he greatest degradation.[1]
Excommunication, besides, carried with it the confiscation of all
possessions.[2] By ceasing to be a Jew, a man did not become a Roman;
but remained without protection, in the power of a theocratic
legislation of the most atrocious severity. One day, the inferior
officers of the temple, who had been present at one of the discourses
of Jesus, and had been enchanted with it, came to confide their doubts
to the priests: "Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed
on him?" was the reply to them; "but this people who knoweth not the
Law are cursed."[3] Jesus remained thus at Jerusalem, a provincial
admired by provincials like himself, but rejected by all the
aristocracy of the nation. The chiefs of schools and of sects were too
numerous for any one to be stirred by seeing one more appear. His
voice made little noise in Jerusalem. The prejudices of race and of
sect, the direct enemies of the spirit of the Gospel, were too deeply
rooted there.

[Footnote 1: John vii. 13, xii. 42, 43, xix. 38.]

[Footnote 2: 1 Esdr. x. 8; Epistle to Hebrews x. 34; Talmud of Jerus.,
_Moedkaton_, iii. 1.]

[Footnote 3: John vii. 45, and following.]

His teaching in this new world necessarily became much modified. His
beautiful discourses, the effect of which was always observable upon
youthful imaginations and consciences morally pure, here fell upon
stone. He who was so much at his ease on the shores of his charming
little lake, felt constrained and not at home in the company of
pedants. His perpetual self-assertion appeared somewhat fastidious.[1]
He was obliged to become controversialist, jurist, exegetist, and
theologian. His conversations, generally so full of charm, became a
rolling fire of disputes,[2] an interminable train of scholastic
battles. His harmonious genius was wasted in insipid argumentations
upon the Law and the prophets,[3] in which we should have preferred
not seeing him sometimes play the part of aggressor.[4] He lent
himself with a condescension we cannot but regret to the captious
criticisms to which the merciless cavillers subjected him.[5] In
general, he extricated himself from difficulties with much skill. His
reasonings, it is true, were often subtle (simplicity of mind and
subtlety touch each other; when simplicity reasons, it is often a
little sophistical); we find that sometimes he courted misconceptions,
and prolonged them intentionally;[6] his reasoning, judged according