Christians must have strongly tempted them to make a brilliant spectacle of it. The Messiah once represented as having arrived at a destination so elevated, there was an anxiety to see him ascend to his future abode. As, according to Daniel, it was expected that his future return from heaven should be a visible descent in a cloud-this spontaneously suggested the idea of his departure for heaven as a visible ascension, and performed by the same means; and, when Luke causes the two men dressed in white who drew near to the disciples after the ascension to say, "this same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven (Acts i. 11), we have only to transpose the phrase to come at the formation of the idea of the ascension of Jesus; for this was the argument-Jesus must have ascended to heaven in the same way as he will one day descend from it.

This principal consideration throws into the background the Biblical precedents which the ascension of Jesus has, in the carrying off of Enoch (Exodus v. 24 ; compare Sirach xliv. 16; xlix. 16; Hebrews xi. 5), and especially in the ascension of Elijah (II. Kings ii. 11; compare Sirach xlviii. 9; I. Maccabees ii. 58), and the Grecian and Roman apotheoses of a Hercules and a Romulus. We do not know if the compilers of the second and third gospels were acquainted with these events; the narrative respecting Enoch is too vague; as to Elijah, the flaming chariot, with the horses of fire, would not have been in accordance with the meek spirit of Christ. Instead of that, the cloud which concealed him from their eyes, and the ascension to heaven which interrupted the benediction, might seem to have been borrowed from the relatively modern version of the ascension of Moses, a version however from which it differs essentially in some respects.*

* Josephus (Antiq. 4, 8, 48), says that "Moses, whilst embracing Eleazar and Joshua, and whilst yet speaking to them, was suddenly enveloped in a cloud, and disappeared in a ravine." Josephus adds, that Moses designedly wrote an account of his own VOL. IV.

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Perhaps, also, the history of Elijah might furnish an explanation of the trait in a narrative of the Acts of the Apostles. When Elijah, before his ascension, was entreated by his servant Elisha to leave a double portion of his spirit upon him, the prophet caused the granting of his prayer to depend upon this condition, "if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so." This may cause us to comprehend how Luke, (Acts. i. 9) has attached importance to the circumstance that it was "while they beheld" that he was taken up; it was because, in conformity with this precedent, this was necessary in order that they should receive the spirit of their master.

death, in order that it might not be said that because of his eminent virtue he was translated to the presence of the Divinity. But Philo supposed that the soul only of Moses was raised to heaven.

FINAL DISSERTATION.

Creeds deduced from the Life of Jesus.

§ CXLI.

Necessary progress from Criticism to forms of Belief.

The results of the investigation which we have brought to a conclusion have, it might appear, annihilated the chief of those events in the life of Jesus in which the Christian believes, put an end to all the encouragements which he draws from this belief, dried up the source of all his consolations. The infinite treasure of truth and life with which for eighteen centuries humanity has been nourished, seems to be dissipated-all its grandeur trodden into the dust; God appears despoiled of his grace, man of his dignity-all connection between heaven and earth is finally severed. Piety turns with horror from the atrocious attempt, and in the infinite certainty of its belief, assures us that, notwithstanding all the efforts of rash criticism, all that the Scriptures say, and all that the Church believes respecting Christ, remains eternally true, and that no syllable of it can be impugned. Thus, to the critical deductions from the history of the life of Jesus, is added the problem of re-establishing as a belief what criticism has destroyed.

This problem seems at first to be only an appeal from the believer to the critic, and is not in particular connected with either belief or criticism. The believer, as a believer, cannot require the re-establishment of his belief, because criticism cannot have destroyed it; the critic, as a critic, cannot need it, because he can endure this destruction of it. It would appear, then, that the critic, were he to endeavour to

preserve belief from a fire of his own lighting, must undertake a work deceptive in his own estimation (since from deference to faith, he would be looking upon that as precious to which he attributed no value), and a work altogether superfluous for the believer, since he must of necessity still hold by those opinions, which, in his case, are in no degree compromised.

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But a closer examination will prove to us that this is not the fact. Doubt, even though not developed, is inherent in every belief which is not reduced to a science the most believing Christian is still in some degree a critic, possesses some small remains of incredulity, or better, perhaps, a negative germ of knowledge; and it is only by the constant compression of this germ of knowledge that belief is generated, which, in this way, is also, in him, a belief restored. But, in the same way as the believer is, in himself, sceptical or critical, so the critic is, in himself, a believer. From the moment in which the critic separates from him who believes in nature alone, and in the strength of mind, from the moment that his criticism has its root in the spirit of the nineteenth century, and not in the spirit of preceding ages, he is filled with respect for all religion; in particular, he feels that the intrinsic foundation of the highest religion-the Christian religion-is identical with the highest philosophical truths; and, consequently, after having merely pointed out, in the course of his criticism, those points which separate his convictions from faith in Christian history, he must feel an equal necessity of exhibiting those points in which they are united with it.

Moreover, our criticism, elaborate though it be, is nevertheless, in the eye of conscience, in presence of which it stands, reduced to a simple and undeveloped scepticism, to which the conscience of a believer opposes an equally simple veto, through which faith may again develope itself in all its plenitude. But criticism. is thus only avoided, it is not vanquished, and belief, remaining without a middle term, has not been sub

Criticism

jected to any really mediatorial process. being again compelled to attack this absence of middle term, it would seem that all the work it had accomplished was to be done over again, and that we were thrown back to the very point in our investigations from which we set out. Nevertheless there is a perceptible difference; we have at least made a step in advance towards the settlement of the question. Up to this time the Christian data, as they have been handed down to us, as the history of Jesus, in the evangelical writings, have been the theme of our criticism; and now that the historical reality of these documents has been compromised by the doubts we have thrown upon them, belief falls back upon herself, and seeks in the interior of the soul an asylum in which it may exist, not as a simple history, but as a reflected history of itself, that is to say, as a creed, and as a confession of faith. The creed, it is true, presenting itself without any middle term, is, like every thing deprived of a middle term, open to the attacks of criticism, whose operations are negative and mediatorial. Thenceforward it is no longer historical criticism as up to the present time, but the criticism of a creed; and it is not till it has passed through both ordeals that belief can be the object of a real mediatorial elaboration, or, in other words, can become a science.

This second stage through which belief must be pursued, should in point of fact, like the first, be the object of a special investigation; but in this place, in order that our historical criticism may not be interrupted, we can only point out the principal traits of this investigation, and press forward to a conclusion which can only be found beyond it.

§ CXLII.

Orthodox System of Belief in Christ.

To preserve without any middle term the fundamental dogmas in the life of Jesus, and to develope them