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convinced many that these men were indeed men of God, and that their religion was the
truth. Thus the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. It was not by human
learning and eloquence that the Apostles converted men to God. On the contrary, they used
simple, homely, ordinary language (I Cor. ii. 1-5, 12, 13). And when, by the Holy Spirit's
inspiration, they wrote out the Gospel
(البِشارة) which
they had been preaching, or taught
converts by Epistles, they used a clear, unaffected style, the language of ordinary men
and women, so that readers might be able the more easily to understand God's mercy, love,
goodness, and wisdom, and to be embraced by that mercy and love and brought to salvation.
The Word
(كلام) of God is needed, not
by the learned only, but by all men, for their
guidance and enlightenment. There is no respect of persons with God, who is good to all
(Ps. cxlv. 9). Therefore it was in accordance with the highest wisdom that God's message
should be so written as to be understood by the unlearned as well as by the learned. For a
somewhat similar reason the great philosopher Plato, when he wrote the "Apology of
Socrates", used the ordinary conversational language of the time, in order that all
might understand it.
The doctrines of the Gospel afford no encouragement to anyone to gratify his sensual
passions, nor do they deceive men by telling them that the profession of Christianity will
save them from punishment here and hereafter, if they continue in their sins (Matt. i. 21;
John viii. 34; Rom. vi. 1, 2, 11, 15-23). The way of salvation was declared not to be a
broad road, with room in it for a man and his sins, but a narrow way, where sin had to be
abandoned by him who would walk therein (Matt. vii. 13,14). Christ and His Apostles taught
that sin was slavery to the devil, and offered to believers release from bad passions and
evil habits, calling upon them to abstain from fleshly lusts (i Pet. ii. 11, 12) and to be
faithful soldiers of Christ, ready to lay down their lives rather than return to idolatry
and
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the service of Satan. It was not only or principally among uncivilized people that the
Apostles laboured. They preached and made converts in Greece and Italy, then the most
highly civilized countries in the world, and God's grace was seen in turning to
righteousness some who had previously lived very wicked lives.
Even in the Apostles' days Christian congregations were gathered together in many of
the cities and towns of Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece, Macedonia, and Italy. At first,
as we have seen, most of the converts were made among the Jews, but soon the Gospel spread
to Gentiles also. Throughout a large part of the civilized world there were then to be
found Israelite traders and travellers. When these were converted, they were instrumental
in teaching others. Those Jews who rejected the Gospel were the first persecutors of the
Christians, but the heathen soon began to imitate them in this conduct. Yet soon after the
death of the Apostles the Gospel had spread to the most distant parts of the then known
world, by reason of the zeal, faith, patience, and love of the preachers and teachers who
followed them. At last the Roman emperors, fearing lest the worship of the heathen gods
and even the empire itself should be overthrown by the new doctrine, began most cruel
persecutions. The first persecution began under Nero, who is said to have put Peter and
Paul to death, besides burning many Christians alive,1 as lanterns to
illuminate his palace gardens at night. The Romans at that time were very irreligious, but
they adored the emperor as a god, and endeavoured in vain to make the Christians do so
too. The persecutors seized and confiscated the property of the Christians, and put
multitudes of them to death in the most barbarous ways. Some were thrown to wild beasts in
the amphitheatre at Rome, others were burnt alive, others tortured to death. Again and
again during nearly three hundred years did fierce persecution break out in all parts of
the great Roman empire,
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