for it is the moment that is passionate, blind and aggressive. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee."1 Of course Jerusalem killeth her prophets. For what is a prophet? If he is a true prophet, is he not so because of his insight into life in general and into the inevitable consequences of our momentary passionate actions? Then because of this very insight he can never qualify as a popular leader, the hero of the passing moment. Popularity is hardly the rôle of a true prophet. Therefore Christ says:

Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you, for so did your fathers unto the false prophets.2

The greater a general insight is the more it is at variance with the vociferous passions of the moment. Now, when we come to the insight that Christ taught, it was so universal that it was not even understood by the moment. Only its points of variance were felt and resented by an aroused nation on the eve of its rebellion and its destruction. And Christ was crucified. The kingdom was to be within us. The kingdom was a matter of attitude and of understanding. But the kingdom was also after all like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of seeds, but which grows in time.

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh

1 Matthew 23:37. Luke 6:25.

a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.1

And so after all is human assimilation of all knowledge, and all insight. It is a matter of slow growth. 1 Matthew 13:31-32.

ROME'S FALL RECONSIDERED

THE great Roman writers with whom we are familiar seem to have been quite conscious of Rome's progressive disintegration. Testimony from the eyewitnesses of the process is, of course, of the utmost importance. Let us hear to what fundamental factors they themselves attributed the decline of their commonwealth.

Probably no handy quotation has pursued us through our school years with such persistence as Pliny's "Latifundia perdidere Italiam, jam vero et provincias." 1 The elder Pliny was not merely a man of great learning, but a much traveled statesman of large and varied experience. Is it not interesting that he does not present us with a catalog of factors that were leading Rome to its destruction? On the contrary, without any apology he is crisply pointing to one predominating factor, which he names. The large ✔estates, the latifundia, were ruining Rome as well as its provinces.

More rhetorical in form, but similar in meaning, is the arraignment of the vast latifundia and their owners in Seneca's letters.2 Seneca himself was one of the richest land-owners of Rome, but as a statesman he gave warning, in public, of what the wealthy land

owners did not care to hear in private. Seneca asks: "How far will you extend the bounds of your possessions? An estate which formerly held a whole nation, is now too narrow for a single lord." In fact, Cicero had already reported the statement of the tribune Philippus that the entire commonwealth could not muster two thousand property owners.2 The concentration of landed property must have been impressive. 'The latifundia, according to one view, therefore, were the cause of ruin; but there was a more popular version of the decline, namely, corruptio: the corruption of morals, the corruption brought by wealth, the corruption brought by poverty, the all-pervading moral corruption of Rome. Livy invites us to follow first the gradual sinking of the national character, later on the more rapid tempo of its downward course until the days are reached when "we can endure neither our vices nor their remedies." And what great Roman of that period did not complain of corruption? Read Tiberius' famous letter to the Senate, which Tacitus has transmitted to us. The Senate complained of luxury and corruption and called on the emperor for action and Tiberius answered:

3

That these excesses are censured at entertainments and in private circles, I know quite well. And yet, let a law be made with equal penalties, and the very men who call for a reform would be the first to make objections. The public peace, they would say, is disturbed; illustrious families are in danger of ruin.

1.Ibid.

2

"Non esse in civitate duo milia hominum qui rem haberent." Cicero, De Officiis, ii, 73.

Livius, i, Praefatio.

"Tacitus, Annales, iii, 54

Perhaps the most striking expression1 of the progressive moral deterioration of the Romans is in Horace's ode "Ad Romanos" :2 Damnosa quid non imminuit dies? Aetas, parentum pejor avis tulit nos nequiores, mox daturos progeniem vitiosiorem-"What does ruinous time not impair? The age of our parents, more degenerate than that of our grandfathers, produced us, even more worthless, and we shall give birth to a still more vicious progeny!" A cheerful prospect! But why such a note of despair? What is the cause of this moral corruption and degeneracy of which all Roman writers of the period complain?

In that very same ode Horace tells us why he takes so desperate a view of things. The great deeds of the Romans were the deeds of a sturdy farmer race: sed rusticorum mascula militium Proles, Sabellis docta ligonibus Versare glebas. These farmers' sons existed no longer. If they could not maintain themselves on their farms, still worse were the chances for a respectable existence in Rome. There they lost what little they had and became demoralized, dependent paupers.*

The two complaints, the two Roman explanations of their own decline and disintegration reduce themselves, therefore, to one single explanation. For it is

1

Among the picturesque characterizations of Roman degeneracy Columella deserves a very high place with his "Nam sic juvenum corpora fluxa et resoluta sunt, ut nihil mors mutatura videatur." "For so limp and dissolute are the bodies of the young men, that it does not seem as if death could make any change in them!" Columella, i, Praefatio.