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Augustus Caesar had been Ruler of the World.
He had found Rome brick and left it marble.
He had had a month named after him, and
He had been made a god!
Surely no one could ever be greater than he! Yet a greater man than he was living at the very same time—although Augustus himself knew nothing about Him and lived and died without ever having heard of Him. This man was born in the eastern part of Augustus’s empire in a tiny little village called Bethlehem, and His name was Jesus.
For many, many years after Jesus was born no one except His family and friends knew or cared anything about His birth or paid the slightest attention to it.
Jesus was a Jew, the son of a carpenter. As a boy and young man He led a very simple and quiet life working in His father’s shop. He did not begin to preach until He was more than thirty years old. Then He went about teaching the people what we learn today as the Christian religion.
He taught that there was one God over all.
He taught brotherly love, that one should love one’s neighbor as oneself.
He taught the Golden Rule; that is, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
He taught that there was a life after death for which this short life on earth was only a preparation; that therefore you should “lay up your treasures in heaven” by doing good works here.
Some of the Jews listened to Jesus and believed what He taught them. They thought He was going to set them free from the rule of the Romans, which they hated. Some of the temple priests, however, were afraid of what Jesus taught. Because so many people listened to Him and believed in Him, the priests were afraid they would lose their influence to a man whose ideas they believed were wrong. So they plotted to have Him put to death.
Now the men who were plotting Jesus’s death could not have Him put to death without the permission of the Roman ruler of that part of the empire where Jesus lived. This ruler was named Pilate. So they went to Pilate and told him that Jesus was trying to make Himself king. Jesus of course meant and always said that He was a heavenly ruler and not an earthly king. These men knew that Pilate would not care at all what religion Jesus taught. There were all sorts of religions in the Roman Empire—those that believed in idols and those that believed in the sun, moon, and so on. One more new religion made little difference to the Romans, and Jesus would not be put to death simply for teaching another. But the priests knew if they could make Pilate believe that Jesus was trying to make Himself a king, that was a thing for which He could be crucified. Pilate did not believe much in what they said against Jesus. It was a small matter to him. But he wanted to please them and keep his government in order, so he told them he would have Jesus put to death because they wanted it. So He was crucified.
Jesus had chosen twelve of his fellow Jews to teach what he told them. These twelve men were called apostles. After Jesus was crucified, the apostles went through the land teaching the people what He had taught them. Those who believed in and followed His teachings were called disciples of Christ (the Greek word for “messiah”) or Christians. The apostles were teachers; the disciples were pupils.
One thing that no Christian, or Jew either, could do was worship the Roman emperor. Most people in the empire found it easy to add one new god, but Christians, of course, could not do that. The Romans thought that these disciples of Christ were trying to start a new world empire and that they were against Rome and the emperor and should be arrested and put in prison. The Christians, therefore, held their meetings in secret places, sometimes even underground, so that they would not be found and arrested.
After a while the leaders of the Christians became bolder. They came out of their secret places and taught and preached openly, although they knew they might sooner or later be thrown into prison and perhaps killed. Indeed, so strongly did they believe in the teachings of Christ that they seemed even glad to die for His sake, as He had died on the cross for them.
In the first hundred years after Christ, there were a great many Christians put to death because they were thought traitors. Christians who died for Christ’s sake were called martyrs . The first martyr was named Stephen. He was stoned to death about 33 A.D.
One of the men who helped in putting Stephen to death was a man named Saul. Saul was a Roman citizen and, like other Roman citizens, was proud of that fact. He thought the Christians were enemies of his country, and he did everything he could to have the Christians punished. Then, all of a sudden, Saul had a change of heart and came to believe in the religion of the very people whom he had been fighting. Whatever Saul did or whatever he believed, he did or believed with his whole soul. Though he had never seen Christ, he became one of the chief Christians and then was made an apostle and was called by his Roman name, Paul.
Paul preached the new religion far and wide just as earnestly as he had fought against it at first. Then he, too, was condemned to death. Paul, however, was, as I have said, a Roman citizen, and a Roman citizen could not be put to death by the ordinary judges who were not Roman citizens nor in the ordinary way by crucifying. So Paul appealed to the emperor, but he was put in prison in Rome and afterward beheaded. He is now known as St. Paul.
Peter was another of the chief apostles. Christ had said to him, “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Peter, too, was thrown into prison, and was sentenced to be crucified. He asked to be crucified with his head downward. He thought it too great an honor to die in just the same way as his Lord. On this spot in Rome where Peter was put to death was built long afterward the largest church in the world, the Cathedral of St. Peter.
As everything before Christ’s birth is called B.C. and everything since his birth is called A.D., you would naturally suppose that 0 would be the date of His birth.
It was not until some five hundred years later that people began to date from Christ’s birth. And then, when they did begin to date from this event, they made a mistake. It was found out that Christ was really born four years before He was supposed to have been born—that is, in 4 B.C.—but when the mistake was found out, it was then too late to change.
