The Hebrew prophets, some of them, taught the resurrection of the body, but it seems to have
been from the Greeks that the Jews learnt to believe in the resurrection of the spirit. * The
doctrine of immortality, in Greece, had a popular form in Orphism and a learned form in
Platonism. The latter, being based upon difficult arguments, could not become widely popular;
the Orphic form, however, probably had a great influence on the general opinions of later
antiquity, not only among pagans, but also among Jews and Christians. Elements of mystery
religions, both Orphic and Asiatic, enter largely into Christian theology; in all of them, the
central myth is that of the dying god who rises again. †I think, therefore, that the doctrine of
immortality must have had less to do with the spread of Christianity than Gibbon thought.
Miracles certainly played a very large part in Christian propaganda. But miracles, in later
antiquity, were very common, and were not the prerogative of any one religion. It is not
altogether easy to see why, in this competition, the Christian miracles came to be more widely
believed than those of other sects. I think Gibbon omits one very important matter, namely the
possession of a Sacred Book. The miracles to which Christians appealed had begun in a remote
antiquity, among a nation which the ancients felt to be mysterious; there was a consistent
history, from the Creation onwards, according to which Providence had always worked
wonders, first for the Jews, then for the Christians. To a modern historical student it is obvious
that the early history of the Israelites is in the main legendary, but not so to the ancients. They
believed in the Homeric account of the siege of Troy, in Romulus and Remus, and so on; why,
asks Origen, should you accept these traditions and reject those of the Jews? To this argument
there was no logical answer. It was therefore natural to accept Old Testament miracles, and,
when they had been admitted, those of more recent date became credible, especially in view of
the Christian interpretation of the prophets.
The morals of the Christians, before Constantine, were undoubtedly very superior to those of
average pagans. The Christians were persecuted at times, and were almost always at a
disadvantage in competition with pagans. They believed firmly that virtue would be
* See Oesterley and Robinson, Hebrew Religion.â
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See Angus, The Mystery Religions and Christianity.