as for instance by the light-heartedness of Horace.Others looked for other means of comfort against the weariness which bordered on despair, against the slowly killing consсiousness that all progress of thought and every impulse of the heart were henceforth withont hope that everywhere there at the huge spiderpitilessly drinking all blood wherever it might still he welling forth. This century-old speechless hatred of the wearied spectators against Rome, as far as Rome's rule extended, at last found vent in Christianity, which welded Rome, the “world" and "sin" into one idea.They took their revenge by announcing the sudden destruction of the world to be near at hand; by reestablishing a future—Rome had indeed known how to make everything its own pre- and present history—a future in comparison to which Rome no longer appeared as the most important object : they took their revenge by dreaming of the last judgment—and the crucified Jews, as the symbol of salvation, was the bitterest satire on the splendid Roman prætors in the province, for now they appeared as the symbols of misrule and of a "world" fit for destruction.
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‘’The life after death.’’—Christianity found the notion of punishment in hell in existence throughout the Roman Empire. The numerous secret cults have hatched it out with special delight as the most promising egg
