46 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION- PART 



faces sternly, and the result was to make them 

 regarded as anti-patriotic and anti- social. Their 

 success among the lower classes had been rapid. 

 Christianity levelled all distinctions : it welcomed 

 the master and his slave, the outcast and the pure : 

 it treated woman as the spiritual equal of man : it 

 held out to each the hope of a future life._ Thus 

 far, all was to the good, although the old Mithraic re- 

 ligion had done well-nigh as much. But Christianity 

 held aloof from the common social life, putting 

 itself out of touch with the manifold activity of 

 Rome. It sought to apply certain maxims of Jesus 

 literally ; it discouraged marriage, it brought disunion 

 into family life ; it counselled avoidance of service in 

 the army or acceptance of any public office. This 

 general attitude was wholly due to the belief that 

 with the return of Jesus, the end of the world was at 

 hand. For Jesus had foretold his second coming, 

 and the earliest epistles of the apostles bade the 

 faithful prepare for it Here there was no continu- 

 ing city ; citizenship was in heaven, for the kingdom 

 of Christ was not of this world. Therefore to give 

 thought to the earthly and fleeting was folly and 

 impiety, for who would care to heap up wealth, to 

 strive for place or to pursue pleasure, or to search 

 after what men called ' wisdom/ when these im- 

 perilled the soul, and blocked the way to heaven. C 



The prejudice created by this belief, expressed in 

 such direct action as refusal to worship the guardian 

 gods and the ' genius ' of the Emperor, was 

 deepened by ugly, although baseless, rumours as to 

 cruel and immoral things done by the Christians at 

 their secret meetings. And so it came to pass 



