The Philosophy of Voltaire - Collected Works: Treatise On Tolerance, Philosophical Dictionary, Candide, Letters on England, Plato's Dream, Dialogues, The Study of Nature, Ancient Faith and Fable…. Вольтер
heretics, who adored Judas Iscariot.
The Therapeutæ were a society different from the Essenians and the Judahites. They resembled the Gymnosophists and Brahmins of India. "They possess," says Philo, "a principle of divine love which excites in them an enthusiasm like that of the Bacchantes and the Corybantes, and which forms them to that state of contemplation to which they aspire. This sect originated in Alexandria, which was entirely filled with Jews, and prevailed greatly throughout Egypt." The Rechabites still continued as a sect. They vowed never to drink wine; and it is, possibly, from their example that Mahomet forbade that liquor to his followers.
The Herodians regarded Herod, the first of that name, as a Messiah, a messenger from God, who had rebuilt the temple. It is clear that the Jews at Rome celebrated a festival in honor of him, in the reign of Nero, as appears from the lines of Persius: "Herodis venere dies," etc. (Sat. v. 180.)
"King Herod's feast, when each Judaæan vile,
Trims up his lamp with tallow or with oil."
The disciples of John the Baptist had spread themselves a little in Egypt, but principally in Syria, Arabia, and towards the Persian gulf. They are recognized, at the present day, under the name of the Christians of St. John. There were some also in Asia Minor. It is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (chap, xix.) that Paul met with many of them at Ephesus. "Have you received," he asked them, "the holy spirit?" They answered him. "We have not heard even that there is a holy spirit." "What baptism, then," says he, "have you received?" They answered him, "The baptism of John."
In the meantime the true Christians, as is well known, were laying the foundation of the only true religion.' He who contributed most to strengthen this rising society, was Paul, who had himself persecuted it with the greatest violence. He was born at Tarsus in Cilicia, and was educated under one of the most celebrated professors among the Pharisees—Gamaliel, a disciple of Hillel. The Jews pretend that he quarrelled with Gamaliel, who refused to let him have his daughter in marriage. Some traces of this anecdote are to be found in the sequel to the "Acts of St. Thekla." These acts relate that he had a large forehead, a bald head, united eye-brows, an aquiline nose, a short and clumsy figure, and crooked legs. Lucian, in his dialogue "Philopatres," seems to give a very similar portrait of him. It has been doubted whether he was a Roman citizen, for at that time the title was not given to any Jew; they had been expelled from Rome by Tiberius; and Tarsus did not become a Roman colony till nearly a hundred years afterwards, under Caracalla; as Cellarius remarks in his "Geography" (book iii.), and Grotius in his "Commentary on the Acts," to whom alone we need refer.
God, who came down upon earth to be an example in it of humanity and poverty, gave to his church the most feeble infancy, and conducted it in a state of humiliation similar to that in which he had himself chosen to be born. All the first believers were obscure persons. They labored with their hands. The apostle St. Paul himself acknowledges that he gained his livelihood by making tents. St. Peter raised from the dead Dorcas, a sempstress, who made clothes for the "brethren." The assembly of believers met at Joppa, at the house of a tanner called Simon, as appears from the ninth chapter of the "Acts of the Apostles."
The believers spread themselves secretly in Greece: and some of them went from Greece to Rome, among the Jews, who were permitted by the Romans to have a synagogue. They did not, at first, separate themselves from the Jews. They practised circumcision; and, as we have elsewhere remarked, the first fifteen obscure bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised, or at least were all of the Jewish nation.
When the apostle Paul took with him Timothy, who was the son of a heathen father, he circumcised him himself, in the small city of Lystra. But Titus, his other disciple, could not be induced to submit to circumcision. The brethren, or the disciples of Jesus, continued united with the Jews until the time when St. Paul experienced a persecution at Jerusalem, on account of his having introduced strangers into the temple. He was accused by the Jews of endeavoring to destroy the law of Moses by that of Jesus Christ. It was with a view to his clearing himself from this accusation that the apostle St. James proposed to the apostle Paul that he should shave his head, and go and purify himself in the temple, with four Jews, who had made a vow of being shaved. "Take them with you," says James to him (Acts of the Apostles xxi.), "purify yourself with them, and let the whole world know that what has been reported concerning you is false, and that you continue to obey the law of Moses." Thus, then, Paul, who had been at first the most summary persecutor of the holy society established by Jesus—Paul, who afterwards endeavored to govern that rising society—Paul the Christian, Judaizes, "that the world may know that he is calumniated when he is charged with no longer following the law of Moses."
St. Paul was equally charged with impiety and heresy, and the persecution against him lasted a long time; but it is perfectly clear, from the nature of the charges, that he had travelled to Jerusalem in order to fulfil the rites of Judaism.
He addressed to Faustus these words: "I have never offended against the Jewish law, nor against the temple." (Acts xxv.) The apostles announced Jesus Christ as a just man wickedly persecuted, a prophet of God, a son of God, sent to the Jews for the reformation of manners.
"Circumcision," says the apostle Paul, "is good, if you observe the law; but if you violate the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. If any uncircumcised person keep the law, he will be as if circumcised. The true Jew is one that is so inwardly."
When this apostle speaks of Jesus Christ in his epistles, he does not reveal the ineffable mystery of his consubstantiality with God. "We are delivered by him," says he, "from the wrath of God. The gift of God hath been shed upon us by the grace bestowed on one man, who is Jesus Christ.... Death reigned through the sin of one man; the just shall reign in life by one man, who is Jesus Christ." (Romans v.)
And, in the eighth chapter: "We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs of Christ;" and in the sixteenth chapter: "To God, who is the only wise, be honor and glory through Jesus Christ... You are Jesus Christ's, and Jesus Christ is God's." (1 Cor. chap. iii.)
And, in 1 Cor. xv. 27: "Everything is made subject to him, undoubtedly, excepting God, who made all things subject to him."
Some difficulty has been found in explaining the following part of the Epistle of the Philippians: "Do nothing through vain glory. Let each humbly think others better than himself. Be of the same mind with Jesus Christ, who, being in the likeness of God, assumed not to equal himself to God." This passage appears exceedingly well investigated and elucidated in a letter, still extant, of the churches of Vienna and Lyons, written in the year 117, and which is a valuable monument of antiquity. In this letter the modesty of some believers is praised. "They did not wish," says the letter, "to assume the lofty title of martyrs, in consequence of certain tribulations; after the example of Jesus Christ, who, being in the likeness of God, did not assume the quality of being equal to God." Origen, also, in his commentary on John, says: "The greatness of Jesus shines out more splendidly in consequence of his self-humiliation than if he had assumed equality with God." In fact, the opposite interpretation would be a solecism. What sense would there be in this exhortation: "Think others superior to yourselves; imitate Jesus, who did not think it an assumption to be equal to God?" It would be an obvious contradiction; it would be putting an example of full pretension for an example of modesty; it would be an offence against logic.
Thus did the wisdom of the apostles establish the rising church. That wisdom did not change its character in consequence of the dispute which took place between the apostles Peter, James, and John, on one side, and Paul on the other. This contest occurred at Antioch. The apostle Peter—formerly Cephas, or Simon Bar Jona—ate with the converted Gentiles, and among them did not observe the ceremonies of the law and the distinction of meats. He and Barnabas, and the other disciples, ate indifferently of pork, of animals which had been strangled, or which had cloven feet, or which did not chew the cud; but many Jewish Christians having arrived, St. Peter joined with them in abstinence from forbidden meats, and in the ceremonies of the Mosaic law.
This conduct appeared very prudent; he wished to avoid giving offence to the Jewish Christians, his companions; but St. Paul attacked him on the subject with considerable severity. "I withstood him," says he, "to his face, because he was blamable." (Gal. chap. ii.)
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