of Jewish narrowness; the doctrine of a future life of rewards and punishments; the power of working miracles, ascribed to the primitive church; the pure and austere morals of the Christians; and the union and discipline of the Christian republic-the ecclesiastical community.1

But, it has been pertinently remarked, Gibbon has not thought of accounting for the combination of these causes. "If they are ever so available for his purpose, still that availableness arises out of their coincidence, and out of what does that coincidence arise? Until this is explained, nothing is explained, and the question had better have been let alone. These presumed causes are quite distinct from each other, and, I say, the wonder is how they came together. How came a multitude of Gentiles to be influenced with Jewish zeal? How came zealots to submit to a strict ecclesiastical régime? What connection has such a régime with the immortality of the soul? Why should immortality, a philosophical doctrine, lead to belief in miracles, which is a superstition of the vulgar? What tendency had miracles and magic to make men austerely virtuous? Lastly, what power had a code of virtue as calm and enlightened as that of Antoninus to generate a zeal as fierce as that of Maccabeus? Wonderful events before now have apparently been nothing but coincidences, certainly; but they do not become less wonderful by cataloguing their constituent causes, unless we also show how these came to be constituent." 2

Another natural reflection is that Gibbon's causes are separately the effects of Christianity, and, as such, are themselves to be accounted for. Whence the zeal of the first Christians? How could it be derived from the Jews, since most of the propagandists of the Gospel in the first

1 Decline and Fall, ch. xv.

2 Dr. J. H. Newman, Grammar of Assent, pp. 445, 446.

three centuries were of Gentile extraction? And if derived from the Jews, how did this zeal become purged of the bigotry and exclusiveness that had belonged to it? Whence the doctrine of the future life, as a living faith, in the midst of the skeptical Roman world? How came this doctrine, freed from the images of an immoral and superstitious fancy, to seize on the convictions of Christian believers? If the power to work miracles was sincerely claimed, what was the source of this real or imaginary power? How were the morals of the first Christians purified, in the midst of the debasing influences that encircled them? And what gave coherence and unity to the organized Christian society? Lying back of these agencies, to which the rapid spread of the Gospel is ascribed, there must be something else out of which they themselves spring.

But, as Dr. Newman so clearly points out, these causes are not shown to be operative in the way and to the extent which Gibbon alleges. He means by zeal, the esprit de corps of the first Christians, or their party spirit. How does this operate to bring men into a society? The "old wine of Judaism, decanted into new Christian bottles" "would be too flat a stimulant, even if it admitted of such a transference." How did the Christian doctrine of future punishment for it is this which Gibbon has in mind, when he speaks of the doctrine of a future life-get credence when "the belief in Styx and Tartarus was dying out?" How could the claim to work miracles make so strong an impression among those "who had plenty of portents of their own?" How could the virtues of the Christians attract those who did not love virtue, and who must practice the Christian virtues in the face of the rack. and the wild beasts of the amphitheatre? How could the unity of organization in the Church draw in the world out

side, whatever power it might exert in holding those who had once entered within its pale? 1

The statements of Gibbon undoubtedly suggest aspects of Christianity in which its power was manifested, and through which in part it won its conquests. But he leaves out what was the life and soul of the Christian religion, and the secret of its power, the thought of Christ, the image of Christ, the great object of love and hope, and the source of inspiration. The zeal was zeal for a person, and for a cause identified with Him; the belief in the future life sprang out of faith in Him who had died and risen again, and ascended to Heaven; the miraculous powers of the early disciples were consciously connected with the same source; the purification of morals, and the fraternal unity, which lay at the basis of ecclesiastical association, among the early Christians, were likewise the fruit of their relation to Christ, and their common love to Him. The victory of Christianity in the Roman world was the victory of Christ, who was lifted up that He might draw all men unto Him.

When we cast about for the proximate causes, or auxiliaries, in this wonderful historical change, which, in the course of three centuries, advanced an unimportant, despised sect to the throne of the Cæsars, the one most worthy of notice is the powerful appeal which the new religion made everywhere to the poor and oppressed, and to all the multitudes for whom the world had little to offer in the way of joy or hope. From the outset, women recognized in the new religion a blessing for them, greater than had ever before seemed possible. The adaptedness of the Christian faith to all such, which was made a reproach against it by supercilious antagonists, constitutes one of its chief glories, as it certainly was no small part of the means of its success.

1 Ibid., pp. 446, 447.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE FIRST

CENTURY.

THE first glimpse which is afforded us, in the Book of Acts, of the infant Church at Jerusalem, reveals the vigor of the new organific principle which united its members in one body, notwithstanding their continued recognition of the rites and obligations of the Old Covenant. It wore the semblance of a Jewish sect; and Jewish sects were not like modern non-conformists. They generally added peculiarities of doctrine and practice to the faith and worship which belonged to them in common with their countrymen. Belief in Jesus as the Messiah was the inspiring creed of the new community which Luke describes. They still observed the regular hours prescribed by Jewish devotion for daily prayer (Acts ii. 46). They had no thought of deserting the temple. And yet they consciously formed a brotherhood, united in the closest bond. Superadded to the prayers which they offered each day, in conjunction with the people generally, in the great Sanctuary of the nation, they met in their own place of assembly, or in a private house. There they joined in a common meal, which concluded with a solemn partaking of bread and wine,— the whole being a commemoration of the Last Supper of the Lord with His Disciples. This meal, accompanied with prayer and song, and which at a later day received the name of Agape, or Feast of Love, was the original

method of celebrating the Lord's Supper. It was one great family, gathering about a common table, and signifying by this means-so natural and familiar in all ages— their union with one another, and with the absent Head of the Household. The common meal of the Essenes was something analogous among the Jews. Among the Greeks, the banquets where the participants brought the provisions, or where they were bought from a common fund, and the sodalities or clubs, which ate together occasionally, and had arrangements for mutual help in distress, as by the loan of money, afforded some distant resemblance to the Feasts of Love which existed in the early churches wherever Christianity spread. Among the heathen converts, they took place towards night, at the usual time of the principal meal. They came to be held once a week, on the Lord's day. The men and women sat at different tables. The repast was introduced by a prayer of blessing, and closed with a prayer of thanksgiving, or the Eucharist, from which the name of the Lord's Supper was derived; the meal thus maintaining a likeness to the Last Supper of Jesus, and to the Passover. When the younger Pliny wrote his letter to Trajan respecting the Christians in Bithynia (A. D. 112), the Communion still took place there late in the day, in connection with the Agape. Thirty or forty years afterwards, as we gather from Justin Martyr,' the separation had taken place; and while the Agape was late in the afternoon, the Eucharist was celebrated in the morning. Occasional disorders which occurred in connection with the Feasts of Charity, would naturally lead to such a change; and the more a feeling of mysterious sanctity associated itself with the distribution and reception of the Bread and Cup, the stronger the inclination naturally was to place the Holy Commemoration by itself, 1 Apol. i. 66 seq.