IX GOVERNMENT 385 



trophe of the gravest character. The Christian 

 Church was the " International " of the emperors 

 of the second and third centuries. 



It is commonly supposed that the result of the 

 intermittent, if internecine warfare thus waged 

 was the victory of the Church, and that, in the 

 words of Julian, the Galilean conquered. But 

 those who compare the Christianity of Paul with 

 that of Constantine's prelates may be permitted 

 to doubt whether, as in so many other cases, the 

 vanquished did not in effect subdue the victor ; 

 whether there is not much more of Greek philos- 

 ophy and of Roman organisation and ritual, than 

 of primitive Christianity, in the triumphant 

 Catholicism of the fourth and later centuries. 

 One heritage of old Roman statecraft, at any rate, 

 passed bodily over to Catholic churchcraft. As 

 soon as the church was strong enough, it began to 

 persecute with a vigour and consistency which the 

 Empire never attained. In the ages of faith, 

 Christian ecclesiasticism raged against freedom of 

 thought, as such, and compelled the State to 

 punish religious dissidence as a criminal offence 

 of the worst description. The ingenuity of pagan 

 persecutors failed to reach the shameful level of 

 that of the Christian inventors of the Holy Office ; 

 nor did the civil governors of pagan antiquity ever 

 -degrade themselves so far as to play the execu- 

 tioner for a camarilla of priests. The doctrine 

 that the authority of the State extends to men's 



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