Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/710

Rh (596 CHRISTIANITY And when we turn to the results of modern missionary enterprise we find a success no less remarkable. Causes of Historical critics who have no sympathy with the super natural elements in Christianity have attempted to account for this wonderful success by natural causes, and have pointed out various circumstances which go far to account for the rapidity of its spread. Sceptical critics of a past generation contented themselves with enumerating various distinct causes combining to produce the effect, while naturalist writers of our own day try rather to show that Christianity was the natural outcome of the intellect of the age which produced it. The great disadvantage attaching to the one mode of criticism is that no parade of causes or conditions of success can ever get rid of the supernatural character of Christianity, for it is always impossible to show that these are the only causes at work, and the retort can be made that these causes are themselves part of the supernatural plan for the introduction and furtherance of Christianity, while the other labours under the necessity either of getting rid of the Christ of history and putting in his place an elaborate poem an attempt not yet successful or of reducing the character and work of Jesus to the level of those of Confucius, Buddha, Mahomet, or other founder of a purely naturalist religion. The celebrated five causes of Gibbon are perhaps the best specimen of the one mode of argument, while the elaborate theories of the Tiibingen school are certainly the most noteworthy instance of the other. Gibbon thinks that the Christian faith obtained so remarakable a victory over the established religions of the earth because it was effectually favoured and assisted by the five following causes : 1. The inflexible, and if we may use the expression, the intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived it is true from the Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit, which instead of inviting had deterred the Gentiles from embracing the law of Moses ; 2. The doctrine of a future life improved by every additional circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that important truth ; 3. The miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive church ; 4, The pure and austere morals of the Christians ; 5. The union and discipline of the Christian republic, which gradually formed an independent and increasing state in the heart of the Roman empire. It does not need the possession of an anti-Christian spirit to admit that these causes of Gibbon s may have helped greatly to spread the Christian religion, and indeed the Christian critic has to object not so much to this statement of causes as to the covert insinuation which lurks in the historian s exposition of their influence. For the question still remains to be put, why was it that Christianity possessed so many character istics which made it adapted as no other religion was to the needs and capacities of mankind. Still it ought to be observed that when we turn to the pages of the early Christian Apologists, especially to the writings of those of them who were converted to Christianity after having spent many years as intelligent pagans, we find them almost unanimous in declaring that they themselves were attracted to Christianity chiefly by these three reasons : 1. The sublimity and simplicity of the Christian doctrines of God, sin, and salvation ; 2. The noble purity of the Christian life, more especially of the life of a Christian woman ; and 3. The grandeur of the doctrine of creation contained in the Old Testament Scriptures. The inefficiency of the theories of modern critics who would explain the origin and success of Christianity on purely naturalist grounds has already been discussed under the head of APOLOGETICS. The influ. The strong and deep influence which Christianity soon Chris- besan to have even over the lives and opinions of those tiamty. wt ? were not Christians, is even a more striking testimony to its paramount claims than the rapidity of its spread. The struggle of Christianity with Rome has already been alluded to, but even before Rome gave up the struggle in despair, before the last persecution, and before the triumph under Constantine, the influence of Christianity was making itself felt morally, socially, and politically, while its influence on intellect and science was no less remark able. It is almost impossible for us to realize how powerfully Pagan im- paganism acted upon the general morality of the great morality, peoples of antiquity and encouraged all manner of lawless ness and indecency. In the time of the later republic and of the early empire we have the spectacle of Roman law and philosophy powerless to restrain the brutal and obscene passions of the people excited by the influence of the popular religion, even when they had ceased to regard it as an intelligible creed. All paganism is at bottom a worship of Nature in some form or other, and in all pagan religions the deepest and most awe-inspiring attribute of nature was its power of reproduction. The mystery of birth and becoming was the deepest mystery of nature ; it lay at the root of all thoughtful paganism and appeared in various forms, some of a more innocent, others of a most debasing type. To ancient pagan thinkers, as well as to modern men of science, the key to the hidden secret of the origin aud preservation of the universe lay in the mystery of sex. Two energies or agents, one an active and generative, the other a feminine, passive, or susceptible one, were every where thought to combine for creative purpose, and heaven and earth, sun and moon, day and night, were believed to co-operate to the production of being. Upon some such basis as this rested almost all the polytheistic worship of the old civilization, and to it may be traced back, stage by stage, the separation of divinity into male and female gods, the deification of distinct powers of nature, and the idealization of man s own faculties, desires, and lusts, where every power of his understanding was embodied as an object of adoration, and every impulse of his will became an incarnation of deity. But in each and every form of polytheism we find the slime-track of the deification of sex ; &quot; there is not a single one of the ancient religions which has not consecrated by some ceremonial rite even the grossest forms of sensual indulgence, while many of them actually elevated prostitution into a solemn service of reli gion.&quot; The corrupting influence of paganism entered into the very essence of the social life of the Roman at the time when Christianity began its career. The thoughtful reader of contemporary literature cannot fail to observe how day by day the poison instilled itself into every nook and cranny of the social life of the people. &quot; It met him in every incident of life, in business, in pleasure, in literature, in politics, in arms, in the theatres, in the streets, in the baths, at the games, in the decorations of his house, in the orna ments and service of his table, in the very conditions of the weather and the physical phenomena of nature. It is not easy to call up as a reality the intending sinner addressing to the deified vice which he contemplates a prayer for the success of his design ; the adulteress imploring of Venus the favours of her paramour; the harlot praying for an increase of her sinful gains ; the pander begging the pro tection of the goddess on her shameful trade; the thief praying to Hermes Uolios for aid in his enterprizes, or offering up to him the first-fruits of his plunder; young maidens dedicating their girdles to Athene Apaturia ; youths entreating Hercules to expedite the death of a rich uncle. And yet these things and far worse than these meet us over and over again in every writer who has left a picture of Roman manners in the later republic and under the begin ning of the empire&quot; (North Brit. Rev., vol. 47). When we turn to the writings of the early Christian Apologists we find them exposing in a scathing way this whole state of