Page:Apollonius of Tyana - the pagan Christ of the third century.pdf/7

2 could not be solved; and yet, in point of fact, in this as in many other cases, the transition was caused by no sudden shock, and modern critics have discovered a series of what we may call middle terms which will henceforth tell very materially upon the history of the progress of religious thought in the world.

It was in the fourth century, immediately after the most violent persecutions, that Christianity, though embraced and professed by the minority only, succeeded in attaining to a commanding position in matters both social and political. During the third century, however, an attentive observer might have foreseen the dawn of this unexpected triumph from certain internal convulsions which were then affecting Paganism. An extraordinary change had taken place in the ideas of the Pagan world. People were very far from avowing themselves openly as Christians, and yet they were making decided efforts to Christianise the old creed, that of natural religion. An anxiety was evinced that this old creed should be imbued with more spiritualism, that it should become more