A short history of Christianity
This study is founded on the five concluding chapters of Orpheus^ Histoire generale des Religions^ first published in 1909, of which, in spite of the war, more than 30,000 copies have been sold. It has been translated into English, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish and Swedish. Certain chapters of it have become somewhat antiquated; all require revision.
While rewriting in part the history of Christianity, I have been careful not to alter its character as a sketch. The bibliography, an important feature even in such attempts, has been brought up to date. Although I know more than I did thirteen years ago, my general ideas have not varied. Christianity, like all other religions, should be treated by history as a purely human institution; but it is the greatest of all, not excepting Buddhism, because it suits the temper of progressive and laborious nations, and adapts itself to the most varied conditions of society.
Civilisation and Christianity are united by an indissoluble marriage tie. Whatever may have been the mishaps and misdeeds of dogmatic theology and ambitious priestcraft, things which I have not tried to conceal, it is certain that Christianity, while opposing a veto to unbridled and degraded superstition, has taught and teaches the world the only moral lessons accessible to everyone, thus preserving and propagating the most enduring elements of Hebrew and Hellenic wisdom, and cleansing and softening the animal instincts of the human race.
If those gospel lessons, though preached to thousands of millions for twenty centuries, have not yet been assimilated by mankind, they have at least acted as a permanent antidote against egotism and cruelty. Their beneficent influence is not only a thing of the past, but of the future. I do not share the opinion that they have as yet been superseded by some sort of a lay philosophy or theosophy.
Contents of chapter one :
Myth and history— The Canon of the New Testament— The orthodox tradition as to the Evangelists — The conclusions of criticism on this point — The date of our Gospels— The synoptical Gospels — Testimony of Papias— The composition of the synoptical Gospels— The Fourth Gospel— The lack of historical authority for the Gospels— The idea of the Messiah — The silence of secular writers — The testimony of Tacitus— Uncertain chronology of the life of Jesus — Uncertainty as to His trial and death — The Docetes— The Christ of St. Paul— The supposed fulfilment of prophecies—The Apocryphal Gospels — The Epistles of St. Paul— Chronology of St. Paul's apostolate— The Catholic Epistles— The Epistle of St. John and the verse of the "three witnesses" — The Apocalypse of St. John — The Apocalypse of St. Peter— Various Epistles— The Pastor of Hermas- The Symbols and the Doctrine of the Apostles — The Pseudo-Clementine writings — Simon Magus — Antichrist.
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