2: Testam. of the Twelve Patriarchs, Levi. 6.]
[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 46; Mark xv. 34.]
[Footnote 4: Jewish translations and commentaries of the Talmudic epoch.]
The schoolmaster in the small Jewish towns was the hazzan, or reader in the synagogues.[1] Jesus frequented little the higher schools of the scribes or sopherim (Nazareth had perhaps none of them), and he had none of those titles which confer, in the eyes of the vulgar, the privileges of knowledge.[2] It would, nevertheless, be a great error to imagine that Jesus was what we call ignorant. Scholastic education among us draws a profound distinction, in respect of personal worth, between those who have received and those who have been deprived of it. It was not so in the East, nor, in general, in the good old times. The state of ignorance in which, among us, owing to our isolated and entirely individual life, those remain who have not passed through the schools, was unknown in those societies where moral culture, and especially the general spirit of the age, was transmitted by the perpetual intercourse of man with man. The Arab, who has never had a teacher, is often, nevertheless, a very superior man; for the tent is a kind of school always open, where, from the contact of well-educated men, there is produced a great intellectual and even literary movement. The refinement of manners and the acuteness of the intellect have, in the East, nothing in common with what we call education. It is the men from the schools, on the contrary, who are considered badly trained and pedantic. In this social state, ignorance, which, among us, condemns a man to an inferior rank, is the condition of great things and of great originality.
[Footnote 1: Mishnah, Shabbath, i. 3.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 54, and following; John vii. 15.]
It is not probable that Jesus knew Greek. This language was very little spread in Judea beyond the classes who participated in the government, and the towns inhabited by pagans, like Cæsarea.[1] The real mother tongue of Jesus was the Syrian dialect mixed with Hebrew, which was then spoken in Palestine.[2] Still less probably had he any knowledge of Greek culture. This culture was proscribed by the doctors of Palestine, who included in the same malediction "he who rears swine, and he who teaches his son Greek science."[3] At all events it had not penetrated into little towns like Nazareth. Notwithstanding the anathema of the doctors, some Jews, it is true, had already embraced the Hellenic culture. Without speaking of the Jewish school of Egypt, in which the attempts to amalgamate Hellenism and Judaism had been in operation nearly two hundred years, a Jew—Nicholas of Damascus—had become, even at this time, one of the most distinguished men, one of the best informed, and one of the most respected of his age. Josephus was destined soon to furnish another example of a Jew completely Grecianized. But Nicholas was only a Jew in blood. Josephus declares that he himself was an exception among his contemporaries;[4] and the whole schismatic school of Egypt was detached to such a degree from Jerusalem that we do not find the least allusion to it either in the Talmud or in Jewish tradition. Certain it is that Greek was very little studied at Jerusalem, that Greek studies were considered as dangerous, and even servile, that they were regarded, at the best, as a mere womanly accomplishment.[5] The study of the Law was the only one accounted liberal and worthy of a thoughtful man.[6] Questioned as to the time when it would be proper to teach children "Greek wisdom," a learned rabbi had answered, "At the time when it is neither day nor night; since it is written of the Law, Thou shalt study it day and night."[7]
[Footnote 1: Mishnah, Shekalim, iii. 2; Talmud of Jerusalem, Megilla, halaca xi.; Sota, vii. 1; Talmud of Babylon, Baba Kama, 83 a; Megilla, 8 b, and following.]
[Footnote 2: Matthew xxvii. 46; Mark iii. 17, v. 41, vii. 34, xiv. 36, xv. 34. The expression [Greek: ê patrios phônê] in the writers of the time, always designates the Semitic dialect, which was spoken in Palestine (II. Macc. vii. 21, 27, xii. 37; Acts xxi. 37, 40, xxii. 2, xxvi. 14; Josephus, Ant., XVIII. vi. 10, xx. sub fin.; B.J., prooem I; V. vi. 3, V. ix. 2, VI. ii. 1: Against Appian, I. 9; De Macc., 12, 16). We shall show, later, that some of the documents which served as the basis for the synoptic Gospels were written in this Semitic dialect. It was the same with many of the Apocrypha (IV. Book of Macc. xvi. ad calcem, &c.). In fine, the sects issuing directly from the first Galilean movement (Nazarenes, Ebionim, &c.), which continued a long time in Batanea and Hauran, spoke a Semitic dialect (Eusebius, De Situ et Nomin. Loc. Hebr., at the word [Greek: Chôba]; Epiph., Adv. Hær., xxix. 7, 9, xxx. 3; St. Jerome, In Matt., xii. 13; Dial. adv. Pelag., iii. 2).]
[Footnote 3: Mishnah, Sanhedrim, xi. 1; Talmud of Babylon, Baba Kama, 82 b and 83 a; Sota, 49 a and b; Menachoth, 64 b; comp. II. Macc. iv. 10, and following.]
[Footnote 4: Jos., Ant. XX. xi. 2.]
[Footnote 5: Talmud of Jerusalem, Peah, i. 1.]
[Footnote 6: Jos., Ant., loc. cit.; Orig., Contra Celsum, ii. 34.]
[Footnote 7: Talmud of Jerusalem, Peah, i. 1; Talmud of Babylon, Menachoth, 99 b.]
Neither directly nor indirectly, then, did any element of Greek culture reach Jesus. He knew nothing beyond Judaism; his mind preserved that free innocence which an extended and varied culture always weakens. In the very bosom of Judaism he remained a stranger to many efforts often parallel to his own. On the one hand, the asceticism of the Essenes or the Therapeutæ;[1] on the other, the fine efforts of religious philosophy put forth by the Jewish school of Alexandria, and of which Philo, his contemporary, was the ingenious interpreter, were unknown to him. The frequent resemblances which we find between him and Philo, those excellent maxims about the love of God, charity, rest in God,[2] which are like an echo between the Gospel and the writings of the illustrious Alexandrian thinker, proceed from the common tendencies which the wants of the time inspired in all elevated minds.
[Footnote 1: The Therapeutæ of Philo are a branch of the Essenes. Their name appears to be but a Greek translation of that of the Essenes ([Greek: Essaioi], asaya, "doctors"). Cf. Philo, De Vita Contempl., init.]
[Footnote 2: See especially the treatises Quis Rerum Divinarum Hæres Sit and De Philanthropia of Philo.]
Happily for him, he was also ignorant of the strange scholasticism which was taught at Jerusalem, and which was soon to constitute the Talmud. If some Pharisees had already brought it into Galilee, he did not associate with them, and when, later, he encountered this silly casuistry, it only inspired him with disgust. We may suppose, however, that the principles of Hillel were not unknown to him. Hillel, fifty years before him, had given utterance to aphorisms very analogous to his own. By his poverty, so meekly endured, by the sweetness of his character, by his opposition to priests and hypocrites, Hillel was the true master of Jesus,[1] if indeed it may be permitted to speak of a master in connection with so high an originality as his.
[Footnote 1: Pirké Aboth, chap. i. and ii.; Talm. of Jerus., Pesachim, vi. 1; Talm. of Bab., Pesachim, 66 a; Shabbath, 30 b and 31 a; Joma, 35 b.]
The perusal of the books of the Old Testament made much impression upon him. The canon of the holy books was composed of two principal parts—the Law, that is to say, the Pentateuch, and the Prophets, such as we now possess them. An extensive allegorical exegesis was applied to all these books; and it was sought to draw from them something that was not in them, but which responded to the aspirations of the age. The Law, which represented not the ancient laws of the country, but Utopias, the factitious laws and pious frauds of the time of the pietistic kings, had become, since the nation had ceased to govern itself, an inexhaustible theme of subtle interpretations. As to the Prophets and the Psalms, the popular persuasion was that almost all the somewhat mysterious traits that were in these books had reference to the Messiah, and it was sought to
