Having now shown that there is nothing new in Christianity; nothing
in which it differs essentially from the older faiths; having shown
that it brought no new ideas in its dogmas, practices, or morality,
but a few words are necessary to explain its marvelous growth and rapid
acceptance. Christianity grew so rapidly, and was adopted so readily
in many parts of the world simply because it was so cosmopolitan and
elastic. It went forth to proselyte in a very conciliatory manner,
embracing and absorbing every deeply rooted theological idea and
custom which obstructed its path, and, in every way, exerting itself
to propitiate its converts. And it was not until it became strong
and powerful and was well supported by fanatical adherents that it
dared to assume the rôle of conqueror. Then, when the period of its
strength was full, its tone changed and, strong in self-confidence,
Christianity became militant and strode forth in armor to vanquish
with the sword and fill the world with blood.
One of the reasons for the rapid acceptance of Christianity among the
Romans and its remarkable growth in their dependencies was that for
centuries the people had ceased to take their religion seriously. The
vulgar masses, undoubtedly then as now, and at all times, unthinkingly
swallowed all that was taught them of their deities, but the writings
of cultivated men show clearly that for centuries the worship and
reverence of their ancestral gods had but slight influence upon their
ethical ideas.
Lucretius (95-52 B. C.), the exponent of the Epicurean doctrines,
regarded the gods as the creations of human fear. Ennius (239-169
B. C.) translated and expounded the writings of Euhemerus (316 B. C.),
wherein it was claimed that all the ancient myths were historical
events, that the gods were originally kings who were accorded post
mortem worship by their grateful subjects. The Stoics regarded the
gods as personifications of the different attributes of nature. Cicero
adopted the Platonic conception of the deity as mind freed from all
taint of matter, while Ovid made the gods ridiculous in his mocking
"Metamorphoses," and, in his lascivious descriptions of their amours,
degraded them forever as ethical models. Horace likewise mocked them.
The glorious military conquests of the Roman arms in Asia and Africa
brought the soldiers into contact with alien religions, and the germs
instilled in the minds of the armies spread among all the peoples of
Rome's domains, upon their return. Likewise the ever-increasing influx
of foreigners, bringing with them their native gods and theological
systems, had more or less influence, while the apotheoses of the
emperors gave a powerful impetus to the degradation of the ancient
faith.
The vulgar clung to their ancient shrines and the cultured sneered
at them for so doing. They bent the knee in public and they laughed
mockingly in private. In such a state was the religion of Rome when
the first Christians began to proselyte; and on such fertile ground,
amid the ruins of an ancient faith, the seed readily took root and
rapidly spread out. Any other faith, supported by sturdy, conscientious
and indomitable missionaries, would have done the same. The old faith
was dead and the time was ripe for something new and vigorous.
As the civilized world was then under one powerful government, which
allowed no political discord within its borders and which granted
absolute religious freedom, the Christian missionaries could travel in
safety from one province to another and, without fear of molestation,
could propagate their doctrines among the people through the media
of the Greek and Latin tongues, which were universal throughout the
empire. Early Christianity was merely a sect of Judaism, and as the
Jews were scattered all through the Roman provinces, every Jewish
settlement having its synagogue which the Christian missionaries
visited in order to preach their message, "the new religion, which was
undertaken in the name of the God of Abraham, and Moses, found a sphere
already prepared for itself." The new sect was naturally welcomed by
the Roman Jews, as it was a purely national religion, founded upon
the teachings of a Jewish peasant for the Jewish people. There is
nothing in the gospels which portrays Jesus as anything other than
a prophet to his own nation. While his moral doctrines, like all
ethical principles, are applicable to all races, he was ignorant of
all peoples save his own, and it was to them alone that he preached,
proclaiming his messiahship for them only. He was content to remain
within the boundaries of his own country and expressed no wish
nor desire to visit other lands. Had it remained as Jesus desired,
Christianity would never have been separated from Judaism. It was
owing to the direct disobedience of Peter and Paul in this particular,
that Christianity spread among the gentiles (Acts xiv, 46). In sending
forth his apostles to preach his mission, Jesus commanded, "Go not
into the way of the gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans
enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel"
(Matt. x, 5-6). When appealed to by the Canaanite woman, he said,
"I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel"
(Matt. xv, 24). It was to the Jews that he spoke when he said, "Ye are
the salt of the earth" (Matt. v. 13). "Ye are the light of the world"
(Matt. v, 14). It was in reference to the twelve tribes of Israel
that he so numbered his apostles (Matt. xix, 28). And it was of his
compatriots that he thought when prophesying his resurrection, "Ye
shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man
be come" (Matt. x, 23). There is no thought of a universal mission
in all this. His mission and sacrifice were for his own nation, and,
as Paul writes to Titus, he "gave himself that he might purify unto
himself a peculiar people" (Tit. ii, 14).
Thinking probably of the political strife which his messiahship would
cause, Jesus said, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword" (Matt. x,
34), in which remark he was a truer prophet than the heavenly host
that sang at his birth "on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke
ii, 14). "The Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any
other institution that ever existed among mankind," says Lecky in his
"Rationalism in Europe" (vol. ii, p. 40). The Holy Office in Spain
burned over 31,000 persons and condemned to punishment hardly less
severe 290,000. During the reign of Charles the Fifth 50,000 heretics
were executed in the Netherlands and on February 16, 1508, the Holy
Office condemned all the inhabitants, numbering 3,000,000 of people,
to death as heretics, and Philip the Second confirmed the decree and
ordered its instant execution.
The whole history of Christianity, in all its forms, reeks with blood
and smells to heaven with carrion. In the first centuries Christians
persecuted pagans or, divided among themselves, persecuted each other
as heretics. Later arose the feuds of orthodox and Arian, then came
a united Christendom against Islam, followed by Protestant wars. In
these Catholics murdered, pillaged, and devastated Protestants and
burned and tortured them as heretics by ecclesiastical tribunals;
Protestants persecuted and executed Catholics and, divided among
themselves, persecuted one another. In the sixteenth century Anglican
Episcopalians persecuted Catholics and Nonconformists. In the
seventeenth century Puritans persecuted Catholics, Episcopalians,
and Quakers, and so on. The whole history of this religion is a
long narration of blasphemous and degrading theories propagated by
violence, hypocrisy and crime. Christian charity is a delusion which
is found only among the persecuted, who, the instant the scale turns,
become the ruling faction, forget its meaning, and hasten to avenge
their sufferings in persecutions. No other religion has so bloody
a history as Christianity. The old heathen religions went calmly on
their way, indifferent to one another and showing the most perfect
toleration. Rival gods of rival nations were worshiped in temples side
by side, without conflict or ill feeling. Buddhists and Brahmins mildly
flourish in proximity. But Christians who believe that the Christ was
sacrificed for love of humanity, that their gospel is one of love,
peace, and good will, vie with one another to outstrip the ferocity
of wild beasts.
While many students believe that Jesus was a purely mythical being,
without actual existence save in the brains of religious Christians,
I see no reason to doubt that a certain Jewish rabbi may have come out
of the rebellious province of Galilee about the time of Herod. Such
messiahs had come before him and such have succeeded him. Some of
the messiahs subsequent to Jesus were: one who appeared in Persia in
1138, another in Arabia in 1167, and one in Moravia at the close of
the twelfth century. Eldavid proclaimed himself messiah in Persia in
1199, Sabathai Tzevi assumed the title of "King of Kings" in 1666
and was executed at Constantinople by the Sultan. So late as 1829
there appeared in India the eight-year-old son of a peasant who was
a wonderful serpent charmer and was called Marayum Powar. It was an
ancient belief that the ability to handle serpents unharmed was a
proof that one had become perfectly holy--absorbed in God! Therefore,
numerous people came to believe Powar a god and in ten months ten
thousand followers were about him, baptizing and performing miraculous
cures--and his cult seemed well on the road to establishment when,
over-confident of his power, he was bitten by a serpent and died. His
followers, after vainly awaiting his resurrection, dispersed.
That Jesus' whole career is lost in encircling myth is no proof that
the original figure never existed. There is plenty of historical
evidence to show that the central portion of Europe was once ruled by
a king named Karl, and we do not doubt this simply because a great
cloud of myths has been gathered about the name of St. Charlemagne,
any more than we feel bound to believe that because he once lived he
must now necessarily exist, sleeping in a mountain, until it shall
be necessary for him to spring forth and save the German fatherland.
One set of students assert that the Christ was merely the
personification of vegetable life, claiming that his death and
resurrection typify the death and revivification of vegetation. Others
hold that he is the modern phase of the eternal sun-god. To sustain
this hypothesis the following allegorical interpretation of his
supposed career is offered as an explanation. He was born on the
early dawn of the twenty-fifth day of December, the day on which
commences the sun's apparent revolution around the earth; his birth
was announced by the brilliant morning star; his virgin mother was
the pure and beautiful dawn; his temptation was his struggle with
the adverse clouds which he dispersed; his trial, execution, and
death were emblematic of the solar decline and crucifixion at the
beginning of winter; his descent into hell was typical of the three
days of the winter solstice; and his resurrection and ascension refer
to the return of the sun after its seeming extinction.
I have now shown that among the great majority of the nations of
antiquity, no matter as to how they may have differed in the details,
all held one general idea of faith in a savior-mediator between man
and the supreme deity. Some such medium seemed necessary to them, for
they had not reached that intellectual plane on which one feels able
to hold direct communication with the creator. Modern Christianity,
in all its forms, still panders to this ancient superstition that man
must needs have an agent between himself and his God. He must have
an intercessor between his weakness and God's power--and vengeance.
But when the human mind is freed from superstition and men learn
that right living and a clean ethical code is all that is required,
then they will cease to bow, either physically or mentally, to
any humanly invented mediator, and their enlarged ideas of the
justice of the supreme deity will prohibit any belief in impossible
demi-gods. However, for the majority, that happy time of emancipation
is still in the distant future, and, until its dawn lightens the
general intelligence, men will continue to adore and supplicate the
mediator whom inheritance and environment have taught them to revere,
as Krishna, Buddha, Mithras, or the Christ, as the case may be.