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FIRST DIVISION.

TO THE TIME OF HADRIAN. FROM 1-117.

Joh. Laur. Moshemii Institutiones Historiae Christianae Majores, Saec. I. Helmst. 1739, 4. J. S. Semler's neue Versuche die Kirchenhistor. des ersten Jahrhunderts aufzuklären. Leipzig 1778, 8. (J. A. Starck's Geschichte der christlichen Kirche des ersten Jahrhunderts. Berlin and Leipzig 1779-80, 3 Bde. 8.

INTRODUCTION.

OF THE CONDITION OF THE WORLD, ESPECIALLY ITS RELIGIOUS AND MORAL STATE, AT THE TIME OF CHRIST'S BIRTH, AND DURING THE FIRST CENTURY.

I.

CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN NATIONS.

C. I. Nitzsch üb. den Religionsbegriff der Alten, in the theol. Studien und Kritiken, Bd. 1, S. 527 ff. 725 ff. F. V. Reinhard's Versuch über den Plan, den der Stifter der christl. Religion zum Besten der Menschhei tentwarf. Wittenberg 1781. 4te Aufl. 1798, 8. (Translated into English, and published at Andover 1831, 12mo.) A. Tholuck über das Wesen and den sittlichen Einfluss des Heidenthums, besonders unter den Griechen u. Römern, mit Hinsicht auf das Christenthum (in A. Neander's Denkwürdigkeiten aus der Geschichte des Christenthums und des christlichen Lebens, Bd. 1, Berlin 1823. [Translated in the American Biblical Repository for 1832, bv Professor Emerson.] Neander's Kirchengesch. I, I, 7 ff. Especially: Der Fall des Heidenthums von Dr. H. G. Tzschirner, herausg. v. M. C. W. Niedner. Bd. 1. (Leipzig 1829) S. 13. ff. [Leland's Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation.]

§ 8.

The Roman empire, in the first century, extended not only over the whole civilized world, but almost over the known world. Beyond it little was known besides the Germanic tribes in the north, and the Parthians in the east. In the western half of that great empire, the language and customs of the Romans had become prevalent; but in the eastern, Greek cultivation as

serted the superiority it had obtained since Alexander's conquests, and under the emperors penetrated more and more even into Rome. It is obvious, how much the union of so many nations under one government, and the general diffusion of the Greek language, must have favoured the principles of Christianity.

§ 9.

OF THE RELIGIOUS AND MORAL CHARACTER OF THE ANCIENT NATIONS IN GENERAL.

Polytheism cannot, from its very nature, be favourable to morality. Its deities can only be finite beings, and resembling man, because it separates the divinity into many parts. Every nation gives expression to its character, its virtues, and its vices, in the deities it worships; and therefore the divinity so disfigured, cannot lead men to a higher moral elevation. The heathen stand only in an external relation to their gods; and their entire religion is consequently nothing more than an external worship, which leaves untouched not only theological speculation, as long as it does not attack existing forms, but also moral sentiment. Human deities will be worshipped, propitiated, and reconciled, in the way of men; and for this purpose moral improvement is not needed so much as a kind of prudence. They cannot inspire respect and love, but fear only. Their worship is nothing more than a barter, in which man expects mercy, protection, and greater gifts, in exchange for demonstrations of respect and offerings. This general character of polytheism is found in all heathen religions at the time of Christ. A mythology partly immoral, sanctified many vices by the example of the gods. The

1 Cicero pro Archia, c. 10: Graeca leguntur in omnibus fere gentibus, Latina suis finibus, exiguis sane, continentur. How the Greek had in- ̧ corporated itself with the language of conversation among cultivated Romans, may be seen in Cicero's Letters to Atticus, and in Augustus's letters in Suetonius, &c. Claudius, c. 4. comp. Ovidii ars amandi, ii. 121, Dial. de oratoribus, c. 29. Juvenal. Satyr, iii. 58. xv. 110, vi. 185 ss. speaking of the Roman ladies ::

Nam quid rancidius, quam quod se non putat ulla
Formosam, nisi quae de Tusca Graecula facta est?
Hoc sermone pavent, hoc iram, gaudia, curas,
Hoc cuncta effundunt animi secreta.

worship of several deities consisted in immoral deeds. Thus, the worship of Bel in Babylon, of Amun in Thebes, of Aphrodite in Cyprus, Corinth, and many other places, elevated lewdness to the position of a religious service; and the worship of other deities excited, at least, sensuality in a high degree. In like manner human sacrifices were customary, in several places, as yearly expiations; but everywhere, on occasion of extraordinary threatening dangers, for the purpose of propitiating the enraged deities.3 Religious motives existed only to promote the exercise of the duties belonging to citizens; and whatever of a higher nature appears in the case of individual Greeks and Romans, was owing, not to the religion of the people, but to their better moral nature. In general, the feeling of man's dignity and rights was wanting, while in place of it was found nothing but a partial national conceit, joined to a profound contempt for every thing foreign, and propped up by religion, since every nation had but the expression of its own nationality in its deities. Hence the horrible treatment of man as a slave. When the national pride was humbled by subjugation and oppression, the people readily lost along with it every noble feeling of self-respect, and sank into slavish abjectness. Woman lost among the Greeks the re

1 Clemens Alex. Cohort. ad Gentes, cap. 2. Gentes, lib. v. Thluck as above, S. 171 ff. 2 Tholuck as above, S. 143 ff.

Arnobii disputatt. adv.

3 Tholuck, S. 221 ff. Octavian caused 300 men to be slaughtered on the altar of Caesar (Sueton. Oct. c. 15. Dio Cassius, 48, 14). Sextus Pompeius ordered that persons should be thrown into the sea as a sacrifice to Neptune (Dio Cassius, 48, 48). According to Porphyry, de abstin. carnis, ii. c. 56, human sacrifices ceased to be offered in different nations at the time of Hadrian; but even in his day (about 280 A.D.) a human victim was yearly offered to Jupiter Latialis in Rome. Lactantius (about 300) Divin. Institt. i. c. 21: Latialis Jupiter etiam nunc sanguine colitur humano. Comp. Lipsius de Amphith. c. 4. (Opp. iii. 1003,) van Dale de Oraculis Gentilium, p. 442. Lamb. Bos, Heidenreich, Pott ad 1 Cor. 4, 13.

Cicero de Legibus, ii. c. 7: Utiles esse autem opiniones has, quis neget, cum intelligat, quam multa firmentur jurejurando; quantae salutis sint foederum religiones; quam multos divini supplicii metus a scelere revocarit; quamque sancta sit societas civium inter ipsos, diis immortalibus interpositis tum judicibus, tum testibus.

As Cicero, de fin. ii. c. 25, judges of Epicurus and his philosophy. 6 Tholuck, S. 197 ff. Gladiators. As late as the time of Claudius, that emperor was obliged to forbid the exposing or putting to death sick slaves.

Seuton. in Claud. c. 25.

spect due to her, because of her political insignificance, since public virtue was deemed of the highest importance with that people.7 Among eastern nations, polygamy had the same effect to a much greater extent.

§ 10.

RELIGION AND MORALS OF THE GREEKS.

Histoire de la civilisation morale et religieuse des Grecs par P. van Limburg Brouwer, Tom. 8. Groeningen 1833-43, 8vo.

The Greek deities were ideal Greeks, whose sentiments and conduct were Grecian. By their will and example they exhorted to those virtues to which the Grecian character was disposed, or which were found necessary for the state and for social life. But so far were they from imaging forth a pure morality, or from exhibiting the national vices of the Greeks,1 that the mythology, even as it was recognised by the philosophers, was able, for the most part, to influence morality only in the way of injury. After the subjugation of Greece, when national honour, love of country, and patriotism, had ceased to be powerful motives, we find Greece in the condition of the deepest moral degradation.

7 Tholuck, S. 203 ff.

1 In opposition to Tholuck, in the work already quoted, who traces the corruption of religion and morality to Grecian art, see Fr. Jacobs über die Erziehung der Hellenen zur Sittlichkeit, in his vermischte Schriften, Th. 3. An intermediate course is taken by Dr C. Grüneisen über das Sittliche der bildenden Kunst bei den Griechen, in Illgen's Zeitschrift f. d. hist. Theologie, iii. ii. 1. But another aspect must not be overlooked. Though it be possible that so much elevation and dignity as is represented by some was reflected in the divine forms, yet they necessarily referred the beholder to their mythology, and the impression that so much immorality could be united with such external excellence must have been highly corrupting to the morals. Cf. Augustinus de Civ. Dei, iv. 31: Varro dicit etiam, antiquos Romanos plus quam annos centum et septuaginta deos sine simulacro coluisse. Quod si adhuc, inquit, mansisset, castius dii observarentur. Cujus sententiae suae testem adhibet inter caetera etiam gentem Judaeam, nec dubitat eum locum ita concludere, ut dicat, qui primi simulacra deorum populis posuerunt, eos civitatibus suis et metum dempsisse, et errorem addidisse.

2 Plato (de repub. ii.) wishes to banish the immoral mythology from his republic; Aristotle (Politic, vii. 8) proposes that the young at least should be excluded from witnessing immoral scenes.

Religion became with the people scarcely anything but an enjoyment of art, wanting too often in all that partakes of a moral spirit. Hence it was unable to elevate the deteriorated nation above their external state. How much the cultivation of the intellect and taste was preferred to morality, even in the flourishing times of Greece, is proved by the general estimation in which clever courtesans were held; while the rest of the female sex were, for the most part, neglected, as far as their spiritual culture was concerned.3 The love of boys, which was so general, and inspired so many poets, shows how art ministered even to unnatural vices. The mysteries were far from presenting a better esoteric religion than that of the people. They offered nothing but a secret mythology which attached itself to the popular religion,—a secret ritual to be practised in worshipping the gods, directions for the purification of the initiated, accompanied, it is true, by several moral precepts, but all for the purpose of making the deities peculiarly propitious to the initiated.

§ 11.

RELIGION AND MORALS OF THE ROMANS TO THE TIME OF AUGUSTUS.

Ch. D. Beck über den Einfluss der röm. Religion auf die Charakter des Volks und des Staats (prefixed to his translation of Ferguson's History of the Roman Republic, Bd. 3, Abth. 2, S. 5, ff.) Du polytheisme romain, Ouvrage posthume par Benj. Constant, Paris 1833. Die religion der Roemer aus den

Quellen dargestellt von J. A. Hartung, 2 Theile. Erlangen 1836. 8vo.

The religion of the Romans was of a more grave and moral character, although in it the Grecian element was mixed up with the Etrurian. We find the ancient Romans distinguished not only for their political but their domestic virtues, and for a chastity rarely found in the bosom of heathenism. As long as

3 Compare the circumscribing discussions of Fr. Jacobs (Beiträge zur Gesch. d. weibl. Geschlechts in Griechenland: 1. allgem. Ansicht der Ehe; 2. die hellen. Frauen ; 3. von. den Hetären), Vermischte Schriften, Thl. 3, S. 157.

* As Warburton (the Divine Legation of Moses, Lond. 1742. Translated into German by J. Chr. Schmidt, Frankf. u. Leipz. 1751. 3 Bde.), Thl. 1. Bd. 2., and many after him assume. On the other side see especially Chr. Aug. Lobeck Aglaophamus s. de theologiae mysticae Graecorum causis, libb. iii. T. i. Regiomontii, Pruss. 1829, 8.

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