[Footnote 2: Tacitus, _Ann._, xv. 45; Suetonius, _Claudius_, 25.] [Footnote 3: _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3. This passage has been altered by a Christian hand.] [Footnote 4: _Ant._, XVIII. i.; _B.J._, II. viii.; _Vita_, 2.] [Footnote 5: Talm. of Jerusalem, _Sanhedrim_, xiv. 16; _Aboda zara_, ii. 2; _Shabbath_, xiv. 4; Talm. of Babylon, _Sanhedrim_, 43 _a_, 67 _a_; _Shabbath_, 104 _b_, 116 _b_. Comp. _Chagigah_, 4 _b_; _Gittin_, 57 _a_, 90 _a_. The two Gemaras derive the greater part of their data respecting Jesus from a burlesque and obscene legend, invented by the adversaries of Christianity, and of no historical value.] [Footnote 6: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3.] It will thus be understood how, by an exceptional destiny, pure Christianity still preserves, after eighteen centuries, the character of a universal and eternal religion. It is, in fact, because the religion of Jesus is in some respects the final religion. Produced by a perfectly spontaneous movement of souls, freed at its birth from all dogmatic restraint, having struggled three hundred years for liberty of conscience, Christianity, in spite of its failures, still reaps the results of its glorious origin. To renew itself, it has but to return to the Gospel. The kingdom of God, as we conceive it, differs notably from the supernatural apparition which the first Christians hoped to see appear in the clouds. But the sentiment introduced by Jesus into the world is indeed ours. His perfect idealism is the highest rule of the unblemished and virtuous life. He has created the heaven of pure souls, where is found what we ask for in vain on earth, the perfect nobility of the children of God, absolute purity, the total removal of the stains of the world; in fine, liberty, which society excludes as an impossibility, and which exists in all its amplitude only in the domain of thought. The great Master of those who take refuge in this ideal kingdom of God is still Jesus. He was the first to proclaim the royalty of the mind; the first to say, at least by his actions, "My kingdom is not of this world." The foundation of true religion is indeed his work: after him, all that remains is to develop it and render it fruitful.