The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1919-02-15
.9S6.7OO.OOO


5lOtal $50, IoU,UuU
We have therefore about $3.50
Christians, 1870 Mohammedans and
10 Jews, which makes nearly 1870
Monotheists (adoring one Cod; about
half of the Christians are Catholics,
which is about one-siXth of humanity.
The little seed grows quietly but con-
stantly, and is the greatest of all
growths.
n. Christianity Is the Result of Juda-
ism and Heathenism.
Objections: Religion, like the rest,
is the result of evolution; thus Chris
tianity was evolved from Judaism and
heathenism. David Strauss thinks
that Jesus took "the purely spiritual
and moral course" from the Jews,
but His "humane love, the undeject-
ed, the action from delight and joy
of the beautiful mind" from the
Greeks. Thus Christianity is a nat
ural growth.
Answer: Just the contrary is true.
Christianity is not a development of
what was already at hand, but the
most marked contrast: Unto the
Jews a stumbling block, and unto the
gentiles, foolishness" q Cor. 1:23),
as St Paul saw with his own eyes
and experienced.
The purely spiritual and moral
course Of which Strauss speaks,
Christ did not get from the Jews, but
tried to revive it among the people
hardened by pharisaical hypocrisy.
What greater contrast can we find
than the Greek Joys and the morti-
fication and self-abnegation which
Christ demands, the undejected' and
the Man of Sorrows the action
from delight and "the carrying of
the Cross" an Apollo and the Ecce,
Homo picture?
The humane love" of the Greeks
saw in all other peoples "barbarians,
and despised the slaves as useful do
nestle animals as Aristotle calls
them mildly. From such ideas surely
did not develop the Christian love
which Christ preached and practiced!
What a contrast between the Dia
logues of Plato and the Sermon on
the Mount, between the dark and con
fused struggle of the Greek philos
ophers and the bright, holy, divine
peace of Christ, between the comics
sion of Socrates that he only knew
that he knew nothing, and the testi
mony of Christ, knowing Himself in
the possession of all truth: Il am
the Truth"
No, Jesus Christ and Christianity
did not grow on the ground of Jew
ish and heather culture; in all the
preceding strata there is no germ
found for this new phenomenon OF
Christianity.
Renan would like to explain the vic
tory of Christianity by an "unheard
of luck" or by the fermenting fever
of the times and the mania for the
absurd" or 1.-The preponderance of the
hearts needs over those of the mind.
To this the apologist, Father vor
Hammerstein, S. ]. (41905) answers
ironically: 'The martyrs let them
selves be burnt to satisfy a hearts
need for warmth or perhaps in honor
of the absurd" (Christentum p. 49)
Remains phrases are altogether toe
shallow.
The philosopher Moritz Carriere
(f1S95) thinks that the many con
facts between the Celts, Germans
Slavs, Romans, and Greeks could have
produced the brotherly feeling OIL
mankind and thus resulted in Chris
tianity. . If Carriere had said
land thus resulted Freemasonry,
that would be more Ineligible But
is Christianity nothing but a feeling
of general love for mankind? It is
unintelligib1e how many contacts be
tween people, could produce relig
ion of the Cross, of self-abnegatio1
and modification.
Phil Aug. Beeckh (f1S67). an ex
pert on ancient Greek life, say
(Staatshaushaltung der Athener-Stat'
Economy of the Athenians-p. 1919
only onesidedneSs and superficialit.
see everywhere ideals in antiquity