E. M. Forster

“ It too evolved a system which, though not logical, paid the lip service to logic that a great city demands, and interspersed bridges of argument among the flights of faith. All Greek thinkers, except Socrates, had done the same, so that, on its intellectual side, the new religion did not break with the past; it consisted of an assertion in a philosophic dress, and Clement of Alexandria, its first theologian, used methods that were familiar to Philo two hundred years before. ”

“ When the assertions that were made at one time and another in the uplands of Palestine descended from their home, and, taking the ancient caravan route, crossed the River of Egypt and approached Alexandria, they entered into a new spiritual atmosphere where they were obliged to transform themselves or to perish. ”

“ One recognizes the wary resident. And when he attacks Paganism he seldom denounces: he mocks, knowing this to be the better way. For the age is literal. It had lost resilience and spring, and if one pointed out to it that Zeus had behaved absurdly in Homer, it could summon no rush of instinct or of poetry with which to defend his worship. ”