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   Title: The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three
   Centuries
   Creator(s): Harnack, Adolf (1851-1930)
   CCEL Subjects: All; History
   LC Call no: BR165.H4 1908
   LC Subjects:

   Christianity

   History

   By period

   Early and medieval
     _________________________________________________________________

                         THE MISSION AND EXPANSION OF

                                 CHRISTIANITY

IN THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES

BY ADOLF HARNACK

   Translated and edited by JAMES MOFFATT,
   B.D., D.D. (St. Andrews)

   GLOUCESTER, MASS.
   PETER SMITH
   1972

   THE MISSION AND EXPANSION
   OF CHRISTIANITY
   IN THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES

   Introduction and Bibliography to the Torchbook edition Copyright ©1961 by
   Jaroslav Pelikan Printed in the United States of America

   This book was originally published by Williams & Norgate, London. This is
   Volume I of the 1908 edition, translated and edited by James Moffatt.

   First HARPER TORCHBOOK edition published 1962

   Reprinted, 1972, by arrangement with

   Harper & Row, Publishers
     _________________________________________________________________
     _________________________________________________________________

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

   Dr Harnack opened the course of lectures which have been translated in this
   library under the title What is Christianity? with a reference to John
   Stuart Mill. The present work might also be introduced by a sentence from
   the same English thinker. In the second chapter of his essay upon
   “Liberty,” he has occasion to speak with admiration and regret of the
   Emperor Marcus Aurelius, confessing that his persecution of the Christians
   seems “one of the most tragical facts in all history.” “It is a bitter
   thought,” he adds, “how different a thing the Christianity of the world
   might have been, if the Christian faith had been adopted as the religion of
   the empire under the auspices of Marcus Aurelius instead of those of
   Constantine.” Aurelius represents the apex of paganism during the first
   three centuries of our era. Chronologically, too, he stands almost
   equidistant between Christ and Constantine. But there were reasons why the
   adjustment of the empire to Christianity could not come earlier than the
   first quarter of the fourth century, and it is Dr Harnack's task in the
   present work to outline these reasons in so far as they are connected with
   the extension and expansion of Christianity itself. How did the new religion
   come to win official recognition from the state in A.D. 325? Why then? Why
   not till then? Such is the problem set to the historian of the Christian
   propaganda by the ante-Nicene period. He has to explain how and why and
   where, within less than three centuries, an Oriental religious movement
   which was originally a mere ripple on a single wave of dissent in the wide
   sea of paganism, rose into a breaker which swept before it the vested
   interests, prejudices, traditions, and authority of the most powerful social
   and political organization that the world hitherto had known. The main
   causes and courses of this transition, with all that it involves of the
   inner life and worship of the religion, form Dr Harnack's topic in these
   pages.

   In editing the book for an English audience I have slightly enlarged the
   index and added a list of New Testament passages referred to. Wherever a
   German or French book cited by the author has appeared in an English dress,
   the corresponding reference has been subjoined. Also, in deference to
   certain suggestions received by the publishers, I have added, wherever it
   has been advisable to do so, English versions of the Greek and Latin
   passages which form so valuable and characteristic a feature of Dr Harnack's
   historical discussions. It is hoped that the work may be thus rendered more
   intelligible and inviting than ever to that wider audience whose interest in
   early Christianity is allied to little or no Greek and Latin.

   The first edition of this translation was issued in 1904-1905, and the first
   volume is now out of print. Meanwhile, Dr Harnack published, in 1906, a new
   edition of the original in two volumes, which has been so thoroughly revised
   and enlarged that, with its additions and omissions, it forms practically a
   new work. His own preface to the second edition gives no adequate idea of
   the care and skill with which nearly every page has been gone over in order
   to fill up any gaps and bring the work up to date. The present version has
   been made directly from this edition. I have taken the opportunity of
   correcting some misprints which crept into the first edition of my
   translation, and it is hoped that English readers will now be able to find
   easy access to this standard history in its final form.
     _________________________________________________________________

PREFACE TO THE FIRST GERMAN EDITION

   No monograph has yet been devoted to the mission and spread of the Christian
   religion during the first three centuries of our era. For the earliest
   period of church history we have sketches of the historical development of
   dogma and of the relation of the church to the state—the latter including
   Neumann's excellent volume. But the missionary history has always been
   neglected, possibly because writers have been discouraged by the difficulty
   of bringing the material to the surface and getting it arranged, or by the
   still more formidable difficulties of collecting and sifting the
   geographical data and statistics. The following pages are a first attempt,
   and for it I bespeak a kindly judgment. My successors, of whom there will be
   no lack, will be able to improve upon it.

   I have one or two preliminary remarks to make, by way of explanation.

   The primitive history of the church's missions lies buried in legend; or
   rather, it has been replaced by a history (which is strongly marked by
   tendency) of what is alleged to have happened in the course of a few decades
   throughout every country on the face of the earth. The composition of this
   history has gone on for more than a thousand years. The formation of legends
   in connection with the apostolic mission, which commenced as early as the
   first century, was still thriving in the Middle Ages; it thrives, in fact,
   down to the present day. But the worthless character of this history is now
   recognised on all sides, and in the present work I have hardly touched upon
   it, since I have steadily presupposed the results gained by the critical
   investigation of the sources. Whatever item from the apocryphal Acts, the
   local and provincial legends of the church, the episcopal lists, and the
   Acts of the martyrs, has not been inserted or noticed in these pages, has
   been deliberately omitted as useless. On the other hand, I have aimed at
   exhaustiveness in the treatment of reliable material. It is only the Acts
   and traditions of the martyrs that present any real difficulty, and from
   such sources this or that city may probably fall to be added to my lists.
   Still, the number of such addenda must be very small. Inscriptions,
   unfortunately, almost entirely fail us. Dated Christian inscriptions from
   the pre-Constantine age are rare, and only in the case of a few groups can
   we be sure that an undated inscription belongs to the third and not to the
   fourth century. Besides, the Christian origin of a very numerous class is
   merely a matter of conjecture, which cannot at present be established.

   As the apostolic age of the church, in its entire sweep, falls within the
   purview of the history of Christian missions, some detailed account of this
   period might be looked for in these pages. No such account, however, will be
   found. For such a discussion one may turn to numerous works upon the
   subject, notably to that of Weizsacker. After his labours, I had no
   intention of once more depicting Paul the missionary; I have simply confined
   myself to the general characteristics of the period. What is set down here
   must serve as its own justification. It appeared to me not unsuitable, under
   the circumstances, to attempt to do some justice to the problems in a series
   of longitudinal sections; thereby I hoped to avoid repetitions, and, above
   all, to bring out the main currents and forces of the Christian religion
   coherently and clearly. The separate chapters have been compiled in such a
   way that each may be read by itself; but this has not impaired the unity of
   the whole work, I hope.

   The basis chosen for this account of the early history of Christian missions
   is no broader than my own general knowledge of history and of religion—which
   is quite slender. My book contains no information upon the history of Greek
   or Roman religion; it has no light to throw on primitive myths and later
   cults, or on matters of law and of administration. On such topics other
   scholars are better informed than I am. For many years it has been my sole
   endeavour to remove the barriers between us, to learn from my colleagues
   whatever is indispensable to a correct appreciation of such phenomena as
   they appear inside the province of church history, and to avoid presenting
   derived material as the product of original research.

   With regard to ancient geography and statistics, I have noticed in detail,
   as the pages of my book will indicate, all relevant investigations.
   Unfortunately, works on the statistics of ancient population present results
   which are so contradictory as to be useless; and at the last I almost
   omitted the whole of these materials in despair. All that I have actually
   retained is a scanty residue of reliable statistics in the opening chapter
   of Book I. and in the concluding paragraphs. In identifying towns and
   localities I have followed the maps in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum,
   the small maps in the fifth volume of Mommsen's Roman History, Kiepert's
   Formae orbis antiqui (so far as these have appeared), and some other
   geographical guides; no place which I have failed to find in these
   authorities has been inserted in my pages without some note or comment, the
   only exception being a few suburban villages. I had originally intended to
   furnish the book with maps, but as I went on I had reluctantly to abandon
   this idea. Maps, I was obliged to admit, would give a misleading impression
   of the actual situation. For one thing, the materials at our disposal for
   the various provinces up to 325 A.D. are too unequal, and little would be
   gained by merely marking the towns in which Christians can be shown to have
   existed previous to Constantine; nor could I venture to indicate the density
   of the Christian population by means of colours. Maps cannot be drawn for
   any period earlier than the fourth century, and it is only by aid of these
   fourth-century maps that the previous course of the history can be viewed in
   retrospect.—The demarcation of the provinces, and the alterations which took
   place in their boundaries, formed a subject into which I had hardly any
   occasion to enter. Some account of the history of church-organization could
   not be entirely omitted, but questions of organization have only been
   introduced where they were unavoidable. My aim, as a rule, has been to be as
   brief as possible, to keep strictly within the limits of my subject, and
   never to repeat answers to any settled questions, either for the sake of
   completeness or of convenience to my readers. The history of the expansion
   of Christianity within the separate provinces has merely been sketched in
   outline. Anyone who desires further details must, of course, excavate with
   Ramsay in Phrygia and the French savants in Africa, or plunge with Duchesne
   into the ancient episcopal lists, although for the first three hundred years
   the results all over this field are naturally meagre.

   The literary sources available for the history of primitive Christian
   missions are fragmentary. But how extensive they are, compared to the extant
   sources at our disposal for investigating the history of any other religion
   within the Roman empire! They not only render it feasible for us to attempt
   a sketch of the mission and expansion of Christianity which shall be
   coherent and complete in all its essential features, but also permit us to
   understand the reasons why this religion triumphed in the Roman empire, and
   how the triumph was achieved. At the same time, a whole series of queries
   remains unanswered, including those very questions that immediately occur to
   the mind of anyone who looks attentively into the history of Christian
   missions.

   Several of my earlier studies in the history of Christian missions have been
   incorporated in the present volume, in an expanded and improved form. These
   I have noted as they occur.

   I must cordially thank my honoured friend Professor Imelmann for the keen
   interest he has taken in these pages as they passed through the press.

   A. HARNACK.

   BERLIN, Sept. 4, 1902.
     _________________________________________________________________

PREFACE TO THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION

   The second edition is about ten sheets larger than the first, six of these
   extra sheets falling within Book IV. The number of fresh places where I have
   been able to verify the existence of Christianity prior to Constantine is
   infinitesimally small; my critics have not been able to increase the list.
   But I have tried to put more colour into the description of the spread of
   the religion throughout the various provinces, and also to incorporate
   several out-of-the-way passages. Several new sections have been added; the
   excursus on the “Alleged Council of Antioch,” at the close of the first
   book, has been omitted as superfluous, however, though not as erroneous.
   After my disclaimer in the preface to the first edition, some may be
   surprised to find that maps are now added. What determined me to take this
   step was the number of requests for them, based invariably on the opinion
   that the majority of readers cannot form any idea of the diffusion of
   Christianity unless they have maps, while the ordinary maps of the ancient
   world require detailed study in order to be of any use for this special
   purpose. Consequently, I have overcome my scruples and drawn the eleven maps
   which are appended to the second volume. I attach most importance to the
   attempt which I have made in the second map. It was a venture, but it sums
   up all the results of my work, and without it the following maps would be
   misleading, since they all depend more or less upon incidental information
   about the period.

   The index I have worked over again myself.

   A. H.

   BERLIN, Dec. 1, 1905.
     _________________________________________________________________

TABLE OF CONTENTS

   Translator's Preface ix
   Preface to the First German Edition ix
   Preface to the Second German Edition xv
   BOOK I

   INTRODUCTORY
   Chapter I. Judaism: Its Diffusion and Limits 1-18
   Chapter II. The External Conditions of the World-wide Expansion of the
   Christian Religion 19-23

   Chapter III. The Internal Conditions Determining the World-wide Expansion of
   the Christian Religion—Religious Syncretism
   24-35
   Chapter IV. Jesus Christ and the Universal Mission 36-43
   Chapter V. The Transition from the Jewish to the Gentile Mission 44-72
   Chapter VI. Results of the Mission of Paul and of the First Missionaries
   73-83
   BOOK II

   MISSION-PREACHING IN WORD AND DEED
   Introduction 84-85
   Chapter I. The Religious Characteristics of the Mission-Preaching 86-100
   Chapter II. The Gospel of the Saviour and of Salvation 101-124
   Chapter III. The Conflict with Demons 125-146
   Chapter IV. The Gospel of Love and Charity 147-198

   Chapter V. The Religion of the Spirit and of Power, of Moral Earnestness and
   Holiness
   199-218

   Chapter VI. The Religion of Authority and of Reason, of the Mysteries and of
   Transcendentalism
   219-239

   Chapter VII. The Tidings of the New People and of the Third Race: The
   Historical and Political Consciousness of Christendom
   240-265
   Excursus. Christians as a Third Race, in the Judgment of Their Opponents
   266-278
   Chapter VIII. The Religion of a Book and a Historical Realization 279-289
   Chapter IX. The Conflict with Polytheism and Idolatry 290-311
   Epilogue. Christianity in its Completed Form as Syncretistic Religion
   312-318
   BOOK III

   THE MISSIONARIES: THE METHODS OF THE MISSION
   AND THE COUNTER-MOVEMENTS

   Chapter I. The Christian Missionaries (Apostles, Evangelists, and Prophets
   or Teachers: The Informal Missionaries)
   319-368
   Excursus. Travelling: The Exchange of Letters and Literature. 369-380
   Chapter II. Methods of the Mission: Catechizing and Baptism, the Invasion of
   Domestic Life 381-398
   Chapter III. The Names of Christian Believers 399-418
   Excursus I. Friends (hoi philoi) 419-421
   Excursus II. Christian Names 422-430

   Chapter IV. The Organisation of the Christian Community, as Bearing upon the
   Christian Mission
   431-444

   Excursus I. Ecclesiastical Organisation and the Episcopate (in the
   Provinces, the Cities, and the Villages), from Pius to Constantine
   445-482
   Excursus II. The Catholic Confederation and the Mission 483-484
   Excursus III. The Primacy of Rome in Relation to the Mission 485-486
   Chapter V. Counter-Movements 487-513
   Addenda 514

   Mission Map

   1. Only those towns are marked on the map in which it can be proved that
   Christian communities existed prior to 180 A.D.

   2. Places where Christian communities are demonstrable or certain prior to
   Trajan are underlined.

   3. Places which are not quite certain as towns with a Christian community
   prior to 180 A.D. are put within brackets.

   4. The shading indicates that while Christians certainly existed in the
   district in question, the names of the cities where they stayed have not
   been preserved. Except in the case of Egypt, the shading is omitted whenever
   even one town in the province in question can be shown to have had a
   Christian church.

   5. The principal Roman roads are marked by double lines.
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                                    BOOK I

INTRODUCTORY
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CHAPTER 1

  JUDAISM: ITS DIFFUSION AND LIMITS

   To nascent Christianity the synagogues in the Diaspora meant more than the
   fontes persecutionum of Tertullian's complaint; they also formed the most
   important presupposition for the rise and growth of Christian communities
   throughout the empire. The network of the synagogues furnished the Christian
   propaganda with centres and courses for its development, and in this way the
   mission of the new religion, which was undertaken in the name of the God of
   Abraham and Moses, found a sphere already prepared for itself.

   Surveys of the spread of Judaism at the opening of our period have been
   often made, most recently and with especial care by Schürer (Geschichte des
   jüdischen Volkes, Bd. III.^(3) pp. 1-38; Eng. trans., II. ii. 220 f.). Here
   we are concerned with the following points:

   (1) There were Jews in most of the Roman provinces, at any rate in all those
   which touched or adjoined the Mediterranean, to say nothing of the Black
   Sea; eastward also, beyond Syria, they were thickly massed in Mesopotamia,
   Babylonia, and Media. [1]

   (2) Their numbers were greatest in Syria, [2] next to that in Egypt (in all
   the nomes as far as Upper Egypt), [3] Rome, and the provinces of Asia Minor
   [4] . The extent to which they had made their way into all the local
   conditions is made particularly clear by the evidence bearing on the sphere
   last named, where, as on the north coast of the Black Sea, Judaism also
   played some part in the blending of religions (e.g., the cult of “The most
   high God,” and of the God called “Sabbatistes”). The same holds true of
   Syria, though the evidence here is not taken so plainly from direct
   testimony, but drawn indirectly from the historical presuppositions of
   Christian gnosticism. [5] In Africa, along the coast-line, from the
   proconsular province to Mauretania, Jews were numerous. [6] At Lyons, in the
   time of Irenæus, [7] they do not seem to have abounded; but in southern
   Gaul, as later sources indicate, their numbers cannot have been small,
   whilst in Spain, as is obvious from the resolutions of the synod of Elvira
   (c. 300 A.D.), they were both populous and powerful. Finally, we may assume
   that in Italy—apart from Rome and Southern Italy, where they were widely
   spread—they were not exactly numerous under the early empire, although even
   in Upper Italy at that period individual synagogues were in existence. This
   feature was due to the history of Italian civilization, and it is
   corroborated by the fact that, beyond Rome and Southern Italy, early Jewish
   inscriptions are scanty and uncertain. “The Jews were the first to exemplify
   that kind of patriotism which the Parsees, the Armenians, and to some extent
   the modern Greeks were to display in later ages, viz. a patriotism of
   extraordinary warmth, but not attached to any one locality, a patriotism of
   traders who wandered up and down the world and everywhere hailed each other
   as brethren, a patriotism which aimed at forming not great, compact states
   but small, autonomous communities under the ægis of other states.” [8]

   (3) The exact number of Jews in the Diaspora can only be calculated roughly.
   Our information with regard to figures is as follows. Speaking of the Jews
   in Babylonia, Josephus declares there were “not a few myriads,” or
   “innumerable myriads'” in that region. [9] At Damascus, during the great
   war, he narrates (Bell. Jud., ii. 20. 2) how ten thousand Jews were
   massacred; elsewhere in the same book (vii. 8. 7) he writes “eighteen
   thousand.'” Of the five civic quarters of Alexandria, two were called “the
   Jewish” (according to Philo, In Flacc. 8), since they were mainly inhabited
   by Jews; in the other quarters Jews were also to be met with, and Philo (In
   Flacc. 6) reckons their total number in Egypt (as far as the borders of
   Ethiopia) to have been at least 100 myriads (= a million). In the time of
   Sulla the Jews of Cyrene, according to Strabo (cited by Josephus, Antiq.,
   xiv. 7. 2), formed one of the four classes into which the population was
   divided, the others being citizens, peasants, and resident aliens. During
   the great rebellion in Trajan's reign they are said to have slaughtered
   220,000 unbelievers in Cyrene (Dio Cassius, lxviii. 32), in revenge for
   which “many myriads” of their own number were put to death by Marcus Turbo
   (Euseb., H.E., iv. 2). The Jewish revolt spread also to Cyprus, where
   240,000 Gentiles are said to have been murdered by them. [10] As for the
   number of Jews in Rome, we have these two statements: first, that in B.C. 4
   a Jewish embassy from Palestine to the metropolis was joined by 8000 local
   Jews (Joseph., Antiq., xvii. 2. 1; Bell., ii. 6. 1); and secondly, that in
   19 A.D., when Tiberius banished the whole Jewish community from Rome, 4000
   able-bodied Jews were deported to Sardinia. The latter statement merits
   especial attention, as it is handed down by Tacitus as well as Josephus.
   [11] After the fall of Sejanus, when Tiberius revoked the edict (Philo,
   Legat. 24), the Jews at once made up their former numbers in Rome (Dio
   Cassius, lx. 6, pleonasantes authis); the movement for their expulsion
   reappeared under Claudius in 49 A.D., but the enforcement of the order
   looked to be so risky that it was presently withdrawn and limited to a
   prohibition of religious gatherings. [12] In Rome the Jews dwelt chiefly in
   Trastevere; but as Jewish churchyards have been discovered in various parts
   of the city, they were also to be met with in other quarters as well.

   A glance at these numerical statements shows [13] that only two possess any
   significance. The first is Philo's, that the Egyptian Jews amounted to quite
   a million. Philo's comparatively precise mode of expression (ouk apodeousi
   muriadōn hekaton hoi tēn Alexandreian kai tēn chōran Ioudaioi katoikountes
   apo tou pros Libuēn katabathmou mechri tōn horiōn Aithiopias: “The Jews
   resident in Alexandria and in the country from the descent to Libya back to
   the bounds of Ethiopia, do not fall short of a million”), taken together
   with the fact that registers for the purpose of taxation were accurately
   kept in Egypt, renders it probable that we have here to do with no fanciful
   number. Nor does the figure itself appear too high, when we consider that it
   includes the whole Jewish population of Alexandria. As the entire population
   of Egypt (under Vespasian) amounted to seven or eight millions, the Jews
   thus turn out to have formed a seventh or an eighth of the whole (somewhere
   about thirteen per cent.). [14] Syria is the only province of the empire
   where we must assume a higher percentage of Jews among the population; [15]
   in all the other provinces their numbers were smaller.

   The second passage of importance is the statement that Tiberius deported
   four thousand able-bodied Jews to Sardinia—Jews, be it noted, not (as
   Tacitus declares) Egyptians and Jews, for the distinct evidence of Josephus
   on this point is corroborated by that of Suetonius (see above), who, after
   speaking at first of Jews and Egyptians, adds, by way of closer definition,
   “Judaeorum juventatem per speciem sacramenti in provincias gravioris caeli
   distribuit.'” Four thousand able-bodied men answers to a total of at least
   ten thousand human beings, [16] and something like this represented the size
   of the contemporary Jewish community at Rome. Now, of course, this reckoning
   agrees but poorly with the other piece of information, viz., that
   twenty-three years earlier a Palestinian deputation had its ranks swelled by
   8000 Roman Jews. Either Josephus has inserted the total number of Jews in
   this passage, or he is guilty of serious exaggeration. The most reliable
   estimate of the Roman population under Augustus (in B.C. 5) gives 320,000
   male plebeians over ten years of age. As women were notoriously in a
   minority at Rome, this number represents about 600,000 inhabitants
   (excluding slaves), [17] so that about 10,000 Jews [18] would be equivalent
   to about one-sixtieth of the population. [19] Tiberius could still risk the
   strong measure of expelling them; but when Claudius tried to repeat the
   experiment thirty years later, he was unable to carry it out.

   We can hardly suppose that the Jewish community at Rome continued to show
   any considerable increase after the great rebellions and wars under
   Vespasian, Titus, Trajan, and Hadrian, since the decimation of the Jews in
   many provinces of the empire must have re-acted upon the Jewish community in
   the capital. Details on this point, however, are wanting.

   If the Jews in Egypt amounted to about a million, those in Syria were still
   more numerous. Allowing about 700,000 Jews to Palestine—and at this moment
   between 600,000 and 650,000 people live there; see Baedeker's Palestine,
   1900, p. lvii.—we are within the mark at all events when we reckon the Jews
   in the remaining districts of the empire (i.e., in Asia Minor, Greece,
   Cyrene, Rome, Italy, Gaul, Spain, etc.) at about one million and a half. In
   this way a grand total of about four or four and a half million Jews is
   reached. Now, it is an extremely surprising thing, a thing that seems at
   first to throw doubt upon any estimate whatsoever of the population, to say
   that while (according to Beloch) the population of the whole Roman empire
   under Augustus is reported to have amounted to nearly fifty-four millions,
   the Jews in the empire at that period must be reckoned at not less than four
   or four and a half millions. Even if one raises Beloch's figure to sixty
   millions, how can the Jews have represented seven per cent. of the total
   population? Either our calculation is wrong—and mistakes are almost
   inevitable in a matter like this—or the propaganda of Judaism was extremely
   successful in the provinces; for it is utterly impossible to explain the
   large total of Jews in the Diaspora by the mere fact of the fertility of
   Jewish families. We must assume, I imagine, that a very large number of
   pagans, and in particular of kindred Semites of the lower class, trooped
   over to the religion of Yahweh [20] —for the Jews of the Diaspora were
   genuine Jews only to a certain extent. Now if Judaism was actually so
   vigorous throughout the empire as to embrace about seven percent. of the
   total population under Augustus, [21] one begins to realize its great
   influence and social importance. And in order to comprehend the propaganda
   and diffusion of Christianity, it is quite essential to understand that the
   religion under whose “shadow” it made its way out into the world, not merely
   contained elements of vital significance but had expanded till it embraced a
   considerable proportion of the world's population.

   Our survey would not be complete if we did not glance, however briefly, at
   the nature of the Jewish propaganda in the empire, [22] for some part, at
   least, of her missionary zeal was inherited by Christianity from Judaism. As
   I shall have to refer to this Jewish mission wherever any means employed in
   the Christian propaganda are taken over from Judaism, I shall confine myself
   in the meantime to some general observations.

   It is surprising that a religion which raised so stout a wall of partition
   between itself and all other religions, and which in practice and prospects
   alike was bound up so closely with its nation, should have possessed a
   missionary impulse [23] of such vigour and attained so large a measure of
   success. This is not ultimately to be explained by any craving for power or
   ambition; it is a proof [24] that Judaism, as a religion, was already
   blossoming out by some inward transformation and becoming across between a
   national religion and a world-religion (confession of faith and a church).
   Proudly the Jew felt that he had something to say and bring to the world,
   which concerned all men, viz., The one and only spiritual God, creator of
   heaven and earth, with his holy moral law. It was owing to the consciousness
   of this (Rom. ii. 19 f.) that he felt missions to be a duty. The Jewish
   propaganda throughout the empire was primarily the proclamation of the one
   and only God, of his moral law, and of his judgment; to this everything else
   became secondary. The object in many cases might be pure proselytism (Matt.
   xxiii. 15), but Judaism was quite in earnest in overthrowing dumb idols and
   inducing pagans to recognize their creator and judge, for in this the honour
   of the God of Israel was concerned.

   It is in this light that one must judge a phenomenon which is misunderstood
   so long as we explain it by means of specious analogies—I mean, the
   different degrees and phases of proselytism. In other religions, variations
   of this kind usually proceed from an endeavour to render the moral precepts
   imposed by the religion somewhat easier for the proselyte. In Judaism this
   tendency never prevailed, at least never outright. On the contrary, the
   moral demand remained unlowered. As the recognition of God was considered
   the cardinal point, Judaism was in a position to depreciate the claims of
   the cultus and of ceremonies, and the different kinds of Jewish proselytism
   were almost entirely due to the different degrees in which the ceremonial
   precepts of the Law were observed. The fine generosity of such an attitude
   was, of course, facilitated by the fact that a man who let even his little
   finger be grasped by this religion, thereby became a Jew. [25] Again,
   strictly speaking, even a born Jew was only a proselyte so soon as he left
   the soil of Palestine, since thereby he parted with the sacrificial system;
   besides, he was unable in a foreign country to fulfil, or at least to fulfil
   satisfactorily, many other precepts of the Law. [26] For generations there
   had been a gradual neutralising of the sacrificial system proceeding apace
   within the inner life of Judaism—even among the Pharisees; and this
   coincided with an historical situation which obliged by far the greater
   number of the adherents of the religion to live amid conditions which had
   made them strangers for a long period to the sacrificial system. In this way
   they were also rendered accessible on every side of their spiritual nature
   to foreign cults and philosophies, and thus there originated Persian and
   Græco-Jewish religious alloys, several of whose phenomena threatened even
   the monotheistic belief. The destruction of the temple by the Romans really
   destroyed nothing; it may be viewed as an incident organic to the history of
   Jewish religion. When pious people held God's ways at that crisis were
   incomprehensible, they were but deluding themselves.

   For a long while the popular opinion throughout the empire was that the Jews
   worshipped God without images, and that they had no temple. Now, although
   both of these “atheistic” features might appear to the rude populace even
   more offensive and despicable than circumcision, Sabbath observance, the
   prohibition of swine's flesh, etc., nevertheless they made a deep impression
   upon wide circles of educated people. [27] Thanks to these traits, together
   with its monotheism—for which the age was beginning to be ripe [28] —Judaism
   seemed as if it were elevated to the rank of philosophy, and inasmuch as it
   still continued to be a religion, it exhibited a type of mental and
   spiritual life which was superior to anything of the kind. [29] At bottom,
   there was nothing artificial in a Philo or in a Josephus exhibiting Judaism
   as the philosophic religion, for this kind of apologetic corresponded to the
   actual situation in which they found themselves [30] ; it was as the
   revealed and also the philosophic religion, equipped with “the oldest book
   in the world,”that Judaism developed her great propaganda. [31] The account
   given by Josephus (Bell., vii. 3. 3) of the situation at Antioch, viz., that
   “the Jews continued to attract a large number of the Greeks to their
   services, making them in a sense part of themselves”—this holds true of the
   Jewish mission in general. [32] The adhesion of Greeks and Romans to Judaism
   ranged over the entire gamut of possible degrees, from the superstitious
   adoption of certain rites up to complete identification. “God-fearing”
   pagans constituted the majority; proselytes (i.e., people who were actually
   Jews, obliged to keep the whole Law), there is no doubt, were comparatively
   few in number. [33] Immersion was more indispensable than even circumcision
   as a condition of entrance. [34]

   While all this was of the utmost importance for the Christian mission which
   came afterwards, at least equal moment attaches to one vital omission in the
   Jewish missionary preaching: viz., that no Gentile, in the first generation
   at least, could become a real son of Abraham. His rank before God remained
   inferior. Thus it also remained very doubtful how far any proselyte—to say
   nothing of the “God-fearing”—had a share in the glorious promises of the
   future. The religion which repairs this omission will drive Judaism from the
   field. [35] When it proclaims this message in its fulness, that the last
   will be first, that freedom from the Law is the normal and higher life, and
   that the observance of the Law, even at its best, is a thing to be tolerated
   and no more, it will win thousands where the previous missionary preaching
   won but hundreds. [36] Yet the propaganda of Judaism did not succeed simply
   by its high inward worth; the profession of Judaism also conferred great
   social and political advantages upon its adherents. Compare Schürer's sketch
   (op. cit., III^(3) pp. 56-90; Eng. trans., II ii. 243 f.) of the internal
   organization of Jewish communities in the Diaspora, of their civil position,
   and of their civic “isopolity,” [37] and it will be seen how advantageous it
   was to belong to a Jewish community within the Roman empire. No doubt there
   were circumstances under which a Jew had to endure ridicule and disdain, but
   this injustice was compensated by the ample privileges enjoyed by those who
   adhered to this religio licita. If in addition one possessed the freedom of
   a city (which it was not difficult to procure) or even Roman citizenship,
   one occupied a more secure and favourable position than the majority of
   one's fellow-citizens. No wonder, then, that Christians threatened to
   apostatize to Judaism during a persecution, [38] or that separation from the
   synagogues had also serious economic consequences for Jews who had become
   Christians. [39]

   One thing further. All religions which made their way into the empire along
   the channels of intercourse and trade were primarily religions of the city,
   and remained such for a considerable period. It cannot be said that Judaism
   in the Diaspora was entirely a city-religion; indeed the reverse holds true
   of one or two large provinces. Yet in the main it continued to be a
   city-religion, and we hear little about Jews who were settled on the land.

   So long as the temple stood, and contributions were paid in to it, this
   formed a link between the Jews of the Diaspora and Palestine. [40]
   Afterwards, a rabbinical board took the place of the priestly college at
   Jerusalem, which understood how still to raise and use these contributions.
   The board was presided over by the patriarch, and the contributions were
   gathered by “apostles'” whom he sent out. [41] They appear also to have had
   additional duties to perform (on which see below).

   To the Jewish mission which preceded it, the Christian mission was indebted,
   in the first place, for a field tilled all over the empire; in the second
   place, for religious communities already formed everywhere in the towns;
   thirdly, for what Axenfeld calls “the help of materials'” furnished by the
   preliminary knowledge of the Old Testament, in addition to catechetical and
   liturgical materials which could be employed without much alteration;
   fourthly, for the habit of regular worship and a control of private life;
   fifthly, for an impressive apologetic on behalf of monotheism, historical
   teleology, and ethics; and finally, for the feeling that self-diffusion was
   a duty. The amount of this debt is so large, that one might venture to claim
   the Christian mission as a continuation of the Jewish propaganda.
   “Judaism,'' said Renan, “was robbed of its due reward by a generation of
   fanatics, and it was prevented from gathering in the harvest which it had
   prepared.”

   The extent to which Judaism was prepared for the gospel may also be judged
   by means of the syncretism into which it had developed. The development was
   along no mere side-issues. The transformation of a national into a universal
   religion may take place in two ways: either by the national religion being
   reduced to great central principles, or by its assimilation of a wealth of
   new elements from other religions. Both processes developed simultaneously
   in Judaism. [42] But the former is the more important of the two, as a
   preparation for Christianity. This is to be deduced especially from that
   great scene preserved for us by Mark xii. 28-34—in its simplicity of spirit,
   the greatest memorial we possess of the history of religion at the epoch of
   its vital change. [43] “A scribe asked Jesus, What is the first of all the
   commandments? Jesus replied, The first is: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God
   is one God, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all
   thy soul, and all thy mind, and all thy strength. The second is: Thou shalt
   love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no commandment greater than these.
   And the scribe said to him. True, O teacher; thou hast rightly said that he
   is one, and that beside him there is none else, and that to love him with
   all the heart, and all the understanding and all the strength, and to love
   one's neighbour as oneself, is far above all holocausts and sacrifices. And
   when Jesus saw that he answered intelligently, he said: Thou art not far
   from the kingdom of God.”

   With regard to the attitude of Palestinian Judaism towards the mission-idea
   (i.e., universalism and the duty of systematic propaganda), the state of
   matters during the age of Christ and the apostles is such as to permit
   pleadings upon both sides of the question. [44] Previous to that age, there
   had been two periods which were essentially opposite in tendency. The older,
   resting upon the second Isaiah, gave vivid expression, even within Palestine
   itself, to the universalism of the Jewish religion as well as to a religious
   ethic which rose almost to the pitch of humanitarianism. This is represented
   in a number of the psalms, in the book of Jonah, and in the
   Wisdom-literature. The pious are fully conscious that Yahweh rules over the
   nation and over all mankind, that he is the God of each individual, and that
   he requires nothing but reverence. Hence their hope for the ultimate
   conversion of all the heathen. They will have kings and people alike to bow
   before Yahweh and to praise him. Their desire is that Yahweh's name be known
   everywhere among the heathen, and his glory (in the sense of conversion to
   him) spread far and wide. With the age of the Maccabees, however, an
   opposite tendency set in. Apocalyptic was keener upon the downfall of the
   heathen than upon their conversion, and the exclusive tendencies of Judaism
   again assert themselves, in the struggle to preserve the distinctive
   characteristics of the nation. “One of the most important results which
   flowed from the outrageous policy of Antiochus was that it discredited for
   all time to come the idea of a Judaism free from any limitation whatsoever,
   and that it either made pro-Hellenism, in the sense of Jason and Alcimus,
   impossible for Palestine and the Diaspora alike, or else exposed it to sharp
   correction whenever it should raise its head” (Axenfeld, p. 28). Now, in the
   age of Christ and the apostles, these two waves, the progressive and the
   nationalist, are beating each other back. Pharisaism itself appears to be
   torn in twain. In some psalms and manuals, as well as in the 13th Blessing
   of the Schmone Esre, universalism still breaks out. “Hillel, the most famous
   representative of Jewish Biblical learning, was accustomed, with his pupils,
   to pay special attention to the propaganda of religion. ‘Love men and draw
   them to the Law’ is one of his traditional maxims” (Pirke Aboth, 1. 12).
   Gamaliel, Paul's teacher, is also to be ranked among the propagandists. It
   was not impossible, however, to be both exclusive and in favour of the
   propaganda, for the conditions of the mission were sharpened into the demand
   that the entire Law should be kept. If I mistake not, Jesus was primarily at
   issue with this kind of Pharisaism in Jerusalem. Now the keener became the
   opposition within Palestine to the foreign dominion, and the nearer the
   great catastrophe came, the more strenuous grew the reaction against all
   that was foreign, as well as the idea that whatever was un-Jewish would
   perish in the judgment. Not long before the destruction of Jerusalem, in all
   probability, the controversy between the schools of Hillel and Shammai ended
   in a complete victory for the latter. Shammai was not indeed an opponent of
   the mission in principle, but he subjected it to the most rigorous
   conditions. The eighteen rules which were laid down included, among other
   things, the prohibition against learning Greek, and that against accepting
   presents from pagans for the temple. Intercourse with pagans was confined
   within the strictest of regulations, and had to be given up as a whole. This
   opened the way for the Judaism of the Talmud and the Mishna. The Judaism of
   the Diaspora followed the same course of development, though not till some
   time afterwards. [45]
     _________________________________________________________________

   [1] The conversion of the royal family of Adiabene (on the Tigris, at the
   frontier of the Roman Empire and of Parthia) to Judaism, during the reign of
   Claudius, is a fact of special moment in the history of the spread of
   Judaism, and Josephus gives it due prominence. A striking parallel, a
   century and a half later, is afforded by the conversion of the royal house
   of Edessa to Christianity. Renan (Les Apôtres, ch. xiv.) is not wrong when
   he remarks, in his own way, that “the royal family of Adiabene belongs to
   the history of Christianity.” He does not mean to say, with Orosius (vii. 6)
   and Moses of Chorene (ii. 35), that they actually became Christians, but
   simply that “in embracing Judaism, they obeyed a sentiment which was
   destined to bring over the entire pagan world to Christianity.” A further
   and striking parallel to the efforts of Queen Helena of Adiabene (cp. Jos.,
   Antiq., xx. 2 f.; B.J., v. 2-4, v. 6. 1, vi. 6. 3) is to be found in the
   charitable activity of Constantine's mother, Queen Helena, in Jerusalem.
   Possibly the latter took the Jewish queen as her model, for Helena of
   Adiabene's philanthropy was still remembered in Jerusalem and by Jews in
   general (cp. Eus., H.E., ii. 12, and the Talmudic tradition).—Comprehensive
   evidence for the spread of Judaism throughout the empire lies in Philo
   (Legat. 36 and Flacc. 7), Acts (ii. 9 f.), and Josephus (Bell., ii. 16. 4,
   vii. 3. 3; Apion, ii. 39). The statement of Josephus (ouk estin epi tēs
   oikoumenēs dēmos ho mē moiran hēmeteran echōn: “there is no people in the
   world which does not contain some part of us”) had been anticipated more
   than two centuries earlier by a Jewish Sibylline oracle (Sib. orac., iii.
   271; pasa de gaia sethen plērēs kai pasa thalassa: “every land and sea is
   filled with thee”). By 139-138 B.C. a decree for the protection of Jews had
   been issued by the Roman Senate to the kings of Egypt, Syria, Pergamum,
   Cappadocia and Parthia, as well as to Sampsamê (Amisus?), Sparta, Sicyon (in
   the Peloponnese), Delos, Samos, the town of Gortyna, Caria and Myndus,
   Halicarnassus and Cnidus, Cos and Rhodes, the province of Lycia together
   with Phaselis, Pamphilia with Sidê, the Phœnician town Aradus, Cyrene and
   Cyprus. By the time of Sulla, Strabo had written thus (according to
   Josephus, Antiq., xiv. 7. 2): eis pasan polin ēdē parelēluthei, kai topon
   ouk esti rhadiōs heurein tēs oikoumenēs hos ou paradedektai touto to phulon
   mēd' epikrateitai hup' autou (“They have now got into every city, and it is
   hard to find a spot on earth which has not admitted this tribe and come
   under their control”). For the intensive spread of Judaism Seneca's
   testimony (cited by Augustine, De Civit. Dei, vi. 11) is particularly
   instructive: cum interim usque eo sceleratissimae gentis consuetudo valuit,
   ut per omnes iam terras recepta sit; victi victoribus leges dederunt
   (“Meantime the customs of this most accursed race have prevailed to such an
   extent that they are everywhere received. The conquered have imposed their
   laws on the conquerors”). Justin declares that “there are nations in which
   not one of your race [i.e. of the Jews] can be found” (esti ta ethnē en hois
   oudepō oudeis humōn tou genous ōkēsen, Dial. 117), but the following claim
   that there were Christians in every nation shows that his statement is due
   to tendency.

   [2] The large number of Jews in Antioch is particularly striking.

   [3] For the diffusion of Jews in S. Arabia, cp. Philostorgius's important
   evidence (H.E., iii. 4). The local population, he avers, ouk oligon plēthos
   Ioudaiōn anapephurtai.

   [4] Philo, Legat. 33: Ioudaioi kath' hekastēn polin eisi pamplētheis Asias
   te kai Surias (“The Jews abound in every city of Asia and Syria”). The word
   “every” (hekastēn) is confirmed by a number of special testimonies, e.g. for
   Cilicia by Epiphanius (Hær., xxx. 11), who says of the “apostle” sent by the
   Jewish patriarch to collect the Jewish taxes in Cilicia: hos anelthōn ekeise
   apo hekastēs poleōs tēs Kilikias ta epidekata ktl eisepratten (“On his
   arrival there he proceeded to lift the tithes, etc., from every city in
   Cilicia”). On the spread of Judaism in Phrygia and the adjoining provinces
   (even into the districts of the interior), see Ramsay's two great works, The
   Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, and The Historical Geography of Asia
   Minor, along with his essay in the Expositor (January 1902) on “The Jews in
   the Græco-Asiatic Cities.” Wherever any considerable number of inscriptions
   are found in these regions, some of them are always Jewish. The rô1e played
   by the Jewish element in Pisidian Antioch is shown by Acts xiii.; see
   especially verses 44 and 50 oi̔ Ioudaioi parṓtrunan tas sebomenas gunaikas
   tas euschēmonas kai tous prōtous tēs poleōs). And the significance of the
   Jewish element in Smyrna comes out conspicuously in the martyrdom of
   Polycarp and of Pionius; on the day of a Jewish festival the appearance of
   the streets was quite changed. ''The diffusion and importance of the Jews in
   Asia Minor are attested among other things by the attempt made during the
   reign of Augustus, by the Ionian cities, apparently after joint counsel, to
   compel their Jewish fellow-townsmen to abandon their faith or else to assume
   the full burdens of citizenship” (Mommsen, Röm. Gesch., v. pp. 489 f., Eng.
   trans. Provinces, ii. 163).

   [5] Cp. also the remarks of Epiphanius (Hær., lxxx. l) upon the cult of
   Pantokratōr.

   [6] See Monceaux, “les colonies juives dans l’Afrique romaine” (Rev. des
   Études juives, 1902); and Leclerq, L’Afrique chrétienne (1904), I. pp. 36 f.
   We have evidence for Jewish communities at Carthage, Naro, Hadrumetum,
   Utica, Hippo, Simittu, Volubilis, Cirta, Auzia, Sitifis, Cæsarea, Tipasa,
   and Oea, etc.

   [7] To all appearance, therefore, he knew no Jewish Christians at first
   hand.

   [8] Renan, Les Apôtres (ch. xvi.).

   [9] Antiq., xv. 3. 1, xi. 5. 2. According to Antiq., xii. 3. 4, Antiochus
   the Great deported 2000 families of Babylonian Jews to Phrygia and Lydia.

   [10] Dio Cassius (loc. cit.). The same author declares (lxix. 14) that
   580,000 Jews perished in Palestine during the rebellion of Barcochba.

   [11] There is a discrepancy between them. Whilst Josephus (Antiq., xviii. 3.
   5) mentions only Jews, Tacitus (Annal., ii. 85) writes: “Actum et de sacris
   Aegyptiis Judaicisque pellendis factumque patrum consultum, ut quattuor
   milia libertini generis ea superstitione infecta, quis idonea aetas, in
   insulam Sardiniam veherentur, coercendis illic latrociniis et, si ob
   gravitatem caeli interissent, vile damnum; ceteri cederent Italia, nisi
   certam ante diem profanes ritus exuissent” (“Measures were also adopted for
   the extermination of Egyptian and Jewish rites, and the Senate passed a
   decree that four thousand freedmen, able-bodied, who were tainted with that
   superstition, should be deported to the island of Sardinia to put a check
   upon the local brigands. Should the climate kill them ’twould be no great
   loss! As for the rest, they were to leave Italy unless they abjured their
   profane rites by a given day”). The expulsion is also described by Suetonius
   (Tiber. 36); “Externas caeremonias, Aegyptios Judaicosque ritus compescuit,
   coactis qui superstitione ea tenebantur religiosas vestes cum instrumento
   omni comburere. Judaeorum juventutem per speciem sacramenti in provincias
   gravioris caeli distribuit, reliquos gentis eiusdem vel similia sectantes
   urbe summovit, sub poena perpetuae servitutis nisi obtemperassent” (“Foreign
   religions, including the rites of Egyptians and Jews, he suppressed, forcing
   those who practised that superstition to burn their sacred vestments and all
   their utensils. He scattered the Jewish youth in provinces of an unhealthy
   climate, on the pretext of military service, whilst the rest of that race or
   of those who shared their practices were expelled from Rome, the penalty for
   disobedience being penal servitude for life”).

   [12] The sources here are contradictory. Acts (xviii. 2), Suetonius (Claud.
   25), and Orosius (vii. 6. 15)—the last named appealing by mistake to
   Josephus, who says nothing about the incident—all speak of a formal (and
   enforced) edict of expulsion, but Dio Cassius (lx. 6) writes: tous te
   Ioudaious pleonasantas authis, hōste chalepōs an aneu tarachēs hupo tou
   ochlou sphōn tēs poleōs eirchthēnai, ouk exēlase; men, tō de dē patriō biō
   chrōmenous ekeleuse mē sunathroizesthai (“As the Jews had once more
   multiplied, so that it would have been difficult to remove them without a
   popular riot, he did not expel them, but simply prohibited any gatherings of
   those who held to their ancestral customs”). We have no business, in my
   opinion, to use Dio Cassius in order to set aside two such excellent
   witnesses as Luke and Suetonius. Nor is it a satisfactory expedient to
   suppose, with Schürer (III. p. 32; cp. Eng. trans., II. ii. 237), that the
   government simply intended to expel the Jews. The edict must have been
   actually issued, although it was presently replaced by a prohibition of
   meetings, after the Jews had given a guarantee of good behaviour.

   [13] I omit a series of figures given elsewhere by Josephus; they are not of
   the slightest use.

   [14] See Mommsen, Röm. Gesch., v. p. 578 [Eng. trans., “Provinces of the
   Roman Empire,” ii. p. 258], and Pietschmann in Pauly-Wissowa's Encyklop.,
   i., col. 990 f. Beloch (Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt, pp.
   258 f.) questions the reckoning of Josephus (Bell., ii. 16. 4) that the
   population of Egypt under Nero amounted to seven and a half millions. He
   will not allow more than about five, though he adduces no conclusive
   argument against Josephus, Still, as he also holds it an exaggeration to
   say, with Philo, that the Jews in Egypt were a million strong, he is not
   opposed to the hypothesis that Judaism in Egypt amounted to about 13 per
   cent. of the total population. Beloch reckons the population of Alexandria
   (including slaves) at about half a million. Of these, 200,000 would be Jews,
   as the Alexandrian Jews numbered about two-fifths of the whole.

   [15] Josephus, Bell., vii. 3. 3; (To Ioudaiōn genos polu men kata pasan tēn
   oikoumenēn parespartai tois epichōriois, pleiston de tē Suria: “The Jewish
   race is thickly spread over the world among its inhabitants, but specially
   in Syria”). Beloch (pp. 242 f., 507) estimates the population of Syria under
   Augustus at about six millions, under Nero at about seven, whilst the free
   inhabitants of Antioch under Augustus numbered close on 300,000. As the
   percentage of Jews in Syria (and especially in Antioch) was larger than in
   Egypt (about 13 per cent.), certainly over a million Jews must be assumed
   for Syria under Nero.

   [16] Taking for granted, as in the case of any immigrant population, that
   the number of men is very considerably larger than that of women, I allow
   2000 boys and old men to 4000 able-bodied men, and assume about 4000
   females.

   [17] See Beloch, pp. 292 f. His figure, 500,000, seems to me rather low.

   [18] Renan (L’Antéchrist, ch. i.) is inclined to estimate the number of the
   Roman Jews, including women and children, at from twenty to thirty thousand.

   [19] The total number, including foreigners and slaves, would amount to
   something between 800,000 and 900,000 (according to Beloch, 800,000 at the
   outside).

   [20] After the edict of Pius, which forbade in the most stringent terms the
   circumcision of any who had not been born in Judaism (cp. also the previous
   edict of Hadrian), regular secessions must have either ceased altogether or
   occurred extremely seldom; cp. Orig., c. Cels., II. xiii.

   [21] In modern Germany the Jews number a little over one per cent of the
   population; in Austro-Hungary, four and two-thirds per cent.

   [22] Compare, on this point, Schürer's description, op, cit., III.(3) pp.
   102 f. [Eng. trans., II. ii. 126 f.].

   [23] The duty and the hopefulness of missions are brought out in the
   earliest Jewish Sibylline books. Almost the whole of the literature of
   Alexandrian Judaism has an apologetic bent and the instinct of propaganda.

   [24] Cp. Bousset's Die Religion des Judentums im neutest, Zeitalter 1903),
   especially the sections on “The Theologians, the Church and the Laity,
   Women, Confession (Faith and Dogma), the Synagogue as an Institute of
   Salvation” (pp. 139-184), and the large section devoted to “The Faith of the
   Individual and Theology.” If a popular religion passes into a confession of
   faith and a church, individual faith with all its reach and strain also
   comes into view together with the church. For the propaganda of Judaism in
   the pagan world, cp. pp. 77 f.

   [25] If he did not, his son did.

   [26] Circumcision, of course, was always a troublesome wall of partition.
   Born Jews, as a rule, laid the greatest stress upon it, while pagans
   submitted to the operation with extreme reluctance.

   [27] This rigid exclusiveness in a religion naturally repelled the majority
   and excited frank resentment; it was somewhat of a paradox, and cannot fail
   to have been felt as obdurately inhuman as well as insolent. Anti-Semitism
   can be plainly traced within the Roman empire from 100 B.C. onwards; in the
   first century A.D. it steadily increased, discharging itself in outbursts of
   fearful persecution.

   [28] It was ripe also for the idea of an individual recompense in the future
   life, as an outcome of the heightened valuation of individual morality in
   this life, and for the idea of a judgment passed on the individual
   thereafter.

   [29] E.g., especially to the idealistic schools of popular philosophy. Cp.
   Wendland, Philo und die stoisch-kynische Diatribe (1895).

   [30] Cp. Friedlander's Geschichte der jüdischen Apologetik als Vorgeschichte
   des Christentums, 1903. On the heights of its apologetic, the Jewish
   religion represented itself as the idealist philosophy based on revelation
   (the sacred book), i.e., materially as ideological rationalism, and formally
   as supra-rationalism; it was the “most satisfying” form of religion,
   retaining a vitality, a precision, and a certainty in its conception of God
   such as no cognate form of religious philosophy could preserve, while at the
   same time the overwhelming number and the definite character of its
   ''prophecies” quelled every doubt.

   [31] “As a philosophical religion Judaism may have attracted one or two
   cultured individuals, but it was as a religious and social community with a
   life of its own that it won the masses.” So Axenfeld, on p. 15 of his study
   (mentioned below on p. 16). Yet even as a religious fellowship with a life
   of its own, Judaism made a philosophic impression—and that upon the
   uneducated as well as upon the educated. I agree with Axenfeld, however,
   that the Jewish propaganda owed its success not to the literary activity of
   individual Hellenistic Jews, but to the assimilating power of the
   communities with their religious life, their strict maintenance of
   convictions, their recognition of their own interests and their satisfaction
   of a national pride, as evidenced in their demand for proselytes to glorify
   Jehovah.

   [32] The keenness of Jewish propaganda throughout the empire during the
   first century—“the age in which the Christian preaching began its course is
   the age in which the Jewish propaganda reached the acme of its efforts”—is
   also clear from the introduction of the Jewish week and Sabbath throughout
   the empire; cp. Schürer, “Die siebentägige Woche im Gebrauch der
   christlichen Kirche der ersten Jahrhunderte “ (Zeits. f. die neut. Wiss.,
   1905, 40 f.). Many pagans celebrated the Sabbath, just as Jews to-day
   observe Sunday.

   [33] See Eus., H.E., i. 7, for the extent to which proselytes became fused
   among those who were Jews by birth.

   [34] It must not be forgotten that even in the Diaspora there was
   exclusiveness and fanaticism. The first persecution of Christians was set
   afoot by synagogues of the Diaspora in Jerusalem; Saul was a fanatic Jew of
   the Diaspora.

   [35] I know of no reliable inquiries into the decline and fall of Jewish
   missions in the empire after the second destruction of the temple. It seems
   to me unquestionable that Judaism henceforth slackened her tie with
   Hellenism, in order to drop it altogether as time went on, and that the
   literature of Hellenistic Judaism suddenly became very slender, destined ere
   long to disappear entirely. But whether we are to see in all this merely the
   inner stiffening of Judaism, or other causes to boot (e.g., the growing
   rivalry of Christianity), is a question which I do not venture to decide. On
   the repudiation of Hellenism by Palestinian Judaism even prior to the first
   destruction of the temple, see below (p. 16).

   [36] A notable parallel from history to the preaching of Paul in its
   relation to Jewish preaching, is to be found in Luther's declaration, that
   the truly perfect man was not a monk, but a Christian living in his daily
   calling. Luther also explained that the last (those engaged in daily
   business) were the first.—The above sketch has been contradicted by
   Friedländer (in Dr. Bloch's Oesterr. Wochenschrift, Zentralorgan f. d. ges.
   Interessen des Judentums, 1902, Nos. 49 f.), who asserts that proselytes
   ranked entirely the same as full-blooded Jews. But Friedländer himself
   confines this liberal attitude towards proselytes to the Judaism of the
   Greek Diaspora; he refers it to the influence of Hellenism, and supports it
   simply by Philo (and John the Baptist). Note also that Philo usually holds
   Jewish pride of birth to be vain, if a man is wicked; in that case, a Jew is
   far inferior to a man of pagan birth. With this limitation of Friedländer's,
   no objection can be taken to the thesis in question. I myself go still
   further; for there is no doubt that even before the rise of Christianity the
   Jews of the Diaspora allegorised the ceremonial Law, and that this paved the
   way for the Gentile church's freedom from the Law. Only, the question is
   (i.) whether the strict Judaism of Palestine, in its obscure origins, was
   really affected by these softening tendencies, (ii.) whether it did not
   exercise an increasingly strong influence upon Judaism even in the Diaspora,
   and (iii.) whether the Judaism of the Diaspora actually renounced all the
   privileges of its birth. On the two latter points, I should answer in the
   negative (even with regard to Philo); on the first, however, my reply would
   be in the affirmative.

   [37] The Jewish communities in the Diaspora also formed small states inside
   the state or city; one has only to recollect the civil jurisdiction which
   they exercised, even to the extent of criminal procedure. As late as the
   third century we possess, with reference to Palestine, Origen's account (Ep.
   ad Afric., xiv.) of the power of the Ethnarch (or patriarch), which was so
   great “that he differed in no whit from royalty”; “legal proceedings also
   took place privately as enjoined by the Law, and several people were
   condemned to death, not in open court and yet with the cognizance of the
   authorities.” Similar occurrences would take place in the Diaspora. The age
   of Hadrian and Pius did bring about a terrible retrograde movement; but
   afterwards, part of the lost ground was again recovered.

   [38] Proofs of this are not forthcoming, however, in any number.

   [39] Owing to their religious and national characteristics, as well as to
   the fact that they enjoyed legal recognition throughout the empire, the Jews
   stood out conspicuously from amongst all the other nations included in the
   Roman state. This comes out most forcibly in the fact that they were even
   entitled “The Second race.” We shall afterwards show that Christians were
   called the Third race, since Jews already ranked thus as the Second.

   [40] Messengers and letters also passed, which kept the tie between
   Jerusalem and the Jewish church of the Gentiles fresh and close. A good
   example occurs at the close of Acts.

   [41] On the patriarch, see Schürer, III.(3), pp. 77 f. [Eng. trans., II. ii.
   270]. From Vopisc. Saturn. 8 we know that the patriarch himself went also in
   person to the Diaspora, so far as Egypt is concerned. On the “apostles,” see
   Book III. ch. i. (2).

   [42] For “syncretism,” see especially the last chapter in Bousset's volume
   (pp. 448-493). Syncretism melted each of the older elements within the
   religion of Judaism, and introduced a wealth of entirely new elements. But
   nothing decomposed the claim that Judaism was the true religion, or the
   conviction that in “Moses” all truth lay.

   [43] The nearest approach to it is to be found in the missionary speech put
   into Paul's mouth on the hill of Mars.

   [44] Cp. Bertholet, Die Stellung der Israeliten und Juden zu den Fremden
   (1890); Schürer, III.(3), pp. 125 f.); Bousset, op. cit., 82 f.; Axenfeld,
   “Die judische Propaganda als Vorläuferin der urchristlichen Mission,” in the
   Missionswiss. Studien (Festschrift für Warneck), 1904, pp. l-80.

   [45] Axenfeld remarks very truly (pp. 8 f.) that “the history of the Jewish
   propaganda is to be explained by the constant strain between the demand that
   the heathen should be included and the dread which this excited. The Judaism
   which felt the impulse of propaganda resembled an invading host, whose
   offensive movements are continually being hampered by considerations arising
   from the need of keeping in close touch with their basis of operations.” But
   it seems to me an artificial and theological reflection, when the same
   scholar lays supreme weight on the fact that the Jewish propaganda had no
   “consciousness of a vocation,” and that, in contrast to the Christian
   mission, it simply proclaimed its God zealously from the consciousness of an
   innate religious pre-eminence, devoid of humility and obedience. I have
   tried in vain to find an atom of truth in this thesis, with its resultant
   defence of the historicity of Matthew xxviii. 19. It is of course admitted
   on all hands that Christian missionary zeal was bound subsequently to be
   intensified by the belief that Jesus had directly enjoined it.
     _________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER 2

  THE EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF THE WORLD-WIDE EXPANSION OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION

   It is only in a series of headings, as it were, that I would summarize the
   external conditions which either made it possible for Christianity to spread
   rapidly and widely during the imperial age, or actually promoted its
   advance. One of the most important has been mentioned in the previous
   chapter, viz., the spread of Judaism, which anticipated and prepared the way
   for that of Christianity. Besides this, the following considerations [46]
   are especially to be noted:—

   (1) The Hellenizing of the East and (in part also) of the West, which had
   gone on steadily since Alexander the Great: or, the comparative unity of
   language and ideas which this Hellenizing had produced. Not until the close
   of the second century A.D. does this Hellenizing process appear to have
   exhausted itself, [47] while in the fourth century, when the seat of empire
   was shifted to the East, the movement acquired a still further impetus in
   several important directions. As Christianity allied itself very quickly
   though incompletely to the speech and spirit of Hellenism, it was in a
   position to avail itself of a great deal in the success of the latter. In
   return it furthered the advance of Hellenism and put a check to its retreat.

   (2) The world-empire of Rome and the political unity which it secured for
   the nations bordering on the Mediterranean; the comparative unity secured by
   this world-state for the methods and conditions of outward existence, and
   also the comparative stability of social life. Throughout many provinces of
   the East, people felt the emperor really stood for peace, after all the
   dreadful storms and wars; they hailed his law as a shelter and a safeguard.
   [48] Furthermore, the earthly monarchy of the world; was a fact which at
   once favoured the conception of the heavenly monarchy and conditioned the
   origin of a catholic or universal church.

   (3) The exceptional facilities, growth, and security of international
   traffic: [49] the admirable roads; the blending of different nationalities;
   [50] the interchange of wares and of ideas; the personal intercourse; the
   ubiquitous merchant and soldier—one may add, the ubiquitous professor, who
   was to be encountered from Antioch to Cadiz, from Alexandria to Bordeaux.
   The church thus found the way paved for expansion: the means were prepared;
   and the population of the large towns was as heterogeneous and devoid of a
   past as could be desired.

   (4) The practical and theoretical conviction of the essential unity of
   mankind, and of human rights and duties, which was produced, or at any rate
   intensfied, by the fact of the “orbis Romanus” [Roman world] on the one side
   and the development of philosophy upon the other, and confirmed by the truly
   enlightened system of Roman jurisprudence, particularly between Nerva and
   Alexander Severus. On all essential questions the church had no reason to
   oppose, but rather to assent to, Roman law, that grandest and most durable
   product of the empire. [51]

   (5) The decomposition of ancient society into a democracy: the gradual
   equalizing of the “cives Romani” [Roman citizens] and the provincials, of
   the Greeks and the barbarians; the comparative equalizing of classes in
   society; the elevation of the slave-class—in short, a soil prepared for the
   growth of new formations by the decomposition of the old.

   (6) The religious policy of Rome, which furthered the interchange of
   religions by its toleration, hardly presenting any obstacles to their
   natural increase or transformation or decay, although it would not stand any
   practical expression of contempt for the ceremonial of the State-religion.
   The liberty guaranteed by Rome's religious policy on all other points was an
   ample compensation for the rough check imposed on the spread of Christianity
   by her vindication of the State-religion.

   (7) The existence of associations, as well as of municipal and provincial
   organizations. In several respects the former had prepared the soil for the
   reception of Christianity, whilst in some cases they probably served as a
   shelter for it. The latter actually suggested the most important forms of
   organization in the church, and thus saved her the onerous task of first
   devising such forms and then requiring to commend them.

   (8) The irruption of the Syrian and Persian religions into the empire,
   dating especially from the reign of Antoninus Pius. These had certain traits
   in common with Christianity, and although the spread of the church was at
   first handicapped by them, any such loss was amply made up for by the new
   religious cravings which they stirred within the minds of men—cravings which
   could not finally be satisfied apart from Christianity.

   (9) The decline of the exact sciences, a phenomenon due to the democratic
   tendency of society and the simultaneous popularizing of knowledge, as well
   as to other unknown causes: also the rising vogue of a mystical philosophy
   of religion with a craving for some form of revelation and a thirst for
   miracle.

   All these outward conditions (of which the two latter might have been
   previously included among the inward) brought about a great revolution in
   the whole of human existence under the empire, a revolution which must have
   been highly conducive to the spread of the Christian religion. The narrow
   world had become a wide world; the rent world had become a unity; the
   barbarian world had become Greek and Roman: one empire, one universal
   language, one civilization, a common development towards monotheism, and a
   common yearning for saviors! [52]
     _________________________________________________________________

   [46] The number of works at our disposal for such a survey is legion. One of
   the most recent is Gruppe's Kulturgeschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit (2
   vols., 1903, 1904).

   [47] I know no investigations as to the precise period when the advance of
   Hellenism, more particularly of the Greek language, subsided and ceased at
   Rome and throughout the West. From my limited knowledge of the subject, I
   should incline to make the close of the second century the limit. Marcus
   Aurelius still wrote his confessions in Greek, but no indication of a
   similar kind can be discovered later. In the West, Greek was checked by the
   deterioration of culture as well as by the circumstances of the situation;
   the tidal wave grows shallower as it spreads. During the third century Rome
   began to shed off Greek, and in the course of the fourth century she became
   once more a purely Latin city. So too with the Western provinces as far as
   they had assimilated the Greek element; so with Southern Italy and Gaul
   even, though the process took longer in these regions. During the second
   century people could still make themselves understood apparently by means of
   Greek, in any of the larger Western cities; by the third century, a stranger
   who did not know Latin was sometimes in difficulties, though not often; by
   the fourth, no traveller in the West could dispense with Latin any longer,
   and it was only in Southern Gaul and Lower Italy that Greek sufficed.

   [48] After Melito, Origen (c. Celsum II. xxx.) correctly estimated the
   significance of this for the Christian propaganda. “In the days of Jesus,
   righteousness arose and fulness of peace; it began with his birth. God
   prepared the nations for his teaching, by causing the Roman emperor to rule
   over all the world; there was no longer to be a plurality of kingdoms, else
   would the nations have been strangers to one another, and so the apostles
   would have found it harder to carry out the task laid on them by Jesus, when
   he said, ‘Go and teach all nations.’ It is well known that the birth of
   Jesus took place in the reign of Augustus, who fused and federated the
   numerous peoples upon earth into a single empire. A plurality of kingdoms
   would have been an obstacle to the spread of the doctrine of Jesus
   throughout all the world, not merely for the reasons already mentioned, but
   also because the nations would in that event have been obliged to go to war
   in defence of their native lands. . . . . How, then, could this doctrine of
   peace, which does not even permit vengeance upon an enemy, have prevailed
   throughout the world, had not the circumstances of the world passed
   everywhere into a milder phase at the advent of Jesus?”

   [49] Cp. Stephan in Raumer's Histor. Taschenbuch (1868), pp. 1 f., and
   Zahn's Weltverkehr und Kirche während der drei ersten Jahrhunderte (1877).
   That one Phrygian merchant voyaged to Rome (according to the inscription on
   a tomb) no fewer than seventy-two times in the course of his life, is itself
   a fact which must never be lost sight of.

   [50] It is surprising to notice this blending of nationalities, whenever any
   inscription bears a considerable number of names (soldiers, pages, martyrs,
   etc.), and at the same time mentions their origin.

   [51] At this point (in order to illustrate these four paragraphs) Renan's
   well-known summary may be cited (Les Apôtres, ch. xvi.): “The unity of the
   empire was the essential presupposition of any comprehensive proselytizing
   movement which should transcend the limits of nationality. In the fourth
   century the empire realised this: it became Christian; it perceived that
   Christianity was the religion which it had matured involuntarily; it
   recognized in Christianity the religion whose limits were the same as its
   own, the religion which was identified with itself and capable of infusing
   new life into its being. The church, for her part, became thoroughly Roman,
   and to this day has remained a survival of the old Roman empire. Had anyone
   told Paul that Claudius was his main coadjutor, had anyone told Claudius
   that this Jew, starting from Antioch, was preparing the ground for the most
   enduring part of the imperial system, both Paul and Claudius would have been
   mightily astonished. Nevertheless both sayings would have been true.”

   [52] As Uhlhorn remarks very truly (Die christliche Liebesthätigkeit in der
   alten Kirche, 1882, p. 37; Eng. trans. pp. 40-42): “From the time of the
   emperors onwards a new influence made itself felt, and unless we notice this
   influence, we cannot understand the first centuries of the early Christian
   church, we cannot understand its rapid extension and its relatively rapid
   triumph. . . . . Had the stream of new life issuing from Christ encountered
   ancient life when the latter was still unbroken, it would have recoiled
   impotent from the shock. But ancient life had by this time begun to break
   up; its solid foundations had begun to weaken; and, besides, the Christian
   stream fell in with a previous and cognate current of Jewish opinion. In the
   Roman empire there had already appeared a universalism foreign to the
   ancient world. Nationalities had been effaced. The idea of universal
   humanity had disengaged itself from that of nationality. The Stoics had
   passed the word that all men were equal, and had spoken of brotherhood as
   well as of the duties of man towards man. Hitherto despised, the lower
   classes had asserted their position. The treatment of slaves became milder.
   If Cato had compared them to cattle, Pliny sees in them his ‘serving
   friends.’ The position of the artizan improved, and freedmen worked their
   way up, for the guilds provided them not simply with a centre of social
   life, but also with the means of bettering their social position. Women,
   hitherto without any legal rights, received such in increasing numbers.
   Children were looked after. The distribution of grain, originally a
   political institution and nothing more, became a sort of poor-relief system,
   and we meet with a growing number of generous deeds, gifts, and endowments,
   which already exhibit a more humane spirit,” etc.
     _________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER III.

  THE INTERNAL CONDITIONS DETERMINING THE WORLD-WIDE EXPANSION OF THE CHRISTIAN
  RELIGION—RELIGIOUS SYNCRETISM

   In subsequent sections of this book we shall notice a series of the more
   important inner conditions which determined the universal spread of the
   Christian religion. It was by preaching to the poor, the burdened, and the
   outcast, by the preaching and practice of love, that Christianity turned the
   stony, sterile world into a fruitful field for the church. Where no other
   religion could sow and reap, this religion was enabled to scatter its seed
   and to secure a harvest.

   The condition, however, which determined more than anything else the
   propaganda of the religion, lay in the general religious situation during
   the imperial age. It is impossible to attempt here to depict that situation,
   and unluckily we cannot refer to any standard work which does justice to
   such a colossal undertaking, despite the admirable studies and sketches
   (such as those of Tzschirner, Friedländer, Boissier, Réville, and Wissowa)
   [53] which we possess. This being so, we must content ourselves with
   throwing out a few hints along two main lines.

   (1) In spite of the inner evolution of polytheism towards monotheism, the
   relations between Christianity and paganism simply meant the opposition of
   monotheism and polytheism—of polytheism, too, in the first instance, as
   political religion (the imperial cultus). Here Christianity and paganism
   were absolutely opposed. The former burned what the latter adored, and the
   latter burned Christians as guilty of high treason. Christian apologists and
   martyrs were perfectly right in often ignoring every other topic when they
   opened their lips, and in reducing everything to this simple alternative.

   Judaism shared with Christianity this attitude towards polytheism. But then,
   Judaism was a national religion; hence its monotheism was widely tolerated
   simply because it was largely unintelligible. Furthermore, it usually evaded
   any conflict with the State-authorities, and it did not make martyrdom
   obligatory. That a man had to become a Jew in order to be a monotheist, was
   utterly absurd: it degraded the creator of heaven and earth to the level of
   a national god. Besides, if he was a national god, he was not the only one.
   No doubt, up and down the empire there were whispers about the atheism of
   the Jews, thanks to their lack of images; but the charge was never levelled
   in real earnest—or rather, opinion was in such a state of oscillation that
   the usual political result obtained: in dubio pro reo.

   It was otherwise with Christianity. Here the polytheists could have no
   hesitation: deprived of any basis in a nation or a State, destitute alike of
   images and temples, Christianity was simple atheism. The contrast between
   polytheism and monotheism was in this field clear and keen. From the second
   century onwards, the conflict between these two forms of religion was waged
   by Christianity and not by Judaism. The former was aggressive, while as a
   rule the latter had really ceased to fight at all—it devoted itself to
   capturing proselytes.

   From the very outset it was no hopeless struggle. When Christianity came
   upon the scene, the polytheism of the State-religion was not yet eradicated,
   indeed, nor was it eradicated for some time to come; [54] but there were
   ample forces at hand which were already compassing its ruin. It had survived
   the critical epoch during which the republic had changed into a dual control
   and a monarchy; but as for the fresh swarm of religions which were invading
   and displacing it, polytheism could no more exorcise them with the magic
   wand of the imperial cultus than it could dissolve them under the rays of a
   protean cultus of the sun, which sought to bring everything within its
   sweep. Nevertheless polytheism would still have been destined to a long
   career, had it not been attacked secretly or openly by the forces of general
   knowledge, philosophy, and ethics; had it not also been saddled with arrears
   of mythology which excited ridicule and resentment. Statesmen, poets, and
   philosophers might disregard all this, since each of these groups devised
   some method of preserving their continuity with the past. But once the
   common people realized it, or were made to realize it, the conclusion they
   drew in such cases was ruthless. The onset against deities feathered and
   scaly, deities adulterous and infested with vice, and on the other hand
   against idols of wood and stone, formed the most impressive and effective
   factor in Christian preaching for wide circles, circles which in all ranks
   of society down to the lowest classes (where indeed they were most numerous)
   had, owing to experience and circumstances, reached a point at which the
   burning denunciations of the abomination of idolatry could not fail to
   arrest them and bring them over to monotheism. The very position of
   polytheism as the State-religion was in favour of the Christian propaganda.
   Religion faced religion; but whilst the one was new and living, the other
   was old—that is, with the exception of the imperial cultus, in which once
   more it gathered up its forces. No one could tell exactly what had come over
   it. Was it merely equivalent to what was lawful in politics? Or did it
   represent the vast, complicated mass of religiones licitae throughout the
   empire? Who could say?

   (2) This, however, is to touch on merely one side of the matter. The
   religious situation in the imperial age, with the tendencies it cherished
   and the formations it produced—all this was complicated in the extreme.
   Weighty as were the simple antitheses of “monotheism versus polytheism” and
   “strict morality versus laxity and vice'' these cannot be taken as a
   complete summary of the whole position. The posture of affairs throughout
   the empire is no more adequately described by the term “polytheism'' than is
   Christianity, as it was then preached, by the bare term “monotheism.” It was
   not a case of vice and virtue simply facing one another. Here, in fact, we
   must enter into some detail and definition.

   Anyone who considers that the domination of the inner life over external
   empiricism and politics is an illusion and perversion, must date the
   disintegration of the ancient world from Socrates and Plato. Here the two
   tempers stand apart! On the other hand, anyone who regards this domination
   as the supreme advance of man, is not obliged to accompany its development
   down as far as Neo-Platonism. He will not, indeed, be unaware that, even to
   the last, in the time of Augustine, genuine advances were made along this
   line, but he will allow that they were gained at great expense—too great
   expense. This erroneous development began when introspection commenced to
   despise and neglect its correlative in natural science, and to woo
   mysticism, theurgy, astrology, or magic. For more than a century previous to
   the Christian era, this had been going on. At the threshold of the
   transition stands Posidonius, like a second Janus. Looking in one direction,
   he favours a rational idealism; but, in another, he combines this with
   irrational and mystic elements. The sad thing is that these elements had to
   be devised and employed in order to express new emotional values which his
   rational idealism could not manage to guarantee, because it lay spell-bound
   and impotent in intellectualism. Language itself declined to fix the value
   of anything which was not intellectual by nature. Hence the ̔Upernoēton
   emerged, a conception which continued to attract and appropriate what ever
   was mythical and preposterous, allowing it to pass in unchallenged. Myth now
   ceased to be a mere symbol. It became the organic means of expression for
   those higher needs of sentiment and religion whose real nature was a closed
   book to thinkers of the day. On this line of development, Posidonius was
   followed by Philo.

   The inevitable result of all this was a relapse to lower levels; but it was
   a relapse which, as usual, bore all the signs of an innovation. The signs
   pointed to life, but the innovation was ominous. For, while the older
   mythology had been either naïve or political, dwelling in the world of
   ceremony, the new mythology became a confession: it was philosophical, or
   pseudo-philosophical, and to this it owed its sway over the mind, beguiling
   the human spirit until it gradually succeeded in destroying the sense of
   reality and in crippling the proper functions of all the senses within man.
   His eyes grew dim, his ears could hear no longer. At the same time, these
   untoward effects were accompanied by a revival and resuscitation of the
   religious feeling—as a result of the philosophical development. This took
   place about the close of the first century. Ere long it permeated all
   classes in society, and it appears to have increased with every decade
   subsequently to the middle of the second century. This came out in two ways,
   on the principle of that dual development in which a religious upheaval
   always manifests itself. The first was a series of not unsuccessful attempts
   to revivify and inculcate the old religions, by carefully observing
   traditional customs, and by restoring the sites of the oracles and the
   places of worship. Such attempts, however, were partly superficial and
   artificial. They offered no strong or clear expression for the new religious
   cravings of the age. And Christianity held entirely aloof from all this
   restoration of religion. They came into contact merely to collide—this pair
   of alien magnitudes; neither understood the other, and each was driven to
   compass the extermination of its rival (see above).

   The second way in which the resuscitation of religion came about, however,
   was far more potent. Ever since Alexander the Great and his successors, ever
   since Augustus in a later age, the nations upon whose development the
   advance of humanity depended had been living under new auspices. The great
   revolution in the external conditions of their existence has been already
   emphasized; but corresponding to this, and partly in consequence of it, a
   revolution took place in the inner world of religion, which was due in some
   degree to the blending of religions, but pre-eminently to the progress of
   culture and to man's experience inward and outward. No period can be
   specified at which this blending process commenced among the nations lying
   between Egypt and the Euphrates, the Tigris, or Persia; [55] for, so far as
   we are in a position to trace back their history, their religions were, like
   themselves, exposed to constant interchange, whilst their religious theories
   were a matter of give and take. But now the Greek world fell to be added,
   with all the store of knowledge and ideas which it had gained by dint of
   ardent, willing toil, a world lying open to any contribution from the East,
   and in its turn subjecting every element of Eastern origin to the test of
   its own lore and speculation.

   The results already produced by the interchange of Oriental religions,
   including that of Israel, were technically termed, a century ago, “the
   Oriental philosophy of religion,” a term which denoted the broad complex of
   ritual and theory connected with the respective cults, their religious
   ideas, and also scientific speculations such as those of astronomy or of any
   other branch of knowledge which was elevated into the province of religion.
   All this was as indefinite as the title which was meant to comprehend it,
   nor even at present have we made any great progress in this field of
   research. [56] Still, we have a more definite grasp of the complex itself;
   and—although it seems paradoxical to say so—this is a result which we owe
   chiefly to Christian gnosticism. Nowhere else are these vague and various
   conceptions worked out for us so clearly and coherently.

   In what follows I shall attempt to bring out the salient features of this
   “Orientalism.” Naturally it was no rigid entity. At every facet it presented
   elements and ideas of the most varied hue. The general characteristic was
   this that people still retained or renewed their belief in sections of the
   traditional mythology presented in realistic form. To these they did attach
   ideas. It is not possible, as a rule, to ascertain in every case at what
   point and to what extent such ideas overflowed and overpowered the realistic
   element in any given symbol—a fact which makes our knowledge of
   “Orientalism” look extremely defective; for what is the use of fixing down a
   piece of mythology to some definite period and circle, if we cannot be sure
   of its exact value? Was it held literally? Was it transformed into an idea?
   Was it taken metaphorically? Was it the creed of unenlightened piety? Was it
   merely ornamental? And what was its meaning? Theological or cosmological?
   Ethical or historical? Did it embody some event in the remote past, or
   something still in existence, or something only to be realized in the
   future? Or did these various meanings and values flow in and out of one
   another? And was the myth in question felt to be some sacred, undefined
   magnitude, something that could unite with every conceivable coefficient,
   serving as the starting-point for any interpretation whatsoever that one
   chose to put before the world? This last question is to be answered, I
   think, in the affirmative, nor must we forget that in one and the same
   circle the most diverse coefficients were simultaneously attached to any
   piece of mythology.

   Further, we must not lose sight of the varied origin of the myths. The
   earliest spring from the primitive view of nature, in which the clouds were
   in conflict with the light and the night devoured the sun, whilst
   thunderstorms were the most awful revelation of the deity. Or they arose
   from the dream-world of the soul, from that separation of soul and body
   suggested by the dream, and from the cult of the human soul. The next
   stratum may have arisen out of ancient historical reminiscences,
   fantastically exaggerated and elevated into something supernatural. Then
   came the precipitate of primitive attempts at “science” which had gone no
   further, viz., observations of heaven and earth, leading to the knowledge of
   certain regular sequences, which were bound up with religious conceptions.
   All this the soul of man informed with life, endowing it with the powers of
   human consciousness. It was upon this stratum that the great Oriental
   religions rose, as we know them in history, with their special mythologies
   and ritual theories. Then came another stratum, namely, religion in its
   abstract development and alliance with a robust philosophic culture. One
   half of it was apologetic, and the other critical. Yet even there myths
   still took shape. Finally, the last stratum was laid down, viz., the
   glaciation of ancient imaginative fancies and religions produced by a new
   conception of the universe, which the circumstances and experience of
   mankind had set in motion. Under the pressure of this, all existing
   materials were fused together, elements that lay far apart were solidified
   into a unity, and all previous constructions were shattered, while the
   surface of the movement was covered by broken fragments thrown out in a
   broad moraine, in which the débris of all earlier strata were to be found.
   This is the meaning of “syncretism”. Viewed from a distance, it looks like a
   unity, though the unity seems heterogeneous. The forces which have shaped it
   do not meet the eye. What one really sees is the ancient element in its
   composition; the new lies buried under all that catches the eye upon the
   surface.

   This new element consisted in the political and social experience, and in
   speculations of the inner life. It would appear that even before the period
   of its contact with the Greek spirit, “Orientalism” had reached this stage;
   but one of the most unfortunate gaps in our knowledge of the history of
   religion is our inability to determine to what extent “Orientalism” had
   developed on its own lines, independent of this Greek spirit. We must be
   content to ascertain what actually took place, viz., the rise of new ideas
   and emotions which meet us on the soil of Hellenism—that Hellenism which,
   with its philosophy of a matured Platonism and its development of the
   ancient mysteries, coalesced with Orientalism. [57] These new features [58]
   are somewhat as follows:—

   (1) There is the sharp division between the soul (or spirit) and the body:
   the more or less exclusive importance attached to the spirit, and the notion
   that the spirit comes from some other, upper world and is either possessed
   or capable of life eternal: also the individualism involved in all this.

   (2) There is the sharp division between God and the world, with the
   subversion of the naïve idea that they formed a homogeneous unity.

   (3) In consequence of these distinctions we have the sublimation of the
   Godhead, “via negationis et eminentiæ.” The Godhead now becomes for the
   first time incomprehensible and indescribable; yet it is also great and
   good. Furthermore, it is the basis of all things; but the ultimate basis,
   which is simply posited yet cannot be actually grasped.

   (4) As a further result of these distinctions and of the exclusive
   importance attached to the spirit, we have the depreciation of the world,
   the contention that it were better never to have existed, that it was the
   result of a blunder, and that it was a prison or at best a penitentiary for
   the spirit.

   (5) There is the conviction that the connection with the flesh (“that soiled
   robe”) depreciated and stained the spirit; in fact, that the latter would
   inevitably be ruined unless the connection were broken or its influence
   counteracted.

   (6) There is the yearning for redemption, as a redemption from the world,
   the flesh, mortality, and death.

   (7) There is the conviction that all redemption is redemption to life
   eternal, and that it is dependent on knowledge and expiation: that only the
   soul that knows (knows itself, the Godhead, and the nature and value of
   being) and is pure (i.e., purged from sin) can be saved.

   (8) There is the certainty that the redemption of the soul as a return to
   God is effected through a series of stages, just as the soul once upon a
   time departed from God by stages, till it ended in the present vale of
   tears. All instruction upon redemption is therefore instruction upon “the
   return and road'” to God. The consummation of redemption is simply a
   graduated ascent.

   (9) There is the belief (naturally a wavering belief) that the anticipated
   redemption or redeemer was already present, needing only to be sought out:
   present, that is, either in some ancient creed which simply required to be
   placed in a proper light, or in one of the mysteries which had only to be
   made more generally accessible, or in some personality whose power and
   commands had to be followed, or even in the spirit, if only it would turn
   inward on itself.

   (10) There is the conviction that whilst knowledge is indispensable to all
   the media of redemption, it cannot be adequate; on the contrary, they must
   ultimately furnish and transmit an actual power divine. It is the
   “initiation” (the mystery or sacrament) which is combined with the
   impartation of knowledge, by which alone the spirit is subdued, by which it
   is actually redeemed and delivered from the bondage of mortality and sin by
   means of mystic rapture.

   (11) There is the prevalent, indeed the fundamental opinion that knowledge
   of the universe, religion, and the strict management of the individual's
   conduct, must form a compact unity; they must constitute an independent
   unity, which has nothing whatever to do with the State, society, the family,
   or one's daily calling, and must therefore maintain an attitude of negation
   (i.e. in the sense of asceticism) towards all these spheres.

   The soul, God, knowledge, expiation, asceticism, redemption, eternal life,
   with individualism and with humanity substituted for nationality—these were
   the sublime thoughts which were living and operative, partly as the
   precipitate of deep inward and outward movements, partly as the outcome of
   great souls and their toil, partly as one result of the sublimation of all
   cults which took place during the imperial age. Wherever vital religion
   existed, it was in this circle of thought and experience that it drew
   breath. The actual number of those who lived within the circle is a matter
   of no moment. “All men have not faith.” And the history of religion, so far
   as it is really a history of vital religion, runs always in a very narrow
   groove.

   The remarkable thing is the number of different guises in which such
   thoughts were circulating. Like all religious accounts of the universe which
   aim at reconciling monistic and dualistic theories, they required a large
   apparatus for their intrinsic needs; but the tendency was to elaborate this
   still further, partly in order to provide accommodation for whatever might
   be time-honoured or of any service, partly because isolated details had an
   appearance of weakness which made people hope to achieve their end by dint
   of accumulation. Owing to the heterogeneous character of their apparatus,
   these syncretistic formations seem often to be totally incongruous. But this
   is a superficial estimate. A glance at their motives and aims reveals the
   presence of a unity, and indeed of simplicity, which is truly remarkable.
   The final motives, in fact, are simple and powerful, inasmuch as they have
   sprung from simple but powerful experiences of the inner life, and it was
   due to them that the development of religion advanced, so far as any such
   advance took place apart from Christianity.

   Christianity had to settle with this “syncretism'” or final form of
   Hellenism. But we can see at once how inadequate it would be to describe the
   contrast between Christianity and “paganism” simply as the contrast between
   monotheism and polytheism. No doubt, any form of syncretism was perfectly
   capable of blending with polytheism; the one even demanded and could not but
   intensify the other. To explain the origin of the world and also to describe
   the soul's “return,” the “apparatus” of the system required æons,
   intermediate beings, semi-gods, and deliverers; the highest deity was not
   the highest or most perfect, if it stood by itself. Yet all this way of
   thinking was monotheistic at bottom; it elevated the highest God to the
   position of primal God, high above all gods, linking the soul to this primal
   God and to him alone (not to any subordinate deities). [59] Polytheism was
   relegated to a lower level from the supremacy which once it had enjoyed.
   Further, as soon as Christianity itself began to be reflective, it took an
   interest in this “syncretism,” borrowing ideas from it, and using them, in
   fact, to promote its own development. Christianity was not originally
   syncretistic itself, for Jesus Christ did not belong to this circle of
   ideas, and it was his disciples who were responsible for the primitive
   shaping of Christianity. But whenever Christianity came to formulate ideas
   of God, Jesus, sin, redemption, and life, it drew upon the materials
   acquired in the general process of religious evolution, availing itself of
   all the forms which these had taken.

   Christian preaching thus found itself confronted with the old polytheism at
   its height in the imperial cultus, and with this syncretism which
   represented the final stage of Hellenism. These constituted the inner
   conditions under which the young religion carried on its mission. From its
   opposition to polytheism it drew that power of antithesis and exclusiveness
   which is a force at once needed and intensified by any independent religion.
   In syncretism, again, i.e., in all that as a rule deserved the title of
   “religion” in contemporary life, it possessed unconsciously a secret ally.
   All it had to do with syncretism was to cleanse and simplify—and complicate
   —it.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [53] Add the sketch of the history of Greek religion by
   Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (Jahrb. des Freien deutschen Hochstifts, 1904).

   [54] Successful attempts to revive it were not awanting; see under (2) in
   this section.

   [55] It is still a moot point of controversy whether India had any share in
   this, and if so to what extent; some connection with India, however, does
   seem probable.

   [56] The origin of the separate elements, in particular, is frequently
   obscure—whether Indian, Persian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Asiatic, etc.

   [57] The convergence of these lines of development in the various nations of
   antiquity during the age of Hellenism is among the best-established facts of
   history. Contemporary ideas of a cognate or similar nature were not simply
   the result of mutual interaction, but also of an independent development
   along parallel lines. This makes it difficult, and indeed impossible in many
   cases, to decide on which branch any given growth sprang up. The similarity
   of the development on parallel lines embraced not only the ideas, but
   frequently their very method of expression and the form under which they
   were conceived. The bounds of human fancy in this province are narrower than
   is commonly supposed.

   [58] Cp. further the essay of Loofs on “The Crisis of Christianity in the
   Second Century” (Deutsch-evang. Blätter, 1904, Heft 7), which depicts the
   problem occasioned by the meeting of Christianity and syncretism. Also, the
   penetrating remarks of Wernle in his Anfängen unserer Religion (2nd ed.,
   1904; Eng. trans., The Beginnings of Christianity, in this library).

   [59] The difference between the Christian God and the God of syncretistic
   Hellenism is put by the pagan (Porphyry) in Macarius Magnes, iv. 20, with
   admirable lucidity: to mentoi peri tēs monarchias tou monou theou kai tēs
   poluarchias tōn sebomenōn theōn diarrēdēn zētēsōmen, hōn ouk oidas oude tēs
   monarchias ton logon aphēgēsasthai. Monarchēs gar estin ouch ho monos ōn
   all' ho monos archōn; archei d' homophulōn dēladē kai homoiōn, hoion
   Hadrianos ho basileus monarchēs gegonen, ouch hoti monos ēō oud' hoti boōn
   kai probatōn ērchen, hōn archousi poimenes ē boukoloi, all' hoti anthrōpōn
   ebasileuse tōn homogenōn tēn autēn phusin echontōn; hōsautōs theos ouk an
   monarchēs kuriōs eklēthē, ei mē theōn ērche. touto gar eprepe tō theiō
   megethei kai tō ouraniō kai pollō axiōmati (“Let us, however, proceed to
   inquire explicitly about the monarchy of the one God alone and the
   joint-rule of those deities who are worshipped, but of whom, as of divine
   monarchy, you cannot give any account. A monarch is not one who is alone but
   one who rules alone, ruling subjects of kindred nature like himself—such as
   the emperor Hadrian, for example, who was a monarch not because he stood
   alone or because he ruled sheep and cattle, which are commanded by shepherds
   and herdsmen, but because he was king over human beings whose nature was
   like his own. Even so, it would not have been accurate to term God a
   monarch, if he did not rule over gods. For such a position befitted the
   dignity of God and the high honour of heaven”). Here the contrast between
   the Christian and the Greek monarchianism is clearly defined. Only, it
   should be added that many philosophic Christians (even in the second
   century) did not share this severely monotheistic idea of God; in fact, as
   early as the first century we come across modifications of it. Tertullian
   (in adv. Prax. iii.), even in recapitulating the view of God which passed
   for orthodox at that period, comes dangerously near to Porphyry in the
   remark: “Nullam dico dominationem ita unius esse, ita singularem, ita
   monarchiam, ut non etiam per alias proximas personas administretur, quas
   ipsa prospexerit officiales sibi” (“No dominion, I hold, belongs to any one
   person in such a way, or is in such a sense singular, or in such a sense a
   monarchy, as not also to be administered through other persons who are
   closely related to it, and with whom it has provided itself as its
   officials”). The school of Origen went still further in their reception of
   syncretistic monotheism, and the movement was not checked until the Nicene
   creed came with its irrational doctrine of the Trinity, causing the Logos
   and the Spirit to be conceived as persons within the Godhead. But although
   the pagan monarchical idea was routed on this field, it had already
   entrenched itself in the doctrine of angels. The latter, as indeed Porphyry
   (iv. 20) observed, is thoroughly Hellenic, since it let in polytheism
   through a back-door. In iv. 23 Porphyry tries to show Christians that as
   their scriptures taught a plurality of gods, they consequently contained the
   conception of God's monarchy which the Greeks taught. He refers to Exod.
   xxii. 28, Jerem. vii. 6, Deut. xii. 30, Josh. xxiv. 14, 1 Cor. viii. 5.
     _________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER IV.

  JESUS CHRIST AND THE UNIVERSAL MISSION

   It is impossible to answer the question of Jesus' relation to the universal
   mission, without a critical study of the evangelic records. The gospels were
   written in an age when the mission was already in full swing, and they
   consequently refer it to direct injunction of Jesus. But they enable us, for
   all that, to recognise the actual state of matters.

   Jesus addressed his gospel—his message of God's imminent kingdom and of
   judgment, of God's fatherly providence, of repentance, holiness, and love—to
   his fellow-countrymen. He preached only to Jews. Not a syllable shows that
   he detached this message from its national soil, or set aside the
   traditional religion as of no value. Upon the contrary, his preaching could
   be taken as the most powerful corroboration of that religion. He did not
   attach himself to any of the numerous “liberal” or syncretistic Jewish
   conventicles or schools. He did not accept their ideas. Rather he took his
   stand upon the soil of Jewish rights, i.e., of the piety maintained by
   Pharisaism. But he showed that while the Pharisees preserved what was good
   in religion, they were perverting it none the less, and that the perversion
   amounted to the most heinous of sins. Jesus waged war against the selfish,
   self-righteous temper in which many of the Pharisees fulfilled and practised
   their piety—a temper, at bottom, both loveless and godless. This protest
   already involved a break with the national religion, for the Pharisaic
   position passed for that of the nation; indeed, it represented the national
   religion. But Jesus went further. He traversed the claim that the
   descendants of Abraham, in virtue of their descent, were sure of salvation,
   and based the idea of divine sonship exclusively upon repentance, humility,
   faith, and love. In so doing, he disentangled religion from its national
   setting. Men, not Jews, were to be its adherents. Then, as it became plainer
   than ever that the Jewish people as a whole, and through their
   representatives, were spurning his message, he announced with increasing
   emphasis that a judgment was coming upon “the children of the kingdom” and
   prophesied, as his forerunner had done already, that the table of his Father
   would not lack for guests, but that a crowd would pour in, morning, noon,
   and night, from the highways and the hedges. Finally, he predicted the
   rejection of the nation and the overthrow of the temple, but these were not
   to involve the downfall of his work; on the contrary, he saw in them, as in
   his own passion, the condition of his work's completion.

   Such is the “universalism” of the preaching of Jesus. No other kind of
   universalism can be proved for him, and consequently he cannot have given
   any command upon the mission to the wide world. The gospels contain such a
   command, but it is easy to show that it is neither genuine nor a part of the
   primitive tradition. It would introduce an entirely strange feature into the
   preaching of Jesus, and at the same time render many of his genuine sayings
   unintelligible or empty. One might even argue that the universal mission was
   an inevitable issue of the religion and spirit of Jesus, and that its
   origin, not only apart from any direct word of Jesus, but in verbal
   contradiction to several of his sayings, is really a stronger testimony to
   the method, the strength, and the spirit of his preaching than if it were
   the outcome of a deliberate command. By the fruit we know the tree; but we
   must not look for the fruit in the root. With regard to the way in which he
   worked and gathered disciples, the distinctiveness of his person and his
   preaching comes out very clearly. He sought to found no sect or school. He
   laid down no rules for outward adhesion to himself. His aim was to bring men
   to God and to prepare them for God's kingdom. He chose disciples, indeed,
   giving them special instruction and a share in his work; but even here there
   were no regulations. There were an inner circle of three, an outer circle of
   twelve, and beyond that a few dozen men and women who accompanied him. In
   addition to that, he had intimate friends who remained in their homes and at
   their work. Wherever he went, he wakened or found children of God throughout
   the country. No rule or regulation bound them together. They simply sought
   and shared the supreme boon which came home to each and all, viz., the
   kingdom of their Father and of the individual soul. In the practice of this
   kind of mission Jesus has had but one follower, and he did not arise till a
   thousand years afterwards. He was St Francis of Assisi.

   If we leave out of account the words put by our first evangelist into the
   lips of the risen Jesus (Matt. xxviii. 19 f.), with the similar expressions
   which occur in the unauthentic appendix to the second gospel (Mark xvi. 15,
   20), and if we further set aside the story of the wise men from the East, as
   well as one or two Old Testament quotations which our first evangelist has
   woven into his tale (cp. Matt. iv. 13 f., xii. 18), we must admit that Mark
   and Matthew have almost consistently withstood the temptation to introduce
   the Gentile mission into the words and deeds of Jesus. Jesus called sinners
   to himself, ate with tax-gatherers, attacked the Pharisees and their legal
   observance, made everything turn upon mercy and justice, and predicted the
   downfall of the temple—such is the universalism of Mark and Matthew. The
   very choice and commission of the twelve is described without any mention of
   a mission to the world (Mark iii. 13 f., vi. 7 f., and Matt. x. 1 f.). In
   fact, Matthew expressly limits their mission to Palestine. “Go not on the
   road of the Gentiles, and enter no city of the Samaritans; rather go to the
   lost sheep of the house of Israel “ (Matt. x. 5, 6). And so in x. 23: “Ye
   shall not have covered the cities of Israel, before the Son of man comes.”
   [60] The story of the Syro-Phœnician woman is almost of greater
   significance. Neither evangelist leaves it open to question that this
   incident represented an exceptional case for Jesus; [61] and the exception
   proves the rule.

   In Mark this section on the Syro-Phœnician woman is the only passage where
   the missionary efforts of Jesus appear positively restricted to the Jewish
   people in Palestine. Matthew, however, contains not merely the address on
   the disciples' mission, but a further saying (xix. 28), to the effect that
   the twelve are one day to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. No word here of
   the Gentile mission. [62]

   Only twice does Mark make Jesus allude to the gospel being preached in
   future throughout the world: in the eschatological address (xiii. 10, “The
   gospel must first be preached to all the nations,” i.e., before the end
   arrives), and in the story of the anointing at Bethany (xiv. 9), where we
   read: “Wherever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world,
   what this woman hath done shall be also told, in memory of her.” The former
   passage puts into the life of Jesus an historical theologoumenon, which is
   hardly original. The latter excites strong suspicion, not with regard to
   what precedes it, but in connection with the saying of Jesus in verses 8-9.
   It is a hysteron proteron, and moreover the solemn assurance is striking.
   Some obscure controversy must underlie the words—a controversy which turned
   upon the preceding scene not only when it happened, but at a still later
   date. Was it ever suspected? [63]

   These two sayings are also given in Matthew [64] (xxiv. 14, xxvi. 13), who
   preserves a further saying which has the Gentile world in view, yet whose
   prophetic manner arouses no suspicion of its authenticity. In viii. 11 we
   read: “I tell you, many shall come from east and west, and sit down with
   Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the sons of the
   kingdom shall be cast out.” Why should not Jesus have said this? Even among
   the words of John the Baptist (iii. 9) do we not read: “Think not to say to
   yourselves, we have Abraham as our father; for I tell you, God is able to
   raise up children for Abraham out of these stones”?

   We conclude, then, that both evangelists refrain from inserting any allusion
   to the Gentile mission into the framework of the public preaching of Jesus,
   apart from the eschatological address and the somewhat venturesome
   expression which occurs in the story of the anointing at Bethany. But while
   Matthew delimits the activity of Jesus positively and precisely, Mark adopts
   what we may term a neutral position, though for all that he does not
   suppress the story of the Syro-Phœnician woman.

   All this throws into more brilliant relief than ever the words of the risen
   Jesus in Matt. xxviii. 19 f. Matthew must have been fully conscious of the
   disparity between these words and the earlier words of Jesus; nay, more, he
   must have deliberately chosen to give expression to that disparity. [65] At
   the time when our gospels were written, a Lord and Saviour who had confined
   his preaching to the Jewish people without even issuing a single command to
   prosecute the universal mission, was an utter impossibility. If no such
   command had been issued before his death, it must have been imparted by him
   as the glorified One.

   The conclusion, therefore, must be that Jesus never issued such a command at
   all, but that this version of his life was due to the historical
   developments of a later age, the words being appropriately put into the
   mouth of the risen Lord. Paul, too, knew nothing of such a general command.
   [66]

   Luke's standpoint, as a reporter of the words of Jesus, does not differ from
   that of the two previous evangelists, a fact which is perhaps most
   significant of all. He has delicately coloured the introductory history with
   universalism, [67] while at the close, like Matthew, he makes the risen
   Jesus issue the command to preach the gospel to all nations. [68] But in his
   treatment of the intervening material he follows Mark; that is, he preserves
   no sayings which expressly confine the activity of Jesus to the Jewish
   nation, [69] but, on the other hand, he gives neither word nor incident
   which describes that activity as universal, [70] and at no point does he
   deliberately correct the existing tradition. [71]

   In this connection the fourth gospel need not be considered at all. After
   the Gentile mission, which had been undertaken with such ample results
   during the first two Christian generations, the fourth gospel expands the
   horizon of Christ's preaching and even of John the Baptist's; corresponding
   to this, it makes the Jews a reprobate people from the very outset, despite
   the historical remark in iv. 22. Even setting aside the prologue, we at once
   come upon (i. 29) the words put into the mouth of the Baptist, “Behold the
   Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” And, as a whole, the
   gospel is saturated with statements of a directly universalistic character.
   Jesus is the Saviour of the world, and God so loved the world that he sent
   him. We may add passages like those upon the “other sheep” and the one flock
   (x. l6). But the most significant thing of all is that this gospel makes
   Greeks ask after Jesus (xii. 20 f.), the latter furnishing a formal
   explanation of the reasons why he could not satisfy the Greeks as yet. He
   must first of all die. It is as the exalted One that he will first succeed
   in drawing all men to himself. We can feel here the pressure of a serious
   problem.

   It would be misleading to introduce here any sketch of the preaching of
   Jesus, or even of its essential principles, [72] for it never became the
   missionary preaching of the later period even to the Jews. It was the basis
   of that preaching, for the gospels were written down in order to serve as a
   means of evangelization; but the mission preaching was occupied with the
   messiahship of Jesus, his speedy return, and his establishment of God's
   kingdom (if Jews were to be met), or with the unity of God, creation, the
   Son of God, and judgment (if Gentiles were to be reached). Alongside of this
   the words of Jesus of course exercised a silent and effective mission of
   their own, whilst the historical picture furnished by the gospels, together
   with faith in the exalted Christ, exerted a powerful influence over
   catechumens and believers.

   Rightly and wisely, people no longer noticed the local and temporal traits
   either in this historical sketch or in these sayings. They found there a
   vital love of God and men, which may be described as implicit universalism;
   a discounting of everything external (position, personality, sex, outward
   worship, etc.), which made irresistibly for inwardness of character; and a
   protest against the entire doctrines of “the ancients,” which gradually
   rendered antiquity valueless. [73] One of the greatest revolutions in the
   history of religion was initiated in this way—initiated and effected,
   moreover, without any revolution! All that Jesus Christ promulgated was the
   overthrow of the temple, and the judgment impending upon the nation and its
   leaders. He shattered Judaism, and brought out the kernel of the religion of
   Israel. Thereby—i.e., by his preaching of God as the Father, and by his own
   death—he founded the universal religion, which at the same time was the
   religion of the Son.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [60] This verse precludes the hypothesis that the speech of Jesus referred
   merely to a provisional mission. If the saying is genuine, the Gentile
   mission cannot have lain within the horizon of Jesus.—There is no need to
   take the hēgemones and basileisof Matt. x. 18, Mark xiii. 9 as pagans, and
   Matthew's addition (omitted by Mark) of kai tois ethnesin to the words eis
   marturion autois can hardly be understood except as a supplement in the
   sense of xxviii. 19 f. Though Mark (vi. 7 f.; cp. Luke ix. 1 f.) omits the
   limitation of the mission to Palestine and the Jewish people, he does not
   venture to assign the mission any universal scope. “Mark never says it in so
   many words, nor does he lay any stress upon it; but it is self-evident that
   he regards the mission of Jesus as confined to the Jews” (Wellhausen on Mark
   vii. 29).

   [61] According to Matthew (xv. 24), Jesus distinctly says, “I was sent only
   to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The prōton of Mark vii. 27 is not
   to be pressed, as it is by many editors.

   [62] Here we may also include the saying; “Pray that your flight occur not
   on the Sabbath” (Matt. xxiv. 20). Note further that the parable of the two
   sons (Matt. xxi. 28 f.) does not refer to Jews and Gentiles. The labourers
   in the vineyard (Matt. xx. 1 f.) are not to be taken as Gentiles—not, at any
   rate, as the evangelist tells the story. Nor are Gentiles to be thought of
   even in xxii. 9.

   [63] I leave out of account the section on the wicked husbandmen, as it says
   nothing about the Gentile mission either in Mark's version (xii. 1 f.), or
   in Matthew's (xxi. 33 f.). The words of Matt. xxi. 43 (“God's kingdom shall
   be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof”) do not refer to the
   Gentiles; it is the “nation” as opposed to the official Israel, Mark on
   purpose speaks merely of “others,” to whom the vineyard is to be given. “On
   purpose,” I say, for we may see from this very allegory, which can hardly
   have been spoken by Jesus himself (see Jülicher's Gleichnissreden ii. pp.
   405 f., though I would not commit myself on the point), how determined Mark
   was to keep the Gentile mission apart from the gospel, and how consistently
   Matthew retains the setting of the latter within the Jewish nation. The
   parable invited the evangelists to represent Jesus making some allusion to
   the Gentile mission, but both of them resisted the invitation (see further,
   Luke xx. 9 f.). Wellhausen (on Matt. xxi. 43) also observes: “By the phrase
   ‘another nation’ we may understand that Jewish, not simply Gentile,
   Christians were so meant; for ethnos is characterised ethically, not
   nationally.”

   [64] We may disregard the sayings in v. 13-14 (“Ye are the salt of the
   earth,” “Ye are the light of the world “), as well as the fact that in Mark
   alone (xi. 17) pasi tois ethnesin (a citation from Isa. lvi. 7) is added to
   the words: “My house shall be a house of prayer.” The addition “emphasizes
   not the universality of the house of prayer, but simply the idea of the
   house of prayer” (Wellhausen).

   [65] Unless xxviii. 19 f. is a later addition to the gospel. It is
   impossible to be certain on this point. There is a certain subtlety, of
   which one would fain believe the evangelist was incapable, in keeping his
   Gentile Christian readers, as it were, upon the rack with sayings which
   confined the gospel to Israel, just in order to let them off in the closing
   paragraph. Nor are the former sayings presented in such a way as to suggest
   that they were afterwards to be taken back. On the other hand, we must
   observe that the first evangelist opens with the story of the wise men from
   the East (though even this section admits of a strictly Jewish Christian
   interpretation), that he includes viii. 11, that he shows his interest in
   the people who sat in darkness (iv. 13 f.), that he describes Jesus (xii.
   21) as One in whose name the Gentiles trust, that he contemplates the
   preaching of the gospel to all the Gentiles in the eschatological speech and
   in the story of the anointing at Bethany, and that no positive proofs can be
   adduced for regarding xxviii. 19 f. as an interpolation. It is advisable,
   then, to credit the writer with a remarkable historical sense, which made
   him adhere almost invariably to the traditional framework of Christ's
   preaching, in order to break it open at the very close of his work. Mark's
   method of procedure was more simple: he excluded the missionary question
   altogether; at least that is the only explanation of his attitude.

   [66] It is impossible and quite useless to argue with those who see nothing
   but an inadmissible bias in the refusal to accept traditions about Jesus
   eating and drinking and instructing his disciples after death.

   [67] Cp. i. 32 (“Son of the Highest”), ii. 10, 11 (“joy to all people,”
   “Saviour”), ii. 14 (“gloria in excelsis”), ii. 32 (“a light to lighten the
   Gentiles “), and also (iii. 23 f.) the genealogy of Jesus traced back to
   Adam.

   [68] xxiv. 47, also Acts i. 8: “Ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem
   and in all Judæa and in Samaria, and to the uttermost part of the earth.”

   [69] An indirect allusion to the limitation of his mission might be found in
   xxii. 30 =