Page:The early Christians in Rome (1911).djvu/180

 teacher of the young, seeing that in all the manuals of education a knowledge of the old gods still worshipped in Rome—their myths, their prowess, their various attributes—was carefully taught? The very festivals and sacred days had to be carefully observed by them, since it was by means of these the teachers' fees were reckoned.

All such and many other like questions had to be considered and weighed by the Christian converts living in the world of Rome. Very thorny and rough was the path which had to be travelled by every earnest Christian in his way through life.

A striking and eloquent apologia for or explanation of the reasons which guided many of the early Christian teachers to advocate a certain feeling of toleration in various circumstances of everyday life may be quoted here:

"The (Roman) Empire was originally developed quite apart from Christianity under the shadow of the worship of the old false gods. Everything in it bore the stamp of idolatry. Its laws and its customs, first framed by patricians who were at once priests and lawgivers, then consolidated by Emperors who ranked first and foremost as sovereign pontiffs of the idol-worship, everything was coloured with and permeated by polytheism. Art—Letters—private customs—all were pagan. There was no public monument but was placed under the guardianship of some heathen deity. No poem was composed without special reference to an idol god; no feast began without a libation to an idol; no household omitted the inescapable duty which directed that a sacred fire should burn before the household gods (Lares). Thus absolutely independent of Christianity, such a civilization must needs be intensely hostile to the new faith, and its hostility never faltered one instant. Differing here from the fixed rule of universal toleration, Roman society from the very first displayed towards Christianity the bitterest contempt—insulting treatment—persecution. The religion of Jesus grew up and spread under circumstances of general ignominy and hatred living in such a highly civilized community—mighty and indeed all-powerful—the Church of Christ destroyed