The unpromising rootage of Christianity.

When we come to the area in which Christianity began, we must remind ourselves

that even there, in that geographically circumscribed region, the roots from which it sprang

appeared to promise no very great future for the faith. It is one of the commonplaces of our

story that Christianity was an outgrowth of the religion of Israel. Israel was never important

politically. Only for a brief time, under David and Solomon, between nine hundred and a

thousand years before Christ, did it achieve a domain of considerable dimensions. Even then

it did not rank with the major empires. That realm soon broke up into two small states, the

Northern and Southern Kingdoms, insignificant pawns in the contests among the great

powers in the valleys of the Nile and of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Except for what

came through its religion, Israel was of slight consequence culturally. When contrasted with

its neighbours in Mesopotamia and Egypt it occupied a small and infertile area in the Palestinian

uplands. Its cities were diminutive and its buildings unimpressive. Its art was not

distinguished. Today the monumental ruins of Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, and even Syria

dwarf those of Israel's past and make clear the relative insignificance, from the political and

economic standpoint, of the land in which was the stock from which Christianity sprang.

In this respect Christianity was in striking contrast with those faiths which became its

chief rivals. The polytheisms which it displaced in the Mediterranean Basin had the support

of old and politically powerful cultures and states. Zoroastrianism was associated with Persia,

for centuries one of the mightiest empires on the globe. Hinduism was indigenous to India,

one of the major cultural centres of mankind. Buddhism was also a native of India and early

won wide popularity in the land of its birch. Both Hinduism and Buddhism owed much of

their extension outside India to the commerce and the cultural prestige of that land. Confucianism

was for two thousand years so closely integrated with China, one of earth's mightiest

civilizations, that its spread on the periphery of that realm seemed assured. Islam early

brought unity to the Arabs and within a century of its origin was supported by one of the

three largest and strongest empires of the day. At its outset Christianity had no such potent

associations to commend it. Not until, after more than three centuries, it had, through its first

amazing victories, become dominant in the Roman Empire did it achieve such an influential

cultural and political alliance as these other faiths early possessed.

It is sometimes said that Israel owed its unique religious development to the fact that

it was of the family of Semitic peoples and was on the land bridge between the great civilizations

of Egypt and of Mesopotamia and so was stimulated by contributions from each of

them. But there were other Semitic peoples who were in much the same favored position, the

Phoenicians among them, and it was only in Israel that the religious development occurred

which issued in Judaism and Christianity.

Moreover, it was in a minority, even within the comparatively obscure people of

Israel, that the stream which issued in Christianity had its rise and its early course. The

prophetic monotheism which was the source of Christianity long commanded the undivided

support of only a small proportion of Israel. The loyal minority were sufficiently numerous to

cherish and hand down the writings of the prophets. Through them came the main contributions

of Israel to the world. Within this minority we find the direct antecedents of Christianity.

Yet the majority of Israel either rejected the prophets outright or devitalized their message

by compromise. Even among the relatively insignificant people within which Christianity

arose, only the numerically lesser part could be counted in the spiritual ancestry of the faith.

Fully as significantly, it was largely those who believed themselves to be in the succession of

that minority who so opposed Jesus that they brought him to the cross.

Christians have seen in this story the fashion in which God works. They have believed

that always and everywhere God has been seeking man and has been confronting man with

Himself and with the standard which He has set for man. Yet man, so they have held, persistently

rebels against God and becomes corrupt. God, of His mercy and love, has wrought for

man's redemption. This He has not done in the way which men would have predicted. Even

those whom men have accounted wise have been so blinded by sin, especially by pride and

self-confidence, that they could not clearly see or hear God. For reasons known only to

Himself, so Christians have maintained, God chose as His channel for man's salvation a

small, insignificant minority among the people of Israel, themselves of slight consequence in

physical might. As the culmination of His revelation of Himself and His redemption of man,

He sent His son, who, the heir of this humble minority and building on the foundations laid

by them, became the centre of the Christian faith.

The story, as seen from a Christian standpoint, might also be put in the following

fashion. God has always, from the beginning of the human race, been seeking to bring men

into fellowship with Himself and into His likeness. He has respected man's free will and has

not forced Himself on man. Only thus could He produce beings who are not automata, but are

akin to Himself. In response to God's initiative, men everywhere were stimulated to grope for

God. As a result of their seeking, various religions arose. All of these, clouded by man's sin,

were imperfect and could not meet man's need or fulfil God's purpose. For some inscrutable

reason, God found among the people of Israel a minority who responded to Him and, therefore,

was able to disclose Himself fully through one who came out of that succession and

through him made possible the salvation of man.