application, and symbolised in their ritual spectacles the state of the soul after death, and its ultimate union, when thoroughly purified, with the Supreme Essence or the Divinity of things. In its pagan form as a matter of course it implied a complete distinction between the cultivated, who could aspire to an understanding of such high matters, and the unleisured vulgar herd, who saw in the Mysteries mere ceremonies, with an exoteric significance only. As this new religious spirit developed into Christianity, that exclusiveness proved to be the ruin of its pagan garb since Christianity 54 proclaimed the accessibility of all men, “learned and lewd,” to a full share in all its benefits: though, after all, the exclusiveness soon reasserted itself and created a distinction, not this time between the initiated and the profane, or the philosopher and the common man, but between those devoted to a holy life and those living in the world. Christianity was thus enabled to carry through the whole of society a tendency before confined to certain classes of the population alone. Thus the church triumphed, nor was its victory without direct economical causes, for the accumulation of wealth in the hands of men whose profession forbade luxury, which wealth was actually largely spent in the maintenance of the poor, had a strong propagandist influence in times which, to judge from the hints left us by history, immediately preceded the official establishment of the Christian religion.
It is also undoubted that the contests which took place throughout the 4th century, and which were practically ended by the edicts of Theodosius suppressing the public exercise of the pagan 55 rites, were mixed with desire on the part of the church to enter into the inheritance of the treasures of the various pagan priesthoods. Thus the official religion of Europe was revolutionised without hope of return.
With the change in economics and religion went also the change in the arts. The Archaic art of the classical nations was expressive, spontaneous, and ornamental; in the hands of a people so full of talent of all kinds as