The people, or rather the urban class, the crowd that filled the streets of Rome, hardly felt quite happy. True, even here life from the outside could sometimes seem like a holiday. Those golden streams of wealth and luxury that flowed into Rome from all countries, although to a small extent, reached the Roman populace. From the emperor and dignitary patricians on the days of solemn events and family holidays, sometimes significant handouts fell. Free distribution of bread was often practiced. Roman citizens, in addition, could trade their votes in elections to the Senate or to municipal offices.

For the crowd, free magnificent spectacles were arranged in circuses and theaters. All this created conditions for an easy, idle life and attracted masses of idle people from the provinces. Little by little, in Rome and other large cities, huge crowds of idle, restless, lazy people, accustomed to live at the expense of the state, whose only desire and constant cry was: "Bread and circuses!"

But when the emperor and the Roman nobility paid handouts to this crowd out of their colossal wealth, they treated them with undisguised contempt and barbarous cruelty. Sometimes it happened in circuses, where the bloody spectacles of gladiatorial fights and the baiting of people by wild beasts prevailed, all the victims intended for the beasts were torn to pieces, and the thirst for blood both in the beasts and in the spectators was not yet satisfied. Then the emperor ordered to throw into the arena to the beasts several dozen free spectators from the common people, who filled the amphitheater. And this order was carried out with loud laughter and applause from the nobility.

One day, on the eve of a horse race, in which the splendid thoroughbred stallion of a noble senator was to take part, a great crowd of curious onlookers surrounded the stall of the famous steed to admire it. In order to disperse the curious crowd that disturbed the peace of the noble animal, the senator ordered his slaves to pour out several large baskets full of poisonous snakes on the onlookers.

These small illustrations show how unsecured and unattractive was the life of the citizens of this class, in spite of the outward veil of seeming lightness and carelessness.

If we descend the social ladder still lower, into the slave class, we will find only continuous suffering and hopeless sorrow. A slave was not even considered a human. It was just a tool, a thing, a household belonging. The master could kill or mutilate a slave: he was not responsible for this to anyone, just as he was not responsible for a broken shovel or a broken pot.

The life of slaves was terrible. If we could walk in the streets of Rome at that time in the evening, we would probably hear heavy groans, weeping and dull blows coming from the cellars of rich houses where slaves were kept, where the usual evening execution of slaves for daytime offenses took place. For the slightest mistake, they were punished severely: they were beaten with whips or chains until they lost consciousness. They clamped their necks in a split log and left them in this position for whole days. The legs were hammered into the stocks. Once, during the reception of Emperor Augustus in the house of a famous rich man of that time, Maecenas, a slave accidentally broke an expensive vase. The patron ordered to throw him alive into the pool to be eaten by moray eels. At night, the slaves were tied in pairs and put on a chain, tightly riveted to a ring screwed into the wall. And during the day they were waiting for endless, stupefying, exhausting work under the whip of the overseer, almost without rest. If the desperate slaves rebelled against their master, they were crucified on crosses, an execution considered the most shameful and painful. When a slave became old or exhausted and could no longer work, he was taken to a small uninhabited island in the Tiber, where he was thrown like carrion to the mercy of fate.

Thus, in all classes of Roman society, life was hard, joyless, oppressive: satiety with life, boredom, disappointment in the upper nobility, lack of rights, oppression, suffering in the lower strata. There was nowhere to look for joy, comfort, consolation. The pagan religion did not give man any relief. She did not have that grace-filled mysterious power that alone can calm, encourage and strengthen a suffering heart and a languishing spirit. In addition, the Roman religion of the time of the coming of Christ the Savior borrowed a great deal from the Eastern cults, full of voluptuousness and debauchery. In the mad, dissolute of the East, one could find intoxication, temporary oblivion, but after that the sorrow became even more acute, the despair even deeper.

Pagan philosophy also could not satisfy man, since it taught only about earthly happiness and did not free the restless spirit from the fetters of the world and matter. Two trends dominated the philosophy of that time: Epicureanism and Stoicism. The Epicureans said: the science of being happy consists in creating pleasant sensations for yourself; every excess entails painful sensations, therefore it is necessary to be moderate in everything, even in pleasures, but this moderation, as well as virtue itself, is not the goal for man, but serves only as the best means to enjoyment. The Stoics took the best sides in man. You are free, they said, so you are your only master. Your will must fully belong to you; Happiness consists in dominating oneself. Sorrows, persecutions and death do not exist for you: you belong entirely to yourself and no one will take you away from you, and this is all that a wise man needs.

What philosophy lacked was the divine element. The god whom they called nature has no advantage over the gods proclaimed by pagan religion and mythological legends. The God of the philosophers is not a living, personal God, but fate, implacable and blind, under the blows of which man falls into despair and dies.

In addition, philosophy was completely inaccessible to popular understanding and was the lot of only a small number of selected sages. Therefore, the masses could not seek consolation in her.

One might have expected that the indications of the new way and the means of reviving life would be found in the Jewish people, the only people who preserved the true religion and the exalted concepts of God and life. But Judaism itself was experiencing a severe crisis. It is unlikely that in the history of the Jewish people there are darker pages of religious and moral decline than in the period preceding the appearance of Christ the Savior. When one reads the prophetic books and the stern speeches of the prophets denouncing Jewish life, a heavy, gloomy picture is drawn.

Here are a number of excerpts from the books of the prophet Isaiah, depicting the cheerless moral and religious state of the people of Israel at that time, their ingratitude and betrayal of God, their unbelief, their depravity, their cruelty and blatant injustice.

Hear, O heavens, and hearken, O earth, for the Lord says, I have brought up and exalted sons, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his master, and the ass knows his master's manger; but Israel does not know me, my people do not understand. Alas, sinful people, a people burdened with iniquity, a tribe of evildoers, sons of perdition! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they have turned back. (I, 2-4). How did the faithful capital, full of justice, become a harlot? The truth lived in it, and now there are murderers. ... Thy princes are transgressors of the law, and accomplices of thieves; they all love gifts and chase after bribes; the orphans are not protected, and the widow's work does not reach them (I, 21, 23).