presumptuous prejudice that I read Baur and his disciples with wonder and admiration at their industry, sagacity, ingenuity; but without conviction. It seems to me that with them instead of the theory being the result of diligent and acute investigation, the theory is first made, and then the inferences or arguments sought out, discerned, or imagined, and wrought up with infinite skill to establish the foregone conclusion; at the same time with a contemptuous disregard or utter obtuseness to the difficulties of their own system. Their criticism will rarely bear criticism. On one special point, discussed by writers of another character-the second imprisonment of St. Paul-I have added a note. I have read a very able paper (in the Home and Foreign Review '), impugning my views (which are acknowledged to be those of most learned men of the day) on the connection of Christianity and what I have called Orientalism. Possibly some of my statements may have been somewhat too broad; but I have the satisfaction of finding that very recently that most distinguished Orientalist, M. Lassen, has given his sanction to the same views. The great difficulty seems to be as regards Buddhism. But of the ascetic and monastic institutions of Buddhism, so undeniably analogous to those of Christianity, the antiquity as well as the existence is incontestable. Yet their principle of estrangement from the world seems almost irreconcilable with the theory of Buddhism which has been wrought out by the later Orientalists, and the sum of which has been so well and so clearly expounded in the volume of M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. III.-Influence of the more imaginative incidents of the early Evangelic History on the Mainte- nance and Propagation of the Religion HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. Introduction State and various forms of Pagan Religion, and of Philosophy. Augustus THE reign of Augustus Cæsar is the most remarkable epoch in the history of mankind. For the first Era of time, a large part of the families, tribes, and Cæsar. nations, into which the human race had gradually separated, were united under a vast, uniform, and apparently permanent, social system. The older Asiatic empires had, in general, owed their rise to the ability and success of some adventurous conqueror; and, when the masterhand was withdrawn, fell asunder; or were swept away to make room for some new kingdom or dynasty, which sprang up with equal rapidity, and in its turn experienced the same fate. The Grecian monarchy established by Alexander, as though it shared in the Asiatic principle of vast and sudden growth and as rapid decay, broke up at his death into several conflicting kingdoms; yet survived in its influence, and united, in some degree, Western Asia, Egypt, and Greece into one political system, in which the Greek language and manners predominated. But the monarchy of Rome was founded on principles as yet unknown; the kingdoms, which were won by the most unjustifiable aggression, were, for VOL. I. B 2 ROMAN CIVILISATION. BOOK 1. the most part, governed with a judicious union of firmness and conciliation, in which the conscious strength of irresistible power was tempered with the wisest respect to national usages. The Romans conquered like savages, but ruled like philosophic statesmen.a Till, from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, from the shores of Britain, and the borders of the German forests, to the sands of the African Desert, the whole Western world was consolidated into one great commonwealth, united by the bonds of law and government, by facilities of communication and commerce, and by the general dissemination of the Greek and Latin languages. For civilisation followed in the train of Roman conRoman Civil- quest: the ferocity of her martial temperament isation. seemed to have spent itself in the civil wars: the lava flood of her ambition had cooled; and wherever it had spread, a rich and luxuriant vegetation broke forth. At least down to the time of the Antonines, though occasionally disturbed by the contests which arose on the change of dynasties, the rapid progress of improvement was by no means retarded. Diverging from Rome as a centre, magnificent. and commodious roads connected the most remote countries; the free navigation of the Mediterranean united the most flourishing cities of the empire; the military colonies had disseminated the language and manners of the South in the most distant regions; the wealth and population of the African and Asiatic provinces had steadily increased; while, amid the forests of Gaul, the morasses of Britain, the sierras of Spain, flourishing cities arose; and the arts, the On the capture of a city, promiscuous massacre was the general order, which descended even to brute animals, until a certain signal. Polyb. x. 15. As to the latter point, I mean, of course, the general policy, not the local tyranny, which was often so capriciously, so blindly, so insolently exercised by the individual provincial governor. |
