 Section 4 of the Great Events by Famous Historians This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Mike Botez The Great Events by Famous Historians Edited by Charles F. Horne Rossiter Johnson and John Rudd The Crucifixion A.D. 30 by Frederick William Ferrer The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ took place on Friday of the Passover week of the Jews in the year A.D. 30. This day is known and generally observed by Christians as Good Friday. Crucifixion as a means of inflicting death in the most cruel, lingering and shameful way was used by many nations of antiquity. The Jews never executed their criminals in this way, but the Greeks and Romans made across the instrument of death to malefactors. The cross was in the shape either of the letter T or the letter X or was in the form familiar in such paintings of the Crucifixion as the well-known representation of Rubens. It was the usual custom to compel the criminal to carry his own cross to the place of execution. The cross was then set up and the criminal was usually tied to it by the hands and feet and left to perish of hunger and thirst. Sometimes he was given a narcotic drink to stupefy him. In the case of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ the victim was fastened to the cross by nails driven through his hands and feet. As Dr. Judson Tisworth has plainly pointed out the men who were crucified with Jesus Christ were not thieves but robbers. This is the term also used below by fairer or perhaps Jewish patriots to the Romans' political rebels and outlaws. They would then be classed with Jesus under the accusation that they were not loyal to the sovereignty of the Roman Emperor. During the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate there was a widely prevailing spirit of sedition and revolt among the Jews and many rebels were sentenced to Crucifixion. Such a rebel was the robber Barabas whom Pilate wished to substitute for Jesus as the victim of popular fury. The robber episode of the Crucifixion is treated by fairer with a picturesque effect which heightens the vivid coloring in his account of the supreme events that marks the central point of the world's history. Utterly brutal and revolting as was the punishment of Crucifixion which has now for 1500 years been abolished by the common pity and abhorrence of mankind. There was one custom in Judea and one occasionally practiced by the Romans which revealed some touch of passing humanity. The latter consisted in giving to the sufferer a blow under the armpit which without causing death yet hastened its approach. Of this I need not speak because for whatever reason it was not practiced on this occasion. The former which seems to have been due to the milder nature of Judaism and which was derived from a happy piece of rabbinic exegesis on Proverbs 31-6 consisted in giving to the condemned immediately before his execution a draft of wine medicated with some powerful opiate. It had been the custom of wealthy ladies in Jerusalem to provide this typifying potion at their own expense and they did so quite irrespectively of their sympathy for any individual criminal. It was probably taken freely by the two malefactors but when they offered it to Jesus he would not take it the refusal was an act of sublimist heroism. The effect of the draft was to dull the nerves to cloud the intellect to provide an anesthetic against some part at least of the lingering agonies of that dreadful death but he whom some modern skeptics have been based enough to accuse of feminine feebleness and cowardly despair preferred rather to look death in the face to meet the king of terrors without striving to deaden the force of one agonizing anticipation or to steal the throbbing of one lacerated nerve. The three crosses were laid on the ground that of Jesus which was doubtless taller than the other two being placed in bitter scorn in the midst Perhaps the cross beam was now nailed to the upright and certainly the title which had either been born by Jesus fastened round his neck or carried by one of the soldiers in front of him was now nailed to the summit of his cross then he was stripped naked of all his clothes and then followed the most awful moment of all he was laid down upon the implement of torture his arms were stretched along the cross beams and at the center of the open palms the point of a huge iron nail was placed which by the blow of a mallet was driven home into the wood then through either foot separately or possibly through both together as they were placed one over the other another huge nail tore its way through the quivering flesh whether the sufferer was also bound to the cross we do not know but to prevent the hands and feet being torn away by the weight of the body which could not rest upon nothing but four great wounds there was about the center of the cross a wooden projection strong enough to support at least in part a human body which soon became a weight of agony it was probably at this moment of inconceivable horror that the voice of the Son of Man was heard uplifted not in a scream of natural agony but that fearful torture but calmly praying in divine compassion for his brutal and pitiless murderers I and for all who in their sinful ignorance crucify him afresh forever Father, forgive them for they know not what they do and then the accursed tree with its living human burden hanging upon it in helpless agony and suffering fresh tortures as every movement irritated the fresh rants in hands and feet was slowly heaved up by strong arms and the end of it fixed firmly in a hole dug deep in the ground for that purpose the feet were but a little raised above the earth the victim was in full reach of every hand that might choose to strike in close proximity to every gesture of insult and hatred he might hang for hours to be abused, outraged even tortured by the ever moving multitude who with that desire to see what is horrible which always characterizes the coarsest hearts had thronged to gaze upon a sight which should rather have made them weep tears of blood and there in tortures which grew ever more insupportable ever more maddening as time flowed on the unhappy victims might linger in a living death so cruelly intolerable that often they were driven to entreat and implore the spectators or the executioners for dear pity's sake to put an end to anguish too awful for man to bear conscious to the last and often with tears of object misery beseeching from their enemies the priceless boon of death for indeed a death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and death can have of horrible and ghastly dizziness crump, thirst, starvation, sleeplessness traumatic fever, tetanus, publicity of shame long continuance of torment, horror of anticipation mortification of untended wounds all intensified just up to the point at which they can be endured at all but all stopping just short of the point which would give to the sufferer the relief of unconsciousness the unnatural position made every movement painful the lacerated veins and crushed tendons throbbed with incessant anguish the wounds inflamed by exposure gradually gangrened the arteries especially of the head and stomach became swollen and oppressed with surcharged blood and while each variety of misery went on gradually increasing there was added to them the intolerable pang of a burning and raging thirst and all these physical complications caused an internal excitement and anxiety which made the prospect of death itself of death the awful unknown enemy at whose approach man usually shudders most bear the aspect of a delicious and exquisite release such was the death to which Christ was doomed and though for him it was happily shortened by all that he had previously endured yet he hung from soon after noon until nearly sunset before he gave up his soul to death when the cross was uplifted the leading Jews for the first time prominently noticed the deadly insult in which Pilate had vented his indignation before in their blind rage they had imagined that the manner of his crucifixion was an insult aimed at Jesus but now that they saw him hanging between the two robbers on a cross yet loftier it suddenly flushed upon them that it was a public scorn inflicted upon them for on the white wooden tablet smeared with gypsum which was to be seen so conspicuously over the head of Jesus on the cross run in black letters an inscription in the three civilized languages of the ancient world the three languages of which one at least was certain to be known by every single man in that assembled multitude in the official Latin in the current Greek in the vernacular Aramaic informing all that this man who was thus enduring a shameful servile death this man thus crucified between two Sicarii in the sight of the world was the king of the Jews to him who was crucified the poor malice seemed to have in it nothing of derision even on his cross he reigned even there he seemed divinely elevated above the priests who had brought about his death and the coarse, idle, vulgar multitude who had flocked to feed their greedy eyes upon his sufferings the malice was quite impotent against one whose spiritual and moral nobleness struck awe into dying malefactors and heathen executioners even in the lowest abyss of his physical degradation with a passionate ill humor of the Roman governor there probably blended a vein of seriousness while he was delighted to revenge himself on his detested subjects by an act of public insolence he probably meant or half meant to imply that this was in one sense the king of the Jews the greatest, the noblest, the truest of his race whom therefore his race had crucified the king was not unworthy of his kingdom but the kingdom of the king there was something even loftier even than royalty in the glazing eyes which never ceased to look with sorrow on the city of righteousness which had now become a city of murderers the Jews felt the intensity of the scorn with which Pilate had treated them it so completely poisoned their hour of triumph that they sent their chief priests in deputation begging the governor to alter the obnoxious title right not they said the king of the Jews but that he said I am the king of the Jews but Pilate's courage which had oozed away so rapidly a name of Caesar had now revived he was gladden any and every way to browbeat and thwart the man who seditious clumber had forced him in the morning and knocked against his will few men had the power of giving expression to a sovereign contempt more effectively than the Romans without deigning any justification of what he had done Pilate summarily dismissed the solemn hierarchs with a curt and contemptuous reply what I have written I have written to prevent the possibility of any rescue even at the last moment since instances had been known of men taken from the cross and restored to life a quaternion of soldiers with their centurion were left on the ground to guard the cross the close of the victims always fell as percusseds to the men who had to perform so weary and disagreeable unoffice little dreaming how exactly they were fulfilling the mystic intimations of olden Jewish prophecy they proceeded therefore to divide between them the garments of Jesus the talith they tore into four parts probably ripping it down the seams but the Chateauneth or undergarment was formed of one continuous woven texture and to tear would have been to spoil it they therefore contended themselves with letting it become the property of any of the four to whom it should fall by lot when this has been decided they sat down and watched him till the end beguiling the weary lingering hours by eating and drinking and jibing and playing dice it was a scene of tumult the great body of the people seem to have stood silently at gaze but some few of them as they passed by the cross perhaps some of the many false witnesses and other conspirators of the previous night mocked at Jesus with insulting noises and furious taunts especially bidding him to come down from the cross and save himself since he could destroy the temple and build it in three days and the chief priests and scribes and elders less awestruck less compassionate than the mass of the people were not ashamed to disgrace their grey-haired dignity and lofty reputation by adding their heartless reproaches to those of the evil few unrestrained by the noble patience of the sufferer unsated by the accomplishment of their wicked vengeance unmoved by the sight of helpless anguish and the look of eyes that began to glaze in death they congratulated one another under his cross with scornful insolence he saved others himself he cannot save let this Christ, this king of Israel descend now from the cross that we may see and believe no wonder then that the ignorant soldiers to their share of mockery with these shameless and unvenerable hierarchs no wonder that at their midday meal they pledged in mock hilarity to the dying man cruelly holding up toward his burning lips their cups of sour wine and echoing the Jewish taunts against the weakness of the king whose throne was a cross whose crown was thorns nay, even the poor wretches who were crucified with him caught the hideous infection comrades perhaps of the respected Barabbas hairs of a rebellious fury of a Judas the Golanite trained to recognize no Messiah but a Messiah of the sword they reproachfully bade him if his claims were true to save himself and them so all the voices about him wrung with blasphemy and spite and in that long slow agony his dying year caught no accent of gratitude of pity or of love baseness, falsehood, savagery, stupidity such were the characteristics of the world which thrust itself into hideous prominence before the Saviour's last consciousness such the muddy and miserable stream that rolled under the cross before his dying eyes but amid this chorus of infamy Jesus spoke not he could have spoken the pains of crucifixion did not confuse the intellect or paralyze the powers of speech we read of crucified men who for hours together upon the cross vented their sorrow, their rage or their despair in the manner that best accorded with their character of some who raved and cursed and fought their enemies of others who protested to the last against the iniquity of their sentence of others who implored compassion with object and treaties of one even who from the cross as from a tribunal harangued the multitude of his countrymen and abraded them with their wickedness and vice except to bless and to encourage and to add to the happiness and hope of others Jesus spoke not so far as the malice of the passers-by and of priests and sanhedrists and soldiers and of these poor robbers who suffered with him was concerned as before during the trial so now upon the cross he maintained unbroken his kingly silence but that silence joined to his patient majesty and the divine holiness and innocence which radiated from him like a hollow was more eloquent than any words it told earliest on one of the crucified robbers at first this bonus lateral of the apocryphal gospels seems to have faintly joined and reproaches uttered by his fellow sinner but when those reproaches merged into deeper blasphemy he spoke out his inmost thought it is probable that he met Jesus before and heard him and perhaps been one of those thousands who had seen his miracles there is indeed no authority for the legend which assigns to him the name of Dismas or for the beautiful story of his having saved the life of the virgin and her child during their flight into Egypt but on the plains of Genesaret perhaps from some robbers cave in the wild ravines of the valley of the doves he may well have approached his presence he may well have been one of those publicans and sinners who drew near to him for to hear him and the words of Jesus had found some room in the good ground of his heart they had not all fallen upon stony places even a disour of shame and death when he was suffering the just consequence of his past evil deeds faith triumphed as a flame sometimes leaps up among dying embers so amid the white ashes of a sinful life which lay so thick upon his heart the flame of love toward his God and his savior was not quite quenched under the hellish outcry which had broken loose around the cross of Jesus there had lain a deep misgiving half of them seem to have been instigated by doubt and fear even in the self congratulations of the priests we catch an undertone of dread suppose that even now some imposing miracle should be wrought suppose that even now that martyr form should burst indeed into messianic splendor and the king who seemed to be in the slow misery of death should suddenly with a great voice summon his legions of angels and springing from his cross upon the rolling clouds of heaven come in flaming fire to take vengeance upon his enemies and the air seemed to be full of signs there was a gloom of gathering darkness in the sky a thrill and tremor in the solid earth a haunting presence as a ghostly visitant who chilled the heart and hovered in awful witness above that scene the dying robber had joined at first in the half taunting half despairing appeal to a defeat and weakness which contradicted all that he had hoped but now this defeat seem to be greater than victory and this weakness more irresistible than strength as he looked the faith in his heart dawned more and more into the perfect day he had long ceased to utter any reproachful words he now rebuked his comrades blasphemies ought not the suffering innocence of him who hung between them to shame into silence their just punishment and flagrant guilt and so turning his head to Jesus he uttered the intense appeal oh Jesus remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom then he who had been mute amid invectives spake at once in surpassing answer to that humble prayer verily I say to thee today shall thou be with me in paradise though none spoke to comfort Jesus though deep grief and terror and amazement kept them dumb yet there were hearts amid the crowd that beat in sympathy with the awful sufferer at a distance stood a number of women looking on and perhaps even that dread hour expecting his immediate deliverance many of these were women who had ministered to him in Galilei and had come from thence in the great band of Galilean pilgrims conspicuous among this heart-stricken group were his mother Mary Mary of Magdala Mary the wife of Klopas mother of James and Joseph and Salom the wife of Zebedee some of them as the hours advanced stole nearer and nearer to the cross and at length the filming eye of the Saviour fell on his own mother Mary as with a sword piercing through and through her heart she stood with a disciple whom he loved his mother does not seem to have been much with him during his ministry it may be that the duties and cares of a humble home rendered it impossible at any rate the only occasions on which we hear of her are occasions when she is with his brethren and is joined with them in endeavouring to influence apart from his own purposes and authority his messianic course but although at the very beginning of his ministry he had gently shown her that the earthly and filial relation was now to be transcended by one far more lofty and divine and though this end of all her high hopes must have tried her faith with an overwhelming and unspeakable sorrow yet she was true to him in this supreme hour of his humiliation and would have done for him all that a mother's sympathy and love can do nor had he for a moment forgotten her who had bent over his infant slumbers and with whom he had shared those 30 years in the cottage at Nazareth tenderly and sadly he thought of the future that awaited her during the remaining years of her life on earth troubled as they must be by the tumult and persecutions of a struggling and nascent faith after his resurrection her lot was holocaust among his apostles and the apostle whom he loved the most the apostle who was nearest to him in heart and life seemed the fittest to take care of her to him therefore to John whom he had loved more than his brethren to John whose head had leaned upon his breast at the last supper he considered her as a sacred charge woman he said to her in fewest words but in words which breathed the utmost spirit of tenderness behold thy son and then to St. John behold thy mother he could make no gesture with those pierced hands but he could bend his head they listened in speechless emotion but from that hour perhaps from that very moment leading her away from a spectacle which did but torture her soul with unavailing agony that disciple took her to his own home it was now noon and at the holy city the sunshine should have been burning over that scene of horror with a power such as it has in the full depth of an English summertime but instead of this the face of the heavens was black and the noonday sun was turned into darkness on this great and terrible day of the Lord it could have been no darkness of any natural eclipse for the Pascal moon was at the full but it was one of those signs from heaven for which during the ministry of Jesus the Pharisees had so often clamored in vain the early fathers appealed to pagan authorities the historian follows the chronicler flag on for such a darkness but we have no means of testing the accuracy of these references and it is quite possible that the darkness was a local gloom which hung densely over the guilty city and its immediate neighborhood but whatever it was it clearly filled the minds of all who beheld it with yet deeper misgiving the taunts and jeers of the Jewish priests and the heathen soldiers were evidently confined to the earlier hours of the crucifixion its later stages seem to have thrilled alike the guilty and the innocent with emotions of dread and horror of the incidents of those last three hours we are told nothing and that awful obscuration of the noonday sun may well have overawed every heart into an inaction respecting which there was nothing to relate what Jesus suffered then for us men and our salvation we cannot know for during those three hours he hung upon his cross in silence and darkness or if he spoke there was none there to record his words but towards the close of that time his anguish culminated and emptied to the very utter most of that glory which he had since the world begun drinking to the very deepest dregs the cup of humiliation and bitterness enduring not only to have taken upon him the form of a servant but also to suffer the last infamy which human hatred could impose on servile helplessness he uttered that mysterious cry of which the full significance will never be fathomed by man Elie, Elie, le mas abachthani my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? in those words, quoting the psalm in which the early fathers rightly saw a far-off prophecy of the whole passion of Christ he borrowed from David's utter agony the expression of his own in that hour he was alone sinking from death to death of unfathomable suffering until at the close approach of a death which because he was God and yet had been made man was more awful to him than it could ever be to any of the sons of man it seemed as even his divine humanity could endure no more doubtless the voice of the sufferer though uttered loudly in that paroxysm of an emotion which in another would almost have touched the verge of despair was yet rendered more uncertain and indistinct from the condition of exhaustion in which he hung and so amid the darkness and confused noise and the dull footsteps of the moving multitude there were some who did not hear what he had said they had caught only the first syllable and said to one another that he had called on the name of Elijah the readiness with which they seized this false impression is another proof of the wild state of excitement and terror the involuntary dread of something great and unforeseen and terrible to which they had been reduced from their former savage insolence for Elijah the great prophet of the Old Covenant was inextricably mingled with all the Jewish expectations of a messiah and these expectations were full of wrath the coming of Elijah would be the coming of a day of fire in which the sun should be turned into blackness and the moon into blood and the powers of heaven should be shaken already the noonday sun was shrouded in unnatural eclipse might not some awful form at any moment rend the heavens and calm down touch the mountains and they should smoke the vague anticipation of conscious guilt was unfulfilled no such as yet was to be the method of God's workings his messages to man for many ages more were not to be in the thunder and earthquake not in the rushing wind or roaring flame but in the still small voice speaking always amid the apparent silences of time in whispers intelligible to man's heart but in which there is neither speech nor language though the voice is heard but now the end was very rapidly approaching and Jesus who had been hanging for nearly six hours upon the cross was suffering from that torment of thirst which is the most difficult of all for the human frame to bear perhaps the most unmitigated of the many separate sources of anguish which were combined in this worst form of death no doubt this burning thirst was aggravated by seeing the Roman soldiers drinking so near the cross and happily for mankind Jesus had never sanctioned the unnatural affectation of stoic impossibility and so he uttered the one sole word of physical suffering which had been wrung from him by all the hours in which he had endured the extreme of all that man can inflict he cried aloud, I thirst probably a few hours before the cry would have only provoked a roar of frantic mockery but now the lookers on were reduced by awe to a red-ear humanity near the cross there lay on the ground the large earthen vessel containing the Posca which was the ordinary drink of the Roman soldiers the mouth of it was filled with a piece of sponge which served as a cork instantly someone we know not whether he was a friend or enemy or merely one who was there out of idle curiosity took out the sponge and dipped it in the Posca to give it to Jesus but low as was the elevation of the cross the head of the sufferer as it rested on the horizontal beam of the accursed tree was just beyond the man's reach and therefore he put the sponge at the end of a stalk of hyssop about a foot long and held it up to the parched and dying lips even this simple act of pity which Jesus did not refuse seemed to jar upon the condition of nervous excitement with which some of the multitude were looking on let be they said to the man let us see whether Elias is coming to save him the man did not desist from his act of mercy but when he was done he too seemed to have echoed those uneasy words but Elias came not nor human comforter nor angel deliverer it was the will of God it was the will of the Son of God that he should be perfected through sufferings that for the eternal example of all his children as long as the world should last he should endure unto the end and now the end was come once more in the words of the sweet psalmist of Israel but adding to them that title of trustful love which through him is permitted to the use of all mankind Father, he said into thy hands I commend my spirit then with one more great effort he uttered the last cry it is finished it may be that that great cry ruptured some of the vessels of his heart for no sooner had it been uttered then he bowed his head upon his breast and yielded his life a ransom for many a willing sacrifice to his heavenly Father finished with his holy life with his life his struggle with his struggle his work with his work the redemption with redemption the foundation of the new world at that moment the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom an earthquake shook the earth and split the rocks and as it rolled away from their places the great stones which closed and covered the covered sepulchres of the Jews so it seemed to the imaginations of many to have disemprisoned the spirits of the dead and to have filled the air with ghostly visitants who after Christ had risen appeared to linger in the holy city these circumstances of amazement joined to all they had observed in the bearing of the crucified cowed even the cruel and gained difference of the Roman soldiers on the centurion who was in command of them the whole scene had exercised a yet deeper influence as he stood opposite to the cross and saw the savior die he glorified God and exclaimed this man was in truth righteous nay more this man was a son of God even the multitude utterly sobered from their furious excitement and frantic rage began to be weighed down with a guilty consciousness that the scene which they had witnessed had in it something more awful than they could have conceived and as they returned to Jerusalem they wailed and beat upon their breasts well might they do so this was the last drop in a full cup of wickedness this was the beginning of the end of their city and name and race and in truth that scene was more awful than they or even we can know the secular historian be he ever so skeptical cannot fail to see in it the central point of the world's history whether he be a believer in Christ or not he cannot refuse to admit that this new religion grew from the smallest of all seeds to be a mighty tree so that the birds of the air took refuge in its branches that it was the little stone cut without hands which dashed into pieces the colossal image of heathen greatness and grew till it became a great mountain and filled the earth alike to the infidel and to the believer the crucifixion is the boundary instant between ancient and modern days morally and physically no less than spiritually the faith of Christ was the palingenesia of the world it came like the dawn of a new spring to nations a feat with a drunkenness of crime the struggle was long and hard but from the hour when Christ died began the death knell to every satanic tyranny and every tolerated abomination from that hour holiness became the universal ideal of all who named the name of Christ as their lord and the attainment of that ideal the common heritage of souls in which his spirit dwells the effects then of the work of Christ are even to the unbeliever indisputable and historical it expelled cruelty it curbed passion it branded suicide it punished and repressed unexecrable infanticide it drove the shameless impurities of heathen dom into a congenial darkness there was hardly a class whose wrongs it did not remedy it rescued the gladiator it freed the slave it protected the captive it nursed the sick it sheltered the orphan it elevated the woman it shrouded us with a hollow of sacred innocence the tender years of the child in every region of life its ameliorating influence was felt it changed pity from a vice into a virtue it elevated poverty from a curse into beatitude it anobled labor from a vulgarity into a dignity and a duty it sanctified marriage from little more than a burdensome convention into little less than a blessed sacrament it revealed for the first time the angelic beauty of a purity of which men had despaired and of a meekness at which they had utterly scoffed it created the very conception of charity and broadened the limits of its obligation from the narrow circle of a neighborhood to the widest horizons of the race and while it thus evolved the idea of humanity as a common brotherhood even where its tidings were not believed all over the world whatever its tidings were believed it cleansed the life and elevated the soul of each individual man and in all lands where it has molded the characters of its true believers it has created hearts so pure and lives so peaceful and homes so sweet that it might seem as though those angels who had heralded its advent it also whispered to every depressed and despairing sufferer among the sons of men though ye have lion among the pots yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove that is covered with silver wings and her feathers like gold others, if they can and will may see in such a work as this no divine providence they may think it philosophical enlightenment to hold that Christianity and Christendom are adequately accounted for by the idle dreams of a noble self-deceiver and the passionate hallucinations of a recovered demoniac we persecute them not we denounce them not we judge them not but we say that unless all life be a hollow there could have been no such miserable origin to the sole religion of the world which holds the perfect balance between philosophy and popularity between religion and morals between mixed submissiveness and the pride of freedom between the ideal and the real between the inward and the outward between modest stillness and heroic energy nay, between the tenderest conservatism and the boldest plans of worldwide reformation the witness of history to Christ is a witness which has been given with irresistible cogency and it has been so given to none but Him but while even the unbeliever must see what the life and death of Jesus have effected in the world to the believer that life and death are something deeper still to Him they are nothing less than a resurrection from the dead He sees in the cross of Christ something which far transcends its historical significance He sees in it the fulfillment of all prophecy as well as the consummation of all history He sees in it the explanation of the mystery of birth and the conquest over the mystery of the grave in that life He finds a perfect example in that death an infinite redemption as He contemplates the incarnation and the crucifixion He no longer feels that God is far away and that this earth is but a disregarded speck in the infinite azure and He Himself but an insignificant atom chance thrown amid the thousand million living souls of an innumerable race but He exclaims in faith and hope and love behold the tabernacle of God is with men yea He will be their God and they shall be His people yea are the temple of the living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them the sun was westering as the darkness rolled away from the completed sacrifice they who had not thought it a pollution to inaugurate their feast by the murder of their messiah were seriously alarmed lest the sanctity of the following day which began at sunset should be compromised by the hanging of the corpses on the cross and horrible to relate the crucified often lived for many hours nay even for two days in their torture the Jews therefore begged Pilate that their legs might be broken and their bodies taken down this cruel refragion as it was called consisted in striking the legs of the sufferers with a heavy mallet a violence which seemed always to have hastened if it did not instantly cause their death nor would the Jews be the only persons who would be anxious to hasten the end by giving the deadly blow until life was extinct the soldiers appointed to guard the execution dared not leave the ground the wish therefore was readily granted the soldiers broke the legs of the two mallet factors first and then coming to Jesus found that the great cry had been indeed his last and that he was dead already they did not therefore break his legs and thus unwittingly preserved the symbolism of that pascal lamb of which he was the antitype and of which it had been commanded that a bone of it shall not be broken and yet as he might be only in a syncope as instances had been known in which men apparently dead had been taken down from the cross and resuscitated and as the lives of the soldiers would have had to answer for any irregularity one of them in order to make death certain drove his broad head of his hasta into his side this wound as it was meant to do pierced the region of the heart and forthwith says Saint John with an emphatic appeal to the truthfulness of his eyewitness an appeal which would be singularly and impossibly blasphemous if the narrative were the forgery which so much elaborate modern criticism has wholly failed to prove that it is forthwith came there out blood and water whether the water was due to some abnormal pathological conditions caused by the dreadful complication of the savior's sufferings or whether it rather means that the pericardium had been rent by the spear point and that those who took down the body observed some drops of its serum mingled with the blood in either case that lance thrust was sufficient to hush all the heretical assertions that Jesus had only seemed to die and as it assured the soldiers so should it assure all who have doubted that he who on the third day rose again had in truth been crucified dead and buried and that his soul had passed into the unseen world Footnote 26 the disputed date of the crucifixion of Jesus long variously placed between AD 29 and 33 is definitely fixed by many later authorities at the year 30 End of section 4 Recording by Mike Botez Section 5 of the Great Events by Famous Historians This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Mike Botez The Great Events by Famous Historians Edited by Charles F. Horn Rossiter Johnson and John Rudd The Rise and Spread of Christianity AD 33 by Joseph Ernest Rennan Part 1 It is a favorite view of historians and critical students that Jesus was born at a time when the world seemed especially prepared for his birth The correspondence between world conditions then and the actual process of Christianity in its rise and early spread appears to conform to evolutionary laws as regarded in the light of modern interpretation In its origin, Christianity is most intimately connected with Judaism the parent religion The known world, however, in the time of Jesus was largely under Roman dominion This was true of the land where Jesus was born The Roman Empire was then comparatively at peace and it was the admonition of St. Paul that the first Christians should maintain that peace The wide sovereignty of Rome gave the apostles of Christ access to different nations many of whom had become civilized under Roman influence But pure monotheism existed only among the Jews All other nations had a variety of gods and peculiar forms of worship In most of the pagan religions there were elements of truth and beauty but they lacked in ethical principles and in a moral application to life Most of their priestcraft was a vulgar imposition upon the ignorance and credulity of the common people The prevailing philosophies which among the more enlightened took the place of religion were the Grecian adopted also by the Romans and the Oriental with numerous followers in Persia, Syria, Caldea, Egypt and likewise among the Jews But the philosophers were divided into antagonistic sects Out of such conditions no practical religion could develop In the doctrines of Buddhism were to be found the spirit and purpose of a devout and humanely religious people But the intricate mythology and racial and other limitations of Buddhism forbade that Although it conquered the half of Asia it should ever become a universal faith The condition of the Jews at that period was little better than that of other peoples Among the Jews there was a lack of intellectual unity and their moral ideals have been lowered Oppressed by Herod, the tributary Roman king who, although professly a Jew copied the open despisers of old religion they yielded to the influences of Roman luxury and licentiousness which spread over Palestine although still conducted by the priests and Levites and under the eye of the Sanhedrim or Senate the Jewish religion had lost much of its earlier character like philosophy it was vexed with contending sects strict observance of the Mosaic law and the performance of prescriptive rights and duties were in the main regarded as the sum of religion The race of prophets appeared extinct until prophecy was revived in John the Baptist The successors of the Maccabean Patriots were not animated by their spirit There was widespread and passionate expectation of a national messiah but not such a messiah as John proclaimed and Jesus proved to be rather a powerful warrior and vindicator of Jewish liberty Galilei, the early home of Jesus was especially stirred with messianic fervor in such a condition of the national mind and at such a stage of the world's empire it seems natural in the course of spiritual evolution that such a teacher as Jesus a spiritual messiah should arise to be the deliverer not of one people only but of the world itself Among the Jewish doctors when Jesus was a child was at least one wise and liberal rabbi Hillel, a Pharisee the great reformer of his time and the most eminent Jew of the generation before the birth of Jesus at his feet the boy Jesus may have sat and learned lessons of wisdom and liberality it gives us a reassurance of spiritual continuity to think that the teachings of Hillel may have helped to inspire the humane and tender counsels of the founder of Christianity in grouping the glowing words of Rennan with their fine spiritual interpretations and descriptive eloquence the judgments of an eminent contemporary Jewish scholar and Newman's learned yet simple portrayal of the church as it took form in its early environment and as it was seen through the media of contemporary governments customs and criticisms it is believed that readers will derive satisfaction and will be aided in their own inquiries through this threefold presentation on so vast a subject with its momentous implications no single author however profound his genius can do more than contribute a partial essay toward the many-sided truth Joseph Ernest Rennan from the moment of the arrest of Jesus and immediately after his death it is probable that many of his disciples had already found their way to the northern provinces at the time of the resurrection a rumor was spread abroad according to which it was in Galilee that he would be seen again some of the women who had been to the sepulchre came back with a report that the angel had said to them that Jesus had already preceded them into Galilee others said that it was Jesus himself who had ordered them to go there now and then some people said that they themselves remembered that he had said so during his lifetime what is certain is that at the end of a few days probably after the paschal feast of the Passover had been quite over the disciples believed that they had a command to return into their own country and to it accordingly they returned perhaps the visions began to abate at Jerusalem a species of melancholy seized them the brief appearances of Jesus were not sufficient to compensate for the enormous void left by his absence in a melancholy mood they thought of the lake and of the beautiful mountains where they had received a foretaste of the kingdom of God the women especially wished at any cost to return to the country where they had enjoyed so much happiness it must be observed that the order to depart came especially from them that odious city weighed them down they longed to see once more the ground where they had possessed him whom they loved well assured in advance of meeting him again there the majority of the disciples then departed full of joy and hope perhaps in the company of the caravan which took back the pilgrims from the feast of the Passover what they hoped to find in Galilee were not only transient visions but Jesus himself to continue with them as he had done before his death an intense expectation filled their souls was he going to restore the kingdom of Israel to found definitely the kingdom of God and as was said reveal his justice everything was possible they already called to mind the smiling landscapes where they had enjoyed his presence many believed that he had given to them a rendezvous upon the mountain probably the same to which with them there clung so many sweet recollections never it is certain had there been a more pleasant journey all their dreams of happiness were on the point of being realized they were going to see him once more and in fact they did see him again hardly restored to their harmless chimeras they believed themselves to be in the midst of the gospel dispensation period it was now drawing near to the end of April the ground is then strong with red anemones which were probably those lilies of the fields from which Jesus delighted to draw his smiles at each step his words were brought to mind adhering as it were to the thousand accidental objects they met by the way here was a tree, the flower, the seed from which he had taken his parables there was the hill on which he delivered his most touching discourses here was a little ship from which he taught it was like the recommencement of a beautiful dream like a vanished illusion which had reappeared the enchantment seemed to revive the sweet Galilean kingdom of God had recovered its sway the clear atmosphere, the mornings upon the shore or upon the mountain the nights passed on the lakes watching the nets all these returned again to them in distinct visions they saw him everywhere where they had lived with him of course it was not the joy of the first enjoyment sometimes the lake had to them the appearance of being very solitary but a great love is satisfied with little if all of us while we are alive could surreptitiously once a year and during a moment long enough to exchange but a few words behold again those loved ones whom we have lost death would not be death such was the state of mind of this faithful band in this short period when Christianity seemed to return for a moment to his cradle and bid him an eternal adieu the principal disciples Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel the sons of Zebedee met again on the shores of the lake and henceforth lived together they had taken up again their former calling of fishermen at Bethsaida or at Capernaum the Galilean women were no doubt with them they had insisted more than the others on that return which was to them a heartfelt love this was their last act in the establishment of Christianity from that moment they disappear faithful to their love their wish was to quit no more the country in which they had tasted their greatest delight more than 500 persons were already devoted to the memory of Jesus in default of the lost master they obeyed the disciples the most authoritative Peter in particular the activity of these ardent souls had already turned in another direction what they believed to have heard from the lips of the dear risen one was the order to go forth and preach and to convert the world but where should they commence? naturally at Jerusalem the return to Jerusalem was then resolved upon by those who at the time had the direction of the sect as these journeys were ordinarily made by caravan at the time of the feasts we now suppose with all the manner of likelihood that the return in the question took place at the feast of the Tabernacles at the close of the year 33 or the Pascal feast of the year 34 Galilei was thus abandoned by Christianity and abandoned forever the little church which remained there continued no doubt to exist but we hear it no more spoken of it was probably broken up like all the rest by the frightful disaster which then over to the country during the war of Vespasian the wreck of the dispersed community sought refuge beyond Jordan after the war it was not Christianity which was brought back into Galilei it was Judaism Galilei thus counted but an hour in the history of Christianity but it was the sacred hour par excellence it gave to the new religion that which has made it endure its poetry its penetrating charms the Gospel after the manner of the synoptics was a Galilean work but the Gospel thus extended has been the principal cause of the success of Christianity and continues to be the surest guarantee of its future it is probable that a fraction of the little school which surrounded Jesus in his last days remained at Jerusalem it is about this period that we can place the vision of James mentioned by Saint Paul James was the brother or at least a relation of Jesus we do not find that he had accompanied Jesus on his last sojourn to Jerusalem he probably went there with the Apostles when the latter quitted Galilei it is very remarkable that the family of Jesus some of whose members during his life had been incredulous and hostile to his mission constituted now a part of the church and held it in a very exalted position one is led to suppose that the reconciliation took place during the sojourn of the Apostles in Galilei the celebrity which had attached itself to the name of their relative those who believed in him and were assured of having seen him after he had arisen served to make an impression on their minds from the time of the definite establishment of the Apostles at Jerusalem we find with them Mary the mother of Jesus and the brothers of Jesus in what concerns Mary it appears that John thinking in this to obey her recommendation of the master had adopted and taken her to his own home he perhaps took her back to Jerusalem this woman whose personal history and character have remained veiled in obscurity assumed hence great importance the words that the evangelist put into the mouth of some unknown woman blessed is the womb that bear thee and the pups which thou hast sucked begun to be verified it is probable that Mary survived her son a few years as for the brothers of Jesus their history is wrapped in obscurity Jesus had several brothers and sisters it seemed probable however that in the class of persons which were called brothers of the Lord there were included relations in the second degree the question is only of moment so far as it concerns James whom we see playing a great part in the first 30 years of Christianity the apostles henceforth separated no more except to make temporary journeys Jerusalem became their headquarters they seem to be afraid to disperse while certain acts served to revealing them the prepossession of being opposed to return again into Galilee which later had dissolved its little society the next press order of Jesus is supposed to have interdicted their quitting Jerusalem before at least the great manifestations which were to take place people's thoughts were turned with great force toward a promise which it was supposed Jesus had made during his lifetime Jesus it was said had often spoken of the Holy Spirit which was understood to mean a personification of divine wisdom he had promised his disciples that the spirit would nerve them in combats that they would have to engage in would be their inspirer in difficulties and their advocate if they had to speak in public sometimes it was supposed that Jesus suddenly presented himself in the midst of his disciples assembled and breathed on them out of his own mouth a current of vivifying air but other times the disappearance of Jesus was regarded as a premonition of the coming of the spirit many people established an intimate connection between this descent and the restoration of the kingdom of Israel the affection that the disciples had the one for the other while Jesus was alive was thus enhanced tenfold after his death they formed a very small and a very retired society and lived exclusively by themselves at Jerusalem they numbered about 120 their piety was active and as yet completely restrained by the forms of Jewish piety the temple was then the chief place of devotion they worked no doubt for living but at that time manual labor in Jewish society engaged very few everyone had a trade but that trade by no means hindered man from being educated and well bred the dominant idea in the Christian community at the moment at which we are now arrived was the coming of the Holy Spirit people were believed to receive it in the form of a mysterious breath which passed over the assembly every inward consolation every bold moment every flush of enthusiasm every feeling of lively and pleasant gaiety which was experienced without knowing when it came was the work of the spirit these simple consciences referred as usual to some exterior cause the exquisite sentiments which are being created in them when all were assembled and when they awaited in silence inspiration from on high a murmur any noise whatever was believed to be the coming of the spirit in the early times it was the apparitions of Jesus which were produced in this manner now the turn of ideas had changed it was the divine breath which passed over the little church and filled it with a celestial effluvium these beliefs were strengthened by notions drawn from the Old Testament the prophetic spirit is represented in the Hebrew books as a breathing which penetrates man and inspires him in the beautiful vision of Elijah God passes by in the form of a gentle wind which produces a slight rustling noise among all these descents of the spirit which appear to have been frequent enough there was one which left a profound impression on the nascent church one day when the brethren were assembled a thunderstorm burst forth a violent wind threw open the windows the heavens were on fire thunderstorms in these countries are accompanied by prodigious sheets of lightning the atmosphere is as it were everywhere far out with ridges aflame whether the electric fluid had penetrated the room itself or whether a dazzling flash of lightning had suddenly illuminated the faces of all everyone was convinced that the spirit had entered and that it had alighted on the head of each in the form of tongues of fire the idea that the spirit had alighted on them in the form of jets of flame resembling tongues of fire gave rise to a series of singular ideas which took a foremost place in the thought of the period the tongues of fire appeared a striking symbol people were convinced that God desired to signify in this manner that he poured out upon the apostles his most precious gift of eloquence and of inspiration but they did not stop there Jerusalem was like the majority of the large cities of the east a city in which many languages were spoken the diversity of tongues was one of the difficulties which one found there in the way of propagating a universal form of faith one of the things moreover which alarmed the apostles at the commencement of a ministry designed to embrace the world was the number of languages which were spoken there they were asking themselves incessantly how they could learn so many tongues the gift of tongues became thus a marvelous privilege it was believed that the preaching of the gospel would clear away the obstacle which was created by the diversity of idioms there wasn't this a liberal idea they meant to imply that the gospel should have no language of its own that it should be translatable into every tongue and that the translation should be of the same value as the original the custom of living together holding the same faith and indulging the same expectation necessarily produced many common habits all lived in common having but one heart and one mind no one possessed anything which was his own on becoming a disciple of Jesus one sold one's goods and made a gift of the proceeds to the society the chiefs of the society then distributed the common possession to each according to his needs they lived in the same quarter they took their meals together and continued to attach to them the mystic sense that Jesus had prescribed they passed long hours in prayers their prayers were sometimes improvised aloud but more often meditated in silence the concord was perfect no dogmatic quarrels no disputes in regard to precedence the tender reconciliation of Jesus effaced all dissensions joy, lively and deep seated was in every heart their morals were austere but pervaded by a soft and tender sentiment they assembled in houses to pray and to devote themselves to ecstatic exercises the recollection of these two or three first years remained unseen to them like a terrestrial paradise which Christianity will pursue henceforth in all its dreams and to which it will vainly endeavor to return such an organization could only be applicable to a very small church the apostles chosen by Jesus and who were supposed to have received from him a special mandate to announce to the world the kingdom of God had in the little community an incontestable superiority one of the first cares as soon as they saw the sect settled quietly down at Jerusalem was to fill the vacancy that Judas of Kerioz had left in its ranks the opinion that the latter had betrayed his master and had been the cause of his death became more and more general the legend was mixed up with him and every day one heard of some new circumstance which enhanced the blackheartedness of his deed in order to replace him it was resolved to have recourse to a vote of some sort the sole condition was that the candidate should be chosen from the groups of the oldest disciples who had been witness of the whole series of events from the time of the baptism of John this reduced considerably the number of those eligible two only were found in the ranks Joseph Barsaba who bore the name of Justus and Matthias the lot fell upon Matthias who was accounted as one of the twelve but this was the sole instance of such a replacing the body of twelve lived generally permanently at Jerusalem till about the year 60 the apostles did not leave the holy city except upon temporary missions this explains the obscurity in which the majority of the members of the central council remained very few of them had a role this council was a kind of sacred college or senate destined only to represent tradition and the spirit of conservatism it finished by being relieved of every active function so that its members had nothing to do but to preach and pray but as yet the brilliant feats of preaching had not fallen to their lot their names were hardly known outside Jerusalem and about the year 70 or 80 the lists which were given of these chosen twelve agreed only in the principal names the brothers of the Lord appeared often by the side of the apostles although they were distinct from them their authority however was equal to that of the apostles here two groups constituted in the nascent church a sort of aristocracy founded solely on the more or less intimate relations that their members had had with a master these were the men whom Paul denominated the pillars of the church at Jerusalem for the rest we see that no distinctions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy yet existed the title was nothing the personal authority was everything the principle of ecclesiastical celibacy was already established but it required time to bring all these germs to their complete development Peter and Philip were married and had sons and daughters the term used to designate the assembly of the faithful was the Hebrew Kahal which was rendered by the essentially democratic word ecclesia which is the convocation of the people in the ancient grecian cities the summons of the Pnics or the Agora commencing with the 2nd or 3rd century before Jesus Christ the words of the Athenian democracy became a sort of common law in Hellenic language many of these terms on account of their having being used in the Greek confraternities entered into the Christian vocabulary it was in reality the popular life which restrained for centuries resumed its power under forms altogether different the primitive church was in its way a little democracy the power which was ascribed to the church assembled and to its chiefs was enormous the church conferred every mission and was guided solely in its choice by the signs given by the spirit its authority went as far as decreeing death it is recorded that at the voice of Peter several delinquents had fallen back and expired immediately Saint Paul a little later was not afraid in excommunicating a fornicator to deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus excommunication was held to be equivalent to a sentence of death the apostles were believed to be invested with supernatural powers in pronouncing such condemnations they thought that their anathemas could not fail but be effectual the terrible impression which their excommunication produced and the hatred manifested by the brethren against all the members thus cut off were sufficient in fact in many cases to bring about death were at least to compel the culprit to expatriate himself accounts like those of the death of Ananias and Saphira did not excite any scruple the idea of civil power was so foreign to all that world placed without the pale of the Roman law people were so persuaded that the church was a complete society sufficient in itself that no person saw in a miracle leading to death or the mutilation of an individual an outrage punishable by the civil law enthusiasm and faith covered all excused everything but the frightful danger which these theocratic maxims laid up in store for the future is readily perceived the church is armed to the sword excommunication is a sentence of death there was henceforth in the world a power outside that of the state which disposed of the life of citizens Peter had among the apostles a certain presidents derived directly from his zeal and his activity in these first years he was hardly ever separate from John son of Zebedee they went almost always together and their amity was doubtless the cornerstone of the new faith James the brother of the Lord almost equaled them in authority at least among a fraction of the church it is needless to remark that this little group of simple people had no speculative theology Jesus wisely kept himself far removed from all metaphysics he had only one dogma his own divine sonship and the divinity of his mission the whole symbol of the primitive church might be embraced in one line Jesus is the Messiah the son of God this belief rested upon a peremptory argument the fact of the resurrection of which the disciples claimed to be witnesses to attest the resurrection of Jesus was the task which all considered as being specially imposed upon them it was however very soon put forth that the master had predicted this event different sayings of his were recalled which were represented as having not been well understood and in which was seen on second thoughts an announcement of the resurrection the belief in the near glorious manifestation of Jesus was universal the secret word which the brethren used among themselves in order to be recognized and confirmed was Maranatha the Lord is at hand Jesus with his exquisite tact in religious matters had instituted no new ritual the new sect had not yet any special ceremonies the practices of piety were Jewish the assemblies had in a strict sense nothing liturgic they were the meetings of confraternities at which prayers were offered up devoted themselves to glossolally or prophecy and reading of correspondence there was nothing yet of sacerdotalism there was no priest, Kohen the presbyter was the elder nothing more the only priest was Jesus in another sense all the faithful were priests fasting was considered a very meritorious practice baptism was the token of admission to the sect the rite was the same as administered by John but it was administered in the name of Jesus baptism was, however, considered an insufficient initiation it had to be followed up by the gifts of the Holy Spirit which were affected by means of a prayer offered up by the apostles upon the head of the new convert accompanied by the imposition of hands the imposition of hands already so familiar to Jesus it was the sacramental act par excellence it conferred inspiration, universal illumination the power to produce prodigies prophesying and the speaking of languages it was what was called the baptism of the Spirit it was supposed to recall a saying of Jesus John baptized you with water you shall be baptized by the Spirit gradually all these ideas became amalgamated and baptism was conferred in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost but it is not probable that this formula in the early days in which we are now was yet employed we see the simplicity of this primitive Christian worship neither Jesus nor the apostles had invented it certain Jewish sects had adopted before them these grave and solemn ceremonies which appear to have come in part from Caldea where they are still practiced with special liturgies by the Sabian and Mandates the religion of Persia embraced also many rites of the same description the beliefs in popular medicine which constituted a part of the force of Jesus were continued in his disciples the power of healing was one of the marvelous gifts conferred by the Spirit the first Christians like almost all the Jews of the time looked upon disease as the punishment of a transgression or the work of a malignant demon the apostles passed just as Jesus did for powerful exorcists people imagine that the anointing of oil administered by the apostles with the imposition of hands and invocation of the name of Jesus were all powerful to wash away the sins which were the cause of disease and to heal the afflicted one oil has always been in the yeast the medicine par excellence for the rest the simple imposition of the hands of the apostles was reputed to have the same effect this imposition was made by immediate contact nor is it impossible that in certain cases the heat of the hands being communicated suddenly to the head insured to the sick person a little relief the sect being young and not numerous the question of deaths was not taken into account until later on the effect caused by the first demises which took place in the ranks of the brethren was strange people were troubled by the manner of the deaths it was asked whether they were less favored than those who were reserved to see with their eyes the advent of the Son of Man they came generally to consider the interval between death and the resurrection as a kind of blank in the consciousness of the defunct at the time of which we speak belief in the resurrection almost alone prevailed the funeral rite was undoubtedly the Jewish rite no importance was attached to it no inscription indicated the name of the dead the great resurrection was near the bodies of the faithful had only to make in the rock a very short sojourn it did not require much persuasion to put people in accord on the question as to whether the resurrection was to be universal that is to say whether it would embrace the good and the bad or whether it would apply to the elect only one of the most remarkable phenomena of the new religion was the reappearance of prophecy for a long time people had spoken but little of prophets in Israel that particular species of inspiration seemed to revive in the little sect the primitive church had several prophets and prophetesses analogous to those of the Old Testament the psalmist also reappeared the model of our Christian psalms is without doubt given in the canticles which Luke loved to disseminate in his gospel and which are copied from the canticles of the Old Testament these psalms and prophecies are as regards form the destitute of originality but an admirable spirit of gentleness and of piety animates and pervades them it is like a faint echo of the last productions of the sacred liar of Israel the book of psalms was in a measure the calyx from which the Christian be sucked its first juice on the contrary was as it would seem little read and little studied there was substituted for it allegories after the manner of the Jewish Midraskim in which all the historic sense of the books was suppressed the music which was sung to the new hymns was probably that species of sobbing without distinct notes which is still the music of the Greek church of the Maronites and in general of the Christians of the East it is less a musical modulation than a manner of forcing the voice and of emitting by the nose a sort of moaning in which all the inflections follow each other with rapidity that odd melopia was executed standing with the eyes fixed the eyebrows crumpled the brown knit and with an appearance of effort the word amen in particular was given out in a quivering trembling voice that word played a great part in the liturgy in imitation of the Jews the new adherents employed it to mark the ascent of the multitude to the words of the prophet or the presenter people perhaps already attributed to it some secret virtues and pronounced it with a certain emphasis we do not know whether that primitive ecclesiastical song was accompanied by instruments as to the inward chant by which the faithful made melody in their hearts and which was but the overflowing of those tender ardent, pensive souls it was doubtless executed like the Catilene of the low lards of the Middle Ages in medium voice in general it was joyousness which was poured out in these hymns End of section 5