It must be remembered, too, that the old belief that the Church was poor, pure, and wholly spiritual until the time of Constantine is a false tradition. The secularisation and materialisation of the Church was so noticeable as to cause complaint as early as the third century. The Church Fathers unanimously deplore the precocious decay of the Christian world.[201:5] To the minds of many, therefore, the only way to escape the damning effects of contamination with the Roman world, the only way to elude the evils in the Church itself, and the only sure way of leading the ideal Christian life was to flee from villages and cities to the mountains and deserts. "They fled not only from the world, but from the world within the Church." When Christianity was drawn from the catacombs to the court of the Cæsars, it lost its power to regenerate souls. That memorable alliance hindered neither the ruin of the Empire, nor "the servitude and mutilation of the Church."[202:1] Associated with the power that so long sought to destroy her, the Church was brought face to face with the tremendous task of transforming and replacing the Empire. At the same time the Church made a desperate attempt, though in vain, to keep alive the spiritual torches of apostolic Christianity. The solution of that great problem, however, was left to the monks. The philosophy which prevailed among many of the early Christians held that the material world is all evil, and that the spiritual world is the only good. Gnosticism, which permeated Christendom in the second century, declared that the body is the seat of evil and hence that it must be abused in order to purify the soul within.[202:2] Montanism advocated an excessive puritanism, and prescribed numerous fasts and severities, which paved the way for asceticism. Other groups of Christian philosophers exercised similar influences.[202:3] The Church itself commended fasting and other practices for the cultivation of spiritual benefit. Celibacy of the clergy gradually became the rule. As a result the belief soon developed that the surest way to gain eternal joys in heaven was to turn away from the transitory pleasures of earth. Christianity in the first and second centuries was the gospel of renunciation and resurrection. The next logical step was to make the body as miserable as possible here--sort of a pious sacrifice--in order to make the soul happier hereafter. To die that one might really live, to find one's life in losing it--that became the supreme purpose of earthly existence. The most eminent of the early Fathers commended asceticism, particularly fasting and celibacy, and many likewise practised it. It is easy to feel that the air was charged with ascetic ideals. The literature, the philosophy, and the religion of the day all pointed out narrow paths that led to holiness. As a result there were many ascetics of both sexes, although they were bound by no irrevocable vow.[203:1]