CHAPTER I.
PLACE OF JESUS IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.
The great event of the History of the world is the revolution by which the noblest portions of humanity have passed from the ancient religions, comprised under the vague name of Paganism, to a religion founded on the Divine Unity, the Trinity, and the Incarnation of the Son of God.

It has taken nearly a thousand years to accomplish this conversion.

The new religion had itself taken at least three hundred years in its formation.

But the origin of the revolution in question with which we have to do is a fact which took place under the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius.

At that time there lived a superior personage, who, by his bold originality, and by the love which he was able to inspire, became the object and fixed the starting-point of the future faith of humanity.
As soon as man became distinguished from the animal, he became religious; that is to say, he saw in Nature something beyond the phenomena, and for himself something beyond death.