In the face of these formidable difficulties, it may well be asked what means, short of the miraculous, could have secured such amazing successes for Christianity so soon after its foundation? We are not divines, and therefore shall leave the miraculous to those who prefer accounting in that way for the truly marvellous progress made by the first Christians in the propagation of their doctrines. Suffice it for us to say that nothing like it was ever before known in the world, nor since. Of the rapidity and multiplicity of its early triumphs we have abundant evidence in the history of the Acts of the Apostles. In Judea, where the Gospel was first preached (and where, no doubt, the labours of bygone martyred prophets, the preachings of John the Baptist, and, mayhap, the example and secret propagandism of the Essenes had prepared the ground for the seed), the new mission was, as might be expected, most successful. On the fiftieth day after the Crucifixion, it is said, three thousand persons were converted in Jerusalem by a single sermon of the Apostles. A few weeks after, five thousand true believers were present at another sermon preached in Jerusalem. Within less than ten years after Christ’s death, the disciples and followers had become so numerous throughout Judea, particularly in and about Jerusalem, that they were objects of jealousy and alarm to Herod himself. About the twenty-second year after the Crucifixion they had so multiplied themselves that their name was legion. These facts may be collected from the Acts themselves.
Nor was it amongst the poor only that the doctrines of fraternity and equality gained ground; they penetrated all ranks of the population; they were ardently espoused by men in high stations and of responsible offices, whose countenancing of such a creed was at the moment a most perilous adventure. Amongst those early proselytes we find Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, both members of the Jewish sanhedrim or council; Jarius, a ruler of the synagogue; Zaccheus, the chief of the publicans at Jericho; Apollos, a distinguished orator; Sergius Paulus, a Roman and governor of the island of Cyprus; Cornelius, a Roman centurion; Dionysius, a judge and senator of the Athenian Areopagus; Erastus, treasurer of Corinth; Tyrennus, another Corinthian and professor of rhetoric; Paul, learned in the Jewish law; Publius, governor of Melite (now Malta); Philemon, a man of great rank and influence at Colosse; Simon, a sophist of some note in Samaria; Zenas, a lawyer; and, we are told, even some of the emperor’s own household.
For, as may be inferred from some of these names, it was not in Judea only the new faith triumphed: it spread with almost equal celerity and success throughout Asia Minor, Greece, Africa, and the islands of the Archipelago; indeed, everywhere in the countries bordering the Mediterranean. There was hardly a province of the Roman empire that was not visited by its missionaries, even in the lifetime of the Apostles. Some of its earliest and most marked triumphs came off in the heart of Greece itself, at that time reputed the most polished nation in the world, and to whose schools and academies (as being the choicest nurseries of learning, art, and science) the aristocracies of Rome and elsewhere sent their sons to be educated and trained for public employments. Indeed, long before the last of the Apostles disappeared, we read of churches founded at Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, Berœa, Philippi, and other Greek cities. Rome herself, the seat of empire and mistress of the world, was not proof against the contagion of spiritualized democracy. Before the end of the second century there were Christians to be found in almost every department of the imperial service—Christians in the senate, in the palace, in the camp, in the public offices,—in short, everywhere, it is said, except in the temples and the theatres, from which, of course, their religion debarred them.
But, it will be readily imagined, this amazing progress was not obtained without paying the cost which is paid for all reformations, in the blood and calamities of the principal actors. A religion of such unheard-of character, ushered into a world such as we have described, could not but excite the fiercest opposition and call forth the most malignant passions. It was so with Christianity, despite all the miracles alleged to have been wrought in its favour. The very term “Christian” was first heard of as a term of reproach. The new believers are said to have got that name at Antioch, where the people “were given to scoffing,” but afterwards adopted it themselves as a term of honour, and gloried in it, just as we have seen the Chartists of England adopt that title (first given them in derision by their enemies), and glorify themselves in it; or as the French revolutionists of 1793 adopted and converted into an honorary title the nickname of “Sans Culottes,” contemptuously given them by Lafayette; or as our democratic brethren in America converted “Yankee Doodle” into a national air, by way of revenge for the insult originally intended by their enemies in its use.
That the word Christian was, indeed, originally used as a term of reproach cannot be doubted. Christ or his disciples never used the term. It is nowhere to be found in the Gospels; and if made use of twice or thrice in the Acts, and in one of the Apostolic Epistles, it is evidently used as a term borrowed from others, and not as one voluntarily adopted by the sect itself. But the best proof that the term was used in an offensive sense, and that the sect itself was held in detestation (mitigated only by contempt), is furnished by Tacitus’s “Annals,” in the only passage in which that historian deigns to notice them. It occurs where, speaking of the Christians persecuted by Nero, he describes them as believers in a “deplorable and destructive superstition,” which had its origin with one Christ; and then, as if for want of a name to give them, he adds, “Vulgus Christianos appellabat,” i.e. the vulgar or common people called them Christians.
At the period referred to here, the Christians were too few and too weak to cause much alarm out of Judea. Hence the air of contempt with which Tacitus wrote of them. Not very long after, however, the score was altogether changed. From a handful of obscure and unnoticeable sectarians, having scarcely any feelings in common with the rest of mankind, they grew into a gigantic community, having their missionaries, their churches, and even their political agents, spread throughout every corner of the empire. It was then their persecutions began to assume those forms and proportions which are necessary to attract history; it was then the pagan priesthoods, pagan magistrates, and pagan aristocracies found it necessary to check the tendencies of the new heresy, and to rouse and infuriate the superstitious prejudices and passions of the populace against the innovators. Nor was this a difficult task. At all times it is easy enough to influence ignorant mobs against reforms they understand not, and against men they comprehend not. It was peculiarly so in the case of the pagan rabble, let loose against the early Christians. For, be it observed, this new religion, which never ceased proselytizing, was a singularly exclusive one. It denied dogmatically, and rejected contemptuously, every alleged fact and article of heathen mythology, and the existence of every article of their worship. It would hear of no compromise, no amalgamation. If it prevailed at all, it must prevail by the subversion of every altar, statue, temple, consecrated to pagan uses. It pronounced all other gods false; all other worship sinful and an abomination. With these peculiarities engraved on it, it was impossible for the new religion to escape persecution from the pagan priesthood and superstitious rabble. And when we combine with this the consideration that the pagan magistrates and rulers regarded the doctrines of Christ as subversive of governmental authority, of the subordination of classes, and of the institution of property itself, as well as of religion and of the protection of their gods, we shall be at no loss to appreciate the nature of the feelings about to be roused into action against the Christians. We shall see, as we proceed, how these feelings showed themselves in the struggles and prosecutions which ensued.
