The manufacture of a new one cast ridicule on the origin of the old Incarnation in the East and apotheosis in the West were fast filling Olympus with divinities.

In the East, gods descended from heaven, and were made incarnate in men; in the West, men ascended from earth, and took their seat among the gods.

It was not the importation of Greek skepticism that made Rome skeptical.

The excesses of religion itself sapped the foundations of faith.
Not with equal rapidity did all classes of the population adopt monotheistic views.

The merchants and lawyers and soldiers, who by the nature of their pursuits are more familiar with the vicissitudes of life, and have larger intellectual views, were the first to be affected, the land laborers and farmers the last.
THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY When the empire in a military and political sense had reached its culmination, in a religious and social aspect it had attained its height of immorality.