In outlining the history of Christianity stress will be here laid only upon those elements which caused it to be an arresting force in man’s intellectual development, and, therefore, in his spiritual emancipation from terrors begotten of ignorance. It does not fall within our survey to speak of that primary element in it which was before all dogma, and which may survive when dogma has become only a matter of antiquarian interest. That element, born of emotion, which, as a crowd of kindred examples show, incarnates, and then deifies the object of its worship, was the belief in the manifestation of the divine through the human Jesus who had borne men’s griefs, carried their sorrows, and offered rest to the weary and heavy-laden. For no religion—and here Evolution comes in as witness—can take root which does not adapt itself to, and answer some need of, the heart of man. Hence the importance of study of the history of all religions.
Evolution knows only one heresy—the denial of continuity. Recognising the present as the outcome of the past, it searches after origins. It knows that both that which revolts us in man’s spiritual history has, alike with that which attracts, its place, its necessary place, in the development of ideas, and is, therefore, capable of explanation from its roots upward. For this age is sympathetic, not flippant. It looks with no favour on criticism that is only destructive, or on ridicule or ribaldry as modes of attack on current beliefs. Hence we have the modern science of comparative theology, with its Hibbert Lectures, and Gifford Lectures, which are critical and constructive; as opposed to Bampton Lectures, Boyle and Hulse Lectures, which are apologetic, the speaker holding an official brief. Of the Boyle Lecturers, Collings the “Deist” caustically said that nobody doubted the existence of the Deity till they set to work to prove it. Religions are no longer treated as true or false, as inventions of priests or of divine origin, but as the product of man’s intellectual speculations, however crude or coarse; and of his spiritual needs, no matter in what repulsive form they are satisfied. For “proofs” and “evidences” we have substituted explanations.
Nevertheless, so strong, often so bitter, are the feelings aroused over the most temperate discussion of the origin of Christianity that it remains necessary to repeat that to explain is not to attack, and that to narrate is not to apportion blame, for no religion can do aught than reflect the temper of the age in which it flourishes.
Let us now summarize certain occurrences which, although familiar enough, must be repeated for the clear understanding of their effects.
Some sixty years after the death of Lucretius there happened, in the subsequent belief of millions of mankind, an event for which all that had gone before in the history of this planet is said to have been a preparation. In the fulness of time the Omnipotent maker and ruler of a universe to which no boundaries can be set by human thought, sent to this earth-speck no less a person than His Eternal Son. He was said to have been born, not by the natural processes of generation, but to have been incarnated in the womb of a virgin, retaining his divine nature while subjecting it to human limitations. This he had done that he might, as sinless man, become an expiatory sacrifice to offended deity, and to the requirements of divine justice, for the sins which the human race had committed since the transgression of Adam and Eve, or which men yet to be born might commit.
The “miraculous” birth of Jesus took place at Nazareth in Galilee, in the reign of Cæsar Augustus, about 750 A. U. C., as the Romans reckoned time. Tradition afterward fixed his birthday on the 25th December, which, curiously enough, although, perhaps, explaining the choice, was the day dedicated to the sun-god Mithra, an Oriental deity to whom altars had been raised and sacrifices performed, with rites of baptisms of blood, in hospitable Rome.
Jesus is said to have lived in the obscurity of his native mountain village till his thirtieth year. Except one doubtful story of his going to Jerusalem with his parents when he was twelve years old, nothing is recorded in the various biographies of him between his birth and his appearance as a public teacher. Probably he followed his father’s trade as a carpenter. The event that seems to have called him from home was the preaching of an enthusiastic ascetic named John the Baptist. At his hands Jesus submitted to the baptismal rite, and then entered on his career, wandering from place to place. The fragments of his discourses, which have survived in the short biographies known as the Gospels, show him to have been gifted with a simple, winning style, and his sermons, brightened by happy illustration or striking parable, went home to the hearts of his hearers. Women, often of the outcast class, were drawn to him by the sympathy which attracted even more than his teaching. Among a people to whom the unvarying order of Nature was an idea wholly foreign—for Greek speculations had not penetrated into Palestine—stories of miracle-working found easy credit, falling in, as they did, with popular belief in the constant intervention of deity. Thus, to the reports of what Jesus taught were added those of the wonders which he had wrought, from feeding thousands of folk with a few loaves of bread to raising the dead to life. His itinerant mission secured him a few devoted followers from various towns and villages, while the effect of success upon himself was to heighten his own conception of the importance of his work. The skill of the Romans in fusing together subject races had failed them in the case of the Jews, whose belief in their special place in the world as the “chosen people” never forsook them. Nor had their misfortunes weakened their belief that the Messiah predicted by their prophets would appear to deliver them, and plant their feet on the neck of the hated conqueror. This hope, as became a pious Jew, Jesus shared, but it set him brooding on some nobler, because more spiritual, conception of it than his fellow-countrymen nurtured. Finally, it led him to the belief, fostered by the ambition of his nearer disciples, which was, however, material in its hopes, that he was the spiritual Messiah. In that faith he repaired to Jerusalem at the time of the Passover feast when the city was crowded with devotees, that he might, before the chief priests and elders, make his appeal to the nation. According to the story, his daring in clearing the holy temple of money-changers and traders led to his appearance before the Sanhedrin, the highest judicial council; his plainness of speech raised the fury of the sects; and when, dreaming of a purer faith, he spoke ominous words about the destruction of the temple, the charge of blasphemy was laid against him. His guilt was made clear to his judges when, answering a question of the high priest, he declared himself to be the Messiah. This, involving claim to kingship over the Jews, and therefore rebellion against the Empire, was made the plea of haling him before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, for trial. Pilate, looking upon the whole affair as a local émeute, was disinclined to severity, but nothing short of the death of Jesus as a blasphemer (although his chief offence appears to have been his disclaimer of earthly sovereignty) would satisfy the angry mob. Amidst their taunts and jeers he was taken to a place named Calvary, and there put to death by the torturing process of crucifixion, or, the particular mode not being clear, of transfixion on a stake.
This tragic event, on which, as is still widely held, hang the destinies of mankind to the end of time, attracted no attention outside Judæa. In the Roman eye, cold, contemptuous, and practical, it was but the execution of a troublesome fanatic who had embroiled himself with his fellow-countrymen, and added the crime of sedition to the folly of blasphemy. Pilate himself passed on, without more ado, to the next duty. Tradition, anxious to prove that retribution followed his criminal act, as it was judged in after-time to be, tells how he flung himself in remorse from the mountain known as Pilatus, which overlooks the lake of Lucerne. With truer insight, a striking modern story, L’Etui de Nacre, by Anatole France, makes Pilate, on his retirement to Sicily in old age, thus refer to the incident in conversation with a Roman friend who had loved a Jewish maiden.
“A few months after I had lost sight of her I heard by accident that she had joined a small party of men and women who were following a young Galilean miracle-worker. His name was Jesus, he came from Nazareth, and he was crucified for I don’t know what crime. Pontius, do you remember this man? Pontius Pilate knit his brow, and put his hand to his forehead like one who is searching his memory; then after a few moments of silence: ‘Jesus,’ murmured he, ‘Jesus of Nazareth. No, I don’t remember him.’”
On the third day after his death, Jesus is said to have risen from the grave, and appeared to a faithful few of his disciples. On the fortieth day after his resurrection he is said to have ascended to heaven. Both these statements rest on the authority of the biographies which were compiled some years after his death. Jesus wrote nothing himself; therefore the “brethren,” as his intimate followers called one another, had no other sacred books than those of the Old Testament. They believed that Jesus was the Messiah predicted in Daniel and some of the apocryphal writings, and they cherished certain “logia” or sayings of his which formed the basis of the first three Gospels. The earliest of these, that bearing the name of Mark, probably took the shape in which we have it (some spurious verses at the end excepted) about 70 A. D. The fourth Gospel, which tradition attributes to John, is generally believed to be half a century later than Mark. It seems likely that the importance of collecting the words of Jesus into any permanent form did not occur to those who had heard them, because the belief in his speedy return was all-powerful among them, and their life and attitude toward everything was shaped accordingly.