That is the point to which we have now brought the story, and that is the point at which I mean to leave it. It is a point at which most of the threads of the story come together. It might almost seem to us, looking back over it, as if it were the point to which it had been designed, by some great designer, that the story of man should work itself out.
You see what the state of the world is.
There is this great and wonderful machine of world government, the Roman power, in full operation. The power could reach to any part of the wide empire; the legions would march along those Roman roads, made, as you probably know, with a wonderful straightness, up hill and down dale, never turning aside from the direction at which they aimed unless it were for a very steep mountain. They went, as the Romans themselves went, direct to their ends, straight, with no faltering.
Posts, or stations for communication, were established along those roads, after the manner of a relay race. A messenger would come galloping along from Rome to the first post out, and there he would hand his message, his letter, to another man who would go galloping with it to the next post along the road, which led perhaps to the north of Gaul, perhaps to the east of Thrace, perhaps to the west of Spain, direct to the provincial governor or the commander of the legions to whom the letter was addressed; and so on, stage by stage, till it came to its destination.
It is wonderful, is it not? Have you not wondered, when you read of St. Paul's trial, at its being said, "This man might have been set at liberty if he had not appealed to Cæsar"?
It is wonderful, surely, that all that distance away, in Palestine, a man, a Jew, just because he was a Roman citizen (probably Paul's parents had acquired the right of citizenship by buying it—as could legally be done) could appeal from the decision of his judges there and claim to be taken all the way to Rome. And this at a time when he could only go by horseback overland or by sail oversea!
You know how St. Paul did go in a ship from Alexandria. That would have been a corn ship; for Rome was getting most of her corn from Egypt at this time. And you know what adventures and calamities he had by the way. He was acquitted finally, on that charge, but he had spent two years in prison at Cæsarea, and two more in Rome. And after this acquittal, he was re-arrested, re-tried and executed—a terrible story!
But for the moment the point I want you to see is how far and how certainly Rome could reach out her arm and do justice, or what was called justice. It was a very wonderful machine.
Influence of Greece
So there was this machine, which had all the material power and was wonderful for purposes of government—for organisation, as we say. But, then, look at the world, the cities, the civilisations in which it was operating. Their thought, their art, their literature, was not Roman; it was Greek. Of all the Eastern part of the world, of Greece itself and all to the east of Greece, right away to the Euphrates and south of Egypt, we may say that it had learned to think in the Greek way before it had ever heard of the Romans at all. Indeed, we may talk, if we please, of Roman art, Roman literature and so on; but if we do we have to remember all the time that there is very little in it that was original. It was nearly all copied from the Greek. The Romans had great men. They had their great orator, Cicero; but he was less great than his Greek predecessor, Demosthenes. They had Livy and Tacitus, the historians. Tacitus had a style of his own. Perhaps he is the most original writer in prose that Rome produced. But Livy compares more with Thucydides, and the comparison is hardly to the advantage of the Roman historian. Besides, we may ask, "How would Livy have written if he had not had Thucydides and other Greeks to be his guides?"