references being to the Edition by R. H. Charles (1907).

I think these quotations are sufficient to prove the high standard of
this book, which was written in the Second Century B. C., and FROM which
the New Testament authors copiously borrowed.

The other point has to do with my statement at the beginning of this
chapter that two of the main 'characteristics' of Christianity were its
insistence on (a) a tendency towards renunciation of the world, and a
consequent cultivation of a purely spiritual love, and (b) on a morality
whose inspiration was a private sense of duty to God rather than a
public sense of duty to one's neighbor and to society generally. I
think, however, that the last-mentioned characteristic ought to
be viewed in relation to a third, namely, (c) the extraordinarily
DEMOCRATIC tendency of the new Religion. (1) Celsus (A.D. 200) jeered
at the early Christians for their extreme democracy: "It is only
the simpletons, the ignoble, the senseless--slaves and womenfolk and
children--whom they wish to persuade (to join their churches) or CAN
persuade"--"wool-dressers and cobblers and fullers, the most uneducated
and vulgar persons," and "whosoever is a sinner, or unintelligent or
a fool, in a word, whoever is god-forsaken ([gr kakodaimwn]), him the
Kingdom of God will receive." (2) Thus Celsus, the accomplished, clever,
philosophic and withal humorous critic, laughed at the new religionists,
and prophesied their speedy extinction. Nevertheless he was mistaken.
There is little doubt that just the inclusion of women and weaklings
and outcasts did contribute LARGELY to the spread of Christianity (and
Mithraism). It brought hope and a sense of human dignity to the despised
and rejected of the earth. Of the immense numbers of lesser officials
who carried on the vast organization of the Roman Empire, most perhaps,
were taken from the ranks of the freedmen and quondam slaves, drawn from
a great variety of races and already familiar with pagan cults of all
kinds--Egyptian, Syrian, Chaldean, Iranian, and so forth. (3) This
fact helped to give to Christianity--under the fine tolerance of the
Empire--its democratic character and also its willingness to accept all.
The rude and menial masses, who had hitherto been almost beneath the
notice of Greek and Roman culture, flocked in; and though this was
doubtless, as time went on, a source of weakness to the Church, and a
cause of dissension and superstition, yet it was in