GENERAL PROGRESS OF THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
We have seen Barnabas leaving Antioch in order to carry to the faithful
at Jerusalem the contributions of their brethren in Syria, and arriving
at Jerusalem in time to be present at several of the excitements
occasioned there by the persecution of Herod Agrippa.[16.1] Let us now
follow him again to Antioch, where, at this period, all the creative
energy of the sect seems to have been concentrated.
Barnabas took back a zealous assistant, his cousin John-Mark, the
disciple of Peter,[16.2] and the son of that Mary at whose house the
chief apostle loved to stay. Doubtless in calling this new co-worker
to his aid, he had already in view the great enterprise in which they
were to embark. Perhaps he foresaw the disputes it would occasion, and
was well pleased to engage in it one who was understood to be the right
hand of Peter, whose influence in general matters was predominant.
The enterprise itself was no less than a series of great missions
starting from Antioch and seeking the conversion of the world. Like
all the great resolves of the early Church, this idea was ascribed to
a direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost. A special call, a supernatural
election, was believed to have been vouchsafed to the Church of Antioch
while engaged in fasting and prayer. Perhaps one of the prophets of
the Church, Menahem, or Lucius, uttered under the power of the gift of
tongues the words intimating that Paul and Barnabas were predestined
to this mission.[16.3] Paul was convinced that God had chosen him from
his mother's womb for this task, to which thenceforth he exclusively
devoted himself.[16.4]
The two apostles took with them, as an assistant in the details
of their enterprise, the John-Mark whom Barnabas had brought from
Jerusalem.[16.5] When the preparations were completed, after fasting
and prayer, and laying on of hands as a sign of the authority conferred
by the Church itself on the apostles,[16.6] they were commended to the
grace of God, and set out.[16.7] Whither they should journey, and what
races they should evangelize, is what we are now to learn.
The early missions were all directed westward, or in other words
adopted the Roman empire for their scene of operations. Excepting some
small provinces between the Tigris and the Euphrates under the rule of
the Arsacides, the Parthian countries received no Christian missions
during the first century.[16.8] Until the reigns of the Sassanides,
Christianity did not pass eastward beyond the Tigris. This important
fact was due to two causes, the Mediterranean sea, and the Roman empire.
For a thousand years the Mediterranean had been the great pathway
of ideas and civilizations. The Romans, in extirpating its pirates,
had rendered it an unequalled method of intercourse. A numerous
coasting-marine made it very easy to pass from point to point on the
borders of this immense lake. The comparative safety of the imperial
highways, the protection afforded by the civil authority, the diffusion
of the Jews around the Mediterranean coasts, the spreading of the
Greek language over their eastern portion,{16.9} and the unity of
civilization, which first the Greeks, and then the Romans, had extended
over those countries, all joined to make the map of the empire a map
of the regions set apart for Christian missions, and destined to be
Christianized. The Roman world became the Christian world, and in
this sense the founders of the empire may be called the founders of
the Christian monarchy. Every province conquered by the empire was a
conquest for Christianity. Had the apostles been placed in presence
of an independent Asia Minor; of a Greece or an Italy divided into
a hundred little republics; of a Gaul, Spain, Africa; of Egypt with
her ancient institutions--we cannot conceive of their succeeding, or
even imagine that such a project could have been seriously formed.
The unity of the empire was the preliminary condition of all great
religious conversions which should transcend lines of nationality. This
the empire saw clearly in the fourth century; it became Christian. It
perceived that it had established Christianity without knowing it; a
religion conterminous with the Roman territory, identified with the
empire, and capable of inspiring it with new life. The Church, on the
other hand, became entirely Roman, and has remained down to our own
day as a fragment of the empire. Had any one told Paul that Claudius
was his chief coöperator, or Claudius that the Jew just setting out
from Antioch was about to found the most enduring part of the imperial
structure, both would have been much astonished. Nevertheless both
sayings would have been true.
Syria was the first country out of Judea in which Christianity became
naturally established. This was an evident result of the vicinity of
Palestine and of the great number of Jews living in Syria.[16.10] The
apostles visited Cyprus, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, and Italy next
in order, and only a few years after. Southern Gaul, Spain, and the
coast of Africa, although made acquainted with the Gospel at an early
period, may be considered as of a more recent epoch in the building up
of the new faith.
It was the same with Egypt. Egypt plays hardly any part in the
apostolic history, and the missionaries seem to have systematically
passed it by. Although after the third century it was the scene of such
momentous events in religious history, it was at first very backward
in Christian progress. Apollos was the only teacher of Christianity
who came from the Alexandrian school, and he learned it during his
travels.[16.11] The cause of this remarkable fact will be found
in the meagreness of the intercourse between the Egyptian and the
Palestinian Jews; and above all in the circumstance that Jewish Egypt
had a separate religious development in the teachings of Philo and the
Therapeutæ, which were its special Christianity, and which indisposed
it to lend an attentive ear to any other.[16.12] As to heathen Egypt,
her religious institutions were much more tenacious than those of
Greco-Roman paganism.[16.13] The Egyptian idolatry was yet in full
vigor. It was almost the epoch when the enormous temples of Esneh and
Ombos were constructed, and when the hope of finding a last Ptolemy,
a national Messiah in the little Cesarion, inspired the building of
Dendera and Hermonthis, which will compare with the finest works of
the Pharaohs. Christianity planted itself everywhere upon the ruins of
national feeling and local worships. The degradation of mind in Egypt
also made very rare those religious aspirations which opened so easy a
road to Christianity in other regions.
A flash of light from Syria, illumining almost at once the three
great peninsulas of Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, and soon followed
by a second, which extended over nearly the whole Mediterranean
seaboard--such was the first apparition of Christianity. The course
of the apostolic vessels was always much the same. The Christian
preaching seems to have followed a road already laid out, and which is
no other than that of the Jewish emigration. Like a contagion which,
having its point of departure at the head of the Mediterranean, appears
all at once at a number of separate points on the shore by a secret
communication, Christianity had its points in a manner marked in
advance. They were nearly all places where there existed colonies of
Jews. The synagogue generally preceded the church. It was like a train
of powder, or more correctly, an electric cord, along which the new
idea ran with almost instantaneous rapidity.
During a century and a half Judaism, which had previously been confined
to the East and to Egypt, had been spreading westward. Cyrene, Cyprus,
Asia Minor, and certain cities of Macedonia, Greece, and Italy,
contained large Jewish colonies.[16.14] The Jews first exemplified
that species of patriotism which the Parsees, the Armenians, and in
some degree the modern Greeks, have shown in later ages;--a patriotism
of great warmth, though not attached to any particular locality;
a patriotism of a nation of merchants wandering everywhere, and
everywhere recognising each other as brothers; a patriotism which
results in forming no great compact states, but small autonomic
communities within other states. Closely associated among themselves,
the dispersed Jews formed quasi-independent congregations within the
cities, having their own magistrates and their own councils, some of
whom were invested with powers approaching sovereignty itself. They
dwelt in quarters by themselves, outside of the ordinary jurisdiction,
despised by the other citizens, and happy enough at home. They were
rather poor than rich. The epoch of the great Jewish fortunes had
not yet arrived; they began in Spain under the Visigoths.[16.15]
The monopoly of finance by the Jews resulted from the lack of
administrative capacity in the barbarians, and from the hatred
manifested by the Church against monetary science and her superficial
notions about usury. Nothing of the kind occurred in the Roman empire.
But when a Jew is not rich, he is poor; _bourgeois_ comfort is not his
forte. He is capable of enduring poverty; and he is still more capable
of combining the fiercest religious energy with the rarest commercial
skill. Theological eccentricities are not at all inconsistent with good
sense in conducting business. In England, America, and Russia, the
strangest sectaries, Irvingites, Latter-Day Saints, Raskolniks, are
able business-men.
It has always been characteristic of unadulterated Jewish life to
produce much gaiety and cordiality. In that little world of theirs
they loved each other, they revered their common history, and their
religious ceremonies mingled pleasantly with their daily existence. It
was analogous to the separate communities which still exist in Turkish
cities, such as the Greek, the Armenian, and the Hebrew quarters at
Smyrna, where they are all acquainted, and live and intrigue together.
In these little republics, religious affairs always control politics,
or rather supply the want of the latter. Amongst them a heresy is
an affair of state, and a schism always arises out of some personal
difficulty. The Romans, with rare exceptions, never penetrated these
secluded quarters. The synagogues published decrees, awarded honors,
and acted like real municipalities.[16.16] Their influence was extreme.
In Alexandria, it is predominant in all the internal history of the
city.[16.17] At Rome the Jews were numerous{6.18} and constituted a
body, the support of which was by no means to be despised. Cicero
claims the credit of courage for having resisted some of their
demands.[16.19] Cæsar protected them, and found them faithful.[16.20]
Tiberius was obliged, in order to control them, to resort to the
severest measures.[16.21] Caligula, whose reign was most calamitous to
them in the East, allowed them freedom of association at Rome.[16.22]
Claudius, who favored them in Judea, found it necessary to expel them
from the city.[16.23] They were encountered everywhere,[16.24] and it
was even said of them as of the Greeks, that when themselves subdued,
they had succeeded in imposing laws on their conquerors.[16.25]
The feelings of the native population towards these foreigners were
very diverse. On the one hand that strong sentiment of repulsion and
antipathy which the Jews have invariably inspired where sufficiently
numerous and organized, by their jealous love of isolation, their
revengeful nature, and their exclusive habits, manifested itself with
great force.[16.26] When they were free they were in fact a privileged
class, for they enjoyed the advantages of society, without sustaining
its burdens.[16.27] Charlatans took advantage of the curiosity inspired
by their religious rites, and under pretence of exposing their secrets,
acted all sorts of impostures.[16.28] Violent and semi-burlesque
pamphlets, like that of Apion, nourished the pagan enmity, and were
too often the sources whence the profane historians derived their
information.[16.29] The Jews seem to have been generally sullen
and full of complaints. They were looked upon as a secret society,
malevolent towards others, the members of which were pledged to push
forward their own interests at any cost, regardless of injury to their
fellow-men.[16.30] Their singular customs, their aversion to certain
kinds of food, their filth and unpleasant odor,[16.31] their religious
scruples, their minute observances on the Sabbath, all appeared absurd
and ridiculous.[16.32] Placed under a social ban, it was a natural
consequence that they should care nothing about refined appearances.
They were met everywhere travelling with garments shiny with dirt,
with an awkward air, a weary mien, a cadaverous skin, and large,
sunken eyes,[16.33] assuming a hypocritical and obsequious manner, and
herding apart with their women and children, and their bundles and
hamper, which composed their whole movable possessions.[16.34] In the
towns they exercised the meanest trades; they were beggars,[16.35]
rag-pickers, match-venders,[16.36] and small peddlers. Their history
and their law were alike unjustly reviled. Sometimes they were called
cruel and superstitious;[16.37][16.38] sometimes atheists and despisers
of the gods.[16.39] Their hatred of images appeared purely impious.
Above all, circumcision afforded a theme for endless raillery.[16.40]
But such superficial estimates were not concurred in by every one.
The Jews had as many friends as detractors. Their gravity and good
morals, and the simplicity of their religion, were attractive to
many persons, who recognised in them something superior. A vast
monotheistic and Mosaic propaganda was organized,[16.41] as it were
a powerful vortex around this singular race. The poor Jew peddler of
the Transteverine,[16.42] setting out in the morning with his basket
of small wares, often returned at evening enriched with alms from
some pious hand.[16.43] Women in particular were attracted towards
these ragged missionaries.[16.44] Juvenal enumerates their leaning
towards the Jewish religion as one of the vices of the ladies of his
time.[16.45] Those who were converted, gloried in the treasure they
had found and the happiness they enjoyed.[16.46] The old Greek and
Roman mind resisted stoutly; contempt and hatred of Jews were the sure
emotions of cultivated intellects, such as Cicero, Horace, Seneca,
Juvenal, Tacitus, Quintilian, and Suetonius.[16.47] On the other side,
the enormous mass of mingled populations which had become subject to
the empire and to whom the old Roman intellect and Greek learning were
foreign or indifferent, gladly and spontaneously welcomed a community
where they observed such touching examples of concord, charity, and
mutual aid,[16.48] of content, industry,[16.49] and proud poverty. The
institution of mendicity, which afterwards became entirely Christian,
was at that time Jewish. The mendicant by profession, "formed to it by
his mother," presented himself to the minds of the poets of the day as
a Jew.[16.50]
Exemption from some civil burdens, especially military duty, may
also have contributed to cause the lot of the Jews to be regarded as
desirable.[16.51] The State at that period demanded many sacrifices,
and afforded few moral advantages or pleasures. It created an icy
coldness as in a uniform and shelterless plain. Human life, which was
so melancholy under the rule of paganism, regained its charm and its
value in the mild atmospheres of the synagogue and the Church. There
was little enough liberty there, it is true. The brethren watched
each other and tormented each other unceasingly. But although the
internal life of these communities was anything but tranquil, it was
very enjoyable, and people did not abandon it; it had no apostates.
The poor enjoyed content within its circle; and dwelling in the quiet
of an untroubled conscience, regarded riches without envy.[16.52] The
truly democratic idea of the folly of worldly things, and the vanity
of riches and profane honors, was there completely embodied. They
were but little acquainted with the pagan world, and judged it with
intemperate severity. Roman civilization appeared to them a mass of
hateful vices and iniquities,[16.53] just as an honest _ouvrier_ of our
day, imbued with socialistic declamation, pictures the "aristocrat"
to himself in the blackest colors. But there was abundance of life,
gaiety, and interest amongst these people, and is to this moment in the
poorest synagogues of Poland and Galicia. Their lack of refinement and
elegance in habits was compensated for by a warm family attachment and
patriarchal hospitality. In high circles, on the contrary, egotism and
self-seeking had arrived at their fullest growth.
The words of Zachariah were being verified, that men of all nations
should "take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew" and cry, bring
us to Jerusalem![16.54] There was not a large city where were not
observed the Sabbath, the fast, and the other ceremonies of the Hebrew
faith.[16.55] Josephus ventured to challenge all who doubted this to
look around in their own neighborhood or even their own houses, and see
if they would not find his assertion confirmed.[16.56] The residence
at Rome and access to the emperor permitted to several members of the
family of Herod, who performed their own rites openly, contributed much
to the impunity enjoyed by their religion.[16.57] Besides, the Sabbath
prevailed as it were of necessity in localities where Jews resided.
Their persistence in keeping their shops closed on that day, forced
many of their neighbors to modify their own habits accordingly. Thus at
Salonica it may be said that the Sabbath is observed to this day, the
Jewish population being rich and numerous enough to make the law, and
by the cessation of their own business to prescribe a day of repose.
Almost as much as the Jew, and often in company with him, was the
Syrian an active instrument in the conquest of the West by the
East.[16.58] They were sometimes confounded together, and Cicero
thought he had discovered their common trait when he called them
"nations born to be slaves."[16.59] It was that which insured to them
the control of the future, for the future then belonged to the slaves
of the earth. Not less characteristic of the Syrian, was his readiness,
quickness, and the superficial clearness of his thought. The Syrian
nature is like the passing imagery of the clouds. We see every moment
certain outlines of graceful form, but they never become united into a
complete design. In the darkness, by the flickering light of a lamp,
the Syrian woman with her veil, her wistful eyes, and her infinite
languor, causes a brief illusion. Afterwards, when we would analyse
her beauty, it disappears; it cannot endure examination, and it lasts
only three or four years. What is most charming in the Syrian race
is the child of five or six years old, contrary to Greece, where the
child was nothing, the youth inferior to the man, and the man to the
ancient.[16.60] Syrian intelligence attracts us at first with its
air of promptness and vivacity, but it lacks fixedness and solidity,
something like that "golden wine" of Libanus which causes an agreeable
excitement, but soon palls on the taste. The true gifts of God have
something about them at once fine and strong, exciting and enduring.
Greece is more appreciated to-day than ever before, and will be more
and more continually.
Many of the Syrian emigrants who were attracted westward in the pursuit
of fortune were more or less attached to Judaism. Others remained
faithful to the worship of their own village,[16.61] that is, to the
memory of some temple dedicated to a local "Jupiter"[16.62] who was
ordinarily the Supreme Deity designated by some special title;[16.63]
and they thus carried with them a kind of monotheism under the disguise
of their strange divinities. At least in comparison with the perfectly
distinct divine personalities of the Greek and Roman polytheism, the
Syrian gods being mostly synonymes of the sun, were almost the brothers
of the one Deity.[16.64] Like their long and enervating chants, these
Syrian rites appeared less dry than the Latin and less empty than
the Greek. The women acquired from them a mixture of ecstasy and
voluptuousness. Those Syrian women were always strange creatures,
disputed for by God and Satan, and oscillating between the saint and
the demon. The saint of serious virtues, of heroic self-denial, of
accomplished vows, belongs to other races and climes. The saint of
vivid imaginings, of absolute entrancements, and of sudden devotion,
is the saint of Syria. The demoniac of our Middle Age became the slave
of Satan through baseness or crime; that of Syria was distracted by
the ideal--the woman of wounded affections, who avenges herself by
madness or refusal to speak,{16.65} and who needs only a gentle word
and kind look to restore her. Transported to the western world, the
Syrian women acquired influence, sometimes by evil feminine arts, but
oftener by real capacity and moral superiority. This happened in a
special degree about a hundred and fifty years later, when the most
important personages of Rome married Syrian wives, who at once acquired
a great ascendency over affairs. The Mussulman woman of the present
time, a noisy scold and foolish fanatic, existing for scarce anything
but evil, and almost incapable of virtue, ought not to make us forget
such as Julia Domna, Julia Mæsa, Julia Mamæa, and Julia Sœmia, who
introduced into Rome a spirit of toleration and a mystical feeling
in religion which were till then unknown. What is also well worthy
of remark is, that the Syrian dynasty thus established was friendly
to Christianity, and that Mamæa, and afterwards the Emperor Philip
the Arabian,{16.66} passed for Christians. In the third and fourth
centuries Christianity was the predominant religion of Syria, and next
to Palestine, Syria played the greatest part in its establishment.
It was especially at Rome that the Syrian in the first century
exercised his penetrating activity. Intrusted with almost every kind of
ordinary duty, guide, messenger, and letter-bearer, the _Syrus_[16.67]
was admitted everywhere, bringing with him the language and manners of
his own land.[16.68] He possessed neither the pride nor the philosophic
loftiness of Europeans, much less their bodily vigor. Of weak frame,
pale and often feverish, and not knowing how to eat or sleep at
stated hours, after the fashion of our slower races; consuming little
meat, and subsisting on onions and pumpkins; sleeping little and
uneasily--the Syrian was habitually ailing and died young.[16.69] What
did belong to him was humility, mildness, affability, and good-nature;
no solidity of mind, but much that was agreeable; little sound sense,
unless in driving a bargain; but an astonishing warmth and zeal, and
a truly feminine seductiveness. Having never exercised any political
functions, he was specially apt for religious movements. The poor
Maronite, effeminate, humble, and destitute, has brought about the
greatest of revolutions. His ancestor, the _Syrus_ of Rome, was the
most zealous messenger of the good news to all afflicted souls. Every
year colonies of Syrians arrived in Greece, Italy, and Gaul, impelled
by their natural taste for trade and small employments.[16.70]
They could be recognised on board of the vessels by their numerous
families, by the troops of pretty children nearly alike in age, and
the mother with the childish air of a girl of fourteen keeping close
to her husband's side, submissive and smiling, and scarcely superior
to her oldest offspring.[16.71] The heads of this peaceful group are
not very strongly marked. There is no Archimedes there, no Plato or
Phidias. But this Syrian trader, now arrived at Rome, will be a kind
and merciful man, charitable to his countrymen, and a friend to the
poor. He will talk with the slaves, and reveal to them an asylum where
those miserable beings, condemned by Roman severity to a most dreary
solitude, may find some solace. The Greek and Latin races, made to
be masters and to accomplish great actions, knew not how to make any
advantage of an humble position.[16.72] The slave of those races passed
his life in revolt and in plotting evil. The ideal slave of antiquity
has every fault; he is gluttonous, mendacious, mischievous, and the
natural enemy of his master.[16.73] He thus, as it were, proved his
nobility of race; he was a constant protest against an unnatural
position. The easy, good-natured Syrian did not trouble himself to
protest; he accepted his degradation and sought to do the best he could
with it. He conciliated the kind feelings of his master, ventured to
converse with him, and studied how to please his mistress. This great
agent of democracy was thus gnawing apart, mesh by mesh, the net of the
ancient civilization. The old institutions based upon pride, inequality
of races, and military valor, were lost. Weakness and humble condition
were about to become advantageous, and helps to virtue.[16.74] The
Roman nobility, the Greek wisdom, will struggle for three centuries
more. Tacitus will approve the deportation of some thousands of
these wretches--"small loss if they had perished!"[16.75] The Roman
aristocracy will fret, will be provoked that this _canaille_ should
have its gods and institutions. But the victory is written in advance.
The Syrian, the poor man who loves his fellows, who shares with them
and associates with them, will carry the day. The Roman aristocracy
must perish, and perish without pity.
To explain the revolution which is about to take place, we must take
note of the political, social, moral, intellectual, and religious
condition of the countries through which Jewish proselytism has thus
opened furrows for the Christian preaching to sow the seed. Such an
examination will show convincingly, I hope, that the conversion of the
world to the Jewish and Christian ideas was inevitable, and will leave
us astonished at only one thing--namely, that that conversion proceeded
so slowly and commenced so late.