In tracing the various senses of "the world" we have not dwelt prominently upon the conception of the world as embodied in the Roman Empire, and in the city of Rome as its seat--an empire standing over against the Church as the Kingdom of God. The αλαζονια του βιου may be projected outwardly, and set in a material framework in the gorgeous description of the wealth and luxury of Rome in Apoc. xviii. 11-14. M. Rénan finds in the Apocalypse the cry of horror of a witness who has been at Rome, seen the martyrdom of brethren, and been himself near death. (Apoc. i. 9, vi. 9, xiii. 10, xx. 4; cf. _L'Antechrist_, pp. 197, 199. Surely Apoc. xviii. 20 adds a strong testimony to the martyrdom of Peter and Paul at Rome.) So early a witness as Tertullian gives the story of St. John's having been plunged into the boiling oil without injury to him before his exile at Patmos. (_De Præscr. Hær._, 36). The Apocryphal 'Acta Iohannis' (known to Eusebius and to St. Augustine), relates at length an interview at Rome between Domitian and St. John--not without interest, in spite of some miraculous embellishment. _Acta. Apost. Apoc._ Tischendorf, 266-271. FOOTNOTES: [203] παραγεται. It has been said that this is not the real point; that what St. John here describes is not the general attribute of the world as transitory, but its condition at the moment when the Epistle was written, in presence of the manifestation of "the kingdom of God, which was daily shining forth." But surely the world can scarcely be so completely identified with the temporary framework of the Roman Empire; and the _universality_ of the antithesis (ὁ δε ποιων κ.τ.λ.) and its intensely _individual_ form, lead us to take κοσμος in that universal and inclusive signification which alone is of abiding interest to every age. [204] Job xiv. 1, 2. Cf. x. 20-22. [205] Such seems to be the meaning of אַבְלִינָה (Ps. xxxix. 14). [206] Ps. xc. 9. [207] James iv. 13-17. The passage 1 Pet. i. 25 is taken from the magnificent prophecy in which the fragility of all flesh, transitory as the falling away of the flowers of grass into impalpable dust, is contrasted with the eternity of the word of God. Isa. xl. 6, 7, LXX. [208] "Possessa onerant, amata inquinant, amissa cruciant."--_St. Bernard_. [209] The view here taken of Bouddhism follows that of M. J. Barthelemy St. Hilaire. _Le Bouddha et sa Réligion._ Prémière partie, chap. v., pp. 141-182. [210] "These populations neither deny nor affirm God. They simply ignore Him. To assert that they are atheists would be very much the same thing as to assert that they are anti-Cartesians. As they are neither for nor against Descartes, so they are neither for nor against God. They are just children. A child is neither atheist nor deist. He is nothing."--Voltaire, _Dict. Phil._, Art. _Athêisme_.