might easily have obtained his knowledge of their doctrines almost at first hand from the Septuagint, does not show in a single line that he ever thought this knowledge worth the trouble. When he mentions the Jews it is only to disparage them, and to betray the grossest ignorance of their religion and their nationality. The same is true of Seneca and the other Roman writers. Tacitus, who professes to give an account of their origin and of some of the tenets of their religion, shamefully misrepresents both, while he holds the people up to the scorn of his countrymen. So little are the most intelligent men often aware of the occult forces at work in the world, and so ready are they to pour contempt upon everything that does not accord with their preconceived opinions! The early Christians, as is well known, were reluctant to believe that the new doctrines were intended for Gentiles as well as Jews. Both the New Testament and some of the church fathers testify to this fact. Merivale makes it clear that Tertullian believed that Christianity must always, to some extent, stand apart from the ordinary march of events, and that the true faith could only be held by a chosen few. He does not intend his words to be understood in their spiritual significance, that many are called but few chosen, and he makes this plain by adding that the Roman emperors might themselves have been Christians, if governments could become Christian; in other words “mankind in general were equally incapable of moral renovation and spiritual conversion.” Though Seneca was, during almost his whole life in the public eye and lived amid the toil and turbulence of the busiest city in the world, he professed a distaste for crowds. He tries to dissuade those who value their peace of mind, but especially those who are truly devoted to philosophy, from seeking popular applause. He loves to be the center of a circle of choice spirits, to associate on intimate terms with men of like aims and tastes with his own. It is almost exclusively against the vices of the rich and the great that he declaims. Only in “good society” is he at home; in fact he seems to know no other, has nothing in common with any other. He is profoundly ignorant, with Plutarch, of the fact that society cannot be reformed from the top or from within. Yet the refinements of luxury are hateful to him, and from boyhood to the end of his days he lived a frugal life.