in it not only plebeianism, which was disquieting, but an organisation of
plebeianism, which was still more so. The administration of religion had
always been in the hands of the aristocracy; the Roman pontiffs were
patricians, the Emperor was the sovereign pontiff; to yield obedience, even
were it only spiritually, to private men as priests was to be disobedient
to the Roman aristocracy, to the Emperor himself, and was properly speaking
a revolt.

A further explanation, perhaps, is that each new religion that was
introduced at Rome did not oppose and did not contradict polytheism, the
principle of polytheism being precisely that there are many gods; whereas
Christianity denying all those gods and affirming that there is only one,
and that all others must be despised as non-existent, inveighed against,
denied, and ruined or threatened to destroy the very essence of
polytheism. It was not a variation, it was a heresy; it was more than
heretical, it was anarchical; it did not only condemn this or that
religion, but even the very tolerance with which the Roman government
accepted all religions. Hence it is natural enough that it should have been
combated to the utmost by practically all the Emperors, from the most
execrable, such as Nero, to the best, such as Marcus Aurelius.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE PHILOSOPHERS.--The relations of Christianity
with philosophy were confused. The immense majority of philosophers
rejected it, considering their own views superior to it, and moreover,
feeling it to be formidable, made use against it of all that could be found
beautiful, specious, or expedient in ancient philosophy; and the ardour of
Neoplatonism, which we have considered, in part arose from precisely this
instinct of rivalry and of struggle. At that epoch there was a throng of
men like Ernest Havet presenting Hellenism in opposition to Christianity,
and Ernest Havet is only a Neoplatonist of the nineteenth century.