Вольтер
A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 03
First, then, Jesus was born under the Mosaic law; He was circumcised according to that law; He fulfilled all its precepts; He kept all its feasts; He did not reveal the mystery of His incarnation; He never told the Jews He was born of a virgin; He received John's blessing in the waters of the Jordan, a ceremony to which various of the Jews submitted; but He never baptized any one; He never spoke of the seven sacraments; He instituted no ecclesiastical hierarchy during His life. He concealed from His contemporaries that He was the Son of God, begotten from all eternity, consubstantial with His Father; and that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son. He did not say that His person was composed of two natures and two wills. He left these mysteries to be announced to men in the course of time by those who were to be enlightened by the Holy Ghost. So long as He lived, He departed in nothing from the law of His fathers. In the eyes of men He was no more than a just man, pleasing to God, persecuted by the envious and condemned to death by prejudiced magistrates. He left His holy church, established by Him, to do all the rest.
Let us consider the state of religion in the Roman Empire at that period. Mysteries and expiations were in credit almost throughout the earth. The emperors, the great, and the philosophers, had, it is true, no faith in these mysteries; but the people, who, in religious matters, give the law to the great, imposed on them the necessity of conforming in appearance to their worship. To succeed in chaining the multitude you must seem to wear the same fetters. Cicero himself was initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries. The knowledge of only one God was the principal tenet inculcated in these mysteries and magnificent festivals. It is undeniable that the prayers and hymns handed down to us as belonging to these mysteries are the most pious and most admirable of the relics of paganism. The Christians, who likewise adored only one God, had thereby greater facility in converting some of the Gentiles. Some of the philosophers of Plato's sect became Christians; hence in the three first centuries the fathers of the church were all Platonists.
The inconsiderate zeal of some of them in no way detracts from the fundamental truths. St. Justin, one of the primitive fathers, has been reproached with having said, in his commentary on Isaiah, that the saints should enjoy, during a reign of a thousand years on earth, every sensual pleasure. He has been charged with criminality in saying, in his "Apology for Christianity," that God, having made the earth, left it in the care of the angels, who, having fallen in love with the women, begot children, which are the devils.
Lactantius, with other fathers, has been condemned for having supposed oracles of the sibyls. He asserted that the sibyl Erythrea made four Greek lines, which rendered literally are:
With five loaves and two fishes
He shall feed five thousand men in the desert;
And, gathering up the fragments that remain,
With them he shall fill twelve baskets.
The primitive Christians have been reproached with inventing some acrostic verses on the name Jesus Christ and attributing them to an ancient sibyl. They have also been reproached with forging letters from Jesus Christ to the king of Edessa, dated at a time when there was no king in Edessa; with having forged letters of Mary, letters of Seneca to Paul, false gospels, false miracles, and a thousand other impostures.
We have, moreover, the history or gospel of the nativity and marriage of the Virgin Mary; wherein we are told that she was brought to the temple at three years old and walked up the stairs by herself. It is related that a dove came down from heaven to give notice that it was Joseph who was to espouse Mary. We have the protogospel of James, brother of Jesus by Joseph's first wife. It is there said that when Joseph complained of Mary's having become pregnant in his absence, the priests made each of them drink the water of jealousy, and both were declared innocent.
We have the gospel of the Infancy, attributed to St. Thomas. According to this gospel, Jesus, at five years of age, amused himself, like other children of the same age, with moulding clay, and making it, among other things, into the form of little birds. He was reproved for this, on which he gave life to the birds, and they flew away. Another time, a little boy having beaten him, was struck dead on the spot. We have also another gospel of the Infancy in Arabic, which is much more serious.
We have a gospel of Nicodemus. This one seems more worthy of attention, for we find in it the names of those who accused Jesus before Pilate. They were the principal men of the synagogue – Ananias, Caiaphas, Sommas, Damat, Gamaliel, Judah, Nephthalim. In this history there are some things that are easy to reconcile with the received gospels, and others which are not elsewhere to be found. We here find that the woman cured of a flux was called Veronica. We also find all that Jesus did in hell when He descended thither. Then we have the two letters supposed to have been written by Pilate to Tiberius concerning the execution of Jesus; but their bad Latin plainly shows that they are spurious. To such a length was this false zeal carried that various letters were circulated attributed to Jesus Christ. The letter is still preserved which he is said to have written to Abgarus, king of Edessa; but, as already remarked, there had at that time ceased to be a king of Edessa.
Fifty gospels were fabricated and were afterwards declared apocryphal. St. Luke himself tells us that many persons had composed gospels. It has been believed that there was one called the Eternal Gospel, concerning which it is said in the Apocalypse, chap, xiv., "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel."… In the thirteenth century the Cordeliers, abusing these words, composed an "eternal gospel," by which the reign of the Holy Ghost was to be substituted for that of Jesus Christ. But never in the early ages of the church did any book appear with this title. Letters of the Virgin were likewise invented, written to Ignatius the martyr, to the people of Messina, and others.
Abdias, who immediately succeeded the apostles, wrote their history, with which he mixed up such absurd fables that in time these histories became wholly discredited, although they had at first a great reputation. To Abdias we are indebted for the account of the contest between St. Peter and Simon the magician. There was at Rome, in reality, a very skilful mechanic named Simon, who not only made things fly across the stage, as we still see done, but moreover revived in his own person the prodigy attributed to Dædalus. He made himself wings; he flew; and, like Icarus, he fell. So say Pliny and Suetonius.
Abdias, who was in Asia and wrote in Hebrew, tells us that Peter and Simon met at Rome in the reign of Nero. A young man, nearly related to the emperor, died, and the whole court begged that Simon would raise him to life. St. Peter presented himself to perform the same operation. Simon employed all the powers of his art, and he seemed to have succeeded, for the dead man moved his head. "This is not enough," cries Peter; "the dead man must speak; let Simon leave the bedside and we shall see whether the young man is alive." Simon went aside and the deceased no longer stirred, but Peter brought him to life with a single word.
Simon went and complained to the emperor that a miserable Galilean had taken upon himself to work greater wonders than he. Simon was confronted with Peter and they made a trial of skill. "Tell me," said Simon to Peter, "what I am thinking of?" "If," returned Peter, "the emperor will give me a barley loaf, thou shalt find whether or not I know what thou hast in thy heart." A loaf was given him; Simon immediately caused two large dogs to appear and they wanted to devour it. Peter threw them the loaf, and while they were eating it he said: "Well, did I not know thy thoughts? thou wouldst have had thy dogs devour me."
After this first sitting it was proposed that Simon and Peter should make a flying-match, and try which could raise himself highest in the air. Simon tried first; Peter made the sign of the cross and down came Simon and broke his legs. This story was imitated from that which we find in the "Sepher toldos Jeschut," where it is said that Jesus Himself flew, and that Judas, who would have done the same, fell headlong. Nero, vexed that Peter had broken his favorite, Simon's, legs, had him crucified with his head downwards. Hence the notion of St. Peter's residence at Rome, the manner of his execution and his sepulchre.
The same Abdias established the belief that St. Thomas went and preached Christianity in India to King Gondafer, and that he went thither as an architect. The number of books of this sort, written in the early ages of Christianity, is prodigious.
St. Jerome, and even St. Augustine, tell us that the letters of Seneca and St. Paul are quite authentic. In the first of these letters Seneca hopes his brother Paul is well: "Bene te valere, frater, cupio." Paul does not write quite so good Latin as Seneca: "I received your letters yesterday," says he, "with joy." – "Litteras tuas hilaris accepi". – "And I would have answered them immediately had I had the presence of the young man whom I would have sent with them." – "Si præsentiam juvenis habuissem." Unfortunately these letters, in which one would look for instruction, are nothing more than compliments.
All these falsehoods, forged by ill-informed and mistakenly-zealous Christians, were in no degree prejudicial to the truth of Christianity; they obstructed not its progress; on the contrary, they show us that the Christian society was daily increasing and that each member was desirous of hastening its growth.
The Acts of the Apostles do not tell us that the apostles agreed on a symbol. Indeed, if they had put together the symbol (the creed, as we now call it), St. Luke could not in his history have omitted this essential basis of the Christian religion. The substance of the creed is scattered through the gospels; but the articles were not collected until long after.
In short, our creed is, indisputably, the belief of the apostles; but it was not written by them. Rufinus, a priest of Aquileia, is the first who mentions it; and a homily attributed to St. Augustine is the first record of the supposed way in which this creed was made; Peter saying, when they were assembled, "I believe in God the Father Almighty" – Andrew, "and in Jesus Christ" – James, "who was conceived by the Holy Ghost"; and so of the rest.
This formula was called in Greek symbolos; and in Latin collatio. Only it must be observed that the Greek version has it: "I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth." In the Latin, maker, former, is rendered by "creatorem". But afterwards, in translating the symbol of the First Council of Nice, it was rendered by "factorem".
Constantine assembled at Nice, opposite Constantinople, the first ecumenical council, over which Ozius presided. The great question touching the divinity of Jesus Christ, which so much agitated the church, was there decided. One party held the opinion of Origen, who says in his sixth chapter against Celsus, "We offer our prayers to God through Christ, who holds the middle place between natures created and uncreated; who leads us to the grace of His Father and presents our prayers to the great God in quality of our high priest." These disputants also rest upon many passages of St. Paul, some of which they quote. They depend particularly upon these words of Jesus Christ: "My Father is greater than I"; and they regard Jesus as the first-born of the creation; as a pure emanation of the Supreme Being, but not precisely as God.
The other side, who were orthodox, produced passages more conformable to the eternal divinity of Jesus; as, for example, the following: "My Father and I are one"; words which their opponents interpret as signifying: "My Father and I have the same object, the same intention; I have no other will than that of My Father." Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, and after him Athanasius, were at the head of the orthodox; and Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, with seventeen other bishops, the priest Arius, and many more priests, led the party opposed to them. The quarrel was at first exceedingly bitter, as St. Alexander treated his opponents as so many anti-christs.
At last, after much disputation, the Holy Ghost decided in the council, by the mouths of two hundred and ninety-nine bishops, against eighteen, as follows: "Jesus is the only Son of God; begotten of the Father; light of light; very God of very God; of one substance with the Father. We believe also in the Holy Ghost," etc. Such was the decision of the council; and we perceive by this fact how the bishops carried it over the simple priests. Two thousand persons of the latter class were of the opinion of Arius, according to the account of two patriarchs of Alexandria, who have written the annals of Alexandria in Arabic. Arius was exiled by Constantine, as was Athanasius soon after, when Arius was recalled to Constantinople. Upon this event St. Macarius prayed so vehemently to God to terminate the life of Arius before he could enter the cathedral, that God heard his prayer – Arius dying on his way to church in 330. The Emperor Constantine ended his life in 337. He placed his will in the hands of an Arian priest and died in the arms of the Arian leader, Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, not receiving baptism until on his deathbed, and leaving a triumphant, but divided church. The partisans of Athanasius and of Eusebius carried on a cruel war; and what is called Arianism was for a long time established in all the provinces of the empire.
Julian the philosopher, surnamed the apostate, wished to stifle their divisions, but could not succeed. The second general council was held at Constantinople in 1381. It was there laid down that the Council of Nice had not decided quite correctly in regard to the Holy Ghost; and it added to the Nicene creed that "the Holy Ghost was the giver of life and proceeded from the Father, and with the Father and Son is to be worshipped and glorified." It was not until towards the ninth century that the Latin church decreed that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son.
In the year 431, the third council-general, held at Ephesus, decided that Jesus had "two natures and one person." Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, who maintained that the Virgin Mary should be entitled Mother of Christ, was called Judas by the council; and the "two natures" were again confirmed by the council of Chalcedon.
I pass lightly over the following centuries, which are sufficiently known. Unhappily, all these disputes led to wars, and the church was uniformly obliged to combat. God, in order to exercise the patience of the faithful, also allowed the Greek and Latin churches to separate in the ninth century. He likewise permitted in the east no less than twenty-nine horrible schisms with the see of Rome.
If there be about six hundred millions of men upon earth, as certain learned persons pretend, the holy Roman Catholic church possesses scarcely sixteen millions of them – about a twenty-sixth part of the inhabitants of the known world.
CHRISTMAS
Every one knows that this is the feast of the nativity of Jesus. The most ancient feast kept in the church, after those of Easter and Pentecost, was that of the baptism of Jesus. There were only these three feasts, until St. Chrysostom delivered his homily on Pentecost. We here make no account of the feasts of the martyrs, which were of a very inferior order. That of the baptism of Jesus was named the Epiphany, an imitation of the Greeks, who gave that name to the feasts which they held to commemorate the appearance or manifestation of the gods upon earth – since it was not until after his baptism that Jesus began to preach the gospel.
We know not whether, about the end of the fourth century, this feast was solemnized in the Isle of Cyprus on the 6th of November; but St. Epiphanius maintained that Jesus was born on that day. St. Clement of Alexandria tells us that the Basilidians held this feast on the 15th of the month tybi, while others held it on the 15th of the same month; that is, it was kept by some on the 10th of January, and by others on the 6th; the latter opinion is the one now adopted. As for the nativity, as neither the day nor the month nor the year of it was known, it was not celebrated.
According to the remarks which we find appended to the works of the same father, they who have been the most curious in their researches concerning the day on which Jesus was born, some said that it was on the 25th of the Egyptian month pachon, answering to the 20th of May; others that it was the 24th or 25th of pharmuthi, corresponding to the 19th and 20th of April. The learned M. de Beausobre says that these latter were the days of St. Valentine. Be this as it may, Egypt and the East kept the feast of the birth of Jesus on the 6th of January, the same day as that of His baptism; without it being known (at least with certainty) when, or for what reason, this custom commenced.
The opinion and practice of the western nations were quite different from those of the east. The centuriators of Magdeburg repeat a passage in Theophilus of Cæsarea, which makes the churches of Gaul say: "Since the birth of Christ is celebrated on the 25th of December, on whatever day of the week it may fall, so also should the resurrection of Jesus be celebrated on the 25th of March, whatever day of the week it may be, the Lord having risen again on that day."
If this be true, it must be acknowledged that the bishops of Gaul were very prudent and very reasonable. Being persuaded, as all the ancients were, that Jesus had been crucified on the 23d of March, and had risen again on the 25th, they commemorated His death on the 23d and His resurrection on the 25th, without paying any regard to the observance of the full moon, which was originally a Jewish ceremony, and without confining themselves to the Sunday. Had the church imitated them, she would have avoided the long and scandalous disputes which nearly separated the East from the West, and were not terminated until the First Council of Nice.
Some of the learned conjecture that the Romans chose the winter solstice for holding the birth of Jesus, because the sun then begins again to approach our hemisphere. In Julius Cæsar's time the civil and political solstice was fixed for the 25th of December. This at Rome was a festival in celebration of the returning sun. Pliny tells us that it was called bruma; and, like Servius, places it on the 8th of the calends of January. This association might have some connection with the choice of the day, but it was not the origin of it. A passage in Josephus (evidently forged), three or four errors of the ancients, and a very mystical explanation of a saying of St. John the Baptist, determined this choice, as Joseph Scaliger is about to inform us.
It pleased the ancients (says that learned critic) to suppose – first, that Zacharias was sovereign sacrificer when Jesus was born. But nothing is more untrue; it is no longer believed by any one, at least among those of any information.
Secondly – the ancients supposed that Zacharias was in the holy of holies, offering incense, when the angel appeared to him and announced the birth of a son.
Thirdly – as the sovereign sacrificer entered the temple but once a year, on the day of expiation, which was the 10th of the Jewish month rifri, partly answering to the month of September, the ancients supposed that it was the 27th; and that afterwards, on the 23d or 24th, Zacharias having returned home after the feast, Elizabeth, his wife, conceived John the Baptist; when the feast of the conception of that saint was fixed for those days. As women ordinarily go with child for two hundred and seventy or two hundred and seventy-four days, it followed that the nativity of John was fixed for the 24th of June. Such was the origin of St. John's day, and of Christmas day, which was regulated by it.
Fourthly – it was supposed that there were six entire months between the conception of John the Baptist and that of Jesus; although the angel simply tells Mary that Elizabeth was then in the sixth month of her pregnancy; consequently the conception of Jesus was fixed for the 25th of March; and from these various suppositions it was concluded that Jesus must have been born on the 25th of December, precisely nine months after his conception.
There are many wonderful things in these arrangements. It is not one of the least worthy of admiration, that the four cardinal points of the year – the equinoxes and the solstices, as they were then fixed – were marked by the conceptions and births of John the Baptist and Jesus. But it is yet more marvellous and worthy of remark, that the solstice when Jesus was born is that at which the days begin to increase; while that on which John the Baptist came into the world was the period at which they begin to shorten. The holy forerunner had intimated this in a very mystical manner, when speaking of Jesus, in these words: "He must grow, and I must become less."
Prudentius alludes to this in a hymn on the nativity of our Lord. Yet St. Leo says that in his time there were persons in Rome who said the feast was venerable, not so much on account of the birth of Jesus as of the return, and, as they expressed it, the new birth of the sun. St. Epiphanius assures us it was fully established that Jesus was born on the 6th of January; but St. Clement of Alexandria, much more ancient and more learned than he, fixes the birth on the 18th of November, of the twenty-eighth year of Augustus. This is deduced, according to the Jesuit Petau's remark on St. Epiphanius, from these words of St. Clement: "The whole time from the birth of Jesus Christ to the death of Commodus was a hundred and ninety-four years, one month and thirteen days." Now Commodus died, according to Petau, on the last of December, in the year 192 of our era; therefore, according to St. Clement, Jesus was born one month and thirteen days before the last of December; consequently, on the 18th of November, in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Augustus. Concerning which it must be observed that St. Clement dates the reign of Augustus only from the death of Antony and the capture of Alexandria, because it was not until then that Augustus was left the sole master of the empire. Thus we are no more assured of the year of this birth than we are of the month or the day. Though St. Luke declares, "that He had perfect understanding of all things from the very first," he clearly shows that he did not know the exact age of Jesus when He says that, when baptized, He "began to be about thirty years old." Indeed, this evangelist makes Jesus born in the year of the numbering which, according to him, was made by Cyrenus or Cyrenius, governor of Syria; while, according to Tertullian, it was made by Sentius Saturninus. But Saturninus had quitted the province in the last year of Herod, and, as Tacitus informs us, was succeeded by Quintilius Varus; and Publius Sulpicius Quirinus or Quirinius, of whom it would seem St. Luke means to speak, did not succeed Quintilius Varus until about ten years after Herod's death, when Archelaus, king of Judæa, was banished by Augustus, as Josephus tells us in his "Jewish Antiquities."
It is true that Tertullian, and St. Justin before him, referred the pagans and the heretics of their time to the public archives containing the registers of this pretended numbering; but Tertullian likewise referred to the public archives for the account of the darkness at noonday at the time of the passion of Jesus, as will be seen in the article on "Eclipse"; where we have remarked the want of exactness in these two fathers, and in similar authorities, in our observations on a statue which St. Justin – who assures us that he saw it at Rome – says was dedicated to Simon the magician, but which was in reality dedicated to a god of the ancient Sabines.
These uncertainties, however, will excite no astonishment when it is recollected that Jesus was unknown to His disciples until He had received baptism from John. It is expressly, "beginning with the baptism of Jesus," that Peter will have the successor of Judas testify concerning Jesus; and, according to the same Acts, Peter thereby understands the whole time that Jesus had lived with them.
