When missionaries of the
Byzantine church looked for fresh fields of activity, they went
eastward and carried the civilisation of Byzantium into the
vast wilderness of Russia.
As for the west, it was left to the mercies of the Barbarians.
For twelve generations, murder, war, arson, plundering were
the order of the day. One thing--and one thing alone--saved
Europe from complete destruction, from a return to the days
of cave-men and the hyena.
This was the church--the flock of humble men and women
who for many centuries had confessed themselves the followers
of Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth, who had been
killed that the mighty Roman Empire might be saved the
trouble of a street-riot in a little city somewhere along the
Syrian frontier.
RISE OF THE CHURCH
HOW ROME BECAME THE CENTRE OF THE
CHRISTIAN WORLD
THE average intelligent Roman who lived under the Empire
had taken very little interest in the gods of his fathers.
A few times a year he went to the temple, but merely as a
matter of custom. He looked on patiently when the people
celebrated a religious festival with a solemn procession. But he
regarded the worship of Jupiter and Minerva and Neptune as
something rather childish, a survival from the crude days of
the early republic and not a fit subject of study for a man
who had mastered the works of the Stoics and the Epicureans
and the other great philosophers of Athens.
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