§ 10.2. Influence of Judaism upon Heathenism.—The heathen state showed itself generally tolerant toward Judaism. Alexander the Great and his successors, the Ptolemies, to some extent also the Seleucidæ, allowed the Jews the free exercise of their religion and various privileges, while the Romans allowed Judaism to rank as a religio licita. Nevertheless the Jews were universally despised and hated. Tacitus calls them despectissima pars servientium, teterrima gens; and even the better class of writers, such as Manetho, Justin, Tacitus, gave currency to the most absurd stories and malicious calumnies against them. In opposition to these the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus took pains to overcome the prejudices of Greeks and Romans against his nation, by presenting to them its history and institutions in the most favourable light. But on the other side, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint, as well as the multitude of Jewish synagogues, which during the Roman period were scattered over the whole world, afforded to every heathen interested therein the opportunity of discovering by personal examination and inquiry the characteristic principles of Judaism. When, therefore, we consider the utterly corrupt condition of heathenism, we cannot wonder that Judaism, in spite of all the contempt that was thrown upon it, would attract, by reason of its hoary antiquity and the sublime simplicity of its creed, the significance of its worship, and its Messianic promises, many of the better aspiring heathens, who were no longer satisfied with their sorely degraded forms of religion. And though indeed only a few enrolled themselves as “Proselytes of Righteousness,” entering the Jewish community by submitting to the rite of circumcision, the number of the “Proselytes of the Gate” who without observing the whole of the ceremonial law undertook to abandon their idols and to worship Jehovah, in all ranks of society, mostly women, was very considerable, and it was just among them that Christianity found the most hearty and friendly acceptance.
§ 11. The Fulness of Time.
The fulness of the olden time had come when the dawn of a new era burst forth over the mountains of Judea. All that Judaism and heathenism had been able to do in preparing the way for this new era had now been done. Heathenism was itself conscious of its impotence and unfitness for satisfying the religious needs of the human spirit, and wherever it had not fallen into dreary unbelief or wild superstition, it struggled and agonized, aspiring after something better. In this way negatively a path was prepared for the church. In science and art, as well as in general intellectual culture, heathenism had produced something great and imperishable; and ineffectual as these in themselves had proved to restore again to man the peace which he had lost and now sought after, they might become effectually helpful for such purposes when made subservient to the true salvation. And so far heathenism was a positive helper to the church. The impression that a crisis in the world’s history was near at hand was universal among Jews and Gentiles. The profound realization of the need was a presage of the time of fulfilment. All true Israelites waited for the promised Messiah, and even in heathenism the ancient hope of the return of the Golden Age was again brought to the front, and had, from the sacred scriptures and synagogues of the Jews, obtained a new holding ground and a definite direction. The heathen state, too, made its own contribution toward preparing the way of the church. One sceptre and one language united the whole world, a universal peace prevailed, and the most widely extended commercial intercourse gave opportunity for the easy and rapid spread of saving truth.
THE HISTORY OF THE BEGINNINGS.
The Founding of the Church by Christ and His Apostles.
§ 12. Character of the History of the Beginnings.
The propriety in a treatise on general church history of separating the Times of Jesus and the Times of the Apostles, closely connected therewith, from the History of the Development of the Church, and giving to them a distinct place under the title of the History of the Beginnings, rests on the fact that in those times we have the germs and principles of all that follows. The unique capacity of the Apostles, resulting from special enlightenment and endowment, makes that which they have done of vital importance for all subsequent development. In our estimation of each later form of the church’s existence we must go back to the doctrine and practice of Christ and His Apostles as the standard, not as to a finally completed form that has exhausted all possibilities of development, and made all further advance and growth impossible or useless, but rather as to the authentic fresh germs and beginnings of the church, so that not only what in later development is found to have existed in the same form in the beginning is recognised as genuinely Christian, but also that which is seen to be a development and growth of that primitive form.