[February 11.]
CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES.
The great central event in all history is the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The centuries circle round the cross. Hundreds of stately figures—some in dazzling lustre, some in deepest gloom—crowd upon our gaze, as the story of the world unrolls before us; but infinitely nobler than the grandest of these is the pale form of Jesus, hanging on the rough and reddened wood at Calvary—dead, but victorious even in dying—stronger in that marble sleep than the mightiest of the world’s living actors, or than all the marshalled hosts of sin and death. Not the greatest sight only, but the strangest ever seen; for there, at the foot of the cross, lie Death, slain with his own dart, and Hell vanquished at his very gate.
All that have ever lived—all living now—all who shall come after us, till time shall be no more, must feel the power of the cross. To those who look upon their dying Lord with loving trust, it brings life and joy, but death and woe to all who proudly reject that great salvation, or pass it unheeding by.
The details of that stupendous history—his lowly, yet royal birth—his pure, stainless life—his path of mystery and miracle—his wondrous works, and still more wondrous words—his agony—his cross—his glorious resurrection and ascension—all form a theme too sacred to be placed here with a record of mere common time, or blended with the dark, sad tale of human follies and crimes. Rather let us read it as they tell it who were themselves “eye-witnesses of his majesty”—who traced the very footsteps, and heard the very voice, and beheld the very living face of incarnate love. And remember, as you read, that history is false to her noblest trust if she fails to teach that it is the power of the cross of Christ which alone preserves the world from hopeless corruption, and redeems from utter vanity the whole life of man on earth.
Wildly, and blindly, and very far, have the nations often drifted from the right course—there seemed to be no star in heaven, and no lamp on earth; but through every change an unseen omnipotent hand was guiding all things for the best: soul after soul was drawn by love’s mighty attraction to the cross; light arose out of darkness; a new life breathed over the world; and the wilderness, where Satan seemed alone to dwell, blossomed anew into the garden of God.[F]
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After Christ—the apostles. “On the fifteenth day after his death, beginning in Jerusalem, the very furnace of persecution, they first set up their banner in the midst of those who had been first in the crucifixion of Jesus, and were all elate with the triumphs of that tragedy. But what ensued? Three thousand souls were that day added to the infant Church. In a few days the number was increased to five thousand, and in the space of about a year and a half, though the gospel was preached only in Jerusalem and its vicinity, ‘multitudes both of men and women,’ and ‘a great company of the priests, were obedient to the faith.’ Now, the converts being driven, by a fierce persecution, from Jerusalem, ‘went everywhere preaching the Word;’ and in less than three years churches were gathered ‘throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, and were multiplied.’ About two years after this, or seven from the beginning of the work, the gospel was first preached to the Gentiles; and such was the success, that before thirty years had elapsed from the death of Christ, it spread throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria; through almost all the numerous districts of the lesser Asia; through Greece and the islands of the Ægean Sea, the seacoast of Africa, and even into Italy and Rome. The number of converts in the several cities respectively, is described by the expressions, ‘a great number,’ ‘great multitudes,’ ‘much people.’ Jerusalem, the chief seat of Jewish rancor, continued the metropolis of the gospel, having in it many tens of thousands of believers. These accounts are taken from the book of the Acts of the Apostles; but as this book is almost confined to the labors of Paul and his immediate companions, saying very little of the other apostles, it is very certain that the view we have given of the propagation of the gospel, during the first thirty years, is very incomplete. In the thirtieth year after the beginning of the work, the terrible persecution under Nero kindled its fires; then Christians had become so numerous at Rome, that, by the testimony of Tacitus, ‘a great multitude’ were seized. In forty years more, as we are told in a celebrated letter from Pliny, the Roman governor of Pontus and Bythinia, Christianity had long subsisted in these provinces, though so remote from Judea. ‘Many of all ages, and of every rank, of both sexes likewise,’ were accused to Pliny of being Christians. What he calls ‘the contagion of this superstition’ (thus forcibly describing the irresistible and rapid spread of Christianity), had ‘seized not cities only, but the less towns also, and the open country,’ so that the heathen temples ‘were almost forsaken,’ few victims were purchased for sacrifice, and ‘a long intermission of the sacred solemnities had taken place.’ Justin Martyr, who wrote about thirty years after Pliny, and one hundred after the gospel was first preached to the Gentiles, thus describes the extent of Christianity in his time: ‘There is not a nation, either Greek or barbarian, or of any other name, even of those who wander in tribes and live in tents, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered to the Father and Creator of the Universe by the name of the crucified Jesus.’ Clemens Alexandrinus, a few years after, thus writes: ‘The philosophers were confined to Greece, and to their particular retainers; but the doctrine of the Master of Christianity did not remain in Judea, but is spread throughout the whole world, in every nation, and village, and city, converting both whole houses and separate individuals, having already brought over to the truth not a few of the philosophers themselves. If the Greek philosophy be prohibited, it immediately vanishes; whereas, from the first preaching of our doctrine, kings and tyrants, governors and presidents, with their whole train and with the populace on their side, have endeavored, with their whole might, to exterminate it; yet doth it flourish more and more.’... In connection with the moral power and vast extent of this work, it should be considered, that among those who were brought to the obedience of Christ were men of all classes, from the most obscure and ignorant to the most elevated and learned. In the New Testament we read of an eminent counselor, and of a chief ruler, and of a great company of priests, and of two centurions of the Roman army, and of a proconsul of Cyprus, and of a member of the Areopagus at Athens, and even of certain of the household of the Emperor Nero, as having been converted to the faith. Many of the converts were highly esteemed for talents and attainments. Such was Justin Martyr, who, while a heathen, was conversant with all the schools of philosophy. Such was Pantænus, who, before his conversion was a philosopher of the school of the Stoics, and whose instructions in human learning at Alexandria, after he became a Christian, were much frequented by students of various characters. Such also was Origen, whose reputation for learning was so great that not only Christians, but philosophers, flocked to his lectures upon mathematics and philosophy, as well as on the Scriptures. Even the noted Porphyry did not refrain from a high eulogium upon the learning of Origen. It may help to convey some notion of the character and quality of many early Christians—of their learning and their labors—to notice the Christian writers who flourished in these ages. Saint Jerome’s catalogue contains one hundred and twenty writers previous to the year 360 from the death of Christ. The catalogue is thus introduced: ‘Let those who say the Church has had no philosophers, nor eloquent and learned men, observe who and what they were who founded, established, and adorned it.’ Pliny, in his celebrated letter to Trajan, written about sixty-three years after the gospel began to be preached to the Gentiles, expressly states that in the provinces of Pontus and Bythinia many of all ranks were accused to him of the crime of being Christians. We have now prepared the several facts that constitute the materials of our argument. Here is an unquestionable historical event: the rapid and extensive spread of Christianity over the whole Roman empire in less than seventy years from the outset of its preaching. Has anything else of a like kind been known in the world? Did the learning and popularity of the ancient philosophers, powerfully aided by the favor of the great and the peculiar character of the age, accomplish anything in the least resembling the success of the apostles? It is a notorious fact that only one of them ‘ever dared to attack the base religion of the nation, and substitute better representations of God in its stead, although its absurdity was apparent to many of them. An attempt of this kind having cost the bold Socrates his life, no others had resolution enough to offer such a sacrifice for the general good. To excuse their timidity in this respect, and give it the appearance of profound wisdom, they called to their aid the general principle that it is imprudent and injurious to let people see the whole truth at once; that it is not only necessary to spare sacred prejudices, but, in particular circumstances, an act of benevolence to deceive the great mass of the people. This was the unanimous opinion of almost all the ancient philosophical schools.’ No further proof is needed that such men were incapable of effecting anything approximating to the great moral revolution produced in the world by the power of the gospel. How different the apostles! boldly attacking all vice, superstition, and error, at all hazards, in all places, not counting their lives dear unto them so that they might ‘testify the gospel of the grace of God.’ But where else shall we turn for a parallel to the work we have described? What efforts, independently of the gospel, were ever successful in the moral regeneration of whole communities of the superstitious and licentious?” (McIlvaine’s Evid., Lect. IX.) This excellent writer adds, in a note: “The early advocates of Christianity, in controversy with the heathen of Greece and Rome, were accustomed to dwell with great stress upon the argument from its propagation. Chrysostom, of the fourth century, writes: ‘The apostles of Christ were twelve; and they gained the whole world.’ ‘Zeno, Plato, Socrates, and many others, endeavored to introduce a new course of life, but in vain; whereas Jesus Christ not only taught, but settled, a new polity, or way of living, all over the world.’ ‘The doctrines and writings of fishermen, who were beaten and driven from society, and always lived in the midst of dangers, have been readily embraced by learned and unlearned, bondmen and free, kings and soldiers, Greeks and barbarians.’ ‘Though kings and tyrants and people strove to extinguish the spark of faith, such a flame of true religion arose as filled the whole world. If you go to India and Scythia, and the utmost ends of the earth, you will everywhere find the doctrine of Christ enlightening the souls of men.’ Augustine, of the same century, speaking of the heathen philosophers, says: ‘If they were to live again, and should see the churches crowded, the temples forsaken, and men called from the love of temporal, fleeting things, to the hope of eternal life and the possession of spiritual and heavenly blessings, and readily embracing them, provided they were really such as they are said to have been, perhaps they would say, ”These are things which we did not dare to say to the people; we rather gave way to their custom than endeavored to draw them over to our best thoughts and apprehensions.“’”
“After the death of Jesus Christ, twelve poor fishermen and mechanics undertook to teach and convert the world. Their success was prodigious. All the Christians rushed to martyrdom, all the people to baptism: the history of these early times was a continual prodigy.”—Rousseau.