meretricious charms of the surroundings, a materializing and secularizing of the sacred and spiritual of which some of the most popular modern Lives of Christ are guilty. On the contrary, it seeks to throw light on the New Testament itself, explaining obscurities, vivifying what had not been fully realized before, setting the whole picture before us in warm colors of life. Used in this way the fruits of the _Palestine Exploration Fund_ prove to be of great value. Then scholars of contemporary Jewish life and thought have enabled us to see more clearly the actual condition of the people among whom Jesus lived,[60] and those who have been investigating the history and archæology of the Roman Empire of this period have enabled us to see much more clearly, how the Apostles carried out their wider mission, how the first churches were founded in the larger world, and how the primitive Christian life was lived in the midst of pagan surroundings.[61] [60] See especially Schürer, _The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ_; Edersheim, _Jesus the Messiah_; Bousset, _Die Religion Des Judentums_; Volz, _Judische Eschatolagie_. [61] See Mommsen, _Provinces of the Roman Empire_; Ramsay, _The Church in the Roman Empire_, &c. VI.--LIFE AND HISTORY OF THE EARLY CHURCH Making use of such materials as have been indicated above, several scholars have been attempting the difficult task of writing the Life of Christ,[62] and several also the more manageable work of giving an account of the history of Apostolic times. Here we see that the destructive criticism which made havoc of history under the hands of the famous "Tübingen school" has been almost entirely superseded by constructive efforts which have brought out the circumstances of primitive times with remarkable clearness. The learned, sober studies of Hort in England,[63], as well as the writings of Prof. Ramsay already referred to; the brilliant work of Weizsäcker[64] in Germany; the histories of McGiffert,[65] of the school of Harnach, and of Prof. Bartlet, a singularly judicious and discerning writer,[66] are among the most prominent contributions to a right understanding of the events of the Apostolic times. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the research and criticism of recent days have brought us face to face with the primitive age of Christianity in a manner never attainable during any of the intermediate ages. It is as though we of the twentieth century had gained a height from which we could look across the intervening centuries, many of which lie wrapped in mist, and see clear and sharp against the horizon the blue hills of the wonderful first century. [62] _E. g._, Geikie, Farrar, Edersheim, Stalker, Didon, &c., in popular works; Keim, Weiss, Sanday (_Dictionary of the Bible_), Bruce (_Encyclopædia Biblica_), Oscar Holtzmann, &c., in critical studies. [63] See _The Christian Ecclesia_ and _Judaistic Christianity_. [64] See _Apostolic Times_.