32 CHAPTER I PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY IN THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH AND HEATHEN WORLD. history, and the key to all its mysteries. Around him, as the glimmer of the Logos shining in the darkness,46 yet the sun of the moral universe, revolve at their several dis- unaided by direct revelation, and left to “walk in their tances, all nations and all important events, in the reli- own ways,”47 “that they should seek God, if haply they gious life of the world; and all must, directly or indirect- might feel after him, and find him.”48 In Judaism the true ly, consciously or unconsciously, contribute to glorify his religion is prepared for man; in heathenism man is prename and advance his cause. The history of mankind pared for the true religion. There the divine substance is before his birth must be viewed as a preparation for his begotten; here the human forms are moulded to receive coming, and the history after his birth as a gradual diffu- it. The former is like the elder son in the parable, who sion of his spirit and progress of his kingdom. “All things abode in his father’s house; the latter like the prodigal, were created by him, and for him.” He is “the desire of all who squandered his portion, yet at last shuddered before nations.” He appeared in the “fulness of time,”44 when the the gaping abyss of perdition, and penitently returned to process of preparation was finished, and the world’s need the bosom of his father’s compassionate love.49 Heathenof redemption fully disclosed. ism is the starry night, full of darkness and fear, but of This preparation for Christianity began proper- mysterious presage also, and of anxious waiting for the ly with the very creation of man, who was made in the light of day; Judaism, the dawn, full of the fresh hope image of God, and destined for communion with him and promise of the rising sun; both lose themselves in through the eternal Son; and with the promise of salva- the sunlight of Christianity, and attest its claim to be the tion which God gave to our first parents as a star of hope only true and the perfect religion for mankind. to guide them through the darkness of sin and error.45 The heathen preparation again was partly intellectuVague memories of a primitive paradise and subsequent al and literary, partly political and social. The former is fall, and hopes of a future redemption, survive even in represented by the Greeks, the latter by the Romans. the heathen religions. Jerusalem, the holy city, Athens, the city of culture, With Abraham, about nineteen hundred years be- and Rome, the city of power, may stand for the three facfore Christ, the religious development of humanity sep- tors in that preparatory history which ended in the birth arates into the two independent, and, in their compass, of Christianity. very unequal branches of Judaism and heathenism. This process of preparation for redemption in the, These meet and unite—at last in Christ as the common history of the world, the groping of heathenism after the Saviour, the fulfiller of the types and prophecies, desires “unknown God”50 and inward peace, and the legal strugand hopes of the ancient world; while at the same time gle and comforting hope of Judaism, repeat themselves the ungodly elements of both league in deadly hostility in every individual believer; for man is made for Christ, against him, and thus draw forth the full revelation of his and “his heart is restless, till it rests in Christ.”51 all—conquering power of truth and love. § 9. Judaism. As Christianity is the reconciliation and union of Literature. God and man in and through Jesus Christ, the GodI. Sources. Man, it must have been preceded by a twofold process 1. The Canonical Books of the O. and N. Testaments. of preparation, an approach of God to man, and an ap2. The Jewish Apocrypha. Best edition by Otto Frid. proach of man to God. In Judaism the preparation is Fritzsche: Libri Apocryphi Veteris Testamenti Graece. direct and positive, proceeding from above downwards, Lips. 1871. German Commentary by Fritzsche and and ending with the birth of the Messiah. In heathen- Grimm, Leipz. 1851–’60 (in the “Exeget. Handbuch zum ism it is indirect and mainly, though not entirely, nega- A. T.”); English Com. by Dr. E. C. Bissell, N. York, 1880 tive, proceeding from below upwards, and ending with a (vol. xxv. in Schaff ’s ed. of Lange’s Bible-Work). helpless cry of mankind for redemption. There we have a 3. Josephus (a Jewish scholar, priest, and historian, special revelation or self-communication of the only true 46 John 1:5; Rom 1:19, 20; 2:14, 15. God by word and deed, ever growing clearer and plainer, 47 Acts 14:16. till at last the divine Logos appears in human nature, to 48 Acts 17:26, 27. raise it to communion with himself; here men, guided 49 Luke 15:11-32. indeed by the general providence of God, and lighted by 50 Acts 17:23. 44 Mark 1:15; Gal. 4:4 45 Gen. 3:15.
51 St. Augustine, Conf. II . 1: “Fecisti nos ad Te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in Te.”
