Samayasara

Author(s): A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 22

SAMAYASARA
had hitherto a naive realistic form of religion after the pattern of the Greek Religion of the Homeric Period. The advent of Christianity resulted in the breaking down of these primitive religious institutions of the Romans. This breakdown of traditional Roman religion brought many recruits to the new faith from the upper strata of Roman society, till it was able to convert a member of the Imperial household itself. The condition of the Roman society was exter mely favourable to this wonderful success of the new faith.
The Roman Empire which had the great provincial revenues pouring into the Imperial Capital converted the Roman citizens from ardent patriots of the Roman Republic into debased and demoralised citizens of the Imperial Capital sustained by the doles offered by the provincial pro-consuls. They were spending their time in witnessing demoralising entertainments and in luxuries. For example, the Roman citizens were entertained in the amphitheatre to witness the slaves being mangled and torn by hungry lions kept starving for this purpose. It is no wonder that such demoralised social organisation completely collapsed when it had the first onslaught from a more powerful idea and certainly a more soul-stirring message." **
The Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire in which there was a oalition of the authority of the States with that of the Church. This Holy Roman Empire which had the Church and the State combined had rendered wonderful service to the whole of Europe by taking the barbarian hoardes of various European races and converting them into chivalrous Christian knights by a strict' religious discipline imposed on them by the various self-sacrificing orders of the medieval monasteries. This education of the inferior races through strict discipline enforced by the Roman Church had in its own turn a drawback cautioned against by the founder of Cristianity. The Roman Church so jealously guarded its power influence that it did not promote any kind of free intellectual development suspected to be of a nature incompatible with the established traditions of the Church. This process of disciplinary.suppression of the development of human intellect went for several centuries which are designated as the dark ages" by the historians of Europe. But human intellect can never be permanently suppressed like that.
RENAISSANCE
There were murmurs and revolts within the Church itself. The unwarranted assumption of the priest-craft that it formed the intermediary between man and God was openly challenged. This movement of reform within the Church had strange co-operative forces from other sources. In the field of astronomy, Copernicus - introduced his new..and modern. conception of the constitution of the Solar system which completely displaced the old Ptolemaic astronomy. accepted by the Church. The earth which was considered to be the centre of the Universe around which the heavenly, bodies moved for the purpose of