Chapter II: Positive Proofs That The Scriptures Are A Divine Revelation (5)

The conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity was the most
astonishing revolution of faith and worship ever known. Fifty
years after the death of Christ, there were churches in all the
principal cities of the Roman Empire. Nero (37-68) found (as
Tacitus declares) an “ingens multitudo” of Christians to
persecute. Pliny writes to Trajan (52-117) that they “pervaded not
merely the cities but the villages and country places, so that the
temples were nearly deserted.” Tertullian (160-230) writes: “We
are but of yesterday, and yet we have filled all your places, your
cities, your islands, your castles, your towns, your
council-houses, even your camps, your tribes, your senate, your
forum. We have left you nothing but your temples.” In the time of
the emperor Valerian (253-268), the Christians constituted half
the population of Rome. The conversion of the emperor Constantine
(272-337) brought the whole empire, only 300 years after Jesus’
death, under the acknowledged sway of the gospel. See McIlvaine
and Alexander, Evidences of Christianity.

B. The wonder is the greater when we consider the obstacles to the progress of Christianity:

(_a_) The scepticism of the cultivated classes; (_b_) the prejudice and hatred of the common people; and (_c_) the persecutions set on foot by government.

(_a_) Missionaries even now find it difficult to get a hearing
among the cultivated classes of the heathen. But the gospel
appeared in the most enlightened age of antiquity—the Augustan age
of literature and historical inquiry. Tacitus called the religion
of Christ “exitiabilis superstitio”—“quos per flagitia invisos
vulgus Christianos appellabat.” Pliny: “Nihil aliud inveni quam
superstitionem pravam et immodicam.” If the gospel had been false,
its preachers would not have ventured into the centres of
civilization and refinement; or if they had, they would have been
detected. (_b)_ Consider the interweaving of heathen religions
with all the relations of life. Christians often had to meet the
furious zeal and blind rage of the mob,—as at Lystra and Ephesus.
(_c_) Rawlinson, in his Historical Evidences, claims that the
Catacombs of Rome comprised nine hundred miles of streets and
seven millions of graves within a period of four hundred years—a
far greater number than could have died a natural death—and that
vast multitudes of these must have been massacred for their faith.
The Encyclopædia Britannica, however, calls the estimate of De
Marchi, which Rawlinson appears to have taken as authority, a
great exaggeration. Instead of nine hundred miles of streets,
Northcote has three hundred fifty. The number of interments to
correspond would be less than three millions. The Catacombs began
to be deserted by the time of Jerome. The times when they were
universally used by Christians could have been hardly more than
two hundred years. They did not begin in sand-pits. There were
three sorts of tufa: (1) rocky, used for quarrying and too hard
for Christian purposes; (2) sandy, used for sand-pits, too soft to
permit construction of galleries and tombs; (3) granular, that
used by Christians. The existence of the Catacombs must have been
well known to the heathen. After Pope Damasus the exaggerated
reverence for them began. They were decorated and improved. Hence
many paintings are of later date than 400, and testify to papal
polity, not to that of early Christianity. The bottles contain,
not blood, but wine of the eucharist celebrated at the funeral.

Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 256-258, calls attention
to Matthew Arnold’s description of the needs of the heathen world,
yet his blindness to the true remedy: “On that hard pagan world
disgust And secret loathing fell; Deep weariness and sated lust
Made human life a hell. In his cool hall, with haggard eyes, The
Roman noble lay; He drove abroad, in furious guise, Along the
Appian Way; He made a feast, drank fierce and fast, And crowned
his hair with flowers,—No easier nor no quicker passed The
impracticable hours.” Yet with mingled pride and sadness, Mr.
Arnold fastidiously rejects more heavenly nutriment. Of Christ he
says: “Now he is dead! Far hence he lies, In the lorn Syrian town,
And on his grave, with shining eyes, The Syrian stars look down.”
He sees that the millions “Have such need of joy, And joy whose
grounds are true, And joy that should all hearts employ As when
the past was new!” The want of the world is: “One mighty wave of
thought and joy, Lifting mankind amain.” But the poet sees no
ground of hope: “Fools! that so often here, Happiness mocked our
prayer, I think might make us fear A like event elsewhere,—Make us
not fly to dreams, But moderate desire.” He sings of the time when
Christianity was young: “Oh, had I lived in that great day, How
had its glory new Filled earth and heaven, and caught away My
ravished spirit too!” But desolation of spirit does not bring with
it any lowering of self-esteem, much less the humility which
deplores the presence and power of evil in the soul, and sighs for
deliverance. “They that are whole have no need of a physician, but
they that are sick”_ (Mat. 9:12)_. Rejecting Christ, Matthew
Arnold embodies in his verse “the sweetness, the gravity, the
strength, the beauty, and the languor of death” (Hutton, Essays,
302).

C. The wonder becomes yet greater when we consider the natural insufficiency of the means used to secure this progress.

(_a_) The proclaimers of the gospel were in general unlearned men, belonging to a despised nation. (_b_) The gospel which they proclaimed was a gospel of salvation through faith in a Jew who had been put to an ignominious death. (_c_) This gospel was one which excited natural repugnance, by humbling men’s pride, striking at the root of their sins, and demanding a life of labor and self-sacrifice. (_d_) The gospel, moreover, was an exclusive one, suffering no rival and declaring itself to be the universal and only religion.

(_a_) The early Christians were more unlikely to make converts
than modern Jews are to make proselytes, in vast numbers, in the
principal cities of Europe and America. Celsus called Christianity
“a religion of the rabble.” (_b_) The cross was the Roman
gallows—the punishment of slaves. Cicero calls it “servitutis
extremum summumque supplicium.” (_c_) There were many bad
religions: why should the mild Roman Empire have persecuted the
only good one? The answer is in part: Persecution did not
originate with the official classes; it proceeded really from the
people at large. Tacitus called Christians “haters of the human
race.” Men recognized in Christianity a foe to all their previous
motives, ideals, and aims. Altruism would break up the old
society, for every effort that centered in self or in the present
life was stigmatized by the gospel as unworthy. (_d_) Heathenism,
being without creed or principle, did not care to propagate
itself. “A man must be very weak,” said Celsus, “to imagine that
Greeks and barbarians, in Asia, Europe, and Libya, can ever unite
under the same system of religion.” So the Roman government would
allow no religion which did not participate in the worship of the
State. “Keep yourselves from idols,” “We worship no other God,”
was the Christian’s answer. Gibbon, Hist. Decline and Fall, 1:
chap. 15, mentions as secondary causes: (1) the zeal of the Jews;
(2) the doctrine of immortality; (3) miraculous powers; (4)
virtues of early Christians; (5) privilege of participation in
church government. But these causes were only secondary, and all
would have been insufficient without an invincible persuasion of
the truth of Christianity. For answer to Gibbon, see Perrone,
Prelectiones Theologicæ, 1:133.

Persecution destroys falsehood by leading its advocates to
investigate the grounds of their belief; but it strengthens and
multiplies truth by leading its advocates to see more clearly the
foundations of their faith. There have been many conscientious
persecutors: _John 16:2—_“They shall put you out of the
synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall
think that he offereth service unto God.” The Decretal of Pope
Urban II reads: “For we do not count them to be homicides, to whom
it may have happened, through their burning zeal against the
excommunicated, to put any of them to death.” St. Louis, King of
France, urged his officers “not to argue with the infidel, but to
subdue unbelievers by thrusting the sword into them as far as it
will go.” Of the use of the rack in England on a certain occasion,
it was said that it was used with all the tenderness which the
nature of the instrument would allow. This reminds us of Isaak
Walton’s instruction as to the use of the frog: “Put the hook
through his mouth and out at his gills; and, in so doing, use him
as though you loved him.”

Robert Browning, in his Easter Day, 275-288, gives us what
purports to be A Martyr’s Epitaph, inscribed upon a wall of the
Catacombs, which furnishes a valuable contrast to the sceptical
and pessimistic strain of Matthew Arnold: “I was born sickly, poor
and mean, A slave: no misery could screen The holders of the pearl
of price from Cæsar’s envy: therefore twice I fought with beasts,
and three times saw My children suffer by his law; At length my
own release was earned: I was some time in being burned, But at
the close a Hand came through The fire above my head, and drew My
soul to Christ, whom now I see. Sergius, a brother, writes for me
This testimony on the wall—For me, I have forgot it all.”

The progress of a religion so unprepossessing and uncompromising to outward acceptance and dominion, within the space of three hundred years, cannot be explained without supposing that divine power attended its promulgation, and therefore that the gospel is a revelation from God.

Stanley, Life and Letters, 1:527—“In the Kremlin Cathedral,
whenever the Metropolitan advanced from the altar to give his
blessing, there was always thrown under his feet a carpet
embroidered with the eagle of old Pagan Rome, to indicate that the
Christian Church and Empire of Constantinople had succeeded and
triumphed over it.” On this whole section, see F. W. Farrar,
Witness of History to Christ, 91; McIlvaine, Wisdom of Holy
Scripture, 139.

2. _The beneficent influence of the Scripture doctrines and precepts, wherever they have had sway, shows their divine origin._ Notice:

A. Their influence on civilization in general, securing a recognition of principles which heathenism ignored, such as Garbett mentions: (_a_) the importance of the individual; (_b_) the law of mutual love; (_c_) the sacredness of human life; (_d_) the doctrine of internal holiness; (_e_) the sanctity of home; (_f_) monogamy, and the religious equality of the sexes; (_g_) identification of belief and practice.

The continued corruption of heathen lands shows that this change is not due to any laws of merely natural progress. The confessions of ancient writers show that it is not due to philosophy. Its only explanation is that the gospel is the power of God.

Garbett, Dogmatic Faith, 177-186; F. W. Farrar, Witness of History
to Christ, chap. on Christianity and the Individual; Brace, Gesta
Christi, preface, vi—“Practices and principles implanted,
stimulated or supported by Christianity, such as regard for the
personality of the weakest and poorest; respect for woman; duty of
each member of the fortunate classes to raise up the unfortunate;
humanity to the child, the prisoner, the stranger, the needy, and
even to the brute; unceasing opposition to all forms of cruelty,
oppression and slavery; the duty of personal purity, and the
sacredness of marriage; the necessity of temperance; obligation of
a more equitable division of the profits of labor, and of greater
coöperation between employers and employed; the right of every
human being to have the utmost opportunity of developing his
faculties, and of all persons to enjoy equal political and social
privileges; the principle that the injury of one nation is the
injury of all, and the expediency and duty of unrestricted trade
and intercourse between all countries; and finally, a profound
opposition to war, a determination to limit its evils when
existing, and to prevent its arising by means of international
arbitration.”

Max Müller: “The concept of humanity is the gift of Christ.”
Guizot, History of Civilization, 1: Introd., tells us that in
ancient times the individual existed for the sake of the State; in
modern times the State exists for the sake of the individual. “The
individual is a discovery of Christ.” On the relations between
Christianity and Political Economy, see A. H. Strong, Philosophy
and Religion, pages 443-460; on the cause of the changed view with
regard to the relation of the individual to the State, see page
207—“What has wrought the change? Nothing but the death of the Son
of God. When it was seen that the smallest child and the lowest
slave had a soul of such worth that Christ left his throne and
gave up his life to save it, the world’s estimate of values
changed, and modern history began.” Lucian, the Greek satirist and
humorist, 160 A. D., said of the Christians: “Their first
legislator [Jesus] has put it into their heads that they are all
brothers.”

It is this spirit of common brotherhood which has led in most
countries to the abolition of cannibalism, infanticide,
widow-burning, and slavery. Prince Bismarck: “For social
well-being I ask nothing more than Christianity without
phrases”—which means the religion of the deed rather than of the
creed. Yet it is only faith in the historic revelation of God in
Christ which has made Christian deeds possible. Shaler,
Interpretation of Nature, 232-278—Aristotle, if he could look over
society to-day, would think modern man a new species, in his going
out in sympathy to distant peoples. This cannot be the result of
natural selection, for self-sacrifice is not profitable to the
individual. Altruistic emotions owe their existence to God.
Worship of God has flowed back upon man’s emotions and has made
them more sympathetic. Self-consciousness and sympathy, coming
into conflict with brute emotions, originate the sense of sin.
Then begins the war of the natural and the spiritual. Love of
nature and absorption in others is the true _Nirvana_. Not
physical science, but the humanities, are most needed in
education.

H. E. Hersey, Introd. to Browning’s Christmas Eve, 19— “Sidney
Lanier tells us that the last twenty centuries have spent their
best power upon the development of personality. Literature,
education, government, and religion, have learned to recognize the
individual as the unit of force. Browning goes a step further. He
declares that so powerful is a complete personality that its very
touch gives life and courage and potency. He turns to history for
the inspiration of enduring virtue and the stimulus for sustained
effort, and he finds both in Jesus Christ.” J. P. Cooke,
Credentials of Science, 43—The change from the ancient philosopher
to the modern investigator is the change from self-assertion to
self-devotion, and the great revolution can be traced to the
influence of Christianity and to the spirit of humility exhibited
and inculcated by Christ. Lewes, Hist. Philos., 1:408—Greek
morality never embraced any conception of humanity; no Greek ever
attained to the sublimity of such a point of view.

Kidd, Social Evolution, 165, 287—It is not intellect that has
pushed forward the world of modern times: it is the altruistic
feeling that originated in the cross and sacrifice of Christ. The
French Revolution was made possible by the fact that humanitarian
ideas had undermined the upper classes themselves, and effective
resistance was impossible. Socialism would abolish the struggle
for existence on the part of individuals. What security would be
left for social progress? Removing all restrictions upon
population ensures progressive deterioration. A non-socialist
community would outstrip a socialist community where all the main
wants of life were secure. The real tendency of society is to
bring all the people into _rivalry_, not only on a footing of
political equality, but on conditions of equal social
opportunities. The State in future will interfere and control, in
order to preserve or secure free competition, rather than to
suspend it. The goal is not socialism or State management, but
competition in which all shall have equal advantages. The
evolution of human society is not primarily intellectual but
religious. The winning races are the religious races. The Greeks
had more intellect, but we have more civilization and progress.
The Athenians were as far above us as we are above the negro race.
Gladstone said that we are intellectually weaker than the men of
the middle ages. When the intellectual development of any section
of the race has for the time being outrun its ethical development,
natural selection has apparently weeded it out, like any other
unsuitable product. Evolution is developing _reverence_, with its
allied qualities, mental energy, resolution, enterprise, prolonged
and concentrated application, simple minded and single minded
devotion to duty. Only religion can overpower selfishness and
individualism and ensure social progress.

B. Their influence upon individual character and happiness, wherever they have been tested in practice. This influence is seen (_a_) in the moral transformations they have wrought—as in the case of Paul the apostle, and of persons in every Christian community; (_b_) in the self-denying labors for human welfare to which they have led—as in the case of Wilberforce and Judson; (_c_) in the hopes they have inspired in times of sorrow and death.

These beneficent fruits cannot have their source in merely natural causes, apart from the truth and divinity of the Scriptures; for in that case the contrary beliefs would be accompanied by the same blessings. But since we find these blessings only in connection with Christian teaching, we may justly consider this as their cause. This teaching, then, must be true, and the Scriptures must be a divine revelation. Else God has made a lie to be the greatest blessing to the race.

The first Moravian missionaries to the West Indies walked six
hundred miles to take ship, worked their passage, and then sold
themselves as slaves, in order to get the privilege of preaching
to the negroes.... The father of John G. Paton was a
stocking-weaver. The whole family, with the exception of the very
small children, worked from 6 a. m. to 10 p. m., with one hour for
dinner at noon and a half hour each for breakfast and supper. Yet
family prayer was regularly held twice a day. In these
breathing-spells for daily meals John G. Paton took part of his
time to study the Latin Grammar, that he might prepare himself for
missionary work. When told by an uncle that, if he went to the New
Hebrides, the cannibals would eat him, he replied: “You yourself
will soon be dead and buried, and I had as lief be eaten by
cannibals as by worms.” The Aneityumese raised arrow-root for
fifteen years and sold it to pay the £1200 required for printing
the Bible in their own language. Universal church-attendance and
Bible-study make those South Sea Islands the most heavenly place
on earth on the Sabbath-day.

In 1839, twenty thousand negroes in Jamaica gathered to begin a
life of freedom. Into a coffin were put the handcuffs and shackles
of slavery, relics of the whipping-post and the scourge. As the
clock struck twelve at night, a preacher cried with the first
stroke: “The monster is dying!” and so with every stroke until the
last, when he cried: “The monster is dead!” Then all rose from
their knees and sang: “Praise God from whom all blessings
flow!”... “What do you do that for?” said the sick Chinaman whom
the medical missionary was tucking up in bed with a care which the
patient had never received since he was a baby. The missionary
took the opportunity to tell him of the love of Christ.... The
aged Australian mother, when told that her two daughters,
missionaries in China, had both of them been murdered by a heathen
mob, only replied: “This decides me; I will go to China now
myself, and try to teach those poor creatures what the love of
Jesus means.”... Dr. William Ashmore: “Let one missionary die, and
ten come to his funeral.” A shoemaker, teaching neglected boys and
girls while he worked at his cobbler’s bench, gave the impulse to
Thomas Guthrie’s life of faith.

We must judge religions not by their ideals, but by their
performances. Omar Khayyam and Mozoomdar give us beautiful
thoughts, but the former is not Persia, nor is the latter India.
“When the microscopic search of scepticism, which has hunted the
heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of a
Creator, has turned its attention to human society and has found
on this planet a place ten miles square where a decent man can
live in decency, comfort, and security, supporting and educating
his children, unspoiled and unpolluted; a place where age is
reverenced, infancy protected, manhood respected, womanhood
honored, and human life held in due regard—when sceptics can find
such a place ten miles square on this globe, where the gospel of
Christ has not gone and cleared the way and laid the foundations
and made decency and security possible, it will then be in order
for the sceptical literati to move thither and to ventilate their
views. But so long as these very men are dependent upon the very
religion they discard for every privilege they enjoy, they may
well hesitate before they rob the Christian of his hope and
humanity of its faith in that Savior who alone has given that hope
of eternal life which makes life tolerable and society possible,
and robs death of its terrors and the grave of its gloom.” On the
beneficent influence of the gospel, see Schmidt, Social Results of
Early Christianity; D. J. Hill, The Social Influence of
Christianity.