Summary WHAT CAN HISTORY TEACH US? Can anything be made of history? general facts stand out clearly The question is, whether what we know of man's past career, can teach us any moral lesson. Our ignorance of the great world order is beside that question Every historian is more or less of a philosopher The macrocosm must be interpreted by the microcosm: history must be viewed in the light of primary ethical truths St. Augustine and Bossuet's synthesis is imperfect. main idea, which is evolution, is the real basis of historical Evolution, Progress, Development is the universal law PAGE I 3 6 8 1Ο But their II 12 14 The history of man is, in spite of immense drawbacks, a history of material, social, ethical, and religious progress. The never-ceasing process of evolution, the perpetual becoming, which prevails throughout the universe is, in man, conscious: and the highest form of it is the feeling after the Infinite . Obedience to law is the condition of progress-material, social, ethical, and religious The law of virtue is the law we are born under: it rules over The probation of nations, as of individuals, is in their following the highest ideal set before them. "The history of the world is the judgment of the world" Here too we are thrown back on free will, and the last word is personality. 12 Our inability to reconcile the solidarity of races, of nations, of Great men are the founts of great thoughts; and the trial of the Mr. Spencer's contrary doctrine examined Great men are authoritative teachers so far as they are ethical, so The great lesson deducible from history is Discite justitiam moniti Object of the present volume: to consider some of the relations Subject of Chapter I.: Christianity in its earliest epoch, extending Three successive phases in this epoch What Christianity was in its first phase-the three years of its Sources of evidence as to that preaching and teaching examined His Gospel no catalogue of dogmas, but the manifestation of a The second phase of Primitive Christianity extends from the Crucifixion to the year 43, when the disciples were first called During the first fourteen years of it, Antioch is the head-quarters from which St. Paul's work is done, and the centre of activity Arbitrariness of chronological divisions in history The Age of the Martyrs is taken in this Chapter as extending from the Fall of Jerusalem (70) to the Council of Nicæa (325). It may, strictly speaking, be regarded as initiated by Nero's persecution (64) and as terminated by the Edict of Tolera- Darkness which hangs over the history of the Christian Church from the date of St. Paul's arrival in Rome (61) till late in Cause of the conflict between the Church and the Roman Empire The victory of Christianity the personal victory of its Founder Development of dogma in the Age of the Martyrs: first, as to 888 Object of this Chapter : to consider, a little more closely, the revolu- |