The earliest converts were converted by a single historical fact (the Resurrection) and a single theological doctrine (the Redemption) operating on a sense of sin which they already had—and sin, not against some new fancy-dress law produced as a novelty by a “great man,” but against the old, platitudinous, universal moral law13 which they had been taught by their nurses and mothers. The “Gospels” come later and were written not to make Christians but to edify Christians already made.
