deserve.

Not, be it ever remembered, that the slightest suspicion of
immorality attaches either to the heroine of this book, or to the
leading philosophers of her school, for several centuries.
Howsoever base and profligate their disciples, or the Manichees, may
have been, the great Neo-Platonists were, as Manes himself was,
persons of the most rigid and ascetic virtue.

For a time had arrived, in which no teacher who did not put forth
the most lofty pretensions to righteousness could expect a hearing.
That Divine Word, who is 'The Light who lighteth every man which
cometh into the world,' had awakened in the heart of mankind a moral
craving never before felt in any strength, except by a few isolated
philosophers or prophets. The Spirit had been poured out on all
flesh; and from one end of the Empire to the other, from the slave
in the mill to the emperor on his throne, all hearts were either
hungering and thirsting after righteousness, or learning to do
homage to those who did so. And He who excited the craving, was
also furnishing that which would satisfy it; and was teaching
mankind, by a long and painful education, to distinguish the truth
from its innumerable counterfeits, and to find, for the first time
in the world's life, a good news not merely for the select few, but
for all mankind without respect of rank or race.

For somewhat more than four hundred years, the Roman Empire and the
Christian Church, born into the world almost at the same moment, had
been developing themselves side by side as two great rival powers,
in deadly struggle for the possession of the human race. The
weapons of the Empire had been not merely an overwhelming physical