The Social Results of Early Christianity Author:Charles Schmidt General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1889 Original Publisher: Wm. Isbister Subjects: Christianity Sociology, Christian Rome History / Ancient / Rome Religion / Christianity / History Religion / Christianity / General Religion / Christian Church / History Social Science / Sociology of Religion N... more »otes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: INTRODUCTION. At the epoch when Christianity appeared Rome was at the summit of her power and glory. The greatest part of the then known world obeyed her laws; her civilization, with its benefits and its vices, was established in Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa; her legions had planted their victorious eagles everywhere ; her institutions, her customs, even her language had followed them, and the world had become Roman, not in name only, but in thought and deed. The social and moral state of the Empire was alike in both East and West: it was the result of a fusion of Grecian civilization with that of Republican Rome. This fusion was easily accomplished, for notwithstanding the difference between the Roman and the Greek genius, the two civilizations rested on the same fundamental principle. It will not be needful to go back to the heroic traditions of primitive ages in order to recognise this principle, and to characterise generally the spirit of Roman society in the ages with which we are engaged. We need not seek these germs, half hidden in the shadow of the myths, but we must follow their historical development, both in the institutions which gave a legal sanction to the customs, and in the opinions of the philosophers, who justified both law and customs by their theories. From this double source we shall draw the materials for composing t...« less