A STEP BACKWARD IN ROME 



many times after, and they will repeat it, until 

 they learn to use a weapon which no ruling class 

 can wrest from their hands, proletarian sci- 

 ence. 



In vain did the proletariat strive to overcome 

 ruling class religion by proletarian religion. No 

 sooner did the ruling class make the Christian 

 religion its own, than its struggling parties took 

 sides in the religious schisms of the Christians, 

 and used them as means for their own dynastic 

 ends. The adoption of the Nicene creed at the 

 council of Nicaea in 325, and the condemnation 

 of Arius who opposed the mystical additions of 

 Athanasius to the primitive Christian creed, 

 marked the complete control of the church or- 

 ganization by the ruling class. And when Julian 

 the Apostate championed the Arian creed in the 

 attempt to hold his position against the intrigues 

 of the Athanasian diplomats, he made the same 

 experience which the Christian proletariat had 

 made before him. In a mystic religion, mys- 

 ticism always holds the best trumps. The coun- 

 cil at Constantinople, in 381, marked another 

 step in the direction of mysticism, and in the fol- 

 lowing struggles for and against image worship, 

 it was again the reactionary tendencies which 

 won the day. 



37 



