ABSTRACT
Enemies of Christianity make it their constant charge that Christianity is an other-worldly religion which regards life on earth only as a period of preparation, grim and rich in trials, for eternal life in the world to come. Paganism, on the contrary, is praised as a joyous doctrine which taught ancient man to give untrammeled expression, and in his own particular manner, to his potentialities, his inclinations, and his individual destiny. It might be objected at once that even the world view of the Greek at its most powerful was far from being as joyous as is customarily believed. But in any case we must realize that the paganism of the third century can certainly make no unqualified claim to this praise, if one wishes to style it such, and that it had also become a religion of the beyond. Christian dogma places its doctrine of death and immortality at the end of its doctrine of man; in the present case we must begin with death and immortality, because comprehension of late pagan religions depends entirely upon this point.
