elevate and purify it.[1] It has been maintained, on the other hand, and that too by Christian writers, that no epoch of Western civilization has been so marked, not only by the material well-being of the mass of mankind, but "by virtue in the highest places and by moderation and sobriety in the ranks beneath," as that during which the new Creed was generally regarded as a base and superstitious sort of Atheism.[2] It may be conceded that the original authors of this period who have been most read in modern times have easily been construed into vigorous and effective testimony in support of the former position. The poets and rhetoricians of the Empire have had their most exaggerated phrases turned into evidence against the morals of their own days, and their less emphatic expressions have been regarded as hinting at the perpetration of vices too
- ↑ E.g., Dr. August Tholuck.—At the termination of an article, "Ueber den Einfluss des Heidenthums aufs Leben," in which he ransacks classical authors and Christian fathers for anything which may serve to exhibit the degradation of Pagan society, he quotes the words of Athanasius to give expression to the conclusion referred to in the text. The whole of Champagny's brilliant and fascinating work on the Cæsars is dominated by the same spirit, a spirit utterly inconsistent with that attitude of philosophical detachment in which history should be written, (Études sur l'Empire Romain, tome iii., "Les Césars.") Archbishop Trench, too, says of our period that it "was the hour and power of darkness; of a darkness which then, immediately before the dawn of a new day, was the thickest." (Miracles, p. 162.) Prof. Mahaffy, in the same uncritical spirit, refers to the "singular" and "melancholy" spectacle presented by Plutarch in his religious work, "clinging to the sinking ship, or rather, trying to stop the leak and declare her seaworthy." (Greeks under Roman Sway, p. 321.)
- ↑ See Dean Merivale, Romans under the Empire, vol. vii.
