CHAPTER II.

THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY.--ITS TRANSFORMATION ON ATTAINING
IMPERIAL POWER.--ITS RELATIONS TO SCIENCE.

Religious condition of the Roman Republic.--The adoption of
imperialism leads to monotheism.--Christianity spreads over the
Roman Empire.-- The circumstances under which it attained
imperial power make its union with Paganism a political
necessity.--Tertullian's description of its doctrines and
practices.--Debasing effect of the policy of Constantine on
it.--Its alliance with the civil power.--Its incompatibility with
science.--Destruction of the Alexandrian Library and prohibition
of philosophy.--Exposition of the Augustinian philosophy and
Patristic science generally.--The Scriptures made the standard of
science.


IN a political sense, Christianity is the bequest of the Roman
Empire to the world.

At the epoch of the transition of Rome from the republican to the
imperial form of government, all the independent nationalities
around the Mediterranean Sea had been brought under the control
of that central power. The conquest that had befallen them in
succession had been by no means a disaster. The perpetual wars
they had maintained with each other came to an end; the miseries