If any one says that the faith arose in ignorance and savagery the answer is simple: it didn't.

It arose in the Mediterranean civilisation in the full summer of the Roman Empire.

The world was swarming with sceptics, and pantheism was as plain as the sun, when Constantine nailed the cross to the mast.

It is perfectly true that afterwards the ship sank; but it is far more extraordinary that the ship came up again: repainted and glittering, with the cross still at the top.

This is the amazing thing the religion did: it turned a sunken ship into a submarine.