But from the third century these invaders in their very triumph came face to face with a moral force that checked them as no army could, softened their manners, and uniting their rude strength with the last remains of the glory of Rome, gave to the world the civilized nations that now practically control both hemispheres.
Of the first missionary efforts little is known. Jesus himself had said, “Go ye therefore and teach all nations.... Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you,”[389] and was indeed himself the first missionary of the new faith. Of his immediate followers only three undertook missionary work.
After the death of Jesus, the Apostles scattered over the whole world. “Thomas,” says Eusebius, “received Parthia as his alloted region; Andrew received Scythia, and John, Asia.... Peter appears to have preached through Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia ... and Paul spread the Gospel from Jerusalem to Illyricum.”[390]
From another source we are told that Matthew went into Æthiopia, but in the following century there is little light as to who were the missionaries; but that they were everywhere successful is shown by the reports of the Roman governors to the emperors. Undisputed claims of Tertullian and Justin also show that the work of conversion, despite the proscriptions, was going on rapidly enough. Ulfilas, “the Apostle of the Goths,” translated the Bible into their language in 325; Eusebius, Bishop of Vercelli in 370, made his cathedral the centre of missionary work. Chrysostom trained people in the Gothic language and in missionary work and sent them among the Goths according to Theodoretius.[391]
It was harder work in the West but it was more lasting. From Berins, an islet off the roadstead of Toulon where, in 410 A. D., a Roman patrician, Honoratus, had founded a monastic home, there were sent bishops to Arles, Avignon, Lyons, Troyes, Metz, and Nice, and many other places in southern and western Gaul, all to become the centres of missionary work.[392]
The proselyting spirit among these Frankish bishops gave rise to a great movement in the north. The preaching of Patrick was followed by what has been described as a marvellous burst of enthusiasm; and Celtic enthusiasm was from now to be counted on. Columba, the founder of Iona, was the missionary for the Northern Picts and the Albanian Scots; Aidan for the Northumbrian Saxons; Columbanus for the Burgundians of the Vosges; Callich or Gallus for north-eastern Switzerland and Germany; Kilian for Thuringia; Virgilius for Carinthia; Fridolin in Suabia and Alsace; Magnoald founded a monastery in Fingen; Trudpert penetrated as far as the Black Forest, where he was killed.
Among these people there had been a variety of conditions before the coming of, first the Romans, and secondly the Christians. Before the arrival of St. Patrick and the conversion of the natives there is very little doubt that part of the pagan worship included human sacrifice. On a plain in what is now the county of Leitrim which was then called the Magh-Sleacth, or Field of Slaughter, these primeval rites took place.
“There on the night of Samhin, the same dreadful tribute which the Carthaginians are known to have paid to Saturn in sacrificing to him their first-born, was by the Irish offered up to their chief idol, Crom-Cruach.”[393]
Of the Gauls and the Germans we learn something from Cæsar and Tacitus, but both are vague enough when it comes to the subject of children. The two people, according to Strabo, were as much alike as brothers.
“The two races have much in common,” said Martin, “in their social organization.” In Gaul the power of the father was absolute—viri in uxores sicut in liberos vitæ necisque habent potestatem, wrote Cæsar, and Tacitus tells us in Germanicus that the husband had assisted in the execution of his adulterous wife by her nearest relatives—a condition that would lead one to believe that there was high regard for the mother of the family, although it has been said that Tacitus in painting the Germans as virtuous as he did[394] was following much along the lines of Fenimore Cooper in painting the Indians a holy pink—he wished to improve the morals of his own countrymen and sacrificed truth as a detaining cargo.