THE MIRACLES OF THE GOSPEL.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. — SUPERIORITY OF THE NATURE OF JESUS: — Dreams.

— Star of the Magi.

— DOUBLE SIGHT: Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.

— Kiss of Judas.

— Miraculous fishing.

— Calling of Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Matthew. — CURES: Loss of blood. — Blind man of Bethsaida. — Paralytic. — The ten lepers. — Withered hand.

— The bent woman. — The paralytic of the pool.

— Man born blind. — Numerous cures of Jesus.

— THE POSSESSED.

— RESURRECTIONS: Daughter of Jairus.

— Son of the widow of Nain.

— OTHERS: Jesus walks upon the water. — Transfiguration. — Tempest stilled. — Wedding at Cana.

— Multiplication of the loaves.

— The leaven of the Pharisees.

— The bread of Heaven. — Temptation of Jesus. — Prodigies at the death of Jesus. — Apparition of Jesus, after his death.

— Disappearance of the body of Jesus.

JESUS WALKS UPON THE WATER.

— Immediately afterward, Jesus made his disciples take the boat and pass over to the other shore before him, while he stayed to dismiss the people. After having dismissed them, he went up onto a mountain to pray and, night having fallen, he found himself alone in that place.

Meanwhile, the boat was being violently lashed by the waves, in the midst of the sea, the wind being contrary. But, in the fourth watch of the night, n Jesus came to them, walking upon the sea. n — When they saw him walking upon the sea, they were troubled and said: It is a phantom, and they began to cry out in fear. Jesus then spoke to them, saying: Be reassured, it is I, do not be afraid. Peter answered him: Lord, if it is you, command that I go to meet you, walking upon the waters. Jesus said to him: Come. Peter, descending from the boat, walked upon the water, to meet Jesus. But, a great wind coming, he was afraid; and as he began to sink, he cried out: Lord, save me. At once, Jesus, stretching out his hand to him, said: Man of little faith! why did you doubt?

And, having climbed into the boat, the wind ceased. Then, those who were in the boat, drawing near to him, worshiped him, saying: You are truly the son of God. (Saint Matthew, chapter XIV, vv. 22 to 33.)

— This phenomenon finds a natural explanation in the principles set forth above, chapter XIV, no. 43.

Analogous examples prove that it has nothing impossible about it, nor anything miraculous, since it is produced under the action of the laws of Nature. It can occur in two ways.

Jesus, although he was alive, could appear upon the water, with a tangible form, his body being elsewhere. This is the most probable hypothesis. It is even easy to discover in the narrative some characteristic signs of the tangible apparitions. (Chap. XIV, no. 35 to 37.)

On the other hand, it may also have happened that his body was sustained and its gravity neutralized by the same fluidic force that holds a table in space, without a point of support. An identical effect is often produced with human bodies.

TRANSFIGURATION.

— Six days later, having called aside Peter, James, and John, Jesus took them with him onto a high, remote mountain, n and was transfigured before them. While he prayed, his face seemed entirely other; his garments became brilliantly luminous and white as the snow, such as no fuller on Earth could make so white. And they saw appear Elijah and Moses, conversing with Jesus. Then, Peter said to Jesus: Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tents: one for you, another for Moses, another for Elijah. For he did not know what he was saying, so astonished was he.

At the same time, a cloud appeared that covered them; and, from that cloud, a voice came forth, making these words to be heard: This is my beloved Son; listen to him.

At once, looking all around, they saw no one anymore, except Jesus, who had remained alone with them.

When they were descending from the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one of what they had seen, until the Son of Man should rise again from among the dead. And they kept the fact in secret, inquiring of one another what he might have meant by these words: Until the Son of Man has risen again from among the dead. (Saint Mark, chapter IX, vv. 2 to 9.)

— It is again in the properties of the perispiritic fluid that the explanation of this phenomenon is found.

The transfiguration, explained in chapter XIV, no. 39, is a very common fact that, by virtue of fluidic radiation, can modify the appearance of an individual;

but, the purity of the perispirit of Jesus permitted that his Spirit give it an exceptional brilliance.

As for the apparition of Moses and Elijah, it falls entirely within the range of all the phenomena of the same kind. (Chap. XIV, no. 35 and following.)

Of all the faculties that Jesus revealed, not one can be pointed out as foreign to the conditions of humanity and not commonly found in men, for they are all in the order of Nature; 6 by the superiority, however, of his moral essence and of his fluidic qualities, those faculties attained in him proportions far above those that are ordinary.

Setting aside his carnal envelope, he made plain to us the state of the pure Spirits. TEMPEST STILLED.

— One day, having taken a boat with his disciples, he said to them:

Let us pass to the other shore of the lake. They then set out. During the crossing, he fell asleep. Then, a great whirlwind suddenly fell upon the lake, so that, the boat filling with water, they found themselves in danger. They therefore drew near to him and woke him, saying to him:

Master, we are perishing. Jesus, rising, spoke, threateningly, to the winds and to the agitated waves, and both the one and the others were stilled, a great calm coming on.

He then said to them: Where is your faith? But they, full of fear and wonder, asked one another: who is this who thus gives orders to the wind and to the waves, and they obey him? (Saint Luke, chapter VIII, vv. 22 to 25.)

— We do not yet know enough of the secrets of Nature to say whether or not there are hidden intelligences presiding over the action of the elements.

In the hypothesis that there are, the phenomenon in question could have resulted from an act of authority over those intelligences and would prove a power that it is given to no man to exercise.

However that may be, the fact that Jesus was sleeping tranquilly during the tempest attests on his part a security that can be explained by the circumstance that his Spirit saw there was no danger at all and that the tempest was going to subside.

WEDDING AT CANA.

— This miracle, reported solely in the Gospel of Saint John, is presented as the first that Jesus performed and, under these conditions, ought to have been one of the most noticed; nevertheless, a very weak impression it seems to have produced, since no other evangelist treats of it.

So extraordinary a fact was such as to leave astonished, in the highest degree, the guests and, above all, the master of the house, who, nevertheless, seem not to have perceived it.

Considered in itself, the fact has little importance, in comparison with those that truly attest the spiritual qualities of Jesus.

Admitting that things happened as they were narrated, it is to be noted that this is, of such a kind, the only phenomenon that was produced;

Jesus was of an extremely elevated nature, to dwell on purely material effects, fit only to whet the curiosity of the multitude that, then, would have leveled him with a magician; 6 he knew that useful things would win him more sympathies and would gain him more adherents, than those that would easily pass for the fruit of great skill and dexterity. (No. 27.)

Although, strictly speaking, the fact can be explained, up to a certain point, by a fluidic action that had, as magnetism offers many examples, changed the properties of the water, giving it the flavor of wine, it is little probable that such a hypothesis occurred, given that, in such a case, the water, having of the wine only the flavor, would have kept its coloration, which would not have failed to be noticed.

More rational is it to recognize there one of those parables so frequent in the teachings of Jesus, such as that of the prodigal son, that of the wedding feast, of the wicked rich man, of the fig tree that withered, and so many others that, nevertheless, present themselves with the character of facts that occurred.

Probably, during the meal, he alluded to the wine and to the water, drawing from both a teaching. This opinion is justified by the words that the steward addresses to him in this regard: “Everyone serves first the good wine and, after all have drunk much of it, serves the less fine; but you, you have kept the good wine until now?”

Between two hypotheses, one ought to prefer the more rational, and the Spiritists are not so credulous as to see manifestations everywhere, nor so absolute in their opinions as to claim to explain everything by means of the fluids.

MULTIPLICATION OF THE LOAVES.

— The multiplication of the loaves is one of the miracles that have most intrigued the commentators and fed, at the same time, the mockeries of the unbelievers.

Without giving themselves the trouble of scrutinizing its allegorical sense, for these latter it is no more than a puerile tale; nevertheless, the majority of serious persons have seen in the narrative of this fact, though under a form different from the ordinary one, a parable, in which the spiritual nourishment of the soul is compared to the nourishment of the body.

One can, however, perceive in it more than a mere figure and admit, from a certain point of view, the reality of a material fact, without, for that, having to resort to the prodigy.

It is known that a great preoccupation of mind, as well as attention strongly fixed on a thing, make one forget hunger.

Now, those who accompanied Jesus were creatures eager to hear him; there is nothing, then, astonishing in that, fascinated by his word and also, perhaps, by the powerful magnetic action that he exercised over those who surrounded him, they did not experience the material need to eat.

Foreseeing this result, Jesus had no difficulty in reassuring the disciples, telling them, in the figurative language that was habitual to him and admitting that they had really brought some loaves, that these would suffice to satisfy the hunger of the multitude.

Simultaneously, he was administering to the said disciples a teaching, by saying to them: “Give them to eat yourselves.” He thus taught them that they too could nourish by means of the word.

In this way, alongside the allegorical moral sense, a physiological effect was produced, natural and very well known.

The prodigy, in this case, lies in the ascendancy of the word of Jesus, powerful enough to captivate the attention of an immense multitude, to the point of making it forget to eat.

This moral power proves the superiority of Jesus, much more than the purely material fact of the multiplication of the loaves, which must be considered as an allegory.

This explanation, moreover, Jesus himself confirmed it in the two following passages.

The leaven of the Pharisees.

— Now, his disciples having passed to the other side of the sea, forgot to bring loaves. Jesus said to them: Take care to guard yourselves from the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. But they thought and said among themselves: It is because we did not bring loaves.

Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said: Men of little faith, why must you be pondering that you have not brought loaves? Do you still not understand and do you not remember how many baskets you took up? How do you not understand that it was not of bread that I was speaking to you, when I said that you should guard yourselves from the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees? They then understood that he had not told them to preserve themselves from the leaven that is put in bread, but from the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. (Saint Matthew, chapter XVI, vv. 5 to 12.)

The bread of Heaven.

— On the following day, the people, who had remained on the other side of the sea, noticed that no other boat had arrived there and that Jesus had not entered the one his disciples took, that the disciples had departed alone, and as other boats had afterward arrived from Tiberias, near the place where the Lord, after giving thanks, had fed them with five loaves; and as they finally verified that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples either, they entered those boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus. And, having found him beyond the sea, they said to him: Master, when did you come here? Jesus answered them: In truth, in truth I say to you that you seek me, not because of the miracles that you saw but because I gave you bread to eat and you were satisfied.

— Work to have, not the food that perishes, but that which lasts for life eternal and that the Son of Man will give you, because it was in him that God, the Father, imprinted his seal and his character.

They asked him: what must we do to produce the works of God? Jesus answered them: The work of God is that you believe in him whom he sent.

They then asked him: What miracle will you perform that will make us believe, seeing it? What will you do that is extraordinary? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them to eat the bread of Heaven.

Jesus answered them: In truth, in truth I say to you that Moses did not give you the bread of Heaven; my Father is the one who gives the true bread of Heaven, for the bread of God is that which descended from Heaven and which gives life to the world.

They then said: Lord, give us always of this bread.

Jesus answered them: I am the bread of life; he who comes to me will not hunger and he who believes in me will not thirst. But, I have already told you: you have seen me and you do not believe.

In truth, in truth I say to you: he who believes in me has life eternal.

I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna of the desert and died.

Here is the bread that descended from Heaven, so that whoever eats of it may not die. (Saint John, chapter VI, vv. 22 to 36 and 47 to 50.)

— In the first passage, recalling the fact previously performed, Jesus gives clearly to understand that it was not a matter of material loaves, for, were it not so, the comparison he established with the leaven of the Pharisees would lack an object: “You still do not understand, he says, and you do not remember that five loaves sufficed for five thousand persons and that two loaves were enough for four thousand? How did you not understand that it was not of bread that I was speaking to you, when I told you to preserve yourselves from the leaven of the Pharisees?”

This comparison would have no reason to be, in the hypothesis of a material multiplication. The fact was in itself too extraordinary to have strongly impressed the imagination of the disciples, who, nevertheless, seemed no longer to remember it.

It is also what stands out no less clearly, from what Jesus expounded about the bread of Heaven, intent on making his listeners understand the true sense of the spiritual nourishment. “Work, he says, not to obtain the food that perishes, but for that which is preserved for life eternal and that the Son of Man will give you.”

This food is his word, bread that descended from Heaven and gives life to the world. “I am, he declares, the bread of life; he who comes to me will not hunger and he who believes in me will never thirst.”

Such distinctions, however, were too subtle for those rude natures, which understood only tangible things. For them, the manna, which had nourished the body of their ancestors, was the true bread of Heaven; there was the miracle.

If, therefore, the fact of the multiplication of the loaves had occurred materially, how would it have impressed so weakly those very men, for whose benefit that multiplication had been performed a few days before, to the point of asking Jesus: “What miracle will you do so that, seeing it, we may believe you? what will you do that is extraordinary?”

They understood by miracles the prodigies that the Pharisees requested, that is, signs that should appear in the sky by order of Jesus, as by the wand of a magician.

Now, what Jesus did was extremely simple and did not depart from the laws of Nature; the cures themselves did not reveal a very singular character, nor a very extraordinary one; for them, the spiritual miracles did not present great magnitude. TEMPTATION OF JESUS.

— Jesus, carried by the devil to the pinnacle of the Temple, then to the summit of a mountain and tempted by him, constitutes one of those parables that were familiar to him and that public credulity transformed into material facts. n

— Jesus was not carried off, 2 he only wished to make men understand that Humanity is subject to fail and that it must always be on guard against the evil inspirations to which, by its weak nature, it is impelled to yield.

The temptation of Jesus is, then, a figure and one would have to be blind to take it literally.

How would you claim that the Messiah, the Word of God incarnate, was submitted, for some time, however very short it was, to the suggestions of the demon and that, as the Gospel of Luke says, the demon left him for some time, which would lead one to suppose that the Christ remained submitted to the power of that entity?

No; understand better the teachings that have been given to you. The Spirit of evil could do nothing over the essence of good.

No one says he saw Jesus on the summit of the mountain, nor on the pinnacle of the Temple; certainly, such a fact would have been of a nature to spread among all peoples.

The temptation, therefore, did not constitute a material and physical act.

As for the moral act, would you admit that the Spirit of darkness could say to him who knew his own origin and his power: “Worship me, and I will give you all the kingdoms of the Earth?”

Would the demon then have been ignorant of him to whom he was making such offers? It is not probable. Now, if he knew him, his proposals were a folly, for he was not unaware that he would be repelled by him who had come to destroy his empire over men.

“Understand, therefore, the sense of this parable, for you have nothing else there, just as in the cases of the Prodigal Son and of the Good Samaritan. The former shows the dangers that men run, if they do not resist the inner voice that cries out to them without ceasing: “You can be more than you are; you can possess more than you possess; you can aggrandize yourself, acquire much; yield to the voice of ambition and all your desires will be satisfied.”

It shows you the danger and the means of avoiding it, by saying to the evil inspirations: Withdraw, Satan! or, in other words: Begone, temptation!

“The two other parables that I recalled show what may still await him who, being too weak to expel the demon, has succumbed to its temptations.

They show the mercy of the father of the family, laying his hand upon the brow of the repentant son and granting him, with love, the pardon implored.

They show the guilty one, the schismatic, the man repelled by his brothers, being worth more, in the eyes of the Supreme Judge, than those who despise him, because he practices the virtues that the law of love teaches.

“Weigh well the teachings that the Gospels contain; know how to distinguish what is there in the proper sense, or in the figurative sense, and the errors that have blinded you for so long will fade away little by little, yielding place to the brilliant light of the Truth.” (Bordeaux, 1862. John, Evang.).

PRODIGIES AT THE DEATH OF JESUS.

— Now, from the sixth hour of the day until the ninth, n the whole Earth was covered with darkness.

At the same time the veil of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; the earth trembled; the rocks split; the sepulchers opened and many bodies of saints, who were in the sleep of death, rose again; and, coming forth from their tombs after the resurrection, they came to the holy city and were seen by many persons. (Saint Matthew, chapter XXVII, vv. 45, 51 to 53.)

— It is singular that such prodigies, occurring at the very moment when the attention of the city was fixed on the torment of Jesus, which was the event of the day, were not noticed, since no historian mentions them.

It seems impossible that an earthquake and the whole Earth being wrapped in darkness during three hours, in a country where the sky is always of perfect limpidity, could have passed unnoticed.

The duration of such obscurity would have been almost that of an eclipse of the Sun, but eclipses of that kind are produced only at the new moon, and the death of Jesus occurred in the phase of the full moon, on the 14th of Nisan, the day of the Passover of the Jews.

The darkening of the Sun can also be produced by the spots that are noted on its surface. In such a case, the brightness of the light is sensibly weakened, but never to the point of determining obscurity and darkness. Admitting that a phenomenon of that kind had occurred, it would proceed from a perfectly natural cause. n

As for the dead who rose again, possibly some persons had visions or saw apparitions, which is not exceptional; nevertheless, as the cause of this phenomenon was then not known, they supposed that the figures seen came forth from the sepulchers.

Grieved by the death of their Master, the disciples of Jesus no doubt linked to that death certain particular facts, to which on another occasion they would have paid no attention.

It sufficed, perhaps, that a fragment of rock had become detached at that moment, for persons inclined to the marvelous to have seen in this fact a prodigy and, amplifying it, to have said that the rocks split.

Jesus is great by his works and not by the fantastic pictures with which a little-considered enthusiasm saw fit to surround him.

APPARITION OF JESUS, AFTER HIS DEATH.

— But, Mary (Magdalene) remained outside, near the sepulcher, shedding tears. And, weeping, as she stooped to look inside the sepulcher, she saw two angels clothed in white, seated in the place where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head, the other at the side of the feet. They said to her: Woman, why do you weep? She answered: It is because they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have put him. Having said this, she turned and saw Jesus standing, without knowing, however, that it was Jesus. He then said to her: Woman, why do you weep? Whom do you seek? She, thinking it was the gardener, said to him: Lord, if it was you who took him away, tell me where you put him and I will carry him off.

Jesus said to her: Mary. At once she turned and said: Rabboni, that is: My Lord. Jesus answered her: Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but, go to my brothers and tell them on my part: I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.

Mary Magdalene then went to tell the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that he had told her those things. (Saint John, chapter XX, vv. 11 to 18.)

— On that same day, as two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, distant from Jerusalem sixty stadia, n they spoke among themselves of all that had taken place. And it happened that, while they conversed and discoursed about it, Jesus joined them and began to walk with them; their eyes, however, were held, so that they could not recognize him. He said: Of what were you speaking as you walked and why are you so sad? One of them, named Cleopas, taking the word said: Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know what has happened there these last days? what was it? he asked. They answered him: Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a powerful prophet before God and before all the people, and concerning the manner in which the princes of the priests and our senators delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him. Now, we hoped that it was he who would redeem Israel, yet, we are already in the third day since these things took place. It is true that some women of those who were with us astonished us, for, having gone to his sepulcher before the break of day, they came to tell us that angels themselves appeared to them, telling them that he is alive. And some of ours, having also gone to the sepulcher, found all things as the women had reported; but, as for him, they did not find him. Jesus then said to them: Oh! foolish ones, of heart slow to believe in all that the prophets have said! Was it not necessary that the Christ suffer all these things and that he thus enter into his glory? And, beginning from Moses, then passing through all the prophets, he explained to them what had been said of him in all the Scriptures. As they drew near to the village to which they were going, he made as if he were going farther. The two obliged him to stop, saying to him: stay with us, for it is already late and the day is in decline. He entered with the two. Being with them at the table he took the bread, blessed it and gave it to them. Their eyes were opened at the same time and both recognized him; he, however, vanished from their sight. Then, they said to one another: Is it not true that our heart burned within us, when along the way he spoke to us, explaining to us the Scriptures? And, rising up at that same instant, they returned to Jerusalem and saw that the eleven apostles and those who continued with them were gathered and were saying: The Lord has in truth risen again and appeared to Simon. Then, they too narrated what had happened to them along the way and how they had recognized him at the breaking of the bread. While they were thus conferring, Jesus presented himself in the midst of them and said to them: Peace be with you; it is I, do not be alarmed. But, in the disturbance and the fear that took hold of them, they imagined they were seeing a Spirit.

And Jesus said to them: Why are you troubled? Why do so many thoughts rise in your hearts? Look at my hands and at my feet and recognize that it is I myself. Touch me and consider that a Spirit has neither flesh, nor bone, as you see that I have. Saying this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

But, as they still did not believe, so transported with joy and wonder were they, he said to them: Have you here something to eat? They presented him a piece of roasted fish and a honeycomb. He ate before them and, taking the remains, gave them to them, saying: Behold, while I was still with you, I told you that it was necessary that all be fulfilled that was written of me in the law of Moses, in the prophets, and in the Psalms. At the same time he opened their spirit, so that they might understand the Scriptures, and said to them: It is thus that it is written and thus that it was necessary the Christ should suffer and rise again from among the dead on the third day;

and that there should be preached in his name penitence and the remission of sins in all nations, beginning with Jerusalem. Now, you are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you the gift of my Father, which was promised to you;

but, for the present, remain in the city, until I have clothed you with the strength from on High. (Saint Luke, chapter XXIV, vv. 13 to 49.)

— Now, Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came there. The other disciples then said to him: We have seen the Lord. But he said to them: If I do not see in his hands the marks of the nails that pierced them and do not put my finger in the hole made by the nails and my hand in the gash of his side, I will not believe, absolutely. Eight days later, the disciples being still in the same place and with them Thomas, Jesus presented himself, the doors being closed, and, placing himself in the midst of them, said to them: Peace be with you.

He said next to Thomas: Put here your finger and look at my hands; stretch out also your hand and put it into my side and be not unbelieving, but faithful. Thomas answered him: My Lord and my God! Jesus said to him: You have believed, Thomas, because you saw; blessed are those who have believed without seeing. (Saint John, chapter XX, vv. 24 to 29.)

— Jesus also showed himself afterward to his disciples on the shore of the sea of Tiberias, showing himself in this manner:

Simon Peter and Thomas, called Didymus, Nathanael, who was of Cana, in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee and two others of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them: I am going to fish. The others said: We too go with you. They went off and entered a boat; but, that night, they caught nothing.

At daybreak, Jesus appeared on the shore without his disciples knowing that it was he. He then said to them: Children, have you nothing to eat? They answered him: No. He said to them: Cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find. They cast it at once and could hardly draw it in, so laden was it with fish. Then, the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter: It is the Lord. Simon Peter, on hearing that it was the Lord, clothed himself (for he was naked) and threw himself into the sea. The other disciples came with the boat, and, as they were not distant from the beach more than two hundred cubits, they drew from there the net full of fish. (Saint John, chapter XXI, vv. 1 to 8.)

— After this, he led them to Bethany and, having washed his hands, blessed them, and, having blessed them, he separated from them and was carried up to heaven.

As for them, after having worshiped him, they returned to Jerusalem, full of joy. They were constantly in the temple, praising and blessing God.

Amen. (Saint Luke, chapter XXIV, vv. 50 to 53.)

— All the evangelists narrate the apparitions of Jesus, after his death, with circumstantiated details that do not permit one to doubt the reality of the fact.

They, moreover, are perfectly explained by the fluidic laws and by the properties of the perispirit and present nothing anomalous in the face of the phenomena of the same kind, of which history, ancient and contemporary, offers numerous examples, lacking not even tangibility.

If we note the circumstances in which his various apparitions took place, we will recognize in him, on such occasions, all the characters of a fluidic being.

He appears unexpectedly and in the same way disappears; 5 some see him, others do not, under appearances that do not make him recognizable even to his disciples; 6 he shows himself in closed enclosures, where a carnal body could not penetrate; 7 his very language lacks the vivacity of that of a corporeal being; he speaks in a brief and sententious tone, peculiar to the Spirits who manifest in that manner; 8 all his attitudes, in a word, denote something that is not of the earthly world.

His presence causes simultaneously surprise and fear; on seeing him, his disciples do not speak to him with the same freedom as before; they feel that he is no longer a man.

Jesus, therefore, showed himself with his perispiritic body, which explains that he was seen only by those whom he willed to see him; if he had been with his carnal body, all would see him, as when he was alive.

Ignoring the originating cause of the phenomenon of the apparitions, his disciples did not perceive these particularities, to which, probably, they paid no attention; since they saw the Lord and touched him, they were bound to think that this was his resurrected body. (Chap. XIV, no. 14 and from 35 to 38.)

— Whereas incredulity rejects all the facts that Jesus produced, because they have a supernatural appearance, and considers them, without exception, legendary, Spiritism gives a natural explanation to the greater part of these facts; 2 it proves the possibility of them, not only by the theory of the fluidic laws, but also by the identity that they present with analogous facts produced by an immensity of persons in the most ordinary conditions.

Being, in a certain way, such facts of the public domain, they prove nothing, in principle, with regard to the exceptional nature of Jesus. n

— The greatest miracle that Jesus performed, the one that truly attests his superiority, was the revolution that his teachings produced in the world, in spite of the slenderness of his means of action.

In effect, Jesus, obscure, poor, born in the most humble condition, in the bosom of a small people, almost ignored and without political, artistic, or literary preponderance, preaches his doctrine for only three years; in all this short space of time he is disregarded and persecuted by his fellow citizens; he sees himself obliged to flee so as not to be stoned; he is betrayed by one of his apostles, denied by another, abandoned by all at the moment when he falls into the hands of his enemies.

He did only good and this did not put him beyond the reach of the malevolence that, from the very services he rendered, drew motives to accuse him.

Condemned to the torment that was inflicted only on criminals, he dies ignored by the world, seeing that the History of that epoch n says nothing concerning him.

He wrote nothing; nevertheless, helped by some men as obscure as he, his word sufficed to regenerate the world; his doctrine slew omnipotent paganism and became the torch of civilization.

He had against him all that causes the failure of the works of men, the reason why we say that the triumph achieved by his doctrine was the greatest of his miracles, at the same time that it proves his mission to be divine.

If, instead of social and regenerating principles, founded upon the spiritual future of man, he had only bequeathed to posterity some marvelous facts, perhaps today they would scarcely know him by name. DISAPPEARANCE OF THE BODY OF JESUS.

— The disappearance of the body of Jesus after his death has been the object of countless commentaries; the four evangelists attest it, based on the narratives of the women who went to the sepulcher on the third day after the crucifixion and did not find him there.

Some saw, in this disappearance, a miraculous fact, others attributing it to a clandestine removal.

According to another opinion, Jesus would not have had a carnal body, but only a fluidic body; he would have been, in all his life, no more than a tangible apparition; in a word: a kind of agenere.

His birth, his death and all the material acts of his life would have been only apparent.

It was thus that, they say, his body, returned to the fluidic state, could disappear from the sepulcher and with that same body it is that he would have shown himself after his death.

It is beyond doubt that such a fact cannot be considered radically impossible, within what is known today about the properties of the fluids;

but, it would be, at least, entirely exceptional and in formal opposition to the character of the ageneres. (Chap. XIV, no. 36.)

It is, then, a matter of knowing whether such a hypothesis is admissible, whether the facts confirm or contradict it.

— The stay of Jesus on Earth presents two periods: the one that preceded and the one that followed his death.

In the first, from the moment of conception until birth, n everything happens, as regards his mother, as in the ordinary conditions of life.

From his birth until his death, everything, in his acts, in his language and in the various circumstances of his life, reveals the unequivocal characters of corporeity.

The phenomena of psychic order that are produced in him are accidental and have nothing anomalous, since they are explained by the properties of the perispirit and occur, in different degrees, in other individuals.

After his death, on the contrary, everything in him reveals the fluidic being.

So marked is the difference between the two states, that they cannot be assimilated.

The carnal body has the properties inherent to matter properly speaking, properties that differ essentially from those of the etheric fluids; 8 in the former, disorganization is effected by the rupture of molecular cohesion.

On penetrating into the material body, a cutting instrument divides its tissues; if the organs essential to life are attacked, their functioning ceases and death supervenes, that is, that of the body.

This cohesion not existing in fluidic bodies, life there no longer rests on the play of special organs and disorders analogous to those cannot be produced; a cutting instrument or any other penetrates into a fluidic body as if it penetrated into a mass of vapor, without causing it any lesion.

Such is the reason why bodies of that species cannot die and why the fluidic beings, designated by the name of ageneres, cannot be killed.

After the torment of Jesus, his body remained inert and without life; it was buried as bodies ordinarily are and all could see and touch it.

After his resurrection, when he wished to leave the Earth, he did not die again; his body rose, dissolved and disappeared, without leaving any trace, evident proof that that body was of a nature different from the one that perished on the cross; 14 whence it is necessary to conclude that, if it was possible for Jesus to die, it is that his body was carnal.

By virtue of its material properties, the carnal body is the seat of sensations and of physical pains, which reverberate in the sensitive center or Spirit.

He who suffers is not the body, it is the Spirit receiving the counterblow of the lesions or alterations of the organic tissues.

In a body without Spirit, sensation is absolutely null; 18 for the same reason, the Spirit, without a material body, cannot experience sufferings, seeing that these result from the alteration of matter, 19 whence it is also necessary to conclude that, if Jesus suffered materially, of which one cannot doubt, it is that he had a material body of a nature similar to that of all people.

— To the material facts are added very strong moral considerations.

If the conditions of Jesus, during his life, had been those of fluidic beings, he would have experienced neither pain, nor the needs of the body; to suppose that it was thus is to take from him the merit of the life of privations and of sufferings that he had chosen, as an example of resignation.

If everything in him were apparent, all the acts of his life, the reiterated prediction of his death, the painful scene of the Garden of Olives, his prayer to God to remove from his lips the cup of bitterness, his passion, his agony, everything, up to the last cry, at the moment of giving up the Spirit, would have been no more than a vain simulacrum, to deceive with regard to his nature and to make people believe in an illusory sacrifice of his life, in a comedy unworthy of a simply honest man, unworthy, therefore, and with all the more reason of a being so superior; in a word: he would have abused the good faith of his contemporaries and of posterity.

Such are the logical consequences of this system, consequences inadmissible, because they would lower him morally, instead of elevating him.

Jesus, then, had, like every man, a carnal body and a fluidic body, which is attested by the material phenomena and by the psychic phenomena that marked his existence.

— This idea about the nature of the body of Jesus is not new. In the fourth century, Apollinaris, of Laodicea, head of the sect of the Apollinarists, claimed that Jesus had not taken a body like ours, but an impassible body, which had descended from heaven into the bosom of the holy Virgin and which was not born of her; that, thus, Jesus was not born, did not suffer and did not die, except in appearance. The Apollinarists were anathematized at the council of Alexandria, in 360; at that of Rome, in 374; and at that of Constantinople, in 381. The Docetae (from the Greek dokein, to appear) held the same belief, a numerous sect of the Gnostics, which subsisted during the first three centuries.

[1] [The Jews divided the night into four watches: The 1st from 6 to 9 p.m.; the 2nd from 9 to midnight; the 3rd from 12 at night to 3; the 4th from 3 to 6 in the morning.]

[2] The lake of Gennesaret or of Tiberias.

[4] Mount Thabor or Tabor, to the southwest of the lake of Tabarich and 11 kilometers to the southeast of Nazareth, about 1,000 meters in height.

[6] The explanation that follows is a textual reproduction of the teaching that a Spirit gave on this subject.

[8] [For the Jews the day begins at six o'clock in the morning, therefore, the sixth hour of the day is equivalent to noon and, the ninth hour to three o'clock in the afternoon.]

[9] There are constantly, on the surface of the Sun, physical spots, that accompany its movement of rotation and have served to determine the duration of that movement. Sometimes, however, these spots increase in number, in extent and in intensity. It is then that a diminution of the solar light and heat is produced. The increase in the number of the spots seems to coincide with certain astronomical phenomena and with the relative position of some planets, which determines their periodic reappearance. The duration of that darkening is very variable; sometimes it does not go beyond two or three hours, but, in 535, there was one that lasted fourteen months. [10] [From the Greek Stadium, the stadium was equal to one-eighth of the Roman mile, or 185 meters.]

[11] The countless contemporary facts of cures, apparitions, possessions, double sight and others, that are found related in the Spiritist Review and recalled in the observations above, offer, even as to the details, so flagrant an analogy with those that the Gospel narrates, that the identity of the effects and of the causes stands out evident. It is not understood that the same fact should today have a natural cause and that this cause should have been supernatural formerly; diabolical with some and divine with others. If it were possible to put them here in confrontation with one another, the comparison would become easier; but, the number of them and the developments that the narrative would require do not permit it. [12] Of him there speaks solely the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who, moreover, says very little.

[13] We do not speak of the mystery of the incarnation, with which we do not have to occupy ourselves here and which will be examined later. (Publisher's Note) Kardec, in life, could not fulfill this promise, since, in the following year, on giving publication to this work, he was called to the Spiritual Homeland.