Gal. iv. 4;

great order of events it surely had a Divine fitness. Rom. v. 6; It could make no lower claim; its earliest tra- Eph. iv. 10. ditions, the events which were contemporary with it, and its unquestioned literature and primary organization, alike affirm it. It is this fitness of our Religion for the position it assumed, which accounts for its acquiring by the second century that hold on the world from which, as will be seen, it could not be dislodged. We cannot desire better means of eventually judging of this, than we have in those writings, accepted in the main as genuine by both the Church and the world, the letters of S. Paul which we shall examine. In them we shall find a vivid panorama spread before us of this new Faith as it showed itself not only in the synagogues of Judæa, its first home, but as it existed in the great centres of Imperial power, such as Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and even Rome itself.

of fact

converging

change.

There were two lines of fact, long converging Two lines towards the moral change that was to be effected. morally First, it is attested by every writer of that age that to the there had been a growing debasement of the general conscience of men. The sense of right and wrong in the commonest matters was everywhere enfeebled, and yet scarcely appeared to have reached its lowest point; for it seemed to be losing its way down with increasing dimness. Some minds more noble than the rest could but acknowledge, with a despondency akin to despair, this deepening corruption". Then among these higher spirits we have what

a Note A.

separation

and moral

ity the com

mon sign of

the coming

may be thought the counterfact of an eclectic morality, showing an advance both in their philosophy and their practical aims; while these also will be seen to move towards some coming change. On the one hand, then, there was the powerful multitude approaching a crisis at which morality threatened to be impossible; and on the other, a powerless few, apparently reaching the unsatisfactory limits of speculative virtue.

Nor are we to regard the philosophers and the multitude as merely extremes of society; for they included all and there was one fatal characteristic which even these had equally shown. In both there was an entire separation of Morality and Religion. The virtue of the few, even when purest, was not religious, and did not profess to be so, nor A general aim to interpret its own aspirations. The religion of Religion of the masses, even when enthusiastic, was so little moral that it seemed to have no root at all in conscience, in any worthy sense. Perhaps no one among us could muse over those times, the days of the closing Republic, of the wars of the Triumvirs, and the consolidation of the power of Augustus, without a feeling of amazement at the moral chaos. As we move in thought from the court to the city, from the city to the camp, from thence to province, or village, we see even the best men bewildered as to this life, while profoundly distrusting a future; we see the millions perpetuating and increasing superstitions with no element of goodness. The philosophers are smiling calmly at the devotions of

event.

the temple, and there are scoffers throughout the crowd, while the devotees show themselves the basest of mankind.

What is

implied in

tion.

We must not hastily dismiss this, for it concerns us to understand it. The separation of Religion and Morality evidently did not mean, that either this separahad been formally given up, nor that there was opposition distinctly intended between them. We can best judge of this actual separation by observing its internal nature, whatever its outward profession may have been.

Ethics to

No doubt a secular morality may be arrived at, and some principles ascertained, by examining the (as in the facts of human life: but there still would remain Nicomachus.) the difficulty of stirring the individual conscience to that morality. Rules and laws will not do this; and their operation on man's inner nature is but little, and is far from being elevating; which no one, indeed, so effectually points out as S. Paul.

Rom. viii.

3, 4; Gal.

The life of all virtue implies a personal approval .. of right-doing; this, too, has its counterpart in an acquiescence in retribution as due to wrong-doing. But can we stop here? Must we not say, that since this idea of retribution is moral, it requires a moral government of the world, and would be unsatisfied without it? And what is this, but that very belief which lies at the foundation of Religion? And if so, it follows that we cannot have the morality The point of personal righteousness in separation from Religion. of the moral For thus the right and the religious so meet, from the religious first, in our moral nature, that to divide them is to

of contact

and the

exhibits

The moral

climax of

the corruption of Rome.

destroy their life. We are pressing for no theory here. It is well that men should face this,-that morals lose vitality when separated from the moral government of the world; while it is also true that Religion sinks to superstition in proportion as it ceases to have the approval of the personal conscience.

It is certainly no vague charge that we bring, when we say that this climax was reached by the heathenism of the Roman Empire. Many of the most thoughtful of the time began therefore to look on human nature as wildly drifting to some unknown catastrophe. This it was that made the more prudent hail the strong hand of the Emperor; submitting themselves to a social tyranny, for the protection of the immediate interests of all.

It is a ghastly thing for moral beings to be ruined within; for their need of external association and mutual life still remains, and thus they accelerate each other's evil condition. The Government of the Empire soon discovered the overwhelming work it had to do, in dealing with myriads of people in whom individual morality seemed hastening to extinction. Though as if terror-struck at times at the magnitude of the task, the duty of arresting the moral disintegration was recognized by Emperor after Emperor as admitting of no delay. Not that, from their point of view, either the true extent of the evil or the nature of the remedy could be perceived; but it seemed evident to them, and it is full of interest to observe it now, that some return to antecedent principles was imperative. To fall

back on the old Religions, right or wrong, with philosophy or without it, was the inevitable expedient, the natural instinct, of the Roman statesmen.

of Heathen

had to be

attempted.

Nor was this unreasonable; for they could not but 4 revival know that beneath the surface of all the old heathen Religions Religions there was a sense of the supernatural, with- tempted out which the natural exterior of customs very soon is lifeless. If the moral reaction which was needed were to have any strength in it, it could only come from the revival of that ineradicable though abstract sense of Religion which lies so deep in man's nature. There is a twofold aspect of Polytheism, presenting almost two Religions, an esoteric as well as exoteric, which goes so far to account for its power, its permanence, and in some sense its unity. Customs, (illustrated rites, legends of those numerous gods of old Olympus, Gladstone's even fables of the most grotesque mythology, derived Homer and influence from that which was truer and better Mundi.) beneath. Some of them always were outward signs of an unuttered faith. To revive once venerated Polytheism, might it not be to restore all that seemed formerly to have given it life? Such, at all events, was the apparent resource of the troubled world in the hour of its need.

much in

Studies on

Juventus

law, and

This Imperial attempt at restoration of Religion Religion, was doubtless assisted in Rome itself by the com- conscience formerly pactness of the union of Religion and Law, familiar united in to the people from the foundation of their city; and a glance at this may assist us.

For well nigh eight centuries the conscience of the Roman people had a kind of national unity, of

Rome.