Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/437

 JESUS

JESUS

that the Christians identified the bearer with the promised Messias of the Jews. He combined in His person the offices of prophet (John, vi, 14; Matt., xiii, 57; Luke, xiii, 'A'S; xxiv, 19), of l<ing (Luke, xxiii, 2; Acts, xvii, 7: 1 Cor., xv, 24; .-Vpoc. xv, o), and of priest (Heb., ii, 17; etc.); he fulfilled all the Messianic pre- dictions in a fuller and a higher sense than had been given them by the teachers of the Synagogue.

n. Sources. — The historical documents referring to Christ's life and work maj' be divided into three classes: pagan sources, Jewish sources, and Christian sources. We shall study the three groups in succes- sion.

A. Pagan Sources. — The non-Christian sources for the historical truth of the Gospels are both few and polluted by hatred and prejudice. A number o" rea- sons have been advanced for this condition of the pagan sources: The field of the Gospel history was remote Galilee; the Jews were noted as a superstitious race, if we may believe Horace (Credal Judieus Apella, I, Sat., V, 100) ; the God of the Jews was unknown and unintelligible to most pagans of that jjcriod; the Jews in wliiisc midst Christianity had taken its origin were (lis|iiMX('il ,11111)111;. and hated by, all the pagan nations; thi' ( lirisl iau nligion itself was often confounded with one of tlie many sects that had sprung up in Judaism, and which could not e.xcite the interest of the pagan spectator. It is at least certain that neither Jews nor Gentiles suspected in the least the paramount impor- tance of the religion the rise of which they witnessed among them. These considerations will account for the rarity and the asperity with which Christian events are mentioned by pagan authors. But though Gentile writers do not give us any information about Christ and the early stages of Christianity which we do not possess in the Gospels, and though their statements are made with unconcealed hatred and contempt, still they imwittingly prove the historical value of the facts related by the Evangelists.

\\'e need not delay over a WTiting entitled the " Acts of Pilate", which must have existed in the second century (Justin, "Apol.", I, 35), and must have been used in the pagan schools to warn boys against the belief of the Christians (Euseb., "Hist. Eccl.", I, ix; IX, v) ; nor need we inquire into the question whether there ever existed any authentic census tables of Quirinus. We possess at least the testimonv of Tacitus (a. d. 54-119) for the statements that the Founder of the Christian religion, a deadl>- superstition in the eyes of the Roman, had been put to death by the procura- tor Pontius Pilate under the reign of Tiberius; that His religion, though suppressed for a time, broke forth again not only throughout Judea where it had orig- inated, but even in Rome, the conflux of all the streams of wickedness and shamelessness; further- more, that Nero had diverted from himself the suspi- cion of the liurning of Rome by charging the Christians with the crime; that these latter were not guilty of incendiarism, though they deserved their fate on ac- count of their universal misanthropy. Tacitus, more- over, describes some of the horrible torments to which Nero subjected the Christians (.Ann., XV, xHv). The Roman writer confounds the Christians with the Jews, considering them as an especially abject Jewish sect; how little he investigated the historical truth of even the Jewish records may be inferred from the credulity with which he accepted the absurd legends and calum- nies about the origin of the Hebrew people (Hist., V, iii, iv).

.Another Roman WTiter who shows his acquaintance with Christ and the Christians is Suetonius (a. d. 75- 160). It has been already noted that Suetonius con- sidered Christ (Chrestus) as a Roman insurgent who stirre" (Nero. xvi). The K(im:in writer does not understand that the Jewish trouMcs arose from the Jewish antagonism to the Messianic character of Jesus Christ and to the rights of the Christian Church.

Of greater importance is the letter of Pliny the Younger to the Emperor Trajan (about a. d. 61-115), in which the (iovernor of Bithynia consults his impe- rial majesty as to how to deal with the Christians living within his jurisdiction. On the one hand, their lives were confessedly innocent : no crime could be proved against them e-xcepting their Christian belief, which appeared to the Roman as an extravagant and per- verse superstition. On the other hand, the Christians could not be shaken in their allegiance to Christ, Whom they celebrated as their God in their early morning meetings (Ep., X, 97, 9S). Christianity here appears no longer as a religion of criminals, as ft does in the texts of Tacitus and Suetonius; Pliny acknowl- edges the high moral principles of the Christians, ad- mires their constancy in the Faith {pervicacia et iiiflexihilis obstinuliij). which he appears to trace back to their worship of Christ {carmenque Christo, quasi Den, dicere).

The remaining pagan witnesses are of less impor- tance: In the second century Lucian sneered at Christ and the Christians, as he scoffetl at the pagan gods. He alludes to Christ's death on the Cross, to His mira- cles, to the mutual love prevailing among the Chris- tians (" Philopseudes",nn. 13, 16; "DeMortePereg."). There are also alleged allusions to Christ in Numenius (Origen, "Contra CeLs.", IV, 51), to His parables in Galerius, to the earthcjuake at the Crucifixion in Phlegon (Origen, "Contra Cels.", II, 14). Before the end of the second century, the Aii70! dX?;*^! of Celsus, as quoted by Origen (Contra Cels., passim), testifies that at that time the facts relateil in the Gospels were generally accepted as historically true. However scanty tlae pagan sources of the life of Christ may be, they bear at least testimony to His existence, to His miracles, His parables, His claim to Divine worship, His death on the Cross, and to the more striking characteristics of His religion.

The reader may find it instructive to consult the following works on the views of pagan writers concern- ing Jewish and early Christian conditions: Meier, " Judaica, seu veterum scriptorum profanorum de rebus Judaicis fragmenta", Jena. 1832; Schmitthen- ner, "De rebus Judaicis qucecunque qua; prodiderunt ethnici scriptoresGrceciet Latini", 1S44; Goldschmidt, "De Juda^orum apud Romanos conditione", 1S66; Scheuffgen, " Unde Romanorum opiniones de Judoeis conflata; sint", Bedbmg Programme, 1870; Gill, " Notices of the Jews and their Country by the Classic Writers of Antiquity", 1872; Geiger, "Quid de Judoe- orum moribus atque institutis scriptoribus Romanis persuasum fuerit", 1872; de Colonia, "La religion chretienne autoris^e par les temoignages des anciens auteurs paiens", 1750; Addison, "Essay on the Truth of the Cliristian Rehgion".

B. Jeirish Sources. — Philo, who died after A. D. 40, is mainly important for the light he throws on certain modes of thought and phraseology found again in some of the .\postles. Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., II, iv) indeed preser\es a legend that Philo had met St. Peter in Rome during his mission to the Emperor Caius; moreover, that in liis work on the contemplative life he descriljes the life of the Christian Chiu'ch in .Alex- andria founded by St. Mark, rather than that of the Es,senes and Therapeuta;. But it is hardly probalile that Philo had heard enough of Christ and His fol- lowers to give an historical foundation to the forego- ing legends.

The earliest non-Christian writer who refers to