he principles of Christianity, as laid down by its
Founder and as spread by St. Paul, to have been the most humanizing
and civilising influence ever brought to bear upon society. But that
is not the point. The early Christians were treated as they were, not
because they held non-Roman views, but because they held anti-Roman
views; not because they did not believe in Jupiter and Venus, but
because they refused to let any one else believe in them; not because
they threatened to weaken Roman faith, but because they threatened to
weaken and even to wreck the whole fabric of Roman society; not
because they were known to be heretics, but because they were supposed
to be disloyal; not because they converted men, but because they
appeared to convert them into dangerous characters. As it has been
put, the Christians were regarded as the "Nihilists" of the period. We
are apt to judge the Romans from the standpoint of Christianity
dominant and understood; it is fairer to judge them from the
standpoint of a dominant pagan empire looking on at a strange new
phenomenon altogether misunderstood and often deliberately
misrepresented. Moreover--and the point is worth more attention than
it commonly receives--we have only to read the Epistles to the
Corinthians, to perceive that the early Christian gatherings were by
no means always such meek, pure, and model assemblages as they are
almost always assumed to have been. Some of the members, for instance,
quarrelled and "were drunken." There were evidently many unworthy
members of the new communion, and of course there were also many
manifestations of insulting bigotry on their part. The class of
society to which the Christians belonged was closely associated in the
Roman mind with the rabble and the slave, if not with criminals. What
the pagan observer saw in the new religion was "a pestilent
superstition," "hatred of the human race," "a malevolent
superstition." He thought its practices to be connected with magic.
The _intransigeant_ Christian refused to take the customary oath in
the law courts, and therefore appeared to menace a trustworthy
administration of the law. He took no interest in the affairs of the
empire, but talked of another king and his coming kingdom, and he
appeared to be an enemy to the Roman power. He held what appeared to
be secret meetings, although the empire rigidly suppressed all secret
societies. He weakened the martial spirit of the soldier. He divided
families-