Page:Early Christianity outside the Roman empire.djvu/95

Rh nothing left on this earth to live for. "Would that the days passed swiftly over me, and that all the hours were one," says Mygdonia, "that I might go forth from this world, and go and see that Beautiful One with whose impress I have been sealed, that Living One and Giver of life to those who have believed in Him, where there is neither day nor night, and no darkness but light, and neither good nor bad, nor rich nor poor, neither male nor female, nor slaves nor freemen, nor any proud and uplifted over those who are humble ." The old civilisation was doomed, but this religious Nihilism puts nothing in its place. To the orthodox Christian, on the other hand, the Church stood as a middle term between the things of the next world and of this. It was the Body of Christ and therefore eternal; something worth living for and working for. Yet it was in the world as much as the Empire itself. The idea of the Church thus