existed for some time distinct from that of Jesus, and at first on good terms with it. Years after the death of the two masters, people were still baptised with the baptism of John. Certain persons were members of the two schools at the same time, -for example, the celebrated Apollos, the associate of Saint Paul (about A. D. 54), and a goodly number of the Christians of Ephesus. Josephus entered (A. D. 53) the school of an ascetic named Banou,2 who offers a striking resemblance to John the Baptist, and who was perhaps of his company. This Banou lived in the desert, and was clothed with the leaves of trees; his only food was wild plants and fruits, and he bathed frequently, day and night, in cold water, in order to purify himself. James, who was called the "brother of the Lord," practised a similar asceticism. Later, near the end of the first century, baptism was in conflict with Christianity, especially in Asia Minor. The author of the writings attributed to John the evangelist appears to oppose it indirectly.5 One of the Sibylline poems seems to proceed from this school. As to the sects of Hemerobaptists, Baptists, and Elkesaïtes (Sabians and Mogtasila of the Arabian writers) who in the second century filled Syria, Palestine, and Babylonia, whose representatives still exist in our day under the name Mandæans (Mendaïtes), or "Christians of St. John," they are rather of the same

6

1 Acts xviii. 25; xix. 1-5. Compare Epiphan. Adv. hær. xxx. 16. 2 Josephus, Life, 2.

8 Possibly the Bounai reckoned by the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin,

43 a) among the disciples of Jesus.

4 Hegesippus in Euseb. Hist. eccl. ii. 23.

5 John i. 8, 26, 33; iv. 2. 1 Ep. John v. 6. Acts x. 47.

6 Lib. iv., especially verse 157 et seq.

Sabian, in Aramaic, is the equivalent of "Baptist;" Mogtasila has

the same meaning in Arabic.

origin as the movement of John the Baptist than of authentic descent from him. The true school of John, partly blended with Christianity, became a small Christian sect, and died out in obscurity. John had a clear presentiment of this result. If he had yielded to a pitiful rivalry, he would to-day be forgotten in the crowd of sectaries of his time. By rising above personal ambition, he has attained a glorious and unique position in the religious pantheon of humanity.

CHAPTER XIII.

IN JERUSALEM.

JESUS went almost every year to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. The particulars of these journeys are meagre, for the Synoptics do not speak of them,1 and the notes of time in the Fourth Gospel are on this point very confused. It was, it would seem,

1 Still, they obscurely imply these visits. They, as well as the Fourth Gospel, recognise the relations with Joseph of Arimathea. Luke (x. 38-42) knows the family of Bethany, and even hints vaguely at a plan of journeyings not unlike that mentioned by John; his itinerary, in fact (ix. 51-xviii. 31), is so strange as to seem as if constructed from incidents of several journeys. Certain fragments — -x. 25–42 (the good Samaritan and the household of Bethany); xi. 29–32, 37–41; xii. 1–11; xiii. 10–17, 31-35; xiv. 1-6; xv. 1, 2- seem to belong to Jerusalem or its neighbourhood. The difficulty in this view seems to result from Luke's bringing everything into the Synoptic framework, from which he does not venture to depart. The larger part of the attack on Pharisees and Sadducees, which the Synoptics represent as made in Galilee, have scarce a meaning unless at Jerusalem. Finally, the length of time which they allow from his entrance into Jerusalem to his death, though it may possibly extend to several weeks (Matt. xxvi. 55; Mark xiv. 49), is not enough to admit all the incidents recorded. The passages in Matt. xxiii. 37 and Luke xiii. 34 seem to confirm this view; though this, it may be urged, is a quotation, like Matt. xxiii. 34, referring in general terms to the various messages divinely sent to save the chosen people.

2 Two pilgrimages are clearly indicated (John ii. 13 and v. 1), besides the final journey (vii. 10), after which Jesus returns no more to Galilee. The first was while John was still baptising, and would, accordingly, cor respond with the Passover of A. D. 29. But the circumstances recounted belong to a later date: compare John ii. 14-17 (driving the money-changers from the Temple) with Matt. xxi. 12, 13; Mark xi. 15-17; Luke xix. 45, 46. Evidently, the date has been altered in the early chapters of the

in the year A. D. 31, and certainly after the death of John, that the most important of the visits of Jesus to Jerusalem took place. Several of the disciples followed him. Although Jesus at that time attached little value to the pilgrimage, he fell in with it in order not to offend Jewish opinion, with which he had not yet broken. These journeys, moreover, were essential to his design; for he already felt that, in order to complete his task, he must go out from Galilee and attack Judaism in its stronghold, which was Jerusalem.

The little Galilean community was here by no means at home. Jerusalem was then much what it is to-day, a city of pedantry, acrimony, disputes, hatreds, and littleness of mind. Fanaticism was rampant there, and religious seditions broke out daily. The Pharisees were dominant: the study of the Law, pushed to the most insignificant minutiæ and reduced to questions of casuistry, was the only study. This exclusively theological and canonical culture no way contributed to refine the intellect. It was something like the barren doctrine of the Mussulman fakir, - that empty science debated round the mosque, at great cost of time and pure waste of logic, without aiding the right discipline of the mind. The theological education of our modern clergy, though very dry, can give us no idea of this; for the Renaissance has introduced into all our teachings, even the most rebellious, something of literary feeling and of method, so that scholasticism itself has taken its colouring, more or less, from the humanities. The science of the Jewish doctor- the sofer, or scribe purely barbarous, utterly absurd, and without a spark

was

Fourth Gospel; or, more likely, the incidents of different journeys have been confused.

of moral life.1 To cap the evil, it filled one who had exhausted himself in learning it with an absurd conceit. Proud of the pretended science that had cost him so much trouble, the Jewish scribe disdained Greek culture exactly as the learned Mussulman of our time despises European civilisation, or as a Catholic theologian of the old school despises the intelligence of men of the world. The nature of this scholastic discipline is to close the mind against all that is refined; to train the eye only for those difficult trifles which have already depleted the life, regarding them as the natural occupation of persons making a profession of serious things.2

This hateful atmosphere could not but weigh very heavily on the tender heart and clear moral sense of the northern Israelites. The contempt felt at Jerusalem for the Galileans made the separation still more complete. In that beautiful Temple, the object of all their desires, they often met nothing but insult. A verse of the pilgrim's psalm, "I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God," seemed expressly made for them. A disdainful priesthood smiled at their simple devotion, just as in former time the Italian clergy, at home in the sanctuaries, witnessed coldly and almost jestingly the fervour of the pilgrim coming from afar. The Galileans spoke a rather corrupt dialect their pronunciation was faulty; they confounded the different aspirates, which led to mistakes that were much laughed at. In religion, they were regarded as

-

t;

1 It may be judged from the Talmud, which is an echo from the Jewish schools of this time.

2 See Josephus, Antiq. XX. xi. 2.

8 Ps. lxxxiv. 11

4 Matt. xxvi. 73; Mark xiv. 70; Acts ii. 7; Babylonian Talmud, Erubin, 53 a, b; Bereschith rabba, 26 c.