Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/28

brief glory of this people, consider it as a nation of pigmies. For the one, greatness consists in duration; for the other, it is action. Thus Grecian theology, Grecian history, and Grecian character are one and the same.

This phenomenon is conspicuous in the history of the Roman people. Their principal gods, of Etruscan origin, were Grecian in their quality of deities, and Oriental in so far as Etruscan. They were numerous as the gods of Greece, and at the same time austere and somber as the gods of the East. Rome combines the East and the West, both in politics and in religion. It is a city like that of Theseus, and an empire like that of Cyrus. Rome is a type of Janus, being two-faced, and each visage bearing a different aspect. One symbolizes Oriental duration, and the other Grecian activity; possessing a mobility so great as to reach the confines of the earth, and so prolonged in duration that the world proclaims it eternal. Chosen by the divine counsel to prepare the way for Him who was to come, its providential mission was to assimilate to itself all theologies, and to rule over all nations. In obedience to a mysterious influence, all the gods find a place in the Roman Capitol, and the awed nations, overcome with terror, lie humbled and prostrate under the Roman yoke. All the cities are successively despoiled of their gods, and all the gods are one after the other despoiled of their temples and cities. This vast empire holds as its own the Oriental legitimacy—multitude and strength; and the legitimacy of the West—intelligence and discipline. For this reason it subjects all, and none resist it, or complain of its crushing force. In the same way that its theology differs from, and yet has something in