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Evidences of Christianity by William Paley

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No evidence remains by which it can be proved that the Christians were
more numerous in Pontus and Bithynia than in other parts of the Roman
empire; nor has any reason been offered to show why they should be so.
Christianity did not begin in these countries, nor near them. I do not
know, therefore, that we ought to confine the description in Pliny's
letter to the state of Christianity in these provinces, even if no other
account of the same subject had come down to us; but, certainly, this
letter may fairly be applied in aid and confirmation of the
representations given of the general state of Christianity in the world,
by Christian writers of that and the next succeeding age.

Justin Martyr, who wrote about thirty years after Pliny, and one hundred
and six after the ascension, has these remarkable words: "There is not a
nation, either of Greek or barbarian, or of any other name, even of
those who wander in tribes, and live in tents, amongst whom prayers and
thanksgivings are not offered to the Father and Creator of the universe
by the name of the crucified Jesus." (Dial cum Tryph.) Tertullian, who
comes about fifty years after Justin, appeals to the governors of the
Roman empire in these terms: "We were but of yesterday, and we have
filled your cities, islands, towns, and boroughs, the camp, the senate,
and the forum. They (the heathen adversaries of Christianity) lament
that every sex, age, and condition, and persons of every rank also, are
converts to that name." (Tertull. Apol. c. 37.) I do allow that these
expressions are loose, and may be called declamatory. But even
declamation hath its bounds; this public boasting upon a subject which
must be known to every reader was not only useless but unnatural, unless
the truth of the case, in a considerable degree, corresponded with the
description; at least, unless it had been both true and notorious, that
great multitudes of Christians, of all ranks and orders, were to be
found in most parts of the Roman empire. The same Tertullian, in another
passage, by way of setting forth the extensive diffusion of
Christianity, enumerates as belonging to Christ, beside many other
countries, the "Moors and Gaetulians of Africa, the borders of Spain,
several nations of France, and parts of Britain inaccessible to the
Romans, the Sarmatians, Daci, Germans, and Scythians;" (Ad Jud. c. 7.)
and, which is more material than the extent of the institution, the
number of Christians in the several countries in which it prevailed is
thus expressed by him: "Although so great a multitude, that in almost
every city we form the greater part, we pass our time modestly and in
silence." (Ad Scap. c. iii.) A Clemens Alexandrinus, who preceded
Tertullian by a few years, introduced a comparison between the success
of Christianity and that of the most celebrated philosophical
institutions: "The philosophers were confined to Greece, and to their
particular retainers; but the doctrine of the Master of Christianity not
remain in Judea, as philosophy did in Greece, but is throughout the
whole world, in every nation, and village, and city, both of Greeks and
barbarians, converting both whole houses and separate individuals,
having already brought over to the truth not a few of the philosophers
themselves. If the Greek philosophy he prohibited, it immediately
vanishes; whereas, from the first preaching of our doctrine, kings and
tyrants, governors and presidents, with their whole train, and with the
populace on their side, have endeavoured with their whole might to
exterminate it, yet doth it flourish more and more." (Clem. AI. Strora.
lib. vi. ad fin.) Origen, who follows Tertullian at the distance of only
thirty years, delivers nearly the same account: "In every part of the
world," says he, "throughout all Greece, and in all other nations, there
are innumerable and immense multitudes, who, having left the laws of
their country, and those whom they esteemed gods, have given themselves
up to the law of Moses, and the religion of Christ: and this
not without the bitterest resentment from the idolaters, by whom they
were frequently put to torture, and sometimes to death: and it is
wonderful to observe how, in so short a time, the religion has
increased, amidst punishment and death, and every kind of torture."
(Orig. in Cels. lib. i.) In another passage, Origen draws the following
candid comparison between the state of Christianity in his time and the
condition of its more primitive ages: "By the good providence of God,
the Christian religion has so flourished and increased continually that
it is now preached freely without molestation, although there were a
thousand obstacles to the spreading of the doctrine of Jesus in the
world. But as it was the will of God that the Gentiles should have the
benefit of it, all the counsels of men against the Christians were
defeated: and by how much the more emperors and governors of provinces,
and the people everywhere strove to depress them, so much the more have
they increased and prevailed exceedingly." (Orig. cont. Cels. lib vii.)

It is well known that, within less than eighty years after this, the
Roman empire became Christian under Constantine: and it is probable that
Constantine declared himself on the side of the Christians because they
were the powerful party: for Arnobius, who wrote immediately before
Constantine's accession, speaks of "the whole world as filled with
Christ's doctrine, of its diffusion throughout all countries, of an
innumerable body of Christians in distant provinces, of the strange
revolution of opinion of men of the greatest genius,--orators,
grammarians, rhetoricians, lawyers, physicians having come over to the
institution, and that also in the face of threats, executions and
tortures." (Arnob. in Genres, 1. i. pp. 27, 9, 24, 42, 41. edit. Lug.
Bat. 1650.)

And not more than twenty years after Constantine's entire possession of
the empire, Julius Firmiens Maternus calls upon the emperors Constantius
and Constans to extirpate the relics of the ancient religion; the
reduced and fallen condition of which is described by our author in the
following words: "Licet adhue in quibusdam regionibus idololatriae
morientia palpitont membra; tamen in eo res est, ut a Christianis
omnibus terris pestiferum hoc malum funditus amputetur:" and in another
place, "Modicum tautum superest, ut legibus vestris--extincta
idololatriae pereat funesta contagio." (De Error. Profan. Relig. c. xxi.
p. 172, quoted by Lardner, vol. viii. p. 262.) It will not be thought
that we quote this writer in order to recommend his temper or his
judgment, but to show the comparative state of Christianity and of
Heathenism at this period. Fifty years afterwards, Jerome represents the
decline of Paganism, in language which conveys the same idea of its
approaching extinction: "Solitudinem patitur et in urbe gentilitas. Dii
quondam nationum, cum bubonibus et noctuis, in solis culminibus
remanserunt." (Jer. ad Lect. ep. 5, 7.) Jerome here indulges a triumph,
natural and allowable in a zealous friend of the cause, but which could
only be suggested to his mind by the consent and universality with which
he saw; the religion received. "But now," says he, "the passion and
resurrection of Christ are celebrated in the discourses and writings of
all nations. I need not mention Jews, Greeks, and Latins. The Indians,
Persians, Goths, and Egyptians philosophise, and firmly believe the
immortality of the soul, and future recompenses, which, before, the
greatest philosophers had denied, or doubted of, or perplexed with their
disputes. The fierceness of Thracians and Scythians is now softened by
the gentle sound of the Gospel; and everywhere Christ is all in all."
(Jer. ad Lect. ep. 8, ad Heliod.) Were, therefore, the motives of
Constantine's conversion ever so problematical, the easy establishment
of Christianity, and the ruin of Heathenism, under him and his immediate
successors, is of itself a proof of the progress which had made in the
preceding period. It may be added also, "that Maxentius, the rival of
Constantine, had shown himself friendly to the Christians. Therefore of
those who were contending for worldly power and empire, one actually
favoured and flattered them, and another may be suspected to have joined himself to them partly from consideration of interest: so considerable
were they become, under external disadvantages of all sorts." (Lardner,
vol. vii. p. 380.) This at least is certain, that, throughout the whole
transaction hitherto, the great seemed to follow, not to lead, the public
opinion.

It may help to convey to us some notion of the extent and progress of
Christianity, or rather of the character and quality of many early
Christians, of their learning and their labours, to notice the number of
Christian writers who flourished in these ages. Saint Jerome's catalogue
contains sixty-six writers within the first three centuries, and the
first six years of the fourth; and fifty-four between that time and his
own, viz. A. D. 392. Jerome introduces his catalogue with the following
just remonstrance:--"Let those who say the church has had no
philosophers, nor eloquent and learned men, observe who and what they
were who founded, established, and adorned it; let them cease to accuse
our faith of rusticity, and confess their mistake." (Jer. Prol. in Lib.
de Ser. Eccl.) Of these writers, several, as Justin, Irenaeus, Clement
of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Bardesanes, Hippolitus, Eusebius,
were voluminous writers. Christian writers abounded particularly about
the year 178. Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, founded a library in that
city, A.D. 212. Pamphilus, the friend of Origen, founded a library at
Cesarea, A.D. 294. Public defences were also set forth, by various
advocates of the religion, in the course of its first three centuries.
Within one hundred years after Christ's ascension, Quadratus and
Aristides, whose works, except some few fragments of the first, are
lost; and, about twenty years afterwards, Justin Martyr, whose works
remain, presented apologies for the Christian religion to the Roman
emperors; Quadratus and Aristides to Adrian, Justin to Antoninus Pins,
and a second to Marcus Antoninus. Melito, bishop of Sardis, and
Apollinaris, bishop of Hierapolis, and Miltiades, men of great
reputation, did the same to Marcus Antoninus, twenty years
afterwards; (Euseb. Hist. lib. iv. c. 26. See also Lardner, vol. ii. p.
666.) and ten years after this, Apollonius, who suffered martyrdom under
the emperor Commodus, composed an apology for his faith which he read in
the senate, and which was afterwards published. (Lardner, vol. ii. p.
687.) Fourteen years after the apology of Apollonius, Tertullian
addressed the work which now remains under that name to the governors of
provinces in the Roman empire; and, about the same time, Minucius Felix
composed a defence of the Christian religion, which is still extant;
and, shortly after the conclusion of this century, copious defences of
Christianity were published by Arnobius and Lactantius.





SECTION II.

REFLECTIONS UPON THE PRECEDING ACCOUNT.

In viewing the progress of Christianity, our first attention is due to
the number of converts at Jerusalem, immediately after its Founder's
death; because this success was a success at the time, and upon the
spot, when and where the chief part of the history had been transacted.

We are, in the next place, called upon to attend to the early
establishment of numerous Christian societies in Judea and Galilee;
which countries had been the scene of Christ's miracles and ministry,
and where the memory of what had passed, and the knowledge of what was
alleged, must have yet been fresh and certain.

We are, thirdly, invited to recollect the success of the apostles and of
their companions, at the several places to which they came, both within
and without Judea; because it was the credit given to original
witnesses, appealing for the truth of their accounts to what themselves
had seen and heard. The effect also of their preaching strongly confirms
the truth of what our history positively and circumstantially relates,
that they were able to exhibit to their hearers supernatural
attestations of their mission.

We are, lastly, to consider the subsequent growth and spread of the
religion, of which we receive successive intimations, and satisfactory,
though general and occasional, accounts, until its full and final
establishment.

In all these several stages, the history is without a parallel for it
must be observed, that we have not now been tracing the progress, and
describing the prevalency, of an opinion founded upon philosophical or
critical arguments, upon mere of reason, or the construction of ancient
writing; (of which are the several theories which have, at different
times, possession of the public mind in various departments of science and
literature; and of one or other of which kind are the tenets also which
divide the various sects of Christianity;) but that we speak of a
system, the very basis and postulatum of which was a supernatural
character ascribed to a particular person; of a doctrine, the truth
whereof depends entirely upon the truth of a matter of fact then recent.
"To establish a new religion, even amongst a few people, or in one
single nation, is a thing in itself exceedingly difficult. To reform
some corruptions which may have spread in a religion, or to make new
regulations in it, is not perhaps so hard, when the main and principal
part of that religion is preserved entire and unshaken; and yet this
very often cannot be accomplished without an extraordinary concurrence
of circumstances, and may be attempted a thousand times without success.
But to introduce a new faith, a new way of thinking and acting, and to
persuade many nations to quit the religion in which their ancestors have
lived and died, which had been delivered down to them from time
immemorial; to make them forsake and despise the deities which they had
been accustomed to reverence and worship; this is a work of still
greater difficulty." (Jortin's Dis. on the Christ. Rel. p. 107, 4th
edit.) The resistance of education, worldly policy, and superstition, is
almost invincible.

If men, in these days, be Christians in consequence of their education,
in submission to authority, or in compliance with fashion, let us
recollect that the very contrary of this, at the beginning, was the
case. The first race of Christians, as wall as millions who succeeded
them, became such in formal opposition to all these motives, to the
whole power and strength of this influence. Every argument, therefore,
and every instance, which sets forth the prejudice of education, and the
almost irresistible effects of that prejudice (and no persons are more
fond of expatiating upon this subject than deistical writers), in fact
confirms the evidence of Christianity.

But, in order to judge of the argument which is drawn from the early
propagation of Christianity, I know no fairer way of proceeding than to
compare what we have seen on the subject with the success of Christian
missions in modern ages. In the East India mission, supported by the
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, we hear sometimes of thirty,
sometimes of forty, being baptized in the course of a year, and these
principally children. Of converts properly so called, that is, of adults
voluntarily embracing Christianity, the number is extremely small.
"Notwithstanding the labour of missionaries for upwards of two hundred
years, and the establishments of different Christian nations who support
them, there are not twelve thousand Indian Christians, and those almost
entirely outcasts." (Sketches relating to the history, learning, and
manners of the Hindoos, p. 48; quoted by Dr. Robertson, Hist. Dis.
concerning Ancient India, p. 236.)

I lament as much as any man the little progress which Christianity has
made in these countries, and the inconsiderable effect that has followed
the labours of its missionaries; but I see in it a strong proof of the
Divine origin of the religion. What had the apostles to assist them in
propagating Christianity which the missionaries have not? If piety and
zeal had been sufficient, I doubt not but that our missionaries possess
these qualities in a high degree: for nothing except piety and zeal
could engage them in the undertaking. If sanctity of life and manners
was the allurement, the conduct of these men is unblameable. If the
advantage of education and learning be looked to, there is not one of
the modern missionaries who is not, in this respect, superior to all the
apostles; and that not only absolutely, but, what is of more importance,
relatively, in comparison, that is, with those amongst whom they
exercise their office. If the intrinsic excellency of the religion, the
perfection of its morality, the purity of its precepts, the eloquence,
or tenderness, or sublimity, of various parts of its writings, were the
recommendations by which it made its way, these remain the same. If the
character and circumstances under which the preachers were introduced to
the countries in which they taught be accounted of importance, this
advantage is all on the side of the modern missionaries. They come from
a country and a people to which the Indian world look up with sentiments
of deference. The apostles came forth amongst the Gentiles under no
other name than that of Jews, which was precisely the character they
despised and derided. If it be disgraceful in India to become a
Christian, it could not be much less so to be enrolled amongst those
"quos, per flagitia invisos, vulgus Christianos appellabat." If the
religion which they had to encounter be considered, the difference, I
apprehend, will not be great. The theology of both was nearly the same:
"what is supposed to be performed by the power of Jupiter, Neptune, of
Aeolus, of Mars, of Venus, according to the mythology of the West, is
ascribed, in the East, to the agency Agrio the god of fire, Varoon the
god of oceans, Vayoo god of wind, Cama the god of love." (Baghvat Gets,
p. 94, quoted by Dr. Robertson, Ind. Dis. p. 306.) The sacred rites of
the Western Polytheism were gay, festive, and licentious; the rites of
the public religion in the East partake of the same character, with a
more avowed indecency. "In every function performed in the pagodas, as
well as in every public procession, it is the office of these women
(i. e. of women prepared by the Brahmins for the purpose) to dance before
the idol, and to sing hymns in his praise; and it is difficult to say
whether they trespass most against decency by the gestures they exhibit,
or by the verses which they recite. The walls of the pagodas were
covered with paintings in a style no less indelicate." (Others of the
deities of the East are of an austere and gloomy character, to be
propitiated by victims, sometimes by human sacrifices, and by voluntary
torments of the most excruciating kind. Voyage de Gentil. vol. i. p.
244--260. Preface to the Code of Gentoo Laws, p. 57; quoted by Dr.
Robertson, p. 320.)

On both sides of the comparison, the popular religion had a strong
establishment. In ancient Greece and Rome it was strictly incorporated
with the state. The magistrate was the priest. The highest officers of
government bore the most distinguished part in the celebration of the
public rites. In India, a powerful and numerous caste possesses
exclusively the administration of the established worship; and are, of
consequence, devoted to its service, and attached to its interest. In
both, the prevailing mythology was destitute of any proper evidence: or
rather, in both, the origin of the tradition is run up into ages long
anterior to the existence of credible history, or of written language.
The Indian chronology computes eras by millions of years, and the life
of man by thousands "The Suffec Jogue, or age of purity, is said to
have lasted three million two hundred thousand years; and they hold that
the life of man was extended in that age to one hundred thousand years;
but there is a difference amongst the Indian writers of six millions of
years in the computation of this era." (Voyage de Gentil. vol. i. p.
244--260. Preface to the Code of Gentoo Laws, p. 57; quoted by Dr.
Robertson, p. 320.) and in these, or prior to these, is placed the
history of their divinities. In both, the established superstition held
the same place in the public opinion; that is to say, in both it was
credited by the bulk of the people, but by the learned and philosophical
part of the community either derided, or regarded by them as only fit to
be upholden for the sake of its political uses.*

_________

* "How absurd soever the articles of faith may be which superstition has
adopted, or how unhallowed the rites which it prescribes, the former are
received, in every age and country with unhesitating assent, by the
great body of the people, and the latter observed with scrupulous
exactness. In our reasonings concerning opinions and practices which
differ widely from our own, we are extremely apt to err. Having been
instructed ourselves in the principles of a religion worthy in every
respect of that Divine wisdom by which they were dictated, we frequently
express wonder at the credulity of nations, in embracing systems of
belief which appear to us so directly repugnant to right reason; and
sometimes suspect that tenets so wild and extravagant do not really gain
credit with them. But experience may satisfy us, that neither our wonder
nor suspicions are well founded. No article of the public religion was
called in question by those people of ancient Europe with whose history
we are best acquainted; and no practice which it enjoined appeared
improper to them. On the other hand, every opinion that tended to
diminish the reverence of men for the gods of their country, or to
alienate them from their worship, excited, among the Greeks and Romans,
that indignant zeal which is natural to every people attached to their
religion by a firm persuasion of its truth." Ind. Dis. p. 321. That the
learned Brahmins of the East are rational Theists, and secretly reject
the established theory, and contemn the rites that were founded upon
them, or rather consider them as contrivances to be supported for their
political uses, see Dr. Robertson's Ind. Dis. p. 324-334.
_________


Or if it should be allowed, that the ancient heathens believed in their
religion less generally than the present Indians do, I am far from
thinking that this circumstance would afford any facility to the work
of the apostles, above that of the modern missionaries. To me it
appears, and I think it material to be remarked, that a disbelief of the
established religion of their country has no tendency to dispose men for
the reception of another; but that, on the contrary, it generates a
settled contempt of all religious pretensions whatever. General
infidelity is the hardest soil which the propagators of a new religion
can have to work upon. Could a Methodist or Moravian promise himself a
better chance of success with a French esprit fort, who had been
accustomed to laugh at the popery of his country, than with a believing
Mahometan or Hindoo? Or are our modern unbelievers in Christianity, for
that reason, in danger of becoming Mahometans or Hindoos? It does not
appear that the Jews, who had a body of historical evidence to offer for
their religion, and who at that time undoubtedly entertained and held
forth the expectation of a future state, derived any great advantage, as
to the extension of their system, from the discredit into which the
popular religion had fallen with many of their heathen neighbours.

We have particularly directed our observations to the state and progress
of Christianity amongst the inhabitants of India: but the history of the
Christian mission in other countries, where the efficacy of the mission
is left solely to the conviction wrought by the preaching of strangers,
presents the same idea as the Indian mission does of the feebleness and
inadequacy of human means. About twenty-five years ago was published, in
England, a translation from the Dutch of a History of Greenland and a
relation of the mission for above thirty years carried on in that
country by the Unitas Fratrum, or Moravians. Every part of that relation
confirms the opinion we have stated. Nothing could surpass, or hardly
equal, the zeal and patience of the missionaries. Yet their historian,
in the conclusion of his narrative, could find place for no reflections
more encouraging than the following:--"A person that had known the
heathen, that had seen the little benefit from the great pains hitherto
taken with them, and considered that one after another had abandoned all
hopes of the conversion of these infidels (and some thought they would
never be converted, till they saw miracles wrought as in the apostles'
days, and this the Greenlanders expected and demanded of their
instructors); one that considered this, I say, would not so much wonder
at the past unfruitfulness of these young beginners, as at their
steadfast perseverance in the midst of nothing but distress,
difficulties, and impediments, internally and externally: and that they
never desponded of the conversion of those poor creatures amidst all
seeming impossibilities." (History of Greenland, vol. ii. p. 376.)

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