rine, were continually insisting on the fact
that for the new faith there was no real division between Greek or
barbarian, bond or free. Yet, on the other hand, there were equally
unequivocal expressions concerning the reverence and respect due to
authority and governance. St. Peter had taught that honour should be
paid to Caesar, when Caesar was no other than Nero. St. Paul had as
clearly preached subjection to the higher powers. Yet at the same time
we know that the Christian truth of the essential equality of the whole
human race was by some so construed as to be incompatible with the
notion of civil authority. How, then, was this paradox to be explained?
If all were equal, what justification would there be for civil
authority? If civil authority was to be upheld, wherein lay the meaning
of St. Paul's many boasts of the new levelling spirit of the Christian
religion? The paradox was further complicated by two other problems. The
question of the authority of the Imperial Government was found to be
cognate with the questions of the institution of slavery and of private
property. Here were three concrete facts on which the Empire seemed to
be based. What was to be the Christian attitude towards them?

After many attempted explanations, which were largely personal, and,
therefore, may be neglected here, a general agreement was come to by the
leading Christian teachers of East and West. This was based on a
theological distinction between human nature as it existed on its first
creation, and then as it became in the state to which it was reduced
after the fall of Adam. Created in original justice, as the phrase ran,
the powers of man's soul were in perfect harmony. His sensitive nature,
_i.e._ his passions, were in subjection to his will, his will to his
reason, his reason to God. Had man continued in this state of innocence,
government, slavery, and private property would never have been
required. But Adam fell, and in his fall, said these Christian doctors,
the whole conditions of his being were disturbed. The passions broke
loose, and by their violence not unfrequently subjected the will to
their dictatorship; together with the will they obscured and prejudiced
the reason, which under their compulsion was no longer content to follow
the Divine Reason or the Eternal Law of God. In a word, where order had
previously reigned, a state of lawlessness now set in. Greed, lust for
power, the spirit of insubordination, weakness o