human flesh. This is a great mystical and theological concept, and it is illustrated from traditions of the life of Christ which were accessible to the author but not found, for the most part, in the three "synoptic" Gospels. He treats the miracles as "signs," as seven great symbolic manifestations of divine, supernatural power and love. It is not a Gospel in the same sense as the other three; it does not make so much of historical narration; it aims to prove the truth of a majestic, sublime idea, which was already a part of the church's faith; it was written "that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life in his name" (John 20:31)—and so it is a Gospel in an even higher sense than the other three.

The New Testament's permanent value. Thus came into existence, in the course of fifty years or more of persecution, opposition, and triumphant advance in the face of all attacks, a book, or collection of books, which is almost the only Christian record we possess of those precious years, and of the still more precious years of the life and ministry of Jesus, his passion and resurrection, the founding of the church in Palestine, and its spread throughout the eastern half of the Roman world until it entered the gates of the eternal city itself. We see it at the very beginning of its long task of "leavening, till the whole lump be leavened," the customs, manners, institutions, ideals, motives, hearts, and minds of men. No age has seen a purer form of Christianity than that first faith of the early apostles, martyrs, and evangelists. As we read their writings, and learn through them to know and worship and obey the Master whom they loved and followed, the prayer rises to our lips,

"O God, to us may grace be given

To follow in their train!"

We discover the permanent value of the New Testament when we learn to use it, and to find in it God's Word to each of us in our own lives, and to his church, still waging the warfare of faith in his name.

STUDY TOPICS

1. Which were the earliest writings of the New Testament, and why?

2. Explain why the records of the rise of the Christian religion are scanty and fragmentary. Give three

reasons.

3. Look up some of the papyrus letters, bills, etc., which illustrate the "common" Greek spoken by the mass of the people in the first century. See Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, or Milligan, Selections from the Papyri.

4. What first led to the collection of the New Testament writings? What part had Paul's Epistles in this process?

5. Describe the growth of the Gospels, and explain how one of their earlier sources is found.

6. Read some of the following passages from the document called "Q": Luke 9: 57-60; 10: 2-16; 11:9-13; 12:22-31; 13: 18-21; 14: 16-23. Are any of these passages found in Mark? (What is the significance of this question?)

7. Read over Mark 1: 16 to 3: 19 and mark the passages which you think most like reminiscences which Peter

would relate. What bearing has this upon the traditional origin of our second Gospel?

8. How does the fourth Gospel differ from the other three? 9. If the New Testament is almost our only record of the beginnings of Christianity, how ought Christians to regard it? Have you a plan for regular Bible reading?

CHAPTER XXVII

THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS

AFTER the close of the first century the next record of the spread of Christianity is found not in any Christian writing but in the letters of a Roman governor addressed to the Emperor Trajan. Like many that have gone before, it also is a record of persecution. Pliny the Younger, as he is called (to distinguish him from the Elder Pliny, who was a writer of natural history), was sent in the year 11 or 112 to administer the fertile and populous province of Bithynia. This province lay in northwestern Asia Minor, on the shores of Propontis (Marmora) and the Black Sea, and had suffered much from the lax and extravagant mismanagement of earlier proconsuls. Pliny was given the powers of imperial legate, and his first duty was to bring a bankrupt province back to prosperity, and incidentally to tighten the reins of Roman control over its affairs through the better administration of justice and the suppression of disloyal secret societies.

CHRISTIANITY IN BITHYNIA

Here Pliny found a large number of guilds or clubs (collegia) we might call them "lodges" to-day-which existed to advance the interests of their members. Some of them were like modern trade-unions; each member was assessed a certain amount, meetings were held once a month, the poorer members or those out of work were given benefits or relief, and their funeral expenses were paid from the common fund. Such guilds were to be found throughout the empire, although they had been severely restricted by a decree of the Senate in the time

of Augustus, requiring them to hold their meetings in public, not oftener than once a month, and then only after they had received a special license from the authorities. The danger of such associations was that they easily became centers of political unrest.

The church as a trade-guild. One of the first acts of Pliny, following instructions from the Emperor, was to issue an order for the suppression of all guilds and clubs. At once this brought up the problem of dealing with the Christian Church, which resembled in some ways the prohibited collegia. The problem was complicated by certain industrial conditions of the province which Pliny had undertaken to remedy and which had been seriously affected by the spread of the new religion. As he traveled about Bithynia he had been astonished to find the temples almost deserted, the old-fashioned worship nearly abandoned, and the trade in animals for sacrifice waning. The reason was, he learned, that the province swarmed with Christians! Here was new and unexpected trouble on his hands.

At what date Christianity spread into Bithynia, we do not know.1 Perhaps it was a result of the active missionary work of the church in the province of Asia, or possibly it had come up along the trade-route from Galatia, or even crossed from Philippi or Thessalonica in the west. Whenever and however founded, by the year 112 there were Christians enough in the province to imperil the ancient trade in sacrificial animals, and rouse the opposition of those who depended upon it for their livelihood. Just as Christianity had been opposed in Ephesus by those whose trade it affected, so here also its influence had become apparent in a striking and public manner, and was opposed for its injury to business.

1 The Christians there were addressed in the Epistle known as First Peter.

The governor's perplexity.-At this juncture informers (delatores) came forward with accusations against the Christians. Pliny summoned the accused to appear before him and questioned them about their membership in an illicit organization. Some denied this; others confessed. Those who confessed he questioned a second and even a third time with threats of punishment. "Those who persisted," he says in one of his letters, "I sent to execution; for I had no doubt that, whatever it was they admitted, contumacy and stubborn obstinacy ought not to go unpunished.

This was plain tyranny, though Trajan might—and did-approve; but the matter did not end here. Shortly afterward an unsigned paper was posted in a public place containing a long list of persons alleged to be Christians. Instead of ignoring this list, Pliny took the illegal step of searching out those thus anonymously accused and brought them to trial. By this time he knew more about Christianity and realized that it was a religion, not a trade-guild, with which he was confronted. He adopted three severe tests of their loyalty to the Roman religion and state; they were to repeat after him a prayer addressed to the gods, to burn incense in sacrifice, and make a libation; they were to adore, with sacrificial incense and wine, the statue of the Emperor; and they were finally to pronounce a curse upon Christ. Refusal of the first branded one an atheist, in pagan eyes; refusal of the second was treason; refusal of the third proclaimed the atheist and traitor as a Christian. Some of those accused asserted that they had never been, or had long ceased to be, followers of this faith. Others refused firmly to recant.

It now occurred to Pliny to inquire what this religion amounted to, which could inspire such ardent and