The primitive nationalism subsisted at least in the framework [cadre] and the exterior economy of the kingdom of God; it maintained itself also in [jusque dans] the evangel of Jesus. At the same time the kingdom of God is not a simple moral reform, to safeguard the law of the celestial Sovereign and guarantee the happiness of the faithful. The action of Yahweh ... governs the entire universe.... [The cosmological tradition] developed the idea of a definite triumph of light over darkness, of order over chaos, a triumph which was to be the final victory of good over evil.... The terrestrial kingdoms ... were to disappear, to give place to the reign of Israel, which was the reign of the just, the reign of God. In this great instauration of the divine order, in this regeneration of the universe, the divine justice was to manifest itself by the resurrection of all the true faithful. [182]
This transformation, then--the long current dream of Jewry--was to be a vast miracle, and in that miracle Jesus believed he was to play the part of the Messiah, the divine representative. That expectation sustained him till the moment of his death. [183] Nevertheless "his idea of the reign of God was not a patriotic hallucination or the dream of an excited [exalté] mystic. The reign of God is the reign of justice." [184] (As if the second sentence proved the first.) And yet, all the while: "On the whole, the Gospel ethic is no more consistent than the hope of the kingdom.... Considered in themselves, as the Gospel makes them known to us, they are not mythic but mystic." [185]
Thus helped to a definite conception, we turn to the ethic, which we have seen to be in the main a compilation from Jewish literature. This fact M. Loisy admits, only to deny that it has any significance:--
He opposes the voice of his conscience to the tradition of the doctors. There lies precisely the originality of his teaching, which, if one recomposed the materials piece by piece, could be found scattered in the Biblical writings or in the sayings of the rabbis. Like every man who speaks to men, Jesus takes his ideas in the common treasure of his environment and his time; but as to what he makes of it [pour le parti qu'il en tire] one does not say that it proceeds from any one. This independence results, probably, at once from his character and from the circumstances of his education. [186]