The History of the Origins of Christianity. Book I. Life of Jesus.
Ernest Renan
to Christians, were here very affable. At the present day religious animosity is less pronounced at Nazareth than elsewhere.
17
The prospect from the town is limited; but if we ascend a little and reach the plateau, swept by a perpetual breeze, which overlooks the highest houses, the view is splendid. On the west are displayed the fine outlines of Carmel, terminated by an abrupt spur which seems to plunge into the sea. Next are spread out the double summit which dominates Megiddo; the mountains of the country of Shechem, with their holy places of patriarchal age; the hills of Gilboa, the small picturesque group to which are attached the graceful or terrible recollections of Shunem and of Endor; and Tabor, with its rounded form, which antiquity compared to a bosom. Through a crevice between the mountains of Shunem and Tabor are seen the valley of the Jordan and the high plains of Peræa, which on the east side form a continuous line. On the north, the mountains of Safed, in inclining towards the sea, conceal St.-Jean-d’Acre, but reveal the outline of the Gulf of Khaifa. Such was the country of Jesus. This enchanted circle, this cradle of the kingdom of God, was the world of Jesus for years. Even in his later life he did not depart much from the familiar scenes of his childhood. For, yonder northwards, a glimpse is caught, almost on the flank of Hermon, of Cæsarea-Philippi, the furthest point he had reached in the Gentile world; and southwards, the more sombre aspect of these Samaritan hills foreshadows the dreariness of Judea beyond, parched as by a scorching wind of desolation and death. If the world, should it remain Christian, though it should attain to a better idea of the esteem in which the origins of its religion should be held, ever wishes to replace by authentic holy places the mean and apocryphal sanctuaries to which the piety of dark ages attached itself, it is upon this ground of Nazareth that it will rebuild its temple. There, at the spot where Christianity was born, and at the centre of the activity of its Founder, the great church ought to be raised in which all Christians might worship. There, also, on the spot where sleep Joseph the carpenter and thousands of forgotten Nazarenes, who never passed beyond the outskirts of their valley, would be a better station than any in the world for the philosopher to contemplate the course of human events, to console himself for the disappointments which those inflict upon our most cherished instincts, and to reassure himself as to the divine end which the world pursues through endless falterings, and in spite of the universal vanity.
18
53
www.servantofmessiah.org