Quiz: About the meaning of life

On the historical horizon of the Roman Empire of the 2nd century, Christianity was a new religion in an old world in which it seemed that all methods of human salvation had long been known and tried. According to the descriptions of the satirists Lucian and Petronius, many seekers of the meaning of life espoused a philosophy of pleasure and momentary enjoyment. "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!" - This quote, taken by the Apostle Paul from the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah22:13), perfectly summarised common worldly wisdom. The following inscription was carved on the wall of a forum in a provincial town in North Africa: "To hunt, bathe, play and laugh - that is what it means to live.

Christianity contrasted the emptiness and spiritual slackness of the hedonistic attitude to life with eschatological concentration: man's whole life was a vigil waiting for the Kingdom of God.

Deacon Pavel Gavrilyuk