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In The Time of Paul 
 
In the Time of Paul 
 
 How Christianity Entered 
 Into and Modified Life in 
 the Roman Empire : : : 
 
 Rev. Edward G. Selden, D.D 
 
 Pastor of the Madison Avenue Reformed Church, 
 Albany, N. Y. 
 
 vru E r Lvx 
 
 Chicago New York Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 Publishers of Evangelical Literature 
 
Copyright 1900 
 By Fleming H. Rcvell Company 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 T^HIS little book attempts to set forth some 
 ^ of the more significant facts pertaining 
 to the Gentile world into which the Apostle 
 Paul carried the Gospel of Christ. It is not 
 possible to make an exact division of the com- 
 posite life of his times and to trace out in all 
 their detail the political, social, moral, relig- 
 ious, and intellectual phases of the old civili- 
 zation which it was the task of Christianity to 
 recast. The various departments of influence 
 overlap and intermingle; yet in order to set 
 forth the complex conditions with which the 
 new religion had to deal, and out of which it 
 achieved unparalleled results, it seems best to 
 present a series of pictures, outlining in swift 
 succession the special aspects of the world 
 into which Christianity was forcing its tri- 
 umphant way. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Chap. Page 
 
 I. Paul and His Times 13 
 
 II. The Task Assumed by Christianity . 26 
 
 III. The Political Structure of the Roman 
 
 World 43 
 
 IV. The Social Life of the First Century . 61 
 
 V. The Religious Condition of the Age . 81 
 
 VI. The Moral Standards of the Period . 100 
 
 VII. The Intellectual Tendencies of the 
 
 Time 123 
 
 VIII. The Inevitable Conflict and Victory . 143 
 
chapter i. 
 St. Paul and His Times 
 
 T^HE Apostle Paul is the representative man 
 ^ of the first century. In him are embodied 
 the moral qualities and the missionary motives 
 by which Christianity conquered the world. 
 It would be unjust to ignore the de- 
 votion and service of his fellow laborers. 
 John was of even finer mold. Peter was 
 equally earnest, Barnabas as conscien- 
 tious; but none embodied so much of power 
 and grace, so much of promise and proph- 
 ecy. In no other was manifested such 
 persistent zeal and such adroit application of 
 the forces at command. ' ' He was one of the 
 creative geniuses whose policy marks out a 
 line on which history has to move for genera- 
 tions afterward." Not only is this our con- 
 clusion upon reviewing the events of the first 
 century, but it must even have been patent to 
 his own clear judgment. By preaching, and 
 by the organization of gathering forces, he felt 
 himself under constraint at any cost to insure 
 the establishment of Christianity in the Empire. 
 
 13 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 In answering the summons to leadership in 
 the new movement he rose to the sublimest 
 heights of thought and purpose. His very 
 consciousness was transfused by the glory of 
 the undertaking. Partly by virtue of his own 
 energy and partly by force of circumstance he 
 was pushed to the front. He was content to 
 build on no man's foundation, to preach no 
 gospel save that which had been revealed to 
 him, to determine his action by no man's ad- 
 vice, to gauge his fervor by no other man's 
 devotion. He was absorbed in his apostolic 
 mission. Hence came services second in 
 moral quality and effectiveness to those of no 
 other man since time began. Moses was a 
 leader and lawgiver whose labors for his own 
 nation cannot be overrated; David laid the 
 foundations of a kingdom, and gathered the 
 soul of all lands and ages into the music of his 
 psalms; Cyrus appeared as the providential 
 deliverer of a people who could not fulfil their 
 destiny in captivity and exile; Alexander has 
 been ranked by a modern historian next to 
 the Man of Galilee as a promoter of civiliza- 
 tion; to the generalship and statesmanship of 
 Caesar is to be attributed the territorial ex- 
 pansion of the Roman Empire; yet the work 
 of none of these was so absolutely and incon- 
 trovertibly vital to the higher interests of 
 
 14 
 
St. Paul and His Times 
 
 mankind as was that of the Apostle to the 
 Gentiles. He wrought largely in the G-reat 
 Western Empire, through which all that was 
 best in the earlier civilizations was transmitted 
 to modern nations. His labors entered into 
 the persistent and progressive life of the ages. 
 One secret of Paul's remarkable success is 
 found in the nearly perfect combination of 
 hereditary qualities and prerogatives which 
 he possessed. In him mingled two streams of 
 tendency which flowed out of the Jewish and 
 Roman worlds. On one side were ancestry 
 and training, on the other the proud conscious- 
 ness and the political privileges of a citizen of 
 the Empire. His family had very likely resided 
 in Tarsus long enough to have become iden- 
 tified with its social life and endowed with all 
 the rights and sentiments of citizenship. The 
 Seleucid kings in founding the place had shown 
 a preference for Jewish colonists, so that poli- 
 tical favors may have been granted, a genera- 
 tion or two before Paul's time, for distin- 
 guished services. While, therefore, the train- 
 ing of youth and the later education of young 
 manhoood in the school of Gamaliel had given 
 him intimate acquaintance with the literature, 
 laws and traditions of his people, so that 
 Jewish feelings were in him peculiarly intense, 
 yet having been born so far from Jerusa- 
 
 15 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 lem, in a Roman colony and in the midst 
 of Roman influences, he must have had a 
 broader acquaintance with the world and a more 
 catholic sympathy with man than was possible 
 to the other apostles. He appreciated the glory 
 of Jewish tradition and its narrowness, the 
 corruption of Rome and its actual power. In 
 a practical way also he used the twofold 
 advantage of Hebrew birth and Roman citizen- 
 ship. In every city he went, first of all, where 
 a Gentile would not have been admitted, 
 namely, into a synagogue. He was at home 
 in the simple customs of worship and speech 
 of his people. He could begin every appeal 
 to them on the ground of common faith 
 and hope in the God of Israel, and in his 
 teaching could move along the lines of 
 their Messianic promises to the actual life and 
 teachings of Jesus. To be sure, he met with 
 bitter opposition and cruel treatment, and yet 
 in every town through him as a Heaven-sent 
 ambassador, Christ came to some of His own 
 who were ready to receive Him. This accounts 
 for speedy success in Asia Minor and in Ma- 
 cedonia, in Corinth and in Rome. The Jewish 
 people were already widely scattered. Jose- 
 phus mentions that by one edict a century 
 before Christ, two thousand families were 
 transported to the fortified towns of Lydia and 
 
 16 
 
St. Paul and His Times 
 
 Phrygia, for the sake of hastening submission 
 and good order among a rude people. The 
 special political privileges granted by the 
 Seleucid kings to secure the contentment and 
 fidelity of these exiles were confirmed by 
 Roman officials. A people instructed in re- 
 ligious truth was thus established in the 
 midst of heathen communities and in due time 
 a specially prepared Apostle was sent forth to 
 take advantage of their intelligence and in- 
 fluence in disseminating among them the 
 principles of the Christian faith. 
 
 At the same time, in many an emergency 
 the protection assured by the universal rights 
 of Roman citizenship secured to Paul life and 
 liberty for prolonged service. At Thessalon- 
 ica he was kindly received by the Politarchs; 
 at Corinth he was rescued from the hands of 
 infuriated Jews by the justice of Gallio; in 
 Jerusalem he was saved from the excited mob 
 by the interference of Lysias, the captain of 
 the guard; at Caesarea he was sheltered from 
 the plots of the Great Council by Festus, the 
 Roman Governor ; and yet again he saved him- 
 self from the malignity of the Jews by his 
 formal appeal to the right of trial at Rome. 
 
 Paul represents the aggressive side of 
 Christianity. Zeal for the kingdom marks 
 his whole career, from his divine call to his last 
 
 17 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 impassioned appeal. There were no passive 
 hours for one who had taken up the burden of 
 the world's redemption. The scope of his 
 labors cannot, indeed, be easily understood 
 now that Asia Minor and Macedonia are so re- 
 mote from the track of modern progress, so 
 far apart from all arenas of national strife. It 
 is difficult to realize how populous was this 
 region at this time. The great highways of 
 commerce and travel lay along its coast, 
 through cities prosperous in trade, magnifi- 
 cent in architecture, the centers of Greek cul- 
 ture and influence; or over the mountain 
 passes of the interior through fortified towns 
 in which order was maintained by Roman 
 magistrates and centurions. Through all of 
 these provinces Paul went with the freedom as- 
 sured to a citizen of the Empire, and with 
 ever deepening comprehension of the exigen- 
 cies and opportunities which confronted him. 
 
 The story of Paul's providential call has in 
 it a touch of romance. 
 
 One day while waiting at Tarsus in doubt 
 as to his future, he suddenly found himself 
 face to face with Barnabas, who, years before, 
 with an instinctive recognition of his zeal and 
 capacity for service, had befriended him at 
 Jerusalem. It was on the crowded streets of 
 this Cilician city that Paul again encountered 
 
 18 
 
St. Paul and His Times 
 
 the man who had been praying for a coadjutor in 
 his apostolic labors. Barnabas' word of invita- 
 tion and appeal was as spark to tinder. The 
 voice of this zealous worker was to Paul like 
 the voice of God, and forthwith the two 
 friends traveled together to Antioch the Syrian 
 capital, where for a whole year they labored to- 
 gether, and had the joy of seeing vast numbers 
 of Gentiles brought into the new covenant. 
 
 Here in the third city in population, wealth, 
 and commercial importance in the Roman Em- 
 pire it first began to dawn on the Roman mind 
 that a religion was making its way which 
 could no longer be identified with the ancient 
 Jewish faith. "The disciples were called 
 Christians first in Antioch," but the inventors 
 of this new name little dreamed that a name so 
 lightly given, at first perhaps with ribald 
 wit, was to penetrate, overmaster and finally 
 outlive by uncounted centuries the mighty 
 empire whose seat of government was upon 
 the seven hills of Rome. 
 
 It is significant that this Gentile city, and 
 not Jerusalem, was the starting point for the 
 first great world-wide missionary enterprise; 
 that here began the work which was to ex- 
 tend through every province of the known 
 world. By the light of history it is now easy 
 to see that the very genius of Christianity as 
 
 19 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 a world-wide religion was in the impulse which 
 sent Paul and Barnabas forth from, and 
 brought them back to, a city belonging not to 
 the Jewish but to the Roman world. It was 
 not so far distant from Jerusalem — the earlier 
 base of religion, where James presided over the 
 first Christian church and where some of the 
 twelve still lingered — as to prevent attendance 
 at the Great Council which was held for solemn 
 consideration of the new and startling enter- 
 prise upon which these enthusiastic apostles 
 had entered. The new missionary centre of 
 Christianity lost nothing from being within a 
 few days' journey of the sacred city, while it 
 gained much from its relation to the great 
 world which the Jew called Gentiledom. It 
 was the destiny of the new religion to conquer 
 the all-conquering Empire, in order that the 
 salvation of the world might be achieved 
 through the co-operative agency a people not 
 bigoted and shut out from vital touch with 
 the nations, but cosmopolitan and in active 
 communication with the world on every side 
 of its manifold activities. By reason of its 
 commerce, and of its avenues of communica- 
 tion on sea and land, Antioch was " the Gate 
 of the East," while by its political affinities it 
 belonged to the Western world. No city 
 was so favorably situated with reference to 
 
 20 
 
-* St. Paul and His Times 
 
 the prosecution of a missionary enterprise 
 which was not to stop short of the Pillars 
 of Hercules and the shores of Britain. Here, 
 where for several centuries had dwelt the Greek 
 kings of Syria, and where at this time resided 
 Roman governors and high officials, was born 
 the undertaking which the centuries have not 
 yet brought to completion. 
 
 The pamphlet written by Paul's companion, 
 Luke, under the title of "The Acts of the Apos- 
 tles," and the occasional letters of the Apostle 
 himself which have survived the vicissitudes of 
 the centuries, give sufficient data concerning 
 his missionary journeys throughout the Empire, 
 and his enforced residence at Rome. It seems 
 probable that a favorable termination of the 
 first imprisonment gave Paul five years or more 
 of continued labors in Asia Minor and Mace- 
 donia. This was the universal belief of the 
 ancient church, and is supported by fragmen- 
 tary utterances of early writers. His disciple 
 Clement, afterwards Bishop of Rome, expressly 
 asserts that Paul preached the gospel ' ' in the 
 East and the West," and that he instructed 
 ' ' the whole world in righteousness. " Eusebius, 
 Chrysostom, and Jerome held it as a matter of 
 common knowledge that Paul went into Spain, 
 and this in all probability carried him through 
 Southern Gaul. When at last his life-purpose 
 
 21 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 had been fulfilled he found a not unwelcome 
 release through martyrdom. He had written 
 of himself as "Paul the Aged," worn out by 
 unnumbered toils and unrecounted sufferings, 
 and more than ' ' ready to be offered. ' ' It was 
 a pathetic and yet not inglorious ending of his 
 earthly life. He had tasted the bitterness of 
 loneliness, for he wrote to Timothy: "When I 
 was first heard in my defense no man stood 
 by me, but all forsook me. Nevertheless, the 
 Lord stood by me and strengthened my heart. " 
 With this comfort, ineffable and unfailing, he 
 still was able by the very exigencies of his fate- 
 ful trials to "proclaim the Glad Tidings," in 
 full measure, ' ' so that all the Gentiles might 
 hear the Word." Thus ''the tribunal of Nero 
 faded from his sight and the vista was closed 
 by the vision of the judgment seat of Christ." 
 The lights and shadows continued to the end, 
 and he marched to his martyrdom leading cap- 
 tivity captive. In the sight of men it was an 
 hour when evil exulted, and when disaster fell 
 upon the worthy. But he was not forgotten 
 of the Master whom he had served. The angel 
 who had appeared to him in the hour of peril 
 on the storm- tossed sea, "standing by him" 
 in the night, and speaking sweet words of as- 
 surance, came again as under the convoy of 
 heavenly attendants he joined "the glorious 
 
 22 
 
St. Paul and His Times 
 
 company of apostles, the goodly fellowship of 
 the prophets, the noble army of martyrs," by 
 whom he would not be counted among the least 
 of the saints of God. 
 
 The times of Paul are to the highest degree 
 significant because they gather up the in- 
 fluences of Greece and Rome during centuries 
 of brilliant development, and at the same time 
 cover the period of the decadence of the old 
 philosophy and religion. It was the "fulness 
 of time " for the culmination of divine plans, 
 because never were need and opportunity 
 greater than during this critical period. That 
 a religion so radically different from any phase 
 of thought or mode of worship previously 
 known should have secured a hearing and 
 gained a footing within the empire must be 
 reckoned among the wonders of the world 
 How this came about, — the attempt, the hin- 
 drances, the helps, the victories, — is not only 
 a matter of historical interest, but is a source 
 of enlightenment concerning the most essen- 
 tial features of Christianity. Peculiar prob- 
 lems are being constantly faced by missionary 
 enterprises. Now it is the caste system of 
 India; now the exclusiveness of China; the 
 nationalism of Japan; or the stolid baseness 
 of the South-Sea islanders. But at no time 
 did so large and complex a problem present 
 
 23 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 itself as in the middle of the first century. It 
 was a practical question to be solved upon the 
 broadest and deepest principle, and supported 
 by grace and power above any standards then 
 known to the world. Under the leadership of 
 such men as Paul the gigantic enterprise was 
 carried through. Christianity, having sprung 
 out of Judaism, was transplanted and made to 
 flourish alike in the soil of classic and bar- 
 barous nations. The new Gospel was pro- 
 claimed, the new worship set up, the new 
 order of life established, — and no one can com- 
 prehend the meaning and worth of the new 
 religion who does not mark the conditions 
 with which Paul had to deal and the ends 
 which he sought to accomplish. We must 
 understand the task assumed by Christianity 
 in its length, breadth and complexity; the 
 hindrances which were encountered; the un- 
 avoidable delays and accommodations; the 
 adaptations and adjustments which had to be 
 made; the many-sided truth which had to be 
 presented to men of many minds; and the 
 crude beginnings of organizations and insti- 
 tutions which had to receive more perfect 
 development. For the initiation of this move- 
 ment looking towards the evangelization of the 
 world Paul was the "chosen vessel" of God. 
 He was appointed "to go far hence unto the 
 
 24 
 
St. Paul and His Times 
 
 Gentiles," as an apostle whose quenchless 
 enthusiasm was to suffice for the most arduous 
 service and whose appeals were to shake the 
 throne of the Caesars. Born during the reign 
 of the mighty Augustus, he lived through the 
 shameless administrations of Tiberius, Cali- 
 gula, and Claudius, suffering martyrdom under 
 Nero the fifth emperor and the most depraved. 
 His lifetime, therefore, covers the period of 
 critical conflict between two opposing civiliza- 
 tions. The contest itself belongs to many 
 centuries, but during the ministry of the 
 apostle the mastery of human thought and 
 action passed from Caesar to Christ. When 
 Paul died Christianity had proved itself a vital 
 force; and to him, more than to any other, 
 belongs the supreme honor of successful leader- 
 ship in a world-wide enterprise for a true re- 
 ligion and a ceaselessly progressive civilization. 
 
 25 
 
chapter ii. 
 The Task Assumed by Christianity 
 
 A RELIGION is to be judged not merely, 
 perhaps not primarily, by what it actu- 
 ally accomplishes, but by what it aims to do. 
 The religions of Greece and Rome attempted 
 little of practical moment. The idea of affect- 
 ing government, molding society, or even in- 
 fluencing public sentiment by religion was as 
 remote from the classic mind as from that of the 
 mystical worshipers of the East. Mohamme- 
 danism began a crusade against an infidel world 
 and from the days of the Hegira sought to win 
 the support of blindly devoted adherents. 
 It has proved itself a mighty force in many 
 nations, and has more than once changed the 
 history of populous lands ; but it has not aimed 
 to infuse into society the ideals of gentleness, 
 kindness, nobility and spirituality, and has 
 not succeeded in a dozen centuries in estab- 
 lishing anywhere on the globe a progressive 
 civilization. The Hebrew religion produced a 
 sacred literature which has not yet been out- 
 grown; but with a moral code of superior 
 
 26 
 
The Task Assumed by Christianity 
 
 quality, with a monotheism of exalted type, 
 with a history full of promises and pledges of 
 divine favor, it never dreamed of becoming an 
 aggressive and redemptive force among the 
 nations. It was always self-centered. In no 
 epoch of Jewish history did the loftiest of 
 kings and prophets seek to extend the faith 
 or overthrow the idolatrous and abominable 
 superstitions of less favored peoples. Even 
 when unlooked for opportunities presented 
 themselves in Gentile cities like Antioch and 
 Corinth for effective propogandism, the repre- 
 sentatives of the Jewish religion were content 
 to build splendid synagogues under the shadow 
 of heathen temples and exult in the exclusive 
 privileges of the children of Abraham. Unlike 
 all other religions, Christianity had its orign 
 in the sublime self-sacrifice of One who came 
 into the world on a mission of love; went about 
 doing good ; was lifted up upon a cross that He 
 might draw all men unto Himself; and left the 
 scene of His labors with words of command 
 upon His lips which placed His disciples under 
 an unrepealable obligation to evangelize all 
 nations in His name. 
 
 The genius of the new religion was first 
 manifested in the matchless kindness of the 
 Master and then in the re-embodiment of that 
 kindness in His followers. It required some 
 
 27 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 weeks of meditation and prayer in that upper 
 room where the Eleven had met the Risen Lord, 
 for men who had lived in the narrowness and ex- 
 clusiveness of the earlier religion to gain un- 
 derstanding, courage, and impulse for so vast 
 an enterprise as the conquering of the world 
 by the Gospel of salvation. But as leaven 
 works in the lump so the Spirit of Christ 
 wrought in them. It was only a question of 
 time when they should be completely leavened. 
 
 Having once come into vital contact with 
 One who lived and died for men they could not 
 be long content in the selfish and unproductive 
 enjoyment of a saving faith, whose action 
 terminated in themselves. 
 
 Some practical outworking of Christianity 
 seems quite a matter of course to those who 
 have been nurtured in its precepts, and yet 
 was it n(?t a most amazing thing that a hand- 
 ful of obscure men should have assaulted the 
 customs and superstitions of ages with no other 
 weapon than the spoken word; that men who 
 were so provincial as never to have crossed the 
 boundaries of Galilee and Judea should dream 
 of invading the great Roman world with a 
 message from a crucified peasant? Yet that 
 is exactly what Peter and John, and a little 
 later Barnabas and Paul, did. The enterprise 
 upon which they embarked did not seem to 
 
 28 
 
The Task Assumed by Christianity 
 
 them desperate, for they had consciously found 
 the distinctive truth of Christianity touching the 
 grace of God and the salvation of men ; they also 
 cherished the pledge of companionship and 
 power from the Risen Christ, and longed to 
 replace wretchedness and despair with a peace 
 and joy which should fill the whole world. 
 
 The divine origin of Christianity, and its fit- 
 ness to be the universal religion, are no less 
 clearly demonstrated in its boldness and com- 
 prehensiveness than in the benevolence of its 
 attitude and purpose toward mankind. It as- 
 serted its right to dominate the thoughts and 
 lives of men, and control human actions with 
 an absoluteness which makes the despotism of 
 the Caesars seem trivial, and the superstitions 
 of the ancients as passing fancies. For all time 
 it sought to forbid things that once were ex- 
 alted, subdue passions which once were* rampant, 
 demand services which before were unasked; 
 in a word, it sought to bring every thought 
 and imagination into captivity to the obedience 
 of Christ. It is not conceivable that any 
 human mind could have chanced upon so novel 
 a scheme, or that any human heart could have 
 dared such impossibilities. It remained for 
 the unfolding counsels of God to bring into 
 the light a secret hidden from the foundation 
 of the world, to- wit, that the Gentiles were fel- 
 
 29 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 low-heirs with the people of Israel, and that 
 by the grace and truth of the Gospel the world 
 itself was to be rescued from moral ruin, and 
 the whole structure of human society rebuilt 
 upon the foundation of a pure faith and an 
 exalted righteousness. 
 
 How comprehensive was the work upon 
 which Christianity entered appears from a 
 more detailed study of its stupendous sweep. 
 In the first place, it sought to refine and ele- 
 vate man ; to lift each individual to a higher 
 plane of existence and activity. " You hath 
 He quickened," wrote Paul in appeal to the 
 consciousness of new life and power. Christians 
 are "new creatures" in Christ, of whom great 
 things might reasonably be expected. All the 
 faculties of man were to be aroused and brought 
 into full play by the revelations of the Gospel 
 and the touch of the Spirit. The mind, heart, 
 conscience, and will were all to be regenerated 
 by the Divine message. But the scope of 
 Christianity was never to be limited by the 
 narrow bounds of individual existence. Its 
 aim was the re-construction of society, and it 
 might almost be said that the individual was 
 regarded as a means to that end — the saving 
 of the world. The whole composite life of man- 
 kind was to be redeemed and exalted. The 
 whole order of human life was to be radically 
 
 30 
 
The Task Assumed by Christianity 
 
 changed, the very atmosphere of the world was 
 to be purified aud vitalized. 
 
 To begin with, the sentiments which had 
 prevailed regarding both God and man were to 
 be essentially modified. The frivolity and 
 baseness which characterized Athens and Rome 
 alike grew out of the prevailing notions as to 
 the manner of life which existed among the 
 gods of Olympus and the low standards of 
 character among men. No inspirations came 
 from above and no aspirations from below. 
 No need was more imperative than a revelation 
 of the actual glory of God and the potential 
 glory of man. Here was the splendid oppor- 
 tunity to which the Hebrew people had been 
 indifferent. Their earliest Scriptures contain 
 a sublime portraiture of a holy and majestic 
 God, a gracious and compassionate Jehovah, 
 but they never attempted to displace the Greek 
 and Roman divinities, never thought to drive 
 out the gods of the heathen. The apostolic 
 preaching, however, began with the funda- 
 mental truths that God made the world, that 
 He rules in righteousness, that He redeems in 
 love that He wants the confidence and obedi- 
 ence of men who cry, <'Abba, Father" and 
 know themselves as sons of God. 
 
 Where other religions had been indifferent or 
 easily tolerant Christianity was insistent and 
 
 31 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 exacting. The uncompromising attitude of the 
 Apostles excited bitter resentment. Alike by 
 their conviction of absolute truth and by their 
 demand for reverence they stirred the skepti- 
 cal to animosity. Sometimes their heathen 
 auditors mocked, as on Mars Hill; sometimes 
 they persecuted, as in Iconium and Lystra. 
 But no species of opposition prevailed against 
 the determination to create new impressions 
 concerning the dignity of God and the worth 
 of man. Newness of life, a change as deep as 
 the human soul and wide as the human race, 
 could not come while men laughed at their 
 gods and imitated their reputed vices. They 
 must be made to feel the reality of the 
 holy God who made and fills the universe, His 
 nearness to man, His watchfulness and solici- 
 tude. His fatherly patience and His helpful 
 grace. They must learn to exact of themselves 
 purity, sincerity, kindness, spirituality, and 
 begin to live together as rational and moral 
 beings upon whom rested the highest sanctions 
 of religion. New ideas and nobler ideals must 
 have currency and insensibly impress upon 
 men the nobility and sacredness of life, the 
 whole of life with its wide range of thought, 
 speech, action and relationships. 
 
 This means that Christianity not only sought 
 to introduce a new type of personal character 
 
The Task Assumed by Christianity 
 
 but to bring about new relationships among 
 men, and to rebuild the whole fabric of society. 
 The vastness of the undertaking is better ap- 
 preciated after a study of the social and politi- 
 cal conditions of the first century. It is 
 always difficult to rescue an individual from 
 low ideals and corrupting habits, but to reverse 
 the ideas and sentiments of a community, to 
 seriously modify the customs, check the tend- 
 encies, and transform the spirit of the world is 
 an undertaking so delicate, so intricate and so 
 complex as to appall the boldest mind. But 
 Christianity could not fulfill its mission until it 
 had entered with regenerating power into 
 every department of the corporate life of man- 
 kind, until it had purified and elevated the 
 family, society, government ; until it had over- 
 come apathy and dullness, pride and preju- 
 dice, passion and cruelty; until it had neutral- 
 ized the selfishness and worldliness so domi- 
 nant and so persistent at every grade of life; 
 and until it had so reconciled men to each 
 other as to make harmony and mutual help- 
 fulness the law of their being. 
 
 This is the idealism of the Grospels and the 
 Epistles. This is the standard set by the ex- 
 ample and teaching of Christ and by the 
 urgent preaching and impassioned letters of 
 the Apostles. If carried out to perfection it 
 
 33 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 would have amounted to a social revolution, for 
 scarcely any sentiment or enterprise of the 
 heathen world, whether classic or barbarian, 
 approached the new standard. Whatever was 
 unjust or unclean was bound to give way, what- 
 ever was of superstition and idolatry was 
 bound to yield to new and higher demands. 
 All Ephesus was in an uproar because, as their 
 opposers admitted, the missionaries of the 
 Gospel had turned things upside down in the 
 great city as they had done everywhere else in 
 Asia. The new evangel which they pro- 
 claimed interfered with the profitableness of 
 trade in the silver images of the great goddess 
 Diana, now hopelessly discredited by apostolic 
 preaching. It also took away the cruel gains 
 which heartless men were making out of the 
 wandering fancies and mystic words of a hap- 
 less maid whom Paul afterward brought to a 
 sane mind at Philippi. Somewhat later it 
 emptied the Roman temples throughout the 
 Roman provinces and, as Pliny's letters show, 
 turned the stream of industry and trade into 
 other channels than those which had been fed 
 by the crowds of superstitious pilgrims that 
 flocked to the shrines of the gods. 
 
 It was in part because Christianity had this 
 high mission that the masterful mind of Paul 
 planned for so many campaigns in the great 
 
 34 
 
The Task Assumed by Christianity 
 
 cities of the empire. If the new order of 
 social life could be established in populous dis- 
 tricts, and could illustrate its advantages in 
 great centers like Antioch and Ephesus, Cor- 
 inth and Rome, a new standard would be set 
 up throughout the Empire. The policy de- 
 vised and strictly pursued by the Apostle kept 
 him in the midst of the most intense social 
 life of his day, not merely because greater 
 numbers were thus made accessible to his 
 preaching, but also because greatest moral 
 gains were made by counteracting the ancient 
 tides of selfishness and corruption by the 
 wholesome tendencies and kindly impulses 
 flowing from the character and doctrines of 
 Christ. In every city Paul urged such pre- 
 cepts and principles as are found to-day 
 scattered through his Apostolic letters. Men 
 were called to remember that they shared the 
 common life of society and were really mem- 
 bers one of another. They were not to in- 
 dulge in falsehood and trickery, for that would 
 be unneighborly; they were not to steal from 
 one another or seek to corrupt another, for 
 that would be un brotherly. They were bound 
 by the law of Christ to build each other up in 
 all wholesome and desirable ways. Masters 
 were to be forbearing and patient, servants 
 obedient and faithful; parents were to be 
 
 35 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 watchful for the true nurture of their children, 
 and children in turn were to give honor and 
 obedience; husbands were to show affection 
 and respect, and wives were to regard the 
 highest interests of the home; in short every 
 relationship by which the members of society 
 are held together and work together was to be 
 sanctified by the spirit of Christ. Under all 
 seeming differences of endowment and functions 
 one spirit was to prevail for the sake of the 
 peace and harmony, the prosperity and happi- 
 dess, of the whole. One was to use his gift of 
 prophecy, another his property, another 
 his high office, for the good of others. 
 All were to show love with sincerity 
 and mercy with cheerfulness. In every 
 way Christianity was to show itself to 
 be not merely a religion, not merely a form 
 and mode of worship, but a scheme of life and 
 action. It was designed to enter with practi- 
 cal precepts and abounding grace the most 
 sacred domain of the soul and the most com- 
 plex relationship of society. It was to pro- 
 mulgate a perfect code of morals and at the 
 same time prove itself a social force for the 
 regeneration of human life, for the effective 
 assertion of the brotherhood of mankind, and 
 the realization of the highest social order. 
 While inculcating an ideal standard of 
 
 36 
 
The Task Assumed by Christianity 
 
 thought and conduct Christianity accommo- 
 dated itself to existing conditions. It was not 
 so transcendental as to lose touch with the ac- 
 tual life of society. It did not refuse its name 
 or its benediction to those who did not fully 
 live up to its sublime principles. For instance, 
 the invariable exaction is that of the Sermon 
 on the Mount, — "Be ye perfect even as your 
 Heavenly Father is perfect." One who has a 
 lower aim is unworthy to call himself a follower 
 of Christ. One who could rest contented while 
 faults of character were apparent would miss 
 the consciousness of likeness to the Master. 
 At the same time there was a patient forbear- 
 ing with manifest defects and even open trans- 
 gression when men were sincerely striving 
 to gain the mastery of self and the world. 
 When all of the Twelve forsook their Lord in 
 the hour of darkness and panic when the mob 
 broke into their retreat in the olive garden 
 on the slope of Olivet he had no word of 
 rebuke. An hour later their leader was 
 denying his friend and master in the palace 
 of the High Priest ! Yet the Risen Lord sent 
 a special message of love and confidence to 
 Peter, and came again and again to the Upper 
 Room for tender conference with the Eleven. 
 Paul wrbte the seventh chapter of his Epistle 
 to the Romans in frank exposure of his pitiful 
 37 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 struggles against the passions and tendencies 
 of the flesh, — but he also penned the eighth 
 chapter in which he rejoices that condemnation 
 no longer rests upon him, but that he is living 
 in the Spirit, and that he has the witness of 
 highest authority, namely that of his own con- 
 sciousness, to his Sonship with God. 
 
 With the same recognition of the necessarily 
 imperfect stages of social life Christianity 
 adapted itself to prevailing laws and customs. 
 Its ideal never fell by the breadth of a hair 
 below absolute reverence to God, loyalty to 
 justice, and love to man ; and yet from the first 
 it bore patiently with the established order of 
 things, waiting for the time when its precepts 
 would banish cruelty and lust and inaugurate 
 the reign of peace and prosperity. Christ 
 said, "Render to Caesar the things that are 
 Caesar's," that is, the things that are his not 
 by the "divine right" of kings, but by the 
 order of established government. There was 
 never a Caesar who sympathized with the teach- 
 ings or accepted the demands of Christ — not 
 even Augustus or Marcus Aurelius ; but often, 
 as in the case of Tiberius and Nero, they vio- 
 lated every instinct of humanity as well as 
 every doctrine of pure religion. Yet Christ 
 let the injunction stand unqualified — " Render 
 to Caesar the things that belong to him. " Paul 
 
 38 
 
The Task Assumed by Christianity 
 
 • learned from the teaching of the Master the 
 duty of reverence for constituted authority, 
 and joined with Peter in urging obedience and 
 loyalty to "the powers that be." Some legal- 
 ized form of government is a practical neces- 
 sity. Nothing is more perilous than anarchy. 
 Even heathen magistrates are set for the re- 
 pression of crime. They insure the continu- 
 ance of society. 
 
 Not that Christianity was never indifferent 
 to injustice or tolerant of imperfection. It 
 held inviolate the principles of manhood and 
 brotherhood. It never abated by a single jot 
 or tittle its imperative demand for sincerity, 
 fairness, gentleness and kindly service. While, 
 therefore, it temporarily accepted the law and 
 administration of the Roman Empire it was 
 fundamentally at variance with the corrup- 
 tions and oppressions incidental to such a 
 godless exercise of political power. It was 
 not the form of government to which the new 
 religion opposed its tenets. The political 
 order might be imperial or democratic, the 
 headship of the state might be determined 
 by heredity or election, but every ruler was 
 under obligation to govern in the fear of the 
 Lord and in the interest of humanity. Chris- 
 tianity was fearless of consequences, while 
 unflinchingly maintaining its moral standards. 
 
 39 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 Proclaiming principles of kindness and just- 
 ness it went boldly forth to take its chances of 
 life in the great heathen world. 
 
 It is important to emphasize the fact that 
 that it is the mission of Christianity to cover 
 the whole human life with ' ' religious sanc- 
 tions." It stands apart from nothing that 
 pertains to thought or action. Every depart- 
 ment of human existence furnishes a field for 
 "applied Christianity." In the words of Paul, 
 "Whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of 
 God," we have an injunction which is both 
 extensive and intensive. There is no hour of 
 life when the obligation does not press upon 
 men to love God with all their heart, and their 
 neighbor as themselves. There is not a pro- 
 ject to be cherished nor a fancy indulged in 
 which springs from a loveless spirit. There is 
 not a relationship in private life nor a function 
 in public administration that is beyond the 
 law of love and a good conscience. To inter- 
 fere as little as possible with the common, 
 everyday life of the citizen has been declared 
 to be the ideal of government ; but it is the glory 
 of Christianity, and its unique distinction, 
 that it has to do with every detail of life. It 
 assumes the herculean task of controlling all 
 the affairs of the world, in the Id teres t of the 
 highest manhood and of the perfection of social 
 
 40 
 
The Task Assumed by Christianity 
 
 life. The king on the throne is not above the 
 level of its exactions, the slave is not beneath its 
 benison. The solitary wanderer is sought by 
 its messengers. The crowded quarters of the 
 world's capital are illumined by its truth 
 and made tolerable by its grace. 
 
 The demands of the new religion were inex- 
 orable, yet it went everywhere on errands of 
 mercy and love. Into a dark, spiritless, hope- 
 less world it made its way with a message of 
 cheer. In contrast with the ' ' fanatical mystic- 
 ism " of the oriental religions, the "gloomy 
 faith ' of the old Etruscans and Druids, the 
 nerveless mythologies of the Greeks, and even 
 the bigoted exclusiveness of Judaism, Christ- 
 ianity was charged with hope and help for all 
 mankind. It had no esoteric doctrines; no 
 hidden mysteries which were for the initiated 
 few. With open page or voice it proclaimed 
 to the multitude the redemption of the world 
 and the birthright of all believers. Its life was 
 in its message, its power was in the living 
 word. 
 
 In the year 70 A. D. Titus declared before a 
 Council of War, at the gates of Jerusalem, that 
 the temple must be destroyed in order that the 
 religion of the Jews and of the Christians, 
 which he identij&ed as one, might be the more 
 completely extirpated. His first mistake was 
 
 41 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 in supposing that either form of religion was 
 detrimental to the interests of mankind, or of 
 the Roman state. His second blunder was in 
 calculating upon the overthrow of Christianity 
 in the destruction of either temple or city. 
 The vital elements in this religion are its noble 
 truth, its revelation of the righteousness and 
 lovingness of God, and of the essential sonship 
 of man. The word having once been spoken, 
 after the silence of the ages, the echo could 
 never be lost. The message having once been 
 delivered could never be forgotten. When the 
 covenant which the Lord had made with Israel 
 was annulled, it was not by way of exclusive- 
 ness, but of greater inclusiveness. Then was 
 given the wider covenant which would never 
 be retracted; — ''I have set thee for a light of 
 the Gentiles, that thou shouldst be for salva- 
 tion unto the uttermost parts of the earth." 
 
 42 
 
chapter iii. 
 
 The Political Structure of the 
 Roman World 
 
 IT is not in the least derogatory to Christ- 
 ianity to say that in its attempt to dominate 
 the world it depended upon outward circum- 
 stances; yea, upon the rarest possible combina- 
 tion of outward circumstances. This may seem 
 to make the redemption of mankind rest upon 
 fortuitous conditions; it may seem to iden- 
 tify its mission with historical happen- 
 ings of most unusual and unlocked for 
 character; yet that is a universal char- 
 acteristic of the divine plan in every realm of 
 activity. It appears in every critical event in 
 history and in every form of life. Not a plant 
 comes to blossom and fruitage without passing 
 through a thousand vicissitudes; not a project 
 for liberty and prosperity but runs the gaunt- 
 let of menacing difficulties and oppositions. 
 Moses attempted the release of his countrymen 
 from the oppressions of the Egyptian govern- 
 ment, but was obliged to save himself by a 
 hasty flight and a desert exile of forty years. 
 
 43 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 There was just one weak Pharaoh to be held 
 in check while a million bondmen marched to 
 freedom through the land of Goshen and across 
 the sea. There was just one Persian ruler 
 broad enough in sympathy for a captive people, 
 and large enough in plans for a far away 
 province, to make it possible for men of Judah 
 to return and rebuild Jerusalem. 
 
 The "fulness of time" to which Paul al- 
 ludes had reference not merely to the intellect- 
 ual and moral attitude of the Chosen People 
 but also to the conditions prevailing in the 
 Gentile world. The hour had at last come 
 when Christianity would find events favorable 
 to the spread of its doctrines and the organiza- 
 tion of its adherents. It would have gone 
 down with the Egyptian dynasties, it would 
 have been overrun and trampled to fragments 
 by the Persian invasion, had it not been up- 
 held for centuries by the strong hand of Rome, 
 until it had become mightier than the Empire 
 itself. It not only found protection, under 
 the aegis of Rome, but it came into vital 
 touch with all the elements of ancient civiliza- 
 tion which had been conserved, and with the 
 beginnings of a new civilization which was 
 destined to supplant the old. One of the pro- 
 foundest and most sympathetic of modern his- 
 torians has said that ' ' Rome is the bridge 
 
 44 
 
Political Structure of the Roman World 
 
 which unites while it separates the ancient 
 and the modern world." To take advantage of 
 the figure, Rome is the bridge on which Christ- 
 ianity crossed from the old world to the new — 
 albeit, it took four or five centuries in crossing. 
 Christianity came into the old world, but it 
 belonged to the new. The old world was 
 to be made new in very large part by its 
 implanted truth and infused energy. From 
 the first it had to do with the whole of 
 human life, individual and social, religious 
 and political. Therefore it was concerned 
 with the institutions, laws and customs, 
 the arts and letters, of all peoples. Ulhorn 
 has said: "The ancient world culminated in 
 Rome, and Roman history is the rise of the 
 Empire." Yet culminating as it surely did in 
 such a natural expansion as the world has 
 never seen, it was near to declining. At the 
 opportune moment came the uprising of a new 
 and saving religion. All that was valuable, 
 in fact, all that was salvable in the civilization 
 of antiquity was swept within the lines of the 
 advancing armies of Rome. There it was 
 found by Christianity, and by the time of its 
 transference to the fostering care of new and 
 independent states abundant opportunities 
 had been afforded for the application of the 
 principles and forces of the new religion. 
 
 45 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 Melito, one of the early Apologists, empha- 
 sizes the fact that that Christianity and the 
 Roman Empire were born at the same time, 
 with providential adjustment to each other. 
 It is a proverb that the significance of histori- 
 cal events cannot be adequately appreciated 
 by those who are near the field of action; but 
 the relations between the religion which pro- 
 claimed its mission to redeem the world, and 
 the political power which had mastered the 
 world, was patent to philosophical observers 
 of that very age. Indeed, this relationship 
 did not escape the writers of the earliest 
 literature of the new religion, though they 
 could not have anticipated, of course, the 
 illuminating records of the great centuries 
 which were to follow. 
 
 Luke wrote as simply as we date our cor- 
 respondence: " Now it came to pass in these 
 days, there went out a decree from Caesar 
 Augustus that all the world should be enrolled " 
 — thus locating in current history the year 
 when Joseph and Mary went up from Galilee to 
 the City of David. It was a matter of interest 
 to fix the time of the birth of Jesus Christ, 
 but the significant thing about it is that it 
 should have been done through its connection 
 with political events. 
 
 The birth of Christ is not said to have hap- 
 
 46 
 
Political Structure of the Koman World 
 
 pened so many years ' ' since the building of 
 Memphis" or the "capture of Babylon," or 
 even the "rebuilding of Jerusalem," but in 
 the very year in which Augustus issued a 
 certain edict. Christianity dated its birth by 
 that of the Empire, and now every empire 
 dates its documents by the birth of Christ. 
 
 One cannot read the history of Christianity 
 apart from that of the Empire, from the reign 
 of the young Augustus to the day when the 
 senate gave over the government into the 
 hands of the Germanic Odoacer. Wherever 
 Roman organization had gone there went 
 Paul, the wise and masterful leader of the re- 
 ligious movement for the conquest of the 
 world's conqueror. The relations between 
 the two empires, religious and political, were 
 those of rivals. On the whole, however, the 
 emperors furthered the interests of Christian- 
 ity, although not seldom they were bitterly 
 hostile. We have, therefore, to recognize the 
 combination of unfavorable with favorable in- 
 fluences coming out of the tremendous and 
 widely extended political sway of the Empire. 
 At times its whole force was arrayed in un- 
 compromising opposition to Christianity, his- 
 tory recording no fewer than ' ' Ten G-reat 
 Persecutions." This was inevitable. In the 
 nature of the case a rapacious political power 
 
 47 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 could not tolerate the pretensions, to say noth- 
 ing about the actual gains, of the new world- 
 religion. It was a comparatively easy matter 
 to adopt a new national or tribal deity — a few 
 local divinities, more or less, being a matter 
 of smallest concern. They were all of the 
 same order and could be fused into the com- 
 mon life. They might even contribute some- 
 thing to the state by deepening the loyalty of 
 some new people of the ever widening empire. 
 The state would even have taken Christianity 
 under its protection and patronage if it would 
 only have made a few concessions to the an- 
 cient faiths and the supremacy of the govern- 
 ment; but that was, of course, impossible. It 
 would have been an abrogation of its most dis- 
 tinctive claim. Early ignorance regarding 
 the unique features of Christianity did secure 
 temporary exemption from harsh treatment. 
 For some decades it was fortunately classified 
 with the prevailing religions. But when 
 it began to manifest its absolute and 
 exacting monotheism ; when it began to 
 reveal its purpose to modify the whole 
 life of man ; when, above all, its tre- 
 mendous claims began to justify themselves in 
 the numbers and the devotion of its adherents, 
 then was aroused first the suspicion and later 
 on the animosity of the Eoman officials. Even 
 
 48 
 
Political Structure of the Koman World 
 
 during the life of Paul hostilities broke out. 
 The great City of Rome was profoundly stirred 
 against the new faith, and Nero became the 
 first of a long list of persecuting emperors. 
 
 Yet although the new faith came into such 
 irrepressible conflict with ancient beliefs, and 
 crossed swords with the armed representatives 
 of the government, it could not have conceiv- 
 ably conquered the world except for the Em- 
 pire. It won its way to lasting victories by 
 virtue of the aid unwittingly furnished by a 
 political power which suddenly changed the 
 tolerance of days to the hatred and persecu- 
 tion of centuries. For hundreds of years 
 Christianity had no successful mission beyond 
 the boundaries of the Roman Empire, and to 
 this day, save on a continent then undreamed 
 of, it has no vigorous and independent 
 life except in lands which at the end 
 of the first century were under the sub- 
 jection of the Roman legions. This fact 
 adds significance to the geographical exten- 
 sion of Roman authority. The Empire became 
 at last unwieldy and fell to pieces by the 
 weight of its far-away provinces, but the 
 genius for organization and administration, 
 for compelling order and unity, was so gigan- 
 tic that for a long time it held conquered dis- 
 tricts as component parts of the great whole, 
 
 49 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 although widely separated by distance and by 
 national characteristics. The Roman eagles 
 were known all the way from the Atlantic to 
 the Euphrates, a distance of three thousand 
 miles, which relatively is far greater than to- 
 day is the circuit of the globe. Upon another 
 line of measurement the legions marched from 
 the African desert and the Cataracts of the 
 Nile on the South, to the Danube and Rhine 
 on the North, and even to the firths of Scot- 
 land, enclosing within their outer lines prob- 
 ably not less than a hundred million diverse 
 people. Not many familiar names greet one 
 who turns to a map setting forth the Empire 
 at the time of its greatest extent; but if we 
 were to designate the countries as they are 
 known to the world at the end of the nine- 
 teenth century there would be included nearly 
 all the states of modern Europe except Ger- 
 many and Russia; all of north Africa, then 
 populous and flourishing; all of the Turkish 
 Empire, then composed of some of the richest 
 and most civilized of Roman colonies; all of 
 Armenia and Mesopotamia, from the Caspian 
 Sea to the Persian Gulf, 
 
 An immense service was rendered to Christ- 
 ianity, as the universal religion of mankind, 
 by bringing this congeries of peoples into sub- 
 stantial unity. It was, to be sure, first of all 
 
 60 
 
Political Structure of the Roman World 
 
 an enforced unity, and to the end was more 
 formal than real, yet it was sufficient to make 
 the impossible possible. Until they were 
 cemented together under the Caesars, these 
 nations had lived apart, with the utmost in- 
 difference to each other's welfare, or more 
 frequently in mutual antagonism. But na- 
 tions became provinces and were covered by 
 the one name which was infinitely more 
 powerful than all the independent national 
 titles taken together. The parts were articu- 
 lated into one body politic. They shared in 
 the dignity and good fortune of a single gov- 
 ernment. They came to have common ties, 
 common interests, common feelings. They 
 stood together in all that concerns safety and 
 general welfare. There was an exchange of 
 garnered treasures, material, social, and in- 
 tellectual. The heterogeneous mass of coun- 
 tries and peoples became in many essentials 
 homogeneous, "All the elements of culture 
 and all the forces of civilization being com- 
 prised in one empire.' 
 
 At any previous time in the world's history 
 since the people were scattered from the 
 plains of Shinar, Christianity — if it had ex- 
 isted — would have been confined within the 
 boundaries of a single country, and compelled, 
 if it depended then as now on natural laws of 
 
 51 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 development and propagation, to share the 
 fate of the country in which it was planted. 
 Not even the idea of a universal religion would 
 have been then conceivable. It was the es- 
 tablishment of the empire that broke down 
 narrow national limits and destroyed walls of 
 social partition. For the first time an aggres- 
 sive policy, with a sustained missionary activ- 
 ity, became possible. 
 
 The unity which gave the long looked for 
 opportunity was of advantage first of all in 
 developing a sentiment of kinship among men. 
 In some measurable degree men came to feel a 
 sense of brotherhood between different nations. 
 Whereas once there had been repulsion now 
 there was attraction acting through the com- 
 mon bond of pride and advantage in the em- 
 pire. Carthagenians and Romans, Greeks 
 and Parthians, dwellers on the Euphrates and 
 inhabitants on the Nile were at last on friend- 
 ly terms. Differences of name and speech, of 
 origin and political history, were covered 
 over by the larger fact of likeness and part- 
 nership in a government of overwhelming 
 majesty. And this feeling the more readily 
 influenced men because of the universal con- 
 dition of peace. For a time the war trumpet 
 was silent, swords were beaten into plough- 
 shares, and the doors of the Temple of Janus 
 
 52 
 
Political Structure of the Koman World 
 
 were closed. As one by one the wars of con- 
 quest were ended the work of peaceful ad- 
 ministration began, and hostile tribes and 
 belligerent nations were robbed of even the in- 
 centives to strife. By the end of the first 
 century Epictetus could write: <' Caesar has 
 procured for us a profound peace. There are 
 neither wars nor battles, nor great robberies, 
 nor piracies." 
 
 This favorable exemption from sanguinary 
 struggles which would have disturbed com- 
 munities and absorbed thought, was followed 
 by the helpful administration of Roman juris- 
 prudence. We are accustomed to magnify 
 the genius of this people for law and order, 
 but their proclivity in this direction is not 
 mysterious in its origin. The conditions of 
 social and political life on the bank of the 
 Tiber, in the earliest centuries, were such as to 
 necessitate statutory provisions for the es- 
 tablishment of harmony. With so many clash- 
 ing tribes and rival classes there was no other 
 modus Vivendi. The very existence of society 
 demanded clear definition and rigid enforce- 
 ment of rights. Both the idea and the prac- 
 tical application of law grew with the growth 
 of the city and of the Empire. Within the 
 walls which encircled the Seven Hills the con- 
 tentions of noble and peasant, of patrician and 
 
 53 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 plebian, which were transmitted from genera- 
 tion to generation, compelled the Senate to 
 limit privileges or grant them, as the case 
 might be. Outside of the walls the smaller 
 cities and kingdoms were scheming and fight- 
 ing for grants of land, right of trade, and 
 prerogatives of government. 
 
 Hence came about in the insensible progress 
 of centuries, first municipal regulations, then 
 colonial privileges, and after that a provincial 
 system of government which covered the earth 
 with its protecting mantle. It was a superb 
 development of law and order, but its origin 
 and development are not mysterious. No 
 social or political facts are more easily ac- 
 counted for, but they are not for that reason 
 any the less significant. 
 
 How great an advantage came to Christian- 
 ity from the quietness and security of life even 
 in remote provinces is readily seen. The new 
 religion did not seek to place itself in author- 
 ity as immediately controling men and money 
 and directing political affairs, like Mohammed- 
 anism, for instance. All it claimed was the 
 privilege of undisturbed labor, the opportun- 
 ity to preach its truths, to form churches, to 
 do its silent, unobtrusive work in the midst 
 of society. It was therefore of the greatest 
 moment that lawlessness should be repressed 
 
 54 
 
Political Structure of the Koman World 
 
 and outbreaks speedily checked. It is not 
 difficult to understand how Paul could enjoin 
 respect for heathen officers of state. ' ' Put 
 them in mind to be in subjection to rulers, to 
 authorities, to be obedient ." " Let every soul 
 be in subjection to the higher powers; the 
 powers that be are ordained of God. For 
 rulers are not a terror to the good work, but 
 to the evil." In every city and village of the 
 Empire were courts and magistrates to ad- 
 minister with Roman dignity and authority 
 laws of justice in regard to property and life. 
 The details of such a widely extended system 
 must have been countless, but they were pro- 
 vided for in the settled and comprehensive 
 policy of Rome. All provinces were alike in 
 the eye of the law, in Italy or Spain, in Macedo- 
 nia or in Celicia. Some communities were less 
 refined and orderly than others, but there were 
 magistrates for Paul to appeal to, if he would, 
 in the exercise of the right of his Roman 
 citizenship, in Lystra and Derbe, as well as in 
 Caesarea and Philippi. 
 
 Next in importance to the firm administra- 
 tion of law, which must be accounted an abso- 
 lute necessity, was the extension of civiliza- 
 tion. The special features of Grecian culture 
 require more careful consideration than can be 
 here accorded them, but the general statement 
 
 55 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 can safely be made that enough of mental 
 quickening and social refinement went into the 
 provinces along with the armies of occupation 
 to greatly facilitate the progress of the Gospel. 
 This preparatory work was not altogether de- 
 void of noble motive, although no emperor 
 adopted such a definite and vigorous policy as 
 that of the Apostle to the Gentiles. The 
 Roman people were proud of their eminence 
 and believed in their mission to civilize 
 as well as to govern the world. More or 
 less consciously they were instruments of 
 righteousness in developing ideas and institu- 
 tions among nations which they had lifted 
 out of sheer bar*barism. Multitudes who would 
 otherwise have been too dull or base to give in- 
 telligent hearing listened responsively to the 
 lofty truths of the Gospel. This was true in the 
 provinces of Asia and equally true in western 
 Europe. For instance, a half dozen years 
 after the beginning of Paul's ministry 
 Claudius came back to Rome from the shores 
 of Britain, where he had gone to complete the 
 conquest which Julius Caesar had begun a 
 century before. When Claudius crossed the 
 channel the island had no readiness for the 
 Gospel. Rude, untrained Britons, to whom 
 words of gentleness and appeals for mercy 
 would have been as empty sounds, roamed the 
 
 56 
 
Political Structure of the Roman World 
 
 forests. But the Emperor was a herald of 
 better things. He supposed himself to be 
 merely annexing another barbarous province, 
 but he was, in truth, planting the seeds of 
 civilization and opening the way for a more 
 benificent reign than that of Imperial Rome. 
 The same significant changes were wrought 
 on the other side of the British Channel. A 
 century before Christ, what has become the 
 fair land of "sunny France" was savage in 
 every aspect of human existence. The Com- 
 mentaries of Caesar not only recount his vic- 
 tories over Celtic and Germanic races; they 
 also disclose the grade and conditions of life 
 along the streams and among the forests of 
 Gaul. We are made to see the rude huts rising 
 above the river banks, the warriors in savage 
 dress with barbarous weapons grouped in scat- 
 tered villages, or wandering to and fro in half- 
 aimless migrations. We hear the sound of their 
 clannish warfare and of their baser orgies. As 
 thus we look into the darkness and behold 
 brutish instincts and low ideals we wonder 
 how a message of peace and righteousness 
 could ever reach such minds and influence such 
 hearts. But Caesar's work for the Romanizing 
 of Gaul bears an intimate relation to Paul's 
 work for the christianizing of the land. The 
 Apostle followed the General a century later, 
 
 67 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 and the spiritual conquest was the speedier 
 and more complete because of the earlier 
 victories of arms. 
 
 Another advantage came to Christianity 
 through the provincial system of Rome. Routes 
 of communication were opened and guarded 
 throughout this vast territory. One rides out 
 of the ancient capital to-day over highways 
 which were in their perfection under the em- 
 perors. One enters the City of Chester, the 
 outpost of British occupation, over roadbeds 
 which were laid eighteen hundred years ago; 
 and adventurous explorers have traced the lines 
 of imperial roads over the passes of Phrygian 
 mountains. It was a simple necessity of ad- 
 ministration in the provinces. Five main 
 lines of travel came out of the Imperial City 
 and branched in every direction — through 
 southern Gaul into Spain; through France to 
 the Scottish border; through Milan and over 
 the Alps to Cologne and Leyden; through 
 Philippi and on to Ephesus and Antioch. A 
 traveler could measure his way along a circuit 
 of seventeen hundred miles, by Roman mile- 
 stones, with Roman maps in hand. Along 
 these far-extended routes there was a constant 
 stream of travel for military or commercial 
 purposes, so that no herald of the Gospel need 
 lose his way or be hindered in his journey. 
 
 58 
 
Political Structure of the Koman World 
 
 Christianity entered Eome before the eager 
 Apostle could fulfill his desire to proclaim 
 the gospel at the capital of the world. Pil- 
 grims and men of commerce were constantly- 
 passing from Palestine to Italy, and not a few 
 bore with them the message of salvation. 
 Some statesmen regarded with disfavor the in- 
 flowing tide of immigration from the East, 
 complaining that "theOrontes was pouring 
 its waters into the Tiber;" but if they had 
 been wise and well informed they would have 
 rejoiced that men of a new faith could find 
 their way to Rome, and that swift and faith- 
 ful Messengers could traverse all lands with 
 parchments which had been illuminated by the 
 hand of one who was a citizen of the Empire 
 and a preacher of righteousness. 
 
 Christ delayed His coming until Caesar had 
 pushed his conquests from the sea to the great 
 rivers, and humbly built His kingdom where 
 an earthly potentate had in some sense laid 
 the foundation. So heaven has often con- 
 descended to be helped by the world. But 
 where the earthly king pitiably failed the 
 Heavenly King gloriously succeeded. When 
 the Empire could do no more for the civiliza- 
 tion of the world the Kingdom took up the 
 work and carried it on: carried it on more- 
 over not only with divine patience but with 
 
 59 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 divine assurance; and it will continue to carry 
 it on until the might of Caesar is surpassed 
 by the gentleness of Christ. 
 
 60 
 
chapter iv. 
 Social Life of the First Century 
 
 IT was Christianity's mission to remodel the 
 ■'■ social life of the world, beginning with 
 that of the Roman Empire. With this in view 
 it entered into existing conditions, and main- 
 tained a temperate and flexible adjustment to 
 them. Before it was a problem of incalculable 
 difficulty, for there was very little in the 
 structure of life, either at Rome or in the 
 provinces, which corresponded with the ideals 
 of a pure religion. In the entire round of 
 existence Paul would have searched in vain 
 for any occupation or diversion which had 
 been influenced by sentiments appropriate to 
 Christianity. Neither in private nor in public 
 life would he have encountered the motives 
 and standards which he represented in his 
 own inspiring and devoted life. In the Forum 
 he would have found judges, pleaders, spec- 
 tators; in the market he would have heard 
 the discordant cries of buyers and sellers ; in 
 open courts before the temples he would have 
 witnessed dancing, dice playing, and all sorts 
 
 61 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 of frivolous amusements; at the public baths 
 he would have listened to idle chatter, gossip, 
 jest, and story; at some of the great domestic 
 establishments he might learn of protracted 
 feasts followed by unspeakable revels, but 
 nowhere would he come into contact with 
 forms of social life which had been elevated 
 and beautified by such ideals as were embod- 
 ied in the Gospel 
 
 What could a preacher and advocate of right- 
 ousness do in the midst of activities and rela- 
 tionships so completely out of accord with the 
 standards upon which he must insist? If he was 
 wise he would not demand that individuals 
 should step out of the ranks of society, withdraw 
 from accustomed engagements, and break all 
 ties of kindred and friendship. Christianity 
 aimed to do its regenerative work for the cor- 
 porate life of mankind as well as for elect indi- 
 viduals. Paul followed the policy adopted by 
 the Divine Master, who was his pattern and 
 leader. Christ began with Peter, Nicodemus, 
 the woman of Samaria, and Zacchaeus, undis- 
 mayed by their crudeness, accepting them 
 as disciples at the earliest stage of develop- 
 ment, and even going on to "call" other 
 men and women as worldly as these 
 had been. In pursuance of the same 
 policy he took his place at a feast given by a 
 
 62 
 
Social Life of the First Century 
 
 retired collector of customs, who had invited 
 many publicans to meet him as his friends ; and 
 some years later he even asked for hospitality 
 at the hands of such an official at Jericho. 
 Again and again it is recorded of Christ that 
 He was the guest of some Pharisee, whose 
 every notion of life and religion was unlike 
 His own ; and, doubtless, if the centurion had 
 shown gratitude for the recovery of his boy 
 by a gathering of Roman officers to welcome 
 the Miracle Worker, he would have courteously 
 met the social demands of the hour. 
 
 Later on in the century, when apostles were 
 planting religious truth here and there through- 
 out the Empire, it became necessary, in the 
 same way, to bear with conditions wholly at 
 variance with their standards. An infinite 
 number of perplexities arose in every com- 
 munity, as the Epistles bear evidence; they 
 being largely devoted to practical questions 
 which had been referred to the Apostles for set- 
 tlement. When Christians could not determine 
 what their religion permitted or required, es- 
 pecially in churches which were part Gentile 
 and part Jewish, in homes half Christian and 
 half heathen, and in occupations and ceremonies 
 wholly unsanctified, they sent a messenger to 
 the Founder of the church to ask how He would 
 apply the principles He had preached, and so 
 
 63 
 
In The Time of Faul 
 
 help them to readjust their disturbed relation- 
 ships. The kind of questions He was asked to 
 answer was: Under such and such circum- 
 stances what concessions could be safely made; 
 under such and such demands by heathen offi- 
 cials or un-Christian husbands how much could 
 be properly granted? 
 
 To study the social structure of the Empire 
 in the first century is to find new ground for 
 admiration for a religion bold enough, gentle 
 enough, delicate enough to adjust itself to such 
 diverse and unfriendly conditions, and yet 
 mighty enough to triumph over habit and pas- 
 sion, over dullness and perversion, and at last 
 modify the long-established order of ancient 
 Rome. 
 
 Consideration of the social life of any age 
 should begin with the family, for that has al- 
 ways been and must ever be the basis of so- 
 ciety. Among the Jewish people there had 
 resulted from the training of many centuries 
 an ideal of home life immeasurably superior to 
 that of contemporaneous nations. Both tradi- 
 tion and written precept inculcated kindness 
 in parents and obedience in children. Very 
 much was made of the family life. Every anal- 
 ysis of social life came at last to this unit. 
 The nation was divided into tribes, the tribes 
 into families. In each family the father was 
 
 64 
 
Social Life of the First Century 
 
 under bonds to give tender care and training 
 to his child and the "first command with 
 promise" enjoined upon children was the hon- 
 oring of father and mother. Wherever a syn- 
 agogue was found the Apostles took swift 
 advantage of the instruction that had already 
 been given in righteousness and kindliness; 
 and the infusion of religious sentiments which 
 in every community came from Jew to Gentile 
 must have greatly facilitated the work of the 
 Gospel. Outside of Israel there was properly 
 speaking no home life. In the early and vig- 
 orous days of Rome marriage had been crowned 
 with the highest honor, and for centuries di- 
 vorce was unknown. But by the time of 
 Augustus the family institution had fallen into 
 shameful discredit and the position of women 
 — which of itself determines the grade and 
 quality of civilization — had become deplorable. 
 There is nothing in the teachings of Christ to 
 correspond with that Grecian thought con- 
 cerning woman and her place in the family 
 which was adopted at Rome to its incalculable 
 injury. "Plato represents a state as wholly 
 disorganized where wives were on an equality 
 with their husbands." Aristotle expressly 
 characterizes women as "beings of inferior 
 kind." 
 
 Family life, in the true meaning of the words, 
 
 65 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 the Greek did not know. He sought happi- 
 ness elsewhere than at his own hearth. "Is 
 there a human being, " asks Socrates of a friend, 
 "with whom you talk less than with your 
 wife? " Demosthenes acknowledged that phil- 
 osophy had not enriched the home. It could 
 not, because it was fundamentally at fault in 
 this regard and threw itself directly in the 
 path of a religion in which were strict injunc- 
 tions for kindness and purity in the closest 
 relationships of life. 
 
 It is not to be supposed, however, that the 
 marriage laws had become utterly powerless, 
 and the institution of the family utterly with- 
 out value. It had once been both the glory 
 and the strength of the nation in the good old 
 days when the Roman matron was respected 
 for her virtue and cherished for her loveli- 
 ness, and the old marriage laws could not 
 be repealed nor could the sentiments from 
 which they had sprung be entirely uprooted. 
 So far as the provinces were concerned, also, 
 there was a large remnant of power for social 
 purity and good order in the ordinances which 
 were enforced among the rudest peoples. 
 Those only were recognized as having the 
 privileges of Roman citizenship who had been 
 born of legitimate marriage; which was an 
 immense advance upon the indifferent customs 
 
 66 
 
Social Life of the First Century 
 
 of orientals and savages. The influence of the 
 higher type of civilization and of the constant 
 enforcement of law was felt throughout the 
 populous regions of Asia Minor as a check 
 upon the license which had been prevalent, 
 and undoubtedly proved an educating and 
 constraining force toward a higher grade of 
 social morality. 
 
 The lowest depths were reached in the great 
 cities, especially in Rome. The reasons for 
 this are not far to seek. All tendencies to 
 evil melt together into a mighty current in a 
 thoroughly godless city, and in the world's 
 capital the stream of lust and worldliness 
 swept everything before it, like a swollen 
 torrent. The sanction of religion was quite 
 absent from the ceremony of marriage, which 
 came to be regarded as merely a civil contract, 
 easily made and easily dissolved. Very often 
 young girls were disposed of, according to the 
 whim or the political or financial advantage 
 of their parents ; in fact, the Latin has no 
 phrase in which a suitor could seek the con- 
 sent of a maiden to honorable marriage. It 
 was an arrangement between other parties 
 than those most concerned, making noble sen- 
 timent and generous purpose absolutely for- 
 eign to an ill-assorted union, which fre- 
 quently brought strangers under a bond which 
 
 67 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 might never be otherwise than distasteful to 
 them. 
 
 Marriage took the girl from a life of irksome 
 and profitless seclusion, and in a day bestowed 
 upon her almost boundless liberty, liberty for 
 which she may have longed, but for the proper 
 use of which she had not been trained. 
 She could for the first times sit at feasts, 
 visit freely temple, circus, amphitheater, and 
 even the public baths. It is not to be won- 
 dered at that distate for marriage grew into 
 formidable proportions among men. The 
 large majority refused to accept the valueless 
 bond, until patriots like Metellus appealed to 
 men to marry, not for the blessings of com- 
 panionship and a home, but, with better pros- 
 pect of cordial hearing, for the sake of the 
 state. 
 
 Out of such marriages as these proper home 
 life could not issue. Parents had neither love, 
 nor the sense of responsibility, toward their 
 offspring. The father had absolute right over 
 the disposition of his child and was restrained 
 neither by law nor by public opinion from neg- 
 lect or cruelty. For the most part, in the de- 
 generate days of the Empire, children were ac- 
 counted a burden, and were frequently dis- 
 posed of by exposure. Infanticide became 
 frightfully prevalent. In no case were the 
 
 68 
 
Social Life of the First Century 
 
 children who were allowed to live nourished 
 with maternal care, or trained with paternal 
 solicitude. At an early age they were sent to 
 a slave or f reedman to be taught the rudiment- 
 ary principles of reading, writing and arith- 
 metic ; thus often being exposed to the most 
 demoralizing influences. Later, if their edu- 
 cation was to be carried on further they began 
 to read standard authors in both Greek and 
 Latin ; such as Homer, Virgil and Horace. 
 The next stage brought them to a rhetorician 
 for discipline in public speaking, which was 
 deemed the high road to "success;" the next 
 to the lectures of certain philosophers. They 
 were also put under the physical training of 
 professional athletes. As to moral teachings 
 we have conflicting reports. Very often it 
 must have found no place in a course deter- 
 mined by an ambitious but dissolute parent; 
 although high-minded men, like Pliny and 
 Quintilian, would doubtless seek to develop re- 
 verence for justice, decency and patriotism. 
 In rare instances Roman youths completed 
 their studies by extensive travels through the 
 Empire and by residence at Athens. 
 
 The preaching of Paul evidently dwelt largely 
 on the mutual obligations of the home; for em- 
 phatic and repeated commands are to be found 
 in all of his Epistles. His words must have 
 
 69 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 sounded strange to most of his auditors and in 
 many households must have awakened new af- 
 fections and made real the relationships which 
 had before only a nominal existence. 
 
 Society was divided into classes which were 
 differentiated by marked characteristics. In 
 our time, when problems touching the common 
 life of humanity excite profound consideration, 
 it is pitiful to see the divergencies which in 
 every great city rend asunder the mass of pop- 
 ulation. So was it in Rome. There was as 
 nearly as possible a reversal of ideal condi- 
 tions. It was not so much a question of "so- 
 cial order" as of social disorder; not so much 
 an enquiry regarding "general prosperity" 
 as the prevalence of universal wretchedness. 
 "The whole structure of pagan civilization 
 was really based on a foundation of crushed 
 and forgotten humanity." The lower orders 
 of society scarcely find mention in the writings 
 of the day. We have at command volumes of 
 history, letters, orations and poems referring 
 to every phase of existence among the favored 
 classes, but there are no pictures from the 
 lives of the lowly. We know enough in a gen- 
 eral way about the debasement and squalor at 
 the bottom of society, among the submerged 
 nine-tenths, enough for tears and groans in 
 behalf of the hopelessly wretched, but the de- 
 
 70 
 
Social Life of the First Century 
 
 tails are lost forever. Luxury and pride paint 
 themselves vividly, though in a grotesqueness 
 of which they are unconscious, but groveling 
 poverty does not care to put itself upon can- 
 vas. It is only by piecing together scraps of 
 information and inferences gathered here and 
 there that we are able to reconstruct a social 
 condition which becomes more and more re- 
 mote from prevailing types of civilization. 
 
 Christianity suffered unavoidably from the 
 class distinctions and conflicts of the Empire, 
 just as it has been compelled to go halting 
 through India, by reason of the caste system. 
 It was not only hindered by the greed and lust 
 of the rich and by the incapacity and misery 
 of the poor, but its precepts of industry and 
 manliness were nullified by an unyielding con- 
 tempt among every class for all forms of work. 
 
 Labor was not only wanting in honor, it was 
 under the ban of public opinion. It was con- 
 sidered disgraceful to engage in productive 
 enterprises, thus making the existence of a 
 sturdy ''middle -class," which has always 
 proven the reliance of progressive nations, 
 absolutely impossible. Even Plato justified 
 the contumely which was heaped upon those 
 "whose employment would not permit them 
 to devote themselves to their friends and the 
 state." Aristotle taught no higher wisdom; 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 maintaining that ''all forms of labor which re- 
 quire physical strength are degrading to a 
 freeman," on the ground that "Nature had 
 created for such purposes a special class." 
 Even the noble minded Cicero is on record as 
 asserting that "the mechanic's occupation is 
 degrading," because "the work-shop is incom- 
 patible with anything exalted." Every word 
 and act of the Founder of Christianity, every 
 trait of His character and every impulse of His 
 grace, is opposed to such a rating of men and 
 to the continuance of social separations. 
 Christianity had a message of dignity and 
 hope for all; it asked only for honesty and 
 earnestness in such pursuits as were possible 
 in the ordering of life for each man, but its 
 voice was drowned by the clamor of the "priv- 
 ileged" and the outcries of the wronged. 
 
 At the summit of society were the nobles, 
 of hereditary rank, and the wealthy, of whom 
 not a few had climbed from lower levels, from 
 the most part by trickery or truckling. But 
 in comparison with the multitudes they were 
 not numerous. The patricians were never in 
 a majority and were not relatively increased 
 by the influx of population from every prov- 
 ince of the Empire. The very rich depended 
 upon enormous grants of land and the unwill- 
 ing and poorly requited services of the lower 
 
 72 
 
Social Life of the First Century- 
 orders. In Nero's reign half of the province 
 of Africa belonged to six great landlords. 
 Officials amassed incomputable fortunes — mil- 
 lions upon millions of sesterces, but the Senate 
 was a limited corporation, and financial mag- 
 nates like Pallas and Narcissus are quickly 
 enumerated. From the height of the few we 
 make a long descent to the next lower strat- 
 um of society. The absence of the self-re- 
 specting middle class, — independent farmers, 
 artisans, traders, — who could feel themselves 
 a part of the corporate body, having free and 
 satisfying industries, and bearing a share of 
 responsibility for the general welfare, precipi- 
 tates us to the level of men who could endure 
 public disregard and contempt. Even the 
 professions, especially medicine, were in the 
 hands of freedmen and slaves. Architecture, 
 sculpture and painting were considered un- 
 worthy occupations for aristocrats. Thus 
 through the unreasonable pride and vanity of 
 the day, many men of intellectual power and 
 artistic genius were barred from wholesome 
 and profitable pursuits, which were degraded 
 by the hands to which they were relegated. 
 
 Beneath this class of workers, small in 
 numbers and esteem, came the uncounted mass 
 of men who, in two well defined classes, pau- 
 pers and slaves, made up the greater part of 
 
 73 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 the population in the first century. The de- 
 pendent poor of the great city may be divided 
 into two sections, the majority, who were ab- 
 ject in their poverty, and the minority, who 
 made some pretension to comfort and respect- 
 ability. These were destitute of property and 
 were only saved from reliance on the daily 
 dole of bread from the hand of the state by 
 private benefactions. It was a part of the 
 vapid sentiment and senseless display of the 
 age that rich men should parade their depend- 
 ents before the public, a fashion which proved 
 equally ruinous to both parties. The patron 
 in lavish magnificence of dress, was accompa- 
 nied through the crowded streets by throngs 
 of attendants who performed insignificant or 
 imaginary services and offered every conceiv- 
 able kind of flattery and attention. There 
 was no manly and productive employment for 
 such poverty-stricken individuals, and conse- 
 quently they lived in a state of miserable, 
 degrading parasitism. Even men of respect- 
 able origin dragged honorable names down to 
 the mire of ignominy, counting it almost a 
 boon of fortune to live in pusillanimous de- 
 pendence upon the bounty of those men who 
 treated them with almost limitless contempt. 
 There was, nevertheless, a lower depth of 
 infamy and wretchedness for the common herd 
 
 74 
 
Social Life of the First Century 
 
 of humanity, whose hunger was appeased by 
 public largesses of corn, and whose dangerous 
 restlessness was held in check by the diver- 
 sions and excitements of the amphitheater. 
 Rome was crowded with such irresponsible 
 people who had flocked thither for the very 
 purpose of eating the bread of idleness and 
 worthlessness. It has been estimated that the 
 Capital contained not fewer than two hundred 
 thousand of these wretched and debased crea- 
 tures, who made up the mobs which howled at 
 the public games and wasted the rest of the 
 day in frivolous and demoralizing amusements. 
 The distribution of corn to this dangerous 
 horde was not in the least prompted by 
 charity. It was regarded simply as a measure 
 for the safety of the state. This social resi- 
 duum was looked upon as a part of the political 
 and social constitution of society, and as 
 beyond mitigation by any measures or motives 
 known to the Roman officials. Even at its 
 best the policy of the emperors only tempor- 
 ized with the evil which grew apace. Every 
 gift and concession tended toward further 
 pauperizing and debasement. The multitudes 
 fell into more absolute and hopeless destitu- 
 tion, and the mobs grew more and more reck- 
 less and exorbitant in their clamors for relief 
 and favors, The fear increased lest an out- 
 
 76 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 break from this accumulated mass of irrespon- 
 sible humanity should overwhelm the lives and 
 property of the few who had so much at stake. 
 
 This fear was enhanced by the possibility of 
 a slave insurrection; for in the social reckon- 
 ing there were tens of thousands who were 
 more miserable than the paupers, in that they 
 lacked even the semblance of freedom. Beneath 
 every other social level was a mass of slaves, ex- 
 ceeding in number the entire remainder of the 
 population. These were the chattels of the 
 Roman people. They were not even thought 
 of as human beings, but they nevertheless 
 throbbed with the common life, and imperiled 
 society by their degradation and unspeakable 
 wretchedness. 
 
 This iniquitous system was not merely en- 
 trenched in immemorial custom, but existed, 
 irrational and inhuman as it was, by virtue of 
 the uniform teachings of philosophers and 
 sages. It had the sanction of the highest 
 authorities in ethics. The slave was not a 
 man. There belonged to him neither free will 
 nor claim to justice. Even Plato, " the noblest 
 thinker of antiquity," maintained that slavery 
 was a natural institution. Aristotle taught 
 that the ideal household was provided with 
 two sorts of instruments, inanimate and ani- 
 mate; slaves without souls and slaves with 
 
 76 
 
Social Life of the First Century 
 
 souls ; but the soul of a slave was regarded as 
 imperfect because devoid of will. So mightily 
 did such sentiments sway even the best of men 
 that Cicero apologizes for the grief he could 
 not altogether suppress upon the loss of a slave 
 to whom he had become attached. ' ' Sosithenes 
 is dead," he wrote his friend Atticus, "and 
 his death has moved me more than the death 
 of a slave should" — just as to-day, one might 
 be chagrined to be found in tears over the loss 
 of a dog pet. The Roman law made care- 
 ful distinctions against this hapless portion of 
 humanity. The slave was not a person, but 
 only a thing, and therefore the absolute prop- 
 erty of his master. This, of course, made mar- 
 riage an absurdity, and although there was no 
 escape from the phrases which indicate human 
 relationships the words were declared to have no 
 legal meaning. There were "families" of 
 slaves, with the "father" or "brother," but 
 these terms were as nearly as possible emptied 
 of significance when applied to bondsmen. The 
 slave market was a chattel market. The vendor 
 cried his wares, the buyer examined his goods, 
 the purchaser treated his newly acquired 
 property according to the whim of the moment. 
 During the day slaves worked in chains; at 
 night they were huddled in barracks half 
 under ground. They were branded, flogged, 
 
 77 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 crucified, according to the pleasure or passion 
 of the owner. 
 
 In wealthy households their work might be 
 light and the conditions of existence less rigor- 
 ous. Indeed, slaves were multiplied, in vulgar 
 display of extravagant luxury, until they became 
 a burden and embarrassment because no sort of 
 employment could be devised for them. Curi- 
 ous offices were invented as a relief to the situa- 
 tion. There was a " f older-of-clothes ;" a "cus- 
 todian of Corinthian vases;" a "sandal-boy," 
 whose sole occupation was putting on and remov- 
 ing his master's shoes; "letter-carriers," and 
 attendants without number. Such slaves made 
 up an idle, unwilling, almost unmanageable 
 household, under direction of a head-slave who 
 was responsible for their behavior and industry. 
 Besides these, there were a few educated slaves: 
 secretaries, librarians, and readers, who, on 
 the one hand, ministered to the pride and self- 
 indulgence of their masters, and on the other, 
 scarcely felt the instincts of manhood or 
 womanhood. The whole system was hopelessly 
 enervating and debasing. 
 
 To study the social structure of the Roman 
 Empire is to discover the gigantic task as- 
 sumed by Christianity in its unique undertak- 
 ing to uplift the entire life of mankind. To 
 elevate the consciousness of the individual, to 
 
 78 
 
Social Life of the First Century 
 
 purify and enoble the home, to adjust the 
 various classes of society to harmonious rela- 
 tions and wholesome industries, to cover the 
 whole existence of man with the sanction of a 
 pure and exalted religion, this was the enter- 
 prise upon which Christianity went forth into 
 the world. It endeavored not merely to bring 
 about social order but to infuse something of 
 zest and dignity into the occupations of life; 
 to make men conscious of better things than 
 those which in the round of an idle, luxurious 
 life brought only weariness and despair. 
 
 *'0n that hard Pagan world disgust 
 And secret loathing fell; 
 Deep weariness and sated lust 
 Made human life a hell. 
 
 In his cool hall, with haggard eyes, 
 
 The Roman noble lay: 
 He drove abroad, in furious guise, 
 
 Along the Appian way: 
 
 He made a feast, drank fierce and fast, 
 And crown'd his hair with flowers — 
 
 No easier nor no quicker pass'd 
 The impracticable hours." 
 
 Only the word which Paul as a messenger 
 of Him who came to make all things new car- 
 ried to Antioch, Ephesus and Rome, a word of 
 authority, of inspiration, of hope, a word for 
 manliness, kindliness and humanity, could so 
 
 79 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 check the tendencies and remold the social life 
 of the age as to save the world from self-dis- 
 gust and self-destruction. 
 
 80 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Religious Condition of the 
 Age 
 
 RELIGION had in the earlier centuries of 
 Roman life no small influence on the char- 
 acter and conduct of the people. The serious- 
 ness which characterized the senate was 
 determined by a universal and sincere belief 
 in the presence and favor of the gods ; and the 
 marriage vow gained its sanctity from the 
 worship of the Lares and Penates. It has oc- 
 curred among most peoples that the early 
 stages of religion have been free from formal- 
 ism and grossness. Out of the stress of 
 primitive life, or out of the genius or inspira- 
 tion of select individuals ideas and forms of 
 worship have developed rapidly, only to lose 
 their vitality in a few centuries. Zoroaster 
 undoubtedly contributed enough of moral and 
 religious truth — much of which is still pre- 
 served in the Zend-Avesta — to reform the 
 Iranian people; working in noble fellowship 
 with the king, as in a yet more favored land 
 Isaiah wrought with Hezekiah, and brought 
 the religious life of the Jewish nation to a 
 
 81 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 comparatively high standard. His religious 
 system lacked, however, the virility necessary 
 to withstand adverse influences; in the course 
 of centuries falling away from the monotheism 
 and morality which had given it vitality, and 
 losing itself in dualism and image worship. 
 The people had received gleams of light from 
 Ormuzd but the illumination was neither com- 
 plete nor constant. 
 
 Scholars who are conversant with the Ve- 
 dic Hymns decKre that the standard of 
 thought concerning the nature of God and 
 the spiritual life of man is immeasurably 
 above that which appeared among the Hindus 
 in later centuries. The religious fervor spent 
 its force and degeneracy followed. 
 
 At Rome adverse influences proved too pow- 
 erful for a religion which never produced a 
 literature to compare in ethical qualities or 
 in spirituality with that of Persia or India, 
 and which in the time of the Empire had come 
 to exert but small influence upon private 
 character or public life. It had fallen into 
 such decay that no longer were men eager to 
 build temples, altars, and statues to divinities 
 to whom unquestioning worship had once been 
 rendered. This degeneracy may have followed 
 the influx of wealth and luxury, or it may 
 have been the penalty for the despoiling of 
 
 82 
 
The Religious Condition of the Age 
 
 Greece. Undoubtedly the Hellenic type of 
 religion had proved destructive of Roman 
 simplicity, in respect alike to faith and 
 morals. The Greeks had a genius for 
 philosophy and art but not for religion or 
 morals. They exactly reversed the traits and 
 tendencies of the Hebrew people, who scarcely 
 commanded the rudiments of philosophy and 
 showed no inventiveness in the realm of 
 beauty, but were in all periods of their na- 
 tional life profoundly alive to the sublime 
 truths of religion; while the Greeks mani- 
 fested, even in the palmiest days of intellect- 
 ual greatness, a strange lack of reverence and 
 seriousness. 
 
 Rome incorporated a civilization which was 
 in many phases an advance upon her own but 
 failed to exclude its fatal tendencies. It was all 
 very well to admire the delicate play of fancy, 
 so much more free and venturesome than that 
 of the more practical Latins; but it was to 
 the last degree unwise to exchange a sober 
 habit of mind for the frivolousness which had 
 prevented the development of manhood 
 among the Greeks. If the graceful Grecian 
 myths had been built upon a profounder 
 sense of the unity and grandeur of the uni- 
 verse and of human life, the Romans might 
 have adopted and rechristened the personified 
 
 83 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 forces of nature not only without moral deter- 
 ioration but with quickened and chastened 
 fancy, a process both beautiful and beneficent. 
 Their own traditions were heroic, not relig- 
 ious or poetical. They might have added re- 
 finement to strength if they could have 
 assimilated the legends which had grown up 
 in Grecian literature to account for the many 
 fascinating phases of nature, and at the same 
 time have retained their sobriety and viril- 
 ity of character and their strong sense of 
 right and justice. They might then have 
 turned with advantage to look upon Old Nep- 
 tune as the god of the sea, upon Ceres as the 
 goddess of the harvest, upon Vulcan as the 
 god of fire, or upon Venus as the goddess of 
 beauty. They needed to become more versa- 
 tile and imaginative but they could ill afford 
 to barter their stern virtues for all the arts 
 and letters, for all the fancies and legends of 
 Greece, together with the light-mindedness 
 and lax morality which disfigured the Pelopo- 
 nesian civilization. The matter-of-fact Latin 
 mind weighed down the airy Hellenic fantasies 
 with a grossness foreign to the original con- 
 ceptions. The genius of administration and 
 war which characterized the Romans was of 
 a very different order from that which had 
 created and peopled Olympus. 
 
 84 
 
The Religious Condition of the Age 
 
 It excites no wonder to learn that the di- 
 vinities were sometimes publicly and bitterly- 
 scouted. It has been said that the whole 
 Olympian family would to-day reside in A 
 penitentiary. Every imaginable crime of lust 
 and rapacity had, in the degeneracy and pros- 
 titution of fancy, been attributed to the gods; 
 not even Jupiter, the father of all the gods 
 and the noblest, escaping the imputation of 
 jealousy and chicanery. Long before the 
 Roman conquest the Grecian code of morals 
 had become corrupt, and the common stan- 
 dards of life had become subject to vanity and 
 passion; thus reproducing the order of things 
 exemplified by their deities. Rome absorbed the 
 evil with the good, and the decay of her 
 own religion was swift and pronounced. 
 First of all, it lost its grip upon the 
 most intellectual classes, because they were 
 the earliest to detect the baseness of mo- 
 tive inseparable from current legends, and 
 were the most fearless and independent 
 in action. Later on it relaxed its hold upon 
 the masses. 
 
 The day had passed when Pericles led the 
 procession with songs and flowers, up to the 
 heights of the Parthenon; and when the gen- 
 erals of the republic brought their thank- 
 offerings for victory to Capitoline Jupiter. 
 
 85 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 The day of unquestioning reverence and faith 
 was irrecoverably gone. 
 
 Here and there devout souls, retaining their 
 mystic fervor, came as of yore to the tem- 
 ples as sincere petitioners. Some of the 
 noblest and purest, like Tacitus and Plutarch, 
 refused to yield up their serious belief in the 
 gods and renounce their respect for the na- 
 tional religion; but the indications are abun- 
 dant and convincing that the power custom 
 formed the larger factor in the observances of 
 the time. The great Caesar made bold to an- 
 nounce his scepticism. Lucretius indulged in 
 bitter and sarcastic allusions to religion, while 
 Pliny coolly assumed that the assured result of 
 science was to banish all gods from the uni- 
 verse. Cicero said that hardly could an old 
 woman be found who trembled at fables about 
 the infernal region. Juvenal declared that 
 even the boys scoffed at the idea of a world of 
 spirits. Cato wondered how one augur could 
 meet another without laughing in his face. 
 The universal accompaniment of such scepti- 
 cism was as usual a childish and tyranizing 
 superstition, an absurd and grotesque simul- 
 acrum of faith. 
 
 While Caesar presented himself before the 
 public as a scoffer at religious beliefs he never 
 entered a carriage without uttering a magical 
 
 86 
 
The Religious Condition of the Age 
 
 formula. Augustus, who at banquets had 
 made merry with the gods, dreaded misfortune 
 all the day when he had put a shoe on the 
 wrong foot. Pliny, a self -proclaimed atheist, 
 wore talismans. When a bird of evil omen 
 sat on the Temple of Jupiter all the people 
 were summoned to make solemn expiation to 
 avert disaster from the state. Superstition 
 was almost universal, and everywhere potent. 
 An earthquake shook the hearts of men, an 
 eclipse shut out all the light of heaven, a 
 flight of birds brought terror to the stoutest 
 souls, and a serpent crossing his path dis- 
 mayed the boldest warrior. 
 
 In the year 37 of the Christian era an earth- 
 quake shattered the splendid city of Antioch 
 to its foundation. It had boasted of being the 
 Athens of the Orient, and justified its claim to 
 intellectual distinction by its galaxy of wits, 
 philosophers, rhetoricians, poets, and satirists. 
 Yet under the terror of that awful hour all the 
 citizens became the easy prey of a mountebank 
 whose name has been preserved through the 
 centuries. He professed to be able to turn 
 aside the portentous horrors by talismans of 
 the most ludicrous description, and the wisest 
 became the unworthy dupes of his magical 
 arts. It was a time for necromancers and 
 astrologers to reap their harvests. 
 
 8T 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 Nevertheless, something of religion outlived 
 both scepticism and superstition, and mani- 
 fested itself in punctillious and exacting ob- 
 servances. These religious acts were not of 
 great moral value; but some lingering of religi- 
 ous sentiment, some sense of dependence on 
 supermundane powers, some fiickerings of 
 heavenly light must have sustained a system 
 which was subject to open and deserved con- 
 tempt. In a way, though not the highest and 
 noblest, the state had been founded on relig- 
 ion, and even in the degenerate days of the 
 Empire men could not utterly ignore the faith 
 of their fathers nor suppress their own instinc- 
 tive aspirations. Plutarch, in that very cen- 
 tury, dared to write: "Sooner may a city 
 exist without houses and grounds than a state 
 without faith in gods. This is the bond of 
 union and the support of all legislation." At 
 every important public transaction the gods 
 were consulted and sacred rites observed. No 
 senator at Rome under Augustus could take 
 his place without going to the altar of his diety 
 and there offering libations and strewing in- 
 cense; and every city and village throughout 
 the provinces had special rites for its protect- 
 ing divinity. 
 
 In domestic life the religious exactions 
 were no less rigorous. Every important event 
 
 88 
 
The Religious Condition of the Age 
 
 in the family was celebrated with religious 
 services. The goddess Lucina watched over 
 the birth of a child; Rumina attended its 
 nursing; Nudina was invoked when on the 
 ninth day the name was given; to Statina was 
 consecrated the day on which the child first 
 stepped on the ground; while Cunina con- 
 stantly averted the evil enchantments which 
 threatened its life. 
 
 Rome was excessively punctillious in things 
 religious, the perfection of religion being 
 thought to consist in exactness of ritual. 
 If the substance was gone there was no 
 lack of outward forms. On every ship that 
 sailed out of the harbor at Ostia stood the 
 image of Neptune, and as it passed beyond his 
 vision the merchant prayed to Mercury for 
 success in all his commercial enterprises. Be- 
 fore the harvest a sacrifice was offered to 
 Ceres for a bountiful crop. The ancient tem- 
 ples still stood in their wonted magnificence 
 and were daily visited by multitudes. Feasts 
 and sacrifices were celebrated with pomp, and 
 altars were the resort of suppliants for divine 
 favors. Even emperors performed solemn 
 rites in behalf of the city's welfare. What- 
 ever may have been the extent and sincerity 
 of disbelief among the intelligent classes it 
 was still necessary to support popular stand- 
 
 89 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 ing by open adherence to the religion of the 
 state. 
 
 Then as now women in greater numbers 
 than men gave time to religious observances. 
 It may indeed have been largely due to the 
 wives and mothers that the customs of worship 
 were so long retained in the home. Cicero 
 might ridicule some of the stories told about 
 the gods, but he nevertheless deemed it a 
 desirable thing, a thing to be taken as a mat- 
 ter of course, that his wife should cultivate 
 piety. Plautus gives an interesting portrait 
 of the ideal wife. Among such womanly vir- 
 tues as dignity, respect for parents, and obedi- 
 ence to the husband, he does not fail to name 
 reverence for the gods. What Paul found at 
 Athens he might have discovered at Rome or 
 Ephesus. The people made a display of re- 
 ligion. The paraphernalia of worship was not 
 wanting. " The old world was full of gods." 
 It was said in humorous exaggeration by a 
 satirical observer of the age: " Our country 
 is so peopled with dieties that it is easier to 
 find a god at Athens than a man." Life was 
 touched at every point by the forms and rites 
 of religion, and if there had been intelligence 
 and genuineness the state would have been 
 saved from the corruptions which were under- 
 mining it; but all the faiths which had been 
 
The Religious Condition of the Age 
 
 adopted by Rome with such indiscriminate 
 haste and lavish hospitality had alike become 
 hollow. They were all void of life and power. 
 They were all equally impotent. The indi- 
 vidual and the state were alike left undefended 
 against moral evil, and uninspired to the 
 noblest ends of life. 
 
 In the first place they failed to uplift and 
 purify daily life. They were external rather 
 than internal, formal rather than real, emo- 
 tional rather than ethical, being utterly devoid 
 of influence upon either reason or conscience. 
 They were not constructed upon this basis. 
 They made no attempt to be effective in the 
 realm of conduct and relationship, they made 
 no appeal whatever to the motives or senti- 
 ments of the worshiper, they modified in no 
 conceivable degree his views of life or his 
 methods of securing pleasure or profit. A 
 Roman came to the altar with an offering or 
 libation hoping thereby to discharge his debt 
 to the gods, that they might bear him no 
 ill will, or that they might prosper his enter- 
 prise. He recognized a certain obligation to 
 the divinities as the very word which he used 
 for religion implied; but his "religion " did not 
 bind him to a Being august in righteousness 
 and stern in demands of purity. The gods 
 whom he sought to placate were themselves 
 
 91 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 fickle and lustful, and were, by their reputed 
 character, the last objects in the universe to 
 stimulate men to honesty, highmindedness, 
 and self-control. They had been conceived and 
 created, by the unsanctified fancies of men, and 
 were decidedly materialistic and worldly, even 
 although they were assigned to the mystic 
 heights of Olympus, above the clouds of 
 heaven. 
 
 The Greek found beauty in his religion and 
 sought to cultivate in connection with temple 
 and image his aesthetic sensibilities, but he 
 never dreamed of holiness in connection with 
 the Celestial City and the palace of Zeus. A 
 solemn procession in which the sacred robe of 
 Pallas was carried up the heights of the Acrop- 
 olis and within the gates of the Parthenon 
 had no imaginable relation to manhood and 
 womanhood. The attendants of all ages and 
 both sexes pressed forward with oil and cake 
 for the sacrifices, but without the slightest 
 enthusiasm for righteousness or kindly ser- 
 vice. They could not fail to be impressed by 
 the majestic proportions of the temple which 
 crowned the summit, nor to delight in the 
 noble pediment which the genius of Phidias 
 had fitly adorned, but they neither saw nor 
 heard anything to enhance the solemnity of 
 life, or to restrain from frivolity or self-indul- 
 
The Religious Condition of the Age 
 
 gence. Such psalms as in the days of Peri- 
 cles were being sung in Jerusalem were as far 
 beyond the comprehension of the cultivated 
 Greek as of the nomadic wanderer in the Lyb- 
 ian desert. It would have been worth all their 
 masterpieces of art to have listened but once 
 to a choir of Levites chanting: — 
 
 '< Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord? 
 And who shall stand in his holy place? 
 He that hath clean hands and a pure heart: 
 Who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, 
 Nor sworn deceitfully," 
 or to have found on some scroll the outcry of 
 a penitent soul: 
 
 *♦ Search me, O God, and know my heart; 
 try me and know my thoughts; and see if 
 there be any wicked way in me, and lead me 
 in the way everlasting." 
 
 The religion of the Greeks never produced 
 a hymn in praise of truth and chastity, nor 
 an inspiration after nobleness and usefulness. 
 Much less did the plagiarized Sacred Songs of 
 the Romans. Lacking the aesthetic sense of 
 the people they had conquered they lost that 
 touch of grace and charm which came to 
 Athenians with their artistic forms. With 
 their own degeneracy they attributed all de- 
 grees of cruelty licentiousness to their deities 
 until their religion was not only uninspiring 
 
 93 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 but often positively corrupting. More than 
 one moralist under the Empire sought to divert 
 the people from the dissolute fancies engen- 
 dered by current legends of the gods of Rome. 
 Seneca cried out in disgust and despair that: 
 " All shame on account of sin must be taken 
 from men before they could believe in such 
 divinities." 
 
 As all the imported religions failed to in- 
 spire lives of piety, virtue, and gentleness, so 
 they failed to satisfy the instinctive yearnings 
 of men for comfort and peace of mind. Men 
 are never so imbruted as to become incapable 
 of tenderness and aspiration. Certainly, out 
 of the thronging millions of the Empire not a 
 few souls had voiceless longings for something 
 which did not come to them in fierce battle, 
 in successful intrigue, in hours of revelry, or 
 even in the temple services. Their deeper 
 natures were stirred but no fountain of com- 
 fort was known to them. If some eager mis- 
 sionary from Jerusalem, some far wandering 
 minstrel of Judah, had only come to Athens 
 with a message and a song then Rome might 
 have echoed with hymns of gladness, and 
 hearts that were over-burdened and weary 
 might have exclaimed, " I will lift up mine eyes 
 unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. 
 My help cometh from the Lord which made 
 
 94 
 
The Eeligious Condition of the Age 
 
 heaven and earth. He will not suffer my foot 
 to be moved; he that keepeth me will not 
 slumber." It is pitiful to see how they lived 
 on in empty pleasure or dumb despair, never 
 finding what they most needed. Plato, indeed, 
 protests against Atheism as an impossibility, 
 because man cannot banish from his heart, 
 however brave his words of denial, an in- 
 stinctive belief in the gods. But in the gods 
 of the Grecian and Roman world, there was 
 little to comfort one who blindly reached forth 
 his hands toward the host of Olympus! There 
 came to greet him no assurances of a personal 
 creator and friend, no pledges of watch-care 
 and fellowship, no promises of blessedness 
 either here -or hereafter. Of this world of 
 beauty and sunshine, of passion and pleasure, it 
 behooved him to make the most, for beyond it 
 lay the regions of Hades, an underworld, dark, 
 mysterious, uncanny, where incorporal shades 
 wandered aimlessly and hopelessly. Against 
 the weariness, disappointment, shame and 
 disgust of life Pagan religion set absolutely 
 nothing of cheer or comfort. 
 
 As these religions of Rome failed to comfort 
 the heart so they failed lamentably to satisfy 
 the mind. While there had been a decadence 
 of religious fervor and a loss of ethical impulse 
 there had been a gain of intelligence. The 
 
 95 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 habit of investigation and of philosophical 
 speculation had become more general and con- 
 trolling. Consequently, the myths and fables 
 which had satisfied the minds of an earlier and 
 cruder age and even furnished something of in- 
 spiration to character, fell short of the de- 
 mands made by a less imaginative but more 
 reflective people. Instead of becoming more 
 simple the legends of the gods became more com- 
 plex and diversified until they broke down by 
 the weight of their own accretions. At last 
 they were too gross and too confiicting to hold 
 even the most credulous. There was, besides, 
 an unmistakable drift toward monotheism, due 
 not only to intellectual progress, but also to 
 the necessities of a moral and religious feeling 
 which began to make itself felt in spite of the 
 corruption of the time. Jupiter still mingled 
 in human affairs and displayed pitiable weak- 
 nesses; and yet he, as the father of gods and 
 men, kept on flashing the lightning from the 
 clouds and governing by his sovereign will. The 
 thought of supremacy and unity probably 
 gained more in real than apparent influence on 
 the thought of the age. It certainly acted 
 powerfully on the minds of the thinkers who 
 were pioneers for the people in realms of phi- 
 losophy. The whole fabric of heathen religion, 
 with its myths, auguries, and libations, trem- 
 
 96 
 
The Religious Condition of the Age 
 
 bled before the scrutiny to which at last it was 
 subjected. Once brought into the light of 
 rational enquiry its puerilities, absurdities, and 
 inconsistencies were manifest. Many a legend 
 was puncturedjbjQiisJorical, study, and many a 
 childish story discredited by a closer acquaint- 
 ance with the forces and laws of the physical 
 world. Even the wisest did not hit upon a 
 satisfactory explanation of the origin and 
 meaning of life, but they discovered enough 
 to make them sceptical concerning the ancient 
 faith, and irreverent toward the ancient gods. 
 
 In their relation to Christianity the religious 
 experiences of the first century were signifi- 
 cant in a twofold way. 
 
 First, they make pathetic and appalling ex- 
 hibition of men's need of a religion which should 
 hold within it enough truth to meetevery intel- 
 lectual demand, enough of tenderness and 
 sympathy to satisfy the deepest yearnings of 
 the human heart, and enough of moral excel- 
 lence to uplift and purify the life of the indi- 
 vidual, the family, and the state. Men existed 
 for naught and labored to weariness with no 
 profit because they were given no ideals of 
 manhood, because no appeals were made to 
 their better nature. There was a crying need 
 of a religion which could address itself to the 
 conscience; which could awaken a conscious- 
 
 97 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 ness of the divinity above and within men; 
 which could present objects and aims large 
 enough and noble enough to make life worth 
 living; and stigmatize with infamy the cruel- 
 ties, frivolities, and lustful abominations which 
 characterized the society of the period. 
 
 There was not only a conscious need but also 
 an unconscious readiness for Christianity. 
 The preparation was not of the positive sort 
 furnished in the sacred writings of the Jews, 
 by their sublime portraiture of a just and 
 merciful God, by their treasured promises of 
 deliverance and ever deepening desire for the 
 coming of the Lord's Anointed. The prepar- 
 edness came from the exhaustion of all human 
 resources and the hopeless discrediting of the 
 national divinities, set against the irrepres- 
 sible hopes and yearnings of people who could 
 not quite suppress the aspirations of heaven- 
 made souls. 
 
 Though Rome gave such cordial welcome to 
 all national divinities and acquiesced in sacred 
 rites of every imaginable form, still she did 
 not find the religion for which she waited with 
 conscious and unconscious need ; and so the 
 processes of scepticism and neglect went 
 steadily on. A state of chaos unparalleled in 
 history took the place of the old national re- 
 ligion out of which in due time a new world 
 
 98 
 
The Keligious Condition of the Age 
 
 was created. The one world-religion of all 
 history made its appeal to that which 
 is deepest and most ineradicable in man; 
 in order that where all other religions 
 had hopelessly failed it might find an 
 open field for beneficent and triumphant 
 work. What the unordained forerunners 
 of the Apostle brought to Rome in such 
 stories as travellers and merchants could tell 
 about the Man of Galilee, Paul finally pro- 
 claimed by written and spoken word. Thus 
 was introduced into the Capital of the world a 
 religion which was fitted to supply the needs 
 of the world and at last to accomplish its re- 
 generation; a religion in which should be 
 manifest more and more the wisdom and power 
 of God; a religion which should alike answer 
 man's longing for a life of substantial worth 
 and dignity and for assurance concerning a 
 yet nobler career beyond the tomb ; a religion 
 which was to meet with rebuffs, be for a time 
 feared and hated as arrogant and exclusive, 
 but which nevertheless was to prevail against 
 misunderstanding and designing hostility until 
 in the end it should be crowned by a Roman 
 Emperor as the religion of the State, 
 
 99 
 
chapter vi. 
 
 The Moral Standards of the 
 Period 
 
 T^HE difficulties which confronted Christ- 
 ^ ianity in the first century were radically 
 different from those encountered by a founder 
 of the Mosaic system. Out of their centuries 
 of degradation under the Pharaohs a nation 
 of bondmen brought dullness of mind and cor- 
 ruption of morals, but there was no attempt 
 to mold them at once to the divine pattern of 
 thought and life. The legislation upon which 
 was to be built a new order of social and relig- 
 ious life was merely kept in advance of actual 
 attainment, and had often to accommodate 
 itself to hopeless weaknesses and perversions. 
 Christianity was much more than a code of 
 laws. Its high office was not to legislate, but 
 to instruct and inspire. Its mission was to 
 give to the world a standard of thought and 
 motive which could never be surpassed or out- 
 grown. The amazing thing, therefore, is that 
 it was able to gain a footing in so corrupt an 
 age and maintain its influence in the face of 
 
 100 
 
The Moral Standards of the Period 
 
 such base notions and debasing customs as 
 those which obtained throughout the Roman 
 Empire. 
 
 It was impossible to accomplish more during 
 the first century than to organize scattered 
 churches, made up of crude and inconsistent 
 Christians, and to proclaim principles which 
 were left to win their way to favor by their in- 
 herent excellence. The glory of the "Apos- 
 tolic Age " has dazzled the modern 
 church until men look back despairing- 
 ly to it as to a golden period for 
 the return of which we must hope in 
 vain. True it is that the personal devotion of 
 Paul and the spirituality of John are still un- 
 surpassed, and beyond question the heroism of 
 Christian martyrs, even in the earliest centu- 
 ries, puts to shame the self-considerateness and 
 cowardice which in some degree characterize 
 many modern disciples; yet it must not be 
 overlooked that the cause of righteousness was 
 in desperate straits during the time of Saint 
 Paul and that by only the smallest margin it 
 won its way against the persistent forces of 
 evil which had held sway for generations. 
 
 The doctrines of the Nazarene were too 
 novel and too advanced for the majority of 
 the Emperor's subjects fully to comprehend 
 them at first, much less to accept and exem- 
 
 101 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 plify them. The crudest notions of life and 
 the basest customs prevailed, and even within 
 the covenant of the church made themselves 
 shamefully manifest. The apostolic letters 
 are the unwitting memorials of a condition of 
 things which no longer survives save in start- 
 ling exceptions to the rule of decency and 
 correctness of living. Then it was not an un- 
 heard of thing for an apostle to reprove a 
 church for drunkenness and unseemly strife at 
 the holy communion, or to warn against such 
 transgressions as blasphemy, perjury and adul- 
 tery. That men and women, who had been 
 moved by the preaching of the gospel to un- 
 dertake lives of godliness, should be guilty of 
 such wide departure from the standards of the 
 Sermon on the Mount was made possible only 
 by long established habit, and by the absence 
 of public sentiment against such enormities. 
 
 It is happily difficult, if not impossible, for 
 the average Christian to reproduce even in 
 imaginatien the order of moral life which char- 
 acterized the Roman Empire. Nor need it find 
 place even in our fancy save in its general 
 features and for the sake of an intelligent ap- 
 preciation of the task successfully undertaken 
 by our religion. Christianity was indeed as a 
 light shining in a dark place. As a candle in 
 a deep, dark mine, as a diamond in a muck 
 
 102 
 
The Moral Standards of the Period 
 
 heap, as a lily among thorns, so was the sweet 
 Gospel of Christ in the great world of the 
 Caesars ; a message of faith, hope, and love, of 
 forgiveness, aspiration, and holy endeavor 
 among men of inherited and acquired vicious- 
 ness. Farrar has declared that "the epoch 
 which witnessed the early growth of Christ- 
 ianity was an epoch of which the horror and 
 degradation have rarely been equalled and 
 never exceeded in the annals of mankind." It 
 was a time of sad decadence for a civilization 
 which had manifested earlier glories of aspira- 
 tion and achievement, and which had created 
 two splendid types of national development, 
 but which had spent its vital forces and dem- 
 onstrated its fatal weakness. 
 
 Uhlhorn holds it incontrovertible that "the 
 heathen world was ethically as well as relig- 
 iously at the point of dissolution," that "it 
 had become as bankrupt in morals as in faith, 
 with no power at hand from which a restora- 
 tion could proceed." Seneca said of his own 
 times, ' ' All things are full of iniquity and vice, 
 more crimes are committed than can be rem- 
 edied by force. A monstrous contest of wick- 
 edness is carried on. Daily the lust of sin in- 
 creases, daily the sense of shame diminishes." 
 Juvenal, Tacitus and Pliny are not less severe 
 in characterizing the immoral aspects of the 
 
 103 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 age. Petronius cries out in despair, "Rome 
 is like a field outside of a plague-stricken city, 
 in which you can see nothing but carcasses and 
 the crows which feed upon them." 
 
 There were no redeeming features, no hope- 
 ful aspects, among any class, from the meanest 
 slave to the monarch on the throne. There 
 was nothing to inspire hope in the regenera- 
 tion of human society, or respect for life 
 itself. Of the four weaklings who assumed the 
 reins of government after the death of Augus- 
 tus, and who thus in turn became the most 
 influential men in society, not a commendatory 
 word has ever been spoken. Tiberius was a 
 sanguinary tyrant who came to weariness of 
 life and self-detestation by reason of senseless 
 excesses; Gains was an unrestrained lunatic; 
 Claudius was an "uxorious imbecile," and 
 Nero a conceited monster and heartless buf- 
 foon — of whom a historian has written that 
 he represented ' ' the omnipotence of evil in the 
 apotheosis of self." The habitual intrigue, 
 the acts of murder, the indulgence of out- 
 rageous passion which made themselves at home 
 in the palace of the Caesars, also domes ti- 
 icated themselves among the people. For 
 once wickedness was suffered to run riot that 
 a picture of its grotesque horrors and revolt- 
 ing ugliness might be painted for all time, to 
 
 104: 
 
The Moral Standards of the Period 
 
 show ''the exceeding sinfulness of sin "and 
 the absolute demand for the redemptive work 
 of a Power that can make for righteousness. 
 When cruelty, lust and treachery have done 
 their worst there remains nothing of hope, — 
 save in a moral re-birth of the world. 
 
 To analyze the ethical characteristics and 
 tendencies of this age is to make profound 
 study of a ruinous experiment, which mani- 
 fested itself in an attempt to build a great 
 civilization upon a basis of unsound morals. 
 
 To begin with, there was everywhere a fatal 
 lack of seriousness. Strenuousness of life was 
 unknown. The existence of men and women 
 was aimless and valueless. Life through- 
 out the Empire was of the type which depressed 
 the great Apostle when he wandered about the 
 streets of the most cultivated city of the an- 
 cient world, and which is parenthetically 
 described in the words : ' ' Now all of the 
 Athenians and the strangers sojourning there 
 had leisure for nothing else than either to tell 
 or to hear some new thing. " The most inno- 
 cent of all their occupations, and the one which 
 commanded their most serious attention, was 
 the rehearsal of the latest bit of gossip. In 
 contrast with the gravity of the old Roman 
 was the trick of levity which had been caught 
 from light-minded Greeks. Their art and phi- 
 
 105 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 losophy were meritorious but utterly unpro- 
 ductive of earnest living. They could not 
 make out the secret of such a man as Paul. He 
 was indeed a curiosity at the capital of Achaia. 
 They looked into his deeply marked face, 
 suffused with sad reflections as he wandered 
 under the palms, or made his way among the 
 chattering throngs of the market place. 
 When he spoke it was with the speech of a 
 man charged with a portentous message, but 
 they had only listless wonder as to what this 
 "babbler" would say, for he seemed, indeed, 
 to be a ** setter forth of strange gods." 
 
 There was no sense of reality in such living. 
 It was all a mockery and pretense, and men 
 scarcely took themselves seriously. When 
 Augustus, who gives his name to this brilliant 
 period, came to his death bed he asked a friend 
 ' ' whether he had fitly gone through the play 
 of life," — as if all the world were in very truth 
 a stage and all the men and women merely 
 players who took the parts assigned them, and 
 who at the close begged the applause due to 
 those who had finished their roles to the satis- 
 faction of idle spectators. Not even into lit- 
 erature and oratory could anything of sin- 
 cerity and down-rightness be put by men 
 whose temper had been cast in the mold of 
 Roman civilization. Rhetoric and oratory 
 
 106 
 
The Moral Standards of the Period 
 
 were the fashion of the hour, and they were 
 studied not for the sake of gaining power to 
 express noble thoughts and enforcing appeals 
 for justice, but merely for the employment of 
 high sounding words and the use of graceful 
 gesture. In all the art of the day there was 
 nothing but studied affectation and elaborate 
 sophistry. 
 
 The cause of such universal hollowness and 
 frivolity is not far to seek. There was an 
 utter lack of religious sanction for human life. 
 Their gods were as idle and purposeless as the 
 people themselves. There came from the 
 heights of Olympus no illumination and no voice 
 of stern command; and hence even the religious 
 philosophy of the time was either powerless or 
 perverting. Stoicism had much to say about 
 deity but without the faintest hint of person- 
 ality. It spoke of the ' ' Reason " of the uni- 
 verse and of an * Organizer, " but this shad- 
 owy divinity was identified with law and sub- 
 stance, and sometimes even with the soul, 
 which being in some sense corporeal was at 
 death to be re-absorbed into its Creator. Such 
 a philosophy can only with the utmost stretch of 
 courtesy be called " religion," for it touches 
 very lightly the spirit of man and imparts no im- 
 pulse to duty or or to manful service. Epicur- 
 ianism was yet further from inspiration to 
 
 107 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 nobleness. Atheistic and materialistic, the 
 followers of this easy going philosophy scoffed 
 at the notions which hinted of a Creator, a 
 moral government, or a life for man beyond 
 the grave. They looked upon soul as like the 
 body, save that it may have been made of 
 finer atoms, and they bMieved that it would 
 be dissolved when the visible part fell into de- 
 cay. Even its instinctive cries were drowned 
 in laughter as the cup went round and boon 
 companions took up the refrain : ' ' Let us 
 eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." 
 
 After all, man cannot live without some ab- 
 sorbing aim, and failing one that is normal 
 and worthy he will turn to what may prove 
 ignoble and worthless. It is, therefore, not 
 surprising that, living for luxury and passion, 
 men so far perverted the chief end of existence 
 as to devote thought and energy to the pamper- 
 ing of the body. They not only became selfish 
 and self indulgent, but inventive and enterpris- 
 ing in providing new forms of pleasure, and in 
 stimulating passion. The Stoic philosophy was 
 nominally but not vigorously and effectively 
 opposed to such devotion to sensuality. Its 
 favorite maxim read, "Do nothing in excess," 
 but it was never enforced with moral earnest- 
 ness, and consequently offered no resistance to 
 the tide of evil which swept over the nation. 
 
 108 
 
The Moral Standards of the Period 
 
 Stoical apathy forbade deep-seated concern 
 even for things which concerned the high- 
 est welfare. It made too much of the law 
 of self-preservation, and of equanimity of 
 mind. When philosophers of this school de- 
 clared that "the essential thing is to live 
 according to nature" they condemned ex- 
 cesses of all kinds, and without doubt many 
 applauded their easy-going theory of life. The 
 precepts of Seneca are admirable : ' ' Pray and 
 live as if the eye of God were upon you. " ' ' Live 
 every day as if it were your last." "Live for 
 another as you would live for yourself." "Na- 
 ture bids me assist meri; wherever, therefore, 
 there is a man there is room for doing good." 
 But the tenor of Stoicism was against intens- 
 ity of feeling and discouraged either indigna- 
 tion against corruption or zeal for the regen- 
 eration of society. 
 
 Luxury was possible only to a small minor- 
 ity of the people. Half of the population of 
 Rome in the first century were under the bonds 
 of slavery while the great mass of free-born in- 
 habitants were only in a lesser degree abject, 
 being beggars, idlers, parasites, the objects of 
 contempt and the victims of cruelty, without 
 hope or aspiration above an existence of squal- 
 or, misery and vice. Above these hapless crea- 
 tures, so far as outward and wordly conditions 
 
 109 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 are concerned, was an ever diminishing number 
 of wealthy and noble citizens. In external 
 things the upper class were in striking con- 
 trasts with the frightful want and groveling 
 habits at the other end of the social scale, 
 but in respect to virtue and temperance 
 they offered few points of superiority. They 
 suffered from ennui and self-disgust; and al- 
 though hopelessly weary of such a profitless 
 existence they only plunged more deeply 
 into sensuality or devised new forms of so- 
 called pleasure. They had no higher ideal of 
 enjoyment, no other resources of delight. An- 
 imalism in more or less refined forms ruled the 
 day. Gastronomy took rank as a science, and 
 gluttony assumed incredible proportions. Del- 
 icacies were imported from every quarter of 
 the known world, and banquets, which lasted 
 the night through, became the talk of the 
 time. 
 
 The public baths at Rome, the impressive 
 ruins of which have outlived the centuries, came 
 to occupy a prominent place in social life. They 
 were not hygenic but delicately sensual. They 
 were constructed and frequented for enervat- 
 ing luxury, vapid amusement, profitless gos- 
 sip. Having no serious demands upon their 
 time the wealthy thought it worth their while 
 to build these structures of public resort of 
 
 110 
 
The Moral Standards of the Period 
 
 splendid proportions, and to decorate them 
 with imported marbles and gorgeous mosaics, 
 and furnish them with every conceivable device 
 for entertainment. Besides making provision 
 for air and water baths of many varieties, they 
 added gymnasia, lecture halls for poets and 
 rhetoricians, libraries, walks, fountains, and 
 lounging rooms. These new forms of asthetic 
 life which were introduced by Agrippa were 
 worthily developed by Nero and his successors 
 until they became the most popular institu- 
 tions for the leisure class who were over- 
 ladened with empty and purposeless hours. 
 
 Devotion to luxury was attended with an in- 
 ordinate love of display. The pride of life 
 took the direction of rivalry in the exhibition 
 of wealth until even philosophers were 
 caught by the craze for meaningless and 
 useless show of expenditure. In order 
 to indulge this passion for display it was 
 necessary, of course, to secure money, and 
 hence came avarice and rapacity. Men were 
 bold and unscrupulous when that served their 
 purpose, and obsequious and sycophantic when 
 servility promised more than insolence. War 
 for plunder and rapine attracted many, while 
 dishonest dealing and violence at home scarcely 
 excited comment. At the same time every man 
 of influence and affluence was attended by 
 
 111 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 suitors and schemers whose self-debasement 
 had bottomless depths. By the most con- 
 temptible means gigantic fortunes were ac- 
 cumulated. Even Seneca, whose words of 
 wisdom have been thought to suggest some 
 acquaintance with the teachings of the Apostle 
 Paul, took advantage of the favor of his pupil 
 and master, the Emperor Nero, to amass dur- 
 ing four years of unique prosperity, no less a 
 property than would be represented by fifteen 
 million dollars. Having possessed himself of 
 this immense fortune he proceeded, moralist 
 and philosopher although he was, first to build 
 his house and then to furnish it with objects 
 of art of the most costly description. 
 
 The suggestion of Goethe is interesting and 
 well sustained, that the Romans never went be- 
 yond the condition of parvenus^ their luxury 
 being nothing but < ' tasteless extravagance 
 and vulgar ostentation." Even their archi- 
 tecture departed from the severe Grecian idea 
 of beauty and contented itself with size and 
 ornament, as appears in the Colosseum, Had- 
 rian's Villa, and the Baths of Caracalla. They 
 delighted in the bigness of their structures 
 and in decorations of gold, silver and precious 
 stones. In the appointments of private houses 
 the spirit of rivalry drove each new emperor 
 or affluent prince to further excess of ex- 
 
 112 
 
The Moral Standards of the Period 
 
 penditure. For a while the palace of LucuUus 
 was accounted the finest in Rome, but in a few 
 years it was surpassed by hundreds of mansions 
 which vied with each other in size and splendor. 
 The process of enlargement and enrichment 
 went on until the summit of extravagance was 
 reached in the Golden House of Nero, with its 
 decorations of incomparable magnificence, and 
 its beautiful setting of parks, woods, pools 
 and fountains. The colonades of the house 
 itself were a Roman mile in length. Within 
 were masterpieces of Greek art; while beneath 
 a roof which rested on enormous columns were 
 walls which glistened with gold and pearls. 
 Not far below it in magnificence was the 
 palace of Domitian which hinted of the magic 
 touch which belongs to tales of fancy. 
 Such lavish expenditure was not confined to 
 emperors, nor to the capital, for it covered 
 with parks and villas, the Campania, the 
 Sabine Hills, even the lake shores of the north. 
 In dress and personal adornment the same 
 passion for display ran to extremes. Pliny 
 tells of a Roman lady arrayed for a betrothal 
 feast, itself a hollow mockery, in a gown 
 covered with pearls and emeralds, at a 
 cost which would have fed and clothed every 
 hungry and naked person in the populous city. 
 Display became the talisman of success. Ju- 
 
 113 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 venal declared that not even a Cicero could 
 earn two pounds at the bar unless he wore a 
 conspicuous gold ring; and that to succeed a 
 man must be often seen borne through the 
 crowded streets on a litter and making sump- 
 tuous purchases of rich vases and beautiful 
 slaves; that he must also wear brilliant robes 
 and flashing jewels, for only then could he 
 demand fabulous prices for his services as a 
 pleader. 
 
 This parade of riches continued to the tragic 
 end, and literally attended a man to his tomb, 
 leaving him only when he had visibly left the 
 earth. Even at death there was an exhibition 
 of ornaments belonging to the deceased, a pro- 
 cession of hired mourners, mutes who with 
 dishevelled hair made a show of voiceless grief, 
 beating their breasts in mockery of a sorrow 
 which no one felt. Criers went about the 
 streets to announce the death and the hour of 
 the funeral. The procession passed through 
 the most crowded quarters of the city and 
 made itself noisy with varied demonstrations 
 of simulated woe. If the deceased had been 
 prominent in public affairs the cortege moved 
 on to the Forum for the funeral oration, which 
 fulsomely celebrated not only his own honors 
 and glories but also those of his ancestors. 
 The mourning train then passed without the 
 
 114 
 
The Moral Standards of the Period 
 
 city walls and the grotesque ceremonies were 
 concluded at a funeral pyre, where all the 
 emblems of a vain show were consumed and 
 the body reduced to the ashes which alone 
 remained to typify the reality of a life so 
 vainly passed and so lightly mourned. 
 
 With this morbid devotion to pleasure went 
 an equally abnormal lack of humanity. While 
 absorbed in the pursuit of immediate happiness 
 men became not only indifferent to the misery 
 of others but even found delight in their out- 
 cries of terror and pain. The gigantic system 
 of slavery with which the state burdened itself 
 brought with it in the acutest form a sense of 
 the embarrassment of riches. Millions of 
 slaves, without citizenship or manhood, with, 
 out family or social ties, without self respect 
 or self restraint, were a constant source of 
 apprehension. Desperate deeds were always 
 a possibility and an insurrection which would 
 have arrayed the majority — wronged, furious, 
 irresponsible — against property and life, was a 
 ceaseless dread. Yet the utter lack of intelli- 
 gent sympathy and humane consideration sus- 
 tained in its worst form an institution mon- 
 strous in its denial of every human right and in 
 the infliction of hopeless misery. 
 
 Callous to the anguish and despair of fellow 
 creatures, whom the precepts of philosophers 
 
 115 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 taught them to treat as chattels, Romans of 
 the lordly class corrupted with public exhibition 
 of torture and bloodshed not themselves only, 
 but the populace whom they despised. Every 
 fantastic device was resorted to for the 
 excitement of jaded minds, every form of 
 fierce and bloody contest was adopted to 
 furnish entertainment for blas6 spectators, 
 men, women, and children. Such hardness 
 of heart, such dullness of sensibility, al- 
 most passes belief, and yet contemporary 
 literature abounds in tales which bring to 
 modern minds unspeakable horror. The peo- 
 ple not only learned to endure the sight of 
 blood; they craved it. The menacing cry of 
 the rabble which made Augustus and Trajan 
 tremble on the throne of so vast an empire 
 was, " Bread and Games! " Invention and re- 
 sources were put to the stretch to meet this 
 wolfish demand for blood It is recorded that 
 a single emperor brought to Rome more than 
 three thousand wild beasts, and forced into the 
 amphitheatre no fewer than eight thousand 
 gladiators. When the monotony of ordinary 
 scenes of violence made them weary, all possi- 
 ble changes having been rung on the fight of 
 criminals for life and gladiators for fame and 
 money, of human beings with lions and tigers, 
 and of stranger beasts with each other, they 
 
 116 
 
The Moral Standards of the Period 
 
 turned to the ludicrous. A Roman mob must 
 be amused at any cost of treasure or decency. 
 Fierce, discordant cries passed into the wild 
 laughter of buffoonery as men who were blind- 
 folded rushed upon each other with the clumsy 
 fury of desperation, followed by deformed and 
 dwarfed creatures whose misshapen misery en- 
 hanced its tasteless pleasure. What mercy 
 could live in such an atmosphere I What sen- 
 sibilities could survive such sights and sounds! 
 The entire populace was involved in the pas- 
 sion for bloodshed, the noblest and wisest 
 uttering scarcely a word of protest, even 
 Cicero venturing no further than to say: 
 ' ' Some consider the games cruel, and possibly 
 they are as now conducted! " 
 
 Cruelty and lust have always been found in 
 ill-omened conjunction, though it would be 
 difficult to give a philosophical reason for their 
 union. The men who lost the sense of pity 
 gained correspondingly in the basest passions, 
 so that the evils which dismayed observers of 
 that age threatened the overthrow of the whole 
 social structure. Lucian wrote with bitter 
 sarcasm : " If any one loves wealth and power, 
 if any one has wholly surrendered himself to 
 pleasures, full tables, carousals and lewdness, 
 let him go to Rome." The historian Levy de- 
 clared, ' ' Rome has become great by her vir- 
 
 117 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 tues fill now, when we can neither bear our 
 vices nor their remedies." It was a shameless, 
 debauched age, as the relics of indecency on 
 the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum report 
 with unseemly accuracy. The majority of 
 poets and wits, and every theatre of the day 
 fed with their unspeakable obscenities an ap- 
 petite for baseness which demanded the lowest 
 and grossest forms of excitement. Even the 
 virtuous and refined Pliny indulged in sala- 
 cious epigrams. Martial and Statins, who are 
 among the most brilliant representatives of the 
 Flavian era, disfigured their writings with vile 
 allusions. Nearly all plays were spiced with 
 profanity and indelicacies, while sallies against 
 the first principles of morality and jests at the 
 expense of the gods made the theatres ring 
 with coarse laughter. Baseness was in the 
 very air poisoning and corrupting each new 
 generation of youth. 
 
 This was a sad fall from the stern morality 
 of early Rome. The Latins, in their integrity, 
 held fast the sentiments of chastity and mod- 
 esty, for hundreds of years a divorce being un- 
 heard of. The family was maintained with 
 love and respect, marriage being held sacred 
 and motherhood being regarded as the noblest 
 estate conceivable. Even nude images of the 
 gods were not tolerated. With Greek culture 
 
 118 
 
The Moral Standards of the Period 
 
 came luxury and effeminacy until, as Uhlhorn 
 has said, ' ' the ancient simple domesticity dis- 
 appeared and with it chastity and morality." 
 The voluptuousness and groveling baseness of 
 life at Rome make a record so dark and tragic 
 that one gladly turns down such pages of his- 
 tory, hoping to shut out the dismal fact that a 
 civilization, once so brilliant, could have fallen 
 into such hopeless decay. 
 
 The reason for this widespread social cor- 
 ruption is ultimately to be found in the absence 
 of any power that could make for righteousness. 
 Men were left to fight evil without weapons, to 
 maintain virtue without the inspiration of 
 noble examples, or the encouragement of divine 
 grace. The finer ideals and types of character 
 were unknown. It has been said by a modern 
 student of the times that Cato the elder pos- 
 sessed almost every virtue not specially com- 
 mended of Christ, but that there was not one 
 of the beatitudes in which he, the best of the 
 Romans, could have claimed a part ; and that 
 there was not one of the divinities who pos- 
 sessed any virtue at all. Epictetus boasted 
 that one who is wise ' ' fears neither man nor 
 God," and Seneca follows in the same strain, 
 saying that "From man not much is to be 
 feared ; from God, nothing." The spirit of 
 reverence did not belong to men who possessed 
 
 119 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 neither a profound respect for virtue, nor an 
 exalted sense of deity. 
 
 Christianity found only the ineradicable 
 moral nature upon which to build a structure 
 of personal character and social righteousness. 
 This was apparently a slender base for the 
 lordly edifice which belonged to the new scheme 
 of life, but it was sufficient. Insincerity, as 
 well as baseness, were rife; but the fact that 
 men sometimes spoke in behalf of virtue, and 
 that men encouraged such utterances, be- 
 tokened a moral sense which at the worst was 
 only dormant. It may be true of Seneca, as 
 Macaulay wrote, that, '* the business of a 
 philosopher was to declaim in praise of poverty 
 with two million sterling at usury, to meditate 
 epigramatic conceits about the evils of luxury 
 in gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns, 
 to rant about liberty while fawning on the in- 
 solent and pampered freedman of a tyrant, to 
 celebrate the divine beauty of virtue with a 
 pen which had just before written a defence of 
 the murder of a mother by her son." Never- 
 theless, the fine sentiments testified to the ex- 
 istence of a moral ideal and the possibility of 
 real excellence of character, as was abundantly 
 exhibited in such men as the slave-philosopher 
 Epictetus, and the imperial philosopher Marcus 
 Aurelius ; in the incorruptible Fabricius, the 
 
 120 
 
The Moral Standards of the Period 
 
 high-minded Regulus, the industrious and 
 frugal Cincinnatus ; in Virgil, also a poet of deli- 
 cate fancies ; and in Cicero, an eloquent pleader 
 for public virtue. There remained enough 
 of moral understanding to make the task of an 
 Apostle not altogether hopeless. The world 
 not only needed a gospel of righteousness and 
 assurances of divine grace, but it was prepared 
 for a message of light given with the urgency 
 of an ambassador of Christ. Therefore, Paul 
 could write to one Roman colony: "Let your 
 conversation be always with grace, seasoned 
 with salt," that is, with the salt of refinement 
 and delicacy, and to another colony, < ' What- 
 soever things are true, whatsoever things are 
 honorable, whatsoever things are just, what- 
 soever things are pure, whatsoever things are 
 lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; 
 if there be any virtue, and if there be any 
 praise, take account of these things. ' ' 
 
 121 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Intellectual Tendencies of 
 THE Time. 
 
 AGAINST the dark background of social 
 corruption and the frightful debasement 
 of the enslaved and beggared masses gleams 
 the light of intelligence. The mind had found 
 quickening and expansion. By the intellectual 
 development of the age of Pericles and 
 Augustus the way had been prepared for the 
 story and even for the philosophy of Christ- 
 ianity. The Word was not proclaimed to dull 
 and groveling savages, wanting in language 
 and mental capacity, but had free course to 
 run and be glorified in the most perfect speech 
 of history. The significance of this fact has 
 been demonstrated in our own century by the 
 slowness of mission work among barbarous 
 people. It required thirty years of devout 
 labor to produce the first convert among the 
 savage tribes of West Africa; but now, in the 
 developed science of the third generation of 
 missionaries, the school and the college keep 
 pace with the advancing tide of evangelistic 
 
 122 
 
Intellectual Tendencies of the Time 
 
 work. Ignorance is not the mother of that 
 kind of devotion upon which Christianity is 
 built. The appeal of Christianity is to reason, 
 through the medium of human speech, and its 
 doctrines require the finest and noblest modes 
 of expression. No literature is loftier, no 
 lines of reasoning more subtle than those given 
 to the world from the exalted mind of Saint 
 Paul. 
 
 The perfection of the Greek language, which 
 he employed in his letters to the churches, 
 and in which he preached as his native tongue, 
 has been conceded by scholars of all lands and 
 ages. It was naturally, and yet providen- 
 tially, developed by a people who for pure in- 
 tellectuality have never been surpassed. It is 
 at once the richest and most exact, the most 
 flexible and the most delicate the world has 
 yet known. Its vocabulary is extensive while 
 its grammatical structure admits of the most 
 varied and refined methods of expression. 
 Like the art and architecture of Greece it was 
 not only a part of the evolution of a unique 
 people, but it served to perpetuate and trans- 
 mit the intellectuality out of which it had 
 been developed. The language contained 
 much more than can be attributed to the in- 
 dependent out-working of Grecian genius. 
 No people has ever been entirely isolated. 
 
 123 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 There has never been a hermit nation. At 
 least no race has lifted itself out of savagery- 
 save as it absorbed ideas and inherited institu- 
 tions from other sources of civilization. Even 
 the Hittites, shut away from contemporary- 
 kingdoms beyond the Taurus and Phrygian 
 ranges, came down to Hamal and touched the 
 headwaters of the Euphrates at Carchemish, 
 thus acquiring knowledge from the Egyptians 
 and the Assyrians, which, in turn, they contrib- 
 uted to people with whom they established com- 
 mercial relations across the Hellespont. The 
 continuity of history has never been more 
 clearly exhibited than in the structure of civ- 
 ilization which made the Augustan age memor- 
 able. 
 
 The Janguage and art of Greece was Rome's 
 by right of inheritance, a right fortified by in- 
 dependent and vigorous effort to improve 
 what had been discovered and absorbed. The 
 civilization of Rome was still more complex 
 and derivative because the Empire had swept 
 its boundaries around all the lands which had 
 been directly and indirectly influenced by 
 Greek culture, assimilating whatever was 
 fitted to advance society and enrich the state. 
 The elements which entered into the composite 
 order of the first century were exceedingly 
 ancient. Not all of them can be traced to 
 
 124 
 
Intellectual Tendencies of the Time 
 
 their origin, as not every great river can be 
 followed to its source among the wooded hills. 
 The streams of influence which flowed to- 
 gether at last in the common life of the great 
 empire took their rise among the Babylonians, 
 Egyptians and Phoenicians. From one source 
 came the love of magnificence, from another 
 the sense of grandeur, from another sugges- 
 tions as wide apart as commerce and litera- 
 ture. The process began in prehistoric times, 
 but its beginnings are forever lost; the accum- 
 ulative effects, however, lingered to Paul's 
 day, and vitally affected the fortunes of 
 Christianity. The Romans had varied culture 
 because they learned from the Greeks, while 
 the Greeks had become the masters of the 
 world in literature, art and philosophy, be- 
 cause they had gathered treasures of thought 
 and experience from so many lands. 
 
 It was not only a time of vast accumula- 
 tions, but also of intellectual activity. It is 
 true that the greatest thinkers had long passed 
 away. The unsurpassed triad of original and 
 progressive philosophers, Socrates, Plato and 
 Aristotle, coming in succession as master and 
 pupil, had lived their fruitful lives and gone to 
 the shades. Homer, the first and greatest of 
 epic writers; ^schylus, Sophocles, and Euri- 
 pides, masters of Greek tragedy, and Herod- 
 
 126 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 otus, the father of all historians, had long 
 before completed their tasks; but Latin 
 writers of the first century found their inspir- 
 ation in the G-reek classics. Athens, in the 
 time of the Empire, bore the character of a 
 university town to which every Roman of lit- 
 erary pretensions made a pilgrimage. Cicero 
 delighted in its atmosphere of culture. Ha- 
 drian was proud to have embellished it with 
 imperial magnificence. This was an age of 
 travel, brigandage and piracy having been 
 suppressed by the fleets and armies of the Em- 
 pire. Men who boasted the rights of Roman 
 citizenship went everywhere in safety. All 
 who had leisure and money betook themselves 
 to classic and historic scenes, quickening and 
 broadening their minds by the easy and swift 
 adoption of whatever they discovered in the 
 kindred civilization of the people whom Rome 
 had conquered in the contest of arms, but to 
 whom she yielded the palm of victory in the 
 contest of ideas. Latins and Greeks were of 
 the same Aryan stock, and although each 
 branch of the common race had developed un- 
 der different environments, yet the likeness 
 was deeper than the divergence. Therefore 
 the moment they came into contact assimila- 
 tion was measurably complete. Out of this 
 communication of ideas came a new and worthy 
 
 126 
 
Intellectual Tendencies of the Time 
 
 literature. To this century belonged such 
 poets as Horace, Virgil and Ovid, such satir- 
 ists as Juvenal and Lucian, such historians as 
 Sallust, Tacitus and Plutarch, such philoso- 
 phers as Seneca and Epictetus. It was the 
 golden age of the Latins, and even emperors 
 became patrons of letters and the arts. 
 
 Greco-Roman civilization was no longer con- 
 fined to the two historic peninsulas. It had 
 followed the conquests of the phalanx and the 
 legion until it had touched all centers of life 
 in the known world. Cicero, who was gov- 
 ernor of Cilicia fifty years before the time of 
 Paul, speaks of the thorough acquaintance 
 with Greek among all literary classes. About 
 the close of the Apostle's career, Agricola, who 
 was to become conqueror of Britain, was re- 
 ceiving a Greek education in the city of Mar- 
 seilles. In Pamphylia and Galatia there were 
 many cities which had been so far Hellenized 
 that the gospel could be proclaimed in them 
 through the language which had become the 
 vehicle of revelation. 
 
 The introduction of social and educational 
 influences was Rome's most effective way of 
 subduing rustic barbarism and overcoming 
 oriental stagnation. This policy originated 
 with the great Macedonian whose ambition 
 had first carried the language of Greece into 
 
 127 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 the Orient, and of the Greek kings of Syria 
 who, in the breaking up of the Alexandrian em- 
 pire, served in turn to spread and deepen the 
 new civilization. The special work of the first 
 century was the furtherance of an undertaking 
 which had been shared in by many generations; 
 and which at first had moved from Macedonia 
 eastward, and which afterward moved from 
 Italy in other directions. In many cities far 
 from Rome were not only examples and repro- 
 ductions of Grecian art, but schools and libra- 
 ries open to the public. Pliny was delighted to 
 learn that copies of his works were sold in 
 Lyons, while along the banks of the Danube 
 and Rhine were manufactories of earthenware 
 of the Hellenic type. Everywhere men were 
 being educated in ancient and current litera- 
 ture; in art and philosophy, in history and 
 social science, in agriculture and war. 
 
 This widespread intelligence not only 
 opened the way for an apprehension of the 
 Gospel but it in turn reacted upon Christianity 
 itself, which was seeking to enlighten the world. 
 No new disclosures were made and no revision 
 of the apostolic message was attempted, but 
 independence in interpreting and applying it 
 was inevitable; with a certain molding and 
 remolding of the institutions of Christianity. 
 The processes of religious development have 
 
 128 
 
Intellectual Tendencies of the Time 
 
 always followed their own law. Christianity 
 has, therefore, been compelled to adjust itself, 
 for the time being to established ways of think- 
 ing. This was specially true in the first cen- 
 tury when its doctrines were acted upon by 
 currents of thought and feeling older than 
 itself and almost as persistent, and when its 
 noblest precepts were being insensibly modi- 
 fied by public sentiment. The unfolding of a 
 seed depends in part upon the peculiar quality 
 of the soil into which it happens to fall. The 
 seed of the Word has had variant fortunes in 
 the different soils in which it has been planted. 
 The hereditary tendencies of the Roman world 
 exerted such an influence upon the life and 
 the mold of Christianity that after nineteen 
 centuries they still shape and control it. 
 
 After a time men learned to philosophize 
 about religion and to add the sanction of rea- 
 son to that of revelation and command; but 
 there was nothing of this in the ancient re- 
 ligions, for not one of them addressed itself in 
 a formal and undisguised way to reason. The 
 Grecian and Roman mythologies were childish 
 and their sacred rites superstitious, while the 
 Hebrew prophets rested upon the authority of 
 a divine mandate. It did not belong to the 
 Semitic habit of mind to rationalize. A cer- 
 tain limitation was put upon the Founder of 
 
 129 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 Christianity, who could deal with men only as 
 He found them. The language of Greece would 
 not have been altogether strange to many of 
 His hearers, but the language of philosophy 
 would have been puzzling, and distracting. The 
 men of Judea had not learned to love knowl- 
 edge for its own sake, nor had they become 
 adepts in following processes by which truth 
 is established in the mind. They were not 
 much concerned about the principle of things. 
 They had never been taught to assign rational 
 cases for ^natural phenomena, or rational 
 grounds for moral precepts. They were in- 
 terested in neither the process nor the pro- 
 duct of ratiocination. They simply listened 
 favorably to that which bore the marks of 
 authority or which commended itself immedi- 
 ately to their minds. 
 
 There is profound philosophy in the Sermon 
 on the Mount, but there is no formal philos- 
 ophizing in any of the New Testament deliv- 
 erances. It was left for another people to 
 bring in this habit of mind aad to arrive by 
 another pathway at the conclusions which had 
 been authoritatively announced by Christ and 
 His apostles. No road has been discovered 
 leading to sublimer heights than those on 
 which the Master always dwelt, but another 
 approach has been discovered by which to 
 
 130 
 
Intellectual Tendencies of the Time 
 
 measure their loftiness and to appreciate 
 the outlook from their summit. The 
 services of the synagogue, the schools of the 
 rabbis, even the teachings of the apostles, had 
 failed to develop certain intellectual faculties 
 which the finer and broader culture of Greece 
 brought into play. With this disciplined 
 thought men could go to the foundation of 
 ethical systems,, could discover the right and 
 the significance of man's relations to nature 
 and G-od, and then set forth more clearly and 
 persuasively the ideal ends and aims of human 
 life. 
 
 Under the stimulus and instruction of Greek 
 philosophers, men who had received the word of 
 revelation learned to apply reason to the exist- 
 ence of the soul. Thus they deepened their 
 sense of spiritual realities and intensified 
 their longings for the heavenly life. The au- 
 thoritative utterance of revelation sufficed for 
 a people not given to speculation and reflec- 
 tion, but there was unmeasured gain in the 
 freedom from the dogmatism concerning him- 
 self. The soul asserts itself to unspeakable 
 advantage in conscience and consciousness. 
 The authenticity of a document may be ques- 
 tioned. The prerogative of command may be 
 denied, but the independent, autocratic dic- 
 tum of the mind concerning its own modes and 
 
 131 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 laws of existence cannot be rejected. It was, 
 therefore, no small contribution of Greek 
 thought that established two moral existences 
 in the universe, God the Creator, and man 
 created in his moral likeness. 
 
 It is not to be conceded that the rational 
 process was complete apart from the author- 
 ity and guidance of revelation. The loftiest 
 of philosophers fell short of the New Testa- 
 ment standard of thought regarding the capa- 
 city and destiny of man, but they traced the 
 way to absolute convictions concerning the 
 immaterial nature of the soul in contrast with 
 the crass and perishable nature of the body. 
 Socrates was the pioneer in this splendid field 
 of research. He was fascinated by the mys- 
 teries and grandeurs revealed within. His 
 favorite injunction to his pupils was, "Know 
 thyself," an injunction which he was the first 
 to obey. The fact of the soul and its possible 
 moral improvement were the objects of his un- 
 failing interest and speculation. To him all 
 material considerations were unpractical. Man 
 and whatever relates to man furnished the 
 only matters worthy of deep study. Plato 
 had the immense advantage of such a forerun- 
 ner, and also of the possession of a more 
 thoroughly disciplined mind, and consequently 
 he came to a profounder knowledge of the 
 
 132 
 
Intellectual Tendencies of the Time 
 
 soul. He made much of the principle of in- 
 telligence, by virtue of which man has kin- 
 ship with God, and hence is superior to all 
 other forms of creation. 
 
 Connected with this demonstration of the 
 soul was the closely allied one which resulted 
 in convictions concerning God. Which of 
 these two antedated the other and which was 
 of greater value cannot be easily determined. 
 Contributions were made by successive gener- 
 ations of '< seekers after God " until at last the 
 idea of God was confidently grasped. Out of 
 the varied forms and modes of being these 
 truth seekers unraveled the enigma presented 
 in the apparent contradictions of nature by 
 the clearly asserted principle of unity of pur- 
 pose. They brought ' ' the phenomena of 
 earth and sea and sky under a single ex- 
 pression." By the "unconscious alchemy of 
 thought " the separate groups of phenomena 
 were combined into a whole and conceived of 
 as forming a "universe." The search was 
 continued until the force which pervades the 
 universe was reached. There can be but one 
 God, and to Him, by further elaboration 
 of thought, they were compelled to at- 
 tribute mind and personality, together 
 with the prerogatives of moral govern- 
 ment. In ordering the vast whole of nature 
 
 133 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 according to immutable law He must be su- 
 preme. 
 
 Having no resources of knowledge save un 
 aided reason, their doctrine of Deity was neither 
 complete nor free from error. Socrates did 
 not deny the existence and activity of gods, 
 many, while maintaining that there is one Su- 
 preme Being to whom reverence must ever be 
 paid. His arguments, like those of the Chris- 
 tian Paley, move irresistibly toward a De- 
 signer of the universe. Both reasoned from 
 the amazing structure of the body whose va- 
 rious parts play into each other for a common 
 end ; both dwelling with special delight on the 
 marvelous organ of vision. To indications of 
 purpose drawn from various adaptations in na- 
 ture, such as birds to the air and fish to the 
 sea, he added others which apply to the life 
 within. He was wont to ask: "Are you not 
 conscious of reason and intelligence? And yet 
 do you doubt intelligence elsewhere in the 
 great universe! You believe in the unseen 
 soul, and do you yet refuse to believe in the 
 unseen God? " 
 
 Here again, the profounder mind of Plato, 
 building upon the originality and moral ear- 
 nestness of his master, advanced to yet higher 
 ideas of God as the ' ' Father and Maker of the 
 universe." To him the doctrine of atheism 
 
 134 
 
Intellectual Tendencies of the Time 
 
 was such an absurdity that he considered it 
 possible only to " lost and perverted natures," 
 and hence be justified the moral indignation of 
 those who had come to a normal belief in 
 Deity. Like Socrates he fell into the obsti- 
 nate error of the time and marred his theism 
 with the inconsistent notion of subordinate 
 gods who create in obedience to the mandate 
 of the great Designer ; but he advanced, never- 
 theless, to ideas of God's providental care over 
 men, which wrought good results even out of 
 poverty, sickness, and misfortune. 
 
 Such notions of God lacked authority and 
 fullness but they prepared men's minds for the 
 revelations of the Gospel, and so leavened the 
 thought of the world as to make a rational 
 theism and a living faith more easily attained 
 and more firmly held: 
 
 As Greek philosophy applied reason to God 
 and the soul, so also did it elucidate the 
 grounds of ethical obligation. It raised morals 
 to the rank of a science; but not in the sense 
 that it made duty more sublime or that it 
 added aught to the treasures of the Sermon 
 on the Mount. The system of ethics intro- 
 duced by the teaching and enforced by the 
 example of Christ was not susceptible of im- 
 provement. But there was an advantage in 
 looking at the same truth from a new view- 
 
 135 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 point, and in approaching it with a new men- 
 tal furnishing. 
 
 For the first time, in any land, men were 
 given to moralizing, to reasoning out the 
 grounds of right, and defining the relations of 
 man to nature and God. To this had been 
 applied the deepest thinking of the Hellenic 
 world, for "philosophy was absorbed by 
 ethics. " Plato was profoundly concerned with 
 this aspect of the truth that man bears the 
 image of divine intelligence. He declared that 
 each one has two patterns before him, the one 
 blessed and divine, the other godless and 
 wretched. From the manifested character of 
 God he reasoned as to the nature and scope of 
 virtue. ' ' God is altogether righteous, to be- 
 come like him is to become holy, just, and 
 wise." He lacked, however, the appreciation 
 of love, and missed the virtue of pity ; and not 
 knowing the doctrine of grace he limited his 
 promises of refinement to philosophers; easily 
 excluding, as did his great pupil, Aristotle, the 
 unfortunate masses; and yet he pressed on 
 toward the goal of righteousness. 
 
 Moral questions gave impulse also to the 
 Stoic system of philosophy, which from the 
 first took a practical turn, seeking to discover 
 the actual laws of life and to bring men into 
 harmony with their environment. In its 
 
 136 
 
Intellectual Tendencies of the Time 
 
 earlier stages it blundered, keeping too close 
 to materialism, yet maintaining a certain 
 directness of aim which interested and moved 
 men. The veriest child of gospel training 
 could have helped such philosophers out of 
 many of their difficulties; and yet they were 
 grandly striving to discover the secret of 
 virtue and the inner principle of light. At 
 their highest point they fell far short of per- 
 fection and altogether missed the fact of God's 
 graciousness, yet they established lines of in- 
 vestigation which could be afterward followed 
 under the light of Christianity. 
 
 To both Jew and Christian the idea of right 
 was identified with holy laws. To the Greek 
 mind "divine commands" were not an arbi- 
 trary expression of a personal will, but rather 
 of nature, of laws which belonged to the very 
 constitution of the universe. It was the part 
 of man to employ the powers and faculties 
 with which he had been endowed for the ap- 
 prehension of these laws and for the proper 
 adjustment to them of all his activities. As 
 he constructed a rational idea of the Creator 
 and Moral Governor of the world, so he was 
 bound to discover the ethical relationship of 
 man. It was evident that the universe was 
 fashioned for wise and beneficent ends, for the 
 production of beauty and happiness. What, 
 
 137 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 then, is the meaning of the countless miseries 
 of mankind? How can these things be fitted 
 to an ever deepening belief in divine good- 
 ness? Men must be the authors of their own 
 misery. They must have wilfully failed to 
 seek conformity with the harmonious laws of 
 nature. The responsibility for the jarring 
 discord is with intelligent and free beings. 
 
 This idea was not born in maturity. It is 
 too fundamental and far-reaching to have come 
 at once to perfection and dominance. Two 
 facts were first established, and then the rela- 
 tion between them was formulated. These 
 two facts are that man thinks and acts. But 
 action must depend upon the "assent of the 
 mind;" for mere impulse toward an object 
 does not justify possession. There must, there- 
 fore, be an exercise of judgment on the basis 
 of the laws of nature, then the will comes into 
 play, and ought always to accord with the 
 highest good of the whole being. The modern 
 philosopher expresses no more than this when 
 he declares that man has self-determining 
 power and that he is under everlasting obliga- 
 tion to bring himself into harmony with his 
 proper environment. 
 
 This idea of fixedness in nature and freedom 
 in man found forcible utterance in the writings 
 of Epictetus. "Of all things that are, one 
 
 138 
 
Intellectual Tendencies of the Time 
 
 part is in our control and the other out of it. 
 Out of our control are our bodies, property, 
 reputation and office; in our control are opin- 
 ion, impulse to do, effort to obtain and to avoid ; 
 in a word, our own proper activities." He 
 maintained, with his fellow-Stoics, that it not 
 only belongs to man to educate his mind and 
 train his will, but that it is the pro- 
 vince of nature to advance the process 
 of discipline. In this way the Stoics 
 justified the wisdom and goodness of G-od 
 and encouraged man to the highest 
 exercise of virtue. The Christian philoso- 
 phers of Alexandria took up this sugges- 
 tion with delight, and enriched it with precepts 
 from the Gospels, until they had evolved an 
 elaborate doctrine of God as "the Teacher, 
 Trainer, and Physician of men. " The heathen 
 philosophers led the way to the inspiring 
 thought that man needs only to gain the prize 
 which has been put within his reach. Thus he 
 acquires finest qualities of soul, putting pas- 
 sion under control of reason, and living in ac- 
 cord with the beneficent will of God. The 
 path which these thinkers followed brought 
 them to sincerity, which lies, indeed, near the 
 foundations of Christian character. They did 
 not touch such of the Beatitudes as "Blessed 
 are the poor in spirit;" "Blessed are the 
 
 139 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 meeK;" "Blessed are the merciful ; " "Blessed 
 are those who hunger for righteousness;" but 
 they caught glimpses of that principle ol 
 goodness which had been overlooked by the 
 formalists of the temple. They discovered 
 the ethical quality of secret thoughts and 
 cherished impulses. 
 
 Epictetus held that the philosopher's lecture 
 room should be a surgery, where men should 
 not be entertained by fair words, but where 
 they should be aided in the dissection of their 
 own characters, in the detection of secret faults 
 which could be banished from the soul. He 
 followed out a principle which had been 
 recognized from the first by the Stoics, who 
 laid emphasis upon the inwardness of man's 
 real life, and he unfailingly insisted that motive 
 counts for more than performance. In the 
 time of greatest glory for this system of phi- 
 losophy, Epictetus, Seneca and Aurelius urged 
 strict examination of one's own character, even 
 to minute inspection of words and deeds which 
 marked each day of life. 
 
 The chief advantage of such habits of ob- 
 servation and reflection was not that Grecian 
 standards approached those of Christianity, for 
 all the philosophy of the first century was im- 
 potent against the social corruption of the age, 
 but that the new religion found many minds 
 
 140 
 
Intellectual Tendencies of the Time 
 
 prepared for its sweet and holy revelations, 
 and that it secured a worthy handmaid in the 
 reason which had already been trained to noble 
 uses. The G-reeks, as well as the Hebrews, 
 proved themselves "a people of God's own 
 possession," set apart to the highest service 
 of God and man. In a qualified way, the 
 Stoic, as well as the prophet, was a forerunner 
 of the Christ; nay, like the Apostle also, he 
 came after the gospel to expound and apply 
 its revelations and injunctions. While not 
 many "wise," while not many who are exalted 
 in the conceit of their own knowledge are 
 called, yet the appeal of Christianity is always 
 to an understanding mind, in behalf of an 
 intelligent faith. 
 
 We gratefully recognize, therefore, the 
 glorious mission of these two kindred peoples, 
 the Greeks and the Latins, to quicken the 
 human intellect, to cultivate the imagination, 
 to refine the taste, and even to discover the 
 rational grounds of faith and character. As 
 the Renaissance ushered in a new day for vital 
 religion, so in the first century the splendid 
 (development of the human faculties made pos- 
 sible the phenomenally rapid spread of Christ- 
 ianity throughout the vast empire of Rome. 
 Beyond the bounds of civilization it did not 
 attempt to go, Elsewhere in the barbaric 
 
 141 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 world, the seed would have fallen on unpro- 
 ductive ground. Under the aegis of Rome the 
 greatest herald of the cross found protection, 
 and by a light which shined out of Athens he 
 led men to the truth which had first been pro- 
 claimed in Jerusalem. 
 
 142 
 
chapter viii. 
 
 The Inevitable Conflict and Vic- 
 tory. 
 
 'X'HERE have been many crises in the world's 
 ^ history, but it is hardly correct to say 
 that in all of them an issue of supreme moment 
 was involved. At the battle of Marathon the 
 Persian host was turned back from ruthlessly 
 despoiling Achaia and destroying the civiliza- 
 tion of Greece. Now it would doubtless have 
 been an incalculable loss to the world to have 
 had the progressive life of Athens checked or 
 perhaps even extinguished by Oriental des- 
 potism — art, philosophy, civil government 
 having been wrought into forms of perfection 
 by the genius of the most enterprising and 
 original people of ancient times; yet it would 
 be an hyperbole to say that the hope of man- 
 kind was staked upon the result of an attack 
 made by the Grecian phalanx which on the 
 third day of the Persian invasion dared to beat 
 against the dense mass of Xerxes' army. The 
 world was not saved by Grecian arms, nor has 
 it been saved by Grecian culture. 
 
 143 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 On the banks of the Metaurus an army under 
 the Consul Nero struck with fury the camp of 
 the Carthagenians, and by noontime had won 
 a victory of lasting renown. For seventeen 
 years Hanibal had maintained himself in Italy, 
 ravaging it at will from the snowy Alps to the 
 Straits of Messina, and only waited that fate- 
 ful spring for the arrival of the allied forces 
 which his brother had led through Spain and 
 Southern Gaul, to appear before the gates of 
 Rome. It would be difficult to estimate the 
 loss which would have resulted to the 
 world from the substitution of that hard, 
 cruel, materialistic, uncommunicative type 
 of civilization which had been wrought in 
 North Africa, for the radically different type 
 which was being developed on the Sabine hills ; 
 a civilization not only independent and vig- 
 orous, but destined to enlarge itself by the ab- 
 sorption of all that was being evolved by the 
 kindred race in the Grecian peninsula. Yet 
 it would be extravagant to say that the life of 
 the world was at issue when in the grey light 
 of the morning Hasdrubal's army was routed 
 in a desperate encounter that rescued Rome 
 from threatened annihilation. The victory 
 was important, but not absolutely vital to the 
 interests of mankind. 
 
 There have been crises in the history of 
 
 144 
 
The Inevitable Conflict and Victory 
 
 Christianity when much (but not all) was at 
 stake. When Abdurman crossed the Pyrenees 
 with a countless horde of followers, fierce and 
 ruthless, and after ravaging Southern France 
 met Charles Martel near Poitiers in mortal 
 combat, Mohammedanism threatened to sup- 
 plant Christianity in Central Europe. The 
 consequences of such a victory as the Moorish 
 chief counted on with easy assurance would 
 have been direful in the extreme, but one 
 would not be warranted in declaring it a fatal 
 blow to the cause of Christian civilization. It 
 might have delayed the march of events, but 
 not the final development of freedom, intelli- 
 gence and pure religion. 
 
 If Luther had yielded at the Diet of Worms, 
 as a weaker man might have done, under the 
 combined threats of the hierarchy and the 
 officials of state, the Reformation would have 
 waited a century, and that movement of the 
 world toward better things which resulted 
 from the co-ordinate advance of commerce, the 
 revival of learning, the discovery of printing 
 and the rejuvenation of the church, would have 
 lacked its most essential feature. No one who 
 has in mind the significance of the outcome 
 can read the story of Luther's critical hour 
 save with bated breath ; and yet there is no 
 ground for saying that the cause of pure re- 
 
 145 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 ligion had come to its ultimate contest. Christ- 
 ianity might be over-run in particular lands, as 
 it was by Islamism in Asia Minor and Egypt 
 in the eighth century, or banished from a 
 country where promising missions were estab- 
 lished as in China in a later century, and yet 
 maintain such a vigorous a hold elsewhere as 
 to insure its continuance on the earth. 
 
 But the result of the fight which the Apostle 
 Paul was making against the allied forces of 
 the Empire was absolute and final. It closely 
 resembled the issue of his Master's work in the 
 narrower field of Palestine. If the Messiah had 
 failed to develop in some minds the truth of 
 His message, the glory of His personality, the 
 spiritual power of His kingdom, His coming 
 would have been in vain. If Paul had failed, 
 in a ministry much longer and more extended 
 than his Master's, to build some enduring 
 churches out of Gentile material, the defeat 
 would have carried with it appalling conse- 
 quences. He was fully accredited as an am- 
 bassador of Christ; he had the tongue of fire 
 in which to proclaim his divine message; as a 
 Hebrew he could enter the synagogues ; and 
 as a Roman he had the freedom of every city 
 of the Empire. If he had not been able to 
 quicken faith, arouse devotion, inspire hope, 
 against a heathen philosphy, a dominant re- 
 
 146 
 
The Inevitable Conflict and Victory 
 
 ligion and a tide of worldliness, then no man 
 could take up the enterprise which had failed 
 in his hands. The divine attempt to plant 
 sj. citual righteousness and a holy faith would 
 have come to abysmal disaster. The utmost 
 had been done in heaven and on earth. No 
 other experiment could hope for success. There 
 remained no further sacrifice for sin, no sweeter 
 expression of mercy and grace, no more pa- 
 thetic and persuasive appeal to a lost world. 
 Against the heaviest odds the Apostle must 
 win. The issue was absolutely vital. Here 
 was the crisis which involves the life of man- 
 kind, the veritable redemption of the world. 
 "When the effort of Paul was crowned with 
 success the victory was not for himself 
 alone but mainly for the cause to which he had 
 devoted his life. The day was won for Chris- 
 tianity. It had been demonstrated that it 
 could gain and hold the ground against the al- 
 lied forces of the heathen world, against su- 
 perstition, against a self-sufficient philosophy, 
 against evil customs and rampant passions, 
 against malignant and persistent pi»secution. 
 Men and women were to be found in every 
 province of the Empire who followed the ex- 
 ample of devotion set by the Apostle, suffering 
 stripes and imprisonment and ofttimes facing, 
 death for the faith of the Gospel. Better still, 
 
 147 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 a new type of individual and social life had 
 been produced. Out of the formalities of Juda- 
 ism and the grossness of heathenism had been 
 gathered many people whom Paul could ad- 
 dress as "brethren," "faithful followers," 
 and even "saints in the Lord." Before he 
 began his ministry at Rome he was assured 
 that the Capital contained some who were 
 ' < beloved of God. " From Asia Minor he wrote 
 elaborate letters to "the Church of God" 
 which had been gathered under his prolonged 
 ministry at Corinth — a most worldly and self- 
 absorbed city, containing, nevertheless, a few 
 whom he personally knew to be " sanctified in 
 Christ Jesus," and to be in loving fellowship 
 with other "saints" scattered through "the 
 whole of Achaia." Even in Ephesus, where 
 the passion for gladiatorial games fell little 
 short of that which demoralized the populace 
 of Rome, and where the temples were crowded 
 by the superstitious worshipers of Diana, 
 there was a reliable company of saints who 
 were "faithful in Christ Jesus," and who were 
 so thoughtful and intelligent that the Apostle 
 could send them a treatise only once surpassed 
 in profundity of Christian doctrine. In Mace- 
 donia there were two churches of such noble 
 faith that Paul was grateful beyonds words for 
 every message that reached him concerning 
 
 148 
 
The Inevitable Conflict and Yictory 
 
 their development in the grace of the Gospel. 
 One was at Thessalonica, from which city he 
 had been driven by an infuriated mob jwbere 
 men ' ' turned from their idols to serve a living 
 and true God," suffering "much affliction " be- 
 cause of the *' joy of the Holy Ghost," until the 
 report of their faith "to God- ward" filled even 
 neighboring provinces. The other church was 
 at Philippi, the city to which he had first come 
 after crossing the ^gean Sea, and to which 
 he sent the most affectionate and glowing of 
 all his epistles. 
 
 There was no shadow of doubt in the mind 
 of the Apostle concerning the ultimate success 
 of the Gospel. When his own labors were 
 drawing to an end he wrote to younger men 
 who had been consecrated to office in the ad- 
 ministration of the church, warning them, in- 
 deed, against heresies and worldly tendencies ; 
 yet speaking with unshaken confidence of the 
 final triumph of Him, who had brought life 
 and immortality to light. In fact, he looked 
 for a speedy development of the divine plans 
 in the glorious coming of the Lord, building 
 his exultant expectations, doubtless, upon the 
 astounding achievements of truth and grace 
 which his own eyes had witnessed. No human 
 mind can so explore the future as to read the 
 details of unwritten history. Divine illumi- 
 
 149 
 
In The Time of Paul 
 
 nation and wide experience gave the Apostle 
 blessed assurance that the power and wisdom 
 of God, as manifested in Christ, were sufficient 
 for the redemption of the world, but it was as 
 impossible as it was unnecessary for him to 
 know how long and complex is the process of 
 evolution for the Kingdom of God on earth. 
 
 By the end of the first century the seed of 
 truth had been planted in many lands, in fields 
 which were to be swept by storms, and crossed 
 and re-crossed by contending armies. The Em- 
 pire was to be over-run by barbarians and fin- 
 ally dismembered. New nations and new types 
 of civilization were to arise. The old order of 
 things was to be overturned. New modes of 
 government, new systems of education, new 
 lines of social structure, new and divisive 
 methods of thought and worship in the church 
 were to succeed each other through successive 
 centuries. Through all these changes the 
 Gospel which Paul preached was to maintain 
 itself with unabated power and unmodified 
 grace. As in the first century, it sustained 
 itself against ideas, habits, customs and in- 
 stitutions which had not only to be resisted 
 but actually transformed. The "prince of 
 this world" does not readily yield to the 
 powers of light. Selfishness and worldliness 
 are entrenched in the perversions of human 
 
 150 
 
The Inevitable Conflict and Victory 
 
 nature. Consequently Christianity can not 
 lay down the task assumed when its Founder 
 came to earth until the last traces of untruth 
 and unkindliness have yielded to the persua- 
 sions of heavenly grace. 
 
 But the day dawned. The light deepened 
 in the eastern skies. Its radiance gladdened 
 the eyes of men who in the time of Paul were 
 gathering courage from the earliest victories 
 of the Word. Each critical age has added its 
 triumphs to the list of glories, and each suc- 
 ceeding generation has had larger assurance 
 than its predecessor that the time must come 
 when all the kingdoms which men have claimed 
 as their own, shall belong to Him whose right 
 it is to rule, and be but provinces of the world- 
 wide Empire of the Living God. 
 
 151 
 

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