A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH. CHAPTER I. THE CONDITION OF THE WORLD.1 In the history of Christianity nothing is more remarkable than its rapid spread. Beginning as a Jewish sect whose founder had suffered the most shameful death, in an obscure province, among a people that had played no important part in the world's history and for many reasons was everywhere despised, it steadily advanced even in the face of fierce persecutions and obstacles of many kinds, until, within less than three hundred years from its first proclamation, it had so large and influential a following throughout the Roman world that the shrewd and calculating Emperor Constantine recognized that it could be made a most powerful support of his throne. And fifty years later the Emperor Gratian actually made it the only legal religion of the state. Besides this, it had spread beyond the now dwindling boundaries 1 See also the great work by Friedlaender, Sittengeschichte Roms, on which this chapter is based. of the empire, and the name of Christ was honored among barbarians and peoples that acknowledged no allegiance to Rome. And all this success without a stroke of the sword. Such a record has no parallel in history. It challenges our admiration, and demands an explanation. How was this possible? "But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son." That is Paul's answer to the question. In spite of the evil that is in the world, Paul believed that God was ruler. He was filled with the sublime thought that the God whom he served was the God who controlled men and nations. For Him no event could be a surprise, no result a disappointment. The history of the world was the history of the accomplishment of his purpose. The long delay in the coming of the promised Messiah was that the world might be made ready for Him. If we look at the condition of the world as it then was, we can easily understand what Paul meant by the "fullness of the time." Christianity made its appearance at the one time in the history of the world when all circumstances were most favorable for its spread. The time was ripe. The world was ready to receive, develop, and propagate such a faith. If we look at the political condition of the world we are struck by the important fact that it was under the rule of one man. Rome, at first a city of husbandmen, had united under one sceptre all 1 Gal. iv. 4. her immediate neighbors. Her first successes led necessarily to other wars; for she had not only to defend her conquests, but also to make them secure from all danger of attack. The only way to accomplish this was to conquer the adjoining territory. She could make her frontier secure only by extending it. She was, therefore, logically forced into the career of a conqueror. She soon came to believe that it was her mission to rule the world. The Orbis Romanus was to be coterminous with the Orbis terrarum. She had not been content to be mistress of the West alone, but had followed in the way of Alexander the Great to the East. For nearly a thousand years, beginning with his conquests, the Orient was forced to feel and unwillingly to confess the mental and military superiority of the Occident. This long period of western domination, of close contact and mutual influence, which was to be ended by the violent national reaction under Mohammed, was now reaching its acme. Communication between the East and the West had never before been so easy and unhindered. All the gates between them were open, the barriers gone. And in every khan and seaport crowds of Europeans with faces to the East jostled and elbowed the throngs of Asiatics and Africans that were in the great stream of travel to the West. But there had just been made a most significant change in the form of government of this vast state. From a republic it had become an empire. In theory it had two heads, the Emperor and the Senate; but in reality the Emperor was sole master. The power was in his hands, for he had the army. The Senate was powerless, and hence obsequious. As a matter of form the Emperor for a time consulted it, but it soon lost even the appearance of power, and became little more than an aristocratic club. The early Christian apologists saw in this fact a mighty argument against Polytheism. They drew a parallel between the one Emperor who ruled the civilized world and the one God who ruled the universe. Even here on the earth it is necessary for the welfare of all that there be but one head, one will. How much more necessary for the harmony and the preservation of the universe that there be but one God to rule it? How else could the regular order of all things be preserved, the pleasant change of seasons, of night and day, the harmonious and regular movements of the sun, moon, and stars? The existence of many gods would make all this impossible. And when the Emperors began to associate with themselves their successors with the title of Cæsar, the further parallel was drawn between the Emperor and his crown prince, who was his helper, and God and his Son, to whom He had given a share in the government of the uni verse. But this change in government had a deeper significance and more substantial effects in many ways. It meant that the world was indeed one |