He died to destroy it, and it died in destroying him.
Now it may be reaffirmed equally realistically that there was nothing normal about the case or its consequences.

The things that took part in that tragedy have never been the same since, and have never been like anything else in the world.

The Church is not like other religions; its very crimes were unique.

The Jews are not like other races; they remain as unique to everybody else as they are to themselves.
The Roman Empire did not pass like other empires; it did not perish like Babylon and Assyria.

It went through a most extraordinary remorse amounting to madness and resuscitation into sanity, which is equally strange in history whether it seems as ghastly as a galvanised corpse or as glorious as a god risen from the dead.
The very land and city are not like other lands and cities.
The concentration and conflict in Jerusalem to-day, whether we regard them as a reconquest by Christendom or a conspiracy of Jews or a part of the lingering quarrel with Moslems, are alike the effect of forces gathered and loosened in that one mysterious moment in the history of the city.