of their power. Epicurus could not think of any greater benefit which he could bestow on his equals than by uprooting this belief: his triumph, which mst beutifully dies away in the words of his gloomy and yet enlightened disciple, the Roman Lucretius, came too soon, Christianity took the already failing belief in subterraneous horrors under its wings, and in so doing it acted wisely. How, without this bold plunge into darkest paganism, could it have carried the victory over the popularity of the Mithrasand Isis worship? Thus it brought over to its side the timorous minds—the strongest adherents of new faith. The Jews, anation who, like the Greeks, and even more than they, loved and love life, had but given little attention to this idea: the conception of the complete death as the punishment of sinners, and the never-to-rise again as the severest threat— had already a strong effect on these strange people, who did not want to get rid of their bodies, but hoped, in their refined Egypticism, to preserve them forever. (A Jewish martyr, about whomwe may real in the second book of the Maceabees,would not think of renouncing his intestines which had been torn out: he wants to have them at his resurrection—such is the Jewish faith!) The first Christians never thought of eternal torments, they believed that they were saved “from death," and from day to day expected a transformation, but not death. (What a strange effect the first death must have had on these
