The theocratic nature of Jewish thought and practice is generally recognized but the close connection of religion and government in the pagan educational system is not perhaps so much emphasized. To quote Pollock: "It costs us something to realize the full importance of philosophy to the Greek or Roman citizen who had received a liberal education. For him it combined in one whole body of doctrine all the authority and influence which nowadays are divided, not without contention, by science, philosophy, and religion in varying shares. It was not an intellectual exercise or special study, but a serious endeavor to gather up the results of all human knowledge in their most general form, and make them available for the practical conduct of life."[1] It was this fact which made Christianity's progress among the educated classes so slow. Once it had made its way, however, the taking over of political control by the Church was both easy and natural. One of the most notable characteristics of the New Testament and of all early Christianity in its relation to the existing political system was the doctrine of obedience to the constituted authorities. That a man like St. Paul should advocate submission to a man like Nero seems like the negation of elementary morality. The reasons for this attitude are many. In this paper we are concerned only with one of them--but possibly the most important one. The submissiveness of the early Christians to tyranny and despotism was not due primarily to impotence nor yet to excessive mildness of disposition. Many emperors before Constantine were deposed and slain by political groups smaller and feebler than the Christians. St. Paul and St. Ignatius, to go no farther, were not by nature pacifists. It would be difficult to find a book of a more militant tone than the Revelation of St. John. The main reason for the political non-resistance of the early Christians is to be sought in their philosophy; their views of the world. These views were of a very special and very peculiar kind. They were in large part either directly inherited from Jewish thought or adapted from it. While they are in some respects inconsistent with one another, they have a common element. They are all catastrophic. In all of them the catastrophe is more or less immediately imminent.