THE ARREST OF INQUIRY. 51 



Tacitus spoke of Christianity in the terms quoted; 

 that Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius (who refers to 

 it only once in his Meditations) dismissed it with a 

 scornful phrase; that the common people called it 

 atheistic; and that, finally, it became a proscribed 

 and persecuted religion. 



Further than this there is no need to pursue its 

 career until, with wholly changed fortunes, we meet 

 it as a tolerated religion under a so-called Christian 

 Emperor. The object in tracing it thus far is to 

 indicate how enthusiasts, thus filled with an anti- 

 worldly spirit, would become and remain an arresting 

 force against the advance of inquiry and, therefore, 

 of knowledge; and how, as their religion gathered 

 power, and itself became worldly in policy, it would 

 the more strongly assert supremacy over the reason. 

 For intellectual activity would lead to inquiry into 

 the claims and authority of the Church, and inquiry, 

 therefore, was the thing to be proscribed. Then, 

 too, the committal of the floating biographies of 

 Jesus to written form, and their grouping, with the 

 letters of the apostles, into one more or less com- 

 plete collection, to be afterward called the New 

 Testament (a collection held to embrace, as the 

 theory of inspiration became formulated, all that it 

 is needful for man to know), would create a further 

 barrier against intellectual activity. Then, as Chris- 

 tianity came into nearer touch with the enfeebled 

 remnants of Greek philosophy, and with other for- 

 eign influences shaping its dogmas, discussions about 



