FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   636   637   638   639   640   641   642   643   644   645   646   647   648   649   650   651   652   653   654   655   656   657   658   659   660  
661   662   >>  
ilitated those of Christianity. In the second chapter of this work we have attempted to explain in what manner the most civilized provinces of Europe, Asia, and Africa were united under the dominion of one sovereign, and gradually connected by the most intimate ties of laws, of manners, and of language. The Jews of Palestine, who had fondly expected a temporal deliverer, gave so cold a reception to the miracles of the divine prophet, that it was found unnecessary to publish, or at least to preserve, any Hebrew gospel. [152] The authentic histories of the actions of Christ were composed in the Greek language, at a considerable distance from Jerusalem, and after the Gentile converts were grown extremely numerous. [153] As soon as those histories were translated into the Latin tongue, they were perfectly intelligible to all the subjects of Rome, excepting only to the peasants of Syria and Egypt, for whose benefit particular versions were afterwards made. The public highways, which had been constructed for the use of the legions, opened an easy passage for the Christian missionaries from Damascus to Corinth, and from Italy to the extremity of Spain or Britain; nor did those spiritual conquerors encounter any of the obstacles which usually retard or prevent the introduction of a foreign religion into a distant country. There is the strongest reason to believe, that before the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine, the faith of Christ had been preached in every province, and in all the great cities of the empire; but the foundation of the several congregations, the numbers of the faithful who composed them, and their proportion to the unbelieving multitude, are now buried in obscurity, or disguised by fiction and declamation. Such imperfect circumstances, however, as have reached our knowledge concerning the increase of the Christian name in Asia and Greece, in Egypt, in Italy, and in the West, we shall now proceed to relate, without neglecting the real or imaginary acquisitions which lay beyond the frontiers of the Roman empire. [Footnote 152: The modern critics are not disposed to believe what the fathers almost unanimously assert, that St. Matthew composed a Hebrew gospel, of which only the Greek translation is extant. It seems, however, dangerous to reject their testimony. * Note: Strong reasons appear to confirm this testimony. Papias, contemporary of the Apostle St. John, says positively that Matthew had written the disc
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   636   637   638   639   640   641   642   643   644   645   646   647   648   649   650   651   652   653   654   655   656   657   658   659   660  
661   662   >>  



Top keywords:
composed
 

Hebrew

 
gospel
 

histories

 
Christ
 

testimony

 

Matthew

 
empire
 

Christian

 

language


buried
 

chapter

 

unbelieving

 

proportion

 

multitude

 
disguised
 

reached

 
knowledge
 
circumstances
 

imperfect


faithful

 

fiction

 

declamation

 

obscurity

 

reason

 

reigns

 

Diocletian

 

strongest

 

attempted

 

religion


distant
 

country

 

Constantine

 
foundation
 

congregations

 

cities

 

preached

 

province

 
numbers
 
dangerous

reject

 

ilitated

 
Christianity
 

translation

 

extant

 

Strong

 

reasons

 

positively

 

written

 

Apostle