Mean, narrow, ignorant, inexperienced they were, as much as was possible for them to be. Their simplicity of mind was extreme; their credulity had no bounds. But they had one quality; they loved their Master to madness. The remembrance of Jesus, the only moving power of their life, had possessed them constantly and entirely; and it was clear that they existed only on account of Him who, during two or three years, had so completely attached and seduced them to Himself. The safety of minds of a secondary class, who are unable to love God directly—that is, to discover the truth, create the beautiful, and do what is right of themselves—is the loving of some one in whom there shines forth a reflection of the true, the beautiful, and the good. The majority of mankind require a graduated worship. The multitude of worshippers pant for a mediator between themselves and God.

When an individual has succeeded in gathering around his person, by a highly elevated moral tie, a number of other individuals, and then dies, it invariably happens that the survivors, who were perhaps up to that time often divided amongst themselves by rivalries and differences of opinion, become bound together by a mutual and fast friendship. A thousand cherished images of the past, which they regret, form a common treasure to them. One way of loving a dead person is to love those with whom we have known him to associate. We court their society that we may recall to our minds the times which are no more. A profound saying of Jesus[4.1] is then discovered to be true to the letter: “The dead one is present in the midst of those who are united again by his memory.”

The affection which the disciples entertained for each other during the lifetime of Jesus, was thus increased tenfold after his death. They formed a little society, very retired, and they lived exclusively within themselves. The number of them at Jerusalem was one hundred and twenty.[4.2] Their piety was active, and as yet, completely restrained by the forms of Jewish religionism. The temple was their chief place of worship.[4.3] No doubt, they labored for their living; but manual labor occupied but a small place in the Jewish economy. Every Jew had a trade, and this trade implied no lack of learning or of gentle breeding. With us in our day, our material needs are so difficult to satisfy, that a man who lives by manual labor is obliged to work twelve or fifteen hours a day; the man of leisure alone can apply himself to intellectual pursuits; the acquisition of learning is a rare and expensive matter. But in these old societies, of which the East of our own day furnishes some idea; in those climates where nature is so lavish for man’s wants, and exacts so little in return—the life of a laborer left plenty of leisure. A sort of method of common instruction rendered every man well up in the prevailing ideas. Food and raiment sufficed;[4.4] a few hours of moderate labor were enough to provide them. The remaining portion of the time was devoted to day-dreaming and to the indulgence of passionate love. The latter had, in the minds of these people, attained to a degree altogether inconceivable by us. The Jews of that period[4.5] appear to us as if possessed, each one obeying like a blind machine the idea which had taken possession of him.

The prevailing idea in the Christian community at the time of which we are treating, and when the apparitions had ceased, was the coming of the Holy Spirit. They expected to receive Him under the form of a mysterious breath, which passed over the assembly. Many pretended that this was the breath of Jesus Himself. Every inward consolation, every courageous movement, every outburst of enthusiasm, every feeling of lively and pleasant gaiety, which they experienced without knowing its origin, was the work of the Spirit. These worthy consciences referred, as ever, to an outward cause the exquisite feelings which were springing up in them. It was especially in their assemblies that these varied phenomena of illumination were produced. When they were all assembled together and were awaiting in silence the heavenly inspiration, whatever murmur or noise arose was thought to be the coming of the Spirit. In the early times, it was the apparitions of Jesus which were thus produced. Now, there was a change in the course of their ideas. It was the Divine breath[4.6] which was breathed over the little church and filled it with heavenly emanations. These beliefs were strengthened by notions drawn from the Old Testament. The Spirit of prophecy is represented in the Hebrew books as a breathing which penetrates and lifts up the subject of it. In the beautiful vision of Elijah,[4.7] God passes by under the form of a light wind, which produces a gentle rustling sound. This ancient imagery had handed down to later epochs systems of belief very similar to those of the spiritualists of our own time. In the Ascension of Isaiah[4.8] the coming of the Spirit is accomplished by a certain crashing at the doors.[4.9] Later on, they always regarded this coming in the light of another baptism—that is to say, the “baptism of the Spirit,” far superior to that of John.[4.10] The hallucinations of bodily touch being very frequent amongst persons so nervous and so excited as they were, the least current of air, accompanied by a shuddering in the midst of the silence, was considered as the passage of the Spirit. One thought that he felt it; very soon all perceived it;[4.11] and the enthusiasm was communicated from neighbor to neighbor. The correspondence of these phenomena with those which are found to exist amongst the visionaries of every age is easily demonstrated. They are produced daily, partly under the influence of the reading the book of the Acts of the Apostles, in the English and American sects of Quakers, Jumpers, Shakers, Irvingites;[4.12] amongst the Mormons,[4.13] and in the camp meetings and revivals of America;[4.14] we have seen them reproduced amongst ourselves in the sect called the Spiritualists. But an immense difference should be observed between aberrations, without capacity or future results, and the illusions which have accompanied the establishment of a new code of religion for the human race.

Amongst all these “descents of the Spirit,” which appear to have been by no means infrequent, there was one which left a deep impression on the nascent Church.[4.15] One day when they were assembled together a thunder-storm arose. A violent wind burst the windows open—the sky seemed on fire. Thunder-storms in those countries are accompanied by wonderful illuminations; the atmosphere is furrowed, as it were, on every side with garbes of flame. Whether the electric fluid had penetrated into the very chamber itself, or whether a dazzling flash of lightning had suddenly illuminated all their faces, they were convinced that the Spirit had entered, and that he was poured out upon the head of each one of them under the form of tongues of fire.[4.16] It was a prevalent opinion in the theurgic schools of Syria that the communication of the Spirit was produced by a divine fire, and under the form of a mysterious glimmering.[4.17] It was believed to have been present at the display of all the wonders of Mount Sinai,[4.18] at a manifestation analogous to those of former times. The baptism of the Spirit hence became also a baptism of fire. The baptism of the Spirit and of fire was opposed to and greatly preferred to that of water, the only form with which John had been acquainted.[4.19] The baptism of fire was only produced on rare occasions; only the apostles and the disciples of the first guest-chamber were supposed to have received it. But the idea that the Spirit was poured forth upon them under the form of strokes of flame resembling burning tongues originated a series of singular ideas, which took firm hold of the imaginations of the period.

The tongue of an inspired man was supposed to have received a sort of sacrament. It was pretended that many prophets before their mission had been stammerers;[4.20] that the angel of God had passed a coal over their lips, which purified them and conferred on them the gift of eloquence.[4.21] In his prophetic utterances the man was supposed not to speak at all about himself.[4.22] His tongue was looked upon merely as the organ of the Divinity who inspired it. These tongues of fire appeared a very striking symbol. The disciples were convinced that God desired to make it known that on the apostles also he had conferred his most precious gifts of eloquence and inspiration. But they did not stop there; Jerusalem was, like most of the great cities of the East, a city where many languages were spoken. The diversity of tongues was one of the difficulties which they there discovered in the way of the propagation of a universal form of faith. Besides, one of the things which most alarmed the apostles at their very entry on a ministry destined to embrace the world, was the number of languages which were spoken in it; they were constantly inquiring how they could learn so many dialects. “The gift of tongues” became thenceforth a marvellous privilege. They believed that the preaching of the gospel would relieve them from the obstacle which the difference of idioms had raised. They pretended that, under certain solemn circumstances, those present had heard, each in his own language, the gospel preached by the apostles; in other words, that the apostolic promise was delivered to each one of the hearers.{4.23} At other times, this conception was entertained in a somewhat different shape. They ascribed to the apostles the gift of acquiring, by divine illumination, every language spoken, and of speaking those languages at will.{4.24}There was in this a liberal conception; they wished it should have no language peculiar to itself, that it should be capable of translation into every language, and that the translation should be of the same standard value as the original. Such was not the opinion of orthodox Judaism. The Hebrew was “the holy language” to the Jew of Jerusalem, and no version could be compared to it. Translations of the Bible were in little esteem; so long as the Hebrew text was scrupulously guarded in the translations, changes and modifications of expression were tolerated. The Jews of Egypt and Hellenists of Palestine, indeed, practised a more tolerant system, and habitually perused the Greek translations of the Bible.{4.25} But the first plan of the Christians was even broader; according to their idea, the word of God has no language peculiar to it; it is free, unfettered by any idiomatic peculiarity; it is delivered to all spontaneously and without interpretation. The facility with which Christianity became detached from the Semitic dialect which Jesus had spoken, the liberty which it at first accorded to every nation of forming its own liturgy, and its own versions of the Bible in the vernacular, favored this sort of emancipation of languages. It was generally admitted that the Messiah would gather into one, all languages as well as all peoples.[4.26] Common usage and the promiscuousness of the languages was the first grand step towards this grand era of universal pacification.

Moreover, the gift of languages very soon underwent a considerable variation, and resulted in very extraordinary effects. Ecstasy and prophecy were the fruits of mental excitement. At these moments of ecstasy, the faithful, possessed by the Spirit, uttered inarticulate and incoherent sounds, which were mistaken for the words of a foreign language, and which they innocently attempted to interpret.[4.27] At other times they supposed that the ecstatically possessed was giving utterance to new and hitherto unknown languages,[4.28] which were not even the languages of the angels.[4.29]

These extravagant scenes, which were the fruitful cause of abuse, only became habitual at a later period;[4.30] but it is probable that they were produced from the earliest years of Christianity. The visions of the ancient prophets had often been accompanied by phenomena of nervous excitement.[4.31] The dithyrambic state amongst the Greeks abounded in occurrences of the same kind; the Pythia seemed to give a preference to the use of foreign or obsolete words, which were called, as also in the apostolic phenomena, glosses.[4.32] Many of the pass-words of primitive Christianity, which are precisely bi-linguistic, or formed by anagrams, such as Abba, Father, and Anathema Maranatha,[4.33] took their origin perhaps from these fantastic paroxysms, intermingled with sighs[4.34] from stifled gradus, from ejaculations, prayers, and sudden transports which were interpreted as prophecies. It was like some vague harmony of the soul, thrilling in indistinct sounds, and which the hearers of it desired to transform into determined shapes and words,[4.35] or rather like spiritual prayers addressed to God in a language understood by God alone, and which God knows how to interpret.[4.36] The individual in a state of ecstasy understood, in fact, nothing of what he uttered, and had no cognizance of it whatever.[4.37] His eager listeners ascribed to his incoherent syllables the thoughts which occurred to them at the time. Each one referred to his own dialect, and artlessly strove to explain the unintelligible sounds by what little knowledge of languages he possessed. They were always more or less successful, because the auditor interpolated within these broken accents the thoughts of his own breast. The history of fanatical sects is rich in facts of this description. The preachers of CÉvennes displayed many instances of “glossology,”[4.38] but the most remarkable fact is that of the “readers” of Sweden,[4.39] about the years 1841–1843. Involuntary enunciations, devoid of sense in the minds of those who uttered them, and accompanied by convulsions and fainting-fits, were, for a long time daily practised by the members of this little sect. This phenomenon became quite contagious, and a considerable popular movement became blended with it. Amongst the Irvingites, the phenomenon of tongues is produced with features which reproduce, in the most remarkable manner, the most striking of the stories of the “Acts” and of St. Paul.[4.40] Our own age has witnessed fantastic scenes of the same nature, which need not to be recounted here; for it is always unjust to compare the credulity of a grand religious movement with the credulity which is caused only by dulness of intellect.

Now and then these strange phenomena were produced outside. The extatics, at the very moment when under the influence of their extravagant fantasies, had the hardihood to go out and display themselves to the crowd. They were taken for persons who were intoxicated.[4.41] However sober-minded in point of mysticism, Jesus had more than once presented in his own person the ordinary phenomena of the extatic state.[4.42] The disciples, during three or four years, were possessed with these ideas. The prophesyings were frequent, and were regarded as a gift analogous to that of tongues.[4.43] Prayer, mingled with convulsions, with harmonized modulations, with mystic sighs, with lyrical enthusiasm, with songs of thanksgiving,[4.44] was a daily exercise among them. A rich vein of “canticles,” of “Psalms,” and of “Hymns,” copied from those of the Old Testament was thus discovered to be open to them.[4.45] Sometimes the lips and the heart were in mutual accord; sometimes the spirit sang alone, accompanied by grace in the inner man.[4.46] Any language which did not afford the new sensations which were being produced, they suffered to become an indistinct stammering, at once sublime and puerile; or that which they could denominate “the Christian language” was wafted aloud in an embryo state. Christianity, not finding in the ancient tongues a weapon appropriate to its needs, has destroyed them. But whilst the new religion was forming for itself an idiom of its own, ages of obscure efforts, and so to speak, of squalling, intervened. What is the characteristic of the style of St. Paul and, in general, that of the writers of the New Testament, but the stifled, panting, misshapen improvisation of the “Glossology?” Language failed them. Like the prophets, they began with the a, a, a of the infant.[4.47] They knew not how to speak. The Greek and the Semitic tongues equally betrayed them. Thus arose that frightful violence which the new Christianity inflicted upon language. They would call it a stammering of the mouth, by which the sounds are stifled and confused, and wind up with a pantomime confused indeed, but nevertheless wonderfully expressive.

All this was very far from the intention of Jesus; but to those whose minds were imbued with a belief in the supernatural, these phenomena were of the utmost importance. The gift of tongues, in particular, was considered as an essential sign of the new religion, and, as it were, a proof of its verity.[4.48] In every case it resulted in great fruits of edification. Many pagans were in this manner converted.[4.49]

Up to the third century, the “Glossology” manifested itself in a manner analogous to that which St. Paul describes, and was considered in the light of a permanent miracle.[4.50] Some of the sublimest words of Christianity have originated in these incoherent sighings. The general effect was touching and penetrating. This fashion of joining together their inspirations and delivering them over to the community for interpretation was enough to establish amongst the faithful a profound bond of confraternity. Like all mystics, the new sectaries led lives of fasting and austerity.[4.51] Like the majority of Orientals, they ate little, which fact contributed to maintain their excited state. The sobriety of the Syrian, caused by physical weakness, kept him in a constant state of fever and nervous susceptibility. Such great and protracted intellectual efforts as ours are impossible under such a regimen; but this cerebral and muscular debility is productive, without apparent cause, of lively alternations of sadness and joy, which bring the soul into continual communion with God. Thus that which they called “godly sorrow”[4.52] passed for a heavenly gift. All the teachings of the Fathers respecting the spiritual life, such as John Chinaticus, as Basil, as Nilus, as Arsenius—all the secrets of the grand art of the inward life, one of the most glorious creations of Christianity—were germinating in that strange state of mind which possessed, in their months of extatic watchfulness, those illustrious ancestors of all “the men of longings.” Their moral state was strange; they lived in the supernatural. They acted only on the authority of visions; dreams and the most insignificant circumstances appeared to them to be admonitions from Heaven.[4.53] Under the name of gifts of the Holy Spirit were concealed also the rarest and most exquisite emanations of the soul—love, piety, respectful fear, objectless sighings, sudden languor, and spontaneous tenderness. All the good that is engendered in man, without man having any part in it, was attributed to a breathing from on high. Tears were often taken for a celestial favor. This charming gift, the privilege only of very good and pure souls, was repeated with an infinity of sweetness. We know what influence delicate natures—above all, women—exercise in the ability to shed copious tears. It is their style of praying, and assuredly it is the most holy of prayers. We must come down quite to the Middle Ages, to that piety watered with tears of St. Bruno, St. Bernard, and St. Francis of Assisi, in order to discover again the chaste melancholy of those early days, when they verily sowed in tears that they might reap with joy. To weep became an act of piety; those who could not preach, who were ignorant of languages, and unable to work miracles, wept. Praying, preaching, admonishing they wept;[4.54] it was the advent of the kingdom of tears. One might have said that their souls were dissolved, and that they desired, in the absence of a language which could interpret their sentiments, to display themselves to the world by a lively and brief expression of their entire inner being.