THE ARREST OF INQUIRY. 57 



as these did, on a bedrock of barbarism, dragged it 

 to a lower level. The intrusion of philosophic sub- 

 tleties led to terms being mistaken for explanations: 

 as Gibbon says, " the pride of the professors and of 

 their disciples was satisfied with the science of 

 words." The inchoate and mobile character of Chris- 

 tianity during the first three centuries gave both in- 

 fluences — pagan and philosophic — ^their opportunity. 

 For long years the converts scattered throughout the 

 Empire were linked together, in more or less regular 

 federation, by the acknowledgment of Christ as Lord, 

 and by the expectation of his second coming. There 

 was no official priesthood, only overseers — " epis- 

 kopoi " — for social purposes, who made no claims 

 to apostolic succession; no formulated set of doc- 

 trines; no Apostles' Creed; no dogmas of baptismal 

 regeneration or of the real presence; no worship or 

 apotheosis of Mary as the Mother of God; no wor- 

 ship of saints or relics. 



On the philosophic side, it was the Greek influence 

 in the person of the more educated converts that 

 shaped the dogmas of the Church and sought to 

 blend them with the occult and mysterious elements 

 in Oriental systems, of which modem " Theosophy " 

 is the tenuous parody. That old Greek habit of ask- 

 ing questions, of seeking to reach the reason of 

 things, which, as has been seen, gave the great im- 

 pulse to scientific inquiry, was as active as ever. 

 Appeals to the Old Testament touched not the Greek 

 as they did the Jewish Christian, and the Canon of 

 5 



