The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries

by Adolph (von) Harnack
originally translated and edited by James Moffatt in a
second, enlarged and revised English edition;
London: Williams and Norgate / New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1908 (from the 2nd German edition)..
Theological Translation Library, volumes 19-20

The original German, Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten, appeared first in 1902, and was revised in 1906, 1915, and finally in 1924)

[[What follows represents an updating of the 1908 English version (itself a 2nd ed) by incorporating new material and changes in the 4th German edition of 1924 along with other revisions and updates introduced by RAK for use in early 21st century America; see the end of the Harnack TOC file for editing instructions and stages; the updating to the 1924 German has been carried out especially by David Barbee, Michael Nance, Luke Blair, and Harry Tolley]]

INTRODUCTION 

      Under what name is the appearance of the Christian religion in world history to be delivered?  The Christian contemplation was never above doubt:  the appearance of this religion indicates the entry of the true and complete religion opposite the power of the false (paganism) and the incomplete (Judaism) along with the message of the fulfilled redemption of the human race from the power of sin and death.  But this contemplation may not be brought to general acceptance; because “belief is not for everyone.”  Science must try, so here we extract a judgment, muting each contradiction.  It must hold itself to the facts and it must reclaim from them the great significance in world history of the appearance of this religion.  It will not exclude a value judgment—for without value judgment, it cannot at all give a historical reflection—but such a value judgment will be founded from particular religious experiences.

      One must form an answer to the question given at the top by using its location in the fourth century, as the Christian religion was rising to victory in the Roman empire.  Then one will immediately recognize that the factual answer to the important question is the red thread which passes through the inner history of the first three centuries of the empire:  which religion is able to become the religious philosophy, while the current religion of the citizens of the state was developing in a transformation, seeing that the bankruptcy of the old Greco-Roman religion became increasingly more obvious from decade to decade and the cult of the emperor was not able to offer a satisfactory substitute?  Once the Christian religion became the religion of the world-state, immediately, analysis began regarding to which quality victory was owed.  Under what name, so to speak, is the Christian religion to be delivered?  A four-fold answer is necessary:  already out of both the great size of this religion as well as the extraordinarily complicated character it produces such a response: [[1]]

      1) The Christian religion, along with its church, appears as unrestricted and because of this it perfected the Jewish religion.  This was the prized religion that produced it at that time, but also at the same time, it was a sharp antithesis to it.

      2) The Christian religion, together with the church, appears as the completion and the object of the Oriental-Greek syncretism, but also at the same time it was the abolition of the same (next to it) and with it all of polytheism and the pagan sacrificial being in favor of the honesty of transcendent monotheism.  It appears also as competition for the Greek religious philosophy.  It received from its thought and was soon in a position to rival it victoriously, while the other philosophy of religion remained essentially passive.

      3) The Christian religion, together with the church, is a great moral movement, which concludes the ethical work of late Judaism and the Greeks and Romans.  It democratizes and popularizes a strict and tender ethic, elevated over nature and politics, an eternal property of Eastern morals, to be the guiding principle of the private and public lives of humanity, from this happiness and bliss are alone dependent.  But in this position, control required a lasting and solid community that would become a social-political power ("noluit, sed coacta voluit").  It had as such from the beginning in the recognized stately authority, and also the ethical dimensions, and in increasing size as the Episcopal theocracy of the state became superior.

      4) The Christian religion, together with the church, was the community in which the general human religious idea of a revelation of the godhead in human form comprehensibly finds realization in history.  It was necessary that the Christian religion be "holy," for it knew itself as the heir of the saintly (@@gottmenschlichen) estate of the redeemer and feels his lasting effects, forming a solid brotherly community from all peoples and also from all states.  This community, equally strong ethically and religiously, is world-fleeing and world-remolding, moving against the state as "center."\1/ [[2]]

      The many-sided and complex total character of the Christian religion is presented in the following description, always keeping in sight how relatively quickly it developed.  The universality of all opposing religions soon faded.  Christianity saw itself as opposed to them.  With only a few of them individually it was necessary to have what one might call a struggle and Judaism was already finished since the middle of the second century.  The Christian religion, after the coarse and hostile mob instinct of the beginning of the third century had expired, only still had to do with the state cult, the Greek religious philosophy, astrological fatalism, and a difficultly defined “paganism” (sun worship), fortifying itself behind all of the other religions sublimating itself into a state of helplessness.  [[3]] 


FIRST BOOK

INTRODUCTION AND FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

CHAPTER 1

JUDAISM:  ITS DISSEMANTION AND LIMITS

      The synagogue in the Diaspora was not only the wellspring of persecution (fontes persecutionum), as Tertullian testified, for young Christendom.  At the same time, the synagogue was also an important prerequisite for the genesis and growth of the Christian community in the empire.  The network of synagogues furnished the courses and center for the advance of Christian propaganda.  The mission of the new religion, undertaken in the name of the God of Abraham and Moses, found a field already prepared for it.

      A synopsis of the diffusion of the Jews in the beginning of our time period has often been given, most recently and with exceptional care by Schürer.\1/  We are interested here in the following points:

      (1)  Jews were in most of the provinces of the Roman empire, in any case they were in all provinces situated on or in the vicinity of the Mediterranean as well as the Black and Caspian Seas, eastward as well, beyond Syria, they were forced into compact masses in Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Media.\2/  [[5]]

      (2) Their numbers were greatest in Syria\3/, next to that in Egypt (in all the nomes as far as upper Egypt)\4/, in Rome\5/ and in the provinces of Asia Minor\6/ [[6]]

            \3/ The large number of Jews in Antioch is especially striking. 

The extent and strength of their penetration in all local circumstances is shown particularly from the last-named region by evidence from the region.  Here, as well as in the north coast of the Black Sea, Judaism also took part in religious mixing (the cult of “the most high God”\7/ and of the God “Sabbatistes”)\8/ and in Syria, the same is true, although the evidence is not so clearly drawn, but deduced from the past history of Christian Gnosticism\9/.  In Africa, from the proconsular province to Mauritania, on the [[7]]

coast, the Jews were not sparse.\10/  In Lyon at the time of Irenaeus, it appears that there were not many Jews.\11/ But, in southern Gaul, as later sources prove, they were not sparse,\12/ and in Spain, they were numerous and not without influence, as the resolutions of the synod of Elvira from around 300 CE indicate.\13/  Finally, we may assume that in the time of the earlier empire in Italy, apart from Rome\14/ and southern Italy, where they were very widespread,\15/ they were not numerous, although individual synagogues in upper Italy are not lacking from that period.\16/  It follows from the cultural history of Italy and is confirmed by evidence, that old Jewish inscriptions from outside Rome and southern Italy are rare and dubious.  “The Jews were the first example of the kind of patriotism which later the Parsees, the Armenians, and, to a certain degree the later Greeks manifested—a patriotism with an extraordinary energy, but not attached to a definite place, a patriotism of [[8]]

traders spread over all and who recognized themselves as brothers, a patriotism that applied itself not to the culture of great, compact states, but smaller, more autonomous communities under the aegis of other states.”\17/

      (3) The precise number of Jews in the Diaspora can only be roughly estimated.\18/  What we posses in numbers is the following.  Concerning the Jews in Babylonia, Josephus says they were “not a few myriads” or “countless myriads.”\19/  In Damascus, at the time of the great war, he relates that ten thousand Jews were massacred.\20/  In another place in the same book, he writes “eighteen thousand.”\21/  From the five city districts of Alexandria\22/,  according to Philo,\23/ two were called “Jewish” because they were inhabited by Jews for the most part; Jews were also found in other city districts.  Philo estimates the total number in Egypt (“as far as the border of Ethiopia”—this itself was confirmed through the discovery of the Elephantine, 1150 kilometers south of Alexandria) to have been at least one hundred myriads, equaling one million.\24/  Already in the time of Sulla, the Jews of Cyrene formed one of the four classes of the population according to Strabo,\25/ apart from the citizens, the peasants and resident aliens.\26/  In the great revolt under Trajan, they are said to have slaughtered 220,000 unbelievers;\27/ in revenge for which “many myriads” were killed under Marcus Turbo.\28/  The Jewish revolt extended also to Cyprus, where 240,000 Gentiles were said to have been slain.\29/  As for the number of Jews in Rome,[[9]]

            \17/ Renan, Die Apostel, Deutsche Ausgabe, 299. 

we find the statement that in 4 BCE, eight thousand Roman Jews strengthened a Jewish delegation coming from Palestine,\30/ and in 19CE, when Tiberius deported the entire Jewish community from Rome, four thousand able-bodied Jews were sent to Sardinia.  The last statement is therefore noteworthy because it was handed down from Tacitus as well as Josephus.\31/  After the overthrow of Sejanus, when Tiberius withdrew the order, the Jews immediately restored their number in Rome.\32/  But under Claudius in the year 49, the move for expulsion renewed, but the command however was soon withdrawn, seeing that the implementation appeared dubious, and it was limited to a ban on religious assemblies.\33/  In Rome, the Jews particularly inhabited Trastevere, but also lived in other districts of the city, from Mars Field to Subura, we have found, since Jewish graveyards have been uncovered in very different places in the city;\34/ up until now, eleven synagogues are known.[[10]]

            \30/ Josephus, Antiq., 17.11.1; Bell., 2.6.1. 

      A survey of these numerical statements\36/ reveals that only two have importance.  First is Philo’s statement that the Egyptian Jews were not a little less than a million strong.  Philo’s relatively precise manner of expression\37/ cohered with the fact of the exact tax register taken in Egypt, makes it probably that we do not have a fantastic number.  Also, it appears the number itself is not too high, when one considers that the entire Jewish population of Alexandria is included.  As the population of Egypt, during the time of Vespasian, was seven to eight million people, so the Jewish population made up a seventh or an eighth of the population, somewhere around 12-13%.\38/  Only for Syria must we accept a higher percentage for the Jewish population.\39/  In all of the other provinces of the Roman empire, the numbers were much lower.

      The second lacuna of importance is the statement that Tiberius deported four thousand able-bodied Jews to Sardinia—Jews, not Jews and Egyptians, as Tacitus states (Annal., 2.85).  The report of Josephus supports that of Suetonius (see above).  He speaks first of the Jews and Egyptians, but then adds in specializing: [[11]]

            \36/ I set aside a line of number Josephus cites, for they are useless. 

“Iudaeorum iuventutem per speciem sacramenti in provincias gravioris caeli distribuit.”  Four thousand able-bodied men accords with a number of at least twelve to fifteen thousand men.\40/  The Jewish population in Rome at that time was approximately this size.  Admittedly, this calculation reconciles poorly to the other piece of information, that, twenty-three years earlier, eight thousand Roman Jews reinforced a Palestinian delegation.  Josephus has either inserted the total number of Jews here or he has greatly exaggerated.  The most reliable statement of the population of the Rome around the time of Augustus, around 5 BCE, gives 320,000 male plebeians over ten years old.  This number represents approximately six hundred thousand inhabitants, joining with it the notorious minority of women in Rome, but not including slaves.\41/  Around twelve to fifteen thousand Jews would represent one-fiftieth to one-fortieth of the population.\42/  Tiberius could still dare to expel them; Claudius, thirty years later, trying to repeat the experiment, was not able to carry it out.

      It can scarcely be assumed that the Jewish population in Rome after the time of the great revolt and the wars under Vespasian, Titus, Trajan, and Hadrian still increased considerably, since the decimation of the Jews in many provinces of the empire must have exerted relapse on the Jewish population in Rome.  However, it is still undetermined.

      If the Jewish population in Egypt was around one million, in Syria it was still more.  Attributing five hundred thousand Jews in Palestine—today between 600-650,000 people live there; see Bädeker’s Palestine, 1900, p. lvii; [[12]]

but the population of the Greek states are gone—we are within the mark at all events when he hold that the Jews in all other region, Asia Minor, Greece, in Mesopotamia, further in Rome, Italy, Africa, Gaul, and Spain, etc., total at least 1.5 million.  It is very conspicuous and at first glance puts all population calculations under doubt, but now—according to Beloch—the population of the entire Roman empire at the time of the death of Augustus was around fifty-four million and then the Jews at this time in the empire cannot be estimated at under four to four and a half million.  If one increases Beloch’s number to sixty million, how can the Jews have represented 7% of the entire population?  Either our calculation is wrong—mistakes are almost inevitable in this region—or the propaganda of Jews in the province was very strong; for the fertility of the Jews simply cannot explain the number of Jews in the Diaspora.  One must assume that a very large number of “heathens,” particularly of kindred Semites of the lower class, merged with the religion of Yahweh in droves.\44/  The Jews of the Diaspora were only partially really Jewish.  But if Judaism in the empire was really so strong that it accounted for around 7% of the population at the time of Augustus,\45/ one understands first its great influence and social importance.  Also to understand the propaganda and the spread of Christianity, it is important to know that this religion, under whose shadow (“umbraculum”) it was carried into the world, not only was very important, but expanded until it embraced a considerable fraction of the population.

      Our overview would be incomplete, if we did not glance at the variety of Jewish propaganda in the empire, [[13]]

if only briefly.\46/  Christians have at least inherited a part of the Jewish missionary zeal.  I will need to come back to the Jewish mission where means of Christian propaganda were taken over from the Jews.  I restrict myself here to some general comments.

      It is surprising that a religion, which erected a wall so sharply between itself and all other religions, and in its practical appearance and its promises was so obliged to its national tradition, in the Diaspora, possessed such a lively missionary impulse\47/ and had such great success.  In the end, domineering and ambition do not explain it.  Rather, it is a proof that Judaism as a religion was already blossoming through outer influence and internal transmutation,\48/ that it was a cross between a national religion and a world religion (confession and church).  The Jew felt proud that he had something to say to and something he must bring to the world, which concerned all of humankind—the one and spiritual God,\49/ creator of the heavens and earth, and his holy moral law.  From this consciousness (Romans 2.19f), he felt a missionary obligation.  The Jewish propaganda in the empire was primarily a proclamation of one God, his moral law and his judgment.  All remaining things were trodden back against.  In many instances, the only goal may have been conversion (Matt. 23.15):  Judaism was just as serious about overthrowing dumb idols and the persuasion of pagans to recognition of the creator and judge; for the honor of the God of Israel was involved. [[14]]

      From here it is possible to assess the appearance that is misunderstood, provided one explain it from apparent analogies—the different degrees and forms of Jewish proselytism.  In other religions, differences of the rule derive from the endeavor to make it easier to claim proselytes, particularly the moral laws, which the religion imposes.  This tendency is not in Judaism, at least not in every case.  It was decided that it was more crucial to retain the moral laws unchanged so that one could reduce the demands to cult and ceremonial because the acceptance of God and his book was the main point.  The different types of Jewish proselytism produced derived exclusively from the different rules for the observation of the legal-ceremonial rules.  Facilitating this was admittedly made easier by the fact that whoever gave only his little finger to this religion became a Jew.\50/  On the other hand, one must also consider that a person born a Jew was really only a proselyte as soon as he left Palestine.  At that point, he left the sacrificial cult and he was not able to observe adequately the law in foreign lands.\51/  With the inner neutralization of the sacrificial cult in Judaism gradually over generations—even among Pharisees—together with a historical situation in which the greater portion of the followers of this religion lived under outer and inner conditions for a long time that alienated them from the sacrificial cult.  This placed them on the periphery of spiritual entities and made cults and philosophies accessible.  From this, the Greco-Jewish and Persian hybrid came into being.  This emergence even considerably and dubiously modified monotheism.  The destruction of the temple by the Romans really destroyed nothing; as it can be understood as an organic event in the history of this religion.  The religious Jews deceived themselves when they maintained that God’s way at this point was incomprehensible. [[15]]

            \50/ And if he himself did not, then his son did. 

      In the empire, one recognized for a long time that the Jews worship God without images and they had no temple.  As in atheism, both of these features may appear impious and contemptuous to the common masses, even more so than circumcision, the Sabbath law, and the ban on pig flesh, etc., they made a deep impression on wide sections of the educated population.\53/  The Jewish religion appeared through these traits, together with monotheism, for which the time was ready,\54/ to be exalted to the rank of philosophy and at the same time it was still a religion, it offered a type of spiritual-intellectual life that appeared to be superior to all others.\55/  It was not an artificial production when a Philo or a Josephus depicted Judaism as a philosophical religion, the art of apologetics corresponded to the matter, as they must have felt at the time.\56/  As the revealed and, at the same time, philosophical religion, equipped with “the oldest book in the world,”\57/ Judaism developed its great [[16]]

propaganda.\58/  Josephus\59/ says from his location in Antioch, “The Jews continually drew a great number of Greeks to their worship of God and, to a degree, they made them part of themselves in a sense.”  This applies to the entire mission of Judaism.\60/  Membership in Judaism for Greeks and Romans constituted all possible degrees of power, from the superstitious reception of rites to the complete identity of “God-fearer,” who were the majority of converted pagans; proselytes, who were named Jews with the obligation to observe the whole law, were certainly a relatively small number.\61/  Circumcision was as imperative as the reception of baptism.\62/

      All of this is of the greatest importance for the Christians following the Jewish mission, but at least as important was the severe void Jewish missionary preaching left:  in the first generation, no Gentile could become a true son of Abraham.  His status before God remained subordinate and it also remained doubtful in what measure the [[17]]

proselyte—to say nothing of the "God-fearer"—had a part in the marvelous future promises.  The religion that repairs this omission will drive Judaism from the field.\63/  And when the competing proclamation is explained, that the law will be first, that freedom from "law" is normal and higher, the observation of the ceremonial law, even in the most favorable instances, is only to be tolerated, it will win thousands where the earlier missionary preaching won only hundreds.\64/  The propaganda of the Jewish religion did not succeed only by its higher, inner value, but also through the great social and political advantages which confession [[18]]

brought.  Compare Schürer’s position, in loc. cit. III4, p. 71-134, about the inner organization of the Jewish community in the Diaspora and, further, about their position under national law and civil “equality”\65/ and one will find how advantageous it was in the Roman empire to belong to the Jewish community.  Under circumstances as a Jews, one bore ridicule and disdain, but this inequity was offset by imperial privileges that one enjoyed as a follower of this religio licita.  One had with it the civil rights of a citizen—it was not very difficult to attain—or even that of Rome, one was more secure and better situated than most of one’s fellow imperial members.  No wonder, therefore, that in the time of persecutions, Christians threatened to fall away from Judaism\66/ and that the disentanglement from the synagogue also effected deep economic ramifications in circumstances of those who were born Jews and became Christians.\67/

      In conclusion, I make one more observation: all of the religions imported by traffic and commerce imported were religions of the city first and remained so for some time.  That Judaism in the Diaspora was a city religion without exception, this cannot be claimed and is refuted for several large provinces.  In the main, however, it remained a city religion and from the Jews of the land we know little. [[19]]

      As long as the temple stood, and one paid taxes to it, a bond formed between the Jews of the Diaspora and Palestine.\68/  Later, rabbinical authority took the place of the Jerusalem college of priests and they understood how to raise and use the tax.  The head of this authority stood as patriarch; money was collected through the “apostles,” which he sent out.\69/  These “apostles” appear also to have had other duties (on which see below). 

      The Christian mission owed to the preceding Jewish mission, first, an ordered field in all of the empire, further, religious communities already formed over all the cities, additionally, what Axenfeld calls “the help of materials” through the previous knowledge of the Old Testament, with it excellent catechetical and liturgical instruction, which could be used with few changes and with that habituation of regular worship of God and a control over private lives, as well as an impressive apologetic for monotheism, historical teleology, together with “judgment day” and ethics, and finally the feeling of obligation of “self-diffusion.”  The debt is so large that one could probably say that the Christian mission is a continuation of the Jewish propaganda. “A generation of fanatics has robbed Judaism of its wages and it was prevented from gathering in that which it prepared,” Renan observes.  But were these “fanatics” not nurtured from Judaism and has Judaism not also received its wages in the success of the Christians?

      To what extent, on the other hand, Judaism was prepared for the gospel, one can estimate by the syncretism.  This development was itself not only in ancillary matters.  The transformation of a national religion into a world religion can happen in two ways:  through the reduction of great cardinal points or through the reception of a wealth of newer elements from other religions.  Both happened at the same time in Judaism.\70/  [[20]]

But the most important preparation is the reduction and this is derived from the great scene preserved in Mark 12.28-34.  This, in its simplicity, is the greatest monument of religious history which we posses at the time of the religion’s turning point:\71/

      “A scribe asked Jesus, ‘What is the first of all the commandments?’  Jesus answered, ‘This is the first:  Hear, Israel, the Lord our God is one God and you should love the Lord your God with all with all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind.  The second is, ‘You should love your neighbor as yourself;’ a greater command than this is not given.’  And the scribe said to him, ‘So it is, o teacher, what you have said is right, that God is one and there is no other beside him, and that to love him with all the heart and with all of the mind and with all the strength and that to love the neighbor as oneself is much more valuable than all holocausts and sacrifices.’  And Jesus, seeing that he answered intelligently, said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’”

      Additionally, concerning the position of Palestinian Judaism toward the idea of mission, universalism and the duty of systematic propaganda, things in the age of Christ and the apostles are such that one can plead for and against the issue (see Bertholet, Die Stellung der Israeliten und Juden zu den Fremden, 1896, Schürer, loc. cit., III, p. 125ff; Bousset, loc. cit., p. 99ff; Axenfeld, loc. cit.).  Before each epoch, there were two ages with totally different tendencies.  The older, from second Isaiah, based on the universalism of the Jewish religion and a religious ethic raised nearly to humanitarianism, was strongly expressed in Palestine.  It was reflected in numerous psalms, the book of Jonah, and in the Wisdom literature.  The pious are aware that Yahweh rules over the nations and over all of humankind, that he is the God of each individual, and that he demands worship, first and foremost.  Therefore, they hope for the final conversion of all pagans, inviting the nations and kings to prostrate before Yahweh and to praise him.  They desire that Yahweh’s name is proclaimed over all in the pagan world and that his rule, in sense of conversion to him, be displayed.  But, in the time of the Maccabees, a barricade was placed before this tendency.  Apocalypticism directed its eye more sharply to the subjection of the heathen nations than [[21]]

their conversion; the exclusive tendency began to emerge again clearly in the protection of the peculiarity of the nation.  “One of the most important results of the violent acts of Antiochus was that it discredited for all time the idea of a Judaism free from any limitation unconditionally, and that it either made pro-Hellenism, in the sense of Jason and Alcimus, impossible for Palestine and the Diaspora, or at least exposed it to a sharp correction” (Axenfeld, p. 28).  Now in the time of Christ and the apostles, the progressive wave and that of nationalism were slowing and muddling each other.\72/  The Pharisees themselves appear split.  In some psalms and textbooks, as well as in the thirteenth Blessing of the Schmone Esre, universalism still breaks out and “the most famous representative of the Jewish scribal teaching, Hillel and his school especially attended to propaganda.”  “Love the people and conduct them to the law” is one of his traditional proverbs (Pirke Aboth, 1.12).  Also Gamaliel, the teacher of Paul, is also placed among the propagandists of the time.  It was not impossible to remain exclusive and propagandizing at the same time:  the requirements of the mission increased into the demand to observe the entire law.  If I am not mistaken, Jesus was principally against this variety of Pharisaism in Jerusalem.  Ever more the opposition in Palestine sharpened against foreign domination and the nearer the great catastrophe came, all the more the aversion against it developed, as well as the idea that all that was not Jewish would be destroyed in judgment.  Shortly before the destruction of the temple ended the controversy between the school of Hillel and Shammai with a complete victory for the latter, but he was not an opponent of the mission in principle, but he placed it under the most difficult requirements.  The eighteen rules which were adopted included among other things a ban on Greek learning and accepting gifts for the [[22]]

temple from the pagans.  Contact with the pagans was placed under the strictest laws and should be stopped entirely.  Along with it, this prepared the Judaism of the Mishna and the Talmud.  Judaism of the Diaspora followed this development, however more slowly.


CHAPTER TWO

EXTERNAL REQUIREMENT FOR THE UNIVERSAL EXPANSION

OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION

      Only in the headings, as it were, shall I here explain which external conditions facilitated a faster and farther dissemination of the Christian religion into the empire.  One of the most important has already been named above, the spread of Judaism, which preceded and prepared the way for Christianity.  Next we come to a consideration of the following points:\1/

      (1) The Hellenization of the East and at the time also the West that progressively continued since the days of Alexander the Great which created a relative uniformity in language, koine,\2/ and in perspective.  Only at the end of the second century of our calendar does this progressive Hellenization appear to have exhausted itself.\3/  In the fourth century, when the residence [[23]]

    

of the empire transferred to the East, the movement experienced a later reinforcement from very important directions.  Christianity very quickly yoked itself to the language and spirit of Hellenism, though not completely, so it could share a large part of the success of Hellenism for itself.  In return, it carried forward the progress of Hellenism and stopped the regression.

      (2) The Roman world empire and the political unity of the nations on the coast of the Mediterranean it secured; the relative consistency of the outer living conditions implemented by the world state, and the relative certainty of communal life.  In many provinces of the East, one felt the emperors really stood for peace after all the dreadful storms and wars; they welcomed his law as protection and patronage.\4/  The fact of the earthly world monarchy with the imperial god promoted [[24]]

also the idea of an archetypal, heavenly monarchy and at the same time created the condition for the emergence of a catholic, also called universal, church.

      (3) The extraordinary facilities, increase, and protection of international transport,\5/ the excellent roads, the mixing of nations,\6/ the exchange of goods and ideas, the personal interchange, the ubiquitous tradesman and omnipresent soldier, one could add the numberless professors, whom one could find in Antioch as in Cadiz, in Alexandria as in Bordeau.  The church found the way paved for spread.  The means were prepared and the people in the larger cities were as mixed and as ahistoric as they could need.

      (4) By the fact of the orbis Romanus on the one hand and philosophical development on the other produced or strengthened a practical and theoretical conviction of the essential unity of humankind, human rights, and human duty, reinforced by the truly enlightened Roman system of legislation, especially in the time from Nerve to Alexander Severus.  The church had no reason to oppose, but many grounds to approve of the greatest and permanent creation of the empire, the Roman law in all of its fundamental points.\7/ [[25]]

      (5) The decomposition and democratization of the older society, the gradual equalizing between the cives Romani and the provincials,\8/ the Greeks and the barbarians, the relative balance of social rank, the improvement of the slave class, also through corrosion the ground was prepared for new formations.  Moreover, the subversion of the essence of the military in the third century made it necessary to search for a new support, a new basis for the state.\9/

      (6) The Roman religious policy, which furthered the interchange of religions by tolerance, hardly caused any difficulty for their natural history—growth, transmutation, or death—although it would not tolerate any real contempt for the ceremonies of the state cult.  The seriousness of restraint, which the maintenance of the state cult imposed upon the spread of the Christian religion, was amply compensated by the freedom the religious policy granted otherwise.

      (7) The free societies, as well as communal and provincial Roman-state organizations.  Each in many respects helped to prepare the ground for the reception of Christianity and in many instances perhaps served as protection for it.\10/  The latter were virtually models for the most important church organizations and saved the community from the difficult task of first conceiving organizations of their own and then commending them.

      (8) The invasion of Near Eastern, Syrian, Persian, and Egyptian religions in the empire, especially from the time of Hadrian and Pius.  These religions, in their sublimated form, had certain formulations of questions in common with Christianity.  What these religions at first took from the church was abundantly replaced by new religious desires produced in the mind by these religions whose satisfaction could be granted by the reception of Christianity.

      (9) Through the democratization of society and, at the same time, the popularization of science, through the development of a principally world-denying philosophy as well as through other unknown [[26]]

reasons the decay of exact science and a rising reputation of a mystical religious philosophy searching for revelation and desiring miracle enters.

      All of these outer conditions coincide, the last two both could have been included amongst the inner, brought about a drastic change in the entire existence of humankind in the empire, a reversal that must have been very beneficial to the spread of Christianity.  The narrow world had widened, the divided had become united, the barbarian became Greek and Roman, but with it an increase in barbarian area which unbelievers were pleased to take as a sensation or consolation.  One empire, one universal language, one system of travel, one culture, a common development towards monotheism, and a common longing for a redeemer!\11/ [[27]]


CHAPTER THREE

INTERNAL REQUIREMENTS FOR THE UNIVERSAL SPREAD OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION—RELIGIOUS SYNCRETISM

      In a series of chapters in this book, we will speak of the most important inner conditions for the universal expansion of the Christian religion.  That the Christians preaching was for the poor, the burdened, and for the outcasts, that they preached and practiced love, that rocky and barren soil was transformed into a fruitful field for the church.  Where no other religion could sow and harvest, this religion managed to scatter its seeds and to gather fruit.

      The decisive precondition for the propaganda of the religion lied in the entire religious, moral, and cultural condition of the imperial age.  It is impossible to make an attempt to sketch a picture of this condition or even to express a portrayal of its totality.  We are just now, after the commendable descriptions of Tzschirner, Friedländer, Boissier, Rèville, Wissowa, and others\1/ in the fortunate position to possess an excellent works which treat the great problem in extensive detail and precisely under the viewpoint to support our purpose in Wendland, Die hellenistisch-römische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zu Judentum und Christentum, 2 und 3 Aufl., 1912.   He covers the basics and the older time, as well as the greatest part of the second and third centuries.  This work can by supplemented by Cumont, Les religions orientales dans le paganisme Romain, 1907, 2 Aufl., 1909, and, in German, von Gehrich, Die orientalischen Religionen im römischen Heidentum, 1910.

      (1) Despite the inner development of polytheism toward monotheism noted in this period, the contrast in the relations between Christianity and paganism came down to polytheism versus monotheism and polytheism, in the first instance of the great struggle, as a political religion, the imperial cult.  From here, Christianity and paganism were simply opposed.  Christians burned what the pagans worshipped and pagans burned Christians as traitors.  Christian apologists and martyrs were entirely right when, in their speeches, they frequently reduced everything down to this simple contrast and were silent about everything else. [[28]]

      Judaism shared with Christianity this position toward polytheism, but (a) it was a national religion and along with that its monotheism was quite misunderstood widely and, therefore, it was tolerated, (b) it avoided conflict with the state authorities as a rule and it was not committed to martyrdom.  The condition that one must become a monotheist to become a Jews appears entirely ignorant.  It degraded the creator of heaven and earth to a national god.  If he was a national god, then he was not alone.  Rumors flew of Jewish atheism due to their lack of images; but this reproach was not made in earnest, or, more likely, the wavering of judgment permitted the political consequence:  in dubio pro reo.

      It was otherwise with Christianity.  Here the polytheists could have no doubt.  Deprived of a basis as a nation or a state, with images or a temple, Christianity was atheistic.  The contrast between polytheism and monotheism was here clear and curt.  The struggle between religious forms was waged by Christianity and not by Judaism from the second century.  Christianity was aggressive, while Judaism had not fought at all, but had captured proselytes.

      But from the beginning, the struggle was not without hope.  The polytheism of the state cult had not yet been uprooted as Christianity began to rise,\2/ but there were enough forces already looming to cause its overthrow.  It had survived the critical epoch, the period when the republic became a dyarchy and then a monarchy, but the wealth of new religions which forced their way in and subverted it could not be taken care of with the wand of the emperor cult or with the rays of a protean cult of the sun, which sought to bring everything within its sweep.  Yet, it was still destined for a long life, if it was not attacked openly or in secret by general knowledge, philosophy, and ethics, and if it had not been encumbered with a ridiculous and preposterous backwards mythology.  Statesmen, poets, and philosophers could disregard all this, since each group was in a position to devise a way preserve a contact with the religious state of the past, but once the “people” became aware, or were made aware, the conclusion they drew in such a case was thoughtless. [[29]]

The onset against deities that were feathered and scaly, adulterous and vicious, and on the other hand idols of wood and stone was an impressive and effective component of Christian preaching among wide circles.  These wide circles reached into the lowest levels of society—here they were primarily looked to—through inner and outer experiences just now reached a position so that the fiery words against the horror of idolatry seized them and guided them to monotheism.  The situation of polytheism as state religion was found to be favorable to the propaganda of Christianity.  Religion stood against religion, but while one was new and living, the other was—with the exception of the imperial cult in which it was again able to gather strength—old and withdrawn and no one was able to say what really had happened to it.  Was it only a political legality or was it one of the multiple, interwoven, and immense number of religiones licitae in the empire?

      (2) This is only touching on one side of the matter.  The religious state, along with its tendencies and formations, were complicated in the imperial age.  So as important as the simple differences between “monotheism against polytheism,” “strong morality against laxity and vice” were, it is impossible to transform the inner postures with these differences.  The state of affairs in the empire cannot be sufficiently denoted by the word “polytheism” as Christianity, as it was preached then, cannot be defined simply by “monotheism.”  Nor did virtue simply stand against vice.  We must enter into some greater detail here.

      One who considers the dominance of the inner life over the outer empiricism and politics as an illusion and perversion must date the decomposition of the ancient world from Socrates and Plato.  Here the two minds divide!  But one who considers the development of this supremacy as the highest advance is not obliged to accompany this development down as far as neo-Platonism.  One will not misjudge that, to the end, to the time of Augustine, a real advance was not lacking, but one admits that they were expensive, in fact, too expensive.  This undesirable development began as introspection disregarded and allowed to atrophy its correlate in precise natural science and replaced it with mysticism, theurgy, astrology, or magic.  For more than a century before the Christian calendar, this process had begun.  At the threshold of this transition in worldview stands Posidonius, like a second Janus.  On one hand, he embraces a rational idealism, but on the other, he combines it with illogical and mystical elements.  The sad thing is that these [[30]] elements had to be sought after and received to express new feelings, but that this rational idealism could not succeed in guaranteeing its means because it was helpless and spell-bound in intellectualism.  Language itself declined to fix the value of anything that was not intellectual by nature.  Therefore, the 'Υπερνοητόν’ emerged and this concept attracted various measures of myths beside the absurd and allowed it to pass unchallenged.  Myths were not merely a symbol, rather they were the matter in which the highest needs of the mind and religion were expressed because their real nature and art remained closed to thinkers.  Following this level after Posidonius was Philo.

      A relapse into all of the past stages must have been the consequence, but at the same time, this relapse took, as always, strong steps toward a sad innovation.  The old mythology was naïve or political and lived in ceremony, while the new was a confession.  It was philosophical, or pseudo-philosophical, and it won power over the mind.  It stultified the mind gradually and—its highest triumph!—it silences the sense of the real and paralyzed the function of all the senses.  The eyes grew dark and the ears could no longer hear.  A revival and restoration of religious feeling correlates with this side effect, as following the philosophical development.  This took place at about the close of the first century.  It gradually permeated all the layers of society and since the middle of the second century it grew from decade to decade.  This came out in two ways, in such a dual development that religious revolts always represents themselves.  The first was a series of not unsuccessful attempts to revive and inculcate the old religions by the careful observance of traditional customs and restoration of oracle sites and places of worship.  Meanwhile, new religious needs of the time were neither strong nor clear in their expression in these attempts.  Further, these attempts were partially artificial and superficial.  Christianity was simply not possessed by the conditions of this restoration of religion.  They were two different magnitudes, neither understood the other, and each must try to eradicate the other (see above).

      But the second means of religious revival was much more energetic.  Since the days of Alexander and his successors, ever since the day of Augustus, the nations upon whom the development of the advance of humankind was founded understood they were under a new sign.  The drastic change in the outer conditions of their existence [[31]] has already been emphasized, but corresponding to this, and partly following from it, an inner religious revolution occurred that was at least somewhat due to mixing religions, but of foremost importance was the progress of culture and inner and outer experience.  A time in which the mixing of religions began cannot be given for the nations between the Tigris and the Euphrates, from Persia\3/ to Egypt.  As far back as we are able to trace their history, these nations, and therefore their religions, stood in a constant interchange and their religious wisdom were a matter of mutual exchange.  Now the Greek world joined with its hotly and joyfully acquired knowledge and ideas, open minded to every element the East offers and in its turn subjugating each component to its own wisdom and speculation.

      The product of the interchange of Oriental religions, including that of Israel, was already termed “Oriental religious philosophy” by science one hundred years ago.  This term includes the entire complex of cultic rituals, cult wisdom, religious ideas, and scientific speculations (astronomical, astrological and other knowledge connected in religion).  All this was as uncertain as the title that was meant to comprehend it.  Today we have come a good bit further\4/ and we are able to both perceive the entire complex more definitely and also to analyze the individual appearance more exactly.  The best help in this—and this appears paradoxical—next to the more developed thought of Oriental religion in its later development is Christian Gnosticism.  Nowhere else are these ideas so clearly and coherently implemented.

      In what follows, the most important parts of “Orientalism”—in its concluding development, it would become solar Henotheism—will be emphasized.  Naturally, it was not a closed system, but at every point different subjects and ideas were presented.  Belief in parts of handed down mythology in realistic form not yet expired or renewal of these beliefs was one of the general characteristics of “Orientalism.”  To this, ideas were added.  Where and to what degree the ideas outweighed and oppressed the realistic [[32]]

form cannot be determined in every instance as a rule and this circumstance makes our knowledge of “Orientalism” appears very incomplete because what is the use of fixing down a piece of mythology to some definite period and circle, if we cannot be sure of its exact value?  Was it held literally or was it translated into an idea?  Was it an image or an object of misunderstood piety?  Was it really only ornamental?  Did it have cultish, theological, cosmological, historical, or ethical significance?  Was it a report on something from prehistoric times or was it something ongoing, or was it only to be realized in the future?  Or did these interpretations and evaluations intermingle?  Was the myth felt to be holy and of uncertain size, as it were, something that could unite with every conceivable coefficient, serving as the starting point for any interpretation whatsoever that one chose to put before the world?  I think the last question is to be affirmed and at the same time we must not forget that concurrently and in one and the same circle many coefficients were attached to any piece of mythology.

      We must not fail to overview the diversity of the origins of myths.  The oldest come from a primitive view of nature in which the clouds fought the light and the night consumes the sun or from the wonder of procreation and the terror of death.  Or they come from the dream world of the soul, derived from the separation of soul and body and the cult of the soul.  The next stratum may have come into being from old historical memories, fantastically enlarged and elevated into the supernatural.  Then what follows from the first attempts at “science,” which had not continued further than observation of the heavens and nature, leading to the knowledge of regularity that was connected with religious opinions.  All of this the soul enlivened and furnished with the power of consciousness.  From this level upon which the sun and stars are gods and governed all arose the great religions of the Orient, as we know them in history, with their particular mythology and cult wisdom.\5/  Then followed the stage of astrology, at the same time with the stratum of conceptual development and with the philosophical knowledge placed in contact with religion.  Half of this was apologetic [[33]]

and the other was critical.  Yet even there myths still took shape.  Finally, the last stage emerged, the glaciation of old fantasies and religions produced by a new idea of the world from outer and inner experience.  It was mixed under the pressure of all this, what had been before was muddled, divergent thought was forced together, all structures were broken, while the surface of the movement was covered by broken fragments thrown out in a broad moraine, in which the debris of all earlier strata were to be found.  This is “syncretism.”  Viewed from far away, it offered a unity, although the image is also mottled.  The power that developed it is not what one is able to see.  What appears is the old components, the new elements lay in the depth under the surface.

      The new elements consisted in political and social experience and inner observation.  It appears that before the contact with the Greek spirit, “Orientalism” had reached this stage, but one of the most severe gaps in our knowledge of the history of religion is that we are unable to decide how much this was independent from the Greek spirit.  We must be content to ascertain what actually happened.  The new knowledge and mood that meets us on the ground of Hellenism, the Hellenism which in the development of its older mysteries and its philosophy along with a mature Platonism, met at the time with “Orientalism.”\6/  These new features are somewhat as follows:\7/ [[34]]

      (1) The sharp division between the soul, or spirit, and the body, more or less exclusive importance given to the spirit and the idea that the soul comes from another higher world and carries with it the potential for eternal life.  Along with it, the individualism placed in this.

      (2) The sharp division between God and the world and the destruction of the naïve idea that they formed a coherent unity.

      (3) As following this division, the sublimation of the Godhead via negationis et eminentiae.  Now for the first time the Godhead becomes incomprehensible and indescribable, but also great and good.  It is the basis of all things, but the final basis, which is only posited, cannot really be comprehended.

      (4) Further from this division and exclusive importance of the spirit, the degradation of the world, the explanation that it were better for it to have never existed, that it emerged from a transgression, that it was hell for the soul or a prison, or, at best, a penitentiary.

      (5) The conviction that the connection with the flesh, “the soiled jacket,” was degrading for the soul and polluted it.  In fact, the latter must be ruined unless the connection was relaxed or its power broken.

      (6) The longing after redemption as release from the evil of the world, the flesh, mortality, and death.

      (7) The conviction that all redemption is release to eternal life, that it is tied to a knowledge and expiation.  Only the knowing soul, that knows itself, the Godhead, and nature and value of being, and the pure, purged, can be saved.

      (8) The certainty that the redemption of the soul is carried as a return to God gradually, just as the soul once upon a time departed from God by stages, until it ended in the present vale of tears.  All explanation about the redemption is instruction about “the return and the way” and the performance of redemption is nothing other than a gradual ascent.

      (9) The admittedly dangerous thought that the hoped for redemption or redeemer was already present, [[35]] and must only be called upon, either in an ancient cult which only had to be properly examined or in a mystery which only must be made more accessible universally, or in a personality whose power and commands had to be obeyed, or in the spirit itself, if it would only reflect upon itself.

      (10) The conviction that all means of liberation should service knowledge, but they cannot be exhaustive, although they must ultimately supply and transfer a true godly force.  Only with the initiation connected with "consecration" of the mystery or sacrament, by which the spirit is overwhelmed, is one really saved and through mystical excess one is conducted from finitude and sin.

      (11) Contained in all of this, indeed, it forms the basis of the insight that knowledge of the world, religion, and strict ethical disciplining of the individual's life must form a closed unity, an independent unity, which has absolutely nothing to do with the state, society, family and one's daily calling and one must deny oneself in all these areas, as in asceticism.

      Soul, God, knowledge, expiation, asceticism, redemption, eternal life corresponding with individualism and humanity in place for nationalism—these were the noble thoughts, seriously expressed in myth, that developed as a result of intense inner and exterior movement, as the product of greater souls and as the sublimation of all living cults in the imperial period.  Where true religion existed, it was in this circle of experience and thought that it breathed.  How many there were who lived within the circle is a matter of indifference because faith is not for everyone and the history of religion, provided that it is really a history of a living religion, always progresses only within narrow lines.

      But it is wonderful how many different guises these thoughts circulate under!  It requires for itself a great apparatus, as do all worldwide religious declarations, which bring a monistic and dualistic theory into unity.  But here they were pleased to enhance the apparatus, partly to accommodate all possible old things and valuable appearances, partly because single details did not appear strong enough and by accumulation they hoped to arrive at the goal.  Through the differences in apparatus, these syncretistic appearances often appear [[36]] entirely disparate on the surface.  A glance at their motives and goals will reveal a surprising unity, even a simplicity.  In the act, the final motives are simple and powerful, inasmuch as they are from simple, but powerful inner experiences.  It was due to them that the development of religion advanced, so far as any such advance took place apart from Christianity.

      With this "syncretism" or Hellenism in its final form, under the symbol of the sun and "Oversun" overall and always developing uniformly to solar Henotheism, the Christian religion had to deal with along with the emperor cult.  But it is immediately obvious that it is not sufficient to describe the conflict between Christianity and "paganism" simply as a conflict between monotheism and polytheism.  Certainly, any form of syncretism was in a position to take on polytheism.  It even demanded it and must strengthen it.  The "apparatus" for both the explanation of the origin of the world as we all as the description of the "return" required aeons, intermediate beings, semi-gods, and delivers and the highest god was highest or most perfect, if it was alone.  The foundation for this way of thinking was entirely monotheistic, raising the highest god as the archetypal god high over all other gods and interlocking the soul and the archetypal god exclusively, not to subordinate deities.\9/  Polytheism was banished to a lower level [[37]]

from the height it no longer enjoyed.  But further, as soon as Christianity itself began to reflect, it partook of this "syncretism," borrowing its thought, even developing itself with the help of its thought.  Christianity was not syncretistic from the beginning because Jesus Christ did not belong to these circles and the disciples of Jesus first gave form to the Christian religion.  But as soon as it thought about God, Jesus, sin, redemption, eternal life, it summoned from the general experiences of religious development and adopting its help,

      Christian preaching was confronted with the old polytheism culminating in the imperial cult on the one hand and on the other, the i