Chapter XIX: Part 19

But, even after the Advent, it was not at once that the Sovereign of the new kingdom put in His claim for all the wealth that it contained. As, in the day of His humiliation, He rode into Jerusalem, foreshadowing his royal dominion to come, so Saint Paul was forthwith consecrated to God as a kind of first fruits of the learning and intellect of man. Yet for many generations after Christ, it was still the Supreme will to lay in human weakness the foundations of divine strength. Not the Apostles only, but the martyrs, and not the martyrs only, but the first fathers and doctors of the Church, were men of whom none could suspect that they drew the weapons of their warfare from the armouries of human cultivation: nor of them could it be said, that by virtue of their human endowments they had achieved the triumphs of the cross; as it might perhaps have been said, had they brought to their work the immense popular powers of St. Chrysostom, or the masculine energy of St. Athanasius, or the varied and comprehensive genius of St. Augustine.

Nor, again, if we are right in the belief that we are not to look for the early development of humanity in the pages of Jewish and patriarchal history, but rather to believe that it was given to another people, and the office of recording it to the father, not only of poetry, but of letters, does it seem difficult to read in this arrangement the purpose of the Most High, and herewith the wisdom of that purpose. Had the Scriptures been preserved, had the Messiah been Incarnate, among a people who were in political sagacity, in martial energy, in soaring and diving intellect, in vivid imagination, in the graces of art and civilized life, the flower of their time, then the divine origin of Christianity would have stood far less clear and disembarrassed than it now does. The eagle that mounted upon high, bearing on his wings the Everlasting Gospel, would have made his first spring from a great eminence, erected by the wit and skill of man; and the elevation of that eminence, measured upward from the plain of common humanity, would have been so much to be deducted from the triumph of the Redeemer.

~_Purpose served by the design._~

Thus the destructive theories of those, who teach us to regard Christianity as no more than a new stage, added to stages that had been previously achieved in the march of human advancement, would have been clothed in a plausibility which they must now for ever want. ‘God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are[1018].’ An unhonoured undistinguished race, simply elected to be the receivers of the Divine Word, and having remained its always stiffnecked and almost reluctant guardians, may best have suited the aim of Almighty Wisdom; because the medium, through which the most precious gifts were conveyed, was pale and colourless, instead of being one flushed with the splendours of Empire, Intellect, and Fame.

[1018] 1 Cor. i. 27, 8.

Transcriber's Note

Page headers in the printed book have been converted to headings, and are marked with ~swung dashes~.

The following apparent errors have been corrected:

p. xiv "sovereignity" changed to "sovereignty"

p. 42 (note) "vii-x." changed to "vii.-x."

p. 79 "unequivocially" changed to "unequivocally"

p. 118 "insolence:" changed to "insolence:’"

p. 165 "ὤλετό" changed to "ὤλετο"

p. 173 "attention," changed to "attention."

p. 192 "exemplfied" changed to "exemplified"

p. 277 "order" changed to "order."

p. 285 "Hom Theol." changed to "Hom. Theol."

p. 288 "Ganymed" changed to "Ganymede"

p. 291 "ἀῖσα" changed to "αἶσα"

p. 299 "peoples," changed to "peoples"

p. 320 "ῥεία" changed to "ῥεῖα"

p. 328 in "disaffection has yet been exhibited.[607]", the footnote anchor has been added to the text.

p. 336 "ῥεία" changed to "ῥεῖα"

p. 352 "subject so" changed to "subject to"

p. 354 "2." changed to "(2.)"

p. 356 "δὲ" changed to "δέ"

p. 364 "it sessential" changed to "its essential"

p. 365 in "νόον ἔτραπεν[711].", the footnote anchor has been added to the text.

p. 377 "purity, of" changed to "of purity,"

p. 383 (note) "264" changed to "264."

p. 403 (note) "Romische" changed to "Römische"

p. 404 "elswehere" changed to "elsewhere"

p. 410 "devolopment" changed to "development"

p. 420 "ἔσθλος" changed to "ἐσθλὸς"

p. 426 "morality." changed to "morality,"

p. 436 "ἀτὴ" changed to "ἄτη"

p. 460 "Ἕρως" changed to "Ἔρως"

p. 474 "ἔγω" changed to "ἐγὼ"

p. 494 in "Ajax had a spurious brother", a footnote anchor has been removed from the text.

p. 499 (note) "in excellently" changed to "is excellently"

p. 505 "φρέσι" changed to "φρεσὶ"

p. 517 "ἔγωγε" changed to "ἐγώγε"

The following are used inconsistently in the book:

aftertimes and after-times

battlefield and battle-field

bowstring and bow-string

cupbearer and cup-bearer

dependence and dependance

Dî and Dii

Dioscuri and Dioscouroi

Erinuës and Erinues

fountainhead and fountain-head

Histie and Hestie

i. e. and i.e.

indoor and in-door

preeminence and pre-eminence

reestablished and re-established

stepmother and step-mother

synonym and synonyme

Theomythology and Theo-mythology