rstanding the prophecies of the Old
Testament, clumsily simulating their fulfilment, and arrogating to
themselves the title of God. It was of course an advantage that the
"sacred legend" of Christianity was free from the repulsive elements in
other cults, which it taxed the ingenuity of a Julian to explain.

Moreover, historical criticism shows that the points in the story of
Jesus which played the greatest part in commending Christianity to a
generation asking for private salvation are those which are not
historic. The element of truth in much perverse criticism, arguing
that Jesus never existed, is that the Jesus of history is quite
different from the Lord assumed as the founder of Catholic
Christianity. The Church conquered the world by offering salvation
through a redeeming Lord. Jesus made no such offer: to him {79} the
Kingdom of God, the pearl of great price, was the natural inheritance
of men, if they would only take it. No supernatural change of nature,
but to turn round, abandon all that hindered, and go in the right
direction--go home--was the repentance which he required. Probably it
was not unique teaching: it is very hard to obey, and it makes no
spectacular demands. Its only claim to acceptance is its truth. It
did not conquer the world. Nor did Jesus--the Jesus of history--think
that it would do so. "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that
leadeth unto Life, and few there are that find it."

Thus the theory that Catholic Christianity succeeded because Jesus was
an historic person cannot be sustained.

Nor is there much more truth in the attribution of its success to the
influence of the personality of Jesus. No doubt it was the personality
of Jesus which influenced his immediate followers, made them regard him
as the Davidic Messiah or as "Son of Man," and rendered possible their
belief in his exaltation to the right hand of God. Without this belief
Christianity could never have come into existence; but once the belief
was established it became the foundation of the whole structure, and
the personality of Jesus was quite eclipsed by the supernatural value
attached to him. Not the men who had known Jesus, but those who had
not, converted the Roman Empire, and their gospel was that of the
Cross, Resurrection, and Parousia, not the Sermon on the Mount, or an
{80} ethical interpretation of the Parables, or a moral _imitatio
Christi_.

The true answer is that Catholic Christianity conqu