During the three hundred years before the invasions those who read at all did not ordinarily take the trouble to study the classics, but relied upon mere collections of quotations; and for what they called science, upon compendiums and manuals. These the Middle Ages inherited, and it was not until the time of Petrarch, in the fourteenth century, that Europe once more reached a degree of cultivation which enabled the more discriminating scholars to appreciate the best productions of the great authors of antiquity, both Greek and Latin.[2] [Sidenote: Preparation for Christianity.] In spite of the general decline of which we have been speaking, the Roman world appeared to be making progress in one important respect. During the first and second centuries a sort of moral revival took place and a growing religious enthusiasm showed itself, which prepared the way for the astonishingly rapid introduction of the new Christian religion. Some of the pagan philosophers had quite given up the old idea which we find in Homer and Virgil, that there were many gods, and had reached an elevated conception of the one God and of our duty toward Him. "Our duty," writes the philosopher Epictetus at the end of the first century, "is to follow God, ... to be of one mind with Him, to devote ourselves to the performance of His commands." The emperor Marcus Aurelius (d. 180) expresses similar sentiments in his _Meditations_,[3] the notes which he wrote for his own guidance. There was a growing abhorrence for the notorious vices of the great cities, and an ever-increasing demand for pure and upright conduct. The pagan religions taught that the souls of the dead continued to exist in Hades; but the life to come was believed to be a dreary existence at best. [Sidenote: Promises of Christianity.] Christianity brought with it a new hope for all those who would escape from the bondage of sin, of which the serious-minded were becoming more and more conscious. It promised, moreover, eternal happiness after death to all who would consistently strive to do right. It appealed to the desires and needs of all kinds of men and women. For every one who accepted the Gospel might look forward in the next world to such joy as he could never hope to experience in this. [Sidenote: Christianity and paganism tend to merge into one another.] [Sidenote: Boethius.]