of life;' or on that of a girl of twenty: 'I lift my hands against the god who took me away,
innocent as I am.'
2. The only thorough resistance to this worship came from hated Judća, and, we may
add, from Britain ( Döllinger, p. 611).
3. From the time of Cćsar to that of Diocletian, fifty -three such apotheoses took place,
including those of fifteen women belongin g to the Imperial families.
It would be unsavoury to describe how far the worship of indecency was carried; how
public morals were corrupted by the mimic representations of everything that was vile,
and even by the pandering of a corrupt art. The personation of gods, oracles, divination,
dreams, astrology, magic, necromancy, and theurgy, 4 all contributed to the general decay.
It has been rightly said, that the idea of conscience, as we understand it, was unknown to
heathenism. Absolute right did not exist. Might was right. The social relations exhibited,
if possible, even deeper corruption. The sanctity of marriage had ceased. Female
dissipation and the general dissoluteness led at last to an almost entire cessation of
marriage. Abortion, and the exposure a nd murder of newly-born children, were common
and tolerated; unnatural vices, which even the greatest philosophers practised, if not
advocated, attained proportions which defy description.
4. One of the most painful, and to the Christian almost incredible , manifestations of
religious decay was the unblushing manner in which the priests practised imposture upon
the people. Numerous and terrible instances of this could be given. The evidence of this
is not only derived from the Fathers, but a work has been p reserved in which formal
instructions are given, how temples and altars are to be constructed in order to produce
false miracles, and by what means impostures of this kind may be successfully practised.
(Comp. 'The Pneumatics of Hero,' translated by B. Woodcroft .) The worst was, that this
kind of imposture on the ignorant populace was openly approved by the educated.
(Döllinger, p. 647.)
But among these sad signs of the times three must be specially mentioned: the treatment
of slaves; the bearing towards the poor; and public amusements. The slave was entirely
unprotected; males and females were exposed to nameless cruelties, compared to which
death by being thrown to the wild beasts, or fighting in the arena, might seem absolute
relief. Sick or old slaves were cast out to perish from want. But what the influence of the
slaves must have been on the free population, and especially upon the young - whose
tutors they generally were - may readily be imagined. The heartlessness towards the poor
who crowded the city is another well-known feature of ancient Roman society. Of course,
there was neither hospitals, nor provision for the poor; charity and brotherly love in their
every manifestation are purely Old and New Testament ideas. But even bestowal of the
smallest alms on the needy was regarded as very questionable; best, not to afford them
the means of protracting a useless existence. Lastly, the account which Seneca has to give
of what occupied and amused the idle multitude - for all manual labour, except
agriculture, was looked upon with utmost contempt - horrified even himself. And so the
only escape which remained for the philosopher, the satiated, or the miserable, seemed
the power of self-destruction! What is worse, the noblest spirits of the time of self-
destruction! What is worse, the noblest spirits of the time felt, that the state of things was
utterly hopeless. Society could not reform itself; philosophy and religion had nothing to