The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) đź“•
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
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because it bore no fruit, although it was not the season of fruit—an action
as rational as that of Xerxes, who flogged the sea. He retorted to those
who accused him of breaking the Sabbath that he was above the Sabbath.
It is evident that a man who talked in such a manner—who believed that
it was in his power to abrogate the laws of the land, to forgive sins, to
bestow eternal happiness upon his friends, and to send all those who
differed from him to everlasting flames—would lay himself open to a
charge of blasphemy, and it is also evident that the “generation of vipers”
would not hesitate to take advantage of the circumstance. But whatever
share personal enmity might have had in the charges that were made
against him, he was lawfully condemned according to Bible law. He
declared in open court that they would see him descending in the clouds
at the right hand of the power of God. The High Priest tore his robes in
horror; false prophecy and blasphemy had been uttered to his face.
After the execution of Jesus his disciples did not return to Galilee: they
waited at Jerusalem for his second coming. They believed that he had
died as a human sacrifice for the sins of the people, and that he would
speedily return with an army of angels to establish the kingdom of God
on earth. Already in his lifetime these simple creatures had begun to
dispute about the dignities which they should hold at court, and Jesus,
who was not less simple than themselves, had promised that they should
sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. He had assured
them again and again, in the most positive language, that this event would
take place in their own lifetime. “Verily, verily,” he said, “there are some
standing here who shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man
coming in his kingdom.” They therefore remained at Jerusalem and
scrupulously followed his commands. They established a community of
goods, or at least gave away their superfluities to the poorer members of
the Church, and had charitable arrangements for relieving the sick. They
admitted proselytes with the ceremony of baptism. At the evening repast
which they held together they broke bread and drank wine in a certain
solemn manner, as Jesus had been wont to do, and as they especially
remembered he did at the Last Supper. But in all respects they were
Jews, just as Jesus himself had been a Jew. They attended divine service
in the temple; they offered up the customary sacrifices; they kept the
Sabbath; they abstained from forbidden meats. They held merely the one
dogma that Jesus was the Messiah, and that he would return in power and
glory to judge the earth.
Jerusalem was frequented at the time of the pilgrimage by thousands of
Jews from the great cities of Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor.
These pilgrims were of a very different class from the fishermen of
Galilee. They were Jews in religion but they were scarcely Jews in
nationality. They were members of great and flourishing municipalities;
they enjoyed political liberty and civil rights. They prayed in Greek and
read the Bible in a Greek translation. Their doctrine was tolerant and
latitudinarian. At Alexandria there was a school of Jews who had
mingled the metaphysics of Plato with their own theology. Many of these
Greek Jews became converted, and it is to them that Jesus owes his
reputation, Christianity its existence. The Palestine Jews desired to
reserve the Gospel to the Jews. They had no taste or sympathy for the
Gentiles, from whom they lived entirely apart, and who were associated
in their minds with the abominations of idolatry, the payment of taxes,
and the persecution of Antiochus. But these same Gentiles, these poor
benighted Greeks and Romans, were the compatriots and fellow-citizens
of the Hellenic Jews, who therefore entertained more liberal ideas upon
the subject. Two parties accordingly arose—the conservative or Jewish
party, who would receive no converts except according to the custom of
the orthodox Jews in such cases, and the Greek party, who agitated for
complete freedom from the law of Moses. The latter were headed by
Paul, an enthusiastic and ambitious man who refused to place himself
under the rule of the twelve apostles, but claimed a special revelation. A
conference was held at Jerusalem, and a compromise was arranged to the
effect that pagan converts should not be subjected to the rite of
circumcision, but that they should abstain from pork and oysters and
should eat no animals which had not been killed by the knife.
But the compromise did not last. The Church diverged in discipline and
dogma more and more widely from its ancient form, till in the second
century the Christians of Judea, who had faithfully followed the customs
and tenets of the twelve apostles, were informed that they were heretics.
During that interval a new religion had arisen. Christianity had
conquered paganism, and paganism had corrupted Christianity. The
legends which belonged to Osiris and Apollo had been applied to the life
of Jesus. The single Deity of the Jews had been exchanged for the
Trinity, which the Egyptians had invented and which Plato had idealised
into a philosophic system. The man who had said “Why callest thou me
good? There is none good but one, that is God,” had now himself been
made a god—or the third part of one. The Hebrew element, however, had
not been entirely cast off. With some little inconsistency, the Jewish
sacred books were said to be inspired, and nearly all the injunctions
contained in them were disobeyed. It was heresy to deny that the Jews
were the chosen people, and it was heresy to assert that the Jews would
be saved.
The Christian religion was at first spread by Jews who, either as
missionaries or in the course of their ordinary avocations, made the
circuit of the Mediterranean world. In all large towns there was a Ghetto
or Jews´ quarter, in which the traveller was received by the people of his
own race. There was no regular clergy among the Jews, and it was their
custom to allow, and even to invite, the stranger to preach in their
synagogue. Doctrines were not strictly defined, and they listened without
anger, and perhaps with some hope, to the statement that Jesus of
Nazareth was the Messiah, and that he would shortly return to establish
his kingdom upon earth. But when these Christians began to preach that
the eating of pork was not a deadly sin, and that God was better pleased
with a sprinkle than a slash, they were speedily stigmatised as heretics,
and all the Jewries in the world were closed against them.
Those strange religious and commercial communities, those landless
colonies which an Oriental people had established all over the world,
from the Rhone and the Rhine to the Oxus and Jaxartes—which
corresponded regularly among themselves, and whose members
recognised each other, wherever they might be and in whatever garb, by
the solemn phrase, “Hear, Israel, there is one God!”—afforded a model
for the Christian churches of the early days. The primitive Christians did
not indeed live together in one quarter like the Jews, but they gathered
together for purposes of worship and administration in set places at
appointed times. They did not establish commercial relations with the
Christians in other towns, but they kept up an active social
correspondence, and hospitably entertained the foreign brother who
brought letters of introduction as credentials of his creed. Travelling,
though not always free from danger, was unobstructed in those days:
coasters sailed frequently from port to port, and the large towns were
connected by paved roads with a posting-house at every six-mile stage.
All inn-keepers spoke Greek: it was not necessary to learn Latin even in
order to reside at Rome.
And now we return to that magnificent city which was adorned with the
spoils of a hundred lands, into which streamed all the wealth, the energy,
and the ambition of East and West. Ostia-on-the-Sea, where the ancient
citizens had boiled their salt.was now a great port in which the grain from
Egypt and Carthage was stored up in huge buildings, and to which in the
summer and autumn came ships from all parts of the world. The road to
Rome was fifteen miles in length, and was lined with villas and with lofty
tombs. Outside the city, on the neighbouring hills, were gardens open to
the public; and from these hills were conducted streams, by subterranean
pipes, into the town, where they were trained to run like rivulets, making
everywhere a pleasant murmur, here and there reposing in artificial
grottoes or dancing as fountains in the air. The streets were narrow, and
the tall houses buried them in deep shade. They were lined with statues;
there was a population of marble men. Flowers glittered on roofs and
balconies. Vast palaces of green and white and golden tinted marble
were surrounded by venerable trees. The Via Sacra was the Regent Street
of Rome, and was bordered with stalls where the silks and spices of the
East, the wool of Spain, the glass wares of Alexandria, the smoked fish of
the Black Sea, the wines of the Greek isles, Cretan apples, Alpine cheese,
the oysters of Britain, and the veined wood of the Atlas were exposed for
sale. In that splendid thoroughfare a hundred languages might be heard at
once, and as many costumes were displayed as if the universe had been
invited to a fancy-dress ball. Sometimes a squadron of the Imperial
Guard would ride by—flaxen-haired, blue-eyed Germans covered with
shining steel. Then a procession of pale-faces, shaven Egyptian priests,
bearing a statue of Isis and singing melancholy hymns. A Greek
philosopher would next pass along with abstracted eyes and ragged cloak,
followed by a boy with a pile of books. Men from the East might be seen
with white turbans and flowing robes, or in sheep-skin mantles with high
black caps; and perhaps beside them a tattooed Briton gaping at the
shops. Then would come a palanquin with curtains half drawn, carried
along at a swinging pace by sturdy Cappadocian slaves, and within it the
fashionable lady with supercilious, half-closed eyes, holding a crystal ball
between her hands to keep them cool. Next a senator in white and purple
robe, receiving as he walked along the greetings and kisses of his friends
and clients, not always of the cleanest kind.
So crowded were the streets that carriages were not allowed to pass
through them in the day-time. The only vehicles that appeared were the
carts employed in the public works; and as they came rolling and grinding
along, bearing huge beams and blocks of stone, the driver cracked his
whip and pushed people against the wall, and there was much squeezing
and confusion, during which pickpockets, elegantly dressed, their hands
covered with rings, were busy at their work, pretending to assist the ladies
in the crowd. People from the country passed towards the market, their
mules or asses laden with panniers in which purple grapes and golden
fruits were piled up in profusion, and refreshed the eye, which was
dazzled by the stony glare. Hawkers went about offering matches in
exchange for broken glass, and the keepers of the cook-shops called out
in cheerful tones, “Smoking sausages!” “Sweet boiled peas!” “ Honey
wine, O honey wine!” And then there was the crowd itself—the bright-eyed, dark-browed Roman people, who played in the shade at dice or
mora like the old Egyptians; who lounged through the temples, which
were also the museums, to look at the curiosities; or who stood in groups
reading the advertisements on the walls, and the programmes which
announced that on such and such a day
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