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

Comp. Friedländer, Sittengesch. Roms. III. 517 sqq.; and Renan: Marc-Aurèle. Paris 1882, ch. xxv.

pp. 447–464 (

Statistique et extension géographique du Christianisme

).

V. Schultze: 

Geschichte des Untergangs des griech-römischen

. Heidenthums. Jena, 1887.

§ 4. Hindrances and Helps.

For the first three centuries Christianity was placed in the most unfavorable circumstances, that

it might display its moral power, and gain its victory over the world by spiritual weapons alone.

Until the reign of Constantine it had not even a legal existence in the Roman empire, but was first

ignored as a Jewish sect, then slandered, proscribed, and persecuted, as a treasonable innovation,

and the adoption of it made punishable with confiscation and death. Besides, it offered not the

slightest favor, as Mohammedanism afterwards did, to the corrupt inclinations of the heart, but

against the current ideas of Jews and heathen it so presented its inexorable demand of repentance

and conversion, renunciation of self and the world, that more, according to Tertullian, were kept

out of the new sect by love of pleasure than by love of life. The Jewish origin of Christianity also,

and the poverty and obscurity of a majority of its professors particularly offended the pride of the

Greeks, and Romans. Celsus, exaggerating this fact, and ignoring the many exceptions, scoffingly

remarked, that "weavers, cobblers, and fullers, the most illiterate persons" preached the "irrational

faith," and knew how to commend it especially "to women and children."

But in spite of these extraordinary difficulties Christianity made a progress which furnished

striking evidence of its divine origin and adaptation to the deeper wants of man, and was employed

as such by Irenaeus, Justin, Tertullian, and other fathers of that day. Nay, the very hindrances

became, in the hands of Providence, means of promotion. Persecution led to martyrdom, and

martyrdom had not terrors alone, but also attractions, and stimulated the noblest and most unselfish

form of ambition. Every genuine martyr was a living proof of the truth and holiness of the Christian

religion. Tertullian could exclaim to the heathen: "All your ingenious cruelties can accomplish

nothing; they are only a lure to this sect. Our number increases the more you destroy us. The blood

of the Christians is their seed." The moral earnestness of the Christians contrasted powerfully with

the prevailing corruption of the age, and while it repelled the frivolous and voluptuous, it could not

fail to impress most strongly the deepest and noblest minds. The predilection of the poor and

oppressed for the gospel attested its comforting and redeeming power. But others also, though not

many, from the higher and educated classes, were from the first attracted to the new religion; such

men as Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathaea, the apostle Paul, the proconsul Sergius Paulus, Dionysius

of Athens, Erastus of Corinth, and some members of the imperial household. Among the sufferers

in Domitian’s persecution were his own near kinswoman Flavia Domitilla and her husband Flavius

Clemens. In the oldest part of the Catacomb of Callistus, which is named after St. Lucina, members

of the illustrious gens Pomponia, and perhaps also of the Flavian house, are interred. The senatorial

and equestrian orders furnished several converts open or concealed. Pliny laments, that in Asia

Minor men of every rank (omnis ordinis) go over to the Christians. Tertullian asserts that the tenth

part of Carthage, and among them senators and ladies of the noblest descent and the nearest relatives

of the proconsul of Africa professed Christianity. The numerous church fathers from the middle of

the second century, a Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian,

excelled, or at least equalled in talent and culture, their most eminent heathen contemporaries.

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Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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Nor was this progress confined to any particular localities. It extended alike over all parts

of the empire. "We are a people of yesterday," says Tertullian in his Apology, "and yet we have

filled every place belonging to you—cities, islands, castles, towns, assemblies, your very camp,

your tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum! We leave you your temples only. We can count your

armies; our numbers in a single province will be greater." All these facts expose the injustice of

the odious charge of Celsus, repeated by a modern sceptic, that the new sect was almost entirely

composed of the dregs of the populace—of peasants and mechanics, of boys and women, of beggars

and slaves.

§ 5. Causes of the Success of Christianity.

The chief positive cause of the rapid spread and ultimate triumph of Christianity is to be found

in its own absolute intrinsic worth, as the universal religion of salvation, and in the perfect teaching

and example of its divine-human Founder, who proves himself to every believing heart a Saviour

from sin and a giver of eternal life. Christianity is adapted to all classes, conditions, and relations

among men, to all nationalities and races, to all grades of culture, to every soul that longs for

redemption from sin, and for holiness of life. Its value could be seen in the truth and self-evidencing

power of its doctrines; in the purity and sublimity of its precepts; in its regenerating and sanctifying

effects on heart and life; in the elevation of woman and of home life over which she presides; in

the amelioration of the condition of the poor and suffering; in the faith, the brotherly love, the

beneficence, and the triumphant death of its confessors.

To this internal moral and spiritual testimony were added the powerful outward proof of

its divine origin in the prophecies and types of the Old Testament, so strikingly fulfilled in the New;

and finally, the testimony of the miracles, which, according to the express statements of Quadratus,

Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, and others, continued in this period to accompany the

preaching of missionaries from time to time, for the conversion of the heathen.

Particularly favorable outward circumstances were the extent, order, and unity of the Roman

empire, and the prevalence of the Greek language and culture.

In addition to these positive causes, Christianity had a powerful negative advantage in the

hopeless condition of the Jewish and heathen world. Since the fearful judgment of the destruction

of Jerusalem, Judaism wandered restless and accursed, without national existence. Heathenism

outwardly held sway, but was inwardly rotten and in process of inevitable decay. The popular

religion and public morality were undermined by a sceptical and materialistic philosophy; Grecian

science and art had lost their creative energy; the Roman empire rested only on the power of the

sword and of temporal interests; the moral bonds of society were sundered; unbounded avarice and

vice of every kind, even by the confession of a Seneca and a Tacitus, reigned in Rome and in the

provinces, from the throne to the hovel. Virtuous emperors, like Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius,

were the exception, not the rule, and could not prevent the progress of moral decay. Nothing, that

classic antiquity in its fairest days had produced, could heal the fatal wounds of the age, or even

give transient relief. The only star of hope in the gathering night was the young, the fresh, the

dauntless religion of Jesus, fearless of death, strong in faith, glowing with love, and destined to

commend itself more and more to all reflecting minds as the only living religion of the present and

the future. While the world was continually agitated by wars, and revolutions, and public calamities,

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Philip Schaff

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

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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