and especially when it became the acknowledged religious system of the empire, it was plain that a large proportion of its members were by no means fit for heaven. And yet, with its looser Pagan hold on morality, it did not care to consign to damnation faithful believers in its doctrines. The old ideas, latent generally in Paganism, and given special expression in the mysteries, of penal purification from evil exactly met the difficulty, and accordingly they were incorporated in Christianity. As before in the case of the Incarnation, it was the need of the Church that really created the doctrine; Paganism only determined its form. Christianity took all its supernaturalism of evil from Judaism, that is, from the later developments of Judaism, with hardly the slightest change. The belief in a chief devil, having subordinates under him, in hell or some such kind of irrevocable punishment, characterized late Judaism as much as Christianity. In general, this supernaturalism of evil was less strongly developed in Pagan religions, or rather, to speak more precisely, it was a feature of eastern far more than of western theology. Still Christian Paganism, though mainly western, had no difficulty in accepting it, and it afterwards became the chief support of medieval superstition. The decline and final ruin of the empire of Rome transformed the outward structure of Christianity. The empire died under the hands of northern barbarians, but it attained a resurrection in the shape of the Papal Church. After the separation of the Eastern and Western Churches, the line of Christian development passed through the latter alone, the former remaining stagnant in consequence of its union with political despotism. The free Church of the west, becoming the real representative of Christianity, gradually embodied in itself all the attributes of imperial power. The Pope succeeded the Emperor; bishops succeeded the provincial legates; the religious tyranny of Catholicism succeeded the political tyranny of Cesarism. The pomp and ceremonial of the empire were transferred to the Church. The spirit of sensuous worship latent always in Christian Paganism of course was encouraged by this, and expressed itself in a complex ritual. But most of all Catholic imperialism exalted the clergy above the laity.