Ex tibris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 (D
 
 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS 
 
 REFERRED TO 
 
 ARTISTIC TREATMENT AND HISTORIC FACT. 
 
 WILLIAM WATKISS LLOYD. 
 
 WILLIAMS AND ITOEGATE, 
 
 14, HENEIETTA STEEET, COVENT GABDEN, LONDON; 
 
 AND 
 
 20, SOUTH FEEDEBICK STEEET, EDINBUEGH. 
 1865.
 
 PRINTED BT JOHK KBWABD TAYLOU, 
 ITTLK t'KBN STBKBT, LINCOLN'S INN PIKLDS.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 IN abandoning this work to the world, I am not 
 aware that it is necessary to guard against more 
 than one misconception. In the body of it will 
 be found various coincidences with the newer 
 views of Dr. D. F. Strauss in his ' Leben Jesu 
 fur das deutsche Volk bearbeitet/ which, to the 
 readers of that noble book, may appear strangely 
 unacknowledged. The explanation is this : the 
 present book was already printed, and indeed in 
 the hands of Dr. Strauss himself, his cordial 
 recognition of it I value in the place of any de- 
 coration, some weeks before his own issued 
 from the German press; finished in 1862, it 
 was printed in 1863, and from that time to this 
 present, the pages as they follow hereafter have 
 been content with whatever appreciation they 
 might find among the few to whom they were 
 addressed by the limitary epigraph, appropriate 
 no more, AMICIS. 
 
 I take the opportunity of appending some not 
 incongruous illustrations of "the Spirit of the 
 New Testament within the Old," that have been 
 denizens of my desk from a date some twenty 
 years earlier. 
 
 10, Hertford Street, W. 
 1st September, 1865. 
 
 1059672
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE title of this work briefly but sufficiently defines its 
 purport, namely, the appreciation of the Cartoons of 
 Kafael as works of Art, accompanied by a critical in- 
 quiry into the value, as history, of the narratives fur- 
 nishing his subjects. The criticism of Art and that of 
 the New Testament story thus run on side by side ; and 
 the pregnant selection of incidents by the painter, has 
 enabled me to comprise in the historical inquiry, with 
 but occasional and moderate divergence, an illustra- 
 tion of the origin of Christianity, and its development 
 through the most important epochs of the Apostolic 
 age. 
 
 In the combined treatment and in the relative space 
 given to my associated subjects I have been guided ex- 
 clusively by the degree and kind of interest they have 
 created in myself, and I have written without consi- 
 deration, and am still quite unaware of the extent to 
 which any number of persons will care to take up and 
 linger upon the same points of view. 
 
 I do not, however, put this work into the world with-
 
 Vi PREFACE. 
 
 out being conscious how widely my processes are di- 
 vergent from those of critics of established influence 
 and merited fame at home and abroad ; though I have 
 preferred to take the ground of exposition rather than 
 of controversy. I am quite aware that I have assigned 
 a certain value to evidence that by the canons of Mr. 
 Grote and Sir Cornewall Lewis would be cast aside as 
 unworthy of attention, on the ground that where the 
 doubtful or the false is mixed with truth beyond a 
 certain proportion, it is labour thrown away to attempt 
 analysis ; and that it is shorter and safer and sufficient 
 to disbelieve all, rather than to commit belief to the 
 results of an illusory process of discrimination. 
 
 Still, it is in discrimination that criticism has its 
 function and being; and 1 am of opinion, that where 
 evidence exists of a certain voluminousness and of a cer- 
 tain diversity, cross-examination will at last elicit truth. 
 " Expedit reipublicse ut finis sit litium " is a good 
 maxim, no doubt, in literature as socially ; but discus- 
 sion, endowed with still more tenacity of life than even 
 litigation, is not to be got rid of by denial of appeal or 
 by arbitrary shutting up of courts, however exalted. 
 
 I have still a serious objection to anticipate from 
 another side. The critics of the German school, which 
 takes its name from Tubingen, and of which the English 
 public possesses so excellent an account in the recent 
 work of Mr. Mackay, have never been chargeable with 
 despairing of an ultimate reward for critical labour 
 on 'the New Testament ; they have indeed followed up
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 worthily the great opening made by Strauss, and have 
 largely succeeded in restoring the colours and outlines 
 of the living men whose varying bias gave changeful 
 forms to the incidents that fell into their hands for 
 record or compilation. Nevertheless, it seems to me 
 that they have still written I will not say overmuch 
 in the spirit of the party of attack, but I will rather 
 say, as though they had enough to do to work out and 
 to complete the case and the arguments susceptible of 
 being brought forward to put the history and its docu- 
 ments on their defence. The defence has still to be 
 fully heard on whatever new ground so complete, so 
 candid, so critical an attack may have obliged it to fall 
 back upon. The adherents of this school, if they in- 
 dulge me with a glance, will probably wonder at my 
 denouncing but coldly large alloys of falsity, while I 
 am lingering to store the scarce grains of well-attested 
 truth ; but I stand confidently on my results ; they 
 have been gained in earnest search for a reply to the 
 inquiry When we have utterly and heartily given 
 up whatever in the New Testament is fairly convicted 
 as unhistorical, what facts remain for us unimpeached 
 after all the questioning, and what is the series, the 
 significance, the connection of these cardinal facts in 
 the story of human civilization, which have thus come 
 thrice tried through the fire ?
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 TA.QE 
 
 I. THE SISTINE CHAPEL 1 
 
 II. THE ORDER OF THE CARTOONS 18 
 
 CHAPTER I. THE CALLING OF PETER. 
 
 I. THE CARTOON OF THE CALLING OF PETER ... 24 
 
 II. THE CRANES IN THE CARTOON 30 
 
 III. THE SEA OF GALILEE 40 
 
 CHAPTER II. THE CHARGE TO PETER. 
 
 I. THE CARTOON OF THE CHARGE TO PETER ... 54 
 
 II. THE TWELVE IN RELATION TO JESUS .... 66 
 
 III. THE APOSTLES AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION .... 75 
 
 CHAPTER III. THE MIRACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE. 
 
 I. JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE 86 
 
 II. THE CARTOON OF THE MIRACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE 107 
 III. THE FIRST EXPANSION OF THE GOSPEL IDEA . . .125 
 
 CHAPTER IV. THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. 
 
 I. THE CARTOON OF THE DEATH OF ANANIAS . . . 139 
 
 II. THE CONTINGENCIES OF COMMUNISM IN THE CHURCH . 151 
 
 CHAPTER V. THE STONING OF STEPHEN. 
 
 I. THE TAPESTRY OF THE STONING* OF STEPHEN . . . 157 
 
 II. THE GOSPEL AS ACCEPTED BY HELLENISTIC JEWS . . 160 
 
 III. THE SCATTERED CHURCH: THE RESIDENT APOSTLES . 183
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. SAUL THE PERSECUTOR 198 
 
 II. THE TAPESTRY OF THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL . . 213 
 
 III. THE RECEPTION OF PAUL THE DISCIPLE BY THE CHURCH 220 
 
 CHAPTER VII. GENTILE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 I. THE PRIVATE COMPACT OF PAUL AND PETER . . .235 
 
 II. THE PUBLIC ALTERCATION AT ANTIOCH . . . .243 
 
 III. TUB APOSTOLIC DECREE OF COMPROMISE .... 24? 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN THE 
 BIOGRAPHY OF JESUS. 
 
 I. THE PHARISEES OF ANTIOCH IN THE GOSPELS . . . 257 
 
 II. THE EXPANSION OF THE CHURCH IN THE PARABLES . 267 
 III. PETER, JAMES, AND JOHN AT THE TRANSFIGURATION . 275 
 
 CHAPTER IX. ELYMAS STRICKEN WITH BLINDNESS. 
 
 I. PAUL AND BARNABAS IN ROMAN CYPRUS 292 
 
 II. THE CARTOON OF THE REBUKE OF ELYMAS . . . 304 
 
 CHAPTER X. THE SACRIFICE AT LYSTRA. 
 
 I. THE MYTHOLOGY OF OVID IN ACTS 312 
 
 II. THE CARTOON OF THE SACRIFICE AT LYSTRA . . . 328 
 III. TIMOTHY OF LYSTRA, AND ACCOMMODATION . . . 333 
 
 CHAPTER XL PAUL IN PRISON AT PHILIPPI. 
 I. THE CHRISTIAN APOSTLE IN ORPHIC THRACE . . .339 
 
 CHAPTER XII. PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS. 
 
 I. THE CARTOON OF PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS . . 356 
 
 II. CHRISTIAN PROMISE AND GREEK CULTURE . . . 371 
 
 III. THE HARMONY OF THE REVERENTIAL AND THE RIGHTLY 
 
 REASONABLE . 384
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTBATIONS. 
 
 1. PORTRAIT OP RAFAEL (to face the Title). 
 
 Page 
 
 2. THE SISTINE CHAPEL 1 
 
 3. THE CALLING OF PETER 24 
 
 4. EMBLEMATICAL CRANES (Otto Venius) .... 31 
 
 5. THE CHARGE TO PETER 54 
 
 6. PLAN OF HEROD'S TEMPLE (Fergussori) .... 90 
 
 7. THE MIRACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE . . , .107 
 
 8. THE DEATH OF ANANIAS 139 
 
 9. THE STONING OF STEPHEN 157 
 
 10. EMBLEM OF THE WELL OF SAMARIA (0.. Venius) . . 193 
 
 11. THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL 214 
 
 12. THE TRANSFIGURATION 282 
 
 13. THE REBUKE OF ELYMAS 304 
 
 14. THE SACRIFICE AT LYSTRA 328 
 
 15. EMBLEM OF DIVINE LOVE AND THE SOUL (0. Venius) . 352 
 
 16. PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS . . .359
 
 THE SISTINE CHAPEL 
 
 From Ferguxsotfs * Modern Architecture.'
 
 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I. THE SISTINE CHAPEL. II. THE ORDER OF THE CARTOONS. 
 I. THE SISTINE CHAPEL. 
 
 THE Sistine Chapel of the Vatican was commenced for 
 Pope Sixtus IV., by Baccio Pintelli, a Florentine ar- 
 chitect, in 1473, one year before the birth of Michael 
 Angelo, and ten before that of Rafael. It was embel- 
 lished with frescoes by the most celebrated painters of 
 the time, and, no doubt, was designed with reference to 
 the reception of their works, and for the general enrich- 
 ment becoming the private chapel of the Popes. Most 
 of these paintings were left by Michael Angelo as he 
 found them, and so they still remain ; in subject as in 
 position they fall happily between those with which he 
 adorned the ceiling, and the series of tapestries, from 
 the designs by Rafael, that were one day to hang below 
 them. 
 
 The plan of the chapel, of which the exterior is per- 
 fectly plain, is an oblong of three squares, 150 feet by 
 about 50 feet ; it is 60 feet in height from pavement to
 
 2 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 ceiling. The unpierced wall-space below the window- 
 sills is crowned by an entablature that was originally 
 returned at each end, and is divided by a string-course 
 into two nearly equal horizontal bands ; the lower of 
 these is painted with elaborate representations of hang- 
 ings. It was for actual tapestries that should cover this 
 space, for two-thirds of the length of the chapel, the 
 proper sanctuary, that Rafael made the designs which 
 we know as the Cartoons. The subjects are taken from 
 the New Testament exclusively, and have especial refer- 
 ence to the mission of the Apostles. 
 
 Upon the band above this and immediately below 
 the windows, the earlier painters had left represented 
 the lives of Moses and Jesus, in a succession of parallel 
 incidents, advancing in historical order from the altar 
 end of the chapel to the door. 
 
 Above the entablature of the wall space on either 
 side are six round-headed windows, and originally there 
 were two more at each end. The window arches spring 
 from a string-course, which is continued from window 
 to window, but broken intermediately by that of a nar- 
 row pilaster, on which descend the spandrils formed 
 by intersection of the coved ceiling, by the transverse 
 coves to the semicircles over the windows. On either 
 side of each pilaster are painted niches, with figures of 
 sainted Popes, twenty-eight in all. The entire and varied 
 surface above the line of the pilasters was covered by 
 the work of Michael Angelo, executed by his single 
 hand: the flat part of the ceiling from end to end; 
 the descending triangular spandrils ; the lunette coved 
 to right and left above each window ; and the flat space 
 between the concentric semicircles over it. The Car-
 
 THE SISTINE CHAPEL. 6 
 
 toons of Rafael for the tapestries were designed by him 
 within a year or two after the completion of the deco- 
 ration of the ceiling by Michael Angelo, namely, about 
 1514. A quarter of a century more was to elapse be- 
 fore the great Florentine put his hand to his seven 
 years' labour upon the vast picture of the Last Judg- 
 ment ; it occupies the entire end wall, where he oblite- 
 rated the two windows that were over the altar, and 
 the horizontal string-courses, to make room for it. The 
 opposite end wall, on either side and above the chief 
 entrance, was destined by him to receive the 'Fall of 
 Lucifer,' for which he had prepared designs, but the 
 picture was never executed. This subject, left till the 
 last and deferred until too late, was the first in historical 
 order of the grand series which made the enrichments 
 of the Papal chapel an epitome of the Christian concep- 
 tion of the scheme of the world, its history and destiny. 
 
 The Fall of Lucifer was a fable felt to be sufficiently 
 grand, remote, and indistinct to be propounded as an 
 explanation of the origin of evil, of misery, and sin. It 
 has the same significance in the Sistine Chapel as in the 
 opening movement of England's epic of ' Paradise Lost.' 
 To this succeed, again with a parallel in the poem, the 
 great scenes of cosmical creation. In the first great 
 compartment on the flattened ceiling, God divides light 
 from darkness ; and in the associated smaller compart- 
 ments he places in the firmament, between the upper 
 and the lower waters, the greater and the lesser lights 
 rulers of night and day, and creates the general life 
 that is to occupy the land and water. 
 
 The next large design presents the creation of a com- 
 mon ancestor of mankind ; the ensuing shows his trans- 
 
 B 2
 
 4 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 gression and fall; and in the small compartment be- 
 tween the two, which is the very centre of this series, 
 we see the origin from his own side of Woman, the im- 
 mediate instrument of Lucifer in luring him to his des- 
 tiny, and ancestress also of his ultimate Saviour. 
 
 The series terminates, as it commenced, by a single 
 large compartment between a pair of associated smaller 
 ones. The consequences of the Fall are shown in the 
 Deluge, provoked by incorrigible sin ; and the mingled 
 disposition and fortunes of the world thereafter appear 
 in the Thanksgiving of the miraculously-rescued Noah, 
 and the instance of his speedy lapse in inebriety, the 
 second fall of man's second ancestor. 
 
 If variety of interpretation were conclusive, the 
 painter would be chargeable with obscurity in the three 
 first compartments of his design ; but the charge must 
 recoil upon ourselves for dulness, unless in so far as we 
 may be cleared by pleading the obliteration of tra- 
 ditions once lively and familiar. Michael Angelo here 
 is as frugal of secondary intimations of subject as Phi- 
 dias himself, who not alone withheld inscriptions, but 
 only admitted established symbols when they were too 
 absolutely fixed in men's associations to be excluded, 
 relying on the sensibility of the spectator to expres- 
 sion, and on his perception of the appropriate, to iden- 
 tify god or hero, their occupations, and surroundings. 
 To exceed the modesty of these limits was to approach 
 and to impute the underbred, a damage and an insult 
 similar to what the dramatic poet endures when the 
 actor, officious or unfortunate, thinks it necessary to 
 emphasize indications of character of which the point 
 resides in their unconsciousness.
 
 THE SISTINE CHAPEL. 5 
 
 I give my own interpretation at my own peril. In 
 the large compartment the Deity is introduced in two 
 personifications, and, by the ingenuity of the painter, 
 without any incongruity. In the Deity, who sails for- 
 ward on supporting cherubim, and with expanded 
 arms, I see the Creator of light in the primal distinction 
 of day and night. In the second personification, of 
 which the retiring aspect is given, the introduction of a 
 tree and land less prompts us than confirms us in dis- 
 cerning the Divine agency fructifying the dry land by 
 herb and tree, by seed and fruit. To those who prefer, 
 in the first agency, to see the division of the land and the 
 waters below the firmament, I have nothing to object ; 
 though, for myself, I would prefer to regard this act as 
 implied in the second epitomized representation. 
 
 A significant contrast again occurs between the 
 Deity of either of the small accompanying compart- 
 ments; in the first, he looks and reaches upward; in 
 the second, he as manifestly hovers or descends, and 
 sheds his influence below. Therefore it is that I regard 
 the first as the creator of the lights of heaven ruling 
 the day and night, and the second as the distributor of 
 the germens of life, animal life, in the waters and over 
 the broad earth. The interpretation, as I have given it, 
 follows the order of the epochs in Genesis, and marks 
 the natural sequence of attention in the spectator of 
 the design. 
 
 The triangular compartments, by which the coved 
 ceiling descends upon the piers between the windows, 
 are occupied by Hebrew Prophets and Heathen Sibyls 
 alternately, the recognized prognosticators of the great 
 Deliverer, of the descendant of Eve by whom all mis-
 
 6 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 chief was to be retrieved and the power of Lucifer finally 
 quelled. 
 
 These are the largest figures in the whole work, and 
 it is by very happy management that they are brought 
 next to compartments that keep them remote from the 
 smaller figures of the designs on the flat. They are 
 without rivals in the whole range of creative art. 
 
 " Dies irse, dies ilia, 
 Solvet sseclum in farilla, 
 Teste David cum Sibylla." 
 
 Pious fraud, at an early date, had put Messianic pro- 
 phecies into the mouths of Sibyls in spurious verses with 
 sufficient dexterity to satisfy or deceive St. Augustine. 
 But there is more in it. Through the Pollio of Virgil, 
 and the pastorals of Theocritus, we can track the course 
 of the fiction until we look over the shoulders of Hel- 
 lenistic Jews, busy fabricating sibylline prophecies out 
 of Hebrew materials, and sending abroad in this form 
 the same anticipations of a Saviour-King that had 
 cheered their ancestors when down-trodden by Assyria 
 or Egypt. Largely by machinery of this nature the 
 Roman world, even before the reign of Tiberius, had 
 become habituated to the theory of a coming Deliverer 
 of some sort : it was a prophecy that went begging for 
 a fulfilment first, and then had its choice from a series ; 
 and in the race of competition, the interpreters who ap- 
 plied it to the Nero who was to return from beyond the 
 Euphrates, lost the race to the enthusiasts who could 
 persuade generations of miserable slaves that, in a sense 
 of their own, and the best sense of all, it was fulfilled 
 by Jesus of Nazareth who had come already. 
 
 Howbeit, in pictorial symbolism, an expression for the
 
 THE SISTINE CHAPEL. 7 
 
 common yearnings of Pagan and of Hebrew is invalu- 
 able ; and, sooth to say, the Hebrews would have been 
 as much surprised by the sense posterity chose to apply 
 to rhapsodies in which they anticipated a revived He- 
 brew kingdom, under a descendant of the conqueror 
 David, as any sibyl of the series, supposing her to have 
 existed, could be at the ascription of words, not to say 
 meanings, never uttered by her at all. 
 
 The prophet Jonah is introduced upon the space that 
 is over the end wall, and not without intention and re- 
 ference to the subject which his very position proves, 
 that Michael Angelo had already assigned to this posi- 
 tion. The story of the durance of Jonah for three days 
 in a whale's belly is interpreted in Matthew as typi- 
 fying the sojourn of Jesus for the same space of time, 
 but ill made out, in the grave. Oblivion of this text 
 has betrayed some commentators, who will blush if 
 they read these remarks, into the honesty of denoun- 
 cing the combination for a puerility. Certainly it is by 
 several degrees more fantastic than the painter's whim 
 of giving to the tossing drapery of the prophet a ca- 
 pricious resemblance to the head of a sea-monster. 
 
 Certain sections, if we ought not to say certain ages, 
 of the human race have shown an inaptitude, at this 
 day present almost inconceivable, for appreciating the 
 connection of cause and effect. Of such minds it is 
 characteristic to be anxious and curious, not for causes 
 but for signs ; resemblances disconnected, but still pre- 
 monitory. The arrival of a swallow to these is a sign 
 that spring is coming, not an effect of its approach; 
 and hence no incident is too trifling, no analogy too re- 
 mote to be charged with the weightiest significance.
 
 8 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CAKTOONS. 
 
 Whatever may have become of science, imagination 
 and poetry, at least, have often nourished under such a 
 dispensation ; nay, under it faculties of the most refined 
 class have even attained to reject sympathetically the 
 accidental and the paltry, and to attach themselves 
 to those indications which bespeak identity in nature 
 and character, and guide us truly and more wisely than 
 we know. We shall find examples as we go on. 
 
 Four subjects from the history of Israel occupy the 
 corner-soffits of the ceiling. Two of them are deli- 
 verances of the nation by the courage and favour of its 
 daughters ; Judith slays Holofernes, and Esther com- 
 passes the ruin and death of Haman. These antique 
 heroines are intermediate figures of that deliverance, 
 by crushing the serpent-type of evil, that is promised in 
 Genesis to come through woman. In the deed of Ju- 
 dith there is even a parallel recognized to the warning, 
 " She shall bruise thy head ;" and in a certain sense, no 
 doubt, both Judith and Esther had become tradition- 
 ally accepted, with whatever incongruity, as types of the 
 Virgin Mother. 
 
 The two other subjects are equally significant ; Moses 
 gives health and healing to the people by lifting on 
 high the brazen serpent ; and here again tradition had 
 been prompted in its vagaries by Scripture averment of 
 a sensible type of the redeeming Crucifixion. As the 
 story stands in the Old Testament, Moses is clearly 
 making a forced concession to an idolatrous craving of 
 a disheartened people; then we find the idolatrous 
 symbol dedicated in the temple of the God that de- 
 nounces images ; then it is destroyed in pious anger by 
 a king who would be holier than Moses ; and, lastly, it
 
 THE SISTINE CHAPEL. 
 
 reappears as a type of all that is sacred, supernatural, 
 divine. 
 
 There is a certain antithesis between the saving cross 
 of Moses and the vile cross of the pernicious Haman. 
 
 Here then Moses is introduced, the great Old Testa- 
 ment type of Jesus, as was interpreted on the faith of 
 the words, " A prophet shall the Lord your God raise 
 up like unto me, him shall ye serve:" words that the 
 original writer, whatever his age, and whoever he might 
 be, probably intended should designate Joshua, cer- 
 tainly not Jesus of Nazareth, to whom, by the mouth of 
 Peter, they are applied in Acts, with many a curious 
 result both in literature and art. 
 
 The last of these subjects is the decapitation of Go- 
 liath by David; again antithetical a bruised head 
 to the fate of Holofernes, subdued by a woman, as 
 Goliath by a boy. The choice of an exploit of David 
 has a peculiar force, as it is upon the restoration of the 
 glories of his reign that Messianic anticipations so con- 
 stantly turn, and as he is that one of the long chain of 
 ancestors of whom the Saviour is emphatically designated 
 the Son. 
 
 The stem of Jesse is a favourite type in old symbo- 
 lical art; and w r e are presented constantly, in correct 
 arborescent form, with a series of heads of the repre- 
 sentatives of the pedigree of Jesus. The representation 
 is often crude and quaint enough. Michael Angelo 
 has given an equivalent of the indispensable type, 
 the chain of descent which was to unite the subjects of 
 his ceiling with those that decorated the walls ; he has 
 done so in the charming domestic groups that fill up 
 the lunettes and spandrils that were still vacant.
 
 10 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 The names inscribed show that the painter followed 
 the genealogy traced in Matthew up to David and Abra- 
 ham, not that followed by Luke with less of national 
 restriction, and by somewhat different route, up to 
 Adam and God, but asserting, no more than Luke, 
 other parentage for Jesus than Joseph the carpenter ; 
 and here, as so often, we shall ask in vain, whether he 
 could help observing the divarication, and what in the 
 world he thought of it. 
 
 The alternations of sibyl and prophet are so arranged 
 that not only is each prophet followed on the same side 
 by a sibyl, but is opposite to a sibyl on the correspond- 
 ing pendentive of the other side ; the number of pairs 
 of pendentives however is uneven, namely five ; and 
 in consequence, the plan involved the necessity of having 
 an unequal number of male and of female figures on 
 either side. The right-hand side as we face the door 
 has three sibyls and two prophets only, and on the left- 
 hand of course the numbers are reversed. 
 
 The two pendentives at the opposite ends of the ceil- 
 ing are both assigned to Hebrew prophets, and thus in 
 the expression of the grand commissure of Semitic and 
 Indo-European religions, preponderance is preserved 
 for the race that gave the master-movement to the 
 union. Jonah and Zechariah, to whom these conspicu- 
 ous positions are assigned, are usually reckoned the 
 earliest and the latest among the seven prophets who 
 are introduced; but neither chronological order nor 
 canonical will account for the sequence of the rest. 
 Subjects were painted on the disks over the head of 
 each which might be illustrative if we had an account 
 of them.
 
 THE SISTINE CHAPEL. 11 
 
 -. Jonah. 
 
 Libyca. Jeremiah. 
 
 Daniel. Persica. 
 
 Cumcea. Ezechiel. 
 
 Esaias. Erythrcea. 
 
 Delphica. Joel. 
 Zechariah. 
 
 I await better instruction as to the theory of these 
 combinations, and would prefer to listen to discourse 
 rather than to proffer it on what I can see is a rich 
 theme, the artistic management of harmonious blend- 
 ing and contrast between every figure and its opposite, 
 and at the same time also its lateral associates. 
 
 The particular motive of each grand figure and its 
 relation to its secondary companions in the background, 
 also afford scope for fine remark, for which I can but 
 send to search elsewhere. 
 
 To the imagination of one who only knows these 
 figures from engravings, they are apt to seem to the full 
 as much works of sculpture as of painting. Indeed it 
 is curious to remark how the elements and theories of 
 composition which Michael Angelo at the commence- 
 ment of his career designed to realize in the frustrate 
 monument of Pope Julius, welled up again in his mind, 
 and found place and purpose in the Sistine ceiling. Of 
 that mausoleum, the grandest ornaments were to have 
 been statues, of colossal magnitude, of prophets and 
 apostles, paired alternately with ethical and philoso- 
 phical abstractions in feminine personification ; Paul 
 and Moses with the Virtues of Active and of Contem- 
 plative life, and so forth. 
 
 Again, in the sketch that remains to us of the monu-
 
 12 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 ment (Agincourt) we see the same architectural frame- 
 work of the seated figures united with decorative infan- 
 tine forms, supporters of piers and salient entablatures ; 
 and yet again another series of figures, subordinate in 
 expression and intermediate in scale, but aiding by happy 
 adjustment in both these respects to give relief and force 
 to the centres of idealized thought. 
 
 The pairs of boys that support the salient cornice on 
 either side of the several thrones, are painted, like pier 
 and cornice, to appear as if sculptured in white marble ; 
 the larger figures that singly surmount these piers re- 
 present bronze, and are composed with reference to the 
 large seated prophet or sibyl, whose throne they per- 
 tain to. The perspective of the piers and their cor- 
 nices is independent for each niche or throne. Each 
 has its own vanishing-point, as if the spectator stood 
 exactly opposite to it. The boys below that support 
 the name-labels are painted in natural colours. 
 
 I will notice one more point of treatment. I have 
 said that the subjects painted on the compartments 
 of the flat ceiling commence from the end nearest the 
 altar ; they do so, and they are so composed that the 
 feet of the figures in each scene, the ground on which 
 they stand or lie, is at that end. Shall we then say that 
 the series was so adjusted in order to be viewed most 
 favourably from this end of the chapel I Scarcely ; in 
 effect it will be found, if we hold any picture above our 
 head, that we only comprehend it readily and comfort- 
 ably when turned in such a sense that the heads of 
 the figures are in the direction of our station-point and 
 the feet more remote. Looked at the reverse way, the 
 groups are unintelligible or seem to be upside down.
 
 THE SISTINE CHAPEL. 13 
 
 The ceiling therefore, -I should suspect, is seen most 
 favourably when the face is turned towards the grand 
 altar, and the altar-piece of the Last Judgment. And 
 this would not in any way interfere with the perusal of 
 it in natural order, as from above downwards. 
 
 If it is the case that when the work and colours were 
 fresh the whole design could be appreciated from a 
 station not very remote from the doorway, we may have 
 an explanation of the smaller scale of the figures in the 
 designs from the history of Noah. The nature of the 
 subjects rendered numerous figures all but indispensable, 
 and as these pictures were considerably nearer to the 
 spectator, his eye was not called upon for an exertion 
 beyond its power in this place. 
 
 So much must suffice from me on this immortal work 
 of Michael Angelo Buonarroti, to which I only intended 
 in the first instance to advert cursorily, as leading to 
 the subject I have chiefly in view, the illustration of the 
 Cartoons of Eafael, and of New Testament history by 
 the suggestions of the Cartoons. 
 
 The same consideration demands yet a few observa- 
 tions on the series of pictures that form the immediate 
 sequel, though dating from an earlier period ; the fres- 
 coes below the windows. 
 
 The life of Jesus is seen depicted on our right, as we 
 advance to the altar, and that of Moses on the left. 
 The numerous figures are on too small a scale to be 
 seen favourably at such a distance. Each series of sub- 
 jects follows historical order, commencing, like those 
 on the ceiling, from the altar end of the chapel and 
 advancing towards the door. The opposite designs, 
 from the Old and New Testament, have always a cer-
 
 14 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 tain reference to each other, often of pregnant signifi- 
 cance, often on the other hand barren enough, as will 
 appear from a comparative enumeration. 
 
 In this contrast of designs on opposite walls I am 
 irresistibly reminded of the paintings of Polygnotus 
 on the opposite walls of the Lesche at Delphi, with 
 subjects from a very different fund of mythology, but 
 parallel at least in being directed to enforce, as if of 
 equal sanction, a priestly dogma and a code of moral 
 duty. The peril of neglecting initiation and of infrin- 
 ging apostolical authority, are texts in all essentials iden- 
 tical. Not less resemblance is there in some of the 
 modes of treatment; the superposition of groups by 
 Polygnotus must have had much the same effect as the 
 combinations of several moments of time in the paint- 
 ings of Sandro Botticelli. Polygnotus, however, did 
 not repeat the same personage in the way that Sandro 
 paints Moses, first as removing his sandals, and then 
 again within a few inches kneeling unshod before the 
 burning bush. On the other hand, I suspect the Greek 
 was less skilful or less particular in indicating distance 
 and diminishing remote figures. I refer to my account 
 and restoration of his work, in the ' Classical Museum.' 
 
 The intention of this series is most salient in the inci- 
 dents from the life of Jesus, which are selected to give 
 emphasis to the epochs of Redemption in the first in- 
 stance, and then to the appointment and authority of 
 apostolical hierarchy. The scheme and order are on 
 this wise :
 
 THE SISTINE CHAPEL. 
 
 15 
 
 Finding of Moses. Assumption of the Virgin. Birth of Jesus. 
 (Or, Moses in the Bulrushes.) (Jesus in the Manger.) 
 
 (These three, by Pietro Perugino, were cancelled by Michael Angelo 
 to make space for the Last Judgment.) 
 
 ALTAR. 
 
 Moses attacked by God 
 at the Inn ; Moses and Zip- 
 porah; the circumcision of 
 their son. 
 
 Moses at burning Bush ; 
 repels shepherds from the 
 well of daughters of Jethro ; 
 smites the Egyptian. (En- 
 graved in Eastlake's Kugler, 
 p. 201.) 
 
 Moses and Israelites by the ") 
 Eed Sea after passage; the 
 song of Miriam ; the host of |- 
 Pharaoh struggling in the | 
 waves. J 
 
 Moses receives and delivers ~"| 
 the Commandments from the ! 
 Mount; the punishment of f 
 the people for their apostasy. J 
 
 Punishment of Korah, I)a- "> 
 than, and Abiram ; and also 
 of the sons of Aaron ; Moses ! 
 before the Altar ; in front i 
 Horn an triumphal arch in the I 
 -J 
 
 Last injunctions of Moses 
 to Joshua; Moses reads 
 the people his last Psalm 
 praise. 
 
 Michael rescues the body 
 of Moses from Satan. (Jude 
 ix.) 
 
 f The Baptism of Jesus ; in 
 J background Jesus preaching ; 
 j also John ; at a distance Je- 
 t rusalem. 
 
 f The Temptation of Jesus 
 J (overcoming Satan) ; Service 
 | and sacrifice at the Temple 
 L in front. 
 
 . f The Calling of Apostles by 
 I the Lake. 
 
 {Jesus Preaching on the 
 Mount. (Engraved in East- 
 lake's Kugler.) 
 
 r Jesus gives the keys to 
 i Peter ; in background archi- 
 s tectural comparison of Solo- 
 mon and Sixtus in inscrip- 
 L tions on buildings. 
 
 ies 
 
 sj ! 
 i 
 
 The Last Supper; in the 
 background the Agony and 
 Crucifixion. 
 
 The Eesurrection. 
 
 The last pair of subjects are on either side the door- 
 way. Wherever these comparisons appear forced, the
 
 16 CHKISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 violence is in the Mosaic incidents on the left-hand 
 side. The agreement obtained is sometimes but a happy 
 accident, presenting itself with tolerable obviousness, as 
 of the bulrush-basket of the foundling Prophet, and the 
 manger of the destitute Jesus. 
 
 In the second pair, Baptism and Circumcision are 
 the respective rites of initiation of the Old and New 
 Covenants. 
 
 In pair three, the discomfiture of Satan has a typical 
 importance assigned to it, as the same proof of arms 
 between the originator and the destroyer of Evil, that 
 makes it the turning incident of the ' Paradise Regained.' 
 Against this are set exploits of rescue of Moses ; and 
 the incident of the burning bush is added, I believe, 
 on suggestion little more forcible than the scene lying 
 also in a wilderness. 
 
 So, in the fourth pair, the value of the parallelism 
 rests to rather a childish extent upon the agreement 
 in water-side locality ; albeit, in one case by salt-, and 
 in the other beside a fresh-water sea. I must, however, 
 speak cautiously, as import may be helped by some se- 
 condary groups, as possibly, the walking on the waters, 
 of which the epitome I use makes no mention. 
 
 In the fifth pair, the parallelism extends beyond com- 
 mon locality of a mount, to the moral position of the 
 prophets. There is considerable appearance that the 
 delivery of the moral code of Jesus, like that of Moses 
 that it so largely superseded, from a mount, was not a 
 mere coincidence. Whether we admit that such a 
 sermon was so delivered, or rather infer that to a ser- 
 mon of Jesus, whether ever really delivered or not, 
 such a scene was invented or came to be ascribed, the
 
 THE SISTINE CHAPEL. 17 
 
 influence of a feeling for parallelism and competition 
 would be one and the same. This is in Matthew ; in 
 Luke, the substance of the same speech is put into the 
 mouth of Jesus at a later date, not on the mount, but 
 expressly on a plain ; and, instead of standing to deliver 
 it, he is seated. I fear it is vain to investigate which 
 version was the original. One is the view favoured 
 by a Christian writer, disposed to contemplate with 
 pleasure the resemblance of Jesus to Moses ; the other 
 is the view of the teacher, or convert, who rather took 
 pleasure in insisting on the contrast of the dispensa- 
 tions, and would pursue the contrast not only in essen- 
 tials but in accessories. 
 
 On the delivery of the keys to Peter in pair six, I 
 shall have much to say when I arrive at the Cartoon ; 
 it was the typical installation of the Papacy. The pa- 
 rallel subject gives force to its significance, edge and 
 point. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were victims of a 
 premature attempt to assert the evangelical equality of 
 the laity, but of course are adopted here as the imper- 
 sonations of sacrilege, blasphemy, and impiety. 
 
 The purport and correspondence of the two conclu- 
 ding pairs are self-evident. 
 
 The painters employed were Pietro Perugino, Luca 
 Signorelli, Sandro Botticelli, Cosimo Eosetti, Domenico 
 Ghirlandajo, Cecchino Salviati. The superintendence 
 was given to Sandro, and to him we may probably as- 
 cribe the selection of the subjects. One asks, with vain 
 curiosity, whether he had also a plan for the decoration 
 of the ceiling, and how far it may have afforded a hint 
 to Michael Angelo. 
 
 However this may be. the designs on the ceiling lead 
 
 c
 
 18 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 directly to the subjects on the walls by both ethical 
 and historical sequence. The chain of Scripture history 
 was then further carried on through its Apostolic sec- 
 tion in the tapestries of Kafael ; and, lastly, the mighty 
 design of the Last Judgment, by an extra-Scriptural 
 excursion, closed all the movements of Scripture and 
 of the world with an outburst of awful magnificence, 
 answering to what doubtless would have been before 
 us as their opening act, had it been allowed to Mi- 
 chael Angelo to realize his conceptions of the fall of 
 Lucifer. 
 
 II. THE ORDER OF THE CARTOONS. 
 
 The tapestries executed after the Cartoons by Ra- 
 fael, and that are still preserved at Rome, are ten in 
 number ; of the original Cartoons seven are in England, 
 the remainder have perished. It is certain that they 
 were intended to be placed along the walls, as already 
 described, under the horizontal courses of pictures from 
 the Old and New Testament, and so to cover up and 
 supersede^ for the occasion, the imitative hangings. 
 There is considerable difficulty, however, about their 
 precise order and distribution, and no tradition survives 
 at Rome that renders any assistance. 
 
 The ground-plan of the chapel was divided into two 
 unequal parts by a transverse white marble colonnade, 
 consisting of four columns on either side a central en- 
 trance, with entablature and high stylobate, and iron- 
 work in the intercolumns. Four out of the six windows 
 were included in the inner division, or presbyterium ; and 
 as the wall paintings were spaced under the windows,
 
 THE OEDER OF THE CARTOONS. 19 
 
 and the designs on the tapestries were divided by repre- 
 sentations of pilasters, fancifully decorated, we are jus- 
 tified in assuming that they ranged with the pictures 
 and windows above, by the same division which governed 
 the ordination of the ceiling. 
 
 There were thus eight spaces on each wall, and the 
 number is increased to ten, the original number of the 
 tapestries, if we include the two corresponding spaces 
 that were on either side the altar previously to the 
 changes made to accommodate the requirements of the 
 Last Judgment. This seems satisfactory enough, the 
 more so as the subjects of the tapestries fall naturally 
 into two sets of five each ; the first having reference to 
 the history of Peter and the ante-Pauline Church, the 
 second to the history and labours of Paul. 
 
 But difficulties presently occur. The second space 
 to the altar's right is diminished one-third by the 
 Pope's throne, which has attachments to the wall ; and 
 the fourth space on the opposite side is still more seri- 
 ously interfered with by the gallery for the choir, and 
 both throne and choir appear to have belonged to the 
 original arrangements. 
 
 It is true we have certain tapestries of either set of 
 diminished size, which permit us to cover the spaces in 
 the way of arrangement of upholstery ; and this pro- 
 cess has been carefully worked out by Bunsen, and it 
 has been rested in as satisfactory. It would be vain to 
 contest his arrangement without details of measurement 
 that are not forthcoming ; and it must suffice to say 
 that while the order he adopts confounds the histori- 
 cal sequence, it does not vindicate itself by any artistic 
 or ethical principle, and scarcely pretends to do so.
 
 20 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 The following is the series of subjects in their histo- 
 rical order: 
 
 1. [1] The miraculous draught 6. [6] The conversion of Paul, 
 of fishes, and calling of Peter. (Cartoon lost.) 
 
 2. [2] The charge to Peter and 7. [7] The rebuke of Elymas. 
 delivery of the keys. (Only the upper half of the 
 
 3. [4] The miracle of Peter and tapestry exists.) 
 
 John at the Beautiful Gate. 8. [8] Paul and Barnabas at 
 
 4. [5] The death of Ananias. Lystra. 
 
 5. [3] The martyrdom of Ste- 9. [10] Paul imprisoned at Plu- 
 phen and complicity of Paul. lippi ; the earthquake. (Car- 
 
 (Cartoon lost.) toon lost.) 
 
 10. [9] Paul preaching at Athens. 
 
 The numerals in brackets indicate the arrangement 
 arrived at by Bimsen. The Martyrdom of Stephen is 
 a very small tapestry compared with the others; and 
 the Earthquake at Philippi is again much smaller, only 
 4J feet broad, and hence the transpositions to suit the 
 limited spaces. 
 
 The order of time is the first most obvious principle 
 of arrangement, at least by way of trial ; there is, how- 
 ever, fair ground for modifying this on an appearance 
 of systematic contrast and parallelism in the subjects 
 of the designs, and this is not wanting. 
 
 If we regard first the Petrine series, we have before 
 us displayed, on Biblical authority, in pointedly selected 
 scenes, the origin and the pretensions, the functions, 
 authority, and destiny of the Apostolical hierarchy. To 
 Peter, the predecessor and representative of the Pope, 
 called by special miracle, are assigned the charge of 
 pastoral tending, and the authority to bind and to loose 
 in heaven and on earth. The functions of mercy and 
 of power, rescue and severity, are provided with all 
 sufficient illustration in the healing of congenital de-
 
 THE ORDER OF THE CARTOONS. 21 
 
 formity at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, and the 
 striking down of Ananias and Sapphira for a lapse in 
 matters of temporalities ; while Stephen the Martyr 
 shows the spirit of the Church in affliction, and open- 
 ing heaven that is its reward. 
 
 This last subject, by the presence of Paul, forms a 
 transition to the parallel story of the great Apostle of 
 the Gentiles. The conversion of St. Paul, if indeed it oc- 
 cupied the right-hand side of the altar, would form the 
 fittest pendant to the calling of St. Peter on the left. 
 
 The miracle of the associated Paul and Barnabas, at 
 Lystra, answers in its spirit of benevolence to that of 
 Peter and John at the Temple ; and the rebuke of 
 Elymas testifies to a claim and confidence in authority 
 almost as distinctly as the destruction of Ananias. 
 
 Stephen stoned, and Paul imprisoned, may be held, 
 without violence, to give common illustration of the 
 endurance of persecution and its reward. 
 
 Thus far well, thus far, I think, unquestionably; we 
 are now left, however, with the charge to Peter, and 
 the sermon to the Athenian philosophers as its pen- 
 dant. Certainly it is in this scene at Athens that Paul 
 appears most positively in that function of Apostle of 
 the Gentiles, in which he claimed to be co-ordinate with 
 Peter, mighty with the circumcision. On this shadow 
 of parallelism, however, I do not insist, but prefer to 
 regard the Athenian Cartoon as independent, and as the 
 closing expression of the final position of Christianity, 
 that rising in a province among the obscure and the 
 illiterate, struck so soon and so boldly for a position in 
 the very centres of education of intellectual subtlety 
 and culture.
 
 22 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 While therefore we recognize a practical and philo- 
 sophical analogy between the double series, we may 
 hesitate to infer that the most decided parallels were 
 really arranged antithetically. Were such indeed the 
 case, it would be preferable to place the Petrine series 
 in historical order and sacrifice that of the Pauline ; 
 but I believe that in the painter's thought historical 
 sequence was regarded as much in one as in the other, 
 and as of importance in both. 
 
 The foot of the tapestries has a representation of an 
 architectural socle, with designs imitative of bronze ; 
 and on the Pauline series, we have here the secondary 
 incidents of the Apostle's career, following on in histo- 
 rical order, with the grander designs, and thus making 
 another protest against disruption. Below the other 
 series, are incidents from the life of Cardinal Medici, 
 Leo the Tenth, adjusted with a certain reference, as 
 clear as can be expected, to the Apostolic career above. 
 The election by the conclave, for instance, is subjoined 
 to the calling of Peter. 
 
 I find it difficult, therefore, not to believe that the 
 tapestries were planned and intended by Rafael to 
 follow on in true historical and chronological order, 
 though I am unable to explain away the difficulties of 
 the interrupted spaces with the information that is at 
 present accessible. 
 
 It seems, on every ground, appropriate that the earlier 
 incidents of the history of Peter should be placed on 
 the right-hand wall looking from the altar, as it is on 
 that side that the earlier histories commence above. To 
 commence the new series on the same wall on which 
 the old concludes, upon an upper line, would have the 
 harshness of a boustrophedon archaism.
 
 THE ORDER OF THE CARTOONS. 23 
 
 Peter, as the apostle of Judaism, comes fitly upon 
 the side of and under Moses. 
 
 Rafael was occupied with the Cartoons in the years 
 1515, 1516 ; he was paid for them 434 gold ducats. 
 The tapestries arrived in Rome in 1519. 
 
 In Waagen's ' Treasures of Art in England,' vol. ii., 
 will be found a copious collection of technical notes 
 and observations respecting the Cartoons, their execu- 
 tion, and the sketches, engravings, and tapestries that 
 are connected with them. For such references in ge- 
 neral I refer to the book. I content myself here with 
 setting down a few disconnected extracts. 
 
 The Conversion of St. Paul has been engraved by M. 
 Sorello, etched by Louis Sommerau ; The Prison at Phi- 
 Uppi, etched by Louis Sommerau; a sketch of the giant 
 that personifies the earthquake is in Charles Rogers's col- 
 lection of prints. The original sketch of the Death of 
 Stephen^vhich has some differences from the Cartoon, is in 
 the collection of the Archduke Charles at Vienna ; it has 
 been engraved by A. Bartch, lithographed by Pilizotti. 
 
 The Cartoons are painted in size-colour on paper. 
 It is a good observation, that the proportions of the 
 figures, which far exceed the size of life, are in favour 
 of effect in tapestry, which, from the thickness of the 
 threads, would give coarseness to smaller figures and 
 features. The broad character of the folds of the drapery 
 is also an advantage in a design that was to be executed 
 in wool ; colours of dresses were adopted with like fore- 
 sight, and hence the frequent introduction of shot mate- 
 rials, and of treatment which allowed high lights to be 
 executed in gold thread, besides a certain number of 
 draperies that were to be executed in gold almost en- 
 tirely.
 
 24 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CALLING OF PETER. 
 
 I. THE CARTOON OF THE CALLING OF PETER. II. THE CRANES 
 
 IN THE CARTOON. III. THE SEA OF GALILEE. 
 
 I. THE CARTOON OF THE CALLING OF PETER. 
 
 THIS cartoon represents the calling of Simon chiefly, 
 and then of his brother Andrew, and of James and John, 
 from the state of fishermen on the Sea of Galilee to be 
 fishers of men, Apostles. 
 
 The boats are near a strip of land, occupied only by 
 cranes; but we see that they have put well out from 
 the shore, where the crowd, whom Jesus had been 
 teaching, is still lingering. The miraculous draught 
 has declared itself; Simon's boat is full of fishes, while 
 his partners or mates in the other boat are still strain- 
 ing to raise the overcharged net. At the end of the 
 right-hand boat is seated Jesus, and before him Simon 
 is on his knees in an agony of mingled enthusiasm and 
 terror: "Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful 
 man ;" behind him Andrew, with more elastic action, and 
 an expression rather of single adoration, bends as he 
 moves hastily forward, and in his expanded arms we see 
 the movement of devotion that prompts the sacrifice to 
 leave all and follow the Master.
 

 
 THE CALLING OF PETER. 25 
 
 .It is impossible for any description to do justice to 
 the feeling of these faces and gestures; here, if any- 
 where in the Cartoons, we have the very hand of Rafael 
 himself, in finish as well as in design. Jesus raises one 
 hand the right, with a tranquillizing movement, to 
 calm the excited, if not trembling Simon. 
 
 James and John, in the next boat, are less immedi- 
 ately participant, though marked already by the prefi- 
 guring nimbus of Apostleship. John, the nearest to 
 Andrew, is recognized by his unbearded youthfulness ; 
 his attention is already attracted, and, with his body 
 yet unlifted from his labour, he turns his head to ob- 
 serve. One hand is already released from the net and 
 rests on his knee to permit this movement, and with 
 the other he rather holds the net for the moment than 
 drags it ; while the stalwart arms of his brother James, 
 more mature in age, are in the full tension of undi- 
 verted toil. Zebedee behind, still more remote, seems 
 engrossed with the balance and management of the 
 boat, which the heavy strain on one quarter threatens 
 to disturb. 
 
 . The movement of John is scarcely more than may be 
 due to his notice to the sudden movement of Andrew, 
 but it is sufficient to blend the expressions of a pair of 
 groups which here, as we shall find in other Cartoons, are 
 at once combined and contrasted. In one boat already 
 the brothers are by far more apostles than fishers ; in 
 the other they still remain rather fishers than apostles, 
 yet not without an intimation of their coming change. 
 
 The muscularity of the sons of Zebedee is strongly 
 emphasized, and the limbs and hands of Simon and 
 Andrew also have the largeness and massiveness befitting
 
 26 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 their occupation ; the hand and figure of Jesus receiv- 
 ing peculiar delicacy and slightness by the contrast. 
 But it was evidently the painter's aim, and he suc- 
 ceeded, to give force to the spirit of his incident by 
 showing that these cumbrous forms might be the ve- 
 hicles of sentiments that become and that constitute 
 the saint. 
 
 The gradation of movement and expression in these 
 groups, so eternal are the inspirations of the highest 
 art, have wonderful analogy to the dispositions of Phi- 
 dias ; as, for instance, in his group of the triple Fates, 
 aroused by the marvellous epiphany of Athene. 
 
 The horizon of the picture is high, as in all the Car- 
 toons. The line of water against the sky marks it ex- 
 actly ; the chief group is thus relieved against the light 
 waters of the lake as a background : the broken line of 
 coast is so distributed as to clear the heads and follow 
 the lines of the groups. Only the head of Andrew is 
 slightly backed by a margin of landscape, a variation 
 which gives to the scheme a happy and accidental air. 
 
 A sketch in the hands of Mr. Dyce, which may easily 
 be or represent an original, shows the landscape back- 
 ground much lower. 
 
 The flying birds are introduced ingeniously to soften 
 the suddenness of transition, in the background, to clear 
 sky and level reflecting lake. 
 
 A light breeze moves the hair and beards of the 
 figures, and gives pressure and movement to the dra- 
 pery, with assistance to the free open-air effect. It is 
 noteworthy how the flying drapery of John unites the 
 groups, and still more so is the manner in which An- 
 drew's right hand is relieved upon the mass, light upon
 
 THE CALLING OF PETER. 27 
 
 dark, as his left hand is as definitely relieved by dark- 
 ness against the light free background. The dispropor- 
 tion of the boats, or punts, has always been a subject of 
 remark; and why, it has or may have been said, did 
 not Rafael dispose of any pictorial superfluity of boat 
 by an arrangement of foreshortening, by carrying the 
 ends of the boats clear out of the picture, or by making 
 one boat cover up the greater part of the other I 
 
 It is not for me to say ; I can quite conceive that the 
 disproportion may be due to an oversight of the painter ; 
 such lapses have happened to the best, and it is possibly 
 due merely to familiarity that the disproportion jloes 
 not now seriously damage the main effect of the pic- 
 ture. On the other hand, considering the independence 
 and value of this effect, who will venture to say but 
 that Eafael may have admitted the incongruity delibe- 
 rately as even in some way, patent to himself, advanta- 
 geous to the expression of the miracle. 
 
 Of the significance of the cranes in the foreground I 
 shall have more to say presently ; pictorially, they have 
 great value in breaking the formality with which the 
 figures in the boats are repeated by reflection in the 
 water. Zebedee's chest is reflected, and the full face of 
 the figure next to him is seen in the water, though, as 
 he stands, he presents only his profile to the spectator. 
 The legs of Andrew, the body of Peter, the wooden 
 boats, all are discernible in duplicate with much more 
 minuteness than is indicated in the engravings. The 
 birds are so introduced as to relieve, while they do not 
 interfere with, these duplications. 
 
 The drapery of John is red, the colour he usually is 
 distinguished by as an Apostle ; his hair is almost flaxen.
 
 28 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 The drapery of Christ is now white in the Cartoon, 
 though the reflection in the water is red. Either the 
 colour has faded, as is most probable, or the indica- 
 tions for the tapestry workers were otherwise conveyed. 
 In the tapestries it appears red. 
 
 I have spoken of the figure of Jesus as raising the 
 right hand, and as seated in the right-hand boat, thus 
 following the engravings of Dorigny, which reverse the 
 positions of the groups, as seen in the Cartoons. Do- 
 rigny, in fact, in this reversal agrees with the tapes- 
 tries ; and there is not the slightest doubt that Rafael 
 anticipated and allowed for this reversal, and that he 
 designed the left hands on the Cartoons with regard 
 to their ultimate transference into right. Following 
 the tapestries, we shall find that Christ consistently de- 
 livers the keys to Peter with his right hand. Peter, 
 in accordance with the text, grasps the right hand of 
 the lame beggar ; the Apostles denounce Ananias with 
 right arms, free from the encumbering robe which is 
 cast over the left shoulder; while Sapphira enters, 
 counting her money from her right hand into her left. 
 The friend of Sergius has station at his right-hand, 
 the lictors on his left, and the knotted togas give like 
 indication. Mercury at Lystra holds his caduceus in 
 his right hand, and the fellow-statue of Ares at Athens 
 grasps spear with right hand, and carries shield to the 
 left. The tapestry of the Conversion of Paul, no doubt, 
 reversed the Cartoon that is lost, and it shows figures 
 with swords hanging on appropriate side. 
 
 This scene on the lake is a calling of Apostles, the 
 summons from daily struggle for daily support, by co- 
 ping with the coarsest material forces of wind and water
 
 THE CALLING OF PETER. 29 
 
 for animal prey of the least noble order, to become 
 fishers of men to set the end of life in gaining trust 
 and conviction; to strive in unselfish endurance; and 
 endeavour to give to others the privilege of regenerate 
 life and ardent faith and the self-devotion that looks 
 above, and fain would look beyond the world. Such is 
 the subject of the Cartoon, and being such, it is most 
 wondrously expressed in fundamental contrast and se- 
 condary associations by every line of treatment and 
 shade of vigorous expression. 
 
 The change for the fishermen, at least as represented, 
 was from the wild of water and open cope of sky to the 
 crowded haunts of wretchedness and wrong; and the 
 city on the horizon is no insignificant gloss in the expo- 
 sition. 
 
 Peter and his brother are already visibly well ad- 
 vanced in years, and the prescribed transference of his 
 activity involves almost a transformation ; it implies a 
 regeneration of energy in himself that guarantees the 
 resources with which nature waits to second his rege- 
 nerating labours upon a world engrossed with bodily 
 exercise and appetite, and showing signs of growing 
 cowed and cankered by accumulated prejudice and age. 
 Peter is here type of the capacity of society for reger- 
 mination from an obscure but a vigorous root. 
 
 The soul of an Apostle in the case of a fisherman ! 
 Opportunity in daily labour for the exercise of powers 
 and proof of dispositions that constitute a calling above 
 the honours of earthly potentates! Such, it seemed 
 to the recorders of the paramyth, was the truth of the 
 world. 
 
 And this was the ideal of morality and the mani-
 
 30 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 festation of God in the world that Rafael reinforced, 
 and made visible as well as legible for all ages, and dis- 
 played first in the high chapel of corrupted Christianity 
 before priestly potentates, who claimed title and succes- 
 sion from Peter, and reversed the very spirit and pro- 
 cess of his calling. What less can be said of plotters 
 for sinister attraction of worldly pelf by quasi-spiritual 
 function, by employing the mask of apostleship to em- 
 bezzle the living of the needy, the haul of industry, and 
 to starve them body and soul ? 
 
 Corrupt patrons were to the inspiration of Rafael 
 and Michael Angelo but as dirty rags whereon to wipe 
 paint-brushes, steps to stand on while they wrought 
 divine marvels that were thenceforth to endure and 
 operate independently. 
 
 The Cartoon of Rafael, then, albeit he gives halos to 
 saints, sometimes omitted by Protestant engravers, was 
 the artistic culmination of that same development of 
 the mind of Europe that was at this very time giving 
 a vernacular translation of the Bible to the poor with a 
 purpose as honest, however more liable to be miscon- 
 strued in process, and to reproduce original mischiefs, 
 the weed seeding with the corn. 
 
 II. THE CRANES IN THE CARTOON. 
 
 The design on page 43 of the Emblems of Divine Love 
 of Otto Venius, illustrates the theme that the claim of 
 God to our affections supersedes even the claim of our 
 parents. The design itself might be enigmatical enough 
 but for the elucidation of its purport in the texts from 
 Scripture and comments of the Fathers of the Church

 
 THE CRANES IN THE CARTOON. 31 
 
 in Latin, the Spanish triplet, and the verses in Flemish 
 and in French that garnish the opposite page. 
 
 The most significant text is from Matthew x. 37, 
 " Whoso loveth father or mother more than me is not 
 worthy of me." The French verses are thus translat- 
 able, " We are accountable to God for a love stronger 
 and more zealous than we are to our parents, by whom 
 we were born wretches subject to death, whereas his 
 death delivers us from it ; since, therefore, he volunta- 
 rily died for us, we are bound to live here for no other 
 end but to cherish him wholly in heaven." 
 
 In the picture, accordingly, Divine Love is leading 
 the Soul towards an altar, and points to a crucifix, which 
 is placed upon it, the representation of the death of 
 / Christ ; the Soul, the usual personification of the book, 
 accompanies with willing step, and with eyes fixed on 
 the crucifix to which she advances, while her hand is 
 extended sideways, with a gesture of renunciation, to- 
 wards an emblem that must necessarily symbolize the 
 duty of children to earthly parents; necessarily, for only 
 thus can the gesture be accounted for, and the sym- 
 bolism of the picture be completed in agreement with 
 the text. The emblem is quaint, but, when explained, 
 apt enough; and as the text does not drop any hint 
 as special aid to explain its aptness, I conclude that it 
 was a well-known and accepted type. This type is a 
 stork standing erect, with another stork couchant on its 
 back. The filial piety of the stork ciconice pietas, is 
 proverbial, at least in poetry, both Greek and Latin, 
 and in the natural histories, at least, of the ancients. 
 In the work of the Abbe Crosnier on Christian Icono- 
 graphy, St. Ambrose and St. Basil are cited (p. 319)
 
 32 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 as authorities for symbolizing filial piety by the stork 
 (cigogne). (See Birds of Aristophanes, v. 1355 ; Sophocles, 
 Electra, v. 1058 ; .Elian, Hist. Anim. iii. 23, and x. 16 ; 
 Aristotle, Hist. An. ix. 14, 1 ; and Pliny.) 
 
 The pious office usually ascribed to the stork is the 
 feeding its infirm parent; whether it was said also to 
 extend its dutifulness to carrying its helpless parent I 
 am unable to say, but could almost suspect that it was 
 so. The smaller size of the carried bird indicates, how- 
 ever, that the standing bird here is the parent ; swans 
 and some other birds carry occasionally their young on 
 their backs ; this may suffice as an illustration of the 
 device of the ingenious Fleming. 
 
 But the explanation thus obtained carries light, where 
 light is more welcome and more interesting, as display- 
 ing a symbolical appropriateness for the cranes intro- 
 duced by Rafael in this touching Cartoon of the call- 
 ing of Peter, Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee. It 
 now appears that there was a further motive for the in- 
 troduction of the birds, whatever the variety of the 
 genus they may be, whether storks or cranes, than 
 their avidity for fish, which would scarcely alone explain 
 their prominence and conspicuousness. 
 
 Rafael chiefly followed the third Gospel in his repre- 
 sentation of the calling of these Apostles ; there we find 
 the miraculous draught of fishes, and there the gesture 
 and exclamation of Peter, and the astonishment, the 
 0tt/i/9os, of the company. In the first Gospel, however, 
 (see Strauss, ' Leben Jesu,' xi. 68, on the incompatibilities 
 general and detailed, and the sources of them,) we find 
 the mention of Zebedee as present ; he can be no other 
 than the elder figure in the second boat, who is exempt
 
 THE CRANES IN THE CARTOON. 33 
 
 from the excitement that in various gradations is ani- 
 mating the four. While, again, the third Gospel simply 
 says, " they brought the boats to land, and left all and 
 followed him," the first with emphasis, or with a sus- 
 ceptibility of emphasis that was not lost sight of, says 
 that " they straightway left the boat and their father, 
 and followed him." The word left is scarcely strong 
 enough to represent the Greek d^evres; it should be 
 rather, gave up, renounced, or even deserted. So Peter 
 appeals later, " Have not we given up everything and 
 followed thee I " 
 
 The second Gospel says that James and John "left 
 their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired 
 servants, and departed after Christ." 
 
 I think the proof is sufficient that on the strength of 
 the expressions given in the first Gospel, the quitting of 
 Zebedee by his sons at the call of Christ was recognized 
 in the middle ages, and both before and afterwards, 
 as a typical instance of the duty to prove worthy of 
 Christ, by not loving father or mother above him, that 
 Rafael, in the cartoon in question, did not neglect this 
 aspect of the incident, and that he conveyed his appre- 
 ciation of it by his introduction of the cranes, types of 
 filial duty, which probably told the tale all the more 
 easily from being long established in the function, and 
 as little requiring then an interpretation in so many 
 words, as they received afterwards when they reappeared 
 among the Emblemata of the master of Rubens. 
 
 In Matthew (iv. 18-22), Jesus first calls Simon and 
 his brother Andrew as they are casting their nets, 
 which they leave at once to follow him and become 
 fishers of men. Then going further, he finds the 
 
 D
 
 34 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 brothers James and John, in a boat with their father 
 Zebedee, mending their nets ; at a summons these 
 also follow, leaving both boat and father. This double 
 calling of two pairs of brothers is repeated in Mark 
 (i. 16-20), with such coincidence of words as to prove 
 that the same record was the source of both narra- 
 tives, whichever may be nearer to the original. The 
 one variation of consequence is that already noticed, 
 the mention of the servants ; and I am of opinion that 
 it proves Mark's edition the later, and that it was de- 
 rived from a record corresponding with that of Matthew 
 at this point. The hired servants seem introduced from 
 a feeling that the desertion of Zebedee to utter loneli- 
 ness, with nets unmended, and a boat on his hands to 
 take care of, was unfilial, the later editor missing the 
 true significance of the anecdote ; in fact, his version 
 fails to emphasize, as required, the giving up of the 
 boat, the means of livelihood ; and would almost bear 
 the interpretation, that the sons left Zebedee and the 
 servants in the boat to take care of it while they were 
 absent only for a time with Jesus. 
 
 The third Gospel omits the presence, and therefore 
 the desertion of Zebedee, rewrites the entire circum- 
 stances, and introduces a miracle. The two callings 
 are made one, the two pairs of brothers being partners, 
 and a distinctly leading part is given to Simon Peter. 
 Is it possible that the miraculous draught of fishes that 
 breaks the net, may have been partly suggested by the 
 double occupation of the pairs in the other versions of 
 the story 1 ? some casting the nets for a draught, the 
 others repairing nets. 
 
 Everything is changed again in the fourth Gospel, un-
 
 THE CRANES IN THE CARTOON. 35 
 
 less we should say, that not a change but a substitution 
 is in question. The Baptist directs the attention of two 
 of his disciples to Jesus as the Lamb of God. Andrew, 
 one of these disciples the other is not named, com- 
 municates to Simon, probably his brother, the Messiah- 
 ship of Jesus, and then Simon is brought to Jesus, and 
 receives the surname Peter. This narrative lowers 
 Simon, by making his calling only intermediate, and by 
 superseding his acknowledgment of the Messiahship of 
 Jesus. This is again done, but in favour of John, in 
 the last chapter of the fourth Gospel. The connection 
 of Andrew, and hence, probably, of Simon with the 
 Baptist as a disciple, is however highly probable, and 
 agrees with the dating of the new movement by Peter 
 in Acts from John's baptism. 
 
 In the fourth Gospel again (chap, xxi.) we find w r hat 
 must be regarded as another version of the miracle on 
 the lake, but marvellously changed in detail, and dated 
 after the resurrection : it has no significance relatively 
 to the Cartoon, and none of its own that is easily within 
 ken. It reads, indeed, like a fabrication of the simplest 
 puerility, yet may prove hereafter, in the hands of some 
 acuter analyst, the key of an historical mystery, that 
 but for its aid were hopelessly locked: for him I leave 
 it. 
 
 It is necessary and important to notice that whatever 
 may be the historical value of the hints that are given 
 of the social position of the Apostles now in question, 
 they all tend to raise them above that of labourers for 
 hire, to the possessors of, at least, the apparatus of their 
 own industry, and to independence consistent with suf- 
 cient education. 
 
 D 2 
 

 
 36 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 The calling of the Apostles in these narratives corre- 
 sponds in several respects with the calling of Elisha by 
 Elijah, 1 Kings xix. 19. In this incident there is no 
 immediate miracle ; Elisha follows Elijah at the simple 
 signal of a mantle being cast upon him; but as we 
 are led to understand that the purport of such a sign 
 was understood, so it is also consistent with the story 
 to assume that the person and office and miracles of 
 Elijah were known generally, and to Elisha as to the 
 rest of the world. The devotion of the disciple at his 
 sudden calling is expressed by his quitting oxen and 
 plough in the midst of the work, and his readiness to 
 leave father and mother with just one farewell kiss. 
 The narrative almost implies that this proposed leave- 
 taking is given up at a check from his master, as though 
 it were a sign of slackness ; and that without thinking 
 further of his parents, without turning homewards for 
 a moment, Elisha sacrifices the oxen on the occasion 
 of his new profession, and there and then departs at 
 once to serve and minister to his spiritual parent. In 
 this incident, a mixture of authoritative and fascinating 
 power is ascribed to Elijah, and the same reappears in 
 the tone of the New Testament callings of the Apostles. 
 This parallelism does not in itself prove that the New 
 Testament anecdotes are inventions or myths modelled 
 or modified by that of the Old ; such transcription, con- 
 scious or unconscious, would, it is true, be quite natural 
 to a Jewish biographer of a contemporary prophet who 
 was regarded as modern representative of Elias ; but on 
 the same principle, the prophet himself who should as- 
 pire to be such representative, who should believe him- 
 self destined to fulfil the functions of the prophet, and
 
 THE CRANES IN THE CARTOON. 
 
 37 
 
 even of Messiahship, would quite as naturally adopt the 
 style and affect the authoritative ways of his prototype. 
 Again, the sympathetic insight into character is no un- 
 natural suggestion, independently, from the very idea 
 of prophetic character and the proprieties of a super- 
 naturally gifted teacher ; we find the like ascription to 
 Pythagoras. 
 
 I am inclined to think that the calling of Simon and 
 Andrew, as related in the first Gospel, originally stood 
 alone, a simple duplication of the calling of Elisha, and 
 therefore emanating from the Jewish disciples among 
 whom Peter was so mighty. These brothers are let- 
 ting down their nets, but leave the unfinished labour 
 at the summons of the prophet, as Elisha left his oxen 
 and his plough mid-furrow. 
 
 Of this form the sequel is a reduplication ; the pre- 
 tensions of James and John to equal dignity with Peter, 
 of which we have a trace in the ambitious petition of 
 their mother to Jesus, as well as in the incidents of 
 Acts, are asserted in this supplement ; they also, it is 
 now averred, followed to the call of Jesus as unhesita- 
 tingly as the other brothers, and they gave a still more 
 decided evidence of devotion by leaving, not merely 
 boat and labour, but, the suggestion of this also is in 
 the story of Elisha, the ties of family, their father Ze- 
 bedee. 
 
 To the author of neither of these records was there 
 any deficiency of motive in the incident as related ; the 
 familiar precedent of Elisha made the instant acquies- 
 cence of the summoned disciples the most natural, the 
 only natural result, as the simple summons the only 
 natural antecedent.
 
 38 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 With the third Gospel it is different ; the author of 
 the version of the anecdote here, besides combining the 
 two callings into one, with a feeling for poetical group- 
 ing and effect, supplies, in a miracle, a motive for the 
 sudden devotedness of the future Apostles, and thus be- 
 trays his unconsciousness that the point of the incident, 
 as modern repetition of ancient prophetry, lay precisely 
 in the absence of any such special incitement. Here 
 therefore we seem to have a less decidedly Hebrew ori- 
 gin, as well as, it would appear, a modification of the 
 story on deliberate principle. Many verbal and some 
 incidental diversities of the first and second versions 
 may easily have been due to the laxity of transcribers, 
 the slips of memory between the glance at the copy and 
 the new manuscript, of a writer intending and desiring 
 to copy exactly ; and this, I think, is an explanation very 
 largely applicable to such diversities. Certain it is that 
 the texts constantly run more minutely parallel than 
 would be the case as between recorders writing down 
 from memory what both had heard at the same time, or 
 as between translators each translating the same text 
 independently. But the re-making, in the third Gospel, 
 of the calling of the Apostles, as related in the first 
 and second, is too extensive and elaborate to have ever 
 grown up out of a series of errors and misconceptions. 
 
 In fact, I am of opinion that it was a designed expres- 
 sion, in conscious allegorical form, of the relative acti- 
 vity of the several and associated Apostles, in the great 
 revival of the sect, after the death of Jesus ; the success 
 surprising, even alarming to himself, that followed the 
 exertions of Peter, mighty with the circumcision ; the 
 secondary aid rendered to him at the crisis of his diffi-
 
 THE CRANES IN THE CAKTOON. 39 
 
 culties by the brothers, " who seemed to be pillars,'' 
 James and John. 
 
 Indulgence in composition in this form does not 
 necessarily involve deception ; the original anecdotes, 
 and many another like them, might be too palpably 
 or notoriously factitious for any scruple to be felt in 
 giving point to the narrative or improvement to the 
 moral. 
 
 At the same time, they who invent and elaborate 
 such anecdotes, with party feeling and purpose, are just 
 in the position which tempts them to deceive themselves 
 at the same time that they deceive others, and then al- 
 most as easily and readily to deceive others without de- 
 ceiving themselves. 
 
 It were illiberal towards the inventors of these apo- 
 logues, to impute that they must have given circulation 
 to them as facts and with set intention to deceive ; it 
 were equally illiberal towards the critics of these inven- 
 tors, to deny that such may easily have been the state 
 of the case, whether the aim were low, respectable, or 
 lofty. to promote self-interest, self-importance, to ad- 
 vance a party in the church, or to enforce a moral and 
 save souls. 
 
 There are epochs of controversy when it will not be 
 easy to find, even among conscientious men, the virtue 
 of stating imaginations or conjectures with guarded 
 explicitness, whenever it is foreseen that otherwise 
 they must soon, without further complicity of the pro- 
 mulgator, be found in full currency as matters of fact.
 
 40 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 III. THE SEA OF GALILEE. 
 
 The Sea, or, as the third Gospel more correctly styles 
 it, the Lake of Tiberias, of Gennesareth, of Galilee, 
 is made the scene of many of the incidents in the life of 
 Jesus, besides the calling of his Apostles. He is active 
 at Capernaum and Bethsaida, cities on its banks, and 
 crosses and recrosses it, and is represented as causing 
 wide excitement throughout the district on its borders. 
 
 The district, in fact, contained peculiar elements of 
 excitability. 
 
 The lake continues the line by which the Jordan, 
 that passes through it, divides geographically the region 
 of Galilee westward from Gaulonitis on the east, but 
 the distinction was evidently rather geographical than 
 social. We observe from the narrative of Josephus, 
 that the borders of the lake were occupied by a busy 
 population for whom its waters furnished the easiest of 
 high-roads for intercourse, as well as a source of wealth 
 and subsistence in productive fisheries. It is significant 
 of the sympathy that united the people on either side 
 of the lake, that Judas of Gamala, whose agitation, an- 
 terior to Jesus, had such serious political consequences 
 afterwards, is spoken of indifferently as the Gaulonite 
 and the Galilean, and his influence survived importantly 
 among the mariners of the lake. 
 
 Galilee and the borders of the Lake of Galilee had 
 been vehemently agitated by some of the most exciting 
 phases of the Messianic hope long before the appearance 
 of Jesus; and that it continued to be so through the 
 period which comprises his career, and quite indepen- 
 dently, is strikingly manifest in every page of the his-
 
 THE SEA OF GALILEE. 41 
 
 tory of the revolt against Rome, long after the personal 
 career of Jesus was closed. Galilee was the great centre 
 of the assertion of the unlawfulness of Jews paying tri- 
 bute to Caesar, of the resolution to own no mortal lord 
 and master and to strike boldly for freedom, in reliance 
 that a Divine interposition, the Deliverer or Saviour 
 promised in both Law and Prophets would only thus, 
 and thus surely, be successfully invoked. The hope and 
 the anticipation of Messianic deliverance may be con- 
 sidered as universal among the Jews ; but it was a great 
 and terrible day, which had two different aspects, for 
 the apprehensive and the sanguine ; the circumstances 
 of it were variously read from various texts of prophecy ; 
 and opinions varied as importantly as to the course of 
 conduct by which Israel could hasten or defer it. One 
 enthusiast recoiled from the idea of the desecration of 
 the Temple, which he found in prophecy was to intro- 
 duce this great day, and, with whatever inconsistency, he 
 shuddered at an announcement of it, like the judges of 
 Stephen, as at blasphemy. To another, the prospect of 
 escape from the unholy and intolerable yoke of Rome, 
 made any eventuality welcome, any peril indifferent. 
 According to school or sect or temperament, the Jews, 
 all equally believing, were either content to await, or 
 eager to hasten a triumph, or to defer a catastrophe for 
 the sake of peace in their time ; all, equally enthusiastic, 
 were disposed variously to have faith for the result they 
 wished, in ceremonial puerilities, in more spiritual puri- 
 fication, or in the valiant wielding of the sword of the 
 Lord and of Gideon. 
 
 It was this last idea that was most deeply planted in 
 the Galilean mind anterior to the ministry of Christ,
 
 42 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 and that bore its bitter and desolating fruit before the 
 generation he himself addressed had departed. 
 
 The commencement, the commencement of the end, 
 for the sentiment was chronic, was on the occasion 
 of the assessment of properties in Judsea by Cyrenius 
 under Augustus Caesar. The measure was carried 
 through without any outbreak, notwithstanding the re- 
 pugnance of the Jews, who deferred to the authority 
 and the reasons of Joazar, the High Priest; but the 
 sting remained. Judas, a Gaulonite of Gamala, asso- 
 ciated with Sadduc, a Pharisee, was zealous to bring 
 about a revolt, and at least laid a sure train for it. His 
 sect, says Josephus, coinciding in other respects with 
 Pharisaic notions, have an irremovable affection for 
 liberty, and for leader and master (^ye/ufra KCU ^ecnror^v) 
 admit God alone. He appealed forcibly to all the 
 motives of manly pride and independence, and urged 
 the doctrine, moreover, that the Divinity would only 
 co-operate with their desires on the condition and in 
 case that they entertained noble designs, and them- 
 selves shunned no labour, pain, or peril. Josephus 
 refers to their endurance of pain and persecution under 
 Gessius Floras rather as obstinacy than heroism, but in 
 terms that avouch how highly strung was their confi- 
 dence and their resolution. 
 
 The sons of Judas persevered in their father's pur- 
 poses, and were crucified about A.D. 45-6 by the Pro- 
 curator Tiberius Alexander. From the connection in 
 which the historian relates their death, it seems pro- 
 bable that they were concerned in the demonstration of 
 Theudas, an aspirant to Messiahship, who had come to 
 grief shortly before. Having as much confidence in him-
 
 THE SEA OF GALILEE. 43 
 
 self probably and in his mission as he inspired in his 
 followers, Theudas sallied forth, leading a multitude of 
 people, who, as for a second Exodus, took their posses- 
 sions with them, and expected that, as a prophet " like 
 unto Moses," he would divide Jordan, and give them a 
 passage across. The horsemen of the Procurator Fadus 
 intercepted them, and Theudas, taken alive, was be- 
 headed, and his head carried to Jerusalem. . 
 
 The complicity of the sect of the Gaulonite with the 
 Pharisees as mentioned by Josephus, is consistent with 
 its tendencies and nature as a wide popular movement. 
 The Jewish population at large, the Galilean in parti- 
 cular, was Pharisaic ; the multitude were adherents of 
 the Pharisee, the accurate and scrupulous interpreter of 
 the law and of the unwritten traditions, the ostenta- 
 tiously ascetic, the asserter of angelic natures and of 
 the revival of the soul for immortality in hell or in 
 happiness. The Pharisees were as popular as the Sad- 
 ducees were the reverse ; and they used their influence 
 as far as they dared, sometimes further than was pru- 
 dent, to tighten round the mind the web of minute and 
 puerile ceremonialism. The exaltation of theocracy, it 
 is clear, was quite in harmony with their doctrines and 
 pretensions. Doubtless there was insincerity and in- 
 consequence enough. Josephus himself is a Pharisee, 
 who tells us frankly how he adopted the profession for 
 the sake of power and position, and, with many another 
 of his class during the Jewish revolt, ran with the hare 
 to hold with the hounds, and saved himself by betray- 
 ing a cause which he knew to be hopeless, but could 
 not help taking part in. Still the theory of the Phari- 
 saic sect was theocratic, and the hope and the promise
 
 44 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 that they cherished was not less for the revival of the 
 Jewish kingdom than for the resurrection of the dead. 
 Long before the time of Judas, six thousand Pharisees 
 had refused to take the oath of allegiance to Herod 
 and Caesar. Through female protection at court, they 
 did not suffer by the fine that was imposed ; but the 
 sword of Herod was brought down by the discovery 
 of intrigues which turned upon their promise of a Mes- 
 siah to be born under very extraordinary conditions of 
 paternity. Some ruthless deed on this occasion may 
 easily have been the historical root of the tale of a later 
 murder of innocents. 
 
 The mingled religious and political antipathies which 
 beset the publican, the agent of obnoxious tax-collec- 
 tion, in the midst of a Pharisaic and Gaulonitish popu- 
 lation, are readily to be understood ; the hatred of the 
 badge of tribute went along with the hope of a Messiah ; 
 and Pharisaic tendencies in themselves, therefore, rather 
 predisposed to reception of any Messianic pretender, 
 who held out promise in any form, or could be supposed 
 to do so, of political deliverance. 
 
 Having said thus much of the Gaulonite agitation 
 when it commenced, I will add some lines for the echo 
 of its despair, when it was extinguished in blood at 
 Masada. 
 
 When the outbreak against Roman authority actually 
 arrives, we find the sailors of the lake associated by 
 Josephus with the poorer classes of Tiberias as the 
 strength of the faction most eager in the cause. Jo- 
 sephus, as emissary of the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, was 
 negotiating for access to Tiberias, on the pretext of a 
 commission to clear the palace built by Herod, of the
 
 THE SEA OF GALILEE. 45 
 
 abomination of forbidden images. This faction pre- 
 vented his simulated zeal, and the demolition and 
 plunder of the palace was followed by a massacre of the 
 party obnoxious to them. The world has had enough 
 experience of revolutions to make the hardest words of 
 Josephus probable enough ; the more probable, because 
 the half-intentions and double-dealing that he avows 
 on his own part are ever, by force of inevitable polarity, 
 the immediate cause of such reactions. 
 
 The capture of Taricheee by the Romans in the war 
 made them masters of the entire circuit of the lake, 
 while vast numbers of the Jews sought refuge in the 
 craft afloat on its waters. Vespasian hastened to attack 
 them with vessels constructed from abundant materials 
 at hand, and by wreck and slaughter destroyed them 
 all. The lake and its shores, the earth, the air, and 
 waters of the lovely and fertile region that the histo- 
 rian had described with enthusiasm were polluted by 
 the blood and putrefaction of innumerable corpses, by 
 sights and stenches hideous even to an enemy. The 
 captives of TaricheaB were passed into slavery after the 
 old and ineffective had been disposed of with breach of 
 faith by massacre in the stadium. 
 
 After Jerusalem and its Temple had been taken and 
 desecrated, and all Judaea pacificated by the peace of 
 desolation, Eleazar, a descendant of Judas the Gaulo- 
 nite, still held out at Masada. This was a fortress ad- 
 jacent to the Dead Sea in a remarkable natural position, 
 which had been strengthened and provided by Herod 
 the Great as his last reliance in case he were ever 
 reduced to extremity. 
 
 Urged by the Roman besieger, depressed by an ac-
 
 46 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 cident fatal for the defence after deceitful promise, 
 Eleazar resolved on self-immolation, and the entire gar- 
 rison shared the self-sought fate. Josephus has speeches 
 for him on the occasion, which may have no possible 
 authenticity of even remotest hearsay. They are, how- 
 ever, remarkable compositions, and there is a depth of 
 feeling in them too profound to be the promptings of 
 the imagination of Josephus ; and we must credit him for 
 reproducing a better effect than he could have invented, 
 from memory of mingled regrets and complaints that 
 he had been in the way of hearing abundantly and at 
 his ease. 
 
 " Long ago," are words given to Eleazar, " we deter- 
 mined, valiant comrades, never to be servants to the 
 Romans, nor to any other but to God, and now the 
 occasion has arrived to make good our resolution by 
 deeds. We were the first of all to commence the re- 
 volt, and we are the last who have continued fighting. 
 Where now is that great city, the metropolis of the 
 entire Jewish race, so built, so fortified, so garrisoned ? 
 Where the dwelling of which we had believed that 
 God himself was the occupant "? The sole monument of 
 it is the camp of its destroyers laid out among its ruins. 
 Some old men crouch upon the ashes of the sanctuary ; 
 a few women are reserved by our enemies for shame 
 and dishonour. Verily I would that we had perished 
 all, before witnessing the ruin and profanation of the 
 city and the temple. But since a hope, not ungenerous, 
 beguiled us, that perad venture we might be able to take 
 vengeance for the ruin upon our enemies, and this has 
 vanished, and left us alone in our necessity, let us make 
 haste and die nobly while we may."
 
 THE SEA OF GALILEE. 47 
 
 Such were the links that united Pharisee, Gaulonite, 
 and Galilean; such were one class of the elements of 
 ferment at work when Simon and Andrew, James and 
 John, were toiling with boats and nets on the Lake of 
 Galilee. 
 
 But the banks of Jordan, and all the country round, 
 were, soon after the date of Judas, to be the scene of 
 another popular excitement, also turning upon Messianic 
 anticipations, but essentially at variance with the spirit 
 of the bigoted Pharisee and righting Gaulonite. 
 
 John the Baptist attracted multitudes to his exhorta- 
 tions, of which the purport was, that the kingdom of 
 Heaven, the salvation or rescue of God, was indeed at 
 hand. He announced, if we may rely on records that 
 are very self-consistent, the approach of a Messiah who 
 would deal vengeance and reward by no ceremonial 
 standard, by no mere regard to favoured descent from 
 Abraham, but according to moral deserts. He sum- 
 moned all his countrymen therefore to repentance, and 
 he sealed their pledged resolution by a baptismal rite. 
 
 His costume and habit of life were those ascribed to 
 Elijah, the great prophet ; and his ascetic retirement in 
 the desert was in accordance with other teachers of in- 
 fluence, like the Banus to whom Josephus resorted ; like 
 Banus, he probably w r ould be regarded as an Essene, 
 and have the advantage of the exceptional tolerance for 
 wide divergence in practice, which made the Essene of 
 Judsea, so similar in position to the modern Friend. 
 
 His exhortations were evidently seasoned with that 
 tone of severity and sound of alarm that are effective 
 with a devoutly-disposed populace ; and his simple rite, 
 already recognized in Jewish conversions, had all the
 
 48 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 value that we have witnessed in our own day attach- 
 ing to the temperance medal and blessing of Father 
 Mathew. 
 
 Whether he denounced Pharisaism or not, his prin- 
 ciple was, above all things, anti-ceremonial, as well as 
 alien to the violent injunctions and theories of the 
 Gaulonite; and it is easily conceivable how it hap- 
 pened, as we find it represented in the Gospels, that 
 the leaders of the Pharisees did not believe in him, at 
 the same time that their usual followers resorted to him 
 in crowds. 
 
 The impulse was permanent and diffusive; late in 
 Paul's career, if we may trust the record, we meet with 
 an instructed Jew of Alexandria, Apollos, zealous in 
 promoting it at Ephesus. ' He spoke and taught per- 
 severingly about the Lord, the Messiah, preparing his 
 way as John had urged to prepare it, and only con- 
 versant with the baptism of John. " He began to speak 
 boldly in the synagogue ;" that boldness was required 
 in order to enunciate John's doctrine to Jews, agrees 
 with what we have observed of the opposition that it in- 
 volved to technical Pharisaism, to the magnifying of 
 privilege, form, tradition. 
 
 Here also is betrayed what might be inferred inde- 
 pendently, that the personal recognition by John, of 
 Jesus as the Messiah, can only be treated as fabulous ; 
 his sect continued without any such recognition. But 
 the Christian movement was, in fact, in direct affiliation 
 to that of John, and hence it was in natural sympathy 
 with it ; the process by which Paul annexed, or is said 
 to have annexed, the disciples of Apollos is illustrative 
 of the tendency of a hardier and more progressive sect
 
 THE SEA OF GALILEE. 49 
 
 to overpower the earlier ; and in the motive to forward 
 a coalition, in which the Christian element should be 
 the dominant, we have the key to the tone and details 
 of more of the anecdotes respecting John, Jesus, and 
 their families, than can now be entered upon. The 
 motive is rife in the idyllic history of the infancy incor- 
 porated by Luke, and peeps out in such expedients as 
 turning the so-called descent of the Holy Ghost into 
 a baptism, in order to cap the water of John with a 
 baptism of fire. 
 
 That Jesus himself was baptized by John, and that it 
 was from John's rite and doctrine that he received the 
 original inspiration of his career, his claim to the Mes- 
 siahship, his connection of the advent of salvation with 
 regeneration of the heart and not with conjurations of 
 ceremony, is the most obvious inference from the story, 
 as it is told with many enrichments in the Gospels. 
 There is also every probability that his earliest adhe- 
 rents were disciples of John in a certain sense, the 
 same sense in which he himself was, and came to him 
 in virtue of this discipleship, though by no means from 
 any particular indication by the Baptist. 
 
 According to the fourth Gospel, Andrew positively, 
 and Simon by implication, were disciples of John the 
 Baptist. This is in accordance with Peter's ascribed 
 practice of baptism by water in the case of Cornelius, 
 and agrees with the views, expressed in his proem on 
 the same occasion, of the relation of the two movements : 
 " The Gospel of peace through Jesus Christ ; even what 
 was spoken through all Judasa, beginning from Galilee, 
 after the baptism which John preached." (Acts x. 37.) 
 
 There may be some fair ground for the imputation 
 
 E
 
 50 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 that the Christian doctrine was only too strongly im- 
 pressed by its character as a reaction from the spirit of 
 rebellion of the resolute Judas ; the inculcation of po- 
 litical submission which has made it so often a byword, 
 as a " doctrine of patience and pusillanimity " (Gibbon), 
 would thus be derived from its very origin. There are 
 certainly some strong words of Peter, that may be cited 
 on the other side ; but they are precisely those which, 
 taken along with a certain readiness in resorting to his 
 weapon, have made me suspect that before being a fol- 
 lower of either Jesus or John he had received a tincture 
 of the disposition of the Gaulonite. 
 
 If we now look again to the scene depicted in the 
 Cartoon, what do we see on the broad and fair and yet 
 unpolluted expanse of the Sea of Galilee'! A party 
 of fishers are out away from the shore still in commo- 
 tion with the crowds that a companion they have with 
 them has been addressing. His words have enforced a 
 moral already diffused by the Baptist, but probably with 
 still greater urgency, as to the immediate proximity of 
 the kingdom that was to be conquered for the Jew by 
 personal repentance and amendment and purification of 
 the heart. The fishers had apparently taken draughts 
 from the same well-head of doctrine as the new young 
 teacher, who came fresh from the workshop of the car- 
 penter, to reinforce an impulse that the imprisonment 
 and execution of John might easily cause to languish 
 outwardly, however self-collecting and concentrating 
 within. We conceive of the crowd about the region of 
 Tiberias and Taricheae visible in the horizon, as the hot- 
 bed of the agencies that were to work the ruin of Judea, 
 and also to remodel the dominant character of the lead-
 
 THE SEA OF GALILEE. 51 
 
 ing sections of progressive mankind. There are knotted 
 the Gaulonitish enthusiasts, unconvinced by any exhor- 
 tation that would keep the sword in its sheath, and 
 appealing to the Pharisaic mass and to the ostentatious 
 Pharisee himself, to abet their machinations and make 
 or prepare for the venture, that, with the God of Israel 
 to aid, would not hesitate to try the hand-grapple with 
 Rome and all her legions. There are the meeker and 
 ascetic disciples of John, who avert their eyes in disgust 
 from selfish faction and licence, and from Pharisaic cere- 
 monialism and spiritual pride, and, relying on Scripture, 
 read by lights of their own consciences and coloured by 
 their speciality of hopes and inclinations, would wrest 
 from the Priest and the Pharisee their honester follow- 
 ing, by convincing that the kingdom they hoped for 
 would come indeed, but would come only for happiness 
 to them, and only be hastened, by regeneration of the 
 heart and that moral purification of which baptism was 
 but the outward type and expression. 
 
 The Cartoon declares that it was already in Galilee, 
 and at the time of personal attachment of Simon to 
 Jesus, that the claim to Messiahship was recognized. 
 This is the aspect of tradition one way ; but in another, 
 as we must interpret it, the earlier ministry of Jesus was 
 carried on independently of any such overt claim, save 
 with his immediate followers, and then it was as a se- 
 cret of the very core of the sect that it was recognized. 
 There are then indications that it got about in a covert 
 manner, and brought and attached adherents who held 
 it conscience to suppress, for the safety of the leader, 
 the expression of the zeal they had at heart. Thus it 
 was that devout and wealthy women, the distinguished 
 
 E 2
 
 52 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 Salome, the regenerate Magdalen, brought service and 
 substance to support the Lord and his society; and 
 when the wave of popular excitement had gained full 
 head, he at last started on the progress to Jerusalem, 
 with the confidence, and probably under promise that 
 there the salvation of the twelve tribes, for whom he 
 had provided twelve presidents, should be revealed, and 
 there the manifestation, of which he recognized the 
 failure at last in the bitter words, " Eli, Eli, lama sa- 
 bachthani ! " 
 
 Of the revival of the sect, and the reproduction of his 
 Messiahship in another form afterwards, there will be 
 more to say. In this revival the Apostles of the Car- 
 toon, and Simon especially, were leading instruments ; 
 its course and history bore the impress of their character, 
 for good, and also for evil and abuse. 
 
 We see in the expression of the kneeling Peter a 
 mixture of devotion and qualifying alarm ; and this is 
 but prefiguration of the timidity that so importantly af- 
 fected his course. His zeal was equalled at last by his 
 courage, but in the first instance outran it, and in the 
 interval he was unprotected. 
 
 The powers most inimical to the spirit of his Master 
 found entrance at the breach. The friends of Pharisaic 
 ceremonialism grafted it on the new sect, and found 
 opportunity to shield themselves by the inconsistencies, 
 which were appealed to as the authority, of Peter. The 
 worst abuses of the devotional tendency of mankind, 
 that the doctrines of John and Jesus seemed to have 
 been designed, and certainly most naturally tended to 
 destroy, found a metropolis at Rome, and flourish there 
 to this day, under the name of Peter, supreme over the 
 Gentile world.
 
 THE SEA OF GALILEE. 53 
 
 What chance was there, then, that the original root of 
 these mischiefs would be extirpated in the original race I 
 Let the landscape of the Lake of Galilee again suggest 
 the reply. 
 
 Tiberias, that we see in the distance, rose out of the 
 desolation of the wars with Rome, as the secondary 
 metropolis of Jewish superstition when excluded from 
 Mount Moriah by the victors, in vain anticipation that 
 it was a vitality conditional on a consecrated site. The 
 dispensation of Moses had much about it of the majestic ; 
 the establishment of Solomon, at least symbolized a 
 united and independent nationality, mighty and magni- 
 ficent. The domination of the Rabbins, that ripened at 
 Tiberias, was the vile and vulgar tyranny of craft and 
 stupidity the most mischievous, over craft the most 
 stupid and superstition the most besotted. And so, for 
 Jew as for Gentile, narrow-minded subjection to reliance 
 on the conjuration of holy meats and holy days and rites, 
 and consecrated vestments, gestures, and, worst of all, on 
 the intervention of consecrated men, was as far and re- 
 mains as far from extirpation as ever. 
 
 Still, the better movement of the incident we have 
 studied has not been without an outcome; and what 
 there is best in the world of civil and religious liberty, 
 must give the incident this Cartoon typifies, allegiance 
 to truth at sacrifice of all interests and all ties, the 
 national as well as the domestic, a leading line in its 
 annals.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CHAEGE TO PETER. 
 
 I. CARTOON OF THE CHARGE TO PETER. II. THE TWELVE IN 
 
 RELATION TO JESUS. III. THE APOSTLES AFTER THE 
 
 CRUCIFIXION. 
 
 I. THE CARTOON OF THE CHARGE TO PETER. 
 
 AGAIN, in this Cartoon, we stand with the Master Jesus 
 and the Apostles, by the Lake of Gennesareth ; but be- 
 tween this moment and the former lies a lifetime of 
 instruction, of institution, and of suffering; the life's 
 work is finished, and the subject of the picture repre- 
 sents the very instant when, the personal agency of Jesus 
 having come to an end, the world was to be left to make 
 what it could of the germs of development with which 
 his career had endowed it. 
 
 The bight of the lake in the background fixes the 
 scene ; and the end of a fishing-boat, that extends into 
 the picture, is reminiscent of the origin of the fishers of 
 men. 
 
 The Apostles are eleven in number, the traitor being 
 gone : and the appearance and costume of the Saviour 
 declare that the incident is subsequent to his passion 
 and resurrection. The scars of the cross are visible
 

 
 THE CHARGE TO PETER. 55 
 
 upon hand and foot, and perhaps also in the side. The 
 ample drapery that is thrown round him is now white, 
 but was originally roseate or symbolically golden ; there 
 is something of clearness and majesty in the flow of its 
 lines, that gives it the air of an idealized investiture, con- 
 trasting with the Apostles' raiment of use and habit ; 
 the same effect of independent superiority is enhanced 
 by the absence of the under-garment or tunic, worn by 
 all the other figures, leaving chest and shoulder exposed. 
 In the tapestry in the palace of Milan the drapery of 
 Christ is a light-pink enriched with golden stars ; this 
 particular tapestry is wretchedly ill-executed. In the 
 corresponding tapestry in the palace at Mantua, the 
 robe again is pink, but with no stars ; and indeed this 
 set, which is very fine and much better preserved than 
 that in the Vatican, was executed without the employ- 
 ment of gold in any part. The robe of John in the 
 subject of the Death of Ananias is a delicate rose-colour, 
 which has vanished from the Cartoon. I do not doubt 
 that the present white appearance of the robes both of 
 John and of Jesus in the Delivery of the Keys as well as 
 in the Miraculous Draught, is simply explainable by the 
 fugitiveness of the same pigment. 
 
 The white robe of Christ, as it shows in the Cartoon 
 at present, is very ineffectively relieved upon the white 
 fleeces of the sheep. 
 
 Christ, then, is before us, in the aspect and array of 
 a revelation, an apparition, an a-maa-la, the significant 
 New Testament term for his reappearances. He stands 
 entirely apart and disengaged from the group of his dis- 
 ciples, in a manner to remind of the warning to Mary 
 " Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my
 
 56 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 Father ;" and a tranquillity of pose and moderated sym- 
 metry of gesture, complete the dignity of a conception 
 as grand as it is appropriate. Tenderness and love are 
 in his eyes, as he appeals to Peter's profession of love to 
 himself as warranty that he can have loving care of the 
 flock committed to him. 
 
 The scene, the time, and the leading circumstance of 
 the picture, are taken from the last chapter of John ; 
 but the text is made subservient to a broad general 
 treatment, which enabled the painter to combine a wider 
 range of expression than belongs to the particular inci- 
 dent as there narrated. In the neighbourhood of the 
 lake and the fishing-boat, and in the presence of dis- 
 ciples, Jesus appeals thrice to Peter whether he loves 
 him, and receives three assurances, not given without 
 pain at the repetition of the inquiry; and thrice the 
 commission is given, " Feed my sheep ;" so far and in 
 the detail that John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, is 
 following upon Peter during the colloquy, the painter 
 is content to take his outline from the Evangelist. But 
 the significance on which he was interested to insist, 
 was the assignment to Peter of a certain primacy over 
 the Church and the Apostles. He therefore assem- 
 bles as witnesses all the other ten Apostles, instead of 
 merely those enumerated in the text, " Thomas, Natha- 
 nael of Cana, the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his 
 disciples;" he suppresses all indication by costume of 
 " fisher's coat," of that resumption by Peter of his occu- 
 pation, which is so incongruous in the text. He arrays 
 them all with a dignity that comports with the full 
 establishment of their office. He then transfers to this 
 occasion the committal of the keys to Peter, the power
 
 THE CHARGE TO PETER. 57 
 
 to bind and to loose on earth and in heaven ; and in 
 displaying the effect which this produces upon the other 
 Apostles, he finds the means to give expression to all 
 the intimations which are scattered through the. Gospels 
 and Acts, of the workings of feeling and temperament 
 among their community. 
 
 Peter, with crossed arms, embraces rather than clasps 
 the keys, which seem to have been just delivered to him 
 with intimation of the control that they symbolize ; he 
 is humbly on his knees, as in act of homage, but his 
 attitude presses forward, his foot is visibly not yet in- 
 active, and the entire figure breathes out the zeal and 
 sense of responsibility, and the ardour that had so rea- 
 dily professed that though all others might be faithless 
 he would never fail, and that grieved at the renewed 
 requirement of avowal of love, either simply or as 
 greater than that of others. 
 
 The keys and the browzing sheep are realized figures 
 of speech, which support each other harmoniously, and 
 continue into this Cartoon the spirit of symbolism which 
 in the former suggested the introduction of the cranes. 
 By these happy inventions, incidents from the life of 
 Christ seem to be brought into sympathy with that very 
 tendency to apologue and parable that characterize his 
 teaching. This treatment also conduces not a little to 
 give to the two designs in which, the Saviour is intro- 
 duced, the same ideal air that establishes a certain con- 
 trast between the narratives of the Gospels and the 
 greater naturalism of the Acts of the Apostles and the 
 Cartoons from the Acts. This is a gradation which al- 
 ways reminds me of that by which we are conducted 
 from the beginning of the Iliad to the end of the
 
 58 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CAKTOONS. 
 
 Odyssey. The kneeling position of Peter on this the 
 great occasion of his preferment, signifies something in 
 addition to fitting deferential homage to the Saviour ; it 
 is in accordance with the terms of Christ's rebuke to 
 the disciples after they had disputed by the way which 
 should be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and when 
 they were told that he that was eldest among them was 
 bound to be as the younger, and he who should be 
 leader of all to be as a servant. 
 
 The spirit indicated in that discussion finds full ex- 
 pression in the general group, and is indeed the key of 
 its chief contrasts. 
 
 Immediately behind Peter, John, conspicuous by 
 youth and grace, presses forward with eyes of devotion 
 fixed on the Saviour, and with countenance and hands 
 composed to warmest sympathy and adoration. The air 
 of his head, the lines of his drapery, bent knee, and foot 
 are in immediate harmony with those of Peter ; and the 
 four Apostles who are grouped with him most closely, 
 share in various degrees his sympathetic impulse. 
 
 On the other hand, the spirit and liveliness of his 
 action finds a contrast in the most advanced figure of 
 the group remote from the Saviour, where the germs 
 or the remains of different feelings are equally evident. 
 This figure, which in its suspended pose shows less 
 action than any other in the picture, was probably in- 
 tended for Thomas, representative of a disposition, not 
 to denial, but to doubt. With head poised in steady 
 attention, he stands quite upright, and his ample robe 
 slips directly downwards from his shoulder, as his right 
 hand reversed as visual in the Cartoon drawn back 
 upon his breast, seems to keep down the slightest move-
 
 THE CHARGE TO PETER, 59 
 
 ment to enthusiasm. The left hand has a movement to 
 collect the cloak which is neglected by the unconscious 
 right, and the left foot could be prompt for advance but 
 that the right is so entirely quiescent, altogether the 
 most complete embodiment conceivable, of absorbed 
 attention and most equivocal suspense, of coolness and 
 hesitation. 
 
 Expression the most decided is declared in the Apostle 
 behind him, a marked antithesis to the cordiality of 
 John. Repugnance, if not protest, is seen in his profile 
 and in his movement in a direction away from the chief 
 incident. He is of somewhat smaller proportions than 
 his companions, the flow of his hair partakes less of free 
 luxuriance than of the negligence of the unkempt stu- 
 dent, not to say ascetic ; in the folds of the cloak that he 
 huddles round him, we see that his hand grasps a book. 
 
 This Apostle, I do not doubt, was intended by Rafael 
 for James ; not the brother of John, but the James who 
 appears in Acts, occupying a position in the church at 
 Jerusalem, where his influence rivals, if it is not opposed 
 to, that of Peter. The counterworking is intimated or 
 asserted in Acts, and in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, 
 as hinging on the influence of James over the commu- 
 nistic church, the poor saints at Jerusalem, and his 
 protection of those who would enforce upon the free 
 converts the fetters of Judaism in law and tradition. 
 Both these characteristics have contributed to the ideal 
 formalist in the Cartoon, who is recoiling from an autho- 
 rity which might be superior to a code that he clings 
 to as a talisman. 
 
 The Apostle who is visible between Thomas and John 
 is pressing forwards with zeal displayed in both hand and
 
 60 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 step, and turns at the same time to address both looks 
 and words, I think of expostulation, to the uncordiality 
 of James. He thus becomes the intermediate link by 
 which, with some assistance from the indecisive Thomas, 
 the sentiment of one group blends with the other. 
 
 Here we have an example of one of the pictorial sche- 
 mata which Rafael perhaps invented, as he often repeated 
 and always varied it. By this, figures that are visible on 
 either side of one intermediate and nearer, are observed 
 to exchange glances across the vacant space behind it. 
 We see this in the picture at Bologna, where St. John 
 and St. Augustine appear to the left and right of St. 
 Cecilia behind her, and are exchanging looks at least, 
 if not words. In the School of Athens, the youthful 
 pupil of Pythagoras communicates in this way with the 
 female associate of the philosopher, and other instances 
 lie near to hand. It is a stratagem that gives wonder- 
 ful lightness and openness to composition. 
 
 Behind James, three Apostles stand by themselves 
 and close together, with a similarity of pose that asso- 
 ciates them in feeling, a feeling of questioning at least, 
 if not of discontent. Two of them are the oldest of the 
 eleven, and therefore naturally jealous of being super- 
 seded ; or as it may be more fitly put, two of these Apos- 
 tles who represent the sentiment of discontent, are appro- 
 priately made by the painter much older than the rest, 
 and thus provided with a motive, if not excuse, for re- 
 luctance in admitting a superior. That the face of the 
 last figure of all is not visible leaves open an expressive 
 possibility as to how much further dislike may not have 
 deepened. Certainly an end of projecting robe has the 
 appearance of being thrown out by a gesture of sudden
 
 THE CHARGE TO PETEft. 61 
 
 folding up and tightening round of drapery of one who 
 has to submit with ill grace to an. arrangement that he 
 would fain, but cannot, protest against. 
 
 We have still to remark on the individual figures of 
 the foremost and more sympathetic group. 
 
 The first figure, with venerable beard, has an expres- 
 sion of seriousness and awe, and raises his hand in ad- 
 miration at the grave event. I regard him as Andrew, 
 the brother of Peter. Joy and admiration appear to 
 me to characterize the next head visible in the back- 
 ground. If we please we may call him Philip, who is 
 next in the enumeration of the Apostles after Peter, 
 Andrew, James, and John, and is said to have been, 
 like Peter, from Bethsaida. Between these two the 
 head of John composes, and gains great force from con- 
 trast with their distinct expressions of joy and venera- 
 tion that in his own blend harmoniously as reverential 
 love. 
 
 Behind John, in the same line, is another Apostle, 
 sedately sympathetic. I think we may regard this as 
 James, the brother of John ; induced partly by proxi- 
 mity and partly by a certain resemblance in cast of the 
 hair as well as of features, to his brother. 
 
 It is impossible to over-estimate the force, facility, 
 and invention which are exercised by the genius of Ra- 
 fael in this wonderful composition. The most contrasted 
 feelings are blended by gradation, the finest lines of 
 modified sentiment are rendered with complete distinct- 
 ness. The manner in which the expression of the heads 
 of John and Thomas are defined by contrast with those 
 that appear on either side of them respectively, is illus- 
 trative of the principle that pervades the condensed
 
 62 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 apposition of gestures, and the play of line and flow of 
 draperies, throughout. 
 
 The very marked break in the general group of the 
 Apostles, cut into deeply in the midst, is suggestive and 
 expressive of moral liability to schism. The level light 
 of early morning, the time given by the text and ob- 
 served, I think, by the painter, is taken advantage of to 
 render the division more distinct ; and while it meets 
 full the placid brow of the Saviour, it throws exactly 
 half his figure into shade, rendering conspicuous the 
 glow of the raiment, symbolical of his risen state. 
 
 The two keys are most naturally interpreted as being 
 keys respectively of heaven and of hell ; but though 
 doctrine might assign a double wardership, there was a 
 difficulty for the painter, who could scarcely admit 
 proximity of the two portals. Italian painters and poets 
 usually distinguish the keys as one gold, one silver ; the 
 golden being taken to symbolize the divine authority of 
 priestly absolution, and the silver, the learning and dis- 
 cretion requisite for the office. Another view is given 
 in the line of Milton, 
 
 " The golden opes, the silver shuts amain," (Lycidas,) 
 
 in a passage which always conveys to me the poet's fa- 
 miliarity with this design. It was after the date of this 
 poem that he went to Italy, could he have seen copies 
 of the tapestry in England, or the cartoon itself in the 
 gallery of Charles 1. 1 
 
 The perspective diminution of the heads of the Apos- 
 tles, to agree with distance into the picture, which in 
 strictness would be considerable, is somewhat neglected, 
 a neglect which may share whatever explanation shall 
 be adopted for the small boats of the former Cartoon.
 
 THE CHARGE TO PETER. 63 
 
 It will be noticed how the line of the natural horizon 
 rises in order to provide harmonious background for the 
 isolated figure of Christ. On the other side it is broken 
 by a mighty tower, at the foot of which is a conflagra- 
 tion comparatively insignificant ; I could almost think 
 we have here a suggestion of the Church founded on a 
 rock, the rock of Cephas, "and the gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against it." 
 
 A study exists for the group of the Apostles, the 
 figures are in Italian costume. 
 
 It would be poverty of spirit and weakness indeed, to 
 turn away scandalized from the truth and beauty of this 
 design, on the ground that they subserve the false pre- 
 tensions to authority of the corrupt head of a corpora- 
 tion of modern priests. As truth and beauty they must 
 be right and good ; and reason is the rather that we 
 should claim them for the right and vindicate them 
 from false appropriation. 
 
 What Rafael read in the Gospels and what he painted, 
 was in the first instance a special appeal to the peculiar 
 affection and attachment of Simon to his Master, and a 
 consequent committal to him of charge and pre-emi- 
 nence over weaker brethren, weak though he himself 
 might be, brethren who witness the charge with not 
 uniform cordiality. This incident he partly chose and 
 partly made up from evangelical intimations, and painted 
 it moreover as typical of the dignity and office of the 
 admitted head of the Church and occupant of the chair 
 of St. Peter, as was held, in right succession. A certain 
 Pope was not, Popes in general are not apt to be, en- 
 dowed with zeal and love like Peter's, and apart from 
 these have no claim to his authority ; this may be, but
 
 64 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 the essential verity as depicted holds good nevertheless. 
 It is spirits that are finely touched that are so to fine 
 issues ; and assuming that the contemporary chief of the 
 Church had not the qualities ascribed to Peter, the ta- 
 pestry simply hung up before him in his false enthro- 
 nization, an ensample and a reproof, the most vivid 
 exposition of an ideal that shamed his shortcoming and 
 invalidated his title. 
 
 It is the natural theory of every church that the 
 qualifications of its actual chief are those of the ideal, 
 as the laws of a state assume in the central power the 
 qualities essential to sovereignty ; on their own heads, 
 on the heads of rulers and of teachers be the penalty, 
 in case these qualifications are falsified ; and it is one of 
 the best mementos of their obnoxiousness to such pe- 
 nalties, that the original circumstances and conditions 
 of their delegated power, should be set forth picto- 
 rially, and set constantly before their eyes. 
 
 Lofty duties and pre-eminence in sway do pertain of 
 right and of fact to the highly gifted teacher, relatively 
 to the inferior and to the large general body of disciples, 
 who, such is humanity as recorded hitherto, are 
 scarcely disposed to be or capable of ever being more. 
 If Peter were so qualified, any dignities assigned to him 
 would not be abrogated because disqualified modern 
 priests claim succession as of right; and if such pre- 
 tenders bespeak a pictorial exposition of their title, 
 they only provoke, as in this case, a record of reproach, 
 and in place of commendation, a satire. 
 
 Rafael painted, and only could paint, the truth of 
 nature unimpeached by the gloss of false interpretations, 
 and moreover, transcending observance of the literal
 
 THE CHARGE TO PETER. 65 
 
 accuracies of history. This truth would remain, though 
 Peter had never lived nor been supposed to have lived ; 
 it would be none the less valid though the illustrative 
 anecdote were an incident from an avowed romance, 
 instead of being, as we shall find it, a myth involved in 
 a too liberally accredited history. 
 
 So much for the relation of Peter to the other Apos- 
 tles, antitype of relation of Pope to Cardinals, of bishop 
 to a church or laity, that seem typified as silly, imitative, 
 tractable, irrational sheep. The Apostles in the scene 
 however are both teachers and disciples, clerical and lay ; 
 and the sheep, alas ! are inevitable type of the large 
 herd of helpless, that are destined in the best times and 
 for many a long day to make up the majority of the de- 
 votional. These are they who wait for even the most 
 ordinary spiritual nourishment on the dispensing will of 
 their superiors, pastors, and masters, appointed or self- 
 appointed ; they who by nature and habit can have no- 
 thing but what they are taught by others, the children, 
 too many women, too many men child-like and woman- 
 like. Such is the flock that lends itself, if it does not 
 proffer itself, for guidance ; and the quality of the gui- 
 dance tendered to which is the test of teaching minds, 
 and the verity of their commission. It is the authorized 
 function of the genuine mediator between intelligence 
 and dulness to turn one key, like the ideal Peter, to open 
 the display of truth ; and to turn the other to confine con- 
 demned and condemning error ; and to be conscientious 
 alike in liberal admission of the inquiring, and in gui- 
 dance of the submissive who can be no more, to the en- 
 joyment of the best that inquiry has obtained.
 
 66 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CAETOONS. 
 
 II. THE TWELVE IN RELATION TO JESUS. 
 
 The appointment of twelve chief disciples is one of 
 the very best authenticated incidents in the career of 
 Jesus, and also one of the most significant. The testi- 
 monies of the Gospels and the Acts are confirmed by 
 the unimpeached Epistles of St. Paul. From such con- 
 firmation, it is probable that we may even assume the 
 title ' Apostles' to be original, or equivalent of the origi- 
 nal. To recover its primary import may seem more diffi- 
 cult. It cannot have been given by Jesus as expressing 
 a commission to go forth and teach all nations, etc. ; 
 for this view of their functions, with the text that de- 
 clares it, was certainly an after-growth. The Apostles, 
 as a corporation, are found very steadily fixed at Jeru- 
 salem, waiting and watching for the kingdom of God, 
 a Jewish kingdom, and in the interest of the conserva- 
 tion of the ceremonial law. If they move, it is under 
 the compelling force of persecution or for short excur- 
 sions, to Samaria, to Antioch, to take possession of 
 the harvest sown by more adventurous and dispersive 
 missionaries. 
 
 The narrative of their appointment, however, supplies 
 a sending forth during the lifetime of Jesus, which suf- 
 ficiently explains their title, and illustrates at the same 
 time his wide anticipations. Their number was, no 
 doubt, fixed with reference to the twelve tribes, a point 
 which in itself is expressive of the strictly Judaic limits 
 of his own theory of his Messiahship. When we collect 
 the scattered traditions which are dispersed through 
 the records, that consistent with this theory are incon- 
 sistent with the more metaphysical theory that after- 

 
 THE TWELVE IN RELATION TO JESUS. 67 
 
 wards obtained, and with hints of which they are jum- 
 bled, the result is as follows. 
 
 In the regeneration, the twelve who had given up all 
 to follow Jesus, have promise that all broken domestic 
 ties shall be replaced manifold, all sacrificed possessions 
 restored hundredfold ; they shall eat and drink at the 
 Messiah's table in his kingdom, and sit on twelve 
 thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel ; and to 
 them generally is given the power, restricted in one 
 statement to Peter, to bind and loose both in earth and 
 heaven. " Know ye not," says St. Paul, " that the saints 
 shall judge the world F Paul, coming a little later, ex- 
 tends the privilege to Gentile Christians of a world-wide 
 Church; but the author of the Book of Revelation, 
 writing a little later still, in the short interval between 
 the death of Nero and the fall of Jerusalem, only knows 
 of Gentile Christians to be in antagonism to them, and 
 finds his millennial ideal in a new Jerusalem of sealed 
 Jews under the tribal presidencies of the Twelve. 
 
 The devoted attaqhment of this number of imme- 
 diate personal followers is expressive of the influence of 
 the character of Jesus, and the aggregative power that 
 he exercised in common with certain other movers of 
 the world's ways of feeling and thought, as Pythagoras, 
 Socrates, Epicurus, Mahomet. 
 
 To the same effect the height of his pretensions 
 considered, is the attachment to his sect, of his own mo- 
 ther, and his brethren, her other sons. Jesus, it is dis- 
 tinctly said in one text, was the eldest of a family, and 
 may probably have been so, though we may not rely too 
 surely, as a mystic motive soon crept in to prove that he 
 was necessarily a first-born. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 The Greeks in historic times could fable to much the 
 same tune and tenor in favour of Macedonian Alexander 
 or of Plato. A precedent or a parallel in Judaea is sup- 
 plied by Josephus, who knew not, or did not venture to 
 declare, or did not think it necessary to do more than 
 intimate, all its significance. It is the story of king 
 Izates. I give Whiston^ the responsibility for terms of 
 translation : the Muse of history has not the option of 
 fastidiousness. " Monobazus, the king of Adiabene, fell 
 in love with his sister Helena, and took her to his bed, 
 and begat her with child. But as he was in bed with her 
 one night, he laid his hand upon his wife's body and fell 
 asleep, and seemed to hear a voice, which bade him take 
 his hand off his wife's body, and not to hurt the infant 
 that was therein, which by God's providence would be 
 safely born, and have a happy end." The child is the 
 second son by the same wife, yet is called by Josephus 
 " only-begotten." May it be equivalent of " single-pa- 
 rented," as with the only-begotten Athene of Hesiod ? 
 The sequel of the story of Helena and her son betrays 
 an aim to bid for the Messianic prestige, and I do not 
 doubt that, by a more exact rendering of the original 
 tale, Monobazus would have been warned off, like Jo- 
 seph, in deference to the progeny of the Deity. 
 
 " Plato was an Athenian, son of Ariston and Peric- 
 tione, or Potone. His mother traced her lineage col- 
 laterally, up to Solon, through his brother Dropides, 
 father of Critias, father of Callaischrus, father of 
 Critias, who was one of the Thirty, and of Glaucon, 
 father of Charmides and the Perictione, of whom and 
 Ariston Plato was born, the sixth from Solon, Solon, 
 who himself claimed descent from Neleus and Poseidon
 
 THE TWELVE IN RELATION TO JESUS. 69 
 
 (Neptune). Ariston also was said to be a descendant 
 of Codrus, son of Melanthus, reputed, according to 
 Thrasylus, to be descended from Poseidon. But Speu- 
 sippus, in his book entitled ' Of the funeral banquet 
 of Plato,' and Clearchus in his Encomium of Plato, and 
 Anaxilides, in his second book concerning Philosophers, 
 aver that it was a tradition at Athens, that when Aris- 
 ton attempted to consummate his union with the beau- 
 tiful Perictione, he failed of success, and as he ceased 
 his attempt he had a vision (ctyw) of Apollo ; in conse- 
 quence he left her pure from the marriage rite until 
 after her confinement ; and so Plato was born, according 
 to Apollodorus in his Chronicles, in the eighty-eighth 
 Olympiad, on the seventh of the month Thargelion, the 
 birthday, according to the Delians, of Apollo himself." 
 (Diog. Laertius, Plato, sub init.) 
 
 Compare with this ; Jesus of Nazareth was the son 
 of Joseph and Maiy (Matthew i. 16). Mary traced her 
 lineage up to David the king, according to several apo- 
 cryphal Gospels and Justin Martyr, though it is remark- 
 able it is significant that none of the canonical wri- 
 tings hint at such a descent. Joseph, on the other 
 hand, is traced by two writers, though by irreconci- 
 lable routes, up to David the king, to Abraham, Adam, 
 and God; as Ariston up to Kodrus, Melanthus, and Po- 
 seidon. The vision of the angel of the Lord is Hebra- 
 istic equivalent for the ctyrw of Apollo ; and the indul- 
 gent and hopeful self-control of the Athenian and Jewish 
 husbands, run in parallel lines or rather upon an iden- 
 tical line. Later tradition, which fixed the birth of 
 Jesus at the solstitial epoch of the 25th of December, 
 birth-day of the Sol Invictus, has completed the agree-
 
 70 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 ment with Plato, reputed son of Ariston, but in reality 
 of the Sun-god. 
 
 We cannot even rely upon the statement as to the 
 age of Jesus at the commencement of his public career, 
 that he was just thirty years old ; this is a deduction 
 from the date of the registry of Cyrenius, a date adopted 
 for the birth as affording a sort of excuse, far-fetched 
 and improbable enough, for transferring Mary for the 
 nonce from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the city of David, 
 and so getting a fulfilment of a reputed prophecy. 
 
 The number of the women who admired and followed, 
 ministered to him and provided for him, is a notice that 
 may be accepted, and perfectly explains itself by all 
 that is best and weakest in the sex. 
 
 There is great difficulty in discovering the historical 
 truth as to the position of the Apostles relatively to 
 Jesus, his pretensions and anticipations, during his life. 
 Had the compilations which we call the Gospels even 
 been put together by any of them, we should have had 
 comparative facility in marking the track of personal 
 motive and feeling ; but neither the compilations, nor 
 the narrative materials out of which they are built up, 
 come direct from Apostolic hands, and for the most part 
 could never have been touched by them at all. In their 
 completion we receive them directly from sections of the 
 Church that were in qualified, but still in resolute oppo- 
 sition to the views as well as the authority of the Apos- 
 tles generally on some most important points, and then 
 to the authority of the Apostles as distinguished from 
 Peter. 
 
 As the case stands, the tone ascribed to Jesus, in his 
 intercourse both with Apostles and disciples, is constantly
 
 THE TWELVE IN RELATION TO JESUS. 71 
 
 that of superiority and reserve. He intimates only in the 
 most oblique manner that he is the Messiah ; the first 
 suggestion does not even come from himself. He is given 
 to seclusions and solitary prayer ; to occasional activity, 
 and then retirements which stimulate curiosity, and foster 
 zeal and reverential acquiescence. He teaches in para- 
 bles that are suggestive, though indeed most of those as- 
 cribed to him are of later date. He does not proclaim 
 the fact or preach the doctrine that he is the Messiah ; 
 he produces the belief. When the recognition of his pre- 
 tensions is made, he enjoins secrecy, till the secret be- 
 comes one known to everybody. The interpretation of 
 all this is equivocal ; the mysteriousness is probable as 
 a fact, but also and equally as imputed in opposition to 
 the fact. When the sect, after his death, took a deve- 
 lopment and form unknown to himself, and quite incon- 
 sistent with the anticipations he had encouraged or al- 
 lowed to spring up in the Twelve, and which to a great 
 extent they continued to retain, a motive arose to as- 
 cribe to them dulness in understanding his drift, and 
 to assume that they never were really admitted into 
 his confidence ; Christ himself had been vindicated by 
 the ascription to him of more or less direct predictions 
 of the new state of things, in plain words, in indirect 
 words, or in pregnant parables, all to become legible by 
 the light of that grand invention, the baptism of fire, 
 the descent of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 With every allowance for this undoubted motive ope- 
 rating to modify the records, a residuum of History, I 
 think, remains undissolved. It is compatible with many 
 probabilities that Christ did maintain, even with his near- 
 est followers, a certain mysterious reserve, which only
 
 72 . CHRISTIANITY IN THE CAETOONS. 
 
 heightened respect and expectation. There is after all 
 the grand presumption that the Apostles had at least 
 no such detailed communication of his anticipations as to 
 render a notion so inconsistent with them as his death, 
 resurrection, and reappearance, quite incapable of being 
 entertained and reconciled with it. The indispensable 
 policy of safety would enforce upon him certain caution ; 
 and thus, concurrently with injunctions to keep silence 
 as to his Messiahship, we have evasions of jealous au- 
 thorities by frequent changes of place, wanderings with- 
 out where to lay the head, separations from companions, 
 unexpected transferences from one part of the lake to 
 another. 
 
 The announcement of the approaching kingdom and 
 its moral conditions go on concurrently, and zeal at last 
 can brook no longer the delay in the declaration of the 
 expected leader. 
 
 In the first three Gospels, the merit is assigned to 
 Peter of breaking the ice, and being the first to an- 
 nounce the manifest Saviour. In the enumerations of 
 the Apostles also, Peter comes first, and in Matthew he 
 is designated irpS>ros. The fourth Gospel carefully dero- 
 gates from this as from several other points of supe- 
 riority of Peter. It even gives the first recognition of 
 Jesus as Christ to the Baptist, and again to Peter only 
 through an intermediate channel. 
 
 After the appointment of the twelve, the great overt 
 act of Jesus was what I have no doubt is historical, his 
 entry into Jerusalem, in such guise, and so attended, as 
 constituted an open claim to the fulfilment in person of 
 an admitted and reverenced Messianic prophecy. 
 
 Popular enthusiasm seems to have arisen, and for a
 
 THE TWELVE IN RELATION TO JESUS. 73 
 
 time to have surrounded and sustained the prophet ; an 
 historical fact may lie hid in that record of a tumult 
 about the Temple, and the violence to profaning dealers 
 and money-changers. There is confused hint of mys- 
 tical reference to a crisis on a third day, to the destruc- 
 tion of the Herodian temple and its half-heathen mag- 
 nificence and adornments, and to a restoration, no doubt 
 according to more primitive and purer ideal, the central 
 notion of that restoration of all things and renovation of 
 Israel, that the Rabbins connect with the coming of the 
 Messiah, and that prophecy could be cited to support. 
 " The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his 
 temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye 
 delight in ; behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of 
 Hosts." (Malachi iii. 1.) " For thus saith the Lord of 
 Hosts ; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the 
 heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land ; 
 and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations 
 shall come : and I will fill this house with glory, saith 
 the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is 
 mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter 
 house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord 
 of hosts ; and in this place will I give peace, saith the 
 Lord of hosts." (Haggai ii. 6-9.) 
 
 I do not doubt that Jesus expected, and led the peo- 
 ple to expect, a divine interposition, credited as easily, 
 and on much the same grounds, as the passage of the 
 Jordan promised by Theudas ; the cleaving of the Mount 
 of Olives by the Egyptian ; the rescue of leaguered Je- 
 rusalem, anticipated by the descendants of the Gaulon- 
 ite. "A false prophet," says Josephus, " was the occasion 
 of these people's destruction, who had made a public
 
 74 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 proclamation in the city that very day, that God com- 
 manded them to get up upon the Temple, and that 
 there they should receive miraculous signs of their de- 
 liverance. Now, there were then a great number of 
 false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose upon 
 the people, who announced this to them, that they 
 should wait for deliverance from God ; and this was in 
 order to keep them from deserting, and that they might 
 by such hopes be carried above fear and care." (Jo- 
 sephus, Bell. Jud., vi. 5,. 2.) 
 
 The charge on which it is related that Jesus was con- 
 demned, was the having asserted his power to rebuild 
 the Temple, after its destruction, in three days. This 
 reads like a very probable perversion of words having 
 reference to the anticipated intervention of God ; that 
 they were intimations of the resurrection of his own 
 body is, of course, a posterior gloss. I think it quite 
 possible, indeed, that the anticipation of his third-day 
 resurrection may even have been due to this expression 
 or prophecy; his declaration having failed in its ob- 
 vious and simple sense, his devoted followers were likely 
 enough to cast about for some other sense more pliable, 
 and they who seek under such influences fail not to find. 
 
 At Jerusalem, again, we have the same traces as be- 
 fore of prudential evasion of the easily jealous and un- 
 scrupulous authorities; then retirement from the city 
 at night to the Mount of Olives or to Bethany, and the 
 discovery of his person and his retreat at last, only by 
 the betrayal of an associate, one of the selected twelve. 
 
 When the appointed critical time hour or day had 
 passed, had failed, popular excitement sank, sank per- 
 haps but to revive in indignation ; and the self-reliance
 
 THE APOSTLES AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION. 75 
 
 of the prophet himself had to abide the direst of all 
 trials. I find it difficult to believe that the depression 
 which comes before us so affectingly in the scenes of the 
 supper and the garden agony, that declares itself in the 
 seeming dulness or sullenness before accusers, and in the 
 very indifference to favourable interference from Pilate, 
 is not true general representation of the bowed spirit 
 that finds its true faith effectless, and plunges back into 
 its recollections to seek in vain, not the source of its 
 error, but the explanation of its disappointment. The 
 feeling of confidence in a promise accepted as divine 
 makes head to the last, but at the last gives up with 
 that bitterest cry of undeceived despair that ever was 
 uttered, " My God ! my God ! why hast thou forsaken 
 me!" 
 
 III. THE APOSTLES AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION. 
 
 The great turning-point in the revival of Christian 
 enthusiasm after the death of Jesus was the origin of 
 the belief in his resurrection, a belief which chiefly fos- 
 tered the expectation of his reappearance at any mo- 
 ment, and the revelation of his kingdom. 
 
 The important complicity of Peter on this occasion is 
 presumable from the report of Paul, that "he was 
 first seen of Cephas, and then of the twelve." The 
 Gospels, however, are unanimous in ascribing the first 
 hint or information of the resurrection, though but 
 from hearsay, to the women, especially to Mary Mag- 
 dalen, out of whom Christ had cast seven devils ; and 
 (1) and (4) assign to Mary Magdalen the distinction of the 
 first interview with Christ risen, while the pre-eminence 
 of Peter is restricted to his having been the first to en-
 
 76 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 tertain the possibility of such an event. In the fourth 
 Gospel he has to divide even this merit with John. 
 Only in (3) is there a possibility that the appearance of 
 Jesus to Peter may have been anterior to that at Em- 
 maus to Kleophas. 
 
 It is not at all impossible that a disposition to reduce 
 the merit of Peter may have caused the introduction of 
 Mary Magdalen into the story. But otherwise there is 
 much verisimilitude in the origination of belief in vi- 
 sion of the risen Master, having commenced among his 
 grateful, devoted, enthusiastic feminine followers, Mary 
 Magdalen, James's Mary (or 'the other Mary,' Matt.), and 
 Salome, and Johanna, wife of Chuza Herod's deputy, 
 and Susanna (Luke viii.), and the rest of the women who 
 came with him out of Galilee, " who ministered to him 
 of their substance" (Luke viii. 3). We may even say 
 that the probability is assisted by his mother Mary not 
 being enumerated among those who were witnesses of 
 his reappearance. 
 
 What morsels of truth there may be in the stories 
 relative to the entombment, it is now impossible to say. 
 There can be none in the tale of the guard set to watch 
 it at the solicitation of the Jews, lest a report of a re- 
 surrection should get abroad. The sealed and guarded 
 chamber reminds of the circumstances of custody of the 
 holy vestments of the Temple, as told by Josephus (An- 
 tiq., xviii. 5). Much more congruous would be the 
 appointment of a guard to watch the corpse upon the 
 cross, an authenticated and reasonable precaution. Tra- 
 dition was quite competent to transform disappearance 
 of the body from the cross into disappearance from a 
 rock sepulchre, if a seeming fulfilment of prophecy were 
 advantaged by the change.
 
 THE APOSTLES AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION. 77 
 
 Historic detail, however, as I have said, is not reco- 
 verable; the community may probably enough have 
 been dispersed in the horror and affright of the unex- 
 pected catastrophe, may have retreated forthwith to 
 Galilee again, of which there is much appearance, or 
 some at least may have lingered or lurked in Jerusalem 
 long enough to receive from the women the report of 
 their affectionate attempts to render the last offices to 
 their Master ; and to entertain, more or less confidingly, 
 their averments of vision and reappearance. It is quite 
 in the spirit of enduring feminine faith in a spiritual 
 pastor and promiser, to resort to any alternative what- 
 ever, and however strange, unnatural, supernatural, 
 rather than give up a cherished faith in honesty and 
 truth. 
 
 There is some interest, however, in collating the tra- 
 ditions as we have them, and in tracing back some of 
 the stages of their corruption and change, albeit that 
 at last we may but come to a fundamental tradition as 
 taproot, that was itself no more than a prime figment of 
 error, deception, or self-deception. 
 
 The narratives in the Gospels have such exact verbal 
 agreements in the midst of their divarications, that we 
 can only treat them as the same record, varied by omis- 
 sions, additions, and substitutions ; and this applies even 
 to some consecutive narratives in the same Gospel. 
 
 (4.) " On the first day of the week, while it was yet 
 dark, cometh Mary Magdalen to the tomb, and sees 
 that the stone was taken away from the tomb;" she 
 runs therefore and tells Simon Peter and John that 
 they have taken the Lord from the sepulchre, " and we 
 know not where they have laid him."
 
 78 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 So John ; in Matthew, the Magdalen has with her 
 the other Mary ; in Mark, Mary and Salome ; in Luke, 
 the women generally and certain with them. All these 
 three Gospels then pursue the story in tolerably pa- 
 rallel lines, 
 
 (2.) A young man in white garment; 
 
 (3.) Two men in shining garments ; 
 
 (1.) An angel of lightning aspect, in garment white as 
 snow, rolls away the stone and sits on it. frightens guards 
 into a trance (1 and 2), bids the women not be afraid, 
 and (1, 2, 3) announces that Christ has risen, and bids 
 them refer the disciples (1, 2) and Peter (2) to appoint- 
 ment in Galilee, whither he has gone before. 
 
 Luke (3), instead of the latter clause, refers the wo- 
 men to their memory that while yet in Galilee Jesus 
 had announced his death and resurrection, a very ob- 
 vious gloss for the writer of the Acts of the Apostles, 
 who notes specially that the disciples continued at 
 Jerusalem ; he rejects, therefore, the adjournment to 
 Galilee, and substitutes a notice of Galilean reference 
 more in harmony with his system and scheme. He 
 does not, however, quite throw away the other version, 
 but finds a place for it in the first chapter of Acts, 
 where, after Jesus has ascended into the sky, two men 
 in white garments address the Apostles : " Ye men of 
 Galilee, why stand ye staring up," etc. 
 
 The women deliver the message (1, 3), or are fright- 
 ened, and tell no one (2), a notice which looks like 
 an honest attempt to satisfy some who were of their 
 associates at the time, and might well be surprised at 
 having never heard a word of such great incidents. 
 
 (3.) The disciples disbelieved, but, according to some
 
 THE APOSTLES AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION. 79 
 
 manuscripts, Peter ran to the sepulchre and looked in, 
 saw the clothes left, and retired, not to rejoin the 
 doubting disciples, but to himself or his own resort, 
 marvelling at the event. (4.) John, as well as Peter, 
 makes the quest, and, like him, retires home. 
 
 The first actual reappearance of Jesus related in (3), 
 is to two journeyers to Emmaus, who have much appear- 
 ance of being the originals of the " two young men" or 
 the two angels in shining white garments who recur in 
 other narratives. 
 
 Then we have a notice (2) which commences ab- 
 ruptly, as if the previous incident were unknown to the 
 writer, as indeed the narrative only occurs in certain 
 manuscripts. " Having arisen early on the first day of 
 the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalen, out of 
 whom he had cast seven demons." This is not given 
 by (3), but in (1) and (4) we have further details ; (4), the 
 Magdalen makes a second visit to the tomb, when she 
 brings Peter and John, and it is after they retire that 
 she sees the vision of two angels in w r hite sitting in the 
 tomb, a trajection of the earlier incident given by (1), 
 (2), and (3). They ask her why she weeps; she repeats 
 her loss, and before receiving an answer turns and sees, 
 as she supposes, the gardener ; is asked the same ques- 
 tion again, and gives the same reply. Jesus announces 
 himself, declines the attempt of Mary to touch him, 
 and sends a message to " his brethren" of his approach- 
 ing ascension. Then we find this first positive reappear- 
 ance of Jesus ascribed to the occasion of the visit of 
 Mary Magdalen and the other Mary(l), who, passing 
 from the interview with the angels with fear and great 
 joy, are greeted by him, and they actually embrace his
 
 80 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 feet, and he sends by them to his brethren the very 
 same message they have just received from the angels, 
 to proceed to rendezvous in Galilee. Here, therefore, 
 as in (4), we find that what is given in one form as an 
 interview with angels is repeated in another as an in- 
 terview with Jesus ; just as previously the interview with 
 informants, who are bluntly a young man or two men, 
 takes form as an interview with angels. 
 
 There is no impossibility in the nature of things that 
 the first belief in the resurrection may have taken the 
 most distinct and detailed embellishments at once ; but 
 if we arrange the contradictory tales in order of simpli- 
 city, we have this sequence. 
 
 The women first report the disappearance of the 
 body ; then this becomes a hearsay from a youth that 
 Christ has risen from the dead ; and then, by easy tran- 
 sition, a revelation to the same effect from angels ; then 
 a vision, not of angels, but of Jesus himself, though still 
 not tangible ; then a manifestation of Jesus, not only 
 visible and audible, but embraced ; and lastly, he ap- 
 pears to disciples themselves, suggesting and submit- 
 ting to the philosophical test of handling, of eating and 
 drinking, and that certified aliments. Earthquake, light- 
 ning, etc., the prostrate guard, the amazed authorities, 
 all these heightening effects complete the tableau with 
 a strange intermixture of the artistic invention that sup- 
 plies and bodies forth the form of things unknown, and 
 the lame ingenuity of an attorney priming very incom- 
 petent witnesses in order to stop holes, as they declare 
 themselves, in a case that no ingenuity or hard or easy 
 swearing will cause to hold together. 
 
 That it was after Christianity had made much Gentile
 
 THE APOSTLES AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION. 81 
 
 progress that the Gospel materials took their present 
 foim, might be securely inferred from the characteris- 
 tics of the story of the resurrection and its incidents, 
 which, as they tell it, is under far heavier obligations 
 to the stock details of heathen disappearances and re- 
 appearances than to anything we find in the fund of 
 Jewish associations. In proof of this, I might transcribe 
 Plutarch on the aphanism and deification of Romulus, 
 with its parallels and precedents. He refers to more 
 examples than he thinks it necessary to relate, such 
 is the general resemblance of the growth, and finishes 
 with some remarks on deification, so pointed, that while 
 their immediate application is to the worship of the 
 Roman emperors or Antinous, it seems strange if they 
 were not also intended to glance at the rapidly spread- 
 ing superstition of a new sect of religionists. 
 
 The founder of Rome was said to have vanished from 
 earth in the midst of splendours and convulsions as 
 lavishly expended as we find them in Matthew, the 
 darkened sun, horrible thunders, boisterous winds, and 
 flashing lightning. To the senators is assigned the 
 part of calming and dismissing the anxiously searching 
 people, with the injunction to worship their king there- 
 after, as snatched up by the gods. Minds, however, 
 were still unsettled, till a witness of approved honesty 
 and dignity supplied detailed evidence of the fact, and 
 a verbal message. Julius Proculus, like the travellers 
 to Emmaus, met Romulus on the way, glorified in per- 
 son, and in white and shining armour, in fact trans- 
 figured ; and between the credit of the man and some 
 celestial motion or divine inspiration, the tale was then 
 believed.
 
 82 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 In like manner the Greeks had a story, how Aristeas 
 died, and how his body disappeared, and how some who 
 came from the country related that they had met him 
 since, pursuing his way to Crotona. The body of Cleo- 
 medes, styled, by the Pythia, last of the demigods, va- 
 nished as marvellously; on which and on the like re- 
 surrections of the body and ascensions, Plutarch has 
 some remarkable enunciations. 
 
 The disciples, assembled, it is said, by appointment 
 on a mountain in Galilee, received from the risen Jesus 
 this declaration and commission : " Behold, supreme 
 power is given to me in heaven and on earth ; go, then, 
 and inform all nations, baptizing them in the name of 
 the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching to 
 observe all things whatsoever I have enjoined to you ; 
 and behold, I will be with you to the conclusion of the 
 age (epoch) ; Amen." (Matt, xxviii. 16, 20.) 
 
 Such was the reputed charter of the Church that 
 struck for control of general humanity ; it is strangely 
 parallel in purport, and even in terms, to that which 
 Roman legend, as we find it in Livy and Plutarch, 
 professed to rest upon for title to universal dominion. 
 " It hath seemed good to the Gods that we should be 
 away from them and sojourn a certain time among men, 
 and then, having founded a city destined for the great- 
 est sway and glory, to dwell again in heaven. But be 
 of good cheer, and tell the Romans, that by exercise of 
 sobriety of mind, along with valour, they will attain the 
 greatest pitch of human power ; as to me, I will be to 
 you the gracious divinity Quirinus." 
 
 Whatever may be the relative dates at which the two 
 records were written down, I have no doubt that they
 
 THE APOSTLES AFIER THE CRUCIFIXION. 83 
 
 are interdependent by common relation to common 
 sources. The reflections of Plutarch are not without 
 pertinence to both. " On no account, therefore, does it 
 become us to dispatch the mortal bodies of good men 
 along with themselves up to heaven, but to consider 
 that their virtues and their souls, by course of nature 
 and divine justice, proceed from men to heroes, from 
 heroes to demigods (Salfwves), and then from demigods, 
 in virtue of a certain sacramental refinement and sanc- 
 tification, and escape from mortality and its affections, 
 become associated with the Gods, not by civil enact- 
 ment, but in verity and of consistent reason, as attain- 
 ing to the most excellent and happiest perfection." 
 
 There is a fine poetic irony in the Roman legend, 
 whoever may have been the inventor ; it is told with 
 circumstance sufficient to captivate the " brute folk," the 
 gaping multitude, and at the same time suggests a poli- 
 tical and naturalistic explanation for the men of the 
 world, who would reject a miracle. So Homer sings how 
 Jove sent Sleep and Death to carry the body of Sarpe- 
 don to Lycia, the body which, he has already hinted, 
 had become unrecognizable, disfigured by the turmoil 
 of the fight for its possession, and about which therefore 
 a marvellous tale might be told, without fear of contra- 
 diction. 
 
 The belief in the apparition and then in the actual 
 bodily resurrection of Jesus commenced, according to 
 the narrative, with the women of his society, but among 
 the Apostles and disciples was first accepted and insisted 
 on by Peter. Peter it is who divines the compatibility 
 of all that was essential in the mission of Jesus with 
 the fact of his violent death, and he is presented to us 
 
 G 2
 
 84 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 as coming forward to reinforce the movement, to pro- 
 pound a theory of its significance in the new aspect, well 
 backed up with harmonizing prophecy, and to reorga- 
 nize administration by electing an Apostle to succeed 
 the traitor. In the first instance, strict Judaism and 
 close attendance at the Temple are in accordance with 
 the instant hope for the re-establishment of the king- 
 dom of Israel by the descendant of David ; but larger 
 ideas are present, at least in germ, the grand morals 
 overruling the asceticism of John ; a spirit of genial self- 
 sacrifice vivifying the Ebionitish professional poverty in 
 community of goods or no goods; enthusiasm, conta- 
 gious enthusiasm, evincing itself mentally, in sudden 
 capacity of emancipation from cramping prejudice ; and 
 in such astounding bodily manifestations as it were too 
 much to expect should not be mistaken for miracles. 
 
 There was a lull of harmony in the company at the 
 first revival ; but the ruling mind of Jesus being with- 
 drawn, the idiosyncrasies of the members of the alli- 
 ance, and their very prepossessions anterior to his in- 
 fluence, soon began to assert themselves. 
 
 In this place it is enough to epitomize the sequel. 
 The expanding sect broke through its Jewish limita- 
 tions, and struggled to shuffle off the shackles of cere- 
 monialism. James and the Church at Jerusalem, in 
 opposition to the tendencies of Peter, strove to retain 
 or re-fasten them. Peter, obeying his own instincts, is 
 zealously progressive when alone with the Gentile 
 Church at Antioch; he is cowed, and vacillates, on 
 arrival of rigorists from James ; recovers himself, and 
 breaks boldly with tradition in the Council at Jerusa- 
 lem. But the mischief was done ; even in the Gentile
 
 THE APOSTLES AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION. 85 
 
 Church there was a section glad to have Apostolic sanc- 
 tion to quote in favour of authority and ceremony ; and 
 so it has been from that day to this, that Peter, the one 
 Apostle who spoke out boldly and without qualification 
 for the emancipation of the mind, has been seized on as 
 the representative of all that confines and crushes it, and 
 finds himself the elected patron saint and protector of 
 the most corrupting and deadening ceremonialism.
 
 86 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE MIRACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE. 
 
 I. JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE. II. THE CARTOON OF THE 
 MIRACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE. III. THE FIRST EX- 
 PANSION OF THE GOSPEL IDEA. 
 
 I. JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE. 
 
 THERE is considerable difficulty in reconciling all the 
 notices given by Josephus of the dimensions and re- 
 lative positions of the boundaries of the Temple and its 
 dependencies. The examination of the site, as it exists 
 at present, has removed some uncertainties, but has 
 introduced, at least, as many more ; and a far com- 
 pleter survey and study must be waited for before the 
 historian can be fully and accurately interpreted. Still, 
 much of the difficulty applies to mere matters of detail ; 
 and a description, confined to general terms that may 
 be relied on, need not, after all, be too indefinite to have 
 its use and interest. 
 
 The Jerusalem of the time of Jesus Christ, together 
 with its suburbs and the Temple, occupied four hills, 
 which differed in size, height, and form, and we're se- 
 parated by valleys of various declivity and depth. The 
 entire group formed a sort of hilly promontory, between 
 a pair of converging valleys and divided by a third inter-
 
 JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE. 87 
 
 mediate, which all trended southward. On the east, 
 south, and western sides, the site had such deep escarp- 
 ment as to render fortification easy and effectual. The 
 valley of Gihon lay between the city and eminences 
 westward, and turned in an easterly direction, as the 
 valley Hinnom, till it joined the valley Kedron, which 
 bounded the city to the east and running north and 
 south, separated the mount and platform of the Temple 
 and Mount Bezetha, together with the newer northern 
 city, from the Mount of Olives. High table-ground to 
 the north-east, Scopus, afforded a view clear over the 
 city to the country beyond and the sea on the horizon. 
 
 The original site of the city of David, called by Jo- 
 sephus the upper city, or upper agora, was on the hill 
 to the south-west of the group, the highest and steepest 
 of all, and most fitted for the stronghold of an early 
 community. This, no doubt, was Mount Zion, though 
 Josephus never applies, indeed, never even uses the 
 name. Its northern boundary was a straight line of 
 declivity, running east and west above the valley that 
 separated it from the lower city the A era of the Asmo- 
 ncean princes. The same valley branched southwards, 
 into a depression dividing Mount Zion from the mount 
 and platform of the Temple, Mount Moriah, to the east. 
 
 In the time of Jesus Christ, the walls of the mount of 
 the Temple formed part of the exterior fortified circuit 
 of the city to the north as well as eastward. An arti- 
 ficial trench, or cutting, separated the north line of wall 
 of Moriah from the district or suburb of the city be^ 
 yond ; this was Bezetha, which received its proper loop 
 of fortification, some fourteen years later, from King 
 Agrippa.
 
 88 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 The hill on which the Temple was built was originally 
 a rocky steep, with a gradual rise from the eastern part 
 of the city towards the crown or summit, but, at first, 
 scarcely affording area sufficient for the holy house and 
 altar. Josephus ascribes to Solomon very important 
 commencements of substructures and embankments to 
 extend the platform, especially towards the east ; on 
 this side, he says, he founded a single portico, while on 
 the other sides the holy house stood free ; this was the 
 Solomon's porch of the New Testament. 
 
 The Asmonsean princes reduced the height of Acra, 
 and, at the same time, filled up much of the valley, in 
 order to unite the Temple with the city, to improve the 
 access. But, apart from intermediate advances, it was 
 Herod the Great who made the most extensive changes. 
 Besides giving addition to the height of, at least, a por- 
 tion of the platform, he extended the peribolus north- 
 wards, and doubled the enclosed area. He rebuilt the 
 Temple, completed its quadrangle of enclosing porti- 
 cos on most magnificent scale, and connected all with 
 his system of fortifications. Still there was something 
 left to be done by Herod Agrippa in the time of Nero ; 
 what, does not very clearly appear, except that it was 
 based upon reparation of Solomon's eastern portico. 
 
 It was in the eighteenth year of his reign that Herod 
 the Great had taken measures for rebuilding the Temple 
 on a scheme of general magnificence, as well as of en- 
 hanced area and elevation. In deference to popular 
 jealousies and apprehensions, he prepared the materials 
 for the new structure entirely before meddling with the 
 old, and provided a great store of priestly garb for the 
 large proportion of labourers, who of necessity must be
 
 JERUSALEM ANI> THE TEMPLE. 89 
 
 priests, and who were instructed for the occasion in the 
 various requisite handicrafts. The naos was completed 
 in eighteen months, and within eight years the chief 
 part of the porticos and the peribolus. 
 
 The width of the platform, east and west at the 
 southern extremity, " from declivity to declivity," was a 
 stadium ; the other measurements that are given com- 
 plete an area of a double stadium of six stadia circuit, 
 which is much less than is shown by the existing site. 
 There is some error or ambiguity in the description or 
 its interpretation, which, however, it is not worth our 
 present while to delay by investigating. The Temple 
 proper, with its courts, which Josephus calls the hy- 
 paethral temple, and the surrounding porticos, was a 
 stadium square. It may have had various exterior de- 
 pendencies ; and at the north-west angle of the platform- 
 stood the great fortification of the tower Antonia, so 
 named by Herod after his benefactor, the triumvir. 
 This was an extension of an Asmonaean work, origi- 
 nated, no doubt, as it was continued, as a political secu- 
 rity over the head-quarters of religious and sacerdotal 
 agitation. In general form it was a square tower, with 
 secondary towers at the angles. It was raised upon a 
 precipitous rock, revetted carefully at the base, to render 
 ascent or descent equally impossible. The heights given 
 by Josephus are manifestly exaggerated, and not worth 
 quoting. It was, of course, in military communication 
 with the walls and with the palace on Zion, in what 
 exact way we need not stay to inquire ; and, besides 
 full accommodation for a garrison, it contained, says 
 Josephus, all the appliances of luxurious life, in mul- 
 tifariousness a city, in magnificence a palace.
 
 90 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CAETOONS. 
 
 The garrison had direct access from Antonia to the 
 northern and western porticos of the Temple. 
 
 Besides this access, the grand peribolus of the Temple 
 had five proper entrances one in the middle of the 
 south side, and four on the west. Of these one led to 
 the king's palace, across the contracted pharanx, or 
 ravine, this was probably the most southerly ; two to 
 the suburb, proasteion ; and the last to " the other city '" 
 (query Acra"?), by a descent of many steps, with corre- 
 sponding ascent opposite. 
 
 The southern portico of the Temple the stoa basi- 
 licawas especially magnificent ; and it is presumable 
 that this was in direct connection with the western gate 
 that led to the palace. With every deduction made for 
 the extravagance of the describer, it must have been 
 a sumptuous, and may easily have been a noble work 
 " a work," as he calls it, " among the most memorable 
 of all beneath the sun." 
 
 It consisted of three avenues, formed by four rows of 
 columns, of which one was engaged in the wall, doubtless 
 the southern external peribolus wall that skirted the edge 
 of the precipice. One hundred and sixty-two Corinthian 
 columns, twenty-seven feet high, were so disposed that 
 the side avenues were thirty feet wide, and the central 
 nave forty-five feet, or as wide again. This middle 
 avenue, or nave, was also of superior loftiness, enhanced, 
 as I read the description, by a frontal wall surmount- 
 ing the epistylia and having engaged columns. 
 
 The ceilings were formed by systems of lacunaria, 
 exquisitely elaborated with cedar beams. 
 
 The agreement with the early Chiistian basilica, that 
 we are familiar with at Ravenna and Rome, is salient
 
 PLAN OF THE TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM AS REBUILT BY 
 HEROD. 
 
 From Fergwson's 'Modem Architecture.'
 
 JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE. 91 
 
 on inspection. In fact, the title ' stoa basilica,' or Portico 
 of the King, does not, in itself imply any reference to 
 the regality of Herod, or to communication with the 
 palace. It is a generic title, derived from the cele- 
 brated stoa of the Archon Basileus at Athens ; and was 
 transferred again, at a later date, to the grand structures 
 of Trajan and Maxentius ; and thence it has been con- 
 tinued to the Christian churches, which acquired like 
 form and design by inheritance or imitation. 
 
 It is rather strange that Josephus omits particular 
 mention of this stoa in his description of the Temple, 
 in his ' Jewish War,' but expatiates upon it in his later 
 work, the ' Jewish Antiquities.' 
 
 The east, west, and north sides of the quadrangle had 
 also their porticos, with double rows of columns ; that 
 on the east, opposite to the chief entrance to the Temple, 
 being Solomon's Porch, as we have seen. 
 
 The dimensions, the heights especially, that Josephus 
 gave of a structure that was utterly in ruins when he 
 wrote, were intended by him to be wondered at, not to 
 be criticized. 
 
 Within the square enclosure, which was thus entered 
 by one door through the stoa basilica, and by four from 
 the western side, was another very strong enclosure ; 
 the interval between the two was the Lower Temple, 
 and still more specifically, the Court of the Gentiles, 
 with its double porticos of white marble columns, ceiled 
 with lacunaria of cedar, and having its hypeethral por- 
 tion paved with various-coloured marbles. The enrich- 
 ments of paintings and statuary were alone wanting, out 
 of deference to religious objections. 
 
 The circuit of these porticos, then, is given as " six
 
 92 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 stadia, Antonia being included ; " make of this state- 
 ment what we may. Into this court both Greek and 
 Roman were admissible ; but on the understanding, I 
 apprehend, that they were aefiopevoi " the devout men " 
 of Acts, the class of whom we find such numerous 
 traces, the converts, proselytes made by the zealous 
 proselytizing Jews, who are a wonder and a by-word 
 with Horace, and whom we find in Josephus eagerly 
 snatching a proselyte, especially the rich or powerful, 
 as worth having, even though remaining uncircumcised ; 
 while others, less indulgent, urge or insist on the ob- 
 noxious rite. To this court, thus far, the Gentile pro- 
 selyte was admitted as a worshipper, after what purifi- 
 cations, professions, or sacrifices, or contributions, who 
 shall say ? for, doubtless, admission here as well as else- 
 where had its limitations. " Devout women "were pro- 
 bably also admitted, as this class, undebarred by the 
 rite, were numerous and important. 
 
 The second lepov within this court, was surrounded 
 by a marble enclosure of three cubits high, elegantly 
 wrought. Here columns equally spaced displayed in 
 Greek and Latin the law of purity (dyveia), forbidding 
 any alien in race to present himself in the Holy place, 
 or sanctuary (ayiov), for so the second hieron was styled. 
 
 The ascent to it from the first hieron was by four- 
 teen steps (apparently within the enclosure just men- 
 tioned); it was four-square above, and surrounded by 
 its proper wall, and by a terrace of ten cubits breadth 
 between the wall and the edge of the steps. 
 
 The steps, and probably the terrace also, only em- 
 braced the north, east, and south sides, not the western, 
 on which the wall of the sanctuary had no portals.
 
 JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE. 93 
 
 This we learn from a notice, that in an attack on the 
 sanctuary, engines could be advanced towards the west 
 wall, because there were there no steps. 
 
 The expression just quoted, that the sanctuary was 
 four-square (rerpaycovov) above, may therefore indicate 
 the distinction that, measured along its proper wall, it 
 was a true square, not merely quadrangular ; while be- 
 low, whether about the marble enclosure or the lowest 
 step, it was, from omission of the steps and terrace west- 
 ward, somewhat shorter from east to west than from 
 north to south (2 cubits = 3 feet). 
 
 I assume that the area of the second hieron was a 
 true square, answering to the general circuit exterior to 
 the porticos. Upon this area the platform of the sanc- 
 tuary may naturally be moved westward, to the extent 
 of the joint breadth of the omitted steps and terrace ; 
 and this will agree with other notices that the Temple 
 lay towards the west side of the area, and will give im- 
 portance to the grand eastern entrance, by allowing a 
 wider court in front of it. 
 
 The external height of the wall, including the steps, 
 so I read my author, was forty cubits; but the inter- 
 nal, only twenty-five. The difference of fifteen cubits is 
 left to be made out by the fourteen steps already men- 
 tioned, and then by five more steps which led up from 
 the platform, or terrace, to the entrances. Even so, the 
 full difference is not accounted for ; and the suspicion 
 is awakened, has Josephus substituted cubits for feet in 
 the heights throughout I 
 
 The wall of the sanctuary, which had no entrance on 
 the west, had four portals on the north and four on the 
 south. A single grand portal on the east gave admission
 
 94 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 first into the court of the women, which was also entered 
 by the north-east and south-east doors ; this court was 
 formed by a wall of division parallel to the east front, 
 and pierced with a central portal, which, however, was 
 not accessible to the women. 
 
 Nine of the gates, their folding-doors, jambs, and 
 imposts, were sheeted with gold and silver. Within, 
 beyond the entrance, there were single porticos, as 
 splendid as those of the outer court, though smaller. 
 The portals are given as thirty cubits in height by fifteen. 
 Within, the space widened out, and, between the gates 
 pairs of columns, if not more properly piers of twelve 
 cubits circumference, supported tower-like chambers 
 more than forty cubits high. These appear to have 
 been above the exhedrae of the porticos ; they remind of 
 the pylons of an Egyptian temple ; and it was against 
 one of these structures, between two of the northern 
 portals, that we read of Titus directing his engines 
 when he assaulted the sanctuary. 
 
 The inner eastern portal, directly opposite the naos, 
 was much larger than those of north and south, being, 
 we are told, fifty cubits high, with doors of forty cubits, 
 and was much more lavishly enriched with silver and 
 gold. 
 
 Fifteen steps, says Josephus, led from the wall of par- 
 tition of the women to the greater gate, being much 
 smaller less steep, I apprehend, as well as probably 
 narrower in tread than the five steps at the other en- 
 trances. The form of expression used seems to imply 
 that these also were within the line of the dividing 
 wall. 
 
 The outer eastern portal was of Corinthian brass, but
 
 JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE. 95 
 
 far exceeding in dignity the gold and silver enrichments 
 of all the others. As the fifteen steps just adverted to 
 are indicated as ranging with the five steps of the flank 
 portals, it follows that the area of the women's court, 
 from which they started, was on a level with the terrace 
 or platform around the hagion. Fergusson makes it 
 lower with what authority ? 
 
 The court of the women, says Josephus, was open for 
 the worship of women, as well those who were natives 
 of Judaea as those from without, being of Jewish race. 
 The mention that both classes were equally participant 
 in the privilege, indicates that there was such a claim 
 of superiority on the part of the native Jewess, that it 
 might not be taken for granted. Even so, their admis- 
 sion was contingent upon being free from ceremonial 
 impurity ; and the admission of the Jew also, whether 
 priest or lay, into the inner av\^, was upon the same 
 condition. I think this inner "aule" must be held to 
 comprise the entire hagion., including the women's court ; 
 and it is improbable that any Jew, ceremonially unclean, 
 was admitted through the great eastern portal into the 
 court assigned to the duly purified females. As to the 
 afflicted with leprosy and fluxes, they were excluded, 
 not only from the Temple, but from the city itself. This 
 is the testimony of Josephus. How is it to be recon- 
 ciled with the averment of the Rabbins respecting places 
 for the leprous within this court 1 
 
 In the contest of the factions anterior to the siege, the 
 zealots holding the Temple are driven from the outer 
 court by Ananias and the multitude ; but the high-priest 
 hesitates to attempt to force the sacred portals of the 
 inner court from other considerations, besides the ad-
 
 96 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 vantage of the defenders from above. Tn fact, he held 
 it unlawful, even should he have the better of the con- 
 flict, to introduce the multitude, which had not been 
 previously purified. (Bell. Jud., iv. 312.) 
 
 In this gate, which, from its material, Josephus calls 
 the Corinthian gate of the Temple, we must recognize 
 the Beautiful Gate of the Acts of the Apostles. It faced 
 the porch of Solomon ; it is the brazen gate of the inner 
 hieron, fronting the rising sun, before which the men of 
 power of Jerusalem, and most distinguished Pharisees, 
 in concert with the high-priests, convoked the people, 
 and endeavoured, by arguments, precedents, and warn- 
 ings, to divert them from that last tightening of restric- 
 tive exclusiveness that committed them to revolt, to ruin. 
 This was on the occasion when, after King Agrippa had 
 soothed popular agitation for a time, it again broke 
 loose, and on the persuasion of Eleazar, son of Ananias, 
 the high-priest, a very bold youth, it was determined to 
 reject thereafter both gifts and sacrifices offered on the 
 part of aliens. The resolution was especially aimed 
 against the sacrifice which was accustomed to be made 
 on the part of the Roman emperor, and for the safety 
 of the empire. " This," says Josephus, " was the true 
 beginning of our war against the Romans, for it was a 
 rejection of the sacrifice of Caesar in their favour." Vain 
 it was to urge, by appeal to surrounding monuments 
 (Ant. xv. 11, 3), that from all time it had been ad- 
 mitted to accept gifts for the Temple, and adorn it with 
 dedications from aliens ; and vain to denounce, on prin- 
 ciples of common humanity, the anti-social resolution, 
 that with the Jews alone among all people, a foreigner 
 should not be admissible on any terms whatever to
 
 JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE. 97 
 
 contribute to sacrifice, or participate in worship. Such 
 exclusion, it was urged, would be revolting inhumanity, 
 if directed against an individual; what must be the 
 consequence of the insult to the Roman people and the 
 Roman emperor ? 
 
 Thus it was that the crisis of Jewish history and po- 
 lity was declared on the steps of the beautiful Corin- 
 thian entrance of the inner temple, at the verge of the 
 partition-wall of the Court of Israel, and the Court of 
 the Gentiles. The fatal victory for the time remained 
 with the bigots. Here they repudiated with brave self- 
 consistency the last slender admission of the common 
 relation of aliens from Jewish blood to a common God ; 
 inaccessible to sympathy, it is true, but at the same 
 time superior to death and danger. Unallured by bait 
 of peace and profitableness, they turned away fanatically 
 enough, but with more dignity than their race has al- 
 ways been equal to, from the proffered price of religious 
 privilege, the authorized spoil of the Egyptian. 
 
 Josephus presents us with three well-defined forms 
 of the relation of Judaism to the devotional sympathies 
 of the alien, in the eager proselytizer, who, still strictly 
 Jewish, will relax his rigour for the sake of a convert, 
 though not for his own sake ; the zealot, who also will 
 compass sea and land to gain a convert, if he may only 
 subject him to a common ceremonial slavery; the fa- 
 natic, who repudiates the alien on any terms. The 
 virulence of the fanatic was largely due to fear and jea- 
 lousy of the expansive tendency of the proselytizers, 
 feelings in themselves well founded enough The world 
 was ripe for a revulsion in its forms of religious belief, 
 and that, moreover, in the direction of unity. The spirit 
 
 H
 
 98 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 which, in our own day, we have seen operative politi- 
 cally, to combine and knit and centralize scattered na- 
 tional kinships, was then abroad in the religious, and 
 even the superstitious conditions of the Eoman world. 
 There were many causes that rendered Judaism the most 
 promising stock for the new graft, but Judaic egotism 
 might well be alarmed at the very spread of its influence ; 
 the exclusive religion had mistrust of being overwhelmed 
 and lost in its own conquests ; and the proffered empire, 
 repudiated by the central stock of the great monotheis- 
 tic race, was snatched by an aspirant sect, the heir of a 
 majestic enthusiasm, which had the vigour, though not 
 without painful struggle, to disengage itself from its 
 original attachments, appropriated from Judaism every 
 element conducive to universal influence, and hesitated 
 at no modification of its details in order to secure ^for 
 common humanity a basis of common worship. 
 
 Of one important epoch in this history we shall find 
 a typical expression in the subject of the Cartoon of the 
 Beautiful Gate of the Temple, when in good time, as 
 we hope to do, we arrive at its consideration. 
 
 For the Jewish recusants, there on the very spot 
 where the risk was accepted, the forfeiture was de- 
 manded and paid; there, where the retribution was 
 challenged, it fell, and alien legionaries were lighted 
 through the holy precinct to a tumult of slaughter, by 
 the flames of the sanctuary. 
 
 But to resume. Other ceremonial restrictions await 
 us as we proceed. The Temple itself (6 vaos TO ayiov 
 lepov) lay in the middle (Bell. Jud. v. 5, 4) of the Court 
 of Israel, with an ascent to it of twelve steps.
 
 JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE. 
 
 The naos and the altar in front of it were encompassed 
 by a partition, about a cubit in height, of fine and 
 elegantly-worked marble, to separate the priests from 
 the general people. I should infer that this fence 
 (yeiaiov) was external to the steps, just as we have seen 
 that the fence ran round the inner hieron externally to 
 the steps that led up from the level of the Court of 
 the Gentiles. 
 
 Priests who were ceremonially unclean were excluded, 
 no less than the lay in like condition, from the inner 
 dv\7), which I understand to include the Court of the 
 Women. All, however, of the stock of the priests were, 
 if clean, admissible within the priests' partition ; but 
 those who were disqualified for the ministry by a defect 
 of body, lameness, deformity, mutilation, could only 
 enter dressed in private clothes. The priests without 
 personal blemish alone officiated at the altar, and wore 
 the sacred costume of fine linen. 
 
 The high-priest officiated only on Sabbaths, new 
 moons, and festivals, and arrayed in splendid and special 
 garb. A still more gorgeous sacred costume was as- 
 sumed by him on one day once a year, a general fast-day 
 of the nation, when he entered the very apartment of 
 the God of Israel, the Holy of Holies. 
 
 The altar in front of the Temple was fifteen cubits 
 high, upon a square plan of fifty cubits by fifty, and 
 was formed and fashioned with no aid from iron, and 
 untouched by iron tool at any time. At the upper 
 angles it had hornlike projections, and the ascent to it 
 was by a gentle inclined plane from the south ; in effect, 
 therefore, it was a large elevated platform rather than 
 an altar such as the term usually implies. 
 
 H -2
 
 100 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 How far it was placed in advance of the Temple is 
 not stated. The Temple itself was, on its frontispiece 
 (irpoarwJTov\ one hundred cubits high and broad, an erect 
 square, for anything that appears to the contrary, the 
 question being open whether the height given may not 
 measure merely up to the central apex of a pediment, 
 besides the general reservation as to the trustworthiness 
 of the heights. 
 
 At the back of this frontispiece, which was twenty 
 cubits in depth, the Temple was narrower by forty 
 cubits, the joint width of the shoulderlike projections 
 of the front. The width of the temple behind was thus 
 contracted to sixty cubits. 
 
 The first entrance was twenty-five cubits wide and 
 seventy high, and had no valves ; the whole front was 
 resplendent with gold ; and through this grand portal the 
 entire first chamber, or division, of the interior was 
 visible, with all the enrichments of the second portal 
 the proper doorway of the inner temple. 
 
 Josephus proceeds to say, that while the inner temple 
 had a double story, this '.* first oeous" was carried up 
 the full height of ninety cubits, which would leave ten 
 cubits for the roof: it was fifty cubits wide and twenty 
 deep. The expressions employed would rather favour 
 transposing the two last dimensions, but the dimension 
 of twenty cubits would not admit the door which is 
 afterwards described. To the right and left of this 
 porch therefore there remain twenty-five cubits to make 
 up the full one hundred of the width, and leaving 
 ample space for apartments after deduction for the 
 thicknesses of exterior and interior walls. In ' Antiqui- 
 ties ' (xv. 11, 3) he states that the Temple was built of
 
 JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE. 101 
 
 blocks of white marble twenty-five cubits long, twelve 
 broad, eight high ; but it may be doubted whether he is 
 not here referring, in rather a general way, to the 
 largest stones employed in any part whatever, of the 
 temple or the substructions. In Bell. Jud. v. 5, 6, he 
 gives for some of the stones, 45 : 5 : 6 cubits. 
 
 The second portal was sixteen cubits wide and fifty- 
 five high. It was covered with gold, as was also the en- 
 tire face of the wall; about it and above it, under 
 the cornice or coping (Antiq. xv. 11, 3), was extended a 
 golden vine, with grapes depending in bunches the size 
 of a man. (Bell. Jud., v. 4.) 
 
 I can only refer here to my essay on the Moses of 
 Michael Angelo for illustration of the symbolical con- 
 nection which, from ages long anterior to Tacitus, and 
 down at least as late as the great Florentine, was re- 
 cognized between the lawgiver of the Jews, and Bacchus, 
 the victor of Asia. 
 
 In the Old Testament, Israel is typified by the poetic 
 fervour of the prophets, as a vine ; and in the New, we 
 trace the metaphorical associations of both the vine and 
 the door, in the parables and tropes of the discourses of 
 Jesus. 
 
 It appears to be implied that this door had valves 
 (Oupas), but there was also extended before them a rich 
 Babylonian curtain, wrought with various colours and 
 materials, in which Josephus is fain to detect a sym- 
 bolical reference to earth, air, fire, and water. More 
 definite is his notice in the 'Antiquities' that the 
 embroidery represented flowers and columns, and in 
 the ' War,' that it set forth the general theory of the 
 heavens, but without introducing the zodiac, an offence 
 from its representation of animals.
 
 102 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 On passing through the door, " the ground-floor por- 
 tion of the naos " was arrived at, an expression to be 
 noted, as in accordance with the previous reference to 
 an upper story, which Josephus fails to describe spe- 
 cifically. 
 
 The height of this portion is given as sixty cubits, 
 the length the same, and the breadth twenty. 
 
 The joint projection of the "shoulders" of the fron- 
 tispiece is forty cubits, and this, added to twenty, the 
 breadth of the naos behind, leaves a breadth of twenty 
 cubits intermediate on either side to be accounted for, 
 in what manner we shall see. 
 
 The length of sixty cubits was, however, divided un- 
 equally between two apartments, the first of forty 
 cubits, and the second, the most remote from the en- 
 trance, the very adytum, the Holy of Holies, twenty 
 cubits. 
 
 The proportions of the first apartment (20 : 40 : 60) 
 would thus be 1 : 2 : 3, and those of the Holy of Holies, 
 of which the absolute height for anything that appears 
 was the same, would be a triple cube, a pile of three 
 cubes. 
 
 Within the first apartment were the world-renowned 
 candelabrum, the table, and the altar of incense : the 
 candelabrum, with its seven lights, answering to the 
 planets ; the table, with the twelve loaves, for the zo- 
 diacal division of the year ; the altar, for those thirteen 
 kinds of incense derived from sea and land, the habit- 
 able and desert, which signified on warranty of Josephus, 
 that all things are of God, and for God. 
 
 The last division was again divided off by a curtain ; 
 whether by doors also, as in the other case, is not said.
 
 JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE. 103 
 
 Within it, according to our present authority, there was 
 nothing ; nothing is heard either of Ark of the Cove- 
 nant or copy of the law ; it was inaccessible, not to be 
 violated, not to be looked on the Holy of Holies (aycov 
 dytovj. 
 
 Something is said by the Rabbins of a low stone base 
 within (Winer, p. 585, note 5) something of their 
 wonderful tales respecting it. The notice at least 
 affords another chance for theorizing respecting the 
 place of the rock in the Mosque of Omar. 
 
 The description proceeds : " About the flanks of the 
 lower naos were numerous ceci of three stories, and on 
 either side there were entrances to them from the gate 
 (no doubt from the grand porch of the front) ; but the 
 upper-story part of the naos (v-n-epwov), had not a con- 
 tinuation of these ceci, and in so far was more contracted. 
 It was loftier, to the extent of forty cubits, and narrower 
 than the part below ; and this height, added to the sixty 
 cubits of the ground-floor portion, makes up the full 
 height, one hundred cubits." 
 
 It was by the addition of these ceci to the flanks of 
 the naos that the projection of the " shoulders " of the 
 porch was reduced as we have seen. The doors into 
 them from the porch must, it would seem, have been on 
 the right and left of the grand doorway with the golden 
 vine ; there was space to the right and left of this of 
 fifteen cubits, whereas their plan only, overlaps the end 
 divisions of the porch by five cubits. 
 
 The statement that these constructions were applied 
 to the flanks of the naos, appears to preclude the conti- 
 nuation of them round the back of the Temple, and yet 
 it seems improbable that the wall of the Holy of Holies
 
 104 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 was made an outer wall. Taking the description, how- 
 ever, as it stands, it will be found that the plan of the 
 sanctuary and the ceci, excluding the porch, forms a 
 square ; and as their height is equal, and equal to the 
 side of this square, they together form a- cube. 
 
 This excludes also the upper story of the naos, to 
 which Josephus gives a height of forty feet, by breadth 
 twenty, and length sixty, exactly the same proportions 
 and dimensions as the first division of the naos, only that 
 the dimensions of the length there is here assigned to 
 height. 
 
 In' the porch, ten cubits are given to the roof ; if we 
 assume the same for these upper chambers we have a 
 remainder of fifteen cubits; but here Josephus gives us 
 no help. 
 
 He also omits to say anything of the purpose of the 
 side-rooms. Conjecture is free, and I ask a bold ques- 
 tion. 
 
 Can it be possible that all Jews except the priests 
 were always excluded from a near view of the interior 
 of the Temple, with its golden furniture and splendid 
 hangings "? It would be little enough that they could 
 see of them from their proper court, twelve steps below 
 the level of the naos platform, and with the huge altar 
 interposing between the most direct point of view. 
 Judas, no priest, is spoken of as casting down the thirty 
 pieces of silver in the porch of the Temple. Are we 
 not to understand the entrance-porch of the naos, not 
 one of the external porticos 1 
 
 Is it possible, therefore, that at certain times at least, 
 and under some conditions, the porch was more gene- 
 rally accessible, and that Jews other than the priests
 
 JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE. 105 
 
 might then pass through the side-doors, and, proceeding 
 to the several stories of the attached structures, look 
 into the naos from internal openings of the upper 
 rooms ? 
 
 There is, however, a probability that these chambers 
 were used, to some extent at least, as treasuries, the 
 ya&<f>v\dKia mentioned Bell. Jud. v. 5, 2 ; vi. 5, 2, in 
 the same manner as we find treasuries established at 
 Delos, Delphi, and wherever wealth could count on the 
 protection of religious awe. Solomon's temple had such 
 a system of enveloping chambers, and certainly not af- 
 fording inlook to the interior of it. 
 
 Rabbinical authority is cited (Winer, 585) for the 
 continuation of chambers at the back of the Temple. 
 Here we are afloat upon conjecture, and I am almost 
 inclined to guess that the axis of the Temple, east and 
 west, was made up to 100 cubits, equal to the breadth 
 of the front a point assumed by Winer, but for which 
 1 do not find the authority by prolonging the plan and 
 elevation of the nave, so to speak, to the extent of 
 twenty cubits westward. Apart from this, however, the 
 full 100 cubits might be easily made up by taking some 
 of the dimensions as truly internal, and exclusive, not 
 only of exterior walls, but even of walls of partition. 
 The thickness of all these was certainly thus much is 
 indicated by the dimensions of the stones that are given 
 to be measured in cubits. 
 
 The Temple of Jerusalem, with its surrounding courts 
 and quadrangular belt of porticos, has much resem- 
 blance to the design of the mosques of the Mahome- 
 tans, their kindred in blood and religion. So, again, the 
 square frontispiece of the Temple, with its mighty open
 
 106 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 porch flanked by lateral apartments, seems not unre- 
 lated to the facades of later Eastern architecture. 
 
 "Now the outward aspect of the Temple in front 
 wanted nothing that was likely to surprise either men's 
 minds or their eyes, for it was covered all over with 
 plates of gold of great weight, and at the first rising of 
 the sun reflected back a very fiery splendour, and caused 
 those who made an effort to look upon it to turn 
 away their eyes, just as they would have done at the 
 sun's own rays. To strangers, when they were at a 
 distance, this Temple appeared like a mountain covered 
 with snow ; for as to those parts of it that were not gilt, 
 they were exceedingly white. On its top it had spikes 
 with sharp points, to prevent any pollution from birds 
 settling on it." (Bell. Jud., v. 5, 6.) 
 
 In the final conflagration of the Temple, some of the 
 priests, who had mounted on the roof, plucked up these 
 spikes with their lead setting, and hurled them on the 
 Roman soldiers below. It availed little ; the fire gained 
 upon them, and they retreated to the "top of the wall, 
 which was eight cubits broad : which wall ? what wall ? 
 we ask in vain. Here, however, wherever it might be, 
 they were safe for a time, till famine obliged them to 
 surrender, and they were passed on to death. 
 
 To Josephus I refer for the vivid picture of the 
 storming of the Temple, the slaughter of its defenders, 
 and the destruction, by fire and sword, of the multitude 
 of all ages, sexes, and conditions, who to the last be- 
 lieved and expected that the God of Israel, whose pe- 
 culiar dwelling was in the holy house, would at last in- 
 terpose supernaturally for the deliverance of his temple 
 and his people.
 
 JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE. 107 
 
 How few words suffice for the conclusion ! 
 
 " And now the Eomans, upon the flight of the sedi- 
 tious into the city, and upon the burning of the holy 
 house itself, and of all the buildings round about it, 
 brought their ensigns to the Temple, and set them over 
 against its eastern gate, and there did they offer sacri- 
 fices to them, and there did they make Titus, Imperator, 
 with the greatest acclamations of joy." 
 
 Of the two Jewish leaders, Simon, who had held the 
 city, was slaughtered like Pontius or Vercingetorix, as 
 part of the show of the triumph of his victor, bru- 
 tal remainder of the era of human sacrifices. John, 
 the leader of the zealots, the especially fanatical party, 
 had his life spared, and was kept in perpetual imprison- 
 ment. I recognize here again the tradition of policy from 
 the earlier age of Kome, when, on the suppression of 
 the Bacchanalia, so many votaries were so eagerly dis- 
 patched, but the chief of the sect was retained a pri- 
 soner for life, with even peculiar care for the preserva- 
 tion of his life. This policy was probably inspired by 
 the conviction that to destroy an admitted religious chief 
 who was in their power, would be but to make the dan- 
 gerous distinction vacant for a free successor. 
 
 II. THE MIRACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE OF THE TEMPLE. 
 
 The narrative in Acts, which supplies the subject of 
 the third Cartoon, is in these terms: " Now Peter and 
 John went up together to the Temple at the hour of 
 prayer, the ninth hour (3 P.M.). And a certain man, 
 lame from his mother's womb, was being carried along, 
 whom they placed daily at the gate of the Temple called
 
 108 CHKISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 ' The Beautiful,' to ask alms of those entering into the 
 Temple ; who seeing Peter and John, as they were about 
 to go into the Temple, asked to receive alms. And 
 Peter, looking at him fixedly, together with John, said, 
 ' Look on us.' And he gave heed to them, expecting to 
 receive somewhat from them. And Peter said, ' Silver 
 and gold have I none ; but what I have that give I unto 
 thee: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarite get 
 up and walk.' And, taking him by the right hand, he 
 raised him up ; and immediately his feet and ankles were 
 strengthened, and, springing up, he stood and walked 
 and entered with them into the Temple, walking, and 
 leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him, 
 and they recognized him as the man that used to sit 
 for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple; and 
 they were filled with wonder and amazement at what 
 had happened to him. And as the lame man that was 
 healed detained Peter and John, all the people ran to- 
 gether unto them at the porch called Solomon's, greatly 
 wondering." 
 
 We have no difficulty in identifying the Beautiful 
 Gate as that bronze portal on the east of the Temple, 
 and facing the portico of Solomon, which led from the 
 Court of the Gentiles, through the Court of the Women, 
 to the Upper Temple, the Court of Israel, the en- 
 trance-gate which Josephus describes, as we have seen, 
 as far exceeding in embellishment even those others 
 which were overlaid with the precious metals. 
 
 There are manifest indications that Rafael did not 
 design the architecture of his composition without re- 
 ference, directly or indirectly, to the recorded plan and 
 details of the place. We easily recognize the sugges-
 
 MIEACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE. 109 
 
 tions of the historic notices, though with no intrusive 
 affectation of archaeological precision. In the ranges of 
 columns four deep, we have a detail adapted from the 
 stoa basilica; and the subjects of vintage with which 
 these columns are encircled are very fairly derived from 
 the admission of a symbolical golden vine, branching 
 around the golden portal of the very sanctuary itself. 
 The variegated marble of the pavement is to the same 
 purpose, and from the same source. For the rest, the 
 architecture is treated with freedom enough. It is in 
 parallel perspective, and the plinths of the bases of the 
 nearest columns are close up to the base line of the 
 picture. The painter has taken two of these columns 
 in such a way as to frame in his principal and central 
 group, and to give a vista directly down the four pairs 
 of columns to a doorway indicated at the back, where a 
 lamp burning the daylight, indicates a sacred precinct. 
 To the right is another parallel range of columns in the 
 same direction, and by all architectural analogy the la- 
 teral spacing of these should be the same. Regularity 
 here, however, would have carried the nearest just be- 
 yond the limit of the picture ; this evidently was thought 
 undesirable, and nothing remained but either to modify 
 the regular spacing, by bringing the central columns 
 nearer together, which would have contracted the space 
 for the chief group, or to take a liberty, and leave the 
 responsibility to be divided between the architecture 
 and the perspective, and this was the course adopted. 
 
 The most natural interpretation of the architecture 
 is, that Peter and John are standing between the two 
 columns, by the angle of a tetrastyle portico, of which 
 each front column was the first of a rank of four. This
 
 110 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 inference presents itself from the appearance to the left 
 of rows of fourfold columns, at right angles to the plane 
 of the picture, and most naturally appearing as the 
 counterpart of the front. But, besides the anomaly of 
 the widely-spaced intercolumn, the doorway and lamp 
 seem to imply a central vista, in which case we miss a 
 row of columns that should have stood on the left. 
 An old engraver introduces a base in position here, but 
 Rafael had good reason for leaving them out. The pic- 
 torial result is most happy. The chief group is in an 
 architectural frame, which aptly expresses the scene at 
 the decorated entrance to the Temple. The columnar 
 magnificence of Herod's porticos is expressed in the files 
 of columns in perspective, with fanciful capitals and en- 
 riched shafts. The termination of the colonnade to 
 the left gives an openness, that relieves the scene from 
 oppressive confinement; while a fresh breeze seems to 
 blow in from the landscape-glimpse of the Mount of 
 Olives in the distance. On the right hand, the more 
 contracted columniation, by whatever licence it is ob- 
 tained, enhances the importance of that in the centre, 
 and the getting one more front column into sight helps 
 to carry the colonnade easily out of the picture. 
 
 The historian, for reasons we may hereafter appre- 
 ciate, is careful to mark John as contributing to the 
 miracle "by looking fixedly" on the subject of it as 
 well as Peter (dreviffas a word that occurs elsewhere in 
 connection with these quasi magico-mesmerical opera- 
 tions). The Cartoon does not neglect the point, and 
 compensates John for the more immediate activity of 
 Peter by presenting his front face, and pointing his ex- 
 pressive hand to the cripple's head.
 
 MIRACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE. Ill 
 
 There is something in the gesture and mien of John 
 that has the slightest possible indication of the tender- 
 ness that might lapse, by undexterous handling, into 
 the sentimental. The boundary between the highest re- 
 finement of grace and affectation is the most delicate 
 and perilous of all, in morals as in art. The saving dis- 
 tinction lies in the latest finishing touches, and if these 
 are lost or degraded, the creation of angelic purity is on 
 the brink of caricature that instant. Not even a Ma- 
 donna, an infant Christ, or a boy John of Eafael him- 
 self, can be ensured against the lowest disgrace of all in 
 expression, if the restorer is to repaint, or the repairer 
 to clean off, these last ethereal high lights. The danger 
 is much the same when the design has to pass from the 
 original surface to the burin of the engraver, through 
 all accidents of mind and hand and operation. No apo- 
 logy is here designed for the expression of John in the 
 Cartoon, but much explanation how it is that engra- 
 vings may resemble it so nearly, yet so utterly falsify 
 expression. To those who are inclined, I leave the pro- 
 secution of the inquiry how far Correggio can be placed 
 on the same line with Rafael, or how many steps below 
 him in respect of harmonization of the expressions, of 
 which the sentiment so easily, but so fatally, may become 
 self-contemplative. 
 
 " What I have, give I unto thee," finds its expression 
 in the expansive gesture of the hand of John, and the 
 fully-extended arm, of which the outward turn involves, 
 for perfect ease, the turn of the head to relieve the 
 muscles of the shoulder, and thence derives the virtue 
 of its expression. In another point, adherence to the 
 text is equally conspicuous ; the Apostle with his left
 
 112 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 hand grasps the right of the beggar, he grasps him, 
 and at the same time seems to be, as in the text, lifting 
 him up ; and thus, as regards expression, the action of 
 Peter embodies the energetic order, Arise and walk, as 
 definitely as that of John bespeaks the spirit of sponta- 
 neous and ungrudging endowment. The costume of 
 this beggar does not exhibit the squalor that appears in 
 the beggar to the left. Nothing is seen either of tatters 
 or rags, and he wears a linen under-garment, fresh and 
 clean. He grasps a crutch on the ground with his right 
 hand, reaching for it instinctively when told to rise, 
 though the movement of his leg shows, no less than a 
 gleam of joy, mingled with astonishment in his face, 
 that he already feels the accession of sudden vigour that 
 is to make him independent of crutches for ever. I an/ 
 disposed to think that to him belongs also the crutch on 
 which the figure just behind him leans clasped hands 
 and bearded cjiin. In the steadfast gaze of this figure 
 I discern an expectant gratitude to the strangers who 
 are interested in his friend. The lame man had those 
 who cared for him, and carried him daily to the Temple 
 gate ; and here I conjecture that we have one who has 
 just completed that service. That he himself is not 
 lame, or in want of a crutch, is, I think, shown by the 
 impatience of the stalwart boy, drawing him away for 
 departure and companionship, and his ample drapery 
 excludes the supposition that he is another mendicant. 
 
 To the same party probably belongs the eager figure 
 just behind, who is rushing forward with an expression 
 at least prepared for joy. 
 
 The feet of all the figures that are seen are naked, 
 their shoes put off for standing upon holy ground. The
 
 MIRACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE. 113 
 
 cripple himself has his lower garments drawn up above 
 the knee, to expose in true beggar fashion the miserable 
 deformity of his extremities, to verify his plea, and ex- 
 cite compassion. 
 
 The marks of congenital deformity are seen not more 
 decisively in the malformed legs and distorted foot, than 
 in that exaggerated and peculiar conformation of the 
 jaw that so constantly accompanies such defects, sym- 
 pathetic consequences doubtless of some common cause. 
 In the other beggar such marks do not appear ; neither 
 trace of deformity, nor positive proof indeed even of 
 disablement. His face and sprinkled hairs, and the 
 habit of his skin, convey the impression of only that de- 
 formity that ensues not from birth, but from customary 
 manner of life the true mendicant self-habituation to 
 bodily idleness, and intentness of stunted mind on the 
 lowest bodily requirements in their meanest forms. He 
 leans forward, as if to attract a share of whatever be- 
 nefaction may be designed for his companion or com- 
 petitor ; but in his bunched and protruding under lip, 
 there is visible as much contempt of the wild promise 
 of bodily regeneration, as some awe, seen in his eyes, at 
 the impressive presence of the Apostles, will allow him 
 to display. 
 
 The narrative, it is to be observed, in no way ascribes 
 faith or any other form of moral desert to the healed 
 cripple antecedently. The cure is described as if effected 
 by a specific, and in a way to illustrate most exclusively 
 the independent force and magical agency of the name 
 of Jesus, when applied by those who had faith in its 
 power. 
 
 Afterwards, however, unaffected gratitude is ascribed 
 
 i
 
 114 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 to the recipient of the benefit, and though this is only 
 by implication, from his accompanying the Apostles 
 into the Temple with lively demonstrations of his new 
 endowments, and from his detaining them so long that 
 the crowd had time to come together, still the feelings 
 accept the vindication of the Apostles' insight in direct- 
 ing their bounty where it was not only appreciated but 
 deserved. 
 
 The genius of the miracle, the sudden gift of energy 
 and flexibility to the cramped and helpless lamiter, 
 seems to be symbolized in the conjoint expression of 
 the Apostolic figures, the firm, erect, preceptive Peter, 
 and the graceful outpour of consent and sympathy of 
 John. 
 
 The historical localization of the incident at the en- 
 trance of the women's court, gave opportunity for the 
 introduction of the graceful beauty of young mothers 
 entering or returning from the Temple, on the occasion 
 of the redemption of their firstborn by sacrifice of a 
 lamb, or pairs of doves and pigeons. 
 
 Such a mother we see in the lovely female on the left 
 of the picture, returning with her infant, that may be 
 but the month old, the prescribed term for the sacrifice. 
 Her head is one of the most exquisitely beautiful in 
 art ; she looks with interest at the marvel that is being 
 wrought, but not with the entire diversion of attention 
 that appears in the face of her attendant. The infant, 
 in lady's phrase, is not very interesting ; I noticed the 
 distinct indication, in the tapestry at Milan (1861), that 
 a certain stiffness about it arises from its being repre- 
 sented swaddled; the tapestry of this subject at Mantua 
 is very beautiful. With the true absorption of mother-
 
 MIRACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE. 115 
 
 hood, she moves on with homeward step unchecked, 
 and her hand lies still tranquilly attentive to the even 
 ebbings of the sleeping breath of her nursling. The 
 feeling of this arrangement is made more apparent by 
 the proximity of the expressive hand of the extreme 
 male figure to the right, which is expanded, and thrill- 
 ing with emotion. 
 
 The formality of the dress of this figure indicates at- 
 tachment to the service of the Temple ; the expression 
 of the face is refined and candid, and it is here that 
 Eafael shows regard to the highly significant record in 
 a text not very far off (Acts vi. 7), " and a great crowd 
 of the priests obeyed the faith." 
 
 The healthful beauty of this youthful matron does 
 not suffer, but rather the reverse, from a certain festal 
 yet simple munditia^ in carefully tressed hair, and 
 bandlet and ear-drop, and the settled adjustment, by 
 gathered knot over her right shoulder, of the plain 
 purity of her robe. Station may even be intimated by 
 the glimpse of a female attendant behind. 
 
 In front of, and in full pictorial relief upon the white 
 robe of this type of all social orderliness and health, is 
 projected the broad, bold profile, in face and figure, of 
 the secondary beggar already described. There is suffi- 
 cient interval to save from repulsive contiguity. The 
 attention of both is directed to the same incident ; and 
 even, we may say, in both cases with certain restriction. 
 But the beggar grasps his stick with unrelaxing hands, 
 and purses his mouth from the contracting sentiment of 
 self; the young mother has her sympathies controlled 
 by the inextricable ties of offspring. The priest is by 
 some degrees more unembarrassed ; but even in him 
 
 I 2
 
 116 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 we see that the free movement of admiration is, at this 
 moment, a surface ripple at most, as he is moving on 
 with step undiverted to his daily function of ceremony 
 and service. A single line in the waft of his robe is suf- 
 ficient to indicate this. So, doubtless, Rafael had seen 
 many an ecclesiastic of high original endowments sub- 
 dued to the daily tenor of ceremonial routine, equal 
 still to afford a sympathetic cheer, to feel a momen- 
 tary glow for the noble, but disabled for more, dis- 
 abled ever for co-operating with a stroke of the world's 
 work, that for anything that can be discerned, he ought 
 to have been capable even to originate. A philosopher, 
 true ; but, alack, incompetent or neglectful to disengage 
 himself from the pin that limits the tether of the con- 
 templative ! 
 
 There is a scowling face looks from beyond the next 
 column, whose dealings will have to be countervailed 
 by philosophers other than contemplative. 
 
 In the more open space on the right-hand side of the 
 picture we have groups in freer action. Another grace- 
 ful female, in livelier movement, bears on her head a 
 basket with vine-leaves, and a pair of birds ; and a lovely 
 active boy of eight years old runs on beside her with 
 another pair hanging by a string from a rod over his 
 shoulders. The pairs of birds indicate that here too 
 we have allusion to a presentation and redemption of 
 a firstborn ; and it was by a liberty of the painter, 
 doubtless not exceeding the liberty with which the law 
 of Moses was habitually modified in practice and cere- 
 monial, that the little fellow has deferred his appear- 
 ance beyond the canonical age. 
 
 Still beyond these figures we see a pair a woman
 
 MIRACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE. 117 
 
 and bearded man, standing dignified, but somewhat for- 
 mally, side by side, with an appearance as if they 
 were witnessing a religious celebration; and so the 
 movement and agitation of the porch of the Temple 
 is toned off" to the tranquillity of stately function, sug- 
 gestive of the Temple itself. 
 
 But it was not in the order of the art of Rafael that 
 he should pitch down upon an excuse of simple consis- 
 tency with place and time, for the mere sake of obtaining 
 for his picture nothing more than a picturesque detail or 
 two, and the variety of feminine and infantine forms; 
 it could not be but that beyond this he must have dis- 
 cerned an opportunity for heightening the moral ex- 
 pression and significance of the essential subject. Had 
 these incidents been inevitable, his genius would have 
 found the means to compel them to such subservience ; 
 inasmuch as their introduction was optional, no doubt 
 he aimed therein at giving point and brilliancy to his 
 proper theme. 
 
 How this may have been I find shadowed forth in a 
 note I made, and dated 12th June, 1856, and I do not 
 know that I can now improve on the conception or the 
 exposition of it. 
 
 "Cripples at the Beautiful Gate; the failure of 
 Nature supplicating aid in the midst of the successes 
 of Art; cripples asking alms of Apostles, seeking the 
 goods of life from those who could forego all in order 
 to purvey for others the blessings of the spiritual. 
 Apostles affording remedy and release to limbs that 
 never had been strong, never had been straight, never 
 complete; the interpreters of moral truth stooping to 
 avouch the unity of the source of all health, the com-
 
 118 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 mon fount of both moral truth and material, natural 
 good, by giving force to the energies that right mere 
 physical distortion, and continue the work that in ordi- 
 nary course is completed anterior to birth, and never 
 should have to look for furtherance after, still less recti- 
 fication ! 
 
 " The ministers of truth and benevolence stand amidst 
 the crowd of passers in and goers out, by the side of 
 those who, to their grief and against their will, can 
 neither come nor go. Reaching helping hands, and 
 saying kindly and forceful words, they are heeded not 
 only by the objects they befriend, but some of the jost- 
 ling crowd are detained by wonder and regard ; some of 
 the farers by the world's common way of ceremonious- 
 ness are drawn towards the attractive centres of sympa- 
 thetic helpfulness, and a new direction, if perhaps only 
 a counter-deviation, is given to the current of the worldly 
 stream. 
 
 " Women are passing in and out with the appropriate 
 offerings of thankfulness, for happy rewards of earliest 
 pangs. Strong boys, active children, and healthy infants, 
 move through the columns in tending of affection and 
 protecting kinship, or rest on tender bosoms in the 
 security that is secure because it does not know of 
 danger, and if it approached would but defy and crow 
 before it ; and in the midst is the group round the man 
 who has grown up distorted from the cradle where he 
 was a sorrow and a shame to his mother, and has lived 
 to come at last, and unexpectedly, to a later and more 
 happy birth." 
 
 Taken broadly, the subject avouches the command 
 of the moral over the vital powers, especially under the
 
 MIRACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE. 119 
 
 stimulus of healthy enthusiasm, the reaction sympa- 
 thetically, and even by simple contiguity, of mental 
 health and force upon physical. 
 
 Make of it what we please, there is the mixed fact 
 of physiology and psychology, that in times of great 
 mental exaltation, marvels akin to our miracle are ever 
 rife ; and if the fanaticisms of revivals, and the like, 
 display more abundantly an influence of disturbance, 
 the instances are not less significant to the philosopher 
 as intimations of the direction to which he must point 
 inquiry. This will lead at last to recognition of the prin- 
 ciple that the controlling tone that must be looked to, 
 to combine in harmony all the energies of the complex 
 human constitution, is tone of moral sense. 
 
 Vigour and promptitude and justness of perception, 
 sentiment, and act, at every crisis where appreciation 
 of man's relations to his fellows is in question, or his 
 relation to that superior order which is beyond his ken, 
 constitute moral health. This is the true vital seat of 
 our superior nature, spasmodic disturbances of super- 
 stition alternating with the cold callousness that responds 
 to no stimulus of awful admiration at wonders we can- 
 not fathom, or of self-forgetting enthusiasm in noble 
 enterprise, are its diseases. All the evils of the world 
 are insignificant to those that have been promoted 
 by religiousness ; all the evils of religiousness might 
 be welcomed back as relief, if the heart must other- 
 wise close to susceptibility of sympathy with external 
 nature, with man, with art that is the reflex of man 
 in nature, with a sentiment of fellowship between one's 
 own identity and some spirit of life with which all 
 existence is impregnate, which we might declare was
 
 120 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 alone existence, but that here we are at the boundary 
 of our faculties. 
 
 For we arrive at last at the ultimate principles of 
 belief; justly we may, and in prudence we are bound to 
 test and scrutinize what are set before us as such, since 
 busy motives would thrust in the simply traditional, 
 the merest figments, the narrowest class-authorizations ; 
 but reduce the list acutely and conscientiously, and with 
 as successful shrewdness as we may, the first principles 
 will ever remain transcending demonstration. These 
 are the primary axioms, to challenge which is simply to 
 throw down the entire fabric of human consciousness, 
 not to say knowledge, which rests on nothing else ; to 
 endeavour to analyse which, is simply to struggle with 
 an all-powerful wrestler, who foils without eifort, and 
 can maim at will ; it is blindly to harness ourselves to 
 the dizzying mill-horse round of interchanging equiva- 
 lent propositions, or to rise, time after time, only to 
 stumble again over hopeless paradoxes, whichever way 
 we turn. Infinity is a dominant conviction, and by 
 its nature it defies definition. Space without a limit is 
 inconceivable, and with a limit no less so ; and it is 
 the same with Time : effect without a cause is incon- 
 ceivable, and no less so a cause that is not an effect. 
 We would not, and assuredly we cannot, divest our- 
 selves of conviction of free choice in action, yet briefest 
 consideration reduces the pretension to an absurdity. 
 The justice and benevolence of the order of the world 
 are ideas that are repugnant to all the observation of 
 any man who has observed, or felt, or reflected ; and 
 yet, independently of early impressed associations, there 
 is not a man who does not instinctively and infallibly
 
 MIRACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE. 121 
 
 recur to the assumption, and, roused to indignation at 
 the spectacle of an ill-assorted universe, find himself 
 unawares appealing to a reliance on an ulterior, on an 
 ultimate, correction, in virtue of the necessary supre- 
 macy of Truth and Right, of Sympathy and Love. 
 
 A grand condition of moral health is such a degree 
 of attainable enlightenment as will disabuse the world of 
 beliefs and systems that have been falsely foisted upon 
 it as substitutes for, or superior to proof. 
 
 Supernaturalism has always been a liability of the 
 childish world ; always an instrument of the designing 
 priest ; always willingly favoured by the politician who, 
 interested in restraining fierce populations in awe, could 
 not afford to neglect a ready influence that would serve 
 his momentary need, if not last his time, even when he 
 knew it was a bad or a dangerous one. 
 
 To the root of supernaturalism, the axe must be laid 
 by the reformers from whom the world has any hope. 
 Nay, the very fibres of its roots must be followed up, 
 and drawn out and demonstrated, like the attachments 
 of a cancer. In this work there are two main divisions. 
 Most difficult is the task to elucidate the natural curio- 
 sities of the border-lands of mental and vital pheno- 
 mena in the individual, or, as reacting between several ; 
 nay, as between humanity, and brute and vegetable 
 and even unorganized nature the physics of sympathy. 
 The indications and records of mesmerism and of reli- 
 gious revivals have already helped to much ; the unex- 
 plored, at least the unexplained, beyond, is still far- 
 spreading, deep. The other requirement is the more 
 properly historical, and consists in such analysis as here 
 from time to time, and more or less thoroughly I seek
 
 122 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CAKTOONS. 
 
 to give example of, the elucidation of the real circum- 
 stances that were the foundation of a story that has 
 come to be unadvisedly accepted as literal history, and 
 the demonstration of the varied influences and their 
 mutual reactions, which perverted the record, and gave 
 the form and impress to the false coinage too long cur- 
 rent at a fictitious value. 
 
 As every generation continues by contagion, as much 
 as by descent, the mistakes of generations preceding, 
 knowledge of history is an essential element of self- 
 knowledge ; and so it becomes necessary, above all 
 things, that men should be aware, not only which of 
 their opinions are false, but how the falsehood origi- 
 nated, and how it was communicated to them. 
 
 But to return to and to conclude with the Cartoon. 
 
 The bounding and elastic boy in front is the very em- 
 bodiment of youthful health and strength, and capabi- 
 lity of happy and harmonious development ; a child still 
 in all his. contours, but we discern foreshadowed within 
 them the promised outlines of the fully grown and knit 
 Herculean man. 
 
 He is, in fact, set here as the very symbol of the 
 strength which failed to the infancy of the cripple, but 
 is now on the point of being infused into his maturity 
 by a compensating miracle. He presents to us unsus- 
 pectingly, but not therefore with less effect, an image of 
 glad exultation in strength, which the moment of the 
 representation forbids to be exhibited in the distorted 
 mendicant, though the spectator familiar with the story 
 may see him already, in imagination, walking, leaping, 
 and praising God. 
 
 It will be observed how happily the height of the
 
 MIEACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE. 123 
 
 standing boy-figure ranges with that of the kneeling 
 beggar in corresponding position on the right. The 
 broadly illuminated line of his arms and shoulders helps 
 the symmetrical opposition, and his grandeur of propor- 
 tion, besides other appropriateness, makes him compe- 
 tent to sustain the balance. 
 
 But the happy invention and placing of his significant 
 action is, above all things, to be admired. In his posi~ 
 tion, as from his age, he is inattentive to, or out of sight 
 of the miracle, and pulls at the girdle of the man who, 
 resting his hands and chin on the crutch-head, as al- 
 ready described, is fixed immoveable in reverential gaze 
 on the wonder-working Apostle. The action of appeal, 
 the energetic endeavour to rouse the otherwise en- 
 grossed, is a variation upon the motive of Peter's lifted 
 hand, and lifting grasp, and encouraging command, 
 " Get up and walk." 
 
 The value of such a reflecting episode in giving dis- 
 tinctness to the chief incident is extraordinary ; and yet 
 for this result it is not necessary that the relation should 
 be thus definitely recognized ; nay, it is not of necessity 
 that it should even have been so by the painter himself. 
 
 The pulling arm of the boy, the drawn arm of the 
 cripple, the freely extended arm of John, consent in 
 most harmonious composition. In two faces only, sa- 
 lient enough, no doubt, but still in the background, is 
 found the expression of hostility that accounts for the 
 sequel of the anecdote. The most vindictive face is 
 that to the right, seen between the nursing mother 
 and the Levite ; of the other only half is discernible, cut 
 off by the left-hand column, on the inner side of which 
 we see a half-face, expressive of startled astonishment.
 
 124 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 Other faces, interfered with by the architecture in the 
 same way, give scattered distribution to the crowd, and 
 thus is evaded an appearance of the groups fitting into 
 their spaces with unnatural neatness. Certain accidents 
 of seeming awkwardness are admitted, in order to per- 
 mit contrived combinations to have the air of happy 
 accidents. It pertains to this artifice that here, as in 
 the group of Apostles in the charge to Peter, we have 
 an indication of one considerable figure, which fills out 
 the mass of a group, but of which the face is hidden 
 altogether. 
 
 There is more art in the apposition of the illuminated 
 and shadowed portions of the several figures than I am 
 competent fully to expound. On the right we have 
 that sharply-cut relief of the edges of <a limb in shadow 
 on a brightly illuminated background, that Rafael al- 
 ways treats with such mastery, and with a force that he 
 is still careful to keep subordinated. On the right we 
 have as broad a contrast, but there it is the illuminated 
 front figure that has its bright edges outlined upon ob- 
 scurity in the background. In the intermediate group, 
 in the centre, such oppositions are superseded by the 
 blending of shadows into shadows, the graduation of 
 lights into lights. 
 
 Colouring. I copy the following memoranda from 
 hasty notes. 
 
 Peter wears yellow robe over blue tunic ; John wears 
 green robe over red tunic; both as in the Charge to 
 Peter, excepting that here we have no reddish reflec- 
 tions in shadow on Peter's mantle. 
 
 Peter's head is- relieved upon the green shoulder of
 
 MIRACLE AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE. 125 
 
 John, just escaping the less desirable background of 
 the red robe. Coloured stripes are seen along the 
 bottom selvage of John's tunic. 
 
 The beggar has a blue jacket bound broadly with red; 
 the edge of his linen, both at neck and legs, is neatly 
 crimped. His face is happily relieved against his own 
 blue sleeve, and the shadow of that of John. The more 
 ignoble and less afflicted beggar is simply in sordid sack- 
 cloth, with no linen visible. His bottle hangs by a 
 leather strap. 
 
 The female behind has green tunic, a light blue robe ; 
 very fair hair. The " Levite " has red sleeve, passed 
 through brownish-yellow tunic so to call his sleeveless 
 jerkin and blue cap. 
 
 The man leaning on head of staff has a brown dress, 
 and the next a leather brown tunic, with dark-blue 
 robe. The boy tugs at the blue girdle of the first, and 
 his very red flesh-tones are boldly relieved upon a mass 
 of dull, dark draperies. 
 
 The woman with the basket on her head has a shot 
 blue and pink tunic ; her robe is red, but seems to be 
 lined with white, and, being reversed at the lower part, 
 expresses her movement, and gives a relieving back- 
 ground for the flesh-tones of her boy, a light back- 
 ground here, as a dark in the other instance. 
 
 III. THE FIRST EXPANSION OF THE GOSPEL-IDEA. 
 
 Let us now turn to the historical point of view, and 
 consider what was most probably the foundation in 
 matter of fact of the apologue thus developed, or, at 
 least, what were the historical conditions that led to the
 
 126 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 composition of such a fable on no proper historical base 
 whatever. 
 
 The qualification is important, for indications are de- 
 cisive that the compiler of Acts and Luke had not only 
 the purpose to digest his materials into orderly sequence 
 in time and space, but that he also had lively recogni- 
 tion of the successive manifestation in the history, of 
 new germs of development. This insight, which would 
 simply sharpen observation in dealing with authentic 
 materials, might seriously mislead in building up mate- 
 rials that had proved themselves so plastic to influences 
 of prejudice, party, or simple imagination before they 
 came to his hand. 
 
 According to Acts, the Apostles remain at Jerusalem 
 after the crucifixion at the Passover, and it is on the 
 clay of Pentecost ensuing that leading incidents of lively 
 revival and conversions occur; but when we find no 
 more mention of Pilate, and that all the political cir- 
 cumstances seem changed, as in a dream, we are guided 
 to a different inference; it seems more consistent to 
 rely on the tradition which reports a temporary retire- 
 ment of the Apostles from public attention, whether to 
 Galilee or elsewhere, and to infer that their activity at 
 the metropolis was probably not renewed till that in- 
 terval after the recall of Pilate when the Jews were, 
 for a time, treated with mildness, and even flattered and 
 indulged. 
 
 It is likely enough that they came up to a succeeding 
 Passover an occasion of such indulgence ; and though 
 we may suspect, with Strauss, that the fact that the day 
 of Pentecost was the anniversary of the giving of the old 
 law, and also the day of first-fruits, may have suggested
 
 THE EXPANSION OF THE GOSPEL-IDEA. 127 
 
 the date for the declaration of the new law, and the first 
 great influx of conversions, this very significance was, in 
 truth, a fact quite as likely to cause an actual outburst 
 of enthusiasm on that day preferentially, as to originate 
 the tale of one that never happened. 
 
 At Jerusalem, in any case, we find the Apostles in 
 unbroken association, expecting the present reappear- 
 ance of Jesus as heir of David, to establish the kingdom 
 of Israel ; and by natural consistency, Mary and the 
 brethren of Jesus are mentioned as of leading import- 
 ance in the company. 
 
 That the Apostles should still be looking forward to 
 a kingdom of David at a time when they were the well- 
 memoried depositaries of the parables and preachings 
 so highly and so lucidly spiritualized, recorded in the 
 Gospels, might seem extraordinary enough. We may 
 elicit however very self-consistent history when we are 
 convinced that the spiritualization of the kingdom was 
 a later ascription to Jesus. 
 
 We have here without doubt, what was regarded by 
 the compiler of Acts, not to say the still earlier author, 
 as a consistent sketch of the opinions that were probably 
 or might very possibly have been held by the Apostles 
 at this epoch. It gives a certain account of the revival 
 and the sudden extension of the society, connecting it 
 with the inclusion of Hellenistic converts, who reappear 
 so importantly in the history; and with the origin of that 
 notorious phenomenon of the Christian sect, the speak- 
 ing with tongues. It shows the Church persecuted in 
 its origin by Sadducees, protected by Pharisees, and sup- 
 ported by a crowd of believing priests, a situation 
 which quite agrees with the Pharisaic assertion of the
 
 128 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 resurrection; the emphasis on "the fixed counsel and 
 foreknowledge of God ;" the theory of the Holy Spirit ; 
 the assiduous frequenting of the Temple, and above all, 
 with the instant expectation of a Messianic kingdom 
 under a descendant of David. 
 
 True, that this sympathy is very inconsistent with the 
 invidious position assigned to the typical Pharisee of the 
 Gospels ; but again we may accept it as in all essentials 
 very probable history, when we find the Apostolic sec- 
 tion of the Church largely leavened with " brethren of 
 the sect of Pharisees ;" and it is thus we obtain positive 
 proof that much is assigned to the mouth of Jesus in 
 denunciation of Pharisees, that originated in discussions 
 with a section of the Church opposed to them, upon 
 questions it never even occurred to Jesus to entertain. 
 Here we clutch the most important clue to New Testa- 
 ment interpretation ; and it becomes certain that a 
 favourite instrument of controversy, between restrictive 
 Pharisaic Christian and expansive opponent, on the part 
 of the latter at least, was the free ascription to Jesus of 
 enunciations and parables that glanced in the direction 
 of their controversial argument. 
 
 Then in rather surprising association with the Phari- 
 saic elements in these chapters of the revival, we have 
 frequent references to the rite of the Baptist, claims to 
 authority and miraculous power by a sacred name, and 
 mingled enthusiastic and ascetic communism. 
 
 The belief in the miraculous power of the Apostles, 
 and even the actual production of some therapeutic 
 effects unaccountable enough to philosophy, are borne 
 out by the testimony of St. Paul as to his own preten- 
 sions and powers ; and the history of many a century
 
 THE EXPANSION OF THE GOSPEL-IDEA. 129 
 
 after may teach us that of all anecdotes and incidents 
 that gained credence without foundation, or with equi- 
 vocal foundation, the miraculous were the most easy, 
 the most natural, the most unquestioned. 
 
 The rite of baptism and the urging to repentance 
 under terrorism of the last day, a terrible day, carry 
 us back to what is most venerable in the ministry of 
 John the Baptist, and forward to the long abuse of a 
 demoralizing superstition. Salvation, the getting off 
 scot-free, dodging destruction by the veriest leaping of 
 a gate and turning a nook, by the engaged help of a 
 cunning man who has got hold of a secret, a way of 
 purifying, or the knowledge of a mystical name : these 
 are notions that we find up and down antiquity, as we 
 find them up and down superstitious countries in all 
 ages. This is very different from the Baptist's symboli- 
 cal rite and condition of moral requirement, and not on 
 John must be visited the mischievous interpretations 
 and mysticisms that have perverted both. It is indeed 
 disagreeable to find ascribed to Peter, probably a dis- 
 ciple of John, the preconisation of the name of Jesus 
 as a mystical charm, a magical conjuration of the very 
 vulgarest type. In the story of the lame man healed, 
 it is true, we have in one phrase, " His name, and the 
 faith which is by him, have given this man soundness ;" 
 but in all other occurrences we have " the name " alone 
 insisted on : iii. 6, "In the name of Jesus," etc. ; iv. 7, 
 " By what power or by what name have ye done this ?' 
 iv. 10, " By the name of Jesus Christ ;" iv. 12, " There is 
 no other name under heaven given among men where- 
 by we may be saved," etc. ; iv. 30, " Signs and wonders 
 through the name," etc. 
 
 K
 
 130 CHEISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 We are not justified in charging all this vulgarity 
 upon Peter, nor in dividing it between him and the 
 compiler of Acts. The story of the lame man healed 
 by the Apostles, as we now have it, is probably the re- 
 sult of numerous traditions, of repeatings and recopyings 
 that each did something to corrupt or else to com- 
 pensate ; the medley of result is before us, and the ana- 
 lysis is the more perplexing as in the study of the Acts 
 of the Apostles we are, for the most part, without the 
 aid that is so abundant in the case of the Gospels, 
 varied versions of the same incident. 
 
 Iri the instance before us, however, there is a certain 
 variety of version discernible not very far off, and signi- 
 ficant enough to merit some examination. 
 
 The variety is of much the same character as the du- 
 plications and reduplications that we have followed out 
 in the accounts of the resurrection. 
 
 The narrative of the healing of the lame man at the 
 Beautiful Gate of the Temple, introduces incidents and 
 notices that have a parallelism in the sections referring 
 to the day of Pentecost and to the sequel of the death 
 of Ananias. 
 
 At the day of Pentecost, as here, we have a marvel, 
 an excited assemblage, an address of Peter, a multitude 
 of conversions (ii. 41 and iv. 4), the numbers being 
 kept carefully progressive, 120 in i. 16, then 3000 
 added in one day, then 5000 ; and a concluding descrip- 
 tion of the unity that reigned in the society, the undis- 
 puted authority of the Apostles, and most important, 
 the establishment of community of goods and prevalence 
 of material comfort ; all points which we easily see are 
 emphasized because in contrast to the later state of affairs.
 
 THE EXPANSION OF THE GOSPEL-IDEA. 131 
 
 Compare ii. 42-44, and iv. 32-37. 
 
 " And they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doc- 
 trine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in 
 prayers. And fear came upon every one; and many 
 wonders and signs were done by the Apostles. And all 
 who believed were together, and had all things common; 
 and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them 
 among all, as every one had need. And they continued 
 daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread 
 from house to house, did eat their food with gladness 
 and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour 
 with all the people." (Acts ii. 41-46.) 
 
 " And the multitude of those who believed were of 
 one heart and one soul ; neither said any of them that 
 aught of the things which he possessed was his own, 
 but they had all things common. And with great power 
 the Apostles gave testimony concerning the resurrection 
 of the Lord Jesus ; and great grace was upon them all. 
 Neither was there any among them who lacked ; for as 
 many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, 
 and brought the prices of the things that are sold, and 
 laid them at the Apostles' feet ; and distribution was 
 made unto every man, according as he had need." (Acts 
 iv. 32-35.) 
 
 In the second narrative appears what may easily have 
 been the germ of the more extended account inserted 
 earlier, of the descent of the Holy Spirit ; " And when 
 they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were 
 assembled together ; and they were all filled with the 
 Holy Spirit, and spake the word of God with boldness " 
 (iv. 31). Traces of modification are abundant in the 
 earlier account (ii. 42), at least as salient. What speaking 
 
 K 2
 
 132 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 with tongues really meant, a nervous unintelligible 
 jabber it is described by Paul, and was so reproduced by 
 Irving, could scarcely, one would suppose, have been 
 unknown to a companion of Paul ; it is not the less evi- 
 dent that as the tale stands, apparently by tampering 
 or interpolation, the marvel is coolly asserted to amount 
 to supernatural talking of foreign languages by the un- 
 instructed in them, if not to the still more wonderful 
 transmutation of a single language spoken, into distinct 
 languages in the ears of various-languaged auditors. 
 
 But the excitement respecting the lame man led to a 
 collision, so runs the story, with the Sadducaic autho- 
 rities, and this is the point of comparison with the nar- 
 rative that succeeds. 
 
 Peter and John in one case are apprehended, in the 
 other the Apostles generally. In both cases Peter 
 boldly reasserts his doctrine before the Council ; then 
 the accused are taken out of the Court; then ensues 
 a private discussion ; the accused are then brought in 
 again, to be warned in one case, beaten and warned in 
 the other, and so they are dismissed. And in both nar- 
 ratives a protecting influence is ascribed to the favour 
 they enjoy with the people. 
 
 In the second narrative the popular Pharisaic teacher 
 Gamaliel, protects them with a success that owes nothing 
 to historical accuracy or logic. He urges that in this in- 
 stance, as in former, the disappearance of the sect will 
 follow on the death of the leader, but cites a Theudas 
 in time and terms at variance with reliable record in 
 Josephus, and treats the influence of Judas the Galilean 
 as defunct, prematurely indeed. The title of both to 
 Pharisaic protection, we have already explained.
 
 THE EXPANSION OF THE GOSPEL-IDEA. 133 
 
 Now in these narratives there are two texts especially 
 of which it would be interesting to know, I do not say 
 the authenticity, which respecting records in such a case 
 is of very qualified nature, but the source and origin. 
 Were they the introductions of the compiler, were they 
 of the original writer of the anecdote, or whence inter- 
 mediately ? 
 
 In both the addresses of Peter it is just at the end, 
 it is just when the influence of his words has fairly 
 secured their effect, that advantage seems to be taken 
 to insinuate a corollary that might have offended earlier, 
 and even at last is but touched faintly and covered 
 dexterously by connection with a favourite dogma or a 
 revered text. 
 
 On the day of Pentecost Peter assures his new peni- 
 tents " For the promise is to you and to your children 
 and to all that are afar, as many as the Lord our God 
 shall call." 
 
 The reference here is distinctly to a conversion of 
 Gentiles; though the words as spoken will carry the 
 gloss that their prophesied conversion would be through 
 reception of full Judaism; and in any case there is 
 the condition of a divine election and predestination. 
 Nevertheless, this is early days for urging such a point, 
 the sudden and immediate manifestation of the king- 
 dom of David being still in question. It can scarcely be 
 accepted as a genuine historical date ; but it bears the 
 impress of being an expression, by a writer who lived 
 pretty close to the Apostolic community, of what ten- 
 dencies were early at work in favour of expansion, and 
 of his opinion that Peter had it at heart to further 
 them, though he could move, however persevenngly, 
 still only cautiously.
 
 134 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 Cautiousness and reticences and vacillations notwith- 
 standing, I have confidence that I shall show in due time 
 that Peter's feelings, in favour of a comparatively liberal 
 Gentile inclusion, were original with him and heartfelt. 
 It is the value I attach to other evidence that induces 
 me to see more authenticity in these early hints than 
 is allowed by those who regard them as traits, intro- 
 duced by the compiler, to keep up consistency with the 
 later positions in which he intended to exhibit Peter; 
 and who regard all liberalism as transferred and pla- 
 giarized from Paul, and falsely ascribed to the earlier 
 Apos-tle, in order to effect conciliation of parties. But 
 we shall see. 
 
 In the meantime the parallel hint or intimation, at 
 the very close of the second speech, is this, " Ye are 
 the sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which 
 God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And 
 in thy seed shall all families of the earth be blessed. 
 Unto you first,, God, having raised up his servant, sent 
 him to bless you, in turning away each of you from his 
 iniquities." 
 
 There is much of the spirit of John the Baptist in 
 this ; much that reads like the regermination of earlier 
 thoughts, in reaction from the temporary check received 
 by interference of the exciting ministry and enterprise 
 of Christ. It is quite within the probabilities that there 
 were revivals of other impressions among the other 
 Apostles, carrying them into special divergences. 
 
 At any rate, then, the record of these incidents and 
 speeches, real or ascribed, passed through the hands of 
 writers who were cognizant of the later discussions as 
 to the extension of the Christian sect, so as to include
 
 THE EXPANSION OF THE GOSPEL-IDEA. 135 
 
 Gentiles and Samaritans, whatever may have been the 
 stipulated terms. Indeed, I am disposed to think that 
 it was only in virtue of later accounts of his concern in 
 some of these that John got mentioned here, John, 
 who is no doubt invaluable in the Cartoon, but who 
 takes the part of so mere a supernumerary in the nar- 
 rative of the protagonism of Peter. He was associated 
 with Peter, as we read, in giving seal and sanction to 
 the reception of Samaritans ; and he is mentioned by 
 Paul (Galatians ii. 9), along with James and Peter, as 
 consenting to his scheme of a Gospel for the uncircum- 
 cision, at a time when the notion would have shocked 
 the general Church at least, and probably most of the 
 other Apostles. 
 
 Taking all into account, I am now further disposed to 
 declare a symbolical reference to the same class of ideas 
 in the details with which the miracle is furnished forth. 
 I am disposed to think, that when the original writer 
 described a miracle as wrought upon a man who had 
 lingered without the a<yn>, the Court of the Israelites, 
 miserably begging alms, in consequence of a disability 
 from birth, and as then enabled, in virtue of the name 
 of Jesus, to enter the Temple along with the Apostles, 
 walking, leaping, and praising God, he embodied a de- 
 signed type of the Gentile rescued from the disabilities 
 of his descent, and made a worshipper of a common 
 God, among a common family. It seems to me that the 
 only other alternative is to recognize the type as that of 
 a section of Jewish people, under ban from mixed blood ; 
 but of this hereafter. 
 
 No doubt the parallelism will fail, it is the nature 
 of such, if pressed into detail ; and no doubt the sum
 
 136 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 of implied liberality, after all, assumes reception into 
 formal Judaism : but the symbolical intimation is, be- 
 cause illusory, the more in harmony with the oblique, if 
 not equivocal, verbal intimations in the speeches already 
 commented on. 
 
 Jewish bigotry was so sensitive on the subject of 
 Gentile inclusion, that no tenderness in touching it 
 would lull suspicion ; there was offence in even touch- 
 ing upon it at all, in however guarded terms, in how- 
 ever strict observance of limitations laid down by bi- 
 gotry itself. Much was to be done before Jewish pri- 
 vilege could listen with tranquillity to reduction to mere 
 precedence. " Unto you first," would only provoke the 
 reclamation, " unto us exclusively." We are therefore 
 bound to interpret the word, plain or figurative, of those 
 who were bold enough to moot the subject at all, as 
 carrying force and point much in excess of the cold im- 
 port of terms. 
 
 An analysis of the designedly symbolical details of 
 some of the miracles, as well as non-miraculous inci- 
 dents of the Gospels, will be further justification and 
 proof hereafter. At present, I pursue the line of illus- 
 tration obtainable from Josephus. 
 
 Josephus has miracles to relate, prefiguring and pre- 
 ceding the desecration of the Temple, quite as wonder- 
 ful as those that fill the first chapters of Acts, and, rogue 
 as he was, I think it probable enough that he reported 
 them in good faith, and with full belief. A sword-like 
 comet hovered above the city for a year ; at the feast of 
 Passover, in midst of night, a wondrous light illuminated 
 altar and naos for the space of half an hour, as if it had 
 been day. More wonderful still, a cow, brought by the
 
 THE EXPANSION OF THE GOSPEL-IDEA. 137 
 
 high-priest to sacrifice, gave birth to a lamb, in the very 
 midst of the Temple. (Bell. Jud., vi. 5, 3.) 
 
 But our present interest is claimed chiefly for the fol- 
 lowing wonder, in which the opening of the Beautiful 
 Gate of the Temple by supernatural influence is inter- 
 preted as premonitory of the end of the theocracy, or 
 at least of the exclusive religious privileges of the Jew ; 
 a parallel to the moral of the passage of that very gate 
 by the healed cripple. 
 
 It is followed up by another marvel of the same pur- 
 port on the day of Pentecost; and I do not entertain 
 the slightest doubt that in these two anecdotes of Jose- 
 phus we have narratives, derived from common root at 
 least, with those in the Acts of the Apostles. Whether 
 this common root were earlier and independent; whe- 
 ther the symbolical marvels originated with the Christian 
 community, and were metamorphosed from moral to po- 
 litical significance, and so arrived at Josephus ; or whe- 
 ther the Christians were the remodellers of stories half 
 developed to their hands, who shall say! It is quite 
 enough to recognize the common relationship, and to 
 lay to heart the instructive hint, how freely such a me- 
 tamorphosing vis naturae was at work at the time. 
 
 " The Eastern Gate also of the inner hieron, which 
 was of brass, and very stiff" (o-Tt/Sapomm?), and closed 
 about eventide with difficulty by twenty men, and bear- 
 ing upon iron bars, with very deep pivots let into a 
 threshold of a single stone, was discovered about the 
 sixth hour of the night standing open of its own accord. 
 The watch of the Temple ran to inform the military 
 commander, who came down, and with difficulty was 
 able to close it. This, again, seemed to the vulgar a
 
 138 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 marvel of the happiest import, as if God were setting 
 open for them the gate of good things. But the in- 
 structed understood the immunity of the Temple as 
 spontaneously determined, and the gate to be freely 
 opened to the enemy, and amongst themselves they in- 
 terpreted the sign as significant of desolation. . . . And 
 at the time of the feast of Pentecost, when the priests 
 entered the inner hieron, as was their custom for their 
 service, they said that they were first sensible of an agi- 
 tation and a noise, and, succeeding these, of a number 
 of voices, crying, ' Let us depart hence.' "
 
 139 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. 
 
 I. THE CARTOON OF THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. II. THE CON- 
 TINGENCIES OF COMMUNISM IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 I. THE CARTOON OF THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. 
 
 THE subject of the death of Ananias is the proper pen- 
 dant of the miracle at the Beautiful Gate, and com- 
 pletes the emphatic sanction of the authority of the 
 chief Apostle. A miracle of severity follows up one of 
 benignity, and symbolizes the possession of the power 
 to bind no less than to loose, to condemn than to ab- 
 solve, the prerogative of the second key. 
 
 The story which is depicted, and which provisionally 
 we accept under conditions that admit of full sympathy, 
 runs in these terms, and on this wise : 
 
 Acts ii. 42. " And they gave themselves continually 
 to the teaching of the Apostles, and to the distributing 
 and to the breaking of bread, and to prayers. And fear 
 came upon every soul; and many wonders and signs 
 were done through the Apostles. 
 
 " And all that believed were together, and had all 
 things common ; and sold their possessions and goods, 
 and parted them to all, as any one had need." 
 
 Acts iv. 32. " And of the multitude of believers there
 
 140 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 was one heart and one soul ; neither said any one that 
 any of the things that he possessed were his own ; but 
 they had all things common. 
 
 " And with great power the Apostles gave witness of 
 the resurrection of the Lord Jesus ; and there was great 
 favour toward them all ; for no one among them was in 
 want, for as many as were possessed of lands or houses 
 sold them, and brought the prices of them when sold 
 and laid them at the Apostles' feet. 
 
 " And Joses, who by the Apostles was surnamed Bar- 
 nabas (which is, when interpreted, a son of consolation), 
 a Levite, a Cyprian by birth, having land, sold it, and 
 brought the money and laid it at the Apostles' feet. 
 
 " But a certain man, named Ananias, with Sapphira, 
 his wife, sold a possession, and kept back part of the 
 price, his wife also knowing of it, and brought a certain 
 part and laid it at the Apostles' feet. 
 
 " And Peter said, ' Ananias, why hath Satan filled 
 thine heart, for thee to cheat the Holy Spirit, and to 
 keep back part of the price of the land ? Whiles it re- 
 mained, was it not thine own I and when sold, was it not 
 in thine own power 1 why hast thou laid this deed in 
 thy heart I thou hast not lied to man, but to God.' 
 
 " And Ananias hearing these words fell down and 
 breathed his last, and great fear came on all that heard 
 these things. And the young men arose and wound 
 him up, and carried him out and buried him. 
 
 " And it was about the space of three hours, when 
 his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And 
 Peter answered her, ' Tell me whether ye sold the land 
 for so much? And she said, 'Yea, for so much.' 
 
 " And Peter said unto her, ' How is it that ye agreed
 
 THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. 141 
 
 together to try the Spirit of the Lord ? behold, the feet 
 of them that have buried thy husband are at the door 
 and will carry thee out.' And she fell straightway at 
 his feet and breathed her last; and the young men 
 coming in found her dead, and carrying her out buried 
 her with her husband. 
 
 " And great fear came upon all the Church and upon 
 all that heard these things." (Acts v. 11, Sharpe's trans- 
 lation.) 
 
 The picture commits Rafael to a point of view from 
 which the incident appeared to him to embody a merited 
 punishment inflicted by a legitimate and wise authority. 
 
 Painters, no less than poets, may be mistaken, and set 
 forth faults as virtues, affectations as sincerities, errors 
 as heroisms. But the greatest of both sorts approach 
 so nearly to the infallible in appreciation of the most 
 delicate moral gradations, that we are usually more 
 prudent when we cast about rather for the explanation 
 of their decisions, than for apologies. 
 
 Otherwise, from the commonplace, which under ordi- 
 nary conditions would also be the common-sense point 
 of view, Ananias is punished capitally for a lapse which 
 was induced in no slight degree by the Apostles them- 
 selves, when they sanctioned, if they did not originate, 
 a system of communism that ought never to have been 
 established, and that exposed all concerned to an unfair 
 and unreasonable temptation. The system itself, in fact, 
 according to the history, speedily breaks down, from 
 suspicions at least of malversation, not to say of em- 
 bezzlement, in other quarters ; and when the Apostles 
 found that murmurers did not spare imputations even 
 on themselves, the thought arises that they might have
 
 142 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 seen cause to revise their indignation at the fault of 
 Ananias. 
 
 The narrative, however, assumes very different con- 
 ditions ; and as these, if liberally accepted, are in them- 
 selves consistent, the painter was quite at liberty to 
 adopt them, being careful always to provide them with 
 distinct expression. 
 
 Again, there is apt to be a painful jar on the feelings 
 at an example of summary judicial destruction dealt 
 by the spiritual leader on his own responsibility ; and 
 the incident seems perniciously contrived to authorize 
 all the abuses and miseries that have flowed from the 
 interference of ecclesiastics in government, from the 
 power of churchmen in the cabinet and on the judg- 
 ment-seat. 
 
 But on the other hand, if we are to appreciate and 
 enjoy the truth that is in the picture, we must admit 
 the conditions it essentially postulates, and take its own 
 word for its own meaning. The historical Ananias, if 
 such there were, must for the time be left aside, and 
 his representative be charged with whatever unqualified 
 wickedness the painter imputes. For this we have not 
 far to go : the crime that is punished before us is em- 
 bezzlement of the earnings of the laborious, of the alms 
 contributed by the benevolent, the right of the widow 
 and the needy ; it is committed under a mask of reli- 
 gious zeal ; hypocrisy is covered by conspiracy and a lie ; 
 and so the most virulent of moral poisons are poured 
 into the stream of charity and sincerity at the very 
 source, at that new source from which they were just 
 set on flow to regenerate the world. 
 
 In all this, assuredly, there is no apology for Papacy
 
 THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. 143 
 
 or Prelacy in any form that either have ever subsisted : 
 quite the reverse ; for the moral of the tapestry bites 
 with the edge of satire into both. The representative 
 of the ruling genius of the court of the Clements and 
 the Innocents, is not St. Peter, and does not stand on 
 the dais along with him, but lies denounced and stricken 
 in Ananias. 
 
 The story was not likely, it may be, to be so read in 
 the Sistine Chapel ; but it was something at least that 
 there it should be written up in universal language. 
 
 For the nonce, therefore, we recognize in the St. Peter 
 of the picture the conscientious, the stern, the just, and 
 in truth, benevolent judge, who cuts off from the healthy 
 system of regenerated society the false growth that now 
 attaches only to its surface, but neglected or indulged 
 would penetrate to and prey upon its vitals. The his- 
 tory of the common Christian movement that gave the 
 promise and did much towards the performance of re- 
 covering society on the basis of charity and truth, from 
 a condition not so unimproving and hopeless as usually 
 represented, but certainly bad enough, is signalized at 
 its very commencement by an act of uncompromising 
 rigour, the indispensable complement of such a scheme. 
 
 Charity, tenderness, and philanthropy are qualities 
 that only subsist in their highest, purest, and most ope- 
 rative forms when they are capable of animating energy 
 as well as relaxing violence. The meekness of the dove 
 does not more absolutely require the wisdom of the ser- 
 pent for safeguard than for usefulness ; and both are 
 compatible with, both in fact are helpless or mischievous 
 unless associated on occasion with, the prompt, unsparing 
 courage of the lion.
 
 144 CHKISTIANITY IN THE CAETOONS. 
 
 Rafael, with the happiest invention and unfailing 
 command of expression, has succeeded in presenting 
 pictorially the living image of every motive and charac- 
 teristic involved in this description. 
 
 The scene is a large apartment, into which open day- 
 light is admitted with satisfactory freedom, and which 
 is marked by free ingress and inlook as the semi-public 
 hall and haunt of the new community. The pre-emi- 
 nence and rule of the Apostles are indicated by their 
 occupation exclusively of a dais, raised by two steps 
 above the level of the floor. It forms three sides of an 
 octagon; the front side, which has formal correspon- 
 dence with the paved or parquetted divisions of the 
 floor, is open ; the sides retiring on the right and left 
 are enclosed by a rail. All is executed in simple chapel- 
 like carpentry, and the expression of combined forma- 
 lity and plainness is completed by the curtain or ta- 
 pestry of plain unfigured drapery that covers the wall 
 behind, and forms a set background for the group of 
 Apostles. Their relative elevation above the congrega- 
 tion corresponds with the repeated expression of offer- 
 ings being laid at their feet. 
 
 The leading part and position ascribed to Peter are 
 asserted by his position exactly in the centre and well 
 in front of the apostolic group. He stands with an ex- 
 pression as much of collected solemnity as severity. His 
 air is that of a judge who declares a sentence, and who 
 indicates its fulfilment with a clear sense of its justice, 
 and its necessity no less. His extended right arm and 
 down-pointed finger make the gesture that accompanies 
 the last and fatal word death, and give to the fall of 
 Ananias the effect of astonishing suddenness.
 
 THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. 145 
 
 The text of the narrative does not in the first incident 
 ascribe words of deadly denouncement to Peter, but 
 they are supplied in definite terms in the case of Sap- 
 phira, and are fairly, are inevitably, imputed to inten- 
 tion in the first case. The gesture, therefore, of Peter 
 implies deliberate and definite condemnation ; the ap- 
 peal to the sanction of the judgment, " Thou hast not 
 lied unto men, but unto God," is assigned to the Apostle 
 beside him, who seems by symmetrical position a special 
 assessor, and points to heaven. 
 
 In Dorigny's engravings the figures are fortunately 
 or designedly reversed, so that they correspond with the 
 tapestries as executed and intended to be executed. 
 The expression in the case before us would have been 
 qualified most importantly had the denouncing and de- 
 monstrative arms of the two condemning Apostles been 
 the left arms. 
 
 Let us remark also the sympathy with which the index 
 finger of the left hand in each case starts out in agree- 
 ment with that of the more active hand. 
 
 The prostration of the large frame of Ananias is sud- 
 den and absolute; he is in his first position from the 
 fall ; the next will leave him lifeless on his back. The 
 first instinct of a man consciously falling is to spread 
 the hands to save himself: the bent right arm and 
 doubled-back hand of Ananias seem sufficiently to indi- 
 cate the merest awakening of the instinctive impulse 
 arrested and frustrated by the too-speedy doom. I am 
 not sure whether it is over-refinement to think that in 
 the closed left hand remains clutched the unhallowed 
 gain that tempted to destruction. 
 
 The eyes are distorted, but the mouth does not gasp, 
 
 L
 
 146 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 and the muscles of the face are rather constricted than 
 convulsed. 
 
 Of the two figures that are immediately behind Ana- 
 nias, the more remote stoops eagerly forward, and, not 
 seeing that all is absolutely over for the wretch, and 
 that he is no longer sensible, points to the Apostles, as 
 if to direct his attention and reinforce their words. In 
 this figure I am disposed to recognize Barnabas. A 
 nearer figure, with turban-like hat, leans forward more 
 timidly, or rather cautiously, towards the fallen figure, 
 and scrutinizes the dying features with astonishment, 
 displayed in his extended hands and arms, but which yet 
 does not quite overpower curiosity. 
 
 On the other hand, the two opposite figures in full 
 view of the catastrophe start away from it in horror and 
 affright, with horror and aifright in both instances, 
 though the alarm is naturally displayed most distinctly 
 by the female figure in countenance and gesture. 
 
 She looks back, and has indeed her eyes riveted 
 upon the dying man, while her movement is in the op- 
 posite direction, and her hands are extended also out- 
 wards. This is the natural impulse of extending the 
 hands to feel that the way is clear for retreat in one 
 direction, while the eyes are fixed upon the object of 
 dread in the other. 
 
 This impulse is less decided with the young man: 
 his open mouth shows how his breath is taken away by 
 his horror and surprise, and nature, for the instant, is 
 paralysed; but still his gesture is recoil, and not, like 
 that of the woman, retreat. The exact extent to which 
 there is an admixture of apprehension in this figure is 
 made out most effectively by the immediate contrast
 
 THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. 147 
 
 with the woman, and then by the comparison of his hands 
 with those of the man behind Ananias. The hands of 
 this standing and stooping man are stretched and rigid 
 in unchecked wonder ; those of the kneeling youth have 
 that degree of contractility that may be retained by 
 one whose energies are suspended, but not unnerved. 
 Between abandonment to the sentiment of surprise or 
 awe, and abandonment to the impulse to retreat, there 
 is the impulse to retire with the reservation of force for 
 employment on a vantage ground. The difference is be- 
 tween the impulse to retreat in dismay and to retreat 
 upon guard. 
 
 The half-kneeling position of these figures is explained 
 by that of the group beyond them, in whose act of 
 bodily submission to apostolic authority, no doubt, they 
 were a moment ago participants. 
 
 I only count eleven Apostles on the platform. Ac- 
 cording to the sequence of the incidents in Acts, the full 
 number had been already completed by the appoint- 
 ment of Matthias to the place left vacant by Judas. I 
 am inclined to think, however, that Rafael deliberately 
 antedated the incident; and I find it rather agreeable 
 to believe that he thought the authority for such an act 
 would not bear to be weakened by participation of any 
 others than the immediate delegates of Christ. 
 
 I know not whether reasons of any value could be 
 reckoned on for naming the Apostle with whom Peter 
 is here conspicuously associated, James. 
 
 We are less liable to error in recognizing John in the 
 Apostle in graceful light drapery, who is occupied in the 
 distribution on the left of the picture, the right of the 
 tapestry. The hair and features are those assigned to 
 
 L 2
 
 148 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 him elsewhere, and the painter has willingly withdrawn 
 him from the immediate scene of severity to functions 
 more congenial to his traditional character. To his 
 companion in the work of charity and just administra- 
 tion, I shall return. 
 
 Seven Apostles are grouped behind Peter and James 
 (or Andrew, Peter's brother). The six immediately be- 
 hind Peter give effect to his judicial dignity by varied 
 indications of excitement. One joins his hands, and 
 looks up to heaven ; others look down upon the crimi- 
 nal with as much compassion as may not palliate a hei- 
 nous* fault, and two others interchange an observation 
 in the background. The general effect of the group is 
 to convey the impression that all are cognizant of, and 
 assenting to, the judgment announced by the leaders in 
 front. But the independence of the leaders, primi inter 
 pares, is intimated by the feet of the Apostles behind 
 being all turned towards the left of the picture, equiva- 
 lent to an indication that they leave the conclusion to 
 Peter. This joint movement is also very valuable as 
 connecting them with the work already proceeding in 
 the hands of John ; they are moving on to proceed with 
 the due guidance of those very functions of benevolence 
 which it was the sin of Ananias that he did his best to 
 vitiate. 
 
 But there is another Apostle on the platform yet un- 
 mentioned, at the extreme left. He gives me the im- 
 pression of a certain isolation or retirement; he does 
 not partake of the movement observed in the others, 
 and I am half disposed to believe that here again, as 
 in the charge to Peter, we have Thomas, the undecided, 
 on the point of sympathizing, but not sympathizing
 
 THE DEATH Of ANANIAS. 149 
 
 without a pause, and on this occasion a pause of awe 
 that is almost horror. On the left-hand side of the pic- 
 ture in all cases I refer to the redressed design are 
 two figures laden with bales, contributions to the com- 
 mon stock. One of them seems just aware that some- 
 thing is going on ; the other, who always suggests to 
 me the idea that he is but employed in his work as a 
 porter, is absolutely unconscious of an excitement. 
 
 Still, beyond them, and only in part within the pic- 
 ture, a female of rather engaging appearance enters. 
 She is counting money from one hand into the other, 
 and no doubt is Sapphira. The remoteness of time and 
 space are shortened up pictorially ; and that she is not 
 an object of attention to any other person in the pic- 
 ture is quite sufficient to carry her away as the repre- 
 sentative of an arrival " three hours after." The act of 
 counting intimates the intent of reservation : wherefore 
 reckon, when all was to be given up unconditionally ? 
 Her face has a very marked expression of painful regret, 
 which is easily construed as grudging unwillingness. 
 As usual with Rafael, the single face is not left to en- 
 force its sentiment without assistance from comparison. 
 There is another female head just behind her, of which 
 the erect neck and free aspect mark the cordial and 
 the unembarrassed. 
 
 The position of Ananias corresponds with his entrance 
 having been from the same side, and with his having 
 been confronted on his arrival. 
 
 At the opposite end of the picture, we have the com- 
 pletion of the story as I have extracted it, and an indi- 
 cation of an important development a little further on 
 in the history.
 
 150 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 The Apostle associated with John reminds me, by 
 his rather wild than luxuriant growth of hair, of that 
 Apostle in the Cartoon of the Charge to Peter, that, 
 from the spirit of his movement, and his clasping a 
 book, I have called James, the son of Alpheus, or of 
 Cleopas, for the names are probably the same. He 
 holds here the purse from which St. John is making dis- 
 tribution ; two members of the community are submis- 
 sively on their knees, and apparently are waiting for 
 their turn ; the third, however, is a man who stands and 
 holds out both hands, while he looks up at least with a 
 craving, if not with an expostulatory air. St. John lifts 
 his hand, and divides his fingers with a movement of 
 enumeration, as if correcting a demand, and on the faces 
 of two females beyond there is a shade of discontent, 
 the more probably as the hand of one is extended, in 
 what sense, unless prematurely, close to those of the 
 craving applicant. Their head-dress seems to be ex- 
 pressive of widowhood conventional weeds. 
 
 In this applicant, therefore, we have another phase 
 of the same money-grasping temper that is signalized in 
 the catastrophe that is the subject of the Cartoon. It 
 was thus, indeed, that Rafael set forth in painting the 
 purport of the text : " In those days, when the disciples 
 were increasing, there arose a murmur of the Hellenists 
 against the Hebrews that their widows were overlooked 
 in the daily service. And the twelve called the multi- 
 tude of the disciples, and said, * It is not pleasing for us 
 to leave the word of God and serve tables ; wherefore, 
 brethren,' " etc. (Acts vi. 1, 2.) 
 
 A feeble and aged man is seen ascending a flight of 
 steps above this group, attended by a youthful female, 
 emblem of the better charities of the association.
 
 CONTINGENCIES OF COMMUNISM IN THE CHURCH. 151 
 
 II. THE CONTINGENCIES OF COMMUNISM IN THE CHUKCH. 
 
 Did any such incident, we ask, really happen at all I 
 
 That supernaturalism is assumed in the narrative 
 as it stands is self-evident, though here, as elsewhere, 
 commentators have been so bold, or so weak, or so in- 
 sincere, as to deny it. The first denouncement might 
 be equivocal by itself, but not when illustrated by the 
 terms of the second ; " the young men" are at hand to 
 remove a corpse as promptly in one case as the other, 
 and the implication is unavoidable. 
 
 When this superstitious or ignorant element permeates 
 a narrative, we are at once justified in assuming the pos- 
 sibility of any degree of departure from literal truth in 
 twenty different directions. Who shall say in which 1 
 As regards Ananias, the words of the denouncement 
 bind us to no more than a possibility that the agitation 
 of detection was too much for a rogue of a hypocrite, 
 who possibly had a heart-complaint. Nay, the mere 
 sudden death of a very worthy fellow might easily get 
 distorted into such a form after a transmission or two. 
 Then, the gossip Report varies from her word, and tells 
 that the catastrophe was of a woman, not of a man ; 
 then, the double versions are accepted as severally true ; 
 and then, by natural sequence, the pair of victims might 
 easily become man and wife ; and twenty other processes 
 of transformation, equally plausible, equally possible, 
 might be contrived. 
 
 How easily such tales arise among sects disposed to 
 magnify the office of their preachers, may be seen at 
 large in the anecdotes of precisely parallel judgments,
 
 152 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 which Mr. Buckle has collected from the memoirs of 
 the Scottish divines. The divines themselves accept or 
 claim the importance to be derived from such hideous 
 catastrophes as complacently as their followers were 
 forward to ascribe it. No doubt the form and the fa- 
 cility of belief in such tales arose from prepossessions 
 as to the true Apostolic type, and they might never 
 have been told as they were, or told at all, but for the 
 model that was furnished to imagination by the incident 
 in the Acts of the Apostles. But this is precisely the 
 significance of the whole matter, and illustrates to the 
 nines the mental process by which the Apostles were 
 credited with authority, to be exercised as fiercely as by 
 their predecessor of old the punisher of Gehazi with 
 leprosy to the last generation. 
 
 But let fiction be answerable for as much of the tale 
 as it might, or even for all, the result, as expressing 
 certain assumptions of likelihood, is an historical fact of 
 the highest interest a monument of plastic moral in- 
 fluences, beliefs, and invitations to belief. 
 
 That the Apostles acted so or so, may be simply fabu- 
 lous ; but it is a fact of high significance that zealous 
 adherents, more or less near to them in time, thought 
 it quite consistent that they should so act, with such 
 powers, to such purpose. 
 
 We have a sketch of golden days of Apostolic su- 
 premacy, general and unquestioned, with headship of 
 Peter. 
 
 We have a sect organized upon the basis of commu- 
 nity of goods, a plan rejoiced in as diffusing comfort 
 through a society, otherwise acquainted with the hard- 
 ships, if not the squalor of poverty.
 
 CONTINGENCIES OF COMMUNISM IN THE CHURCH. 153 
 
 We have this sect striking, in fact, for imperial power, 
 and asserting civil and criminal independence ; virtually 
 in insurrection, they commit themselves to the enterprise 
 by unhesitating exercise of the power of life and death 
 in protection of the principle of their association. 
 
 These ascriptions admit for the most part of more 
 than presumptive authenticity. It is rather a different 
 question to what extent they belong to the original 
 scheme or teaching of Christ. Much that was compa- 
 tible with his career and triumph, as he foreshadowed 
 it, would have to give way, or take another form, when 
 his anticipations were with violence falsified; and, at 
 the same time, the specialities of his followers acquired 
 freedom to come into play, and it were strange if all 
 tended in one direction. 
 
 We have it on the authority of St. Paul, that even 
 among the converts made by himself, accomplished as 
 he was, the wealthy and the instructed were rare excep- 
 tions; how much more so in the following of other 
 teachers I St. Paul himself is no inculcator of the pro- 
 per merit of poverty, rather of energetic and well-di- 
 rected industry ; but even in his writings we trace the 
 influences that in an access of sympathetic enthusiasm 
 would relax the springs of exertion. 
 
 It is when he is writing to the Corinthians a .reply 
 to their inquiry respecting marriage ; he makes tender, 
 though rather reluctant, concession to the weakness of 
 humanity, but, " after all, he is disposed to argue, 
 wherefore marry?' the Lord is at hand; it is but a 
 question of a very short time, and self-denial in the in- 
 terim will not be without merit. The world has seen
 
 154 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 in later days how these motives may gain strength, and 
 when instant anticipation of the end of the world has 
 been rife, the thankless labour of provision for a future 
 that was never to arrive has been given up. 
 
 A vein of tradition is distributed through the Gospels, 
 sometimes incongruously enough, which preserves the 
 enforcement, in terms most uncompromising, of uncon- 
 ditional abstinence from industrious forethought. Here, 
 we may reasonably suspect, are preserved original dog- 
 mas of the early Church, whether derived from Christ's 
 own lips or not. To take no care for the morrow, to 
 let the morrow care for itself, to lay up no treasures, to 
 look for support offering itself as spontaneously as that 
 which feeds and fosters the beauty of the lilies of the 
 field, to be content with a daily bread that is depen- 
 dent on heavenly response to prayer from day to day ; 
 these were maxims that at some epochs might seem 
 marvellously justified by inflowing and unforeseen con- 
 tributions, but the ultimate upshot could only be a 
 state of chronic, sordid, and dependent, if not importu- 
 nate, poverty. 
 
 In the parable of Dives we find mendicancy and rags 
 transformed into virtues that merit heaven with no 
 specified moral conditions; and the epistle of James 
 expounds a theory of desert that is not much more dig- 
 nified. Here we have the commencement of Christian 
 monkery, the dependence of a horde of watching and 
 praying devotees, for all the wants left to them by fast- 
 ing and celibacy, on the contributions of a world bound 
 theoretically to the same system, but, fortunately for all, 
 too perverse and reprobate to give up the industry that 
 for both alike is indispensable.
 
 CONTINGENCIES OF COMMUNISM IN THE CHURCH. 155 
 
 The exaltation of the lowly was certainly pushed to 
 an extreme, but the abuse is not chargeable on the in- 
 structions of Jesus, as probably conceived, for the occa- 
 sion for them would not have arisen had his career 
 actually fulfilled the course which it seems clear that 
 he looked forward to. 
 
 It is quite consistent, then, with the tradition of the 
 golden age of the Apostolic Church, that we find it 
 afterwards exposed to the sufferings and the shifts of 
 poverty. To what else could the system come ? In 
 fact, Paul seems to speak of the Church at Jerusalem as 
 " the poor," as if that were its understood and current 
 designation. The passage, which we shall hear more 
 of, occurs in Galatians, where he relates the solicitations 
 or suggestions of the Apostles that he should be instru- 
 mental in turning the Gentile converts to account as 
 contributors to the necessities of the Jerusalem Church. 
 
 In all this there is a trace of the asceticism of the 
 Essenes mixed up with somewhat of the habitudes of 
 the professional hierophants. 
 
 The illustration of the assertion of sovereignty takes 
 a parallel course. Certainly we do not find again in the 
 New Testament an overt act so pronounced as the deaths 
 of Ananias and Sapphira, but the motive looks out in 
 all directions. Cavil as we may at the historical title 
 of the early speeches of Peter in Acts, they express the 
 narrator's belief at least; and no assertion can be stronger 
 than their claim for Christ reappearing to exercise and 
 to delegate authority equivalent to that of the Roman 
 Imperial seat. There is nothing hard of belief here ; 
 for no phenomenon is more frequent in history than
 
 156 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 such pretensions on the part of exalted religionists. 
 Nothing is put into the mouth of Peter that is not quite 
 as distinctly implied in St. Paul's Epistles to the Thes- 
 salonians, illustrated as they are by the notice in Acts 
 that at their probable date his doctrine was being chal- 
 lenged and checked as treasonable towards Ceesar. 
 
 The principle is asserted in his rebuke of the Corin- 
 thian Christians, for carrying their causes before the 
 heathen tribunals. " Know ye not that the saints shall 
 judge the world?" In the Gospels we find preserved 
 the sketch of judicial procedure to be adopted by the 
 brethren, and which may be considered as the first peep- 
 ing point of that germ that grew and spread web-like 
 over the world as the Canon Law.
 
 THE STONING 
 
 ST. STEPHEN ; a tapestry of the Ristine scries. 
 in the Vatican.
 
 157 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE STONING OF STEPHEN. 
 
 I. THE TAPESTRY OF THE STONING OF STEPHEN. II. THE 
 
 GOSPEL AS ACCEPTED BY HELLENISTIC JEWS. III. THE 
 
 SCATTERED CHURCH; THE RESIDENT APOSTLES. 
 
 I. THE STONING OF STEPHEN. 
 
 THE Cartoon for the Stoning of Stephen, the next sub- 
 ject of the series of tapestries, does not exist. 
 
 An outline of the design, derived from the tapestry, 
 will be found in Kugler's 'Handbook,' translated by 
 Eastlake; and this and my notes of the tapestry at 
 Mantua supply the foundation of the few remarks I 
 have to make on the composition. 
 
 The incident illustrated is thus introduced in Acts 
 vi. 1 : " And in those days, when the number of the 
 Apostles had multiplied, there arose a murmuring of 
 the Hellenists against the Hebrews, that their widows 
 were neglected in the daily distribution (ev ry Siatcovta). 
 Then the Twelve called together the body (ir\fi0os) of 
 the disciples, and said, It is not satisfactory for us to 
 leave the word of God, and serve tables; wherefore, 
 brethren, look ye out among you seven men well at- 
 tested, full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom, whom we 
 will appoint to this business; but we will give our-
 
 158 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 selves constantly to prayer, and to the service of the 
 word. And the saying was agreeable to the whole 
 multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of 
 faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, 
 and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus 
 of Antioch, a proselyte: whom they set before the 
 Apostles, and having prayed, they laid their hands 
 upon them. 
 
 " . . . . And Stephen, full of faith and power, did 
 great wonders and miracles among the people. And 
 there arose certain of the synagogue called that of the 
 Libertines, and of the Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and 
 of those from Cilicia and Asia, disputing with Stephen, 
 and they were not able to resist the wisdom and the 
 Spirit with which he spoke." 
 
 Beaten in argument, they resort to riot and to prose- 
 cution, and the catastrophe is thus described: "But 
 he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly 
 into the heavens, and saw the glory of God and Jesus 
 standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I 
 see heaven opened, and the Son of Man standing on the 
 right hand of God. Then they cried with a loud voice 
 and stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord, 
 and cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the 
 witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young 
 man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen while he 
 prayed, saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And kneel- 
 ing down, he called out with a loud voice, Lord, lay not 
 this sin to their charge. And saying this, he fell asleep. 
 And Saul was consenting to his death." 
 
 This narrative bears marks of extension by the accre- 
 tion of several versions. The narrative is complete where
 
 THE STONING OF STEPHEN. 159 
 
 the italics commence. The notice immediately preced- 
 ing recurs in the concluding phrase, and the prayer is 
 interposed, and repeated with a variation. 
 
 The treatment of the incident by the painter will not 
 occupy us long. 
 
 At the right-hand corner of the picture Christ and 
 the Father, attended by angels, are seen above in the 
 opening heavens. To these the countenance of the 
 martyr is directed ; he has fallen on his knees, as if im- 
 pelled by the storm of blows from behind, but with no 
 attempt to shield himself, with no regard to the impend- 
 ing fragment of rock that will evidently be fatal; he 
 spreads his arms before the crowd of his murderers with 
 an expression of shielding them, and the air of sup- 
 plication in their favour, according to his last words, 
 " Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." The extended 
 arms mark the attitude used by the early Christians at 
 the words, " Let us pray ;" but Rafael combines the feel- 
 ing of intercession. 
 
 A man behind him, rising on the foot, has raised a 
 huge stone with both hands to the full height of his 
 reach, and is about to dash it down directly upon his 
 head. The man on the left of the foreground stoops 
 down, and, while he keeps his eye on his victim, in his 
 impatience seizes a stone with each hand. A persecutor 
 behind seems aiming for a cast at once, without wait- 
 ing to get near ; and another, also with uplifted stone, is 
 crowding forward for an opportunity. The crowd passes 
 out of the picture ; stones on the ground tell of violence 
 already delivered. 
 
 On the right-hand corner of the foreground Saul, yet 
 beardless, is seated on the garments of the witnesses,
 
 160 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 one of whom is the stooper in the foreground, with bare 
 shoulders, and he encourages them with rancorous ges- 
 tures. In the tapestry at Mantua I noticed the neck 
 and part of a bottle on his seat behind. The scene is 
 fixed, agreeably to the text, without the city. 
 
 Stephen wears a dress with sleeves, and with a certain 
 set, make, and finish, that suggest the established eccle- 
 siastical costume of a deacon. 
 
 It will be observed that the vision of the glory of 
 God, and the Son of Man standing at his right hand, is 
 transferred by Rafael, with his usual happy and con- 
 centrating boldness, from the scene before the Sanhe- 
 drim, to the execution. 
 
 II. THE GOSPEL AS ACCEPTED BY HELLENISTIC JEWS. 
 
 Let us now endeavour to appreciate the true histo- 
 rical basis that supports the narrative of the career of 
 Stephen. The view I shall propound is, I believe, new ; 
 for I do not find it set forth by either Zeller or Baur. 
 In one sense, for me, it is old enough, for I shall have 
 little to say that I do not find already recorded in my 
 note-books of some twenty years' standing; and have 
 only to transcribe conclusions that I find I set my hand 
 to under the date 24th January, 1842. 
 
 How perfectly in order and of necessity it was that 
 money jealousies should arise in a society framed on a 
 system of communism, has already been remarked. It 
 is to be noticed further, that the administration com- 
 plained of was that of the Apostles themselves, and that 
 they were more peculiarly identified with the Hebrew 
 section of the community ; it may even be suggested
 
 THE GOSPEL AS ACCEPTED BY HELLENISTIC JEWS. 161 
 
 that the aspect of the case bears out a suspicion that 
 the imputed partiality had existed. By the tenor of 
 the narrative the Apostles found a handsome excuse for 
 resigning an invidious office that they could no longer 
 administer in their own way ; at least, the community, 
 when they had provided satisfactory successors, seem to 
 have disregarded their representation of the incompati- 
 bility of the two ministrations, the economical and the 
 spiritual ; for three at least of the deacons, Stephen es- 
 pecially, and Philip by name, and Nicolaus inferentially, 
 as eponym of the Nicolaitans, come before us as active 
 preachers. 
 
 The names of all the newly-elected deacons are Greek, 
 which justifies the inference that the Hellenist division 
 of the Church already very considerably outnumbered 
 the Hebrew. The enthusiasm that had extended the 
 society with such rapidity had evidently spread in some 
 directions more rapidly than others; the Church had 
 incorporated faster than it could assimilate, and the 
 result was a serious disturbance of balance among the 
 classes composing it. 
 
 The depth and breadth of the distinction between 
 Hellenistic and " Hebrew Jew," in its most pronounced 
 form, must be carefully appreciated. It touches the 
 very commencement of the most important of all the 
 schisms of the Church, that by which the original and 
 self-consistent portion of the sect became separated from 
 the progressive party that had gathered to it, lost the 
 lead, and at last all but died out as an obscure and 
 secondary sect, heretics in the eyes of Christians still 
 more than of Jews, while its intrusive successor advanced 
 to the conquest of the world. 
 
 M
 
 162 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 The motive emergency is spoken of as a matter of 
 ' the daily ministration;' and it seems probable, therefore, 
 that seven deacons were appointed, that they might take 
 duty successively through the seven days of the week. 
 
 While the Apostles were so assiduously in attendance 
 at the Temple, and it will be long after this that we 
 shall hear from Apostles themselves, that "the thou- 
 sands of brethren at Jerusalem who believe, who com- 
 pose the Jerusalem, the Hebrew Church, are still all 
 zealous for the law," we need not be surprised at the 
 regulation of the sect by the order of the Jewish week. 
 With the Hellenistic Church, however, an important 
 change, in this respect, became ultimately established ; 
 when exactly, we know not; the seven-day division, 
 which was in truth as much Pagan, Egyptian especially, 
 as Jewish, was retained, but the chief day, the se'nnightly 
 festival, was moved from the Jewish Sabbath to the day 
 succeeding ; a variation of the greatest significance. 
 
 The ascription of the several days of the recurring 
 seven to the presidency of the several planets, had long 
 been established among the heathen, how much be- 
 yond all power of alteration is seen by the idolatrous 
 titles having continued down to the present time, both 
 in Latin and Teutonic form. Even the Jew might be 
 traditionally reconciled to designating his Sabbath day 
 the day of Saturn of Cronos, for while his religious 
 antipathies were committed most distinctly against the 
 worshippers of the heavenly host, of the celestial array 
 of angels of the planets, of sun and stars, the hints of 
 history of his own religion and worship, indicate an ori- 
 ginal astral departure. The analogies of the worship of 
 Moloch are constantly intruding themselves as we follow
 
 THE GOSPEL AS ACCEPTED BY HELLENISTIC JEWS. 163 
 
 the phases and developments of the worship of Jeho- 
 vah ; and Moloch is equivalent of Saturn and Cronos. 
 
 (For completer illustration of the point, refer to Mr. 
 Mackay's ' Progress of the Intellect,' vol. i. p. 122, etc.) 
 
 In Greece the brighter Olympic divinities superseded 
 the sombre and cruel rites of Cronos; and in that di- 
 versified mythology the Sun became the symbol, at least, 
 of every predominant godhead in turn. The recurrence 
 of festivals, and the measurement of periods, were de- 
 pendent on marked epochs of sun and moon ; and thus 
 Greece, and the nations it influenced, however superior 
 to the fetichism of star worship, had a direct point of 
 contact with the sun-worshipping East. 
 
 The result appears to have been that, the Jews apart, 
 most of the nations that were affected by the spread of 
 Christianity had been accustomed, from all time, to 
 regard the sun as the grand type, as well as index, of 
 times of festival, quadriennially, annually, even weekly. 
 On the succession of the new religion, it was as natural 
 to put Christ into the place of the superseded Sun-god, 
 as it would be repugnant to all feeling to associate the 
 Saviour with the surroundings of Saturn. Accordingly, 
 the great yearly festivals of Christianity were adapted 
 to the ancient occasions that marked, and of necessity 
 still mark, the vicissitudes of the sun; or rather, they 
 fell into them by heritage from the worn-out creeds ; 
 the birth of the Saviour, substituted for Mithra, desig- 
 nates the winter solstice, his death and resurrection the 
 revival of spring at the vernal equinox, and the birth of 
 John the Baptist, as the last prophet of the Old Cove- 
 nant, was assigned to the summer solstice, the epoch 
 of transition of the year to shortening days. And so the
 
 164 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CAETOONS. 
 
 motive that appropriated the distribution of the Chris- 
 tian year operated, I do not doubt, with still greater 
 force in determining the weekly festival to the day of 
 the Sun. We shall presently understand how strong 
 a repugnance between the Jewish section of Christ's 
 Church, and those less rigidly or purely Jewish, pro- 
 moted a preference for that day as a festival, which 
 marked sympathy with the increasing party of converts, 
 and favoured alienation from Judaism. 
 
 All this however comes hereafter ; at present we have 
 to trace the special relation of the Hellenistic Jews to 
 the Hebrew Jews in the infant Church. General cha- 
 racteristics of Hellenist and Hebrew we may find else- 
 where ; but for the peculiar form of Hellenistic Judaism 
 at present in question, we have to rely almost entirely 
 on the history of the deacons, and especially on the im- 
 plications in the defence of Stephen. 
 
 The prolonged domination of Greek powers in West- 
 ern Asia and Syria had caused a considerable infusion 
 of Greek language and manners even among the Jews 
 of Palestine. Still more extensively and importantly 
 was this the case with those who were scattered in such 
 numbers about the rest of the world. Tenacious of na- 
 tionality and cult as the Jew might be, the modifying 
 force of contingencies through successive generations 
 was irresistible ; the original dialect was lost, if the 
 customs were retained, and the customs became relaxed 
 or even relinquished though the recollection of them 
 might be cherished to the verge of bigotry. The perio- 
 dical attendances at the Temple, so strictly insisted upon 
 in the Law, were of necessity given up.
 
 THE GOSPEL AS ACCEPTED BY HELLENISTIC JEWS. 165 
 
 All these were points upon which it was in the nature 
 of the Jew, that the native of Judaea and still more of 
 Jerusalem should plume himself, as titles of superiority 
 in holiness, as compared with the Hellenist. The suspi- 
 cion of mixed race, of impure descent, a decline from 
 Judaism more repugnant than all other, would always 
 attach, and with sufficient confirmations, to the Hellen- 
 ists. The Jews of various countries had, doubtless, then 
 as now, their traits of subnationalities ; and children of 
 Jewish mothers and Heathen fathers, like Timothy, were 
 of course numerous. 
 
 Paul, it is true, asserts himself as a Hebrew of the 
 Hebrews, though he was born at Tarsus ; his education 
 was at Jerusalem, and his command of the Hebrew 
 tongue was accepted as presumptive proof of Hebraism, 
 and he is first introduced to us also with a Jewish name, 
 Saul ; but an enemy might have interpreted his claims 
 less indulgently. 
 
 These disputes and pretensions were as prevalent at 
 the date of the return from captivity as at any subse- 
 quent period. The resolute religious enthusiasts who 
 came back to restore Jerusalem, looked with contempt at 
 those of their brethren who shunned the risk and were 
 content to abide in the settlements they had gained in 
 a new country ; and they were quite as prompt to re- 
 pudiate fellowship with the kindred tribes who, like 
 the Samaritans, had remained in Palestine, and were 
 open to more than suspicion of mixed race as well as 
 of idolatrous concessions. 
 
 In Egypt, Jewish communities existed from all time, 
 and in the days of Jeremiah they were swelled by a 
 large emigration under the pressure of encroaching As-
 
 166 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 Syrian power. Here sprang up difficulties and compro- 
 mises together, as to observance of the law. 
 
 " Latterly the law had required every Jew to present 
 himself in the Temple at Jerusalem at each of the great 
 feasts ; but this was a burden too heavy for those that 
 dwelt at a distance. Once a year, however, at the feast 
 of Tabernacles, this religious journey was still called for ; 
 ' and if the family of Egypt,' says the prophet Zechariah 
 (xiv. 18), 'go not forth and come not up, they shall have 
 no rain, they shall have the plague wherewith the Lord 
 will smite the tribes that come not up to keep the feast 
 of Tabernacles.' " (Sharpe's ' Egypt,' i. p. 103.) 
 
 At a later date, the formation of a numerous Jewish 
 community with its wealthy and learned classes in the 
 heart of the commercial and cultivated city of Alex- 
 andria, led to still more decided and important results. 
 Here Jewish literature became deeply tinged with Greek 
 characteristics, became highly Hellenized, and produced 
 a form of literature and philosophy highly remarkable, 
 to say the least, from the combination of a stock still 
 truly Jewish with the refinements of Platonism, and 
 even with traces of notions merely Egyptian. 
 
 This literature is represented by the Septuagint, and 
 then very specifically by the writings of Philo of Alex- 
 andria, a contemporary of Josephus and St. Paul. Some 
 of the most peculiar notions and phraseologies of Philo 
 are found in the writings of St. Paul, genuine and as- 
 cribed ; an abundant crop of them in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, an epistle which by correlation to its title, 
 and no less by its contents, we may regard as by a Hel- 
 lenist, and again in the speech of Stephen, which we 
 shall have to consider presently.
 
 THE GOSPEL AS ACCEPTED BY HELLENISTIC JEWS. 167 
 
 I believe it is pretty clear that to the bigoted He- 
 brew, the Samaritans and the Hellenistic Jews of the 
 dispersion were much upon a par, and both little better 
 than Gentiles. Something like this is implied in the 
 text in the fourth Gospel : " Then they said, Will he go 
 to the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gen- 
 tiles ? God forbid." The Epistle of Peter is addressed 
 unequivocally to "the sojourners of the dispersion in 
 Pontus," etc., yet alludes to their condition previous to 
 conversion, as heathenism. 
 
 The Talmud again is fair traditional evidence of the 
 relation of the two divisions of the nation. " The Kab- 
 bins express without disguise their hatred of the lan- 
 guage of the Greek Jews, and still more of the Septua- 
 gint translation, which formed in fact an ecclesiastical 
 partition between the two parties." (Gfrorer.) 
 
 However the Hellenists were regarded by the He- 
 brews, they might of course be as bigoted as they 
 pleased on their own account notwithstanding. The 
 writings of Philo, as well as the incidents of the mission 
 he undertook to Rome, indicate attachment to Moses 
 and the Temple of Jerusalem of the strictest kind. 
 There was certainly no lack of bigotry among the syna- 
 gogues that Paul found in his widely-extended journeys, 
 and it is in the Hellenistic synagogues at Jerusalem 
 that both Paul and Stephen encounter rancorous and 
 deadly opposition when their preachings verge in the 
 direction of liberality. 
 
 Still, it was amongst the Hellenists and Hellenistic 
 deacons that liberalism arose, and asserted not only even 
 ground of privilege for Hellenist and Hebiew, but such 
 a conception of Christianity, of religious merit and
 
 168 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 devotion, as opened doors of sympathy and equality for 
 the Samaritan also, and in very short time for that outer 
 Gentile world that completed the circuit of humanity. 
 They had suffered persecution, and had learnt mercy ; 
 they had been the victims of fratricidal rivalry, and lived 
 to invite all mankind to make common cause. Apollos, 
 a cultivated and accomplished Jew of Alexandria, who 
 had embraced enthusiastically the pure theory of the 
 preaching of John the Baptist, may be taken as a fair 
 type of the class of Hellenists from which had previ- 
 ously issued the comprehensive charity of Stephen. 
 
 A spark alone was wanting in those years to fuse 
 provincialisms into nationality, and nationalities into 
 largest humanity. Men's minds had grown accustomed 
 to the mighty ideal of the whole civilized world in the- 
 ory, administered in unity, on the model of a peaceful 
 family; however the practice might seem to halt for 
 and invite the furtherance of a renewed and helping im- 
 pulse from the hand of God. But the following anec- 
 dote may be an illustration at an earlier date and 
 bigotry is independent of chronology, of what the na- 
 ture and the spirit of the rivalries had been, that were 
 destined to combine, volatilize, disperse, in a moment, 
 in minds warmed and irradiated by the fire of an ex- 
 alted sympathy. 
 
 The incident I quote is dated in the reign of Ptolemy 
 Philometor, some 160 years before Christ. 
 
 "A dispute arose at Alexandria between the Jews 
 there and the Samaritans who reverenced the temple 
 built at Gerizim about the time of Alexander, and the 
 contention respecting the rival temples was carried be- 
 fore Ptolemv himself. The Jews averred that it was
 
 THE GOSPEL AS ACCEPTED BY HELLENISTIC JEWS. 169 
 
 the temple at Jerusalem that was built agreeably to the 
 laws of Moses, while the Samaritans made the same 
 claim for that at Gerizim. They begged the King to 
 sit with his friends as assessors, and hear the arguments 
 on this subject, and to inflict death on whichever party 
 should be adjudged to be worsted. 
 
 "Sabbseus and Theodosius undertook the argument 
 on the part of the Samaritans, and Andronicus, son of 
 Messalamus, was for those of Jerusalem and the Jews. 
 They took an oath by God and the King to conduct 
 their proofs in accordance with the law, and engaged 
 Ptolemy to put to death whichever of them should be 
 found falsifying his oath. 
 
 " The King accordingly associated many of his friends 
 as a council, and took his seat to give audience to the 
 speakers. The greatest excitement prevailed among the 
 Jews who were in Alexandria, respecting the peril of 
 their ancient fane. By the concession of Sabbaeus and 
 Theodosius, Andronicus commenced the pleadings, and 
 proceeded with his proofs from the law and from the 
 successions of the high-priests from father to son, and 
 from the honour shown to the Temple by kings of Asia, 
 in dedications and splendid gifts, while of that on Geri- 
 zim none took notice or made account more than if it 
 had not existed. By these arguments and many more to 
 the same effect, Andronicus persuaded the King to give 
 judgment that the Temple had been built at Jerusalem 
 in accordance with the laws of Moses, and to put Sab- 
 baeus and Theodosius to death." (Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 
 3,4.) 
 
 As to the Samaritans in Judaea, Josephus more than 
 once characterizes them as always prepared to renounce
 
 170 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 kindred with the Jews whenever the latter were in 
 trouble ; but as soon as they prospered, equally forward 
 to declare themselves Hebrews, and to vindicate their de- 
 scent from Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph. 
 He calls them a colony of apostates from the Jewish 
 nation, and their city of Shechem, about Mount Gerizim, 
 the common refuge of all who had made themselves 
 chargeable at Jerusalem with the crimes of eating pro- 
 fane food, violated Sabbath, and the like. 
 
 The story of Stephen proceeds. His opponents in the 
 Hellenistic synagogues of Jerusalem were unable to 
 contend with him " were not able to resist the wisdom 
 and spirit with which he spoke." Among these syna- 
 gogues is mentioned that of Cilicia, and it is probable 
 that Paul, as a witness, if not a party to these disputa- 
 tions, was unconsciously receiving some of the seeds of 
 doctrine that germinated so vigorously a little later. 
 
 " Then they suborned men, who said, We have heard 
 him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against 
 God. And they stirred up the people, and the elders, 
 and the scribes, and came upon him and seized him, 
 and brought him to the council, and set up false wit- 
 nesses, who said, This man ceaseth not to speak blas- 
 phemous words against this holy place and the law; 
 for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth 
 shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs 
 that Moses delivered us. And all who sat in the coun- 
 cil, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as if it had 
 been the face of an angel." 
 
 The gist of the accusation is so far borne out by the 
 very reply put into the mouth of Stephen, that we can
 
 THE GOSPEL AS ACCEPTED BY HELLENISTIC JEWS. 171 
 
 only consider the historian to call the witnesses false 
 witnesses in virtue of an idiom that stigmatizes a charge 
 as false which, substantially true, is pressed for an un- 
 fair, unjust, and malignant end. It is quite conceivable 
 that all witnesses who bring innocence to grief should 
 be called false witnesses, whether they compass their 
 end by charge of crimes never committed, or of acts 
 committed indeed, but not in reality crimes. 
 
 It is not necessary to discuss the probability of the 
 long speech ascribed to Stephen before the council, hav- 
 ing been really delivered by him. The importance of 
 it will be scarcely less should it prove only to embody 
 the characteristic topics and modes of treatment in 
 favour with a new party in the Church. Thus much, 
 I think, can be made out very coherently and consist- 
 ently with other notices of the new movement that are 
 not wanting. In such case it matters not much whether 
 the heads of the defence were brought away by an eye- 
 witness of the trial, or whether they were made up by 
 one who lived sufficiently near the time, or was in pos- 
 session of such materials as enabled him to construct 
 a condensed justification of the principles of Stephanie 
 Christianity. 
 
 The speech, in fact, becomes more intelligible if we 
 take this broad view, accept it on its own statements, 
 and put almost out of mind the terms of the charge to 
 which it purports to be a more specific reply than is 
 really the case. 
 
 The grand point of the speech is the averment, that 
 in Christ is fulfilled the prophecy of Moses: "A pro- 
 phet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your 
 brethren like unto me : him shall ye hear."
 
 172 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 The parallelism of Christ and Moses runs upon the 
 correspondence of their relation to their brethren en- 
 slaved and scattered ; of their services to them as deli- 
 verers, and givers of sacred laws ; of their treatment by 
 them, scorned, rejected, or slain. 
 
 But the prophecy, or what is taken as such, speaks 
 of a contrast, or intimates one, as well as a parallel ; and 
 Moses predicts a successor who, like him in other re- 
 spects, will be more fortunate in gaining the hearing, 
 failing which, it was that he himself was reduced to a 
 compromise, to substitution of ceremonial law for lively 
 oracles. 
 
 So special, however, on the part of Hellenistic Jews 
 was the view of the relation of prophet to people, that 
 it was not enough to illustrate this in the position 
 of Moses alone. The relation was traced from a still 
 higher point ; and the historical introduction required to 
 define the position of Moses was taken advantage of, to 
 set forth two other authoritative parallels in the histo- 
 ries of Abraham and of Joseph. 
 
 The appositeness of this long historical introduction 
 becomes at once apparent, when we observe that it is 
 so guided as to discredit, by the authority of the most 
 revered names, the ceremonial prejudice of the restric- 
 tion of divine favour to a particular locality ; in fact, to 
 Jerusalem or Judsea. 
 
 Not exclusively, it is set forth, had the God of the 
 Hebrews been manifested in this city and this holy 
 land; in fact, his favour, and the haunt and attach- 
 ments of his most favoured Servants, had been asso- 
 ciated with localities now regarded surely, therefore, 
 inconsiderately with aversion and hatred.
 
 THE GOSPEL AS ACCEPTED BY HELLENISTIC JEWS. 173 
 
 Abraham was of Mesopotamia, and it was there the 
 God of Glory appeared to him ; after his call, there was 
 an intermediate migration and residence at Haran be- 
 fore he came into Juda3a ; and in Palestine, at last, he 
 had no inheritance, not so much as to set his foot on, 
 but only the promise of reversion for his posterity. 
 Abraham himself, therefore, was in much the same de- 
 gree of domiciliary remoteness from Jerusalem as his 
 descendants, who still were sojourners in Babylonia and 
 the East. 
 
 The posterity of Abraham, still and ever the objects 
 of divine care, were conducted by God to Egypt, and in 
 Egypt they became a numerous, a wealthy, and digni- 
 fied community, an anticipation of the contemporary 
 communities so nourishing at Alexandria, at Heliopo- 
 lis, at Gyrene, and so forth. Jacob himself, the very 
 eponym of the race, settled in Egypt, and there died ; 
 and if his bones were not left there, where were they 
 transported to I Was it not to Sychem, to the now so- 
 shunned and abominated region of the Samaritans, a 
 region that had, moreover, been sanctified and accepted, 
 not to say adopted, by Abraham 1 
 
 It was in Egypt, like any modern Hellenist, that 
 Moses was born ; he was brought up in the very palace, 
 the seat in Egypt of all idolatrous abominations; he 
 was even accomplished in all the learning and language 
 of the Egyptians acquirements still more alien than 
 the learning and language of the Greeks. He took re- 
 fuge in Midian, and was more than a wanderer there, 
 for there he begat two sons. 
 
 It was in the wilderness of Sinai that Moses received 
 his commission as a prophet and deliverer; and there
 
 174 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CAKTOONS. 
 
 was given the command to put off his shoes from his 
 feet, because the place whereon he stood was holy 
 ground : the same observance for the same regard ob- 
 tained then, in the Arabian wilderness as in the worship 
 of every Jew in the proud and exclusive temple on 
 Mount Moriah. 
 
 So much for the ascription of especial merit and holi- 
 ness to birth, or residence, or periodical visitation, or 
 worshipping in one restricted locality, or within one 
 limit of consecrated ground ; so much for the consist- 
 ency of putting under ban the very localities Chaldsea, 
 Samaria, Midian, Egypt that had been hallowed and 
 accepted by the manifestations and miracles of God, and 
 the homes and actions of his most favoured servants. 
 
 The history of Moses is then pursued through the^ 
 account of his difficulties with the Israelites his bre- 
 thren, whom he came to liberate and to enlighten. He 
 had to allay political rejection, parallel to that of Jesus, 
 and the disappointment of a religious apostasy, of which 
 the result was to condemn the nation to a debased 
 material worship instead of a spiritual : it was by this 
 catastrophe that the great work of religious enlighten- 
 ment was left over for a future generation and prophet, 
 for Jesus the Christ. 
 
 The slavery of the Israelites in Egypt is a manifest 
 parallel to the condition of the Jews under the Romans, 
 and the allusion would infallibly be so understood. It 
 is as certain that the speech, by whomsoever composed, 
 has for its purport to compare the rejection of Jesus 
 in person with that of Moses, who, only concerned to 
 heal the dissensions of his brethren, and to exercise his 
 power of protecting them from oppression, is ungrate-
 
 THE GOSPEL AS ACCEPTED BY HELLENISTIC JEWS. 175 
 
 fully and spitefully entreated, and forced to fly for his 
 life. 
 
 As regards the religious aspect of the question, a 
 theory is then propounded of the origin and character 
 of the ceremonial law, and of the Temple especially. 
 This was the true key of bigoted Judaism. The Jew, 
 who renounced idolatry in its more palpable forms with 
 unfeigned antipathy, clung to the symbolical Temple 
 with all the more blindness and tenacity, till his rever- 
 ence for it became, in fact, equivalent to idolatry ; much 
 as the Protestants have filled up the void made by se- 
 cession of Catholic images and relics and hagiology, by 
 unreasoning and stupefied veneration for the Bible and 
 the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 There is a certain incoherency in the current of the 
 speech, but I feel confidence in the interpretation that 
 Stephen represents the Israelites as having, by their 
 worship of the Golden Calf, forfeited the first and nobler 
 revelations of which Moses was the messenger. the 
 " lively oracles," the words of life, the spiritual dispen- 
 sation. God, in consequence, gave them over to a wor- 
 ship that was essentially astral ; they were consigned to 
 the penal infliction, self-sought, of a heavy and degrad- 
 ing ceremonialism of sacrifices and offerings, to symbols 
 that were little better than heathenish in origin and 
 effect, the star of Moloch, the sacred tent of Kemphan 
 migrating from region to region within th,e promised 
 land, and without. Such, in very origin, was the vene- 
 rated Temple the holy place, and such the law ; and 
 even this, of secondary origin, and delivered through 
 intermediate agency of angels, had not been observed, 
 and all claim of merit through it was forfeit and futile.
 
 176 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 In the Epistle of Barnabas, the Jews are represented 
 as having forfeited the covenant of God when Moses, 
 through their apostasy, broke the tables of the law. 
 (Compare Justin's Dialogue with Tryphon, pp. 66 and 
 68 ed. Otto, and other authorities cited in the notes.) 
 
 It is true that on turning to Exodus we find the 
 instructions for making the tabernacle given to Moses 
 previous to his breaking the tables, and before the trans- 
 gression with the Golden Calf. But it is not less true, 
 and, in connection with Stephen's speech, most impor- 
 tant and remarkable, that the entire section containing 
 these'instructions, Exodus xxv. 1, to xxxi. 17, is by one 
 hand, pertains to the record Elohim, and stands in its 
 present place as an interpolation. (De Wette's Lehr- 
 buch d. Alt. Test., p. 197.) 
 
 The tabernacle of Moloch, as referred to by Stephen, 
 seems related to the lepa O-ACTJI^, or sacred tent, mentioned 
 by Diodorus Siculus (xx. 25) in the camp of the Car- 
 thaginians. Stephen, following Amos, evidently regards 
 the tabernacle and its services from the same point of 
 view as Hezekiah regarded the brazen serpent. This, 
 as we are told in Numbers xxi. 7, was made by the 
 the express directions of God to Moses ; yet, neverthe- 
 less, Hezekiah recognized it as the idolatrous symbol it 
 really was, relative of the Agathodeemon of Phoenicia 
 and the serpent-symbol of Cos, where we even find a 
 festival of the avakr^is pafi&ov, and broke it to pieces 
 unsparingly. 
 
 Of all the customs which Stephen was charged with 
 design to change, circumcision was the most important, 
 and the most obstructive to expansive views like those 
 of his party. There was, I do not doubt, a controver-
 
 THE GOSPEL AS ACCEPTED BY HELLENISTIC JEWS. 177 
 
 sial purpose in his reference to its origin with Abraham, 
 before the time of Moses. The point is mentioned in 
 John vii. 19-23, in the course of an argument for liberal 
 observation of the Sabbath. 
 
 The charge recorded against Stephen included the 
 speaking blasphemous words against God as well as 
 Moses. We have here an intimation of the doctrines 
 which gave the imputation colour. Long before, Hel- 
 lenized, and even Orientalized Jews had been shocked 
 at the coarsely anthropomorphical expressions applied 
 to Deity in the Old Testament, relics of the archaic 
 conception of Jehovah as a family or national god. In 
 perplexing passages they substituted the agency of the 
 " angel of the Lord ;" with the more inflexible logicians, 
 the God of the Old Testament came to be regarded as 
 an inferior spirituality. 
 
 Even Josephus (Archaeol. xv. 5, 3) and the Rabbins, 
 as well as Philo (de Decalogo), the author of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews (ii. 2), and Paul (Gal. iii. 19), agree 
 that it was not the Lord, but the angel of the Lord, who 
 spoke to Moses on Sinai. Josephus interrupts his nar- 
 rative to plead, with an awkward air of embarrassment, 
 " Every one is at liberty, of course, to hold his own 
 opinion as to what I now relate ; but I am bound, and 
 merely undertake to set forth what I find in our sacred 
 books, as I find it." 
 
 The Jewish- Alexandrian philosophies were the great 
 source of these hesitations and evasions (Dahne xi. 62), 
 and the phrases of the speech before us betray their 
 influence in every line. 
 
 It was not God simply, but the God of Glory, who 
 was seen by Abraham. In Philo (De Monarchia, i. 6), 
 
 N
 
 178 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 Moses, assured that God is invisible, solicits to see at 
 least the glory around him ; and proceeds, " but thy 
 glory I conceive to be the powers attendant on thee 
 as guards." The reply again is, that these also are in- 
 visible, intellectual, objects not of sense but of intel- 
 ligence, if any intelligence were capable of more than 
 apprehending the mere adumbrations even of these. It 
 was not the Lord, simple and unqualified, but the " an- 
 gel of the Lord," who appeared to Moses in the burn- 
 ing-bush, and declared himself the God of Abraham, 
 of Isaac, and of Jacob. Moses was in the desert with 
 "the" angel" who spoke to him on Mount Sinai. The 
 Jews received the law (which, however, they failed to ob- 
 serve) " by the disposition of angels." " He who spake 
 to Moses " furnished the model of the tabernacle which 
 remained with Israel until the days of David, who de- 
 sired to find a tabernacle for " the God of Jacob ;" and 
 for whom Solomon built a house. 
 
 " Howbeit," he turns off, " the Most Highest (as dis- 
 tinguished from the angels) dwelleth not in what is 
 made with hands ; as the prophet says, Heaven is my 
 throne, and earth the footstool of my feet ; what house 
 will ye build for me, saith the Lord, or what is the place 
 of my rest I Has not my hand made all these things ? " 
 The text here cited from Isaiah has many parallels 
 in denunciation of ceremonialism among the old pro- 
 phets; history is never discontinuous, and recorded or 
 not, whether expressions of such feelings left their 
 traces in literature, or art, or not, they descended no 
 less by the infallible channels of tradition, and there 
 is no wildness in the belief that the spiritual view of 
 worship, to which Stephen was giving utterance, came
 
 THE GOSPEL AS ACCEPTED BY HELLENISTIC JEWS. 179 
 
 down to him like the dialect in which he spoke, like 
 the physiognomy that marked his race, from anteces- 
 sors and progenitors, who had looked with repugnance 
 at the original tabernacle itself, had even suffered, like 
 Stephen, for the unpopularity or imprudence of their 
 denunciations. 
 
 In most worships a Temple has either commenced 
 or ended by being accepted as a symbol of the cosmos, 
 the mundus, the universe. The principle is seen dis- 
 tinctly in the Roman or Etruscan precepts for setting 
 out a consecrated precinct, whether a camp or a sanc- 
 tuary, as a templum. Philo Judaeus, in his second book, 
 ' De Monarchia,' has an interesting parallel of the cos- 
 mical temple of the divinity, and the Temple at Jerusa- 
 lem, its earthly symbol; and accepts the correlation with- 
 out repugnance. Thus we may seem to gain but little 
 by renouncing a symbolism, harmless enough, and at 
 any rate ornamental. But the denouncement of local 
 consecration, the equivalent of desecration of all with- 
 out the limit, had more value. It cut through the very 
 heart and root of the bitter uncharitableness of the un- 
 sociable Jew ; and it was doing good service to denounce 
 as mischievous a system which degraded the universal 
 into the national, the local, the sectarian, almost into 
 the private and particular. 
 
 Thus Stephen has declared the equality of man before 
 God, and the nullity of the ceremonial law ; and finally, 
 fatally for himself, so at least runs the record, taken 
 for what it may be worth, he hurries on to declare his 
 anticipation of the development and destinies of the 
 Christian movement and its founder. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 " But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up 
 steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and 
 Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, 
 Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man 
 standing on the right hand of God. 
 
 " Then they cried with a loud voice, and stopped their 
 ears, and ran upon him," etc. etc. (Acts vii. 55.) 
 
 By the reference in the exclamation of Stephen, to 
 the prophecy of Daniel, he designates Jesus as the Son 
 of Man, whose manifestation is there foretold ; and in 
 the expected form of this manifestation we are pre- 
 sented with the modified aspect in which the Kingdom 
 of Jesus now presented itself to at least a considerable 
 section of the Church. 
 
 The section of Daniel referred to, is in reality a his- 
 tory in quasi-prophetical or allegorical guise, after the 
 fact, of the establishment of the Macedonian, the fourth 
 great monarchy, the secondary Syrian Empire that grew 
 out of it, and the troubles and persecutions of the Jews 
 by Antiochus Epiphanes. The fifth monarchy, a divine 
 revelation, is to conclude all ; of this the Son of Man 
 is to be the leader, and his saints the ministers and 
 inheritors. 
 
 Daniel vii. 9, "I beheld till the thrones were cast 
 down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment 
 was white as snow, and the hair of his head as pure 
 wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his 
 wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came 
 forth from before him ; thousand thousands ministered 
 unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood 
 before him : the judgment was set, and the books 
 were opened. . . . (Ver. 13,) I saw in the night visions,
 
 THE GOSPEL AS ACCEPTED BY HELLENISTIC JEWS. 181 
 
 and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the 
 clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and 
 they brought him near before him. And there was 
 given unto him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, 
 that all people, nations, and languages should serve 
 him : his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which 
 shall not pass away. . . . (Ver. 27,) And the king- 
 dom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom 
 under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of 
 the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an ever- 
 lasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey 
 him." 
 
 Here, again, we have an anticipation by Stephen of 
 another Pauline conception, namely, that of the second 
 coming, as delivered in the Epistle to the Thessalonians. 
 Daniel's prophecy is as evidently the model for this, as 
 it was for that of Stephen, or the inditer of the speech 
 assigned to him, whoever he may have been. 
 
 Stephen's last words carry the imputation, "who 
 have received the law by the disposition of angels, and 
 have not kept it." This charge against the zealots, of 
 themselves not keeping the law, for which they were 
 such sticklers, comes up elsewhere. John vii. 19, Jesus 
 says, "Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none 
 of you keepeth the law ? why go ye about to kill me V* 
 
 From the nature of the law, and the circumstances of 
 the time, it was of course impossible that the law should 
 be fully observed, even by the most scrupulous; and 
 where was an authority competent to set any part of it 
 aside ? The zealot was therefore in a dilemma, which 
 made him inconsistent enough, between arbitrary neglect 
 and rigid exaction of observances. Bigotry, however, is
 
 182 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 not repelled by an incongruity ; the zealot relaxed no 
 little of his requirements, but his more liberal-minded 
 opponents did not fail to press him with his inconsis- 
 tency. This I believe to have been the gist of St. Paul's 
 argument, as well as of those just cited, when he urged 
 upon Pharisaic Jews at Antioch that even they, zealous 
 and Jews as they were, in many respects habitually 
 violated the law, " lived as did the Gentiles;" what, then, 
 was their authority for fixing on Gentiles the law of the 
 Jews that was so loosely worn by themselves "? 
 
 The citations of Scripture in the speech correspond 
 with the Septuagint version, but are made and applied 
 with extraordinary irregularity and inaccuracy. 
 
 The command of God to Abraham, quoted as given 
 in Mesopotamia, was given, according to Genesis xi. 31, 
 and xii. 1, after his departure to Haran, and is there- 
 fore confounded with the command to quit Ur of the 
 Chaldees. (Gen. xv. 7 ; Neh. ix. 7.) 
 
 Ver. 4. The departure of Abraham after the death of 
 his father is not reconcileable with the dates given. 
 Abram, we read, was born in his father's seventieth year 
 (Gen. xi. 26), and quitted Haran when he himself was 
 seventy-five, and therefore when his father was 145 
 (Gen. xii. 4); his father, however, as we are told, lived 
 to be 205. 
 
 Ver. 5. That Abraham did not possess a foot of the 
 promised land is at variance with the strict letter of the 
 narrative of his purchase, Gen. xxiii. 
 
 Ver. 14. The number of the family of Jacob invited 
 to Egypt by Joseph is also at variance. 
 
 Ver. 16. Here are two errors, or at least divarications : 
 first, that all the sons of Jacob were buried in Palestine ;
 
 THE SCATTERED CHURCH : THE RESIDENT APOSTLES. 183 
 
 second, that he himself was buried in Sychem, not in 
 the Cave of Machpelah by Hebron. (Gen. xlix. 30.) 
 
 Again, we read that it was Jacob who bought a field 
 of the sons of Hamor (Gen. xxlxiii. 19), and Abraham 
 who bought the cave of Machpelah. 
 
 Ver. 22. The eloquence of Moses does not agree with 
 Gen. iv. 10. 
 
 ~~Ver. 43. The text of Amos has Damascus, not Ba- 
 bylon. 
 
 Some of these discrepancies have the air of being due 
 to independent traditions and controversial glosses, rather 
 than to simple lapse in quotation. There appears, for 
 instance, to have been a popular view that Abram's fa- 
 ther was dead when he migrated, adopted probably from 
 tenderness to his piety. (Cf. Philo Judaeus, Migrat. Abr., 
 Op. i. p. 464.) 
 
 III. THE SCATTERED CHURCH : THE RESIDENT APOSTLES. 
 
 The account of the death of Stephen is followed up 
 by a most remarkable, and in itself surprising notice. 
 " And in that day there was a great persecution against 
 the church which was in Jerusalem, and all were scat- 
 tered abroad in the countries of Judaea and Samaria, 
 except the Apostles." 
 
 Some qualification is manifestly requisite here ; either 
 the scattering of the community was much less general 
 than stated, or there is a mistake as to the Apostles 
 being able to stand their ground. How is it, we may 
 ask ourselves, that the incongruity did not appear to the 
 writer or compiler of Acts ? Was it that he was aware 
 that the course of the narrative would bring him back
 
 184 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 to find the Apostles at Jerusalem I But then it was 
 open to him to assume that they had found their way 
 back. Was it that he felt repugnance to represent them 
 as fugitives, while others were martyrs'? If he were 
 persuaded that, incongruous as it might appear, the fact 
 was as he states it, he may easily have fallen back, and 
 have rested assured that his readers would fall back, 
 upon the general impression that things of the greatest 
 improbability are often true notwithstanding, and that 
 this was one of them. After all, the claim of the Apos- 
 tles to supernatural protection was in reserve in the 
 background. 
 
 I believe, however, that a very simple qualification of 
 the terms of the narrative will make all clear, and this 
 qualification is abundantly supported by incidental con- 
 firmations. It seems to me certain that the persecution 
 which was first provoked by Stephen only attacked the 
 portion of the Church which was actively participant in 
 his views, views highly contrasted with those that we 
 find now and afterwards entertained by the Apostles, 
 and therefore by their adherents. We are here, in fact, 
 at the very point of divergence of a great party in the 
 Church, a divergence that we shall find quite serious 
 enough to account for such differences of fortune as that 
 the Diaconal section should be hunted down and dis- 
 persed, while the Apostolic remains at home and enjoys 
 immunity. 
 
 Persecution is now for the first time spoken of as 
 coming from the Pharisees. The earlier notices of the 
 troubles of the Apostles ascribe them to that Sadducaic 
 faction of which the sympathies, as characterized by 
 Josephus, would be not more opposed to their doctrine
 
 THE SCATTERED CHURCH : THE RESIDENT APOSTLES. 185 
 
 of resurrection than to their action upon the religious 
 excitability of the lower orders, and the stimulus lent 
 to Messianic agitation, the eager hope of the speedy 
 kingdom of God, if not restoration of the line of David. 
 
 A large fund of precepts in the Gospels is directed 
 against Pharisaism, as developed in ostentatious piety 
 and almsgiving, exclusive regard to preceptive morality, 
 and reliance on minute, burdensome, irrational ceremo- 
 nialism. Opposition to these corruptions of true devo- 
 tion was the very strength of the preaching of the Bap- 
 tist, and I do not doubt struck deep root through the 
 ministrations of Jesus, and gave effect to much of the 
 teaching of the Apostles ; only on this supposition of 
 communicated force from personal character can we ac- 
 count for the full vigour and vitality of the Church, and 
 the general tone of its records after his death. But after 
 his death, other influences gained in countervailing 
 power ; the exciting anticipation of his return in power 
 was predominant ; it attracted adherents in large num- 
 bers, who were still imbued with attachment to the law 
 of Moses with the greatest bigotry, and the colour that 
 was thus given to the Church at large, threw, I suspect, 
 more influence than was well, into the hands of those 
 of the Apostles who had least realized the true extent of 
 the antithesis, between the spirituality of Jesus and the 
 Baptist, and the paltriness of ceremonialism. 
 
 This is the explanation of the startling account that 
 we read late in Acts, of the condition of the Jerusalem 
 Church. " You see, brother, how many thousands of 
 Jews there are who believe, who are all zealots for the 
 law." Apostles, it is clear, accepted them as believers 
 on what would well seem to Stephen or to Paul very easy
 
 186 /. CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 terms ; and by the same rule, the populace of Jerusalem 
 and their Pharisaic leaders would not readily appreciate 
 a difference with Stephen as a ground of quarrel with 
 the Apostles. 
 
 It is open to those who please to take the view that 
 the contrariety between Stephen and the Apostles was 
 a transference to an earlier date of this later difficulty 
 of Paul ; for myself, I see in the parallelism a recurrence 
 of similar effects from permanent conditions, and take 
 one incident as confirming, not as superseding the .other. 
 
 Perfectly in accordance with these inferences, is the 
 complication introduced into the affairs of the Church 
 by the interference and influence at Antioch of bre- 
 thren of the sect of Pharisees, who came from James at 
 Jerusalem. The tendency, at least, of all the notices is 
 concordant, and we cannot ascribe too much historical 
 importance to the crisis before us, as affecting the course 
 of Christianity and colouring its records. 
 
 We have before us the explanation of some of the 
 leading incongruities presented by these records. Partly 
 in their fragmentary condition, partly in their compiled, 
 partly in their progress from the state of loose records 
 to compilations, the Gospels were modified extensively 
 by a branch of the Christian sect alienated to some ex- 
 tent from the Apostles, and even opposed to them, though 
 bound at the same time to a respectful theory of their 
 position as transmitters .of the faith and the first dis- 
 pensers of the Holy Ghost. The memorabilia of Jesus 
 passed, in fact, through the hands of those who had 
 more definite theories of his mission than personal know- 
 ledge of its facts, and every form of mythical corruption 
 had thus free inlet. In all integrity of good faith, as
 
 THE SCATTERED CHUECH : THE RESIDENT APOSTLES. 187 
 
 well as by laxity of pious lapse, most uncritical inclu- 
 sions and exclusions would have sway. But the most 
 important result of such conditions is this, that the Gos- 
 pels contain entire sections of incidents and speeches 
 ascribed to Jesus, which he not only could never have 
 had part in, but that most certainly were originally 
 composed consciously as apologues, as allegories, as 
 illustrations, as poetic illustrations or whatever else, 
 but certainly not as candid narrative of credited matters 
 of fact. How these stories came first to be so accre- 
 dited is a difficult question. In some cases, it may be 
 that imagination and inspiration were confounded by 
 the writers or inventors; who shall limit the tricks of 
 self-delusion among the talkers and the interpreters of 
 the unknown tongues ? Howbeit, when controversy was 
 rife was raging within the Church, and the authority 
 of the founder was liable to be appealed to by one side 
 or the other, there was manifest temptation to model 
 citations, to supply from invention instructions of the 
 Saviour ; and when these were so admirably in keeping 
 with his spirit, so cogent in their natural truth, so naive 
 in irresistible illustration, acceptation of them as au- 
 thentic by the zealous, credulous, and uncritical age was 
 inevitable. The incongruities of time and sentiment 
 were not perceived, and as to the marvels that shock a 
 modern, they were confirmations for the contemporary. 
 
 To adduce a conspicuous example ; I am of opinion 
 that the parable of the Prodigal Son was a Hellenistic 
 figment of this class, the controversial import of some 
 of the reflections on the Pharisees will find their place 
 hereafter. 
 
 The Prodigal Son has usually been interpreted as the
 
 188 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 type of the Gentiles admitted to the privilege of Chris- 
 tianity ; but from some trait, I infer that, originally at 
 least, the parable was designed to enforce the same moral 
 as the first section of the speech of Stephen, the ad- 
 missibility of the Hellenized Jew, including in the term 
 Jews denationalized by residence out of Palestine in any 
 country whatever. The prodigal is open to all the grand 
 imputations on the Hellenist ; he renounces native 
 country and the ties of blood ; he transgresses by irre- 
 gular and luxurious life ; he defiles himself, under what- 
 ever pressing necessity, by occupations, associates, food, 
 that ' are as abhorrent to the Jew as herding swine or 
 feeding from their very refuse ; and lastly, not even his 
 race is retained in its purity, he has consorted with har- 
 lots, the marriage of a Jew with aliens in blood or re- 
 ligion was held to be nothing better. 
 
 As a quasi-historical illustration we have the supper 
 with Zacchseus, the chief publican, or tax-farmer or ga- 
 therer, and the acceptation of his service on the ground, 
 " he also is a child of Abraham." 
 
 We have seen what were the feelings of the Pharisees 
 and their followers on the subject of tribute, and there- 
 fore on the abomination of subserving the collection of 
 tribute. They are reflected upon therefore in the story 
 of Zacchaeus as pointedly as in the parable of the Pha- 
 risee and Publican praying in the Temple. 
 
 Opportunities will occur hereafter of tracing in detail 
 how these processes have affected the accounts bear- 
 ing not merely on the special party of the Apostles, but 
 on Apostles at large, on particular Apostles and their 
 manner of guiding themselves. Thus is solved many a 
 problem. How the Apostles could have acted as they
 
 THE SCATTERED CHURCH : THE KESIDENT APOSTLES. 189 
 
 did after Christ had so spoken, is accounted for by his 
 so speaking being a later ascription by their opponents. 
 How they could so grossly misconstrue what he spoke 
 so plainly ; how, having so long misconstrued it, they 
 could ever remember the purport of its terms so mi- 
 nutely, is all accounted for. Jesus is boldly cited against 
 his own Apostles, in words which only they could have 
 reported, if uttered, and which, if uttered, they would 
 either have acted on or suppressed. 
 
 To resume ; 
 
 While Saul was harassing at least a section of the 
 Church at Jerusalem, Philip, the deacon, with some in- 
 dependence and in the same spirit that marked the doc- 
 trine of his martyred colleague, went down to the city 
 of Samaria, and there preached Christ. Miracles of 
 healing and casting out devils are ascribed to him ; he 
 excited a general spirit of enthusiasm, so that not only 
 the multitude attached themselves to him and were 
 baptized, but even a certain Simon, who had previously 
 enjoyed great influence there with small and great. 
 Simon, it is told, had given himself out as " a certain 
 great one;" his admirers looked up to him with such 
 awe as to say, " This man is the mighty power of God." 
 Such pretensions and such acceptations were not unfre- 
 quent in these days. In the ' Alexander ' of Lucian we 
 have a finished and, in all essential respects, an authen- 
 tic portrait of the Goetic impostor. In the case of Si- 
 mon, we have not quite a right to affirm that, impostor 
 and mercenary as he might be, he had not some mix- 
 ture of superstition in his nature, and was not, to some 
 extent, a self-deluded fanatic. The words of our record 
 are certainly good for thus much.
 
 190 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 We then read that the Apostles, hearing the tidings, 
 dispatch Peter and John to Samaria. Nothing is said 
 of any repugnance on the part of the Apostles to the 
 course taken by Philip, yet it is a clear incongruity that 
 they should heartily sympathize with that very deve- 
 lopment of Christian doctrine, their disconnection with 
 which had enabled them to stay tranquilly at Jerusa- 
 lem. My own impression is, that some of the Apostles 
 were more liberal than others, if most of them, in vari- 
 ous degrees, were not more so than their immediate fol- 
 lowing, with whom they still found it necessary to keep 
 terms ; whom they hoped to lead round but despaired 
 to lead direct, to larger-mindedness. The rulers of the 
 sect, who had imperial aims, were already committed to 
 many of the considerations that trammel the politician ; 
 accepted the services of more zeal than they could ac- 
 knowledge, or even sympathize with ; and then damaged 
 consistency by compromises which had no excuse but 
 the paramount interest of the strength and unity of the 
 party. We shall find that the converted Paul could 
 attach himself to some Apostles, while others and their 
 general party held aloof; and some were ready to coin- 
 cide with his plans and views beforehand, who found 
 great difficulty in holding their ground in a discussion 
 at a metropolitan assembly. 
 
 Paul mentions James, Peter, and John as not only 
 influential, but also well disposed towards his large 
 views; and it is quite in accordance with this that 
 Peter and John should undertake the mission to Sama- 
 ria, and should carry it out in a comprehensive spirit. 
 It will be understood from what has gone before that 
 it was much for them to accept the Samaritans as
 
 THE SCATTERED CHURCH : THE RESIDENT APOSTLES. 1 91 
 
 converts at all, when exposed to the cavil of a Church 
 of zealots and Pharisees. They did this, however, by 
 formally laying hands upon the baptized converts, and 
 conferring the gift of the Holy Ghost, whatever this 
 may have amounted to, whatever may have been the pe- 
 culiar phenomena that certified the endowment. In 
 another narrative, Peter is represented as boldly appeal- 
 ing to these manifestations in non-Judaic converts as 
 direct revelations, and works the plea so as to reduce 
 to silence the questioners of his liberality ; and this may 
 have been a leading motive on the present occasion. Al- 
 ready, in the comment on the Cartoon of the Beautiful 
 Gate of the Temple, I have touched on the probability 
 that the miracle there ascribed to James and John is, in 
 fact, a symbolical representation of their conjoint activity 
 in procuring admission into the sect of the half-blood 
 Jew the Hellenist or the Samaritan. 
 
 This is the aspect of ^the transaction as told from the 
 point of view of those who held by the Apostles, and 
 thought that every management and every concession 
 made by them in favour of liberality, was to be received 
 with submissive gratitude. But it is not to be denied 
 that all was open to a more discontented interpretation : 
 a fugitive evangelizing Hellenist might not unnaturally 
 think it hard to be superseded after the work was 
 done, by envoys, however dignified, from those who had 
 had neither work nor danger. There is a certain air 
 of assumed authority in the laying on of hands by the 
 Apostles, in the trumping of the simple baptism of 
 Philip by the strong card of the Holy Ghost. The nar- 
 rator does not by any means appear desirous to convey 
 this feeling, but it arises from the circumstances, just
 
 192 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 as it arises when we read in the history of Paul how he 
 takes possession of the disciples of Apollos at Ephe- 
 sus, by playing oif the same pretext or proof of being 
 minister of a paramount dispensation. 
 
 Here is another of the parallelisms, in which some 
 will be inclined to impugn the historical character of 
 one incident, on the ground that it is a transference 
 from the other. But again I hold by the probability 
 of the reference of like effects to like and constantly 
 subsisting causes. We find them operative again in the 
 Epistle to the Romans. Paul expresses his anxiety to 
 reach' Rome ; " for I long to see you, that I may impart 
 unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be es- 
 tablished," that is, " confirmed ;" a technical word al- 
 ready, apparently, from the forms of its recurrence in 
 the Acts of the Apostles. He has no sooner written the 
 words than he qualifies, in order to calm the jealousy 
 of encroachment which he feels they might awaken: 
 " That is, that I might be comforted together with you 
 by the mutual faith both of you and me." 
 
 That the Samaritan story, as told, contains much ge- 
 neral historical truth seems to me very probable, be- 
 cause I believe we may trace an adumbration of the 
 incidents and of the feelings which, though not speci- 
 fied in Acts, were naturally suggested by them in quite 
 a different quarter. 
 
 It seems to me probable enough that the motive of 
 the parable of the Good Samaritan may be derived 
 from the adventure of Philip, who, persecuted by Jews 
 of Jerusalem, finds relief and refreshment in the zeal of 
 the Samaritans ; but there are more distinct indications 
 of reference in the story of Christ and the woman by the
 
 TIIE SCATTERED CHURCH: THE RESIDENT APOSTLES. 193 
 
 well of Samaria, which appears only in the fourth 
 Gospel. If such be the case, we must conclude that this 
 section, at least, of the fourth Gospel had early origin, 
 though it did not find admission into the other com- 
 pilations; possibly because these were made at a time 
 when tradition was still too strong to adopt the personal 
 preaching of Christ in Samaria as history. 
 
 The story is complete as a typical expression of the 
 relation of diaconal Christianity and party feeling to 
 apostolic, and reflects a light here upon the motives and 
 processes of evangelical composition, illuminating the 
 pertinence of many a dark passage throughout all the 
 Gospels. ;, 
 
 The scene is at the well of Jacob, hard by the place 
 that he gave to his son Joseph, the same significant lo- 
 cality that Stephen adverts to when enforcing, as I have 
 shown, the common sacredness even of Samaria. The 
 woman herself, the wife of many husbands, is fitting 
 type of the Samaritan population, regarded by the zealot 
 Jews as debased by indiscriminate alliance with alien 
 blood, and abhorred accordingly. Yet to her does Jesus 
 preach; from her hands he accepts refreshment; and 
 the gist of his inculcations, most fully in harmony with 
 the teachings of the deacons, is directed to the same 
 points, the indifference of locality to acceptable wor- 
 ship, the supersession of ceremonialism by spirituality, 
 by worship in spirit and in truth. 
 
 The Disciples whom I assume here to be equivalents 
 of the Apostles witness the colloquy not without sur- 
 prise; and in their conversation with their Master are 
 so far at cross purposes, from pure literalness of un- 
 derstanding, as to show that they are by no means per- 
 
 o
 
 194 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 sonations of the new dispensation of spirituality. Jesus 
 comes to their assistance with an explanation of his 
 metaphor : " My food is to do the will of him who sent 
 me, and I will finish his work." He then pursues his 
 observations in what seems a very disconnected strain, 
 but in the same general tone ; and, what is most remark- 
 able, the words ascribed to him can only be interpreted, 
 after what has gone before, as reflecting on the relative 
 position of Apostles and deacons in the evangelization 
 of Samaria. 
 
 "Say not ye there are yet four months, and then 
 cometh the harvest? Behold, I say unto you, lift up 
 your eyes and look on the fields, for they are ripe al- 
 ready with harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth 
 wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal ; that both 
 he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice toge- 
 ther. And herein is that saying true, One soweth and 
 another reapeth. I send you to reap that whereon ye 
 bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are 
 entered into their labours." 
 
 Of course, the suggestion is open that this is not an 
 independent, but a derived allusion, as being simply an 
 embodiment, in a quasi-anecdote of Christ, of the story 
 that had been read as we now read it in Acts. I 
 abide, however, by the view I have taken, believing that 
 only thus can the harmony with Stephen, as well as with 
 Philip, be reasonably explained. 
 
 One other matter remains to be remarked upon be- 
 fore we quit Samaria. Simon Simon Magus presents 
 a mercenary motive to the Apostles, in order to obtain 
 the power of conferring the Holy Ghost; and Simon 
 Magus, it must not be forgotten, was an accepted con-
 
 THE SCATTERED CHURCH: THE RESIDENT APOSTLES. 195 
 
 vert, a baptized member of the Church. His offer was 
 rejected by Peter with a severe rebuke. Luther trans- 
 lated this, "Dass du verdammt sei mit deinem Geld," 
 and gave it point by a marginal note, in order to apply 
 it to the simony of the Roman Catholics; for Simon 
 has been posted from that day to this as representative 
 of all traffickers in the cure of souls for money ; he is 
 contrite, and escapes more easily than Ananias. 
 
 That such an offer should have been made by such a 
 convert is quite in the order of events, and natural at that 
 time, as in forms transformed it has continued natural 
 ever since. The Magus was a man of the world ; he held 
 himself beaten by more artful or more gifted rivals ; and 
 powerless to contend, took the natural alternative of 
 negotiating for collusion and partnership. 
 
 I am not sure that other circumstances may not have 
 helped to suggest his proposition. 
 
 The condition of the Church at Jerusalem, the poor 
 saints, rendered contributions from converts welcome, 
 not to say indispensable; and so established a matter 
 W 7 as it in those days for Jews all over the world to send 
 contributions to the Temple, of which its personal esta- 
 blishment, of course, shared the benefit, that no for- 
 feiture of independence might be felt by the Church of 
 the Apostles at Jerusalem, in being helped or supported 
 in the same way. When Paul came to his understanding 
 with the Apostles, " they would he should remember the 
 poor, which he also was forward to do ; " and on two 
 occasions, from Antioch first, and then from his wider 
 journeys, he took up collections, which, in his speech to 
 Agrippa, he calls " alms and offerings for his nation." 
 
 Did Peter and John institute such a collection at 
 
 o 2
 
 196 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 Samaria, and thus give opening for a claim on the part 
 of a liberal contributor, for participation in functions and 
 dignities, much as if a modern endower of a church 
 should think it fair to reserve the appointment of the 
 clergyman? However this may be, cavillers in the Church 
 at a future time seem to have been prompt to stigma- 
 tize the money contributions brought in by Paul as no 
 better than simoniacal corruptions, and attempts to pur- 
 chase allowance of Apostleship. Such, at least, is the 
 explanation that seems to me natural, of the pleasure 
 taken by controversial opponents of Paul in referring to 
 him as Simon Magus. 
 
 The departure of Philip from Samaria is related with- 
 out comment ; but the feeling rises inevitably, as the 
 tale stands, apart from unrecorded qualifications, that 
 he seems to quit rather obscurely, and that he must have 
 been charitable indeed if he felt no discontent at being 
 so quietly dismissed and superseded. Oddly enough, 
 an occasion for much the same feelings is exhibited in 
 the story of the Samaritan woman, who has to reconcile 
 herself to being no longer an object of interest after 
 her function of introduction was fulfilled. " And many 
 more believed because of his own word ; and said unto 
 the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: 
 for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this 
 is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." (John 
 iv. 41, 42.) 
 
 Philip's encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch may 
 quite easily be a mere figment, deliberate, or of sponta- 
 neous origin ; and, quite as easily, it may be a quasi- 
 poetical expression of a series of years of activity south- 
 wards of Egypt. The story finishes with one of those
 
 THE SCATTERED CHURCH: THE RESIDENT APOSTLES. 197 
 
 indefinite turns that seem intended to gain a point by 
 cheating the devil ; a miracle is laid in the way of the 
 reader a supernatural transference in space, which it 
 is for him to answer for if he assumes, and if he does 
 not. " The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that 
 the eunuch saw him no more ; but Philip was found at 
 Azotus, and passing through, he preached in all the 
 cities till he came to Csesarea." 
 
 Here, at Ctesarea, he was found long after by Paul, 
 and his companion, the author of the personally ex- 
 pressed sections of the Acts of the Apostles : " And we 
 entered into the house of Philip the Evangelist, which 
 was one of the seven, and abode with him. And the 
 same man had four daughters, virgins, which did pro- 
 phesy." I have sometimes thought that to these fair 
 enthusiasts we may owe some of the poetical and pathe- 
 tic parables of the third Gospel. If the writer of Acts 
 gained in this house the details of the Samaritan inci- 
 dents we have been discussing, as critical acumen was 
 not there in special request, supernatural and poetical 
 colour would blend readily with the transmitted tale.
 
 198 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 
 
 I. SAUL THE PERSECUTOR. II. THE TAPESTRY OF THE CON- 
 VERSION OF ST. PAUL. III. THE RECEPTION OF PAUL 
 THE DISCIPLE BY THE CHURCH. 
 
 I. SAUL THE PERSECUTOR. 
 
 SAUL was a Jew, born at Tarsus ; a citizen, as he him- 
 self truly says, of no mean city. It was distinguished 
 in a declining age for intellectual culture, and Strabo 
 ranks its schools in his time with those of Athens and 
 Alexandria ; at an earlier date the tutors both of 
 Augustus and Tiberius, were Stoics of Tarsus. We read 
 in the Epistles of relatives of Paul settled in Mace- 
 donia ; one of them was probably that man of Mace- 
 donia whom he saw in a dream inviting him over to 
 Europe. In days long after, his sister's son at Jerusalem 
 it still called a young man. 
 
 He was born to the rights of a Roman citizen, which 
 often stood him in good stead ; a Pharisee by like here- 
 ditary derivation, he was sent to Jerusalem to be taught 
 and strengthened in his tenets at the feet of the distin- 
 guished Pharisaic teacher, Gamaliel. We can easily 
 believe his boast of early proficiency ; but much that 
 he acquired with aptitude was certainly of such a nature
 
 SAUL THE PERSECUTOR. 199 
 
 that we must rather admire the vigorous health of his 
 nature, in being capable of casting off, as an encumbrance, 
 so much of its influence, and restoring the free use of 
 faculties that had been so early and so falsely cramped. 
 
 Zeal for the conversion of the heathen, and hope for 
 the kingdom of God, the restoration of Israel, were, 
 as we have seen, the leading passions of the Pharisaism 
 of the time, whatever proportion or figure may have been 
 assigned to them in the teaching of Gamaliel ; and in 
 these ideas lay also the germ of expansive Christianity, 
 awaiting the processes and accidents of internal and 
 surrounding nature for their development. The fruit, 
 as developed on Christian ground, bore natural resem- 
 blance to that of the primitive and strictly Judaic stock. 
 When relief, as we read in Acts, came to the famine 
 at Jerusalem from Christians at Antioch, it came from 
 the heart of a religious society agitated, or soon to be 
 agitated, by questions of ceremonialism, disputes as 
 to whether it were possible to remain uncircumcised 
 and still to rightly serve God. Other relief arrived at 
 the same time from Adiabene, beyond the Tigris, and this 
 was from converts also ; even from King Izates and 
 Queen Helena, with whom we already have some ac- 
 quaintance; and in the history of whose conversion, 
 zeal and over-zeal had been manifested by teachers, 
 Galilean like Peter, Pharisaic like Paul, but not, like 
 them, advanced upon the ground of the new faith. 
 Izates, like any convert of Antioch, had found himself 
 between two instructors ; the one who was willing to 
 remit a repulsive rite, the other insisting on it as the 
 necessary seal of acceptability, and carrying his point. 
 
 In many other important respects besides hope of the
 
 200 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 kingdom of God, we recognize the character of Paul 
 the Apostle as displaying characteristics of Saul the 
 Pharisee, and the impress of his education. 
 
 To follow the narrative as it proceeds, Saul was not 
 only consenting to the death of Stephen, but after this 
 event continued to harry the Church, entering into 
 houses, and haling both men and women to prison. 
 Still further, he made direct application to the high- 
 priest for credentials to the synagogues at Damascus, 
 that he might follow the dispersed members of the 
 Church, and bring bound to Jerusalem whatever men 
 or women of the sect, his inquisition might discover. 
 
 Here we have the same energy and activity that 
 afterwards found occupation in a better spirit and cause ; 
 and yet, in his proceedings as an Apostle, we have not 
 far to look for a vehemence that betrays a germ of 
 fierceness, for a love of independent command, and a 
 jealousy of interference and contradiction that may be 
 under a certain control, but will ever brook control re- 
 luctantly. 
 
 ' As I before said, so say 1 again, if any one preach 
 to you another gospel than what ye have received from 
 me, though he were an angel from heaven, let him be 
 cursed." (Gal. i. 9.) 
 
 " If any one love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him 
 be cursed, Maran-atha ; " on this follows, with naive 
 unconsciousness, u the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ 
 be with you, my love be with you all," etc. (1 Cor. fin.) 
 
 Also, it has been observed that the preacher retains a 
 certain fondness for military metaphors, the panoply 
 of the Christian, the good fight, which have a certain 
 incongruousncss with the gospel of peace and submis-
 
 SAUL THE PERSECUTOR. 201 
 
 sion, equal to that we notice between Shakspeare's legal 
 metaphors and the passion of despairing Romeo, who 
 gives utterance to them. 
 
 The revulsion of a gifted and vehement nature from 
 one form of religious belief to another, from one field 
 of energy to another, as opposed, but not more opposed, 
 than different sides in the same cause, is one of the most 
 familiar incidents in the history of religions in their 
 enthusiastic epochs. There is no mystery here that is 
 not illustrated abundantly in such lives as those of 
 Bunyan, Cromwell, Ignatius Loyola, and the rest. The 
 occasion and incidents of the persecution necessarily 
 brought Paul into contact and acquaintance with the 
 opinions of Stephen, and the leading points in the story 
 of Christ, and the persuasion of his followers. He, a 
 Pharisee, could have no repugnance to the assertion 
 of a resurrection in itself, nor, at least in a certain 
 form, to the announcement of the speedy manifestation 
 of a kingdom of God. The permanence .of the law, the 
 sacredness of the Temple, the exclusive privileges of 
 the Jewish race, these must have been the prejudices 
 that were irritated by the teachings of Stephen and 
 his followers, and that supplied the sting and venom of 
 his persecuting spirit. 
 
 But it is quite in the order of things for young minds 
 in the progress of their development, to hold with strong 
 conviction two, or even more, principles, and even 
 systems of opinions, that are perfectly irreconcileable 
 with each other, but of which the incongruousness is 
 hidden from them while arguing with vehemence, and 
 even acting with violence from both. 
 
 The time comes as thoughts ripen that one or the
 
 202 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 other thought must have the upper hand, and an older 
 bystander may often note the first rise of a passion in a 
 crude mind, of which he can foresee certainly that it will 
 drive all these incongruities to an issue, bring on an ab- 
 solute revulsion, and clear the mind once and for ever 
 for the settled work of a lifetime of comparative con- 
 sistency. Such a revolution in a mind, as in a State, 
 depends far less on the introduction of new ideas than 
 on those which, by laxity or alternation, have subsisted 
 more or less peacefully together all along, being brought 
 into positive contact and collision, and making their re- 
 lative 'value decisively felt. 
 
 The result of the story shows that Paul carried with- 
 in him a rising passion for a sphere of activity com- 
 mensurate with the largest views, the strongest energies. 
 Such a sphere is scarcely provided for the enthusiastic 
 by a policy of repression, however active and however 
 violent, and least of all when the repression declares it- 
 self ineffectual. Hopeful energy soon feels repugnance 
 for labouring in a declining cause, and especially in the 
 face of the spectacle of a cause that has all the charac- 
 teristics of an immortal vigour. 
 
 I strongly suspect that some such conflict was al- 
 ready proceeding in Saul's mind when he started for 
 Damascus; that he was already sickening at fruitless, 
 and therefore uncongenial, exertion ; perhaps had had 
 occasion to contrast the spirit of some who were mak- 
 ing him a tool with those whom he was making victims. 
 There was a tale among some of the Christian Jews of 
 the early Church who disliked him, that his defection 
 from the Law had a certain connection with a love dis- 
 appointment, and the shabby conduct of an expected
 
 SAUL THE PERSECUTOR. 203 
 
 father-in-law Gamaliel, or a high-priest; and though 
 the tale might easily be a calumny, it indicates what 
 might very easily have been allied to a truth. 
 
 But there is a combination which advances the theory 
 I have stated of the crisis of Saul's feelings and opi- 
 nions, to something more than an unprotected conjec- 
 ture. 
 
 Gamaliel, in the speech ascribed to him, enunciates 
 the principle, that if the Christian movement is not 
 from God it will speedily come to nought; and he is 
 willing to commit the decision whether they who would 
 check it are not proposing to fight against God, to the 
 test of its vitality or speedy decay. 
 
 This is something more than a notion of an indivi- 
 dual ; it corresponds with, and expresses, the dogma of 
 the sect of Pharisees respecting the ordering of events 
 by a providential fatality, to which Josephus returns 
 again and again. This was a test of which Saul, by 
 the time he was on his way to Damascus, must have 
 already had some discouraging experience. That the 
 principle should have been then present to his mind is 
 curiously in accordance with the terms of the narrative 
 of his vision. 
 
 " And as he journeyed, he came near to Damascus : 
 and suddenly there shone round him a light from 
 heaven; and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice 
 saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? 
 And he said, Who art thou, Lord ? And the Lord said, 
 I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest; but arise, and go 
 into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must 
 do. And the men that journeyed with him stood 
 speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one. And
 
 204 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 Saul arose from the earth ; and when his eyes were 
 opened, he saw no one : and they led him by the hand, 
 and brought him into Damascus. And he was three 
 days without sight, and neither ate nor drank." 
 
 In Paul's speech before Agrippa, the narrative runs 
 thus : " Whereupon as I went to Damascus with autho- 
 rity and commission from the high-priests, at midday 
 I saw on the road, O king, from heaven, above the 
 brightness of the sun, a light shining around me, and 
 them that journeyed with me. And when we were all 
 fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, 
 and saying, in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why per- 
 secutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against 
 the pricks. And I said, Who art thou, Lord 1 And he 
 said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest," etc. 
 
 Still a third narration occurs in Paul's speech on the 
 steps of the tower Antonia : " And it came to pass, as 
 I journeyed and came nigh to Damascus about noon, 
 suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round 
 me. And I fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying 
 unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me I And I 
 answered, Who art thou, Lord 1. And he said unto me, 
 I am Jesus, the Nazarite, whom thou persecutest. And 
 they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were 
 afraid ; but they heard not the voice of him that spake 
 unto me. ... And when I could not see for the glory 
 of that light, being led by the hand of them that were 
 with me, I came to Damascus." 
 
 These extracts are for future use ; at present, I have 
 to advert to an expression in the narrative to Agrippa : 
 " It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." This
 
 SAUL THE PERSECUTOR. 205 
 
 is a proverbial expression, which occurs with general 
 application up and down in Greek literature, but it is 
 idiomatic for the present occasion. Not only here, but 
 elsewhere: here, because elsewhere, it is employed to 
 express the powerlessness of a mind that struggles, but 
 in vain, to escape being carried away involuntarily with 
 the flood of religious enthusiasm when it comes on in 
 force, and carries multitudes along with it. The pricks 
 that are resisted are the stimulant sympathies that on 
 such occasions seem to be commanded by the preacher. 
 These are phenomena of revivals ; and preachers Wes- 
 ley s and Whitfields, like Pauls and Peters sometimes 
 credit themselves with a special power and the gift of a 
 divine affluence, or the endowment of communicating 
 the Holy Ghost. But the incident is intermittent, tran- 
 sitory, usually abounding at the commencement of a 
 sect, and declining as it proceeds. The manifestations 
 are often as much bodily as intellectual or moral. It 
 is to such that Paul refers when he appeals to the 
 Corinthians how independent their original conversion 
 was of rhetoric and argument: "And my speech and 
 my preaching was not with persuading words of wisdom, 
 but with demonstration of spirit and power ; that your 
 faith might not be in men's wisdom, but in God's 
 power." (1 Cor. xi. 5.) 
 
 The physiology of quasi-involuntary conversion is not 
 more distinctly illustrated in the history of modern 
 Methodists or Quakers, than in the primeval story of 
 Saul amongst the prophets ; and in the Greek drama, it 
 is poetically idealized, but still most marked and recog- 
 nizable, in the story of Pentheus in the Bacchce of Euri- 
 pides. In this play we find Gamaliel's idea, and his
 
 206 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 very phrase of theomachy, and Paul's proverb of " kick- 
 ing against the pricks," and its identical application, as 
 vain resistance to a crisis of religious belief that per- 
 force will have its \vay. 
 
 We may ask beyond this, what strict historical con- 
 struction can reasonably be put on the external details 
 of the incident ? We are not bound to interpret very 
 closely. The several narratives vary from each other 
 in certain marked details. It is quite possible, there- 
 fore, that in others where they agree they may all vary 
 from the fact. 
 
 It 'is not much worth while, therefore, inquiring 
 whether a moral crisis and disturbance may not have 
 brought on the bodily, or a bodily trouble at least have 
 coincided with the course of a prolonged mental excite- 
 ment. The incident does not stand alone in Paul's 
 history: his complaints of bodily weakness and trials 
 abound; and that he regards them as hindrances of 
 Satan, shows how little he could distinguish critically 
 the sources of his afflictions. His trance in the Temple, 
 and his revelations in dialogue with Christ, have many 
 characteristics of his fit at noon on the road to Da- 
 mascus. After the laxity of the statements before us 
 all at second-hand, to say the least we are not bound 
 to accept as probabilities his blindness, or his recovery 
 under the touch of Ananias, much less that either one 
 or the other was sudden and complete. There may 
 easily have been matter of fact enough in both cases, 
 and little enough need it have been, to produce such 
 stories as easy and natural exaggerations. 
 
 It appears pretty distinctly, from a passage in the 
 Epistle to the Galatians, that Paul had suffered from
 
 SAUL THE PERSECUTOR. 207 
 
 the condition of his eyes to an extent to excite the com- 
 passion of his friends. That this weakness was constant 
 is, perhaps, corroborated by a habit of availing himself, 
 unless under peculiar circumstances, of the aid of an 
 amanuensis. 
 
 "And ye know that in weakness of the flesh I preached 
 the gospel to you at first. And my trial which was in my 
 flesh ye despised not, nor rejected ; but ye received me 
 as a messenger of God, as Christ Jesus. What then 
 were your benedictions ! for I bear you witness that, if 
 possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and 
 given them to me." (Gal. iv. 13.) 
 
 " For the rest, let no man give me trouble, for I bear 
 in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." (Gal. v. 17.) 
 
 A great light, a glory, was to the Jewish mind of the 
 time the recognized sign and manifestation of the Di- 
 vine presence ; equally familiar was the idea of Divine 
 revelations by a voice from Heaven, "the daughter of 
 the Voice " (bath col). 
 
 Paul could not have heard the expostulating voice of 
 Jesus more distinctly than the Maid of Orleans heard 
 the voice of St. Catherine, urging her to save her coun- 
 try, or rebuking her timidity. 
 
 His faith in his sensations could hardly have been 
 less firm than that of Ignatius Loyola, who beheld 
 transubstantiation take place, and who had a vision, 
 with waking eyes, of the Holy Trinity in Unity. 
 
 It is, however, to stand far too much on ceremony 
 with the compilation known as the Acts of the Apostles, 
 to concede as probable whatever supposition will save 
 any portion of its credit for historical authenticity. It 
 is not easy to see how such a claim can be made on
 
 208 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 behalf of any history, whatever its pretensions. It is 
 a badge of barbarism to challenge contradiction of the 
 king's witnesses as equivalent to perjury. So far from 
 this, we are bound to start with the presumption that 
 close inquiry will most probably resolve into the mythi- 
 cal, all stories that are in any degree, as in the present 
 case, tinged with the supernatural, into unaccredited 
 narratives complicated by all the influences that distort 
 literal truth, from simple blunder to sinister fabrication. 
 The detailed accounts of the incidents of the conversion 
 of Paul are contained in Acts alone ; the general state- 
 ments and allusions that occur in the Epistles admit of 
 very different trains of circumstances ; but the Epistles 
 have just so much accordance with Acts as to show how 
 easily false inventions, or pious distortions, or involun- 
 tary misstatements, would creep into the narrative. 
 
 Paul talks with somewhat ostentatious mystification 
 of his visions and experiences, whether in the flesh, or 
 out of it, he will not say, and others may think as they 
 please; they did think as it pleased them, and some 
 of their conclusions are before us in the story in Acts. 
 If Barnabas, in Acts, is introduced, saying that Paul 
 had " seen the Lord " on the road to Damascus ; Paul, 
 in his Epistle, avouches as good, and better, and makes 
 himself on a par with any witness of the resurrection, 
 at the same time reducing other evidence to the value 
 of his own : he also, saw the Lord, though it is doubt- 
 ful whether he may not be referring to some other 
 trance or vision, not to the occasion of the Damascus 
 expedition. The Epistles also, as I have said, include 
 an indication scarcely equivocal of some grief of Paul 
 in ailment of the eyes, and an ascription of its origin
 
 SAUL THE PERSECUTOR. 209 
 
 to his religious crises ; it is a mark, a scar of the Lord 
 Jesus. Again, we cannot say with which of the several 
 recorded, and many possible accesses of excitement this 
 may be connected ; but it was natural that fable 
 history if you will, should seize it, and assign it to the 
 prime incident of the conversion, should draw inferences, 
 and fill out the budget of narrative. 
 
 Similar tales of other celebrities were already in po- 
 pular circulation, connecting loss of sight with divine 
 visions, and both with sudden changes of belief or moral 
 illumination. Minds were apt for analogy and eager for 
 marvel, and whether from desire to give effect to a start- 
 ling narrative, or heighten an apologue by typical embel- 
 lishment, the result seems to have been equally spon- 
 taneous, and stories ran together by inevitable fusion 
 and confusion. Three notes are sounded accidentally 
 together, and happen to have the relations of a perfect 
 chord ; they remain in the ear as a single sound, which 
 the ear alone cannot resolve into its elements, and of 
 such fulness and sweetness, that the last thing it desires 
 is to disturb such natural congruity. 
 
 Stories were rife in many a poem, and many a tra- 
 dition, of the great of old, chiefly bards, vates, ever 
 inspired and usually prophetic, who had incurred the 
 anger of the gods and heroes to whose services they 
 were peculiarly devoted, by remissness, or perverseness, 
 or over-boldness. Homer sings how Thamyris was met 
 and blinded by the Muses : of Homer himself it was 
 told that his blindness was due to a vision of his own 
 hero Achilles, refulgent in arms ; while Helen not only 
 blinded the bard Stesichorus for his calumny or mis- 
 conception of her true story, but through another chan-
 
 210 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 nel sent him a message to recant; and it was on his 
 making amends to the reputation and dignity of the 
 heroine by a palinode, that he recovered his sight, like 
 Paul, converted and repentant. 
 
 Such, and no different, I believe to be the explana- 
 tion of the details of the story as it is told and retold 
 in Acts. For the hint and the explanation my thanks, 
 and those of others, are due to the Rev. G. Skinner, of 
 Cambridge. We shall see hereafter how completely 
 the probability of corruptions of history from pagan 
 myths is borne out by the analysis of the stories of 
 Paul's adventures at Lystra and at Philippi. When 
 Christian biography got among Greek minds, the tale 
 took up Greek elements as naturally as, on ground 
 more exclusively Jewish, it filled out the tale of the 
 deeds and sufferings of Jesus, from stores of incident 
 found in the Old Testament. I am strongly disposed 
 to think that Elymas, the sorcerer, had to thank the 
 Aphrodite of his island, Cyprus, for his blinding, 
 Aphrodite, the mythical equivalent of Helen in some 
 forms of tradition. It was in the Phoenician quarter of 
 the city of Memphis, " the camp of the Tyrians," that 
 Herodotus found in a temenos, which also contained a 
 temple of Proteus, a sanctuary of " the foreign Aphro- 
 dite," whom, from certain tales, there told, he was in- 
 duced to identify with Helen, daughter of Tyndarus, the 
 wife of Menelaus. His opinion seems to have been 
 founded upon what he heard from the priests of the 
 temple ; though there is no knowing how far he may 
 not have given them their cue or modified their story. 
 Helen, they said, never went to Troy at all ; she was 
 detained in Egypt, taken from Paris along with other
 
 SAUL THE PERSECUTOR. 211 
 
 stolen goods by Proteus, an Egyptian potentate, and re- 
 stored by him to Menelaus, after the Greeks, disbeliev- 
 ing the protestations of the Trojans that they had none 
 of her, had sacked and ransacked Troy in vain. 
 
 The tale is improved upon in the Helen of Euri- 
 pides ; where we read, that while Helen was detained in 
 all propriety and sanctity in Egypt, she was represented 
 at Troy by a phantasm that served certain providen- 
 tial purposes, in giving Greek and Trojan a theme of 
 bloody contention. It may seem sufficient explanation 
 of this fiction to say, that it was manifestly suggested by 
 a desire to vindicate Homer without impugning He- 
 rodotus, or spoiling a good Egyptian story. Or it may 
 be supposed that the worship of Helen had become 
 diffused in various localities before the rise of the im- 
 mortal Trojan tale, and that thus an opening had been 
 made for one of the ingenious conciliations of authority 
 that are the delight of the harmonist. I strongly sus- 
 pect, however, that Euripides had some anterior basis 
 of tradition, which may easily have been of Egyptian 
 origin, and, perhaps, connected with the Memphian fane. 
 Again, several circumstances in the story are parallel 
 to that of Iphigenia, safe in Tauris, though supposed to 
 have been sacrificed. Artemis, it is true, substituted a 
 hind ; but it does not appear that the sacrificers were 
 aware of the substitution, and thus the victim was, to 
 them, an eidolon a phantasm. On vase paintings we 
 see the hind and the virgin so grouped that the figures 
 cover and intermingle, as if at the very crisis of such a 
 sleight-of-hand substitution. I suspect that a little re- 
 search would bring home this same idea of phantasmal 
 substitution to the significance of some other vase-de- 
 
 p -2
 
 212 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 signs, where various divinities are coupled or duplicated 
 so markedly and interchangeably. 
 
 The cloud that interposes indulgently in the romance 
 of Ixion is, in truth, a phantasm that saves the honour 
 of Juno much as the Euripidean eidolon rescues the 
 fame of Helen. The Ulysses of Homer discourses with 
 Hercules in Hades, his eidolon only ; he himself was 
 among the gods (Odyss. A. 600). I believe it was more 
 consonant with the art of Euripides, and the spirit of 
 his time, that he should adapt an existing, though it 
 might be an obscure myth, rather than play off a pure 
 invention. There was more piquancy in the course, 
 and piquancy was with him a leading object. I am also 
 not a little confirmed in the view by the appearance 
 of the notion in enthusiastic religion at a much later 
 date. The Helen of the drama speaks of her represen- 
 tative at Troy as a xevr) Bo/crjats ; and an early sect of 
 Christians obtained the title Docetics, from their dogma, 
 which is markedly written against in the fourth Gospel, 
 that the suffering Christ was not the very God, or Son 
 of God, but an eidolon a phantasm. The source of the 
 dogma, as Christian or heathen, I must now leave to 
 others to trace. 
 
 1 may notice as, at least, a coincidence, that this story 
 of Herodotus follows his narrative, how the predecessor 
 of Proteus lost his sight by impious violence against a 
 divinity, and recovered it by human aid and interces- 
 sion. He cast his spear, a Pharaoh, into the waves of 
 a stormy inundation, and was blind thenceforward until 
 a feminine specific restored him to sight. 
 
 But between the epochs of Euripides and Paul, the 
 story of Helen had become entangled with the allege-
 
 THE CONVERSION OF ST. PACT,. 213 
 
 rical imagery of Plato ; and among his commentators 
 we find traces of a treatment of it that may very likely 
 have been prevalent before the composition of Acts, 
 and may easily have helped the Stesichorean adapta- 
 tion. Hermias, the commentator of the Phaedrus, a 
 contemporary of Proclus, details a scheme for allego- 
 rizing the whole tale of the Trojan war; and here the 
 true Helen, who, when attacked and calumniated, in- 
 flicts blindness, and, when appeased by palinode and 
 repentance, sends a messenger to restore sight, this 
 divine and veritable Helen is the Ideal, Beauty in the 
 abstract, the high Philosophy, true Religion ! 
 
 The Pauline Epistles contain such abundant illustra- 
 tions of the prevalence of the very peculiar combina- 
 tions of ideas of this same school, which we receive, in- 
 sisted upon specially for the first time, in the later writer, 
 Plotinus, that there is every reason to be satisfied that 
 w r hat Hermias disserts on so glibly, as to the true and 
 the fictitious Helens, types of obsolete and etherealized 
 beliefs, had been freely developed and widely circulated 
 long before. 
 
 II. THE TAPESTRY OF THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 
 
 Rafael's Cartoon of the Conversion of St. Paul is an- 
 other that is unfortunately lost, destroyed some say, 
 from the same puritanical squeamishness, at depicture 
 of a heavenly vision, that is to account for the loss of 
 the Stoning of Stephen. In this instance, however, there 
 is no introduction of a figure of God the Father. 
 
 Some Mantuan memoranda and engravings from the
 
 214 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 tapestry must therefore be our text. A small one will 
 be found in the English translation of Kugler's ' Hand- 
 book of Painting ;' a larger and much more satisfac- 
 tory, in Pistolesi. The latter, like the rest of the set, 
 was taken from the tapestry, and corresponds with it in 
 respect of right and left sides and figures. To the left of 
 the spectator, Paul, wearing armour, arms, and helmet, 
 has fallen from his horse and lies on the ground, shrink- 
 ing from the light of the vision, and with one hand 
 moved instinctively to moderate it, at the same time that 
 he looks towards the glory and the Divine speaker. 
 His vigorous body and legs are in entire prostration, as 
 stricken down by supernatural power. His head and 
 arms alone express astonishment, supplication, attention. 
 
 Above, half-emergent from clouds and glory, and sup- 
 ported by three angels, is the figure of Jesus starting 
 forward in a manner to express the suddenness of Paul's 
 surprise : and with stretched right arm and raised fore- 
 finger, indicating remonstrance and command. The po- 
 sition of Paul is that of a man not only surprised, but 
 already thoroughly subdued, in agreement with his first 
 submissive question, as of subject to superior, " Who art 
 thou, Lord V His sword lies on the ground beside him : 
 it seems to have become detached and shaken off in his 
 fall, as it lies with the broken belt rolled round it. 
 It is on the side of his light hand, but lies thus sepa- 
 rate as if to intimate that it had fallen from his grasp 
 as a persecutor, for ever. It is a sword of the same 
 form which the Saint usually is represented holding as 
 a symbol of his martyrdom ; and the painter, I believe, 
 designed the suggestion. 
 
 Some flowers and herbage are along the front line of
 
 THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 215 
 
 the picture ; but the stony ground beyond, and on which 
 Paul partly lies, indicates the beaten high-road to the 
 great city. In the beautiful tapestry at Mantua the 
 ground, where not covered with herbage, is yellow, as 
 with sand. The legs of Paul, I may record, are clothed 
 in blue. 
 
 A young man on foot, holding a spear, and with 
 much of the appearance of a special attendant, runs to- 
 wards Paul with every sign of solicitude, but with no 
 marks of consciousness of the sudden light. 
 
 Beyond this young man are two horsemen; one of 
 them helmeted, and both girt with swords, which ap- 
 pear to be uniform. Thus is conveyed an appearance 
 of rank and file ; and Paul, whose startled horse is away 
 in advance, seems to have been riding officer-like, as 
 his distinction in armour suggests, at the head of his 
 company, either at its extremity to the left, or a little 
 in front. 
 
 The seat of these two horsemen is still that of men 
 who are riding at settled pace ; and that this is not yet 
 disturbed while their heads are turned and left arms 
 extended in the direction of the fallen Paul, helps to 
 express at once the suddenness of the incident, and to 
 illustrate the particular text that they who were with 
 him, " saw no man." It is to be observed that these im- 
 mediately attendant figures are unaware of the vision; 
 but their horses appear not insensible to an unnatural 
 disturbance, their hind-quarters show a check, and 
 they turn their heads round, as shunning a light that 
 meets their direct course. All this harmonizes with the 
 acknowledgment by the brute creation of certain at- 
 mospheric alterations the approach of an earthquake
 
 216 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 or volcanic eruption, and so forth, which has often 
 gained for them from the superstitious the credit of 
 being able to see spirits. Paul's horse has obeyed the 
 same impulse, and is in frightened flight. 
 
 The divarications of the narratives of the incident are 
 salient enough as I have extracted them, and the texts 
 have furnished of old, and even down to our own times, 
 a well-frequented tumbling-place for the literal harmo- 
 nists. Scarcely elsewhere should we be able to collect, 
 if it were worth it, so many specimens of misapplied 
 ingenuity to illustrate how far the honest, the simple- 
 minded nay, the fatuous, can emulate in sophistry the 
 hypocrites and the rogues. 
 
 In the direct history, and in the speech at Antonia, 
 the light from heaven is spoken of as shining round 
 Paul alone, and he alone as falling to the ground ; how- 
 beit that in the speech, his companions are alarmed 
 at the light but do not hear the voice, whereas in the 
 history they stand speechless at hearing the voice and 
 seeing no one. This is one of the most natural inter- 
 changes conceivable on the part of a reporter. I sus- 
 pect that the speech gives Paul's original story most 
 accurately ; he takes the dialogue upon his own respon- 
 sibility, and he authenticates the great light by the 
 averment that there were other witnesses. The histo- 
 rian retains the fact of the astonishment of the com- 
 panions who were only witnesses of half, though a dif- 
 ferent half, of the incident, and the most wonderful 
 part of the story, the supernatural voice : an obvious 
 cavil that the voice may have come from the compa- 
 nions, is parried by the note that they were standing 
 speechless with amazement.
 
 THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 217 
 
 The speech to Agrippa has the characteristics of re- 
 dundant Asiatic eloquence, which either Paul or his 
 reporter seems to have thought appropriate to the pomp 
 of the occasion, that speaking before kings, which was 
 capable of nattering the pride even of an Apostle. The 
 wondrous dialogue is here considerably extended; the 
 circumstances of the appearance of the light are insisted 
 upon with marked and emphatic breaks of phraseology, 
 and the light shines not alone around Paul, but those 
 also who journeyed with him, and all fall to the ground 
 together. 
 
 Rafael follows no version exclusively; he does not 
 even arbitrate between the versions ; but he introduces 
 or avails himself of elements of confusion, which ac- 
 count for the origin of all. The figures nearest to the 
 foreground we have seen, are solely attentive to the ca- 
 tastrophe of Paul, the alarm being confined to the ani- 
 mals. But beyond these we see a youth on foot, in full 
 night, meeting them, and looking back in the direc- 
 tion of the apparition. Still further, beyond the two 
 mounted swordsmen, we see spears and horses' heads 
 turned in the reverse way to the direction of the expe- 
 dition. Some faces appear, that seem to be questioning 
 each other ; and one man lifts his hand towards his head, 
 with a little of the expression of listening for a sound. 
 Far in the left-hand distance, again, we seem to see a 
 figure, who shades his eyes with both hands and elevated 
 buckler. One young man, by the near side of Paul's 
 frightened horse, flies almost as fast, but apparently in 
 simple sympathy with the hubbub and confusion. 
 
 Rafael therefore shows Paul alone fallen to the 
 ground ; but while he makes some of his company and
 
 218 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CAKTOONS. 
 
 fellow-travellers cognizant only of their leader's disaster, 
 he makes other some alarmed at the light ; others per- 
 haps astonished at the voice ; and others, like the very 
 horses, simply bewildered by instinctive or sympathetic 
 feeling of a crisis in nature. 
 
 The engraving I am consulting does not show any 
 hint of Damascus in the background : this is, however, 
 displayed distinctly enough in the tapestry at Mantua. 
 
 Such was the harmony allowably elicited from these 
 narratives by a painter ; weaker mortals, who have ven- 
 tured to call themselves divines, once made essay on this 
 wise : " All the companions of Paul fell to the ground 
 with him (xxvi. 14), and his companions also remained 
 standing in amazement, while he alone fell down (ix. 7) ; 
 which implies, that Paul and the whole company fell down 
 indeed at first sight together, but his associates were on 
 their feet before him." By like process it can be shown 
 that they both heard the voice and did not. 
 
 One biographer of Paul writes: "All fell to the 
 ground in- terror (xxvi. 14), or stood dumb with amaze- 
 ment (ix. 7)." Suddenly, surrounded by a light so ter- 
 rible and incomprehensible, " they were afraid." " They 
 heard not the voice of Him that spake to Paul " (xxii. 9), 
 or, if they heard a voice, " they saw no man." 
 
 The flaws and openings of the unconformable inci- 
 dents are here neatly puttied up and painted over, for 
 the phrases would convey to the unsuspecting popular 
 reader that some fell, some stood, that some heard the 
 voice, and some only caught it indistinctly. All this 
 is smooth enough ; and with the certifying citations of 
 chapter and verse and the inverted commas, what should 
 seem more authentic ?
 
 THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 219 
 
 Then, with what would be effrontery, but that it 
 creeps into little type and a footnote, a writer will pro- 
 ceed: "It has been thought both more prudent and 
 more honest to leave these well-known discrepancies ex- 
 actly as they are found in the Bible." 
 
 What occasion was there for any other consideration 
 than as to which course was the singly honest ? The 
 solution is expressed as if it were arrived at after search- 
 ing for other courses that might be more prudent if less 
 honest, or rejection of some that might have proved 
 more honest but less prudent. Why draw a long breath 
 for the enunciation, "Honesty is the best policy'"? 
 Why with so little real prudence intimate "I have 
 tried both ; at least, have held myself open to do so " 1 
 
 But the brag of honesty is, in fact, a blind and a de- 
 ception, as it is ever so apt to be ; for, as we have seen 
 above, the discrepancies are not left exactly as they are 
 found in Acts. 
 
 There is mischief also in speaking of them as "in the 
 Bible," not as in the particular book of the Acts of the 
 Apostles. The vice of this paralogism merits to have 
 justice done upon it by a Bentham. After all this af- 
 fectation of candour and profession of honesty, two 
 sophisms are set forth for those who please to choose 
 between them, " according to their views of the inspira- 
 tion of Scripture." 
 
 " Those who do not receive the doctrine of verbal in- 
 spiration will find in these discrepancies a confirmation 
 of the general truth of the narrative." 
 
 As how 1 In what way does inaccuracy in reporting 
 details certify accuracy as to the main point I and how 
 stands the case if the discrepancies, as here, touch the
 
 220 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 very heart of the matter'? if we find the miraculous 
 dialogue expand when it is retold 1 if a burst of light at 
 noonday is found reported as an appearance in the flesh 
 of the crucified Jesus I 
 
 Is corroboration proportionate to discrepancy] or 
 does authentication vanish by virtue of precision in re- 
 port ? 
 
 "Those who lay stress on this doctrine (the verbal 
 inspiration) may fairly be permitted to suppose that the 
 stupefied companions of Saul fell to the ground and 
 then rose, and that they heard the voice, but did not 
 understand it." 
 
 They may be fairly expected to suppose this, or to 
 resort to any other stratagem, however ridiculous ; but 
 if they are permitted to do so unmolested, it will not be 
 in fairness on the part of their opponents, but in mere 
 despair of their common sense or common candour, out 
 of idle negligence or sheer contempt. 
 
 III. THE RECEPTION OF PAUL THE DISCIPLE BY THE 
 CHURCH. 
 
 It is quite impossible to reconcile the various narra- 
 tives of the scene of Paul's conversion into one simple 
 and consistent statement, though something may be 
 done to elicit the clear facts by noting the causes and 
 liabilities of lapse, and at last, I think enough of the 
 truly historical remains to satisfy our interest on every 
 point that is really of importance. 
 
 When we proceed with the story as it ensues in the 
 Acts, we come next upon a wonderful tale of a vision 
 of Ananias of Damascus ; and this told with such strange
 
 THE RECEPTION OF PAUL BY THE CHURCH. 221 
 
 parallelism to the vision of Peter, and the vision and 
 conversion of Cornelius, that we feel at once that we 
 have got into mythology. Either the scheme of the 
 vision that dispatched messengers to the house of one 
 Simon, a tanner, which was by the seaside at Joppa, 
 was borrowed from that which sent Ananias to the 
 house of Judas, in the street called Straight, at Damas- 
 cus ; or, what is quite as probable, both were derived 
 from a common traditional type. Then, again, the time 
 and the circumstances of Paul's stay at Damascus, as 
 they are stated or distinctly implied in the Acts, are 
 quite at variance with his own solemn asseverations in 
 the Epistle to the Galatians. How shall we find our 
 way through this confusion ? The mere superiority in 
 plausibility or probability of a tale is not decisive ; for 
 very often the truth lies with the least probable : strong 
 bias, again, may seem to invalidate a strong statement 
 that favours it, yet the bias may be justly entitled to 
 the support of what is a strong fact, and not an inven- 
 tion for a purpose. 
 
 Paul writes with a decided intention to vindicate his 
 independence of the Apostles from the beginning ; the 
 compiler of Acts is manifestly open to a bias to re- 
 present him as received cordially by the Apostles, and 
 acting with them in sympathy ; he would willingly make 
 out a picture of Christian co-operation, but the result 
 is a mass of inconsistencies in his history compared 
 only with itself, and still more so as compared with 
 Paul's Epistles. Paul himself has difficulties enough of 
 his own, to vindicate the independence of the Gentile 
 Christians, and yet to conserve that fellowship with the 
 Hebrew Church that offered the only chance of reacting
 
 222 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 on his countrymen, the matter still nearest his heart, 
 in favour of relaxation of ceremonial bigotry. 
 
 Through such a thicket who shall penetrate ? I 
 have long made up my own mind as to the most prac- 
 ticable path through it ; and have confidence that 
 they who will venture /with me will emerge in daylight 
 beyond. 
 
 The next Cartoon in the series is the Sacrifice at 
 Lystra ; but before considering it, I prefer to review 
 the record we have of Paul's life and work in the in- 
 terim. His own account commences thus : 
 
 " But when it pleased God, who separated me from 
 my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to re- 
 veal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the 
 Gentiles ; immediately I consulted not flesh and blood, 
 nor went up to Jerusalem to them that were Apostles 
 before me, but I went into Arabia, and again returned 
 to Damascus. Then, after three years, I went up to 
 Jerusalem to inquire for Peter, and I abode with him 
 fifteen days. And I saw no other of the Apostles but 
 James, the Lord's brother. Now, as to what I am 
 writing to you, behold, before God, I lie not. Then 
 I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia ; and was 
 unknown by face to the churches of Judaea, which were 
 in Christ. But they heard only, That he who once per- 
 secuted us now preacheth the faith that he once de- 
 stroyed ; and they glorified God in me." 
 
 The Arabia here referred to was probably not so far 
 south as Petra, but the district known to Strabo as an 
 Arabia, to the north-east of Palestine, and adjoining 
 Damascus. Nothing is said of this prolonged residence 
 of three years in the Acts ; an interval " some days,"
 
 THE RECEPTION OF PAUL BY THE CHURCH. 223 
 
 equivalent at most to " a considerable number of days," 
 is all that is noted before Paul's return to Jerusalem. 
 
 We may safely take his own account; it could be 
 scarcely prudent for him to return forthwith, being so 
 changed, into the neighbourhood of the high-priest and 
 his supporters. There was scarcely more temptation 
 for him to seek at once an interview with the Apos- 
 tles who were remaining at Jerusalem. There is the 
 strongest proof that the sympathies of the converted 
 Paul were towards the Hellenists in their dispersion, 
 not towards the Hebrew Christians in their immunity. 
 His conversion, in fact, consisted in his lively recogni- 
 tion of the principles of these Hellenists of the school 
 of Stephen, and the other deacons. He might very 
 reasonably already have some jealousy of the rigid and 
 contracted ideas of the Apostles. Moreover, an ener- 
 getic sermon or two, and a single escape from a tumult 
 of the provincial synagogues, would scarcely be creden- 
 tials sufficient to be counted on for obtaining him a 
 hearing and a position beside the established and autho- 
 ritative heads of the sect. It is quite reasonable, there- 
 fore, that Paul should have delayed his return to A.D. 40, 
 a year when the Jewish authorities were very far from 
 enjoying the latitude in administration allowed to them 
 once for a brief interval by the President Vitellius. 
 
 The theme given in Acts of the preaching of Paul in 
 the synagogues at Damascus, is the Messiahship of Jesus. 
 After a time, the Jews, confounded in argument, resort 
 to a plot to kill him, and, as the gates were watched, 
 his letter to the Corinthians says by the ethnarch of King 
 Aretas, the disciples let him down from the wall in a 
 basket. Persecution, under such circumstances, recurs
 
 224 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 constantly throughout his career, and his perseverance 
 nevertheless in addressing himself to his own people is 
 honourable to his patriotism, as its result is no less ho- 
 nourable to the tenor and spirit of his teaching, for the 
 irritant element is ever an attempt on his part to weaken 
 ceremonial exclusiveness. 
 
 When at last he does go to Jerusalem, it is not to 
 meet the Apostles generally, but especially " to find out 
 Peter." And wherefore Peter, but because he knew that 
 with him he should find most sympathy for a liberalized 
 Gospel, for the movement originated by Stephen 1 
 
 In" Acts it is said, that when the disciples shunned and 
 were afraid of him, " Barnabas took him and brought 
 him to the Apostles, and related unto them how he had 
 seen the Lord in the way, and that he spoke to him, and 
 how he had talked boldly at Damascus in the name of 
 the Lord, and he was with them going in and coming 
 out at Jerusalem.'' 
 
 More cordiality is implied here than can be admitted 
 after what Paul has said, there seems to have been 
 certain cordiality with Peter, and some, though certainly 
 less with James, but that was the extent of it. 
 
 Barnabas, therefore, introduced Paul as a disciple to 
 Peter ; afterwards we find a certain link between Bar- 
 nabas and Peter in the fact that Barnabas at a critical 
 moment at Antioch took Peter's course of temporizing, 
 and had to aby along with him the rebuke of Paul. 
 But, at the same time, the connection indicates that Pe- 
 ter's sympathies, however precarious, went along with 
 Barnabas, with Barnabas whom we shall find so active 
 in the evangelization of Gentiles. All this corroborates 
 the inferences already drawn from the story of the heal-
 
 THE RECEPTION OF PAUL BY THE CHURCH. 225 
 
 ing at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, and from the 
 ministry at Samaria. 
 
 The hint of uncongeniality between the converted per- 
 secutor and the Jerusalem church, is here slurred over 
 from a bias that is intelligible enough in Acts; but it re- 
 appears even in Acts at a later occasion with reference 
 to this very time ; and Paul's own implications are thus 
 perfectly confirmed. 
 
 His present departure from Jerusalem as related, 
 repeats the incidents of his escape from Damascus ; he 
 reasons with and exasperates the Hellenists in the very 
 synagogues where Stephen had given offence ; they go 
 about to slay him, and " the brethren, when they knew 
 it, brought him down to Caesarea and sent him forth to 
 Tarsus." But this was probably an inferential explana- 
 tion ; the speech at Antonia gives quite another version 
 of the affair, and one which is nearer to harmony with 
 Paul's own representation in the epistle : 
 
 " And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to 
 Jerusalem, and was praying in the temple, I was in a 
 trance ; and saw him (Jesus) saying unto me, Make haste, 
 and go quickly out of Jerusalem : for they will not re- 
 ceive thy testimony concerning me. And I said, Lord, 
 they know that I imprisoned and beat in every syna- 
 gogue them that believed on thee : and when the blood 
 of thy witness Stephen was shed, I was even standing 
 by and consenting, and kept the raiment of them that 
 slew him. And he said unto me, Depart, for I will send 
 thee far hence unto the Gentiles." (Acts xxii. 17.) 
 
 For those committed to literal harmony, the infer- 
 ence from comparison of this account with that of the 
 conspiracy given earlier, must necessarily be that the 
 
 Q
 
 226 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 murderous plotters who drove Paul from Jerusalem were 
 certain of the Christian disciples disposed to avenge 
 Stephen. But rejecting such a notion entirely, we can 
 discern that Paul had in truth quite as little intercourse 
 with the heads of the church on this occasion as he as- 
 serts to the Galatians, but that this was not, as he would 
 imply, altogether due to his own holding off. Whether 
 he at this time held the recognition of his claims to 
 Apostleship by the Apostles, as cheaply as he afterwards 
 did, may be a little doubtful ; but in any case, however 
 prepared he may have been to disclaim their confirma- 
 tion of his commission, it is clear so highly probable as 
 to be clear to me, that he was mortified and depressed 
 at his equivocal reception ; and hence, I doubt not, the 
 nervous crisis, helped as usual by whatever course of 
 fasting and prayer, of mental and bodily exhaustion, 
 which was to him a trance and a vision of Jesus, as dis- 
 tinct as that by which he was first converted. 
 
 Writing to the Corinthians, he said, " Boasting, in- 
 deed, is of no use to me, but I will come to visions and 
 revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ, who, 
 above fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know 
 not, or out of the body, God knoweth) was caught up 
 to the third heaven, and I know of such a man (whether 
 in the body or out of the body, I know not, God know- 
 eth); that he was caught up into paradise, and heard 
 unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to 
 utter." (2 Cor. xii. 1.) 
 
 If this epistle was written A.D. 53-4, as I believe, the 
 vision it relates would synchronize with the trance in 
 the Temple, and we should thus obtain some inkling of 
 the unspeakable things as having reference to the com- 
 mission to preach to the Gentiles.
 
 THE RECEPTION OF PAUL BY THE CHURCH. 227 
 
 Whatever may have been Paul's tendencies and pre- 
 dilections before, it seems manifest that between pique 
 and indignation, excitement and enthusiasm, they at this 
 time settled into a resolute determination, that deter- 
 mination that throughout all his tackings and accom- 
 modations in his after troubled course, never leaves 
 doubtful for a moment the large catholicity of religious 
 sympathy and connection which he aims at and hopes 
 to bring about. 
 
 He now vanishes for a time from the narrative of 
 Acts, and the interval is filled up with various progresses 
 of Peter, his miracles, and especially the incident of the 
 baptism of the Gentile centurion Cornelius, and his 
 household; and the eating with them, which is related 
 as bringing on a discussion with the purists at Jeru- 
 salem easily overruled by throwing the responsibility 
 upon the Holy Ghost. 
 
 From its position in the historical sequence, this anec- 
 dote assigns to Peter the honour of giving the first pre- 
 cedent for a Gentile church and gospel. Yet we find 
 that the principle has to be debated again and settled 
 again at a future time, as if Peter's precedent were none 
 at all, and the sanction had only held good for the spe- 
 cial case. Still, I am not prepared to deny for the nar- 
 rative all foundation in fact, and for reasons that have 
 appeared and will appear. 
 
 The next great incident in the history is, that of those 
 who were scattered by the persecution about Stephen, 
 some being men of Cyprus and Cyrene, came to An- 
 tioch and " spake to the Greeks ; preaching the Gospel 
 of the Lord Jesus." 
 
 The news reaches the Church at Jerusalem, and Bar- 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CAETOONS. 
 
 nabas is dispatched to the spot ; he promotes the move- 
 ment with hearty sympathy, and, what is most remark- 
 able, flies to Tarsus to seek Paul as an ally and coadjutor, 
 aware, apparently, how entirely he was in agreement 
 with the development. 
 
 It is of course quite possible that Barnabas may have 
 learnt for the first time at Antioch, and at second-hand, 
 in what direction Paul's view of the Gospel had ex- 
 panded; but in my judgment it is far more probable 
 that he was previously cognizant of some of the fruits 
 of the trance in the Temple, and that to him and to his 
 connection Peter also, whether he had baptized a cen- 
 turion Cornelius or no, the outburst at Antioch was as 
 little unexpected in its nature as in fact unwelcome. 
 
 Whether Barnabas had been sent in the first instance 
 merely to confirm or to report, he did not hurry back to 
 Jerusalem. He remained there with Paul for a whole 
 year, and it was only on the occurrence of certain cri- 
 tical incidents that he returned ; and then, Paul went 
 up with him, and this time under more favourable aus- 
 pices, and with a definite plan. 
 
 " And in these days prophets came down from Jeru- 
 salem to Antioch. And there stood up one of them 
 named Agabus, and signified by the spirit that there was 
 to be a great dearth through all the world ; which came 
 to pass under Claudius. And the disciples, each as he 
 was able, determined to send relief to the brethren 
 dwelling in Judea; which they did, and sent it to 
 the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul (xi. 27). 
 . . . And the word of God grew and multiplied. And 
 Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem, when they 
 had fulfilled the service, taking with them John, who
 
 THE RECEPTION OF PAUL BY THE CHURCH. 22$ 
 
 was surnamed Mark " (xii. 24), who shortly after starts 
 with them on their first joint missionary journey. 
 
 This, according to Acts, is Paul's second journey to 
 Jerusalem after his conversion ; but, as the text of Gala- 
 tians stands, his second was fourteen years after his first, 
 which disagrees with the date given by the famine. 
 
 We are here involved in very important questions of 
 dates and times ; I insert the following chronological 
 notes as general indications of a few certified points; 
 little more is to be had : 
 
 Pontius Pilatus was Procurator of Judsea from A.D. 27 
 to 36, and within this interval occurred the crucifixion 
 of Jesus Christ. The consent of tradition assigns to the 
 incident the particular date A.D. 29, the year of the con- 
 sulship of the two Gemini. 
 
 During the whole of this period Herod Antipas, a son 
 of Herod the Great, was tetrarch of Galilee, and his 
 half-brother, Philip, tetrarch of Itursea, the district be- 
 yond Jordan. A king Aretas reigned at Petra as ca- 
 pital of Arabia, and no mention occurs of a state of 
 affairs at Damascus that precludes his having such an 
 interest there as we find ascribed to a king Aretas a 
 little later. Herod Antipas married his daughter, and 
 became embroiled with him by divorcing her in order to 
 marry Herodias, his own niece, and wife of another half- 
 brother, the scandal of the Baptist. 
 
 In A.D. 36 Pilate, at the complaint of the Jews, was 
 removed by Vitellius, the President of Syria, and sent 
 to Rome to answer their accusations before Tiberius ; 
 the Emperor, however, had died, 16th March, A.D. 37, 
 before his arrival; why this was so tardy there is no
 
 230 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 account. Vitellius himself visited Jerusalem at the 
 passover, substituted Jonathan, son of Ananus, for high- 
 priest, and returned to Antioch. 
 
 Vitellius followed up this indulgence to the Jews with 
 others, on his visit to Jerusalem along with Herod the 
 tetrarch and his friends, at the ensuing passover, A.D. 37. 
 He remitted certain taxes, and allowed to the priests 
 the custody of the sacred garments which, from the 
 time of Herod the Great, had been retained by the po- 
 litical authority. The robes were indispensable for the 
 performance of certain rites, and the retention of them 
 was a pledge of tranquillity. The Procurator, by com- 
 mand of Tiberius, had an expedition in hand against 
 Aretas in the quarrel of Herod, now in his company ; 
 at the solicitation of the Jews, apprehensive of a visit 
 from the idolatrous ensigns, he changed the route of his 
 army. 
 
 This was just such a spirit of concession as the Jews 
 were likely to abuse. At a later date, it is in the in- 
 terval between the death of Festus and the arrival of 
 his successor Albinus, that the Sadducaic high-priest 
 Ananus established a " judicial Sanhedrin," and put to 
 death James, " the Lord's brother," and some others, 
 violence highly displeasing to a party at Jerusalem that 
 was at once zealous for the law and of moderate poli- 
 tical opinions. (Joseph. Ant. xx. 8, 1.) 
 
 Any liberty of action that the Jewish priesthood felt 
 able to assume was not likely to be diminished by the 
 news that arrived before Vitellius had been at Jeru- 
 salem four days, that Tiberius was dead, and that Caius, 
 or Caligula, had succeeded him. The Procurator pro- 
 claimed the new Emperor, and then, giving up the expe-
 
 THE RECEPTION OF PAUL BY THE CHURCH. 231 
 
 clition against Aretas, willingly, it is probable, from a 
 pique he had towards Herod, he retired to Antioch. 
 
 From Caligula, Herod Agrippa, a grandson of Herod 
 the Great through still a third of his numerous wives, and 
 brother of Herodias, received the tetrarchate of Philip, 
 who was then dead ; and in two years afterwards, A.D. 39, 
 the dominions of Herod Antipas also, his brother-in-law, 
 who, instigated by his wife, had out-intrigued himself, 
 and was banished to Gaul. 
 
 On the 24th January, 41, Caligula was slain, an im- 
 mense relief to the Jews, who had been driven almost 
 to desperation by his threatened introduction of the 
 worship of himself into their temple. It was in A.D. 40 
 that Philo Judseus had undertaken a mission to him from 
 the Alexandrian Jews upon the subject. At this time 
 also, Agrippa, on his way to Palestine, visited Alexandria, 
 and experienced the taunts and insults of the Greek po- 
 pulace, and, indeed, the population generally, who lam- 
 pooned and caricatured and paraded in effigy the " King 
 of the Jews " in a manner that seems to have furnished 
 tradition with some details for enhancing the humilia- 
 tions of Jesus. They enthroned a wretched idiot from 
 his name, Carabas, probably a Jew, on a lofty seat in 
 the gymnasium, enrobed him with an old mat, put a 
 crown of paper on his head, and a reed in his hand for 
 a sceptre, and bowed the knee before him and hailed 
 him as King of the Jews. 
 
 In the first year of Claudius, however, A.D. 41, Agrippa 
 received Juda?a and Samaria, and his rule then comprised 
 all the territories ruled over by his grandfather. He 
 endeavoured to emulate him in magnificence of archi- 
 tecture and public festivities, by extending the fortifica-
 
 232 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 tions of Jerusalem, as well as by erecting theatres for 
 musical exhibitions, by savage gladiatorial shows in the 
 amphitheatre at Berytus, and by the entertainment at 
 Tiberias, of an assemblage of related or allied or sub- 
 ordinate kings. 
 
 But his position was not that of his grandfather ; a 
 notice from the Prefect of Syria obliged him to desist 
 from his plans of fortification, and at a word from the 
 same intrusive Marsus, his regal congress was broken 
 up, and Herod, king of Chalcis, his brother ; Antiochus, 
 king of Commagene ; Cotys, king of the Lesser Arme- 
 nia ;' Sampsigeranus, king of Emesa ; and Polemon, king 
 of Pontus, betook themselves to their own homes. 
 
 Gladiatorial shows were for his Greek or Roman sub- 
 jects; to ingratiate himself with the Jews, he put to 
 death James, the brother of John, and with so much 
 success that he imprisoned Peter in order that he also 
 might furnish a like spectacle to the people, when the 
 moment should arrive that would give it most effect. 
 Peter, however, helped or unhelped, effected an escape. 
 
 Agrippa died A.D. 44, after a short illness, which at- 
 tacked him at a pompous festival at Caesarea, and Jew 
 and Christian, Josephus and the writer of Acts, were 
 equally prompt to interpret the act of the finger of God, 
 as it might best flatter their several self-importances and 
 the dignity of their religious persuasions. 
 
 The dated death of Agrippa is the very pivot of the 
 chronology of the New Testament ; the narrative of 
 Acts avers that it occurred while a famine was upon 
 Judasa, or at least impending, for only so can we in- 
 terpret the mention of the anxiety of envoys from 
 Tyre at this time, to conciliate the King, " from whose
 
 THE RECEPTION OF PAUL BY THE CHURCH. 233 
 
 country they were nourished." How this should be is 
 another question ; but the thought of the historian is 
 clear when he interpolates such a note between a men- 
 tion of Paul bringing relief to the starved by famine at 
 Jerusalem, and the account of his return to Antioch after 
 fulfilling his mission. 
 
 But Paul, in his Epistle to the Galatians, enumerates 
 his early visits to the Apostles at Jerusalem, and gives 
 some note of the intervening years ; and thus, if Paul's 
 text and the statement in Acts are accurate, we may 
 count back towards the date of the conversion and Ste- 
 phen's martyrdom. We shall find on trial that the 
 two authorities are absolutely at variance. According 
 to Acts, Paul visited Jerusalem for the second time after 
 his conversion, A.D. 44. But the Epistle says that this 
 visit was fourteen years after his first return, which was 
 three after his conversion. But this would carry his 
 conversion back to A.D. 27, which is quite impossible. 
 Something, therefore, must give way ; either it is by 
 error that Paul was said to have gone up at all> A.D. 44, 
 or he was mistaken or inaccurate in speaking of four- 
 teen years, or the text is corrupt and some other term 
 was originally written, which is quite possible. 
 
 The conclusion I have come to that I came to on 
 what still appear to me sound grounds, twenty years ago 
 is, that Paul wrote not fourteen, but four years. Thus 
 he will state that his first visit to Jerusalem after his 
 conversion was after about three years, and his second 
 four years after that. The manuscripts are unanim- 
 ous, but they may all be derived from one single faulty 
 copy. 
 
 This would bring his conversion and the martyrdom
 
 234 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 of Stephen, which must have very closely preceded it, 
 to A.D. 37 or 38, the very period when, as we have seen, 
 the relaxed policy of Vitellius would account for the 
 liberties and violences the Sanhedrin allowed them- 
 selves. 
 
 I am quite aware of the gravity of my postulate ; but 
 what results from the alternative course of identify- 
 ing the second visit mentioned in Galatians with the 
 third mentioned in Acts'? The second visit of Acts 
 must then be condemned as unhistorical, and excised 
 along with a group of very coherent and natural inci- 
 dents'; at best it could but be regarded as a blundering 
 version of the visit resulting in the decree. The narra- 
 tive of the visit and discussion about the decree, must 
 be treated almost as severely, before it will correspond 
 with Paul's Galatian narrative ; but this, strong in corro- 
 boration, resists such treatment, and the impeachment of 
 it threatens to compromise the pledged candour of Paul 
 himself. 
 
 How many other probabilities are conciliated by the 
 proposed solution, we shall find as we proceed.
 
 235 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 GENTILE CHEISTIANITY. 
 
 I. THE PRIVATE COMPACT OF PAUL AND PETER. II. THE 
 PUBLIC ALTERCATION AT ANTIOCH. HI. THE APOSTOLIC 
 DECREE OF COMPROMISE. 
 
 I. THE PRIVATE COMPACT OF PAUL AND PETER. 
 
 I HAVE assumed, then, without hesitation, that for four- 
 teen, as the word stands in the Galatian record, we 
 should read four years. Holding over this concession, 
 let us see how far other things are coherent. 
 
 " Then, after four years, I again went up to Jeru- 
 salem along with Barnabas, and taking with me Titus 
 also." That mention of Titus is absent in Acts, where 
 omissions are so numerous and constant, makes no diffi- 
 culty; and especially as it appears presently that the 
 motive for taking him was not generally promulgated. 
 "And I went up by revelation, and communicated to 
 them the Gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, 
 but privately to them that were of reputation, lest by 
 any means I had run, or should run, in vain." 
 
 The revelation may refer to the prophecy of Agabus, 
 but more probably to a particular experience of Paul 
 himself. By the " Gospel which I preach," we are to
 
 236 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 understand the conception of the Gospel, that Paul 
 is insisting upon to his correspondents ; the theory of 
 Christianity, as bearing upon the relations of Jew and 
 Gentile, the law and the traditions." 
 
 It thus appears quite plainly that Paul acted upon a 
 policy at this early date, which was the same in prin- 
 ciple that he carried out in his latest journey to Jerusa- 
 lem. He seized as an opportunity of getting Apostolic 
 sanction for the Gentile Gospel, the moment when he 
 was conveying a contribution from Gentile converts in 
 aid of the necessities of the poor saints the Ebionite 
 Church at Jerusalem, with which the Apostles were 
 most immediately connected. 
 
 Cavillers disposed to interpret the transaction harshly 
 might have said, and may still say, that Paul came with 
 money in his hand and promise of more ; and, by the 
 corruption of a portion of the leaders of a pauperized 
 sect, bought a recognition of his own Apostleship, and 
 a promise of connivance at innovations in the Christian 
 system, that were quite out of consistency with their 
 declared opinions. On the other hand, we reply that 
 Paul saw in the necessities of a starving Church, an 
 opportunity of convincing it of the truly Christian cha- 
 rity with which uncircumcised Gentiles could commise- 
 rate and relieve a community of Jews. The spirit may 
 have been much the same as that in which large sub- 
 scriptions have been collected in England to relieve the 
 sufferings from flood or fire, of communities in France 
 that habitually breathed hate and rancour against our 
 country. This is the spirit in which the Indian famine 
 has been made an opportunity of heaping coals of fire 
 on the heads of a recently-insurgent population, in
 
 THE PRIVATE COMPACT OF PAUL AND PETER. 237 
 
 which hordes of starving repealers and shouters against 
 the Saxon were comforted during the failure of the 
 potato crop. Corruption is a word that has here no 
 place. That a purpose of conciliation may be promoted 
 along with a work of charity is, of course, not abso- 
 lutely out of view ; but as little is it the sole least of 
 all can it be called, an unworthy motive. 
 
 The charity was given, I have no doubt, without a 
 stipulation. I have no doubt also that Titus, the uncir- 
 cumcised disciple, was brought forward in such a light 
 and such a position throughout the transaction, as to 
 make it impossible for the Apostles not to recognize 
 the compatibility of the best Christian graces with in- 
 dependence of Jewish rites ; so in his later journey, in 
 charge of another and probably a larger contribution, 
 Paul carries up the Gentile convert Trophimus. 
 
 "But not even Titus, who was with me, though a 
 Greek, was forcibly urged to be circumcised ; (but it 
 was because of the false brethren who had slipped in, 
 who crept in to spy out our freedom which we hold in 
 Christ Jesus, that they might enslave us ; to whom we 
 yielded subjection not for an hour, that the truth of 
 the Gospel might remain unto you.) But of those 
 who seemed to be somewhat, whatever they were, it is 
 no matter to me, (God accepteth not man's person;) 
 for to me these seemers added nothing; but, on the 
 contrary, when they saw that to me was entrusted the 
 Gospel of the uncircumcision as to Peter of the cir- 
 cumcision ; (for He that wrought in Peter toward the 
 apostleship of the circumcision wrought in me also to- 
 ward the Gentiles ;) and when they perceived the grace 
 that was given unto me, James and Cephas and John,
 
 238 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 who seemed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the 
 right hands of fellowship, that we might go to the Gen- 
 tiles and they to the circumcision; only they would 
 that we should remember the poor, the very same thing 
 that I also was forward to do." 
 
 From this it appears that James, Peter, and John, 
 who were of leading influence in the Jerusalem church, 
 were prepared or induced to sanction the discipleship 
 of Gentiles, without imposing upon them the rite of cir- 
 cumcision ; but that in this respect they were so far in 
 advance of many of their adherents, and probably also 
 of colleagues, that it was not safe to promulgate the 
 compact. It remained at this time a private agree- 
 ment, and, as usual in such cases, various complications 
 arose in due time, and at last came an explosion. 
 
 It is not clear whether the James who was a party to 
 this secret compact was the James, the Lord's brother, 
 who had seen Paul on his return the first time, and is 
 found long after at the head of the Hebrew church ; or 
 James the brother of John. I suspect the latter, not- 
 withstanding the name being placed before Peter and 
 disjoined from John. I think so on two grounds ; first, 
 from the position that the brothers James and John 
 take along with Peter in certain mythical stories in the 
 Gospels, which, I believe, are derived from these later 
 transactions; and then from events that are recorded 
 in Acts as following close upon these negotiations. 
 Before the return of Paul and Barnabas to Antioch is 
 recorded, we have to read in Acts that Herod Agrippa 
 killed James the brother of John with the sword, and, 
 to please the same party, seized Peter also. We seem
 
 THE PRIVATE COMPACT OF PAUL AND PETER. 239 
 
 here to have an indication of the sympathy of this James 
 with the actions and opinions of Peter; whether we think 
 it worth while further to conjecture or no, that inter- 
 course with Paul had stimulated their enthusiasm to 
 speak more boldly than usual upon some of those dan- 
 gerous topics that had been before them ; and that they 
 had thus excited a popular rage, and exposed them- 
 selves to fatal catastrophe. 
 
 It is after the return of Paul and Barnabas to Antioch 
 that we first hear of their proposed missionary jour- 
 ney, as if it were then thought of for the first time, 
 and might even have originated independently of them. 
 It is, however, probable enough it is most probable 
 that the negotiations at Jerusalem had been pushed 
 on and planned, with the special purpose of settling 
 an advantageous basis, on which to proceed in this very 
 enterprise. The opening there might be for success 
 in such an undertaking, was sufficiently evinced by 
 what was done and doing at Antioch; and the events 
 of the famine fell out just in a way to invite to some 
 preliminary conference with the recognized heads of 
 the Church. It is likely enough that it was with dis- 
 tinct reference to the mission that John Mark, who 
 afterwards was associated in it, came down with Paul 
 and Barnabas ; his participation would not be without 
 significance and aid, in the event of opposition from that 
 very likely source, brethren of the Hebrew church. A 
 certain not unworthy end might also be answered by 
 indoctrinating Mark himself with sympathy and inter- 
 est for a Gospel more liberal. 
 
 His mother Mary sister, or sister-in-law of Barnabas 
 is named in Acts. Peter, on his escape from prison,
 
 240 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 proceeds to her house to notify his safety to the bre- 
 thren, of whom there are many assembled there praying. 
 
 Peter, James, and John were treated more confiden- 
 tially than the rest of the Apostles ; but, such are the 
 difficulties of men who are beyond and before their time, 
 that it is quite possible that even to these Paul did not 
 at this time venture to disclose what he would call " the 
 whole counsel of God." 
 
 Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, (Colos. iv.) starts with 
 Paul and Barnabas on their journey, but after they have 
 passed through Cyprus, the native land of the latter, 
 from Salamis to Paphos, and thence crossed over to 
 Perga in Pamphylia, on their way to Pisidia, " Mark 
 went not with them to the work, but departing from 
 them returned to Jerusalem/' I think it quite possible 
 that he may have had scruples as to the course the 
 teaching was taking. Paul, on independent and original 
 ground, is likely enough to have spoken out about the 
 Law ; about not only its non-obligation on Gentile con- 
 verts, but even its abrogation for Jews, in a way to startle 
 Mark, cognizant though he might be of the private com- 
 pact, fresh as he even might be from the liberal church 
 of Antioch. 
 
 Two incidents related on this journey will have to be 
 considered, as the subjects of the two next Cartoons. 
 At present, I pursue the series of events of which we 
 have witnessed the significant commencement. 
 
 That Paul's Epistle to the Galatians was addressed 
 to churches founded by him on this first journey is not 
 absolutely certain, though, I think, highly probable ; but 
 however this may be, it shows clearly what was the Gospel 
 he was at this time disposed to preach, and did preach.
 
 THE PRIVATE COMPACT OF PAUL AND PETER. 241 
 
 He inculcated the faith that Jesus was the Messiah, and 
 the Mediator who would reconcile all men to God; and 
 this faith and its implications he upheld as superseding 
 all Jewish ceremonialism. He not only did not impose 
 the Jewish law on his heathen disciples, but he warned 
 them against it as slavery unbecoming free men ; as 
 weak and beggarly elements contemptible to the in- 
 structed. He was prepared, not only to denounce the 
 observance of sacred days, months, seasons, years, but to 
 deter from circumcision, by declaring that it rendered 
 the whole law obligatory, the whole law, which even 
 the circumcised Jew did not and could not keep. 
 
 He magnifies the exclusive merit of Christian profes- 
 sion to such an extent, as to find that the balance of 
 privilege is with the unprivileged. Not for nothing had 
 he sat at the feet of Gamaliel ; and he evinces his pro- 
 ficiency in the acquirements which his opponent " some 
 contentious Jew," would most respect, by the fatal dex- 
 terity with which he knows how to " entangle him in 
 the web of his own Rabbinical conundrums." With 
 admirable audacity, he even ventures to make out Esau 
 to be the Old Testament type of the truly privileged ; 
 and Isaac, the legitimate son of the Patriarch, the pro- 
 genitor of all Israel, to be the personification of the 
 outcasts. " Agar is Mount Sinai, that is Jerusalem, in- 
 asmuch as Jerusalem is in bondage with her children. 
 But Christians have a Jerusalem in heaven; a free 
 mother therefore ; therefore Christians are the true re- 
 presentatives of Isaac, the child of promise ; and, like 
 him, they are persecuted by the child of the flesh, by 
 the Jew now, as Isaac of old by Esau. What, then, says 
 the Scripture ? ' Cast out the bondmaid and her son, for
 
 242 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CAETOONS. 
 
 the son of the bondmaid shall not be heir with the son 
 of the free woman ; ' " that is, let the Gentile Isaac 
 repudiate the Jew Esau. Surely this is ringing the 
 changes to some purpose. 
 
 Touching the outcome, however, there is no ambiguity. 
 " Now that the faith is come, we are no longer under a 
 schoolmaster. . . . There is neither Jew nor Greek, there 
 is neither slave nor freeman, there is neither male nor 
 female : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal. iii. 25- 
 28.) " As many as wish to make a fair show in the flesh, 
 they force you to be circumcised ; only lest they should 
 be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For neither do 
 they who are circumcised, themselves keep the law ; but 
 they wish you to be circumcised, that in your flesh they 
 may boast. But far be it from me to boast, save in the 
 cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is 
 crucified unto me, and 1 unto the world. For in Christ 
 Jesus neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumci- 
 sion, but a new creation. And as many as walk by this 
 rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and on the Israel of 
 God." (Gal. vi. 12-16.) 
 
 Barnabas is referred to more than once in this Epistle, 
 and in a manner that seems to imply that he was known 
 to the Galatians : this is a point in favour of their 
 church having been founded on Paul's first journey, 
 when Barnabas was with him ; and I think also, that 
 the words, " that the truth of the Gospel might remain 
 unto you," must be taken to imply that the Galatian 
 church was already in possession of immunity from the 
 customs, when the discussion that imperilled the privi- 
 lege arose at Antioch.
 
 THE PUBLIC ALTERCATION AT ANTIOCH. 243 
 
 II. THE PUBLIC ALTERCATION AT ANTIOCH. 
 
 Let us now follow forth the consequences of the 
 secret compact, according to the terms of which, as 
 Paul, at least, chose to interpret them, he proclaimed a 
 conception of Christianity as large as charity, and only 
 disgraced by being supported by a class of arguments 
 from Scripture interpretation, that he himself always 
 puts aside at last, as if ashamed of them while he is 
 using them. 
 
 The all-important chapter (ii.) of Galatians must be 
 our chief guide. Here Paul speaks, as we have seen, 
 of a transaction eifected privately with certain leading 
 Apostles at his second return to Jerusalem ; the purport 
 of which is significantly shown by the Gentile convert 
 Titus, whom he took up with him, not being required 
 to be circumcised. This demand was made indeed, he 
 goes on to say, but it was under other circumstances 
 and on another occasion; it was made by "certain 
 false brethren who had slipped or crept in to spy out 
 our freedom which we hold in Christ Jesus, that they 
 might enslave us; to whom we yielded subjection not 
 for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might re- 
 main unto you." This paragraph clearly anticipates the 
 order of time ; Paul has not yet finished his story as to 
 the understanding he came to with the Apostles on his 
 second visit, in respect of the division of the field of 
 labour ; but he is led aside to intercalate the notice of 
 the circumstances under which the conditions of Titus 
 came to be challenged. 
 
 No result could be more natural ; a latitude in ob- 
 
 R -2
 
 244 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 servances, or the neglect of them, was being indulged 
 in by Paul and his adherents, of which the Church at 
 large the Church at head-quarters at Jerusalem, espe- 
 cially, was not publicly cognizant. Sooner or later, of 
 course, the fact got wind, and equally of course the 
 laxity would be challenged by bigots in the most offen- 
 sive and violent manner possible. False brethren and 
 sneaks are the best names that Paul has to bestow on 
 them in return, and such in spirit they may probably 
 have been, though we cannot be surprised that the dis- 
 covery should have produced an indignant explosion. 
 
 Apart from the tale of years, which, as we have seen, 
 must be revised, the order of events in Galatians is 
 quite in agreement or in harmony with the order in Acts. 
 It is there related that it was after the return of Paul 
 and Barnabas from the mission to Pisidia, that " certain 
 men who came down from Judea some of the sect of 
 Pharisees who were believers taught the brethren at 
 Antioch, Unless ye be circumcised after the manner of 
 Moses, ye cannot be saved." These are manifestly the 
 false brethren, the creepers-in, who called in question 
 the position of the Gentile Christian Titus, and such as 
 Titus. That Titus and that the private compact are 
 not mentioned in Acts makes nothing against this ; such 
 omissions do not impugn facts otherwise authenticated : 
 the true moral of such a difficulty is to set us upon the 
 inquiry how the knowledge of the writer happened to 
 be so scant : his judgment in selection so perverse ; or, 
 lastly, how he was influenced in the case by party spirit, 
 or individual bias and plan. 
 
 "When, therefore, Paul and Barnabas had no small 
 disagreement and dispute with them, they settled that
 
 THE PUBLIC ALTERCATION AT ANTIOCH. 245 
 
 Paul and Barnabas, and some others of them, should go 
 up to Jerusalem to the Apostles and elders about this 
 question." (xv. 2.) 
 
 There were, however, other elements and parties to 
 the dispute, that are not adverted to by the writer of 
 Acts. Let us again hear Paul. 
 
 " But when Peter came to Antioch, I withstood him 
 to the face, because he was blameable. For before 
 certain persons came from James, he ate with the Gen- 
 tiles ; but when they came, he withdrew and separated 
 himself, fearing those of the circumcision. And the other 
 Jews dissembled with him, so that even Barnabas was 
 carried away with them in this dissembling. But when 
 I saw that they walked not level with the truth of the 
 Gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, be- 
 ing a Jew, livest as do the Gentiles, and not as a Jew, 
 how forcest thou the Gentiles to live as Jews ?" 
 
 The James in question here is not the brother of 
 John, who was at this time dead. There can be no 
 reasonable doubt that the "certain from James," re- 
 ferred to by Paul, are to be identified with the bre- 
 thren of the sect of Pharisees spoken of in Acts, who, 
 coming from Jerusalem, are chargeable with exaggera- 
 ting the terms of a commission, or perhaps with invent- 
 ing one, from the James whom we find presiding over 
 the Church at Jerusalem, who disowns, or at least is re- 
 presented as disowning them. 
 
 According to the narrative, two points come into 
 question : the obligation of the Law and the customs, 
 not only on the Gentile disciples, but also on the Jew- 
 ish certainly to some extent, and perhaps absolutely. 
 For the course of events necessarily opened the entire
 
 246 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 question. The common meal was the custom, if not 
 institution, of the Church; but in a mixed society of 
 Jews and Gentiles it became an impossibility, unless 
 some of the most inveterate Jewish prejudices respect- 
 ing meats and persons and ceremonial qualification were 
 given up, or else imposed on and submitted to by the 
 Gentiles. Even if the question of circumcision were 
 conceded, quite enough remained to break up the Chris- 
 tian communion into separate messes, and thus to vitiate 
 the very principle of charity, and countervail the pro- 
 gressive tendency to turn the special distinction of the 
 sect into its single essential, to make Christ all in all. 
 
 By whatever process, by original disposition or persua- 
 sion of Paul, Peter had adopted the most liberal view. 
 He had given his authority to the private understanding 
 Concluded between Paul and Barnabas and the Apostles, 
 or certain of them, at Jerusalem ; and by public and un- 
 restricted association at Antioch, he added his personal 
 sanction for the largest interpretation. On the appear- 
 ance of the Pharisaic rigorists he went back, and with 
 him Barnabas, who was still more deeply committed. 
 Then came the rebuke of Paul; then came the great 
 occasion of a stand made in the very gap. 
 
 The best liberties of the progressive section of man- 
 kind were depending at that moment on the resolution 
 with which a firm position should be asserted, and plain 
 words spoken, over a dinner-table at Antioch ; and, let 
 us say also, on the candour with which a false step might 
 be retrieved, and half-abandoned boldness resumed.
 
 THE APOSTOLIC DECREE OF COMPROMISE. 247 
 
 III. THE APOSTOLIC DECREE OF COMPROMISE. 
 
 For the next stage in the story we must again transfer 
 our attention to Acts. 
 
 Paul and Barnabas and others proceed to Jerusalem. 
 "And the Apostles and elders came together to con- 
 sider of this matter. And when there had been much 
 disputing, Peter stood up, and said unto them, Men and 
 brethren, ye know that in the days of old God made 
 choice among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should 
 hear the word of the good tidings and believe. And 
 God, who knoweth the heart, bare witness for them, 
 giving to them the Holy Spirit even as to us, and put 
 no difference between them and us, purifying their 
 hearts by the faith. Now, therefore, why tempt ye 
 God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which 
 neither our fathers nor ourselves were able to bear 1 
 
 " But through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 we have faith that we shall be saved, even in the same 
 manner as they." 
 
 The last clause of this speech appears to be a distinct 
 enunciation of the principle accepted by Paul, that not 
 only was faith in Christ, without the observances of the 
 Law, sufficient to save the Gentile, but it was sufficient 
 to save the Jew also, who was thus, at last, released from 
 a burden that had depressed the race for generations. 
 
 The tenor and the term of Peter's speech, it will be 
 observed, are perfectly in accordance with what we have 
 gleaned from Galatians, that the discussion had in- 
 volved the question of the obligation of the Law on 
 Jews, quite as distinctly as its imposition on Gentiles.
 
 248 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 If we accept the record, Peter nobly recovers himself 
 after his temporary vacillation, and does his very best 
 to obtain public sanction for even a fuller application 
 of the Gospel than he had at an earlier date promoted 
 privately. 
 
 It will be noticed that the question of Jews eat- 
 ing with Gentiles, which brought on the discussion at 
 Antioch, is the very same that, according to Acts, had 
 been provoked and settled after Peter's conversion of 
 Cornelius. The whole story of Cornelius may easily 
 be a mythical transformation of the Gentile conversions 
 and discussions at Antioch. Who shall say 1 I remain, 
 however, with a distinct recognition in any case of the 
 primary and ultimate liberal spirit of Peter, his vacil- 
 lation notwithstanding. 
 
 Paul and Barnabas say their unreported say, and then 
 the result is given by James as an authoritative com- 
 promise. The Gentiles are relieved from the odious 
 and oppressive customs, with certain reservations to alle- 
 viate the difficulties of association and common table. 
 " I conclude not to trouble those of the Gentiles who 
 turn to God, but to enjoin them to abstain from things 
 offered to idols, and from fornication (an ill name pro- 
 bably for marriage with unbelievers), and from things 
 strangled, and from blood." As regards Peter's move- 
 ment for relief to the Jewish disciples, it is either dis- 
 regarded, or put aside with a blunt reference to their 
 opportunity of hearing the law of Moses read in the 
 synagogues every Sabbath day, all the world over. The 
 decision is embodied in an epistle, or rather a decree, in 
 which the high tone is assumed of conceding out of mere 
 condescension, and imposing without appeal : it " hath
 
 THE APOSTOLIC DECREE OF COMPROMISE. 249 
 
 seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon 
 you no greater burden than these necessary things," etc. 
 The congregation keep reverential silence during the 
 debate, as might be expected under such a president, 
 but the mandate purports to emanate from the Apostles, 
 elders, and whole church, being of one mind ; the dis- 
 turbers are disowned ; Paul and Barnabas, on the other 
 hand, are recognized with high commendation, and to 
 them, along with two special envoys, is entrusted the 
 delivery of the decree. 
 
 The decree, it is said, was read at Antioch, and found 
 consolatory. Paul, when he proceeds to confirm the 
 churches that he had founded on his first journey, is said 
 to give them these dogmata to observe, and James refers 
 to them as the constituted and unaltered rule when Paul 
 goes to Jerusalem for the last time. That the rules were 
 promulgated with authority is clear from many allu- 
 sions, in Revelation and in the earliest Fathers, Justin, 
 and so forth ; it is no less clear that they could not have 
 satisfied Paul even if they did Peter. His Epistles dis- 
 regard them ; he gives instructions to the Corinthians 
 that directly disallow them as imperative and contravene 
 their tenor ; and he holds no measure, in writing at least, 
 with the permanence of Jewish ceremonialism. Hence 
 it might well be reported at Jerusalem, as James declared 
 to him, that he taught the Jew.s everywhere that they 
 should no longer observe the Law. 
 
 But the motive for the secret compact in the first in- 
 stance concealment of full designs from the multitude, 
 lest his ministry should be brought to a violent and pre- 
 mature end was still as operative as ever. Hard ne- 
 cessity ! This is ever the dilemma of proselytizers that
 
 250 .. CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 are beyond their age, and Paul might learn from bitter 
 experience that the unsteadiness of Peter was not with- 
 out palliation. 
 
 The enthusiast, like Stephen, declares, denounces, de- 
 nes ; the end comes early, he is stoned. Prudence is 
 taught, and the next innovator advances more cautiously 
 so cautiously, that he makes no considerable way ; then 
 comes the policy of bold advance and as sudden retrac- 
 tion, and then bold advance again ; the assertion of a 
 startling principle, the qualification of it till it is re- 
 duced to inanity ; then the return upon the enunciation 
 to secure its admission in part while the first alarm is set 
 to sleep by seeming withdrawal, the speech directed 
 one way, action facing directly the other. 
 
 Hence it is not impossible that Paul, having done his 
 best at the conference, acquiesced in a resolution which 
 he could not resist, and which at least gave him some- 
 what. He set some value on what was obtained, and 
 took his own counsel as to where and when, and how 
 far, he would give effect to the remainder. Many very 
 equivocal things are told of him in Acts, how he even 
 circumcises Timothy; how he goes up to Jerusalem 
 to keep a feast as a matter of urgent moment ; how he 
 shaves his head in Cenchrere, having a vow, and so forth. 
 We may question the truth of these tales if we please, 
 but the fact remains that he goes to Jerusalem several 
 times, when, if his real written opinions were plainly 
 declared there, the city must have been too hot to hold 
 him for a day. This was the concession in action, that he 
 was equally forced to make in argument ; when he was 
 compelled to insinuate, to suggest, to qualify his most 
 positive opinions, as the only means of getting a hearing 
 or a chance of acceptation at all.
 
 THE APOSTOLIC DECREE OF COMPROMISE. 251 
 
 Hard, indeed, must it have been for a man of dignity 
 to have "to hedge, to shuffle, to lurch," after this fashion ; 
 but the times were against him ; the harmlessness of 
 the dove would have perished at once, and the good 
 cause with it, but for the safeguard of a serpent's wis- 
 dom. He was beset on every side ; in perils by false 
 brethren, he was driven to reservations and inconsist- 
 encies ; in peril from the bigoted Jews, he was driven 
 to fight them with their own weapons, and take the 
 readiest way to his hand to set Pharisee and Sadducee 
 by the ears ; in peril from the authorities, he made the 
 best of his privilege of citizenship, and took every ad- 
 vantage of opportunities; and exerted his eloquence 
 with every aid from rhetoric. 
 
 He fought long and boldly a perilous and difficult 
 fight ; but amidst all his concessions and all his inconsis- 
 tencies he kept his great ends in view, the emanci- 
 pation of Christianity in the first place from the tram- 
 mels of Judaism, and then the emancipation of the Jew 
 from his confirmed and deadening ceremonialism, by 
 Christianity. 
 
 His patriotic endeavours to save his people, his 
 country, were frustrate ; but even as a patriot, his name 
 should be held in honour by Jews for evermore. 
 
 To Paul as a Jew, and with a heart that retained a 
 Jew's sympathy for his countrymen, the Apostolic re- 
 script which sealed their continuance in bondage to the 
 Law, must have been a deep source of regret and disap- 
 pointment ; it is clear from his Epistle to the Romans 
 that he retained to that late date in all their entirety, all 
 his principles of Christian freedom for both Jew and 
 Gentile, and his resolution to promote it with all his art
 
 '252 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 and energy. But others may have been less persistent. If 
 Peter's Epistle could be relied on as genuine, he himself, 
 for all his predilections, would have seemed to defer to the 
 majority, and to have held by the decree as the basis 
 of the faith for both Jew and Gentile. On the other 
 hand, some teachers of Gentile blood may easily have 
 acquiesced still more readily ; the imposition upon the 
 Gentiles, except in principle, was slight, and involved 
 little inconvenience ; their section of the Church was 
 gaming in relative importance every day; and every 
 day it had less and less sympathy with the members 
 of the Jewish section, or the grievances that any portion 
 of them might be sensible of under their share of a 
 convenient compromise. Numerous Jewish and Gen- 
 tile teachers alike, therefore, would co-operate in giving 
 effect to it, and its influence is traceable far and wide. 
 Even the author of Acts seems to treat it as defini- 
 tive, and might, if we were off our guard, be interpreted 
 as willing to promote its acceptance for the sake of har- 
 mony and peace. But his record contains enough to in- 
 dicate that he held it as only the best arrangement that 
 was obtainable at the time, not the best that could be 
 desired. When a battle has been lost, a treaty which 
 secures much of what was contested, will always be 
 thought by many of the vanquished not only worth hav- 
 ing, but even worth resting upon finally ; but I cannot 
 accept such a position of premature finality as being 
 that of the compiler of Luke and Acts ; who manifests 
 such sympathy with the expansive tendency of the 
 Gospel, an idea that his materials show was already 
 most definite and pronounced. 
 
 In the Book of Revelation, as well as Peter's Epistle,
 
 THE APOSTOLIC DECREE OF COMPROMISE. 253 
 
 an Epistle as little written by Peter as the Revelation 
 by John, in Justin and the Clementine Homilies, we 
 find the authority of the decree vindicated, and the con- 
 travention of it by Paul adverted to with acrimony. We 
 may gather also from Pliny's Epistle to Trajan, that in 
 his time the abstaining from flesh that had formed part 
 of heathen sacrifices, was a test of Christianity in the 
 communities of Bithynia. Hence it is very significant 
 that while a considerable literature is positive and vehe- 
 ment in citing the authority of Peter for the restric- 
 tions of the decree, the author of Acts represents him 
 as overruled in the matter, and never introduces him 
 afterwards, and makes all his authority previously, tell 
 the other way. 
 
 Nowhere else in the Acts of the Apostles is the prin- 
 ciple of the supersession of the Law by Christ, enunciated 
 so unequivocally as in the sentence here put into the 
 mouth of Peter. And yet this is the constantly-recur- 
 ring gist of Paul's teaching as we have it in the most 
 authentic form in his Epistles. This could not be by 
 accident ; it could not be by ignorance. Was it that 
 the writer of Acts had come to despair of the speedy 
 realization in his time of the truly comprehensive Chris- 
 tianity ; and that while he gave it the best chance of 
 surviving by assigning to it the authority of Peter, he 
 was fain to be content for the time to countervail the 
 prejudice it had derived from, and caused against, Paul, 
 by casting the burden of responsibility on the titular 
 head of the opposite party, and so to help an interme- 
 diate compromise 1 
 
 I am of opinion that the finally dominant idea of the 
 compiler of Acts was this : to set forth incidentally,
 
 254 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 the largest principle of a free Gospel, common and suf- 
 ficient both for Jew and Gentile, independently of the 
 Law, as the true goal of Gospel development, its na- 
 tural and inevitable and glorious destiny. He dis- 
 played carefully the steps by which this was led up to, 
 and the difficulties and complications in its way ; he se- 
 cured for it the sanction of Jesus in parables of unmis- 
 takeable moral, in anecdotes of inevitable significance ; 
 and also of Peter, the chief Apostle ; at Samaria, at 
 Csesarea, at the conference at Jerusalem. Then he exhi- 
 bited the complication that arose with the Jewish Chris- 
 tians, and the enforced compromise of the decree which 
 continued the obligation of the Law for Jews, and im- 
 posed sufficient restrictions on the Gentiles to vitiate the 
 principle of freedom, and to be a badge of dependence. 
 This compromise, he sets forth, has a fair trial ; it is, 
 he avers rather courageously, respected with loyalty by 
 Paul ; but by the incidents that he selects for record, 
 he steadily shows that as a measure of conciliation, its 
 sole apology, it proves a failure, and is moreover ra- 
 pidly outgrown: the extension of the Gospel among 
 the Jews, the establishment of a general reception of 
 Jesus as Christ by the Jews on any terms, becomes more 
 and more hopeless ; it fails at Jerusalem, it fails finally 
 at Rome ; it is among the Gentiles that must be sought 
 at last the leading shoot of Gospel development. With 
 a certain feeling of epic propriety, it is with the arrival 
 of the great Apostle of catholicity at the imperial city 
 that the conclusive break is declared, which extricated 
 the Gospel from the trammels of Judaical accommoda- 
 tion, and in doing so broke off at the same time the 
 dependence of the Church, in which a Gentile element
 
 THE APOSTOLIC DECREE OF COMPROMISE. 255 
 
 was now so immeasurably preponderant, on a provincial 
 synod, a Jewish sect. Even Paul, in the end, and after 
 many a struggle, gives up his nation ; the compiler of 
 Acts, it is true, does not say in so many words that when 
 he sent away the chief men of the Jewish synagogue 
 at Rome, he declared openly that circumcisions, and sha- 
 vings of heads, and visits to the Temple, and sacrifices, 
 that he had hitherto demeaned himself by giving in 
 to, in the hope of Jewish conversion, should be de- 
 nounced openly as the obsolete things they were and 
 that he had long known them to be ; Paul is not made 
 to say that let James and the elders at Jerusalem think 
 what they may, his course would be clear to declare to 
 them as distinctly as he had done to the Galatians, that 
 in adhering to the Law they were courting damnation 
 holding by beggarly elements, drivelling in second 
 childhood. This is not said, but this, I have no doubt, 
 is what the author of Acts intended to convey ; and 
 to his contemporaries, reading by the light of passing 
 events, did absolutely and of necessity convey. Events 
 had been ripening long enough. Every chance that the 
 Jews could expect had been allowed to them, every ad- 
 missible compromise been offered and rejected ; and in 
 the history would be seen how it came to pass that there 
 was nothing for them at last but to be left aside, or 
 join Christianity on the terms that Paul, the prisoner, 
 had notoriously preached at Rome, renunciation of the 
 Law as abrogated, as merged in the superior revelation ; 
 and acceptation of Gentile brethren who repudiated 
 both the law of Moses and the decree of Apostles, and 
 were all equal in Christ. 
 
 Before this catastrophe, however, there was a very 
 important intermediate history. The trimming decree
 
 256 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 was reduced in value for the Gentile Christian by the 
 reservations and continued Jewish bondage ; ceremo- 
 nialism was conserved at the centre of the sect, and 
 sooner or later was sure to bear fruit, to give force 
 to the side of bigotry. But if Paul could see this, it 
 might not be so patent to others whose instincts were 
 not made lively by national sympathies; accordingly, 
 the asserted joy and comfort of the Church at the settle- 
 ment may have been extensive, and we may understand 
 how these feelings coloured so remarkably the course of 
 Christian tradition. 
 
 The grand point of Gentile emancipation from the 
 Law was gained, and lively as may have been the indig- 
 nation at Peter's vacillation at first, he was held in re- 
 sult to have fully re-established himself; and in this point 
 of view he became the hero of apologetic tradition. 
 
 The party of Pharisaical converts, on the other hand, 
 were willingly treated as utterly discomfited, notwith- 
 standing that they had consummated an amount of mis- 
 chief that was fraught with difficulty and misery untold. 
 Tradition took its own way with them, and when the 
 fabulous narratives of the incidents of the life of Jesus 
 became digested into biographies, in the heart of that 
 portion of the sect where the spirit of expansive Chris- 
 tianity lived on the warmest, the scruples and tyrannies 
 and hypocrisies of Pharisees, were as pointedly brought 
 on the scene, as the hesitations and prevarications and 
 repentance of Peter. 
 
 They replied in traditions of their own, represented, 
 as we have seen, in a literature which disowns and dispa- 
 rages Paul, and claims the sanction of Peter for at least 
 the restrictions of the decree, whether justly or not, I 
 will not venture to say.
 
 257 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE HISTOEY OF THE CHURCH, IN THE BIOGRAPHY 
 OF JESUS. 
 
 I. THE PHARISEES OF ANTIOCH, IN THE GOSPELS. II. THE 
 
 EXPANSION OF THE CHURCH, IN THE PARABLES. III. 
 
 PETER, JAMES, AND JOHN AT THE TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 I. THE PHARISEES OF ANTIOCH, IN THE GOSPELS. 
 
 A GREAT deal has been done by D. F. Strauss and other 
 critics to elucidate the extent to which anecdotes for 
 the life of Jesus took form by the model of those as- 
 cribed to the prophets, especially Moses and Elijah, in 
 the Old Testament. Other materials, it is clearly made 
 out, were derived from the interpretation of declamation 
 as prophecy, and of prophecy as Messianic, as Mes- 
 sianic according to independent pattern, by processes 
 involving all manner of misconceptions. 
 
 The operation of these varied influences can often be 
 traced very distinctly in the features of the resulting 
 mythus, though it may be quite impossible to follow 
 each and every through all their reactions and resolu- 
 tions. A concurrence of minor influences has often a 
 power equivalent to the grand predominance of one; 
 and a single influence is sometimes predominant in vir- 
 tue, not of its proper vigour, but by the accident that 
 
 s
 
 258 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 it operates alone. Jesus is born of a virgin: and the 
 tradition or invention may seem sufficiently explained 
 by the citation of a text, grossly misunderstood, from 
 Isaiah. Yet this mistake concurs with a certain sym- 
 bolical value for parthenogenesis of the founder, the 
 head, the very object of a religious worship. Jesus, like 
 Moses, was transfigured on a mount, and both prophets 
 alike, on descending, found their adherents at the foot in 
 disorder ; in one case actually apostate, in the other non- 
 plussed and confounded; but, after all, the parallelism 
 leaves a large margin of divergence to be otherwise ac- 
 counted for. This is also the case in abundance of other 
 instances ; as in miracles of healing and of raising the 
 dead: special details are constantly introduced, which 
 betray that they are significant, but do not for the most 
 part give up and declare their significance forthwith. 
 
 Old Testament literature, and the associations of 
 ancient prophets and of Messianic anticipations founded 
 on prophecy, however irregularly, these were the fund 
 of lore from which the imagery of the Gospel stories 
 were for the most part drawn; they were combined 
 with some truly historical personal incidents, and they 
 had to suffer the usual casualties of copy and recopy 
 in additions and glosses, false divisions, and mistaken 
 agglutinations. But still, all these influences and ope- 
 rations combined, do not constitute, and do not conduct 
 us to, the germinant principle which governed the form 
 of assimilation. The materials of a structure may be 
 referred most exactly to their sources, and still no expla- 
 nation of the principle of the design be implied. Take 
 whatever anecdote of the set we please that is of any 
 extent, and, after the identification of all its elements in
 
 THE PHARISEES OF ANTIOCH IN THE GOSPELS. 259 
 
 detail, the grand question still remains what was the 
 intentional drift, the suggesting purpose, or organizing 
 motive of the conception 1 
 
 The answer to this question that approves itself to me 
 approves itself on reconsideration after twenty years 
 is, that most of the miraculous incidents in the life of 
 Jesus, originated with a section of the early Christians 
 that had little or no direct knowledge, or even informa- 
 tion, of the details of his personal career ; that they 
 were composed originally with perfect consciousness of 
 a definite, and that, for the most part, a moral or contro- 
 versial aim. Inasmuch as the authors, most probably 
 Hellenistic Jews, were imbued with Jewish associations, 
 their productions naturally relished of the antecedents 
 and the anticipations of the nation. Strong contro- 
 versial feelings will ever give an undesigned colour to 
 the most simple-minded narrative; but we deal here 
 with something more, and something much more pro- 
 nounced. The composers, the poets, the prophets, or 
 prophesiers, as they might call themselves, appear to 
 me to have aimed, in many cases, at illustrating the 
 proper Christian view of a pending controversy, by in- 
 venting such an incident for the life of Christ as would 
 apply with cogency as a precedent, tell with the au- 
 thority of a decision. In other cases we can trace no 
 motive, other than what we may consider purely 
 poetical. " Christ " is constantly employed by Paul for 
 Christ's doctrine, for Christianity, for all that is good 
 and admirable in Christian graces ; he preaches Christ, 
 lives in Christ, dies in Christ; and to fail in duty is 
 to crucify, to betray, to deny Christ. The same poetic 
 or rhetorical figure of speech, taken on base of the 
 
 s 2
 
 260 CHRISTIANITY IN THE- CARTOONS. 
 
 letter, relates the fortunes of Christianity as those of 
 Christ ; and gives a representation of a crisis in the his- 
 tory of a movement, as an adventure or an action of its 
 originator. 
 
 Precepts and parables, therefore, are put into the 
 mouth of Jesus which bear directly upon discussions 
 that, by their very nature, could only have arisen subse- 
 quently to his death, and to the changes in the anticipa- 
 tions of his followers that then ensued; or, in other 
 cases, the weight of his authority is borrowed by the as- 
 cription of proceedings to him, that have either a direct 
 or symbolical bearing on current difficulties. 
 
 Again, but I believe more rarely, without any spe- 
 cial controversial drift being in question, the Jesus of 
 the Gospels is a simple personification of the Church, 
 and his fate an embodiment of its trials and vicissitudes. 
 
 To proceed to examples : 
 
 The incidents at Antioch, of which we have heard so 
 much, reappear in the Gospels (Matt, xv., Mark vii., 
 Luke xi.) transformed into an incident, of which the 
 scene is laid at Gennesaret, apparently on the western 
 border of the lake. 
 
 Matthew and Mark relate it, for the most part, with a 
 parallelism that indicates translation from common au- 
 thority, with here and there a transposition here and 
 there a gloss. 
 
 "Then came together unto him the Pharisees and 
 some of the scribes who came from Jerusalem, saying, 
 Wherefore do your disciples transgress the tradition of 
 the elders, for they do not wash their hands before they 
 eat bread^ And he, answering them, said, And why
 
 THE PHARISEES OF ANTIOCH, IN THE GOSPELS. 261 
 
 do ye transgress the commandment of God by your tra- 
 dition ? for Moses (' God ' in Matt.) said, Honour your 
 father and your mother; and whoso curseth father or 
 mother, let him die the death. But ye say, etc. etc. 
 
 " Hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy concerning you, 
 saying, This people honoureth me with their lips, but 
 their heart is far from me. 
 
 " And calling to Mm all tJie crowd, he said unto them. 
 Hear ye all, and understand, not what entereth into the 
 mouth of a man defiles him, but what proceeds out of 
 his mouth. . . . 
 
 " Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Know- 
 est thou that the Pharisees, when they heard the word, 
 found a difficulty'? But he answered, and said, . . . 
 Let them alone, they are blind leaders of the blind. 
 
 "And Peter answering, said unto him, Tell unto us 
 this parable. And Jesus said, Are ye yet without un- 
 derstanding T 
 
 In Luke xi. we read : " A certain Pharisee asked him 
 to dine with him: and he went in, and lay down to 
 meat. And when the Pharisee saw it, he wondered 
 that he had not first washed before dinner. And the 
 Lord said unto him, Now ye Pharisees cleanse the out- 
 side of the cup and the platter ; but your inside is full 
 of ravening and of wickedness," etc. 
 
 " And he said, Woe unto you, teachers of the law ! 
 for ye load men with burdens grievous to be borne, and 
 ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your 
 fingers, (xii. ^,) First, beware of the leaven of the y 
 Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." 
 
 The great denunciation of the Pharisees in the thir- 
 teenth chapter of Matthew is full of innuendos that go 
 straight to the blot of the difficulties at Antioch.
 
 262 CHBISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 " Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for 
 that ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men ; for 
 ye neither go in yourselves, nor suffer those that are 
 entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Phari- 
 sees, hypocrites ; for ye compass sea and land to make 
 one proselyte, and when he becomes so ye make him 
 twofold more a child of hell than yourselves." 
 
 The contest of the teachers at Antioch with the 
 brethren of the sect of Pharisees coming from Jerusa- 
 lem, who cavilled at the neglect of the customs in the 
 order of meals ; who shut the kingdom of heaven against 
 the new converts, and while zealous for converts them- 
 selves, would make them slaves and bigots ; the separate 
 appeal to the general multitude ; the special explana- 
 tion to Peter and the immediate disciples ; the unspar- 
 ing denouncement of hypocrisy at last, all this seems 
 to me to bring home to the writer of the Gospel the 
 writer, that is, of the anecdote wrought into the web of 
 the Gospel the intention and reference that I have 
 imputed. 
 
 All touches very directly the principle of the dis- 
 pute at Antioch, even when it glances off from the most 
 particular application. Jesus is here not declaring the 
 annulment of the law, or even its non-application to 
 Gentiles ; he speaks in the spirit ascribed to the Baptist, 
 as the rebuker of formal religion and hollow ceremo- 
 nialism. He denounces the traditions ; but though it is 
 true that in form he adds sanction to Moses and the 
 Law, he founds his rebuke so preferentially upon simple 
 morals as distinct from preceptive obligation, that the 
 Law suffers in truth little less than tradition. 
 
 Had the contents of these chapters been on record at
 
 THE PHARISEES OF AXTIOCH, IN THE GOSPELS. 263 
 
 the time among reverenced archives of the Christian 
 community, they could scarcely have escaped reference 
 and citation ; if, indeed, we should not rather say that 
 in such case the community would have been little 
 likely to have included " brethren of the sect of Phari- 
 sees " at all. 
 
 In the following section, from Luke xv. 1-10, the 
 mention of eating with publicans is brought forward in 
 a manner only explainable by the feeling for an appli- 
 cation of the moral, to conditions much later than its 
 place in the history. 
 
 "Then all the publicans and sinners were drawing 
 nigh unto him to hear him. And the scribes and Pha- 
 risees murmured, saying, This man accepts sinners, and 
 eats along with them." The rejoinder is given in the 
 parables of the lost sheep and the lost piece of money, 
 and the moral is expressed in the terms that there is joy 
 in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. The type of 
 the lost sheep is elsewhere appropriated to the strayed 
 members of the Jewish community the lost sheep of 
 the house of Israel ; and in Matt, xviii. the parable of 
 the lost sheep is introduced as if still so restricted in 
 application; and so Zacchaeus the publican, just and 
 charitable, is a son of Abraham, and therefore sought 
 and saved as one lost. (Luke xix.) But, take it how 
 we may, the reply assigned to Jesus fails to give the 
 return to the difficulty of the Pharisees. To the Pha- 
 risees, who were the enthusiastic upholders of the king- 
 dom of God, the tax-gatherer, if not the tax-payers too, 
 were sinners, on the ground of admitting and adminis- 
 tering an unholy dominion of the temporal power ; and 
 these sinners can only be understood as so designated
 
 264 CHKISTIANITY IN THE CAKTOONS. 
 
 in respect of habitual ceremonial uncleanness, con- 
 tracted from their consorting with Gentiles. The reply 
 does not contravene the imputation of sinfulness, as 
 being unfairly made on such grounds, nor does it allow 
 it, while showing that such ways are for the future re- 
 nounced; it ascribes repentance in the general moral 
 sense of which, for anything that appears, this ob- 
 noxious class had not more need than any other, and 
 therefore, in such case, would not be in any consistent 
 sense in the position of the single lost sheep. 
 
 I believe that these parables, in the form in which 
 we have them, were first designed, like the parable of the 
 prodigal son, to favour the reception of Hellenistic Jews 
 as disciples, and that this present form was assumed 
 after or among several modifications; in some of which 
 the moral of the repentant sinner received the highest 
 generalization, while in others it was directed to apply 
 to the ceremonially-disqualified Gentiles. The Phari- 
 saical murmurs in the Gospels represent, in the first in- 
 stance, the Hebrew opposition to the deacons at Jeru- 
 salem, and to the reception as disciples of the Jews of 
 the dispersion ; and then the quarrel of the brethren of 
 the sect of Pharisees with Peter and Paul, for joining 
 tables with " the sinners of the Gentiles " at Antioch. 
 Still, in origin, they may easily have been simple de- 
 nouncements of the exclusive habits of the rigidly 
 righteous, who would condemn a brother for his profes- 
 sion, or make every lapse in ritual observance fatal. 
 
 We are here again upon the traces of the force and 
 value of the ministry and doctrine of John, which sub- 
 stituted repentance for ceremonialism to so important 
 an extent, and thus gave a condition for the union of all 
 classes of Jews.
 
 THE PHARISEES OF ANTIOCH, IN THE GOSPELS. 265 
 
 " And all the people that heard, and the tax-gatherers, 
 justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of 
 John. But the Pharisees and teachers of the law re- 
 jected the counsel of God within themselves, not having 
 been baptized by him." (Luke vii. 29.) 
 
 The narratives in the Gospels that give most dis- 
 tinctly the sanction of Jesus to the reception of Gen- 
 tiles are, the cures of the centurion's servant and of the 
 daughter of a Canaanitish or Syro-Phcenician woman. In 
 both these cases the benefit is conferred on the ground 
 of meritorious faith faith, which is the specific qualifi- 
 cation of the Gentile disciples of Paul, as repentance of 
 the Hellenistic converts of John the Baptist, or Peter. 
 
 "O woman, great is thy faith," says Jesus to the 
 Canaanitish woman : " be it unto you as you wish." 
 (Matt, xv.) 
 
 " I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel," 
 is the observation of Jesus upon the centurion's be- 
 haviour ; and it is followed by the declaration, " Many 
 shall come from the east and from the west, and shall 
 recline along with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the 
 kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom 
 shall be cast into outer darkness : there shall be weep- 
 ing and gnashing of teeth." (Matt. viii. 12.) Luke adds 
 with significance : " And behold, there are some last who 
 will be first, and there are some first who will be last." 
 (Luke xiii. 30.) 
 
 Luke vii. has another version of the dinner at a Pha- 
 risee's, in which the cavil and reply turn, not upon neg- 
 lect of personal ceremonial purifications, but on the in- 
 tervention and reception by Jesus of the services of a
 
 266 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CAETOONS. 
 
 woman who is a sinner. The case is illustrated by the 
 parable of the larger gratitude of the larger of two 
 debtors equally forgiven, and the woman is dismissed, 
 " Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace." The incident 
 is fixed significantly at Capernaum: cf. Matt. iv. 13. 
 
 From the title of faith, I do not doubt that this 
 woman is a type of the " sinners of the Gentiles ;" and 
 the whole incident, as it is framed, would have borne 
 application so cogently and specifically in the discussion 
 at Antioch, that I do not doubt that it is an impression 
 sealed from that seal, a precedent made after that fact. 
 Nay, the very name of the Pharisee, Simon, appears to 
 be an innuendo on the Apostle Simon Peter, of whose 
 hesitation as to consorting with Gentiles at meals we 
 have two notices, that in Acts, at the vision of Corne- 
 lius, which may or may not be purely mythical ; and 
 that recorded by Paul. 
 
 The tender, affectionate, and lavish ministration of 
 the repentant woman to Christ, is then a typical embo- 
 diment of that ministration to the wants of the poor 
 saints at Jerusalem by the Gentile converts, which Apos- 
 tles, indeed, were not backward to suggest or solicit, but 
 which Paul himself was eager to promote as fitting de- 
 monstration of pious gratitude. 
 
 I think I also detect a bearing upon these complica- 
 tions in the early life of Christianity, which furnished 
 suggestions for filling out the life of Christ, in the parable 
 of the unjust steward. The gist of it appears to illus- 
 trate how men of the world are more prudent in their 
 generation than the children of light, and gain their 
 ends by unfair employment of that worldly wealth, which 
 better men have not sense to employ, as they might,
 
 EXPANSION OF THE CHURCH, IN THE PARABLES. 267 
 
 both efficiently and legitimately, for better ends. " I 
 say unto you, Make unto yourself friends of the mam- 
 mon (or out of, by means of, the mammon) of un- 
 righteousness ; that, when ye are in difficulty, they may 
 receive you into everlasting habitations." (Luke xvi.) 
 I do not know when such an argument, whatever its 
 value, would apply better, or apply at all, unless in such 
 a case as when St. Paul is urging the Gentiles to be li- 
 beral in subscription to the Church of the Apostles at 
 Jerusalem : " For the administering of this service not 
 only supplieth the wants of the saints, but is abundant 
 also by many thanksgivings to God ; while by proof of 
 this ministering they glorify God in the subjection of 
 your profession unto the Gospel of Christ, and in the 
 bountifulness of your distribution to them and to all 
 men, and in their prayer for you," etc. (2 Cor. ix. 12.) 
 This is somewhat circumlocutory, but the end of Paul's 
 policy of conciliation could not be more tersely stated 
 than in the sentence cited from the parable. 
 
 II. THE EXPANSION OF THE CHURCH, IN THE PARABLES. 
 
 Most of the parables bear on their face palpable evi- 
 dence of having been, I will not say originated, after 
 the death of Jesus, but so far modified at least that they 
 now can only be fully explained by reference to the con- 
 ditions of the Church, which only arose after his death, 
 and were quite alien from w r hat we have concluded as to 
 his designs and anticipations. 
 
 The disciple is likened to a man who sells all he has 
 to buy a field, in which he has discovered that a treasure 
 is hidden ; or he is like a merchant in search of fine
 
 268 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 pearls, who comes upon one of great price, and realizes 
 all his property in order to purchase and possess it. The 
 first case represents the acquisition of the prize, the 
 kingdom of Heaven, at a sacrifice which may seem to 
 those not in the secret as unaccountable ; while the value 
 in the other case is patent to all, though the merchant 
 alone has the energy or the enthusiasm to deal for it. 
 
 These parables may seem to be mere general types 
 of the superexcellence of the Gospel, but I suspect that 
 they had once a reference to the sacrifices of worldly 
 goods made by enthusiastic disciples like Barnabas, in 
 the early communistic phase of the Christian society. 
 To the same period we must refer the parable of the 
 rich man and Lazarus, which connects reprobation in a 
 future state, with prosperity however innocent in this, 
 and makes squalid pauperism not merely a condition, 
 but the very essential of meritoriousness. This is an 
 apologue quite in the spirit of the Epistle of James, and 
 the prepossessions of the eleemosynary saints. 
 
 The parable of the seed of the sower, cast upon vari- 
 ous ground, and having fate and produce accordingly, 
 appears to be as general a descriptive apologue as can 
 be conceived, and has no characteristics that limit it to 
 the dissemination of Christian doctrines rather than any 
 other. It typifies most happily and expressively the cir- 
 cumstances that qualify the reception of worthy instruc- 
 tion in the world, without bearing hardly, so far as I can 
 discern, on any particular party. Of more special appli- 
 cation, but still uncontroversial, is the comparison of the 
 Gospel, the kingdom of Heaven, to the grain of mus- 
 tard, the minutest of seeds, which, when it grows, be- 
 comes the largest of the herbs ; and the like may be said
 
 EXPANSION OF THE CHURCH, IN THE PARABLES. 269 
 
 of the comparison to the leaven hidden by a woman in 
 three measures of meal, and ultimately leavening the 
 whole. These are striking figures of the progress of the 
 Church as it arose after the death of Jesus, but are little 
 applicable to the history of his following and career. 
 
 The grain of mustard-seed is in all the synoptics ; 
 Mark iv. 26 has also this variation : " The kingdom 
 of Heaven is as if a man should cast seed upon the 
 earth ; and should sleep and rise, night and day, and 
 the seed spring up and grow he knoweth not why. For 
 the earth bringeth forth fruit of itself; first the blade, 
 then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when 
 the fruit is brought forth, immediately he dispatches 
 the sickle, because the harvest has come." 
 
 A turn is here added to the parable, which gives us 
 the first glimpse of that reflection upon the Apostles, that 
 we have traced in the anecdote in John of the woman 
 of Samaria, upon the Apostles, who remain for the most 
 part seated at Jerusalem, and send out their envoys to 
 Samaria, to Antioch, probably to Galatia and Corinth, 
 if not Rome, to put in the sickle to a ripe harvest, which 
 has grown up from seed of their sowing truly, but 
 otherwise, as far as their labour or later tending is in 
 question, automatously enough. Thus Jesus addresses 
 the Apostles : " For herein is the true saying ; one 
 soweth and another reapeth. I sent you to reap what 
 ye had not laboured at ; others laboured, and ye are en- 
 tered into their labours." (John iv. 37.) 
 
 Still the tenor of the parable, as told, is declaration of 
 matter of fact, as of a law of nature to be acquiesced 
 in, not objected to, whether this were the primary 
 tenor, or whether an original colour of murmur has
 
 270 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CAKTOONS. 
 
 been obliterated. In the parable of the pounds, and 
 in that of the servants paid equally for unequal service, 
 we have murmurs more distinctly expressed, but the de- 
 cision ruled in favour of authority. 
 
 The simplest form of the first parable is in Matthew : 
 a man going abroad commits his substance to his ser- 
 vants, in various proportion, according to ability. It is 
 the servant who has charge of least, who neglects to 
 employ the one talent profitably, and renders back the 
 capital alone, with the explanation, "Lord, I knew thee, 
 that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not 
 sown", and gathering where thou hast not strewed ; and 
 I was afraid, and I went and hid thy talent in the 
 earth ; behold, thou hast thine own." (Matt. xxv. 24.) 
 The unprofitable servant is cast into outer darkness, 
 " there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 
 
 Luke combines with this narrative a peculiar episode, 
 the traveller is a man of high extraction, who leaves 
 for a far country in order to receive for himself a king- 
 dom ; his citizens, not the servants who hold his pro- 
 perty in trust, send an embassy after him to repudiate 
 his sovereignty ; and after he has on his return dealt as 
 above with his servants, he orders these counter-plotting 
 citizens to be brought out and slain before him. We 
 can identify the suggestion of this incident in the nar- 
 rative of Josephus of the journey of Herod Antipas to 
 Rome, to solicit the succession to his father's kingdom. 
 How he may have been opposed by his citizens, and how 
 he may have avenged himself, we may infer from the 
 story before us, but have no further information. The 
 political and the private incidents do not fall together 
 happily in Luke ; and all we can say is, that the exe-
 
 EXPANSION OF THE CHURCH, IN THE PARABLES. 271 
 
 cution of the malcontents enforces the quietist feeling 
 of submission to arbitrary authority. The coherence of 
 the composite parable would require that it should have 
 been some of the entrusted servants who countervailed 
 the purpose of their master's journey, if not employed 
 his means to assert their own independence. 
 
 The parable of the labourers in the vineyard seems, in 
 the first instance, to be an assertion of the equality, in 
 the Church, of the later, with the original disciples ; as 
 the labourers are engaged at different hours of the day, 
 and labour for very different times, yet the late comers 
 receive as high a wage as was fair payment for those 
 who came earliest. The suggestion of this also may be 
 traced to an historical incident, again supplied to us by 
 Josephus : a great multitude of masons and workmen 
 of building trades were cast idle in Jerusalem on the 
 completion of the works about the Temple ; they were 
 a public charge, and it became an object with the au- 
 thorities to put in hand other works, that would give 
 more than fictitious employment ; for, as matters stood, 
 as much was paid to a man who wrought for part, as to 
 one who worked the whole of the day. 
 
 The parable does not discuss the fairness of the ar- 
 rangement, but declares the matter of fact : it is the 
 option of an authority which all are bound to acquiesce 
 in, none are at liberty to challenge as favouritism or ca- 
 price. "The first shall be last, and the last first," it 
 is the way of the world, the course of nature, a dispen- 
 sation of Providence. 
 
 I cannot, however, but consider that this parable em- 
 bodies impressions of a time when the original sect at 
 Jerusalem was beginning to lose some of its predomi-
 
 272 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 nance, in consequence of the expansion of the active 
 Hellenistic and Gentile churches. 
 
 The parable of the dragnet brings us to the time 
 when even disciples were fain to admit that there was 
 as great a mixture of good and bad men within the 
 Church as without. " The kingdom of Heaven is like 
 a dragnet cast into the sea, and gathering up of every 
 kind ; which, when it was full, they drew to the shore , 
 and, sitting down, gathered the good into vessels and 
 cast away the bad." 
 
 The separation of the sheep and the goats at the end 
 of the world, is to the same purpose. 
 
 There is something more in the parable of the weeds 
 and the wheat; we are on traces of denunciation of 
 false brethren, of pernicious teachers. " The kingdom 
 of Heaven hath been likened unto a man sowing good 
 seed in his field ; and, as the man slept, his enemy came 
 and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went his way." 
 On the report of the mischief to the master, he ascribes 
 it to an enemy, with a peculiar phrase " a hostile 
 man." The remedy must be left till harvest-time, when 
 the weeds will be separated and burned, and the wheat 
 garnered. 
 
 A private explanation for the disciples is added, to 
 the effect, that " he that soweth the good seed is the 
 Son of man. The field is the world, and the good seed 
 are the children of the kingdom, and the weeds are 
 the children of wickedness ; the enemy that sowed them 
 is the devil," etc. etc. 
 
 I am disposed to think that this interpretation was 
 not in the mind of the first author of the parable, or 
 that, at any rate, he held it concurrently with a design
 
 EXPANSION OF THE CHURCH, IN THE PARABLES. 273 
 
 to reflect upon a teacher, or a school of hostile teachers. 
 In fact, we find St. Paul referred to, in the early Chris- 
 tian literature, to the principles and authors of which 
 he is obnoxious, as " the man of mischief " in identical 
 terms. 
 
 I have already illustrated the bearing of the beautiful 
 parable of the Prodigal Son upon the reception of the 
 Hellenists. I believe it resulted from the great beauty 
 of this parable, as originally composed, that it has 
 come down to us with little or no alteration. The same 
 remark may also apply to that of the good Samaritan, 
 which sanctions so distinctly the brotherhood of a race 
 peculiarly disliked by the bigoted Jew, and by no means 
 uniformly protected in the Gospels. 
 
 The story of the Prodigal Son will bear an applica- 
 tion to the Gentile Gospel ; but this is much more un- 
 equivocally advocated in the parable of the rebellious 
 husbandmen of the vineyard. (Matt. xxi. 33 ; Mark xii. 
 1 ; Luke xx. 9.) 
 
 The husbandmen who lease the vineyard, and scourge 
 and stone and slay the summoning servants of the land- 
 lord first, and, at last, his son, can only represent the 
 Jewish people, the slayers of the prophets, and lastly, 
 of Jesus Christ. Israel and Jerusalem are typified as 
 vine and vineyard in the Old Testament, and the golden 
 vine of the Temple kept the figure always present in 
 the imagination of the people. 
 
 " What, therefore, will the lord of the vineyard do ? 
 He will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will 
 give the vineyard to others. And have ye not read this 
 
 T
 
 274 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 Scripture? a stone, which the builders refused, the 
 same is become the head of the corner." 
 
 The three first Gospels, which insert this parable with 
 little variation, parry its palpable application to the re- 
 ception of the Gentiles, by noting it as directed specially 
 against high-priests, scribes, and Pharisees; who were 
 highly exasperated by it, but restrained from violence 
 by the protecting and venerating multitude. 
 
 Lastly, I have to cite the parable of the contemned 
 marriage-feast, as a concluding example of document 
 imputed to Jesus, for the sake of reaction upon circum- 
 stances and doctrines that did not arise till long after 
 his death. 
 
 In Luke it is simply a " certain man " who makes 
 the feast, but in Matthew it is a king, and the story 
 moves on with kingly circumstance. The king dispatches 
 servants to summon the invited, but they are some care- 
 less, while some seize the messengers, and ill-treat and 
 even kill them. The king sends out his armies, destroys 
 the murderers, and burns their city, particulars which 
 argue that the parable took this form after the destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem. 
 
 The feast now, like the vineyard in the last parable, 
 falls to the share of new comers, and servants are sent 
 out to summon guests from the highways. A compli- 
 cation ensues, the zealous servants fill up the mar- 
 riage, but it is with guests both bad and good. Parti- 
 cipation is still not unconditional ; the king, on coming 
 in, espies one who has not on the wedding-garment ; the 
 interloper is bound hand and foot, and cast into outer 
 darkness region of wailing and gnashing of teeth. 
 
 This restricting qualification reminds of the condi-
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 275 
 
 tions which the Jerusalem conclave struggled to impose 
 upon the Gentile converts, even after the large li- 
 berality of the first admission. Luke's parable knows 
 nothing of the restriction ; on the other hand, he ex- 
 tends still wider, and by a second stretch of liberality, 
 the area of the invitation. First, the servant is sent into 
 the squares and streets of the city, to bring in the poor, 
 the maimed, the lame, and the blind. These I take to 
 represent the ceremonially disqualified of Jewish blood, 
 the unclean, the misallied, the Hellenist, the Sama- 
 ritan. " And the servant said, Lord, it is done as 
 thou commandest, and yet there is room. And the Lord 
 said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and 
 hedges," thus further afield, as in the extension to the 
 Gentiles, " and urge people to come in, that my house 
 may be filled. For I say unto you, that none of those 
 men who were bidden shall taste my supper." These, 
 then, are the many from the East and the West that are 
 to recline in the kingdom of Heaven, while the children 
 of the promise are excluded. The absolute exclusion of 
 the negligent first invited, corresponds to the total sub- 
 stitution of Gentile for Jew, or the Gospel for the Law ; 
 which seems to be the implication of the parables, that 
 forbid the new wine to be put into the old bottles, or 
 a new piece to patch a worn-out garment. 
 
 III. PETER, JAMES, AND JOHN, AT THE TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 The Jesus of the Gospels is, therefore, frequently but 
 an impersonation of his Gospel or of his Church ; his 
 preaching and parables often enforce doctrine of which 
 the living career was utterly unconscious, to which it 
 
 T s
 
 276 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 would frequently have been repugnant ; the anecdotes 
 that are related as incidents in his life, have constantly 
 in this sense not the slightest historical foundation, 
 a very important historical significance, however, as the 
 embodiments of the vicissitudes of the Church, its leaders, 
 and its doctrines at a later date ; in types of which the 
 stuff is borrowed, ready-made, from the prophets and 
 prophecies and marvellous narratives of the Old Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 The greatest crisis in the Church, of which we read in 
 the earlier records that remain to us, is the dispute at 
 Antidch respecting the circumcision of the Gentiles and 
 the imposition upon them of the Law and the customs 
 at large. The authority of the Apostle whose preaching 
 had been most influential with the circumcision, had 
 been gained to sanction the immunity of the Gentiles, by 
 consorting with them at the common meal; the sanc- 
 tion was capable of still further extension to the neglect 
 of the Law and the customs even by Jews themselves. 
 Peter, by a private understanding, to which James and 
 John were also privy, had given the right hand of fel- 
 lowship in a project which had brought in a mighty ac- 
 cession of disciples ; and now, at a time when the idea of 
 a Church of Christ that should be in opposition to the 
 Twelve, was still too startling to be entertained, the 
 cover of Peter's authority seemed about to be forfeited, 
 and so all that had been done to be undone. A plau- 
 sible show of legitimate derivation from the original 
 Apostles would be valued at such an epoch even by 
 those who repudiated unqualified dependence ; and this 
 was brought into jeopardy by the temporary equivocation 
 of the great Apostle.
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 277 
 
 The history of the Acts, without noticing his hesita- 
 tion, avers that he urged upon the Church the most 
 liberal emancipation of both Jew and Gentile disciple, 
 but that his authority was overruled, and a compromise 
 decided upon in the terms of the decree, unanimously 
 accepted by the Church, and cordially acquiesced in by 
 the Gentile churches and their teachers. But, on the 
 one hand, it is certain that a section of the Hebrew 
 Church at Jerusalem continued to insist on the imposi- 
 tion of the Law on the Gentiles ; while Paul, at least, 
 retained his resolution to urge on by every prudent and 
 efficient means, the emancipation even of the Jew. Be- 
 tween these two lay the party that accepted the decree, 
 and acted upon it either in a spirit of bigoted adherence, 
 and with animus to resist any further encroachment, 
 or with as much cordiality as consisted with the desire 
 to bring about further relaxation as time and opportu- 
 nity might present themselves. The first class of ad- 
 herents to the decree is represented by the Clementine 
 Homilies, which magnify Peter, and are too anxious 
 to make the most of his authority as against the inno- 
 vating Gentiles, to weaken it by any reference to his va- 
 cillation, or even which they might be more inclined 
 to do, to his reduction of the Jewish claim to such a mi- 
 nimum as the decree propounds. The second class was 
 free from some of this restraint ; we have the expres- 
 sion of their feelings in the Gospels ; their disappoint- 
 ment at being reduced to a compromise is seen in the 
 numerous allusions to the dullness of the Twelve, to 
 their incapacity to appreciate the mission, the spirit, 
 the plainest declarations and teachings of their master. 
 The Apostles who could not be brought to comprehend
 
 278 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 the scope of the Christian movement when it was spread- 
 ing over the world, are figured in the Apostles of the 
 Gospel, who are shocked at the idea of a suffering Mes- 
 siah, who look for the prompt reappearance of the king- 
 dom of David, who have an eye to the distribution of 
 dignities in the Messianic cabinet, and invariably cling 
 to a carnal interpretation of every speech, neglecting 
 the spiritual, which is indeed beyond them. As com- 
 pared, then, with the others, Peter, James, and John, 
 with all their shortcomings, were much nearer to true 
 sympathy with their master, and, it is implied, were in 
 fact much nearer to his confidence. Amongst them 
 Peter is singled out for distinction, for regard, as a cha- 
 racter which, with all its defects, was on a nobler scale, 
 and, as capable of a genuine enthusiasm, of a more ex- 
 alted type. On the one hand, his unsteadiness, which 
 had brought the liberal Gospel in its connection with 
 the original Church into such peril, was not spared ; on 
 the other, his fervent zeal is made accountable for much 
 of his tripping, and full honour is assigned to the re- 
 coil of his conscience, the resumption of his better 
 thought. 
 
 The bigoted adherents of the decree probably over- 
 rated the value, or the finality assigned to it by Peter. 
 It would gratify me much if I could resolve myself as 
 to the real attitude which Peter personally continued to 
 take between the Gospel in favour with the Hebrew 
 Church, and that of Paul. 
 
 In the compilations and redactions of Christian tra- 
 dition and Christian apologue, which we have in the 
 form of the Gospels, the privity of Peter, James and
 
 THE TRANSFIGUKATION. 279 
 
 John to the enlarged conception of the Church as pre- 
 sented by Stephen or Paul, is represented in their se- 
 lection by Jesus to be the sole witnesses of some of his 
 most remarkable works and manifestations. This ad- 
 mission to what is typical of the inner counsel of God, 
 of the Saviour, is constantly accompanied by an injunc- 
 tion to secrecy, which is unintelligible enough as the 
 incidents stand. There may be some appearance in a 
 few instances that this is a gloss ; designed, at the time 
 the story was first published, to account for its not 
 having been heard of before : but in other cases, it is 
 mentioned at once that the attempt at concealment 
 failed, and I infer that the incident was borrowed from 
 the characteristics of the really historical basis, the 
 private compact with Paul. The parallel is then closely 
 pursued in the zeal, the professions, the trepidations, and 
 retreats of Peter, followed up by revival of sense and 
 courage, by repentance and reparation. 
 
 The review of some of the incidents, however, will 
 enable them to speak best for themselves. 
 
 At the Transfiguration (Luke ix. ; Mark ix. ; Matt, 
 xvii.), Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high 
 mountain alone and apart, and was transfigured before 
 them ; his face became other than it was, it shone like 
 the sun, his garments were of supernatural whiteness 
 and brilliancy ; and two men were seen by them talking 
 with him, who were Moses and Elias that is, Elijah. 
 
 The parallel story proceeds, "And Peter said to 
 Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here ; let us make 
 three tabernacles (or tents), one for thee, one for Moses, 
 and one for Elijah. And while he yet spake, a cloud 
 overshadowed them, and lo ! a voice from the cloud
 
 280 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 saying, This is my beloved Son, hear ye him. And, 
 lifting up their eyes, they saw no man, but Jesus only. 
 And as they descended from the mountain, Jesus com- 
 manded them that they should tell no man until the 
 Son of man should be risen from the dead." 
 
 According to Mark and Luke, Peter made his pro- 
 posal, not knowing what he was saying ; Mark adds, 
 " for they were afraid." 
 
 In Matthew, it is at the voice of the cloud that the 
 three are alarmed, and fall to the ground on their faces, 
 till Jesus comes and touches them, and says, " Arise, fear 
 not." 
 
 In Luke, the narrative takes much of the colour of 
 the agony in the Garden ; the ascent to the mountain 
 is for prayer ; the visionary men speak with him of his 
 departure that he was about to fulfil at Jerusalem. In 
 the meantime, Peter, and they with him, are heavy 
 with sleep, and it is on awaking spontaneously for 
 what appears, that they witness the group. The inci- 
 dent of their alarm is not left out, but it is assigned to 
 the moment that they enter into the cloud. Luke also 
 has to say, " they kept silence in those days concerning 
 what they had seen," but he does not advert to a com- 
 mand. 
 
 Moses and Elias are most obviously types of the Law 
 and the prophets, the representatives of the Old Tes- 
 tament. I think it not unlikely that Elias here is also 
 to be recognized as the representative of the adherents 
 of John the Baptist and the Essenes, as Moses of the 
 strict adherents to the ceremonial Law. The wild, un- 
 considered project of Peter to establish three co-ordinate 
 monuments of recognition, is apparently a type of some
 
 ; THE TRANSFIGURATION. 281 
 
 scheme of recognized classification and division in the 
 Church, on the occasion when he drew off from association 
 with Gentiles. Paul only implies two separate tables ; but 
 there may have been easily the same motive for divi- 
 sion that afterwards made parties call themselves after 
 Paul, Apollos the disciple of the Baptist, and Cephas. 
 
 The divine voice directs attention only to Jesus ; and 
 when the temporaiy cloud disperses, Jesus alone is seen, 
 a divine intimation of the unity of the Church, of 
 the all-sufficiency of Christ. 
 
 The voice from the cloud, especially as reported by 
 Matthew, is parallel to a like incident at the baptism, 
 according to Mark ; a form of the anecdote, in which 
 the motive to connect the mission of John with that 
 of Jesus, but at the same time to keep it subordinate, 
 again becomes patent. 
 
 It is on the descent from the mountain that Jesus 
 cures the demoniac boy possessed by a deaf and dumb 
 spirit, which his disciples alone had vainly endeavoured 
 to cast out. It may be that the conjunction of the 
 stories may have occurred by casual association of the 
 dumb spirit with the enjoined silence of the Apostles: 
 the Gospels abound in sequences held together by no 
 more logical a link. I am half-inclined to think, how- 
 ever, that it is not by accident that such a miracle is 
 the first ascribed to the transfigured Saviour, the type 
 of the Church at a new stage of development ; when 
 many things long thought of had come at last, by mi- 
 racle, indeed ! to articulate declaration. 
 
 The Transfiguration was the subject of the last pic- 
 ture that Rafael lived to paint; he included in it the 
 double incidents, at the foot and the summit of the 
 mountain.
 
 282 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 The glory and the lightness of the hovering figure of 
 Christ, and of the prophets who regard and adore him 
 in the air, is inconceivable. Moses holds the book of 
 the Law, but holds it so that his hands keep it closed ; 
 and he has the air as though he were bringing it to lay 
 it an offering at the feet of the Saviour concluded, 
 superseded, obsolete. 
 
 The three disciples the chosen witnesses are pros- 
 trate. John screens his downcast eyes with his hand as 
 he falls ; James cowers behind Peter ; Peter, who, first 
 to fall but first to recover, is just looking up, as if to 
 ask his bold although bewildered question. 
 
 For the group at the foot of the mountain a second 
 horizon is taken, and thus the abbreviation of distance 
 marks itself as symbolical. 
 
 The remaining nine of the disciples are grouped in a 
 half-circle on one side the boy, his father and friends 
 are on the other. The mother kneels in front, with her 
 back to the spectator, so that a vacant space is left in 
 the centre of the ring. The vertical circle, which com- 
 prises the groups upon the summit of the mountain, is 
 thus associated with groups in the foreground, which 
 arrange themselves upon a circular horizontal plan an 
 artifice of composition, I suspect, as original as refined. 
 
 The only trace that Rafael paid attention to Mark's 
 notice, that scribes were disputing with the disciples, is, 
 that he has given a book to the disciple in the fore- 
 ground, suggestive of search for formulas and exorcisms. 
 
 The boy is represented at the moment when seized 
 by the fit or demon ; it " tears and rends him, so that 
 he foams and grinds his teeth." I desiderate further 
 information as to the pathology of Rafael's subject. Sir 
 Charles Bell is referred to on the subject.
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 283 
 
 Only Mark speaks of the spirit as dumb. I think 
 that Rafael has held this characteristic in mind, leaving 
 aside Luke's statement, that the demon " cries out." 
 
 Matthew says that the patient is lunatic, and often 
 falls into the water, and often into the fire. The edge 
 of a pool is introduced at the left-hand corner of the 
 picture ; the foot of the disciple in front is reflected in 
 it, and he sits upon logs that I have no doubt, cavil who 
 may, were intended just to suggest the idea of firewood. 
 The sudden gesture of his left hand crossing his body 
 expresses, I think, his apprehension lest the sufferer, in 
 his spasms, should fall into the water beside him. 
 
 In the father's countenance distress and affection are 
 beautifully blended; and the introduction of the ago- 
 nized and appealing mother, not mentioned in the 
 story, together with, I think, a sister, completes the ex- 
 hibition of a passion of domestic affections. 
 
 The inability of the disciples to cope with the enemy, 
 is expressed with perfect force, yet with the rarest de- 
 licacy. The appeals, the supplications of the family of 
 the boy, are most distinct and touching ; but we see 
 that, with every indication of interest and sympathy, 
 the disciples already feel that they are reduced to spec- 
 tators ; that they have done their best, and in vain, and 
 have now not to interfere, but to wait. One of them, 
 however, who is, indeed, from his expression and place 
 in the composition, most conspicuous, points upwards in 
 the direction of the summit of the mountain a clear 
 intimation from whence is to come the help. 
 
 The serenity of the upper, the divine portion of the 
 picture, wonderfully contrasts with the spectacle of ca- 
 lamity and perplexity below. Even the prostrate and
 
 284 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 dazzled three are in positions and in movements that 
 harmonize with the predominant feeling of loftiness and 
 dignity. 
 
 The triad of disciples, nevertheless, serves to soften 
 the transition to the group below; and the four dis- 
 ciples here immediately under the centre, are treated 
 with a certain tenderness and repose that still further 
 assist the graceful development of the combination. 
 
 The true ethical secret of the combination is in the 
 gesture of the pointing Apostle. In the feeling that 
 dictates this movement is conveyed an echo of the voice 
 from the bright cloud, that is so important in the narra- 
 tive : " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
 pleased : hear ye him." The action suggests obedience, 
 as if by sympathy, to the divine injunctions; and also 
 indicates the source of the relief which is to complete 
 the history of the demoniac boy. The parental love, 
 again, of which the boy is an object, is not insisted 
 upon so emphatically, without a feeling that it heightens 
 the contrast to the recognition of a glorified Son by his 
 heavenly Father, above on the mount. 
 
 The indicating hand and arm of the disciple convey 
 to the mind the sentence " hear ye him," as distinctly 
 as if notified by label or inscription ; and thus is given to 
 the heart an assurance of the endowment of the world 
 with a healing power that will dispel the very elements 
 of moral and physical disorder, and cheer the lacerated 
 feelings of paternal affection by blessings fresh from 
 the creative energy which is itself the parent of love 
 and of all living. 
 
 It was not without intention felt, at least that 
 Rafael brought the pointing figure into such direct con-
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 285 
 
 tiguity and contrast at once, to the seated disciple who 
 holds the open book. They are so composed that com- 
 parison is inevitable : above the veteran, the inveterate 
 expositor of preceptive if not ceremonial wisdom, rises the 
 nobler figure, who directs to the better dayspring from 
 on high, and thus we have a parallel here to the secon- 
 dary place of Moses, with his volume, in the upper de- 
 sign. 
 
 The time has arrived for the letter to give way 
 to the spirit; and the Transfiguration of Christ is an 
 image of that metamorphosis of mind and heart by 
 which, of old time, the habits of rituals, and the reli- 
 ance upon them, were cast off, and text and gloss and 
 pedigree were cast aside by the energy of regeneration 
 from within, and the best spirit of the unwritten word 
 took possession of the place and functions of any Testa- 
 ment whatever, either new or old. 
 
 In the work of D. F. Strauss will be found, as usual, 
 a full and acute exposition of the Old Testament ma- 
 terials that have found their places in the story of 
 the Transfiguration. The most important combination 
 is the comparison with the ascent of Mount Sinai by 
 Moses, accompanied by chosen servitors; his glorified 
 countenance ; his indignation, on descending, at the dis- 
 order of the people ; his interposition with authority to 
 repress, to regulate, to save. 
 
 Besides the Transfiguration and the Agony, there is 
 another scene to which Peter, James, and John alone 
 of the Apostles are admitted the raising from the dead 
 ' of the daughter of Jairus ; and the narrative finishes 
 again in Mark and Luke, with an injunction to tell no 
 man.
 
 286 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 Jairus is called a chief of the synagogue, and any 
 symbolical import of the miracle, it would seem, there- 
 fore must apply to the relief, not of Gentile, but of 
 Jew, and probably to liberation from the Law. The 
 miracle embodies the expressive metaphors, "for I 
 through the law am dead to the law, that I may live to 
 God ; and I myself no longer live, but Christ liveth in 
 me." (Gal. ii. 19.) " Wherefore, my brethren, ye also 
 are become dead to the law through the body of Christ ; 
 that ye may belong to another who is raised from the 
 dead ; . . . . but now we are delivered from the law, 
 being dead to that wherein we were held ; so that we 
 may serve in newness of spirit, not in the oldness of the 
 letter." (Rom. vii. 4.) 
 
 An episode to this miracle is the cure of the woman 
 with an issue of blood, who furtively touches the Sa- 
 viour's garments as he passes through the crowd. I do 
 not doubt that we have here a type of the Gentile dis- 
 ciples, whose liberty proceeded by even step with that 
 of the ritual-galled Jew. This is intimated by the notice 
 of her vain recourse through many years to physicians 
 who had tortured and ruined her, and left her worse 
 rather than better ; and then, by the decisive sign that 
 the blessing is ascribed to the faith of the recipient: 
 "Daughter, thy faith hath saved thee: go in peace." 
 In fact, we seem to have, from the parallelism of ex- 
 pressions, but another form of the deliverance of the 
 Syro-Phcenician woman ; and the stealthy toucher of the 
 health-giving robes of the Master on his way to recall 
 life to Judaism, is in substitution of the dog, the type 
 of heathendom, that pleads for at least the crumbs that 
 fall from the table of the children of the chosen race, 
 and on the ground of faith is allowed.
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 287 
 
 Peter, James, and John are the witnesses of the mi- 
 raculous draught of fishes, which is only related in 
 Luke, where Andrew, Simon's brother, who in Mat- 
 thew and Mark is called along with him to be a fisher 
 of men, is omitted. The significant reference of the 
 miracle to special participation in the arrangement for 
 evangelizing the Gentiles, I do not doubt, explains this 
 omission. The large influx of Gentile disciples was, in 
 fact, the miraculous draught of the fishers of men when 
 Christ, when the Gospel, rightly conceived, became 
 an associate in the enterprise previously but scantily 
 successful. Simon Peter is more than astonished is 
 alarmed at his own success, and, falling at the knees 
 of Jesus, cries, " Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, 
 O Lord." He recovers himself, however, at the en- 
 couraging word " Fear not," and leaves all, and follows 
 Christ. 
 
 Peter appears again as a fisherman when, at the com- 
 mand of Jesus (Matt, xvii.), he casts his line into the 
 sea, and in the mouth of the first fish he draws up finds 
 the coin, the stater, required to pay the tax of the di- 
 drachma, both for his master and himself. The sum 
 agrees with the sacred tax of half-shekel, that by the 
 Mosaic law was payable to the Temple. (Sharpe's ' Cri- 
 tical Notes,' p. 14.) I suspect a symbol of the rate in 
 aid of the Jerusalem church, that was part of the un- 
 derstanding with St. Paul contribution for a sacred pur- 
 pose from the fish of Peter's divinely-sanctioned haul. 
 
 The general import of the contents of the dragnet 
 has already been remarked upon. 
 
 To the accounts of Jesus calming the tempest and 
 walking upon the waters, which are common, with little
 
 288 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 variation, to Matthew, Mark, and John, the first, or 
 Matthew, adds another expressive particular. The dis- 
 ciples, overtaken with rough weather, are alarmed to 
 see Jesus walking on the sea. He declares himself, and 
 bids them be of good cheer, and fear not. Peter re- 
 plies, "Lord, if it be thou, command me to come to 
 thee on the waters." He said, " Come." Peter de- 
 scended from the vessel, and walked to meet Jesus. 
 He lost heart, however, at the violence of the wind, and 
 began to sink, crying, " Lord, save me. And Jesus im- 
 mediately stretched forth his hand, and caught hold of 
 him, 'and saith to him, O thou of little faith, wherefore 
 didst thou doubt"? And as they entered into the ship, 
 the wind subsided." (Matt. xiv. 31.) 
 
 Here, again, I do not doubt that we have a type of 
 the participation of Peter in the great critical agitations 
 of the Church. The ship of the Church, tempest-tost 
 among the dissensions at Antioch, gains sight at last of 
 the Saviour walking in dignity over the troubled waves ; 
 then ensue the prompt forwardness of Peter ; his failure 
 of heart on the rising of the wind after his first few 
 bold steps ; his timely rescue and recovery by aid of an 
 arm extended to help, but not without rebuke for lack 
 of faith. The place of the lecturing and expostulating 
 Paul, Paul regarded by the first author of the apologue 
 as representative of the Gospel of Christ, is assigned 
 here in the usual spirit of an apologue, to Christ himself. 
 
 In other directions I have seemed to recognize 
 traces of transferences, to the factitious biography and 
 memorabilia of Jesus, not only from the history of the 
 Church at large, but from the particular biography of 
 Paul. Among these, which it may scarcely be in our
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 289 
 
 way to notice hereafter, I have been accustomed to 
 consider the weeping over Jerusalem and the terms of 
 the lament, consistent with Paul's circumstances at his 
 last visit, scarcely with those of Jesus. 
 
 There is an appearance of design, in the incidents ty- 
 pical of the Gentile Gospel and of the discussions, not 
 to say dissensions, that it caused, being for the most part 
 localized to the north of Judaea, the parts about Tyre 
 and Sidon, the Lake of Tiberias or Galilee, and the dis- 
 tricts beyond the lake. The suggestion may fairly be 
 traced to the association of this general vicinage in a 
 conspicuous text of prophecy, with Gentile occupation. 
 
 In Matthew iv. 12, we read: "Now when Jesus had 
 heard that John was delivered up (i. e. John the Bap- 
 tist), he withdrew into Galilee." His course has been 
 previously traced " from Galilee unto the Jordan, unto 
 John (placed, iii. 1, in the desert of Judaea) to be bap- 
 tized by him," and thence into the desert, being led by 
 the spirit." It is only in Matthew that this retirement 
 to Galilee has assigned to it a reference to the capti- 
 vity of John ; and it reads to me much like a special pa- 
 rallel to the migration of the Hellenist Church under 
 pressure of the " persecution that arose about Stephen." 
 However this may be, a citation of prophecy follows 
 that bears upon the principle of the Gentile Gospel of 
 the Hellenists, and becomes explanatory of the assign- 
 ment of the types of it occurring in the life of Jesus, to 
 a sojourn here rather than elsewhere. 
 
 " And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Caper- 
 naum by the lake, in the borders of Zabulon and Neph- 
 thalim : so that it might be fulfilled which was spoken 
 through Isaiah the prophet, saying, Land of Zabulon, 
 
 u
 
 290 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 and land of Nephthalim, by the way of the lake, beyond 
 Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; the people sitting in 
 darkness saw a great light ; and to those that sat in the 
 region and shadow of death a light arose. From that 
 time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent : for the 
 kingdom of heaven is at hand." 
 
 The conduct ascribed to Peter, on the occasion of the 
 betrayal and examination of Christ, is but another ver- 
 sion of the same events. Peter again is forward with a 
 profession, whoever else may desert his master, he will 
 be faithful; he does, in fact, thrust himself forward 
 much nearer to harm's way than the rest of the Apostles ; 
 again finds himself unequal to carry through the enter- 
 prise he had boldly embarked in ; and at the challenge 
 by attendants about the fire in the atrium of the high- 
 priest, three times he denies his master. " And while 
 he yet spake, the cock crew. And the Lord turned, and 
 looked on Peter:" a touching incident in Luke's ac- 
 count, but which renders the reminding cock super- 
 fluous: " and Peter went out, and wept bitterly." (Luke 
 xxii. 60.) 
 
 The same collections of traditions that characterize 
 Peter so significantly, ascribe to James and John, the 
 sons of Zebedee, an ambition for first places in the 
 kingdom of heaven, which seems to smack of the hier- 
 arch ; and something of the hierarch's readiness to resort 
 to fire from heaven to rebuke the inhospitable Samari- 
 tans. It is John again (Mark ix. 38) who would have 
 checked one who, not following the Apostles, presumed 
 to cast out devils in the name of Jesus, but is bidden 
 by the Master to offer him no impediment.
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 291 
 
 In Mark the ambitious petition is direct ; in Mat- 
 thew it is transferred in tenderness to the ill-guided 
 affection of a kneeling mother. (Matt. xx. 20; Mark 
 x. 35.) The question arises, whether tradition may not 
 have made one of its slips, and transferred the domi- 
 neering spirit of the James of the Council to his name- 
 sake the son of Zebedee, who seems to have been, along 
 with his brother, on the side of liberal opposition. It 
 is quite possible, however, that, to the followers in op- 
 position, these two, their leaders, may have seemed too 
 much disposed to arrogate authority, even in the enter- 
 prise of attacking authority. In Matthew xviii. the 
 disciples generally that is, the Apostles are intro- 
 duced as eagerly interested on the subject of primacy, 
 and rebuked by Jesus, who calls to him a child, sets 
 him in the midst of them, and declares that "whoso- 
 ever shall humble himself as this child, the same is 
 greatest in the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 This subject was painted by Mr. C. R. Leslie. Jesus 
 and the Apostles were resting, as having come into the 
 house after the journey to Capernaum (Mark ix. 33), 
 when he questioned them as to what it was they dis- 
 puted of on the way. He was beckoning to him the 
 exemplar child, and the moral of humility it was to 
 exemplify was indicated with delicate invention in the 
 simple bashfulness, not shyness nor alarm, with which 
 it was leaning against its mother's knee, and showed, by 
 constraint in attitude, that it was only gradually gaining 
 courage. 
 
 u 2
 
 292 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ELYMAS STEICKEN WITH BLINDNESS. 
 
 I. PAUL AND BARNABAS IN KOMAN CYPRUS. II. THE CAR- 
 TOON OF THE REBUKE OF ELYMAS. 
 
 I. PAUL AND BARNABAS IN ROMAN CYPRUS. 
 
 WE have wandered forward in the Apostolic history in 
 our later exercitations ; we must now return to the oc- 
 casion when, as we have seen reason to conclude, Paul 
 and Barnabas, having come to a private understanding 
 with the leading Apostles as to a basis for the Gen- 
 tile Gospel, returned to Antioch, intent on taking ad- 
 vantage of it with energy and enterprise. John, who 
 was surnamed Mark, went with them from Jerusalem. 
 The narrative proceeds : " Now there were at Antioch, 
 in the church established there, certain prophets and 
 teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon who was called 
 Niger, and Lucius of Gyrene, and Manaen, foster-bro- 
 ther of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. And as they mi- 
 nistered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, 
 Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto 
 I have called them. Then, having fasted and prayed, 
 and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. 
 So they, being sent forth by the Holy Spirit, went down
 
 PAUL AND BARNABAS IN ROMAN CYPRUS. 293 
 
 to Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. 
 And when they were at Salamis, they preached the 
 word of God in the synagogues of the Jews : and they 
 had also John as an attendant. And when they had 
 gone through all the island unto Paphos, they found a 
 certain magus, a Jewish false prophet, named Bar-jesus: 
 who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of 
 intelligence ; the same sent for Barnabas and Saul, and 
 desired to hear the word of God. But Elymas the 
 magus (for so is his name interpreted) withstood them, 
 seeking to turn aside the proconsul from the faith. 
 Then Saul, (who is also called Paul,) being filled with 
 Holy Spirit, set his eyes fixedly on him, and said, O full 
 of all craft and all mischief, child of the devil, enemy 
 of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease from diverting 
 the straight ways of the Lord 1 And now, behold, the 
 hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, 
 not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately a 
 mist and a darkness fell on him; and, turning about, 
 he sought some to lead him by the hand. Then the 
 proconsul, when he saw what was done, believed, being 
 astounded at the teaching of the Lord. 
 
 " Now when Paul and his companions sailed from 
 Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia ; and John, 
 departing from them, returned ' to Jerusalem." (Acts 
 xiii. 1.) 
 
 However the terms of the narrative may read, it is 
 quite open to conjecture that the expedition was a 
 much more independent enterprise on the part of the 
 missionaries than the terms in themselves imply. They 
 first direct their course to Cyprus, the native country of 
 Barnabas, and nothing is said of the tenor or success of
 
 294 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 their teaching until their encounter with Elymas. The 
 connection of this man with a proconsul has abundant 
 parallels in Roman story. Josephus, Ant. xx. 7, men- 
 tions a Simon, a magian of Cyprus, who is in a similar 
 position of influence with the procurator Felix. Jewish 
 cultivators, on private behoof, of the prevalent addiction 
 to superstition and miracles, infested the Roman world ; 
 and while some deceived and preyed upon the vulgar, 
 the more artful or accomplished flew at higher game. 
 Apollonius of Tyana, and the Alexander of Lucian, fur- 
 nish types of the more ambitious class, to which Simon 
 Magus seems also to have belonged. The wandering 
 Jewish exorcists, the sons of Sceva, of Acts xix., are 
 cattle of the same horn, but of inferior breed. 
 
 With one or other of these classes, Christian mission- 
 aries, of Jewish blood or association, with their out- 
 bursts of enthusiasm, their pretension to miraculous 
 power and interpretation of prophecy, and their indis- 
 criminate, if not preferential, appeal to the weak and 
 the ignorant, were liable to be most offensively, but not 
 quite unnaturally, confounded. The misapprehension 
 was the more embarrassing, as the Christian would not 
 deny the reality of the wonders worked by these impos- 
 tors, but only questioned the agency, and claimed to 
 have the power of controlling it. Miracle was opposed 
 to miracle, as in the court of Pharaoh, white magic to 
 black, and the teachers, who were imbued with a con- 
 viction that they belonged to the prophet class of which 
 the Old Testament gave the type, were not themselves 
 inclined to disparage the powers of opponents for whom 
 it was their boast to be an overmaich. Hence there 
 was motive abundant, if not for inventing, at least for
 
 PAUL AND BARNABAS IN ROMAN CYPRUS. 295 
 
 imparting, more or less consciously, such colour to 
 questionable incidents as resulted in popular stories, 
 like the discomfitures of Simon or Elymas, or the lu- 
 dicrous defeat of the sons of Sceva, and the change 
 wrought upon the girl who had a spirit of divination, at 
 Philippi. The contest was regarded as waged, not with 
 flesh and blood, but with the prince of the powers of 
 the air, and the work was often difficult accordingly. 
 The miracles of the Man of Sin of 2 Thessalonians ii. 8 
 are not denied, but ascribed to Satan ; he is the proto- 
 type of the marvel-working idolatrous beast of the Apo- 
 calypse, xiii. 11 ; and so Elymas is denounced by Paul as 
 " a child of the Devil." 
 
 The special notice, that the Proconsul was " a man of 
 sense," " a man of reflection," is rather remarkable ; it 
 seems intended to parry the natural inference to the 
 contrary from his entertaining such a creature as Ely- 
 mas. For the rest, the general outline of the tale is 
 probable enough. Rulers in our own time, who have 
 certainly not wanted of reflectiveness, have some lis- 
 tened, and some been suspected of listening, with defer- 
 ence and curiosity rather too concentrated, to a nervous 
 illuminate, or even to a vulgar spirit-medium. It is 
 perfectly consistent with such disposition, that the 
 Roman Sergius should wish to hear more of the new 
 comers, as belonging to a class that he did not dises- 
 teem perhaps stood in some awe of. That Elymas in 
 one way or other should be discredited when pitted 
 against the heartfelt and impressive exhortations of 
 Paul, is quite conceivable ; and even very moderate fa- 
 vour and acquiescence on the part of the Proconsul and 
 there is no reason why something more than moderate
 
 296 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 might not be in question would easily be interpreted 
 as belief, conviction, conversion. 
 
 He is said to have believed, being astounded at the 
 teaching of the Lord. The teaching of the Lord is 
 scarcely an equivalent expression for a miraculous de- 
 privation of eye-sight, but the deprivation is not de- 
 clared in perfectly unqualified terms. " Mist and dark- 
 ness" denote rather weakness than extinction; and at 
 last the infliction is only declared to be temporary. 
 Had the entire story been pure invention, there would 
 scarcely have been a motive for economizing marvellous- 
 ness, 'and making the sign less than conclusive, the 
 blindness less than absolute. We have here probably 
 an indication that a limit was given by notorious fact, to 
 the liberties that might be taken by tradition. So in 
 the case of the easiness with which Simon Magus is let 
 oif, it is difficult to think that mythical variation, not 
 to say indignant invention, would have treated such an 
 offender so mercifully but that his later story was too 
 well established to be tampered with, and in fact it hap- 
 pens, that we are in possession of independent proofs of 
 his later notoriety. 
 
 It was after this journey that Paul and Barnabas, 
 with the strongest possible motive to make much of 
 their doings and divine favour, set forth at Jerusalem 
 what signs and wonders God had wrought among the 
 Gentiles by them. In such discourse a metaphor, a 
 little loosely defined, easily slides from a potential to 
 an actual miracle. Self-deception is but too accommo- 
 dating in such instances ; and Paul and Barnabas may 
 have been as ready, not to say as willing, to believe that 
 the failing sight of an impostor was due to their male-
 
 PAUL AND BARNABAS IN ROMAN CYPRUS. 297 
 
 diction, as Salmasius to congratulate himself on having 
 conduced to the blindness of his opponent, Milton. 
 
 After the palpable transformation of Paul's vision of 
 a great light at noonday into an actual interview with 
 Jesus risen in the flesh, it is really unnecessary to pos- 
 tulate a very long time or very numerous interchanges 
 to produce such a version as we have before us of the 
 Cyprian miracle, and that, after all, equivocal. We 
 must therefore not hastily assume that the historical 
 record is very remote from the date of the event re- 
 corded, merely because a non-historical colour has been 
 imparted to it. Still less are we entitled, on the ground 
 of even large predominance of non-historical elements, 
 to disallow its claim to be an historical record of con- 
 siderable value. 
 
 It would be the most natural accident possible, time 
 and circumstances being duly appreciated, that in the 
 course of tradition and delivery in the very process of 
 earliest tradition Elymas or Bar-jesus should be said 
 to be struck with blindness, while at the best the afflic- 
 tion may never have existed at all in any other sense 
 than an inability to see his way to a refutation of argu- 
 ments involved by a pupil of Gamaliel, or to discern the 
 superiority of Paul's holy spirit to his own. Even if 
 the fiction, or the misconception, were traced up to the 
 averment of a contemporary, it would be a very insuffi- 
 cient reason for the abnegation of all groundwork in 
 matter of fact. I have already hinted at local associa- 
 tions that might qualify the growth of the mythus. 
 
 The matter of fact that we can rest in at last may 
 seem to be not worth very much. It may amount to 
 this: that all that proved worth relating of this mis-
 
 298 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 sionary journey through Cyprus, was certain intercourse 
 of Paul and Barnabas with a Roman proconsul credu- 
 lously inclined to Eastern superstition ; and a certain ad- 
 vantage gained by them over his previous professor of 
 supernatural influence. 
 
 When we take the incident, however, on this very 
 circumscribed ground, it is replete with significance. It 
 was not with those in high stations, stations that are 
 usually seized and garrisoned by unenthusiastic men of 
 the world, that the Christian teachers had, in the be- 
 ginning, the most declared success. The qualities that 
 conduct to posts of power are not usually those that 
 conduce to, or are even compatible with, the cordial 
 acceptation of new truth or new semblances of truth. 
 Nevertheless, speculative zeal and truthfulness are not 
 absolutely incompatible in a certain class of minds by 
 no means of the highest order, with possession of those 
 capacities for administration and ardour for public busi- 
 ness that, under concurrences of fortune, carry them high 
 in the state or in the army. The spirit of the men of 
 the world, of this world, and the men of the next, the 
 children of light, are in such natures in strange alliance ; 
 and the impulse for personal advancement and the re- 
 straint of conscientiousness live on together, sometimes 
 by means of compromise and mutual concession, more fre- 
 quently by each finding a field for itself or occupying the 
 same ground in alternation, often ridiculously and mi- 
 serably enough. In such examples, habit and education 
 and routine are on one side, and a germ of uneradicated 
 original character on the other. Praying soldiers and 
 pietist money-lenders and maundering statesmen have 
 not been so little abounding in one country or another,
 
 PAUL AND BARNABAS IN ROMAN CYPRUS. 299 
 
 and more or less near to our own time, that we may not 
 comprehend such a position and moral constitution as 
 those of Sergius Paulus, even if we interpret them 
 strictly to the letter. 
 
 As time went on, and the Christian community gained 
 numbers and force, spreading widely below, and then 
 gradually rising upwards, it came ultimately to pass, that 
 even the most rational, even the most coldly self-seeking 
 Roman could see that the adoption, that is to say, the 
 profession of the new doctrine, had become even for 
 worldly wisdom only a question of time. The step 
 might easily be precipitated if the conduct of the crisis 
 fell to a man not absolutely superior to the spiritual 
 apprehensions inspired by fanatical proselytizers. All 
 the conditions for the mounting of Christianity to the 
 leading places of the Roman Empire, are set before 
 us in the incident of the conversion, more or less pro- 
 nounced, of this Cyprian proconsul : nothing more was 
 required for the catastrophe of one dispensation of 
 mythology and the inauguration of a new with a long 
 history of development before it, than the accident that 
 such a man, neither more nor less intelligent, should 
 hold the military force of the empire in his hand ; so 
 soon as the empire should have become fully subjected 
 to that systematic indoctrination which Paul and Bar- 
 nabas only quit the praetorium to help very importantly 
 to carry out. 
 
 The religious history of ancient Rome the history 
 of the religious sentiment among the classes that were 
 the source and the seat of her political power has, I 
 believe, still to be written. The final establishment of 
 Christianity was the great climax of this history ; in
 
 300 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 progress to which it passed through many an intermediate 
 crisis. The settlement of the properly Roman worship 
 and rites in relation to the foreign superstitions, came 
 within the organizing operations of Augustus ; after his 
 time we may trace a series of licenses and innovations 
 by the military emperors, usually explainable by tenden- 
 cies of the quarter of the empire with which the legions 
 they relied on were chiefly connected; this inquiry, 
 however, must be for others, and at another time. 
 
 It is in the narrative now in question that the change 
 of the ordinary appellation of the Apostle is made from 
 Saul to Paul ; this was connected of old with the simi- 
 larity of name of the Proconsul: "Apostolus a primo 
 ecclesiae spolio, Proconsule Sergio Paulo, victories suse 
 tropha3a retulit, erexitque vexillum ut Paulus ex Saulo 
 vocaretur" (Hieronymus). Probably there is no more 
 in it than a coincidence, and perhaps dependent upon 
 a change here of the source of tradition which may be 
 connected with the retirement of Mark. Beyond this, 
 the Apostle is now in the way to address Gentiles parti- 
 cularly, though not exclusively, and to become to them by 
 the usual, and, in his case, avowed policy of the seekers 
 of proselytes, as much like one of them as might be. 
 There was quite sufficient motive here for his habitual 
 adoption of a Gentile name, a constant practice with 
 his countrymen of old, as now ; and of old, as now, the 
 secondary name was frequently adopted for the sake of 
 a certain assonance with that which it superseded. 
 
 We may be allowed to wonder, but it is of little use 
 to inquire, what was the motive of the retirement of 
 John at this point, just after a marked success ; it is al-
 
 PAUL AND BARNABAS IN ROMAN CYPRUS. 301 
 
 luded to afterwards as if it were a flinching from labour 
 or fatigue. Could it be that he was in truth not over- 
 much in sympathy with the freedom with which Paul 
 gave signs of his intention to interpret the secret com- 
 pact ? Who shall say? 
 
 With the retirement of his cousin, Barnabas loses his 
 place of precedence in the narrative ; we read thereafter 
 of " Paul and Barnabas," an order in accordance with 
 the representation of Paul as the chief speaker and 
 worker of signs ; and a certain Hebraistic tone, not un- 
 frequent before, is now lost almost entirely. Hence- 
 forward, it may be said, the history of the Acts pro- 
 ceeds as if the development of Christianity were bound 
 up with the life and the labours of Paul, and con- 
 cludes as if it reached its completion, with the arrival 
 of Paul at Rome. Such, in a most important sense, it 
 cannot be doubted was the case ; the arrival at the me- 
 tropolis of the world of the Apostle of the Gentiles, the 
 great vindicator of a free Gospel, of the new religion 
 under conditions that made it susceptible and worthy of 
 universalism, was in itself strikingly impressive ; it would 
 have been so, though his career had then come to an 
 end forthwith. This, however, was not the case ; for 
 two whole years at least he taught, without let or moles- 
 tation, which he could hardly have done in any other 
 place, however far less important. What the result of 
 this teaching may have been, the historian forbears to 
 say ; but he concludes, as upon a keynote, with an enun- 
 ciation of its purpose, and both must have been notori- 
 ous to his immediate readers. He breaks off with what 
 is equivalent to an expressive aposeiopesis. For what 
 further he and his Roman readers might have in their
 
 302 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 minds, is it not all expressed at large in the Epistle to 
 the Romans, the completest, the most definite, the most 
 liberal and practical exposition of the noblest aspect of 
 Christianity from that day to this? Here, with what- 
 ever of brotherly tenderness, the Jew is bidden to recover 
 himself from his hallucination of privilege, and here the 
 Gentile was bidden to recognize his obligations to Ju- 
 daism at the same time that he held fast by his freedom, 
 noble lessons in application as in spirit. Alas ! that 
 from that day until this present they should have been 
 taught in vain. 
 
 The blinding of Elymas, considered as one of a series 
 of tapestries for the Sistine Chapel, is a Pauline miracle 
 of a severe type parallel to the Petrine subject of the 
 destruction of Ananias. In the Acts of the Apostles a 
 still exacter Petrine parallel is furnished by the humilia- 
 tion of Simon Magus ; it is one of a system of parallels 
 in the Apostolic history that has given rise to much spe- 
 culation in Germany principally. In England we have 
 turned away our faces from such suggestions, or have 
 affected to regard them, while, at the same time, we 
 were winking hard, or have looked on, indeed, with 
 sober sincerity and simplicity, but with an innocence of 
 intelligence, as well as of heart, truly infantine. If the 
 Germans have erred sometimes in their conclusions after 
 labouring exhaustively upon the evidence, I think it 
 has mostly occurred from indulging to excess an appetite 
 for the discovery of the unhistorical, an avidity for 
 discrediting every shred of original evidence, in forgetful- 
 ness that the highest rarefaction must depend on a cer- 
 tain basis of molecular solidity after all. 
 
 True, however, it certainly is, that for every Petrine
 
 PAUL AND BARNABAS IN ROMAN CYPRUS. 303 
 
 narrative or miracle in Acts, there is one of Paul as a 
 parallel, or vice versd. A man " lame from birth " is 
 cured by Peter at the Beautiful Gate ; by Paul, at Lys- 
 tra : the very shadow of Peter carries health and heal- 
 ing ; and, as if Paul could of course be not less salutary, 
 kerchiefs that he has worn festore the sick: Peter 
 raises Tabitha from the dead, and there is at least good- 
 will to convey that Paul did as much for Eutychus : and 
 if Peter has to protest his humanity to the devotional 
 Cornelius, Paul likewise only escapes divine honours at 
 Lystra by proclaiming that he also is a man. 
 
 This parallelism may be partly due to that feeling for 
 repetition and antithesis that in its best form, as in Ra- 
 fael's selection of subjects, is truly artistic; in its infe- 
 rior, it is simply an expedient to save expense of inven- 
 tive eifort. Otherwise, no doubt, it may easily have had 
 a certain controversial root in a design to vindicate the 
 co-ordinate authority of Peter and of Paul. This latter 
 suspicion opens an inquiry as to which were the original 
 stories ; were Paul's invented to vie with Peter's, or did 
 the adherents of Peter struggle to cap Paul ? 
 
 But there is another very important and antecedent 
 source of such parallelism, and that is the existence in 
 the minds of both Apostles, or the historiographers of 
 both, of a common model. Both would expect, not to 
 say claim, and from both it would be expected, that they 
 should display the proper signs of Apostleship according 
 to the accepted precedents, the signs and wonders 
 wrought by the prophets in the Old Testament. To 
 this cause I am disposed to assign very extensive influ- 
 ence ; in the first place, however, the correspondence of 
 incident may have been heightened by the bias of the
 
 304 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 compiler when he came to select from an accumulation 
 of traditions. 
 
 II. THE CARTOON OF THE REBUKE OF ELYMAS. 
 
 Again we recall ourselves, and this time to the Car- 
 toon. 
 
 To the poet-painter any license is allowed that he can 
 vindicate, not by verisimilitude merely, but by significant 
 effect ; and to Rafael we permit, without grudge or cavil, 
 that the blindness of Elymas shall be actual, not poten- 
 tial, shall be sudden and total ; and the conversion of 
 the proconsul equally instantaneous and absolute. 
 
 We must read the narrative as illustrative of the 
 picture, with this heightening conception ; and by such 
 a light, how shines forth the expressive force of the 
 Cartoon ? 
 
 The scene is a marble-paved hall, and in front of the 
 raised tribunal of the proconsul. This is exactly in the 
 centre of the picture ; the divisions of the inlaid pave- 
 ment correspond with its position, and behind it, be- 
 hind the curule chair of the magistrate, is an apse or 
 coved niche, flanked by shafts of coloured marble. On 
 either side of the tribunal an open arch admits a view 
 different on either side, of other columns and other 
 arches, conveying the impression of an extensive palace 
 or public building. Still beyond, also on both sides, we 
 gain that glimpse of open country and sky, which is 
 provided in every one of the Cartoons, whether the in- 
 cident represented takes place withindoors or without. 
 
 At the right of the picture are apparently seen the
 
 THE REBUKE OF ELYMAS. 305 
 
 jambs of a doorway, but through this also the strong 
 daylight penetrates into the apartment. 
 
 The Proconsul is seated on his tribunal, wearing 
 laurel crown, and the robe and ornate sandals appro- 
 priate to his rank. To his right another Roman stands, 
 also conspicuous in dignity of toga ; to his left, on the 
 steps ascending to his seat, the fronts of which are 
 ornamented with piles of arms and trophies among 
 them, expressively, shields charged with the head of 
 Medusa stand two lictors, bearing the axes and rods, 
 the symbols and the instruments of the power of life 
 and death. 
 
 Thus surrounded by all the indications of dignity and 
 power and pre-eminence, the Proconsul, on his very seat 
 of state, is starting in unfeigned and scarcely checked 
 astonishment at a punishment inflicted by the exertion 
 of a power as different as it was superior to his own. 
 
 Paul and Elymas stand out confronted, leaving a 
 clear space in front of the Proconsul, and every picto- 
 rial aid is given to heighten the effect of the implied 
 moral contrast. 
 
 Paul stands firm and erect, and extends with decision 
 his denouncing arm and hand, which are caught by 
 the bright light that falls on him from behind. His 
 face is in dark shadow, but his expressive profile is 
 seen in distinct relief. His right hand grasps a book, 
 the Scriptures, doubtless ; an indication that his con- 
 troversy was with a Jew, and that the perverting efforts 
 of Barjesus had been met by exposition of prophecy. 
 The book and the controversy are closed, and Barjesus 
 receives the punishment of the sophist who will not 
 admit recognition of the most manifest fact ; who will 
 
 x
 
 306 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 not allow a passage for argument along the course of 
 the directest sequence. In the English authorized ver- 
 sion we read by habit, without noticing the gratuitous 
 incongruity, that he went about seeking some one to 
 lead him by the hand. In Rafael's more accurate in- 
 terpretation, whether of Greek or Vulgate, he stands 
 helpless, stricken, and groping. With spread feet, and 
 with one leg bent and one advanced, he stoops his 
 body and throws back his head instinctively, to enable 
 him to preserve his balance in case of unexpected im- 
 pact. His blindness is made manifest by the strong 
 light falling effectless upon his closed eyes; by his 
 stretched hands and feeling fingers, of which the very 
 tips are recurved in agitation, and his utter uncon- 
 sciousness of the proximity of the man who avoids 
 touching the wretched reprobate, but is otherwise as 
 close to him as he can be. 
 
 This man, of somewhat plain and commonplace and 
 common-sense aspect, looks with fixed and glaring eyes 
 of inquiry at the closed lids of the Jew; and in his 
 raised and displayed palms we read conviction of the 
 certainty. There is a certain clumsiness in the configu- 
 ration of his hand and fingers I once thought he had 
 gloves on -and in the hard creases of the skin, that 
 gives great force to the tremulous sensitiveness of those 
 of the sorcerer. 
 
 Again ; while Elymas feels his way with his forward 
 foot, and so retains the other below his bent knee, as to 
 enable him to redress his balance on the instant, this 
 peering neighbour throws all his weight upon one erect 
 leg without hesitation; and while his other foot vi- 
 sible beyond the gaberdine of Elymas -just touches the.
 
 THE REBUKE OF ELYMAS. 307 
 
 ground, he leans so far forward that, but for his having 
 all his senses about him for safeguard, a single touch 
 would throw him forward on his face. 
 
 The simplicity of the majestic drapery of Paul con- 
 trasts, not without meaning and effect, with the com- 
 plicated, and at the same unhandsome, array of his 
 opponent, a palpable reminiscence of the sempiternal 
 systems of bodily enfoldings, of the Ghetto. There ap- 
 pears to me to be a peculiar quivering effect given to 
 the lines and lights of the drapery over the arms of 
 Elymas, as if his upper extremities were all a-tremble. 
 
 I scarcely venture to make an attempt to define in 
 words his marvellously characteristic face. There is a 
 certain vulgarity in the nose, a confidence of loquacity 
 about the mouth ; but the features and brow taken to- 
 gether are, perhaps, more expressive of impudence than 
 incurable depravity, and certainly of astuteness rather 
 than stupidity ; a very " child of craft and of dexterity 
 in management of mischievousness." 
 
 In the face and gestures of Sergius Paulus we see con- 
 viction and astonishment ; we see, at the same time, an 
 angry expression of contempt, which may be partly for 
 the quelled deceiver, and just a little, perhaps, may be 
 contributed by self-reproach for having allowed himself 
 to make a guide and a confidant of such a shiftless im- 
 postor. His friend beside him may have been intended 
 as the introducer of the Apostles ; certainly he is inde- 
 pendent of a surprise, and turns his head with a flexibi- 
 lity and freedom that give force to the rigidity of 
 Sergius. He speaks over his shoulder to one in the 
 background, while he extends his arm in the direction 
 of the victim with unmistakable indication of all being 
 
 x 2
 
 308 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 over. The tenor of his words is further gathered, and 
 his composure illustrated in turn, from the expression 
 of the face behind, which is that of one shuddering and 
 aghast. 
 
 Behind Elymas we see the general crowd of attenders 
 of the Proconsul's hall of audience, and amidst it a 
 dialogue proceeds, which is easily interpreted. A fe- 
 male, whose head appears above Elymas, seems hurry- 
 ing in, and points to Paul, while she turns with a scold- 
 ing look of nervous excitement to one of the immediate 
 bystanders. The man appealed to points with right 
 hand' to Elymas, and approaches the index-finger of his 
 left to his own eye, in evident illustration of the nature 
 of the catastrophe that has occurred. In the Cartoon 
 there is a little confusedness in the position of this left 
 hand, or, at least, of the arm, and the drapery it belongs 
 to, an unpleasant uncertainty whether it may not be- 
 long to the aged man beyond. I do not doubt that this 
 equivocal effect is entirely due to the drapery of the 
 sleeve at least, having been first ruined, and then re- 
 painted. The drapery is certainly continuous with the 
 mantle of the man who points to Elymas, but it has not 
 at this part the fringy edge and patterned border that 
 are distinctly marked at the other parts : the modelling 
 has vanished, and flatness and emptiness remain. 
 
 The appropriation of the hands, as given, is quite 
 borne out by the tapestry at Mantua ; on another point 
 this authority seems at fault. The toe of a boot just 
 visible below the skirt of the sorcerer is made blue ; 
 I do not doubt by mistake, and that it ought to match 
 the other red boot of the glaring figure next to him. 
 
 The woman we may probably regard as the sorcerer's
 
 THE REBUKE OF ELYMAS. 309 
 
 wife. As to her informant, I think, to judge from 
 Dorigny's engraving, he by no means expresses compas- 
 sion, nor, as it seems to me, very much astonishment. 
 I am almost disposed to think that he feels some of 
 that gratification which Rochefoucauld says we afford 
 in our misfortunes to the best of our friends the Tubal 
 of an ancient Shylock. 
 
 A group of heads still further back have their eyes 
 directed to the illustrator, with a fixedness of gaze that 
 helps the realization of the pertinent ideas of the force 
 and value of vision. 
 
 The manner in which the figure of Elymas stands 
 forth detached upon the pavement, is admirably ma- 
 naged. His back is in deep shadow, and the dark out- 
 line from shoulder to heel gives that one long line of 
 marked definition in the picture upon a lighter back- 
 ground, upon which Rafael constantly relies as an ele- 
 ment of vigour. The upper outline of the raised arm 
 of Paul is the converse and correlative definition of a 
 considerable illuminated line upon a darker background. 
 
 It is observable how the force of Paul's erect figure 
 is assisted by the strong shadows cast upon the pave- 
 ment, at an exact right angle to it. 
 
 Over the right shoulder of Paul we see the head of 
 Barnabas " a good man, and full of faith " lighted 
 up with devout satisfaction as he raises his joined hands 
 in adoring thankfulness. Beyond, there appears an- 
 other sympathetic face, which is doubtless Mark's, not 
 pressing forward with eagerness, but accepting the re- 
 sult from the denouncement, and expectant in gathered 
 seriousness of the further consequences. 
 
 Intermediate between Mark and the Proconsul are
 
 310 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 the lictors ; and one head behind is seen with the lion 
 scalp, which denotes the wearer to be a Koman soldier. 
 The lictors, notwithstanding that they preserve their 
 formal station, and continue the unrelaxed grasp of their 
 fasces, seem to press together with a shuddering recoil, 
 and turn their heads ; one, I think, not without a touch 
 of brute compassion, the other more distinctly in dis- 
 may. 
 
 The group to the left of Sergius Paulus is thus made 
 up entirely of the ministers of his executive authority, 
 and the members of the Christian mission ; an omen of 
 the consummation that was preparing ; of the tendency 
 of which his conversion prefigured the end in the alli- 
 ance of the temporal force of the empire with the new 
 spiritual power. 
 
 In the meantime, the superiority of sanction derived 
 immediately from God may be taken as symbolized in 
 the arm with which Paul deals out the delegated au- 
 thority, being shown in relief upon the background of 
 the forms of the appalled lictors. 
 
 I observe that all the Romans introduced have a 
 somewhat commonplace type erf head and feature, and 
 they remind me of the figures upon Trajan's column. 
 How better could be indicated the peculiarly adminis- 
 trative genius of the people, that genius which is ever 
 disposed to boast as its greatest triumph of success the 
 keeping down all spontaneousness, which delights to 
 depress and trample out every germ of personal and 
 political independence and intellectual originality. It 
 succeeds for long, but its time comes. 
 
 In Pistolesi's engraving from the tapestry he shows 
 behind Paul a broad pilaster, parallel to the plane of
 
 THE REBUKE OF ELYMAS. 311 
 
 the picture, and reaching to the top, with a niche in 
 which is a statue. I am not certain, without further 
 examination, that this is not to be taken as an integral 
 portion of the picture. I observed this addition in the 
 Mantua tapestry also. The statue is a hooded female ; 
 the base is supported by Bacchic terms; upon it is 
 sculptured a battle of Tritons.
 
 312 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SACRIFICE AT LYSTEA. 
 
 I. THE MYTHOLOGY OF OVID, IN ACTS. II. THE CARTOON 
 THE SACRIFICE AT LYSTRA. III. TIMOTHY OF LYSTRA 
 AND ACCOMMODATION. 
 
 I. THE MYTHOLOGY OF OVID, IN ACTS. 
 
 I BELIEVE that the story of the sacrifice at Lystra is a 
 very remarkable example of a genuine mythus ; but we 
 must beware not to adopt the uncritical canon sanc- 
 tioned by the high authority of Grote, and conclude 
 that, because a mythus, it has therefore " no historical 
 value whatever." A mythus that obtains wide accepta- 
 tion is itself an historical event of no slight conse- 
 quence. By the study of it we may chance to learn, 
 and it may be, indeed, our single chance of learning, 
 the characteristics of the period that produced and 
 accepted it ; and an age is not prolific in producing 
 myths, and eager to invite or entertain them, without 
 having characteristics of history that are worth study- 
 ing, and are necessary to be studied. And a myth that 
 professes to be historical may, probably enough, have 
 historical value, not only in reference to the times that 
 produced it, but also to the times that it, however fanci-
 
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF OVID, IN ACTS. 313 
 
 fully and fabulously, refers to. Human invention is not 
 usually so spontaneous as to make something out of 
 nothing, least of all will it make the endeavour, when 
 a fund of material is to be had, with no conditions to 
 shackle treatment. It will not hesitate to cover a 
 blank page with figments transferred and transposed 
 from all quarters ; but if the page be not absolutely a 
 blank ; if it still retain some trace of genuine, though 
 half-obliterated, records, these which are in possession 
 have a better opportunity than any others of becoming 
 the stems of mythical grafts, which may then, no doubt, 
 branch forth and bear fruit diversified and wonderful 
 enough. 
 
 So, I believe, it will prove that the story of the at- 
 tempted sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas at Lystra is as 
 mere a fable as can well be imagined ; and yet, that by 
 an analysis of its import and origin, we shall find that 
 it attaches itself very significantly to something of his- 
 torical fact worth the saving. 
 
 We are returning upon our steps, it will be remem- 
 bered, to the first missionary journey pursued under the 
 terms of the secret compact, and anterior to both the 
 dispute at Antioch and the congress at Jerusalem. 
 
 From Perga by the coast, having left Cyprus and 
 now lost Mark, the mission passes considerably inland 
 to Antioch of Pisidia. Here it is represented that the 
 Jews and the Jewish religion have much the same 
 degree and kind of important influence that Josephus 
 ascribes to them at Damascus. Numerous Gentile 
 devout men, proselytes of the Gate, or equivalent to 
 what are known as such, frequent the synagogue, some 
 of them leading men in the city, and, as usual, a still
 
 314 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 larger proportion of Gentile women, all devout and 
 many honourable, that is, of superior station. 
 
 It was perfectly consistent with the theory of Paul 
 that he should commence his labours in the synagogue, 
 and on the Sabbath. His letters sufficiently show how 
 his Hebrew nature yearned for the attachment of his 
 countrymen ; how he would make for it every sacrifice, 
 even of consistency, but the last. A sermon is as- 
 cribed to him here, which seems peculiarly addressed 
 to Jews, and to Jews fully imbued with hopes and anti- 
 cipations of the restored temporal kingdom of David. 
 The sting of it, however, is in the declaration of the 
 insufficiency of the law of Moses : " He, whom God 
 raised up, saw not corruption. Be it known, there- 
 fore, unto you, that through him remission of sins is 
 announced to you ; and from all those for which ye 
 could not be justified by means of the law of Moses, 
 every one who believes in him, is justified." This 
 corresponds very exactly with the passage in the 
 Epistle to the Romans, where Paul presses the alterna- 
 tive between the Law and Christ, as between the flesh 
 and the spirit ; and urges the argument with what care 
 and caution he may, until the inference that the Law 
 was become superfluous must have been inevitable. 
 In the present instance, the manner in which Jesus re- 
 cognized by John, is presented as typical substitute of 
 David anointed by Samuel; and the corruptible king- 
 dom is superseded by an incorruptible, has a closer pa- 
 rallel in the argument of Peter's early speech in Acts. 
 
 The facts, indeed, at least as related, seem to imply 
 even more of outspokenness than stands on the record. 
 The ministry is continued through the week-days, and
 
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF OVID, IN ACTS. 315 
 
 with an effect that is easily conceivable after the expe- 
 rience the Apostles had acquired in Syria, in bringing 
 their doctrine to bear upon the minds both of prose- 
 lytes and of purely Gentile hearers. 
 
 On the next Sabbath there was a great uproar: 
 the Jews had taken alarm at the influence exercised by 
 preachers, who brought almost the whole city about 
 the synagogue, but brought it, as the alarm shows, by 
 promises and by incitements that the synagogue was 
 not disposed to sympathize with. Thus it was that 
 these opponents were enabled to gain the assistance of 
 the Gentile adherents to the synagogue, male and female, 
 in a persecution of teachers, who only commenced 
 with scrupulous citations of the Prophets and the 
 Law, in order presently to promote a society which, in 
 respect to Gentiles, dispensed with the Law altogether ; 
 and, as regarded Jews, at least indoctrinated them with 
 principles that very moderate perspicacity might suffice 
 to discover, presupposed its abrogation. 
 
 Paul and Barnabas retire before the clamour to Ico- 
 nium, where like causes produce like effects ; and thence 
 they move on to "the cities of Lycaonia, Lystra, and 
 Derbe, and the neighbourhood, and there they preached 
 the Gospel." 
 
 " And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in 
 his feet, a cripple from his mother's womb, who had 
 never walked. The same heard Paul speak : who stead- 
 fastly beholding him, and seeing that he had faith to be 
 healed, said with a loud voice, Stand upright upon thy 
 feet. And he leaped up and walked. And the crowd, 
 seeing what Paul had done, lifted up their voice, saying 
 in the language of Lycaonia, The gods are come down
 
 316 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 to us in the likeness of men. And they called Barna- 
 bas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercury, because he was the 
 chief speaker. And the priest of the Jupiter, that was 
 before the city, brought oxen and garlands to the portals, 
 and would have sacrificed with the crowd. And when 
 the Apostles, Paul and Barnabas, heard, they rent their 
 clothes, and sprung into the crowd, crying out, and say- 
 ing, Men, why do ye these things ? We also are men of 
 like passions with you, and we preach good tidings that ye 
 may turn from these vanities unto the living God, who 
 made the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and all 
 things that are therein : who in the generations past suf- 
 fered all the Gentiles to walk in their own ways. Never- 
 theless even so he left not himself without witness, doing 
 good, and sending to you from heaven rains and fruit- 
 ful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness. 
 And so saying they scarcely kept the multitude (popu- 
 lace, more correctly) from sacrificing unto them. 
 
 "And there came Jews from Antioch and Iconium, 
 who persuaded the multitude, and stoned Paul, and 
 drew him out of the city, thinking that he was dead." 
 (Acts xiv. 8.) 
 
 It would be too much to say> considering what is 
 known of the sympathetic effect of mental excitement 
 and contact with the excited on the ailing and the 
 cripple, that a very wonderful recovery of muscular 
 energy may not have occurred to a hearer of Paul, and 
 that undesigned exaggeration may not have transformed 
 the marvel easily into the cure of a man who had never 
 walked from birth. There is the highest probability 
 that these early preachings were attended by all the 
 convulsionary phenomena familiar in modern religious
 
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF OVID, IN ACTS. 31 7 
 
 revivals; but however this may have been, there are, 
 in the story as it now stands, verbal coincidences with 
 the curing of the lame man by Peter and John that 
 forbid us to take it out of the class to which that narra- 
 tive has been deliberately consigned. The cripple of 
 Lystra, like the lame beggar at the Gate of the Tem- 
 ple, is, in identical terms, "a certain man lame from 
 his mother's womb ;" attracts the " fixed gaze " of the 
 teacher ; and, at a word from him, jumps up, and " leaps 
 and walks." The Lystran cripple, therefore, like his 
 compeer, I conclude to be nothing more than a type, 
 a metaphor made into a matter of fact, of a class of 
 converts rescued by the Gospel from a congenital disa- 
 bility ; the excluded heathen in this case as the carped- 
 at Hellenistic Jew in the other. 
 
 We are then told that the Lystrans, who honoured 
 Jupiter as the tutelary god of their city, still retained 
 a living faith in a legend, of which trace is found in 
 classical literature, that Jupiter and Mercury (Zeus and 
 Hermes) had visited their region once in the form of 
 men, and that it was not impossible they might repeat 
 the visit again in like masquerade. Such a faith, it is 
 true, smacks of much earlier times, of the times not 
 even of Homer and Hesiod, but rather of the times 
 that they looked far back to ; it is in every respect a 
 primitive tale, not more gross and simple than has been 
 entertained far down into civilized times by Italian 
 peasants or Welsh mountaineers, but that jars upon 
 our associations when we are bidden to accept it as rife 
 in the imaginations of a considerable city under Claudius. 
 Ovid tells the tale in the ' Metamorphoses ' with a great 
 many pleasing and natural touches, for many of which
 
 318 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 he probably had to thank a Greek original. To him, 
 or to his original, may be also due a good deal of the 
 finished air it possesses. But it must not, after all, be 
 overlooked how we constantly find in the tours of 
 Pausanias under Hadrian, that legends which had been 
 furbished up, and made correct and artistic even in the 
 time of Homer, still lived on, in a popular and religious 
 sense, in their native localities; and that fables there 
 still excited awe, still brought respect and revenue to 
 priests and temples, that in poetry were reduced only 
 to gratify the purest taste and most cultivated imagina- 
 tion. It is therefore probable enough that Paul found 
 indeed at Lystra a still subsisting faith in the possibility 
 of a visit from a god in human form ; and, at least, no 
 mistrust whatever that such visits had been paid, with 
 incidents common to patriarchal tradition, of rewards 
 and punishments to the insulting and to the hospitable, 
 the inhumane and the warmhearted. 
 
 The tale for which we turn to Ovid, is localized in 
 the neighbourhood of Tyana and the hills of Phrygia. 
 Tyana is on the borders of Lycaonia and Cilicia, and 
 but little removed from the position Lystra must have 
 occupied, a site which modern travellers have not yet, 
 and which it is highly desirable they speedily should, 
 discover. The peculiarities of the locality might throw 
 light upon the story. I should anticipate that a lake 
 would be found near the site of Lystra, helping the 
 explanation of its sympathy with the Tyanean legend. 
 Tyana seems far enough away from Phrygia, according 
 to later political geography, but I have no doubt would 
 be comprised within the great central plain of Asia 
 Minor in days when the mythus originated. Otherwise,
 
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF OVID, IN ACTS. 319 
 
 we have but to impute a lapse to Ovid, which indeed, 
 in itself, is probable enough. 
 
 Here, then, adjacent to wooded eminences, was a 
 marsh that once had been habitable and populous, but 
 had become the haunt of such birds as the stork, that 
 modern travellers in Asia Minor see " feeding and fish- 
 ing more than a hundred together in the space of an 
 acre : " 
 
 " Haud procul Line stagnum, tellus habitabilis olim ; . 
 Nunc celebres mergis fulicisque palustribus undae." 
 
 OVID, Met. viii. 624. 
 
 Hither, on a time, came Jupiter and Mercury in mor- 
 tal form, and from the multitudes of households sought 
 reception and rest, but in vain, till at last they applied 
 at the small and rustic cottage of an aged pair, Baucis 
 and Philemon. The simple, honest, and warm-hearted 
 entertainment of the disguised stranger by Goldsmith's 
 Hermit of the Vale, seems to owe some touches to the 
 description that ensues, 
 
 " Super omnia vultus 
 Accessere boni . . . . " 
 
 The marvel of the widow's cruse follows ; and it seems 
 as though the gods, who in a search for virtue would 
 even waste good appetites upon a poor dinner, could not 
 bring themselves to pollute their lips with bad wine, 
 or put up with a small bottle ; even as at the marriage 
 of Cana, 
 
 " Interea quoties Laustum cratera repleri 
 Sponte sua, per seque vident succrescere vina." 
 
 Why did not Rembrandt depict the next scene, 
 Rembrandt who etched the visit of the angels to Abra-
 
 320 CHKISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 ham to promise him legitimate offspring ; winged, 
 but also bearded worthies they are, fit prognosticators 
 of the birth of an ancestor of chapmen to supplant the 
 generous Ishmael, who already is practising within their 
 sight the free exercise of archery, genuine promise of a 
 life at large, of vigorous sport and daring. The last, 
 the only goose of the household is to be slain in honour 
 of gods so miraculously declared ; but active with foot 
 and feather, it eludes the chase of the feeble old folk, 
 which is still persevered in till at last 
 
 " 'twixt the knees of Jove it saves its life 
 From old Philemon's hospitable knife." 
 
 The gods command the couple to attend them to the 
 top of the mountain; there, turning round, they see 
 the impious vicinage submerged in a lake, their own 
 cottage only remaining. The cottage becomes a temple 
 by a transformation that gives good account of the 
 origin of many details in marble architecture; they 
 themselves become its priests; and in good old age, 
 even as they stand in front of it, still gossiping of the 
 judgment, they are transformed into trees, and the in- 
 tertwined trunks remained to be cited long after as evi- 
 dence, quite as good as any other, of the miracle and 
 the story. 
 
 " Ostendit adhuc Tyanems illic 
 Incola de gemino vicinos corpore truncos." V. 720. 
 
 Need is not to do more than allude, but it would be 
 rather scandalous not to allude, to the parallel of the 
 retreat, conducted by the angels of the Lord, of Lot and 
 his daughters to the mountains, and the punishment 
 they at last look back upon, after it has been fulfilled,
 
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF OVID, IN ACTS. 321 
 
 of the grossly inhospitable cities of the Plain. The 
 semblance of fiery visitation here, I suspect, suggested 
 the sin that was to be punished. 
 
 The story from Ovid, then, is worth relating in out- 
 line, as probably embodying some genuine Lycaonian 
 elements, whatever additions he may have imported 
 into it from his own imagination, or from other local 
 legends. It bears an extraordinary resemblance to a 
 great number of parallel stories, of all ages and regions, 
 respecting submerged cities inhospitable cities sub- 
 merged by angry divinities, who have proved them by 
 visits in person, but disguised as wanderers and stran- 
 gers. A collection and comparison of these will be found 
 in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, 
 vol. vi., part 3, a collection amusing for what it in- 
 cludes ; amusing, nay lamentable, for the omission with 
 dignified hardihood of the capital instance of all, the 
 story from the Pentateuch. 
 
 Many a fertile plain has vanished indeed by sudden 
 flood, or by gradual subsidence in the course of ages ; 
 and the tradition and the ruins together would be quite 
 sufficient to suggest, as a theological explanation, that 
 the scene of agricultural productiveness could only have 
 been desolated so suddenly and irrecoverably by the gods, 
 in punishment for some overweening pride of wealth, 
 some ungrateful or grudging ways in the enjoyment of the 
 God-given fruits of the earth, unknown to the poorer co- 
 lonists of higher ground. The source, from the heavens 
 direct, and the great suddenness of the mischief done by 
 inundations in the neighbourhood of mountains, or of 
 rivers that swell very suddenly without visible cause, 
 from rainfall on mountains at some distance, have 
 
 Y
 
 322 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 always caused superstitious populations to regard this 
 class of affliction as peculiarly marking divine wrath. 
 We find the indications of the feeling throughout Ro- 
 man history, and down at least as late as the odes of 
 Horace. In districts of peculiar conformation, where 
 plains are entirely surrounded by hills, and only pre- 
 served from being lakes by the water-drainage finding 
 subterranean outlets, any solid obstruction of such chan- 
 nels, or even their insufficiency at a given time from 
 an unusual rainfall, has constantly produced the most 
 serious disasters, and turned plains into lakes for a 
 time, or even permanently, if the obstruction continues. 
 Such localities are numerous in Greece, especially in 
 Bceotia and Arcadia. The little valley of Pheneus, 
 which Colonel Leake, in 1806, found drained and well 
 cultivated, was, in 1828, in consequence of obstruction in 
 the Katabothra, covered by water to the depth in some 
 places of 150 feet. The valley of Stymphalus presents 
 the same conditions, and both valleys had their mythi- 
 cal stories in antiquity, and even in later times ; giving 
 certain explanations of the phenomena as connected 
 with the demons or divinities for the time in vogue as 
 angry or as appeased. The Alban lake in Italy was in 
 a position that would quite agree with such an origin ; 
 and there is no improbability at all that, as Diodorus 
 . and Dionysius averred, and as even Niebuhr the ques- 
 tioner accepted, remains of spacious buildings might 
 not be discoverable at the bottom during extraordinary 
 droughts. Such incidents actually occurring in some 
 places would readily be transferred to others where 
 lakes had existed from all time ; and the agriculturist, 
 who found his operations upon desirable land limited
 
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF OVID, IN ACTS. 323 
 
 by an encroaching lake, which was more extensive than 
 he would have wished, might readily enough conclude 
 that the water had once been sent in divine anger to 
 deprive the earlier impious cultivators of an advantage 
 that they had abused. 
 
 " Where the lake of Alba now lies, the tourist divine 
 from England was told by his mule-boy, there once 
 stood a great city. Here, when Jesus Christ came into 
 Italy, he begged alms. None took compassion on him 
 but an old woman, who gave him two handfuls of meal. 
 He bade her leave the city : she obeyed ; the city in- 
 stantly sank, and the lake rose in its place." (Dr. Thirl- 
 wall, Trans. K. S. L., ut sup.) The boy's ancestor, in 
 Eoman times, had told how it was the palace of an 
 impious king that had been swallowed up, I do not 
 doubt for some similar breach of hospitality and com- 
 passionateness. 
 
 A judgment upon pride and inhumanity, as exhibited 
 in denial of relief in food, was ever for the simple-minded 
 the inconsequent interpretation of a wide-spread and 
 utter devastation of food-producing land, and the home- 
 steads of its wealthy masters. 
 
 The following story was found by Major Harris among 
 Christians in the highlands of Ethiopia : " Of yore, 
 when the spot now inundated (by the lake Alobar) was 
 terra firma^ the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared in 
 the house of its wealthiest cultivator, residing in the 
 many flourishing villages that then existed, and to have 
 addressed herself to the mistress, saying, ' I am hungry, 
 and have nothing to eat; give me corn, and I will 
 grind for wages.' A vast heap of grain was pointed 
 out, sufficient for a week's labour; but no sooner had 
 
 Y -2
 
 524 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 the Virgin touched it than it was miraculously con- 
 verted into meal. The inhospitable master now refused 
 the pittance claimed, nor would the 'Four Chairs,' 
 before whom the complaint was carried, give redress 
 until a poor shepherd had become mediator. As a mark 
 of the displeasure of Heaven, the scene of this offence 
 against the mother of Christ was forthwith converted 
 into a lake, which has since formed the abode of the 
 lord of all the gins and evil spirits in the land." The 
 quotation does not assign a reward to the just shep- 
 herd, but no doubt this was provided in the legend. 
 
 As much further down in Africa as between the 
 eleventh and twelfth degrees of south latitude, Dr. 
 Livingstone heard this account of the origin of Lake 
 Dilolo, which every year rises in flood over the valley 
 on its banks: "A female chief named Mocna (lord) 
 Monenga came one evening to the village of Mosogo, a 
 man who lived in the vicinity, but had gone to hunt 
 with his dogs. She asked for a supply of food, and 
 Mosogo's wife gave her a sufficient quantity. Proceed- 
 ing to another village, standing on the spot now occu- 
 pied by the water, she preferred the same demand ; but 
 when she uttered a threat for their niggardliness, was 
 taunted with the question, ' What could she do though 
 she were thus treated?' In order to show what she 
 could do, she began a song in slow tune, and uttered 
 her own name, Monenga-woo. As she prolonged the 
 last note, the village people, fowls, and dogs sank into 
 the space now called Dilolo. When Kasimakata, the 
 head man of the village, came home and found out the 
 catastrophe, he cast himself into the lake, and* is sup- 
 posed to be in it still. The name is derived from dilolo,
 
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF OVID, IN ACTS. 325 
 
 Despair, because this man gave up all hope when his 
 family was destroyed. Monenga was put to death." 
 
 See ' Once a Week' for 13th June, 1861, for a pretty 
 version of this staple tale, accounting for it is said, ac- 
 cording to a local tradition the origin of the lake of 
 Gidlen in the island of Ilugen, in the Baltic. 
 
 It is represented, then, that at Lycaonia Paul found 
 the Lystrans still apt to believe that the gods whom 
 they worshipped had of old, wherefore might they not 
 again 1 come down amongst them in human shape to 
 test and to descry their ways. 
 
 As the story now reads, the expostulation of Paul is 
 directed to correct the error of the populace in taking 
 men, himself, namely, arid Barnabas, for gods ; I sus- 
 pect that in the original account, the argument that was 
 at least ascribed to him, aimed simply to discredit the 
 superstition that Jupiter and Hermes were gods at all, 
 or had ever, as the hearers supposed, come amongst 
 them as men. In contrast with such " absurdities" is 
 put forth the doctrine of the living God, to whom, in- 
 deed, were due those very benefits with which the Tya- 
 neian legend connected the visitants from Olympus, 
 " who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and 
 all things that are therein;" who for the generations 
 hitherto had allowed the Gentiles to take their own 
 courses with no personal interference, but still had not 
 " left himself without witness, doing good and sending 
 from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, filling hearts with 
 food and gladness." 
 
 This in some original record may very easily have been 
 a summary of the argument by which Paul was repre- 
 sented, nay, may even have been truly recorded, as seek-
 
 326 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 ing to divert the Lystrans from their idolatry and idola- 
 trous sacrifices. That the sacrifice in hand was a sacri- 
 fice, not to their established gods regarded as former -visi- 
 tors, but to their present visitors regarded as gods, I take 
 to be a change that supervened upon the story, at the 
 same time that the conversion of Lystrans came to be 
 narrated as the miraculous cure of a man, by virtue of 
 his " having faith to be saved," a proper sign of moral 
 vigour, not of muscular, of a lameness from birth, so 
 that he who had never walked in his life at once stood 
 up erect, and walked about and leapt. 
 
 It may be said that we know nothing of the extent or 
 moral condition of Lystra, and that such a besotted 
 blunder may not be beyond probabilities in a secluded 
 provincial town at that time, any more than the recep- 
 tion of Mad Thorn as a prophet by the be-squired and 
 be-rectored peasantry of Kent in our own. Perhaps 
 not ; but likely sources of misconception in the case are 
 suspiciously near at hand. It is said that the crowd de- 
 clares the divinity of the Apostles in the Lycaonian lan- 
 guage ; this seems apparently intended to explain how it 
 was that Paul and Barnabas did not interrupt the pre- 
 parations for sacrifice until it was on the point of being 
 consummated, but it brings us to the difficulty how, 
 then, did the crowd understand the Apostle's rebuke ? 
 No doubt many of these Asiatic towns were as fluently 
 bilingual as settlements of French Creoles on the banks 
 of the Mississippi ; but, then, they need not have chosen 
 just the language the Apostles did not understand for 
 proclaiming their veneration. 
 
 Really, as the narrative stands, there is an opening 
 for the imputation that the Apostles were over-hasty in
 
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF OVID, IN ACTS. 327 
 
 snatching a compliment that was never intended for 
 them. " The priest of Jupiter that was before the city, 
 brought oxen and garlands to the pylons (of the sacred 
 precinct, we infer), and wished to sacrifice with the 
 crowds ;" but it might be suggested that only want of 
 knowledge of Lycaonian, would justify the Apostles in 
 supposing that the worship was intended for themselves. 
 
 I am inclined to suspect, however, that an original 
 narrative, whether in the fullest sense authentic or not, 
 related how Paul and Barnabas preached the Gospel to 
 heathen idolaters in Lycaonia ; setting forth the argu- 
 ments by which they endeavoured to sap a predominant 
 local superstition of the gods Jupiter and Mercury hav- 
 ing founded their temple, when visiting the earth in 
 human form. It might further proceed to declare how, 
 encouraged by success, even among the priestly class as 
 well as the multitude, they had ventured to expostulate 
 on an occasion of public sacrifice to these anthropomor- 
 phist gods. Successful or not successful, a riot speedily 
 ensued, which would be ascribed to the malignity of Jews 
 by those who were inclined or accustomed to trace this 
 malignity everywhere, but might very easily have arisen 
 on such an occasion independently of any cause but the 
 zeal of the Apostles. They had reason to feel that they 
 had overrated their influence, for, by a reaction, Paul 
 was mobbed and pelted, perhaps stoned, and very nar- 
 rowly escaped with his life. 
 
 When the establishment of a Lystran church came 
 to be narrated as a miracle of healing, it was a very na- 
 tural jumble for the interrupted sacrifice to the pair of 
 deified men or humanized gods, to be interpreted as in- 
 tended for the Apostles Paul and Barnabas, who had just
 
 328 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 displayed the possession of supernatural power in work- 
 ing such a marvel. 
 
 Thus much of truth there may be latent and overlaid 
 in the narrative, but thus much of fable at least there 
 must be, and very possibly a great deal more. 
 
 II. THE CARTOON OF THE SACRIFICE AT LYSTRA. 
 
 The scene of the picture is laid in a public place, 
 the agora or forum of Lystra, amidst an assemblage of 
 stately public buildings, and on " an area paved with 
 geometrical slabs of marble ; large dark octagons, with 
 intervals filled with small diamonds of white marble. 
 Niches on the walls and between the columns of one of 
 the buildings are filled with statues, apparently not of 
 divinities, and suggestive of the readiness with which 
 such honours were accorded in this city. The usual 
 glimpse of country and open sky is obtained in the 
 background, and against the open sky is seen relieved a 
 statue of Mercury Caducifer upon a lofty pedestal ; an 
 indication of the special regard of the Lystrans for the 
 god, the god of interpretation and of eloquence. 
 
 The pylons of the text seem to be conceived as the 
 entrances to a temple or sacred precinct, and are indi- 
 cated by the portal of the building seen at a distance to 
 the right, through which a lounger advances leisurely ; 
 and by an entrance nearer to the front, on the advanced 
 step of which Paul is already standing, while Barnabas 
 descends upon it with hasty bound from within. 
 
 In front of this entrance, a little aside, is an enriched 
 altar of square, not triangular, plan, and placed with 
 one angle directly fronting the spectator, so that two of
 
 THE SACKIFICE AT LYSTRA. 329 
 
 its sides are equally displayed. The opposite angle is 
 obscured by the interposed flame, but both the tapestries 
 and perspective declare for a square abacus ; boys with 
 incense-box and pipes are ministrant, and to this is 
 brought the sacrifice by the priest of Jupiter with full 
 attendance and apparatus of divine service, while the 
 crowd presses on behind, and the cured cripple rushes 
 in with every sign of activity and of gratitude. 
 
 Paul, in grief and indignation at the impiety of which 
 he has been the unwitting cause, is rending at least 
 disordering his garments, and looks down with repu- 
 diating look at the man crowned with leaves, who has 
 brought in the ram intended as appropriate sacrifice to 
 him as Hermes, god of flocks, and who returns the look 
 with questioning surprise. The caduceus of the statue 
 of Hermes " dressed " with fresh foliage, denotes that it 
 is his festivity. 
 
 One of the bulls, for Barnabas as Jupiter, is just on 
 the point of being slaughtered by the priest of Jupiter, 
 the leader and promoter of all, and towards this group 
 Barnabas, who " leaps " forward, according to the text, 
 and descends on the ball of his foot, is looking out. 
 
 One priest on his knees retains the head of the bull,* 
 and looks up with eyes full of reverence at the Apostles ; 
 a second wields the poleaxe. His right hand grasps the 
 extremity of the helve, while the left slides upward to- 
 wards the head, soon to descend, and the instrument has 
 just taken its full swing to the left preparatory to the 
 blow. The axe, as it is shown in engravings, and, as far 
 as I can discern, in Cartoon and tapestry, would give no 
 fatal blow to sacrificial ox ; it lacks the spike that, not 
 alone in modern slaughter-houses, penetrates through
 
 330 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 the forehead to the brain, but that is shown no less, 
 sometimes slightly recurved, in all the Roman bas-reliefs 
 that I have seen of this sacrificial group ; there is one 
 at Mantua, another at Florence. 
 
 Behind the kneeling priest are two other garlanded 
 devotees, also on their knees, and looking up with like 
 engrossment of concentrated interest. Beyond the stri- 
 king priest are two other officials, officially serious and 
 hooded and stoled. Their formality might be taken to 
 represent the stolid impassiveness of the hackney priests 
 who fill the choir and mumble the chant with equal in- 
 difference in whatever service, to whatever god ; there 
 is, however, in the expression, of one especially, more of 
 the ironical self-restraint of augurs, who cautiously 
 avoid to intercross their glances on such an occasion lest 
 they should laugh in each other's faces. Senile con- 
 currence in one face displays the irony in the other, a 
 much younger, but experienced man. Rafael must 
 have had ample opportunity for studies of both kinds. 
 The heads of two others are just visible behind. 
 
 At the left corner of the picture, the right of the un- 
 reversed Cartoon, the cured cripple hurries in with 
 hands lifted and eyes sparkling in grateful adoration. 
 On the ground lie his abandoned crutches, and we be- 
 hold his leg restored to usefulness, with foot planted 
 flat and firmly upon the ground, if even yet it seems 
 scarcely to play with the elasticity that will come with 
 practice. An old man following lifts the margin of the 
 scanty and sordid skirt to examine it more nearly, and 
 the gesture of his disengaged hand shows his marvel 
 and conviction. A younger man and a youth partake 
 of his curiosity, and press to look over his shoulder.
 
 THE SACRIFICE AT LYSTRA. 331 
 
 Above these heads are two female heads, which, by the 
 direction of their gaze and in their expression, connect 
 the marvel of the miracle with Paul. One is an aged and 
 toothless, but vigorous and shrewd-looking crone, who 
 screens her eyes and looks towards Paul with the same 
 glance and gesture that Dante ascribes in a simile to 
 his old tailor threading a needle ; the other female is 
 young, and, with head erect, looks steadily and without 
 effort, in the same direction. The aged dame is not in- 
 troduced without a special purpose, and it is not for 
 nothing that the curious scrutinizer of the recovered 
 limb is so well stricken in years. These are the very 
 oldest inhabitants of Lystra, and in their testimonial 
 astonishment we have vouchers for the previous lame- 
 ness of the man, by evidence that would easily reach 
 backward to the date of his birth. 
 
 Rushing and driving through the close crowd, and 
 with eager arm reaching across the broad back of 
 the sacrificial bull to stay the stroke of the priest, we 
 see the eager young disciple Timothy ; to obtain this 
 character for his dramatic scene, Rafael had to read on 
 in the Acts of the Apostles beyond the chapter that de- 
 scribes the superstitious sacrifice. His arm comes in 
 front of the two down-looking haruspices with much of 
 that gain of expression which the arm of Paul, in the 
 scene before Sergius Paulus, gains by being relieved 
 against the upright forms of the guarding lictors. The 
 head of Timothy is so inclined as to aid the full exten- 
 sion of his arm, and we see his excitement not only in 
 the strain, but in the open and fluttering fingers. Close 
 to his youthful and ingenuous face, but on the opposite 
 flank of the animal, appears the face of a female, older,
 
 332 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 and yet still young, still young, though her head be 
 hooded with her mantle, matron-like, perhaps widow- 
 like. I do not doubt that this is the believing mother 
 of Timothy, who is mentioned in Acts, and has a name, 
 Eunice, in the impugned Epistle to Timothy. She 
 looks towards Paul with a tranquil air of affectionate 
 reverence, that bespeaks her a disciple in Christ, not 
 sharing the madness of the crowds. The grandmother 
 Lois I prefer to miss entirely, rather than to identify her 
 in the peering crone at the extreme left. 
 
 A second bull is being brought along by other atten- 
 dants, who also wear the wreaths of festive ceremony. 
 
 Rafael adapted the group and details of the sacrifice 
 from certain well-known works of antiquity, and, like 
 the architecture introduced, they imply a pomp and 
 profusion somewhat beyond the proprieties taken strictly, 
 of a simple-minded and secluded population. 
 
 The design, however, not the less remains a signifi- 
 cant embodiment of the event, the earliest type of the 
 influence of Christianity and of the rhetoric of Chris- 
 tian missionaries upon Pagans and upon minds that, 
 in respect of culture or acuteness, are semi-barbarous. 
 We have here a very significant illustration at an early 
 date, of the opportunities of influence and power that lie 
 in the way of those who devote themselves to evangeli- 
 zing the heathen, the temptations and the abuse of zeal 
 which has sometimes turned missionaries in our own co- 
 lonies into land-speculators, sometimes erected political 
 hierarchies, as in Paraguay. Here we have a prospect 
 which might warm the ambition of a college de propagan- 
 ddjide ; the sequel of the story, the reaction which led 
 to the stoning of Paul, gives a warning that was as little
 
 TIMOTHY OF LYSTKA, AND ACCOMMODATION. 333 
 
 thrown away, that if the promise is to be made the 
 most of, and the career of success to be uninterrupted, 
 the new doctrines and superstitions must not be too 
 eager or too scrupulous in renouncing relationship with 
 those that are to be superseded ; that means must be 
 found for softening off the shock of change, even 
 though it should happen, as happened too surely in the 
 Roman world, that when the change was rested in as 
 complete, the new doctrine proved to have consented 
 to incorporate a large proportion of all that was most 
 mischievous in the old. 
 
 This is the lesson that priestly astuteness might derive 
 for itself, it is not that which Rafael sets forth. The 
 incident, as he displays it, inculcates the beauty of 
 Apostolic humility as impressively as it illustrates Apos- 
 tolic power, let Pope and Cardinal read it as they might. 
 
 The perspective of the picture is rather peculiar in 
 the nearness of the point of view. 
 
 The converging lines of the pavement give us the 
 point of sight, and thence the horizon. The distance 
 along horizon from point of sight to point intersected 
 by prolongation of one side of the base of the altar, 
 the diagonal of a square, gives distance of eye from 
 the picture, and this proves to be less than its breadth. 
 I suspect that Eafael made his adjustment to suit a pre- 
 determined angular presentation of the altar. 
 
 III. TIMOTHY OF LYSTRA, AND ACCOMMODATION. 
 
 It was, as I have inferred elsewhere, after Paul and 
 Barnabas had returned from the present journey to their 
 starting-place at Antioch. in Syria, to report of marvels
 
 334 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 wrought, and churches founded among the heathen, 
 that the discussion with Peter occurred, and the dissen- 
 sion with the Pharisaic brethren, as to the very prin- 
 ciple and basis of the success ; the council at Jerusalem ; 
 the compromise of the decree ; the Galatian letter, with 
 its unabated resolve, dating, in the interval, between 
 the dissension and the enforced compromise, and before 
 Paul had returned a third time to Jerusalem. 
 
 It was after that crisis, which we have already con- 
 sidered, that Paul again visited Derbe and Lystra ; this 
 time -it was in company with Silas, an elder of the 
 church at Jerusalem, one of the envoys, indeed, to 
 whom the Apostolic decree had been committed ; and, 
 accordingly, we read that " as they passed through the 
 cities they delivered them the dogmata that had been 
 sanctioned by the Apostles and elders at Jerusalem, 
 for them to observe." Can this be true'? we ask our- 
 selves ; and how far is it compatible with the strenuous 
 principles of his Epistles to these very churches ? But 
 this was not all ; we read further : " And he came down 
 to Derbe and Lystra ; and, behold, a certain disciple was 
 there, named Timothy, the son of a believing Jewess 
 and a Greek father, who was well reported of by the 
 brethren at Lystra and Iconium. Him Paul wished to 
 go forth with him, and took and circumcised him, be- 
 cause of the Jews who were in those places, for they 
 all knew his father that he was a Greek. And as they 
 went through the cities they delivered to them the de- 
 crees to observe that were ordained by the Apostles 
 and elders that were in Jerusalem." (Acts xvi. 1-4.) 
 
 It is at least in accordance with such concessions that 
 this time we hear nothing of mobbings and persecutions
 
 TIMOTHY OF LYSTRA, AND ACCOMMODATION. 335 
 
 in these parts. But not alone the consistency of his- 
 tory, the consistency of Paul is at issue. Paul, if in- 
 deed we may trust the history that he acted thus, must 
 have been doing violence to his feelings, and scarcely 
 less in delivering the Apostolic decree, to the funda- 
 mental principle of which he was so utterly opposed. 
 How far would the concession in this instance, if justly 
 imputed, compromise principle as well as feeling \ Let 
 us hear more. 
 
 It would appear, in the first place, that the fact 
 that the father of Timotheus was a Greek was pre- 
 sumption that he himself was not circumcised; and 
 the fact that he was of Jewish blood by the mother's 
 side rendered circumcision, according to the prejudices 
 of the Jews, obligatory upon him. Half-blood made 
 him a Jew, not a Gentile, in the eyes of the Jews at 
 large, and probably would have done so in those of 
 the church at Jerusalem, and thus would debar him 
 from the privileges in respect of the customs, conceded 
 by the decree to Gentile converts. 
 
 James, in his authoritative decision and decree, parries 
 the liberal motion ascribed to Peter, and leaves the 
 Jewish brother with an unqualified responsibility to 
 the law as weekly expounded ; and, at a later date the 
 church at Jerusalem assumes that upon this point there 
 is no question even with Paul, and so that church 
 continued; as to the Greek, the decree at least released 
 him from circumcision, though insisting upon some 
 other limitations of dangerous tendency. 
 
 Had Timothy, therefore, been unequivocally a Greek, 
 Paul, by subjecting him to circumcision, would indeed 
 have been very grievously receding from the position
 
 336 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 he had successfully maintained in the case of Titus, and 
 that had since been sanctioned by the decree. But if 
 he was bound, or felt bound, or, under a difficulty, ad- 
 mitted himself bound to regard Timothy as a Jew, how 
 stood the case then with his consistency ? In Galatians 
 he states his compact with the Apostles to have been 
 that he should address himself to the heathen, and they 
 to the circumcision ; but this distribution could not 
 have been understood on either side as exclusive, and 
 as we cannot suppose that James, Peter, and John, how- 
 ever liberally disposed, were then prepared to go the 
 full public length of denouncing the Law as not only 
 unnecessary for Jews, but the observance of it a breach 
 of Christian duty, so Paul, too, may reasonably be sup- 
 posed to have made the concession to weak brethren 
 of his nation ; or even to the bolder, who were hedged 
 in by difficulties and dangers insuperable, unless by 
 temporizing and some little reticence. That he had al- 
 ready made up his mind that the Law was an obsolete 
 and dangerous abuse, abrogated to all intents and pur- 
 poses once and for ever, I do not doubt ; and writing 
 under excitement, not to say irritation, to the Galatians, 
 he does not hesitate to say as much ; nevertheless, con- 
 sidering how much was at stake for the internal cor- 
 diality and union of the church, it is to me quite con- 
 ceivable that uncompromising words were qualified in 
 act by such charities as he inculcates on the Corinthians 
 in respect to scruples about meats and days ; and, that 
 while he communicated the trenchant Apostolic decree, 
 he did not withhold from such qualifications as we find 
 him allowing to the same Corinthians in respect of 
 mixed marriages and things offered to idols, etc., as
 
 TIMOTHY OF LYSTRA, AND ACCOMMODATION. 337 
 
 would leave little value indeed for the original Aposto- 
 lic authority and sanction. 
 
 Is it quite impossible that he may have submitted to 
 the sacrifice, and shall we disallow the historical fact 
 entirely ? I think we should be rash. The record it- 
 self clearly implies that Paul acted under a compul- 
 sion ; the writer is cognizant of the direction of his sym- 
 pathies, and admits implicitly that, if he could have 
 kept the Greek paternity or the uncircumcised condi- 
 tion secret, Paul would have done so ; and a fortiori, 
 that had he been able with prudence to declare openly 
 his repugnance to the rite altogether, whether for Jew 
 or half-Jew, he would have spoken out with alacrity 
 and joy ; but we have Paul's own admissions how far 
 he could carry accommodation when driven by the dire 
 compulsion of " needs must." 
 
 This anecdote is but one of the many instances by 
 which the compiler of Acts seems willing to exemplify 
 the serious, if not questionable concessions that even 
 an Apostle would make might be reduced to make 
 with whatever repugnance, for the sake of concord ; and 
 the management that was necessary, and therefore, it is 
 implied, allowable, in dangerous times for the sake of 
 avoiding the machinations of enemies, or escaping a 
 fatal catastrophe. 
 
 There is much appearance that at the edit date of 
 Acts, the passion for inviting martyrdom, or the scru- 
 pulousness as to temporary concession or even caution 
 for the purpose of escaping it, were rising in the Church, 
 and that tact in slipping through such complications, 
 is set forth by high example in place of counter-argu- 
 ment. The amusing comedy of the riot pacified by the
 
 338 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 town clerk of Ephesus is scarcely more relished by the 
 writer, than the dexterity with which Paul foils now a 
 captain, now a Sanhedrin, and now an oratorical Ter- 
 tullus, and, as I suspect, on occasions like the present 
 the very Apostles themselves; he has a manifest bias 
 of his own to inculcate prudent, temporizing, even 
 shifty accommodation ; does he impute actions to Paul 
 falsely or negligently, to favour his bias] That Paul 
 himself avows how far in action he qualified stringent 
 principle by policy, makes this difficult to determine ; 
 a dangerous admission, apt to be abused by smaller 
 minds without the compelling occasion, and too often 
 staining a party or a Church with the last disgrace, 
 worse than pusillanimity, of dishonourableness. 
 
 Such, however, are the conditions of our moral being 
 when we move for the furtherance of great, of noble 
 enterprise, beyond the easy and the beaten track where 
 every duty is preceptively defined and reason never 
 called upon to arbitrate in conflicts of obligation ; and 
 when right election at last must be left to the im- 
 pulse of overruling feeling which may have its full 
 justification, but possibly far beyond the ken of the 
 agent himself, and giving him up sometimes not merely 
 to the imputations of the envious that is a little thing 
 but to his own most unmerited remorse.
 
 839 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 PAUL IN THE PBISON AT PHILIPPI. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN APOSTLE IN ORPHIC THRACE. 
 
 " AT the time of the earthquake. The earthquake is 
 personified by a giant who has torn an opening in the 
 earth. Behind the grate of the prison the Apostle is 
 seen in prayer ; in front are the guards. (A. very small 
 tapestry: the cartoon does not exist.)" Kugler, partii. 
 cap. iv. 
 
 The above extract, for want of more detailed descrip- 
 tion and in the absence of an engraving, must be my 
 text for what observations I can oifer on the pertinence 
 of the design. An engraving of the giant, of little 
 value, is to be found among Rogers's engravings after 
 the ancient masters. 
 
 It is on St. Paul's second missionary journey when he 
 is accompanied by Silas and Timotheus, that he crosses 
 over from Troas to Neapolis, in Macedonia, and thence 
 passes on to the neighbouring Philippi, the chief city of 
 its district and a colony. The privileges of a colony had 
 been granted to the city at no very remote date by Au- 
 gustus, in commemoration of his victory over Brutus and 
 Cassius, the closing disaster of the history of republican 
 
 z 2
 
 340 CHKISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 Rome. The region has associations of interest with a 
 much earlier history; the portion about Philippi is a 
 plain lying between the ranges of Mounts Hsemus and 
 Panga3us, a large level of fertility and verdure, bounded 
 by ranges of snowy summits and by slopes native to the 
 blushes of the rose. In earlier geography the country 
 belongs to Thrace to the Thrace of the Pierian wor- 
 shippers of Apollo, to the Thrace of Orpheus, minstrel 
 and mystic priest, magian and orderer of pure and phi- 
 losophical life. 
 
 The story of Paul's sojourn at Philippi, as we now 
 read it in the Acts, is wonderful enough : neither marvels 
 nor enhancements of marvels are spared. Still, I am 
 disposed to think that though here, as at Lystra, we have 
 to do with a legend, the legend is again not without 
 some obligations to an original and authentic tradition 
 of his movements and adventures as well as to a fund 
 of local associations. 
 
 The account of the circumstances of the imprison- 
 ment is introduced just after the commencement of the 
 personal narrative of Acts (xvi. 11); but the first person 
 is already dropped, not to be resumed till the history 
 has passed over some years, and then again at Philippi 
 (xx. 5, 6). 
 
 Whoever this personal narrator may have been, and 
 I am not disposed to give him up as a mere invention, for 
 why, then, was not the invention more sustained and 
 definite'? whoever may have been the companion of 
 Paul, whose personal notes seem to have been incorpo- 
 rated with the Acts, he in no instance commits himself 
 as an authority for a miracle that will not explain itself 
 easily, though at the same time he gives pretty clear
 
 THE CHRISTIAN APOSTLE IN ORPHIC THRACE. 341 
 
 indication of a relish for the miraculous when it may 
 be come by without much risk or violence. Thus, at a 
 later date he records Paul's visions and revelations, the 
 recovery of Eutychus, and the not very wonderful in- 
 cident of the chilled serpent at Melita. At Philippi he 
 narrates in direct phraseology the casting out of the 
 spirit of divination from the soothsaying damsel ; this is 
 just such an occurrence as might and does occur within 
 the range of the most critical observers of mesmeric 
 phenomena. Abstraction being made of all that is de- 
 moniacal mere technicalities of the time, nothing re- 
 mains either in the excited demonstrations of the girl 
 or in her settled tranquillity after commanding and con- 
 fident rebuke, that they who are curious in such matters 
 may not hear of or be witnesses of, in any metropolis in 
 Europe in our own day. 
 
 The narrative tells of a damsel " following Paul and 
 us," and as the collective pronoun must include at least 
 two persons, the presumption is in favour of the two 
 companions named as in his company, Silas and Timo- 
 theus. That Silas was not the narrator seems proved 
 by his being forthwith spoken of along with Paul in the 
 third person (xvii. 10), and that in a section which there 
 is no particular reason for supposing interpolated. We 
 are then cast upon Timothy ; but (xvii. 14-16) Timothy 
 is joined with Silas in the third person, and he also 
 seems to be excluded. Yet it were possible that this 
 might be a hasty conclusion. We shall see reason to 
 consider that the incident of the imprisonment at Phi- 
 lippi has been tampered with, to say the least, and that 
 here, as in some other cases, foreign materials have been 
 interpolated in the personal narrative. To this class of
 
 342 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 interpolations, authentic or not, I assign the section of 
 Paul's residence at Athens, with a report of his speech 
 there while he was waiting for Silas and Timothy. The 
 continuity of narration would have been too grossly 
 damaged had the introduction to the incidents (xvii. 16) 
 run thus : " While Paul waited for us to arrive, he de- 
 livered this address to the Athenians," and the person 
 may have been changed accordingly, to accommodate 
 the inserted paragraph. But no such explanation will 
 remove the incongruity which would attend another re- 
 appearance of Timothy, on the supposition that he is 
 the personal narrator. He is one of a list of seven of 
 whom it is said : " These went on before us and tarried 
 for us at Troas, and we sailed away from Philippi after 
 the days of the unleavened bread, and came unto them 
 to Troas " (xx. 6). It seems to me therefore not probable, 
 though I will not repudiate a possibility, that the per- 
 sonal narrator could have been Timothy. In any case I 
 do not hesitate to disallow that either one or the other 
 could have been the compiler of the third Gospel and 
 of Acts. To increase the confusion, the narrator disso- 
 ciates himself from Paul in the journey from Caesarea 
 to Jerusalem. Whoever he may have been, he is not im- 
 plicated in the account of the incidents in the prison at 
 Philippi, which came from another authority, or passed 
 through other hands that obliterated the stamps of the 
 original author. 
 
 Nothing is directly stated of the Apostles having ex- 
 tended their ministry at Philippi beyond the Jewish 
 community and its immediate adherents, but when the 
 masters of the divining girl, incensed at the loss of their 
 profitable oracle, raise a disturbance, the accusation be-
 
 THE CHRISTIAN APOSTLE IN ORPHIC THRACE. 343 
 
 fore the magistrates runs, that " these men, being Jews, 
 are introducing discord and teaching foreign supersti- 
 tions." The crowd are clamorous ; the magistrates, as 
 represented, are very pliant and very summary, have the 
 prisoners stripped, beaten with rods and cast into prison; 
 the next morning, as though the punishment inflicted 
 was considered at least sufficient, came the order of re- 
 lease. There is no great difficulty in accepting all this 
 as matter of fact, and we may find as little in suppo- 
 sing it possible that the protestations of the prisoners 
 that they were Eoman citizens, or at least one of them, 
 were disregarded at night, but came to be considered 
 more seriously in the morning, and were made the 
 ground by the sufferers, of exacting from the officials 
 something very like an apology. Unless there were 
 some cunning policy in saying nothing about the citizen- 
 ship, when it was not inquired about, we must conclude 
 that the story lapses when it implies that the first the 
 captains heard of it was the next morning. 
 
 By the side of this tolerably consequential and at least 
 natural series of events, we have the supernatural series 
 very slightly connected, which furnishes the subject of 
 the design for the tapestry, for the lost Cartoon. " And 
 when they (the captains) had laid many stripes upon 
 them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to 
 keep them safely : who, having received such charge, 
 thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet 
 fast in the stocks. And at midnight Paul and Silas 
 prayed, and sang hymns to God ; and the prisoners 
 listened to them. And suddenly there was a great 
 earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were 
 shaken ; and immediately all the doors were opened,
 
 344 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 and every one's bonds were loosed. And the jailor 
 awaking, and seeing the prison doors open, drew his 
 sword, and would have killed himself, believing that the 
 prisoners had fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, say- 
 ing, Do thyself no harm : for we are all here. Then he 
 called for light, and sprang in, and trembled, and fell 
 before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out, and 
 said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved I And they said, 
 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
 saved, and thy house. And they spoke the word of the 
 Lord unto him, and to all that were in his house. And 
 he took them in the same hour of the night, and washed 
 them from the stripes ; and was baptized, he and all his, 
 straightway. And bringing them into his house, he set 
 out a table, and rejoiced, with all his house believing in 
 God." 
 
 There is of course nothing impossible in the coin- 
 cidence of an earthquake with the time of the impri- 
 sonment, and nothing in the influence it might have 
 had upon the superstition of a jailor ; but I think we 
 should be wrong in accepting even thus much for his- 
 tory; and besides the implied dependence of the two 
 events on each other, which is self-condemned, I very 
 much doubt whether all the rest of the section just ex- 
 tracted is better than pure mythus from beginning to 
 end ; or if not pure, mythus heightened by conscious 
 elaboration. 
 
 The ordinary precautions of Roman prisons might 
 have been trusted to detain the prisoners ; and only an 
 intention to give force to a miracle required the intro- 
 duction of the special charge to the jailor, the inner 
 prison, and, even within that second and interior dungeon,
 
 THE CHRISTIAN APOSTLE IN ORPHIC THRACE. 345 
 
 the stocks. So in the tale of the miraculous jail-de- 
 liverance of Peter, precaution is heaped upon difficulty, 
 the captive has chains on his hands, sleeps between two 
 soldiers, keepers before the door kept the prison, and 
 the rescue has to pass the first and second ward, and 
 after those the iron gate opening to the city. 
 
 The secondary improbabilities are abundant and 
 salient enough. How it came that the jailor alone 
 slept while the prisoners were all waking, if not kept 
 awake by the prayers and hymns of the Apostles ; why 
 his desperation should be so hasty as to proceed to the 
 extremity of suicide before making any examination 
 whatever ; how Paul in the dark could have answered 
 for the presence of the other prisoners as well as himself, 
 or have known what the jailor was about with his 
 sword ; what could have been the nature and value of 
 the belief in the Lord Jesus Christ which the jailor had 
 an opportunity of entertaining between the interval of 
 midnight earthquake and little beyond midnight bath 
 and meal ; what the value for the jailor, and what for 
 his household whose belief is either taken for granted 
 by Paul as following the master's, or is claimed as a bye- 
 stipulation that a little improves a bargain ; how the 
 jailor reconciled it with his responsibility and the special 
 charge, to transfer his prisoners from the cells of the 
 public prison into his own house, adjoining though it 
 might be, all these are questions which involve an army 
 of improbabilities. History the most veracious is no 
 doubt made up of improbabilities, and historical truth 
 is never obtainable by a mere balance of probabilities 
 in the absence of positive evidence which no improba- 
 bility can discredit. The possibility might therefore be
 
 346 CHRISTIANITY IX THE .CARTOOKS. 
 
 admitted that some of these unlikely details are founded 
 on fact, or easily might have been ; but we are bound 
 no point beyond. The earthquake is represented as a 
 miraculous interposition ; the circumstances that precede 
 it are manifestly adjusted to give relief and effect to 
 the deliverance ; and so, for the incidents that follow, 
 we may with confidence declare that, whether by fiction 
 or by colouring, they are combined for the purpose 
 of giving lustre to the characters and function of the 
 Apostles, to illustrate their dignity and the spontaneous 
 vigour with which the Gospel that they preached, won 
 upon the veneration of even the class to which the 
 jailor would belong, and carried over whole households 
 suddenly and enthusiastically to the Church. 
 
 Besides the parallel to the delivery of Peter from 
 the prison of Herod, this Philippian incident has certain 
 points of resemblance to the conversion of the centu- 
 rion Cornelius, the baptism of himself and his house- 
 hold, and that implied entertainment by him of his 
 Jewish converter which, it is related, opened the ques- 
 tion of the relation of Jewish ceremonialism and Gentile 
 conversion, in the first instance. 
 
 Of these parallel deliverances, who shall say which is 
 the earliest in date, which lent, and which was the bor- 
 rower of characteristic inventions? There may have 
 been intermediate legends and forms of legend that are 
 now lost, who shall say? In respect of marvellous- 
 ness there is really not much to choose between the two 
 stories ; but we may justly inquire into the cause of the 
 difference of the machinery, how came another narrator, 
 or the same, to employ a natural agency in one case, a 
 spiritual in the other, when in neither was there any
 
 THE CHRISTIAN APOSTLE IN ORPHIC THRACE. 347 
 
 scruple as to economizing the supernatural I Why, when 
 the scene was at Philippi, was it elected or suggested to 
 expend an earthquake for the same service for which at 
 Jerusalem it was preferred to detail an angel I Does 
 the difference imply that the delivery of Peter is more 
 directly from a Hebrew source, or that at least a certain 
 feeling of local keeping and poetical propriety made an 
 angel of the Lord a very plausible agency in Judaea, 
 and above all at Jerusalem, but nothing less than an 
 incongruous intrusion elsewhere I 
 
 In point of fact, I have no doubt that a like sense 
 of local propriety governed the introduction of the 
 earthquake of Macedonia. We have seen that the same 
 spirit of legend that brought angels into play in Judaea, 
 caught up the local mythology of Lycaonia, Pagan 
 though it might be, to elaborate marvels for Paul and 
 Barnabas at Lystra ; and even so again at Philippi, not 
 much perspicacity, and only so much candour as ought 
 to be matter of course, are required to detect or iden- 
 tify in the miracle there, the modified forms of old local 
 fabulous associations. The key to the mystery is in the 
 notice that the earthquake takes place with all the im- 
 plication of an effect following a cause, upon the fet- 
 tered Paul and Silas praying and singing hymns to God, 
 while all the prisoners listen. We do not meet else- 
 where in Acts with notice of the singing of hymns as 
 part of usual devotional exercise ; and the sudden and 
 supernatural effect that ensues in this instance trans- 
 forms the hymn into something of the speciality of an 
 incantation. Even so ; we are now in the primitive 
 region of Orpheus, the ancient reputed author of a fund 
 of holy and mystic hymns, and had Pausanias fortu-
 
 348 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 nately included this tract of Thrace in his description of 
 Greece from personal visit, we should probably have 
 found among his gleanings, from rites and monuments, 
 from administrators of local sanctities and sanctuaries, 
 that traditions from primitive times still lived on here, 
 as in Attica or in Bceotia, unsuperseded by Koman en- 
 croachments or by the elegant transformations of the 
 refined age of Greek poetry. The lyre, the hymns of 
 Orpheus, were fabled to have drawn not only savage 
 men and animals, and even trees, but rocks themselves 
 obeyed its influence (Apollodorus), just as at the sound 
 of the lyre of Amphion the rocks rolled together and 
 fitted themselves in even piles to form the walls of 
 Thebes. Pausanias has a strange story to tell of a dis- 
 astrous inundation which befell, in agreement with a 
 prediction, when the bones of Orpheus were exposed to 
 the sun. This condition he relates to have occurred 
 when his monument was overturned, an accident 
 which was due to the song of a shepherd, who, as he 
 slept reclining against it, was inspired by song, and 
 gathered round him such an eager crowd, that their 
 pressure overthrew the fatal basis. This legend is it- 
 self probably very corrupt. It reads as if originally the 
 fall of the monument and urn must in some way have 
 been due to the inspired song, and an inspired singer 
 with closed eyes suggests a Thamyris or a Homer, a 
 blind minstrel ; and we ask, is not the legend one of 
 the same class as that which threatened that Bacon's 
 mansion would fall when a greater than he should pass 
 by it! 
 
 However, for our present purpose we are only con- 
 cerned with the traditional influence of the song of
 
 THE CHRISTIAN APOSTLE IN ORPHIC THRACE. 349 
 
 Orpheus over even unorganized nature, the influence 
 that was likely enough to be in favour in the confines 
 of Mount Pangaeus, rich in mines and active in mining 
 operations : 
 
 Avrap TOV y tveirovcriv drfiptas ovptari trerpas 
 6eAai dotSdwi/ evoTrfj TTOTa/nwi/ re pfdpa. 
 
 APOLLON., Argon, i. 
 
 The song of Paul to the true God was thus vindicated 
 as at least equivalent to the chant of Orpheus upon his 
 own ground ; it moved the subterranean powers no less ; 
 no less it humanized the severe and even the depraved ; 
 and thus is explained the import of the otherwise enig- 
 matical and irrelevant notice that, as the divine hymn 
 went on, the prisoners listened, and even when their 
 prison was opened remained as spell-bound. The circle 
 of entranced prisoners is the equivalent of the circle of 
 listening emblems of ferocity, amidst which Orpheus is 
 so frequently represented in ancient poetry and art : 
 
 " Sylvestres homines sacer interpresque Deorum 
 Csedibus et victu foedo detemiit Orpheus ; 
 Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres, rapidosque leones." 
 
 HOEAT., Ars Poet. 
 
 The miraculous release from chains is also an Orphic 
 incident ; it is among the manifestations of divinity of 
 Orphic Dionysus in the Bacchse of Euripides. (Compare 
 also the Orphic incantation that promises to make the 
 torch automatons. Eurip. Cyclops, 639.) 
 
 Even the midnight hour, the darkness, the demand of 
 a light by the astonished jailor, seem not to be without 
 mythic root in the suggestive story of the minstrel who 
 carried harmony down to the shadows of the under- 
 world, who charmed the guards of the great prison-
 
 350 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 house, and suspended the torments of the condemned. 
 I perceive even reason to suspect that the recovery of 
 Eurydice by Orpheus must have been represented in 
 some forms of the legend as exacted rather than soli- 
 cited, and Pluto and Persephone were probably as im- 
 portunate to the intruder to withdraw, to take his 
 Eurydice and go, as the Duumvirs of Philippi are repre- 
 sented to have been to Paul and Silas, were therefore 
 represented to have been, to accept an apology and 
 depart : 
 
 " Quod si fata negant veniam pro conjuge, certum est 
 Nolle redire mihi." OVID, Metam. x. 38, 39. 
 
 Even the previous distinctly personal narrative is not 
 without certain appearance of Orphic association. Thra- 
 cian Orpheus, who was believed to have originated 
 religious initiation (Paus. ix. 30), purification from sin- 
 ful deeds, the healing of diseases, and the averting of 
 divine anger, seems to reappear in the teacher who pro- 
 mises redemption, who threatens with a futurity of 
 punishments only too like the Orphic hell, who draws 
 after him crowds, and heals and remedies the defects 
 of body and of mind. The description is particularly 
 lively of the enthusiastic girl who follows on the heels 
 of the Apostle exclaiming, until he turns round sud- 
 denly and rebukes and expels the divining devil that 
 did but tell the truth. The picture calls up at least the 
 image of the shade of Eurydice following the trace of 
 the great master of love, theology, and song, until he 
 turns, in this case for himself too soon, and the charm is 
 at an end. 
 
 How much of all this is coincidence, merest casualty; 
 how much is due to the habit of mythical exposition
 
 THE CHRISTIAN APOSTLE IN ORPHIC THRACE. 351 
 
 having developed illstarred ingenuity in recognizing false 
 analogies, in making legible inscriptions out of figures in 
 sand, the writing of the wanton winds, I am not pre- 
 pared to decide positively. I am content here to origi- 
 nate a speculative view, and to record a strong opinion 
 that it will prove not destitute of fact for its foundation. 
 
 I refer to Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 295 , for cita- 
 tions respecting the prevalence of Bacchic or Orphic 
 orgiasms among the women of this region from earliest 
 times. 
 
 To Orpheus, says Creuzer, from the spirit of many 
 so-called Orphic verses, a certain Christianity was as- 
 cribed, and his lyre was employed as a symbol of the 
 might of the Gospel. He refers to Aringhi, ' Roma 
 Subterranea,' 1. 11. p. 296 seq. ; also to Fr. Munter, ' Sinn- 
 bilder der alten Christen,' s. 89, taf. 111. p. 64. 
 
 The transference of association was in truth very na- 
 tural and easy, how much so I have indicated in an 
 essay on the paintings of Polygnotus in the Lesche at 
 Delphi, where Orpheus was painted harping to heroes 
 in the underworld. Orphic marvels, Orphic rule of 
 life and the Orphic scriptures in which it was incul- 
 cated, the descent of the hero into hell for the redemp- 
 tion of Eurydice, all furnished characteristics that were 
 readily seized on. It seems clear that much that was 
 lofty and refined, and certainly much that was subtle 
 in systems of theology and severe in morals, had taken 
 fixed association about the name of Orpheus in the 
 later days of Paganism. Hence the importance ascribed 
 to the name and the school it represents by such writers 
 as Proclus and Porphyry and Plotinus, in their endea- 
 vour to elaborate a system of faith and morals that
 
 352 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 should save the world from the infatuations that were 
 clustering about Christianity in their time. 
 
 How readily parallel associations intertwine in the 
 poetical and enthusiastic imagination may be illustrated 
 here from the application of the fable of Orpheus by 
 an adherent of revived Platonism in Italy, Lorenzo de' 
 Medici : 
 
 SONETTO. 
 
 " Fugiendo Loth con la sua famiglia 
 
 La citta, ch' arse per divin giuditio ; 
 Guardando indietro, et visto el gran supplitio, 
 La donna immobil forma di sal piglia. 
 
 Tu hai fuggito, et e gran maraviglia, 
 
 La citta, ch' arde sempre in ogni vitio ; 
 Sappi, anima gentil, che '1 tuo offitio 
 E non voltare a lei giammai le ciglia. 
 
 Per ritrovarti il buon pastore eterno 
 
 Lascia el greggie, o smarrita pecorella, 
 Truovati, e lieto in braccio ti riporta. 
 
 Perse Euridice Orfeo gia in sulla porta 
 Libera quasi, per voltarsi a quella ; 
 Pero non ti voltar piu allo inferno." 
 
 Otto Venius seems to have had this sonnet in his 
 mind, though it is not cited in his text, in one of the 
 designs of his ' Emblemata Divini Amoris.' Here the 
 little damsel that personifies the soul hastens over a 
 causeway from a city that is seen in the background 
 overwhelmed with fiery rain from heaven. She is sup- 
 ported and encouraged by Divine Love, the Eros with 
 bow and quiver of Greek mythology, and with the halo 
 of the Saviour, with whom he is identified throughout. 
 The Soul bears a bough, reminiscent of the charm of 
 golden twig that carries JSneas safely past Cerberus, 
 and the shadows of the pair falling behind them are
 
 ..-*
 
 THE CHRISTIAN APOSTLE IN ORPHIC THRACE. 353 
 
 seen on the ground transfigured to a pair of furies 
 watchful with snaky hair and with snakes in their hands, 
 the expectant fiends that wait in hopes of a second 
 lost Eurydice. Orpheus and Eurydice contribute, with 
 Lot and his wife, with ^Eneas and the Sybil, to the sym- 
 bolism of the dangers of the soul and its rescue by di- 
 vine love, love of which the most comprehensive per- 
 sonification is carried up as to its home, to the Pieria 
 and the Thrace of Orpheus. It is but frigid entertain- 
 ment when, after these imaginings, we are referred by 
 Venius (p. 56) to a homily of Chrysostom for the moral 
 that, as the shadow is constant to the body, so in this 
 world is the persecution of Satanas ; or when we find 
 our own way to an antithetical couplet of Pope, 
 
 " Envy does merit like its shade pursue, 
 But, like the shadow, proves the substance true." 
 
 Thus far, then, have we wandered away. 
 
 I have no proof that Rafael had even a suspicion of 
 the pertinence of this Philippian subject of the tapes- 
 try, to Orphic legend ; at the same time I should not be 
 at all surprised to find that it had been discerned by 
 the Platonic Academy, and was thus on the ready high- 
 way to reach the friend of Castiglione. Certainly it is 
 remarkable that precisely in this design he should have 
 introduced a personification, a giant, an earth-brood, 
 that owns so direct a relation to heathen mythology, 
 and is so utterly alien to Jewish. The coincidence warns 
 that we may not be yet at an end of our pictorial ana- 
 lysis. 
 
 There is indeed another type among the Orphic legends 
 
 2 A
 
 354 CHEISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 of the environs of Philippi, that in some respects more 
 exactly corresponds with Paul praying, singing, and in- 
 fluencing elemental powers, though bound with chains 
 and stocked. This is found in the tale of Silenus, him- 
 self a son of earth, who was captured by Midas, son of 
 Gordieus, in the rose-gardens of Mount Pangaeus, and 
 sang in his bonds prophetically of another world, of the 
 commencement of all things, of the preferableness of 
 death to life. (Creuzer, Symbolik and references ; He- 
 rodot. viii. ; Virgil, Eel. vi. etc.) 
 
 For the origin of some other very circumstantially 
 narrated incidents we have to turn, not to primitive tra- 
 dition, but to the pages of all but contemporary Roman 
 history. We might be disposed to suspect that the 
 jailor, of whom it is told that he drew his sword to 
 kill himself, had no other intention with his weapon 
 than to threaten or to slay an escaping prisoner, the 
 other version being mere hasty assumption. But we 
 cannot safely venture even so far in historical conces- 
 sion in a case where so much is manifestly convicted 
 mythology. We may more justly pause upon the co- 
 incidence with the self-slaughter of Brutus and Cassius, 
 last of the Romans, on this very plain of Philippi. The 
 motives that present themselves in the suicide of Cas- 
 sius are particular characteristics in the incident of 
 Acts. It was in premature and mistaken despair that 
 he closed his career " in the high Roman fashion." He 
 misconstrues the course of his friend and messenger 
 Titinius, misinterprets and interchanges the signs of 
 his captivity or freedom, and turns to self-sought death 
 in the agony of sudden grief. 
 
 So positively does the narrative of the planting of
 
 THE CHRISTIAN APOSTLE IN OEPHIC THRACE. 355 
 
 the Gospel at Philippi relish of the place, its most 
 subtle poetry and most tragic prose. 
 
 The picture, then, taken by description, stands as a 
 link between Christianity as originally Jewish and Asi- 
 atic, and now, for the first time and expressively, Euro- 
 pean. In the peculiarity of its treatment I am dis- 
 posed to regard it as a specific enunciation of that 
 sympathy between moral and physical convulsions, 
 which, as a belief at least, has had no little force in 
 every historic crisis and catastrophe. "The stars in 
 their courses fought against Sisera." The history of 
 the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, catalogues 
 stages of physical as well as moral decline ; what might 
 not the history of Europe have been but for the storm 
 that damaged the Armada; for the dearth in France be- 
 fore the Revolution; for the unusual severity of the 
 winter when Napoleon invaded Russia ? 
 
 2 A 2
 
 356 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PAUL PKEACHING AT ATHENS. 
 
 I. THE CARTOON OF PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS. 
 
 II. CHRISTIAN PROMISE AND GREEK CULTURE. III. THE 
 
 HARMONY OF THE REVERENTIAL AND THE RIGHTLY 
 REASONABLE. 
 
 I. THE CARTOON OF PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS. 
 
 IN the scene of Paul preaching on the Areopagus at 
 Athens before groups of philosophers, Rafael found the 
 subject for his last Cartoon, or rather tapestry, the 
 close of the Biblical series of the Sistine Chapel, the 
 expressive type of the crisis in the history of Chris- 
 tianity, when it at last confronted the highest intellec- 
 tual culture previously attained by man, and avouched 
 its ability to hold its own. The Cartoon, like the his- 
 tory, does not hesitate to aver, that whatever secondary 
 points of agreement there might be between the new 
 religion and the old philosophies in certain principles, 
 the spirit and the promises of the two were very posi- 
 tively in opposition. Philosophy, in the condition that 
 it had now become reduced to, at least is represented 
 to have become reduced to, in the Roman empire, is 
 declared to be out of sympathy with Christ, and more
 
 PAUL PKEACHING AT ATHENS. 357 
 
 likely to come off worsted in a conflict than to unite in 
 common cause. The narrative in Acts which supplies 
 the theme, sets forth enthusiasm, a spirit of devotion 
 and enlarged philanthropy on one side, in contrast, 
 on the other, to gossiping disputation, curious subtlety, 
 and general coldness or contempt for devout awe as a 
 motive. 
 
 As Rafael has treated the subject, he has asserted for 
 the Christianity represented by Paul, a willingness to 
 be tested, and a claim to be admitted under the strictest 
 examination that intellectual subtlety can subject it to. 
 The Paul of Rafael represents Christianity; but not, 
 therefore, the dogmatic form of Christianity that criti- 
 cism may ultimately bring forth as proper to the great 
 Apostle. Still less is the assertion made in favour of 
 any later historical symbolon or formula, of council or of 
 papacy ; much, indeed, the reverse. Paul, as we see 
 him stand on the steps of the Areopagus in the picture, 
 is the very emblem of Religion admitting the obliga- 
 tion to accept the challenge of Philosophy. We may 
 have our doubts how far the best phase of ancient philo- 
 sophy is fairly represented in the audience as described ; 
 we may doubt as justly how far the special represen- 
 tation of Christianity put in, will hold good for very 
 moderate examination ; nay, very serious doubts must 
 be entertained how far the entire narrative in Acts, in- 
 cident and speech together, can be accepted as explicit 
 history. Fortunately, however, these uncertainties do 
 not affect the expressive value of the picture ; and the 
 contrast it embodies, the characteristics it defines, are 
 transcendental in respect of all history ; while the fact 
 that Rafael did so embody and define them is an histo-
 
 358 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 rical fact for his own time, itself one of the most inter- 
 esting epochs of intellectual and religious history. 
 
 The story of the Cartoon is thus read in the Acts of 
 the Apostles : 
 
 " Now while Paul waited for them Silas and Timo- 
 thy at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he 
 saw the city given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he 
 in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout 
 persons, and in the agora daily with them that met 
 him. And some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers 
 encountered him. And some said, What will this 
 babbler say] and others, He seemeth to be a setter 
 forth of strange demons : because he preached to them 
 the gospel of Jesus, and of the resurrection. And they 
 took him, and brought him to the Areopagus,, saying, 
 May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou 
 speakest, is 1 ? for thou bringest certain strange things 
 to our ears : we would know therefore what these things 
 mean. For all the Athenians and the strangers that 
 sojourned there spent their time in nothing else, but 
 to tell and hear something new. And Paul stood in 
 the midst of the Areopagus, and said, etc. 
 
 ..." And the times of this ignorance God over- 
 looked; but now commandeth all men everywhere to 
 repent : because he hath appointed a day, in which he 
 is about to judge the world in righteousness by a man 
 whom he hath ordained ; having given assurance to all 
 men in raising him from the dead. And when they 
 heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: 
 and others said, We will hear thee again about this. 
 Thus Paul departed from among them. But some men 
 clave to him, and believed : among whom was Diony-
 
 PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS. 359 
 
 sius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damans, and 
 others with them." 
 
 The scene of the picture is an open space amidst 
 temples and majestic buildings; the statue of Mars on 
 a basis, as an armed warrior, indicates the god of the 
 precinct. To him also seems to belong the circular 
 temple, the door of which he faces: in the niches 
 under the peristyle we see one statue bearing a buckler ; 
 another seems to w r ear the robe and laurel wreath of 
 military triumph ; the third appears to be Aphrodite, 
 the paramour of the soldier-god. Statue and architec- 
 ture alike are of Roman taste and type; the purer 
 models of the Greek were still to be recovered. 
 
 The Apostle stands at the angle of a platform raised 
 above the general level by four stately steps. He has 
 advanced quite to the edge in his eagerness. Impres- 
 siveness and dignity breathe from the air of the head, 
 and the composed energy of the entire figure, as with 
 arms extended before him, and hands raised above the 
 level of his head, with a lively force well conveyed by 
 the drawn folds of his sleeve, he seems at this moment 
 to be insisting upon the grand crowning topic of the 
 resurrection. The figure is usually spoken of as an 
 adaptation of a figure by Masaccio, to which, like the 
 Paul in the Cartoon of Elymas, it certainly bears much 
 resemblance. But in each case the force and the defi- 
 nition of expression belong to Eafael. Here, as in the 
 other Cartoon, the face of Paul is in shade ; and here 
 also again, and in a still more marked manner, the 
 erectness of the figure is defined by contrast with lines 
 upon the ground, directly at right angles to it. 
 
 The back of the statue is turned to the scene of the
 
 360 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 sermon ; the right arm and the grasped spear are ex 
 tended towards it, but the face averted looks over the 
 shield another way, There is a certain symbolical an- 
 tithesis in the lifted right arm of the immobile brazen 
 figure, to the arms of Paul instinct with life, and stretch- 
 ing forth against it in the warmth of his denunciations 
 of idolatry. The remoteness of the statue in the back- 
 ground reduces the contrast to that latent indefiniteness 
 that precludes the offensiveness of a cold conceit. 
 
 Intermediate, and in most absolute contrast to Paul, 
 stands the Epicurean philosopher, as erect as Paul him- 
 self; but while perfectly attentive, perfectly composed, 
 he takes in the discourse, listening with placid, uncon- 
 tracted brow; and with arms hanging in tranquillity 
 below the undisturbed folds of a graceful and somewhat 
 delicate robe, he watches the exhorting gestures of the 
 preacher with some of the interest of curiosity, sup- 
 ported by the polite indulgence of a gentleman. 
 
 The quietness of his expression is heightened by con- 
 trast with the listener close behind him on the left, 
 who, with bent brows and eyes towards the ground, 
 presses his left fore-finger to his lips with the signs less 
 of perplexity of thought than of being stung inwardly 
 by a self-reproach, by a conviction, if not an alarm of 
 conscience, a smitten voluptuary. On the other side 
 again of the philosopher of stronger nerve or easier 
 habit, we see behind two youthful curled and pretty- 
 favoured heads, scholars who are following him along 
 the primrose paths of the garden. Both look towards 
 the new teacher askance, one with an expression of 
 pert dislike, and one with flippancy. 
 
 From the Epicurean group, either way, the circle of
 
 PAUL PKEACHING AT ATHENS, 361 
 
 hearers is continued by a group of Stoic philosophers 
 on the right ; and, on the left, by a seated knot of eager 
 disputants, whom we shall see reason to regard as Aca- 
 demics. Both these groups give evidence of being 
 deeply affected by the intellectual drift of the discourse, 
 but with a difference that is seen in their contrasted 
 manifestations. 
 
 One of the Stoic philosophers props his chin upon 
 his two hands as they rest upon the cross-head of his 
 staff, while he bends his aged, but still piercing glance 
 upon the Apostle. The other has folded his arms in 
 his cloak, and with nearly closed eyes, and chin upon 
 his breast, has the air of abstracting his attention from 
 all but the one subject that tasks his whole powers, 
 the very impersonation of the obscurity that, no less 
 than dignity, was a leading characteristic of all the 
 writings of Chrysippus. This, the second, is the much 
 more intellectual head and countenance; his older 
 companion we might even be inclined to identify as 
 the typical Cynic " quern duplici panno patientia velat " 
 (Hor. Ep. I. xvii. 25. I refer to the note of Orellius on 
 this passage for illustrative citations; Diogenes Laer- 
 tius, vi. 22, etc.) His dress seems almost sordid, as 
 well as scanty, compared with that of the Epicurean ; 
 and the staff was, with a scrip, the ensign of the Cynic. 
 At the same time, he may be but the representative of 
 the Cynical side of Stoicism ; the staff is as frequently 
 assigned to Stoic as to Cynic, 
 
 " Vellunt tibi barbam 
 Lascivi pueri, quos tu nisifuste coerces, 
 Urgeris turba circum te stante, miserque 
 Bumperis et latras, magnorum maxime regum." 
 
 HOE. Serm. 1, iii. 135.
 
 362 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 Behind these also are to be seen a pair of pupils, a 
 mighty contrast to the students who have elected Epi- 
 curus for their guide. Their physiognomies are signi- 
 ficant of steadfast earnestness the temper that befits 
 the haunters of the Portico, the admirers of the noblest 
 ideal of human character the world has seen : 
 
 " Secta fuit servare modum, finemque tueri, 
 Naturamque sequi, vitamque impendere vero, 
 Nee sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo." 
 
 And yet, at the same time, there is a taint of coxcombry 
 even here ; and in the set uniformity of the pose of the 
 heads, the fixed brows, the settled drapery, we see hints 
 of that affectation of the school, which offered so fair a 
 mark at this very date to the shafts of Lucian. 
 
 There is something in their formality beyond the ordi- 
 nary preparations expected from a listener, 
 
 " Audire atque togam jubeo coraponere " . . . . 
 
 HOE. Serm. 2, iii. 77. 
 
 Very different is the genius of the group of seated 
 listeners and debaters. Here, methinks, we see true 
 successors of the groups of mingled elders and youths 
 that clustered around Socrates in eager and equal viva- 
 city, as he went about upon his self-imposed mission to 
 Piraeus or agora. Here the younger men are seated 
 regardlessly in the front ; and while one turns his head 
 to listen to the discussion of his seniors behind him, 
 another takes part in it uninvited, but unchecked as 
 without hesitation, and is pointing with his left hand 
 towards Paul, while declaring, if not vociferating, his 
 sentiments towards the right. 
 
 Of the seniors, one of the chief is enforcing his rea- 
 soning by much the same expressive gesture that is as-
 
 PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS. 363 
 
 signed to Socrates in the fresco of the School of Athens. 
 He presses the index finger of his left hand to the 
 thumb of the right, as if telling off the stages of a syl- 
 logism, or marking how a concession already reserved 
 affects of necessity the conclusions that have been de- 
 duced from other premises ; his opponent lends an ear 
 to the representation with an air of not unwilling can- 
 dour ; and the third head, visible between the two, is in- 
 clined towards him with all the appearance of an appeal, 
 to the effect that the logical necessity, as illustrated, can- 
 not in fairness be declined. 
 
 Immediately above the pointing hand of the young 
 man is the head of another youth, who is gazing upon 
 the Apostle, and, as I interpret, with an expression of 
 profoundest awe, which makes him quite unconscious 
 of the discussion going on so near to him ; or is the 
 turn of his head given by the motive to catch what 
 the Apostle is saying, by averting his ear from the Ba- 
 bel beside him ? This head, remote as it is, is so re- 
 lieved upon an illuminated background, and so placed, 
 as to be highly conspicuous ; and it is of great import- 
 ance in the ordination of expression. In its terminal 
 position it rounds off the composition, and answers there 
 to the effect at the other extremity of the hemicycle, of 
 the two figures we have yet to observe upon. These 
 are the nearest of all to the plane of the picture, and 
 represent the leading converts, Dionysius the Areopa- 
 gite, and the woman named Damaris. Their faces beam 
 with conviction, happiness, and joy. The right hand of 
 Damaris, it will be seen, appears below her left arm, 
 retaining her drapery ; the arms and hands of Dionysius 
 are beautifully expressive, and gain and give force by
 
 364 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 contrast to those of Paul. He appears to be ascending 
 the steps ; his raised foot would come upon the lowest, 
 or fourth. 
 
 There only remain to notice the figures behind the 
 Apostle. Of these, the standing bearded figure in shadow 
 seems to be a Jew, a great man in the synagogue ; he 
 rests his hands on the top of his stick, but appears to 
 draw up his head as if with some recoil from the tenor 
 of the doctrine at the point it has now arrived at. His 
 aspect is that of a man of intellectual capacity, of ac- 
 quirements, is it fanciful to say, of learning rather 
 than of investigation and invention, and all dominated 
 by jealousy and pride 1 
 
 If the Jew draws himself up as the direction of 
 Paul's teaching declares itself, the bulky listener who 
 stands next to him draws back with different, but equally 
 decisive, indications of distaste. He is a fellow of gross 
 habit of body, and girt in vulgar costume significant of 
 commonplace and coarse occupations. His hair is hid- 
 den by a cap perhaps nightcap which looks as though 
 donned for some protection among dirty work; his 
 slouch paunch is bestowed in a vest retained by the 
 comfortable, but not dignified, invention of a row of 
 buttons, an acknowledgment of obligation to the me- 
 chanical that would be incongruous in the array of a 
 philosopher. His cloak is crossed shawlwise over his 
 shoulders, and kilted skirts leave his limbs unimpeded 
 for the bustle of handicraft, or the general hurry-scurry 
 of business. Lastly, we see the two weighted ends of a 
 sash girdle that is twisted round his middle, and his fat 
 left hand clutching the knot of it with instinctive feel- 
 ing. The girdle is the purse of this pursy drysalter;
 
 PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS. 365 
 
 and while what intellectual powers and generous sym- 
 pathies he lias that are competent for such employ- 
 ment, are hovering about the topics touched on by the 
 preacher, he keeps his hand upon a gripe of the coined 
 metal, that a positive sensation may save him from 
 drifting into ideology, may remind him to hold hard by 
 what he is resolute to accept for life as the main chance. 
 He handles his money as if from a fear that others may 
 be looking after it, while he is for once attending to an 
 enthusiast ; or as if the eloquence itself might charm 
 his money from his pocket, or the spiritual exhortation 
 end in a demand for money, which he does not intend 
 to part with. He has crept out of his hole shop or 
 mart, manufactory or counting-house or has been 
 caught on his way thither ; he will be back again there 
 in half an hour, convinced that his time has been wasted 
 for any purpose that need concern a man of business, 
 and will probably wonder at the regard bestowed upon 
 the movement by men whom he knows to be quite as 
 keen and quite as selfish as himself, but whose very self- 
 ishness, in virtue of the larger scope on which the keen- 
 ness is employed, makes the man of business into the 
 man of public business. 
 
 This figure is thrown still deeper and more entirely 
 into shade than the Rabbi ; had a gleam of bright light 
 been accorded to him, his presence would have marred 
 the sentiment of the entire picture, instead of contribut- 
 ing, as it now does, the last relief, town as comple- 
 mentary of gown ; the most sordid aspect of this world 
 looking in upon the enthusiastic forewarnings of the 
 next. 
 
 The uncongenial spirit of these two figures the
 
 366 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 chapman and the Rabbi brings into prominent effect 
 the sympathetic phase of the third of the group. He 
 is seated on the edge of the same step on which Paul 
 stands, and appears to me intended for his disciple and 
 companion. In the Mantuan tapestry his devout ex- 
 pression is very manifest, and very decided. I appre- 
 hend that Rafael intended him for Luke, as the ac- 
 cepted writer and reporter of the Acts of the Apostles. 
 The speech, according to the narrative, was made while 
 Paul was waiting at Athens for Timothy and Silas ; but 
 the terms of the narrative, and the very record of the 
 speech, would be taken as implying that he was not ab- 
 solutely alone. 
 
 In Luke we have the one figure in the composition, 
 to whom the drift and detail of the discourse was not a 
 novelty. His looks are directed, not to Paul, but to 
 Paul's audience; his right hand is between his left 
 elbow and knee, and his attitude contracted, but easy ; 
 and inclining in the direction of his master and his 
 master's words, gains force from opposition of the two 
 erect figures beyond him. He partly rests his chin on 
 the thumb of his left hand, and partly seems to press 
 the closed hand against his lips ; while his eyes glance, 
 and his brows are arched with some semblance of ex- 
 citement. Do we not see, indeed, the gesture of a sym- 
 pathetic listener, who knows that the speaker is advan- 
 cing upon the very crisis of his argument, which is to 
 decide whether he will carry his audience safely over, 
 or part company with them for ever 1 Anxiety in such 
 case comes to its crisis also : the ally is somewhat dis- 
 posed to be apprehensive of the rashness of the orator, 
 and presses his clenched hand against his own lips in
 
 PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS. 367 
 
 the fear that a premature, an inconsidered, a hasty 
 word may, at a moment, undo all the labour of prepa- 
 ration. A certain degree of sacred confidence qualifies 
 the trepidation in this case ; but the trepidation, I be- 
 lieve, exists no less. 
 
 How many hundreds of proselytizing preachers and 
 missionaries in modern times have drawn their inspi- 
 ration and braced their energies from the accounts of 
 the labours, the success, the policy of Paul, as set forth 
 in the Acts of the Apostles! This fact will account 
 for many coincidences in practice ; but if a Methodist 
 at the present day does not address a group of idlers 
 on a common without having one or two mute com- 
 panions standing behind him to support him, it is as 
 much by natural suggestion of the situation as with 
 any view to run parallel with Paul, Timothy, and Silas. 
 As a point of natural suggestion it is taken up by Ra- 
 fael, and he even diverges from the most literal impli- 
 cation of the text to satisfy the requirement of a sym- 
 pathizer, and of an example of respectful attention and 
 sympathy. 
 
 Two figures, at considerable distance, engaged in 
 lively argument even as they walk, may be called Peri- 
 patetics if we please, or be taken simply as furthering 
 the illustration how talk pervaded the very atmosphere 
 of Athens. 
 
 The steps, at the edge of which Paul is standing, seem 
 to be those of a platform, so treated architecturally as 
 to give special dignity to the central summit of Mars 
 Hill, and assist the suggestion, by the very formality of 
 their treatment, that the Areopagus was a title as much
 
 368 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CAETOONS. 
 
 symbolical as descriptive, and conveyed the idea of an 
 institution, of a moral even more distinctly than of a 
 natural elevation. 
 
 I have already spoken of the dignity of the figure of 
 Paul; there is interest in observing the artistic re- 
 sources and we may almost say stratagems by which 
 it is enhanced. Dionysius and Damaris are nearer to 
 the spectator, and therefore larger in scale, upon the 
 picture ; but, besides the contraction of their attitudes, 
 the whole of their figures is not included within the 
 picture, and thus Paul retains the distinction of being 
 the highest fully-displayed figure in the composition. 
 We shall recognize the value of this distinction if we 
 notice how it is observed, and with what effect, in the 
 other Cartoons. In the Miracle at the Beautiful Gate 
 we have complete view of the erect Peter, while John 
 is subordinated by being partly covered by the cripple. 
 The second cripple and the arm of the Levite come 
 in front of the tripping mother with her infant, as, 
 although somewhat more remote, her graceful stature 
 would have introduced a dangerous competition. In 
 the Blinding of Elymas, the crouching Magus is of course 
 no match for the commanding prophet over against him. 
 
 In the Sacrifice at Lystra, the figure of Paul alone of 
 the figures that stand erect is seen from head to foot, 
 without any other object or figure partially interposing. 
 At either end of the picture a figure is introduced 
 nearer to the spectator, but, as in the case of the Areo- 
 pagite, each of them is stooping, and of each a portion 
 is without the limits of the picture. 
 
 In the Cartoon of the Destruction of Ananias, nu- 
 merous and very important figures are much nearer to
 
 PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS. 369 
 
 the spectator than the protagonist Peter; but Peter, 
 besides his central position, has alone the advantage of 
 the free display of his full height: even his coadjutor, 
 who points to heaven, and seems almost as direct an 
 agent of wrath as himself, is sufficiently kept down by 
 the unceremonious interference with his figure, of the 
 post and rail of the dais. 
 
 In the Delivery of the Keys, other figures besides 
 the Saviour are seen erect and uninterfered with as 
 Thomas and John; and the due subordination is here 
 obtained, apart from distribution of light and all-im- 
 portant expression, by presenting them only in profile. 
 
 In the Calling of Peter this rule of subordination 
 deserts us. The design comprises but few figures, and 
 the distribution of light, the indication of personages by 
 conspicuous attributes, the preferential position, and 
 the expression which touches here the limits of all that 
 is possible in art, are quite sufficient to give the supe- 
 riority to Peter, kneeling and half-hidden though he be, 
 above the more central and more entirely displayed 
 Andrew. 
 
 Wonderful ingenuity seems to me to be displayed in 
 the adjustment of the immediate background of archi- 
 tectural details, which relieve the head and expressive 
 hands of the Apostle at Athens. The spring of the un- 
 finished arch, with its interrupted voussoir, gives em- 
 phasis to the living lift of the arms of Paul ; and these, 
 by their direction, cross and effectually dominate the 
 vertical lines of the architecture. The marked lines of 
 the steps and inlaid pavement, at right angles to the 
 erect preacher but less short than his height, contribute 
 no little to the force of his elevation. 
 
 2 B
 
 370 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 The light of the high sun shines upon the back of 
 Paul, and thus gives full illumination to the fronts and 
 faces of the audience opposite to him. The expression 
 of his own face is fully displayed by his profile falling 
 well defined against the illuminated portion of the 
 sleeve of his right arm. The continued sharp dark out- 
 line, of which, as I have noticed before, Rafael con- 
 stantly avails himself once in a composition, falls here 
 to the front outline of Paul's robe and lifted arm. The 
 general management of the light and shade the group- 
 ing of the figures from consideration of effects of light 
 and shade, is managed with the seeming simplicity of 
 nature, with all the refined dexterity of subtlest art. 
 
 The simplest point of management of all, for gaining 
 effects of distance and distinctness among groups, is re- 
 sorted to without any dissembling affectation. All the 
 figures are lighted from the same side ; but by disposing 
 or viewing them obliquely, the shadowed side of one 
 may be relieved upon the brightened side of that beyond, 
 and vice versd. Thus the back of Dionysius stands off 
 from the robe of Damaris, and by the opposite effect his 
 illuminated features are happily set forth by the dark 
 shadow they fall against, of the robe of the musing 
 Stoic. The right side of the second Stoic is defined 
 upon the left-hand shadow of the Epicurean, and so 
 on. The tameness of repetition is avoided by the blend- 
 ing of the lights on the fronts of the pair of Stoics, 
 where the less marked distinctness required is gained 
 by colour and tone ; and then, again, by the arms and 
 hands of Dionysius breaking the lights of their back- 
 ground. Again, in the group of seated debaters very 
 varied effects of light and shadow are introduced, are
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PROMISE AND GREEK CULTURE. 371 
 
 caused, we might more properly say, by their varied 
 positions. The light passing through the intervals of 
 the group gives defining background ; and each of the 
 front figures from its position casts a degree of shadow 
 upon itself. Linear and aerial perspective co-operate 
 with these adjustments, and give particular value to 
 figures which, like Dionysius and Paul, are relieved 
 upon background and figures of which various portions 
 are at very various degrees of remoteness. 
 
 What need is there to notice how the tranquil curves 
 of the drapery of Paul's companion, the curves and 
 eddies of that of the Academic group of debaters, and 
 the lively agitation of the converts, lifting head and 
 hand and limb in sympathy with the doctrine, relieve 
 the erect lines and lights of the preacher and his lis- 
 teners, and of the columns and arcades around them? 
 
 The circular plan of the Temple of Mars is sympa- 
 thetic with the hemicycle on which the congregation has 
 arranged itself. 
 
 The moral triumph of pictorial harmony is achieved 
 by the invention of expressions, gestures, and combined 
 or responsive actions characteristic of the occasion, and 
 by the disposing of them with such cunning naturalness 
 that each seems to fall into its place spontaneously ; 
 while each attains its own acme of expressiveness by 
 enhancing that of its immediate neighbour first, and 
 thence, of all. 
 
 And now of these matters sufficient. 
 
 II. THE CHRISTIAN PROMISE AND GREEK CULTURE. 
 
 As regards the general sentiment of the subject of 
 Paul preaching at Athens, Rafael has allowed himself 
 
 2 B 2
 
 372 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 to quit the rigidly historical, as it may be held to stand 
 in the Acts, for the sake of rising to the ideal. The 
 leaders of the Epicureans and Stoics who attend him 
 show no indications of an open sneer, or of politely 
 waving him and his doctrine aside for that future hear- 
 ing which in such case never comes. Something of this 
 disposition is expressed in the Epicurean students ; but 
 that is all, and they are quite subordinate. 
 
 The philosophers are represented as candid enough 
 to continue to listen, and the discourse of Paul is favour- 
 ably represented as of a nature not only to detain and 
 interest them, but to reduce them to difficulty, if not to 
 nonplus. 
 
 Rafael chose therefore, let us say, to avail himself of 
 this subject to give a typical embodiment of the first 
 confronting of Greek philosophy taken at its best, with 
 ideal Christianity. 
 
 How, then, is such a design, and such execution of it, 
 borne out by sufficient justification? Or shall we find 
 it necessary to admit that, in the superiority claimed for 
 the doctrine of Christianity, we have only to recognize 
 the narrow egotism of a sectary, we have but the lion 
 conqueror of the man, painted as might be expected 
 when the inferior animal wields the brush. 
 
 What was contributed to the world by the Chris- 
 tianity of Paul, what was being contributed, or remained 
 still capable of being contributed, to the world by Chris- 
 tianity in the time of Rafael, that will vindicate him 
 for assigning such dignity to it in comparison with the 
 Greek philosophies 1 
 
 , These questions it will be time to consider when we 
 have disposed of the consideration of the matter of fact
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PROMISE AND GREEK CULTURE. 373 
 
 of the Athenian discourse, as we read it in the extract 
 from Acts already given. 
 
 The narrative indeed, as it stands, is quite as little 
 consistent with itself as any representation of Rafael 
 can be with any part of it. Yet I once thought there 
 was a confirmation of literal exactness in a point that 
 does not at first seem to promise it. The philosophers 
 have their interest shocked or cooled by the doctrine of 
 the resurrection ; and this was natural enough, for the 
 resurrection, as conceived by Paul; though otherwise 
 the conception of a future life, was familiar to all the 
 schools, and with some a favourite. What Paul's expo- 
 sition of the doctrine might have been, we read in the 
 unquestioned Epistle to the Corinthians, the coming of 
 Jesus in the clouds, the signal trump, the revival of the 
 dead with bodies superior to decay, the substitution of 
 spiritual bodies in place of the material, for the living, 
 for Paul himself and for his contemporaries, so many of 
 his listeners who believed. Certainly we must ascribe 
 small blame to the Athenians, if they were treated to 
 the subject-matter of these chapters, and demurred to 
 accept either the logic or the revelation. A still more 
 detailed, but scarcely a grosser representation of the 
 last day, is given in the Epistle to the Thessalonians ; 
 and the supposition that this was written by Paul from 
 Athens gave some confirmation to the tenor of his 
 Athenian speech, and the peculiar effect it is stated to 
 have produced. This point, however, must stand over ; 
 there are more difficulties than Paley saw, or chose to 
 see, in the date of the Epistle ; and in the appreciation 
 of some it has become more than questionable, not only 
 whether Paul addressed the letter from Athens, but
 
 374 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 whether he ever wrote it at all, whether it is not alto- 
 gether a forgery ; I may say that, for myself, I retain 
 confidence in its authenticity. 
 
 After what we have already seen of the casualties by 
 which the text and composition of the Acts of the 
 Apostles have suffered, we must be open, if not pre- 
 pared, for finding that the section now before us has its 
 own peculiar difficulties. It is, in truth, inconsecutive 
 enough. The first incongruity it presents may perhaps 
 be got over by a little liberality in translation. Let us 
 consent to read,-" The spirit of Paul, as he waits at 
 Athens for his companions, is excited by the appearance 
 of the city crowded with idols ; preaching therefore in 
 the synagogue to the Jews and devout men (on the 
 Sabbaths, is implied) he discoursed also on all the other 
 days of the week in the agora with whomsoever he 
 found occasion." If the speech had followed imme- 
 diately upon this, it would have been pertinent enough, 
 for its main argument is directed against idols, and 
 temples, and worship by ceremonies and sacrifice. And 
 thus, probably, it did follow originally; and the signs 
 of working up the narrative into a scene are salient in 
 the introduction of Stoic and Epicurean philosophers as 
 inviting the discourse which altogether misses or misre- 
 presents their case ; no worshippers of idols they in the 
 gross sense implied, or, indeed, in any sense whatever. 
 In the grouped masters of Athenian wisdom, in the set 
 of scene on the Areopagus, in a certain correspondence 
 between the notion that Jesus and Anastasis were foreign 
 divinities nothing less is implied by the Greek, with 
 the charge that was fatal to the greatest Athenian philo- 
 sopher Socrates, and in the Demosthenic opening, " Ye
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PROMISE AND GREEK CULTURE. 375 
 
 men of Athens," in all this, methinks, I trace the hand 
 of the master who hits off the town clerk of Ephesus 
 with such character and effect, and who certainly was 
 skilful in the distribution of materials, whatever the 
 amount of criticism or of conscience he employed in 
 the collection of them. In the present case, I do not 
 hesitate to assent to those who find in the traditional 
 discipleship of Dionysius the Areopagite, the sugges- 
 tive and sole source of the tradition that placed Paul as 
 a preacher on the Areopagus. Here, therefore, as at 
 Lystra, here, therefore, as at Philippi, local pagan 
 myths blended with Christian local traditions ; and even 
 the associations of the local notabilities of history lent 
 some traits of glory to the new protagonist of a power 
 that already was advancing to the conquest of the 
 world. 
 
 Nevertheless, this section of Acts may contain, as it 
 stands, much wholesome history, if we can divest our- 
 selves of a false appreciation of detail as of any impor- 
 tance when placed against definition of the inspiring 
 idea. The fortunes of Christian evangelization at Athens 
 in Pauline times may be not ill-expressed after all in this 
 quasi-digest of Paul's reception and proceedings there. 
 The Greeks required wisdom, as the Jews required a 
 sign : the speech, in its opening, is no poor attempt at a 
 refined subtlety, to meet the special requirement. The 
 end of it, however, was, that not many wise, as not many 
 rich, became converts. Whatever hearing might be ob- 
 tained for the inculcation of morality and monotheism, 
 Paul, by his nature and his prejudices, could only come 
 back at last to the imminent approach of the judgment, 
 the rousing angel, the revived dead, the translated living,
 
 376 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 and the avouching of all this by the revival and trans- 
 lation of one man already, even Jesus the coming judge. 
 There were plenty at Athens, and at Rome also, who 
 would mock at this, for it was perfectly safe then, and 
 for some time after, to mock at it; and there were 
 plenty who were polite enough to say they would look 
 into the matter, for the sake of as speedily as possible 
 having heard and thought the last of it. 
 
 " Ye men of Athens, I observe general indications of 
 your unusual susceptibility of the religious sentiment ; 
 for as I went the round, and viewed your sacred monu- 
 ments, I came, among others, upon an altar inscribed 
 * To the unknown God.' " This sentence is full of local 
 colour ; it is as characteristic as a chapter from Pausa- 
 nias; indeed, its expressions curiously agree with the 
 reflections of the Handbook writer a little later, upon 
 the peculiar piety of the Athenians towards the gods, 
 even to the extent of being a little farfetched ; an error 
 this, he seems to think, on the right side ; as he records 
 that not only had they an altar to Pity, but also to 
 Modesty, to Rumour, to Alacrity. Again, we seem to 
 listen to one who is fresh from seeing the chrysele- 
 phantine Athene of the Parthenon, in the words "Where- 
 fore we ought not to regard the Godhead as likened to 
 gold, silver, or marble, modelled by human art and 
 ideal conception." Even the Athenian pride of autoch- 
 thony seems to be glanced at in the allusion to the 
 divine settlement of races of men in special times and 
 given bounds about the surface of the earth. 
 
 We may easily admit that the speech may be consi- 
 derably contracted and condensed ; nay, may even be an 
 attempt to compress into one the general substance of
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PROMISE AND GREEK CULTURE. 377 
 
 many addresses. To this source may often be due 
 and this it is important to allow for the resemblance 
 of style in reported speeches, to that of the compiler of 
 Acts and Luke, rather than to that of the author of the 
 Epistle to the Romans. The same cause will account 
 for incoherencies of argument, as well as sudden transi- 
 tions. Certainly here the argument, as it is given, halts 
 to desperation. "Being therefore of the race of the 
 gods, it behoves us not to regard the Godhead as like 
 statues and works of art." But a better reason could 
 scarcely be found for regarding the Godhead as in form 
 like a man. So Pindar sang, " One is the race of gods 
 and men, and from one mother are we both descended : 
 the difference that divides us is that of mortality and 
 immortality." Perhaps it may be thought that Paul 
 would admit the formal likeness of man to God in his 
 image, and only denounced the veneration of the sense- 
 less image as God ; but this would be for him to mis- 
 conceive indeed the intention and the spirit of the 
 sacred and symbolical art of the Greeks. 
 
 The authenticity of the abstracted speech rather 
 gains than falters by this inconsequence, for it is an- 
 other point of agreement with Paul's own epistle to 
 Gentiles, to the Roman Christians. 
 
 There was less excuse for Paul, perhaps, than for our 
 contemporaries, in not being able to distinguish an ideal 
 from an idol, especially as among the multitudes of 
 images of gods in Athens, a certain number no doubt 
 commanded from a certain vulgar, the veneration which 
 constitutes its object an idol. Still, his argument 
 loosens its hold in the course of his divergencies and il- 
 lustrations. He is come to declare the Unknown God,
 
 378 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS 
 
 the All-Creator, the Almighty, superior to dependence 
 on ministration of sacrifices, not to be housed in temples, 
 utterly alien to stocks and stones, however cunningly 
 composed and modelled ; this is the God who, having 
 made of one blood all nations, scattered them over the 
 earth, and for a certain time left them in ignorance of 
 himself as regards direct information, and left them to 
 help their ignorance as they might by endeavours to 
 feel after him and find him, to divine his existence 
 and nature by speculation or by sympathy. What suc- 
 cess the Greeks may have had in the search comes out 
 in the illustrative citation from Aratus, which he adopts, 
 and which commits him to Pantheism of an elevated 
 type. It is with something of the feeling of an anti- 
 climax that we read his next observations, to the effect 
 that such attempts were vague and useless struggles of 
 ignorance, and that the true revelation of the Unknown 
 God comes before the world in the assurance of a Jew, 
 that his nation has been in direct communication with 
 him all along, and that before long every nation every- 
 where, and the dead as well as the living, will be sum- 
 moned at the sound of trumpet to an audience and a 
 judgment, the judge being a Jew; and the certificate of 
 all these wonders being that that very Jew has already 
 died, has already been raised from the dead, and on the 
 testimony of those who knew him when alive, as well 
 as of some others has already ascended into heaven. 
 
 Surely, surely, the men were not hasty who appre- 
 hended in all this less the discovery of the Unknown 
 God than promise of much vain babble dissemination 
 of a very couch-grass and tangle-weed of doctrine, the 
 establishment of a new Pantheon of strange divinities 
 with a new mythology.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PROMISE AND GREEK CULTURE. 379 
 
 Whencesoever the origin of the Attic section of Acts, 
 it does not unfairly represent the eschatology of Paul ; 
 though it postulates rather a Jewish than a philoso- 
 phical audience, it provides signs rather than a super- 
 fluity of wisdom. " But now commandeth he all men 
 everywhere to repent, inasmuch as he has determined 
 a day, on which he is about to judge the world 
 righteously by a man whom he has appointed, and ac- 
 credited to all men, by having raised him from the 
 dead." (Acts xvii. 30.) 
 
 The full interpretation of this the extension of its 
 abbbreviated terms is found elsewhere: "Behold, I 
 tell you a mystery ; We shall not all die, but we all of 
 us shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of 
 an eye, at the last trump: for a trumpet shall sound, 
 and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall 
 undergo a change. For this corruptible must needs be 
 invested with incorruptibility, and this mortal put on 
 immortality, and then shall the word that was written 
 be fulfilled, Death is swallowed up in victory." (1 Cor. 
 xv. 51.) 
 
 The same anticipation occurs in the First of Thessalo- 
 nians, and constitutes a chief proof of the genuineness 
 of the epistle. No pseudonymist, writing in the interest 
 of Paul after his death (and of such only could there be 
 question), would put into his mouth a prophecy which, 
 even equivocally, by this very antecedent death, would 
 stand as falsified ; it would have been more in order for 
 him to have relieved the over-confident representation 
 of Paul by insinuating an apologetic gloss. " For this I 
 say unto you in the word of the Lord, that we who are 
 alive, who are left over at the coming of the Lord, will
 
 380 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 in no wise anticipate those who have fallen asleep. For 
 the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a 
 shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the 
 trump of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise first : 
 and then the living who are left will be snatched 
 up along with them into the clouds, to meet the Lord 
 in the air: and thus for ever shall we be with the 
 Lord." (1 Thess. iv. 15.) He proceeds to inculcate pre- 
 pared vigilance, as the day of the Lord will come sud- 
 denly, like a thief in the night, and overwhelm their 
 enemies. So in Philippians : " Let your submissiveness 
 be patent to all men ; the Lord is at hand " (iv. 5). 
 It may be that his words do not absolutely imply ex- 
 pectation of the last day before his own death ; we may 
 read them as equivalent to " such of us as shall then be 
 left alive ;" but no candour, however indulgent, can be 
 pressed to admit that his expectation was not instant, 
 and certainly covered by the current generation. Even 
 in the so touchingly indited letter to the Philippians, 
 in which he expresses a desire to depart and be with 
 Christ, he still retains his ancient expectations: "For 
 our citizenship is in heaven, from whence we ex- 
 pect a Saviour, the Lord Jesus, who shall transform 
 our base body into the semblance of his glorious body." 
 (Philip, iii. 20.) 
 
 This is the last opportunity we shall have for inquir- 
 ing, how far did prolonged experience, and new thought 
 or apprehended revelations, modify his ideas'? The 
 Corinthian epistle sufficiently shows that Paul, about 
 this time, believed that the kingdom, with all its super- 
 natural accompaniments, would come presently; and 
 numerous fragmentary evidences of the belief, half-
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PROMISE AND GREEK CULTURE. 381 
 
 altered, unaltered, are imbedded in the Gospels. This 
 alarming imminence doubtless wakened zeal, and urged 
 activity to carry the tidings as rapidly as possible 
 over the earth. It seemed, perhaps, within compass 
 to get through this work in time, when Jews only were 
 to be addressed ; but where was the hope when all Gen- 
 tiledom was in question? The consideration was not 
 entertained, but all the converts urged on the work, and 
 diffusion and dissemination advanced apace: the word 
 grew; the way of the Lord went right on; the king- 
 dom, as an assemblage of adherents, had its limits 
 widened every day. 
 
 The kingdom of God, as announced by John the Bap- 
 tist and Jesus to be hastened and conciliated by re- 
 pentance, was still semi-political, and its glories largely 
 borrowing from hope of Jewish deliverance. Time went 
 on, and the hope of speedy restoration of Israel was 
 superseded by the inculcation of patience, along with 
 sobriety and vigilance, as in the parable of the virgins 
 with their lamps ; and then by the treatment of the dis- 
 ciples' anticipation that it was to come immediately, as 
 ignorance. Then came in the larger and less purely 
 Jewish idea of a heavenly kingdom a kingdom not on 
 earth, but involving resurrection; a transformation of 
 mortal bodies into bodies superior to decay and corrup- 
 tion ; and a catching up of all into the clouds, the end 
 of this world by a renewed creation. This to Paul 
 was a spiritual conception as contrasted with the fleshly 
 or material ideas of political insurrection expulsion of 
 Romans from Jerusalem, and so forth. The Jewish 
 section of the Christians took up a form of this to suit 
 themselves, and, dropping the carnal idea of the Jem-
 
 382 CHKISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 salem Temple, looked forward to a quasi-spiritual, a 
 new Jerusalem in the clouds. They gave up the existing 
 Temple and its rites to adopt the grander notion cur- 
 rent ; but, as in Revelation, restricted it as absolutely 
 as possible to exclusive Jews, and modelled it on an 
 exclusively Jewish ideal. 
 
 As time went on, Paul's spiritual kingdom of saints 
 in the clouds, with etherealized bodies, disappointed his 
 expectations, and reasons to account for delay had to 
 be imagined or invented, the withstanding sorcerer 
 (2 Thess.), the hardness of heart, etc. ; and friends of 
 those who died expecting had to be comforted. 
 
 We find traces in the Gospels of all these contradic- 
 tions, and prophecy comes down to us with a tail of apo- 
 logies draggling after it, that the time is not now, but 
 presently; not presently, but unawares, at any rate; 
 not to be brought before its time by looking for it, etc. ; 
 and what was once the end is the beginning of the end, 
 and then the introduction to the end, or the proem of 
 the introduction. 
 
 I refer gladly on this subject to Mr. Mack ay's sketch 
 of the Rise and Progress of Christianity ; and they who 
 follow my reference to this and others of his works will 
 be grateful for my indication. 
 
 One more step remained, and we have a sign of it in 
 the Gospels. Some were bold enough to say, " The king- 
 dom of God is within you." We have signs of it in the de- 
 nouncement in the Epistle to Timothy, whoever wrote it, 
 of they who taught that the resurrection is already past. 
 
 The progress is insensible, but inevitable ; the king- 
 dom of God, at first grossly, a restored dynasty of 
 David in the seat of Herod, is next a cosmical develop-
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PROMISE AND GREEK CULTURE. 383 
 
 merit, catastrophe, conclusion; then the kingdom of 
 God is an expression for the subjects of the kingdom ; 
 the kingdom is extended or established as converts are 
 made. At first all are veritable ; then, as in the parables 
 of the drag-net, the wheat and tares, the sheep and goats, 
 and the sown seed, the kingdom of heaven includes the 
 nominal converts indistinguishably, and becomes but a 
 provisional expression; then the kingdom consists in 
 the doctrine, or in state of mind, and the last enfold- 
 ings of materialism are dismissed, and a steady gleam 
 from the very body of truth reaches us, if but a single 
 gleam, and if but for a moment, as we read, " The king- 
 dom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, 
 and peace, and joy in the holy spirit." (Rom. xiv. 17.) 
 
 Does the author of the Acts, who follows so many 
 developments, follow on to this? The book scarcely 
 enlightens us; we can only say that he recorded as 
 imbecility the Apostles' expectation of an Israelite 
 kingdom, and showed, without any mitigation, the ef- 
 fect on cultivated Gentile minds of Paul's idea of a 
 somewhat more spiritual kingdom; but he does not 
 seem to have got much further, and the world, on the 
 whole, has not got much further to this day. Perhaps 
 now the prevalent notion is that the day of death is 
 for each the day of judgment that Christ judges each 
 as each departs; or, there is the notion, unspiritual 
 enough, of long torpor and suspension in the grave 
 until a remote revival, and reunion of families and 
 friends. This is a transference into the skies of earthly 
 affections and relations, the Jerusalem of our own day ; 
 and whether the leading passion be a ritual metropolis, 
 a conditional sentiment, or "the dog, the bottle, and
 
 384 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 the wife," makes not much difference. Still, there are 
 some who hold by the truer kingdom of God, the true 
 resurrection ; for the only resurrection we can possibly 
 have cognizance of is indeed come already, is realized 
 when goodness and truth are wrought for to the best of 
 our lights and our forces, and in reliance on influences, 
 the direction of which in last resort is beyond us. And 
 so Faith in an energy by which such a kingdom can 
 come, brings Hope only solace of the soul that it is 
 in us and about us and beyond us, and Charity mean- 
 while to all who, sincere in aspiration, are fastened un- 
 happily in ceremonial or materialistic slavery, from 
 which may some John, some Jesus, some Stephen and 
 Peter and Paul, happily and in good time release them ! 
 
 III. THE HARMONY OF THE REVERENTIAL AND THE 
 RIGHTLY REASONABLE. 
 
 The Cartoon is so far true to the history, that it claims 
 to embody the antithesis of enthusiastic to speculative 
 religion. Christianity on the one side, and Philosophy 
 on the other, thus seem to express the culminating civi- 
 lizations of the Semitic and Indo-European races, whose 
 unity is vindicated by their concurrent tendencies quite 
 as positively as by the words of Paul. But in virtue of 
 this very unity, the end of the development must be, 
 not antithesis, but harmony. The devotional, the reve- 
 rential, and the reasonable instincts of man have to be 
 conciliated, not committed to constant conflict, or with 
 a victory forthcoming either on one side or the other. 
 The happiness and the satisfaction of the mind are to 
 be found, to be advanced, if ever, in the cordial sym-
 
 HARMONY OF THE REVERENTIAL AND REASONABLE. 385 
 
 pathy of the clearest and coolest intellect with the 
 warmth of religious reliance, and in the sustained energy 
 that is born of such a combination. 
 
 But the philosophical explorations which date their 
 origin from Greece must aid us in such enterprise ; only 
 by their indications and help can we attain to just ap- 
 preciation of the limits of human knowledge, an ob- 
 ject as important as to pursue whatever can be known 
 within those limits; then at last devotion may be en- 
 thusiastic without fear of being absurd ; may be reason- 
 able, without mistrust of lapse to indifference; calm 
 yet energetic ; sober, yet not selfish nay, most actively 
 benevolent, sympathetic, affectionate. If such a con- 
 summation shall be ever reached, the very apostles of 
 religion will be foremost to declare the limitations of 
 knowledge, and to denounce the wickedness of attempts 
 to impose on the credulous, whether for seeming good 
 or ill, by professed secret and special information as to 
 what has gone on, or is going on, or is to be looked for- 
 ward to, hereafter beyond them, of which all must of 
 necessity be equally ignorant. 
 
 Philosophy must drop of its own accord its search 
 after a theology which is the very philosopher's stone of 
 speculation ; must do its best to define the boundaries 
 of the explicable; and, admitting their existence and 
 place, not pretend to explain the inexplicable : it will 
 then be ripe for unblamed co-operation with the spirit 
 of faith, of humility, of devotion, and be more than ever 
 entitled to proffer services to get Christianity, and all 
 other dogmatized forms of religion, out of their difficul- 
 ties. To the aid of philosophy the better spirit that 
 may be within Christianity must recur and it will be 
 
 2 c
 
 386 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 done with more dignity if done spontaneously, to purge 
 away its false and ill-conditioned accretions; its codes 
 of dogma and systematized conundrums; its fabulous 
 history, mythical miracles ; its prophecies after the fact, 
 and its false ascriptions of prophetical character; its 
 recognition of false prophetical pretence. 
 
 Still there is more to be done : Paul denounces sym- 
 bolism and temple service at Athens ; and yet, as these 
 had been applied in Athens, they gave the nearest solu- 
 tion man has yet attained to, of the problem how to 
 find expression and excitement for the religious ele- 
 ment of our nature, without the fall to superstition or 
 absurdity in doctrine or rites. To Pericles, centuries 
 before, the great historian had ascribed a claim on the 
 part of Athens, of successfully combining the indulgence 
 of artistic and speculative predilections with dexterity 
 and energy in action. Pericles himself, as orderer of 
 the sacred monuments and celebrations of the state, had 
 done much also to supply the healthiest outlet and 
 discipline for the religious feeling of which the people 
 that he guided was so susceptible. The literature of 
 his age, however, gives abundant indication that the 
 time was not yet for the most important of all consum- 
 mations. Speculative inquiry had still the work of cen- 
 turies before it; and what had been acquired was far 
 from being generally diffused. The roots of old super- 
 stitions were alive, widely spread, and deeply seated; 
 and the appetite for religious excitement, lively as it 
 might be, was, to a large extent, a diseased appetite, 
 and turned from the lofty and the refined to gorge itself 
 preferentially on garbage. 
 
 The very movement that Paul inaugurates had much
 
 HARMONY OF THE REVERENTIAL AND REASONABLE. 387 
 
 the same history before it. It soon sought alliance 
 with all the stage properties of temple service, and was 
 ensloughed in a debasing ceremonialism accordingly. 
 The Beautiful, which is the Divine, vindicated itself at 
 last in Mass and Miserere, in all the glories of architec- 
 ture and of all the arts ; but, again, the value of these 
 aids to true devotion was confined in all purity to but 
 a few minds ; with the multitude, the symbolism, which 
 is the soul of the combination, escaped apprehension ; 
 it was countervailed by traditional association with ab- 
 surdities most crass, with craft making gain out of igno- 
 rance, with luxury availing itself of the manifestations 
 of divine art merely to relieve the tedium of routine, 
 to keep off the inevitable yawn during the intermin- 
 able celebrations, instruments of tyranny over men, of 
 which the very weight was all but intolerable to those 
 who wielded them. 
 
 Is it the case that, as men and as society are now 
 constituted, as they always have been, and are ever 
 likely to be, the regulating power of religion alloyed 
 with fable and superstition, cannot be emulated by 
 influence at command of any purer form, and can 
 therefore ill be spared 1 Is it all, and the best that we 
 can do in our difficulty and distress, to deal tenderly 
 with the established, to let the sleeping dogs of fana- 
 ticism lie, if fortunately lie they will, and, in case they 
 are restless, to resort to means of stupefying them 1 ? 
 Shall we rejoice to calm religious excitability into 
 drowsiness, by the corruption of preferments and digni- 
 ties distributed with judgment to those who, displaying 
 power to influence a numerous following, hint willing- 
 ness to give aid, for a consideration, in hoodwinking
 
 388 CHRISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 opening intelligence, and drugging with opiates the very 
 well-springs of sacred enthusiasm 1 
 
 It is on some such theory that the man of the world 
 applies himself to the problem of the day ; so usually 
 proceeds the statesman, who is the man of the world 
 concerned with politics ; and so, still more usually, the 
 hierarch, who is, for the most part, another man of the 
 world, cumbered with the intercomplicated spiritualities 
 and worldlinesses that cling about the administration of 
 a church. Let each, and each will, see to his own ; but 
 the very formula is a claim of immunity for one who 
 should make it his own business to think for all. When 
 such arrives, may the claim serve him ! It will be well 
 if, in thinking and discoursing in the interest of all, he 
 can protect himself against all, for all are likely enough 
 to be against him. 
 
 Even while the colours of the paintings we have been 
 studying were still fresh, the spirit of Paul's protest 
 against superstition, and on Paul's own authority, was re- 
 published to the world, and resounded from the pulpit 
 of Luther. Did the Cardinals, who assisted at mass with 
 this tapestry displayed in their sight, recognize the 
 parallel ? To their actions, I fear, we should turn in the 
 last instance, to look for an answer that could satisfy 
 our curiosity. Centuries roll round, and great again is 
 the company of the preachers who profess allegiance to 
 the principles of Luther and of Paul. Which of these 
 successors, however, in England now will dare to ascend 
 his Mars' Hill, and appeal in all frankness, as well as 
 fervour, to the philosophers'? Appeals in some form 
 or fashion are not wanting; but the place of Paul
 
 HARMONY OF THE REVERENTIAL AND REASONABLE. 389 
 
 would now be among the Epicureans and Stoics of the 
 crowd ; and if in his misery, as the words went on, he 
 forbore to mock, I, for one, do not doubt that he would 
 walk away, and not even profess willingness to be a 
 listener at a future time, to soften his leave-taking. 
 
 What the world still longs for, and yearns for, is 
 a scheme of theology, intelligent, noble, self-respect- 
 ing, which shall not take advantage of human credu- 
 lousness, nervousness, and fright ; shall not play tricks 
 with either docile trust or the edified human under- 
 standing, by vain pretences, transcending the capacities 
 of our nature, of accounting for the infinite, of revising 
 the relation of those universal postulates that are the 
 conditions of perception, not to say of reason, which 
 shall not pretend to have satisfied itself, nor claim to 
 have satisfied the understanding of all candid and acutest 
 criticism on all mysteries, when it has only succeeded 
 in hiding question and answer alike in impenetrable 
 haze. 
 
 Beyond this, the social, no less than the personal, 
 sympathies desiderate some scheme of religious celebra- 
 tion which shall give expression, coming home to the 
 bosoms of all, of the salutary sense of the common 
 amenability of all mankind to the same ultimate sanc- 
 tion of right and wrong, the same dependence of strong 
 and weak, of young and old. of rich and poor, of wise 
 and foolish, upon an ulterior Mystery, Power, Existence, 
 call it what we may, that is ever within reach of our 
 affections, however far it transcends our capacity of 
 intellectual appreciation, or foils our babbling attempts 
 at articulate expression; before which, if, in our de- 
 pression and despair, we can only, on the mere ground
 
 390 CHEISTIANITY IN THE CARTOONS. 
 
 of common sense and consistency, bow in blind resigna- 
 tion ; in hopefulness, which is our health, we may rejoice 
 to rest in confidence for our futurity, to repose in 
 happiness and faith. 
 
 Human life I need not tell it to my contemporaries, 
 may gladly welcome whatever of consolation, not to say 
 encouragement, it can gain a glimpse of. The ills and 
 accidents and liabilities of our state are too dreary, too 
 dire, too hideous, and too certain, to be made light of by 
 either frivolity or courage. The poetic enumeration of 
 " Labour and penury, the racks of pain, disease, and 
 sorrow's weeping train," leaves still the worst in silence. 
 The mind may sustain the body, but whither shall it fly 
 for refuge from wounds, from diseases proper to itself 
 from self-reproach, from self-disdain for still recurring 
 weakness from desolating loss of confidence in man- 
 kind, at large and in particular, shaken and gone for 
 ever, and with it all interest in pursuit or study for 
 what occupation is there of which the condition is not 
 relative dependence on the advantage or the capacities 
 of men ? 
 
 Wise and good have ere now, and will again, in 
 their unhappiness, desire that they could revert to the 
 blind but passionate confidence of childhood. The cry 
 will go up, Would that I could recover that faith 
 which idealized in a heavenly father the superior, the 
 unquestioned force and ever-watchful and efficient affec- 
 tion of an earthly father ! What would not be my con- 
 tent if I could rely upon an Omnipotence of favour and 
 affection, that, whatever my troubles, my faults, would 
 assuredly see me safely through them ; but Avho will 
 lean with confidence on a reed he knows to be broken
 
 HARMONY OF THE REVERENTIAL AND SEASONABLE. 391 
 
 lie down to rest cheerfully on a mine when he traces 
 the slow smouldering fuse? I can but say that such 
 are the conditions of our life, and we must accept them 
 or resign we do accept them in every action of our 
 life and exercise of our senses. We cannot vindicate 
 the reasonableness of either hope or despondency, faith 
 or mistrust; but the seal of truth is decided in the 
 struggle for existence and Hope and Faith, for ever 
 young, reviving ever, receive their justification by nature's 
 own infallible signature of unquenchable and ever-vic- 
 torious vitality.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT WITHIN 
 THE OLD: JOSEPH AND BOAZ. 
 
 THE spirit or genius of Christianity, however we define 
 it, is in as direct opposition and contrast to the spirit or 
 genius of Judaism, as the widest and warmest sympathy 
 is to the narrowest and most restricted reserve to the 
 coolest temperament for fellow-feeling out of a close 
 limit, and that defined most selfishly. The Jews of old 
 time are confident of being rather the exclusive than 
 the especial objects of divine favour, the channels of 
 divine revelation, the instruments and administrators of 
 all that is divinely good and great, and in place of the 
 eagerness to impart, we find an eager reserve, a selfish 
 jealousy of participants. Compassion on one side is in 
 harsh contrast to contempt on the other; the will to 
 make any sacrifice of self for others' good is opposed to 
 careless disregard of the fate of generations ; the de- 
 sire to break down barriers is met by the bigotry that 
 strengthens them ; the motive to unite mankind is op- 
 posed by the will to separate them, and to keep them 
 apart.
 
 394 THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 Still it was from the midst of Judaism that Christian- 
 ism came forth, and in this there is nothing irrational 
 or opposed to likelihoods ; such a result is due to ten- 
 dency to reaction, by a law so familiar to the student of 
 history, that it becomes an unconscious process with 
 him when in the neighbourhood of any strongly marked 
 and developed tendency, bigotry, enthusiasm, ener- 
 getic and animated exertion, to look about at once for 
 an equal and opposite manifestation. Even sloth and 
 lethargy have a certain disposition to set vivacity and 
 vigilance in motion, though such reagent stimulus is 
 certainly less alert than in more lively combinations. 
 
 Hence, the manifestation of Christianism, or the spirit 
 of Christianity, was not delayed till the appearance and 
 ministry of Christ. The conditions of its excitement 
 were in order ages earlier among the Jews, and although 
 its full fervour only appears when those conditions 
 were at fullest, sporadic outbursts and efflorescences 
 are not wanting in the literature that preserves so much 
 of the history of the Jewish mind. These earlier traces 
 are most noteworthy as themselves preparing the way 
 for the later declaration, but it is probable that they 
 do but faintly represent the feeling in its extent and 
 vigour as it originally nourished. Still, beyond the pre- 
 sumptions alluded to, they are our only evidence, and 
 various are their forms. 
 
 To the Gentile it might easily appear that the Jews 
 to some extent counterbalanced their uncharitableness 
 towards the rest of the world, their unfeeling disregard, 
 their supercilious contempt or virulent hatred, by as 
 exaggerated sympathy for each other. But in truth in- 
 testine divisions were anything but exceptional, and tribe
 
 WITHIN THE OLD. 395 
 
 was opposed to tribe and party to party, with a depth 
 of dislike and acrid antipathy that was revolting even 
 after the spectacle of their feelings towards the Gen- 
 tile. Divisions and civil wars commence early in their 
 history, and when arms are out of reach the clash of 
 dogma is as fierce, and the vengeance of sectaries as 
 prompt and unrelenting. 
 
 It is in attempts to soften these internecine animo- 
 sities, that we trace in the earlier literature of the Jews 
 the indications of that coming sun of Christianism of 
 which the orb itself was still far below the horizon. 
 We find them in detached precepts and glosses of the 
 law, but most remarkably, and no doubt most efficiently 
 in that form of quasi-historical apologue, which, whether 
 in the parables of Jesus or in the memorabilia of his 
 story, has conveyed most forcibly and touchingly the 
 great moral of his mission. The instance I am about 
 to cite of anticipative Christianism has in truth its 
 lamenesses and laxities, but this is characteristic of such 
 prevenient phenomena, and is indeed no more than we 
 find in the march of Christianity its very self, though 
 here the stages of progress pressed on more vehemently. 
 
 If the Christian spirit be expressed anywhere in He- 
 brew literature it is in the touching history of Joseph, 
 which is told in Genesis with a fullness, we cannot say 
 a diffuseness, that suffices to mark it of a peculiar 
 origin as compared with the greater part of the book. 
 Literary criticism traces a mixture of original materials, 
 but to no serious extent, and the story at large belongs 
 to the record Elohim. 
 
 The prophecy of the patriarch Jacob on his death-bed 
 furnishes certain negative dates for at least that portion 
 
 2 D 2
 
 396 THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 of the story very satisfactorily ; we shall see whether 
 the date of composition thus indicated throws light on 
 the moral and purport of the narrative at large. 
 
 Judah is addressed as the head of a royal tribe, and 
 supreme over his brethren or having been so ; the pas- 
 sage therefore was written after the full establishment 
 of David, who was of that tribe, and before the aboli- 
 tion of the kingdom of Judah : 
 
 " Judah, thee shall thy brethren praise : 
 Thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies 
 Thy father's children shall bow down before thee ; 
 Judah is a young lion . . . 
 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, 
 Nor a lawgiver from between his feet 
 Until," etc. 
 
 The warlike vigour assigned to Judah is characteristic 
 of the tribe under the monarchy and is appropriately 
 shared by Benjamin, the tribe of S.aul : 
 
 " Benjamin shall spoil as a wolf: 
 In the morning he shall devour the prey, 
 And at night he shall divide the spoil." 
 
 The greater portion of Benjamin remained attached to 
 Judah at the division of the kingdoms. 
 
 Joseph is addressed as the representative of the tribes 
 of his sons Ephraim and Manasseh, and at greater length 
 and with more special favour ; exalted for prolific fruit- 
 fulness, energy in war, though sorely pressed, and the 
 protection and blessings of God. Ephraim is the more 
 important and is currently referred to by the prophets 
 as titular of the associated tribes of the kingdom of 
 Israel. 
 
 There is only occasion to refer further to Reuben ; the 
 tradition that made him the eldest of Jacob's sons is pro-
 
 WITHIN THE OLD. o97 
 
 bably an offset of the tradition that in the division of the 
 promised Land the Reubenites were the first in possession 
 of their portion. There was a certain prejudice against 
 the tribe from the accusation of selfish regard for the 
 interests of their peculiar position beyond Jordan, and 
 generally the tribe attained to but slight influence. At 
 the division of the kingdoms it joined the ten tribes, 
 or Ephraim, in opposition to Benjamin and Judah. 
 
 Whatever date after the limit indicated may be con- 
 jecturally assigned to this composition, it will not fail to 
 be observed how evenhanded is the balance held be- 
 tween the types of the rival kingdoms of Ephraim and 
 Judah. The patriarch takes a common pride in both, 
 and both are thus reminded of the common tie by which 
 they are united. 
 
 Throughout the story of Joseph again, we have hints 
 by no means ambiguous, of similar reference. Judah 
 and Benjamin and Joseph, the eponyms of the royal 
 tribes the tribes of Saul, of David, and of Jeroboam, 
 have the same lead in the narrative as their tribes in 
 history. Benjamin, the youngest son of the patriarch, 
 aptly represents the very smallest tribe, and the spirit 
 and pre-eminence of Judah are in like manner charac- 
 teristic of the vigour and daring of the tribe. Thus 
 read, the entire story becomes an obvious apologue in- 
 culcating mutual forbearance and brotherly affection 
 among the tribes of Israel and especially between the 
 groups of them that come into opposition, as Joseph 
 and Judah, the kingdoms of Judah and of Israel. Joseph 
 is represented as unusually affectionate towards Ben- 
 jamin his own brother, though in truth the narrative 
 implies that Benjamin was a party with the rest to the
 
 398 THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 injury done him; it is by the appeal and suggestion 
 of Judah that the life of Joseph is spared, and that 
 slavery is substituted for death ; from the mouth of 
 Judah also at last comes the pathetic appeal to Joseph 
 to compassionate the paternal anxieties of Jacob, and 
 the free exhibition of unselfishness in the proposal, 
 that he himself should be detained a slave rather than 
 his father's heart have a final wound by loss of the re- 
 maining son of Rachel. There is some appearance of 
 an inculcation of tolerance of a still wider scope in the 
 assignment to Joseph of an Egyptian wife and the 
 daughter of a priest of On, a sun-worshipper, who bore 
 him children, the eponyms of the tribes of Ephraim and 
 Manasseh. 
 
 The various localities that are introduced assist the 
 application. Jacob is fixed at Hebron, the most ancient 
 seat of David's royalty in the tribe of Judah, and as we 
 see in the history of Absalom, a political as well as 
 religious centre; it is also one of the cities fortified 
 by Rehoboam. Joseph is sent to visit his brethren at 
 Shechem, the future capital of Ephraim, of the king- 
 dom of Israel, and follows them thence to the future 
 territory of Manasseh at Dothan, as Jeroboam, afterwards 
 the first king of Israel, is sent by Solomon to fortify 
 Shechem on Mount Ephraim. 
 
 I am, then, strongly disposed to believe that the his- 
 tory of Joseph took the form in which we have it, 
 of a pacificatory apologue inculcating forgiveness and 
 forbearance between the rival tribes, and with a lean- 
 ing towards Joseph, at a very early date after the divi- 
 sion of the kingdoms ; that it was in fact designed to 
 allay and assuage the first heats and rancour ensuing on
 
 WITHIN THE OLD. 399 
 
 the separation, and during the lifetime of Jeroboam and 
 Rehoboam. 
 
 On the first revolt of the tribes, with Jeroboam at 
 their head, Rehoboam, as we read, prepared to recover 
 his power, as he had received it from his father, by force 
 of arms. He assembled all the house of Judah with 
 the tribe of Benjamin, 180,000 men, to fight against 
 the house of Israel, and to bring the kingdom again to 
 Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. The attempt, however, 
 was stayed by the intervention of Shemaiah the pro- 
 phet; with the authoritative formula, Thus saith the 
 Lord; he forbade the commencement of civil war: 
 " Ye shall not go up nor fight against your brethren 
 the children of Israel ; return every man to his house, 
 for this thing is from me." Conflict, therefore, was for- 
 bidden on the special ground of brotherly tie between 
 the divided tribes, and whether by influence chiefly on 
 the army or the king, the expedition was put an end to. 
 The words assigned to Shemaiah are doubtless but the 
 sum and moral of his exhortation ; I can readily be- 
 lieve that some story of Joseph may have been employed 
 by him to illustrate and enforce his moral with as much 
 force as the parable of the pet lamb lent to Nathan's 
 denunciation of David " Thou art the man." 
 
 How much substratum of earlier tradition, not to say 
 authentic history, may still underlie the elaboration of 
 the story for a purpose, it is difficult impossible, to de- 
 termine. But type and antitype, as we can now com- 
 pare them, fall into correspondence on this wise. 
 
 Jeroboam, of the tribe of Ephraim, was marked by 
 King Solomon for high qualities of intelligence and 
 vigour, and appointed superintendent of the works of
 
 400 THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 fortification for the defence of Jerusalem, and in this 
 position he so far justified the opinion of his energy as 
 to be made in consequence " ruler over all the charge 
 of the house of Joseph." In the words of Josephus he 
 was entrusted with the generalship the military com- 
 mand, which was probably very comprehensive, of the 
 tribe of Joseph. 
 
 The energetic and favoured minister of such a mo- 
 narch as Solomon is rarely popular, or in a position 
 very advantageous for the conciliation of popular favour. 
 He may endeavour, like the Wolsey at least of Shak- 
 speare, to defraud his master of what credit for po- 
 pular measures there may be a chance of intercepting, 
 but it is more within the rule that he should be ob- 
 noxious to even far more odium than he deserves. The 
 date of his appointments cannot be fixed, but from the 
 occasion of mention it appears to have been towards the 
 end of Solomon's reign, when the pressure on the subject 
 overpowering by long continuance upon still decreasing 
 strength, was beginning to be borne uneasily from the 
 prospect that soon it must, and immediately it might, 
 be relieved by a demise. 
 
 It was when Jeroboam quitted Jerusalem to betake 
 himself to the scene of his extended functions that he 
 was accosted by Ahijah of Silo, a city of Ephraim, near 
 Sichem, who took the new garment he had on, that of 
 his office it may be, tore it into twelve pieces, and so 
 by a visible and sensible type, as usual with the He- 
 brew prophet down to the days of Paul, announced 
 the will of the Lord, the God of Israel. Ten of the 
 tribes of Israel he declared, symbolized by ten pieces of 
 the garment, would the Lord take from the kingdom of
 
 WITHIN THE OLD. 401 
 
 the house of David, and of these should Jeroboam, after 
 the death of Solomon the idolatrous, be king. 
 
 The same consequence, as the story goes, ensued now 
 as when Samuel anointed David during the lifetime of 
 Saul, jealousy on the part of the monarch, and peril to 
 the king designate, and plots and preparations on his 
 part that he was necessarily committed to, whether he 
 waited for provocation or not. This, or something like 
 this, was of course the intention of the prophet; So- 
 lomon, however, took the alarm, and Jeroboam was 
 obliged to fly, and took refuge in Egypt, where he was 
 apparently received and entertained by Shishak. Later 
 events show that he had made some way in laying the 
 foundations of a party in the ten tribes before his flight, 
 while his flight nevertheless, is proof equally satisfactory 
 that the tribes at large, possibly from the unpopularity 
 that I have assumed and characterized, were not pre- 
 pared or disposed to support him at once by open rising. 
 It is scarcely necessary to remark that the original pro- 
 phecy and promise of Ahijah was probably destitute 
 of the deferring clauses it now contains in deference 
 to the event, and may easily have promised the king- 
 dom of ten, if not twelve tribes, to Jeroboam, "the 
 mighty man of valour," as soon as he should care to 
 strike for it. 
 
 On the death of Solomon, and accession of Reho- 
 boam, Jeroboam invited by leaders of the people re- 
 appeared ; that he was unmolested at Shechem, during 
 the conference there of the king with his discontented 
 subjects, may be assumed as evidence of the position 
 he assumed at once ; events were now ripe, and on the 
 insolent refusal by Rehoboam of all hopes of redress,
 
 402 THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 the people at large were evidently now as zealous as 
 their leaders in favour of Jeroboam for their liberator 
 from tyranny too grievous to bear ; he became the first 
 king of Israel, and the division of the tribes was com- 
 pleted. It is probable that the assistance he brought 
 to the insurgents was not only his vigour of character, 
 but also substantial support from the treasury of Shi- 
 shak. The division being established, the voice of pro- 
 phets, as we have seen, declared that it was ordained 
 and sanctioned by God, and types and predictions would 
 come in with usual abundance to prove to satisfaction, 
 after the fact, that events must of necessity and from 
 Divine preordinance be on such wise as it could not be 
 disputed that they certainly were. 
 
 Shemaiah the prophet declared the divine approval 
 of the order of events, which the stimulative words of 
 Ahijah the prophet had so mainly contributed to bring 
 about. Joseph was triumphant in royalty, rivalling the 
 elder house ; ' and Judah was comparatively humbled at 
 the elevation of a tribe lately subject and treated with 
 unceremonious and contemptuous harshness. Bitter 
 feelings could not but rankle on either side ; but there 
 was some voice raised, of poet or prophet, to remind 
 of common brotherhood, and to urge forgiveness, peni- 
 tence, forbearance. It was by the will of God, and no 
 crime of Jeroboam, that he had been marked for royalty, 
 and announced as a future king, and thus an object of 
 divine favour : such might be the colour of an apology. 
 But he had been expelled and exiled, having done no 
 wrong, even if his life was spared, and with what addi- 
 tion of injury to possessions or relatives is not now to 
 be known. Does he, then, it might well be said, con-
 
 WITHIN THE OLD. 403 
 
 tent with tardy recognition of his divinely sanctioned 
 rights, forego animosity and revenge, and tender not re- 
 taliation but good offices, where good offices are wanted, 
 with the mighty king of Egypt "? It is admiration, not 
 rancour, of which such magnanimity is properly the 
 object, and let such brotherly affection be admitted, and 
 in like spirit happily requited. 
 
 In the fifth year of the divided kingdom, Shishak, 
 king of Egypt, entered Jerusalem; that he contented 
 himself with plunder, or, we may say, with ransom, is a 
 degree of forbearance in these times that we may not 
 improbably ascribe to the interposition of Jeroboam, 
 whose immunity from like mulct is very noteworthy. 
 It is explained, if we assume his friendly connection 
 with his former host and protector ; but we must, then, 
 give him credit for the good feeling in question to ac- 
 count for this connection not being fatal to his rival 
 Rehoboam. The addition of the LXX. to 3 Kings xii. 
 24, states that Jeroboam became son-in-law of the king 
 of Egypt on leaving for Juda3a. The administrative 
 talent recognized by Solomon may have also been em- 
 ployed by Shishak, and thus the type of Joseph is still 
 more closely applicable. 
 
 The Joseph of the patriarchal apologue, then, is 
 marked out in youth for future distinction and dignity 
 by the dreams of happy omen ; the sheaves and the 
 stars of his brethren and even of his parents making 
 obeisance to him, just as Jeroboam, viceroy of Joseph's 
 tribe, is marked out by the prophecy of Ahijah. The 
 robe (of office, as I have assumed) which, torn in pieces, 
 is made the type of Jeroboam's dignity, when he is on 
 his road to his charge, has strange coincidence with the
 
 404 THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 coat of divers colours (pieces in the margin), arrayed in 
 which Joseph travels from Hebron to Shechem and 
 Dothan, to make survey of his brethren's proceedings, 
 and report them not favourably, to his father. (Gen. 
 xxxvii. 2.) The coat, in either case, is the occasion of 
 jealousy, and promotes the outburst prepared by too 
 inconsiderate enunciation of prophetic hopes ; and the 
 localities correspond. Doomed to death, Joseph Je- 
 roboam finds refuge in Egypt, obtains favour and pre- 
 ferment with the Pharaoh, which enables him at a later 
 period to rescue and protect his brethren, the ten tribes 
 first, and afterwards the kingdom of Judah and Benja- 
 min. The former victim of envy became the instrument 
 of salvation, and used his power to console and preserve 
 at the very moment that the temptation was greatest to 
 abuse it for purposes of retaliation. 
 
 It seems to me not at all impossible that the details 
 of the mercy of Joseph may have been devised at a time 
 when occasion was still open to inculcate forbearance on 
 Jeroboam by heroic and ancestral example. In fact, not- 
 withstanding the truce effected by Shemaiah, we read, 
 1 Kings xiv. 29, "There was war between Jeroboam 
 and Rehoboam all their days," and therefore continued 
 occasion for the exhortations of the prophets to remem- 
 ber, not past injuries, but original brotherhood, the 
 common father, the common God. 
 
 Throughout the history of Joseph, there is a very dis- 
 cernible Egytian interest to the extent at least of a to- 
 lerance for the alliance of Hebrews with Egyptians, and 
 the residence of Hebrews in Egypt, that contrasts with 
 the tone assumed in large portions of the prophetic 
 Scriptures. No doubt Jeroboam was accompanied from
 
 WITHIN THE OLD. 405 
 
 Egypt by Hebrews whose relations to the country were 
 even more intimate than his own. 
 
 A question is thus raised that is indifferent to the 
 matter immediately in hand, but worth a notice for its 
 own sake. What was the precise political relation of 
 Jerusalem to Egypt after Shishak had departed with 
 the spoils of the temple 1 Are we to assume that no 
 furthqr tribute was periodically exacted, that Judaea 
 was not virtually tributary to Egypt for long after- 
 wards] The historian says nothing of such continued 
 dependence ; yet it is quite consistent with the course 
 of political reactions to conjecture that the Egyptian in- 
 vasion of Syria, and temporary occupation of Jerusalem, 
 had taught and was considered to have taught Keho- 
 boam his weakness, and that he was left in possession of 
 his kingdom, in consideration of a tribute which there 
 was little apprehension of his venturing to withhold. 
 The policy of the Romans furnishes example of this 
 plan of provincial administration, which has many ad- 
 vantages to an empire which regards and values pro- 
 vinces merely as contributing to revenue, and from 
 proper constitution, or from religious or other peculi- 
 arities of the subject-provinces is beset with difficulties 
 in an attempt to administrate them directly. 
 
 That the historians say nothing of tribute is not 
 matter for wonder, it is as little brought forward by 
 Josephus that Herod paid tribute to Augustus; and 
 there are indications of still more considerable suppres- 
 sions ; as when the defeat of Sennacherib, ascribed by 
 Herodotus to the agency of an Egyptian God in favour 
 of an Egyptian King, is related with Hebrew colouring, 
 and with no reference to Egyptian concern of any kind 
 whatever.
 
 406 THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 I have little doubt that the story of Ruth, like that 
 of Joseph, is a moral apologue. Or rather let us say it 
 is a poetical apologue, for though if my view of the 
 composition and its period be correct, it had an applica- 
 tion of the directest kind to the social circumstances of 
 its original audience, yet is this moral so entirely un- 
 forced, while yet so forcible, it issues so spontaneously 
 and so unconsciously, while at the same time so effec- 
 tually, that we accept it not as from a teacher, but are 
 impressed with it as from the lips of an inspired singer 
 and poet. 
 
 The story is told of the days of the Judges ; a refe- 
 rence to the customs of that time as antiquated in the 
 time of the narration, dates the composition relatively, 
 as indeed the mention of Jesse places it at least as late 
 as the reign of Saul. 
 
 The language of the Book is said by De Wette to 
 have certain relationship to that of the Book of Samuel, 
 but apparently from its Chaldaisms and other peculia- 
 rities, to be distinctly later. 
 
 I desiderate more exact information as to the chrono- 
 logical value of the Chaldaizing impress, in the mean- 
 time anticipate none that will materially affect my pre- 
 sent conclusions. 
 
 Ruth, a young Moabitess, is married by a Bethlehemite 
 who along with his father and mother had taken refuge 
 in her land on account of a famine. Her husband dies, 
 and her mother-in-law, Naomi, also become a widow, 
 proposes to return to her own country alone, but Ruth 
 affectionately accompanies her, adopting both her coun- 
 try and her God. " Thy country shall be my country 
 and thy God my God."
 
 WITHIN THE OLD. 407 
 
 Arrived at Bethlehem she is noticed by a wealthy- 
 kinsman of her husband's, Boaz, who is struck with her 
 piety and marries her, and she becomes the ancestress of 
 David. 
 
 Boaz marries her in conformity with the Levirate law 
 or rather custom, as the nearest disengaged relative of 
 her former husband ; it is plainly implied that by doing 
 so he evinced a fine appreciation of virtue, and as a 
 wealthy man marrying a poor widow, much generosity 
 of character. Yet this generosity is not enhanced by 
 any intimation that from the foreign birth of Ruth he 
 might without blame have avoided the match had he 
 chosen to do so, it simply depends on the delicacy with 
 which he proceeded and the motive his admiration of 
 Ruth's filial piety, which caused his attention to her. 
 The merit of Ruth is in truth set forth by the exhibi- 
 tion of the share it had in inducing Boaz so readily to 
 fulfil the obligations of the law, which it is thus implied 
 was not in every instance embraced and admitted at 
 once as a matter of course. Indeed this is shown by 
 the circumstance that Naomi does not immediately on 
 her arrival put Ruth in the way of making or having 
 made the formal claim. She takes the more modest 
 course of first giving her the opportunity of coming 
 under the eye of Boaz, and not until she has received 
 positive proof of having " found favour " with him, does 
 she intimate the claim which she might lawfully make. 
 The true explanation of the scene of the threshing- 
 floor appears to be this. Ruth was entitled to claim 
 Boaz as her husband, probably she would have been 
 considered, in the event of question, as already legally 
 his wife. The step she took with her mother-in-law's
 
 408 THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 advice, was therefore, simply a formal claim Of recogni- 
 tion of rights, and the forbearance of Boaz, though he 
 had eaten and drunk and his heart was merry, is a gra- 
 tuitous addition to the dignity of his character with no 
 disparagement of Ruth's. 
 
 Pharez, an ancestor of Boaz, was the offspring of in- 
 tercourse under circumstances very similar but less justi- 
 fiable. Tamar, the Canaanitish woman, the widow of 
 two sons of Judah, was withheld from her legal claim 
 upon the third, and vindicated herself by waylaying even 
 Judah his father. 
 
 When Naomi tells Ruth and her sister, that in going 
 with her they gave up hope of second marriages, she 
 either suppresses the legal claim they would have on 
 their husbands' kindred or recognizes the uncertainty of 
 success in enforcing it, from flaw in their title or the 
 irregularity of administration. Ruth, however, who 
 braved this consequence from attachment to Naomi, is 
 rewarded with a husband, and a rich one. 
 
 The intermarriage of Jews with Moabitish women is 
 at one period of their history, under Nehemiah and 
 Ezra, very severely denounced, and traces occur earlier 
 of like aversion ; on the other hand, the earlier records 
 of the Jews exhibit such mixed marriages on the part 
 of patriarchs and princes of the nation with much 
 greater liberality. Was the Book of Ruth written in 
 an earlier and more tolerant period, when such an al- 
 liance passed as a matter of course, or was it written 
 when it would be most distinctly forbidden, with a view 
 to inculcate the innocence of the step, and to set forth 
 a moral beauty in opposition to a Levitical restriction. 
 The latter is my opinion.
 
 WITHIN THE OLD. 409 
 
 When a party of Jewish exiles, by favour of the 
 Persian monarch, obtained permission to rebuild the 
 walls of Jerusalem, it was but a limited number that 
 resolved to quit the ties that engaged them to their new 
 country for the dangers and difficulties of the precarious 
 adventure. We may conceive that the expedition com- 
 prised the more bigoted Jews, and yet among them 
 were many who had allied themselves in marriage with' 
 women of foreign blood. The opposition to the enter- 
 prise was manifold; the Samaritans applied to be ad- 
 mitted and were rejected, and the strict theological cha- 
 racter of the undertaking was declared generally in a 
 jealous degradation and repulse of all who could not 
 establish claim to purity of blood (Nehemiah vii. 61- 
 64 ; ix.). Very shortly, as was natural in such case, an 
 outcry arose about alien wives, and in result they were 
 put away. 
 
 The preservation of nationality, of which the return 
 from the captivity was such a triumph, was not unna- 
 turally regarded as dependent on preservation of purity 
 of blood; those who did not join in the return were 
 probably precisely the class that had linked itself 
 in foreign family relations. Hence genealogies were 
 scrutinized with strictness, populations that proffered 
 friendship for anything that appears with sincerity, 
 were sourly rejected, and lastly came the divorce of 
 the strange wives wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and 
 of Moab (Nehemiah xiii. 23), Canaanites, Hittites, 
 Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, 
 Amorites ; princes and rulers being chief in the tres- 
 pass (Ezra ix. 1). 
 
 It is said (Nehemiah xiii. 3) they separated from Israel 
 
 2 E
 
 410 THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 all the mixed multitude, but whether wives of Baby- 
 lonian origin, and their descendants were included, is 
 not distinctly stated. It seems noteworthy that no ac- 
 count occurs of this class that could scarcely but have 
 existed in some numbers. 
 
 No exception was made in favour of the wives who 
 had already borne families. From the tenor of the 
 account in Ezra, it may be doubted whether the mass 
 of the people fell in with the scheme so heartily as its 
 originators, and whether the plea for delay did not turn 
 out a plan for some evasion. 
 
 In Nehemiah, the Ammonites and Moabites are men- 
 tioned with especial virulence, ostensibly on the ground 
 of the old grudge their opposition to the children of 
 Israel returning from Egypt, and their hiring Balaam 
 to curse them ; the denouncement of them in Deute- 
 ronomy xxiii. with greater severity than Edomites or 
 Egyptians probably dates here. 
 
 In the earlier historical books also, Balaam is charged 
 with having counselled the seduction of Israel by 
 Moabitish female charms ; whether of the two, the 
 later prejudice or the earlier dated record, was in truth 
 the progenitor of the other it is hard to say. 
 
 I cannot imagine any occasion, and historical con- 
 juncture when the sentiment and incident of the story 
 of Ruth could have been more livelily appreciated. If, 
 indeed, in the clamour for putting away the strange 
 wives, the bigotry of the agitation did not even spare 
 those, as it probably would not, who had not only been 
 faithful wives in Assyria, but had freely accompanied 
 their Jewish husbands, and renounced country and their 
 country's faith to participate in the dangers of the great
 
 WITHIN THE OLD. 411 
 
 design, with what force must have fallen on their ears 
 the story of the Moabitish girl, who adopted the reli- 
 gion and the sympathies of her husband, and followed 
 her mother-in-law with filial piety to Judaea ! That this 
 trait is intended to be marked for approbation is clear 
 by the contrast by which it is set off in the character of 
 Orpah, who, otherwise blameless, yet fails of the full 
 devotedness. The anecdote exhibits in fullest force the 
 effect of marriage to induce the complete attachment of 
 the wife to her adopted relations. The interest that is 
 thus created in Ruth not only justifies Boaz, and might 
 justify him to a bigoted exclusionist in Jewish caste, 
 but at once rouses us to watch his proceedings with 
 pre-formed principles of judgment. The natural feel- 
 ings of the heart are roused, and demand that he 
 shall treat her with respect and generosity ; could even 
 the sourest formalist denounce his tender and dignified 
 conduct as unlawful, and an abomination? It is my 
 impression that it was in such an apologue that some 
 gifted Hebrew asserted, and set forth the superior 
 beauty and value of natural piety as contrasted with the 
 literal ceremonialism of unfeeling priests and official 
 genealogists. 
 
 Was it a mere invention of the poet or prophet that 
 the Moabitess Ruth was an ancestress of David, or did 
 the traditional genealogy of the king really furnish a 
 Moabitess ancestress, to whose name there was an op- 
 portunity of attaching a story 1 Perhaps the latter 
 view is the more probable ; to trace the line of David 
 himself to such an origin was of course to give the alli- 
 ance a very high sanction, and it even appears that in 
 following the ancestry still higher up to Pharez there
 
 412 THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 was an intention to protect the inference from the later 
 incident by the parallel of an undoubted authority. 
 
 David, persecuted by Saul, placed his parents for secu- 
 rity with the king of Moab ; was this suggestive of the 
 later Moabitish story, or was it suggested by it, a late 
 plea for Moab "? 
 
 Nehemiah's denunciation of the mixed marriages 
 seems to challenge such a reply as the Book of Ruth 
 affords: "Did not Solomon," he said, "king of Israel, 
 sin by these things 1 yet among many nations there was 
 no king like him who was beloved of his God, yet even 
 him did outlandish women cause to sin." Solomon, who 
 married idolatresses, and fell in with their superstitions 
 and customs, is contrasted with the son-in-law of Naomi, 
 whose Moabitish wife adopts his country and worships 
 his God, and practises the most engaging piety. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, PRINTER, 
 LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.
 
 A 000035436 5