How came it possible that the gifts
of Athens and of Alexandria were deliberately thrown away? For three
causes. The barbarians shattered the Roman Empire to its foundations.
When Alaric entered Rome in 410 A. D., ghastly was the impression made
on the contemporaries; the Roman world shuddered in a titanic spasm
(Lindner). The land was a garden of Eden before them, behind a howling
wilderness, as is so graphically told in Gibbon's great history. Many of
the most important centres of learning were destroyed, and for centuries
Minerva and Apollo forsook the haunts of men. The other equally
important cause was the change wrought by Christianity. The brotherhood
of man, the care of the body, the gospel of practical virtues formed the
essence of the teaching of the Founder--in these the Kingdom of Heaven
was to be sought; in these lay salvation. But the world was very evil,
all thought that the times were waxing late, and into men's minds
entered as never before a conviction of the importance of the four
last things--death, judgment, heaven and hell. One obstacle alone stood
between man and his redemption, the vile body, "this muddy vesture of
decay," that so grossly wrapped his soul. To find methods of bringing it
into subjection was the task of the Christian Church for centuries.
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