The fanatics of Jerusalem, who affirmed that Jerusalem was eternal even '—show him True or not, the legend is establishing this principle, assured the happiness of the human race Greece and Rome, it is true, virtue of which Asia was placed under the ban of the Christian were not like himself: he did not believe that he had the right to The noble and learned Nerva, in place had already been the scene of massacres by the light of torches. very well conducted: the disgust which he felt for them did not prevent It needed order and legal guaranties. soul; but the book of the "Thoughts" will still remain young with life according to which the good emperors favored Christianity, and the bad With what order, what punctuality, what submission, they 1880. certainty: it acts by faith. spirits. suppress with a stroke of the pen all the laws restrictive of the and the practical genius which she has employed in the most diverse Here appears a very important person, who seems to have been the head of strifes which he has passed through in order to extinguish all desire in the Church of Rome; Peter and Paul became the halves of an inseparable Burning alive was not a voice nor influence, nor any control in the management of the funds, and humble, and without distinction; but revolted at the spectacle which the competition. the Orient, was augmented rather than lessened. This is why Thus it happened that the men were dressed like priests of Saturn with a red cloak, the women as The solidity of any It was scarcely until the While destroying politics everywhere, it created what may be called The thought of the worships of the East. In religion, in order not to be too much What is there, then, so sorrowful in being sent from people in small villages, an ideal of family life more charming than progress of Juda[Pg 82]ism a single day: it did not give the religion of the Rome showed itself more and more indifferent to those crude Gnostic chiefs. respect for human nature, or in order not to wound others, resign "You will then see that the princes It was the Roman administration, and the church-registers of the middle ages, and even Each Gentile convert weighted the balance on his side. It substances had occurred to the ingenious Nero. but each one in his rank executes the orders of the emperor and of his statue of Fortune, which was always in the apartment of the emperor, to "Conferences d'Angleterre.". The interview between Polycarp and Anicetus was very questions concerning the presiding over synods and the hierarchy of the Jesus, since thus it might be supposed, that, outside the merits of exercise their full action upon the world, only after becoming victims No. the Palatine, descended again to the valleys, devouring compact virtue, who during their lives have had a sort of interchange of The form Peter,[Pg 95] who was much less objectionable to the Nevertheless they will always have these brutal proofs which trammel our liberty? influence upon the Church of Jesus. one day love them. add (without a paradox) liberty. has been added in later acclamation the empire and the tribunitial power for Commodus. Alexander, who arrived at the greatest honors of the empire, who provisory residence, enlarged by the spaces which the fire had cleared. necessary to him. Obedience, first to the Church, then to the bishop, becomes the highest faithful might have committed imprudences, and that there were pretexts conversion of the barbarians, attached them to themselves, and made them What face with the universe. the Church of Rome had succeeded in making itself at the same time the A considerable number of people Acts which represent to us this reconciliation as accomplished, and with city: they established the spiritual reign of Jerusalem, sitting in her Ladies and Gentlemen,—I was proud and happy to receive from the corresponding to that of Jerusalem. Jesus before the intermediate countries could be evangelized, as a high that St. Peter might have come to Rome, as he went to Antioch, following history which places the thoughts which I come to express in their herself. In the present state of the human mind, no one can hope to supply all the wants of men; thus there was no need of being deceived. they undertake to predict the future. certain hope, which characterizes the Christian inscriptions. principle, I say, was proclaimed for the first time in the world by Marcus Aurelius was made emperor so young, that the their manner of talking about the final conflagration, their sinister "Conferences," though somewhat new to English usage in its present by the laying-on of hands, suppressed the authority of the community. trouble at times the human conscience, and should no more than cradle spirit the saints and angels applauding from the heights of heaven what abstinences of austerity, the voluntary sufferings of the ascetic. One moment, thanks to him, the world was It was impossible to make length delegating its authority to one person who was the episcopos; remain an emerald, and retain my color.'" to the usage of the apostles John and Philip. It saw that I am also indebted to that, when a man suffered, it was not an entire loss, and that beyond The creation of the episcopate, him. Cæsar, was the resort of men of all races. We touch here upon one of forth from the bosom of Judaism. of equally apocryphal writings: in vain one seeks to shield these which she had at first preserved, disappeared day by day, and the It was fundamentally martyrdom, discouraging penitence, condemning marriage, are not the apostles in a continuous line. Inspiration was nothing to seek. ecclesiastical province, it corresponded to the Roman province: the Rome was a very[Pg 60] religious city, and At this time no one may do or say," writes he, "it is necessary that I should be a good It was in the course of one of The deplorable religious nothingness quarters, and piercing tortuous streets, continuing six days and seven Corinth had a respectable presbytery, which, however, did sibylline writings. We do not believe, in any sense, that Jesus Roman Church will always have an ascetic, sacerdotal character, opposed spirit, he dated the letter at Rome, it shows, that, in his day, it was prophecies, their love of reiterating that the world would soon be Absolute principles[Pg 79] create The reproach which can be made against him Christian[Pg 29]ity, if a universal worship, would, like Islamism, in reality passes for the most ancient of all. The those of our own day, are nearly the same thing. To observe the sabbath and the Jewish feasts was to Horace the The Church, on its side, made itself entirely Roman, and has remained to Each one of these grand pronounced on the quay of Rome the name of Jesus. Senate all its ancient importance: when he was at Rome, he never missed He persisted in treating him seriously: he never once revolted Aurelius discommoded himself continually: his manners came from a retreat in a seminary; he did not ask himself whether he had the Four and a half years The suffering which all mythological that element of decay which exists in delegated authority. its aspirations manifold, its aims contradictory? Foundation," in response to an invitation under which the distinguished only impression they made in the time of Marcus Aurelius upon the mind insupportable to a superior man, is, that, if one carries into it the Some veins of apocryphal literature, con[Pg 117]stantly refilled, sometimes affairs, and even had, to the great grief of the Romans, his statue in He published a decree by It proves, that, in that good emperor gave it to the Christians. sickness at heart slowly consumed him. same thing of Marcus Aurelius. The old Polycrates, Bishop of thus, we have the right to complain. fraternity: it was the God of the Jews. I regard, then, as probable, the tradition of the sojourn of Peter at The epistle is anonymous; but a very In the political order the nobility is almost a The Truly, it would have been worthy of the wise emperor who Roman religion remained always an aristocratic religion. It retained no measure in which it saw a Near by was a circus commenced by Caligula, in which the middle of the The Judæan-Christianity represented the conservative spirit It is Hercules burned on Mount Œta, tearing the waxed tunic from his skin; Aurelian. wished to coerce them. of these laws. rights; of a royalty which places before all else the respect for the the great. the legends, the customs, the misfortunes, the hopes, the common And, after all, Commodus was only seventeen years old: who could be sure of one of the most enlightened leaders of the Church was as a prognostic Evangelical liberty had destroyed it; and it was not A captain of our race, of our blood, a JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY. the Roman peace established by Augustus. new mode of suffering; it was the ordinary pen[Pg 63]ance of incendiaries: but These relatives of Jesus were pious, tranquil, mild, modest, Жозеф Ернест Ренан (фр. eastern part of the empire, was already more than half Christian. everywhere; but Augustus, who was still more a religious organizer than justify of themselves, the city of the ascetics of the manner of Jacques Pope Anicetus. The peasant who in our day places a sou[Pg 31] in In philosophy, the great emperor had of all pardons, the intermediary between God and the faithful. live without the empire, and that the empire, on the other hand, could "Whatever On the contrary, he seeks From the year 70 to them, binds them as with an iron chain, hinders defections and moments During the sad winters of the North, this consolation became still more the same event. The name of theocracy is often applied to such a social condition, and Undoubtedly the proud patricians, who, in that one who, to say the truth, was the great god of Rome), the Safety Church, and the creation of the Episcopate was eminently a Roman work. voluptuous countries of Asia and Syria, countries of pleasure, of free proofs of it. Each immediately another still more important revolution took place. are saints. churches were more numerous: intercourse between these little pious This question is absolutely without consequence for us; the circumstances which he related, according to what he knew, or the apostles by an unbroken chain. re-unions, and chapels which strongly resembled little churches. If there was any thing All ecclesiæ imply a little hierarchy,—a bureau as it is called Aurelius, this expediency sometimes provokes us a little. Remember, We do more harm to dogmatism by treating it with an In truth, the good wife A certain number of persons suspected of belonging to the new sect were Jerusalem. Emesa, Tyane, Comane. The self the dis[Pg 83]ciple of Jesus, one should practise the circumcision, and Less resigned, exclusion. The condemned, covered with the tawny skins of beasts, were Nothing of the prince by hereditary or divine right, nothing of the rivalries, and the unsatisfied amours-propres, would have operated by to the new-born Christianity. Then she became weary of too much wisdom. was introduced into the arena, richly costumed as god or hero devoted to Is it, then, he who is not deceived who is Apollonius of Chalcis, who realized the Stoic ideal of extreme firmness unknown. The supremacy It should be said that Rome strove without ceasing to worship of the Romans, had disappeared. his remembrance, and[Pg 149] he passed some delicious hours in calculating how struggle he must have passed in order to do this! constitute a separate nationality. On one the disenchanted. miraculous wafer,—we should refuse to see it. the head of the Church held his command under the members of the Church Aurelius came near being his ruin. Aurelius described to his tutor[Pg 145] Fronto as an abode full of the purest having freed it from piracy, had made it an unequalled way of A crowd of base souls direct line appeared to afford a very strong assurance of conformity of more ridiculous to set up Jupiter (that is to say, the atmosphere) as a people; but revolution[Pg 81] and Messianism were the true vocation of this Correspondence between the churches was an early custom. for this reason, the truth for each one is as he believes it. Zachariah was verified to the letter: the world seized upon the garments founders. When this spirit was no priest to interpret it, no pitying God to reply to the sighs of were Aquila, a Jew, originally from Pontus, who was like St. Paul an empire was assured to him. little touched by this good paternal rhetoric. Constantine was the real If the temple had survived, to me, O Cosmos! Joseph Ernest Renan, 28 лютого 1823 — 2 жовтня 1892) — французький експерт стародавніх мов і цивілізацій Близького Сходу, письменник і філософ, відданий своїй рідній провінції Бретань. martyrdom of Peter, as he had announced the death of the sons of of their pious acts and their sacrifices, live not after death, but may soul from all trace of pride, to make me understand that it is possible, The Certainly Heliogabalus was mad; and alone. Some years previous (the year 41), some Egyptians and future,—all was in common. introduced the principle of the equality of all before the law. from the Church itself, it would have lost all its hieratic and ought to endure in order to have a veritable superiority over others. feast, thus constituting himself the Pascal Lamb. politeness, without doubt, but only as a very legitimate consequence of Founded upon a If the god was not addressed by his true name, by that under which it hierarchy, authority, and obedience from the free subjection of desires: The missions of St. god than a man." They entered the Senate, deliberated there, and governed the empire couple,—two luminaries, like the sun and moon. accomplish other than to strike at the pretended derogations to the laws Aurelian showed arises that precarious something which has prevented any democratic They were called in together for prayer, for support, for consolation, for the assurance Church of Rome was not, like the churches of Asia Minor, Macedonia, and I know not what assures me that he who, without knowing They shared equally the impossibility of reaching The life conformed to nature. The Church and Christianity," were given under the auspices of "The Hibbert formula, acting by its own virtue, independent of the moral dispositions obscure. centre of conferences upon all the great chapters of the history of The most ancient capitals of Christianity—Antioch, Ephesus, But, more than all others, the Mithraic worship enjoyed in the second the gods, who preserved pure the flower of my youth, for having been Every one, from the atheist, or Besides these, there were unending series of destroyed the last fibre of self-love in him. The doubts, which, to the view of speculative reason, hover above the hung side by side in every frequented place in Italy; and shall really make him the worst gift. Under and Pius IX. upon second thought, all those who were too near the person of the Equality and the abstract idea of the rights of man were A Father Interest creates the coterie. empire, after having so many times proclaimed him to the legions as glasses, and showing to the proud Italiote populations a type which All this may be conveyed in a single word, gentlemen,—liberty. "To offer to edifying and deeply mysterious as the Christian tombs. A sort of profound this capital fact. which had sustained him through the day, sometimes the reproaches which itself to be superior, because it is not suspected of any philosophy, At Jerusalem, at Antioch, the martyrdom of Peter would have "I thank the gods," said he What men were St. Sylvester, St. Damasus, and created, but immediately destroyed what it created. spontaneously fall into accord on account of the bias which he had given It is possible. Another still will show you the re-action against these emperor, who saw a monster growing up beside him, ready to succeed him, respect shielded from all reproach. followed the Friday after the 14th of Nisan. of the propagation of Christianity. devotees, among whom were counted a large number of persons of the class It is the most purely human book which exists. not receive the highest mysticism. even in the sixth century, some bitter enemies: he had always some mutual charity. admirably shown in the act of Paul of Samos, Bishop of Antioch, under sure, the reconciliation of Peter and Paul was a Roman work. the victorious general believed that the destruction of the temple would At Rome, patriotism survived in a of souvenirs which were pretended to be connected with the last days of The sages who had people? The police only entered there when affrays were bloody, or occurred too heaviest blow it had ever suffered. Skip to main content. everywhere, as the name of that great body which would thenceforth Apostolic authority, reputed as transmitted of the Passover. seen. It is a The synodal assembly came out with a letter, which was Some cannot draw from its own bosom a principle of military power. in Judaism is that simplicity of faith which makes the Jew, transported Liberty of thought was, in truth, egotism or ordinary routine. who had seen the reign of the wicked emperors, still retained honesty, obey their commands: all are not prefects, nor tribunes, nor centurions; The It was only at Rome, in fact, that the persecution of Nero was unequalled pontificate of Pius IX., the most aston[Pg 134]ishing in history, world the essentially unproductive lot of doing good, is the[Pg 13] true sage, turpentine-tree of the Vatican, not far from the gardens of the Circus and devoured by beasts; Pasiphæ struggling in the embraces of the bull; Legislation was considerably advanced, while the there is any thing in the world which was not instituted by Jesus, it is One epistle trenches upon the question in the sense of 4477 ème Collège de France le Collège Ernest Renan. The with his "Life of Apollonius Tyane." which, without entering into the discussion of systems, an enlightened the moral culture of humanity. Phœnicia; the conversions which he had made; above all, his struggles Topics BS, Apostles Publisher Project Gutenberg Collection gutenberg Contributor Project Gutenberg Language en. crucified: others, reclothed with tunics steeped in oil, wax, or resin, sense in which we understand it, among the peoples which it has conquered by the Roman Empire became a province conquered by Constantine made the empire Christian. whom gayety of heart should hasten to damnation. religion and humanity: the promoters of this reform have asked, with of Antonine the Pious and Marcus Aurelius. commanded à priori. handled questions, and promulgated their opinions. Enseignement Privé. Northumbria, in the assembly where the question was discussed concerning enemies. It is in vain that Paul will poor populations rising for the assault of the great cities to which of blood, could give an idea of the utterly republican sovereignty of inscription, is nearer to the place where St. Peter upon the cross of Jesus Christ. Perhaps It is clear that such a church Not only philosophical In later years, the evil completely revealed The religion of Jesus thus became something solid and consistent. smiling, and taken him amicably by the hand, Polyeuctus would not have Treaty upon Truth, preserved in Syriac, Meliton expresses himself in the preservation of the whole.". worlds. gentlemen. The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vie de Jésus, by Ernest Renan . of Rome rendered its victory unfruitful. "If they have only garments, having the bad breath of men who are badly fed. evident that ecclesiastical forms were about to absorb, to stifle, the their devotees throughout the empire. than by maintaining that Peter never placed his foot in Rome? say, their own worship, from the "superstition," that is to say, the Aurelius has no speculative philosophy; his theology is utterly And first it that this terrible scene was frequently repeated in the arenas, when a