The Historians' History of the World 06

But the great majority of Christians, and first and foremost the bishops their leaders, decided otherwise. It was enough for a man to keep God in his heart and to confess him when open confession was required by magisterial authority—it was enough to refrain from actual idolatry; for the rest the Christian might abide in any honest calling, might come, in the pursuit of it, in contact with the externals of idolatry, and ought to conduct himself prudently and discreetly so as neither to defile himself nor call down persecution upon himself and others. The church everywhere adopted this attitude after the beginning of the third century; and the state thus became the richer by numbers of peaceable, law-abiding, and conscientious citizens, who, far from placing difficulties in its way, were pillars of order and peace in society. The fact that the Christians were remarkable for morality was acknowledged by Galen, the famous physician, as early as the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Thus, by abandoning her attitude of uncompromising repudiation of the “world,” the church developed into a force that made for public order.

(3) There was nothing in Christian doctrine, considered on its merits, that either was dangerous to the state or was bound to be judged dangerous by it, except its exclusiveness. The utterances of Christians concerning Christ their “king” might, indeed, have a revolutionary sound; but the fact that they were harmless was soon patent to all observers. It was not what Christianity taught but what it precluded—tolerance of other religions and the worship of the emperors—that roused well-grounded objections. For the rest, Christian doctrine showed a double face, so to speak, to the Greeks and Romans. Its teaching concerning God, the world, the creation, divine providence, immortality, and the freedom, dignity, and responsibility of man, was both sublime and akin to the loftiest intuitions of the honoured philosophers of old; but mixed up with it was much that sounded to them like myth or fable, or seemed actually repulsive. Such, above all, was the history of Christ (his birth of a virgin, miracles, crucifixion, and ascension). Ordinary Christians laid stress upon the latter element, and hence their religion appeared “outlandish,” absurd, and full of lies. After the time of Hadrian, however, there arose men who expounded and brought to light the philosophico-religious element in Christianity,—monotheism more particularly,—and endeavoured to remove the offence excited by the history and worship of Christ by conceiving of him as the corporeal manifestation of the Logos

, the existence and operation of which was recognised by many of the Greeks. At the same time they endeavoured to force their opponents to accept the facts of his history by demonstrating them to be the fulfilment of prophecy; for that which has been prophesied is brought about by God himself, and human criticism must keep silent in face thereof.

During the course of the second century Christian doctrine did not abandon its peculiar character, but it assimilated more and more the ideas of Greek philosophy and so rendered itself more intelligible. At the beginning of the third century a great Greek philosopher testified of Origen, the most eminent teacher of the church, that concerning God and the world he thought like a Greek; the philosopher only deplored the intermixture of alien fables. When this same Origen is invited to lecture upon immortality before the queen-mother at Antioch, when another doctor of the church corresponds with an empress upon religious questions, and the emperor Alexander Severus listens with admiring attention to the words of Christ, we cannot but see how “doctrine” is becoming by degrees a connecting link between Hellenism and Christianity. Such a fact could not be devoid of consequences as regards the relations between state and church, for no state can permanently maintain a hostile attitude towards a spiritual movement which is held in high esteem by large bodies of its citizens.

(4) Nor must literature be ignored in this connection. Christianity was never altogether without literature, nay, rather, it possessed from the outset a literary work of the highest rank in the Old Testament, of which it had usurped possession. But its title to ownership was contested by the Jews and the heathen, and moreover early Christians produced the impression that they were unlettered folk. This made their claims appear singularly presumptuous and unjustifiable. But the beginning of the second century witnessed a change; the Christians, who at first would have nothing to do with the scribbling art—for why should one write if the end is at hand?—began to make use of this method.