46 HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF SCIENCE 



tion of the civilized world in the Roman Empire and also the 

 moral dissolution of Rome facilitated the rapid development 

 to a position of power. Christianity was at the outset 

 strictly a religion. In the first century A. D., men said "See 

 how these Christians love one another. " But theological 

 controversy soon intervened, and in the fourth century, it 

 was said "There are no wild beasts so ferocious as Christians 

 who differ concerning their faith. " 6 After the third century, 

 the new faith became largely a set of intellectual proposi- 

 tions. The victory in matters temporal was a triumph of 

 paganism as well; for it consisted in an accession to pagan 

 power and in an absorption of heathen beliefs and customs 

 of ancient origin. Thus, Mariolatry, the Doctrine of the 

 Trinity, Image Worship, and other widely accepted aspects 

 of later Christianity can be traced to pagan origins which far 

 antedate the Christian Era. It is important for Christianity 

 in our own day that we distinguish between the doctrine 

 which Jesus seems actually to have taught his disciples and 

 the heterogeneous mass of pagan traditions with which the 

 original nucleus soon became encrusted and which many 

 still regard as essential features in the religion of the 

 Occident. 



The decline of the scientific spirit during the early Chris- 

 tian Era was due, primarily, not to prohibitions of the 

 theologians, but rather to a change in mental attitude of the 

 Mediterranean population, and to the intellectual backward- 

 ness of barbarian peoples from the north and west. In 

 correlation with this changing point of view we find : philos- 

 ophy becoming a part of religion, and hence intolerant of 

 changes in the established system; salvation, in another 

 world, coming to be regarded as the chief end of man; the 

 second coming of Christ and the end of the world being ex- 

 pected at any time, and hence a failing interest in the visible 

 universe. "To discuss the nature and position of the earth, " 

 says St. Ambrose, "does not help us in our hope of the life to 



6 Lecky, W. E., "History of Rationalism in Europe." 



