eriods in which the originality of
each one had a freer field wherein to develop itself. Let us imagine a
recluse dwelling in the mountains near our capitals, coming out from
time to time in order to present himself at the palaces of sovereigns,
compelling the sentinels to stand aside, and, with an imperious tone,
announcing to kings the approach of revolutions of which he had been
the promoter. The very idea provokes a smile. Such, however, was
Elias; but Elias the Tishbite, in our days, would not be able to pass
the gate of the Tuileries. The preaching of Jesus, and his free
activity in Galilee, do not deviate less completely from the social
conditions to which we are accustomed. Free from our polished
conventionalities, exempt from the uniform education which refines us,
but which so greatly dwarfs our individuality, these mighty souls
carried a surprising energy into action. They appear to us like the
giants of an heroic age, which could not have been real. Profound
error! Those men were our brothers; they were of our stature, felt and
thought as we do. But the breath of God was free in them; with us, it
is restrained by the iron bonds of a mean society, and condemned to an
irremediable mediocrity.

Let us place, then, the person of Jesus at the highest summit of human
greatness. Let us not be misled by exaggerated doubts in the presence
of a legend which keeps us always in a superhuman world. The life of
Francis d'Assisi is also but a tissue of miracles. Has any one,
however, doubted of the existence of Francis d'Assisi, and of the part
played by him? Let us say no more that the glory of the foundation of
Christianity belongs to the multitude of the first Christians, and not
to him whom legend has deified. The inequality of men is much more
marked in the East than with us. It is not rare to see arise there, in
the midst of a general atmosphere of wickedness, characters whose
greatness astonishes us. So far from Jesus having been created by his
disciples, he appeared in everything as superior to his disciples. The
latter, with the exception of St. Paul and St. John, were men without
either invention or genius. St. Paul himself bears no comparison with
Jesus, and as to St. John, I shall show hereafter, that the part he
played, though very elevated in one sense, was far from being in all
respects irreproachable. Hence the immense superiority of the Gospels
among the writings of the New Testament. Hence the painful fal