When the proconsul Saturninus said to the Scillitan Martyrs, 'We also are religious people, and our religion is simple,' one of the Christians replied, 'If you will g:rant me a quiet hearinj^, I will tell vou the mystery of simplicity ' {Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs [TS i. 2, 1891, p. 112] ; cf. 1 Co 27).
The number of Christians at the close of the 1st cent, is very uncertain. We read of a good many centres throughout the Empire ; but we know little about the size of each of these local churches. In some the numbers were probably small. In Pales- tine they were numerous (Ac 21-").
iff) The zeal and ability of the first missionaries were very great. We know the names of compara- tively few of them, but we know some of the results of their work. The extension of the Church in the 2nd cent, is proof of the good work done in the 1st. In accordance with Christ's directions (Mk 6^ ; cf. Lk 10^), these missionaries commonly worked in pairs (H. Latham, Pastor Pastorum, Cambridge, 1890, p. 29G f . ). St. Paul as a general rule had one companion, and probably seldom more ; and his ability in planning missions is conspicuous. He selected Roman colonies, where, as a Roman citizen, he would have rights, and where he would be likely to find Jews, and men of other religions, trading under the protection of Rome. A synjigogue was at first the usual starting-point for a Christian mission. But very soon the Jews became too hos- tile ; so far from listening to tlie preachers, they stirred up the heathen against them (T. R. Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, London, 1909, ch. vi.).
It is impossible to say which of the forces which characterized Christianity contributed most to its success : its preaching of the life, death, and resur- rection of Christ, its lofty monotheism, its hope of immortality, its doctrine of the forgiveness of sins,
its practical benevolence, its inward cohesion and unity. Each of these told, and we may be sure that their combined ett'ect was great.
6. Conflict between Jewish and Gentile ele- ments.— It is remarkable how soon this conflict in the Apostolic Church began. Not long after Chris- tianity was born, it was severed from the nation which gave it birth, and, since the final destruction of Jerusalem, it has only in rare cases found a secure hold on Jewish soil. But it is not a just statement of the case to say that the Gentile Church first stripped Judaism of everything, the Scriptures in- cluded, and then left it by the wayside half dead ; or that the daughter first robbed her mother, and then repudiated her. That is an inversion of the truth ; it was the mother who drove out the daugh- ter and then persistently blackened her character. As to the Scriptures, there has been no robbery, for both have possessed them. But the daughter has put them to far better account and has in- creased their value tenfold. Christianity did not come forward at first as a new religion aiming at oust- ing the Jews. Its Founder was the Jewish Messiah, the fulfilment of OT prophecies. It was the Jews who forced the opposition. The relation of Juda- ism to Christianity was, almost from the first, a hostile one. And, as it was the energetic Jew of Tarsus who led the first persecution of the Chris- tians, so it was the Apostle of the Gentiles wlio caused the final seitaration of the Church from the Synagogue. In the Fourth Gospel, ' the Jews' are the opponents of the Christ. In the Apocalypse, they are ' the synagogue of Satan ' (2^ 3^ ; cf. Did- ache, 8). Barnabas goes still further : the Jews have never been in covenant with God (iv. 6-9, xiv. 1) ; the Jews are the sinners (xii. 10). Judaism is obsolete : the Christian Church has taken its place and succeeded to all its privileges. Hence the lofty enthusiasm of the first Christians, whose language often assumes a rhythmic strain when the Church is spoken of (Eph 4^ Col V\ 1 Ti 3^5, He 122-i, 1 P 29, Mt 16"*). It was through the Christian Church that God filled the world with His Spirit ; to it belonged the glorious future and the final triumph ; for by it the religion of an exclusive nation had been transformed into a religion for the whole world.
It was inevitable that the Jews should resent such claims on the part of Christians, and espe- cially of Gentile Christians ; and the resentment became furious hostility when they saw the rapid- ity witli which Christians made converts as com- pared with their own slowness in making proselytes here and there. Until the Maccabtean princes used force, not many had been made. Since then, religious asjiirations had combined with interested motives to bring adherents to Judaism, and it was from these more serious proselytes that the Christian missionaries obtained much lielp. Under their roof both Jews and Gentiles could meet to hear the word of God (Ac 18''). Christianity could oHer to a dissatisfied and earnest pagan all that Judaism could offer and a great deal more. Such inquirers after truth now ceased to seek admission to the Synagogue and joined the Church, and tlie downfall of Jerusalem accelerated this change. The Jewish war of A.D. 66-70 was regarded by the Christians as a judgment for the murder of the Messiah, and also for the more recent murder in 62 of the Messiah's brother, James the Just. That catastrophe destroyed both the centre of Jew- ish worship and also tlie Jews themselves as a nation. The loss of the Temple was to some extent mitigated by the system of synagogues, which had long been established. But that destruction, both in its immediate eflect and in its far-reaching con- sequences, marks a crisis which has few parallels in history. Christianity felt both. The destruction