48 ~ PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



The unity of the Empire gave Christianity its 

 chance. Through the connection of Eurasia from 

 the Euphrates to the Atlantic by magnificent roads, 

 communication between peoples followed the lines 

 of least resistance. Happily for the future of Chris- 

 tianity, the early missionaries travelled westward, 

 in the wake of the dispersed Jews, along the Medi- 

 terranean seaboard, and thus its fortunes became 

 identified with the civilizing portion of mankind. 

 Had they travelled eastward, it might have been 

 blended with Buddhism, or, as its Gnostic phases 

 show, become merged in Oriental mysticism. The 

 story of progress ran smoothly till A. D. 64, when we 

 first hear of the " Christians " for by such name 

 they had become known in " profane " history, as 

 it was once oddly called. Tacitus, writing many 

 years after the event, tells how on the night of the 

 1 8th July, in the sixty-fourth year of our era, a fierce 

 fire broke out in Rome, causing the destruction of 

 magnificent buildings raised by Augustus, and of 

 priceless works of Greek art. Suspicion fell on 

 Nero, and he, as has been suggested, was instigated 

 by his wife Poppaea Sabina, an unscrupulous woman, 

 and, according to some authorities, a convert to 

 Judaism, " to put an end to the common talk, by 

 imputing the fire to others, visiting, with a refine- 

 ment of punishment, those detestable criminals who 

 went by the name of Christians. The author of that 

 denomination was Christus, who had been executed 

 in the time of Tiberius, by the procurator, Pontius 



