‘The most striking thing about Jesus when he consents to pay tribute to Caesar and refuses the crown which the people offer him in the desert, is not so much his prudence and his disinterestedness, as his patriotism ... One of the most important characteristics of Jesus’s teaching is its absolutely national character....’[68] If the reader desires, he will himself go and find out the solidity of the proofs on which these teachers base their thesis (one of these proofs is that Jesus was strongly attached to the institutions of his nation, which he showed by accepting circumcision eight days after he was born). The point I wish to insist on is the eagerness of these Christians to make their Master a supporter of national egotism, at least at one period of his life. These views on the attitude of the Church towards nationalism seem to me to remain unmodified by the recent declarations of the Holy See concerning a certain type of French nationalism, for these declarations only condemn an openly anti-Christian nationalism (hence a very exceptional form of nationalism) and do not utter a word of blame for the desire of the peoples to set themselves up as distinct from others and to reject universalism. Moreover, this is how a universalist is answered by a publication which is to some extent the official organ of Pontifical views: ‘Yes, all men are sons of one Father; but they were divided in the beginning and have never been brought together again. The family was broken up and never joined up again. On the contrary. Certainly, I am glad to recognize the fraternity of all living beings; but are all the dead our fathers? Have they all loved us? Have they all suffered and laboured for us? Some lived on the other side of the globe, and, so to speak, in another world. Some laboured against us, or, if they supported our ancestors, it was in the hope of safeguarding or enriching their own bequest to others, not to us. Where is the debt? If the home is open to all comers, it is no longer a home but an inn.’[69] It appears that we must look among those who have left the Church, to find Christian ministers who proclaim the true teaching of their Master, and who declare with no beating about the bush: ‘The Gospel of Jesus does not imply any country, but obliterates the fatherland.’[70]