As for us, remote spectators, the astonishment must be not the slowness or limited nature of that success, but its rapidity and its extent. All religions that have taken place in the world's history, have been established by moral and by material agency; all appealed from their very commencement as much to force as to persuasion, as much to the arm as to the tongue. Christianity alone lived and grew during three centuries by its own single native virtue, without any other appeal than that made to Truth, without any other aid than that of Faith. During those three centuries the dogmas, the precepts, and the miracles of its Author constituted its only weapons, and weapons which have prevailed against all other arms. Those dogmas, those precepts, and those miracles effected the conquest of man's mind and of human society in spite of the resistance of Greek philosophy, Roman power, and all the poetical or mystical mythologies of antiquity marshalled against them. The victory has not, it is true, put an end to all struggle of man's intelligence: neither has the light from Christ dissipated all darkness, nor satisfied all minds; the explanation and commentaries of man have obscured the doctrines of Christ; human prejudices have mistaken his precepts; and legends have been grafted upon his miracles. But the fact does not the less exist, that the dogmas, the precepts, and the miracles of Christ, without any aid from human sources, sufficed to found and ensure the triumph of the Christian religion: this is a fact primitive and supreme. And from this single result shines forth the divine character of the Christian religion, for its triumph without the miraculous agency of God, would be of all miracles the most impossible to receive.
IV. Jesus, The Jews, And The Gentiles.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." [Footnote 109]
[Footnote 109: Matthew v. 17.]
"Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" [Footnote 110]
[Footnote 110: John v. 45-47.]
This was the language that Jesus used to the Jews. It was in the name of their history and of their faith, in the name of the God of Abraham and of Jacob, that He called them to Him, presenting himself to them in the double capacity of conservative and reformer, and appealing to the ancient law against those who, whilst observing it outwardly, really changed its character. "Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. But He answered and said unto them, "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; and honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus ye have made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition![Footnote 111] … Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." [Footnote 112]
[Footnote 111: Matthew xv. 1-6.]
[Footnote 112: Matthew xxiii. 23.]
Jesus was incessantly warning, making appeals to the Jews; and when He saw that they pertinaciously disavowed and rejected Him, He cried, in an impulse of patriotic, affectionate sadness:—"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!" [Footnote 113]