The Environment of Early Christianity

THE ENVIRONMENT OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY

Chapter I
Introductory

‘He (Messiah) is the end rather than the product of prior history; does not so much get meaning from it as give meaning to it’ – Fairbairn, Christ in Modern Theology, p. 373

The purpose of this book is not to inquire into the nature and success of Christianity, but to survey the ancient world in which Christianity was first planted, reviewing the conditions which would favor or retard the spread and achievements of the three great peoples to whom the Gospel was first offered. We shall be convinced both of the need and the preparedness of this old world for the Evangel. We shall see that, as God makes no mistakes in history, Christianity came indeed ‘in the fullness of the time,’ and that the Graeco-Roman world was socially, politically, linguistically, morally and religiously in a wonderful state of preparation for the Kingdom.

We cannot estimate aright the history of Christianity if we are ignorant of its antecedents, nor can we appreciate its success if we overlook the difficulties it had to encounter.

Two extreme views about the condition of the ancient world are prevalent. First, some – e.g. B. Bauer and J. A. Farrer- represent the ancient world as producing Christianity automatically. Christianity is merely a result of evolution and human progress. It is simply the juxtaposition of elements already to hand without supernatural intervention. The founders of the new faith were astute enough to put some good old things together to make a brand new article. The united ideals of Jew, Greek, and Roman gave to the world Christianity. This distorted view contains a partial truth which deserves attention. The same God who planned the Gospel prepared the soil. Men were His servants and instruments then as now, whether conscious of it or not. The Gospel could not come without antecedents, and could not succeed if men’s hearts were not ready to receive it.

Others-and these the majority-would have it that Christianity is wholly new and in absolute antithesis to the world in which it appeared. The ancient world labored and brought forth nothing: the only contribution it made to the Gospel was entirely negative – dire need. Everything excellent came only with the Christian era, God having given the ancient peoples over to their own carnal hearts. These scholars see only the vices and immoralities of the worst classes of pre-Christian society- such classes as still survive in our Christian civilisation. This picture of the ancient world is painted exclusively in the dark colors of the plays of Plautus, the satires of Juvenal, the unworthy verses of Ovid and Martial, the inanities of Petronius, the bitterness of Tacitus, and the mystic sensuality of Apuleius. The worst side of antiquity is deliberately compared with the best side of Christianity. Moral monstrosities like a Caligula or a Nero are placed beside a John or a Paul. The fact is overlooked that the same God was working in human history before, as after, the Christian era, revealing Himself as men felt their need of Him and were able to comprehend Him. The best method of magnifying Christianity is not the belittling of Heathenism. To secure the right perspective Christianity must be viewed not only in contrast but also in contact with its environment.

To appreciate Christianity or Paganism we must approach them with an open mind, if not with sympathy. We should contrast the ideals of Paganism with those of Christianity. We may admit that God is the God of the heathen as of the Christians without admitting that Christianity is only on a par with all its predecessors. We must remember, too, how easy it is, on the one hand, to over-estimate past epochs by reading ideas of our own period and religion into the records of the past; as also, on the other hand, to fail to do justice to old Gospels by unfamiliarity with their language. Thus out of scores of examples- Seneca’s thought that gifts given ‘in succor to infirmity, poverty, or shame, should be given silently, with no other witness than the giver and the recipient,’ is more familiar to us as ‘let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.’ Or ‘many are called but few chosen,’ is better known than ‘many are the wand-bearers but few of the mystae.’ It was at least as difficult for the pre-Christian world, as it is for us, to put away the gods which their fathers worshipped on the other side of the flood. Likewise the mere use of old expressions does not necessarily imply that those using them had not outgrown them. Many pagan institutions are to us strange, but they once represented the grasping of certain ideas by which society found a means of cohesion. Many old formulae seem empty, yet they were once the repositories of new thoughts and truths crystallized into expression so as not to be lost.

In our day we cannot dislocate history as was possible a generation ago. The idea of evolution and progress has too firmly laid hold of our minds. The unity of mankind and the unity of history are articles of faith. History is now viewed as an organism. The student cannot with impunity discover Christianity from the fabric of its age. To do so is to read history with a bias, and to disregard God’s patience in the task of educating humanity and drawing it to Himself. The Gospel of Jesus does not disdain the many evangels which gladdened men and brought joy, consolation, and spiritual support to thousands of the human race before the rise of our faith in history. God has in all ages been listening to the still sad music of humanity; He has been walking with and among men in their toil, error, and waywardness3, stretching out His hand in succor as men have in all ages stretched forth hands to God for help.

‘…Feeble hands and helpless Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God’s right hand in that darkness And are lifted up and helped.’

The human soul has always been the ‘lyre for the plectrum of the Parsolete.’ We, the heirs of all the ages, have entered upon the rich inheritance of the toils and tears, the victories and defeats, the experiments and fears of our predecessors.

‘Our fathers watered with their tears The sea of time whereon we sail’ Their voices were in all men’s ears
Who passed within their puissant hail… The suff’rers died – they left their pain: The pangs which tortured them remain’

We must therefore raise our hearts in gratitude to those who were hewers of wood and drawers of water for a period of enlightenment that they never saw and perhaps never dreamed of – to those who desired to see our day but whose eyes God closed. The history of man’s religion comes in ‘many portions and in many manners.’ The efforts of many generations – not unaided by God – prepared the way of the Lord.

The study of comparative religions has given rise to a degree of tolerance, and enabled us to appreciate God’s gradual unfolding of His purpose and His self-revelation to different ways of thinking. There is no violent caesura in history. All portions of mankind do not move forward with equal pace: the history of a period may reveal a retrograde movement. Evolution does not always connote progress. We must make allowance for the proneness to degeneration in human nature.4 But because we believe in God we believe His world has been, and is progressing toward the

‘…one far off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves.’

CHAPTER 2

THE NEW ERA BEGINNING WITH ALEXANDER THE GREAT:

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS (300 BC – 300 A.D.)

There are no violent breaks in history; yet it naturally falls into eras. Each epoch is connected with the preceding; it exhibits new phenomena or old phenomena in new prominence. As the mass of men do not think for themselves, history revolves largely around outstanding personalities. Never again have father and son appeared in two such great men as Philip and Alexander.

Philip, by adroitly taking advantage of Greek quarrels and lack of foresight, by flattery and bribery first secured his power at home and then entered Greece as arbiter of Greek wranglings and champion of the Delphian god. On the field of Chaeroneia (338 B.C.) in the same year his assassination thwarted the design.

Alexander, whom no one has better merited the title ‘Great’ became heir to Philip’s preparations and ambitions. In 336 B.C. he was chosen generalissimo at another conference of Corinth. After some successful northern campaigns and the ruthless razing of Thebes in 335, he set out in the spring of 334 with an army of Greeks and Macedonians against Persia. With astonishing rapidity he fought the battles of the Granicus, Issus, and Arbela, and conquered Asia Minor, Phoenicia, and Egypt, penetrating into Bactria, Sogdiana, and Northern India. Only the exhaustion of his troops and their refusal to advance farther arrested his course by the river Hyphasis. Death overtook the great conqueror at Babylon 323 B.C., before he had time to consolidate his dominions. But his work could not be entirely undone in the strife of the Diadochi and the conquests of the Roman Republic.

What did Alexander accomplish for humanity and for Christianity? Conquest, usually the synonym for Alexander, forms the least of his achievements. Briefly we may say that Alexander:

a) Shook the ancient world to its very foundations and did for it something like what Napoleon did for his and our age. Men like Alexander, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon render it impossible for mankind to loiter in the old ruts; they compel them to re-examine their dogmas, test their traditions, and ask whether society can still be held together by the accepted methods of cohesion. All great events, like the conquests of Alexander, the rise of the Roman Empire, the discovery of America, have given a new impetus to the spirit. Alexander compelled the old world to think afresh.

b) He also, like the Greeks before him and the Romans later, arrested the Oriental danger which threatened to swamp Western civilization. Greece was exhausted, and Rome had not yet grown to her might, so that, but for Alexander, Persia might have overwhelmed Greece and all that Greece stood for.

c) Alexander not only arrested the ‘Yellow peril’ and the Northern Barbarian peril of his day and protected Greek civilization, but he greatly extended Greek culture, opened an unbounded future for it, and inspired it with new life. He did not destroy the Orient, but made it easier for it to deliver its message, while he greatly facilitated the growth of the Western spirit. We who have sat at the feet of Hellas can better appreciate Alexander’s services to the Hellenes than they themselves.

d) Alexander commenced the task of reconciliation among the nations and brought East and West into those relations of interaction which have never since been broken, and which have benefited both. The Greeks regarded Alexander’s victories as an opportunity of wiping out old scores: they viewed the Orient as their spoil or as a field for their exploitations. Even Aristotle advised Alexander to behave toward the Greeks as a leader but toward the non-Greeks as a tyrant. But Alexander had larger thoughts than either Greek or Macedonian could appreciate: his object was not to avenge or to destroy. He introduced a novel feature into war in treating the conquered not as slaves without rights but as men. He offended his countrymen and the Greeks by blotting out the distinction between conquered and conquerors. As a means of amalgamation he tried the expedient of intermarriages, himself marrying Persian princesses; at Susa, in 325 B.C., 100 of his officers and 10,000 soldiers married Asiatic wives. He paved the way for a larger humanity, and made it easier for men to believe in the unity of mankind.… He inaugurated that comprehensive cosmopolitanism which reached its apogee in the Roman Empire.

CHAPTER 3

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NEW ERA
(300 B.C.-300 A.D.)

Change and Upheaval

This was an era of change and upheaval. The unexpected repeatedly happened. Events outstripped theory. Old things had passed away and all things had become new; old systems were gone, old prejudices swept away. It is difficult for us looking back through the long vista to estimate aright the perplexity of thoughtful men who lived in the empire of Alexander, who witnessed the rise and fall of the Greek kingdoms, the spread of Greek culture, the rise of imperial Rome, the collapse of the ancient faiths. Men were driven from their old moorings and had not yet become accustomed to the new order. They were cut loose from the city state and from Oriental despotism and thrown into an empire which was too large for the individual. New world centres arose. The average man was perplexed by the rapid march of history. In the social confusion and the fall of long-established systems there was much calculated to unsettle the firmest faith. Such transition periods are always fraught with difficulty and danger.

Striking Contrasts

The Graeco-Roman world presents the greatest contrasts and extremes. Every age may be so characterized, but this holds especially true of these centuries. Monotony had dropped out of life. The homogeneousness of nations was disturbed. The systems which had held men together in a certain equality were broken down, and undisciplined individualism had appeared on the scene. The old and the new were consorting. Some were gazing at the setting sun; others expectantly toward the rising sun. This age presents none of the monotony of the lethargic Orient nor the homogeneity of medievalism. Hence so many contrary and even contradictory statements have been made about it and supported by the citation of abundant authorities. There appears a juxtaposition of several worlds: the world of sensualism and luxury among the upper classes, as described by Juven, Tacitus, Petronius; that of despair and void but not without a ray of hope, as in the pages of Cicero, Seneca, and Persius; that of wholesome literary friendship exemplified by the Plinies, Cicero, and Plutarch; that of the fervent religious brotherhoods of which we get glimpses in ancient authors and inscriptions; that of the street-preacher and moral lecturer as seen in the better class of Cynics, in Dio Chrysostom, Musonius Rufus, Maximus of Tre; that of superstition reflected in the remains of books of magic, in tablets and inscriptions, and many references in Suetonius, Plutarch, Aristides, Lucian, and Philostratus; that of Nihilism of Lucretius; that of quiet resignation to the will of God, as in Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius; that of the great masses whose cares and joys have been brought to light in the papyri.

A Popularizing Age

This age was essentially superficial. It was noted for breadth rather than for depth:  it was not original, creative, or imaginative, but imitative and encyclopedic. Religion, philosophy, art, letters, were all popularized. The veneer of culture was widely spread but not always accompanied by its essence. The art of the age is not unworthy, but it does not exhibit the exquisite Periclean perfection, and it betrays a more plebeian taste. There was a widespread demand for objects of art, with a proportionate lowering of the standard. It was an age of art-collectors rather than of artists. The half-cultured Roman carried off things which he understood to be of value partly because they were prized by those whom he conquered. The conduct of Mummius was typically Roman and characteristic of the age when, having consigned Corinth to the flames, he stipulated with the shippers of its precious treasures that if these were lost or damaged on the way to Rome they should be replaced by others ‘equally good.’ Even the literature is not original. The glorious days of Greek literature lay behind; the Roman literature, not excepting the Ciceronian and Augustan periods, was a re-working of Greek materials and reproduction (of a high order) of Greek models. ‘The rich literary amateur, who should have been a Maecenas, became an author himself.’ In politics the masses had asserted themselves. They constituted a perpetual problem and menace to statesmen of the Republic, and were a large factor in setting up the Empire under which they were fed, petted, and amused. Philosophy was popularized as far as possible. Much of the highest thought of Plato had filtered down among the masses, and a smattering of philosophy was an essential part of an ordinary liberal education. The post-Aristotelian philosophies tended to become religious and to take their share in meeting the general demand for moral guidance. But religion above all else assumed a popular form. Philosophy was the only religion of the educated, and the masses were no longer interested in any state cult. Popular preachers and lecturers were in demand – an ancient Salvation Army. The people had recourse to the new gods brought in from the Orient. The Roman state was constantly compelled in religious matters to make concessions to popular demands in introducing more emotional and individual methods (e.g. supplications, lectisternia, ludi), and in gradually recognizing foreign cults to which the people were devoted. Even the strong hand of Rome governed by astutely yielding to the populace.

Its Modernness

This Graeco-Romanage must strike the student as very modern. In reading its records we often forget we are separated from these ancients by so many centuries. As evidence of this moderness we feel ourselves more at home in the era commencing with Alexander, and can more readily sympathize with the succeeding centuries than we can with medievalism. There is much of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle that seems intended for another order of things, whereas the philosophies that interpreted the world to the Graeco-Roman age – though less original and less interesting – deal with more familiar topics. Their problems – philosophical, religious, economic, social and political – touch us of a later era very closely.

The social habits are very modern: to travel for business, pleasure, or education was quite usual. The nouveau riches were as objectionable then as now. The international exchange of wares, manners, thought, and religion was, more especially in the Roman Empire, as active as at the present day. Facilities of communication were more abundant than at any time prior to the invention of steam and era of railway construction. From the second Punic war women became as prominent almost as in our suffragette age. Their virtues and weaknesses were much the same. They loved display and fine dresses; they were susceptible to flattery. Ovid tells how they came to be seen rather than to see: ‘spectatum veniunt: veniunt spectentur ut ipsae.’ The excavations at Pompeii show how ladies attempted to escape with their jewels and valuables, and have unearthed sad memorials of mother love. Programmes of amusements, especially of the amphitheater, were in regular use. Gossip and slander formed part of society’s daily food. There was the same reverence then as now, even among roués like Ovid, for the innocence of girlhood. Mariages de convenance were in vogue with similar results. Cultivated men were alarmed at a degraded popular taste as among ourselves, when an ephemeral musical comedy will draw a packed house for a whole season while an excellent cast of Shakespeare is little appreciated. So with the later Greeks and Romans mimes and farces and even coarser amusements ousted drama possessing any moral purpose. There were ‘star’ actors like Aesopus and Roscius, and, in Pompeii, Actius. Fashions also came and went. Shrews were not unknown, like Cicero’s wife Terentia, or his brother Quintus’s wife Pomponia. Complaints come to us of the intractableness of the gentler sex. The habits of sweethearts present no novelty: they scribbled on walls, used endearing epithets, prized keepsakes, became maddened with jealousy. Many were cruel as the Lesbia of Catullus. Social life (apart from political) was at least equally absorbing in the late Republic and in the Empire. The dinner hour was pushed later and later into the evening.

Comforts were generally more accessible in the Graeco-Roman age than until the past half-century. There were more accommodations for out-of-door life, and abundant lounging places. Public baths with an amazing equipment (sometimes with a library) are found in every town, however small. In Timgad one finds several public baths in a remarkable state of preservation. The public conveniences of Timgad are superior to those in some modern European cities. ‘Taking the cure’ at celebrated bathing places and natural springs was an ordinary occurrence; we have still ample evidence from places like Hammam R’Thra near the desert, Wiesbaden and Bath. As we read in the train, travelers could read and write on their journeys: the case of the Ethiopian eunuch is familiar. In the better houses there was a bathroom, and sometimes several. The hot-air system, re-discovered in America, was known to the Romans in the first century B.C. Dentistry was practiced: Cicero tells us incidentally of gold-filled teeth. ‘Every highly educated man at this (Cicero’s ) time owned a library and wished to have the latest book.’ Men went to their friends’ libraries to consult books, as Cicero to that of Lucullus at Tusculum. It was also an era of public libraries.

On the way from the modern museum in Timgad to the forum where stands on the left hand the Timgad ‘Carnegie’ library, with a large slab inscribed with the name of the donor and the cost. In large cities like Alexandria there were university libraries. Banking business was highly developed: one could deposit at interest; there were also current accounts with something like our check system. Letters of credit and bills of exchange were negotiated, so that a traveler was not obliged to carry much money on his person. ¹In such matters as transit, public health, police, water supply, engineering, building and so forth, Rome of the second century left off pretty much where the reign of Queen Victoria was to resume.  The modern city of Rome is obtaining its drinking water out of about three of the nine great aqueducts which ministered to the imperial city.  The hot-air system which warms the hotels of modern Europe and America was in general use in every comfortable villa of the first century A.D.  Education was more general and more accessible to the poor in A.D. 200 that in A.D. 1850.  The siege artillery employed by Trajan was as effective, probably as the cannon of Vauban’ (Stobart).

The vices of the age wear a modern garb: luxury, extravagance, selfishness, gambling, the mad rush to acquire wealth. Divorce was frightfully common in the upper classes. Idleness was the favourite occupation of the two extremes of society. There was a disinclination on the part of society men and women towards marriage, and race-suicide reached such proportions as to become a grave concern to statesmen. The restlessness and fever of our modern life invaded their lives, but they could plead more extenuating circumstances than we.

In many other details the records astonish us. Many of the papyri documents, if dates and names were changed, would read as if of yesterday. There were comic artists who anticipated Punch, and cartoonists. One has represented Nero as a butterfly driving the fiery steeds of the chariot of state. Men bet on their favourite horses. The Romans seem to have anticipated Pitman in shorthand. There was an imperial post, and there seem to have been abundant private postal systems, so that news traveled with astonishing rapidity. Among the Romans we find the precursor of our daily newspaper without the editorials, the acta diurnal, giving the latest news and gossip.

Not only in external and accidental things but in sentiment it hardly seems possible that we can be separated by so many centuries. These ancients experienced wants similar to ours, were disturbed by similar yearnings, and moved by similar joys and sorrows. The Hellenistic literature, but chiefly the Roman, often betrays a quite modern sentiment. The opening of Cicero’s De Legibus II, reveals a love of native place with its familiar seats and charming walks. The love of landscape and of nature was as pronounced among the Romans as among ourselves. No ancients took the same delight in flowers. The Roman could not rest in his domus aeterna if no kindly hand strewed violets or roses in spring. And in their small houses, as in Timgad, it is pathetic to see with what care they surrounded themselves with flowers. The enjoyment of nature, which became prominent in the Alexandrine poetry, is still more pronounced in Roman poetry, as in Virgil, Lucretius, Horace, and Catullus. ‘The passion of love… became a very powerful influence in actual life during the last years of the Republic and the early years of the Empire. It is in Latin literature that we are brought most near to the power of this passion in the ancient world. The appetite for friendship and companionship was keen.

It is in their sorrow that these ancients are most modern. The tombstones in the Ceramicus tell the same tales as those in our churchyards. We find in the heart of Asia Minor the rustic stonemason burning with warm human tears memorial letters into the cold stone. On not a few tombs the broken-hearted parents yearn for the patter of little feet, the widow longs for reunion, the dead plead for the sympathy and remembrance of the living. It is not the sorrow which is modern but the way in which it expresses itself. Men were no longer willing to seek the anodyne of their own grief in the common grief or welfare of the community. A more atomistic and personal way of looking at things had arisen: the individual heart clamored for what the individual heart had lost.

Education

Education was general; more so than in some Continental countries at the present day.  There were facilities for popular education in the Roman Empire to an extent unknown in our land till the Victorian era.  The papyri show us how common writing was even among ordinary folk.  Greek tutors, professors and private chaplains were in extraordinary demand.  The basis of Graeco-Roman education was Greek culture.  The Romans sent their sons to the University of Athens to finish their education.  The young Cicero studied there, and received from his father some of the letters which we read to day.  Horace was also a student at Athens.  Philo knew the city.  There philosophers of every school discussed their Weltanschauungen.  Philo says that Athens was to Greece what the pupil is to the eye or reason to the soul.  It was the mother of universities in Alexandria, Antioch, Tarsus, and elsewhere.  The Jews were alive to the necessity of Jewish education amid the power and fascination of Hellenism.  In every city alongside the synagogue they had their schools and libraries.

Teaching was a recognised, honourable, and-in contrast to our time-a lucrative profession.  It is quite common in the inscriptions of Asia Minor to read of teachers who, having amassed fortunes, bestow princely gifts on their native towns.  Academic titles like philosopher, doctor, sophist, analogous to our M.A. or D.D, were in vogue and often inscribed on tombstones.  Alexandria was the centre of learning in the Roman Empire:  it was not so much a teaching university as a seat of research.  The museum and library of some 700,000 volumes attracted scholars from all countries.  Though libraries were known from the days of Ashurbanipal (seventh century B.C.), it was only in the Roman period that they were established in every city of importance.  After the destruction of the Alexandrian library in the siege under Caesar, the library of the Serapeum came to have the foremost place there.  The library of Pergamum, founded by Attalus I. and enlarged by Eumenes II., of 200,000 rolls, was carried to Alexandria by Antony.  Pergamum and Alexandria created a demand for reading facilities; we may infer from Polybius that in the second century B.C. libraries were fairly common.  Asinius Pollio and Augustus inaugurated the public library system in Rome.  We have already mentioned the library of Timgad.  Besides, private collections were quite usual such as those of Cicero, Aemilius Paullus, and Lucullus.  In Herculaneum an Epicurean collection has been discovered.  Books were numerous and cheap because of the use of convenient writing material and the facilities of production by slave copyists.  The two favourite materials were papyrus and parchment or vellum, as distinguished from leather.  Parchment, according to Varro, owes its origin to the rivalry between the Egyptian and Attalid kings as regards their respective libraries.  It was first manufactured under Eumenes II., after Ptolemy had prohibited the export of papyrus.  Ostraca (potsherds) were used by the poorer folk in Egypt.  Wax notebooks were carried for ordinary use.  But the increasing numbers of literary slaves was the chief reason of the enormous spread of books.  One slave read and others wrote to his dictation.  The demand for books gave rise to book-selling as a separate trade.  ‘Atticus, the first person who is known to have undertaken the multiplication and sale of books on a large scale had numerous rivals.  Under Augustus at the latest, the book trade in Rome was a business by itself, and soon after in the provinces.

Universalism

 A very striking feature of this age was its ever-increasing universalism, beginning under Alexander and culminating in the Roman Empire. Various causes contributed toward cosmopolitanism.

(1) There was what we might call the moral necessity of a reaction. This arose partly from the disgust engendered by the long tyrannical rule of exclusivism. Men had missed the via media between a true nationalism and an indifference to national interests. Exclusivism had worked havoc in the Greek world; a more excellent way was now sought. In the Oriental world despotism, like Russian absolutism, rendered men insensible to patriotism.

There is another side to this moral necessity: God has so endowed the nations that each is the complement of the other, and only in co-operation can they truly forward the work of humanity. The ancient nations were left for a time each in its exclusive school to develop its particular aptitudes. Each worked, as it were, behind closed doors; then the doors of the workshops were thrown open and inspection invited. Nations began to compare notes, to teach their lessons, and to inquire into what others professed to teach. Life is many sided, and, for a rounded life, attention must be drawn to all its phases.

(2) The relative superiority of the peoples blended in the Graeco-Roman world. There were four competing civilisations—Orientalism, Judaism, Hellenism, Romanism, none of which could by itself claim an absolute empire over man, none combining completely the elements necessary for all. Had there been only one superior people among inferior peoples there would have resulted a universalism of uniformity; but these four types of mind being in competition, a universalism to which each contributed its best was inevitable.² An Illustration may be given from the British Empire.  When the British rule among a people like the aborigines of New Zealand, the latter, without literature or culture, produce no effect on the British settlers.  Anglo-Saxon civilisation spreads uniformly as at home.  But when peoples like the British, Brahmins, and Parsees live together they learn from and teach each other, and there results a new type which is neither British nor Indian but Eurasian.

(3) The conquests of Alexander and his liberal policy of reconciliation, inherited by the Diadochi and consummated by the Romans and by Christianity.

(4) Greek thought, especially post- Aristotelian (v. ch. vi.).

(5) The spread of the Greek language. Out of a babel of dialects arose a Koini or lingua franca, which became the medium of intercourse for all races (v. ch. viii.).

(6) Another—less potent—factor was the enormous bodies of Greek mercenaries taking service in foreign armies. They acted as a solvent of Greek nationalism, and as quasi-intermediaries between East and West. They learned tolerance in the ranks, and after their term of service many settled among alien populations.

(7) Commerce is one of the strongest international bonds, and in the post-Alexandrian world the facilities for commerce were multiplied. Colossal sums hoarded up by Oriental despots were released as productive wealth or as means of luxury which calls forth trading. Larger fields were opened for speculation. As nations come to know each other they wish to procure the comforts and luxuries of their neighbours. Soon luxuries become necessities. Before Japan was entered by the West she was indifferent to international trade: Western merchants have persuaded China and Japan that they need many things which they were once able to do without. Trade drove Jewish, Greek, Roman and Syrian merchants to settle among alien populations. ‘These merchants occupied themselves with the affairs of heaven as well as of earth.’ The spread of the Greek tongue, the ever larger political unities into which men were being fused, the ‘majesty of the Roman peace,’ Roman roads and bridges, the gradual extension of the jus gentium, gave an impetus to trade. Moreover, the trading peoples lived on the shores of the Mediterranean, which when cleared of pirates and ruled by one power became a safer highway of commerce than it has been up to the fourth decade of last century.

(8) Slaves and freedmen were among the most potent missionaries of cosmopolitanism and human brotherhood (See ch. iii., p. 54.)

(9) Religious brotherhoods and guilds. (See ch. iv., p. 9.)

(10) Cosmopolitanism reached its acme in the conquests of the Roman Republic and the administration of the Empire. The foundation of the Empire was a protest against the exclusivism and the all-Roman policy of the oligarchy. The whole world united into a brotherhood and under the rule of a single individual was the dream of Julius Caesar. The Roman Empire bestowed peace on a war- weary world, and energetically commenced the task of consolidation.

Intermixture of Races

Partly as a cause and partly as a consequence of universalism, there was an astonishing intermixture of populations, especially in the Empire. A homogeneous people was hardly to be found except in secluded regions. All races were daily touching shoulders. War, forcible deportations, the slave trade, commerce, the liberal policy of rulers contributed to this intermixture. Alexander inaugurated the scheme of establishing centres of amalgamation. As such his new foundations composed of Greeks, Macedonians, and Persians must be regarded, as truly as military colonies. Alexandria was the first of these centres for the nations and for East and West. Such an experiment was as difficult then as now, if we are to judge from the bloody street riots in Alexandria and Antioch. Corinth, after its foundation by Caesar 44 B.C., speedily fulfilled the same function. There were the veterans of Caesar, Hellenic elements from the surrounding districts, besides the ever-present Greek adventurers. The New Testament and inscriptions testify to an influential Jewish element; and the Oriental element was not small, judging from the vogue of Oriental worships.1³ The Acropolis was crowned with a temple of Aphrodite (Astarte), in whose service were one thousand female slaves. This intermixture was not confined to capital cities, trading and banking centres, commercial seaports, university towns; it extended to the provinces and the islands of the Aegean. Delos rose in prominence as Athens declined. In the second century B.C., before ships plied direct between the East and Italy, it was the stopping-place and distributing centre for wholesale merchants; it was also famous for its slave market where as many as 10,000 slaves were sold by auction daily. Deprived of its freedom after the Macedonian war and deserted by the Greek population, it was re-colonised by the Athenians and Romans who have left a wealth of inscriptions. Josephus cites a decree of the Delians exempting the Jews from military service, and such favours were never conferred on Jews unless under strong necessity. In the Mithridatic war Delos and the neighbouring islands were ravaged and 20,000 Italians slain. In 141 B.C., the Jews of Gortyna (in Crete) were numerous enough to secure from the consul Lucius the promise of protection (1 Mace. xv. 23). Cyprus was another blending-place, populated by Phoenicians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Romans and Jews. In the insurrection under Trajan the Jews are said to have massacred 240,000 Gentiles. In Cyrene, Josephus says, one-fourth of the population was Jewish. Many other examples of the blending of different races could be adduced. Under Mithridates 80,000 Roman residents in Asia are said to have been massacred. One of the Ptolemies deported 100,000 Jews to Libya. In the insurrection in Britain under Boadicea 70,000 Roman colonists perished.

Syncretism

As corollaries to cosmopolitanism we find syncretism—the bringing together of elements once thought irreconcilable—and eclecticism—the selection by the individual from every quarter of whatever he required for the practical needs of his own life. These two forces invaded every department—art, politics, culture, but chiefly philosophy, morality, and religion. Such conditions were inevitable after the collapse of exclusive systems, in the mixture of populations (such as may be found in the United States), through lively intercourse, and the demands of a practical and popularizing age, and as the result of the competing Weltanschauungen of one people eminent for religion, another for culture, and a third for power. The proconsul Gellius who invited the rival philosophers of Athens to come to terms, offering himself as arbiter, was typical of the age. Morality and religion were peculiarly syncretistic. ‘In the sphere of religion a sort of assimilative or encyclopedic frenzy was abroad.’ The conservative Jews did not escape; they were Greeks in almost everything but religion. There were frequent conversions from Heathenism to Judaism, and not a few from Judaism to Heathenism. The Judaeo-Greek literature of Alexandria blended East and West, acting as a solvent for both. Egypt has been termed by Kennedy ‘the religious clearing-house of the Hellenistic world.’ In the Diaspora the expansive tendency of Judaism gained the upper hand over the exclusive, until the destruction of Jerusalem and the rivalry of Christianity compelled Judaism to retreat within itself. The ‘God-fearing heathen were half heathen and half Jews, and mediated between both. The Greeks, though maintaining their intellectual and cultural supremacy, were influenced by their Roman conquerors, while they assimilated the religious thought of the East. The Romans were the greatest borrowers and adapters, their genius being of a mosaic order. Their religion was like Joseph’s coat. Oriental religions were pre-eminently syncretistic. Good fellowship was maintained among the gods of various nations, the gods keeping pace with every rapprochement among their worshippers.3 Alexander attempted neither to exterminate Oriental deities nor to compel his new subjects to acknowledge Greek deities. The conquered and the conquerors in the Greek kingdoms and the Roman Empire proceeded to identify their gods on the principle that their functions are the same, the names alone being different in different languages. The strong movement toward monotheism gave an impetus to this practice. The list of the names of the deities so assimilated or identified is a long one. Eclecticism, which was prevalent in every system of philosophy and in practically every writer, made its standard what is common to all men-the immediate consciousnss.4 After Aristotle no original system was forthcoming so that men fell back on those available to cull from them what they considered appropriate, and to form new schools with membra undique collata.5 Syncretism reached its apogee at the close of the second century A.D., and during the third.