THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY WITH A VIEW OF THE STATE OF THE ROMAN WORLD AT THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. CHAPTER I. THE NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY AND ITS RELATION TO THE JEWISH AND HEATHEN RELIGIONS. CHRISTIANITY is an historical religion. It is made up of events, or, to say the least, springs out of events which, however peculiar in their origin, form a part of the history of mankind. This characteristic of Christianity is suggested on the first page of the New Testament, where we find the genealogy of Jesus carried back, through David, to Abraham, the progenitor of the Hebrew nation. The Evangelist Luke, a Gentile by birth, sets his narrative in connection with universal history. He tells us that "in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea," Herod and others ruling in Palestine and the adjacent districts, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests at Jerusalem, there began the series of events which he proposes to record. He will describe transactions that took place, at a definite epoch, in a particular province of the Roman Empire. And the lineage of Jesus he follows back to Adam. The Apostle Paul refers to the birth of Christ as having occurred "when the fulness of time was come."3 His thought evidently is, 1. Luke iii. 1, 2. 2 Luke iii. 38. Gal. iv. 4. not only that a certain measure of time must run out, but that a train of historical events and changes must occur which have the coming of Christ for their proper sequence. Of the nature of these antecedents in the previous course of history, he speaks when he has occasion to discuss the relation of the Mosaic dispensation to the Christian, and to point out the aims of Providence in regard to the Gentile nations. It was formerly a mistake of both Orthodox and Rationalist to look upon Christianity too exclusively as a system of doctrine addressed to the understanding. Revelation has been thought of as a communication written on high, and let down from the skies,-delivered to men as the Sibylline books were said to have been conveyed to Tarquin. Or, it has been considered, like the philosophical system of Plato, a creation of the human intellect, busying itself with the problems of life and destiny: the tacit assumption in either case being that Christianity is merely a body of doctrine. The truth is that Revelation is at the core historical. It is embraced in a series of transactions in which men act and participate, but which are referable manifestly to an extraordinary agency of God, who thus discloses, or reveals Himself. The supernatural element does not exclude the natural; miracle is not magic. Over and above teaching, there are laws, institutions, providential guidance, deliverance, and judgment. Here is the ground-work of Revelation. For the interpretation of this extraordinary and exceptional line of historical phenomena, prophets and apostles are raised up,-men inspired to lift the veil and explain the dealings of heaven with men. Here is the doctrinal or theoretical side of Revelation. These individuals behold with an open eye the significance of the events of which they are witnesses, or participants. The facts of secular history require to be illuminated by philosophy. Analogous to this office of philosophy, is the authoritative exposition and comment which we find in the Scriptures along with the historical record. The doctrinal element is not a thing independent, purely theoretic, disconnected from the realities of life and history. These lie at the foundation; on them everything of a didactic nature is based. This fact will be impressively obvious to one who will compare the Bible, as to plan and structure, with the Koran. The character of Revelation is less likely to be misconceived when the design of Revelation is kept in view. The end is not to satisfy the curiosity of those who "seek after wisdom," by the solution of metaphysical problems. The good offered is not science, but salvation. The final cause of Revelation is the recovery of men to communion with God; that is, to true religion. Whatever knowledge is communicated is tributary to this end. Hence the grand aim, under the Old Dispensation and the New, was, not the production of a Book, but the training of a people. To raise up and train up a nation that should become a fit instrument for the moral regeneration of mankind was the aim of the old system. A deep consciousness of this high providential design connected with them as a people, pervades the Hebrew mind from the beginning. In the darkest hours of their national history, this conviction bursts forth in the exultant strains of prophecy. The purpose of Providence might be imperfectly understood, crudely defined, especially in the earlier ages; it might even engender pride and narrowness, and be turned into a spring of fanaticism; yet it was a great, inspiring faith, and has been justified by the history of mankind down to the present hour. The Hebrew people were in the end fitted for the office which, even in the far-distant past, they had expected to fulfill. Under the new or Christian system, the object was not less the training of a people; not, however, with any limitations of race. The fruit of the system was to be a community of men who should be "the light of the world," and "the salt of the earth." The Scriptures which, when collected into a volume, are called the Bible, are the records and monuments of this long process of divine training. They are the original documents through which we get an authentic knowledge of this historical process in its consecutive stages. Whether narratives, devotional lyrics, ethical treatises, the fervid utterances of prophets, or the didactic and admonitory letters of Apostles, the compilation of these writings into a volume was not included in the intention of their several authors. These wrote, as they were moved to write, under the pressure of the circumstances that surrounded them; in some cases to meet special exigencies, in all cases for the particular benefit of those to whom their compositions were delivered. In the growth of the Bible the providential design outran the thoughts and purposes of the individual writers. The grand idea of the kingdom of God is the connecting thread that runs through the entire course of divine Revelation. We behold a kingdom, planted in the remote past, and carried forward to its ripe development, by a series of transactions in which the agency of God mingles in an altogether peculiar way in the current of human affairs. There is a manifestation of God in act and deed. Verbal teaching is the commentary attached to the historic fact, ensuring to the latter its true meaning. For example, the emancipation of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt was the standing illustration of the character of God, who revealed Himself in that act, and the symbol of the great redemption from sin, itself not less an act and achievement than the event which prefigured it. All Apostolic doctrine |