TABLE II.-30-100 A.D.

The struggle between the Christian principle and Jewish tradition was bound to arise. The new seed sown in that ancient soil could not germinate without rising in it and in places breaking up the rich hard crust. In the books of the NT that have preserved to us the picture of that first and powerful germination, side by side with the principle to which the future belongs, we necessarily find old things that are on the way to death.

Sabatier.

The world was then undergoing a moral improvement and an intellectual decline. . . Greece fortunately remained faithful to her genius. The prodigious splendour of Roman power had dazzled and stunned, but not annihilated it. But at this period Greece herself was passing through one of her intervals of lassitude. Genius was scarce, and original science inferior to what it had been in preceding ages, and to what it would be in the following. The space from the death of Augustus to the accession of Trajan must be classed as a period of temporary degradation for the human intellect. The ancient world had by no means uttered its last word, but the bitter trials through which it was passing took from it both voice and courage. When brighter days return, and genius shall be delivered from the terrible sway of the Caesars, she will take heart again.—Renan.

The history of the gospel contains two great transitions, both of which, however, fall within the first century: from Christ to the first generation of believers, including Paul, and from the first, Jewish Christian, generation of these believers to the Gentile Christians; in other words, from Christ to the brotherhood of believers in Christ, and from this to the incipient catholic church. No later transitions in the church can be compared with these in importance. Harnack.