ntegrity.

Society was divided into three classes. It is computed that one-half the
population were slaves. A large majority of the remainder were paupers,
living on public charity, and constituting a festering sore that
threatened the life of the social organism. The rich, who were
relatively few, squandered princely incomes in a single night, and
exhausted their imaginations devising new and expensive forms of
sensuous pleasure. The profligacy of the nobles almost surpasses
credibility, so that trustworthy descriptions read like works of
fiction. Farrar says: "A whole population might be trembling lest they
should be starved by the delay of an Alexandrian corn ship, while the
upper classes were squandering a fortune at a single banquet, drinking
out of myrrhine and jeweled vases worth hundreds of pounds, and feasting
on the brains of peacocks and the tongues of nightingales." The
frivolity of the social and political leaders of Rome, the insane thirst
for lust and luxury, the absence of seriousness in the face of
frightful, impending ruin, almost justify the epigram of Silvianus,
"Rome was laughing when she died."

"On that hard pagan world disgust
And secret loathing fell;
Deep weariness and sated lust
Made human life a hell.
In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad in furious guise
Along the Appian Way;
He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,
And crowned his hair with flowers
No easier nor no guicker past
The impracticable hours."

Pagan mythology and Pagan philosophy were powerless to resist this
downward tendency. Although Christianity had become the state religion,
it was itself in great danger of yielding to the decay that prevailed.
The Empire was, in fact, but nominally Christian. Thousands of
ecclesiastical adherents were half pagan in their spirit and practice.
Harnack declares, "They were too deeply affected by Christianity to
abandon it, but too little to be Christians. Pure religious enthusiasm
waned, ideals received a new form, and the dependence and responsibility
of individuals became weaker." Even ordinary courage had everywhere
declined and the pleasures of the senses controlled the heart of
Christian society.

Many of the men who should have resisted this gross secularization of
the church, who ought to have set their faces against the departure from
apostolic ideals by exalting the standards of th