History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A. D. 100-325

while systems of philosophy, and dynasties were rising and passing away, the new religion, in spite

of fearful opposition from without and danger from within, was silently and steadily progressing

with the irresistible force of truth, and worked itself gradually into the very bone and blood of the

race.

"Christ appeared," says the great Augustin, "to the men of the decrepit, decaying world,

that while all around them was withering away, they might through Him receive new, youthful

life."

Notes.

Gibbon, in his famous fifteenth chapter, traces the rapid progress of Christianity in the

Roman empire to five causes: the zeal of the early Christians, the belief in future rewards and

punishment, the power of miracles, the austere (pure) morals of the Christian, and the compact

church organization. But these causes are themselves the effects of a cause which Gibbon ignores,

namely, the divine truth of Christianity, the perfection of Christ’s teaching and Christ’s example.

See the strictures of Dr. John Henry Newman, Grammar of Assent, 445 sq., and Dr. George P.

Fisher, The Beginnings of Christianity, p. 543 sqq. "The zeal" [of the early Christians], says Fisher,

"was zeal for a person, and for a cause identified with Him; the belief in the future life sprang out

of faith in Him who had died and risen again, and ascended to Heaven; the miraculous powers of

the early disciples were consciously connected with the same source; the purification of morals,

and the fraternal unity, which lay at the basis of ecclesiastical association among the early Christians,

were likewise the fruit of their relation to Christ, and their common love to Him. The victory of

Christianity in the Roman world was the victory of Christ, who was lifted up that He might draw

all men unto Him."

Lecky (Hist. of Europ. Morals, I. 412) goes deeper than Gibbon, and accounts for the success

of early Christianity by its intrinsic excellency and remarkable adaptation to the wants of the times

in the old Roman empire. "In the midst of this movement," he says, "Christianity gained its

ascendancy, and we can be at no loss to discover the cause of its triumph. No other religion, under

such circumstances, had ever combined so many distinct elements of power and attraction. Unlike

the Jewish religion, it was bound by no local ties, and was equally adapted for every nation and for

every class. Unlike Stoicism, it appealed in the strongest manner to the affections, and offered all

the charm of a sympathetic worship. Unlike the Egyptian religion, it united with its distinctive

teaching a pure and noble system of ethics, and proved itself capable of realizing it in action. It

proclaimed, amid a vast movement of social and national amalgamation, the universal brotherhood

of mankind. Amid the softening influence of philosophy and civilization, it taught the supreme

sanctity of love. To the slave, who had never before exercised so large an influence over Roman

religious life, it was the religion of the suffering and the oppressed. To the philosopher it was at

once the echo of the highest ethics of the later Stoics, and the expansion of the best teaching of the

school of Plato. To a world thirsting for prodigy, it offered a history replete with wonders more

strange than those of Apollonius; while the Jew and the Chaldean could scarcely rival its exorcists,

and the legends of continual miracles circulated among its followers. To a world deeply conscious

of political dissolution, and prying eagerly and anxiously into the future, it proclaimed with a

thrilling power the immediate destruction of the globe—the glory of all its friends, and the damnation

of all its foes. To a world that had grown very weary gazing on the cold passionless grandeur which

Cato realized, and which Lucan sung, it presented an ideal of compassion and of love—an ideal

destined for centuries to draw around it all that was greatest, as well as all that was noblest upon

16

Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

---

earth—a Teacher who could weep by the sepulchre of His friend, who was touched with the feeling

of our infirmities. To a world, in fine, distracted by hostile creeds and colliding philosophies, it

taught its doctrines, not as a human speculation, but as a Divine revelation, authenticated much

less by reason than by faith. ’With the heart man believeth unto righteousness;’ ’He that doeth the

will of my Father will know the doctrine, whether it be of God;’ ’Unless you believe you cannot

understand;’ ’A heart naturally Christian;’ ’The heart makes the theologian,’ are the phrases which

best express the first action of Christianity upon the world. Like all great religions, it was more

concerned with modes of feeling than with modes of thought. The chief cause of its success was

the congruity of its teaching with the spiritual nature of mankind. It was because it was true of the

moral sentiments of the age, because it represented faithfully the supreme type of excellence to

which men were then tending, because it corresponded with their religious wants, aims, and emotions,

because the whole spiritual being could then expand and expatiate under its influence that it planted

its roots so deeply in the hearts of men."

Merivale (Convers. of the Rom. Emp., Preface) traces the conversion of the Roman empire

chiefly to four causes: 1) the external evidence of the apparent fulfilment of recorded prophecy and

miracles to the truth of Christianity; 2) the internal evidence of satisfying the acknowledged need

of a redeemer and sanctifier; 3) the goodness and holiness manifested in the lives and deaths of the

primitive believers; 4) the temporal success of Christianity under Constantine, which "turned the

mass of mankind, as with a sweeping revolution, to the rising sun of revealed truth in Christ Jesus."

Renan discusses the reasons for the victory of Christianity in the 31st chapter of his

Marc-Aurèle (Paris 1882), pp. 561–588. He attributes it chiefly "to the new discipline of life," and

"the moral reform," which the world required, which neither philosophy nor any of the established

religions could give. The Jews indeed rose high above the corruptions of the times. "

Glorie éternelle et

unique, qui doit faire oublier bien des folies et des violence! Les Juifs sont les révolutionnaires du

 1

er et du

 2

e siècle de notre ère

 " They

gave to the world Christianity. "

Les populations se précipitèrent, par une sorte du mouvement instinctif, dans une secte qui

satisfaisait leur aspirations les plus intimes et ouvrait des ésperances infinies

." Renan makes much account of the belief

in immortality and the offer of complete pardon to every sinner, as allurements to Christianity; and,

like Gibbon, he ignores its real power as a religion of salvation. This accounts for its success not

only in the old Roman empire, but in every country and nation where it has found a home.

§ 6. Means of Propagation.

It is a remarkable fact that after the days of the Apostles no names of great missionaries are

mentioned till the opening of the middle ages, when the conversion of nations was effected or

introduced by a few individuals as St. Patrick in Ireland, St. Columba in Scotland, St. Augustine

in England, St. Boniface in Germany, St. Ansgar in Scandinavia, St. Cyril and Methodius among

the Slavonic races. There were no missionary societies, no missionary institutions, no organized

efforts in the ante-Nicene age; and yet in less than 300 years from the death of St. John the whole

population of the Roman empire which then represented the civilized world was nominally

Christianized.

To understand this astonishing fact, we must remember that the foundation was laid strong

and deep by the apostles themselves. The seed scattered by them from Jerusalem to Rome, and

fertilized by their blood, sprung up as a bountiful harvest. The word of our Lord was again fulfilled

17

Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

---