to the tradition, in order to
connect with it the circumstance of a cemetery for strangers, which
was found near there.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 5.]

[Footnote 4: _Acts_, _l.c._; Papias, in Oecumenius, _Enarr. in Act.
Apost._, ii., and in Fr. Muenter, _Fragm. Patrum Graec._ (Hafniae, 1788),
fasc. i. p. 17, and following; Theophylactus, in Matt. xxvii. 5.]

[Footnote 5: Papias, in Muenter, _l.c._; Theophylactus, _l.c._]

[Footnote 6: Psalms lxix. and cix.]

The time of the great Christian revenge was, moreover, far distant.
The new sect had no part whatever in the catastrophe which Judaism was
soon to undergo. The synagogue did not understand till much later to
what it exposed itself in practising laws of intolerance. The empire
was certainly still further from suspecting that its future destroyer
was born. During nearly three hundred years it pursued its path
without suspecting that at its side principles were growing destined
to subject the world to a complete transformation. At once theocratic
and democratic, the idea thrown by Jesus into the world was, together
with the invasion of the Germans, the most active cause of the
dissolution of the empire of the Caesars. On the one hand, the right of
all men to participate in the kingdom of God was proclaimed. On the
other, religion was henceforth separated in principle from the state.
The rights of conscience, withdrawn from political law, resulted in
the constitution of a new power--the "spiritual power." This power has
more than once belied its origin. For ages the bishops have been
princes, and the Pope has been a king. The pretended empire of souls
has shown itself at various times as a frightful tyranny, employing
the rack and the stake in order to maintain itself. But the day will
come when the separation will bear its fruits, when the domain of
things spiritual will cease to be called a "power," that it may be
called a "liberty." Sprung from the conscience of a man of the people,
formed in the presence of the people, beloved and admired first by the
people, Christianity was impressed with an original character which
will never be effaced. It was the first triumph of revolution, the
victory of the popular idea, the advent of the simple in heart, the
inauguration of the beautiful as understood by the people. Jesus thus,
in the aristocratic societies of antiquity, opened the breach through
which all will pass.

The civil power, in fact, although innocent of t