II THE ARREST OF ENQUIRY 47 



that 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 enquiry 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 enquiry into 

 the claims and authority of the Church, and enquiry, 

 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 

 complete collection, to be afterwards 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 

 Christianity came into nearer touch with the 

 enfeebled remnants of Greek philosophy, and with 

 other foreign influences shaping its dogmas, discus- 

 sions about the person of Christ became active. 

 The simple fluent creed of the early Christians took 

 rigid form in the subtleties of the Nicene Creed, and 



