Translation Hide
Méthode pour enseigner aux catéchumènes les éléments du Christianisme

CHAPITRE XXIII.

DESCENTE DU SAINT-ESPRIT. — CONVERSIONS OPÉRÉES CHEZ LES JUIFS ET CHEZ LES GENTILS.

41. Après avoir affermi la foi chez ses disciples et s’être montré à eux pendant quarante jours, Jésus-Christ monta au ciel en leur présence. Cinquante jours après la Résurrection, il leur envoya, selon sa promesse, le Saint-Esprit, pour répandre dans leur coeur la charité qui devait non-seulement alléger, mais encore faire aimer l’accomplissement de la loi. Cette loi avait été donnée aux Juifs sous la forme de dix commandements, ce qu’on appelle le Décalogue :- mais elle se réduit à deux préceptes qui sont d’aimer Dieu de tout notre coeur, de toute notre âme-, de tout notre esprit, et d’aimer notre prochain comme nous-mêmes. Ces deux commandements renferment la Loi et les Prophètes, comme le Seigneur l’a déclaré expressément dans l’Evangile¹, et l’a du reste prouvé par son exemple. Cinquante jours après avoir célébré la pâque symbolique, immolé et mangé l’agneau dont le sang marqua leurs portes comme gage de salut², le peuple d’Israël reçut la loi gravée du doigt de Dieu³, figure du Saint-Esprit, comme nous l’avons déjà remarqué⁴: de même, ce fut le cinquantième jour après la passion de Notre-Seigneur, la véritable pâque, que le Saint-Esprit fut envoyé aux disciples. Ici, plus de tables de pierre pour figurer la dureté des coeurs : les disciples étaient tous assemblés en un même lieu, à Jérusalem, quand on entendit soudain un bruit sourd venait du ciel, semblable à celui d’un vent impétueux; et ils virent des langues de feu qui se partagèrent et s’arrêtèrent sur chacun d’eux: puis ils commencèrent à parler diverses langues. Tous les Juifs venus à Jérusalem des différents pays où ils étaient dispersés et dont ils avaient appris la langue, reconnaissaient leur idiome particulier dans le langage des disciples⁵. Prêchant alors Jésus-Christ avec tout l’enthousiasme de la foi, ils opéraient en son nom une foule de prodiges, au point que Pierre, ayant passé près d’un mort et l’ayant couvert de son ombre, le ressuscita⁶.

42. A la vue des prodiges éclatants qui s’accomplissaient au nom de celui qu’ils avaient crucifié, les uns par haine, les autres par erreur, les Juifs se divisèrent : les uns s’acharnèrent à poursuivre les Apôtres qui l’annonçaient; les. autres, étonnés de voir s’accomplir tant de merveilles au nom de Celui qu’ils avaient tourné en dérision et dont ils se flattaient d’avoir consommé la défaite et la ruine, se repentirent par milliers et crurent en lui. Ce n’étaient plus ces Juifs qui demandaient à Dieu des prospérités mondaines et un royaume temporel, ou qui attendaient dans le Messie un monarque glorieux selon la chair : se plaçant au point de vue de l’éternité, ils comprenaient, ils aimaient Celui qui s’était condamné à souffrir par eux et pour eux tant de supplices dans le temps, qui avait effacé généreusement tous les crimes de leur race, et, par l’exemple de sa résurrection, leur avait appris à attendre de lui le don de l’immortalité. Ils mortifiaient donc en eux les désirs du vieil homme, et dans leur enthousiasme pour la vie spirituelle dont ils avaient jusqu’alors ignoré les merveilles, ils s’empressaient, selon le précepte évangélique, de vendre ce qu’ils possédaient et d’en déposer le prix aux pieds des Apôtres : ensuite on le distribuait à chacun selon ses besoins⁷. Ils vivaient dans l’union de la charité chrétienne: aucun ne considérait comme à lui ce qu’il possédait; toutes choses étaient communes entre eux et ils ne formaient qu’un coeur et qu’une âme⁸. Leurs concitoyens ne tardèrent pas à les persécuter, au mépris de la voix du sang, si puissante sur ces esprits charnels, et les dispersèrent. Les chrétiens trouvèrent ainsi l’occasion de propager au loin l’Evangile et d’imiter la patience de leur Maître : après avoir souffert pour eux avec douceur, il les invitait à prendre un esprit de douceur et à souffrir pour lui.

43. Parmi les persécuteurs des chrétiens, Paul avait montré le plus d’acharnement. Appelé à la foi et à l’apostolat, il reçut la mission d’annoncer l’Evangile aux Gentils et souffrit pour le nom de Jésus-Christ plus de maux qu’il n’en avait fait pour le combattre. En fondant des églises chez toutes les nations où il semait la parole évangélique , il sentait bien que les fidèles qui venaient de renoncer au culte des idoles et qui étaient peu initiés encore à l’esprit de la religion, avaient de la peine à vendre et à distribuer leurs biens pour ne servir que Dieu; aussi leur recommandait-il instamment d’envoyer des offrandes aux chrétiens pauvres des- églises de Judée. D’après les principes de l’Apôtre, les uns remplissaient le rôle de soldats, les autres étaient chargés dans les provinces de solder leur paie. Il posait parmi eux Jésus-Christ comme la principale pierre de l’angle, selon l’expression du prophète⁹, afin d’y rattacher, comme deux murailles opposées les Juifs et les Gentils, et de les confondre dans une charité toute fraternelle. Dans la suite, les peuples païens suscitèrent à 1’Eglise de Jésus-Christ des persécutions à la fois plus fréquentes et plus cruelles, et l’on voyait de jour en jour s’accomplir cette prédiction du Seigneur: « Voilà que je vous envoie comme des brebis au milieu des loups¹⁰».

Translation Hide
On the Catechising of the Uninstructed

Chapter 23.--Of the Mission of the Holy Ghost Fifty Days After Christ's Resurrection.

41. "Thereafter, having confirmed the disciples, and having sojourned with them forty days, He ascended up into heaven, as these same persons were beholding Him. And on the completion of fifty days from His resurrection He sent to them the Holy Spirit (for so He had promised), by whose agency they were to have love shed abroad in their hearts, ¹ to the end that they might be able to fulfill the law, not only without the sense of its being burdensome, but even with a joyful mind. This law was given to the Jews in the ten commandments, which they call the Decalogue. And these commandments, again, are reduced to two, namely that we should love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind; and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. ² For that on these two precepts hang all the law and the prophets, the Lord Himself has at once declared in the Gospel and shown in His own example. For thus it was likewise in the instance of the people of Israel, that from the day on which they first celebrated the passover in a form, ³ slaying and eating the sheep, with whose blood their door-posts were marked for the securing of their safety, ⁴ --from this day, I repeat, the fiftieth day in succession was completed, and then they received the law written by the finger of God, ⁵ under which phrase we have already stated that the Holy Spirit is signified. ⁶ And in the same manner, after the passion and resurrection of the Lord, who is the true passover, the Holy Ghost was sent personally to the disciples on the fiftieth day: not now, however, by tables of stone significant of the hardness of their hearts; but, when they were gathered together in one place at Jerusalem itself, suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as if a violent blast were being borne onwards, and there appeared to them tongues cloven like fire, and they began to speak with tongues, in such a manner that all those who had come to them recognized each his own language ⁷ (for in that city the Jews were in the habit of assembling from every country wheresoever they had been scattered abroad, and had learned the diverse tongues of diverse nations); and thereafter, preaching Christ with all boldness, they wrought many signs in His name,--so much so, that as Peter was passing by, his shadow touched a certain dead person, and the man rose in life again. ⁸

42. "But when the Jews perceived so great signs to be wrought in the name of Him, whom, partly through ill-will and partly in ignorance, they crucified, some of them were provoked to persecute the apostles, who were His preachers; while others, on the contrary, marvelling the more at this very circumstance, that so great miracles were being performed in the name of Him whom they had derided as one overborne and conquered by themselves, repented, and were converted, so that thousands of Jews believed on Him. For these parties were not bent now on craving at the hand of God temporal benefits and an earthly kingdom, neither did they look any more for Christ, the promised king, in a carnal spirit; but they continued in immortal fashion to apprehend and love Him, who in mortal fashion endured on their behalf at their own hands sufferings so heavy, and imparted to them the gift of forgiveness for all their sins, even down to the iniquity of His own blood, and by the example of His own resurrection unfolded immortality as the object which they should hope for and long for at His hands. Accordingly, now mortifying the earthly cravings of the old man, and inflamed with the new experience of the spiritual life, as the Lord had enjoined in the Gospel, they sold all that they had, and laid the price of their possessions at the feet of the apostles, in order that these might distribute to every man according as each had need; and living in Christian love harmoniously with each other, they did not affirm anything to be their own, but they had all things in common, and were one in soul and heart toward God. ⁹ Afterwards these same persons also themselves suffered persecution in their flesh at the hands of the Jews, their carnal fellow-countrymen, and were dispersed abroad, to the end that, in consequence of their dispersion, Christ should be preached more extensively, and that they themselves at the same time should be followers of the patience of their Lord. For He who in meekness had endured them, ¹⁰ enjoined them in meekness to endure for His sake.

43. "Among those same persecutors of the saints the Apostle Paul had once also ranked; and he raged with eminent violence against the Christians. But, subsequently, he became a believer and an apostle, and was sent to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, suffering (in that ministry) things more grievous on behalf of the name of Christ than were those which he had done against the name of Christ. Moreover, in establishing churches throughout all the nations where he was sowing the seed of the gospel, he was wont to give earnest injunction that, as these converts (coming as they did from the worship of idols and without experience in the worship of the one God) could not readily serve God in the way of selling and distributing their possessions, they should make offerings for the poor brethren among the saints who were in the churches of Judea which had believed in Christ. In this manner the doctrine of the apostle constituted some to be, as it were, soldiers, and others to be, as it were, provincial tributaries, while it set Christ in the centre of them like the corner-stone (in accordance with what had been announced beforetime by the prophet), ¹¹ in whom both parties, like walls advancing from different sides, that is to say, from Jews and from Gentiles, might be joined together in the affection of kinship. But at a later period heavier and more frequent persecutions arose from the unbelieving Gentiles against the Church of Christ, and day by day was fulfilled that prophetic word which the Lord spake when He said, Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves.' ¹²

= who had suffered in their stead: qui propter eos, etc. = who had suffered on their account: and qui per eos, etc. = who had suffered through them, etc. But the reading in the text appears best authenticated.