ingularly and impossibly
blasphemous if the narrative were the forgery which so much elaborate
modern criticism has wholly failed to prove that it is--"forthwith came
there out blood and water." Whether the water was due to some abnormal
pathological conditions caused by the dreadful complication of the
Saviour's sufferings, or whether it rather means that the pericardium
had been rent by the spear point, and that those who took down the body
observed some drops of its serum mingled with the blood, in either case
that lance thrust was sufficient to hush all the heretical assertions
that Jesus had only _seemed_ to die; and as it assured the soldiers, so
should it assure all who have doubted, that he, who on the third day
rose again, had in truth been crucified, dead, and buried, and that his
soul had passed into the unseen world.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] The disputed date of the Crucifixion of Jesus--long variously
placed between A.D. 29 and 33--is definitely fixed by many later
authorities at the year 30.

THE RISE AND SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY

A.D. 33

RENAN WISE NEWMAN

It is a favorite view of historians and critical students that
Jesus was born at a time when the world seemed especially prepared
for his birth. The correspondence between world conditions then and
the actual process of Christianity in its rise and early spread
appears to conform to evolutionary laws as regarded in the light of
modern interpretation.

In its origin Christianity is most intimately connected with
Judaism, the parent religion. The known world, however, in the time
of Jesus was largely under Roman dominion. This was true of the
land where Jesus was born. The Roman Empire was then comparatively
at peace, and it was the admonition of St. Paul that the first
Christians should maintain that peace. The wide sovereignty of Rome
gave the apostles of Christ access to different nations, many of
whom had become civilized under Roman influence. But pure
monotheism existed only among the Jews. All other nations had a
variety of gods and peculiar forms of worship. In most of the pagan
religions there were elements of truth and beauty, but they lacked
in ethical principles and in moral application to life. Most of
their priestcraft was a vulgar imposition upon the ignorance and
credulity of the common people. The prevailing philosophies--w