Homer's heroes are of almost the same stature as his gods.

Ajax defies Jupiter, Achilles is the peer of Mars.

Christianity on the contrary, as we have seen, draws a broad line of division between spirit and matter.

It places an abyss between the soul and the body, an abyss between man and God.
At this point--to omit nothing from the sketch upon which we have ventured--we will call attention to the fact that, with Christianity, and by its means, there entered into the mind of the nations a new sentiment, unknown to the ancients and marvellously developed among moderns, a sentiment which is more than gravity and less than sadness--melancholy.

In truth, might not the heart of man, hitherto deadened by religions purely hierarchical and sacerdotal, awake and feel springing to life within it some unexpected faculty, under the breath of a religion that is human because it is divine, a religion which makes of the poor man's prayer, the rich man's wealth, a religion of equality, liberty and charity?
Might it not see all things in a new light, since the Gospel had shown it the soul through the senses, eternity behind life?
Moreover, at that very moment the world was undergoing so complete a revolution that it was impossible that there should not be a revolution in men's minds.