Strange destiny — just to touch the wonders of the world of spirits with the finger — that an obscure man j 4 o STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. (orthodoxy itself does not forbid us to use this word), the author of the greatest revolution that has ever changed the face of humanity, should become the joint to two leaves of history, loved almost to madness, assailed almost to fury, so well that there is not a degree on the moral scale on which he has not been placed ! Emerged from a little district, very exclusive as to nationality, and very pro- vincial as to mind, he has become the universal ideal. Athens and Borne have adopted him ; the barbarians have fallen at his feet ; rationalism dare not look at him at all fixedly except while on its knees before him. Yes, so he has been. His fortune has been more astonishing than even himself. Those who circumscribe the powers of the human mind within the narrow limits of good common sense, those who have no conception of the proud originality of sponta- neous creations of the conscience, should, in handling such a problem, restrict themselves to applying it to a conve- nient solution of the supernatural. In order to understand Jesus, we ought to be callous to the miracles ; we ought to raise ourselves above our age of reflection and slow analysis, so as to contemplate the faculties of the soul in this state of fruitful and artless liberty, where, disdainful of our painful combinations, they attain their objects with- out regarding it themselves. Then this was the age of psychological miracles. To have recourse to a supernatural intervention to explain circumstances which have become impossible in the actual state of the world, this is to prove that we ignore the hidden forces of spontaneity. The more we search into the origins of the human mind, the more we shall understand that the miracle is only the unexplained ; that in order to produce the phenomena of primitive huma- nity, we have no need of a God always immersed in the pro- gress of things, and that these phenomena are the regular development of immutable laws like reason and perfection. THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 141 Certainly we must despair at ever arriving at a complete understanding of the wonderful apparitions for want of documents ; much more so that their mysterious nature is for ever covered by an eternal obscurity. In the solution of problems of an order so elevated, the supernatural hypo- thesis and the very simple natural hypotheses (those of the eighteenth century for instance), where everything is reduced to the proportions of an ordinary case of impos- ture or credulity, ought equally to be rejected. A defini- tive analysis of Jesus is proposed to me, beyond which there would not be anything to seek which I could object to. His splendour would be the best proof of his insuffi- ciency. The essential here is not to explain everything, but to convince that with more teaching everything could be explained. But it is that which study, compared withreligion and lite- rature, shows superabundantly for the initiated mind to the process of criticism. The East has never known the purely intellectual greatness which has no need of miracles. It cares little for a learned man who is not a wonder-worker ; * it has never attained to perfect brightness of conscience ; 2 it has always seen Nature and history with the eyes of a child. A child instinctively jumbles his impressions with the narrative ; he does not know how to isolate the, matters of judgment which he has carried away from the personal manner with which he has regarded them ; he does not relate the facts, but the imaginations which have come 1 When the Arabs had adopted Aristotle as the great master of science, they made for him a miraculous legend as for a prophet. They pretended that he had been carried off to heaven in a column of fire, &c. 2 China, endowed with an instinct so clear and so positive of the finite, ought always to be excepted when the East is mentioned. These people are the least supernaturalist, and there lies the secret of their mediocrity. It is tine not to dream always, like India, but- to have dreamed in one's infancy : there remains in it a perfume, and like a tradition of poetry which pleases age, when we imagine no longer. 142 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. with the facts, or rather he recounts himself. Every fable which smiles upon his caprice is accepted by him ; he improvises them again himself, and then he affirms them. Such was the state of the human mind in the artless epochs. The legend was born of itself and without any fallacious premeditation: as soon as it was born, so soon it was accepted ; it went on increasing like a ball of snow ; no criti- cism was there to control it. It is fair to remark, indeed, that the miracle did not then appear as being supernatural. The miracle was the usual thing, or rather there were no laws of nature for men, strangers to our ideas of experi- mental science, who saw everywhere the immediate action of free agents. The ideas of the laws of Nature only appeared later on, and are only intelligible to cultivated minds. At the present day the simple-minded admit miracles with extreme facility. It is not, then, only in the origin of the human mind that the imagination allows itself to be overcome by the charms of the marvellous. Legendary fecundity lasts until the approach of the scientific age, only governed more and more, in diminishing its power, by the trouble of the reality. 1 The application of these principles to Palestine is easily foreseen. The Jewish people, above all after the Baby- lonian captivity, were possessed of the idea of the Messiah, at first vague, indecisive, disappearing at times, but reap- pearing always more energetic and more decided. They caught a glimpse of him from the first as a Saviour who should restore the Temple and his country, as a model king, made up from the remembrances of David and Solo- mon, who should make Israel the centre of the world. Then, when cruel humiliations compelled this astonishing 1 See the fine analysis of the faith i miracles given by M. Littre in the preface to the 12th edition of the translation of the Life of Jesus and in the Revue de Deux Mondes, 15th February 1856. THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 143 little people to recognise their material weakness, the type of the liberator became complicated with the prophet, suffering, and victim. He is no more the perfect king only, surrounded with an aureole of glory and wisdom ; but the, man of sorrow, dying and triumphing by his death. Do we understand what action such an image, bred during the ages and resuming all its aspirations, would exercise upon the ardent faith of a people who lived only in the future ? If it be true, as ancient physiology believed, that a woman pregnant with a child carries it stamped with her desires and her thoughts, why should not an idea as persistent be produced in the fruitful bosom of Israel ? This long gestation of six or seven centuries ought to pro- duce its fruit. And indeed, when the Roman domination had finished by placing the Jewish nation in the state of exaltation which produced extraordinary phenomena, the signs of the times manifested themselves everywhere. We could have seen, or at least have studied, very near, and at the original sources the intellectual state of the Jews at this epoch. The marvels of the Gospels are only the most sober good sense if we place them alongside the apocryphas of Jewish origin and the Talmud. Must we be surprised that, in the midst of a movement so strange, we have seen reappear in some shape or other the prodigies of the first days of humanity, and one of those profound manifesta- tions, the generation of which escapes the observer who is not raised above the experience of the vulgar ? Let us draw a veil over these mysteries that reason itself dare not sound the depth. It is not in a few pages that we can endeavour to solve the most obscure problem in history. The critical sense is not inoculated in an hour. He who has not been cultivated by a long scientific and intellectual education will always find prejudicial reasons to oppose to the most delicate inductions. To elevate and cultivate the mind, to vulgarise the grand results of natural and 144 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. philological science, are the only means of making the new ideas of the critic understood and accepted. To those who have not the necessary preparation, these ideas can only appear as false and dangerous subtleties. Permit me to give one example : the four Canonical Gos- pels often relate the same facts under the same circum- stances with somewhat considerable variations. This is explained in all the rationalistic hypotheses, for it ought not to be more difficult for the Gospels than for historical or legendary narratives of other religions, which oftentimes offer contradictions even stronger still. But it is not so in the supernatural hypothesis of inspiration. There is nothing there for the Holy Ghost ; one thing cannot pass by two methods at once. See here a decided objection in the eyes of the independent critic. However, it is not possible for orthodoxy absolutely to agree to this. If the circumstances of the different narratives are not absolutely irreconcilable, it will say that one of the texts has pre- served certain details omitted by the other, and it will put at the end the diverse circumstances, at the risk of making the narrative altogether incoherent. If the cir- cumstances are decidedly contradictory, it will say that the fact related is double or triple, although in the eyes of a sound critic the different narrators had evidently the same event in their minds. It is thus that the narratives of John and the Synoptics (under this collective name we mean to include Matthew, Mark, aud Luke) on the last entry of Jesus into Jerusalem being irreconcilable, the harmonists suppose that he entered twice, step by step, and under almost the same identical circumstances. It is thus that the three denials of St. Peter, related differently by the four Evangelists, constitute in the eyes of the orthodox eight or nine different denials, although Jesus only predicted three. The circumstances of the Kesurrection furnish analogous difficulties, to which they oppose like solutions. What THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 145 can we say to such an exegesis ? Does it involve a meta- physical impossibility ? No ! We vainly endeavour to reduce to silence those who would maintain it ; but how- ever little developed it may be to the critical sense, they will reject it as something contrary to the rules of interpre- tation which we follow on every other subject. We must appreciate in the same way the answers which the apolo- gists make to the difficulties arising from the silence which the Evangelists, particularly the fourth, preserve upon lead- ing circumstances or upon entire episodes. It is only, they say, a negative argument, from which we can conclude nothing. But shall we reason thus in profane matters? and is it not from these kinds of argument that the true critic often draws his most solid deductions ? * To require that orthodoxy should apply the same criti- cism to the sacred books as to the profane, is to require that which it will not agree to. On the other side, to challenge a contest on this ground is to forsake one's duty in the discussion. See, why it is that all controversy between persons who believe in the supernatural and these who do not so believe is utterly fruitless. We must speak of miracles as Schliermacher spoke of angels ; we cannot prove their impossibility. However, all our 1 The end of non-recevoir that the theologians oppose to the argument negatif is entirely characteristic of scholastic and juridical habits, which they substitute for ingenuity, the only faculty which should find the truth l n history. To make, for example, the age of institutions or prescriptions to be relatively modern where the theologian is compelled to insist on great antiquity, the critic draws a very solid deduction from the silence of all historic documents anterior to a certain epoch. Can the theologian say, How do you know that these institutions did not exist although they may not have been mentioned ? Doubtless ! Who is it who proves that organised mysteries did not exist in Homeric times if the Iliad and the Odyssey did not speak of them ? What is it proves that our political and judiciary institutions did not exist under the Merovingians if the historians of the day do not speak of them ? It is the same with all historic results expressed under the form of negation. K i 4 6 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. conception is such that they could no longer be born in our time : they belong exclusively to the idea that anti- quity dates from the world. It is not reasonable that this should be the result of the whole of modern science; there is no supernatural. 1 Since there has been a being, all that has passed in the world in the way of phenomena has been the regular development of the laws of that being — laws which constitute the sole order of government and nature, whether physical or moral. Whoever says above or beyond nature in the order of facts, says a con- tradiction, like as if he should say super-divine in the order of substances. In rejecting the miracle, M. Littre' 2 well says, the present age has not acted deliberately on purpose, for it had received the tradition of it with that of ances- tors, always so dear and so preserved, but without wishing it, without seeking for it, and by the sole fact of the development of which it was the border. An experience that nothing ever comes from contradicting him has taught us that he who relates the miraculous has constantly its origin in his imagination as he was struck, in complaisant credulity and in ignorance of natural laws. Whatever research we may have made, there never was a miracle produced where it could be observed and verified. Human things obeying laws more difficult to lay hold of than those of inanimate nature, the notion of a super- natural intervention defends itself with more advantage. We should have long ceased to believe in the physical miracle, but that Jesus still remains a psychological miracle. We cannot understand how the contemporary of Hillel and of Shammai, perhaps their brother according to the spirit, how the same sap had produced the Talmud parallel with the Gospels, the most singular monument of intel- 1 I prove the need, in order to get rid of all misunderstanding, by recall- ing here the explanation I have given upon this word in p. 97, note I. 2 Preface of the 12th edition of the Vie de Jesus, p. v. THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 147 lectual aberration and the highest creation of the moral sense. When all is done, however, this explains itself. An epoch, provided it happens among the vulgar, may give rise to the most contrary phenomena. Has not the same revolution proclaimed at the same time the formula of civil rights, which seem destined to be the law of the future, and terrified the world with scenes of horror ? We ought to consider everything in the great crises of the human spirit. It is only the productions of epochs of calm and repose which are consistent with themselves. The appearance of Christ would be inconceivable in a logical and regular centre; it was only natural in the strange storm which passed over the human mind in Judea at the time of which we speak. A more extended view of the philosophy of history would lead one to see that the true causes of Jesus ought not to be sought for outside humanity, but in the midst of the moral world ; that the laws which have produced Jesus are not excep- tional and transitory laws, but the permanent laws of the human conscience applied under extraordinary cir- cumstances, when sublimity and folly simultaneously appeared; somewhat like geology, after having, in order to explain the revolutions of the globe, for a long time had recourse to causes different from those which they apply to-day, returns to explain that the actual laws are sufficient to bring about the revolutions; that the same circum- stances being reproduced, the same phenomena will re- appear; and, in spite of the apparent exhaustion of the creative powers of nature, we shall yet see a new spirit spontaneously produced, without perhaps personifying itself in so exclusive a manner in such and such an indi- vidual. Strauss, then, has only enunciated one of the most decided principles of the moral mind when he declares as non-historic, at least so far as the letter is concerned, 148 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. every narrative where the laws of nature are violated, and when he proclaims that the absolute cause never intervenes by exceptional acts in the concatenation of finite causes. Let us not search for the dignity of Jesus in the country of the chimera. What! says Strauss, shall we attach to some cures performed in Galilee a higher importance than to the miracles of moral life and the history of the world, which are shown in the ever-increasing power of man over nature, and in the irresistible power which the ideal incessantly exercises over matter ? What particular interest, then, attaches to an isolated fact, which has no other value than as symbolically representing this eternal movement? Strange thing! that which constitutes the greatness of Jesus in the eyes of his contemporaries and of his first worshippers is for us a stain upon the ideal, a feature by which this ideal loses its universality in order to take a particular colouring from his epoch and his country. Who does not suffer at seeing the magician by the side of the sublime moralist ; to find in the Gospels, by the side of the Sermon on the Mount and the discourse at the Supper, narratives of persons possessed with devils, who, if they had been born in our days, would have been met with a smile or with incredulity ? It is not possible to separate strictly the historic Christ from the evangelical Christ, the real personage who has borne the name of Jesus from the ideal personage who results from the Gospels. But when we affirm that Jesus passed his youth in Galilee ; that he did not receive any Hellenic training ; that he made some journeys to Jerusa- lem, where his imagination was strongly impressed, and where he came into communication with the spirit of his nation; that he preached a doctrine hardly orthodox with regard to the Judaism of the Scribes — a doctrine impressed perhaps with some provincial tendency (Galilee had a bad repute for orthodoxy as also for purity of language) ; that THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 149 the strict Jews opposed him strongly, because his high moral tendency disquieted and went beyond them ; that they succeeded in putting him to death after an almost triumphant entry which had been awarded him by his fellow-countrymen who had come witli him to Jerusalem to the Feast of the Passover — one had said nothing which the most severe historian could refuse to accept. It is permitted to recognise that there had been upon the life of Jesus a legendary work analogous to that of every poem — a work by means of which a real hero becomes an ideal type — without denying the high personality of the sublime and truly Divine Founder of the Christian faith. Strauss himself recognises that there is a history under the legend, but he has not proclaimed it loudly enough, because his theological habits showed him an easier system of interpretation in the mythological hypo- thesis taken in its most absolute sense. Let us ask, without answering questions which can only hinder the critic, and on which he can never arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, up to what point are the doctrine and moral character which the Gospels attribute to Christ historically the doctrine and moral character of Jesus? Was Jesus really a heavenly and original man, or a Jewish sectary analogous to John the Baptist ? Was he conscious of what he was and what he would become ? Does Jesus seem to us free from human weakness because only we see him from a distance and through a legendary mist? Is it not because the means are wanting for criticism that he appears to us in history as the sole irreproachable being ? If we touch him, like Socrates, shall we not find also some earthly clay at his feet ? Here, as in all other religious creations, the admirable, the celestial, do they not become the right of humanity ? I do not ignore the fact that the critic who distrusts individuals and pre- serves himself from them has a very great part ; he thinks i 5 o STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. that it is the popular mass which almost always creates the beauty of the men elevated to the honours of apothe- osis ; he hesitates to express his admiration for persons of whom science can affirm nothing ; he remembers the great disproportion which exists between the real part taken by persons who create religious foundations and their destiny beyond the tomb. St. Peter, a fisherman of Galilee, has reigned over the world for more than a thousand years ; Mary, a humble woman of Nazareth, has risen by succes- sive and ever-endearing hyperbole to the very bosom of the Trinity ! We say boldly that it never was chance which designated this individual for idealisation. The part of the Gospels which contains the most historic circumstances is that of the Passion and the death ; but this part is where Jesus appears with the most grandeur. There is no one who, in reading these admirable pages, where the world has found such a high lesson of morality, but must feel the immediate reflex of a grand soul, and place the touching and august sufferer of Calvary among those whom death has consecrated. Doubtless the course in which humanity retains certain characteristics, differs almost entirely from the primitive reality, but we cannot deny, on the other side, that works speak higher than any documents, and that if history is compelled to measure the glory of individuals by the luminous or beneficial trace which they have left in the world, it ought not to find any exaggeration in the incomparable brightness with which the religious conscience of human nature has sur- rounded the face of Jesus. The philosopher as well as the theologian ought then to recognise in Jesus two natures, to separate the human from the divine, and not confound in his adoration the real hero and the ideal. We must without hesitation adore Christ, that is to say, the character resulting from the Gospels ; for all that is sublime participates in the divine, and the evan- THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. 151 gelical Christ is the most beautiful incarnatiou of God in the most beautiful of forms. He is the moral man ; he is really the Son of God and the Son of Man, God in man Those grand interpreters of Christianity do not deceive themselves who make him out to be born without father here below, and attribute his generation not to a natural intercourse, but to a virginal bosom and a celestial opera- tion. Admirable symbol, which conceals under its wings the true explanation of the ideal Christ ! What does it matter to the Man of Galilee that the reflection of the divinity is taken from him almost before our eyes ? Assuredly the historian ought to wish to clear up such a problem, but at the bottom the moral and religious neces- sities of man are but little interested in it. Eh ! what does it matter to us that it is eighteen hundred years since these things happened in Palestine ? What does it matter to us that Jesus was born in such and such a village ; that he had such or such ancestors ; that he suffered on such or such a day in the sacred week ? Let us leave these questions to the researches of the curious. Would the Homeric poems be more beautiful if it were proved that the circumstances they recited were all true facts ? Would the Gospels be more beautiful if it were true that at a cer- tain point of space and time a man had realised to the letter the features they present to us ? The picture of a sublime character gains nothing by its conformity with a real hero. The truly admirable Jesus is under the shelter of the historic critic; he has his throne in the conscience./ He will not be replaced except by a superior ideal ; He is king for a long time yet. What do I say ? His beauty is eternal ; his reign will have no end. The Church has been surpassed j she has surpassed herself : Christ has not been surpassed. Whilst one noble heart shall aspire to moral beauty — whilst but one noble soul shall start for joy before the realisation of the divine, Christ will have 152 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. his adorers for the truly immortal part of his being j for we do not deceive ourselves, and we do not stretch the limits of the imperishable. In the evangelical Christ one part will die — that is the local and national ; it is the Jew, the Galilean ; but one part will remain — that is the great master of morality ; that is the just man persecuted ; that is he who has said to man, " You are the son of the same Heavenly Father." The wonder-worker and the prophet shall die ; the man and the wise one shall remain ; or rather, eternal beauty shall live for ever under the sublime name, like as all those whom Humanity has chosen in order to recall to herself what she is, and become fond of her own image. Behold the living God ! Behold that which we must adore ! MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF I SLAM ISM. All origins are obscure, religious origins more so than others. Religions being the products of the spontaneous instincts of human nature, do not recall their infancy any more than the adult recalls the history of his first age and the successive phases of the development of his conscience. Mysterious chrysalids, they only appear in the full light of day, in the perfect maturity of their forms. It is with the origins of religions as it is with the origin of humanity. Science demonstrates that on a certain day, by virtue of natural laws which have governed the development of things without exception or external intervention, the thinking being made its appearance, endowed with all its faculties and perfect as to its essential elements; and however we may wish to explain the appearance of man upon the earth by the laws which have governed the phe- nomena of our globe since Nature has ceased to create, it will only be to open the door to imaginations so extrava- gant that no serious mind would wish to consider it for a moment. It is still undoubted that on a certain day man, by the natural and spontaneous expansion of his faculties, improvised language, and this notwithstanding any image borrowed from the actual state of the human mind may not assist us to conceive this strange fact, now become entirely impossible in our age of reflection. We must even give up the explanation of the primitive facts of religion by any process open to experience — facts which have no analogues since humanity has lost its religious fecundity. In the face of the impotence of reflective reason to found belief iS3 154 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. and reduce it to discipline, how can we fail to recognise the hidden force which at certain moments penetrates and vivifies the very entrails of humanity ? The super- natural hypothesis perhaps offers the least difficulty among the frivolous solutions of those who have touched upon the problems of religious origins without having penetrated the mysteries of the spontaneous conscience; and if, in order to reject this hypothesis, we must arrive at a rational opinion upon so many truly divine facts, very few men would have the right to disbelieve the supernatural. Would it be true that science ought to give up the explanation of the formation of the globe because the phe- nomena which have brought it to the state in which we see it are no longer produced on a large scale in our days ? that she ought to give up the explanation of the appear- ance of life and living species because the contemporaneous period has ceased to be creative ? the explanation of the origin of language because languages are no longer created ? the origin of religions because religions are no longer created ? No ; certainly not. It is the work of science — infinitely delicate and often dangerous work — to guess the primitive by the faint traces it has left behind it. Beflection has not left us at such a distance from the creative age but that we can reproduce in ourselves the sentiment of spon- taneous life. History, however niggard she may be for the non-perceptive epochs, is not, however, entirely dumb ; she permits us, if not to touch directly upon questions of origin, at least to examine them from the outside. Then, as nothing is absolute in human affairs, and there are not two facts in the past which can strictly be entered in the same category, we have intermediary shades for representing the inaccessible phenomena for the purpose of immediate study. Geology finds in the slow disintegration of the actual state of the globe, data for the explanation of prior revolutions. The linguist, in assisting at the phenomena of the develop- MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAM ISM. 155 merit of languages which goes on under our eyes, is enabled to discover laws which have governed the formation of lan- guage. The historian wanting primitive facts which have heralded religious appearances can study the degeneration, the abortive attempts, the demi-religions, if I dare say so, showing, although in more reduced proportions, the pro- cess by which the great works of the unreflective epochs have been formed. The birth of Islamism is on this account a unique and truly inappreciable fact. Islamism has been the last reli- gious creation of humanity, and in many respects the least original. Instead of the mystery under which other religions enshroud their cradle, this one was born in full history ; its roots are even with the soil. The life of its founder is as well known as that of the Keformers of the sixteenth century. We can follow year by year the fluctuations of his thoughts, his contradictions, his weak- nesses. Elsewhere religious origins are lost in a dream ; the work of the most delicate criticism scarcely suffices to distinguish the real under the deceitful appearance of the myth and the legend. Islamism, on the contrary, appear- ing in the midst of a very advanced reflection, is absolutely wanting in the supernatural. Mahomet, Omar, Ali are neither seers, nor illuminati, nor miracle-workers. Each one of them knows very well what he does ; he is not the dupe of himself; each of them offers himself for analysis, stripped and with all the weaknesses of humanity. Thanks to the excellent works of M. Weil 1 and Caussin de Perceval, 2 we can say that the problem of the origin of 1 Mohammed der Prophet, sein Leben und seine Lehre (Stuttgard, 1843) ? Jlistorisch-hritische Einleituny in den Koran (Biellfeld, 1844) ; Biblischc Legcnden der Muselmdnnes (Frankfort, 1845) ; Geschichte der Chalifen (Mannheim, vol. i., 1846 ; vol. ii., 1848 ; vol. iii., 185 1). 2 Essai sur UHistoire des Arabes avant V Islamisme pendant VEpoque dc Mahomet et jusqu'd la JRe'duction de toutes les Tribus sous la Loi Musulmam (Paris, 1848, 3 vols.). 156 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. Islamism has reached in our time a nearly complete solu- tion. M. Caussin de Perceval, moreover, has introduced a capital element into the question by the new teachings which he has provided upon the antecedents and the fore- runners of Mahomet — a delicate subject, which had scarcely been noticed before him. His excellent work will remain a model of this exact learning, solid and removed from all conjecture, which forms the characteristic of the French school. The delicacy and penetration of M. Weil ensure for his works on Islamism a distinguished rank. Under the circumstances of the choice and of the richness of the sources, his work is, however, inferior to that of our learned compatriot, and we may reproach him for placing too much confidence upon the Turkish and Persian authori- ties, which, on the present question, have but little value. America and England have also been occupied with Mahomet. A well-known novelist, Washington Irvinu, 1 has related his life with interest, but without proof of a very elevated historical sentiment. His book, however, shows a true progress when we consider that in 1829 Mr. Charles Poster published two large volumes (very much relished by the clergy 2 ) in order to establish that Mahomet was nothing but the Little Horn of the he-goat which figures in the 8th chapter of Daniel, and that the Pope was the Great Horn. Mr. Poster upon this ingenious parallel founds a whole philosophy of history, according to which the Pope represents the corruption of Western Christianity, and Mahomet the corruption of the East. Such are the strik- ing resemblances of Mahometism and Papistry. 1 Lives of Mahomet and his Successors. New York, 1 850. 2 Mahometism Unveiled: an Inquiry in ivhich that Arch-Heresy, its Diffusion and Continuance, are Examined on a Neio Principle, tending to Confirm the Evidences and Aid the Propagation of the Christian Faith. This is the same Mr. Charles Foster who is the author of a hoax upon the Sinaitic inscriptions, in which he pretends to find the primitive language and writing, the primitive text of Exodus, &c. MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 157 It would be a curious history to write would that of the notions which Christian nations entertained respect- ing Mahomet, from the time of the narrative of the false Turpin about the golden idol which Mahom worshipped at Cadiz, and which Charlemagne did not dare to destroy for fear of the legion of devils enclosed in it, until the day when criticism restored in a very real sense to the father of Islamism, his title of prophet. The virgin faith of the first half of the Middle Ages had only the most vague notions of those modes of worship which were foreign to Christianity ; it figured to itself Maphomet, Baphomet, Bafum 1 as a false v god to which human sacrifices were offered. It was in the twelfth century that Mahomet began to pass as a false prophet, and then they thought seriously about exposing his imposture. The translation of the Koran by order of Peter the Venerable, the pole- mical works of the Dominicans and of Kaymond Lully, the teaching of William of Tyre and Matthew Paris, con- tributed to spread abroad sounder notions of Islamism and its founder. To the idol Mahom succeeded the here- siarch Mahomet, placed by Dante in his Hell (xxviii. 31) in a fairly honourable region among the sowers of discord with Fra Dolcino and Bertrand de Born. There was a sign of revolution already operating in the conscience. In the epoch of truly artless faith, the faithful ignore the existence of any other faith than their own, or, if they know of the existence of other worships, these worships appear to them so impure and so ridiculous, that their votaries can only be in their eyes either mad or perverse. What astonishment for the consciences when they come to recognise at the side of the dogma, which they believed to be unique, there are others which also claim to come to heaven ! The word of the Three Impostors, which had so much attention during the whole of the thirteenth cen- 1 From thence, bafumerie, mahomerit, momerie, to denote all supersti- tious and impure modes of worship. 158 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. tury, and of which the popular imagination made a book, is the result of this first incredulity preceding the study of Arab philosophy and a sufficiently exact knowledge of Islamism. 1 The name of Mahomet thus became almost synonymous with impious ; and when Qrcagna, in the hell of the Campo Santo of Pisa, wished to represent by the side of the heretics the despisers of all religions, the three persons he chose were Mahomet, Averroes, and the Anti- christ. The Middle Ages did not go half-way in their anger. Mahomet was at one and the same time a sorcerer, an infamous debauchee, a camel-thief, and a cardinal who, not having succeeded in becoming Pope, invented a new religion in order to revenge himself upon his colleagues. His biography became a catalogue of all imaginable crimes, to such an extent, that the Histoires de Baphomet became, like those of Pilate, a theme of obscene anecdotes. 2 The six- teenth and seventeenth centuries did not show much more justice : Bibliander, Hottinger, Maracci did not dare to take up the Koran except for the purpose of refuting it. 3 Prideaux and Bayle at last regarded Mahomet as his- torians, and no longer as controversialists ; but the want of authentic documents kept them discussing puerile fables, which until then had sufficed for the curiosity of the people and the anger of the theologians. The honour of the first attempt at a biography of Mahomet from Oriental sources 1 I have exposed this more at length in my essay upon Averroes et V Averrotsme, p. 222 et seq. 2 See the Roman de Mahomet, published by MM. Reinaud and Fr. Michel (Paris, 1831), and Edel du Meril, Poesies Populaire Latines du Moyen Age, 1847, p. 367. 3 We can judge of the force of their reasoning by what I have borrowed from the celebrated theologian Ge"nebrand : "Why is it, O Mahomet, that thou hast not written thy law or thy Koran in Latin, or Greek, or Hebrew, seeing that these are the languages known throughout all the Roman Empire and by the learned ? " He answered, but very coldly, and after the manner of the Huguenots, that his Alcoran or institution was not for the Romans or the learned, because they should not be converted. But it was not for that, but because he was a stupid, and knew nothing of Hebrew, Greek, or Latin. MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAM ISM. 159 "belongs to Gagnier. This savant was induced to learn from Abulfeda, which was very fortunate. We doubt whether in the eighteenth century the critics were suffi- ciently able to apprehend as they ought the difference as to the historic value of the narratives of the Arab histo- rians and the legends emanating from the Persian imagi- nation. This capital distinction, which M. Caussin de Perceval alone has well observed, is, to speak truly, the nucleus of all the problems which relate to the origins of Islamism. Composed from Arab sources, such as the biographies of Ibn Hischem and Abulfeda, the life of Mahomet is simple and natural, almost without miracles. Composed from Turkish and Persian authors, the same legend appears like a mass of absurd fable in the worst style. They did not commence to put the traditions of the life of Mahomet into order until the time of the Abbassides. The editors of that epoch already relied upon written sources, of which the authors, in citing their authorities, themselves referred back to the companions of the Pro- phet. Around the mosque adjoining the house of Maho- met, a bench reached all along, upon which men with- out family or dwelling made their resting-place. These men lived upon the generosity of the Prophet, and often ate with him. They were called the People of the Bench (ahl el-soffa) ; they were reputed to know a great deal of the personal peculiarities of Mahomet, and their recollections became the origin of innumerable dires or hadith. The Mussulman faith itself was alarmed at the multitude of documents thus obtained. Six legitimate sources were only recognised by tradition, and the inde- fatigable Bokhari avows that upon two hundred thousand hadith which he had collected seven thousand two hundred and twenty-five only appeared to him to be of incontest- able authenticity. The European critic would assuredly, without incurring the reproach of rashness, proceed to an i£o STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY, elimination still more severe. Nevertheless, we cannot deny that these first narratives present us with many features of the real physiognomy of the Prophet, and may be clearly distinguished from the collections of pious legends imagined solely for the edification of readers. The true monument of the primitive history of Islamism, the Koran, remains otherwise absolutely unassailable, and this monument is sufficient, independently of the narratives of historians, to display Mahomet. I have not seen in any literature a process of com- position which can give an exact idea of the compilation of the Koran. It is neither a book written with a sequel, nor a vague indeterminate text approaching little by little to a definitive lesson, nor the compilation of the teaching of a master made from the recollections of his disciples ; it is the collection of the sermons, and, if I dare say so, of the orders of the day of Mahomet, bearing still the date of the place where they were published and the trace of the circumstances which called them forth. Each of these pieces was written from the dictation of the Prophet, 1 upon skins, upon shoulder-blades of mutton, upon camel-bones, on polished stones, on leaves of the palm tree, or preserved in the memory of the principal disciples, whom they called the Bearers of the Koran. It was only under the Khalifat of Abu-Bekr, after the battle of Yemama, where a great number of old Mussulmans perished, that they thought of reuniting the Koran between two boards, and placing end to end the detached and often contradictory fragments. It is beyond doubt that this compilation, over which Zeyd-ben-Thabet, the most trusted secretary of Mahomet, presided, was made up in perfect good faith. No work of co-ordination or conciliation was attempted ; they put at the head the longest portions, and they 1 The word horan would say recitation, and does not disclose any idea analogous to that of book (Kitab) of the Jews and Christians. MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 161 reunited at the end the shortest surates, 1 which had only a few lines, and the pattern copy was intrusted to the care of Hafsa, the daughter of Omar, one of the widows of Mahomet. A second verification was made under the Khalifat of Othman. Some variances of orthography and dialect were introduced into the copies of the different provinces. Othman named a commission, always presided over by Zeyd, to constitute definitively the text according to the Mecca dialect. Then, by a procedure very char- acteristic of the Oriental critic, he collected and burned all the other copies, so as to put an end to all discussion. It is thus that the Koran has come down to us, without any very essential variations. Assuredly such a mode of composi- tion is calculated to inspire some scruples. The integrity of a work intrusted for a long time to memory seems to us to be ill kept. Cannot alterations and interpolations slip into successive revisions ? Some Mussulman heretics have upon this point forestalled the suspicions of the modern critic. M. Weil, at the present day, has maintained that the revision of Othman was not purely grammatical, as the Arabs would have it, and that policy had an influence, mainly to rebut the pretensions of Ali. However, the Koran is presented to us with but little arrangement, in very complete disorder, and with very flagrant contra- dictions : each of the fragments which compose it bears a complexion so distinct, that nothing could in a general way assail its authenticity. "We have then for Islamism this immense advantage, the very pieces of its origin — pieces no doubt very suspicious, and expressing less truth of the circumstances than the needs of the moment, but in that respect, precious in the eyes of the critic who knows how to interpret them. It is upon this strange sight of a religion born in open daylight, with full consciousness of itself, that we desire to call for the moment, the attention of thinkers. 1 This is the Arab name of the chapters of the Koran. 1 62 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. I. Criticism in general should forego the want of thorough knowledge of the character and biography of the founders of religion. In that respect the fabric of the legend has entirely covered that of history. Were they handsome or ugly, vulgar or sublime ? No one knows. The books we ascribe to them, the discourses we preach of them, are in general more modern compositions, and we learn much less of what they really were than of the manner in which their disciples conceived their ideal. The beauty even of their character is not for them ; it belongs to humanity, which has made them to its image. Transformed by this continually creative power, the ugliest caterpillar would become the most beautiful butterfly. It is not so with Mahomet. The work of the legend has remained around him, weak and without originality. Mahomet is really a historic personage ; we touch him in every part; the book which remains under his name represents, word for word, the discourses he held. His life is for good and all, a biography like any other, without prodigies and without exaggeration. Ibn Hischam and the most ancient of his historians are sensible writers. They are a little near the tone of the Vie des Saints, written in a devout but reasonable fashion ; and yet we can cite twenty legends of saints — that of St. Francis d'Assisi for instance — which have become infinitely more mythical than that of the founder of Islamism. Mahomet would not be a thaumaturgist ; he wished to be a prophet, and a prophet without miracles. He con- stantly repeated that he was a man like any other — mortal as others were, subject to sin, and having need, as other men, of the mercy of God. In his latter days, wishing to allay his conscience, he ascended the pulpit. " Mussul- MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 163 mans," said he, "if I have struck any one of you, here is my back that he may strike me. If any one has been wronged by me, let him return injury for injury. If I have taken anybody's goods, all that I have is at his disposition." A man arose and claimed a debt of three drachmas. "I would much rather," said the Prophet, " have the shame in this world than in the other," and he paid him on the spot. This extreme measure, this truly exquisite good taste with which Mahomet performed his part of prophet, was imposed upon him by the spirit of his nation. Nothing is more incorrect than to depict these Arabs before Islamism as a coarse, ignorant, and superstitious nation. We ought to say, on the contrary, that they were a refined, sceptical, and incredulous people. Here is a curious episode of the early days of Mahomet's mission, which shows the icy indifference which prevailed around him, and the extreme reserve he was required to observe with regard to the employment of the marvellous. He was seated in the open space in front of the Caaba, a short distance from a circle of several of the leading Koreishites, who were opposed to his doctrines. Otba the son of Eebia, one of them, came near and stood by his side, and, speaking in the name of the others, " Son of my friend," said he, " thou art a man distinguished by thy qualities and thy birth. Is it well thou dost bring disturbance in thy country, division among families, that thou dost outrage our gods, that thou chargest our ancestors and our wise men with impiety and error ? But we wish to deal discreetly with thee. Listen to the proposals I have to make to thee, and consider if it will suit thee to accept some of them." " Speak," said Mahomet, " I listen to thee." " Son of my friend," replied Otba, " if the object of thy conduct be to acquire riches, we will assess everything for thee to make a for- tune more considerable than that of any Koreishite. If 1 64 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. thou desirest honours, we will make thee our chief, and we will not adopt any resolution without thy advice. If thou canst not bear the influence of the spirit which appears to attach itself to thee and to control thy dis- position, we will call in skilful physicians, and we will pay them to cure thee." " I am neither greedy of property, nor ambitious of dignity, nor possessed by an evil spirit," answered Mahomet ; "lam sent by Allah, who has revealed to me a book, and has ordered me to announce to you the rewards and punishments which await you." " Ah ! well, Mahomet," said the Ivoreishite, " since thou dost not agree to our proposals, and pretendest that thou art sent by Allah, give us some clear proofs of thy quality. Our valley is narrow and barren, ask that God may enlarge it, that he may remove the mountains which enclose it, that he may cause to flow through it rivers like the rivers of Syria and Irak, or that he will cause some of our ancestors to come out of the tomb, among them Cossay the son of Kilab, the man whose word had so much weight, that these illustrious dead, being raised, may recognise thee as a prophet, and we will also recognise thee." " God," answered Mahomet, " has not sent me to you for that ; he has sent me only to preach his law." * At least," rejoined the Koreishite, '•' pray to thy Lord that he will direct one of his angels to bear witness of thy truth, and order us to believe thee. Ask him also that he will show openly the choice he has made of thy person in relieving thee of the need to seek thy daily living in the markets like the least of thy fellow-countrymen." " No," said Mahomet, " I will not address to him these requests ; my duty is only to preach to you." " Ah ! well, let thy Lord make the heavens fall upon us, as thou pretendest he is able to do, for we will not believe thee." One sees it, a Buddha, a son of God, a thaumaturge of high degree would be above the temperament of these people. MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 165 The extreme acuteness of the Arab mind, the frank and plain manner in which they regarded the real, the loose- ness of manners and belief which prevailed at the epoch of Islamism forbad grand airs on the part of the new pro- phet. Arabia is wanting completely in the element which engenders mysticism and mythology. 1 The Semitic nations, those at least who have remained faithful to patriarchal life and the ancient spirit, have never attributed to God, variety, plurality, or sex. The word " goddess " would be in Hebrew a most horrible barbarism. Hence this charac- teristic feature, they have never had either mythology or epics. The plain and simple fashion in which they con- ceived God, separated from the world, not engendering, not engendered, having no likeness, excluded those grand embellishments, those divine poems in which India, Persia, and Greece have developed their fantasies. Mythology representing Pantheism in religion is only possible in the imagination of a people where the notions of God, of humanity, and the universe are allowed to fluctuate with uncertainty; but the mind farthest re- moved from Pantheism is most assuredly the Semitic mind. Arabia in particular had lost, or perhaps never had, the gift of supernatural invention. We scarcely find a religious thought in all the Moallakdt, 2 and in the vast category of anti-Islamic poetry. This people had not the sense of holy things ; but in return they had a very lively 1 If it be objected that the general tendency of Oriental philosophy is towards mysticism, I would observe that it is only by the abuse of the term that one applies the name of Arab philosophy to a philosophy which has never been rooted in the Arabic peninsula, and the appearance of which has been a reaction of Persian genius against Arabic genius. This philosophy has been written in Arabic, that is all ; it is not Arab either in tendency or spirit. 2 The verses which had gained the prize in the poetic contests were called Moallakdt, or Suspended, from being suspended with golden nails to the door of the Caaba. There are seven of them remaining, to which they generally attach two or three other poems of like character. 1 66 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. sentiment of finite things and of the passions of the human heart. Thus we see why Mussulman legend, outside that of Persia, remains so meagre, and why the mythical element in it is absolutely nothing. Doubtless the life of Mahomet, like that of all great founders, is surrounded with fables ; but these fables have received some sanction from the Shiahs, governed in their turn by the Persian imagination. So far from being attributable to the depths of Islamism, they ought only to be regarded as additional dross, tolera- ted rather than consecrated, and very analogous to the mythology of the low stage of the Apocryphal books, which the Church has never either frankly adopted or severely banned. How is it that the popular imagination had not surrounded an existence so extraordinary with some pro- digies ? How is it that the infancy, above all a theme so advantageous for the legend, had not tempted the story- tellers ? To listen to these : on the night when the Prophet was born, the palace of Chosroes was thrown down by an earthquake, the sacred fire of the Magi was extinguished, the lake of Sawa was dried up, the Tigris overflowed, and all the idols of the world fell with their faces to the ground. These traditions, nevertheless, have never been raised to the height of a consecrated legend; and, in short, the narrative of the infancy of Mahomet, in spite of some blemishes, remains a charming page, both graceful and natural. 1 In order the better to appreciate this sobriety, I will here give a sample of the manner in which India knows how to herald the birth of her heroes. When the creatures understood that Buddha was about to be born, all the birds of the Himalaya flew to the palace of Kapila, and placed themselves, singing and beating their wings, upon the terraces, the balustrades, the arches, the galleries, and the roofs of the palace ; the ponds were 1 See M. Caussin, vol. i. p. 286 et seq. MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 167 covered with, lotus ; in the houses, butter, oil, honey, and sugar, although they used them in abundance, appeared again as entire as before ; the drums, harps, theorbos, and cymbals gave forth melodious sounds without being touched. Gods and hermits came together from each of the ten horizons in order to accompany Buddha. Buddha descended accompanied by hundreds of millions of divi- nities. At the moment he descended, the three thousand grand milliers of regions of the world were illuminated with an immense splendour, effacing that of the gods. Not a being underwent fright or suffering. Every one felt infinite comfort, and had only affectionate and tender thoughts. Hundreds of millions of gods sustained and carried the chair of Buddha with their shoulders, their hands, and their heads. A hundred thousand Apsaras conducted the choir of music before, behind, to the right, and to the left, singing the praises of Buddha. At the moment he left the bosom of his mother, all the flowers opened their cups ; the young trees rose towards the sun and opened their buds ; perfumed water collected from all parts ; from the sides of the Himalaya the young lions ran joyously to the city of Kapila, and stayed at the gates without hurting any one. Five hundred young white elephants came and touched with their trunks the feet of the king, the father of Buddha ; the children of the gods adorned with sashes appeared in the apartments of the women, going and coming from one side to the other ; the women of the Nagas allowed half their bodies to be seen, appeared shaking themselves in the air; ten thousand daughters of the gods, holding in their hands fans of peacock tails, appeared in the blue heavens; ten thou- sand filled vases appeared making the tour of the great city of Kapila ; a hundred thousand daughters of the gods, bearing sea-shells, drums, and tambourines suspended to their necks, appeared immovable; all the winds stayed 1 68 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. blowing, all the rivers and all the brooks stood still ; the sun, and the moon, and the stars ceased to move. A light of a hundred thousand colours, producing a feeling of com- fort in the body and soul, spread itself everywhere. The fire did not burn any more. In the galleries, in the palace, on the terraces, and on the arches of the gates, pearls and precious stones appeared suspended. The crows, the vul- tures, the wolves, and the jackals ceased their cries, and only made sweet and agreeable sounds. All the gods of the woods of Salas, half coming out of their leafy bodies, appeared motionless and bent. Great and small umbrellas were unfurled on all sides. The queen then walks in the garden of Loumbini ; a tree bent towards her and saluted her. The queen took hold of a branch of it, and looking up to heaven with favour, yawned and remained motion- less. Buddha sprung from her right side without wounding it ; a white lotus pierced the earth and opened to receive him. A parasol descends from heaven to cover him; a river of cold water and a river of hot water join together to bathe him, &c. a This is what you may call starting boldly with the legend and not chaffering with a miracle. Arabia had arrived at an intellectual refinement too great for any one to put forward a supernatural legend in this style. The only time that Mahomet was willing to permit an imita- tion of the transcendent fancies of other religions was in his nocturnal journey to Jerusalem upon a fantastic animal. The thing turned out badly. This narrative was over- whelmed with a tempest of witticisms ; many of his dis- ciples abjured, and the Prophet hastened to withdraw his grievous idea by declaring that this marvellous journey, given out at first as real, was only a dream. Every Arab 1 We take these traits among thousands in the Lalita Vistara, or Legend of Buddha, trans, by M. Edouard Foucaux. Paris, 1848. MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 169 legend of Mahomet, such as we read in Abulfeda, 1 for ex- ample, is limited to some narratives very soberly invented. They seek to place him in communication with the illus- trious men of his time and of the preceding generation ; they make his mission to prophesy among venerable per- sonages. When he was wandering in the solitudes adjacent to Mecca, full of his thoughts, he heard a voice which said to him, "Hail! apostle of God." He turned round and only saw trees and rocks. On his flight from Mecca he took refuge in a cavern ; his enemies wished to go in, when they noticed a nest in which a dove had laid its eggs, and a net of spider's web which closed the entrance. His camel was inspired, and when the chiefs of the tribes came to take off the harness in order to offer him hospi- tality, he said, " Let him go ; it is the hand of God that guides him." His sword also performed some miracles. At the close of a battle he was seated at the foot of a tree, having this weapon on his knees ; the handle was of silver. A hostile Bedouin saw him ; he came near him, and pretending to be attracted by mere curiosity, said to him, " Allow me to examine thy sword." Mahomet handed it to him without hesitation. The Arab took it, drew it from the scabbard, and made a blow at him, but the sword refused to obey. All the prodigies of his life are as transparent ; he did not know how to invent anything very new of this kind. The Angel Gabriel bore all the charges of his miracles : it seems that he did not know of any other medium. The battle of Bedr alone, furnishes some examples of great marvellous creation improvised on the spot. An Arab who had placed himself on one of the surrounding moun- tains saw a cloud approach him, and out of the midst of the cloud he heard the neighing of horses, and a voice 1 See the translation which has been given by M. Noel Desvergers. Paris, 1837. 170 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. which said, " Forward, Hayzoum ! " (this is the name of the Angel Gabriel's horse). A Mussulman related that whilst pursuing a Meccan, sword in hand, he had seen the head of the fugitive fall to the ground before his sword touched him ; from that he concluded that the hand of a celestial messenger had forestalled his own. Others affirmed that they had clearly distinguished angels with white turbans, with one end flowing over their shoulder, whilst Gabriel, their chief, had his head bound with a yellow turban. When we know the state of excitement in which these Arabs are before and during a battle, and when we consider that this day was the first outburst of Mussulman enthusiasm, so far from being astonished that such like stories should have found credence, we are surprised that the brain of the combatants of Bedr only produced such sober marvels. At a much more modern epoch, and under the influence of races foreign to Arabia, the legend of Mahomet becomes complicated, as I know, with marvellous circumstances, which savour much of the grand mythological legends of the high East. The Persian, although subdued by Islam- ism, never yielded to the Semitic mind. In spite of the language and the religion which were imposed upon them, they survived to claim their rights as an Indo-European nation, and to create in the bosom of Islamism a philo- sophy, an epic, and a mythology. Open the Ilyat-ul- Koloub, a collection of Shiah traditions. You will see there that the night Mahomet came into the world seventy thousand palaces of ruby and seventy thousand palaces of pearl were built in Paradise, and were called the palaces of the birth. The Prophet was born circumcised ; mid- wives of extraordinary beauty were present without having been warned. A light, of which the brightness shone through all Arabia, went with him from the womb of his mother. Immediately he was born, he threw himself on MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 171 his knees, raised his eyes to heaven, and said, " God alone is God, and I am his prophet ! " God clothed his apostle with the skirt of divine contentment and with the robe of holiness, girt with the girdle of the love of God. He was shod with the sandals of respectful fear ; he put on the crown of precedence, and took in hand the ring of religious authority. At three years old two angels opened his side and took out his heart, squeezed out the black drops of sin, and put there a prophetic light. Mahomet saw behind as well as before ; his saliva made the sea-water sweet ; his drops of sweat were like pearls ; his body cast no shadow, either in the sun or by the light of the moon ; no insect ever approached his person. There is nothing of the Arab in these exaggerations — they are all stamped with Persian taste. It is to misunderstand completely the character of the legend of Mahomet, to seek it in such grotesque narratives, which do not detract from the purity of the primitive Arab traditions any more than the silly amplifications of the Apocryphal Gospels affect the incom- parable beauty of the Canonical Gospels. The legendary elements of nascent Islamism have thus always remained in the state of sporadic tradition and without authority. Instead of a mysterious being, sus- pended between heaven and earth, without father or brother here below, we have only an Arab tainted with all the defects of his national character. Instead of this lofty and inaccessible sternness of supernaturalism which makes the Man-God say, "My mother and my brethren are those who hear the word of God and practise it," we have here all the amiable weaknesses of the human heart. At the battle of Autas, a prisoner whom the Mussulmans were dragging roughly away cried out, " Eespect me ; I am related to your chief." They brought her to Mahomet. " Prophet of God," said she to him, '•' I am thy foster- sister. I am Schazma, daughter of Halimar, thy nurse, of 172 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. the tribe of Beni Sad." " What proof can you give me of that ? " asked Mahomet. " A bite which you gave me on the shoulder one day when I carried you on my back," and she showed him the scar. The sight of it recalled to Mahomet the recollection of his early infancy and the care he had received in a poor family of Bedouins. It moved him tenderly. Tears filled his eyes. " Yes, thou art my sister," said he to Schazma ; and taking off his cloak, he made her sit upon it. Then he continued, " If thou desirest to remain with me, thou shalt live quietly and be honoured among mine ; if thou wilt rather return to thy tribe, I will place thee in a condition to pass thy days in ease." Schazma told him that she preferred the desert life, and thereupon Mahomet sent her there loaded with gifts. Nothing is concealed as to his weaknesses and his humble belongings. He begins life as a commercial traveller in Syria, where he does a fair business ; he has his surname just as any one else ; they call him El Amin — the safe man. In his early youth he fights with the Koreishites against the Hawazim, and the Koreishites are not the less cut to pieces. In a race, his camel is beaten by one belong- ing to a Bedouin, at which he evinces much vexation. Arabia did not think she was obliged, in order to exalt her Prophet, to raise him above humanity, or to withdraw him from the affection of his tribe, his family, and others more humble still. Mussulman historians tell us that he loved his horse and his camel, that he wiped off their sweat with his handkerchief ; when his cat was hungry or thirsty, he got up to open the door for it, and he took an attentive care of an old cock which he kept with him to preserve him from the evil-eye. In his home, he appears to us like a thoroughly honest father of a family. Oftentimes taking the hands of Hassan and Hussein, born of the marriage of Ali and his daughter Fatima, he made them skip and MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAM ISM. 173 dance, repeating to them infantile words which have been preserved. 1 When he saw them whilst in the midst of his preaching, he would go and embrace them and place them near him in the pulpit, and after some words of excuse on their innocence, he would resume his discourse. After the conversion of the Beni Temin to Islamism, one of their principal chiefs, Cays the son of Achim, being in Medina, went one day to Mahomet's house, and found him holding in his lap a little girl whom he covered with kisses. " What is that sheep you are smelling ? " said he. " It is my child," answered Mahomet. " By God," replied Cays, " I have had plenty of little girls like that ; I have buried them all alive without smelling any one of them." " Un- happy man ! " cried Mahomet, " it must be that God has deprived thine heart of all feelings of humanity. Thou knowest not the sweetest joy which has been given man to experience." His biographers do not take more care than he himself took to hide his dominant passion. " Two things of the world," said he, " have an attraction for me, women and perfumes, but I only find pure happiness in prayer." This point was the only one upon which he departed from the laws of propriety and claimed his privilege of prophet. Contrary to all his rules, he had fifteen women — some say twenty-five. The most delicate episodes could not fail of happening in such an establishment. Added to that, a most subtle jealousy appears to have been one of the features of his character. A verse of the Koran expressly forbids his wives from marrying again after his death. In his last ill- ness he said to Ayesha, " Wouldst thou not be satisfied to die before me, and to know that it would be myself who would wrap thee in the winding-sheet, who would pray for 1 I have no need to warn that I am far from attaching any historic value to these narratives ; I insist solely upon the character which the Arabs have attributed to their Prophet, and upon the general aspect of the legend. 174 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. thee, and who would place thee in the tomb ? " "I should like that well enough," answered Ayesha, " if I had not the notion that on thy return from my burial thou wouldst come here and console thyself for my loss with some others of thy wives." This sally made the Prophet smile. •The episode of his marriage with Mary the Copt is one of the most singular. He seems to have preferred for several nights a Copt, a slave, a Christian, to the noble daughters of Abu Bekr and of Omar, of the purest blood of the Koreishites. This selection created a regular sedi- tion amongst the harem, in consequence of which God revealed to him as follows : — " Apostle of God ! why in the face of complaints from thy wives wilt thou abstain from that which God allows thee ! The Lord is ^ood and merciful; he makes void inconsiderate oaths. He is your master; he hath knowledge and wisdom." Thus authorised to punish the rebels, the Prophet repudiated them for a month, and gave himself entirely to Mary. It was only upon the strong remonstrances of Abu Bekr and of Omar that he consented to take their daughters back, after having admonished them in another verse : " If you oppose the Prophet, know that God has declared in his favour; he will hold only to him, and repudiate all of you, and the Lord will give him better wives than you, good Mussul- manis, pious, submissive, and devout." The scandal was even more grave still on the marriage of Mahomet with Zeynab. She was already married to Zeyd, the adopted son of the Prophet. One day when he went to visit Zeyd, he found Zeynab alone, and clothed in a thin garment which scarcely concealed the beauty of her shape. His emotion betrayed itself in a few words : " Praise to God, who disposes of hearts." Then he went away; but the sense of this exclamation did not escape Zeynab, who told Zeyd. He went immediately to Maho- met, and announced that he was ready to repudiate his. MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 175 wife. The Prophet at first objected, but Zeyd insisted. " Zeynab," said he, " proud of her noble blood, has adopted towards me a haughty tone, which has destroyed the happiness of our union." In spite of the custom which forbad the Arabs from marrying the wives of their adopted sons, Zeynab a few months afterwards took rank among the wives of the Prophet. Some verses of the Koran made the murmurs of the austere Mussulmans cease, and the complaisant Zeyd saw his name inscribed in the holy book. In short, Mahomet appears to us a man amiable, sensible, faithful, and free from hatred. His affections were sincere ;' his character in general inclined to benevolence. When they took his hand in greeting, he responded cordially, and was never the first to let go. He saluted little children, and showed great tenderness of heart for women and the weak. " Paradise," said he, " is at the feet of mothers." Neither ambitious thoughts nor religious exaltation had dried up in him the germ of individual sentiment. There was nothing resembling that ambitious and heartless Machiavellian who explains his projects to Zopyrus in inflexible alexandrines — " Je dois regir en Dieu l'univers prevenu ; Mon empire est detruit si Phomme est reconnu." Man, on the contrary, is with him always unmasked. He preserved the sobriety of the Arab manners without any idea of majesty. His bed was a simple cloak, and his pillow a skin filled with the leaves of the date tree. We see him milk his goats himself, and he sits on the ground to mend his clothes and his shoes. All his conduct belies the character which it is usual to attribute to him, that he was enterprising and bold. It shows him to be habitually weak, irresolute, hardly sure of himself. M. Weil goes so far as almost to look upon him as a coward. It is certain that in general he advanced timidly, and almost always 176 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY, resisted the enthusiasm of those who accompanied him. His precautions in battle were hardly worthy of a prophet. He covered himself with two coats of mail, and carried on his head a helmet with a visor which concealed his counte- nance. At the defeat of Ohod his behaviour was most un- becoming in a messenger of God : overturned in a ditch, he owed his life to the devotion of the Ansari, who covered him with their bodies and rescued him covered with blood and mud. His extreme circumspection is displayed at every step. He listened willingly to advice, and showed much deference to it. We often see him give in to the pressure of public opinion and allow himself to be carried away beyond the dictates of prudence. His disciples, having a higher idea of his prophetic gifts than himself, and believing in him more than he believed in himself, did not understand his hesitation and caution. All the energy which was displayed in the foundation of the new religion belongs to Omar. Omar is truly the St. Paul of Islamism, the sword which cuts and decides. We cannot doubt but that the reserved character of Mahomet would have compromised the success of his work, if he had not met with this impetuous disciple, always ready to draw the sword against those who would not, without examina- tion, admit the religion of which he had been the most ardent persecutor. The conversion of Omar was the decisive moment in the progress of Islamism. Until then the Mus- sulmans practised their religion in secret, and did not dare to confess their faith in public. The boldness of Omar, his ostentation in avowing himself a Mussulman, and the terror he inspired, gave them confidence to appear in full daylight. It does not seem that Mahomet had looked be- yond the horizon of Arabia, or had thought that his religion could suit any others than the Arabs. The conquering prin- ciple of Islamism, the idea that the world ought to become Mussulman, was an idea of Omar. It was he who, after MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 177 the death of Mahomet, governing in reality in the name of the feeble Abu Bekr, at the moment when the work of the Prophet was about to dissolve, stayed the defection of the Arab tribes, and gave to the new religion its final characteristic of fixity. If the heat of an impetuous tem- perament attaching itself with frenzy to a dogma ought to be called faith, Omar was in reality the most energetic of the faithful. Never has any one believed with so much rage ; never has any one ever expended so much anger in the name of the undoubted. We often see the need of hatred to give religion a character of entirety and being with- out shades, for it is under the cloak of hatred that religion abandons itself with the most complete sense of security. The rdle of prophet has always its troubles, and before compatriots well disposed to find fault, Mahomet could hardly fail in having to pass some moments of difficulty. In general, he managed with considerable skill to avoid exaggerating his part, and taking care to avoid going too far. It would appear surprising that an envoy of God should suffer defeats, should see his prophecies baffled, should gain half victories. In the great supernatural legends these things are brought about differently ; every- thing is there determined and absolute, as becomes the God concerned in them. It was too late to take such a lofty tone in these matters ; see why — everything in the life of this last of the prophets passes in a half-and-half way, in a manner thoroughly human and thoroughly his- toric. He is beaten, he deceives himself, he goes back, he corrects himself, he contradicts himself. The Mussulmans admit about 225 contradictions in the Koran, that is to say, 225 passages have been abrogated later on by reason of another policy. Whatever unpardonable stains there may be on the morality of Mahomet as features in his life, we ought to guard ourselves against applying too rigorous a criticism. M 178 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. It is evident that the greater part of his acts did not pro- duce upon his contemporaries, nor did they produce upon the Oriental historians, the same impression they produce upon us. We cannot deny, however, that, by the acknow- ledgment of Mussulmans, Mahomet did evil in several cases with full knowledge, knowing very well that in what he did, he was'obeyingMs own will and not the inspiration of God. He allowed robbery ; he ordered assassinations ; he lied, and he permitted lying in war, as a stratagem. We could cite a crowd of instances where he paltered with morality for a political motive. One of the most singular assuredly, is where he promised Othman beforehand a pardon for all the sins he should commit up to the time of his death, in compensation for a great pecuniary sacri- fice. He was, above all, pitiless to wits. The only woman to whom he showed severity at the taking of Mecca, was the musician Fertena, who used to sing the satirical verses which they composed against him. His conduct towards one of his secretaries, was also very characteristic. This man, who wrote the Koran at the dictation of the Prophet, assisted too much by his own inspiration for their mutual confidence, was very lively. Mahomet did not like him ; he accused him of changing words and distorting his ideas, so much so, that the secretary, having a presentiment of danger, fled and abjured Islamism. After the taking of Mecca he fell into the hands of the Mussulmans. Mahomet with much trouble was prevailed upon to pardon him, and when the apostate had gone, he humorously expressed his dissatisfaction with the Mussulmans that they had not delivered him from that man. There is also some injustice in judging severely, and with our moral notions, those acts of Mahomet which, now-a-days, we term fraud. We should picture to ourselves at what point among the Mussulmans, profound conviction, and even nobility of character, could be allied with a certain degree of imposture. MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 179 The chief of the sect of the Wahabis, Abd-el-Wahab, a true deist, the Socinianism of Islamism, did he not inspire his soldiers with the most blind confidence in giving them before the battle a safe-conduct, signed with his own hand and addressed to the treasurer of Paradise, to admit them there at once and without any previous questioning ? All the founders of the Khouan, or religious orders of Algeria, 1 unite the characters of ascetics and audacious charlatans. Sidi Aissa, the most extraordinary of these modern pro- phets — Sidi Aissa, whose legend has almost attained the proportions of that of Mahomet, was only a juggler and showman of beasts, who skilfully made the most of his trade ; and any persons who have travelled in Algeria will believe that the A'issaoua are dupes of their own illusion. Certainly it would be bad taste to compare Mahomet with impostors so low. We must, however, admit that if the first condition of a prophet is to delude himself, Mahomet does not merit that title. All his life reveals a reflec- tion, a combination, a policy which scarcely enters into the character of an enthusiast beset with divine visions. Never was a head more clear than his ; never was there a man more master of his thoughts. It would be, to put the question in a narrow and superficial manner, to ask if Mahomet believed in his own mission ; for faith alone is capable of sustaining the innovator in the fight he has to maintain for the idea of his choice. On the other hand, it is absolutely impossible to admit that a man with a conscience as clear would have believed he had the seal of prophecy between his two shoulders, and received in- spiration from the Angel Gabriel for his passions and his premeditated designs. M. Weil and Washington Irving suppose, not without reason, that in the first phase of his life as prophet a truly holy enthusiasm pervaded his mind, 1 See the curious work of Captain De Neveu upon this subject. Paris 1846. i8o STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. and that the political period which came to him later on brought with it the contest and feeling of difficulty which tarnished the original delicacy of his inspiration. The last surates of the Koran, so resplendent with poetry, were the expression of his artless conviction, whilst the first surates, filled with disputes, contradictions, and wrongs, were the work of his practical and reflective age. "We can hardly deny that the first appearances of his pro- phetic genius were impressed with a grand character of sanctity. We see him in solitary prayer in the desert valleys in the neighbourhood of Mecca. Ali, the son of Abu Talib, unknown to his father and uncles, accom- panied him sometimes, and prayed with him, imitating his movements and his attitudes. One day Abu Talib surprised them at this occupation. " What are you doing," said he to them, " and what religion are you following?" t: The religion of God, his angels, his prophets," answered Mahomet, " the religion of Abraham." How grand he is also in the first proofs of his apostolate ! One evening, after having passed the day in preaching, he went into his house without having met a single individual, man or woman, free or slave, who had not loaded him with insults and rejected his exhortations with contempt. Beaten, dis- couraged, he wrapped himself in his cloak and threw him- self down on a mat. It was then that Gabriel revealed to him the beautiful surate, " Oh, thou who art enveloped in a cloak, raise thyself and preach" However, this perfume of sanctity only appears at rare intervals during his period of activity. Perhaps he recognised that moral sentiment and purity of soul were not sufficient for the contest against passion and interest, and that religious thought, from the moment it aspires to proselytism, is obliged to adopt the devices of its adversaries, often hardly delicate. At least it seems a3 if, after having believed in his prophetic mis- sion without any mental reservation, he afterwards lost MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAM ISM. 181 spontaneous faith, and continued notwithstanding to go on, guided by reflection and will less great than before ; somewhat like Joan of Arc returned to womanhood when she had lost her primitive simplicity. Man is too weak to bear for long a divine mission, and those only are imma- culate whom God soon relieves from the burthen of the apostolate. It is a very strange question, perhaps, but the critic is bound to put it : Up to what point did the disciples of Mahomet believe in the prophetic mission of their master ? It would seem strange to call in question the absolute conviction of men whose enthusiasm for their faith hurried them from the first bound to the extremities of the earth. Important distinctions, however, are here necessary. In the circle of the first faithful, among the Mohadjir and Ansari, 1 the faith, it must be admitted, was very nearly absolute ; but if we leave this little group, which did not exceed some thousands of men, we find around Mahomet, in all the rest of Arabia, incredulity very little disguised. The antipathy of the people of Mecca towards their com- patriot was never entirely overcome. The epicurism which prevailed among the rich Koreishites, the frivolous and libertine spirit of the poets then in vogue, left no room for any profound conviction. As for the other tribes, it is certain that they only embraced Islamism formally, with- out inquiring into the dogma they were called on to be- lieve, and without attaching any importance to it. They did not see any great inconvenience in pronouncing the formula of Islam except to forget it when the Prophet should be no more. When Khalid appeared among the Djaluma and summoned them to adopt the faith of the Prophet, these good people knew so little about what was 1 The Mohadjir were the people of Mecca who accompanied Mahomet in his flight (Hedjra) ; the Ansari were those of Medina who assembled and became his defenders against his own fellow-citizens. 1 82 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY, in question that they thought he was speaking about Sabeism, and they threw their spears in the air, crying out, " We are Sabeans ! " The proud Thakif conceived a singular method to save the shame of their conversion : they consented to submit to the new law on condition that they should keep their idol Lat for three years longer. This condition having been rejected, they demanded to keep Lat for a year, during six months, during a month. Their pride would have a concession, they repeated over and over again, and at last demanded an exemption from prayer. The conversion of the Temanites is not less curious. Their envoys presented themselves proudly, and approaching the apartments of the Prophet and his wives, " Come out, Mahomet," they cried out to him ; " we come to propound to thee a contest of glory. 1 We have brought our poet and our orator." Mahomet went out and took a place surrounded by the disputants. The orator Otarid and the poet Zibrican began to praise, the one in jingling prose and the other in verse, the advan- tages of their tribe. Cays and Hassan son of Thabet, answering in improvised pieces in the same metre and the same rhyme, asserted with so much energy the supe- riority of the Mussulmans, that the Temanites acknow- ledged themselves vanquished. " Mahomet is truly a man favoured by Heaven," said they among themselves ; " his orator and his poet have beaten ours," and they were there- upon made Mussulmans. All the conversions were of this kind. They made their conditions ; they took them and they left them. The old Amir, son of Tofayl, came to find Mahomet. " If I embrace Islamism," said he to him, " what will my rank be ? " " That of other Mussulmans," said 1 They call the contest of glory, or MoufaMara, those poetic tournaments where each tribe represents by a poet their title to pre-eminence. The ■victory remained with the tribe whose poet found the strongest and hap- piest expressions. MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF I SLAM ISM, 183 Mahomet ; " thou shalt have the same rights and the same duties as every one else." " This equality is not enough for me. Declare me thy successor in the command of the nation and I will join thy faith." " It does not belong to me to dispose of the command after me ; God will give it to whomsoever he shall please to choose." " Well, let us divide the power now : do thou govern the cities and the Arabs with fixed dwellings, and I will rule over the Bedouins." Mahomet not being willing to agree to these conditions, Amir declined to become a Mussulman. It is after the death of Mahomet that we can above all see how weak was the conviction which had united the different Arab tribes around him : an apostasy of the whole nearly happened. Some said that if Mahomet had really been sent by God, he would not have died ; others asserted that his religion ought only to last during his life. Scarcely was the news of his end spread abroad than a cloud of pro- phets appeared all over Arabia ; each tribe wished to have its own, like the Koreishites ; the example had been con- tagious. Almost all the prophets were but inferior intri- guers, entirely devoid of the religious initiative. Addressing themselves to the simple tribes, who were much less refined than the people of Mecca, they made use of conjuring tricks, which they gave as proofs of their divine mission. One of them, Moseilama, went through the country showing a phial with a narrow neck, in which he had inserted an egg by means of a process which he had learned from a Persian juggler. He also recited some jingling phrases which he gave as verses of a second Koran. Who will believe it ? This vile impostor for several years held in check all the Mussulman forces arrayed round Abu Bekr, and balanced the destiny of Mahomet. He found a formidable rival in the prophetess Sedjah, who had succeeded in grouping behind her a powerful army of Temanites. Moseilama being pressed in Hadjr, saw no other means of disarming 184 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. his beautiful rival than by proposing an interview, which was accepted with eagerness. The prophet and prophetess came out of it, married. After three days devoted to Hymen, Sedjah returned to her camp, where the soldiers were eager to question her as to the results of her interview with Moseilama. " I have recognised in him," said she, "a true prophet, and I have married him." " Will Moseilama give us a wedding present?" asked the Temanites. "He has not spoken about that," replied Sedjah. " It will be a shame for thee and for us," they responded, " if he marries our pro- phetess and gives us nothing. Keturn to him and get us our present." Sedjah went to the gate of Hadjr, and finding it closed, called to her husband, who appeared upon the wall. A herald announced the demand of the Temanites. " Very well," said Moseilama, " you shall be satisfied. I charge you to publish the following proclamation : Moseilama the prophet of God grants exemption to the Beni Temim from the first and from the last of the five prayers which his brother Mahomet has imposed on them." The Temanites took this dispensation quite seriously, and they pretend that since then they have not made the dawn prayer or that of the night. We can judge from these narratives how shallow was the religious movement among the Arabs. 1 This movement had absolutely nothing dogmatic outside the little group, very few in numbers. They say that after a victory Omar ordered that each soldier should have his share of booty in proportion to the extent in which he knew the Koran by heart; but when they came to the proof, they found that the 1 The irreligious character of the Arab nomad has struck every traveller. See in particular M. D'Escayrac de Lature, Le Desert et le Soudan, p. 340 et seq. Some parts of Arabia have only become completely Mussulman since the commencement of the present century, in consequence of the Wahabi movement. In general, religions conquer more easily at a dis- tance than in the countries whence they take their rise. MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 185 bravest among the Bedouins could not recite correctly the first formula — " In the name of God, gracious and merci- ful " — which made the assistants laugh. These strong and simple natures did not understand anything of mysticism. On the other hand, the Mussulman faith had found in the rich and proud families of Mecca a centre of resistance over which it could not entirely triumph. Abu Sofian, the chief of this opposition, never took frankly to the ways of a true believer. At his first interview with Mahomet after the taking of Mecca, "Ah ! well, Abu Sofian," said Mahomet to him, " dost thou confess now that there is no other God than Allah?" "Yes," said Abu Sofian. "Wilt thou not also confess that I am the Prophet of Allah ? " " Pardon my sincerity," replied Abu Sofian, " but upon that point I still have my doubts." A great number of pointed anecdotes bear witness to the lightly sceptical and banter- ing tone which this same person always preserved with regard to the new faith. But a crowd of the people of Mecca shared these sentiments. There was in Mecca quite a party of men of wit, rich, brought up on ancient Arab poetry, who were radical unbelievers. These men had too much good taste and tact to make a very lively opposi- tion to the nascent sect ; they embraced Islamism, but they kept their profane habits. This is the party of the Mouna- fikoun, or pretended Mussulmans, who play such a great part in the Koran. At the battle of Ilonayu, where the Mussulmans were defeated, these false brethren did not conceal their malignant joy. u By my faith," said Kalada, "I believe that this time Mahomet is at the end of his magic." " See them, then," said Abu Sofian ; " they will run until the sea stops them." Mahomet knew very well that they held these sentiments, but, as a skilful politician, he was content with outward submission ; and even in sharing the plunder, they were more favoured than the faithful, of whom he was assured. 1 86 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. The whole of the first age of Islamism was only a con- test between the two parties that created the preaching of Mahomet. On the one side, the faithful group of Mohadjir and Ansari ; on the other, the opposing party, represented by the family of the Omeyades or of Abu Sofian. The party of the sincere Mussulmans had their strength in Omar, but after the assassination of the latter, that is to say, about twelve years after the death of the Prophet, the opposition party triumphed by the election of Othman, the nephew of Abu Sofian, that is to say, the most dangerous enemy of Mahomet. All the Khalifat of Othman was a reaction against the friends of the Prophet, who found themselves expelled from the government and violently persecuted. Prom that time they never recovered the upper hand. The provinces could only suffer from the little aristocracy of Mohadjir and Ansari grouped at Mecca and Medina, who arrogated to themselves the right to elect the Khalif. Ali, the true representative of the primitive tradition of Islamism, was during his whole life an impos- sible man, and his election was never taken seriously in the provinces. On all sides they stretched out their hands to the Omeyade family, who had become Syrian in habit and interest, but the orthodoxy of the Omeyades was greatly suspected. They drank wine, practised Pagan rites, did not regard tradition, or Mussulman manners, or the sacred character of the friends of Mahomet. Thus the astonishing spectacle which the first age of the Hegira presents to us is explained; it was wholly occupied in exterminating the primitive Mussulmans, the true fathers of Islamism. Ali, the most holy of men, the adopted son of the Prophet — Ali, whom Mahomet had proclaimed his vicar, was pitilessly slain ; Husein and Hassan, his sons, whom Mahomet had taken in his lap and covered with his kisses, were slaughtered. Ibn Zobeir, the first-born of the Mohadjir, who received for his first food the saliva of the MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 187 Apostle of God, was killed. The primitive faithful arrayed round the Caaba continued there the Arab life, passing the day in talking in the open space and walking in procession round the black stone ; but they had become completely powerless, and the Omeyades only respected them until they thought themselves capable of storming them in their sanctuary. There was a strange scandal during this last siege of Mecca, when they saw the Mussulmans of Syria setting fire to the veil of the Caaba, and making it crumble under the blows of their balista. They say that on the first stone being thrown against the holy house thunder was heard ; the Syrian soldiers trembled. " Go on," cried their chief ; " I know the climate of this country ; storms are frequent at this season." At the same time he took hold of the ropes of the balista and put the machine in motion. 1 We arrive, then, from all parts at this singular result : that the Mussulman movement was produced almost with- out religious faith ; that, putting aside a small number of faithful disciples, Mahomet really worked with but little conviction in Arabia, and never succeeded in overcoming the opposition represented by the Omeyade party. This is the party, kept under at first by the energy of Omar, which prevailed definitively after the death of that formid- able believer, and procured the election of Othman ; this is the party which opposed Ali with an invincible resist- ance, and finished by sacrificing him to their hatred ; this is the party which triumphed at last by the coming of the Omeyades, and went even to the Caaba to slay all those who remained pure of the first generation. Hence comes the indecision which fluctuates until the twelfth century through all the dogmas of the Mussulman faith; hence that bold philosophy, proclaiming frankly the sovereign rights of reason; hence those numerous sects, professing 1 For the picture of this curious epoch we can consult the memoir of M. Quatremere upon the life of Ibn Zobeir, Journal Asiatique, 1832. i88 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. sometimes the most avowed infidelity • Karmathes, Isma- lians, Fatiniites, Druses, Haschischins, Zendiks, secret sects with double meaning, joining fanaticism to incredulity, license to religious enthusiasm, the boldness of the free- thinker to the superstition of the initiated. It was not until the twelfth century that Islamism really triumphed over the undisciplined elements which agitated her bosom, and that by the coming of the Ascharite theology, more severe in its ways, and by the violent extermination of philosophy. Since that epoch, not a doubt has been pro- duced, not a protest raised in the Mussulman world. The difficulty of religious creations rests entirely with the first generation of the faithful, who furnish the ground neces- sary for the belief of the future. Faith is the work of time, and the cement of religious edifices hardens as it becomes old. II. Human nature, as a whole, not being entirely good or entirely bad, nor completely holy nor completely profane, we sin equally against the critic when we pretend to trace back the religious movements of humanity either to the play of passions and individual interests or to the exclu- sive action of superior movers. A revolution so profound as Islamism could not have been the fruit of any adroit combination, and Mahomet is not more explainable by imposture and craft than by illuminism and enthusiasm. To the eyes of the logician who places himself at the point of view of abstractions, and opposes the truth and the lie one to the other, as of absolute categories, there is no middle term between impostor and prophet. But to the eyes of the critic, who places himself in the fleeting and imperceptible middle of the reality, nothing is pure which comes out of man; everything bears, by the side of the seal MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 189 of beauty, its original stain. Who can say what line sepa- rates, in his own moral sensations, the lovely from the hateful, the ugly from the beautiful, the angelic from the Satanic vision, and evenfin a certain degree, joy from grief ? Eeligion being the most complete work of human nature, those who express it with the most unity participate in the contradictions of that nature, and leave out simple and absolute judgments. To wish to apply firmly to these capricious phenomena the categories of the scholastic, to judge them with the steadiness of the casuist, tracing a deep line between wisdom and folly, is to misunderstand Nature. They all succeed one another, like the mirage on Walpurgis night, in the great sabbath of all the passions and all the instincts. The saint and the scoundrel, the charming and the horrible, the apostle and the juggler, heaven and earth, take hands, like the visions of a dis- turbed sleep, where all the images hidden in the recesses of the fancy appear in turn. I have for a long time insisted on the innate infirmity of Islamism ; it would be unjust not to add that no reli- gion or other institution could resist the proofs to which we could have made it submit. What prophet could hold his own against the critic if the critic pursued him, as we have ours, into his inner chamber? Happy are those whom mystery covers, and who fight entrenched behind a cloud ! Perhaps, however, our age has abused the word of spontaneity in the explanation of phenomena which neither our experience of the present nor the evi- dence of history could make us understand. The reac- tion against the school which had exaggerated the creative powers of the reflective faculties, which wished to see in language, religious and moral beliefs, and primitive poetry, only deliberate inventions, we are too much disposed, it seems, to believe that every idea of composition ought to be excluded from primitive poems, and all idea of impos- 190 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. ture from the formation of great legends. In place of saying that language, popular religious beliefs, and poetry are made of themselves, it would be exact to say we do not see them made. The spontaneous is perhaps only the obscure ; for see, the only religion of which the origins are clear and historic, and in these origins we find a great deal of reflec- tion, deliberation, and combination. It may not please God that I should be willing, whatever it may be, to apply a touch to the majesty of the past. When criticism is applied for the first time to a fact or to a book which has retained the respect of a great number of generations, we find almost always that admiration is beside the ques- tion ; we perceive a thousand artifices, a thousand retouch- ings or thereabouts, which destroy the grand impression of beauty or sanctity which had beguiled the non-critical ages. "What a day in the fortunes of Homer was that when the ill-conditioned scholiasts of Venice came and revealed to us the touches of the pens of Zenodotus and Aristarchus, and introduced, as it were, to the committee where the poem was elaborated, until it appeared to be the most direct emanation, the most limpid spirt of per- sonal genius ! Is that to say that criticism has destroyed Homer ? So you might say that the progress of philo- sophy and ethics has destroyed antiquity, because they have shown the nothingness of certain beauties which had been greatly approved for a long time, but of which anti- quity was perfectly innocent. So you might say that exegesis has destroyed the Bible, because, instead of the nonsense of the Vulgate, it has shown a brilliant literature of original character. Criticism displaces admiration, but it does not destroy it. Admiration is essentially a synthetical act. It is not in dissecting a beautiful body that we discover the beauty of it; it is not in examining with a hammer the events of history and the works of the human mind that we recog- MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF I SLAM ISM. 191 nise their high character. We can affirm that if we should see the great things of the past as near as the mean agitations of the present, all prestige would vanish, and there would remain nothing to adore. But it is not in this inferior region of the fluctuations and defects of the individual that we should search for eternal beauty. Things are only beautiful from what Humanity sees in them, from the sentiments which she attaches to them, from, the symbols she draws of them. It is she who has created these absolute tones which never existed in the reality. Keality is complex, mixed with good and evil, admirable and criticisable, at the same time worthy of love and hatred. On the contrary, that which obtains the homage of humanity is simple, without stain, and alto- gether admirable. Criticism entirely preoccupied with the truth, secured otherwise as to the consequences, inas- much as it knows that the result of its researches do noc penetrate into the regions where illusions are necessary, has for its mission the repair of nonsense which scarcely troubles humanity. We do not exaggerate the importance of this mission. What does it matter, indeed, whether humanity commits historic errors in its admiration, whether it makes the men whom it has adopted more beautiful and more pure than they were in reality ? The homage which they have addressed to the beauty which they have sup- posed for them, and which they have put into them, is not on that account less deserving. From the point of view of historic truth the learned alone have the right to admire, but from the moral point of view the ideal belongs to all. Sentiments have their value independent of the reality of the object which excites them, and we may doubt whether humanity ever partakes of the scruples of the learned, who would only admire on being certain. After having done the part of terrestrial dust in the work of the founder of Islamism, I ought to show now 192 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. what part of that work was holy and legitimate, that is to say, in what it corresponds with the deepest instincts of human nature, and in particular with the needs of Arabia in the seventh century. Islamism appears up to this point in history as an original and unprecedented effort. It was almost a com- pulsive formula to present Mahomet as the founder of civilisation, monotheism, and even (this grave mistake has been indefinitely repeated) of the literature of the Arabs. But we can say that, so far from commencing with Mahomet, Arab genius found in him its last expression. I do not know if there is in all the history of civilisation a picture more pleasing, more agreeable, and more animated than that of Arab life before Islamism, such as it appears to us in the Moallakdt, and above all in the admirable type of Antar : entire liberty for the individual, complete absence of law and power, a lofty sentiment of honour, nomad and chivalric life, fancy, gaiety, archness, light and undevo- tional poetry, refinement of love. But this delicate flower of Arab life ended for ever on the coming of Islamism. The last poets of the great school disappeared whilst mak- ing the liveliest opposition to the nascent religion. Twenty years after Mahomet, Arabia was humiliated and surpassed by the conquered provinces. A hundred years after, Arab genius was completely effaced ; Persia triumphed by the coming of the Abbassides; Arabia disappeared for ever from the scene of the world ; and while her language and religion carried civilisation from Malaya to Morocco, from Timbuctoo to Samarkand, she, forgotten, driven back to her deserts, returned to the state in which she was in the days of Ishmael. Thus there is in the life of races an original and rapid lightning-flash of consciousness, a divine moment, when, prepared by a slow interior evolution, they attain the light, produce the chief work, and then efface them- selves, as if the grand effort had exhausted their fecundity MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 193 Mahomet is no more the founder of monotheism than of civilisation and literature among the Arabs. This result, from numerous facts, is shown for the first time by M. Caussin de Perceval. He says that Mahomet followed the religious movement of his time, instead of leading it. Monotheism — the worship of the supreme Allah {Allah tadla) — seems to have been always at the bottom of the Arab religion. The Semitic race has never conceived the government of the universe other than as an absolute monarchy. Their theodicea has not advanced a step since the Book of Job ; the grandeur and the aberrations of poly- theism have always remained foreign to them. Some superstitions connected with idolatry, which varied with each tribe, had, however, altered among the Arabs the purity of the patriarchal religion, and, in face of reli- gions more strongly organised, all the enlightened minds of Arabia aspired to a better worship. A people do not arrive at a conception of the insufficiency of their reli- gious system except by communication with strangers, and the epochs of religious creation ordinarily follow the epochs of intermixture between races. But in the sixth century, Arabia, which up till then had remained inacces- sible, opened itself on all sides. Greeks, Syrians, Persians, Abyssinians all penetrated at once. The Syrians intro- duced writing ; the Abyssinians and the Persians governed by turns the Yemen and the Bahren. Many tribes recog- nised the suzerainty of the Greek emperors, and received from them a toparch or governor. The most singular episode, perhaps, in ante-Islamic history is that of the prince-poet Imroulcays, going to seek an asylum in Constan- tinople, having an amorous intrigue with the daughter of Justinian, chanting it in Arabic verses, and being poisoned by the orders of the Byzantine Court. The diversity of religions brought about equally in Arabia a singular move- ment of ideas. Whole tribes had embraced Judaism j Chris- N i 9 4 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. tianity had considerable churches in Nedjran and in the kingdoms of Hira and Ghassan. On all sides there were religious disputations. There still remains a curious monu- ment of these controversies in the dispute of Gregentius, the Bishop of Zhefar, against the Jew Herban. A sort of vague toleration and syncretism of all the Semitic religions ended by establishing it. The ideas of an only God, of Paradise, of resurrection, of prophets, and of sacred books were insinuated little by little even among the Pagan tribes. The Caaba became the Pantheon of all the worship. When Mahomet drove the images out of the holy dwelling, among the number of the expelled gods was a Byzantine virgin, painted on a column, holding her son in her arms. This great religious work betrayed itself to the outward world by certain significant facts which announced an approaching hatching. There were a number of people dissatisfied with the old mode of worship who went abroad in search of a better religion, trying by turns the different existing modes, and at last in despair created for them- selves an individual religion in harmony with their moral needs. Every religious appearance is thus preceded by a sort of unrest and vague expectation, which manifests itself in some privileged souls by presentiments and longings. Islamism had its John the Baptist and its old man Simeon. 1 Some years before the preaching of Mahomet, whilst the Koreishites were celebrating the feast of one of their idols, four men, more enlightened than the rest of their nation, met outside the crowd and communicated their thoughts to each other. " Our countrymen," said they, " walk in a false path; they have departed from the religion of Abraham. 1 It was the same with Buddhism. At the sight of the marvellous appearances which accompanied the birth of Buddha, a hermit of the Himalaya, possessing the five transcendant sciences, came to Kapila across the heavens, took the child in his arms, and recognised in him the thirty-four signs of the great man and the twenty-two marks of Buddha. MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 195 What is this pretended divinity to which they sacrifice victims, and round which they make solemn processions ? Let us seek the truth and find it. Let us, if it must be, leave our country and go into foreign parts." The four persons who formed this plan were Waraca the son of Naufal, Othman the son of Howayrith, Obeidallah the son of Djahsch, and Zeyd the son of Amru. Waraca had drawn from his frequent relations with the Christians and the Jews, instruction superior to that of his fellow-citizens. Adopting a belief which was very preva- lent, he was persuaded that a messenger from heaven would soon appear upon earth, and that this messenger would come from the Arab nation. He had acquired a knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, and had read the sacred books. Khadija, his cousin, having related to him the first vision of her husband, he declared that Mahomet was the prophet of the Arabs, and foretold the persecutions he would have to endure. He died shortly afterwards, having only had a glimpse of the dawn of Islamism. Othman the son of Howayrith went abroad, interro- gating all those from whom he hoped to gain any light. Eeligious Christians inspired him with a taste for the faith of Jesus Christ. He presented himself at the court of the Emperor of Constantinople, where he received baptism. Obeidallah the son of Djahsch, after fruitless efforts to attain the faith of Abraham, remained in uncertainty and doubt until the moment when Mahomet began his preach- ing. At first he thought that he recognised in Islamism the true religion he sought for, but soon he renounced it to devote himself definitively to Christianity. As to Zeyd the son of Amru, he continued all his days at the Caaba and prayed to God to enlighten him. He was to be seen, with his back resting against the wall of the temple, devot- ing himself to pious meditations, which he afterwards delivered. " Lord, if I only knew in what manner thou 196 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. desirest to be served and worshipped, I would obey thy will ; but I am ignorant." Afterwards he prostrated him- self with his face to the ground. Adopting neither the ideas of the Jews nor the Christians, Zeyd made a religion of his own, endeavouring to conform to what he believed to have been the worship followed by Abraham. He ren- dered homage to the unity of God, attacked publicly the false gods, and declaimed with energy against superstitious practices. Persecuted by his fellow-citizens he fled, and went to Mesopotamia and Syria, consulting everywhere men devoted to religious study, in the hope of finding the patriarchal religion. A learned Christian monk with whom he was intimate, informed him, they say, of the appearance of an Arab prophet who was preaching the religion of Abraham at Mecca. Zeyd, deeply impressed, started to go to hear the apostle, but was stopped on his way by a band of robbers, who despoiled and put him to death. Thus from all parts a great religious revival appeared ; from all sides they said that the time of Arabia was come. Prophetism is the form which these great revolutions take among Semitic people, and prophetism is, to speak truly, but the necessary consequence of the monotheistic system. Primitive people, believing themselves to be always in immediate communication with the Divinity, and regard- ing great events of the physical and moral order as effects from the direct action of superior beings, have only two ways of conceiving this influence of God in the govern- ment of the universe: when the Divine power is incar- nated under a human form, which is the Indian avatar, or when God chooses a privileged mortal as an organ, which is the Nabi or Semitic prophet. There is such a distance between God and man in the Semitic system, that the only communication from one to the other must be by an in- terpreter remaining always distinct from the being who inspires. To say that Arabia was about to enter into the MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 197 era of great things, is to say that she was about to have a prophet of her own, as the other Semitic families. Many- individuals, outstripping the maturity of the times, believed, or pretended to be, the promised prophet. Mahomet grew in the midst of this movement. His journeys in Syria, his communications with the Christian monks, and per- haps the personal influence of his uncle, Waraca, so well versed in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, had initiated him in all the religious perplexities of his age. He did not know either to read or to write, but the Biblical his- tories had reached him by the narratives with which he had been vividly impressed, and which had left his mind in a state of vague remembrances, giving full scope to his imagination. The reproach which has been applied to Mahomet of having altered Biblical history is entirely mis- placed. Mahomet adopted the narratives as they were given to him, and the narrative part of the Koran is only the reproduction of Rabbinical traditions and Apocryphal Gospels. The Gospel of the Infancy, above all, which was early translated into Arabic, and which had been pre- served in that language, had acquired an extreme import- ance among the Christians of the scattered regions of the East, and had almost effaced the Canonical Gospels. It is certain that the narratives of which we speak were one of Mahomet's most powerful means of action. Nadhr the son of Harith undertook sometimes to make a concordance. He had lived in Persia, and knew the legends of the ancient kings of that country. When Mahomet, collecting around him a circle of hearers, presented them with the features of the patriarchal life and of the prophets, and examples of divine vengeance which had fallen upon impious nations, Nadhr took up the word after him and said, " Listen now to things which are worth more than those which Mahomet has told you of." He then related the most astonishing facts of the heroic history of Persia, the marvellous exploits 198 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. of the heroes Eustum and Isfendiar ; then he added, " The stories of Mahomet, are they better than mine ? He recites ancient legends which he has gathered from the mouth of men more learned than he is, so I have myself collected in my journeys and put into writing the stories I have told you." Long before Islamism the Arabs had adopted the tradi- tions of the Jews and Christians to explain their own origin. We have often looked upon the legend by which the Arabs connect themselves with Ishmael as having an historic value, and furnishing strong confirmation of the Bible narrative. In the eyes of a severe critic this is inadmissible. "We cannot but doubt that the Biblical reputations of Abraham, Job, David, and Solomon com- menced among the Arabs during the fifth century. The Jews (People of the Book) had retained until then the archives of the Semitic race, and the Arabs willingly recog- nised their superiority in learning. The book of the Jews mentioned the Arabs, and attributed to them a genea- logy : they could not have done otherwise than accept it with confidence; such is the effect of writing on a simple people, always eager to connect their origin with that of more civilised people. It is said that at the time when Mahomet first began to be noticeable, the people of Mecca sent a deputation to Medina to consult the Babbins in that city upon what they thought of the new prophet. The deputation described the person of Mahomet to the doctors, and explained what he said in his discourses, and added, " You are learned men who read books ; what do you think of this man ?" The doctors replied, " Ask him what young men of former times were they whose adventure is a wonder ? What personage was it who reached the limits of the earth from east to west ? What is the soul ? If he answers these three questions in such and such a way, he is truly a prophet. If he answers otherwise, he is an HE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 199 impostor." Mahomet answered the first enigma by the history of the seven sleepers, which was popular through- out the East; the second by Dhoul Carnayu, a fabulous conqueror, the legendary Alexander of the pseudo-Callis- ihenes. As to the third, he replied — alas ! perhaps all that it is permitted to answer — " The soul is a thing whereof the knowledge is reserved for God. It is not accorded to man to possess more than a very weak glimmering of knowledge." The dogmatic part of Islamism assumes still less of creation than the legendary part. Mahomet was entirely devoid of invention in this sense. A stranger to the re- finements of mysticism, he only sought to found a simple religion, limited on all sides by common sense ; timid, like everything born of reflection; narrow, like everything governed by the sentiment of the real. The symbol of Islamism, at least before the relatively modern invasion of theological subtleties, scarcely surpassed the most simple data of natural religion. No transcendent pretension; none of those bold paradoxes of supernaturalism, where the fancy of gifted races employs itself with so much originality on the subject of infinity; no priests, and no mode of worship beyond prayer. All the ceremonies of the Caaba, the processions round it, the pilgrimages, the omra, the sacrifices in the valley of Mina, the lewdness of Mount Arafat, were organised in all their details some time before Mahomet. Pilgrimages were, moreover, from time immemorial, an essential ele- ment of Arab life ; they were what the Olympic games were for Greece — I would say, the public festivals of the nation, at once religious, commercial, and poetical. The valley of Mecca thus became the central point of Arabia ; and, notwithstanding the division and rivalry of the tribes, the hegemony of the family who guarded the Caaba was implicitly recognised. It was a very serious moment, 200 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. and almost an era in the history of the Arabs, when they put a lock upon the sacred house. From thence authority was derived from the possession of the keys of the Caaba. The Koreishite Cossay, having made the Khoraite Abu Gobschan, the keeper of the keys, intoxicated, bought them from him, says the legend, for a leather bottle of wine, and thus founded the primatial authority of his tribe. From this moment commenced the great movement of organisation among the Arab tribes. Up to that time they had only dared to set up tents in the sacred valley. Cossay grouped there the Koreishites, reconstructed the Caaba, and was the true founder o^the city of Mecca. All the most important institutions date from Cossay : the Jtfadiva, or central council sitting at Mecca; the liwa, or flag ; the rifada, or alms intended for pilgrims ; the sicaya, or superintendence of the water — a capital duty in a coun- try like the Hedjaz ; the nasaa, or the intercalation of days in the calendar ; the hidjaba, or the guard of the keys of the Caaba. These functions, which involved every poli- tical and religious institution of Arabia, were exclusively reserved to the Koreishites. Thus in the middle of the fifth century the germ of centralisation of Arabia was already planted, and the point from which the religious and poli- tical organisation of the country was to start was planned in advance. Cossay, in one sense, has founded more than Mahomet. He was even regarded as a sort of prophet, and his will passed for an article of religion. Haschem, in the first half of the sixth century, completed the work of Cossay, and extended the commercial relations of his tribe in a surprising manner. He established two caravans, one in winter for Yemen, and one in summer for Syria. Abd-el-Mottalib, the son of Haschem and grand- father of Mahomet, continued the traditional work of the Koreishite oligarchy by the discovery of the well at Zem- MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 201 zera. 1 The well of Zemzem, independently of the tradition which attaches to it, was, in an arid valley so frequented as that of Mecca, a very important point, and assured pre- eminence to the family who had appropriated it. The tribe of Koreishites thus found themselves elevated, like that of Judah among the Hebrews, to the rank of a privi- leged tribe, destined to realise the unity of the nation. Mahomet, then, only put the crown on the work of his ancestors. Tn politics, as in religion, he invented nothing, but he has realised with energy the aspirations of his age. It remained to seek for the help which he found in the eternal instincts of human nature, and now he could give to his work the most steady foundation by resting it upon the weakness of the heart. Independently of all dogmatic belief, there are in man, religious wants which incredulity cannot help him to supply. We are surprised sometimes that a religion can live so long after the fabric of its dogmas has been under- mined by the critic ; but in reality a religion is not based on, nor is it overthrown by, reasoning ; the object of its existence is in the most imperious needs of our nature — the need of love, the need of suffering, and the need of belief. This is why woman is an essential element in all religious foundations. Christianity has literally been founded by woman. 2 Islamism, which is not exactly a holy religion, but rather a natural religion, serious and liberal — in a word, a religion of men — has nothing, I con- fess, to compare to the admirable types of the Magdalen or Thekla. However, this cold and reasonable religion had sufficient attraction to fascinate the devout sex. Nothing 1 This is the fountain which, according to Arab legend, God made to burst forth in the desert to quench the thirst of Ishmael. 2 See the ingenious sketches of M. Saint Marc-Girardin upon the part of woman in the origin of Christianity in his Essais de Literature et de Morale, vol. ii. 202 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. is more incorrect than the notion generally prevalent in the West as to the condition allotted to woman by Islam- ism. The Arab woman in the time of Mahomet in no way resembled the stupid being who fills the harem of the Ottomans. In general, it is true, the Arabs had a bad opinion of the moral qualities of woman, because the character of woman is exactly the contrary to that which the Arabs regard as the type of the perfect man. We read in the Kitab-el-Aghani that a chief of the tribe of Jaschkor named Moschamradj, having in an inroad against the Temanites carried off a young girl of noble family, Cays the son of Acim, the uncle of the young girl, went to redeem her from Moschamradj, and offered him a ransom. Moschamradj gave his prisoner the option of remaining with him or returning to her family ; the girl, who was enamoured of her captor, preferred him to her parents. Cays then returned so stupified and indig- nant at the weakness of a sex capable of such a choice, that on reaching his tribe he buried alive two daughters he had of a younger age, and swore that he would treat all the daughters which should be born to him in the same way. These simple and loyal natures could not understand the passion which raises woman above the exclusive affections of the tribe, but they regarded them as inferior beings, without individuality. There were some women who were their own mistresses, having the full enjoyment of their property, choosing their husband, and having the right to dismiss him when they thought proper. Many were distinguished for poetical talent and literary taste. Have we not seen a woman, the beauti- ful El-Khausa, contend with glory against the most cele- brated poets of the grand age ? Others make their houses the meeting-place of literary men and wits. Mahomet, in further relieving the condition of a sex whose charms impressed him so greatly, was not repaid with ingratitude. MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 203 The sympathy of the woman contributed not a little to console him in the first days of his mission for the affronts he received : they saw that he was persecuted, and they loved him. The first age of Islamism furnishes many female characters truly remarkable. After Omar and Ali, the two principal figures of this great epoch are those of two women, Ayesha and Fatima. An aureole of sanctity shines around Khadija, and is truly a very honourable proof in favour of Mahomet that, by a single circumstance in the history of prophetism, his divine mission should have been recognised from the first by one to whom his weaknesses would be best known. When, after preaching, he was accused of imposture and made a butt for jokes, he came and confided his troubles to her, she consoled him with words of tenderness and strengthened his shaken faith. Khadija was never confounded in Mahomet's mind with the other wives who succeeded her. It is said that one of thein, jealous of so much constancy, having one day asked the Prophet if Allah had not given him something to make him forget the old Khadija, " No," replied he ; " when I was poor, she made me rich ; when others accused me of lying, she believed in me; when I was cursed by my nation, she remained faithful to me, and the more I suffered the more she loved me." Afterwards, whenever one of his wives wished to ask a favour, she began to praise Khadija. The touchstone of a religion, after its women, is its martyrs. Persecution is indeed the first of religious luxuries; it is so sweet to the heart of man to suffer for his faith, that this sweetness is sometimes sufficient to make him believe. The Christian conscience has marvel- lously understood it, in creating those admirable legends where so many of the conversions were brought about by the charm of punishment. Islamism, although it remained a stranger to this profundity of sentiment, has also reached in its story of the martyrs some fairly lofty features. The 204 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. slave Belal would not have been out of place among the touching heroes of the Golden Legend. In the eyes of Mus- sulmans, the true martyrs are those who have perished whilst fighting for the true religion. Here there is a con- fusion of ideas to which we cannot bring ourselves. The death of a soldier and that of a martyr are connected in our minds with very different sensations, but Mussulman genius has succeeded in enveloping both deaths with high poetic feeling. It was a beautiful and grand scene, for example, the funeral of those who fell at the battle of Ohod. " Bury them without washing off the blood," cried Mahomet ; " they will appear on the day of resurrection with their bleeding wounds, which exhale the odour of musk, and I will bear witness that they have perished as martyrs for the faith." The standard-bearer, Djafir, had had his two hands cut off, and fell pierced with ninety wounds, all in front. Mahomet carried the news to his widow. He took the young son of the martyr upon his knees, and caressed his head in a manner which the mother well understood. " His two hands have been cut off," said he, " but God has given him in exchange two wings of emerald, with which he is now flying, wherever he likes, among the angels of Paradise." The conversions are in general prepared with a good deal of art. Almost all of them recall that of St. Paul. The persecutor becomes an apostle ; the victim, brought down by a paroxysm of anger, receives the supreme blow which stretches him full length before the feet of trium- phant grace. The legend of the conversion of Omar is, according to report, an incomparable page of religious psychology. Omar had*been the most determined enemy of the Mussulmans. The terrible energy of his character had made him the terror of the still timid faithful, and compelled them to hide. Oncday, in a moment of exal- tation, he went out with the full determination of killing MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF I SLA MIS M. 205 Mahomet. On the way he met Noaym, one of his parents, who, seeing him sword in hand, asked him where he was going and what he was about to do. Omar disclosed his design. " Passion carries thee away," said JSToaym to him ; " why dost thou not rather correct those members of thy family who have abjured at thine instance the religion of their fathers ? " " And those persons of my family, who are they?" said Omar. "Thy brother-in-law, Said, and thy sister Fatima," replied Noaym. Omar ran to the house of his sister. Said and Fatima were at that moment re- ceiving secret instructions from a disciple, who was read- ing to them a chapter of the Koran written on a sheet of parchment. At the noise of Omar's step the catechist hid himself in a dark recess ; Fatima concealed the parchment under her clothes. " What is that I heard you singing in a bass voice ? " said Omar on entering. " Nothing ; thou hast deceived thyself." "You were reading something, and I am told you have joined the sect of Mahomet." In saying these words Omar caught sight of his brother-in- law. Fatima tried to cover him, and the two cried out, " Yes, we are Mussulmans. We believe in God and his Prophet. Kill us if you wish it." Omar, striking blindly, hit and grievously wounded his sister Fatima. At the sight of the blood of a woman shed by his hand, the im- petuous young man relented all at once. " Show me the writing you have been reading," said he with apparent calmness. " I fear," answered Fatima, " that you will tear it up." Omar swore to return it intact. Scarcely had he read the first lines. " How beautiful that is ! how sublime that is ! " cried he. " Show me where the Prophet is. I go this moment to give myself to tiim." At that moment Mahomet was in a house situated on the hill of Safa with forty of his disciples, to whom he was explaining his doctrines. Some one knocked at the door. One of the Mussulmans looked out of the window. "It is Omar 206 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. with a sword by his side," said he with terror. Conster- nation was general. Mahomet ordered the door to be opened. He went towards Omar, took him by the cloak, and drew him towards the middle of the circle. " What motive brings thee, son of Khattab?" said he to him. " Wilt thou persist in thine impiety until the chastisement of Heaven falls upon thee I" "I come," answered Omar, " to declare that I believe in God and his Prophet." All the assemblage returned thanks to Heaven for this un- looked-for conversion. On quitting, the faithful Omar went straight to the house of a certain Djemil, who passed as the greatest talker in Mecca. " Djemil," said he, " learn some news. I am a Mussulman; I have adopted the religion of Mahomet." Djemil hurried off to the open space in front of the Caaba, where the Koreishites assembled to talk together. He arrived crying aloud, " The son of Khattab is perverted." " Thou liest," said Omar, who had followed him closely. " I am not perverted ; lama Mussulman. I confess there is no other God than Allah, and that Mahomet is his pro- phet." These provocations ended by making the others furious, and they threw themselves upon him. Omar sus- tained the shock, and getting clear of his assailants, " By God," he cried, " if we were only three hundred Mussul- mans, we should soon see who would be master of this temple." This is the same man who, later on, could not understand how any one could agree with infidels, and who, sword in hand, rushed out of the house where he had seen Mahomet expire, and declared that he would break the head of any one who should dare to say that the prophet could die. At last, by his marvellous skill in Arab aesthetics, Maho- met created a mode of action all-powerful with a people infinitely sensitive to the charm of fine language. The Koran was the sign of a literary revolution as well as that of a religious revolution. It signified among the Arabs MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAM ISM. 207 the introduction of a style of versified prose, a poetic elo- quence — a moment so important in the intellectual life of a people. At the commencement of the seventh century the great poetic generation of Arabia had gone ; traces of weariness were everywhere manifest ; the ideas of literary criticism appeared like a sign of evil augury for genius. Antar, that Arab nature so fresh and so unaltered, com- menced his Moallak&t, almost as though he were a poet of decadence, with these words, " What subjects have not the poets sung?" An immense surprise overtook Mahomet when he appeared in the midst of an exhausted literature with his living, earnest recitations. The first time that Otba the son of Eebia heard this energetic language, sonorous, full of rhythm though not rhymed, he returned to his family quite aghast. " What is it now ?" they asked him. "My faith!" answered he, "Mahomet has used language such as I never heard. It is neither poetry nor prose, nor magic language, but it is something piercing." Mahomet did not like the refined prosody of Arab poetry ; he made false quantities when he quoted verses, and God himself charged him to excuse them in the Koran. " We have not taught versification to our Prophet." He repeats everywhere that he is neither a poet nor a magician. The vulgar, indeed, were constantly confounding him with these two classes of men, and it is true that his rhymed and sententious style had some resemblance to that of the magicians. Certainly it is impossible for us, at the pre- sent day, to comprehend the charm which the Koran exer- cised on its appearance. The book seems declamatory, monotonous, and wearisome : the reading of it is almost unbearable ; but we must recollect that Arabia, having no idea of the plastic art or of great beauty of composition, made perfection of form to consist exclusively in the details of style. Language is, in his eyes, something divine, the most precious gift which God has given to 208 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. the Arab race, the most certain sign of his pre-eminence ; it is the Arab language itself, with its learned grammar, its infinite riches, and its subtle delicacy. 1 We cannot doubt but that Mahomet owed his principal success to the originality of his language and the new turn he had given to Arab eloquence. The most important conversions — that of the poet Lebid, for example — were brought about by the effect of certain passages in the Koran ; and to those who de- manded from him a sign, 2 Mahomet never offered any answer other than the perfect purity of the Arabic he spoke, and the fascination of the new style of which he had the secret. Thus Islamism combines, with a unity of which we can with difficulty find another example, the moral, reli- gious, and aesthetic ideas ; in a word, the life according to the spirit of a great family of humanity. We must not demand from it the lofty spiritualism which India and Germany only have known, nor that feeling of proportion and perfect beauty which Greece has bequeathed to the Latin races, nor that gift of strange, mysterious, and truly divine fascination which has reunited all civilised humanity without distinction of race, in the veneration of the same ideal part of Judea. It would be putting matters in dis- proportion if we placed sesthetical Pantheism on a footing of equality with all the productions of human nature, and placed in the same degree on the scale of beauty the pagoda and the Greek temple, because they are the outcome of a conception equally original and spontaneous. Human nature is always beautiful, it is true, but it is not always equally beautiful. 1 The Arabs represent that their language alone has a grammar, and that all the other idioms are only coarse patois. Sheikh Rifaa, in his story of his travels in France, gives himself much trouble to destroy the preju- dices of his fellow-countrymen on this point, and informs them that the French language also has rules, delicacy, and an academy. 2 The word aiat, which means the verses of the Koran, would mean a sign or miracle. MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMISM. 209 There is everywhere the same motive, there are the same consonances and dissonances of terrestrial and divine instincts, but not the same plenitude nor the same sono- rousness. Islamism is evidently the product of an inferior, or, we may say, mediocre combination of human elements. This is why it has only conquered in the middle state of human nature. It has not been able to raise savage races, and, on the other hand, it could not satisfy the people who had the germ of a stronger civilisation. Persia, the only Indo-European country where Islamism has attained an absolute dominion, has only adopted it by making it sub- mit to the most profound modifications in order to make it agree with its mystical and mythological tendencies. Its extreme simplicity has everywhere been an obstacle to the truly fruitful development of science, great poetry, and delicate morality. If it should be asked what will be the future destiny of Islamism in the face of an essentially encroaching civilisa- tion, which seems fated to become universal as far as the infinite diversity of the human species will permit, we must confess that nothing up to this enables us to form any precise ideas upon the subject. On the one side, it is certain that if Islamism should ever, I do not say disap- pear, for religions do not die, but lose the high intellectual and moral direction of an important part of the universe, it will succumb not under the influence of another religion, but under the blow of modern knowledge, bearing with it the habits of rationalism and criticism. On the other hand, it should be remembered that Islamism, very different from those lofty towers which resist the storm and fall all at once, has even in its flexibility hidden powers of resistance. Christian nations, in order to carry out their religious reforms, have been compelled to violently break up their unity and to organise in open rebellion against the central authority. Islamism, which has neither pope, 210 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. nor councils, nor bishops of divine institution, nor a very determined clergy — Islamism, which has never sounded the formidable abyss of infallibility, ought to be less afraid perhaps of the waking up of rationalism. What ^_ indeed should the critic attack in it ? The legend of Mahomet ? This legend has scarcely more sanction than the pious beliefs which in the bosom of Catholicism we can reject without being heretical. Strauss here has evidently nothing to do. Should it be the dogma ? Keduced to its essential limits, Islamism only adds to natural religion the prophetism of Mahomet and a certain conception of fatal- ism, which is less an article of faith than a general turn of mind susceptible of being conveniently directed. Should it be the morality ? We have the choice of four sects equally orthodox amongst whom the moral sense preserves an honest part of liberty. As to the mode of worship, freed from some accessory superstitions, it can be com- pared as regards simplicity with that of the purest Pro- testant sects. Have we not seen at the commencement of this century, even in the country of Mahomet, a sectary rouse the vast political and religious movement of the Wahabis by proclaiming that true worship to render to God consists in prostrating oneself before the idea of his existence, that the invocation of an intercessor near him is an act of idolatry, and that the most meritorious work would be to raze the tomb of the Prophet and the mauso- leums of the Imams ? Symptoms of a much more serious nature have revealed themselves, as I know, in Egypt and in Turkey. There contact with science and European manners has produced a freedom of thought sometimes scarcely disguised. Sin- cere believers, conscious of danger, do not conceal their alarm, and denounce the books of European science as containing fatal errors subversive of all religious faith. r I do not the less persist in believing that if the East could MAHOMET AND THE ORIGINS OF ISLAM ISM. 211 get over its apathy, and pass the limits which it has not until now gone beyond in the matter of rational specula- tion, Islamism would not oppose a very serious obstacle to the progress of the modern spirit. The want of theo- logical centralisation has always left to the Mussulman nations a certain religious liberty, although Mr. Foster says the Khalifat has never resembled the Papacy. The Khalifat has never been strong enough to represent the first conquering idea of Islamism. When the temporal power had passed to the Emir-al-omra, and the Khalifat was only a religious power, it fell into the most deplorable abasement. The idea of a purely spiritual power is too delicate for the East ; all the branches of Christianity are not themselves able to attain it ; the Graeco-Slav branch has never understood it ; the Germanic family have shaken it off and passed beyond it ; only the Latin nations have submitted to it. But experience has shown that the simple faith of a people is not sufficient to preserve a religion, if a constituted hierarchy and a spiritual chief do not care- fully guard it. Was faith wanting to the Anglo-Saxon people when the will of Henry VIII. made them pass, without their perceiving it, one day to schism, and the next day to heresy? Mussulman orthodoxy, not being defended by a permanent autonomous body, which recruits itself and registers its members, is then sufficiently vulner- able. It is superfluous to add that if ever a reform move- ment manifests itself in Islamism, Europe ought only to participate in it by its influence in a general way. It would be bad taste to seek to regulate the faith of others. Every one, in actively pursuing the propagation of his dogma, which is civilisation, ought to leave to the people the infinitely delicate task of suiting their religious tradi- tions to their new needs, and respect the imprescriptible right which nations as well as individuals have of presiding themselves in the most perfect freedom at the revolutions of their own conscience. THE LIFE OF THE SAINTS. The Catholic renaissance, which will mark in history the middle of the nineteenth century, will leave behind it two sorts of productions : one feeble, frivolous, and in bad taste, like everything in the nature of reaction ; the other serious, and, like everything serious, useful, even when the extra- vagant fondness which gave them birth has passed away. Among the latter we must put in the first line the con- tinuation of the great collection, said to be of the Bollan- dists, destined, according to the notion of the authors, to present in the order of the calendar the life of all the saints of the Catholic Church. We know that this great collec- tion, of which the history would form a book of itself, 1 was commenced in 1643 at Antwerp by the Jesuit Bol- land, interrupted in 1794 by the Eevolution, was not com- pleted, with its fifty-three volumes of folio, until the 14th October. After several renewals and different opinions, Monge in the name of the Institute, M. Guizot in the name of historic science, the statesmen of Belgium in the name of national honour, insisted on the utility of a con- tinuation of this precious list. By a vote of the Belgian Chambers of 8th May 1837, the existence of a new Society of Bollandists, taken from the midst of the Society of Jesus, was assured ; and two volumes, already published, 2 1 A lively and earnest historian, but always attractive and instructive, has been found in the learned Abbe* Pitra, Etudes sur la Collection des Actes des Saints. Paris, 1850. 2 Acta Sanctorum Octobris, vols. vii. and viii. Brussels, 1845-53. THE LIFE OF THE SAINTS. 213 forming a total of more than 2400 pages, attest the zeal with which these new workers have taken up the work of their fathers. From the vast materials bequeathed by the ancient Society, and miraculously preserved through a series of perilous adventures, facilitated the task of the continuators, who have only had for many parts of their work to publish texts already but little delayed by their predecessors. I do not wish to enter here upon a criticism of the plan of the Bollandists or that of their successors. Among the censures of every kind which were not spared to the first editors (during the twenty years their work was under the blow of a condemnation by the Spanish Inquisition), some were at least frivolous ; as those of the Carmelites, who considered the book heretical, because it denied their institution the glory of being descended in a direct line from the prophet Elias; others seem to us at the present day fairly well founded. It is to be regretted, for example, that they should have preferred the artificial and arbitrary order of the calendar to classification by epochs, and, in the midst of each epoch, by nationalities. The saints indeed, like all truly original productions, show their native soil, and bear the deep imprints of their time and country. Very often the laborious compilers do not sufficiently distinguish the age of the documents, and give an autho- rity which they do not deserve to the translations of the thirteenth century, an epoch when the composition of the lives of the saints had become a regular trade, and was reduced to a wearisome repetition of the same for- mulas and the same miracles. A reproach much more serious which we can apply to them is that of constantly preferring to the part of editors, for which they were so well prepared, that of critics, which they could not con- veniently fulfil. In reproducing the legends, they cut out sometimes that which offended them, and that which 214 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. offended them is often that which interests us the most. They expatiate artlessly on the miracles, which they ought either to admit or reject, and they do not see that by their method they do too much or too little. They do too much for simple faith, which requires no reasoning, and proceeds by all other ways but that of criticism. They do too little for the independent critic, who has many other requirements, and is not content with timid concessions. Thus their collection, instead of being admitted without objection by all the world, as a collection of documents made without system and without party spirit ought to be, has not satisfied them at all : the believer, who seeks in it an object of faith, comes to maintain it obstinately against all objections ; the pious man, who seeks in it food for his piety, and finds every moment some gravel which grates against his teeth ; the artist, who looks for legends and poetry and finds dissertations, what M. de Montalem- bert elsewhere called the acid of reasoning ; lastly, the historian and pure critic, who, instead of sincere texts, finds collected texts discussed, and sometimes mutilated, in an interest -which is not that of high and impartial truth. ,We cannot say that the continuators of the Bollandist collection have attained that which they could have done in view of the defects in the plan of their predecessors. It is not at a moment of religious reaction like that which we passed through some years ago that we ought to expect disinterested criticism. That lofty indifference which is the true scientific spirit was difficult for the Catholics of the seventeenth century ; it is absolutely impossible for the Catholics of our day. At every step the new editors slide into polemics. Instead of offering us, free from discussion, a series of documents precious to all, their pages are filled with dissertations which have often only a sectarian value, and sometimes bitter controversies, which I fear will con- vert no one. This defect produces another not less serious THE LIFE OF THE SAINTS. 215 in a collection of this kind. I would say a fearful pro- lixity. The two volumes of continuation which have now been prepared give the events of six days only. St. Theresa occupies half a volume to herself alone. It is certainly not too much for this admirable saint, but it is clear that, with such a method of procedure, the proportions, already so vast, of the first Bollandists are broken up and sur- passed. I hasten to say it at once : these objections, were they twenty times more serious than they really are, would not detract in any way from the immense interest of the collection of the Acta Sanctorum. It seems to me that for a true philosopher a prison cell with these fifty-five volumes in folio would be a true Paradise. We can say that among the legends which fill them (M. Guizot has taken the trouble to count them, 1 and has found them to be 25,000), there is not one which has not its interest, and does not merit, either on one side or the other, the attention of the thoughtful. What an incomparable gallery, indeed, that of these 25,000 heroes of a disinterested life ! What an air of lofty distinction ! what nobility ! what poetry ! There are the humble and the great, the learned and the simple, the obscure and the illustrious, but I do not know a single one with a vulgar air. All seems to me such as Giotto poses, grandiose, bold, severed from earthly ties, and already transfigured. They please the positive sense but little, I admit; never would, they understand political economy. We cannot say that societies which have possessed many saints have been the most prosperous or the best organised. But they have, after all, understood life better than those who embrace it as a narrow calculation of interest, as an insignificant contest of ambition and vanity ! Doubtless it would have been better not to have placed their ideal in such a cloudy height, where, in order to contemplate it we must take such a bent position ; but we find the great 1 Eistoire de la Civilisation en France, xvii. le§on. 2i6 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. instincts of human nature more easily distinguishable in their sublime folly than in the ordinary business of life which has never been penetrated by the ray divine. This is why rich and happy countries produce such a few saints, while sad and poor countries have produced so many. Brittany and Ireland have produced thousands ; Normandy has not produced one — at least, the Norman race. We find very few among the citizen class and those who exercise what are called liberal professions; all are bishops or monks, warriors or hermits, kings or beggars. There are, I believe, one or two holy doctors, but their legends are apocryphal. Brittany alone has the privilege of adopting a holy lawyer, St. Yves ; and yet the popular conscience protested against the intrusion, and revenged itself by singing on his festival, "Advocatus et non latro, res miranda populo ! " Indeed, if there is a work profoundly popular, it is the secret work which creates the saint before the Papacy have granted to him the exclusive privilege of canonisa- tion. The crowd exercise on it all their instincts, and do not confer this high title except on their favourites. Hence the essentially democratic character of the greater part of the saints, redressers of grievances, defenders of the weak, haughty and firm before the powerful. Hence also the astonishing diversity of origin which appears at first sight among the body of the happy. They are all there in this popular pantheon: martyrs of a cherished cause — ancient forgotten heroes — characters of romance. Roland, William of Acquitaine, the ladies of King Arthur's court, end their career in sanctity. It is that the people love the great and noble before all. Easy and smooth upon many points, they canonise their old acquaintances for their good looks ; that which is merely honest and sensible does not affect them ; they do not judge them by considera- tions of utility and reason, but by their grand appearance. THE LIFE OF THE SAINTS. 217 M. Guizot has thoroughly established that the legends of the saints were the true literature of the first half of the Middle Ages, and served as the food for intellectual, moral, and even aesthetic life at that time. We feel a degree of emotion in thinking how many simple souls this kind of reading has consoled, how many pale and monotonous lives it has given colour to, what an immense amount of weari- ness it has relieved. During that lorn? ni^ht of winter which passed over humanity from the sixth to the tenth century, the world of the saints was an ideal opposed to the sad reality — a sort of Astrea, the dream of a world of morality and sweetness, where the feeble and the humble had their revenue against the strong and violent world — a revolt of the imagination against the insupportable uni- formity of life. My learned friend, M. Alfred Maury, has shown admirably well how the lives of the saints, in another view, are the true mythology of Christianity. 1 One God, supreme, unapproachable, is indeed a dogma too austere for certain epochs and for certain countries. Driven from God, mythology took refuge among the saints. Around the saints an inferior religion was entirely formed, which more than once has been able to obscure the devotion to God the Father, but which, on the other hand, has brought to monotheism that which was wanting in the picturesque and in variety. It is because they are the reflex of the religious instincts of each race that the saints offer such different and topical physiognomies. In Syria, Stylites, and verging towards Buddhism; in Italy, free livers, and savouring of the neighbourhood of the Fraii Gaudenti ; in Ireland, adven- turers and sea-rovers. The aspect of the places is almost always the best commentary on the lives of the saints. We do not thoroughly understand St. Francis d'Assisi until we have seen Umbria and Mount Ubaldo. The ter- 1 Essai sur les Legcndes Pieuses du Moycn Age. Paris, 1 843. 218 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. rible, the strange, and, at times, entrancing legends of Cologne have not their full value except in that grand religious centre of Germany in the Middle Ages. We have often repeated that in Paganism each nation made their gods according to their fancy : in Christianity, where God is no longer to be made, it is by the saints that each epoch and each country has given its measure, and in some sort its moral portrait. It is true that the legends of a people are more expressive than their history in this sense, that they afford a more faithful image of their being and their moral aptitudes than is to be had from the point of view of history and of the study of human nature, the interest of a collection destined to present to us the series of types under which the different branches of the Chris- tian family have in turn conceived the ideal. The saints in general have undergone the vicissitudes of saints, with some differences, however, for the same epochs are far from being equally favourable to the de- velopment of the two sexes. The Middle Ages, which have so many admirable saints, has few truly distinguished saints before St. Catherine of Siena. The brilliant epoch of saints, in my opinion, is from the fourth to the sixth century ; the Christian ladies of that time, Monica, Paola, Eustachia, Radegunda, have a very particular charm. The virgin martyrs certainly deserve the palm among their celestial companies, if criticism did not too often reduce their histories to charming little romances. But what ingenious combinations have presided at the creation of these legends ! What delicate aestheticism in this associa- tion of faith, youth, and death ! Ancient art has drawn spiritually analogous contrasts from the myth of the Amazons; but antiquity, stranger to our religious refine- ments, could conceive nothing so delicate as this theo- logical firmness in the young girl. In general, the legends of the martyrs, which require from the historical point of THE LIFE OF THE SAINTS. 219 view the most severe control, are distinguished by a pro- digious wealth of invention. After love, it is the martyr who has furnished poetry with the most diverse combi- nations. In the imaginations of the punishment there is I know not what sombre and strange pleasure that humanity relished with delight during those ages. The Koman Christian did not at first know any other object of interest. At Rome on Mount Ccelius, near St. Etienne-le- Eond, or the Four Crowns, we are just at the point for embracing this great cycle of legends and understanding the new feelings which find in it such a rich and beautiful expression. I have spoken of the qualities <5f the saints ; in order to be complete, I should have said something about their defects. All are great, but all are not equally good : sometimes they seem terrible, absolute, and vindictive. All were admirable poets; but ordinarily they passed beyond the measure and alarmed us by their exaltation. This is why their soul was so often sad and desolate. The greater part of them had suffered much ; for everything which is grand and lofty brings with it its own punishment, and is punished by its very grandeur in leaving the common ways of humanity. The moment of the triumph of the saints is truly that of their death. Their life, appreciated according to our modern ideas, seems imperfect in this sense, that they have been exclusive ; that they have only seen things from one side ; they have wanted criticism and breadth of mind. I would not wish for their life, but I am jealous of their death. To see the glorious and calm end, the soul relieved and strengthened, we regain our respect for human nature, and we persuade ourselves that this nature is noble, and that it has some ground for being proud of it. There lies the secret of the contagious charm which the reading of the Vie des Saints has always exercised over 220 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. strong souls. Ignatius de Loyola only read that and Amadis of Gaul. In moments of weariness and depres- sion, when the soul, wounded by the vulgarity of the modern world, seeks in the past the nobility it can no longer find in the present, nothing is more valuable than the Vie des Saints. Then those who please the most, those are the most useless, the pure ascetics. See them at Pisa, in the Campo-Santo, in the admirable fresco of Laurati, then read the fine pages that Ileury has conse- crated in his Histoire EccUsiastique to the origins of the solitary life. The Vie des Pbres du Desert, which they read at Port-Boy al during the hours of recreation, is also a great and austere romance. The ordinary inanimate style of Port-Eoyal ought only to find colour to paint the Thebaid. I only know certain Buddhist legends which approach these serious and simple narratives. A thought occurs upon which we cannot stay without sadness, but which seems an inevitable consequence from what we are about to say ; it is that there will not be any more saints. I will explain : The race of the children of God is eternal, and our age, so poor in great things, is not more disinherited than any other with regard to beautiful and good souls. But those saints according to the old form, those grand statues so proudly placed, those lofty repre- sentations of the ideal divine side of human nature, those will be seen no more ; it is a kind of completed poetry, like many others. There will be saints canonised at Eome, but they will no longer be canonised by the people. It is a saddening thing, the thin, scanty, mean, and insignifi- cant air of all modern saints — St. Liguori, 1 for example. Evidently the faculty which created legends has departed from humanity. The sixteenth century marks in this respect the limit of grand style and good taste. This 1 His principle was that in order to become a saint it was enough to obtain as many indulgences as possible. . THE LIFE OF THE SAINTS. 221 extraordinary age had still some admirable saints. Loyola is certainly a harsh and formidable personage, but what power ! what enthusiasm ! what a fresh and complete per- sonification of his epoch and his country ! Here then is a saint of the old school, a saint worthy of Zurbaran or of Espagnolet. Compare with this giant the honest and excellent Vincent de Paul, the one with the other: an immense revolution has been accomplished. In the place of a sublime enthusiast, whom the greatness of his passion elevates to genius, we find a golden soul, who knew no other poetry than that of doing good, no other theology than charity. This is the best, without doubt, and more pleasing to God for the good of humanity than all the saints could show until now. But for loftiness and gran- deur, what a difference ! We can defy art to treat with any degree of loftiness this good and mild figure. This is not a saint suspended between heaven and earth, visited by angels, and whose every step is marked with miracles ; this is a modern man, reduced to natural proportions, struggling like any other in the midst of the difficulties of life, and not performing any other miracles than those of his immense activity and inexhaustible devotion. What are we to conclude from this ? That the saints have diminished in size like the rest of mankind; that goodness is more and more replacing grandeur ; that the world shrinks in proportion as it is put in order ; that the reign of great originality and great poetry is at an end. It is certain that evil is not so strong in our days as it was formerly ; but, on the other hand, it is certain that great individualities have no longer a place in the world such as tends to make them. Elevated art, which lives only in strongly pronounced types, is obliged to seek refuge in the past, in the world of heroes and saints. I regret that it is not permitted to me to show all this by some examples borrowed from the volumes about to be published by the 222 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. new Bollandists. Perhaps I snail do so another time in saying some words on that extraordinary woman who occupies so great a place in their collection. The illustrious example of St. Theresa will teach us on what evidence the title of saint is conferred. What power of will, what originality of mind, almost always supposed, but also at the price of what formidable stake that quali- fication was obtained, who was confined so often in the cell of the heretic and the castaway. How many religious Spaniards have wished to do that which St. Theresa has done, and have succumbed to the Inquisition ! Theresa was holy because she was stronger than her directors ; she was able to impose her faith upon them and carry away her proper guides. This is the spectacle to which the first part of vol. vii. of the new Acta assists us ; and such is the interest of this narrative, that, notwithstanding its 680 pages in folio, we should not dream for a moment of charging it with prolixity. THE AUTHOR OF THE 'IMITATION OF JESUS CHRIST.' It is an immense advantage for a book destined to popu larity that it should be anonymous. Obscurity of origin is the condition of fascination ; a too clear view of the author detracts from the book, and makes us perceive, in spite of ourselves, that behind the finest passages a writer has been occupied in polishing the phrases and combining the incidents. In showing in the Iliad and Odyssey not so much the product of the dreams of a poet composing with sequence and reflection, but the impersonal creation of the epic genius of Greece, Wolf has fulfilled the first condition for a serious admiration of Homer. The charm of the Bible partly comes from this, that the author of each book is so often unknown. How many portions which form the second part of the Book of Isaiah, "Bise up, shine, Jerusalem . . ." seems to us more beautiful when we see it in the cry of an unknown prophet ; perhaps the grandest of all, announcing during the captivity, the future glory of Sion. The perfection is precisely that the author has forgotten himself, that he has neglected to sign, or that his book has answered so completely to the thought of the epoch, that humanity itself, if we might say so, sub- stituted in his place, would have adopted as its own the pages that it recognises as having been inspired. The critic, whose requirements are far from being always in accord with those of artless admiration, does not stay before such considerations. The more the author is hidden, 223 224 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. the more the critic persists in penetrating the mystery of the great anonymous work. Sometimes it would be matter of regret if he succeeded in tearing away the veil which formed part of its beauty, but oftentimes historic circum- stances are revealed which assist us in placing the anony- mous work in its natural position, and restoring to it the first significance, far better than the significant syllables of a proper name. The book which, under the defective title of Imitation of Jesus Christ} has attained so extraordinary a fortune, has exercised more than any other the sagacity of the learned. The history of various literature does not per- haps afford any work of which the authorship has been so effaced. The author has not left any trace of himself behind him; time and place do not exist for him. We might say an inspiration from on high has not crossed the conscience of a man to bring it to pass. Since the abso- lutely impersonal narratives of the first Evangelists, no voice, so completely free from all individual attachment, has ever spoken to man, of God and his duty towards him. Of the three principal authors for whom has been claimed the honour of having composed this admirable book, A'Kempis, Gerson, and the Benedictine Jean Gersen, Abbe* of Verceil, the last, whose claim was rejected from the first as chimerical, has seen his case grow great all of a sudden by a succession of unexpected discoveries, and, above all, by the impossibilities which an attentive critic 1 One of its most ancient titles is Consolations Interieures. The actual title proceeds from the rubric of the first chapter, which, by a common abuse in the Middle Ages, has been applied to the whole of the four books. It is thus that certain songs of exploits are called Enfances, because they begin with the narrative of the marvellous infancy of the hero. The unity of the book of the Imitation, and the transformation to which it could have been submitted, require a severe examination. Upon this subject we ought to read the learned preface that M. Victor Le Clerc has placed at the head of the splendid edition printed at the Imprimerie lot- periale for the Universal Exhibition. ' THE IMITATION OF JESUS CHRIST: 225 has revealed in the hypotheses. M. Paravia, professor of the University of Turin, has just published a new statement of case in favour of his fellow-countryman. 1 If he does not add any fact to those which have been so laboriously collected in the same sense, M. De Gregory has at least the merit of separating the false reasoning and the digressions by which this patient collector has injured his cause. We can only regret that the last defender of the pretensions of Verceil has not known better than his predecessors to keep himself above the habitual defect of the Italian critic — I would say of that national vanity so out of place in history, which inspires the reader with a sort of distrust of the best deduced proofs and the most decisive reasoning. For my own part, I admit the perception of M. Paravia as very probable, above all in his negative conclusions against Gerson and A'Kempis. The opinion which attri- butes the book of the Imitation to Gerson is on all points unsustainable. This book does not appear in the list of writings of the Chancellor prepared by his own brother. A personage so celebrated in his lifetime could not, had he wished it, have kept anonymous, a book which attained renown so quickly, in an age, too, when publicity was already so extended. There is, besides, a strange contrast between the rough scholar, whose life was occupied with so many contests, and the disgusted peaceful man who wrote these pages, full of sweetness and artless abandon. A man mixed up in all the controversies of his time would never have known how to find such delicate and penetrat- ing tones. The politician preserves even in his retirement his habits of restless activity ; there is a certain delicacy of conscience which business irrevocably tarnishes, and we scarcely ever find, at least in the past, a work distinguished by moral sentiment which is the production of the leisure of a statesman. Gerson, living retired among the Celes- 1 DeW Autore del Libro De Imitationc Christi. Torino, 1853. P 226 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. tines of' Lyons, continued to occupy himself with all the quarrels of the age ; and we know that, on his brother ask- ing him in his last days to compose for the community a moral treatise drawn from Holy Scripture, he could not bring it to an end. I do not wish to speak ill of the extraordinary man who bore so proudly in his time, the authority of the Gallican Church and the University of Paris; but evidently the author of the treatise Be Auferibilitate Papce has nothing in com- mon with the author of the Imitation. This one had tasted of the world, it is true, and without that would he have found such delicate accents to speak of its vanity ? But everything leads us to believe that he retired from life early. " When I wandered far from thee, thou hast brought me to serve thee. . . . What shall I return thee for this kindness ? " Of the trial which he made of the world, there remains in his work neither regrets nor bitterness, but consummate experience and wisdom. " We everywhere feel," says M. Michelet, " a powerful maturity, a sweet and rich savour of autumn ; it has no more of the sharpness of young passion. We must, in order to have arrived at this point, have loved well once, then ceased to love, and then loved a