§ 56: The better individuals of that portion of the human race had already been accustomed to letting themselves be ruled by a shadow of such nobler motives. The Greek or the Roman did everything to live on after this life, even if only in the memory of his fellow citizens.
§ 57: It was time for another, true life after this one to gain influence over his actions.
§ 58: And so Christ became the first reliable, practical teacher of the immortality of the soul.
§ 59: The first reliable teacher. – Reliable through the prophecies that appeared fulfilled in him; reliable through the miracles that he performed; reliable through his own resurrection after a death by which he had sealed his doctrine. Whether we can still prove this resurrection, these miracles, is a question I shall put aside, just as I shall put aside the question of who the person of this Christ was. All of this may have been important back then for the acceptance of his doctrine, but it is no longer so important now for the recognition of the doctrine’s truth.
§ 60: The first practical teacher. – For it is one thing to conjecture, wish for, and believe in the immortality of the soul as a philosophic speculation: quite another to direct one’s inner and outer actions in accordance therewith.
§ 61: And at least Christ was the first to teach this. For although the belief that evil deeds will be punished in the afterlife had already been introduced among many peoples before his time, this concerned only those deeds that were detrimental to civil society and therefore already subject to punishment in civil society. To recommend an inner purity of heart with a view toward another life was reserved for him alone.
§ 62: His disciples faithfully propagated this doctrine. And if they had had no other merit than that of having effected a more general circulation, among many peoples, of a truth that Christ appeared to have intended for the Jews alone, they ought, for that very reason alone, to be considered among the conservators and benefactors of the human race.
§ 63: But that they transferred other doctrines whose truth was less evident, whose benefits were less substantial – how could it be otherwise? Let us not blame them for this, but rather earnestly inquire whether these commingled doctrines did not become a new guiding impulse for human reason.
§ 64: It is already clear from experience at least, that the New Testament scriptures, in which these doctrines were eventually preserved, have afforded, and continue to afford, the second, better primer for the human race.
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