n its universal diffusion before
Christianity needed a medium of international communication. The New
Testament was written in Greek, and, wherever the apostles of
Christianity traveled, they were able to make themselves understood in
this language.

76. The turn of the Romans came next to obtain possession of the
world. Originally a small clan in the neighborhood of the city from
which they derived their name, they gradually extended and strengthened
themselves and acquired such skill in the arts of war and government
that they became irresistible conquerors and marched forth in every
direction to make themselves masters of the globe. They subdued Greece
itself and, flowing eastward, seized upon the countries which Alexander
and his successors had ruled. The whole known world, indeed, became
theirs from the Straits of Gibraltar to the utmost East. They did not
possess the genius or geniality of the Greeks; their qualities were
strength and justice; and their arts were not those of the poet and the
thinker, but those of the soldier and the judge. They broke down the
divisions between the tribes of men and compelled them to be friendly
toward each other, because they were all alike prostrate beneath one
iron rule. They pierced the countries with roads, which connected them
with Rome and were such solid triumphs of engineering skill that some
of them remain to this day. Along these highways the message of the
gospel ran. Thus the Romans also proved to be pioneers for
Christianity, for their authority in so many countries afforded to its
first publishers facility of movement and protection from the arbitrary
justice of local tribunals.

77. Meanwhile the third nation of antiquity had also completed its
conquest of the world. Not by force of arms did the Jews diffuse
themselves, as the Greeks and Romans had done. For centuries, indeed,
they had dreamed of the coming of a warlike hero, whose prowess should
outshine that of the most celebrated Gentile conquerors. But he never
came: and their occupation of the centers of civilization had to take
place in a more silent way.

There is no change in the habits of any nation more striking than that
which passed over the Jewish race in that interval of four centuries
between Malachi and Matthew of which we have no record in the sacred
Scriptures. In the Old Testament we see the Jews pent within the
narrow limits of Palestine, engaged mainly in agricultural purs