What Napoleon Said About Jesus

I love going into bookstores and libraries. I'm a bibliophile. I love books. I love to simply browse and read the titles, as a matter of fact, many times in college I would go to a large bookstore and read the titles and write them down and kind of sketch what I thought would be in the book. It was good for my writing and for my imagination . . . and pocketbook.

I also love history but if you are like me (read American) then you don't have a great grasp on history or people who constitute at least one page in our high school history books. A person I wanted to read about was Napoleon, not the fluffy haired guy who dances and has a pet emu. The guy who stands awkwardly and tried to take over Europe, bless his heart. So I began searching for the best book to read about it and I decided to read Les Miserables, a short book of sorts. Of course it is four books now published as one, so I'll be reading it come Valentines. I'm neck deep into it now and of course Victor Hugo, the author, goes into asides that seem really worthless, BUT he has this great (read size) section on the battle of Waterloo. Eye opening.

Billinglsly was right, a book is a friend; a good book is a good friend. It's amazing how a writer can open your eyes to so many details: a personality, the color of a mood, the wrankled and weathered tree upon the barren hillside, the feeling of evil, the folly of life, etc, etc, etc. And you just never know what someone might say that sticks to you, like Napoleon. Now, of course he did say that religion is what keeps poor people from killing the rich and that religion was a good way to control the masses, but I think if you were to set down with him in his small, one room studio on St. Helena island over cheese and wine you would probably find he's kinda right. Thinking of the religious and societal context he was living in, I'm kinda empathetic with him.

Anyone's opinion can change over time, but read what Napoleon said about Jesus. As I was reading this morning and was reading Luke chapters 1 and 2 it only served to quicken my interest to the question we must come to: who do I say Jesus is? Simeon, the priest who blessed the infant Jesus, said that Jesus would be a sign that would be spoken against and that he would reveal what's really in our hearts. I'm going to have to always realign myself with Jesus and align myself with what he says about himself.

The quote is below. Enjoy and have a blessed winter day.

"Well then, I will tell you. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded great empires; but upon what did these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions will die for Him.... I think I understand something of human nature; and I tell you, all these were men, and I am a man: none else is like Him; Jesus Christ was more than man.... I have inspired multitudes with such an enthusiastic devotion that they would have died for me.... but to do this it was necessary that I should be visibly present with the electric influence of my looks, my words, of my voice. When I saw men and spoke to them, I lighted up the flame of self-devotion in their hearts.... Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen, that it becomes insensible to the barriers of time and space. Across a chasm of eighteen hundred years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others to satisfy; He asks for that which a philosopher may seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He asks for the human heart; He will have it entirely to Himself. . . . (source here and here)