The foregoing discussion has led us to the unavoidable conclusion that Christianity is divine in its origin, and therefore the one religion which all must embrace. This conclusion is still further enforced by a consideration of the first establishment and subsequent growth of Christianity in spite of the greatest obstacles placed in its way. In fact, so extraordinary were these obstacles that no religion of man's invention could possibly have pushed them aside, and hence the Christianization of the world was nothing less than a moral miracle, which could be wrought only by God's omnipotent power. Men are endowed with free will, and consequently they are masters of their own actions; yet these actions are governed by laws which, humanly speaking, are fully as constant as the laws that govern the activity of purely material causes. When, therefore, it is found that men suddenly adopt a course of action which is essentially opposed to aforesaid laws, it is but reasonable to fall back upon a special intervention on the part of God as the ultimate explanation of such conduct.
Now, that in the establishment of Christianity every law ordinarily governing men's conduct was deliberately set aside is a matter of history. In spite of recent efforts to bring into prominence the good features of paganism, the fact of pagan corruption is written in characters so large and conspicuous upon the pages of history that even he who runs may read. All flesh had indeed corrupted its way, and the ways of men were evil from their youth. Minds and hearts had grown callous through the free indulgence of animal passions, so much so that religious worship itself found expression in carnal excesses. Men were so absorbed in material interests, and had so completely surrendered themselves to the things of sense, that they seemed utterly incapable of spiritual aspirations. Coupled with this licentiousness and gross materialism, and indeed flowing from it as a necessary consequence, there was a universal cruelty and vindictiveness that ever exacted an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. All that was divine in human nature was overshadowed by animal propensities, so that the very gods were looked upon as swayed by the low" est passions.
Into this world of moral foulness and animal ferocity the pure and gentle Christ was to make His way. To these men and women, who gloried in their wanton excesses, and took supreme delight in human sufferings, He was to announce His strange doctrine of virginal purity and divine forgiveness. To these men and women, who craved but for wealth and pleasure, He was to present the cross of suffering and self-denial, bidding them to follow Him, the crucified Nazarene, to the very hill of crucifixion. Nay, He was to make His appeal to them, not in person, nor through famous orators or world-renowned philosophers, but through rude and uneducated men, coming from the lowest class of the most despised race on the face of the earth. How could He expect to succeed? Truly, if His was the work of man, it was foredoomed to the most dismal failure; and if success crowned His efforts, it could only be because the finger of God was there; -- it was a miracle more astounding than that which restored the dead to life.{1}
And what was the outcome of Christ's conflict with the world of pagan corruption? Take and read! Take and read! The history of the Christian era is but the record of Christ's triumphs. Scarcely had He been laid to rest when love awoke upon His tomb. Generation after generation of men and women, youths and maidens, embraced with holy enthusiasm the gibbet of shame upon which He had died, exclaiming the while in transports of divine folly: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall hunger or thirst or the sword? No, neither things present nor things to come can tear from our hearts the love of God made man." The avaricious Jews, immersed in the things of sense, were so far spiritualized that they sold all and gave the price of their cherished possessions to their needy brethren. The fastidious Greeks, ever enamored of worldly splendor, discovered in His doctrines a depth and in His character a sublimity, that made them docile disciples of the one and humble adorers of the other. The haughty Romans, greedy of military fame and ambitious of universal rule, learned from Him the nobler warfare against their own corrupt nature, and the greater glory of ruling self. From the moment that the spirit of Christ moved over the waters of pagan corruption, there sprang up on all sides those rare flowers of Christian virtue which shine like gems upon every page of modern history. And so rapid and universal was this transformation that Tertullian, at the end of the second century, could thus address the Roman magistrates: "We are but of yesterday, and we fill all that is yours; your cities, your islands, your military posts; your boroughs, your council chambers, and your camps; the palace, the senate, the forum: your temples alone we leave you."{2} "The purest among the strong, and the strongest among the pure," says Richter, "Christ lifted with His wounded hands empires from their hinges, and changed the stream of ages."
And all this was accomplished in the face of such extrinsic difficulties as would infallibly have frustrated every merely human effort. The history of the Church is but a verification of Christ's prophecy, spoken to His Apostles: "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; but have confidence, I have overcome the world." This persecution began at the very moment when the Apostles descended from the Upper Chamber in order to carry out their Lord's behest: "Go ye therefore into the whole world and teach all nations." First the Jewish Synagogue, still stained with the blood of the God-Man, measured its strength with the weakness of the Galilean fishermen, but succumbed in the conflict. Then the world-embracing power of Rome threw down the gauntlet, fully determined to crush the infant Church. Three hundred years that contest lasted; many million followers of the Crucified Nazarene sealed their faith with a martyr's death; but when the one-sided conflict ceased, the bloodstained sword had fallen from the mailed hand of pagan Rome, and the successor of St. Peter sat upon the throne of the Caesars. The sign of redemption, once raised upon Calvary's heights, rose over the seven hills of Rome, proclaiming to the world that an empire had been founded which would extend its sway over all nations, not by the power of the sword, but by the omnipotence of God's own word. The temples of idols yielded their place to the house of the one true God; the Gospel of peace brought sunshine into the lives of men who had but known the darkness of death; churches and schools and charitable institutions arose everywhere as so many manifestations of the spirit of God, which had gone forth to renew the face of the earth.
Peace had descended upon the Church of God, but it was to last only for a brief space. Assaults from without had ceased, but they were soon followed by attacks from within, which seemed destined to rend asunder beyond mending the seamless garment of faith. Heresies and schism took up the cause that had undone the Jewish Synagogue, and laid prostrate the imperial power of pagan Rome. Proud men arose within the very bosom of the Church, who refused to yield obedience to the authority established by God upon earth. Like the false prophets of old, they saw visions, and dreamed dreams, that were not of God; yet they preached them to the world as God's own inspired word. Arms, Nestorius, Eutyches, Donatus and Pelagius, arose in quick succession, and drew after them vast numbers into the pathless wilderness of error. "Altar was raised up against altar, pulpit against pulpit; the councils of the Church of God were opposed by the councils of churches founded by men; and error, upheld by the strong arm of secular power, rose in loud clamors above the voice of truth." Then indeed did Christianity seem doomed to final destruction; yet it was fated not to die. Christ stretched out His hands over the warring elements, and there was a great calm. The sects disappeared as fast as they had arisen, and the Church came out of the conflict stronger than ever in her God-given power.
And so it has continued through all past ages. Barbarian hordes from the North might rush in upon the Roman empire, and crush the greatest military power the world had ever seen; yet they themselves, whilst still flushed with victory, were led captive to the altar of God, and bent their stubborn necks beneath the yoke of Christ. Apostate kings and schismatic emperors might hurl their armies against the tottering walls of Papal Rome; but the power that sat enthroned upon the Vatican hill saw them all sink into the dust to rise no more. New heresies might spring up and drag away from the Church nations that had been her glory and her pride for more than a thousand years; yet these very losses were instrumental in bringing into her fold whole continents which until then had scarcely been known by name. Even like the mustard seed, she has grown up into a mighty tree, which stretches out its branches over the whole earth, and bids defiance to every storm.
Now this is truly a miracle that admits of no natural explanation. The introduction of Christianity, as we have seen, set at naught the laws that naturally govern the actions of free beings. Men sunk in the depths of vice rose to a height of spiritual perfection that was absolutely without parallel in the pagan past. Whole nations embraced with enthusiasm a religion that required the sacrifice of all that was most dear to the human heart. Wealth and honor and life itself were accounted as naught when compared with the privilege of following the Crucified Nazarene. Men have endeavored to parallel this by pointing to the marvellous spread of Mohametanism, but they know not whereof they speak. In regard to this point Pascal has well said: "Any man could do what Mahomet did; and no man could do what Jesus did. Mahomet slew, Jesus Christ caused His own to be slain. In fact, the two systems are so contrary, that if Mahomet took the way, humanly speaking, to succeed, Jesus Christ, humanly speaking, took the way to perish. And instead of concluding from Mahomet's success that Christ might well have succeeded, we should rather say that since Mahomet succeeded, Jesus Christ ought to have perished."
Almost more marvellous than its introduction is the conservation of Christianity during the lapse of nearly two thousand years. Any merely human organization has its period of development, perfection, and final decay. If all goes well, it may last for a few centuries; yet withal its life is short, and even whilst it still seems to flourish, it presents to the eye of the careful observer evident signs of disintegration. Had the Church of Christ been the work of mortal man, she would long ago have shared the common fate of human institutions. Look at the various sects that separated from her in the centuries that are past; they were truly of man's making, and they crumbled into ruin like all the works of man. The members of these sects may still rally around the same name that drew away their ancestors from the fold of Christ, but they have long since thrown to winds the teaching which gave that name its historic significance. Such also would have been the fate of Christ's own Church, had she not been the work of God. She was subject to the same deteriorating influences from without as the sects that sprang up along her course through the ages, and after a brief, struggling existence vanished like a wreath of smoke; she was made up of the same inconstant human elements, which in the sects tended invariably to disintegration; she was governed by the same frail mortal pastors, who at times proved recreant to their sacred trust; yet in spite of it all, she stands to-day before the world in the same youth and beauty and vigor wherewith she was dowered when the Pentecostal fires were showered down upon the earth. She stands before the world to-day as she did in the ages that are past, the God-appointed teacher of all nations. Her doctrines bear upon them the impress of divine truth; her answers to all questions of faith and morals are definite, her decisions final. Vast multitudes may turn away from her as Pilate of old turned away from Christ, asking despairingly: "What is truth? " yet she repeats without faltering the solemn words of her Divine Founder: "For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice."{3}
This, therefore, is the moral miracle which shows that Christianity is divine. It is a miracle so palpable that no one, who is open to conviction, can help saying: "Truly, the hand of God is there." Hence we may well conclude with the celebrated dilemma of St. Augustine: "Either the religion of Jesus Christ has triumphed over every obstacle through miracles, and then we must acknowledge it to be divine; or else it was established without miracles, and then this conversion of the world without miracles was in itself the greatest of all miracles."
{1} What is said in the text is not intended as a denial of the fact that the world had been divinely prepared for the advent of Christ and for the reception of His message of salvation. The dispersion of the Jews among Gentile nations, the almost universal peace and the unification of the civilized world under Roman power, the disgust of the better class of people with the ever-increasing enormities of pagan corruption, as well as the general expectation of the advent of a Saviour, did much to facilitate the work which the Apostles were commissioned to accomplish. Yet this was a preparation only for the work of God, not for the work of man. It in some way enabled the Apostles to begin the work, not to carry it to a successful issue. Christ crucified was in very truth a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, and no power under heaven could reduce the world to His sway.
{2} This statement of Tertullian is said to be a rhetorical exaggeration, as, if we take it literally, it no doubt is; yet his main contention is perfectly correct, as appears to evidence from other contemporaneous testimony. Thus in the year 112, Pliny the younger, then governor of Bithynia, wrote to the Emperor Trajan: "The contagion of the Christian superstition is no longer confined to the towns; it has invaded the villages and the country, and has seized upon people of every age, every rank and sex. Our temples are almost entirely abandoned, and the ceremonies in honor of our gods utterly neglected." Letter 97. -- This rapid spread of the Christian religion is thus strikingly set forth by a modern historian: "Seventy years after the foundation of the first Gentile Church in Syrian Antioch, Pliny wrote to Trajan concerning the spread of Christianity through remote Bithynia; where in his judgment it threatened the stability of the old pagan cults of the province. Seventy years later still, the paschal controversy reveals the existence of a Christian federation of Churches, stretching from Lyons to Edessa, with its headquarters at Rome. Seventy years later again, the Emperor Decius declared he would sooner see a rival claimant to his throne spring up at Rome than a new bishop to fill the see there that was then vacant. And ere another seventy years had passed, the cross was attached to the Roman colours." Quoted by Batiffol, Primitive Catholicism, p. 403.
{3} John XVIII, 37.