Introductiong

He trusts in God rather than Roman policy for the salvation of the unity idea; he respects the old age of the Church, but he has no fear that she will die; he knows that her apparent death will be a transfiguration and a glorious assumption. The author of this book calls upon the eastern Magi to come forward and recognize once again that Divine Master Whose cradle they saluted, the Great Initiator of all the ages. All His enemies have fallen; all those who condemned Him are dead, those who persecuted Him have passed into sleep for ever; but He is for ever alive. The envious have combined against Him, agreeing on a single point; the sectaries have united to destroy Him; they have crowned themselves kings and proscribed Him; they have become hypocrites and accused Him; they have constituted themselves judges and pronounced His sentence of death; they have turned murderers and executed Him; they have forced Him to drink hemlock, they have crucified Him, they have stoned Him, they have burned Him and cast His ashes to the wind; then have they turned scarlet with terror, for He stands erect before them, impeaching them by His wounds and overwhelming them by the radiance of His scars. They believed that they had slain Him in His cradle at Bethlehem, but He is alive in Egypt. They carry Him to the summit of the mountain to cast Him down; the mob of His destroyers encircles Him and triumphs already in His certain destruction. A cry is heard: is not that He who is shattered on the rocks of the abyss? They whiten and look at one another; but He, calm and smiling with pity, passes through the midst of them and disappears. Behold another mountain which they have just dyed with His blood! Behold a Cross, a sepulchre and soldiers guarding His tomb! Madmen! The tomb is empty, and He whom they regard as dead is walking peaceably between two travellers on the road to Emmaus. Where is He? Whither does He go? Warn the masters of the world! Tell the Caesars that their power is threatened! By whom? By a pauper who has no stone on which to lay His head, by a Man of the People condemned to the death of slaves. What insult or what madness! It matters not. The Caesars marshal all their power; sanguinary edicts proscribe the fugitive; everywhere scaffolds rise up; amphitheaters open, crowded with lions and gladiators; pyres are lighted; torrents of blood flow; and the Caesars, believing themselves victorious, dare add another name to those they rehearse on their trophies. Then they die, and their own apotheosis dishonours the gods whom they defended. The hatred of the world confounds Jupiter and Nero in a common contempt. Temples transformed into tombs are cast down over proscribed ashes, and above the debris of idols, above ruins of empires, He only, He whom the Caesars indicted, whom so many satellites pursued, whom so many executioners tortured, He only lives, alone reigns, alone triumphs! Notwithstanding, His own disciples speedily misuse His name; pride enters the sanctuary; those who should proclaim His resurrection seek to immortalize His death, that they may feed, like ravens, on His ever-renewing flesh. In place of imitating Him in His sacrifice and shedding their blood for their children in the faith, they chain Him in the Vatican, as upon another Caucasus, and become the vultures of this divine Prometheus. But what signifies their evil dream? They can only imprison His image; He Himself is free and erect, proceeding from exile to exile and from conquest to conquest. It is possible to bind a man but not to make captive the Word of God; speech is free, and nothing can repress it.