The limited area of early Christianity.

The cultural area in which Christianity arose, that of the Mediterranean Basin, was

merely one of the centres of contemporary civilization and embraced only a minority of

mankind. It is important that this fact be recognized if we are to see the history of the faith in

its true perspective. Since during the past four and a half centuries the Occident and its

culture have been progressively dominant throughout the globe, and since in connection with

it Christianity has had its world-wide spread, we are inclined to regard that condition as

normal. In view of the circumstance that during its first five centuries Christianity won the

professed allegiance of the Roman Empire, which then embraced the Occident, many have

thought of it as having at this early date conquered the world. This is entirely mistaken. East

of the Roman Empire was the Persian Empire which for centuries fought Rome to a stalemate.

Its rulers regarded Christianity with hostile eye, partly because of its association with

their chronic rival, and fought its entrance into their domains. India, although not united into

one political realm, was the seat of a great culture which influenced the Mediterranean area

but which, in spite of extensive commercial contacts, was but little affected religiously by the

Occident. China had a civilization all its own. At the time when the Roman Empire was

being formed, China was being welded into a political and cultural whole under the Ch'in and

the Han dynasty. In area it was about as large as the Roman Empire. In wealth and population

it may not have equaled its great Western contemporary, but in cultural achievements it

needed to make no apology to India, Persia, or Rome. In the Americas were small beginnings

of civilized states-In its first five centuries neither China nor America was reached by Christianity.

These civilizations, even when taken together, occupied only a minority of the surface

of the earth. Outside them were the vast masses of “primitive” mankind, almost untouched by

Christianity until after its first five centuries were passed. It is against this background that

we must see the rise and early development of Christianity. In its initial centuries the geographic

scope of Christianity was distinctly limited.