Duchesne: Early History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2

Chapter I

The Roman Empire, the Home of Christianity

The Mediterranean and the ancient world. The Roman Empire and its neighbours. The Jewish people and Jewish religion. The Roman provinces and municipal organization. Manners and customs, ideas, religion, mysteries, oriental cults. Preparation for the Gospel.

At the moment when Christianity came into the world, the Roman Empire was established in peace throughout all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. It coincided almost exactly with what is now the continent of Europe, but was more isolated. The very existence of America was still unsuspected, and the great masses in China, India, and the interior of Africa were as ignorant of the Mediterranean as the people on the shores of that sea were of them. It was indeed possible to communicate with those almost fabulous regions by the Nile, or by the gulfs on either side of the Arabian peninsula, which open into the Indian Sea: it was in fact along these highways of the world that the empires of Egypt, Assyria, Chaldea, and Susiana had flourished from remote antiquity. But, notwithstanding their geographical situation, so apparently favourable for communication with distant lands, these states seem always to have been practically closed towards the east Their victorious and civilizing expansion was towards the Mediterranean: and on that side they finally

2 ROMAN EMPIRE, HOME OF CHRISTIANITY [chl

came into conflict with other younger and stronger nations, destined to stop their farther development and history, and to replace them in the political government of western Asia.

In the 6th century before the Christian era, the Nile and the Euphrates were both under the dominion of the Persians, an enterprising race, whose conquests extended to the iEgean and the Danube on the west, and on the east to the Indus. Two hundred years later, Alexander broke up this short-lived empire, and brought the East into subjection to Greece. This political settlement, which he intended to crown his magnificent enterprises, proved indeed of very short duration. But the Macedonian conquest of Persia remains notable as bringing to the East the spirit of Hellenism. Alexander launched these countries, which possessed an ancient and vigorous civilization of their own, on a course destined to lead them to a fate quite different from that of his own empire. It is true that Iran, carrying with it its former vassals on the Tigris and the…