DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63447#0022
6
INTRODUCTORY.
those people who were known as traders above a
thousand years before the Christian era.
Such were the characteristics of the race predestined to
give the future religion of the world. There was, how-
ever, a stiff-necked tenacity and narrowness of nature
in this people ill-suited to the development of man-
kind ; indeed, the ground whence the doctrines of the
“new religion’’ arose had been fertilised by Hellenic
thought through the Alexandrian school, representative of
the learning, philosophy, and science of the Hellenes.
The leading tenets of this philosophy had assimilated
within the doctrines of certain Jewish sects, especially
that of the Essenes.
Amongst them, in Galilee, was born the “Redeemer”
and “ Reformer ” of mankind—in himself the ideal of
humanity, of persevering virtue, gentle affection, and
infinite love. His life, his doctrines, and his teaching
combined in harmony. Faithful to the eternal aspira-
tions for which he lived and suffered, abolishing “ all
differences of race and caste,” Jesus of Nazareth brought
into the religion of humanity a breadth embracing all
mankind.
Through these elements the new law was evolved, a
new society took its basis, to be developed through all
time, because founded on principles based on the moral
perfectibility of man.
These doctrines, ratified by the blood of martyrs,
developed in the early Church, promulgated afterwards on
a world-wide theatre, and organised into a system by Rome,
gave birth to the institution of the “ Universal Church.”
Thus the spirit of the Hellenic, Semitic, and Roman
civilization blefided together, and formed an apex within
Rome, whence afterwards, through the dark and the
semi-light of the Middle Ages, they helped society in the
acquisition of a new moral tone, which is even now being
worked out. These three being the influences converging
through Rome and Italy within our own civilization, it
will be our task to note a few of its forward steps in the
march of Time.
INTRODUCTORY.
those people who were known as traders above a
thousand years before the Christian era.
Such were the characteristics of the race predestined to
give the future religion of the world. There was, how-
ever, a stiff-necked tenacity and narrowness of nature
in this people ill-suited to the development of man-
kind ; indeed, the ground whence the doctrines of the
“new religion’’ arose had been fertilised by Hellenic
thought through the Alexandrian school, representative of
the learning, philosophy, and science of the Hellenes.
The leading tenets of this philosophy had assimilated
within the doctrines of certain Jewish sects, especially
that of the Essenes.
Amongst them, in Galilee, was born the “Redeemer”
and “ Reformer ” of mankind—in himself the ideal of
humanity, of persevering virtue, gentle affection, and
infinite love. His life, his doctrines, and his teaching
combined in harmony. Faithful to the eternal aspira-
tions for which he lived and suffered, abolishing “ all
differences of race and caste,” Jesus of Nazareth brought
into the religion of humanity a breadth embracing all
mankind.
Through these elements the new law was evolved, a
new society took its basis, to be developed through all
time, because founded on principles based on the moral
perfectibility of man.
These doctrines, ratified by the blood of martyrs,
developed in the early Church, promulgated afterwards on
a world-wide theatre, and organised into a system by Rome,
gave birth to the institution of the “ Universal Church.”
Thus the spirit of the Hellenic, Semitic, and Roman
civilization blefided together, and formed an apex within
Rome, whence afterwards, through the dark and the
semi-light of the Middle Ages, they helped society in the
acquisition of a new moral tone, which is even now being
worked out. These three being the influences converging
through Rome and Italy within our own civilization, it
will be our task to note a few of its forward steps in the
march of Time.