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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c88b3d4 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #52550 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52550) diff --git a/old/52550-8.txt b/old/52550-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b4bf0b4..0000000 --- a/old/52550-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,13033 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's A Short History of Christianity, by J. M. Robertson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: A Short History of Christianity - Second Edition, Revised, With Additions - -Author: J. M. Robertson - -Release Date: July 10, 2016 [EBook #52550] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SHORT HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY *** - - - - -Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project -Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously -made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - A SHORT - - HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY - - BY - - J. M. ROBERTSON - - - - SECOND EDITION, REVISED, WITH ADDITIONS - - [ISSUED FOR THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LIMITED] - - London: - WATTS & CO., - 17 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C. - 1913 - - - - - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - Preface to the First Edition ix - - Preface to the Second Edition xiii - - - - Part I - - PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY - - Chap. I--The Beginnings - - § 1. Documentary Clues 1 - § 2. The Earliest Christian Sects 5 - § 3. Personality of the Nominal Founder 10 - § 4. Myth of the Twelve Apostles 16 - § 5. Primary Forms of the Cult 20 - § 6. Rise of Gentile Christism 28 - § 7. Growth of the Christ Myth 36 - - Chap. II--The Environment - - § 1. Social and Mental Conditions in the Roman Empire 41 - § 2. Jewish Orthodoxy 46 - § 3. Jewish Sects: the Essenes 49 - § 4. Gentile Cults 51 - § 5. Ethics: Popular and Philosophic 60 - - Chap. III--Conditions of Survival - - § 1. Popular Appeal 67 - § 2. Economic Causation 69 - § 3. Organization and Sacred Books 72 - § 4. Concession and Fixation 75 - § 5. Cosmic Philosophy 78 - - - - Part II - - CHRISTIANITY FROM THE SECOND CENTURY TO THE RISE OF ISLAM - - Chap. I--Developments in the Unestablished Church - - § 1. Numbers and Inner Life 81 - § 2. Growth of the Priesthood 87 - § 3. The Gnostic Movement in the Second Century 91 - § 4. Marcionism and Montanism 97 - § 5. Rites and Ceremonies 101 - § 6. Strifes over Primary Dogma 102 - - Chap. II--Relations of Church and State - - § 1. Persecutions 106 - § 2. Establishment and Creed-Making 114 - § 3. Reaction under Julian 127 - § 4. Re-establishment: Disestablishment of Paganism 133 - - Chap. III--Failure with Survival - - § 1. The Overthrow of Arianism 142 - § 2. The Cost of Orthodoxy 146 - § 3. Moral and Intellectual Stagnation 153 - § 4. The Social Failure 159 - - - - Part III - - MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY - - Chap. I--Expansion and Organization - - § 1. Position in the Seventh Century 165 - § 2. Methods of Expansion 168 - § 3. Growth of the Papacy 174 - - Chap. II--Religious Evolution and Strife - - § 1. Growth of Idolatry and Polytheism 184 - § 2. Doctrines of the Eucharist, Purgatory, and Confession 189 - § 3. Rationalistic Heresies 194 - § 4. Anti-clerical Heresies 197 - - Chap. III--The Social Life and Structure - - § 1. The Clergy, Regular and Secular 205 - § 2. The Higher Theology and its Effects 211 - § 3. Christianity and Feudalism 213 - § 4. Influence of the Crusades 218 - - Chap. IV--The Intellectual Life - - § 1. Superstition and Intolerance 224 - § 2. The Inquisition 227 - § 3. Classic Survivals and Saracen Contacts 231 - § 4. Religion and Art 236 - - Chap. V--Byzantine Christianity 238 - - - - Part IV - - MODERN CHRISTIANITY - - Chap. I--The Reformation - - § 1. Moral and Intellectual Forces 245 - § 2. Political and Economic Forces 249 - § 3. Social and Political Results 257 - § 4. Intellectual Results 265 - - Chap. II--Progress of Anti-Christian Thought - - § 1. The Physical Sciences 278 - § 2. Philosophy, Cosmic and Moral 283 - § 3. Biblical and Historical Criticism 286 - - Chap. III--Popular Acceptance - - § 1. Catholic Christianity 292 - § 2. Protestant Christianity 296 - § 3. Greek Christianity 303 - - Chap. IV--The Relation to Progress - - § 1. Moral Influence 310 - § 2. Intellectual Influence 315 - § 3. Conclusion and Prognosis 319 - - - - Synopsis of Literature 323 - - Index 339 - - - - - - - - -CORRIGENDA - - -P. 55, line 2, and p. 56, footnote: Miss Harrison has latterly -(in Themis, 1912) given up the etymologies on which this opinion -was founded. - -P. 251, line 4 from bottom, for "that" read "than." - - - - - - - - -PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION - - -An attempt to write the history of Christianity in the space of -an average novel is so obviously open to objections that, instead -of trying to parry them, I will merely state what seems to me the -possible compensation of brevity in such a matter. It is or may be -conducive to total comprehension, to coherence of judgment, and in a -measure even to the understanding of details. A distinguished expert -in historical and philological research has avowed that specialists -sometimes get their most illuminating ideas from a haphazard glance -into a popular and condensed presentment of their own subject. Without -hoping so to help the experts, I humbly conceive that the present -conspectus of Christian history may do an occasional service even -to an opponent by bringing out a clear issue. Writers of a different -way of thinking have done as much for me. - -The primary difficulty is of course the problem of origins. In my -treatment of this problem, going as I do beyond the concessions -of the most advanced professional scholars, I cannot expect much -acquiescence for the present. It must here suffice to say, first, -that the data and the argument, insofar as they are not fully set -forth in the following pages, have been presented in the larger -work entitled Christianity and Mythology, [1] or in the quarters -mentioned in the Synopsis of Literature appended to this volume; and, -secondly, to urge that opponents should read the study on the Gospels -by Professor Schmiedel in the new Encyclopĉdia Biblica before taking -up their defensive positions. - -One of the drawbacks of short histories is that in them at times a -disputable proposition has to be summarily put. I doubt, however, -whether this occurs oftener in the following pages than in lengthy -treatises, where full discussion is fairly to be expected. For -instance, I have held that the reference in Rev. ii, 8, to "the -blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are -a synagogue of Satan," is to the Pauline or other Gentilizing -Jew-Christists. That is the view of Renan. Harnack, who passes for a -more solid authority, pronounces summarily that the phrase is cast by -Jew-Christists at orthodox Jews. Such a decision seems to me to be -irrational, but it is impossible in such a work to give space to a -refutation, where Harnack has offered no argument on the other side -in a monumental treatise. The same authority has justified masses -of conformist historiography by the simple dogmatic assertion that -the time is near at hand when men will universally recognize, in -matters of Christian origins, "the essential rightness of tradition, -with a few important exceptions." In putting forth a sketch which -so little conforms to that opinion, I would but claim that it is not -more unjudicial in its method than more conservative performances. - -After the period of "origins" has been passed, there is happily less -room for demur on any grounds. The statements of facts in the second -and third parts are for the most part easily to be supported from -the testimony of standard ecclesiastical historians; and the general -judgments sometimes cited in inverted commas, in all four parts, are -nearly always from orthodox writers. What is special to the present -treatise is the sociological interpretation. It was indeed to the -end of such interpretation that the researches here summarized were -begun, over sixteen years ago; and in a documented work on The Rise -of Christianity, Sociologically Considered, I hope more fully to -present it. But as my first perplexity was to ascertain the real -historical processus, I have never subordinated that need to the -desire for explanation. - -It hardly needs actual experience of the risks of error and oversight -in a condensed narrative to convince one of the difficulty of escaping -them. Where no single authority is found infallible, I must at times -have miscarried, were it only because I have aimed at something beyond -a condensation of current accounts. No criticism, therefore, will be -more highly valued by me than one which corrects my errors of fact. - -In order to cover the ground within the compass taken, it was -absolutely necessary to digest the subject-matter under general heads; -and the chronological movement may in consequence be less clear than -in histories which proceed by centuries. As a partial remedy, dates -have been frequently inserted in the narrative, and it is hoped that -the full index will help to meet the difficulty which may sometimes -be felt as to where a given name or episode should be looked for. - -It is perhaps needless to add that the appended Synopsis of Literature -does not in the least pretend to be a bibliography for professed -students. It is designed merely as a first help to painstaking readers -to search and judge for themselves on the problems under notice. - - - December, 1901. - - - - - - -PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION - - -In the dozen years that have passed since this book was written there -has probably been some change in the outlook of the more critical of -the readers to whom it might be said to be addressed. It challenges -criticism on two main issues: that of Christian origins, and that of -the sociological interpretation of Christian history. Twelve years ago, -the thesis of the non-historicity of the gospel story in respect of its -"natural" no less than of its supernatural matter found few serious -listeners, even among Rationalists; while the strictly naturalistic -study of Christian history incurred a good deal of resentment. To-day, -perhaps, the thesis as to origins may receive more attention; while -the historic narrative may arouse less impatience. On both issues, -critical thought appears to be at work. - -The primary problem may be left to the fortunes of discussion: the -question as to how Christian history is fitly to be presented in -summary is perhaps worth some introductory treatment. - -An attentive reading of the reviews of the first edition left the -author impressed by the fact that censure was generally passed -without any attempt to prove error of statement. Error there may -well have been; but it was not pointed out or founded on in the -hostile judgments passed by religious reviewers. One German Catholic -ecclesiastic was ironical at great length on the account given of -the history of the Catholic Church; but he did not seem to impugn any -particular historical statement. More serious reviewers made nothing -clear save that they resented the selection made of facts and the -summing-up from these. So far as the author could gather, they claimed -that another set of data should have been given, and another general -impression set up. If he understood them aright, they held that the -way to write Christian history is to look for all the utterances of -good feeling, all the instances of humane action, all the items of -political, social, and intellectual betterment that have occurred in -the Christian era, and to call the general statement of these--with, -of course, a sympathetic account of doctrinal evolution--a history -of Christianity. The things on the other side of the shield--the -religious wars, the consecration of error, the strangling of truth, -the persecutions, the propagandist massacres, the countless cruelties -wrought in the name and on the sanction of the faith--are from this -point of view external to its history: things to be set down to the -perversity of men. All the good that has happened is to be credited -to Christianity; all the bad to human nature. - -It seems necessary to explain that this is a wholly puerile conception -of historical science, and that the notion of historical causation -so reached is profoundly false. Impartially applied, the method -would yield equivalent panegyric for all religions alike. All that is -beautiful and heroic in pre-Christian and non-Christian history would -be shown to be due to the creeds of the different times and races; all -the harm would be set down, as before, to human nature. The rational -statement is that human nature evolved all the religions in turn; that -creeds, once established, become special factors; that their varying -fortunes are due to the reciprocal reactions of creed and environment; -and that to write the history of any one religion it is necessary -to consider narrowly how it specifically reacts on conduct in given -circumstances of culture and socio-political structure. If it can be -shown specifically to promote right action on any line, let that be -duly credited to the religion in question as the determinant. If, -on the other hand, it can be shown to promote wrong action, the -fact must on the same principle be put to its discredit. But no -Christian historian, broadly speaking, ever thinks of crediting to -Greek polytheism the fairer aspects of Greek life, or to Islam the -virtues of veracity and courage sometimes ascribed to Turks and Arabs; -though professedly Christian historians have been known to contrast -the comparative decency of the execution of Sokrates with the savage -horrors of political executions in Christendom down to recent times. - -Aristotle and Plato are still founded on for the purposes of higher -education in Christian countries; but no Christian writer suggests -that what is good or true in their thought is ascribable to paganism -qua paganism; though modern ethical development is constantly set -down to the score of Christianity. In the same fashion, hospitals in -Christian countries are constantly credited to the Christian account, -without a thought of admitting that Moslem hospitals are the product -of the Koran, or that the mutual helpfulness of Eskimos is a specific -result of their heathenism. Paganism is made to figure in general -as promoting vice and human sacrifices and slavery; Christianity as -putting these things down. The impartial historian pronounces that -it has indeed beneficently availed for the suppression of human -sacrifice in general, in virtue of its primary dogma; but that qua -religion it has no more told against slavery than has Islam; that -the slavery maintained till last century under Christian sanctions -and auspices has been as cruel as any seen in human history; that the -persistence of vice within the sphere of Christianity is the despair -of its devotees; and that even in the matter of human sacrifice the -hideous massacre wrought on that pretext by the crusaders at Jerusalem -tells of a terrible per contra to the account of the faith. To claim -for Christianity the latter-day curtailment of slavery, finally, -would be to ignore alike the potent economic and the political -causation, and to overlook the fact that the strongest defence ever -made of slavery as an institution was founded on the Christian sacred -books. These facts belong to the "history of Christianity," like the -facts of missionary enterprise and the establishment of universities -by the Papacy in the Middle Ages: a mere recital of all the forms of -progress made in the Christian era has no claim to such a title. - -Doubtless it is difficult to trace all the reactions of creed upon -society and polity; and it is not to be pretended that a general -sketch can even establish the main critical principles to be applied, -any more than it can complete the outline of the facts. But inasmuch -as the popular fashion of doing both is wholly fallacious, a concise -statement which aims at both is necessary, and may lead to fuller and -better elucidations. In the preface to the first edition, a hope was -expressed that such a conspectus might do an occasional service even -to an opponent by bringing out a clear issue; and one hostile German -critic was good enough to say that this service had been done. - -If there has been more repudiation of the main historic statement than -the author expected, it may not unfairly be attributed to the temper of -dislike of all innovating judgment which has always marked religious -discussion. Spontaneous resentment operates in advance of critical -reflection; and blame is so much more simple than refutation. Even men -who have made concessions to one line of reasoned objection are often -slow to listen to another; and the practice of "the higher criticism" -leaves many at an uncritical standpoint in regard to sociological -problems. To readers who may be under the sway of such prepossession, -the author can but offer the reminder that this history proceeds -upon a definite view of historical science. It is not an attempt -to indicate all the good or all the evil wrought by Christians, -any more than a work of "natural history" so-called is an attempt -to summarize the lives of myriads of plants or animals. It is an -attempt, in terms of the data, to establish principles of causation, -to trace broadly the reactions of a given creed on polity, conduct, -and thought, and to summarize the reactions of those on the formation -and fortunes of the creed itself. To the adherents of the creed it will -naturally figure as "an attack" insofar as it gives an unflattering -or subversive account of the historical process. It is none the less -a work of scientific investigation, written with the object, first -and last, of getting at the historic truth. - -This, it must be observed, is a different thing from the purpose of -what is called "edification," so often acted on, and even professed, -by professional theologians. Recently, for instance, the Dean of -Durham preached a special sermon to miners, in which he urged, not -that the Christian religion is true and the disregard of it fatal to -future salvation, but that "we are so fashioned that a religion we must -have." All the while, the confessed motive for the declaration was that -so many actually feel no such need; and the "You can't do without it" -thus approximated to the advertisement of a new typewriter. Men who -assert and claim to prove that the given religion is "not true" were -at the same time represented by Dr. Henson as merely urging their -fellows to "give no thought to religion." Here we have not merely a -negative but a positive indifference to truth. - -Unfortunately such indifference--at least the negative--is countenanced -in the name of science by some "men of science" whose qualifications, -however high, are gained in the physical and not in the "human" -sciences, and who apply to the latter critical standards of a laxity -which they would refuse to recognize in their own province. By -such propagandists, ultimate questions of historic truth are never -subjected to scientific examination at all, and tradition is at many -points accepted more uncritically than by many of the more scrupulous -theological scholars. At the same time the expediency of cultivating -"religious fervour" is taken for granted without any ostensible inquiry -as to how religious fervour has affected society in the past. In -the following survey, the historical and the sociological problems -are alike sought to be treated as scientific issues, calling for -strictly scientific examination. The only relevant answer, therefore, -from the author's point of view, will be one which shows either that -the historical statement is false or that the sociological inferences -are fallacious. - -Yet another phase of the professional defence of the faith calls for -notice. At the close of a very comprehensive and catholic survey of -the religions of the world, Professor J. E. Carpenter writes:-- - - - There is no doubt whatever of the dependence of Christianity - upon Jewish Messianic expectation. Its pictures of human destiny - ... are pictures drawn by Jewish hands. Its promises of the - Advent of the Son of Man ... are couched in the language of - earlier Jewish books. For one religion builds upon another, and - must use the speech of its country and its time. Its forms must - therefore change from age to age.... But it will always embody - man's highest thought concerning the mysteries that surround him, - and will express his finest attitude to life. Its beliefs may be - gradually modified; ... but history shows it to be among the most - permanent of social forces, and the most effective agent for the - slow elevation of the race. [2] - - -We have here two typical assumptions: first, that religion always -did, and always will, "embody man's highest thought" and "express -his finest attitude to life"; second, that it is "the most effective -agent for the slow elevation of the race." No pretence is made of -proving the latter proposition; it is taken for granted, like the -other. And the writer has previously declared (p. 34) that "Theologies -may be many, but religion is one": all religions, therefore, are -included in the closing panegyric. We are thus presented with the -profoundly pessimistic proposition that the welfare of humanity -has always depended mainly upon the acceptance of illusory beliefs; -for neither the writer nor anyone else pretends to believe that the -mass of credences in question are aught else. Yet he brings them all -within his generalization. Of the old Aztec religion he writes (p. 57) -that "out of the fusion of nationalities in Mexico rose a developed -polytheism in which lofty religious sentiment seems strangely blended -with a hideous and sanguinary ritual." - -It becomes necessary to challenge emphatically the moral and -sociological science which thus certificates as "lofty" beliefs -admittedly bound up with systematic atrocity of action, and sees -an elevating force in creeds directly productive of immeasurable -evil. The religion last referred to was destroying the Aztec State, -morally and economically, when both alike were destroyed by Christian -invaders. Lay moral sense, now as so often in the past, must correct -the sacerdotal; and a false sociological generalization must be -confronted with the historic facts. - -The chapters which follow challenge, by simple historic representation, -both the ethical and the sociological judgments under notice. If -the reader is disposed, in deference to "authority," to assent -to either, let him turn to another volume in the same series with -that of Professor Carpenter, the History of Freedom of Thought, by -Professor Bury; and he will see presented, from a strictly historical -point of view, the negation of the doctrine that religion has been -"the most effective agent for the slow elevation of the race." The -sociological verdict of the specialist in history is presumably as -weighty as that of the specialist in religion on the question of the -causation of progress. - -But I am far from suggesting that the question is to be settled by -"authority" of any kind. The prime necessity is detached, independent, -self-consistent thinking upon a broad scrutiny of the facts. If these -pages in any degree promote that process, they will have justified -their production. - - - September, 1913. - - - - - - - - -PART I - -PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY - - -CHAPTER I - -THE BEGINNINGS - - -§ 1. Documentary Clues - -In the ancient history of religions, as in the ancient history of -nations, the first account given of origins is almost always a myth. A -divine or worshipful founder is craved by the primitive imagination -no less for cults and institutions, tribes and polities, than for -the forms of life and the universe itself; and history, like science, -may roughly be said to begin only when that craving for first causes -has been discredited, or controlled, by the later arising instinct -of exact observation. Such a check or control tends to be set up by -the presence of intelligently hostile forces, as in the case of the -religion of Mohammed, whose teaching warred with and was warred on -by rival faiths from the first, and whose own written and definite -doctrine forbade his apotheosis. Some of the early Christian sects, -which went far towards setting up independent cults, had their origins -similarly defined by the pressure of criticism from the main body. But -even in some such cases, notably in that of the Manichĉan movement, -the myth-making process has partly eluded hostile scrutiny; [3] -and earlier growths incurred much less of critical inquiry. Before -the Christian system had taken organised historic form, in virtue of -having come into the heritage of literary and political method embodied -in the Greco-Roman civilization, it is rarely possible to trust the -record of any cult's beginnings, even where it professes to derive -from a non-supernatural teacher; so ungoverned is the myth-making -instinct in the absence of persistent criticism. Buddha, Zoroaster, -and Moses are only less obviously mythical figures than Krishna, -Herakles, and Osiris. Of the Christian cult it can at best be said -that it takes its rise on the border-land between the historical and -the unhistorical, since any rational defence of it to-day admits that -in the story of its origins there is at least an element of sheer myth. - -The oldest documents of the cult are ostensibly the Epistles of Paul; -and concerning these there are initial perplexities, some being more -or less clearly spurious--that is, very different from or much later -in character than the rest--while all of the others show signs of -interpolation. Taken as they stand, however, they reveal a remarkable -ignorance of the greater part of the narratives in the gospels, -and of the whole body of the teachings there ascribed to Jesus. In -three respects only do the Pauline writings give any support to the -histories later accepted by the Christian Church. They habitually speak -of Jesus as crucified, and as having risen from the dead; they contain -one account of the institution of the Lord's Supper, in agreement with -the gospel account; and they make one mention of "the twelve." But the -two latter allusions occur in passages (1 Cor. xi and xv) which have -plain marks of interpolation; and when they are withdrawn the Pauline -letters tell only of a cult, Jewish in origin, in which a crucified -Jesus--called the Messiah or Christos or Anointed One--figures as a -saving sacrifice, but counts for absolutely nothing as a teacher or -even as a wonder-worker. Yet he is a God or Demigod who has risen from -the dead. A eucharist or religious meal is celebrated in his name, -but no mention is made of any teaching uttered by the founder. And -nothing in the epistles enables us even to date them independently of -the gospel narratives, which they so strangely fail to confirm. Thus -the case stands with the New Testament very much as with the Old. As -the Book of Judges reveals a state of Hebrew life quite incompatible -with that described in the Pentateuch as having preceded it, so do the -epistles of Paul reveal a stage of Christist propaganda incompatible -with any such prior development as is set forth in the gospel. And -the reasonable conclusion in the two cases seems to be the same: that -the documents setting forth the prior developments are, as they now -stand, not only later in composition but substantially fictitious, -even where they do not tell of supernatural events. The only tenable -alternative is the hypothesis of two separate movements of Christism, -which ignored or discredited each other. - -What needs to be explained in both cases is the way in which the later -narratives came to be compiled. Within a hundred years from the date -commonly assigned to the Crucifixion, there are Gentile traces of a -Jesuist or Christist movement deriving from Jewry, and possessing a -gospel or memoir as well as some of the Pauline and other epistles, -both spurious and genuine; but the gospel then current is seen to -have contained some matter not preserved in the canonical four, -and to have lacked much that those contain. Of those traces the -earliest are found in one epistle of Clement called Bishop of Rome -(fl. about 100), which, whether genuine or not, is ancient, and -in the older form of the epistles ascribed to the Martyr Ignatius -(d. about 115?) of which the same may be said. About the middle of -the second century the writings of Justin Martyr tell of a Christist -memoir, but show no knowledge of the Pauline epistles. All alike tell -of a spreading cult, with a theology not yet coherently dogmatic, -founding mainly on a crucified Jesus, faith in whom ensures salvation. - -Like the letters of Paul, those ascribed to Clement and Ignatius tell -of schisms and bitter strifes in the churches: that is the constant -note of Christian history from first to last. As to rites, we have -but a bare mention of the eucharist and of baptism; the story of -the founder's parentage is still unknown to the makers of documents, -and his miracles are as unheard of as most of his teachings. There -is nothing in Clement, or in the older Ignatian epistles, or in that -ascribed to Polycarp (circa 150), or in that of Barnabas (same period), -to show knowledge of the existing gospels of Luke or John; a solitary -parallel to Luke being rather a proof that the passage echoed had -been taken from some earlier document; and the gospel actually cited -as late as Justin is certainly not identical with either Mark or -Matthew. Even from Paul there is hardly any quotation; and Clement, -who mentions or is made to mention his epistles to the Corinthians, -pens a long passage in praise of love which has no quotation from the -apostle's famous chapter on that head, though it would have seemed made -for his purpose. In view of their lax way of quoting the Old Testament -we may infer that the early Fathers or forgers had few manuscripts; -and it is plain that they set no such store by Christian documents -as they did by the Jewish; but the fact remains that they fail to -vouch for much even of those Pauline epistles which commonly rank as -incontestable. At times, as in the Pauline use of the word ektroma (1 -Cor. xv, 8), which occurs in a similar phrase in one of the Ignatian -epistles, there is reason to suspect that the "apostolic" writing -has been interpolated in imitation of the "post-apostolic." In the -latter the expression is appropriate; in the former it is not. - -It does not indeed follow that documents or chapters not quoted or -utilized by the Fathers were in their day non-existent. The letters -of Paul, supposing them to be genuine, would in any case be only -gradually made common property. All the evidence goes to show that -the early Christians were for the most part drawn from the illiterate -classes; and the age of abundant manuscripts would begin only with the -age of educated converts. But what is inconceivable is that one so -placed as Paul should never once cite the teachings of the founder, -if such teachings were current in his day in any shape; and what -is extremely improbable is that one so placed as Clement, or one -forging or interpolating in his name, should possess Paul's First -Epistle to the Corinthians as it now stands, and yet should barely -mention it in a letter to the same church dealing with almost the same -problems. In the first case, we are almost forced to conclude that -the gospel narratives were non-existent for the writer or writers of -the Pauline epistles up to the point of the two interpolations which -allege an accepted tradition; and, in the second, that the Pauline -epistles themselves are nowhere to be taken as certainly genuine. [4] -Such irremovable doubt is the Nemesis of the early Christian habits -of forgery and fiction. - -There emerges, however, the residual fact that Paul ranked in the -second century as a historical and natural personage, in whose name it -was worth while to forge. For Paul's period, again, Jesus was possibly -a historical personage, since he was not declared to be supernaturally -born, though credited with a supernatural resurrection. Broadly -speaking, the age of an early Christian document is found to be in -the ratio of its narrative bareness, its lack of biographical myth, -its want of relation to the existing gospels. As between the shorter -and the longer form of the Ignatian epistles, the question of priority -is at once settled by the frequent citations from the gospels and from -Paul in the latter, and the lack of them in the former. But all the -documents alike appear to point to a movement which remotely took -its rise among the Jews long before the destruction of the temple -of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70, and subsisted in Jewry long -afterwards; and, as the Jewish environment lacked many of the forces -of change present in the Gentile, it is to the Jewish form of the -cult that we must first look if we would trace its growth. - - - - -§ 2. The Earliest Christian Sects - -The first properly historical as distinct from the "scriptural" -notices of the Church at Jerusalem tell of a quasi-Christian sect -there, known as Ebionites or Ebionim, a Hebrew word which signified -simply "the poor." From the point of view of the Gentile Christians -of the end of the second century they were heretics, seeing that -they used a form of the Gospel of Matthew lacking the first two -chapters, denied the divinity of Jesus, and rejected the apostleship -of Paul. As they likewise rejected the Hebrew prophets, accepting only -the Pentateuch, there is some reason to suppose that they were either -of Samaritan derivation or the descendants of an old element in the -Judean population which, from the time of Ezra onwards, had rejected -the later Biblical writings as the Samaritans did. On either view it -would follow that the Jesuist movement rooted from the first in a lower -stratum of the population, hostile to orthodox or Pharisaic Judaism, -as were the Sadducees among the upper classes. The Samaritans made -special account of Joshua (=Jesus), having a book which bore his name; -and we shall see later that that name was anciently a divine one for -some Syrian populations. - -Later notices bring to light the existence of a smaller sect, called -by the Greeks Nazoraioi, Nazarites or Nazarĉans, the term said in -the Acts of the Apostles (xxiv, 5) to have been applied to the early -Jesuists, and often applied in that book as well as in the gospels -to Jesus. According to one account this sect objected to be called -Christians, though it appears to have been on the assumption of -their derivation from the first Christians that they had not earlier -been stamped as heretics. Through the two sects under notice may be -gathered the probable development of early Jesuism. - -It cannot have been from the place-name Nazareth that any Jesuist -sect were first called Nazarĉans, a term standing either for the -variously-spelt Nazir (Nazarite, or, properly, Nazirite) of the Old -Testament, or for a compound of the term netzer (=a branch), used -in the passage of Isaiah (xi, 1), supposed to be cited in the first -gospel (ii, 23). Even the form "Nazarene," sometimes substituted in the -gospels for the other, could not conceivably have been, to start with, -the name for a sect founded by a man who, like the gospel Jesus, was -merely said to have been reared at a village called Nazareth or Nazara, -and never taught there. In none of the Pauline or other canonical -epistles, however, is Jesus ever called Nazarite, or Nazarene, or -"of Nazareth"; and the Ebionite gospel, lacking the Nazareth story, -would lack any such appellation. The Ebionite sect, then, appears -to have stood for the first form of the cult, and to have developed -the first form of gospel; while the later Nazarĉan sect appears to -be either a post-Pauline but Judaic growth from the Ebionite roots, -or a post-Pauline grafting of another movement on the Jesuism of -the Ebionites. - -Ebionism, to begin with, whether ancient and quasi-Samaritan or -a product of innovation in the immediately pre-Roman period, is -intelligible as the label of a movement which held by the saying -"Blessed are ye poor" or "poor in spirit," found in the so-called -Sermon on the Plain and Sermon on the Mount (Luke vi, 20; Matt. v, -3). In poverty-stricken Jewry, with a prophetic and proverbial -literature in which, as generally in the East, the poor are treated -with sympathy, such a label would readily grow popular, as it had done -for the Buddhist "mendicants" in India. Its association, however, -with the cult of a slain and Messianic Jesus raises the question -whether the latter was not the germ of the movement; and there are -some grounds for surmising that the sect may have arisen around one -Jesus the son of Pandira, who is mentioned in the Talmud as having -been hanged on a tree and stoned to death at Lydda, on the eve of -a Passover, in the reign of Alexander Jannĉus. It was customary to -execute important offenders at that season; and as the Paschal feast -had a specifically atoning significance, a teacher then executed -might come to be regarded as an atoning sacrifice. But there are -traces in the Old Testament of a Messianic movement connected with -the name Jesus at some uncertain period before the Christian era. In -the book of Zechariah, of which the first six chapters appear to be -much later than the rest, there is named one Jesus (Heb. Joshua), -a high priest, who figures Messianically as "the Branch," and is -doubly crowned as priest and king. In the obscurity which covers most -of the prophetic literature, it is difficult to say for what historic -activities this piece of symbolism stands; but it must have stood for -something. From it, in any case, we gather the fact that much stress -was laid on the symbol of "the Branch" (or "sprout"), called in the -present text of Zechariah tsemach, but in Isaiah nazar or netzer. Among -the Gentiles that symbol belonged to the worships of several Gods and -Goddesses--as Mithra, Attis, Apollo, and Dêmêtêr--and appears to have -meant the principle of life, typified in vegetation; among the Jews -it was certainly bound up with the general belief in a coming Messiah -who should restore Jewish independence. It is not impossible, then, -that a Messianic party were early called "Netzerites" or "Nazarĉans" -on that account; and such a sect could in the Judaic fashion find -all manner of significances in the name of the high priest, since -"Jesus" (=Joshua) signified Saviour, and the ancient and mythical -Joshua was a typical deliverer. The Mosaic promise (Deut. xviii, 15) -of a later prophet and leader, which in the Acts is held to apply -to the crucified Jesus, had formerly been held by Jews to apply to -the Joshua who succeeded Moses; and in that case there is reason to -surmise that an older myth or cult centring round the name had given -rise to the historical fiction of the Hebrew books. In some very -ancient MSS. the text of the epistle of Jude, verse 5, reads "Jesus" -where our version has "the Lord," a circumstance which suggests yet -another Joshuan myth. But the subject remains obscure. There is even -some doubtful evidence of the later existence of a sect of "Jesseans," -possibly distinct from the historical "Essenes," who may have founded -on Isaiah's "Branch from the roots of Jesse." - -The following, then, are the historical possibilities. A poor sect -or caste of Ebionim, marked off from orthodox Jewry, and akin to the -population of Samaria, may have subsisted throughout the post-exilic -period, and may either have preserved an old Jesuist cult with a -sacrament or adopted a later Samaritan movement. From that might have -been developed the "Nazarene" sect of Christist history. On the other -hand, a sect of "Nazarĉans," holding by the Messianic name of Jesus, -may have existed in the pre-Roman period, but may have come to figure -specially as Ebionim or "poor" when the earlier or political form -of Messianic hope waned. Their name may also have led to their being -either confused or conjoined with the "Nazarites" of Jewry, a numerous -but fluctuating body, under temporary vows of abstention. But that -body, again, may have become generally Messianist, and may have adopted -the Messianic "Branch" in the verbalizing spirit so common in Jewry, -while continuing to call itself Nazarite in the old sense. It is indeed -on record that some Jews made vows to "be a Nazarite when the Son of -David should come"; and such were free to drink wine on Sabbaths, -though not on week days. Such Nazarites could have constituted the -first sacramental assemblies of the Christists. And as the Hebrew Nazir -(Sept. Gr. Nazoraios) had the meaning of "consecrated" or "holy to -the Lord," the early Gentile Christians may very well have translated -the word into their own languages instead of transliterating it. On -that view the hagioi or "saints" of the Acts and the epistles and the -Apocalypse may have strictly stood for "the Nazirites," "the devoti." - -Seeing, however, that the later Nazarĉans are reported to have -adopted the (obviously late) first and second chapters of Matthew, -while the Ebionites rejected them; and seeing that these chapters, -embodying the story of the flight into Egypt, make Jesus at once -a Jewish and a Gentile Christ, it would appear that the Gentile -movement had then reacted on the Jewish, and that the ultra-Jewish -Jesuists had now relinquished the name of Nazarĉan to the less rigid, -who at this stage probably used a Greek gospel. Finally, as the -original sense of "Nazirite" implied either a Judaic vow--irksome -to the Gentile Christians, and probably to many of the Jewish--or -a specially Judaic character in the founder, and as the political -implication of the "netzer" (supposing that to have adhered to the -sect-name) was anti-Roman, there would arise a disposition to seek -for the term another significance. This, presumably on the suggestion -of Gentiles accustomed to hear Jewish sectaries called "Galileans," -was found in the figment that the founder, though declared to have -been Messianically born in Bethlehem, had been reared in the Galilean -village of Nazareth or Nazara. Instead of being a historical datum, -as is assumed by so many rationalizing historians, that record appears -to be really a pragmatic myth superimposed on the Bethlehem myth. The -textual analysis shows that wherever it occurs in the gospels and -Acts the name Nazareth has been foisted on the documents. - -Hence, however, arose the Greek form "Nazarenos," which finally became -to a certain extent imposed on the canonical gospels, but especially on -that of Mark, which appears to have been redacted under Roman authority -in the interests of ecclesiastical order. Naturally, the Latin Vulgate -adopted the same term throughout the gospels and Acts, save in the -crucial text, Matt. ii, 23. Otherwise the texts are almost wholly in -favour of the form "Nazoraios"--that is, Nazarĉan or Nazirite. - - - - -§ 3. Personality of the Nominal Founder - -Even for minds wont to see mere myth in the idea of such -long-worshipped Saviours as Apollo and Osiris, Krishna and Mithra, -it cannot but be startling to meet for the first time the thought -that there is no historic reality in a figure so long revered and -beloved by half the human race as the Jesus of the gospels. It was -only after generations of scrutiny that modern rationalism began to -doubt the actuality of the Teacher it had unhesitatingly surmised -behind the impossible demigod of the records. The first, indeed, -to see in him sheer myth were the students who were intent chiefly -on the myths of action in the story: to return to the teaching as -such was to recover the old impression of a real voice. It is only -after a further analysis--a scrupulous survey of the texts--that the -inquirer can realise how illusory that impression really is. - -The proposition is not that the mere lateness of the gospels deprives -them of authority as evidence (for they proceeded on earlier -documents), but that throughout they are demonstrably results -of accretion through several generations, and that the earliest -sections were put together long after the period they profess to deal -with. The older portions of the Pauline epistles show no knowledge of -any Jesuine biography or any Jesuine teaching--a circumstance which -suggests that the Jesus of Paul is much more remote from Paul's day -than is admitted by the records. Later, the Christian writers are -found to have certain narratives, evidently expanded from generation -to generation, till at the end of the second century there exist the -four canonical gospels, which, however, are not known to have been even -then completed. Celsus, in his anti-Christian treatise, supposed to -have been written between 170 and 180, speaks of the gospels as having -undergone endless alteration; and additions were still possible after -the time of Origen, who weakly replied to Celsus that the alterations -were the work of heretics. Side by side with the four there had grown -up a number of "apocryphal" gospels, of which some were long as popular -as the canonical, though all were ultimately discarded by the Councils -of the Church. The principle of exclusion was essentially that of -the tentative criticism of modern times--the critical sense of the -inferiority of mere tales of wonders to narratives which contained, -besides wonders, elements of moral instruction. - -In natural course criticism first rejects miraculous episodes, next -excludes teachings which purport to come from a God-man, and then -seeks to infer a personality from those which are left; but inasmuch -as those, like the rest, are disparate and even contradictory, the -process usually ends in an avowedly arbitrary selection. And to all -such selection the loyal study of the texts is fatal. To put aside, -as some still do, the fourth gospel, and then take a stand on the -synoptics, is merely to arrest factitiously the critical process, -which, when consistently pursued, leads to the conviction that the -synoptics were built up by the same order of impulses, under the -same conditions of unchecked invention and interpolation, as gave -rise to the most obvious fictions in the gospel of "John." We are -led without escape to the conclusion that no strain of teaching in -the gospels can be fathered on the shadowy founder, who for Paul -is only a crucified phantom. The humanistic teachings are no more -primordial, no less capable of interpolation, than the mystical and -the oracular. Some of the best sayings are among the very latest; -some of the narrowest belong to the earliest tradition. Collectively, -they tell of a hundred hands. - -Surmising that the nominal founder of Paul's Jesuism may possibly -be the slain Jesus Pandira of the Talmud, a hundred years "before -Christ," we next ask whether any such founder must not be supposed to -have taught something, to make men see in him a Messiah and preserve -his name. The answer is that the name alone was a large part of the -qualification for a Jewish Messiah; that the chance of his execution -on the eve of the Passover would give it for some Jews a mystic -significance; and that a story of his resurrection, a story easily -floated in case of an alleged sorcerer, such as the Talmudic Jesus, -would complete the conditions required for the growth of a myth -and a cult, seeing that the Jews traditionally expected the Messiah -to come at midnight of the day of Passover. Doubtless the alleged -sorcerer may have been an innovating teacher. It is quite possible, -indeed, that as a bearer of the fated name he may have made Messianic -claims: the form of death said to have been inflicted on him suggests -energetic priestly or political hostility. But of his utterances -history preserves no trace: even in the Talmud his story has passed -into legendary form. Thus it is not even certain that "pre-Christian" -Jesuism took shape round the memory of an actual man. The mythic Joshua -(Jesus) of the Old Testament is seen to have been in all likelihood, -like Samson, an ancient Semitic Sun-God, his name, "the Saviour," -being a common divine epithet; and as he is in Perso-Arab tradition -the son of the mythic Miriam (Mary), it may be that the roots of the -historic Christian cult go back to an immemorial Semitic antiquity, -when already the name of Jesus was divine. [5] In the shadow of that -name its origins are hidden. - -What is clear is that the central narrative of the gospel biography, -the story of the Last Supper, the Agony, Betrayal, Trial, and -Crucifixion, is neither a contemporary report nor a historical -tradition, but the simple transcript of a Mystery-Drama. The proof -lies in the very structure of the document. - -Anyone who will attentively follow the account of the Last Supper -and its sequelĉ in the first gospel will see that it reproduces a -series of closely-continuous dramatic scenes, with no room given to -such considerations as would naturally occur to a narrator of real -events, and no sign of perception of the extreme improbability of -the huddled sequence set forth. A more or less unnatural compression -of events is the specific mark of drama, even in the hands of great -masters, as Shakespeare and Ibsen; and the primitive mystery-play, -as might be expected, is excessively compressed, so as to conform to -the recognised Greek rule that the action of a drama should be limited -to twenty-four hours. Jesus is made to take the Passover after dark; -then to go forth in the night for no reason given with his disciples, -who sleep while he prays; then to be captured in the darkness by a -"multitude"; then to be taken straight to the high priest, "where -the scribes and elders were gathered together." These now proceed, -in the dead of the night, to "seek false witnesses," and "many false -witnesses" come, to no purpose, till "afterward" come two who testify -to his words about destroying the temple; whereupon he is judged and -buffeted, and the night's history ends with the episode of Peter's -denial. No hint is ever given of anything said or done or felt by -Jesus on the way from the Supper to the Mount, or in the interval -between the Jewish and the Roman trials. - -Such a narrative cannot have been originally composed for reading. A -writer, whether inventing or reproducing hearsay, would have sought -to explain the strangely protracted midnight procedure of the high -priest and scribes and elders; would have given some thought to -the time necessary between event and event; would have thought of -the Lord in his dungeon. The story before us yields exactly what -could be scenically enacted, nothing more; and where on the stage -the successive scenes would originally raise no question of the time -taken, the unreflecting narrative loses all verisimilitude by making -everything happen in unbroken sequence, and by making the Master -utter words of prayer which, apart from the audience of the drama, -there was no one to hear. In the play the "false witnesses" would of -necessity be sent for and introduced without lapse of time, and the -action would raise in a popular audience no perplexity, where the -narrative loses all semblance of probability by turning the dramatic -act into a historical process. After the unspecified slight pause till -"the morning was come," the action is resumed before Pilate with the -same dramatic speed, and the execution impossibly follows immediately -on the trial. We are reading the bare transcript of a mystery-drama; -a transcript so bare that, in the scene of the Passion, the speech -beginning "Sleep on now," and that beginning "Arise, let us be going," -are put together as if they were one utterance, without specification -of the required exit and entrance between. - -Such a clearly dramatic composition can be accounted for only as a -development, after the fashion of the pagan mystery-dramas, from -a remote, primitive rite of human sacrifice, such as we know to -have been long habitual among the Jews as among other Semites. To -the ancient rite the very name of Jesus probably belonged; and the -existing document is presumptively an adaptation, made after the fall -of Jerusalem by Gentile Christists, of a simpler and earlier Judaic -ritual-drama. We are thus left facing a myth, not a history--a Jesus -who compares not with Mohammed but with Dionysos and Osiris. - -When the historic Church set about a statement of its history it could -not even fix satisfactorily the year of its supposed founder's birth; -and the "Christian era" was made to begin some years--two, three, four, -five, or eight--after that on which the chronologists were later fain -to fix, by way of conforming to their most precise document. Their -data, however, have no more value than any other guess. So little -of the semblance of historical testimony do the gospels yield that -it is impossible to establish from them any proposition as to the -duration of the God-man's ministry; and the early Church in general -held by the tradition that it lasted exactly one year, an opinion -which again points straight to myth, since it is either a dogmatic -assumption based on the formula of "the acceptable year of the Lord," -or a simple reversion to the story of the Sun-God. Of the life of the -alleged teacher from the age of twelve to thirty--another mythological -period--there is not a single trace, mythical or non-mythical, though -at his death he is represented as the centre of a large and adoring -following. Ultimately, his birth was placed at the winter solstice, -the birth-day of the Sun-God in the most popular cults; and while -that is fixed as an anniversary, the date of his crucifixion is made -to vary from year to year in order to conform to the astronomical -principle on which the Jews, following the sun-worshippers, had fixed -their Passover. Between those fabulous points everything the gospels -affirm as biographical fact is fortuitous or purposive invention, -which on scientific analysis "leaves not a wrack behind" in the nature -of objective history. - -Before accepting such a verdict the sympathetic seeker is apt to -grasp at the old argument that such a figure as the gospel Jesus -cannot have been created either by fortuitous fable or by fictions; -that its moral stature is above that of any of the men we can trace -in the gospel-making period; that its spiritual unity excludes the -theory of a literary mosaic. It must first be answered that these -positions beg the question and falsify the data. That the figure of -the gospel Jesus is actually devoid of moral unity is made clear by -the very attempts to unify it, since they one and all leave out much of -the records; and the claim to moral superiority collapses, even apart -from the obvious fact that the texts are aggregations, as soon as we -compare them with the contemporary and previous ethical literature -of the Jews, Greeks, Romans, and Hindus. There is not one teaching in -the gospels that is not there paralleled; and the passages which have -been claimed as most characteristic--for instance, the Sermon on the -Mount--are mere compilations of earlier Jewish utterances. Thus the -unity credited to the records, and the personality ascribed to the -founder, are but creations of the same sympathetic human imagination -that wove tissues of poetry and pathos round the figures of Dionysos -and Buddha, and framed for the cult of Krishna its most impressive -document when the cult was already ancient beyond reckoning. As man -has made his Gods, so he has made his Christs: it would be strange -indeed if the faculty which wrought the one could not create the other. - - - - -§ 4. Myth of the Twelve Apostles - -In one of the Pauline epistles, which are usually understood to belong -to the second generation after that of the founder, there is mention -of three chief Apostles with whom Paul had disputes, but none of any -contemporary group of Twelve; and the only historical allusion to the -latter number is in one of the interpolations in First Corinthians, -where it appears to be a patch upon a patch. In the Acts of the -Apostles, which though a fraudulent is an ancient compilation, -there is a preliminary story of the election of an apostle to fill -the place of Judas, deceased and disgraced; but not only is there -no further pretence of such a process of completion, the majority -of the twelve themselves speedily disappear from the history. Once -more we are dealing with a myth. In the Apocalypse, again, after the -original Judaic document has pictured a New Jerusalem with twelve -gates and angels, named after the twelve tribes, the Christian -interpolator has betrayed himself by the awkward invention of twelve -"basement courses" named after the "twelve Apostles of the Lamb," -where an original Christian author would have given the apostles -the gates if anything, had a list of twelve Jesuist apostles existed -for him. In heaven the Lamb is surrounded, not by twelve disciples, -but by the "four and twenty presbyters" of an older cult, probably -that of Babylonia, which had twenty-four "Counsellor Gods." - -In the gospels the lack of historic foundation is no less -decisive. Circumstantial but irreconcilable accounts, obviously -mythical, are given of the selection of four or five apostles, -whereafter the narratives, without a word of preparation or -explanation, proceed to a sudden constitution of the group of twelve, -with only the mythological detail, in one case, that they were "called" -by the Master on a mountain. Thus the element of the Twelve is not -even an early item in the records. It has been imposed on documents -which set out with no such datum, but with primary groups of five, -four, and three. - -The historical solution of the problem as to the source of the fiction -is now tolerably certain. It is on record that the Jewish High Priest -of the latter days of the Temple, and after him the Patriarch at -Tiberias, employed certain "Apostles" as tribute-collectors and -supervisors of the many faithful Jews scattered throughout the -neighbouring kingdoms. By common Jewish usage these would number -twelve. As the dispersed Jewish race multiplied abroad after the fall -of the Temple, it is probable that under the upper grade of twelve -there was created a body of seventy-two collectors, who answered -to the traditional number of "the nations" in Jewish lore. Such a -body is the probable basis for the admittedly mythical "seventy" -or "seventy-two" of the third gospel. At this stage the twelve -appear to have exercised chiefly teaching and regulative functions, -for it is clear that the quasi-Christian document, The Teaching -of the Twelve Apostles, recovered in 1873 and published in 1883, -was originally a purely Jewish manual of moral exhortation, and as -such bore its existing title. To the six or seven purely Judaic and -non-Jesuist chapters which seem to constitute the original document, -and which contain passages copied in the so-called Sermon on the Mount, -there were gradually added others, introducing the rites of baptism -and the eucharist, the name of Jesus, the doctrine of the Trinity, -and various rules of economic procedure. In this gradual fashion -a Jesuist cult, in which Jesus is called the "servant" of God, was -grafted on an originally Judaic moral teaching, the prestige of the -Jewish "Twelve Apostles" being all the while carried on. It was to -give a Christian origin for this document, or for the institution -pointed to by its title, that the gospel myth of the Twelve Apostles -was framed. After the time of Athanasius, the expanded document, -being still unduly Judaic and otherwise unsuitable for the purposes -of the organized Church, passed into disuse; but the myth remained. - -As regards the three "chief" apostles named in one of the Pauline -epistles, there is a reasonable presumption that they were either -leading propagandists of the Jesuist cult as it existed at the -time of the writing, or so reputed by later tradition; but the -assumption that they had been associates and disciples of the founder -must be abandoned with the rest of the gospel tradition. They were -necessarily woven into the gospel narrative by the later compilers; -but the Epistle to the Galatians lies under the general suspicion of -having been interpolated, if not wholly forged; and its very naming -of the Judaic apostles is as much a ground for question as a datum for -construction. It is probable, further, that the title "brethren of the -Lord" was originally a group-name, and that the literal construction -of it was a misconception by the later readers or interpolators of -the epistles and the gospels. Nothing in the gospels or the Acts -can make intelligible the appearance of certain actual brothers of -the gospel Jesus at the head of a Jesuist cult. The name of Peter, -finally, became a nucleus for many myths; and the two epistles which -bear his name have so little relation to the personality set forth -in the gospels that both have been widely discredited as forgeries; -the second having indeed been so reputed in the days of Eusebius. The -Simon-Petros (Cephas) of the gospels, however, is in himself a mere -literary creation. Represented there as basely denying his captured -Master, he figures in the Acts as the supernatural slayer of Ananias -and Sapphira for a much slighter sin. The gospel story must be one -of the products of the anti-Judaic animus of later Gentile Jesuists, -for even the Ananias story is late. All that holds good is the fact -that a tradition grew round the names in question, both of which -hint of mythology--Petros ("the Rock") being the name of an Egyptian -God and of the popular Eastern deity Mithra; and Simon the name of -a no less popular Semitic God. In his final aspect as leader of the -twelve, basis of the Church, and keeper of the heavenly keys, Peter -combines the attributes of Mithra and of Janus, both official deities -of the Roman military class, as well as of the Egyptian Petra--who -is door-keeper of heaven, earth, and the underworld. - -The Epistle of James, by whomsoever written, is in no sense a -Christist document--containing as it does not a single Jesuist or -Christian doctrine, save perhaps the appended invective against -the rich, which is Ebionitic. Of its two namings of Jesus, one is -clearly an interpolation, and the other is presumptively so. There -remains only a moral exhortation to Jews meeting in synagogues, a -teaching strictly comparable to that of the original and pre-Jesuine -"Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," though the epistle makes no mention -of any other apostles. Such writing tells of an essentially different -propaganda from that of the Christists proper; and its preservation by -them testifies to its priority. The epistles ascribed to John, on the -contrary, belong to a considerably later period; telling as they do of -a fanatical movement which swears by the name of Jesus the Christ as -one who has died to take away sin, but which is full of apprehension -as to the advent and functions of a number of Anti-Christs. - -Judas (Ioudas), of whom there is no mention in any of the epistles, and -whose traditional treason is not recognized in the lately-recovered -"Gospel of Peter," or in the pseudo-Pauline reference to "the -twelve," is a late creation; having probably taken shape first as -a simple Ioudaios, "a Jew," in an early Christian mystery-play of -the crucifixion and resurrection. Mythologically, the conception may -derive from the Diabolos or "Adversary" of Persian lore, as Judas in -the gospels is called "a devil"; and the tradition which gave him red -hair assimilated him to Typhon, the slayer of the Egyptian Saviour-God, -Osiris. On the other hand, the name may have a mythological connection -with the story of the betrayal of Joseph by his eleven brethren, of -whom Judas was the ringleader. [6] The story of the betrayal in the -gospels is in any case plainly fabulous. The hired help of Judas is -represented as necessary to identify a teacher who figured daily in -the temple, and was a familiar figure to the populace. Such a myth can -be best explained on the theory that a Jesuist mystery-play, arising -or becoming modified among the Gentiles, would readily represent -a Jew as betraying the Lord, even as the twelve were represented -as forsaking their master. A bag to hold the blood-money would be a -dramatic accessory, and would originate the view that Judas had been -the treasurer of the apostolic group. - - - - -§ 5. Primary Forms of the Cult - -In its first traceable historic form Christianity was simply a phase -of Judaism, being the creed of a small number of Jews and Jewish -proselytes who believed that the long-desired Messiah had come in -the person of one Jesus, who had been so slain as to constitute -an atoning sacrifice. Such believers were wont to meet at simple -religious banquets, of a kind common in the Greco-Roman world, where -they ate and drank in a semi-ceremonial way. A sacrificial banquet of -this kind was one of the most universal features of ancient religion, -being originally the typical tribal ceremony; and though among the -Jews it had been to a remarkable extent superseded by sacrifices -without communion, the usage was once as general with them as with -the Gentiles. If grown rare in their life, the idea was abundantly -preserved in their sacred books. The presumption is that such a -banquet was connected with the Semitic God-name Jesus or Joshua -before the Christian era; otherwise we must conclude that a sect of -Jesuists, starting from the bare belief in the sacrificial death, -adopted arbitrarily a kind of rite which was identified with the -heathen worships of the surrounding Gentiles, and adopted also the -Gentile sun-worshippers' practice of assembling by night. Paul's -Corinthian converts are described as frequenting indifferently the -table of Jesus ("the Lord") and the table of "dĉmons"--that is, -of heathen Gods or Demigods. As the less orthodox Jews had long [7] -dabbled in similar "mysteries," there is every probability that private -"Holy Suppers" had been practised even in Jewry by some groups long -before the Christian period, whether or not in connection with the -name of Jesus "the Saviour." The gospel phrase "blood of the covenant" -points to a standing usage, the original form of which was probably -the mutual drinking of actual human blood by the parties to a solemn -pledge. In the Hebrew system some such covenant was held to be set -up between the Deity and the worshippers on the one hand, and among -the latter themselves on the other, when a sacrifice was partaken -of. But it is further probable that the idea of a mystical partaking -of an atoning or inspiring "body and blood" was of old standing in -the same kind of connection. Such a practice was certainly part of -the great Asiatic cults of Dionysos and Mithra; and as the ancient -idea of a sacrificial banquet in honour of a God usually was that -in some sense the worshipped power was either eaten, or present as -partaker, it is more than likely that any banquets in connection with -the Syrian worships of Adonis and (or) Marnas (each name = "the Lord") -carried with them the same significance. In early Christian usage the -ministrant of the eucharist spoke in the person of the founder, using -the formulas preserved in the gospels; and as the priest in the cult -of Attis also personated the God, there is a strong presumption that -the same thing had been done in Jewry in the pre-Christian period, -by way of modifying a still older usage in which a deified victim -was actually slain and eaten. - -For such an ancient Jesuine eucharist (revived, perhaps, as old -mysteries were apt to be among the Jews, no less than among other -ancient peoples, in times of national disaster) a new meaning may -have been found in the story of an actually slain man Jesus, whose -death took a sacrificial aspect from its occurrence at the time of the -atoning feast. In the earliest written teaching, certainly, Jesus is -not a God; he is merely the Jewish God's "holy servant." The eating of -his symbolic body and blood, however, was on a par with the rituals -in which Pagans mystically partook of their deities, and it thus lay -in the nature of the eucharist that he should become divine if he -were not so originally. The expression "Son of God," once of common -application, would in his case come to have a special force, in terms -of the ancient Semitic doctrine that the great God Kronos or Saturn -or El had sacrificed his "only begotten Son." Abraham undertakes to -do the same thing in the legend in Genesis; and Abraham and Isaac as -well as Jacob were presumptively ancient deities. On the other hand, -the evolution of a fabulous hero from man to demigod, and thence to a -status among the highest Gods, is a common phenomenon in the ancient -religions (Herakles and Dionysos being typical cases), and among the -recognized Syrian worships there was already one of a Theandrios or -God-man. Even for the Jews the name Jehovah was applicable to the -Messiah. It lay, too, in the nature of the religious instinct that -the man-like and man-loving God should gradually take the foremost -place in a cult in which he was at first subordinate, as happened in -the worships of Dionysos, Mithra, Herakles, and Krishna. Some such -tendency is seen in the worship of Demigods among the earlier Hebrews -(Deut. xxxii, 17; Heb.). - -It is not necessary to suppose that the Christian cult arose solely by -way of a mystic sacrament. There may have been a blending of the usage -of quasi-commemorative banquets, the simpler Agapĉ or love-feasts -of antiquity, with that of a special "mystery"; and in the case -of the latter there may have been many varieties, as there were -later in the matter of liturgies. The humble Corinthian banquets -appear to have combined the features of Agapĉ and Eucharistia, -and in the former aspect they were anything but solemn; some of -the members sleeping, some drinking too much--a pathetic picture of -the dim yearning for communion among a heavy-laden caste. But the -nature of the eucharist proper, the claim to present an immortal -"body and blood" for regenerative eating and drinking, involved a -striving after sacro-sanctity; and as soon as a regular ministrant -was appointed by any group he would tend to develop into a priest of -the Christist mysteries, magnifying his office. - -The great feature of the Jewish Feast of the Passover being the eating -of a lamb "before the Lord," that usage would in Jewish circles be -preferred to, or at least combined with, the sacrament of bread and -wine, "Ceres and Bacchus," which was perhaps commonest among the -Gentiles. In the legend of Abraham and Melchisedek, priest of the -Phoenician God El Elyon, there figures a sacramental meal of bread and -wine (Gen. xiv, 18); and in the non-canonical book of Ecclesiasticus -there is a passage (l, 15) which suggests a use of wine as symbolical -of blood. The "shew-bread," too, seems to have had a measure of -sacramental significance. But while such a rite would seem to have -flourished in the background of Judaism, that of the Passover was one -of the great usages of the Jewish world, and the first Jesuists clearly -held by it. It is indeed one of the hierological probabilities that the -paschal lamb was anciently "Jeschu" or Jesus, the springtide symbol of -a Sun-God so named; for in the book of Revelation, which is markedly -Judaic, "the Lamb" figures as the known symbol or mystic name of a Son -of God "slain from the founding of the world," and identified with -a mystic Jesus who is one with Jehovah--this apparently long before -the Christian cult in general had arrived at such a doctrine. There -is a mythological presumption that such language had reference to -the fact--dwelt on by later Jewish writers--that the date of the -Passover fell at the entrance of the sun into the constellation Aries -in the zodiac; and the rule that the paschal lamb must be roasted, -not boiled, tells also of the sun-myth. Yet again, the lamb is the -animal latterly substituted in the myth of Abraham and Isaac for the -sacrificed only-begotten son Isaac, whose name in the Hebrew (Yischak) -comes somewhat near to the common form of the name Jesus (Yeschu), -and who is mythologically identifiable as a Sun-God. In any case, -"the Lamb slain for us" in the Apocalypse implies a recognized -sacrament of lamb-eating, such as that of the Passover, which was -anciently the time for sacrificing first-born sons (Ex. xxii, 29), and -which is explained even in the priestly myth as a commemoration of the -sparing of the first-born of Israel when the first-born of Egypt were -divinely destroyed. To such a national precedent the Hebrew Jesuists -would tend to cling as they did to the practice of circumcision. - -But mere poverty on the one hand, and on the other the then -common ascetic instinct (which in some cases put water for wine), -would tell among Gentiles against the eating of actual flesh even -when the pretence was to eat flesh and drink blood. In some early -Christian groups accordingly the sacrificial food took the shape of -a model of a lamb in bread [8] (a kind of device often resorted to in -pagan worship with a special form of animal sacrifice), while others -actually ate a lamb and drank its blood, as did some of the Mithraists -and some of the Egyptian worshippers of Ammon. The Pauline phrase, -"Our Passover also has been sacrificed, Christ"--which may or may -not be an interpolation--would square with either practice. But that -Jews who had been wont to make much of a paschal lamb, and who held -Jesus to have represented that lamb, should pass at once to a sacred -meal of simple bread and wine or water, is unlikely; and the gospels -themselves indicate that a dish of another kind preceded the bread -and wine formality in the traditional Supper. - -Light is thrown on the original nature of the Jesuist rite by the -Paschal controversy in which the Eastern and Western churches are found -embroiled towards the end of the second century. It turned nominally -on the different accounts of the crucifixion in the synoptics and the -fourth gospel. Whereas the synoptics make Jesus take the Passover with -his disciples in due course, and die on the cross on the first day -(the Jewish day being reckoned from evening to evening), the fourth -gospel makes him sup informally with his disciples on the day before -the Passover, and die at the very hour of the paschal meal. The idea -obviously is that implied in the Pauline phrase already quoted--that -he is henceforth the substitute for the lamb; and in actual fact the -Eastern Christians of the second century are found breaking their -Easter fast on the Passover day, while the Westerns did not break it -till the Sunday of the resurrection. Evidently the Eastern Christians -had all along preserved an immemorial usage of eating their eucharist -on the Passover. They did not do this as orthodox Jews, for they -called their meal one of "salvation" in a Christist sense, and their -opponents did not charge them with Judaizing; but they argued that they -must take the eucharist at the time at which Jesus took it with his -disciples; while the Westerns contended that the time for rejoicing and -commemoration was the day of resurrection. The explanation is that the -story of Jesus eating with his disciples is a myth of the kind always -framed to account for an ancient ritual practice; that the Jewish -circumstances naturally gave the story a form which made Jesus obey a -Judaic ordinance; and that the Westerns, coming newly into the cult, -either recoiled from the procedure of a banquet on the very eve of -the Lord's betrayal, or followed an Adonisian or Attisian usage, in -which the original sacrificial banquet, though perhaps not abandoned, -had been overshadowed by the "love feast" on the announcement that -"the Lord has arisen." - -In the nature of the case, the controversy was insoluble by -argument. The Easterns had always taken the Holy Supper at the time -of the Passover, and they had the gospel story telling them to repeat -it "in remembrance" of the Lord who so supped at the Passover. The -Westerns had the fourth gospel as their evidence that Jesus actually -died at the time of the Passover, thus constituting a universal -substitute for the Jewish sacrifice; and as in this gospel there is no -use of bread and wine, but merely the nondescript meal which precedes -the ritual in the synoptics, and in which the only symbolic act is -the giving of a "sop" to the betrayer, they were left to practise the -traditional eucharist in the way most conformable to their feelings -or to their pre-Christian usages. All theory was finally lost sight -of in the historic church, with its daily celebration of the "mass," -which is the annual sacrifice turned into a weekly and daily one; but -from the whole discussion there emerges the fact that the sacrifice is -the oldest element in the cult, antedating its biographical myths. And -as the symbolic eating of bread and wine as "body and blood" in the -pagan cults is a late refinement on a grosser practice of primitive -sacrifice, so it was in the Christist. As the wafer in the Catholic -ritual is the attenuated symbol of the bread of the mystic supper, -so that bread was in turn an attenuated symbol of an earlier object. - -When Christianity comes into aggressive competition with Paganism, -one of the common charges of its Roman enemies is found to be that -the Christians were wont to eat the body of an actual child in their -mysteries. There is no good reason to believe that this horror ever -happened among them; though the language of the rite tells of a -pre-historic practice of human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism, such -as actually took place among the early Semites and the pre-Christian -Mexicans, and was said to have been in use among the Druids about -the beginning of the Christian era; but it is probable that in some -Christist groups there was a usage of eating a baked image of a child, -as had been done in the Dionysian mysteries. The manipulation of the -Abraham and Isaac legend, taken with other data in the Pentateuch and -elsewhere, makes it clear that child-sacrifice had been practised -among the early Hebrews as among the Phoenicians, and that the -sacrifice of a lamb or kid became the equivalent, as it was perhaps -the prototype. When it was permitted to substitute a dough image for -the actual lamb, the mystical principle could be further served by -a dough image of the child that the lamb itself typified. Under the -veil of secrecy, which was as much a matter of course with the early -Christians as with the pagan initiates of the Eleusinian and other -mysteries, such variations of the cult were possible to an indefinite -extent. It was only when there grew up an ecclesiastical organization, -in the spirit and on the scale of the imperial system itself, and when -the compiled gospels had become a recognised code for the Church in -general, that they were reduced to the norm of the pagan sacrament -of bread and wine. - -The only other primary Christian rite, that of baptism, is shown even -in the gospels to have been pre-Christian; and the anti-Judaic John -the Baptist may have been a historic figure among the Jews, though -his connection with the Christos is a myth, seen in the gospels in -different stages of its development. [9] The presumption is that it -was framed at the stage at which the Jewish Christists, faced by the -Pauline and Gentile opposition to circumcision, hitherto held binding -among the Jesuists, decided to substitute baptism (which already had -a Jewish vogue) and thereby maintain a Jewish primacy. But baptism -too was a common Gentile usage, as was the use of holy water, later -adopted by the Christian Church. - -With these Christist rites, it is clear, there was originally -associated a fixed belief in the speedily-approaching end of the world, -that being the notion which most completely pervades every book in -the New Testament. The rites then, like the similar mysteries of the -Pagans, were regarded as the way of entrance into the future life, -whether that were conceived as the apparition of a supernatural New -Jerusalem on earth, or as a transformed existence in a material heaven -in the skies. For the Pauline period, the approaching catastrophe -was evidently the supreme pre-occupation; and to the fear of it the -whole of the early Christian propaganda appealed. There is no reason, -however, to believe that the Christians at Jerusalem ever "had all -things in common," as is asserted in the Acts of the Apostles, where -other passages confute the claim. Such communities indeed had arisen -in antiquity, and there was a kindred tradition that Pythagoras had -centuries before, in Italy, converted by one discourse a multitude of -hearers, who adopted a communal life. But the narrative in the Acts, -especially as regards the fable of Ananias and Sapphira, seems to -have been framed in the interest of some of the Christian communist -groups which arose after the period in question, and whose promoters -needed at once an apostolic precedent for their ideal and a menace -against those who temporized with it. In the Pauline epistles the -Gentile converts, so far from cultivating community of goods, are -seen going to law with each other before heathen judges. - -It is probable that the use of the sign of the cross, as a mark of -membership and a symbol of salvation, belonged to the earliest stages -of the cult; at least the sign in question figures as the mark of -a body of religious enthusiasts in Jewry as early as the Book of -Ezekiel (ix, 4; Heb.); and in the Apocalypse (vii, 2, 3) the "seal -of the living God" appears to have been understood in the same sense -as the sign prescribed in the prophecy. The Hebrew letter tau, there -specified, is known to have represented at different periods different -forms of cross; and the oldest of all is believed to have been the crux -ansata of the Egyptians, which was a hieroglyph of immortal life. Thus -the historic form of the crucifix was determined, not by the actual -manner of normal crucifixion (for in that the arms were drawn above the -head and not outspread), but by previous symbolism. In the Egyptian -ritual of Osiris a spreading of the arms on the cross was in remote -antiquity a form of mystic regeneration; and in some amulets the -stauros or tree-cross of Osiris is found represented with human arms. - - - - -§ 6. Rise of Gentile Christism - -A severance between the Jewish and the Gentile Christists was the -necessary condition of any wide spread of the cult. Though it was the -success of Jewish proselytism that paved the way for the propaganda of -Christism, only a handful of Gentiles would willingly bow to the Jewish -pretension of holding all the sources of "salvation." That a Grĉcized -Jew, as Paul is represented to have been, should begin to make the -cult cosmopolitan, in despite of opposition from Jerusalem, is likely -enough; and continued opposition would only deepen the breach. The -Judaic claim involved a financial interest; and as local economic -interest was a factor in the development of every Gentile group -of Christists, a theological argument for Gentile independence was -sure to be evolved. As the composition of the Christ-myth proceeded, -accordingly, various episodes to the discredit of the mythic twelve -disciples of Jesus are framed: "one of the twelve" figures as the -betrayer; Peter openly denies his Master, and the others forsake him -in a body in the hour of trial; while their incapacity to understand -him in life is often insisted on. John the Baptist and Jesus, again, -are made explicitly to teach that the "Kingdom of God" is taken away -from the Jews, though Jesus also promises the twelve that they shall -sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes. Finally, there is -a manipulation of narratives on the question of the responsibility -for Jesus' execution, the outcome being that it lies neither with -the Roman governor nor with the sub-Roman king, but with the Jewish -priests and people, even as the life of the Child-God at his birth is -menaced by the Jewish King. In all likelihood most of those episodes -were first set forth in a Gentile Passion-play, whence they passed into -the common stream of tradition; but such an item as the part played by -Pilate is likely to have been first introduced from the Jewish side, -Pilate having been an object of special Jewish detestation. - -In such matters the literary or myth-making faculty of the -Gentiles, with their many Saviour-Gods, gave them the advantage -over the Judaists; but the strife of the two interests was long -and bitter. It flames out in the Judaic book of Revelation, in -the allusion to those who "say they are apostles and are not"; -and long after the time allotted to Paul we find him caricatured in -certain Judaizing writings, the so-called Clementine Recognitions -and Homilies, in the person of Simon Magus, an entirely unhistorical -personage, who also appears in the Acts of the Apostles. Simon Magus -is, in fact, a mythical figure evolved from Semo Megas or Great Sem -(=Sem-on, as Samson is Samas-on), an old Semitic Sun-God worshipped -by the polytheists of Samaria, and in connection with whose cultus -there was evidently a Gentile Christist movement, of a Gnostic or -mythical character, its Christ being conceived as non-human. Such a -movement being competitive with that of the Jewish Jesus, "Simon," -to whom was ascribed an impressive Gnostic treatise, became the type -of anti-Jewish heresy; whence the late Christian story in the Acts, -where Elymas again (=Great El) is a mythical duplication of Simon. - -There are many signs that Samaritan elements entered early into the -Christist movement. The fourth gospel even represents the founder -to have been accepted in Samaria as the Messiah; and in so far as -the cult became Gentilised, even if the Ebionites did not stand for -an ancient local and quasi-Samaritan foundation, Samaritans would -be the more ready to join it, since they were thereby helping to -discomfit the more exclusive Jews. But they too had their Christ-myth; -and the conception of the Holy Spirit as a dove came from them to -the Christians. Seeking to found finally on the Old Testament, the -scripture-makers of the latter movement had to explain away their -Samaritan antecedents by myths of heresy. - -The book of Acts as a whole, however, stands for an ecclesiastical -tendency in the second century to make out that the first apostles had -not been divided; that Peter too was a preacher of Gentile Christism, -to which he had been converted by a vision; and that Paul, in turn, -had made concessions to Judaism. When the Judaic Church became less -and less dangerous as a possible monopolist, the organizing Gentile -churches could thus proceed to construct a theoretic connection -between Christianity and Judaism, the "new dispensation" and the -old, thus preserving for the new creed the prestige of the Old -Testament, with which, as a body of sacred books, the New could not -for a long time compete, even in the eyes of its devotees. At the -same time the apostles, who had long figured as church-founders, -were effectively glorified as wonder-workers, being credited with -miracles which rivalled those of the Christos himself; and Peter -raises a "Tabitha" from the dead as Jesus had done the "Talitha" -or maiden in the gospels--a myth which was itself a duplicate of a -traditional pagan miracle later credited to Apollonius of Tyana. - -Alongside, however, of the systematizing or centripetal process -there went on a centrifugal one, the process of innovating Gentile -heresy. Already in Paul's epistles we read of "another Jesus" whom -the apostle "had not preached"; and in the second century a dozen -"Gnostic" heresies were honeycombing the movement. Their basis or -inspiration was the mystic claim to inner light, "gnosis" or knowledge, -disparaged in the Pauline phrase about "knowledge [or science] falsely -so-called." It was in nearly all cases a combination of ideas current -in the theosophies of Asia and Egypt with the God-names of the Judaic -and Christian cults. So powerful was the instinct of independence, then -as in later periods of political change, that the spirit of Gnosticism, -in a Judaic form, found its way into the expanding gospels, where -Jesus is at times made to pose as the holder of a mystical knowledge, -denied to the capacities of the multitude, but conveyed by him to his -disciples; who, however, are in other passages reduced to the popular -level of spiritual incapacity. It cannot be doubted that the ferment -thus promoted by what the systematizers denounced as heresy helped -at first to spread the cult, at least in name, since all Christists -alike would tend to resort to the eucharist, or to the assemblies -which were to develop into Churches. - -At first the Jewish Christists may well have shared in the ordinary -Jewish detestation of the Roman tyranny; and for them Nero may -have been "Anti-Christ," as he appears to be in the Apocalypse; but -there is no good reason to suppose that in Nero's day the historic -Christians in Rome were a perceptible quantity. Martyr-making later -became an ecclesiastical industry; and the striking passage in Tacitus -which alleges the torture and destruction of a "vast multitude" of -Christians at Nero's hands is nowhere cited in Christian literature -till after the printing, under suspicious circumstances, of the -Annals. No hint of such a catastrophe is given in the Acts of the -Apostles. An equivalent statement to that of Tacitus is first found -in the chronicle of Sulpicius Severus in the fifth century, where it -is an expanded episode in the midst of an extremely curt epitome. The -similarly suspicious passage on the same subject in Suetonius is put in -further perplexity by the same writer's statement that in the reign of -Claudius the Jews in Rome were constantly rioting, "Chrestus stirring -them up"--an expression which suggests, if anything, that there was -on foot in Rome a common Jewish movement of Messianic aspiration, in -which the Christ was simply expected as a deliverer, apart from any -such special cult as that of Jesus. It is quite inapplicable to any -such movement as is set forth in the Pauline epistles. In any case, -after the fall of Jerusalem Jesuist hopes were visibly confined to -the religious sphere; and Gentile Christianity above all was perforce -resigned to the imperial system, of which it was one day to become -a limb. - -There is seen too, even on the face of the Pauline epistles, a -superimposing of the new Greek terms and concepts on the vocabulary of -Jewish theology--terms of metaphysic and religion such as immortality, -conscience, providence, natural, corruptible, invisible--and in the -language of the gospels and the Acts the Grecising influence becomes -more and more marked, increasing in the Acts and in the third gospel, -and becoming paramount in the fourth. The very conception of religious -as distinct from temporal salvation is Hellenistic or Persian rather -than Judaic; and the title of Saviour, which becomes the special -epithet of the Christ, is constituted as much by pagan usage as by the -original significance of the name Jesus. Gentile also, rather than -Judaic--though common to the pre-Judaic Semites and the idolaters -among the Hebrews--was the idea expressed in the Pauline epistles -that the Christist who partakes of the mystic rite suffers with -and henceforth is one with the slain demigod, being "crucified with -Christ." That conception is precedented generally in all the cults of -ritual mourning, notably in that of Osiris, and particularly in that -of Attis, in which the worshippers gashed themselves and punctured -their hands or necks; some of the priests even mutilating themselves -as the God was mutilated in the myth. The Pauline expression is to -be understood in the light of the passage in which a bitter censure, -for having taken up a false Christism, is passed on the Galatians, -"before whose eyes Christ had been openly depicted, crucified" (cp. 1 -Cor. xi, 26, Gr. and A.V.). In some but not in all MSS. are added the -words "among you," words which may either have been omitted by late -transcribers whom they embarrassed, or added by some one desirous of -accentuating the already emphatic expression of the original. When -we connect with these the further passage, usually taken also without -inquiry as purely metaphorical, in which Paul says he "bears branded -on his body the marks of Jesus," we find reason to surmise that, -even as the ministrant in the Dionysian college was called by the -God's name, Bacchus; as the Osirian worshipper spread himself on -the cross and became one with Osiris; and as the priest of Attis -personated Attis in his mysteries--so Paul or another personated Jesus -in the mysteries of his sect; that what has so long passed for verbal -metaphor stood originally for a process of acted symbolism; and that -the theory of the mystery was that he who personated the crucified -demigod became specially assimilated to him. The Pauline language on -this head coincides exactly with the general and primordial theory of -theanthropic sacrifice: "I have been crucified with Christ, and it -is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me." (Cp. Phil. iii, -11.) Obscure and violent if understood as sheer metaphor, such -expressions fall into line with much ancient religious belief when -read as describing a symbolic rite. - -In any case, the first-cited passage seems to tell of either a -dramatic or a pictorial representation of the crucified Christ in -connection with the sacrament; a procedure which would probably not -be favoured by the art-hating Jews, but which, gradually developed -among the Gentiles in the fashion of the drama-loving Greeks, is the -probable origin of several of the gospel narratives. It belonged -to the conception of all such mysteries that their details should -never be divulged to outsiders; hence the rarity of such allusions, -even in letters to the faithful. The Christian cult adopted the very -terms of the heathen practice, and its initiates were called mystĉ, -like those of all the rival religions. - -A study of the early Christian tombs shows how much of more or -less unconscious compromise took place wherever Christism made -converts. The charming myth of Psyche had become for Pagans a doctrine -of immortality; and in that sense the figure of the child-goddess -was without misgiving carved on early Christian tombs. So with the -figure of Hermes Kriophoros, Hermes the Ram-Bearer, who is the true -original of the Christian conception of the Good Shepherd, in art -and in thought, though a figure of Apollo in the same capacity may -have been the medium of conveyance. Orpheus was assimilated in the -same fashion; and when art began to be applied to the needs of the -new cult, Jesus was commonly figured as a beardless youth, like the -popular deities of the Pagans in general. - -Last but not least of the Gentile elements which determined the spread -of the Christist cult was the double meaning attaching to the Greek -form of the Messianic name. In the unplausible passage above cited -from Suetonius, that is spelt Chrestus, evidently after the Greek -word Chrestos="good, excellent, gracious," which occurs frequently in -the New Testament, and which was a special title of the "infernal" -or underworld Gods of the Samothracian mysteries, also of Hermes, -of Osiris, and of Isis. The two words were pronounced alike; and the -coincidence is often such as would be made much of by ancient thinkers, -wont to lay great stress on words. In the gospel phrase so loosely -rendered "my yoke is easy" the Greek adjective is chrestos; as also -in that translated: "he is kind towards the unthankful and evil" -(Lk. vi, 35); and in the phrase "the Lord is gracious" (1 Pet. ii, -3). In the epistles, too, chrestotes is the word used in the phrase -"the goodness of God"; and in the familiar Pauline quotation from -Menander "good manners" is in the Greek chresta ethe. Among the Pagans, -again, this epithet constantly figured on the kind of tomb called -heroon, erected to distinguished persons who thus received the status -of inferior deities or demigods, and who in consequence of this very -epigraphic formula came in later times to be regarded as Christian -martyrs, and to be so celebrated in festivals which were really -continuations of the pagan feasts in their honour. The Christians -themselves, on the other hand, habitually wrote their founder's name -Chrestos or Chreistos on their tombs in the second and third centuries, -thus assimilating it to the pagan epigraphic formula chreste chaire; -and the term Christian frequently followed the same spelling. Several -of the Fathers, indeed, make play with the double spelling, claiming -that the terms are for them correlative. So fixed was the double usage -that to this day the spelling of the French word chrétien preserves -the trace. There was thus on the Christist side an appeal to Gentiles -on the lines of a name or badge already much associated with Gentile -religion, and attractive to them in a way in which the name "Christ" -as signifying "one anointed" would not be. - -How far this attraction operated may be partly inferred from such -a document as the apologetic treatise of Theophilus of Antioch, -conjecturally dated about the year 180, in which there is not a single -mention of Jesus as a basis of the Christian creed, while the names -Christos and Christian are repeatedly bracketed with "chrestos." The -writer figures less as a Pauline Christist than as a Gentile proselyte -who founded on the Hebrew sacred books, and believed in some impersonal -Christ at once "good" and "anointed." Similarly in the Apology of -Athenagoras, belonging to the same period, the founder figures purely -as the divine Logos, not being even mentioned as a person with a -biography, though the writer quotes the Logos through an apocryphal -gospel. In such a propaganda the Greek associations with the epithet -chrestos would count for much more than those of the Judaic standpoint. - -But above all other gains on this score may be reckoned those made -in Egypt, where the cult of the cross belonged alike to the ancient -worship of Osiris and the recent one of Serapis. Not only was Osiris -in especial chrestos, the benign God, but the hieroglyph of goodness, -applied to him in common with others, had the form of a cross standing -on a hillock (= a grave?), while the cross symbol in another form -was the sign of immortal life. In the imported worship of Serapis, -which inevitably conformed in the main to that of Osiris, the cross -was equally a divine and mystic emblem. It thus becomes intelligible -that some devotees of Serapis should, as is stated in the well-known -letter of the Emperor Hadrian, figure as bishops of Christ; and -that Serapis-worshippers should rank as Christians, their God being -like Osiris "Chrestos." To gather into one loosely-coherent mass the -elements so variously collected was the work of the gradually-developed -hierarchical organization; and the process involved a retention of -some of the characteristics of the various worships concerned. - -That there were yet other sources of membership for the early Church, -apart from direct conversion, is to be gathered from the allegorical -writing known as the Pastor of Hermas, which is known to have been -one of the most popular books in the whole Christian literature of -the second century. This work, apparently written in Italy, never -once mentions the name Jesus or the name Christ, and never quotes -from any book in either Testament, nor alludes to a crucifixion or -a eucharist; but speaks of One God, a Holy Spirit, and a Son of God -who underwent labours and sufferings; of a "Church" which appears to -mean the community of all good men; and of bishops and apostles and -presbyters. It is intelligible only as standing for some species of -pre-Jesuist propaganda very loosely related to Judaism, inasmuch as -it appears to cite some apocryphal Jewish work, yet utters no Judaic -doctrine. Its sole specified rite is baptism; and its moral teaching -barely recognizes the idea of vicarious sacrifice. Such a work must -have had its public before the Jesuist movement took sectarian or -dogmatic form; and its popularity in the early Church must have come -of the inclusion of its earlier following. When the Church attained -definite organization and a dogmatic system the book was naturally -discarded as having none of the specific qualities of a Christian -document. - -A "Church" such as is ambiguously set forth in the Pastor may -conceivably have been set up by one of the movements of Samaritan -Christism already mentioned, or by that connected with the name of -the Jew Elxai, who is recorded to have written of "Christ" without -making it clear whether he referred to the gospel Jesus. As among the -Elcesaites, so in the Pastor, the "Son" is conceived as of gigantic -stature. On any view, being neither Christian nor anti-Christian, -but simply pre-Christian, yet turned to Christian uses, the book -strengthens the surmise that a number of the so-called heresies of -the early Church were in reality survivals of earlier movements which -the Church had absorbed, perhaps during times of persecution. The -"heresy" of Simon Magus was certainly such a pre-Christian cult; -that of Dositheus appears to be in the same case; and the ideas of -the Pastor conform to no canonical version of the Christian creed. - - - - -§ 7. Growth of the Christ Myth - -The Christist cult gained ground not because there was anything new -either in its dogma or in its promise, but on the contrary because -these were so closely paralleled in many pagan cults: its growth -was in fact by way of assimilation of new details from these. Step -by step it is seen to have adopted the mysteries, the miracles, -and the myths of the popular Gentile religions. The resurrection of -Jesus is made to take place like that of Mithra, from a rock tomb; -and to the sacred banquet of twelve represented by the Last Supper -there is added, in the fourth gospel, an episode which embodies the -common pagan usage of a sacred banquet of seven. [10] In the way of -miracle the Christ is made to turn water into wine, as Dionysos had -been immemorially held to do; he walks on the water like Poseidon; -like Osiris and Phoebus Apollo he wields the scourge; like the solar -Dionysos, he rides on two asses and feeds multitudes in the desert; -like Ĉsculapius, he raises men from the dead, gives sight to the blind, -and heals the sick; and like Attis and Adonis he is mourned over and -rejoiced over by women. Where the parallel is not exact we still find -pagan myth giving rise to Christian; for the fable of the temptation is -but a new story told of the oft-copied ancient Babylonian astronomical -symbol in which the Goat-God (the sign of Capricorn) stands beside the -Sun-God--a scene turned by the Greeks into the myths of Pan leading -Jupiter to the mountain-top, of Pan or Marsyas competing with Apollo, -and of Silenus instructing Dionysos. [11] Above all, the Christ had to -be born in the manner of the ever-cherished Child-God of the ancient -world; he must have a virgin for mother, and he must be pictured in -swaddling-clothes in the basket-manger, preserved from immemorial -antiquity in the myth of Ion and in the cult of Dionysos, in which -the image of the Child-God was carried in procession on Christmas -day. Like Horos he must be born in a stable--the stable-temple of the -sacred cow, the symbol of the Virgin Goddess Isis, queen of heaven; -and the apocryphal gospels completed the pagan parallel by making -the stable a cave, the birthplace of Zeus and Mithra and Dionysos and -Adonis and Hermes and Horos. [12] Prudence excluded the last detail -from the canonical gospels, but it became part of the popular faith; -and the Christ's birthday had been naïvely assimilated by the populace -to the solstitial birth-day of the Sun-God, December 25, long before -the Church ventured to endorse the usage. - -Judaic manipulation, however, was not lacking. Though Jesus is -born of a virgin, it is in the manner of Jewish theosophy; for the -"Spirit of God" broods over Mary as it had done on the germinal deep -in Genesis. Having been a Jewish Saviour before he was a Gentile or -Samaritan Christ, Jesus had further to satisfy as many as possible of -the Jewish Messianic requirements. He must be of the line of David, -and born at Bethlehem; but inasmuch as Jewish tradition expected -both a Messiah Ben-David and a Messiah Ben-Joseph--the latter being -apparently a Samaritan requirement [13]--he was made Ben-David by -royal descent, and Ben-Joseph through his putative father. Yet again, -there being Messianists who denied the necessity that the Anointed One -should descend from David, there was inserted in the gospels a story -in which Jesus repudiates such descent; the two opposed theories being -thus alike harboured, without discomfort and without explanation. In -the same fashion the ascetics of the movement made the Son of Man -poor and homeless, while the anti-ascetics made him a wine-drinker, -ready to sit at meat with publicans and sinners. For the Jews, too, -he had to raise the "widow's son" as did Elijah and Elisha in the Old -Testament story--a Hebrew variant of the (pictured?) Gentile myth of -the raising of the dead Attis or Adonis, or the dead child Horos or -Dionysos, further reproduced in the resurrection of the Christ himself; -and there had to be at his birth a massacre of the innocents, as in -the myth of Moses and in the Arab myths of the births of Abraham and -Daniel. Yet again, he had to figure in his crucifixion as bearing the -insignia of royalty, like the sacrificed "only-begotten son" of the -Semitic God El, and the sacrificed God-man of the Babylonian feast -of Sacĉa. [14] It may be that Barabbas, "the son of the father," -is a survival of the same conception and the same ritual usage, -similarly imposed on a narrative of which no part is historical. - -As with action, so with theory. In the East there had long prevailed -the mystical dogma that the Supreme God, who was above knowledge, -had incarnated himself in or created a deity representing his mind in -relation to men, the Logos or Word, in the sense of message or revealed -reason. Such was Mithra, the Mediator, in the Mazdean system, whence -apparently the conception originated; such was Thoth in the theosophy -of Egypt; such was Hermes, son of Maia and messenger of the Gods, in -the pantheon of the Greeks; and the Jews had long been assimilating -the principle, partly by making the deity figure as the Logos in human -or angelic form (as in Gen. xv); partly in the form of a personalizing -of Sophia, wisdom, as in the books of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs and in -the Old Testament apocrypha; partly in the later form of a theoretic -doctrine of the Logos, as developed on the basis of Plato in the -writings of Philo the Jew of Alexandria, about the beginning of the -Christian era. [15] In the fourth gospel this doctrine is summarily -imposed on the Christist cult in an advanced form, though the three -synoptic gospels had shown no trace of it. The new myth was welcomed -like the others; all alike went to frame a deity who could compare -and compete with those of the other cults of the day. - -Doctrine followed the same law of assimilation; the Christ must -needs reflect in his teaching all the phases of the religious -thought of the age, however contradictory. First he had to voice -the Judaic hope of a kingdom of heaven, with stress laid on the -claims of the poor; he must insist on the speedy coming of the -Judaic doomsday and on his own function at the catastrophe; but -yet again he is made to present the kingdom of heaven as a kind of -spiritual change; and last of all he is made to utter the wisdom of -the thinker who had penetrated all the popular delusions and seen -that "the kingdom of heaven is among you"--or nowhere. In one gospel -he excludes Samaritans and Gentiles from his mission; in another he -makes a Samaritan the model "neighbour"; in another he goes among -the Samaritans in person. He becomes as manifold in doctrine as is -Apollo or Dionysos in function. Even when he is made to lay down, -as against Jewish superstition, the sane principle that victims of -fatalities are not to be reckoned worse sinners than other men, -a later hand appends a tag which reaffirms the very superstition -impugned. Every variety of ethic, within the limits of the Jewish and -Gentile ideals of the time, is imposed on him in turn. Alternately -particularist and universalist, a bigoted Jew and a cosmopolitan, -a lover of the people and a Gnostic despiser of their ignorance, -a pleader for love to enemies and a bitter denouncer of opponents; -successively insisting on unlimited forgiveness and on the ostracism of -recalcitrant brethren, on the utter fulfilment of the Mosaic law and on -its supersession; alternately promising and denying temporal blessings, -avowing and concealing his belief in his Messiahship; prescribing by -turns secrecy and publicity to his auditors, blind faith and simple -good works to his disciples--he is the heterogeneous product of a -hundred mutually frustrative hands, a medley of voices that never -was and could not be in one personality. Through his supernatural -mask there speak the warring sects and ideals of three centuries: -wisdom and delusion, lenity and bitterness, ventriloquize in turns -in his name. Even as the many generations of Jewish teachers had -preluded all their changing counsels with a "thus saith the Lord," -so did their Christist successors seek to mint their cherished dogmas, -their rigid prejudices, and their better inspirations, with the image -and superscription of the new Logos, the growing God of a transforming -world. The later product is thus as unreal as the older. - -It is only on presuppositions themselves the fruit of belief in -the myth that such a growth seems unlikely or impossible, or that -something supernormal is needed to account for the wide development -of the Christian system. Those who look upon the historic flood in -the broad and peopled plain are slow to conceive that it had its rise -in the minute rills and random brooks of a far-off mountain land. But -it is so that the great rivers begin. - - - - - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE ENVIRONMENT - - -The artificial organism which we have seen beginning to take shape is -to be conceived, like organisms properly so called, as depending on -and adjusting itself to its environment. Of this the nature has been -partly set forth in tracing the beginnings of the cult, but it must be -considered in itself if the relation is to be at all fully understood. - - - - -§ 1. Social and Mental Conditions in the Roman Empire - -The world in which Christianity grew up was above all things one of -extinguished nationalities, of obliterated democracies, of decaying -intellectual energy. Wherever the Roman Empire spread, a rigid limit -was set to the play of public spirit, whether as criticism of the -political order or as effort to improve the social structure. The -forms of municipal government remained; but the natural and progressive -struggle of classes and interests was at an end. The Jew must give up -his polity of applied theocracy; the Greek his ideal of the City State; -even as the Roman Senate itself shrank into an assembly of sycophants, -content to register its master's decrees. All alike, on pain of -extinction, must mutely or fawningly accept the imperial system, -and abandon hope of shaping their own political destinies. In such a -world the thinking faculty, denied almost all exercise on the living -problems of polity and conduct, necessarily turned to the themes that -were open to it; and as the very calibre of men's minds had narrowed -with the suppression of their freedom, which meant the curtailment of -their personality, there was no such general faculty available as could -grasp the difficult problems of science and philosophy led up to by the -hardy speculation of the ages of freedom and by the skilled specialism -of the endowed students of pre-Roman Alexandria. For the mass of the -people, above all, save where the Greek drama was still presented to -them, concrete religion was the one possible form of mental life; -and for the more serious such mental life was at once a solace and -a preoccupation. Under a despotism which in so many ways conformed -to oriental types, serious men developed something of the oriental -aloofness from the actual: from action they turned to brooding; from -seen interests to the problems of the unseen. Even in Rome itself, -where the upper classes were much more indifferent to Christism than -those of the Eastern provinces, the new conditions developed a new -interest in theological problems on the pagan side. - -Broadly speaking, types and classes of men have always been -meditatively religious or reflective in the degree of their exclusion -from practical concerns. In the ancient world the law reveals itself at -every vista. At one extreme stood the energetic Romans, sedulous first -in agriculture and later in warfare; superstitious but unspeculative; -making ritual religion a methodical province of polity, a part of the -mechanism of the republic: at the other the Hindus, predestined to -despotism by their physical and economic conditions, and to inaction -by their climate, the true children of reverie, for whom religious -evolution was a deepening absorption in boundless speculation. Midway -stood the Greeks, active but not laborious, too alive for much brooding -and too cultured for wholly pedantic superstition, the natural framers -of a religion of poetry and art. Their science and philosophy began -in Asia Minor, on the soil of the half-scientific, half-religious -lore of the overthrown Assyrian and Babylonian cultures of the past, -in a leisurely and half-oriental atmosphere; and after the first -free evolution of its germs in the manifold life of their countless -competitive City States, the most notable growth of their philosophy -was in the period when their political failure began to declare itself, -and the shadow of despotism was falling on men sobered and chagrined -by the spectacle of ceaseless intestine strife. When despotism was -fixed, thought still progressed for a time in virtue of the acquired -stores of culture and stress of impulse; but in that air the higher -life soon flagged, and philosophy for the most part lapsed to the -levels of ancient mysticism, becoming a play of fantasy instead of -an effort of critical reason. - -When the cultured few underwent such a destiny, the uncultured crowd -could but feed on the simpler religious doctrine that came in their -way. It necessarily ran to a more intimate employment of the standing -machinery of the creeds, to a use of the more emotional rites, to -a freer participation in the consolations and excitements of the -dramatic mysteries. Where civic life was precarious without being -self-ruling, the more serious came more and more under the sway of -the oriental preoccupation over the future--a habit of mind developed -in lands subject to chronic conquest and to the caprice of tyrants -and satraps. Growing Greece, while free, had taken from the East, -centuries before the Christian era, stimulating and emotional cults, -especially dear to women, with mysteries which promised to their -initiates a blessed life beyond the troublous present; and by a natural -tendency those who had least share in controlling the present clung -most to such comfort. So, in republican Rome, it was found that the -women and the imported slaves were always most hospitable to a new -"superstition"; and in times of dangerous war the proclivity quickened. - -In this way there went on a kind of religious enfranchisement in -the Mediterranean world both before and after the Romans became the -universal masters. In the early City States of Greece and Italy, -but especially in Rome, worship was originally in large measure -a privilege of rank. The most constant and intimate worship was -naturally that of the household Gods, the Lares and Penates; and -the men with no ancestral home, whether slaves or paupers, were -outside of such communion. Only in the worship of the Gods of the -city was there general communion; and even here the patrician orders -long monopolised the offices of ministry in Rome; while even in more -democratic Greece, with some exceptions, the slaves and the foreign -residents were excluded from the sacred banquet which was the mark -of all cults alike, public or private. Even the first imported cults -were put under a civic control, which doubtless promoted decorum, -but also made for class interests. In later republican Rome the -usage prevailed of bringing to the sacred banquet-table the statues -of the Gods, who were believed to partake with the worshippers; and -the company was naturally kept very select. For the Roman common -people, accordingly, religious association was mainly confined to -the worship of the public Lares and Penates instituted for their -benefit. In Greece the city banquet was liberalised with the progress -of democracy; but at best it was the heritage of the free citizens; and -the antique simplicity of its rites must have made it lack emotional -atmosphere. At times it was even necessary to practise compulsion to -secure the due attendance of "parasites" at the smaller sacramental -repasts (pagan types of the daily "mass") held daily in the temples, -which would lack the attraction of the public feasts. - -Thus it came about that in the course of the ages the common people, -especially the many aliens from Asia Minor, slave and free, everywhere -tended to seek more and more a religion for themselves--something -in which they could share equally and intimately; somewhat as, in a -later period, the common people in so many parts of Europe recoiled -from official Catholicism before as well as at the Reformation, -or as the townspeople in England later set up their own dissenting -chapels in dislike of the Established Church. As early as the -Peloponnesian war we find new religious societies arising among -the humbler Athenians, making accessible to them Dionysian or -other eastern mysteries of sacred baptism, and a sacred banquet of -"body and blood," in which a kid was the victim. Some such banquet -was the normal basis; and the societies, which were numerous, were -self-supporting and self-governing, appointing their own priests -or priestesses, and keeping their own sacred books. In these cults -slaves, aliens, and women were alike admitted; and, though in some -the worship was orgiastic, in keeping with the then common level of -popular culture, it is not to be supposed that the avowed ideals of -"goodness, chastity, piety," were for such groups in general devoid of -moral significance. They were condemned by the educated classes alike -in republican Greece and in republican Rome as vulgar and licentious; -but if these imputations are to be fully believed as against the pagan -societies, they must be equally believed as against the Christians, -concerning whom, in turn, they were generally made in the second -and third centuries. Of neither movement, probably, were they more -than partially true. In any case, the Greek societies gave a model to -the early Christian churches in more than one point of organisation, -most of them having had "presbyters" and a "bishop" (episcopos), and -some being called "synagogues," a term synonymous with ecclesia. So -great, finally, became the competitive pressure of the private cults -that those of the State had to offer inducements as against them; -and in course of time the once exclusive Eleusinian mysteries of -Athens were opened to all members of the State, and latterly--save in -exceptional cases, such as those of avowed unbelievers, or Epicureans, -or Christians--to all members of the Roman empire. Even the slaves, -finally, were initiated at the public expense. - -So far as the gospels can be taken to throw light on Christian -beginnings, the cult grew up under conditions similar to those -above described. Some of "the poor" in Jewry as elsewhere felt -themselves in a manner outside the established worship; and though -declamation against the rich had long been popular, the names given -to the legendary disciples suggest that there too the new cults were -in large measure promoted by aliens. The accounts of the founder as -mixing much with "tax-gatherers and sinners" tell of the presence of -such in the sect; and there too the constant presence of women stood -for a sense either of feminine dissatisfaction with the bareness of -the official worship, or of the need for a personal recognition which -Judaism did not give to the subordinate sex. It does not appear that -slaves were similarly welcomed in the Jewish stage of the movement; -portions of the gospels even make Jesus appeal to the ideals of the -slave-owner [16]; and nowhere is the slave himself sympathetically -brought to the front. But it is clear that when the cult entered on -a Gentile development it admitted slaves like the religious societies -of the Greeks; and in the first Gentile period the members appear to -have paid their way and managed their own affairs in the democratic -Greek fashion. - -The determining political condition everywhere was the social -sway of the empire, keeping all men impotent in the higher public -affairs. Exclusion from public life, broadly speaking, had been the -cause of the special addiction of the women, the slaves, and the -unenfranchised foreigners of the Greek cities and of Rome to private -cults and communions. Under the empire, all the lay classes alike -were excluded from public power; and new interests must be found to -take the place of the old. Within the pale of the Roman "peace," -those interests were summed up for the majority in athletics, the -theatre and the circus on the one hand; and on the other in the field -of religious practices. Hopes of betterment, and despair after vain -revolt, were alike fuel for the religious spirit; since the hope turned -to vaticination, and the despair crept for shelter to the mysteries -that promised a better life beyond the grave. But the prevailing lot of -men had become one of unwarlike submission; the material refinements -of civilization had bred in the cities a new sensitiveness, indeed a -new neurosis; vice itself set up reactions of asceticism; and over -all there brooded the pessimism of the prostrate East, the mood of -men downcast, consciously the puppets of an uncontrollable earthly -destiny, and wistful for a higher vision and rule. - - - - -§ 2. Jewish Orthodoxy - -Between the new sect and the normal or established Jewish religion, -which had contained within it or was easily adaptable to every -element that went to make early Jesuism, the force of separation was -not doctrinal or intellectual, but political and economic. Save for -the later-evolved concept of an Incarnation--which also, however, -was foreshadowed in Jewish thought--there is almost no principle -in the Christian system that was not to be found either in the -sacred books or in the current rabbinical teaching of the Jews, -whose development is to be measured no less by the liberal ethical -teaching of such rabbis as Hillel than by the mere traditionalism -ascribed to the mass of the scribes and Pharisees. Their sacred -books spoke sympathetically of the poor; and their sacred treasury -must have fed many, although--as in the days of the prophets and in -our own time in Europe--there were many irreconcilables. Even among -the Pharisees there were some who proclaimed the "law of the heart" -as the highest. As regarded religious thought, the Jews' system of -sacrifice on the one hand, and their higher or supra-ecclesiastical -ethic on the other, provided for all the forms of bias appealed to -in the gospels and epistles, with the one exception of the kind -of sentiment which sought a Demigod rather than a God; a humanly -sympathetic divinity, acquainted with griefs, rather than a remote and -awful Omnipotence. Even this figure was partly evolved on Jewish lines, -in the conception of a Messiah who should suffer and die. But a Messiah -who died and did not soon come again in triumph had no easily tenable -place in the Jewish system; and when the cult of such a Messiah came -into Gentile vogue, especially after the ruin of Jerusalem, it was -necessitated either to take a new and substantive status outside of -Jewry or disappear altogether. It is true that the so-called Nestorians -(properly Nazarĉans) of Armenia have reconciled Judaism with Christism -by defining the sacrifice of Jesus as the final sin-offering, while -maintaining the other sacrifices of the Mosaic law; but that course -was impossible to the hierarchy accused of causing the crucifixion; -and the Nestorians were as anti-Jewish as other Christians. - -Judaism, so to speak, was riveted at once to its national and to its -economic basis. Its primary appeals to Gentile proselytes were those -of a great historic shrine and a body of sacred literature; and on -both grounds the clerical class of Jerusalem claimed a revenue from -the faithful, Hebrew or proselyte. Financial interest secured that -the converted alien should be treated as the more liberal prophetic -literature urged; but it was of the essence of Judaism that the temple -or the Patriarchate should be the fiscal headquarters of all the -faithful; and herein lay a moral as well as a financial limit. Ordinary -racial instinct, and ordinary Gentile self-interest, must tend to -clash with such claims in the case of rabbinical Judea as in that -of Papal Rome; and the merely moral or ideal character of the Judaic -influence, coupled with the effect of the common Gentile disesteem for -the Jewish personality, brought it about that the Romanism of Jewry, -always the more restricted, collapsed by far the more swiftly. The -later collapse of Jewish Jesuism was a phenomenon of the same order. - -Early Jesuism, it is clear, flourished as a new means of Jewish -proselytism among the Gentiles; and the fact best established by -the dubious literature which surrounds the "apostles" is that their -Gentile converts were expected to contribute to headquarters, just -as did the ordinary Jew. Even after a Gentile differentiation had -definitely begun, whether under Paul or at the hands of others who -forged in his name, it was Jewish forces that did the work so far as -literature went. Throughout the synoptic gospels the notion given of -the Messiah's function is for the most part latter-day Jewish; he is -to preside over the approaching day of judgment, and his apostles are -to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. The early Jesuists, accordingly, -must have held themselves included in the Judaic fold. All sections -alike, down to the rise of anti-Jewish Gnosticism, founded on the -Jewish sacred books in the Greek translation; a moral manual of the -Jewish Twelve Apostles, as we have seen, served as a Jesuist handbook; -and the ethic of the gospels is throughout, even in its contradictions, -substantially a Jewish product. If John the Baptist could reject the -racial pride and prejudice of the Jews as he is alleged to have done, -universalism had already begun within the Jewish field. Even on the -point of opposition to divorce--an attitude deriving from non-Jewish -rather than from Jewish ideals--there were elements in Jewry on -which to found as against the looser orthodox practice; and it is -quite likely that the absolute as well as the qualified prohibition -in the gospels came from Jewish pens. Thus the moral and religious -atmosphere of Judaism in general was perfectly compatible with the -early Jesuist way of life. It is a sectarian fallacy to assume that -the repellent aspects typified by the "Scribes and Pharisees," or even -by the shambles of the Temple, were primary grounds for a moral revolt -among Jews and proselytes, or that Jesuism so began. The types of the -worse scribes and Pharisees were very speedily developed in the new -sect, as in every other; and such Jesuists as are portrayed in the -First Epistle to the Corinthians cannot be supposed to have rejected -Judaism on the score of its moral crudity. What they were much more -likely to resent was its demand for tribute concurrently with its -disparagement of the Gentile proselyte; and, last but not least, -its barbarous rite of circumcision, for which even the pro-Jewish -Jesuists had finally to substitute baptism. - -The relation of Judaism to Jesuism, then, was somewhat as that of a -mother country to a colony; the latter growing by help of the former, -deriving from it speech, lore, ideals, methods, models, and prestige, -till in time the new environment elicits special characteristics, -and mere geographical division no less than self-interest vetoes -the payment of the old tribute. As usual, there was in the colony a -loyalist party which bitterly resisted the severance. - - - - -§ 3. Jewish Sects: the Essenes - -While Josephus specifies four Jewish "sects," there was in Jewry -really only one dissenting sect in the modern sense of the term, apart -from the Jesuists. Pharisees and Sadducees were analogous rather to -the sections or "schools" of the Churches of Rome and England, the -former being "orthodox and more," inasmuch as they held by the law, -but further insisted on the doctrine of a future state, which was -not contained in the Mosaic books; while the Sadducees, either from -pre-Maccabean conservatism or from Hellenistic scepticism, held by -the pure Mosaic system, of which, being for the most part of priestly -status, they were the main administrators. It is noteworthy that it -is the Pharisees, who held the tenet of a future life, rather than the -Sadducees, who rejected it, that are most acrimoniously handled in the -gospels: the former being naturally the most dangerous competitors -of the new cult within the Jewish pale. A third body mentioned by -Josephus, that of Judas the Galilean, was rather a political than -a religious party, being bent simply on maintaining the Jewish -nationality as against the Romans. - -The term "sect," however, to some extent applies to the Essenes, -whose existence and characteristics are specially noteworthy in -connection with Christian beginnings. All the evidence goes to show -that there had existed in Jewry for many generations a body so named -(or perhaps formerly called Chassidim), living an ascetic life, -rejecting animal food and animal sacrifices, avoiding wine, warm -baths, and oil for anointing, wearing white garments and preferring -linen to wool, forbidding all oaths save one, and greatly esteeming -celibacy. Many of them lived in a male celibate community, by their -own labour, with community of goods, on the shores of the Dead Sea, -under a strict hierarchical rule; but many others lived scattered -through the Jewish cities, some marrying, but all maintaining ascetic -principles. To secure entrance into the community there was needed a -long probation. On the side of creed they held firmly by the law of -Moses, yet also reverenced the sun, to which they sang a morning hymn -of praise; strictly observed the Sabbath; conducted their religious -services without priests, and studied magic and angelology, but -tabooed logic and metaphysics. Ethically the cult was in the main -one of physical purity and fraternal humility, hostile to slavery -and war as well as to the normal vices, but running to mysticism on -the line of a belief, often seen in early religion, that asceticism -could raise men to supernatural powers. As a whole, the system had -so much in common with that of the Pythagoreans on the one hand, -and with the Mazdean religion and Buddhism on the other, that it -must be held to prove a connection between these, and to point to -a movement which once spread over Asia as far as Buddhist India, -and over the Mediterranean world as far as early Grecian Italy, -surviving for many centuries in scattered sects. - -It thus appears that, without the intervention or even the tradition of -any quasi-divine personality, there could subsist in Jewry a cult which -outwent the Christist in point of asceticism and humility, attaining -the kind of fraternity at which the latter ostensibly but vainly aimed, -and maintaining itself for many generations on substantially celibate -lines, partly by accessions from without under a rigid probation, -and partly by the adoption and education of children. Such a system, -expressly aiming at selection and exclusion, negated the idea of a -world religion, and, though it was still standing in the fifth century, -could not survive the final ruin of its environment, save as an ideal -passed on to Christian monasticism. But its long duration serves to -make clear the range of possibilities open to religious movements in -Palestine and the East apart from any abnormal gifts of leadership -or any semblance of supernatural innovation. - -How far Essenism reacted on early Jesuism cannot be -ascertained. Despite some approximations, such as the veto on oaths -and the esteem for celibacy, it is clear that there was no such -close resemblance between the movements as has been supposed by the -writers who seek to identify them; but they tell of a similar mental -climate. The non-mention of Essenism in the gospels is to be explained -by the fact that the two systems were not rivals. One was localized, -monastic, exclusive; the other peregrine and propagandist: and only in -the minds of the ill-informed Roman forgers of the second century could -they be supposed to have come into hostile contact. Essenism needed -no innovating Messiah; and Jesuism had to go afield for adherents. - - - - -§ 4. Gentile Cults - -What Christism had to compete with in the Greco-Roman world was not -so much the collective principle of polytheism or the public worship -of the endowed temples, as the class of semi-private cults to which -itself belonged, and the popular worships equally associated with -suffering and dying Saviour-Gods. Of these the most prominent were the -ancient worships of the Syrian Adonis, the Phrygian Attis, Dionysos, -and the Egyptian Osiris, all of which had become partly assimilated -in theory, in ritual, and in public observance. But contemporarily -with Christianity there began also to spread through the empire the -Persian cult of Mithra, which had been first introduced into the Roman -army after the Mithridatic wars; and in the end this became the most -dangerous rival of the new church. All six cults alike gave prominence -to the idea of the God's death and resurrection; and all lived in a -common atmosphere of ancient superstition, emotional unrest, craving -for communion, anxious concern for the future and for the washing -out of guilt by religious rites and penances. And all six deities -were nominally "born of a virgin." - -Of the competing cults in the East the least developed in a theological -sense were those of Attis and Adonis, originally deities of the -Vegetation principle, whose annual death and resurrection stood -primarily for the yearly decay and rebirth of the general life of -Nature, and secondarily for the waning and waxing of the power of -the sun. While all cults in the ancient world tended to assimilate, -however, the older were marked by certain special usages; and in the -case of Attis and Adonis these were the festivals which began with -mourning and ended in rejoicing. Attis, son of the virgin Myrrha, was -symbolized by the cut pine-tree, which meant the life principle in man -and Nature; and at the spring equinoctial festival this was carried -in procession to the temple of Cybelê with the effigy of a young -man bound on it, to represent the dead and mutilated God. Anciently, -it would seem, there had been so bound an actual youth who was slain -as a victim, and whose death was supposed to ensure at once physical -fertility and moral well-being to his land and people; but in virtue -of the general law of mitigation a mystic ceremony at length took -the place of the primitive deed of blood. The bearing of the God's -name by his priests in the mysteries was a memorial of the older time. - -These mysteries were twofold. In the spring time Attis figured -as a self-slain youth, beloved by Cybelê, the Mother of the Gods, -and devoted to her cultus. Later in the year he figured as Papas, -"Father," and Lord of All; and in this aspect he was more important -than Cybelê, who was throned beside him in the mystic drama, with a -crowd of women around. The initiate became mystes Atteos, the initiate -of Attis; and at this stage the God was adored as the bringer of -peace to a disorderly world. But "many were the thyrsus-bearers; -few were the mystĉ": it was the spring festival that dwelt in the -common knowledge and memory; and then it was that, after a day of -procession and mourning, a day of solemn rites, and a "day of blood" -on which the high-priest cut his arms and presented his blood as an -offering, the slain Demigod rose from the dead, and all was rejoicing -for his resurrection. It was the great Phrygian festival; and though -the Romans, in introducing the worship of the Great Mother while -Hannibal maintained himself in Italy, nominally accepted her alone, -it was impossible that the allied worship of Attis should be excluded -from the later mysteries. The galli or mutilated priests, who figured -in her Hilaria festival, were in fact the God's representatives. Thus -his was one of the popular cults of the later Roman world. - -Bound Adonis, the Tammuz of old Assyria, there had played for long -ages a more tender devotion. For the Syrians his name meant "the Lord" -(=the Adonai of the Hebrew Bible); and over the tale of his untimely -slaughter by the boar on Mount Lebanon the Eastern women had yearly -wept for a hundred generations. The "women weeping for Tammuz" in the -temple of Jerusalem before the exile were his worshippers; and in the -Athens of the days of the Peloponnesian war he received the same litany -of mourning. For his sacred city of Byblos he was as it were the soul -and symbol of the yearly course of Nature; the annual reddening of the -Adonis river by the spring floods being for his devotees a mystery of -his shed blood. Then came the ritual of grief, in which his wooden and -painted effigy, lying with that of Aphroditê, the Goddess who loved -him, took the place of the victim in the older rite in which he too -was doubtless slain "for the people." The "gardens of Adonis," shallow -trays in which various green plants grew quickly and as quickly died, -had been originally charms to hasten the fertility of the spring, -like the sacrifice itself; but long custom made them mere symbols -of untimely death, and the cult was one of pathos and compassion, -passing in the usual way to exultation and gaiety when, after his -effigies had been thrown as corpses into the sea or the springs, the -God rose from the dead on the third day, and in the presence of his -worshippers, by some mummery of make-believe or mechanical device, -was represented as ascending to heaven. As in the cult of Attis, -it was women who "found" the risen Lord, whose death they had mourned. - -In such worships, it will be seen, much depended on the spirit of sex, -which was evoked by the pairing of God and Goddess, a common principle -of the ancient Semitic pantheon, here subtilized by romance. Such -myths as those of Attis and Adonis, indeed, lent themselves to contrary -emotions, the amorous and the ascetic passions figuring in the devotees -by turns. Thus the very eunuch priests who represented the extremity -of anti-sexualism were credited with a mania of licentiousness; and -on the other hand the Great Mother, who in the primitive myth was -enamoured of Attis, and yet in one version mutilated him, was by her -graver devotees regarded in a holier light. So even Aphroditê, the -lover of Adonis, had her supernal aspect as Urania; and the legend -of the indifference of Adonis, like that of the self-mutilation of -Attis, conveyed a precept and pattern of chastity. Everywhere, as the -world grew sophisticated, and the primitive simplicity of appetite -was overborne by pessimism and asceticism, the cruder cults tended to -become refined and the Goddess-worships grew in dignity. At the sacred -city of Hierapolis, in Syria, there was long worshipped a Goddess of -immemorial fame, round whose history there floated myths like those -of Cybelê and Aphroditê, Attis and Adonis, but whose prestige was -apparently maintained rather by minimising than by retailing them. In -her cult all the worshippers were wont to puncture their hands or -necks, probably in mystic imitation of a slain Demigod such as Attis, -connected with her legend; and in her service ascetic priests or -hermits ascended phallic pillars to win sanctity by vigils of a week -long. Thus was set up for the Goddess a religious renown comparable to -that of Yahweh of Jerusalem, bringing multitudes of strangers to her -every festival, and filling the treasuries of her priests with gifts. - -Of kindred character and equivalent range with the cults of Attis and -Adonis was that of Dionysos, the most many-sided of the divinities -adopted by the Greeks from Asia. Figuring first as Bacchus, a Thracian -God of beer, [17] and later as the God of wine, he seems to have made -way in early Greece partly by virtue of the sheer frenzy set up in his -women worshippers by unwonted potations. But such phenomena caused -their own correction; and the adoption of the cult by the cities -brought it within the restraining sway of Greek culture. Of all the -older Greek worships, the most popular was that (perhaps oriental in -origin) of Dêmêtêr and Persephonê, the Mourning Mother and the Virgin -Daughter, who had primarily signified mother earth and the seed corn; -and with their worship in the great Eleusinian mysteries was bound up -that of Dionysos. Son of Zeus and the Virgin Goddess Persephonê or -the mortal virgin Semelê--for the myths were legion--he was carried -in effigy as a new-born babe in a manger-basket on the eve of the -winter solstice. In this capacity he was pre-eminently the Babe-God, -Iacchos, "the suckling." Further, he figures in one myth as being -torn to pieces by the Titans, [18] and as restored to life or reborn -(after Zeus has terribly avenged him) by his mother Semelê (really -an old Earth-Goddess) or by the Mother-Goddess, Dêmêtêr; wherefore -he is represented as a suckling at Dêmêtêr's breast. In the triennial -dramatic mysteries in his honour an eating of raw flesh by the devotees -was held to commemorate his sacrificial death, which was, however, -mystically conceived to mean the making of wine from grapes. In other -and commoner forms of the sacred banquet, the wine figured specially -as his blood, and the bread as Dêmêtêr=Ceres; and in this transparent -form the symbolism of "body and blood" was a household word among the -Romans. In their popular religion, being assimilated to an ancient -Roman God, the Wine-God was known as Liber, "the child," as "Father -Liber," and as Bacchus, while Ceres or Proserpine was paired with him -as Libera. The doctrine, found among the Manichĉans in the fourth -century, that "Jesus hangs on every tree," is in all likelihood a -development from this worship, in which Dionysos was God of the vine -in particular, but of all vegetation besides. For such mystics as -wrote and conned the Orphic hymns, however, he was a God of manifold -potency; and there centred round him a whole theosophy of ascetic -ethic, in which the ideal of the worshipper was to strive, suffer, -and conquer in common with the God, who was the giver of immortality. - -Of his cult in particular it is difficult to grasp any general -significance, so inextricably did it become entwined with others, -in particular with the Phrygian cult of Sabazios, [19] and with the -Corybantic mysteries, in connection with which are to be traced a whole -series of local deities of the same stamp as those under notice, just -as the myth of Apollo can be seen to have absorbed a whole series of -local Sun-Gods. Thus the mortal Jasion or Iasious is slain by Zeus -for being the lover of Cybelê, who however bears to him a divine -son, Korybas; and he in turn figures also as the son of the Virgin -Persephonê, and without father, human or divine. In the Orphic hymns -Korybas is the mighty Lord of the underworld, who frees the spirit -from all terrible visions, a giver of blessedness and of sorrow, -a God of double nature. So Dionysos, like the Hindu Fire-God Agni, -is born of two mothers; and like Hermes and Herakles he has descended -to Hades and returned, victorious over death. In all such cults alike -is to be noted the gradual emergence of the relation of maternity -as well as paternity, the Mother Goddess coming more and more to the -front as such; while the Son-God, in the case of Dionysos and Dêmêtêr, -tends to overshadow or supersede the Daughter-Goddess, who in Rome -had twinned with Bacchus under their names of Liber and Libera. - -In the case of the far-famed cult of Osiris, again, there gradually -took place a similar transformation. In the oldest Egyptian lore, -Osiris is at once the brother and the husband of Isis, who, when he is -slain and dismembered by Typhon, gathers together the scattered limbs -for burial. Thereafter their son, Horus (who in turn had been found -dead in his floating cradle and reborn by his mother), avenges his -father, who remains Judge of the Dead in the underworld. But as the -cult develops, Horus, who in one of his aspects--perhaps originally -signifying different deities--is an adult and powerful God, becomes -specially the child of Isis and Osiris, and is typically represented -as a suckling at his mother's breast, or as the babe born like Jesus on -the eve of the winter solstice; while Osiris remains the suffering God, -to be mourned and rejoiced over; and it is to him that the devotee -turns in the mysteries for the mystic regeneration, which involved -a worship of the Osirian cross, the emblem of the God. "I clasp the -sycamore tree," says the Osirified soul in the Book of the Dead; -"I myself am joined unto the sycamore tree, and its arms are opened -unto me graciously." But Osiris in turn "shall establish as prince -and ruler his son Horus"; and the soul in the underworld, in some -rituals, becomes one with Horus, as in others with Osiris. Out of the -medley there emerged for the popular mind the dominant impressions -of Osiris as the Saviour and Judge of the Dead; of Isis as the Queen -of Heaven, the Sorrowing Goddess, the Mother-Goddess; and of Horus -as the Divine Son, Hor-pa-khrot, "Horus the Child," of whom the -Greeks in their fanciful way made a Harpocrates, the God of Silence, -misunderstanding the symbol of the finger in the mouth, which for -the Egyptians meant merely childhood. As we have seen, the Osirian -cult and that of Serapis, grafted on it in the time of the Ptolemies, -made popular the symbol of the cross long before Christianity, and -prepared for the latter religion in many other ways. - -Perhaps its closest counterpart, however, was its most tenacious rival, -the worship of the Persian Sun-God Mithra, first introduced into Rome -in the time of Pompey, whose troops received it from the Cilician -pirates, the débris of the army of Mithridates, whom he conquered -and enlisted in the Roman service. Mithra being the most august of -all the Gods of war, his worship became the special religion of the -Roman army. Apart from its promise of immortality, its fascination -lay in its elaborate initiations, baptisms, probations, sacraments, -and mysteries, which were kept at a higher level of moral stringency -than those of almost any of the competing cults. The God was epicene or -bisexual, having a male and a female aspect; and there seems to have -been no amorous element in his myth at the Christian period. Unless -it be decided that such rituals had prevailed all over the East, the -Christian eucharist must be held to have been a direct imitation of -that of Mithraism, which it so closely resembled that the early Fathers -declared the priority of the rival sacrament to be due to diabolic -agency. But the Christian rite, as we have seen, had old Palestinian -roots, going back to sheer human sacrifice. The Mithraist ritual, -indeed, appears to have been the actual source of part of the Christist -mystery-play, inasmuch as Mithra, whose special epithet was "the Rock," -was liturgically represented as dead, buried in a rock tomb, mourned -over, and raised again amid rejoicing. For the Mithraists also the -sign of the cross, made on the forehead, was the supreme symbol; and -it was mainly their cult which established the old usage of calling -the Sun-day, the first of the week, "the day of the Lord," Mithra as -the Sun being the first of the seven planetary spirits on whose names -the week was based. In the third century, the chief place of the cult -in the empire was on the Vatican mount at Rome; and there it was that -Christian legend located the martyrdom of Peter, who, as we have seen, -was assimilated to Mithra both in name and in attributes. [20] - -In a special degree the Osirian and Dionysian and Mithraic cults -seem to have insisted on the doctrine of immortality correlatively -with the doctrine of eternal punishment; and insofar as Mithraism is -to be known from the present form of the Zendavesta, which is but a -revised portion of the older Mazdean literature, it appealed to the -imagination on this side at least as winningly as did the Jesuist -literature in respect, for instance, of the Apocalypse. Mithra was -the God of the upper and the nether world, the keeper of the keys -of heaven and hell, of life and death; and, like Osiris, he was the -judge of men's deeds. Like the other Saviour-cults, too, Mithraism -anticipated Christism in evolving the attraction of a Mother-Goddess, -the worship of Cybelê being adapted to his as it had been to that of -Attis. In one other aspect it seems to have run closely parallel to -early Jesuism. The singular phrase in the Apocalypse about garments -"washed in the blood of the Lamb" points to an early Jesuist use -of the practice of the kriobolium, which with the taurobolium was -one of the most striking of the Mithraic rites. In these repulsive -ceremonies the ram or bull--always young, on the principle that the -sacrifice must be pure--was slain over a grating, so that the blood -dripped on the initiate, who was placed in a pit beneath, and who -was instructed to wear the blood-stained garment for some days. It -was believed that the ceremony had a supreme saving grace; and the -initiate was solemnly described as in ĉternum renatus, "born again -for eternity." In regard to both animals the symbolism was partly -astronomical, having latterly reference to the sun's entrance into -the constellations of the Bull and the Ram at different stages of -his course. Mithra's oldest and best-known symbol was the bull; but -inasmuch as the sun had anciently been seen by the Chaldean astronomers -to be in the constellation Aries at the spring season, the beginning -of the ancient year, the lamb had long been likewise adopted into the -mysteries of the solar cults. About the beginning of the Christian -era the year-opening constellation was Pisces; and the Divine Fish -accordingly figures to a great extent in early Christian symbols. - -As we have seen, the primordial Jesuism, with its Lamb "slain from -the founding of the world," probably conceived of its deity in terms -of the astronomical symbol; but the prominence given by Mithraism -to the blood-ritual would serve to bring that into disuse among -the Gentile Christists, whose creed further made Jesus the final -paschal sacrifice, and reduced the apocalyptic phrase to a moral -metaphor. Nonetheless, the rites and theories of the great pagan cults, -all of which flourished in Palestine itself in the pre-Roman period, -must be recognized as factors in its creation. - -How completely Christianity belongs to the world of religious ideas in -which it arose may be realised, finally, by a glance at the worship -of the Roman Emperor, already established before the Christian -era. In Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, written about 40 B.C., there is -sung for Romans the universal myth of the coming Child, who is to be -Saviour and Lord of a rejuvenated earth, and whom Virgil was ready to -identify with the nephew of Augustus. But in the same period he sings -of Augustus as already divine; and Augustus in due course exploited -for himself the whole idea. Not only did he, like Alexander, set in -currency the typical fable of his mother's intercourse with Apollo, -and a Roman version of the ancient myth which in the gospels becomes -the story of the Massacre of the Innocents: in edicts which are in -part actually preserved on monuments he gave himself out in the East -as a God and Saviour whose birthday was henceforth to be celebrated -as the beginning of an evangel to the world, and who was to make an -end of war and disorder. Later emperors continued the expedient, which -had been well tried by Persian and Egyptian kings in previous ages. - -Against such divine pretensions on the part of the Roman conqueror -the Jews would instinctively develop their own formulated hope of a -Jewish Messiah; and wherever in the Empire men revolted against the -apotheosis of the earthly autocrat, the Judĉo-Gentile cult of the -slain and re-arising Christ, who was soon to come and judge the world, -would find devotees eager to accord to him the attributes claimed by -Cĉsar, and whatever others might avail. The new religion was thus in -every aspect a syncretism of the religious material of the time. - - - - -§ 5. Ethics: Popular and Philosophic - -It lies on the face of the case that the Christist cult could make -no rapid headway by offering to people of any class higher ethical -ideals than they had already been wont to recognize. To claim that -it did is to upset the concurrent theorem that the pagan world into -which Christianity entered was profoundly corrupt. If men and women -on all hands welcomed the new teaching for its moral beauty, they must -already have acquired a taste for such beauty, and cannot conceivably -have been "sunk in trespasses and sins." It is true that in every -unlettered population--in modern India and pre-Christian Mexico as -well as in classic antiquity--a repute for asceticism has brought -great popular honour, men reverencing a self-denial they feel unable -to practise. But a cult and a community which actually seek to embrace -the common people cannot exact from them a "saintliness" which in -the terms of the case is a rare phenomenon. In reality the Christian -ethic was duplicated at every point by that of Judaism or of one or -other of the pagan schools or cults; and the contrast still commonly -drawn between the church and its moral environment is framed by merely -comparing Christian theory with popular pagan practice. Theory for -theory, and practice for practice, there was no such difference. - -If the ethical literature of the period be first taken, it is found -that the teaching of (for instance) Seneca had so many points of -identity with that of Paul as to give colour to a Christian theory -that the pagan moralist and the apostle had had intercourse. It is now -admitted that no such intercourse took place, and that the pretended -letters of Paul and Seneca are Christian forgeries. But the community -of doctrine is undisputed. It was largely traceable to elements of -oriental ethic which had been imported into Greek Stoicism by writers -of Semitic race; and on Seneca's side the moral principles involved -are at some points much further developed than they can be said to -be in either the gospels or the epistles. In some respects he is -concrete and practical where the gospels are vague and abstract, -as when he condemns all war and urges habits of kindly fellowship -between masters and slaves. On the latter head, Philo of Alexandria, -the Jewish Platonist, went still further, explicitly condemning slavery -as the worst of evils and denying Aristotle's dictum that for some -men it is the natural state. Such doctrines as those of reciprocity -and the forgiveness of injuries were of course the common property of -the moralists of all civilized countries before the Christian era--of -the teachers of China and India as well as of Greece; and the duty of -practical beneficence, which in a section of the gentilizing third -gospel is made the whole question of moral and religious life, was -indicated in almost exactly the same terms in the much more ancient -sacred books of Egypt. - -Where the Christist ethic differed most from that of the higher -paganism was on the point of sacrificial substitution or "salvation -by blood," and on the point of moral self-humiliation. Stoicism -on the contrary cultivated self-respect, here carrying on a strain -of thought found in rabbinical Judaism; and it is at least an open -question whether "voluntary humility" (which in the later epistles is -disparaged) proved in practice the more efficient moral principle. In -such a writer as Juvenal we find a protest against the habit of -praying to the Gods for all manner of boons, the argument being that -the Gods know better than their worshippers what the latter really -need. In the gospel, similar teaching precedes the Lord's Prayer; -and whereas in both cases the principle laid down is deviated from, -the pagan, who prays for a sound mind in a sound body, is in no worse -case than the Christist, who proceeds to pray for daily bread--if, -that is, the ordinary rendering be accepted. If, as seems probable, -the intention was to pray for "spiritual food," the contrast is again -between a cultivation of self-reliance and a cultivation of the sense -of spiritual dependence. Yet at bottom, inasmuch as the sense of divine -support would theoretically give confidence, the practical outcome was -probably the same, for good or for evil. When, however, to the doctrine -of salvation by faith the Pauline theology added the principle that -God was the potter and man the clay, without moral rights, there was -set up a conception of morals which could not but be demoralizing, -and to which there was no parallel in the higher pagan teaching. - -As regards the Christist doctrine of sacrificial salvation, it is found -that both under Judaism and under paganism higher moral standards had -been reached by many thinkers; and Christism, as we have seen, was -rather an adhesion to the popular religious ethic, which on this side -was of an immemorial antiquity. So, too, many of the greater pagan and -Jewish thinkers, while holding to the belief in immortality, had long -before transcended the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, and -had repelled the conception of a God of wrath; whereas the Christists -stressed the conceptions prevalent among average Jews and Gentiles, -taking over bodily, in particular, the popular idea of hell-torments, -which was as vivid, and as inefficacious, in the ancient world as in -the medieval. Worse still, the new faith ultimately introduced the -frightful dogma of the damnation of all unbaptized infants, a teaching -before undreamt of, and capable only of searing the heart. For the -rest, the formal ethic was very much the same in all cults as to -the duties of honesty, truthfulness, charity, and chastity; and the -practice in all seems to have been alike precarious. Not any more -than any of the contemporary religions did Christism offer any such -social or political guidance as might conceivably have arrested the -political paralysis and decadence of the whole imperial world. On the -contrary, the gospels and epistles alike predict a speedy doomsday, -and counsel political submission, showing no trace of any other ideal; -while at the end of the second century such a teacher as Origen is -found coupling the principle of the universal Roman dominion with that -of the universal church. To any surviving vestiges of the ideal of -self-government, Christian literature was broadly hostile. Inasmuch, -too, as the gospel explicitly urged celibacy as a condition of ready -salvation (Lk. xx, 35; cp. Mt. xix, 12), it tended to hold at arm's -length the mass of normal people and to attract the fanatics and the -pretenders to sanctity. In all likelihood, however, such doctrines -were stressed only by the more ascetic teachers and sects; the Pauline -letters, for instance, finally holding a middle course. - -Insofar, finally, as the principle of brotherly love is traditionally -held to distinguish Christist teaching and practice from that of -either Jews or pagans, there has occurred a fallacy of inference. All -the documents go to show that the inculcation and profession of -mutual love came currently from mouths which passed with no sense -of incongruity to denunciation. In Christian tradition, the John -who figured as the preacher of love was without misgiving called a -"son of thunder," and reputed to have shown intense malice towards a -heretic; and all the early teachers in turn, from Paul to Tertullian, -are found alternating between praise of love and display of its -contrary, even as Jesus is made by the gospel-framers to vituperate -the contemporaries whom he was supposed to have exhorted to love their -enemies. Even the duty of forgiveness is in one passage enforced by -the threat of future torture at the hands of a Heavenly Father who -is thus to imitate the cruelties of human law; whereas rationalistic -thinkers among the Greeks a century or two before had grounded the -duty on the naturalness of error, urging that wrongdoers should be -taught rather than hated. So far were the Christists at any period -from attaining the height of feeling kindly towards those outside -their creed, that they exhibited an exceptional measure of strife -among themselves--this by mere reason of the openings for strife set -up by their dogmatic system and the need of unifying it. In times -of persecution, doubtless, they were thrown together in feeling, as -any other community would be; but here, in the terms of the case, it -was the persecution, not the creed, that created the fraternity. Nor -can it be said that any contemporary Christian teachers, unless it -might be some of the ostracized Gnostics, compare well in point of -serenity and self-control with such pagans as the later Stoics. For -the rest, the human material indicated in the Pauline accounts of -the congregational habit of glossolalia, "speaking with tongues" -(a mere hysterical outcry, of which the sounds had no meaning), -is clearly neurotic, and must have been liable to all manner of lapses. - -To say this is but to say that actual Christianity at length became -popular in the only possible way--by assimilating ordinary human nature -in mass. Had it persistently transcended or coerced average character, -it could never have become one of the world-religions. To say, again, -that the written doctrine at its best prescribed higher standards than -those actually followed by its adherents, is but to claim what can -equally be claimed for many other systems, popular and philosophic. The -fundamental source of error in this connection is the assumption -that mere moral doctrine can regenerate any society independently of -a vital change in social and intellectual conditions. In the ancient -world, as in the modern, these were the substantial determinants for -the mass of men and women. - -Even as regards the moral ideal itself, finally, it is important to -realize that what passes for the high-water mark of Christian ethic is -really pre-Christian doctrine. It is customary to name the so-called -Sermon on the Mount as the fine flower of gospel teaching; and of -that document the precept of love to enemies is felt to be the finest -word. Without asking how often it has been obeyed, Christians are wont -to regard it as marking the difference in moral ideal between their -lore and that of Jew and pagan. In point of fact, the noblest parable -for its illustration is furnished by the pagan tale of Lycurgus and the -young aristocrat who destroyed his eye; and the precept in the gospel -is demonstrably Jewish. Not only is it, like the rest of the "Sermon" -in general, fully paralleled in Old Testament and other pre-Christian -Hebrew literature [21]: the gospel sentences are immediately adapted -from the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, of which the priority is -here self-evident. The text there runs: "Bless them that curse you, -and pray for your enemies, and fast for them that persecute you; -for what thank (have ye) if ye love them that love you? Do not -the foreigners [ta ethne, "the gentiles"] do the same? But love -ye them that hate you, and ye shall have no enemy." In the gospel -(Mt. v, 44-47; rev. text) we have: "Do not even the tax-gatherers the -same?" and again: "Do not even the foreigners (ethnikoi) the same?" The -old textus receptus, now curtailed, has actually been amplified in -imitation of the Teaching; but the substitution of "tax-gatherers" -(telonai) for "gentiles" tells of an earlier modification. In the -Teaching, a primarily Jewish document, the gentiles, "the strangers," -are quite simply indicated as religiously alien in mass to the Jew: -for the gentilizing Christists the moral had to be pointed as between -the faithful and a class proscribed throughout the empire. - -It was doubtless a deep spiritual experience that led any sons of -Israel, in an age of defeat and iron oppression, to realize the vanity -of hate, and the one way to cast off its burden. But not only had -the lesson been learned in the days "before Christ": it had actually -been embodied in the manual carried by the Twelve Apostles of the -High Priest or the Patriarch for the teaching of the Jews scattered -throughout the Roman empire. "If anyone ask from thee what is thine," -says the manual simply, "ask it not back, for indeed thou canst not"--a -precept to the expatriated Jew to bear with meekness the wrongs for -which there was no legal remedy. As little as the Christian, perhaps, -did the Jew assimilate the doctrine of forgiveness; but at least let -it be noted that the doctrine had been framed by his race. - - - - - - - - -CHAPTER III - -CONDITIONS OF SURVIVAL - - -§ 1. Popular Appeal - -Overshadowed among the Jews by the common traditions of Judaism, -and faced among the Gentiles by such competition as we have seen, -the Christian cult had to acquire all the chief attractions of -popular pagan religion if it was to outdo its rivals. Such success -could never have been reached through mere superiority of ethical -ideal, even had such superiority been present: by the admission -even of Christian advocates, there were high moral ideals in most -of the pagan ethical systems current among the educated class; but -those systems never became popular, not seeking to be so. To gain -the mass, the new propagandists found, the tastes of the mass had -to be propitiated; and at best the more conscientious of them could -but hope to control the ignorance and the superstition they sought -to attract. When in the second and third centuries the more rigid -Puritans, such as the Montanists, formed themselves into special -communities, they were inevitably repudiated by the main body, which -had to temper its doctrine to the characters of the average laity and -the average clergy. Thus the development of primitive Christianity was -necessarily such an assimilation of neighbouring lore and practice as -we have already in part traced. The story of the Christ had to take -on all the lasting dramatic features of the prehistoric worships; -and the mysteries had as far as possible to embody those details in -the dramatic pagan fashion. Where dramatization was going on, new -details would naturally be added, all tending to the same end; and -on the basis of these early dramatic inventions would arise many of -the gospel narratives. This, however, must have been a matter of time. - -In the earlier stages of propaganda the appeal was primarily to Jews, -and secondarily to Jew proselytes; but after the destruction of the -temple of Jerusalem it must have been made in an increasing degree -to Gentiles, chiefly of the poorer classes, whether artisans or -traders. As among the pagan religious societies before mentioned, -slaves were admitted; such being not seldom in as good a position -as artisans. There is also evidence that, on the avowed theological -principles of the sect, men even of bad repute were received, of course -on condition of repentance. "Let him that stole, steal no more," is -one of the injunctions in one of the later epistles. In the nature of -the case such adherents could not be multiplied, in the teeth of the -attractions of the other cults, without a continual offer of congenial -entertainment; and the weekly "love-feast," on the "day of the Lord," -would be the first mainstay. The constant warnings and admonitions in -the epistles exclude the notion that these assemblies escaped the usual -risks of disorder; and the standing problem of the supervisors was to -maintain the social attraction without tolerating open licence. Insofar -as they succeeded, for a time, it was by appeal to ideals of abstinence -which, as we have seen, had long been current in the East. - -In the main, the popular success of the movement must have depended -on a compromise. When "freedom from the yoke of the law" went so far -as to set up a serious scandal among the pagans (1 Cor. v) it was -necessarily suppressed; but from the first there evidently occurred -such irregularities as were later charged by Tertullian against his -fellow-Christians in the matter of their nocturnal assemblies. Only -out of average material could a popular movement be made, and -the more the cult spread the more was it compelled to assimilate -the usages of paganism, giving them whatever new colour or pretext -seemed best. But to the successful manipulation of such a movement -there was necessary a body of propagandists, a written doctrine, and -a machinery of organization; and it was chiefly by the development -of such machinery that the Christist movement secured itself in the -struggle for survival. In this regard its success as against Mithraism -becomes perfectly intelligible. The priests of Mithra seem never to -have aimed at popular acceptance save insofar as their cult became -co-extensive with the Roman army; their ideal being rather that of a -religious freemasonry than that of an open community. The Christists, -on the other hand, seem to have carried on from the first the Jewish -impulses of fanaticism and proselytism, aiming at popularity with -the acquired Jewish knowledge of the financial possibilities of any -numerous movement. - - - - -§ 2. Economic Causation - -The play of economic interest in the establishment and maintenance -of religions is one of the constant forces in their history. In -the simplest forms of savage life the medicine-man or priest makes -a superior living out of his function; and every powerful cult in -antiquity enriched its priests. The developed worships of Assyria -and Babylon, Phoenicia and Egypt, were carried on by great priestly -corporations, with enormous revenues; those of the Egyptian priesthood -in particular being reckoned even in the Roman period at a third -of the wealth of the nation. Early Greece and Rome, in comparison, -showed little ecclesiastical development by reason mainly of the fact -that their relative political freedom offered so many other channels to -acquisitive energy. In republican Rome priesthood was a caste-privilege -enjoyed by a select few, the majority of the ruling class being content -to have it so; and there and in Greece alike the normal conception of -deities as local, with local worships, precluded even the thought of a -universal priesthood, though the Roman policy gave all the Gods of the -extending State a place in the common pantheon. In old Greece it came -about that the fixed ideal of the City-State, and the very multiplicity -of cults even in the separate states, kept all the worships isolated; -while the republican habit kept the priests and priestesses members -of the body politic, and not associations apart. The Christian church -began its historic growth on this ground, in the period of imperialism -and decadence, with the eastern examples before it, the Jewish system -of church-finance and propaganda to proceed upon, the Greek democratic -practice to facilitate its first steps, and the Roman sway to allow -of its spread and official organization. Lastly came the usage, -imitated from the later political and religious life of the Greeks, -of Church Synods, in which disruptive doctrinal tendencies were more -or less controlled by the principle of the majority vote, and the -weaker groups were assisted and encouraged by the others. In every -aspect the evolution was by way of adaptation on tried lines. - -As we have seen, Judaism in the Hellenistic and Roman period was -financed through a system of travelling "apostles" and collectors, -who followed up the dispersed Jewish race wherever it flourished, and -got together great revenues for the temple service and the priestly and -rabbinical class. Jesuism began on those lines, and so set up habits of -intercommunication between its groups, which for their own part were -locally and independently financed by their members in the Greek and -Jewish fashion. Whatever may have been the practice of enthusiasts such -as Paul would appear to have been, the principle that "the labourer -is worthy of his hire" must have become general; and insofar as -special preaching was a requisite and an attraction for the members, -the travelling preachers would have to be fee'd or salaried. One of -the later epistles makes mention of apostles, prophets, evangelists, -pastors, and teachers, as different types; also of elders (presbyters), -deacons, and bishops (overseers); and as the groups increased and began -to possess buildings, the creation of professional opportunities set -up a new economic interest in propaganda. - -In neither Greek nor Roman life was the phenomenon new. Centuries -before the Christian era, the influx of the Dionysian and other -mystic cults in Greece had been followed by the rise of swarms of -religious mendicants, many of whom carried with them sacred books and -ministered consolation while playing on credulity; and on a higher -plane the educated "sophists" or humanists of the pre-Macedonian -period had made a livelihood by moral and philosophical teaching or -lecturing. Later, the Stoics and other philosophers became a species -of religious directors or "spiritual advisers" as well as ethical -lecturers; and in Rome especially this calling had practically the -status of a profession. Thus had arisen a specific means of livelihood -for educated men without official posts or inherited incomes. But -any religious cult which should set up an organization would have -as against such teachers an obvious financial advantage, in respect -of its power of attracting numbers, its local permanence, and its -means of collecting revenue; and even men incapable of success as -lecturers could attain relatively secure positions as presbyters or -"bishops"--that is, overseers, first of single churches, and later of -district groups. The original function of the bishop was that later -assigned to "elders" in the presbyterian system--the supervision of -the public offerings or "collections" and their distribution among -needy brethren. Later, the bishop became the religious head of the -group, and its representative in communication with others. Not till -such organization was reached could the new sect count on permanence. - -An important source of income from an early stage was the munificence -of the richer women converts; and insofar as the Christist movement -stood for a restraint on sexual licence it doubtless gained from -the moral bias as well as from the superstition of women of the -upper and middle classes throughout the empire. The richer women -were indeed made to feel that it was their duty to make "oblations" -in proportion to their means. On the other hand, then as now, the -giving of alms to the poor was a means of enlisting the sympathetic -support of serious women; and the Christists here had a lead not -only from oriental example in general and that of later Judaism in -particular, but from the policy of food-doles now systematically -pursued in the Roman empire. The later epistles show that much was -made of the good offices of "widows," who, themselves poor and wholly -or partly supported by the congregations, would serve as comforters -of suffering or bereaved members, and ministrants to the sick. The -death-rate was doubtless high in the eastern cities, then as now. In -this way were attracted to the church large masses of the outside -poor who were not similarly considered or sought for by any of the -competing pagan cults. But it was necessary to compete in other -ways with the mass of itinerant diviners and religious mendicants, -who had much the same kind of vogue as the begging friars of later -Christendom; and exorcists were at an early date a recognized class -of officers in connection with the Christian churches. - -At what stage revenue began to be derived from the usage of praying -for the souls of the dead it is impossible to say; but as early as -the third century it is found to be customary to recite before the -altar the names of givers of oblations, who were then publicly prayed -for. In various other ways the church was able to elicit gifts. It -lies on the face of all the canonical books that a prediction of the -speedy end of the world was one of the constant doctrines of the early -church; and such a belief would naturally elicit donations in the -first century as it did in the tenth. Obviously, too, the gradual -development of the "mysteries" would strengthen the hands of the -priestly class. In particular, as it was early made compulsory on -all baptized persons, except penitents, to take the sacrament, the -privilege of administering or withholding the eucharist was a sure -source of revenue, as was the power of initiation into the mysteries -of the other cults for their ministrants. - - - - -§ 3. Organization and Sacred Books - -It was finally to the joined influences of ecclesiastical organization -and of popular sacred books that Christism owed its measure of success -as against the freely-competing pagan cults; and on both sides its -primary advantage, as we have seen, came from its Judaic basis. For -nearly two centuries the Hebrew Bible, made widely accessible in -the Septuagint version, was its literary mainstay, by reason of the -prestige attaching to such a mass of ancient religious literature -in the Greco-Roman world; and whereas other cults also had their -special lore, the Christist movement was specially buttressed by its -system of ecclesiastical union, also imitated from the Judaic. The -ecclesiastical system, above all, was a means to the development of -the new sacred books which completed the definition of Christianity -as something apart from Judaism; and these in turn made a permanent -foundation for the historic church. A glance at the cult associated -with the name of the pagan Apollonius of Tyana, who won fame in the -first century, makes it clear that even where a great renown attached -to a travelling religious reformer and reputed wonder-worker, and where -an adoring biography served in some degree to prolong his fame, the -lack of a hierarchy or connected series of religious groups prevented -on the one hand its continuance, and on the other hand the necessary -development of the literature which should conserve it. - -The first traceable literature special to the Christians, as we -have seen, consisted in "apostolic" and sub-apostolic epistles of -exhortation, which were read aloud in the churches after the Jewish -manner. Priestly needs conserved such documents, and further evoked -forgeries, aimed against new heresies and schisms. But the mass of men -are always more easily to be attracted by narrative than by homilies; -and the mystery-play, by means of which alone could the church at the -outset compete with the pagan cults similarly provided, lent itself -to a written as well as to an acted history. - -Such a document as the gospel story of the Supper and its sequel is -in itself the proof of the priority of the mystery-play, in some -simple form, to the gospel story. In its present degree of detail -the play must belong to a stage of the movement at which it had made -some Gentile headway; and its reduction to writing for reading may -be supposed to have taken place either at a time when the Christians -by reason of persecution were prevented from carrying on their usual -rituals or festivals, or, more probably, when the hierarchy decided -for prudential or disciplinary reasons to abandon the regular resort -to dramatic spectacle. It does not follow, of course, that none of -the didactic parts of the gospel was in writing before the play was -transcribed; but the fact that none of the Pauline epistles quotes -any of the Jesuine teachings, and that the first Clementine epistle -alludes to but one or two, is a reason for holding that they came -very slowly into existence. The dramatic development would naturally -occur for the most part or wholly in Gentile hands. It is not certain, -indeed, that the later Jews remained uniformly averse to drama, which -was partly forced on them by the Herods; and the theory of a dramatic -origin for the Apocalypse is not quite untenable; but it happens that -the most obviously dramatic parts of the gospel story are those which, -on Gentile lines, throw the guilt of the crucifixion on the Jews. - -When once a gospel existed, interpolation and alteration were for some -generations easy; and what happened was a multiplication of doctrines -and documents at the hands of different groups or sects or leaders, -the men with dogmatic or moral ideas taking this means to establish -them, without regard to the coherence or consistency of the texts. Many -passages are visibly inserted in order to countervail others, it being -easier to add than to suppress. Only late in the second century can -a canon have begun to be formed, as the Clementine epistles quote a -now lost document in the nature of a gospel, and Justin's "Memoirs -of the Apostles" diverge from those preserved. The later rejection -by the Church of such documents proves them to have been regarded as -in part heretical; and parts of the canonical gospels were altered -for various dogmatic reasons after they had been made to include -much of the matter in the uncanonical. The third gospel avows that -"many" previous narratives existed; and apart from all these there -have been preserved a number of rejected gospels, which run mainly to -miraculous stories. Some of these were long abundantly popular, that -of "Nicodemus" having had common vogue down to the Middle Ages. But -the more thoughtful clergy would soon recognize the greater value of -documents which by their teaching could impress the more educated of -the laity; and the double influence of the supernaturalism and the -moral appeal went to create cohesion throughout the movement. - -The organization, in turn, operated as a check on the spread of -heresies, which, after carrying it further afield, soon threatened -to dissolve the cult into an infinity of mutually repellent -groups. Insofar, indeed, as these appealed to the more speculative -and quasi-philosophic minds, they were foredoomed to decay with the -decay of culture, and to be at best the creed of the few. Those, in -particular, who carried anti-Semitism to the point of discrediting -the Jewish Deity, lost the support of the Jewish sacred books, of -which the mere literary mass and variety constituted in such an age -a solid basis for a cultus. Yet even on those lines the Manichĉan -cult spread far and lived long, so easy was it then for any cult to -rise. Survival lay with simple concrete myth of the popular sort, -concrete ritual, and explicit dogma backed by the force of the State; -and the needs of popular faith kept ever to the front the human aspect -of the crucified God, even when he was being dogmatically declared -to be at once distinct from and one with his co-eternal Father. This -indeed was but one of the many irreducible contradictions imbedded -in the sacred books. To bring these to consistency was impossible; -but the hierarchy could set up formal creeds over and above them; -and it mattered little to the official and financial continuity of the -Church that these creeds were themselves chronically altered. What was -necessary to success was simply some common standard and common action. - - - - -§ 4. Concession and Fixation - -It is not to be supposed that any abnormal sagacity presided over the -formation of either the creed and canon or the official system of the -Church; but insofar as it survived it can be seen to have done so -in virtue alike of assimilation and of refusal to assimilate. Much -expansion was needed to make an area broad enough for the pagan -populace; and on the side of custom and myth hardly any pagan element -was ultimately refused. At the outset the great cause of strife between -Christian and pagan was the contemptuous refusal of the former to show -any respect for "idols"--a principle derived by Jewry from Persia, -and passed on to the first Jesuists. When, however, the Christian cult -became that of the State, it of necessity reverted, as we shall see, -to the psychology of the multitude, and carried the use of images as -far as pagans had ever done. Even the so-called "animal-worship" of the -Egyptians partly survived in such usages as the presence of the sacred -ox and ass in the mystery-play of the Nativity (an immemorial popular -rite, belonging to sun-worship), in the adoption of the "four zoa" -of the Apocalypse (old Oriental figures) as the symbols of the four -evangelists, and in the conception of "the Lamb." Before the period -of image-worship, too, the Church had fully accepted the compromise -by which countless pagan "heroes" and "geniuses," the subjects of -local cults, became enrolled as saints and martyrs, whose bones had -given to tombs and wells and shrines a sacred virtue, and whose old -festival-days became part of the new ecclesiastical calendar. - -Above all, there was finally forced on the Church a cult of the -Mother as Virgin Goddess, without which it could not have held its own -against the great and well-managed worships of Isis and Rhea-Cybelê and -Dêmêtêr; since the first and last in particular aroused in multitudes -a rapture of exalted devotion such as was not psychologically possible -towards even a crucified God, save insofar as the emotion of women -worshippers towards the slain Demigod realized that of male devotees -towards the Queen of Heaven and the Mother and sustainer of things. If -the original Jesus of the myth had not had a mythical mother, it would -have been necessary to invent one. Once established, her elevation -to the honours of Isis was inevitable. - -No less necessary, on the other hand, to the official survival of -the new system was a dogmatic limit to new doctrine. Where concrete -myth and ritual enlarged the scope of the cult, freedom of abstract -speculation dissipated its forces and menaced its very existence. All -manner of streams might usefully flow into its current, but when the -main river threatened to break up into a hundred searching rivulets -there was a prospect of its being wholly lost in the sands. This -danger, sometimes charged solely upon the Gnostics, arose with the -very first spread of the cult: every Pauline epistle, early or late, -exhibited the scope it gave for schism and faction. Mere random -"prophesying," which it was difficult to discountenance, meant endless -novelties of doctrine. At every stage at which we can trace it the -early Church is divided, be it by Judaism against Gentilism, faith -against works, Paul against Apollos, or one Jesus against another: the -very nature of the forces which made possible the propaganda involved -their frequent clash; and multitudes of converts were doubtless won -and lost in the chances of sectarian strife. When to the Jews and -proselytes and illiterates of the earlier movement there began to be -added speculative Gentile Gnostics, for whom Yahweh was but one of many -rival tribal Gods, and Jesus one of many competitive slain Saviours, -there came with them a species of heresy which bade fair to lull all -schism in a euthanasia of universalism. The theosophies of Egypt and -the East were alike drawn upon in the name of Christism, and there -resulted endless webs of grandiose mysticism, in which the problem -of the Cosmos was verbally solved by schemes of intermediary powers -between deity and man, and endless periods of transformation between -the first and the last states of matter. In these philosophies Jesus -was explained away or allegorized just as were the Gods of paganism, -and the motive force of fanatical ill-will against those deities on the -score of their characters was lost in a reconciling symbolism. Framed -for brooding minds that could not rest in the primitive solutions -of the popular cults, such systems on the other hand could never -attach or hold the mass of the people; and as they were yet produced -on all hands, the Christian organization was soon forced to define -its dogma if it would keep any distinguishing faith. Insofar as -so-called Gnosticism lent itself obediently to the embellishment of -the canonical writings and the confutation of the heathen--as in the -works of Clement of Alexandria--it was accepted without much demur; -but all new or independent theory was tabooed. Speculative minds were -dangerous things in a church aiming at practical success; and they -were assiduously barred out. - -The conservative process, of which we shall trace the history, -was carried on partly by documentary forgeries, partly by more -honest polemic, partly by administrative action and the voting of -creeds. But in the nature of the case the forgeries, where successful, -were the most central and decisive forces; and we may still see, -in the schematic narratives of the Acts of the Apostles, in the -interpolations of the Apocalypse, in some of the readjustments of the -gospel text, and in the more obviously spurious Pauline epistles, -how faction and fanaticism were fought with intelligent fraud; and -how a troublesome popular delusion was guarded against by creating -another that lent itself to official ends. The "true" creed is just -the creed which was able to survive. - - - - -§ 5. Cosmic Philosophy - -As we have seen, Gentile philosophy did actually enter into the -sacred books of the new faith, notably in the doctrine of the Logos -or "Word," which in the fourth gospel virtually reshapes the entire -Jesuist system. That gospel, rather than the preaching of Paul, is the -doctrinal foundation of Gentile Christianity. In the synoptics the -founder broadly figures as a Judaic Messiah, who is shortly to come -again, at the world's end, to judge the quick and the dead; and only -for a community convinced of the speedy approach of doomsday could -such a religion suffice. In the Pauline as in the other epistles we -see the belief in full play; and only in one of the later forgeries -(2 Thess. ii) is a caveat inserted. When the period loosely specified -for the catastrophe was clearly passed, and the Church had become an -economic institution like another, it must needs present a religion for -a permanent world if it was to hold its own; and while the changing -speculations of the Gnostics had to be vetoed in the interests of -solidarity, some scheme of philosophic dogma was needed which, like -theirs, should envisage the world as an enduring process. Pauline -polemic did but claim for believing Gentiles a part in the Jewish -salvation, and such a view had been reached by Philo before Paul. The -fourth gospel, substituting the Christ-sacrifice for the Jewish -Passover, and putting a world-Logos in place of a descendant of David, -gave the theoretic basis of a permanent cosmopolitan cult analogous -to those of Egypt and Persia. The invention of a gentilizing history -of the first apostles was a part of the same process of adaptation; -but the fourth gospel supplied the religion for the Church which the -official adaptors sought to develop. - -Such an evolution was psychologically prepared for by the whole -drift of latter-day Jewish thought outside of Judea. The idea of -"the Word" of the deity as an entity, capable of personification, -had long belonged to Jewish theology in terms of many passages in the -Old Testament, and is but one variant of the psychological process -by which Brahmans came to conceive of the Vedas, and Moslems of the -Koran, as eternal existences. The Chaldaic word Memra had already -much of the mystic significance of Logos, which meant both "word" -and "reason"; the books of Proverbs, Job, and the Wisdom of Solomon -had made familiar the conception of a personified divine Wisdom, -dwelling beside the deity; and the Alexandrian Jew Philo had made -the Logos a central figure in his theosophy. But in the theosophies -of Egypt and Persia the same conception had long been established; -Plato had made it current in the theosophy of the Greeks, combining -it with a mystic doctrine of the cross; and Thoth and Hermes and -Mithra were already known as the Logos to their worshippers. Thus, -whether the fourth gospel were framed at Ephesus or at Alexandria, -by a cosmopolitan Jew or by a Gentile proselyte, it had grounds of -appeal to every Christist save the original Judaic Jesuists, whose -monopoly it was framed to overthrow. It of course gave no coherent -philosophy of the universe, and merely evaded the problem of evil, -which the Gnostics were constantly seeking to solve; but it was none -the worse a religious document for that. - -Nonetheless, it needed the stress of circumstance to force it into -its fitting place in the new religion. Despite the many passages -inserted to bring its narrative into harmony with the other gospels, -the fourth differs so much more from them than they do from each -other that only the vital needs of the cult in its struggle for -existence can account for the final adoption of all four. But these -needs were compulsive, and overrode the opposition the fourth gospel -evoked. Such a mass of doctrine purporting to come from the very mouth -of the founder could not in any case be refused by such a community; -and when once the treatise on such grounds had been taken into the -canon it played its part in paralyzing the faculty of judgment. The -fourth gospel directly excludes the pretence that the God-man -was born at Bethlehem; yet it was grouped, like the second, which -ignores the tale, with the first and third, which circumstantially -yet discordantly enounce it. Where irreconcilable differences on the -most essential matters of biographical fact could thus be let pass, -the widest divergence of doctrinal idea could find acceptance. The -two pressures of predisposition and corporate interest availed to -override the difficulties they had created; and the primary momentum of -ignorant credulity among the faithful carried all before it. Easiness -of belief correlated with proneness to invention, and the religious -community cohered, as others do, by force of the gregarious bias, -the hostile environment, and the economic interest. - - - - - - - - -PART II - -CHRISTIANITY FROM THE SECOND CENTURY TO THE RISE OF ISLAM - - -CHAPTER I - -DEVELOPMENTS IN THE UNESTABLISHED CHURCH - - -§ 1. Numbers and Inner Life - -When the "Catholic" Christian Church becomes politically and socially -distinguishable in the second century, it is a much less numerous body -than is pretended in the literature of its champions. Formulas such as -those used in the Acts of the Apostles (chs. ii, iv, v, vi) greatly -falsify the state of the case. The first "churches" in the cities -of Asia Minor, like the groups addressed by "Paul" in the epistles, -were but small conventicles, meeting in private houses. Even in the -fourth century, sixty years after Constantine's adoption of the faith, -the church of Antioch, one of the oldest and most important, appears -to have numbered only a fifth part of the population of the city, or -about one hundred thousand out of half-a-million. In the extensive -diocese of Neo-Cĉsarea, in the third century, there were declared -to be only seventeen believers; and in the church of Rome itself, -in the same century, there were probably not more than fifty thousand -members all told out of a population of perhaps a million. In Egypt -again there was no church outside Alexandria till about the end of -the second century. Thus the language of Justin and Tertullian and -other Fathers, echoing the Acts, to the effect that the Christians -were everywhere throughout the empire, and that the gospel had been -preached and Jesus prayed to in every nation, is mere rhetoric in the -oriental taste. Only in the towns of the empire--though often in small -towns in the East--did the church exist at all: the pagani or people -of the rural districts were so uniformly fixed in their beliefs that -their name became for Christians the generic term for the adherents -of the old faiths; and though there were some missionary movements in -Persia and Arabia, the western provinces were hardly at all reached -by the propaganda in the first two centuries. Even in Gaul there were -few adherents; while as regards Britain, where there is said to have -been a group at York in the third century, there is not to be found -a single monumental trace of the presence of Christianity during the -four centuries of the Roman occupation, though remains of the Mithraic -cult, which flourished in the army, are frequent. At the end of the -second century, then, probably not a hundredth part of the population -even of the central provinces of the Roman empire was Christianized, -while the outlying provinces were practically unaffected. - -Of the average inner life of the converts at this period it is -possible to form some idea by noting at once the current doctrine, -the claims of the apologists, the complaints of the apostolic and -later epistles, and the tenour and temper of the whole literature -of the Church. Something too may be inferred from the fact that the -early believers were mainly easterns even in Rome itself. Even on -these data, indeed, it would be a mistake to assume that any concrete -character type was predominant; but at several points we are entitled -to generalize as between the Christian movement and its antecedents -and surroundings. It was, for instance, very weakly developed on -the intellectual side, avowedly discouraging all use of reason, and -limiting the mental life to religious interests. Save for a certain -temperamental and moral energy in some of the Pauline epistles, -there is nothing in the propagandist literature of the early Church -which bears comparison with the best preceding literature of Greece -and Rome. The traditions concerning the apostles present men of a -narrow and fanatical vision and way of life, without outlook on human -possibilities, joyless save by way of religious exaltation, painfully -engrossed in theological contention and apocalyptic forecast. The -happiest teachers were perhaps the least intelligent. Papias, bishop -at Hierapolis, whom Eusebius later presents as having talked with -men who had heard the apostles, is pronounced by that historian to -have been of small understanding; and his ideas of the millennium, -as passed down, justify the criticism. Other traditional figures -of the second century, as the bishops Polycarp and Ignatius, are -presented mainly in their character of hortatory martyrs, the most -advantageous light in which ungifted men can be placed; and not a -line ascribed to them is above suspicion. Of the early Christians -in general, indeed, a transfiguring ideal has been shaped in terms -of the aspect of martyrdom and persecution--trials which, by forcing -men and women back on the central virtues of courage and constancy, -positively ennoble character. Such a compensating dignity of endurance -is found where it is apt to be least expected--in men and women long -broken to oriental tyranny; in Egyptian fellaheen, used to the lash; -in peasants wont mutely to toil and obey. But the possibility of -such a correlation does not alter the facts of normal life for the -types in question. Ignorance and fanaticism and superstition yield -their normal fruits in normal conditions. And there is Christian -record that even among the martyrs there were men of bad character, -seeking a short way to Paradise. - -Of the early Christian community many were slaves, and perhaps from -three to five per cent paupers. The proportion of women was perhaps as -large as it is in the churches of to-day; for it was one of the pagan -taunts that to women the preachers preferred above all to address -themselves, and rich women members seem to have been relatively -numerous. All orders alike believed fervently in evil spirits; -and the most constant aspect of their faith was as a protection -against demoniacal influence. In the service of the Church of Rome -in the third century there were forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, -seven sub-deacons, forty-two acolythes or clerks, and fifty "readers," -exorcists, and janitors; and the exorcists were at least as hard-worked -as any other members of the staff. On the side of morality, much -stress was laid on the sins of the flesh, partly because these were -the commonest, partly because the idea of an intellectual ethic had -not arisen; and while the Church was liable to gusts of persecution -its practice was naturally somewhat strict. Men and women who had -joined the body mainly for its alms or its agapĉ were not likely to -adhere to it in times of trouble; and the very proclamation of an -ascetic standard would primarily attract those persons, found in every -community, who had a vocation for asceticism. At almost any period, -however, such were to be found in the heretical or dissentient groups -as well as in the main body, while the testimony of the Pauline -epistles is distinct as to the antinomianism of many "apostolic" -converts. Some Gnostic sects were stringently ascetic if others were -antinomian, the à priori principle lending itself alternately to the -doctrines that the spirit must mortify the flesh, and that the deeds -of the flesh are nothing to the spirit. Within the main body, the -conflicting principles of faith and works, then as later, involved the -same divergences of practice. The evidence of Tertullian is emphatic -as to the illusoriness of much Christian profession in his day in the -churches of Carthage, where zeal was at least as abundant as elsewhere. - -Taken individually, then, an average Christian of the second century -was likely to be an unlettered person of the "lower-middle" or poorer -classes; living in a town; either bitterly averse to "idols," theatres, -the circus, and the public baths, or persuaded that he ought to be; -utterly credulous as to demons and miracles; incapable of criticism -as to sacred books; neurotic or respectful towards neurosis; readily -emotional towards the crucified God and the sacred mystery in which -were given the "body and blood"; devoid alike of ĉsthetic and of -philosophic faculty; without the thought of civic duty or political -theory; much given to his ritual; capable of fanatical hatred and -of personal malice; but either constitutionally sober and chaste or -chronically anxious to be so, and in times of persecution exalted by -the passion of self-sacrifice; perhaps then transiently attaining to -the professed ideal of love towards enemies. But the effective bonds -of union for the community, whether in peace or during persecution, -were rather the ruling passion of hostility to pagan beliefs and -usages, and the eager hope of "salvation," than any enthusiasm of -humanity, social or even sectarian. And, as an orthodox ecclesiastic -has remarked, we cannot "even cursorily read the New Testament without -being astonished by the allusions so often made to immoral persons -calling themselves Christians." - -Over such worshippers, in the first centuries, presided a clergy of -precarious culture, sometimes marked by force of character, never -by depth or breadth of thought. To compare the Christian writers of -the ancient world with the pagan thinkers who had preceded them by -three or more centuries is to have a vivid sense of the intellectual -decadence which had accompanied the growth of imperialism. From Plato -to Clement of Alexandria, from Aristotle to Tertullian, there is a -descent as from a great plateau to arid plains or airless valleys: -the disparity is as between different grades of organism. But even -between the early Christian fathers and the pagans near their own time -the intellectual and ĉsthetic contrast is flagrant. Justin Martyr -and Clement, put in comparison with either Plutarch or Epictetus, -create at once an impression of relative poverty of soul: the higher -pagan life is still the richer and the nobler; the Christian temper -is more shrill and acrid, even where, as in the case of Clement, it -is nourished by learning and pagan metaphysic. Even the cultured and -relatively liberal Origen, in his reply to Celsus, is often at a moral -disadvantage as against the pagan, who, especially when he passes from -mere polemic on Jewish lines to philosophic thought, is distinctly -more masculine and penetrating. So far from being less superstitious, -the Christian reverts to such vulgar beliefs as that in the magical -virtue of certain divine names. Yet Origen, who was born of educated -Christian parents, is almost the high-water mark of ancient Christian -literature on the side of culture and mental versatility (185-254). - -Up to the time of Clement and Origen, then, it may be said, the -Christian cult had won from paganism hardly one mind of any signal -competence; religious humanists such as Plutarch and fine moralists -such as Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus having gone to their graves -without being even transiently attracted by it. What laughter was left -in literature remained aloof from religion; Lucian could have no place -in the church, though it is probably his ridicule of pagan deities -that has won the preservation of his works at Christian hands. It is -only when the disease of empire has invaded all the sources of the -higher life, in the third and fourth centuries, that the Christian -writers, themselves representing no intellectual recovery, begin to -be comparable, mind for mind, with those of contemporary paganism; and -even then largeness of vision seems to linger rather with the mystics -of the older way of thought, as Porphyry and Plotinus, than with the -bitter polemists of the newer faith, as Cyprian and Arnobius. The -moral note which in the modern world is supposed to be typically and -primordially Christian, that of the Imitatio Christi, is the one -note never struck by the Christian Fathers, or, if sounded, never -sustained. It is rather a result of medieval brooding, the outcome -of many generations of cloister life and of a settled ecclesiastical -order, which walled-in an abnormal peace. - -During those ages in which the Christian Church was so spreading -as to become at length the fit cultus of the decaying State, its -history is almost wholly one of internal and external strifes, -conflicts between the Church and its pagan persecutors, between -its literary champions and pagan criticism, between the champions of -orthodoxy and the innovating heretics, between the partisans of dogmas -whose life-and-death struggle was to determine what orthodoxy was to -be. The central sociological fact is the existence of an organization -with a durable economic life--durable because of ministering to an -enduring demand--in a society whose institutions were suffering more -and more from economic disease. Of this organization the component -parts united to resist and survive external hostility when that arose; -and for the command of its power and prestige, later, the conflicting -sections strove as against each other. In the history of both forms -of strife are involved at once that of its dogmas and that of its -hierarchic structure. - - - - -§ 2. Growth of the Priesthood - -In the Jesuist groups of the first century, as we have seen, there were -"bishops" or overseers, and other "presbyters" or elders, so named -in simple imitation of the usages of other Greek-speaking religious -societies, Jewish and Gentile, in the eastern parts of the empire. The -bishop was at first merely the special supervisor and distributor -of the "collection," whether of money or of other gifts, and was -spiritually and socially on the same level with the presbyters and -deacons. None was specially ordained, and ordinary members could at -need even administer the eucharist. Teaching or preaching was not at -first a special function of any member of a group, since any one could -be a "prophet" (unless indeed the "prophets" were so named later, after -the supervising priest or bishop in certain Egyptian temples, whose -function was to distribute revenue); but discourses were for a time -given by travelling apostles, who aimed at founding new groups, and who -ministered the eucharist wherever they went. It lay in the nature of -the case, however, that the function of the bishop should gain in moral -authority because of its economic importance; and that the informal -exhortations or "prophesyings" of the early days, which were always -apt to degenerate into the hysterical glossolalia, or unintelligible -"tongues," should be superseded by the regular preaching of ostensibly -qualified men. In the first century these must have been few, and they -would usually be made the acting bishops, who would gradually become -more and more identified with the administration of the "mysteries," -and would naturally repel "lay" interference. Here again there was -pagan precedent, some of the pagan societies having a "theologos," -while in all the "bishop" had a certain precedence and authority. - -As congregations grew and services multiplied, however, the bishop -would need assistance, and to this end presbyters became officially -associated with him as con-celebrants. Only gradually, however, did -the sacerdotal spirit take full possession of the cult. Liturgy was -long a matter of local choice; and it is probable that the complete -mystery-play of the Agony and Crucifixion and Resurrection was never -performed save at a few large centres, in competition with special -pagan attractions of the same kind; but a eucharist, with varying -ritual and hymns, sung by special officials, was the primary function -of every church. As numbers and revenue increased, men of an ambitious -and administrative turn would inevitably tend to enter the movement; -and the second century was not out before the avarice and arrogance -of leading bishops were loudly complained of. Nonetheless, their -self-assertion promoted the growth of the sect. Such men, in point -of fact, tended to build up the Church as warlike nobles later built -up the fabric of feudalism, or self-seeking "captains of industry" -the special structure of modern commercial societies. Righteousness -and gentleness and spirituality could no more create a popular and -revenue-yielding Church in the Roman empire than they can to-day -create and maintain a "paying" industrial organization. An early -bishop, indeed, needed to recommend himself to the congregation in -order to get elected; but in a large town, with personal magnetism -and a staff of priests, he was certain to become a determining force -in church affairs. The aspiring priest looked forward to a bishopric -for himself; and in an illiterate congregation there could be no -effectual resistance to official assumptions which were made with -any tact. Thus were the scribes and Pharisees rapidly duplicated. - -In an age of unbounded credulity the invitation to deceit was constant; -and, while credulity itself means the faculty for innocent false -witness, it could not be but that frauds were common in matters of -miracle-working of all kinds. To suppose that all the miracle-stories -arose in good faith when the deliberate manufacture of false documents -and calculated tamperings with the genuine were a main part of -the literary life of the Church, is to ignore all probability. The -systematic forgery and interpolation of "Sibylline Books" by way of -producing pagan testimonies and prophecies on the side of Christism, -is to be regarded as a clerical industry of the second century. A -bishop's business was to forward the fame and interests of his -Church; and in Ambrose's transparent account of his discovery of -miracle-working relics of saints at Milan in the fourth century -we have a typical instance of the methods by which the prestige of -the faith was advanced. Ambrose was above and not below the moral -average of previous bishops. To find what might pass for the bones and -relics of saints and martyrs, to frame false tales concerning them, -to win illiterate and poor pagans to the Church by imitating their -festivals and ceremonies--these were, by the grieving admission -of many Christian historians, among the common activities of the -Church from the second or third century onwards; and the priesthood -were the natural agents of the work. By the very fact, however, -that there were special reputations for wonder-working, as that of -Gregory Thaumaturgus in the third century, we are reminded that the -pretence was not universal. Imposture is a variation like another; -and there must always have been a proportion of normally honest minds, -however unintelligent and uncritical. It was their incapacity that -evoked fraud. Some, on the other hand, have recorded how the bones -of executed robbers were at times made to do duty as relics of martyrs. - -On one side the character of the early as of the later clergy -of the "Catholic" Church has suffered severely from their own -affirmation of a primitive theory of morals to which they could not -conform. In an age of lessening science and freedom, with growing -superstition, the barbarian ideal of asceticism gained ground -like other delusions. The idea that by physical self-mortification -men attain magical or intercessory power in spiritual things--an -idea found in all ancient religions, and enforced in numerous pagan -priesthoods--was imposed to some extent on Christism from the first, -and became more and more coercive as the cult passed out of Jewish -hands. The average presbyter of the second century, accordingly, -won his repute for sanctity in many cases by professing celibacy, -which in a large number of cases was too hard for him to maintain; -and between his own unhappy ideal and the demand of the crowd that he -should fulfil it, his life became in general a deception. In these -matters the multitude is always preposterously righteous. Aztecs in -the pre-Christian period, we know, were wont to put to death professed -ascetics who lapsed; and the normal denunciation of priestly immorality -in Europe in the Middle Ages seems rarely to have been checked by -the thought that the priest's error consisted in taking up a burden -he could not bear. That priests ought to be celibate the average -priest-taught layman never doubted. Hence a premium on hypocrisy -in the period of church-creation. An artificial ethic created an -artificial crime, and Christian morality evolved demoralization. In -the second century began the practice of open priestly concubinage, -often on the naïve pretence of a purely spiritual union. Denounced -periodically by bishops and councils for hundreds of years, it was -never even ostensibly checked in the period of the empire; and the -later discipline of the Western Church did but drive the symptom -beneath the surface to form a worse disorder. - -In the Roman period no machinery existed by which celibacy could -be enforced. Councils varied in their stringency on the subject, -and many bishops were capable of voting for a rule to which they -did not in private conform. As for the bishopric of Rome, it had -at that time only a ceremonial primacy over the other provinces. In -the second century Bishop Victor of Rome is recorded to have passed -sentence of excommunication on the easterns who would not conform -to his practice in the observation of Easter; but his authority -was defied, and his successors do not seem even to have asserted -it in any similar degree for centuries. In the third century Bishop -Cyprian of Carthage, the first zealous prelatist in the literature -of the Church, claimed merely primacy, without superior authority, -for the chief bishoprics, and for Rome over the rest. All bishops -he held to be spiritually equal--and indeed all presbyters, bishops -included. This held good theoretically as late as the fourth and fifth -centuries, with the exception that by that time the bishop alone had -the right to appoint to Church offices--originally the function of the -whole community. But alike the internal and the external conditions -made for the creation of a hierarchy. When in the third century the -puritan party in the Church at Rome sought to appoint Novatian as its -separate bishop, alongside of another, the bishops in the provinces, -led by Cyprian, zealously resisted, and secured the principle that -no town should have more than one bishop. In other ways the bishops -necessarily gathered power. To them had soon to be relegated the right -of admitting or refusing new members; and when there arose the question -of the treatment of those who lapsed in a time of persecution, there -was no way to secure uniformity of method save by leaving the matter -to the bishops, who in the main agreed on a rule. For such uniformity -they naturally strove in the days of danger; and the Church Synods, -which began in the second century and developed in the third, were -tolerably unanimous up to the time of the Establishment of the Church -under Constantine (313). It was when the Church as a whole had no -longer cause to fear the heathen that the worst strifes arose. - - - - -§ 3. The Gnostic Movement in the Second Century - -In New Testament Greek the same word has to stand for "sect" and -"heresy," a fact premonitory of what must happen to every new idea -in religion. Any process of reasoning whatever must have led to -differences of opinion among the converts of Paul or of the Pauline -epistles; and such differences, leading necessarily, among zealots, -to animosities, are among the first phenomena of Christism. As we have -seen, the chief "heresies" of the first century, stigmatized as such -by the later Church, were really independent cults older than itself; -and there is reason to think that the "Nicolitaines" execrated in -the Apocalypse were really the followers of Paul. At the beginning -of the second century, again, the first heretics on record are the -Elcesaites, who, however, as we saw, were obviously not an offshoot -from the Jesuists, but a separate body, their Christ being a gigantic -spirit and their doctrine a cluster of symbolisms. It is with the -so-called Gnostics, the claimants to a higher Gnosis or knowledge, -that heresy begins in Gentile Christianity; and as some of these are -already in evidence in the Pauline epistles, and had interpolated -the synoptics (Mt. xiii, Mk. iv, Lk. xii, 49, sq.), to say nothing -of framing the fourth gospel, they may fairly be reckoned among -"the first Christians." Ere long, however, they begin clearly to -differentiate from the Christism of the New Testament. - -If the early Gnostic systems be compared with that of Paul, they will -be found to have rather more in common with it than with the Judaic -Jesuism from which he ostensibly broke away. It is thus not unlikely -that their Christism, like his, is older than that of the gospels, -which is primarily of Jewish manufacture. The "Simonians" of Samaria -have every appearance of being non-Jewish Christists "before Christ"; -and the later Gnostics have several Samaritan affinities. Like "Paul," -they have no Jesuine biography; but whereas he ostensibly holds -by an actual man Jesus, however nondescript, they usually declare -outright for a mere divine phantom, [22] bearing a human semblance, -but uncontaminated by mixture with matter, which was the Gnostic -symbol for all evil. They did but attach the name of the Christos, -and the hope of salvation, to a general theosophy, as Paul attached -it to Judaism; and their great preoccupation was to account formally -for the existence of evil, which they commonly figured as either an -evil power or an essential quality of matter, forever opposed to the -principle of good. Hence the allusion to the "oppositions of science -falsely so-called"--that is, "the antithesis of the Gnosis"--in the -Pauline epistle. But they varied somewhat in details according to -their environment, being roughly divisible into two groups--Asiatic -and Egyptian. - -At the beginning of the second century those of Syria are identified -with the teaching of Saturninus of Antioch, in whose theory a -good God had made the seven angels, who in turn made the world and -created a low type of animal man in God's image, whom, however, God -compassionately endowed with a reasonable soul. Of the seven angels -one was left to rule the world, and figured as God of the Jews; but -the others competed with him; and Satan, the chief evil power, made a -race of men with an evil soul. Thereupon the Supreme God sent his son -as Jesus Christ, human only in seeming, to bring men to the knowledge -of the Father and defeat the rebel angels. Another Syrian, Bardesanes, -who lived in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, was less anti-Jewish, -and made the one God the creator of the world and of man, who was -at first ethereal and pure, but seduced and so degraded to the form -of flesh by the Adversary; the Christ's function being to secure -a higher future life to those who accept him. From both points of -view, mortification of the flesh was a primary duty--all the carnal -instincts being evil--and Jesus on the same ground was denied bodily -existence. Always the effort is to account for evil as involved in -matter, the work not of the Supreme God, but of a subordinate power -who will be vanquished. Thus Tatian, a pupil of Justin Martyr and -contemporary with Saturninus, makes the world-creator a subordinate -God, and seems to have derived Judaism and the gospel similarly from -inferior deities. Some, as Bardesanes and Tatian, held by a bodily -resurrection; others, as Saturninus and Cerdo (fl. 140), stressed the -anti-material principle and denied that the resurrection could be in -bodily form. On such an issue, of course, it was easy to compromise -in the concept of a "spiritual body" the same to the eye as the real -body, but impalpable to touch--in short, the "spirit" of all ages. - -It is reasonable to infer that the Gnostic systems were suggested -by the spectacle of the earthly Governments around them, no less -than by the previous theologies. Even as the Autocrator reigned -without governing, and the evils of misgovernment were chargeable -on proconsuls, so, it was thought, the head of the universe, the -Pantocrator, could not be implicated in the evil wrought under -him. Such a conception seems to have first arisen in the great -monarchies of the East. It followed, however, that as some satraps and -proconsuls governed well, there might be good subordinate deities; -and in the system of Basilides the Egyptian, who belonged to the -brilliant reign of Hadrian, the attribute of goodness is graded -endlessly, down to the angels of the 365th heaven, who made this -world and its inhabitants. As in the system of Saturninus, God gives -these a reasonable soul, but the angels rebel, and their chief, who -becomes God of the Jews, draws on that nation the hatred of all others -by his arrogance. Egyptian Gnosticism thus bore the stamp of the old -Egyptian pantheism, its every power emanating from the Unbegotten One; -while the Asiatic systems embody in some form the Mazdean principle -of two opposed powers, of which the worse is only ultimately to be -defeated. Egyptian precedent explains also the countless generations -of the Gnostic systems of Alexandria. As in Egyptian history dynasty -followed on dynasty, and as in the pantheon God was begotten of God, -so in the system of Basilides the Unbegotten produces from himself -Nous, Mind; which produces the Logos; which produces Phronesis, -Judgment; which produces Sophia and Dynamis, Wisdom and Power; and -these last in turn produce angels, who in turn reproduce others down -to the 365th grade. The system of Valentinus, assigned to the period -of Antoninus Pius, frames fresh complications, partly suggestive of -an immemorial bureaucracy which had duplicated itself in the heavens, -partly of an à priori psychology which sought to explain the universe, -now by first principles, after the fashion of the early mythology of -Rome, now by adaptations of the current theosophy. - -In the hands of Valentinus religion becomes an imbroglio which only -an expert could master; and the functions of the Christ in particular -are a mere tangle of mystery. Nous, the first of many "Ĉons," is the -"only begotten" Son, his mother being Ennoia, Thought; yet with him is -born Truth; and these three with the Father make a first Tetrad. Then -Nous produces the Logos and Life; which beget Man and the Church; -which two pairs beget more Ĉons; and so on. In a later stage, after a -"fall," Nous begets the Christos and the Holy Spirit; while later still -the Ĉons produce the Ĉon Jesus, Sophia and Horos playing a part in the -evolution. Such a maze, though it is said to have had many devotees, -could not possibly be the creed of a popular Church, even in Egypt; -and wherever the gospels went their ostensibly concrete Jesus held his -own against such spectral competition. The systems which made Jesus -non-human and those which made of him an elusive abstraction were alike -disadvantaged as against that which declared him to have been born of -woman and to have suffered the last agony for the sons of men. Women -could weep for the crucified Man-God as they had immemorially done -for Adonis and Osiris: they could not shed tears for a phantasmagoric -series of Nous--Logos--Christ--Ĉons--Jesus, begetting and begotten. - -Other Gnostics, still making mystical pretensions, were content to -represent Jesus as a superior human being born of Joseph and Mary -in the course of nature. Carpocrates of Alexandria, who so taught -in the reign of Hadrian, had a large following. Such tolerance of -"materialism," however, brought on the sect charges of all manner of -sensuality; and there is categorical record that, following Plato, -they sought to practise community of women. Similarly, the Basilidians -were charged with regarding all bodily appetites as indifferent, their -founder having set his face against the glorification of virginity, -and taught that Jesus was not absolutely sinless, since God could -never permit an innocent being to be punished. There is no proof, -however, that any sect-founder was openly antinomian; and while -license doubtless occurred in many, we have the evidence of the -Pauline epistles that it could rise in the heart of the primitive -Church as easily as in any sect. In the same way, whatever might be -the doctrine of particular sections, it may be taken as certain that -the charge of bowing before persecution, cast at some, held partly -true of nearly all. - -Systems such as the bulk of those above described, drawing as they did -on any documents rather than the Old and New Testaments, are obviously -not so much Christian schisms as differentiations from historic -Christianity--developments, in most cases, of an abstract Christism on -lines not merely Gentile but based on Gentile religions, as against the -Jewish. Broadly speaking, therefore, they tended to disappear from the -Christist field, inasmuch as paganism had other deities better suited -to the part of the Gnostic Logos. The intermediate type, bodiless -at best, must die out. Gnosticism had not only no canon of its own, -but no thought of one: while the fashion lasted every decade saw a -new system, refining on the last and multiplying its abstractions, -till the very term gnosis must have become a byword. Success, as has -been said above, must remain with the simple and concrete system, -especially if that were organized; and the Gnostics of the second -century attempted no general organization. Yet Gnosticism left a -lasting impress on Christianity. In its earlier stages, as we have -seen, it modified the gospels; and after it had evolved away from the -gospel basis it left an influence on the more philosophically-minded -writers of the Church, notably Clement of Alexandria, who is as openly -anxious to approve himself a "good Gnostic" as to found on the accepted -sacred books of the Church. Deriving as it partly did from the Jewish -Platonist Philo, it brought into the Church his fashion of reducing -Biblical narratives to allegories--a course much resorted to not only -by Origen but by Augustine, and very necessary for the defence of -Hebrew tales against pagan criticism. Further, the regular practice -of the Church in the matter of separating catechumens from initiates -was an adoption of the Gnostic principle of esoteric knowledge. - -In yet other ways, however, Gnosticism influenced early -Christianity. It was the Gnostics who first set up in it literary -habits: they were the first to multiply documents of all kinds; and -it is not unlikely that their early additions to the gospels gave -a stimulus to its expansion on other lines. They were, in short, -the first to introduce a tincture of letters and art into the cult; -and it was their spirit that shaped the fourth gospel, which gave to -Christism the only philosophical elements it ever possessed. They are -not indeed to be regarded as having cultivated philosophy to any good -purpose, though they passed on some of the philosophic impulse to -the later Platonists. Rather the average Gnostic is to be conceived -as a leisured dilettante in an age of learned ignorance and foiled -intelligence, lending an eager ear to new mysticisms, as so many -half-cultured idlers are seen still doing in our own day. They cared -as much for abracadabral amulets, apparently, as for theories; and -their zeal for secret knowledge had in it something of the spirit of -class exclusiveness, and even of personal arrogance. It would seem as -if, when tyrannies in the ancient world made an end of the old moral -distinctions of classes, men instinctively caught at new ways of being -superior to their fellows--for the spirit of Gnosticism arose among the -later Greek pagans, who here followed the lead of Egyptian priests, -as well as among Samaritans and Grecized Jews. At most we may say of -the Gnostics that they were much more concerned than the orthodox to -frame a complete and consistent theistic theory of things, and that -in their learned-ignorant way they sought to walk by reason as well -as by faith. Necessarily they were in a minority. It was, however, -their theoretic bent, surviving in the gospel-reading Church, that -determined the dogmatic development of the Christist creed. Their -recoil from the conception of a Saviour-God in a human body comes -out in the later debates and creeds as in the fourth gospel; and -if the final doctrine of the Trinity be not truly Gnostic, it is -because the Gnostics showed more concern for plausibility, and never -aimed at tying thought down forever to a plainly self-contradictory -formula. Much of their movement probably survived in Manichĉism, -which, though sufficiently dogmatic, never flaunted such propositions -as those of the Nicene creed, and was a critical thorn in the flesh -of the Church. Even their amulets seem to have had a Christian vogue; -and the worship of angels, which began to flourish among Catholics -in the fourth century, seems to have been a reflex of their teaching. - -In some respects, finally, the modern Church has confusedly -reverted to their view of a future state. While the "orthodox" -Christians of the second century believed that souls at death went -to the under-world, to be raised with the body for the approaching -millennium, or thousand-years reign of Christ, the Gnostics, scouting -the millennium as a grossly materialistic conception, held that at -death the soul ascended to heaven. That appears to be the prevailing -fancy among Protestants at the present day, though men have grown -cautious of formal dicta on the subject. - - - - -§ 4. Marcionism and Montanism - -Apart from Gnosticism, the Church of the second century was affected by -certain heretical or sectarian movements which centred round single -teachers of an influential sort, in particular Marcion of Sinope -and Montanus, who became the founders of something like separate -churches. Montanus, like Manichĉus, has mythical aspects; and it is -impossible to be sure of the historicity of either; [23] but Marcionism -sets up no such difficulty. Marcion, who was a disciple of the Gnostic -Cerdo, and like him flourished in the reign of Antoninus Pius, held by -some of the main Gnostic theories, but differed from the Gnostics in -general in that he founded solely on New Testament writings and did not -absolutely oppose Judaism. In his system the Supreme God, who is Good, -creates a Demiurge or world-maker, who is merely Just or legalist, -the God of the Jews; while Satan, the offspring of Matter, governs -the heathens. Only the Christians are ruled by the Good God, who is -first revealed to men solely by the Christ. It was in this way that -he applied the Gnostic principle of "oppositions" or "antitheses," in -a work bearing that title. His ethic appears to have been a sectarian -version of that of Bardesanes, who had defined the good as those who -did good even to the wicked; the just as those who did good only to -the good; and the wicked as those who did evil even to the good. It -does not seem to have occurred to Marcion that in classing all pagans -as outside of the pale of goodness he was stultifying his own avowed -principle of divine love and mercy; but in this respect at least he was -not heretical, for all who bore the Christian name agreed in limiting -salvation to Christists, and dooming all other men to hell-fire. - -That he was a fanatic of exceptional force of character is proved -by the facts that (1) it was he who forced on the Church the problem -of a canon, he being the first to form one, by way, as he explained, -of excluding Jewish documents and Jewish interpolations in the gospel -and the Pauline epistles; and that (2) he was able to form a separate -organization, which subsisted for centuries, with some variations in -doctrine, alongside of the "catholic" Church, being heard of as late -as the eighth century. The controversies he set up affected the whole -literature of the Church for generations; and though it was a point -of honour with the orthodox to accuse him of corrupting the texts -as well as the faith, it is finally held that some of his readings -of the third gospel, which he specially favoured, are really the -original ones. Inasmuch, however, as he laid stress on asceticism, to -the extent of prohibiting marriage, he necessarily failed to attract -the multitude, though his was one of the influences which fostered -ascetic ideas within the Church from his time onwards. - -The movement of Montanus, known also as the Cataphrygian heresy, -has two aspects--that of a sect apparently founded by a zealot of -strong personality, who felt that he had special inner light and -claimed (or was claimed) to be inspired by the Paraclete promised -in the gospel, and that of a general reaction against officialism in -the Church, somewhat in the spirit of the Quakers of the Reformation -period. It stressed all the extremer social tendencies of the early -Church, the prediction of the end of the world, the impropriety -of marriage and child-bearing in prospect of the catastrophe, the -multiplication of fasts, the absolute condemnation of second marriages, -the renunciation of earthly joys in general. Christ, said Montanus, -had withdrawn the indulgences granted by Moses; and through himself, -the Paraclete, cancelled those given by Paul. Thus true religion, -having had its infancy under Judaism, and its youth under the gospel, -had reached maturity under the Holy Spirit (an idea revived a thousand -years later in Catholic Europe). Hardness of heart had reigned till -Christ; weakness of flesh till the Paraclete. A special feature of the -Montanist schism--which spread far, and ultimately absorbed Tertullian, -who for a time had opposed it--was the association of the founder with -two wealthy women of rank, Maximilla and Priscilla, who endowed the -movement. It is noteworthy that this special growth of asceticism took -its rise in Phrygia, one of the regions specially associated in pagan -antiquity with sensuous and orgiastic worship. It would seem as if an -age of indulgence led in natural course to a neurotic recoil. In any -case it is neurosis that speaks in the ascetic polemic of Tertullian, -who became a typical Montanist. - -Montanism, it has been said, was "all but victorious"; but its -victory was really impossible in the circumstances. It would have -meant arresting the growth of Christism to the form of a moribund -State Church by depriving it of all popular attraction; and the -vested interests were too great to permit of such a renunciation. The -movement may be loosely compared to the secession of more rigid bodies -from the relaxing sects of Methodism and Calvinism in our own time: -voluntary austerity must always be in a minority. A Church which -absolutely refused to retain or readmit any who committed a cardinal -sin or lapsed during persecution--saying they might be saved by God's -grace, but must not be allowed human forgiveness--was doomed to the -background. But Montanism, appealing as it did to an ideal of holiness -which the average Christian dared not repudiate, influenced the main -body, especially through the writings of such a valued polemist as -Tertullian, who taunted them with being inferior even to many pagans -in the matter of chastity and monogamy. The main body was not to be -metamorphosed; but it read the lesson as inculcating the need for -at least nominal priestly celibacy. Every notable "heresy" so-called -seems thus to have left its mark on the Church. - -What above all is proved by the movements of Marcion and Montanus -is the power of organization in that period to maintain a sect with -sacred books of any kind. They had learned the lesson taken from -Judaism by the first Christists, and proceeded to show that just as -organized Jesuism could live apart from Judaism in the Gentile field, -so new Christist sects could live apart from the orthodox Church -when once separation was forced on them. Montanism, like Marcionism, -survived for centuries, and seems to have been at length suppressed -only by sheer violence on the part of the Christian emperors, who -could persecute far more effectually than pagans ever did, having -the Church as an instrument. In the face of such developments, -and still more in view of the later success of Manichĉism, which, -as we shall see, applied still better the principle of organization, -there can be no longer any difficulty in accounting for the rise -of Christism on purely natural grounds. Given the recognition of a -few essential conditions, the creation of a sect was a very simple -and facile matter. Montanism and Manichĉism successively endured -more persecution, pagan and Christian, than the Christian Church -ever did; and it was only the essential unpopularity of the ideals -of Montanism that permitted of its suppression as a sect even by -the persecuting established Church. Manichĉism, as we shall see, -was almost insuppressible, even when political changes had given the -Church a power of centralization and coercion which otherwise could -never have been developed. At the end of the third century, in short, -the Church of its own nature was rapidly approaching disruption into -new and irreconcilable organizations. - - - - -§ 5. Rites and Ceremonies - -Apart from the habit of doctrinal discussion, derived from Judaism, -the Christianity of the third century had distinctly become as -much a matter of ritual and ceremonial as any of the older pagan -cults. Churches built for worship, rare in the second century, had -become common, and images had already begun to appear in them, while -incense was coming into general use, despite the earlier detestation -of it as a feature of idolatry. In the wealthier churches gold and -silver medals were often seen. Pagan example had proved irresistible -in this as in other matters. - -By this time baptism and the eucharist had alike become virtual -"mysteries," to which new-comers were initiated as in the pagan -cults. Baptism was administered only twice a year, and then only to -those who had undergone a long preparation. The first proceeding was -a solemn exorcism, which was supposed to free the initiates from the -power of the evil spirit or spirits. Then, after they had repeated -a creed (which in the Western Churches had to be recited both in -Greek and Latin, the Greek being in the nature of a magic formula), -they were completely immersed, signed with the cross, prayed over, -and touched ceremonially with the hands of the officiating bishop or -presbyter; finally they partook of milk and honey, and returned home -decorated with a white robe and a crown. - -The eucharist, commonly administered on Sundays, was regarded as -absolutely necessary to salvation and resurrection; and on that -account infants were made to partake of it, this before baptism -had been declared to be essential in their case. Only the baptized -were allowed to be present at the celebration; but portions of -the consecrated bread and wine were taken away for sick members, -and believed to have a curative virtue. The sign of the cross was -now constantly used in the same spirit, being held potent against -physical and spiritual evil alike, insofar as any such distinction -was drawn. But diseases, as among savages in all ages, were commonly -regarded as the work of evil spirits, and medical science was generally -disowned, the preferred treatment being exorcism. A baptized person -might further use the Lord's Prayer, with its appeal against the Evil -One--a privilege denied to the catechumen or seeker for membership. - - - - -§ 6. Strifes over Primary Dogma - -The nucleus for a theistic-Christist creed, as we have seen, was given -to the Church in the fourth gospel. The first Jewish Jesuists were -simple Unitarians; and the Jesus of Paul, so far as can be safely -inferred from epistles indefinitely interpolated, was certainly no -part of a trinity in unity. At the beginning of the second century -the "orthodox" Christists had no more definite theology than had -the unlettered believers in any pagan Saviour-God; and at most the -gospels taught them to regard the supernaturally-born Christ as having -ascended to heaven, to sit in visible form at the right hand of the -Father, as Herakles or Dionysos or Apollo might sit by his Father -Zeus. At the middle of the century Justin Martyr speaks of the Logos -not as a personal form of deity, but as the inspiration given by -God to men in different degrees at different times. It is after him -that the fourth gospel begins to do its work. Christian apologists, -deriding the beliefs of the pagans, had to meet the charge that they -too were polytheists, and the old pagan challenge, put to pagans: If -the suffering Saviour were a man, why worship him? if he were a God, -why weep for his sufferings? - -An attempt to meet the difficulty was made in the heresy of Praxeas, -a member of the Church who, coming from Asia to Rome late in the -century, seems to have taught that the Son and the Holy Spirit were -not distinct from the Father, but simply functions of the One God, -the Father having descended into the Virgin and been born as Jesus -Christ. At once he was accused of "making the Father suffer" on the -cross, and his sect accordingly seem to have been among the first -called Patripassians. In the same or the next century Noëtus of Smyrna -is found preaching the same doctrine; and in the hands of Sabellius -of Libya, whose name was given to it by his opponents, the teaching -became one of the most influential heresies of the age. Sabellius -in fact formulated that theory of the Trinity which alone gives it -formal plausibility: the three personĉ were for him (as they could -etymologically be in Latin and in the Greek term first used, prosopon) -not persons, but aspects or modes of the deity, as power, wisdom, -and goodness; or law, mercy, and guidance--a kind of solution which -in later times has captivated many theologians, including Servetus -and Coleridge. But Sabellius, like his predecessors, had to meet the -epithet of "Patripassian," and he appears to have parried it with -the formula that only a certain energy proceeding from the Divine -Nature had been united to the man Jesus. In the way of rationalizing -the irrational and giving consistency to contradictories, the Church -could never do better than this. Under such a theorem, however, the -Man-God as such theoretically disappeared; and as that was precisely -the side of the creed which identified the cult, gave it popularity, -and won it revenue, Sabellianism, though accepted by many, even by -many bishops, could not become the official doctrine. It persistently -remained, nevertheless, in the background, the idea taking new forms -and names in succeeding generations, as new men arose with courage -and energy enough to reopen the insoluble strife, during a period of -four hundred years. - -A solution by a different approach was offered by such second-century -teachers as Theodotus of Byzantium, a learned tanner living in Rome; -another of the same name, a banker; and Artemon, all founders of sects -by whom Jesus was regarded as merely a superior man, supernaturally -born. As this form of the Unitarian doctrine struck directly at the -essential element of the Christ's deity, in respect of which the -cult vied with others of the same type, it was no more generally -acceptable than the Sabellian; and it is more than likely that the -mere odium theologicum gave rise to the story that Theodotus had -first denied Christ under persecution, and then framed a theology for -his predicament. Yet such doctrines as his must have gone on gaining -ground among the more stirring minds; for when in the next century -Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch, began to restate the Unitarian -thesis, he found an extensive following. The Logos, he taught, was -not a person distinct from the Father, but merely his wisdom, which -descended into but was not united with Jesus. Given forth about the -year 260, Paul's teaching was condemned by a council at Antioch in 264, -he giving a promise of "reformation" which he did not keep. Another -council, which met in 269 or 270, deposed and excommunicated him; -but he refused to obey, and Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, who then ruled -Antioch, protected him. Not till 272, when Antioch was retaken by -Aurelian, did the majority succeed in ousting him, by the emperor's -express intervention. And still the "heresy" persisted, and the -theological hatreds grew. It belonged to the nature of the religion, -a pyramid poised on its apex, to be in unstable equilibrium wherever -any breath of reason could blow. - -The development of the councils in the third century is a proof at -once of the growth of organization in the Church and of the need -for it. It is not to be supposed that all orthodox Churchmen looked -practically to the main chance; it is clear, on the contrary, that -many were moved by the conservative zeal of the Bibliolater of all -ages, as the heretics were presumably moved by a spirit of reason; -but the bishops must at all times have included many who looked -at questions of creed from the standpoint of finance, like so many -members of modern political parties; and they would be apt to turn the -scale in every serious dispute. Even they, however, with whatever aid -from polemical propaganda, could not long have availed to preserve -anything like a preponderating main body if the Church were left to -itself. The polemical writers, broadly speaking, converted nobody, -but merely inflamed those already convinced; and party strife was -becoming more and more comprehensive, more furious, more menacing, -when the Church was saved from itself by the State. - - - - - - - - -CHAPTER II - -RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE - - -§ 1. Persecutions - -It was involved in the aggressive attitude of the Christist movement -that it should be persecuted by a partly countervailing fanaticism. The -original bias of all ancient religion, indeed, in virtue of the simple -self-interest of priesthoods, had been to resent and suppress any new -worship; and though nowhere else is the course so ferociously enjoined -as in the Hebrew sacred books, there are many traces of it in the -pagan world. Thus the Dionysiak cult had been violently resisted on -its introduction into Greece; and the early Roman law against foreign -worships was turned against it, under circumstances plainly exaggerated -by Livy, about 187 B.C. Later a religious panic led to the official -suppression in Rome of the worships of Isis and Serapis. Empire, -however, everywhere involved some measure of official toleration of -diverging cults; and as in Babylon and Egypt, so under the Hellenistic -and Roman systems, the religions of each of the provinces were more or -less assimilated in all. When even early Athens had been constrained -to permit the non-aggressive cults of the aliens within her walls, -far-reaching empires could do no less. Indeed, the very vogue of -Christism depended on the fact that throughout the empire there was -taking place a new facility of belief in strange Gods. There can be -no more complete mistake than the common assertion that it made its -appeal in virtue of the prevalence of "desolating scepticism." On the -contrary, rationalism had practically disappeared; and even the Roman -pagans most adverse to Christism were friendly to other new cults. - -Had the Christian cult been, like its non-Jewish contemporaries, -a mere effort to "worship God according to conscience," it need not -have undergone pagan persecution any more than they, or than Judaism, -save when the State imposed the duty of worshipping the emperor's -statue. A God the more was no scandal to polytheists. Christism had -taken from Judaism, however, as a first principle, the detestation of -"idols," and its propaganda from the first had included a violent -polemic against them. For the Christians the pagan Gods were not -unrealities: they were evil dĉmons, constantly active. Insofar, too, -as the first Jesuists in the western part of the empire shared the -Jewish hatred for Rome that is expressed in the Apocalypse, they were -likely enough to provoke Roman violence. A constant prediction of the -speedy passing away of all things was in itself a kind of sedition; -and when joined with contumely towards all other religions it could -not but rouse resentment. Thus, though the story of the great Neronian -massacre is, as already noted, an apparent fiction as regards the -Christians, being unnoticed in the book of Acts, Jesuists and Jews -alike ran many chances of local or general hostility under the empire -from the first. The express doctrines, put in the mouth of the founder, -that he had come to bring not peace but a sword, and to create strife -in families, were not fitted to soften the prejudices aroused by the -religious claims of the new faith; and in the time of Tertullian they -were defined in the west as "enemies of the Gods, of the emperors, -of the laws, of morals, and of all nature." - -According to Tertullian, writing under Severus or Caracalla, only -the bad emperors had persecuted the Church. But its danger had always -lain less in special imperial edicts than in the ordinary bearing of -the laws against secret societies and nocturnal worships, and in the -ordinary tendency of ignorant and priest-led fanaticism to a panic -of cruelty in times of popular distress or alarm. An earthquake -or pestilence was always apt to be visited on the new "atheists" -as provokers of the Gods. The mere habit of midnight worship, which -is one of the proofs that early Jesuism was in some way affiliated -to sun-worship, was a ground for suspicion; but as Mithraism was -freely tolerated in spite of its nocturnal rites, Christism might -have been, but for its other provocations. And even these were for -long periods ignored by the Government. If the often-quoted letter of -Pliny to Trajan (about the year 100) be genuine, it proves an official -disposition to protect the Christians, when politically innocent, from -fanatical attacks; and Tertullian, who speaks of such a letter, credits -Marcus Aurelius with limiting the scope of the laws which tended to -injure the sect, though we know from Marcus himself that Christians -suffered death. By common consent, though there was certainly much -random persecution in the first three centuries, the formula of "ten -persecutions" is fabulous; and that ascribed to Domitian is hardly -better established than that ascribed to Nero. That the Christists -suffered specially as tradition asserts in the reign of Hadrian, when -the Jews were specially hated because of their last desperate revolt, -is probable; but Hadrian gave no general orders, and is credited like -the Antonines with shielding the new sectaries. It is finally very -doubtful whether any ordained and legalized persecution of Christians -ever took place save (1) in Egypt under Severus, who at first and -afterwards was friendly; (2) on a small scale under Maximinus; (3) in -the east under Decius and (4) under Valerian; and (5) throughout the -empire under Diocletian and his colleagues (from 303 to 311). These -episodes occurred within a period of little over a hundred years. - -In all periods alike, from the end of the first century down to -Constantine, there was no doubt much chronic cruelty. The letter from -the Churches of Vienne and Lyons, cited by Eusebius and assigned -to the year 161, is a doubtful document; but the savageries there -described were only too possible. Public cruelty seems to have -worsened in the very period in which the inhabitants of cities had -become most unused to war, and the finer minds had grown most humane; -like the other animal instincts, it had grown neurotic in conditions -of vicious idleness, and many men had become virtuosi in cruelty as -in lust. The Christian gospel itself now held up "the tormentors" -as typical of the processes of divine punishment; and torture was -for many an age to be a part of Christian as of pagan legal procedure. - -Insofar as persecution was legalized, it is to be understood not as -a putting down of a new religious belief, but as an attack on its -political and social side. In the case, for instance, of Cyprian, -bishop of Carthage, who after a flight and a banishment was put to -death under Valerian and Gallienus (258), the bishop's far-reaching -activities are the presumptive reason for his fate. It is to be -remembered, as Gibbon notes, that in ten years of Cyprian's tenure of -office four emperors themselves died by the sword, with their families -and their adherents. At times, no doubt, the attack on Christians was -unprovoked, consisting as it might in a challenge to a Christian to -swear allegiance by or sacrifice to the statue of the emperor, when -he was willing to swear by his own creed. The public worship of the -emperor was the one semblance of a centralized religious organization -which, like that of the Christian Church, existed throughout the -empire. Precedented by old Egyptian and eastern usage, and by the -practice of Alexander and his successors, it had first appeared in -Rome in the offer of the cringing senate to deify Julius Cĉsar, and -in the systematic measures of Augustus to have Julius worshipped as -a God (divus), an honour promptly accorded to himself in turn. The -apotheosis was signalized by giving the names of Julius and Augustus -to the months Quintilis and Sextilis; and only the final unpopularity -of Tiberius prevented the substitution of his name in turn for that of -September, an honour offered to and refused by him in his earlier life. - -Some of the madder emperors later tried to carry on the process of -putting themselves in the calendar, but were duly disobeyed after -death. Detested emperors, such as Tiberius and Nero and Domitian, -were even refused the apotheosis; but in general the title of divus -was freely accorded, so abject had the general mind grown under -autocracy; and it was usual in the provinces to worship the living -emperor in a special temple in association with the Genius of Rome; -while the cults of some emperors lasted long after their death. The -common sense as well as the sense of humour of some rulers led them to -make light of the institution; and the jest of the dying Vespasian, -"I fancy I am turning God," is one of several imperial witticisms on -the subject; but it lay in the nature of autocracy, in Rome as in Egypt -or in Incarian Peru, to employ sagaciously all methods of abasing the -human spirit, so as to secure the safety of the throne. One of the -most obvious means was to deify the emperor--a procedure as "natural" -in that age as the deification of Jesus, and depending on the same -psychological conditions. And though the person of the emperor was -seldom quite safe from assassination by his soldiery, the imperial -cult played its part from the first in establishing the fatal ideal -of empire. No sequence of vileness or incompetence in the emperors, -no impatience of the insecurity set up by the power of the army to -make and unmake the autocrat, no experience of the danger of a war -of claimants, ever seems to have made Romans dream of a saner and -nobler system. Manhood had been brought too low. - -Imperialism being thus an official religion in itself, the cult of -the emperor lay to the hands of any magistrate who should be disposed -to put a test to a member of the sect which decried all established -customs and blasphemed all established Gods. It was the recognized way -of imposing the oath of allegiance apart from any specific law. Where -such a procedure was possible, any malicious pagan might bring -about a stedfast Christian's death. There is Christian testimony, -however, that many frenzied believers brought martyrdom wilfully -on themselves by outrages on pagan temples and sacred statues; and -it is Tertullian who tells how Arrius Antoninus, pro-consul in Asia, -drove from him a multitude of frantic fanatics seeking death, with the -amazed demand to know whether they had not ropes and precipices. The -official temper evidently varied, as did that of the Christians. In the -period before Diocletian, save for the intrigues of pagan priests and -provincial demagogues, and the normal suspicions of autocratic power, -there was nothing in the nature of a general and official animosity, -though the Christian attitude was always unconciliatory enough. But -by the beginning of the fourth century the developments on both sides -had created a situation of strain and danger. The great effort of -Diocletian to give new life to the vast organism of the empire, first -by minute supervision, and then by sub-division under two emperors, -called Augusti, and two Cĉsars, wrought a certain seriousness of -political interest throughout the bureaucracy; and the Christian body, -long regarded with alternate contempt and dislike, had become so far -organized and so considerable a force that none who broadly considered -the prospects of the State could avoid reckoning with it. - -At the same time paganism had taken on new guises: the Neo-Platonists, -so-called, restated the ancient mythology and theology in forms -which compared very well with the abstract teaching of the Church; -and among the educated class there was some measure of religious -zeal against Christians as blasphemers of other men's Gods. It may or -may not have needed the persuasion of his anti-Christian colleague, -the Cĉsar Galerius, to convince such a ruler as Diocletian that the -Christian Church, a growing State within the State, still standing -by an official doctrine of a speedy world's-end, and rejecting the -cult of the emperor, was an incongruous and dangerous element in the -imperial scheme. It was in fact a clear source of political weakness, -though not so deadly a one as the autocracy itself. To seek to suppress -it, accordingly, was almost a natural outcome of Diocletian's ideal -of government. He had sought to give a new air of sanctity to the -worship of the emperor by calling himself Jovius and his colleague -Maximian Herculius; and to make the effort succeed it might well -seem necessary to crush the one cult that directly stood in the way, -alike as a creed and as an organization. The refusal of some Christian -soldiers, too, to submit to certain commands which they considered -unlawful gave Galerius a special pretext for strong measures. - -It is not to be forgotten that the emperors and the bureaucracy had -some excuse for a policy of suppression in the bitter strifes of the -Christian sects and sections. Eusebius confesses that these were on -the verge of actual warfare, bishop against bishop and party against -party, each seeking for power; and for all it was a matter of course -to accuse opponents of the worst malpractices. Some of the darkest -charges brought by the pagans against Christians in general were -but distributions of those brought by the orthodox against heretics, -and by Montanists and others against the orthodox. A credulous pagan -might well believe that all alike carried on vile midnight orgies, -and deserved to be refused the right of meeting. It is not probable, -however, that the two emperors and the persecuting Cĉsar proceeded -on any concern for private morals; and though Galerius was a zealous -pagan with a fanatical mother, the motive of the persecution was -essentially political. What happened was that the passions of the -zealots among the pagans had now something like free scope; and, unless -the record in Eusebius is sheer fable, the work was often done with -horrible cruelty. On the other hand, there is Christian testimony -to the humanity of many of the better pagans, who sheltered their -Christian friends and relatives; and the Cĉsar Constantius Chlorus, -a tolerant pagan, who ruled in Gaul and Britain and Spain, gave only -a formal effect to the edict of the emperors, destroying churches -and sacred books, but sparing their owners. The fact, finally, that -in ten years of persecution the number of victims throughout the -eastern and central empire appears to have been within two thousand, -goes to suggest that the mass of the Christians either bowed to the -storm or eluded it. Bitter discussions, reviving some of the previous -century, rose afterwards as to the proper treatment of the traditores, -those who surrendered and forswore themselves; and the more zealous -sects and churches either imposed long penances or refused to receive -back the lapsed. As the latter course would only weaken themselves, -the majority of the churches combined policy with penalty. - -The time was now at hand when the Church, from being an object of -aversion to the autocracy, was to become its instrument. Just before -his death in 311, Galerius, who was little of a statesman, began to see -what Diocletian would doubtless have admitted had he lived much longer, -and what Constantius Chlorus had probably suggested to his colleagues, -that the true policy for the government was to adopt instead of -crushing the Christian organization. Only the original anticivism of -the cult, probably, had prevented a much earlier adoption of this view -by the more politic emperors. It was the insistence on the imminent -end of the world, the preaching of celibacy, the disparagement of -earthly dignitaries, the vehement assault on the standing cults of the -State, no less than the refusal to sacrifice to the emperor's statue, -that had so long made Christism seem the natural enemy of all civil -government. The more the Church grew in numbers and wealth, however, -the more its bishops and priests tended to conform to the ordinary -theory of public life; and as theirs was now the only organization of -any kind that reached far throughout the State, save the State itself -and the cult of the emperors, the latter must evidently either destroy -it or adopt it. The great persecution, aiming at the former end, -served only to show the futility of official persecution for such a -purpose, since pagans themselves helped to screen staunch Christians, -and the weaker had but to bow before the storm. Already Constantine, -acting with a free hand on his father's principles, had given complete -tolerance to the Christians under his sway; and Maxentius, struggling -with him for the mastery of the West, had done as much. Even in -the East, Maximin had alternately persecuted and tolerated the -Christians as he had need to press or pacify Galerius. The language -used by Galerius, finally, in withdrawing the edict of persecution, -suggests that besides recognizing its failure he had learned from his -opponents to conceive the possibility of attaching to the autocracy -a sect so much more widely organized and so much more zealous than -any of the other subsisting popular religions, albeit still numbering -only a fraction of the whole population. - -To many of the Christians, on the other hand, long persecution had -doubtless taught the wisdom of recanting the extremes of doctrine -which had made even sceptical statesmen regard them as a danger to -any State. It is clear that bishops like Eusebius of Cĉsarea would -readily promise to the government a loyal attention to its interests -in the event of its tolerating and befriending the Church; and the -sacred books offered texts for any line of public action. The empire, -always menaced by barbarism on its frontiers, needed every force -of union that could be used within; and here, finally adaptable -to such use, was the one organization that acted or was fitted -to act throughout the whole. To the leading churchmen, finally, -association with the State was the more welcome because on the one -hand general persecution would cease, and on the other all the party -leaders could hope to be able by the State's means to put down their -opponents. A generation before, in the year 272, the Emperor Aurelian, -on the express appeal of the party of bishops who had deposed Paul of -Samosata, had intervened in that quarrel to give effect to the will -of the majority, which otherwise could not have been put in force; -and such occasions were sure to arise frequently. It needed only -another innovating emperor to bring about the coalition thus prepared. - - - - -§ 2. Establishment and Creed-Making - -On the abdication of the co-emperors Diocletian and Maximian, the -Cĉsars, Galerius and Constantius Chlorus, became the Augusti; the -former, as senior, taking the East, and the latter the West. At once -the plans of Diocletian began to miscarry; and Galerius, instead of -raising to the Cĉsarship, as the other had wished, Maxentius the son of -Maximian and Constantine the already distinguished son of Constantius, -gave the junior titles to his nephews Severus and Maximin. The speedy -death of Constantius, however, secured the election of Constantine -to the purple by his father's troops in Britain; and there ensued -the manifold strifes which ended in Constantine's triumph. Maxentius, -and his father, who returned to power, put down Severus; and Maximian -gave his daughter as wife to Constantine, thus creating a state of -things in which three emperors were leagued against a fourth and -one Cĉsar. Soon Maximian and Maxentius quarrelled, the father taking -refuge first with Constantine and later with Galerius; who, however, -proceeded to create yet another emperor, Licinius. Immediately the -Cĉsar Maximin revolted, and forced Galerius to make him Augustus -also. The old Maximian in the meantime went to league himself afresh -with Constantine, who, finding him treacherous, had him strangled. Soon -after, Galerius dying (in 311), Maximin and Licinius joined forces; -while Maxentius, who held Italy and Africa, professing to avenge his -father, declared war on Constantine, who held Gaul. The result was -the defeat and death of the former, leaving Constantine master of -the whole West (312). In 314 he fell out with Licinius, who had in -the meantime destroyed Maximin, and won from him Illyrium, Macedonia, -and Greece. For ten years thereafter Constantine divided the empire -with Licinius; then, quarrelling afresh with his rival, he captured -and strangled him, and was sole autocrat (324). - -Out of this desperate drama emerged Christianity as the specially -favoured cult of the Roman empire. Constantine, we saw, had protected -the Christians from the first, as his father had done before him; -and Licinius had acquiesced in the same policy, though in his final -war with Constantine he persecuted the Christians in order to attach -pagans to his cause. There has been much discussion, nevertheless, as -to whether Constantine turned Christian on political or on religious -grounds. The fact seems to be that, in the ordinary spirit of ancient -religion, he trusted to have the support of the God of the Christians -in his great struggle with Maxentius, who appealed to the Gods of -paganism with old and evil rites; and that after his first great -success he became more and more confirmed in his choice. The story, -however, of his having the labarum presented to him in a dream or a -vision is an obvious fiction, possible only to the ignorance of the -first Christian historians, who read the Greek letters Xp (Chr)--though -the tradition ran that the accompanying words, "In this sign conquer," -were in Latin--in a solar symbol that had appeared on Egyptian and -other coins many centuries before, and had no reference whatever to the -name of Christ, though Constantine used it for that on his standards. A -similar tale is told of his son Constantius, on whose coins, however, -the symbol is associated with the pagan Goddess of Victory. For the -rest, Constantine was a Christian like another. His father had been a -monotheist, who protected the Christians on philosophical principles; -and from the constant success of Constantius in all his undertakings, -as compared with the ill fortune of his own rivals, the son argued that -the religion of "One God" was propitious to his house. His personal -success in war was always his main argument for the Christian creed, -and in such an age it was not the least convincing. The fact that -he postponed his baptism till shortly before his death is not to -be taken as necessarily indicating any religious hesitations on his -part, though such hesitation may have been his motive. Multitudes of -Christians in that age did the same thing, on the ground that baptism -took away all sin, and that it was bad economy to receive it early. In -his case such a reason was specially weighty, and there is no decisive -reason to suppose that he had any other of a religious nature. Since, -however, the pagans still greatly outnumbered the Christians, he -could not afford to declare definitely against all other cults; and, -beginning by decreeing toleration for all, he kept the pagan title -of pontifex maximus, and continued through the greater part of his -life to issue coins or medals on which he figured as the devotee of -Apollo or Mars or Herakles or Mithra or Zeus. - -While, however, he thus propitiated other Gods and worshippers, he gave -the Christians from the first a unique financial support. Formerly, -the clergy in general had been wont to supplement their monthly -allowances by trading, farming, banking, by handicraft, and by -practising as physicians; but the emperor now enacted that they -should have regular annual allowances, and that the church's widows -and virgins should be similarly supported. Further, not only did he -restore the possessions taken from believers during the persecution, -he enacted that all their priests, like those of Egypt and of the -later empire in general, should be exempt from municipal burdens; -a step as much to their interest as it was to the injury of the -State and of all public spirit. The instant effect was to draw to the -priesthood multitudes of gain-seekers; the churches of Carthage and -Constantinople soon had 500 priests apiece; and so strong were the -protests of the municipalities against the financial disorder he had -created that Constantine was fain to restrict his decree. Certainly -pagan flamens and public priests of the provinces, a restricted class, -had had the same privilege, and this he maintained for them despite -Christian appeals; nor does he seem to have withdrawn it from the -priests and elders of the Jewish synagogues, who had also enjoyed -it; but his direct gifts to the churches were considerable, and -by permitting them to receive legacies in the manner of the pagan -temples he established their financial basis. So great was their -gain that laws had to be passed limiting the number of the clergy; -and from this time forward laws were necessary to restrain priests -and bishops from further enriching themselves by lending at interest. - -Clerical power, however, was still further extended. Bishops, who -had hitherto acted as arbitrators in Christian disputes, had their -decisions legally enforced; and the important legal process of freeing -slaves was transferred from the temples to the churches. Some pagan -temples he temporarily suppressed, on moral grounds; some he allowed -to be destroyed as no longer in use; but though he built and richly -endowed several great Christian churches and passed some laws against -pagan practices, he never ventured on the general persecution of -pagans which his Christian hangers-on desired; and the assertions -of Eusebius as to his having plundered the temples and brought -paganism into contempt are among the many fictions--some of them -perhaps later forgeries--in the works of that historian. As it was, -Christian converts were sufficiently multiplied. Constantine's severest -measures were taken against private divination, the practisers of -which he ordered to be burnt alive; but here he acted on the standing -principles of pagan law, and doubtless under the usual autocratic fear -of soothsaying against himself. The measure of course had no effect on -popular practice. The emperors themselves usually consulted diviners -before their own accession; and their veto on divination for other -people was thus not impressive. - -It is in his relations to his chosen church, code, and creed that -Constantine figures at his worst. In the year after his victory over -Licinius, when he was ostensibly a doubly convinced Christian, he -put to death his son Crispus, a nephew, and his wife, Fausta; and he -had strangled Licinius and his son after promising to preserve their -lives; but not a word of censure came from the Christian clergy. At -one stroke, their whole parade of superior morality was gone; and the -Church thenceforth was to be in the main as zealous a sycophant of -thrones as the priests of the past had ever been. Constantine lived -without rebuke the ordinary life of autocrats; and by the admission of -his episcopal panegyrist he was surrounded by worthless self-seekers, -Christians all. Such as he was, however, Constantine was joyfully -accepted as head of the Church on earth. His creation of the new -capital, Constantinople, was regarded as the beginning of a new era, -that of Christianity; since the upper classes of Rome were the most -zealous devotees of the old Gods, and were said to have received -Constantine on his last visit with open disrespect. Remaining pontifex -maximus, he presided over the OEcumenical Council of the Church; -and one of the abuses he established was to put the entire imperial -postal service, with its relays of horses and chariots, at the service -of the bishops travelling to attend them. For all his efforts he -had the reward of seeing them quarrel more and more furiously over -their central dogmas and over questions of discipline. Under his -eyes there arose the great schism of Arius, and the schism of the -Donatists in Africa, both destined to deepen and worsen for many -generations. The failure of the Church as a means of moral union -becomes obvious once for all as soon as the act of establishment has -removed the only previous restraining force on Christian quarrels, -fear of the pagan enemy. Clerical revenues being mostly local, schism -was still no economic disadvantage to any sectary; and the Christian -creed availed as little to overrule primary instincts of strife as -to provide rational tests for opinion or action. - -It would seem as if whatever mental impulse was left in men must -needs run in the new channels opened up for ignorant energy by -ecclesiasticism and theology in that world of deepening ignorance -and waning civilization. Literature as such was vanishing; art was -growing more impotent reign by reign; and the physical sciences, -revived for a time in their refuge at Alexandria by the Antonines and -Flavians, were being lost from the hands of the living. To attribute -the universal decadence to Christianity would be no less an error than -the old falsism that it was a force of moral and civic regeneration: -it was an effect rather than a cause of the general lapse. But, once -established as part of the imperial machinery, it hastened every -process of intellectual decay; and under such circumstances moral -gain could not be. A doctrine of blind faith could not conceivably -save a world sinking through sheer lack of light. - -To Constantine, the endless strifes of the clergy over their creeds -were as unintelligible as they were insoluble. Like the centurion -of the gospel story, wont to command and to be obeyed, he looked for -discipline in divine things; and as the theological feud became more -and more embroiled he passed from uneasiness to a state between fear -and rage. The Divinitas, he protested, would be turned against all, -clergy and emperor and laity alike, if the clergy would not live at -peace; and he quaintly besought them to leave points of theory alone, -or else to imitate the pagan philosophers, who could debate without -hatred. The ever-quarrelling Church was becoming a laughing-stock -to the Pagans, being derided in the very theatres; and its new -converts could be those only who went wherever there was chance of -gain. So, in one of his rages, he decreed murderous punishment against -intractable schismatics, only to find that the menace had multiplied -the offence. Such as it was, however, the Church was an instrument -of autocratic organization not to be dispensed with; and thus, at -the stage at which its theological impulses, unchecked by sane moral -feeling, would in the absence of persecution by the State have rent -it in mutually destroying factions, the official protection of the -State in turn came in to hold it together as a nominal unity. Thus -and thus did the organism survive--by anything rather than moral -vitality or intellectual virtue. - -Leaving to the councils the settlement or unsettlement of dogmas, the -emperor took upon himself, to the great satisfaction of the clergy, -the whole external administration of the Church, assimilating it to his -body politic. The four leading bishoprics--Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, -and Constantinople--were put on a level with the four prĉtorian -prefectures; under them were ecclesiastical exarchs, corresponding -to the thirteen civil exarchs of given territories or dioceses; and -next came metropolitans or archbishops who superintended the single -provinces, 116 in all. In the next century, the Bishop of Jerusalem, -formerly subject to Antioch, became independent; and those five sees -became known as the five Patriarchates. Numbers of churches still -remained for various reasons technically independent; but the natural -effect of the whole system was to throw all authority upwards, the -bishops overriding the presbyters, and all seeking to limit the power -of the congregations to interfere. As the latter would now include -an increasing number of indifferentists, the development was the more -easy. On the side of external ceremony, always the gist of the matter -for the majority, as well as in myth and theory, Christianity had now -assimilated nearly every pagan attraction: baptism, as aforesaid, -was become a close copy of an initiation into pagan mysteries, -being celebrated twice a year by night with a blaze of lights; and -when Constantine enacted that the Day of the Sun should be treated as -specially holy, he was merely bracketing together pagan and Christian -theology, the two sanctions being equally involved. It was of course -not a sacred day in the modern Puritan sense, being simply put on a -level with the other great festival days of the State, on which no -work was done, but play was free. - -It was in the year after his attainment of the sole power that -Constantine summoned a General Council at his palace of Nicĉa in -Bithynia (325), to settle the theological status of the founder of the -Church. The question had been ostensibly decided as against Paul of -Samosata and the Sabellians (who made the Son a mere manifestation -or aspect of the Father) by the dictum that they were different -persons. That was for the time orthodox dogma. When, however, -Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, declared as against his bishop -that "the Son is totally and essentially distinct from the Father," -the trouble began afresh. Arius found many adherents, who accused -the bishop of Sabellianizing when he affirmed that the Son and the -Father were of the same essence; and the Church saw itself once more -driven to define its God. Bishop Alexander had Arius cast out of -the Church by two Alexandrian Councils, with the effect of driving -him to a more zealous propaganda, which succeeded as promptly and -as widely as any previous heresy. Thereupon the Council of Nicĉa, -by a majority vote, enacted that the Son was of the same essence -(homoousios) with the Father, yet a different person, and one-with -yet born-of the Father; a creed to that effect was framed; Arius was -sent into exile; and the leading bishops on his side were deposed. It -was a mere snatch vote by a packed jury, since only some 300 bishops -were present, whereas the Church contained at least 1,800; and five -years afterwards Constantine, who on his own part had ordered that -the writings of Arius should be burned, yet expressed himself as an -ultra-Arian, became persuaded that the heresiarch had been ill-used, -and recalled him from exile. Thereupon the restored Arian bishops -began to persecute their persecutors; and Athanasius the new bishop of -Alexandria having refused to reinstate Arius, he in turn was deprived -of his office by the Council of Tyre (335) and banished to Gaul, -other depositions following; while a large council held at Jerusalem -formally restored the Arians; and the emperor commanded the bishop of -Constantinople to receive the heresiarch. Before this could be done, -however, Arius died at Constantinople (336), apparently by poison, -and Constantine died the year after, baptized by an Arian bishop, -leaving the two parties at grips for their long wrestle of hate. Within -a few years, the emperor's son Constans was threatening to make war -on his brother Constantine if he did not reinstate Athanasius. - -No more insane quarrel had ever convulsed any society. As an -ecclesiastical historian has remarked, both parties believed in -salvation through the blood of Jesus: on this primitive dogma, -inherited from prehistoric barbarism, there was no dispute: and -the battle was over the hopeful point of "assigning him that rank -in the universe which properly belonged to him." Orthodoxy would -have it that the Son was Son from all eternity--exactly, once more, -as devout Brahmans and Moslems have maintained that the Vedas and the -Koran were "uncreated," and existed from all eternity. Man's instinct -of reverence seems to lead mechanically to such conceptions in the -absence of critical thought. But the thought, on the other side, which -made Jesus a God born in time, and homoiousios (of similar essence) -with the Father, was only relatively saner. Thus the Arians, rational -in one aspect, took their stand on a fundamental irrationality; while -the Trinitarians, as represented by Athanasius, found a sufficient -substitute for argument in boundless vituperation. The fact that -the Arians opposed monasticism and the ideal of perpetual virginity -served to heighten orthodox resentment. The hatred was beyond all -measure, and can be accounted for only by recognizing that a creed -which appeals to emotion and degrades reason is potentially the worst -stimulant of evil passions. On the intellectual side, if it can be said -to have had one, the theory of the Trinity was a simple appropriation -by Christianity of the conception of divine Triads which prevailed in -the old Egyptian and other systems; and of which the Trinity of Osiris, -Isis, and Horus was a well-known instance. Athanasius was but adding -Christian passion to yet another pagan theorem, assimilated on Gnostic -lines, with a new stress laid on the verbal affirmation of monotheism. - -The one quasi-rational argument applicable to the case would be -the non-moral one that the cult was visibly between the Scylla of -polytheism and the Charybdis of a monotheism which reduced Jesus to -mere manhood; and that if a nakedly self-contradictory formula could -preserve it from collapse on either side such a formula should be -enacted. Such an argument was of course not put forward, but probably -it appealed to some of the shrewder and less honest bishops, who in the -ensuing strifes would nevertheless adapt themselves to the political -urgency of the moment. The State had happily created a species of -official pale, within which the warring members remained nominally one -church. Within that superficies the chaos became indescribable. The -Arians in their turn broke up into half-a-dozen mutually anathematizing -sects, each brandishing a creed; and every new phase of heresy evoked -orthodox rejoinders which in turn were found to be heresies in the -other direction. On the first series of strifes followed a second, -as to the manner of the combination of the divine and human natures -in Jesus; with yet a third, over the personality or modality of the -Holy Ghost; till theology had become a kind of systematic insanity. - -While Egypt and the East were thus embroiled, northern Africa, -"orthodox" on the Trinity, was being given up to the schism of -the Donatists, one of the many outbreaks of the Puritan or ascetic -instinct there, where of old had flourished some of the most sensual -worships. The quarrel began over the election of a bishop of Carthage, -and the puritan side received its title from one or both of two bishops -named Donatus. Council after council failed to compose the feud; and -the emperor fared no better when he took from the schismatics some -of their temples, banished some of their bishops, and put numbers to -death. In the year 330 one of their councils numbered 270 bishops; and -still the schism went on growing. Any sect, it was clear, might grow -as the Jesuist sect itself had done. Alongside of the others now arose -yet a new movement, named after its semi-legendary founder, Manichĉus -or Manes, a Persian, which combined in Gnostic fashion the Christian -scheme and that of Mazdean dualism, identifying Jesus with Mithra; -and this cult in turn, being carefully organized, spread fast and far, -flourishing all the more because Manes was believed to have been put -to death by the Persian king as a heretic to Mazdeism (? 275). It had -a president, representing Christ; twelve masters, representing the -twelve apostles; and seventy-two bishops, representing the seventy-two -apostles of the third gospel or the seventy-two travelling collectors -of the Jewish patriarchs. Like most of the earlier Gnostics the -Manichĉans were "Docetists," holding that Jesus had only a seeming -body and could not really suffer; and they not only denounced the -Old Testament, calling Jehovah the Evil Spirit, but rejected the -four gospels in favour of a new one, called Erteng, which Manes -claimed to have been dictated to him by God. Improving on Montanus, -he claimed, or was made to claim, to be the promised Paraclete; thus -beginning a new creed on all fours with the Christist. On the side of -ethics the new cult extolled and professed all the ascetic virtues, -and held by a theory of a twofold purgatory, one of sacred water in -the moon, and one of sacred fire in the sun, which burned away the -impure body, leaving an immortal spirit. Giving out its independent -gospel, Manichĉism had all the popular vitality of Montanism with -the intellectual pretensions of Gnosticism. Nothing, it was clear, -could hinder the creation of new sects out of or alongside the main -body; and nothing but the most systematic and destructive persecution -could prevent their separate continuance while zeal subsisted. - -Under the family of Constantine his creed and his policy were -maintained, with no better fruits under either the personal or the -political aspect. To his three sons--Constantine II, Constantius, -and Constans--with two of his nephews, he left the empire; but -immediately the nephews were massacred with their fathers; of the -three sons the second destroyed the first in war (340); and the third, -succeeding to the western provinces of the first, fell in war with a -new competitor, Magnentius (350); whereafter Constantius, defeating -the latter by deputy, became sole emperor (353-361). To him appears -to be chargeable the deliberate assassination at one stroke of the -two surviving brothers of his father and all their sons save two, -Gallus and Julian, the sons of Julius Constans; and at his hands -began at least the theoretical persecution of paganism on the eager -pressure of the church which forty years before had been persecuted. It -thus remains matter of history that while many pagans had been in -favour of tolerance before the establishment of Christianity, the -Christians, who had naturally condemned all persecution while they -suffered from it, were ready to become zealous persecutors as soon -as they had the power. The treatise of Julius Firmicus Maternus -on pagan errors is an eager appeal to the sons of Constantine to -destroy all pagan worships. In point of fact, pagans were not the -first to suffer. Excommunications, banishments, and executions -of schismatics had been among the first fruits of Constantine's -headship; and though for a time many recoiled from putting to death -their heretical fellow-Christians, within a century that scruple too -had disappeared. Thus again was "the Church" enabled to survive. - -Christian persecution of paganism, on the other hand, did not take -effect as promptly as its instigators would seem to have wished. In -341, Constans made an absurd law that "superstition should cease, -and the madness of sacrifices be abolished," on pain of death to all -who persisted. No official action seems to have been taken under this -decree; and next year, being doubtless forced to respect the pagan -party, he enacted that though superstition must be suppressed the old -temples should be spared. In 353, Constantius in turn appears from -the Theodosian Code to have decreed that all temples throughout the -empire should be closed; that all who resorted to them or offered -sacrifice should be put to death, and their property confiscated; -and that governors who did not enforce the law should themselves be -so punished. In the same year he ostensibly struck at nocturnal pagan -rites at Rome, where Christian rites had so long been nocturnal. Three -years later, when Julian had become Cĉsar under him, he framed a law, -signed by both, which in a few words reaffirms the death penalty on -all who sacrificed, or worshipped idols--this when some Christians -were already worshipping idols in their churches. As there is no trace -whatever of any official action being taken under these laws, and as -there is abundant monumental proof that at least in the western empire -and in Egypt the pagan worships were carried on freely as before, we -are forced to conclude that the edicts, if really penned, were never -given out by Constantius. It remains on record that he, keeping the -pagan title of pontifex maximus, passed stringent laws, as Constans -had done, against all who desecrated pagan tombs; and further that he -went on paying the stipends of flamens, augurs, and vestals--personages -usually of high rank. It appears that in fact the autocrat could not -or dared not yet enforce his laws against the pagan worships. In the -East in general, however, and even in Italy, wherever temples were -unfrequented and ill defended they were liable to shameless plunder -or destruction by Christians, who were safe from punishment. - -On the other hand, Constantius multiplied the financial privileges of -Christians, giving higher stipends to the clergy and doles of corn -to the congregations. He maintained, too, an enormous retinue of -vicious Christian parasites, the whole process worsening the already -desperate public burdens, and straining to the utmost a financial -system approaching the point of collapse. As head of the Church, he -presided at Councils; and as a semi-Arian he encouraged Arianism and -persecuted Athanasianism, the orthodox not daring openly to gainsay -him. As little did either party condemn him when he brutally murdered -the young Gallus, the Christian brother of Julian, leaving only the -latter alive of all Constantine's house. To the bishops assembled -in council he announced that his will was as good as a canon; and -he forbade them to condemn opinions which he held. One bishop he -caused to be tortured; others to be banished; one he put to death; -and he would doubtless have slain Athanasius had not that great -agitator been so well concealed by the monks of Egypt. Under the -emperor's pressure the council of Rimini declared for Arianism; -and for himself he framed the new title "His Eternity," calling -himself the lord of the universe. Only the favour of the empress, -and the emperor's own fears, saved Julian from his brother's fate, -as his death seems to have been planned. - -The Church was worthy of its head. "At each episcopal election -or expulsion," says an orthodox writer, "the most exalted sees of -Christendom--Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch--furnished scenes -that would have disgraced a revolution." Julian has told how whole -troops of those who were called heretics were massacred, notably at -Cyzicus and at Samosata; while in Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, and -many other provinces, towns and villages were utterly destroyed. In -one massacre at Constantinople, the second in connection with the -forcible re-instalment of the semi-Arian bishop Macedonius (342), -there perished more than three thousand people--considerably more -than had suffered death in the whole ten years of the last pagan -persecution. The orthodox populace, divided in furious factions, -fighting like savages in their very churches, were as brutal as their -masters; and no priesthood was ever more powerless for good than the -Christian clergy in face of these horrors. Gregory of Nazianzun, whose -own ferocities of utterance illustrate the character of the period, -declared truly that he had never seen a synod do aught but worsen -a quarrel. Such was Christianity under the first Christian-bred -emperor. And if Tiridates of Armenia (conv. 302) be taken as the -first Christian king, the beginnings of State Christianity are not -greatly improved, since there the new faith was spread by fire and -sword, and the old persecuted unremittingly for a hundred years, -during which time raged many wars of religion between Armenia and -Persia. The new faith had "come not to bring peace." - - - - -§ 3. Reaction under Julian - -By common consent, the episode of the short pagan "revival" under -Julian is the most interesting chapter in the later history of -the Roman Empire proper. The one emperor after Marcus Aurelius who -attracts us as a human being and as a mind, he set himself a task -which, whether he failed or succeeded, must lift his name high -in the annals of a decadent civilization: his failure, in fact, -makes him the most living figure in the long line of autocrats -from Constantine to Charlemagne. It is by such contrast, indeed, -that he becomes eminent. Measured by the standards of progressive -civilizations, against the great minds of the pre-imperial world and -the best statesmen of later realms, he is neither a great ruler nor a -great intelligence. To look for a ruling mind of the highest order in -that environment of decay would be to miss the first and last lesson of -the history of the empire. Supposing a potentially great faculty to be -born in such a society, it could not conceivably grow to efficiency: -the intellectual and the emotional atmosphere forbade. Before there -can be all-round minds there must be all-round men; and the empire -had made an end of the species. Intellectual originality had long -disappeared from a world in which the topmost distinction stood for -mere brute force, cultured men grovelling before it like scourged -animals. The brooding intensity of Lucretius and the large sanity of -Cĉsar were become as impossible to men of the Roman name as the life -of the forum of Coriolanus' day, or the Greek literature of the age of -Aristophanes. The process of putting a yoke on the world had duly ended -in a world of yoke-bearers, whose best leaders could but harness them. - -Julian, a wistful child, saved from the massacre of his house, and -growing up in a library whose lore there was no man competent to -comment for him, became finally a believer in every religion save the -one which sought to exterminate the rest. Steeped in theosophies, -he was capable of exulting in the disappearance of the Epicureans, -the sanest because the least credulous of the philosophic sects. Yet -the lore he loved, such as it was, had sufficed to make him or keep -him a model of temperance and self-control; chaste and abstemious -while master of the world; just and magnanimous under provocations -which, if he would, he could have met by wholesale slaughter; caring -above all for the inner life while wielding capably the whole armed -power of the State. If we talk of moral success, it must still be said -that Christianity never gave any section of the Roman Empire a ruler -worthy to stand by Marcus and Julian; and that on all the thrones of -the world to-day there is no man who can be put above them for moral -nobility. If, again, we keep our eyes on the age of Constantine, -we cannot but be struck by the fact that Constantius "the pale," the -father of Constantine, a monotheist but not a Christian, and Julian, -who turned away from Christianity to polytheism, are by far the best -men in the series of rulers of that house. Christianity attracted the -worse men, Constantine and his sons, and repelled or failed to satisfy -the better; and the younger Constantius, who was bred and remained a -Christian, is the worst of all. The finer character-values are all -associated with paganism: on the Christian side there is a signal -defect of good men. - -Julian's short life was crowded no less with experience than with -study. Educated as a Christian, he learned, while his life lay at the -mercy of Constantius, to keep his own counsel as to the creed of which -he had seen such bloody fruits. It seems to have been before the murder -of his brother (354) that he was secretly converted to paganism, during -his studies at Pergamos. When he was appointed Cĉsar (355) it was -under strict tutelage; and during his five years of able generalship -as Cĉsar in Gaul and Germany--even after the legions had proclaimed -him Augustus (360)--he concealed his creed. It was only when marching -against Constantius that he avowed it, and offered sacrifices to the -ancient Gods; but when the death of the terror-stricken emperor left -him in sole power (361) he at once proceeded zealously to reinstate -the old rites. Himself an ardent idealist and practical ascetic, -he yearned to make paganism a ministry of purity and charity, which -should copy from the Christians their primary Judaic practice of -feeding the poor, and set its face against popular ribaldry as -steadfastly as they once had done, but with a Stoic temperance -rather than a gloomy fanaticism. To this end he built and endowed -new temples, re-endowed the priesthoods where they had been robbed, -and forced the return or repair of such of their lands, buildings, -and possessions as had been stolen or wrecked; at the same time taking -back the privileges and endowments accorded to the Christians. For all -this, and no less for his antipathy to the vulgar side of paganism, -he was scurrilously and insolently lampooned, notably by the pagan and -Christian mobs of Antioch; but he attempted no vengeance, though he was -sensitive enough to reply by satire. The intensely malignant attacks -on his memory by churchmen leave it clear that he never descended to -persecution, unless we so describe his action in excluding Christians -from teaching in the schools of rhetoric, for which he had at least -the pretext that they constantly aspersed the pagan literature there -studied, and ought in consistency to have left it alone. Some of -them indeed had earnestly desired the total suppression of those -very schools. What most exasperated his Christian assailants, it is -clear, was his sardonic attitude to Christian quarrels. Instead of -persecuting, he protected the factions from each other, restored -exiled heretics, and invited rival dogmatists to dispute in his -presence, where their animosities served to humiliate their creed -to his heart's content. It was the sting of such a memory that drove -Gregory of Nazianzun, bitterly conscious of Christian hates, to such -a passion of hate against Julian, whose body he would fain have seen -cast into the common sewer. - -It has been questioned whether the eagerness of Julian's desire to -discredit Christism would not have made him a persecutor had he lived -longer; and such a development is indeed conceivable. His zeal was -such that with all the load of empire and generalship on his shoulders -he found time in his short reign to write a long treatise against -the Christian books and the creed, of which his full knowledge and -excellent memory made him a formidable critic; and his tone towards -Athanasius seems to have grown more and more bitter. It is hard for -the master of thirty legions to tolerate opposition and to remain -righteous. On the other hand, Julian gave proofs not only of an -abnormal self-restraint, but of an exceptional judgment in things -purely political; and the very fact that his young enthusiasm had led -him astray, making him hope for a vital restoration of paganism out of -hand, would probably with such a mind have counted for caution after -the lesson had been learned. Falling in battle with the Persians (363) -after only twenty months of full power, he had no time to readjust -himself to the forces of things as experience disclosed them to him: -he had time only to feel disappointment. Had he lived to form his own -judgment instead of merely assimilating the ideas of his Neo-Platonic -teachers he would be in a fair way to frame a better philosophy of -life than either the polytheistic or the Christian. Such a philosophy -had been left by Epictetus, to name no other; and Julian's passion -for rites and sacrifices was really a falling below pagan wisdom and -ethics current in his time, as his facile belief in myths was a falling -below the pagan rationalism set forth a little later by Macrobius, -and not unknown in Julian's day. No less unworthy of the best pagan -thought was his affectation of cynic uncleanliness--an inverted foppery -likely to have passed with youth. A few years must have taught him -that men were not to be regenerated by pagan creeds any more than -by Christian; and to his laws for the reform of administration he -might have added some for the reform of culture. Dying in his prime, -he has formed a text for much Christian rhetoric to the effect that he -had dreamed a vain dream. Insofar, however, as that rhetoric assumes -the indestructibility of the Christian Church at the hands of pagan -emperors, it is no sounder than the most sanguine hopes of Julian. - -To say that Julian had hopelessly miscalculated the possibilities of -paganism is to misconceive the whole sociological case if it be implied -that Christianity survived in virtue of its dogma or doctrine, and -that it was on the side of dogma or morality that paganism failed. As -a regenerating force Christianity was as impotent as any pagan creed: -it was indeed much less efficacious than one pagan philosophy had -been, and had visibly set up in the State new ferocities of civil -strife. Under the two Antonines, Stoic principles had governed the -empire so well, relatively to the possibilities of the system, that -many modern historians have been fain to reckon theirs the high-water -mark of all European administration. No such level was ever reached -in the Christian empire, from Constantine onwards. Julian himself -schemed more solid reforms of administration in his one year of rule -than any of his Christian successors ever accomplished, with the -exceptions of Marcian and Anastasius; and could he have foreseen how -the empire was to go in Christian hands he would certainly have had -no reason to alter his course. To take the mere actual continuance of -Christianity as a proof of its containing more truth or virtue than -the whole of paganism is to confuse biological survival with moral -merit. "The survival of the fittest," a principle which holds good of -every aspect of Nature, is not a formula of moral discrimination, -but a simple summary of evolution. The camel which survives in -a waterless desert is not thereby proved a nobler animal than the -horse or elephant which perishes there. Christianity, as we have seen, -while utterly failing among the Jews, where it had birth, had subsisted -from the first in the pagan world (1) through adopting the attractive -features of paganism, and (2) because of its politico-economical -adaptations. Paganism--official paganism, that is--disappeared as an -institution because such adaptations were not given to it. - -Nor is it reasonable to say that Julian's undertaking was -impossible. His plans were indeed those of an inexperienced enthusiast; -but had he lived as long as Constantine, and learned by experience, -he might have witnessed his substantial success; and a century of -intelligently continuous policy to the same end might have expelled -Christianity as completely from the Roman world as Buddhism was -soon to be expelled from India. No one who has studied the latter -phenomenon can use the language commonly held of the attempt of -Julian. Buddhism, representing at least as high a moral impetus -as that of Christism, had arisen and nourished greatly in direct -opposition to Brahmanism; after centuries of success it is found -assimilating all the popular superstitions on which Brahmanism lived, -even as Christianity assimilated those of paganism; and it was either -by assimilating elements of Buddhism on that plane or by such policy -joined with coercive force that the Brahmans finally eliminated it -from their sphere. Had a succession of Roman emperors set themselves -to create a priestly organization of pagan cults, with as good an -economic basis as that of Brahmanism, or as that of Judaism was even -after the fall of the Temple, they could have created a force which -might triumph over the new cult in its own sphere even as Brahmanism -and Judaism did. And if at the same time they had left the Church -severely alone, allowing its perpetual strifes to do their own work, -it would inevitably have dissolved itself by sheer fission into -a hundred mutually menacing factions, an easy foe for a coherent -paganism. Mere spasmodic persecution had previously failed, for it is -not random persecution that kills creeds, though a really relentless -and enduring persecution can do much. In the period from 330 to 370, -and again in the sixth century, the Persian kings did actually, by -sheer bloodshed, so far crush orthodox Christianity in their kingdom -(leaving only the Nestorians as anti-Byzantine heretics) that it -ceased to have any importance there--a circumstance little noted by -those who dwell on its "success" in Europe. And the same Sassanide -dynasty, beginning in the middle of the third century, effected the -systematic revival of the Mazdean religion, which before had seemed -corrupted and discredited past remedy. - -Had Julian lived to learn in Persia the methods so successfully used -by Ardeshir, he might no less successfully have copied them. Only -an idealist like Julian, of course, would have thought the effort on -peaceful lines worth while. A much abler and better man than Jovian -would reasonably decide in his place that the religion of Mithra, -having come from the now triumphant Persian enemy, could hardly -continue to be that of the Roman army; and that the most politic course -was to revert to the cult which Julian had opposed, and whose champions -saw in his death the hand of their God working for them. Nonetheless, -the common verdict on Julian as the victim of a hopeless delusion -is hardly better founded than the gross fable that on receiving his -death-wound he cried, "Thou hast conquered, Galilean." The Christians, -indeed, might well exult and fabulize over his death. It probably made -all the difference between prosperity and collapse for their creed, -already riven in irreconcilable factions, and capable of a general -cohesion only through the coercive power of the State. - - - - -§ 4. Re-establishment: Disestablishment of Paganism - -It is significant that neither the weak Jovian, thrust on the throne by -a cabal of Christian officers at the death of Julian, nor the forceful -Valentinian who succeeded him, attempted to persecute paganism, though -both were professed Christians. In the assertions of the ecclesiastical -historians to the contrary, in the next century, the wish was father to -the thought. Jovian's ignominious retreat from Persia was made after -open pagan auguries; the nominally Christian senate of Constantinople -sent him a deputation headed by the pagan Themistius, who exhorted him -on high grounds of pagan ethics to practise an absolute toleration; -and he did, save as regards the continued crusade against secret -magical rites, though he re-established the Christians in many of -their privileges. Of Valentinian it has been said that he of all the -Christian emperors best understood and maintained freedom of worship; -and beyond confiscating to the imperial domain the possessions -formerly taken from pagan temples and restored to them by Julian, he -left them unmolested. Pagan priests of the higher grades he treated -with greater fiscal favour than had been shown to them even by Julian, -giving them immunities and honours which exasperated the Christians. It -may have been the fact of his ruling the still strongly pagan West -that made Valentinian thus propitiate the old priesthoods; but his -brother Valens, who ruled the East, enforced the same tolerance, -save insofar as he, an Arian, persecuted the Athanasians. His forcing -of monks to re-enter the curia, that is, to resume the burdens of -municipal taxation, may have been motived by dislike of them, but was a -reasonable fiscal measure. The cruel persecution of diviners, carried -on by both brothers, was the outcome at once of fear and of anger -at the rapid spread of divination, to which was devoted at that time -an extensive literature: the public or official Roman divination by -augury was expressly permitted, as were the Eleusinian mysteries. All -the while, Christians were little less given to divination than pagans. - -Thus in the thirty years from the death of Constantine to the accession -of Theodosius the Great, while the Church continued to grow in wealth, -it can have made little progress politically, and it certainly made -none morally. The law of Valentinian against the gain-seeking monks -and priests of Rome is the testimony of a Christian emperor to the -new demoralization set up by his Church. Perhaps on pagan pressure, -but apparently with emphasis, he forbade ecclesiastics to receive -personal gifts or legacies from the women of property to whom they -acted as spiritual advisers. Such a law was of course evaded by such -expedients as trusteeships: greed was not to be baulked by legal -vetoes. The higher clergy showed the same instincts; and in the -final struggle of Damasus and Ursinus to secure by physical force -the episcopal chair of Rome (366), one hundred and thirty-seven dead -bodies were counted in the basilica, Damasus having hired gladiators -to carry his point. In the provinces, doubtless, the church was often -better represented; and the new species of chorepiscopi or rural -bishops must have included some estimable men; but at all the great -Christian centres reigned violence, greed, and hate. In North Africa -the feud between the Donatists and the rest of the Church had reached -the form of a chronic civil war, in which Donatist peasant fanatics, -called Circumcelliones, met the official persecution by guerilla -warfare of the savagest sort. In the East, the furious strifes between -Arians and Athanasians were sufficient to discredit the entire Church -as a political factor; and the better pagans saw in it a much worse -ethical failure than could be charged on their own philosophies. "Make -me bishop of Rome," said the pagan prefect Praetextatus jestingly to -Damasus, "and I will be a Christian." What rational element lay in -Arianism was countervailed by the corruption set up by court favour; -and orthodoxy found its account in popular ignorance. One of the -last notably philosophic heretics was Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, -who in 343 revived the doctrine of a "modal" Trinity. Anathematized -and ostracized by Athanasians and Arians alike, he died in exile. - -The accession (379) of Theodosius, made co-emperor by Gratian, son of -Valentinian, on the fall of Valens, marks the final establishment of -Trinitarian Christianity, with the official suppression of Arianism -and paganism. The young Gratian had been partly educated under -Bishop Ambrose of Milan, one of the first notable types of masterful -ecclesiastic; and under that influence he confiscated the lands of the -pagan temples in the West, withdrew the privileges of the priests, and -caused to be removed from the Senate at Rome the ancient and sacred -statue of the Goddess Victory, formerly removed by Constantius and -restored by Julian. Fiscal needs seem to have had much to do with -the confiscations, for the economic life of the western empire was -steadily sinking. The young emperor did not attempt to prohibit pagan -worship or abolish the right of the temples to receive legacies; and -though he is said to have refused the title of Pontifex Maximus it -seems to have been officially given to him. His anti-pagan policy, -however, seems to have counted for something in his unpopularity, -which became so great that when Maximus revolted in Britain and -invaded Gaul, Gratian was abandoned on all hands. - -Maximus too was a Christian--another proof that since Constantine -many military men had come to think "the luck was changed"--and -though he conciliated the pagans he did not re-endow their cults. It -was under his auspices, too, that Priscillian, bishop of Avila, -in Spain, who had adopted Gnostic views closely resembling those -of the Manichĉans, and had been banished under Gratian, was tried -in Gaul for his heresy, put to the torture, and executed at Treves -with several of his followers. A new step had thus been taken in the -process of establishment, so that when Theodosius overthrew Maximus -and left the empire of the West to the young Valentinian, the cause -of official paganism was much weakened. And when Valentinian in turn -was deposed and slain by the pagan party, though Ambrose confessedly -thought the Christian cause in the West was lost, Eugenius did not -venture to restore to the priesthoods the possessions and revenues -which had been turned to the support of the decaying State, menaced -all along the north by a hungry barbarism that grew ever more conscious -of its power, and of the impotence of the imperial colossus. - -When Eugenius and his party in turn fell before Theodosius, the cause -of State-paganism was visibly lost; and though Theodosius died in the -following year (395) he left the old cults finally disestablished -in Italy as well as in the East. In his reign of sixteen years in -the East he had as far as possible suppressed Arianism, depriving -the Arians of their churches; had caused or permitted many of the -already disendowed pagan temples to be robbed and dismantled; and had -prohibited all pagan worships, besides continuing the crusade against -divination. Under the shelter of such persecuting edicts, monks and -other enterprising Christians, calling themselves "reformers," were -at liberty everywhere to plunder or destroy the shrines, and even to -secure the lands of pagans on the pretence that they had defied the -law and offered sacrifices. So gross became the demoralization that -Theodosius, more scrupulous than the clergy, at length passed a law to -punish the Christian spoilers; but this could not save the pagans. Many -of them, to save themselves, affected conversion, and went to Christian -altars to do inward reverence to their old Gods. There can have been -no worthy process of moral suasion in such circumstances. Coercion, -applauded by Augustine and personally practised by such Christian -leaders as St. Martin of Tours, became the normal procedure; and -naturally the constrained converts brought with them into the Church -all the credences of their previous life. For the Church, such a -triumph was glory enough, especially when there was added to it a law -by which all Christian offenders, clerical or lay, were amenable to -trial and punishable before ecclesiastical tribunals only. - -It does not appear that the many cruel laws of Theodosius against -heretics and pagans were carried out to the letter: it had sufficed -for the overthrow of official paganism that it should be cut off -from its financial basis; and the emperor not only tolerated but -employed professed pagans, being even willing to grant to those of Rome -concessions which Ambrose could not endure. On their part the pagans, -though still very numerous, were non-resistant. Broadly speaking, they -consisted of two sorts--the more or less philosophic few, who were for -the most part monotheists, inclined to see in all Gods mere symbols -of the central power of the universe; and the unphilosophic multitude, -high and low, who believed by habit, and whose spiritual needs were on -the ordinary Christian plane. The former sort were not likely to battle -for the old machinery of sacrifice and invocation; and the latter, -with none to lead them, were not hard to turn, when once new habits had -time to grow. Whoever gave them a liturgy and rites and sacraments, -with shrines and places of adoration, might count on satisfying -their religious yearnings; and this the Christian organization was -zealously bent on doing. Their festivals were preserved and adapted; -their local "heroes" had become Christian martyrs and patron saints; -their mysteries were duplicated; their holy places were but new-named; -their cruder ideals were embraced. In the way of ceremonial, as Mosheim -avows, there was "little difference in those times between the public -worship of the Christians and that of the Greeks and Romans." The -lituus of the augur had become the crozier of the bishop; the mitres -and tiaras of the heathen priests were duly transferred to the new -hierarchy; and their processions were as nearly as possible copies -of those of the great ceremonial cults of Egypt and the East. - -A sample of the process of adaptation lies in the ecclesiastical -calendar, where in the month of October are (or were) commemorated -on three successive days Saint Bacchus, Saint Demetrius, and Saints -Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius, all described as martyrs. The -five names are simply those of the God Dionysos, whose rustic festival -was held at that season. In the same way, Osiris becomes St. Onuphrius, -from his Coptic name, Onufri. It is probable, again, that from the -year 376, when the shrine of Mithra at Rome was destroyed by Christian -violence, the Roman Pope, who succeeded the high priest of Mithra -at the Vatican mount, sat in the Mithraic sacred chair, preserved -in St. Peter's to this day. As representing Peter, he bore Mithra's -special symbols. And where the higher paganism had come to repudiate -the popular religion of trappings and ceremonial no less than that of -sacrifice and that of mere self-mortification, established Christianity -placed the essence of religion anew in external usages on the one hand -and asceticism on the other; cherishing the while every "superstition" -of the past, and beginning a species of image-worship that the past -had hardly known. What was overthrown was merely public or official -worship: the religious essentials of paganism--to wit, polytheism; -the belief in the intercession of subordinate spiritual powers; the -principles of sacrifice and propitiation, penance, and atonement; -the special adoration of local shrines and images; the practice of -ritual mysteries and imposing ceremonies; the public association of a -worship with the fortunes of the State--all these were preserved in the -Catholic Church, with only the names changed. There was no "destruction -of paganism," there was merely transformation. And so immeasurably slow -are the transformations of national habit that for many generations -even the terminology and the specific usages of paganism survived in -every aspect save that of open worship; so that Theodosius and his -sons were fain to pass law after law penalizing those who ventured to -revert from Christianity to paganism. Such reversions were the measure -of the moral as compared with the official success of Christianity. - -The last act in the official crusade against paganism, open spoliation, -had become possible at length through the sheer decadence of character -in the empire. In the west, so-called Romans had lived on a tradition -of ancient rule till they were become as masquerading apes in the -light of the retrospect: all that was left of patrician semblance -was a faculty for declamation, pedantry, and pomp. The repeated -discussions over the removal of the statue of Victory were on the -senatorial side a tissue of artificial rhetoric, on the Christian -a mixture of frank bigotry and bad sophistry. Religious fanaticism, -the last and lowest form of moral energy, abounded only with the mob; -and the formless pagan crowd, never in touch with priests or senators, -and never conscious of a common centre, was useless for political -purposes when at length the upper class had need of it; while the -much smaller Christian mob, drilled and incited to a common fervour, -was a force formidable even to the autocrat. Patricians whose line -had for centuries cringed in all things political were not the men to -lose their lives for a ceremonial; and those of them who as priests -had been plundered by Gratian and Theodosius were on this side also -devoid of organization, and incapable of joint action. The rule of -Valentinian had forced the Christian Church to remain in touch with its -original and popular sources of revenue; whereas the pagan priesthoods, -once deprived of stipends and domains, had nowhere to turn to, and -may be said to have fallen without a blow, unless the deposition of -Valentinian II by Arbogastes, and the short usurpation of Eugenius, -be regarded as their last official effort to survive. - -But the cause of empire in the West was no less moribund than that -of the ancient Gods. Italy was reaching the last stage of economic -and military depletion. The richest revenue-yielding provinces of -the empire lay in Africa and the East; and when there came the fatal -struggle with barbarism, the eastern and richer part of the empire, so -long wont to act independently of the western, let that succumb. It was -at least dramatically fit that the multiform and fortuitous contexture -of Roman paganism, evolved like the empire itself by a long series -of instinctive acts and adaptations, unruled by any higher wisdom, -should yield up its official form and sustenance to feed the dying body -politic, and should be expunged from the face of the State before that -was overthrown. Augustine might say what he would to the reproachful -pagans, but the last humiliation came under Christian auspices; and -the fanatical Jerome, type of the transformation of Roman energy from -action to private pietism, had to weep in his old age that his cult -could not save the immemorial city whose very name had so long ruled -the world, and was almost the last semblance of a great thing left -in it. - -It consisted with the universal intellectual decadence that neither the -pagans nor the Christians realized the nature of either the religious -or the political evolution. The former regarded the new faith as a -blasphemy which had brought on the empire the ruinous wrath of the -Gods; the latter called the barbaric invasion a divine punishment -both of pagan and Christian wickedness, and saw in the decline of -all pagan worship the defeat of a false faith by a true. Neither -had the slightest perception of the real and human causation; the -degradation of the peoples by the yoke of Rome; the economic ruin -and moral paralysis of Rome by sheer empire: and as little could they -realize that the fortunes of the creeds were natural socio-political -sequences. What had ecclesiastically happened was essentially an -economic process, albeit one set up by a religious credence. Paganism -as a public system disappeared because it was deprived of all -its revenues; Christianity as a system finally flourished because -the church was legally empowered to receive donations and legacies -without limit, and debarred from parting with any of its property. Any -corporation whatever, any creed whatever, would have flourished on such -a basis; while only a priesthood capable of building up a voluntary -revenue as the Christian church had originally done could survive on -pagan lines after the Christian creed had been established. The pagan -priesthoods, originally generated on a totally different footing, -could not learn the economic lesson, could not readjust themselves -to a process which, as we have seen, originated in conditions -of fanatical nonconformity, which latter-day paganism could not -reproduce. But so far were the mental habitudes and the specific -beliefs of paganism from disappearing that Christian historians in -our own day bitterly denounce it for "infecting" their "revealed" -creed, which in the terms of their claim was divinely designed to -overthrow paganism, and which would assuredly have rent itself into -a medley of reciprocally anathematizing sects but for the unifying -coercion of the State. What had really died out on the "spiritual" -side was the primitive ideal of the Christian Church. What survived -as Christianity was really an idolatrous polytheism. - - - - - - - - -CHAPTER III - -FAILURE WITH SURVIVAL - - -§ 1. The Overthrow of Arianism - -Theodosius was the last ruler of the empire proper who was capable -of leading his army; and from his death onwards the fall of the -western section proceeded at headlong rate. His sons, Honorius and -Arcadius, were worse weaklings than even the sons of Valentinian: -to fit for the throne a child born in the purple, always a hard task, -seemed impossible under Christianity. At the end of the fourth century -begins the series of convulsions which mark the end of the Roman empire -properly so-called. In the year after Theodosius' death, Alaric invaded -and ravaged Greece; and, manoeuvred thence by Stilicho, proceeded -to invade Italy. The tentative character of these unsuccessful first -attempts, and of that of Rhadagast, only made more sure the triumph -of the later; and invasion followed on invasion, till by the middle -of the fifth century the West had lost Gaul, Spain, and Africa; and -in the year 476 Rome, thrice sacked, received at last a barbarian king. - -Through all these storms Christianity as a whole more than held -its ground. The invaders were Christians, like the invaded, albeit -heretics; the first conversion of Goths by the Arian Ulphilas in the -previous century having been widely extended. The form of the dogma -mattered nothing to the political function of the church, which was, -among the barbarians as in the empire, to promote centralization -up to the point at which schism became ungovernable. The Teutonic -chieftains, it is clear, saw in the Christian Church a means of -partially welding their peoples somewhat as Rome had been welded; -and while Arianism held the ground among them, it furthered the -unity that in the eastern empire was now being lost. And inasmuch as -normal community of creed made possible an assimilation between the -invaders and the conquered, Christianity positively facilitated the -fall of the western empire. In Africa, again, where the Donatists, -with their four hundred bishops, had been freshly persecuted under -Honorius, the schism helped the invading Vandals, who paid for the -Donatists' help by giving them freedom of worship. It is probable -that the Manichĉans, who were numerous in the same province, and -who were also much persecuted, at first welcomed the invaders. So -obvious was the risk of such alienations of heretics that Honorius, -listening for a moment to the advice of tolerant pagans, went so far -as to issue a law of general toleration. This, however, the orthodox -clergy forced him to repeal, and the persecution of Donatists went -from bad to worse. All the while the old paganism was still so common -in the West that Honorius, who on the advice of his pious minister -Olympius, after the fall of Stilicho, had sought to expel by edict -all pagans and Arians from the service of the State, was fain later to -entreat leading pagans to return. But the Arian Goths in turn showed -the pagans no favour; in Greece, Alaric even broke up the Eleusinian -mysteries; and the Vandals in Africa soon persecuted the Manichĉans -even more bloodily than they did the Athanasians, whom they went far -to drive out of the province. In this way they in turn weakened their -State, besides otherwise undergoing the social diseases of empire, -so that in the sixth century Belisarius was able to reconquer it for -Justinian, the emperor of the East. In Spain, conquered by the Arian -Visigoths, there was relative toleration. The Arian clergy, however, -being mostly unlettered Teutons, were less useful instruments to the -ruler than Catholics could be; and late in the sixth century a new -king at his accession there adopted Trinitarianism. - -The further the orthodox faith went, the more dangerous, it was -clear, was the position of the remaining Arian kingdoms, since -their heresy was always a pretext for a union of the others to crush -them. A barbarian king, told by his clergy that he did God service in -destroying heretics, needed little further encouragement to war; and -such counsel the orthodox Church was always ready to give. Already -at the end of the fifth century the immigrant Franks established -in Gaul under Clovis were "converted" in mass, by the mere fiat of -their king, to orthodox Christianity; and the reconquest of Italy by -Belisarius and Narses further strengthened the Catholic cause. It -was thus good policy for the Lombards, who in their turn conquered -the north and south but never the centre of Italy, to begin to give -up their Arianism at the end of the century. It is probable, however, -that in any case Arianism would in course of time have fallen in the -new barbaric States as it did in the eastern empire. The toleration -given by Theodoric in Italy, and by the earlier Arian Goths in Spain -and Gaul, to the Catholic creed, could avail nothing to stay the -orthodox purpose of destroying heresy; and the element of rationalism -on the Arian side was precisely what could least prosper in an era of -ignorance. Thus the Catholic creed had time and credulity on its side; -and, Christianity at that stage being above all things politically -useful as an aid to arbitrary government, the most pronounced and -sacerdotal and superstitious form of Christianity must be the most -useful from a calculating monarch's point of view. - -Such, broadly, was the development in the East, where the virtual -suppression or expulsion of Arianism by Theodosius and his successors -showed what persistent persecution could do when carried on by -both penal and economic means, through a hierarchy who knew how -and where to strike, and had their hearts in the work. Arianism was -not destroyed; indeed all of the great heresies of the first five -centuries--Marcionism, Montanism, Arianism, Manichĉism, Monophysitism, -to say nothing of the Nestorian Church in Asia--are found subsisting in -the eastern empire in the seventh century, despite both disendowment -and cruel persecution, thus in effect proving that had Christianity -been simply left alone, neither helped nor attacked by the State, it -would have been dissolved in a score of warring sects by the fifth -century. The Manichĉans were as inflexible as ever were any of the -Christists; and as against the convictions of the heretics in general -the moral failure of the orthodox Church was absolute. By executing -Priscillian in the fourth century it simply inflamed his following, -which was strong in Spain two hundred years later. But though the -endowed clergy could not convert or exterminate the others, they -could keep them poor and ostracized, and wield against them the -subsidized mob as well as the whole machinery of the State. Against -such oppression the heretics could not compete as the early Jesuists -had done against the careless course of paganism, with its isolated -priests, so much more often indifferent than fanatical. - -Where early Christism had met the cravings alike of ascetics, of -mystics, of simple emotionalists, and of poor seekers after a concrete -God not hedged around with altars and priests, thus appealing both to -heretic Jews and to heretic Gentiles, the later heresies ostensibly -appealed as a rule either to ascetics or to dogmatists, and offered -nothing to the multitude that it could not find within the Church, -shades of dogma apart. Manichĉism indeed remained to prove that what -was virtually a new religion could rise and persist for centuries in -the teeth of Christianity, by methods and appeals very like those of -Christism; but it also served to prove that organized and endowed -and established Christianity, inspired by an enduring hate, could -check and overshadow the rival religion where unorganized paganism, -for lack of general animus and systematic official zeal, had failed to -subdue Christianity. And the political elimination of nominal Arianism -in the West served to prove afresh that orthodoxy finally triumphed -in that regard by enlisting on its side not only the instincts of -polytheism but the interests of monarchy. It is significant that, -driven from the empire, Arianism flourished best in the barbarian -world, where for a time some mental freedom might be supposed to -subsist. If any rational motive is to be assigned for the zealous -adoption of the Athanasian creed by such rulers as Theodosius, it -is presumably their perception that the most irrational dogma went -best with discipline: that the spirit which presumed to rationalize -religion was the less ready for political obedience. On the other hand, -the Trinitarian clergy of Spain found their advantage as a hierarchy by -bringing round their Arian masters to the orthodox creed. In any case, -the triumph of orthodoxy went step for step not only with intellectual -dissolution and moral paralysis, but with the disruption of the empire. - - - - -§ 2. The Cost of Orthodoxy - -The constant law of theological development was that all stirrings of -reason were anathematized as heresy, and that dogmas became orthodox -in the ratio of their extravagance. Paganizing and polytheistic heresy -such as that of the Collyridians of Arabia (4th c.), who worshipped -Mary as a Goddess and offered her cakes (collyridĉ) as their mothers -had done to Ashtaroth, ran little risk: their heresy in fact was on -the way to be orthodoxy. Saner heresies fared differently. Late in the -fourth century we find the Italian monk Jovinian opposing asceticism, -urging a rational morality, and explaining that Mary ceased to be a -virgin on bringing forth Jesus; for which offences he was condemned in -Church Councils, flogged, and banished to a desolate island. A little -later, Vigilantius, a presbyter from Gaul, ventured to oppose the -growing worship of relics, prayers to saints, the use of sacred tapers, -vigils, and pilgrimages, as well as to decry many current miracles. So -furious was the outcry of Jerome in his case that he had to hold his -peace if he would save his life. No leading churchman said a word -for either reformer: Ambrose and Jerome both condemned Jovinian; and -the language of Jerome against Vigilantius is a revelation of the new -possibilities of intellectual malice created by creed. On this side, -human nature had reverted several degrees to Hebraism. - -Later still, the heresy of Pelagius, also a western, aroused a bitter -orthodox opposition, led by Augustine. Pelagius (a name probably the -Grecized form of the British name Morgan) and Coelestius, an Irishman, -both monks in Rome about the years 400-410, drew up a systematic -argument against the doctrines of human depravity, predestination, -and salvation by grace; denied the damnation of unbaptized infants -and virtuous unbaptized adults; rejected the Biblical teaching that -Adam died in consequence of his sin or entailed sin on posterity; -and taught a relatively rational ethic. Flying from Rome on Alaric's -invasion, they went, Coelestius to Carthage and Pelagius to the East; -the former to be condemned by a Council at Carthage (412), the latter -to be for a time supported against attacks, but later to be condemned -likewise. Henceforth the half-suppressed vestiges of Pelagianism -(chiefly in the hesitating form of semi-Pelagianism, according to -which God foreordained good but merely foreknew evil) were the only -signs left in the West, apart from Arianism, of the spirit of critical -reason, till the first stirrings of the medieval renascence. - -In the West, it will be observed, spontaneous heresy had run to -questions of action and ethics, partly following a Roman tradition -of concern for conduct, partly expressing barbarian common-sense. To -such thought, Christianity was alien, and it was cried down by voluble -theologians like Augustine, backed, doubtless, not only by the average -obedient priest, but by some who saw that the principles of Pelagius, -logically carried out, made an end on the one hand of the whole -Christian scheme, and on the other of the conception of an omnipotent -God. Such reasoners must equally have seen that the Augustinian dogmas -of predestination and grace made an end of human responsibility; and -this was urged by some Pelagians, but with no effect. The irrational -dogma best consisted with the functions and finance of the church, -and it was ecclesiastically established accordingly. - -In the East, though there also Pelagius found followers, spontaneous -heresy, as we have seen, was usually a matter of abstract dogma, as -in the schisms of Praxeas, Sabellius, Paul of Samosata, Arius, and -the Gnostics. What critical thought there was continued to follow -the lead given to it by the older Greek dialectics. Aërius, who -raised in Asia Minor in the fourth century an agitation against -episcopacy, fasts, prayers for the dead, and the ceremony of -slaying a lamb at Easter, is an exception among eastern heretics; -and the dogmatic-dialectic tendency persisted. In the fifth century, -Theodorus of Mopsuestia, a voluminous writer, taught rationally that -most of the Old Testament prophecies applied by orthodoxy to Jesus -had reference to events in pre-Christian history. Needless to say, -this was heresy. But the chief new schisms of the period were those of -Nestorius and the Monophysites. Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, -a pupil of Theodorus, but a zealous persecutor of heresy, became -embroiled in the second stage of the endless wrangle as to the nature -of Christ. In the latter half of the fourth century, Apollinaris, -Bishop of Laodicea, a strong anti-Arian, holding that the dogma of -a God-Man was monstrous, had taught that Jesus was without a human -soul (or mind, as distinguished from mere animal life), having only a -divine one. This was to "confound the two natures"; Apollinaris was -condemned; and the Syrian orthodox rectified matters by insisting -that there were two, while the Egyptians, recoiling from the risk of -a theory of two Christs, insisted that the two were nevertheless one. - -Nestorius stood with his fellow-Syrians, and sought to crush the -Apollinarians as he had helped to hound down Arians, Novatians, and -other misbelievers. The Apollinarians, however, had a stronghold in -their deification of Mary, whom they called Theotokos or Deipara, -"the mother (bearer) of God"; and when the Nestorians denounced the -common use of this term they incurred the wrath of the multitude, who, -wont in the past to worship Goddess-mothers with a special devotion, -and wroth at the attempt to put Mary lower than Isis and Cybelê, -naturally sought to exalt Mary as they had exalted Jesus. A general -Council (431) was called at Ephesus to denounce Nestorius; and he, -the heresy-hunter, was convicted of blasphemy, classed with Judas, -and banished for life. Thenceforth, orthodox Christianity was for all -practical purposes a worship of a Goddess and two supreme Gods; and -Nestorian Christianity, flourishing in Asia, where its adherents were -known by the old label of "Nazarĉans," became a hostile religion. Thus -in the East as in the West the State was riven in new religious -factions at the very hour when it needed above all things unity. Persia -was at that very time beginning the acquisition of half of Armenia, -as the Vandals were beginning the conquest of North Africa. To Persia -the Nestorians were driven; and there, declaring themselves the -friends of the enemies of the Byzantine empire, they were fostered, -while the orthodox Christians were persecuted, massacred, and expelled. - -To a thoughtful pagan, viewing the course of things, it must -have seemed as if the Gods had given over the Christians to -madness. Among the chief enemies of Nestorius was Eutyches, an abbot -of a Constantinople monastery. In the year 448, by way of making -an end of Nestorianism, he explicitly taught that Christ had only -one nature, the divine. Instantly this was in turn denounced as -a return to the Apollinarian heresy, and Eutyches was cast out of -the church by a hostile council. Another council, skilfully packed, -acquitted him, and caused his accuser to be flogged and banished; -but a third, that of Chalcedon (451), again condemned him. Thus was -the Christian dogma fixed in the form of maximum arbitrariness and -unintelligibility. The Council of Nicĉa (321) had determined against -Arius that Christ was truly God, co-equal and co-eternal with his -Father, separate and yet one; the Council of Constantinople (381) -had determined against Apollinaris that he was also truly man; that -of Ephesus (431) had established that the two natures were indivisibly -one; and that of Chalcedon (451) that they were nevertheless perfectly -distinct. All four dogmas became fixed constituents of the Christian -creed. To this length had men evolved a myth. And there were still -developments to come. - -The condemned Eutycheans, modifying their position, but still calling -themselves Monophysites, became in turn a force of fatal cleavage. The -emperor Zeno, in the year 482, conciliated them by an edict called -his Henoticon ("unifying"); but the orthodox only opposed them the -more; though all the while the Monophysites professed to regard the -"one nature" as a union of two, "yet without any conversion, confusion, -or commixture." On this absolutely unintelligible difference the sects -finally sundered their very nationality. Late in the sixth century, -under a new leader, Jacobus Baradĉus, they became known as Jacobites; -and when in the next century the rising movement of the Mohammedan -Arabs broke upon Egypt, where they abounded, the hatred of Jacobites -for Catholics was such as to make them welcome the anti-Christian -enemy, as they and others had previously welcomed the Persians -in Syria. - -It is not to be supposed, indeed, that the creed of Christianity -was the sole or primary cause of such a miserable evolution. The -very insanity of the strifes of Christians over meaningless dogmas -is primarily to be traced to the fatal constriction of life and -energy represented by the imperial system. It was because men had -no rational interests to strive over if they would that they strove -insanely over abracadabras of creed, and made war flags of the two -colours of the charioteers of the circus; even as in Egypt the abject -populations of the old cities, down to the time of Julian, fought to -the death for their respective animal-Gods. But it is essential to -note the absolute failure of Christianity to give to the decaying -civilization any light for its path. It flourished by reason of -decadence, and it could not arrest it. What ultimately preserved -any section of the Christian empire was the pagan heritage of law -and system, applied to a State shorn of all its outlying and alien -provinces, and reduced to the homogeneity and the status of a kingdom -proper with a commercial and industrial life. Justinian was fain to -set a non-Christian lawyer--Tribonian, a pagan or atheist--to frame -the code of laws by which Byzantium went on living. Himself we find -fulminating against revived heresies, anathematizing the long-dead -Origen, and latterly enouncing heresies of his own which, had he -lived longer, would have wrought fresh convulsions in the State. - -Such is the note of Greek-Christian life down to the very hour of -the supreme catastrophe which tore from the warlike Heraclius the -provinces of Syria and Egypt (632-639), and, engulfing next North -Africa, overthrew Christianity forever in the lands in which it -had been built up. Heraclius, struggling to save a shaken empire, -had early realized, as did Maurice before him, the madness of -driving myriads of Nestorians into the arms of Persia; and after -his triumph over Chosroes he sought to conciliate both Nestorians -and Monophysites by a decree (630) to the effect that, while there -were in Christ two natures, there was only one will, as was admitted -by the Nestorians. For a time all seemed well, and many Monophysites -in the outlying provinces returned to the Church. But in a few years -an orthodox zealot, Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, reopened the -eternal debate, and declared that the new formula was a revival of the -Eutychean heresy. In vain Heraclius, striving to save the remnants -of the empire, sought to enforce his solution (639) by an ecthesis, -or formula, which forbade further debate on the subject. The Catholics -decided that there were two wills, though they always coincided; and -the doctrine of one will--the "Monothelite" heresy--at length became -a ground for the repudiation of the rule of Constans II over Italy, -a hundred bishops anathematizing the typus or formula in which he -endorsed the ecthesis of his grandfather. Finally, Constantine II (681) -accepted the doctrine that in Christ two wills were harmonized, and one -more orthodox countersense was added to the definition of the God-Man -who never was. The so-called Athanasian creed--really a product of the -Latin Church some centuries later than Athanasius--is a parade of the -whole series. To this much had Christianity attained after four hundred -years of indescribable strife. The one clue through the chaos is the -perception that in every stage the dispute logically went back to the -original issue of monotheism and polytheism. The church, holding by the -Hebrew sacred books as well as its own, was committed doctrinally to -the former, but practically to the latter. Every affirmation of "one" -tended to imperil the separate divinity of the sacrificed Jesus; and -every affirmation of duality gave an opening to the polytheists. The -one durable solution was, at each crisis, to make both affirmations, -and so baffle at once reason and schismatic fanaticism. - -In effect, Christianity had become polytheistic; and were it not that -the personalities of Father, Mother and Son satisfied the average -religious need, as it had so long done in pre-Christian Egypt, the -dispute actually begun by Bishop Macedonius of Constantinople in the -fourth century over the modality of the Holy Ghost would have gone -as far as those over the Son and "the Mother of God." In its first -stage, the conception of the Holy Spirit, so vague and purposeless -in the orthodox doctrine, would seem to have been distinctly that -of a feminine Deity. We know from Origen that in the lost gospel -of the Hebrews Jesus was made to speak of "My Mother the Holy -Spirit." This was a heretical reversion, on Judĉo-Gnostic lines, -to the original Semitic theosophy, according to which every God had -his female counterpart; but ordinary Jewish monotheism, which had put -aside the female Spirit (Ruach) of its older lore, was sufficiently -strong to prevent the acceptance of such a heresy in the gospel-making -period; and the accepted gospel birth-myth was better adapted to the -general purposes of the cult. For the paganized Church, finally, the -divinization of Mary was a simple matter, as we have seen; and the Holy -Spirit, which had obscurely entered the orthodox myth in a form really -Samaritan, but permitted by Judaic doctrine, thenceforth remained a -gratuitous enigma, capping the mystery of the co-eternal Father and -Begotten Son. The Eastern Church, recoiling from a reiteration of the -latter countersense, decided (381) that the Spirit "proceeded from" -the Father, but not from the Son, thus virtually depriving the Son, -after all, of his so-often affirmed equality. - -The root of the difficulty, as of the Trinitarian dogma in general, -is to be seen in the old Egyptian pantheism, according to which the -all-comprehending Amun "is at once the Father, the Mother, and the Son -of God"; but even as the Amunite priests made play with the Son-God -Khonsu after affirming the oneness of Amun, so the Christian priesthood -was forced at every step to distinguish the Son while affirming the -oneness of the Trinity; and each new dogma was a fresh ground for -the old quarrel. In the end the Western Church rejected this Eastern -heresy as it did the Monothelite; and the Council of Toledo (589) -added to the creed the Filioque clause, thus stating that the Spirit -proceeded from the Father "and from the Son." But at this point the -Eastern Church remained obstinate; it admitted that the Spirit came -through the Son, but would not say it "proceeded from" the Son; and -the Filioque clause remained a standing ground of feud between East -and West, as well as a standing instance of the irrationality of the -orthodox system. It is no wonder that in the seventh century eastern -churchmen were still writing treatises against paganism, which, despite -all the penal laws, persisted in virtue of its incoherent simplicity -as against the systematic unintelligibility of the Christian creed. - -A politic Christian, indeed, might point to the mere history of -heresy as showing the need for a dogma which should give no foothold -to reason. Like the Arians, the Monophysites had divided into warring -sects, their crux being that of the corruptibility or incorruptibility -of the body of Christ; and the two parties thus formed split in turn -into five. The total schism was in the main racial, Egyptian opposing -Greek; and the carnal jealousies of the patriarchs and bishops seem -to have played a great part in creating it; but nothing could arrest -the process of sub-division and strife. In one furious feud over -the election of a bishop of the Monophysite church of Alexandria, -a hundred and seventy years after the first Eutychean schism, the -fighting reached the lowest stage of savagery; and Justinian's general -Narses, who supported the "incorruptible" candidate at the behest of -the empress Theodora, had to burn a large part of the city before he -could carry his point. Soon afterwards, another imperial nominee, -who entered the city in battle array, had to fight for his place; -and the carnage was enormous. In every doctrinal strife in turn the -parties proceeded to bloodshed with a speed and zest which turned to -derision the moral formulas of their creed. Such social delirium was -chronic in Christendom from the age of Constantine to the triumph of -the Saracens; and, needless to say, under such conditions there was -no progress in civilization. - - - - -§ 3. Moral and Intellectual Stagnation - -On the intellectual side, ancient Christianity is on the whole at its -strongest in the West, just before the fall of the western empire, -as if the last mental energies of the Roman world had there found -a channel. Augustine passed on to the middle ages a body of polemic -theology sufficiently vivacious to constitute a Christian classic; and -in him at last the Latin church had produced a personality comparable -to Origen. Jerome, on the other hand, could compare with Origen as a -scholar, and like him he laid bases for the scholarship of a later and -reviving age. But the total achievement of Christianity on behalf of -ancient civilization had amounted to nothing. By spreading the dogma -that error of belief, whether as paganism or as heresy, doomed men -to eternal torment, it negated the very basis of human brotherhood, -and gave a new dominion to hate, individual and corporate. It made -neither good rulers nor a sound society. Valentinian must have been -made tolerant in state affairs by the spirit of pagan policy: as a -man he was so abnormally cruel that had he been a pagan the historians -would have compared him to Nero. That a year after Julian's death there -should be on the throne a Christian emperor who caused offenders to -be thrown to wild bears in his own presence is a memorable item in -Christian history. Of his Arian brother Valens it is told that he -caused to be burned at sea a shipload of eighty ecclesiastics who -had come to him as a deputation. This may be an orthodox fiction; but -such fictions are themselves signal proofs of demoralizing malignity; -as is the orthodox suppression of the story of how the Arian bishop -Deogratius at Carthage succoured the captives brought by the Vandals -from the sack of Rome--one of the rare records of magnanimous humanity -in the history of the age. - -From the orthodox themselves we know how Pope Leo had banished and -imprisoned the Manichĉans and Pelagians who sought refuge at Rome -when the Vandals attacked Carthage. The emperors exhibit the process -of decivilization. Valentinian died of rage: his pious sons were -weaklings; and Theodosius, when the rabble of Thessalonica braved him -by murdering his governor for enforcing the law against a popular -charioteer, treacherously planned a systematic and indiscriminate -massacre by which there perished from seven to fifteen thousand -men, women, and children. No pagan emperor had ever done the like; -and no such number of Christians can have been put to death by -Nero. Heraclius, after beheading Phocas, sent his head and limbs -to be dragged through the streets of Constantinople--a reversion to -barbarism. Two centuries earlier (415) a rabble of Alexandrian monks, -acting in the interest of Cyril the Patriarch, seized the pagan teacher -Hypatia, stripped her, tore her flesh from her bones with shells, -and burned the remains. It is one of the anomalies of historiography -that a moral rebirth of the world should have been held to begin in an -age in which such things could be. Rather the Mediterranean world had -grown more neurotically evil than ever before. The facts that Bishop -Ambrose of Milan denounced the act of Theodosius, forcing him to do -penance for seven months before re-admitting him to worship, and that -Theodosius in his remorse submitted to the sentence and was afterwards -less vindictive, are the best that can be recorded per contra. Ambrose -himself warmly justified the burning of Jewish synagogues; and while -he, with all his ecclesiastical frauds, showed a public spirit, it -is a commonplace of Christian history that from the third century -onwards bishops in general were self-seekers, who battled furiously -over questions of diocesan boundaries, and were the ideal contrast -to the legendary apostles. Among the Christianized barbarians who in -their turn overran the empire the moral phenomena become even worse, -their religion seeming only to make them more savage and vicious. - -All that Christianity had yielded under the form of moral betterment -was an increasing glorification of chastity and celibacy, with some -restraint on infanticide. When the western empire is on the verge -of destruction, Rome being already sacked, we find Jerome expanding -in an insane exultation over the news that a young Roman lady had -taken the vow of virginity, an event to which he ascribes cosmic -importance. The mother of such a virgin, he declares, becomes ipso -facto "the mother-in-law of God." As always happens where sexual -virtue is identified with abstinence, vice was excessive. Chrysostom -in the East, and Salvian in Gaul, testify that alike in licence and -in cruelty the Christianized State at the beginning of the fifth -century was the worsened copy of the pagan world of four centuries -before. The Greek Basil and the Italian Ambrose alike bear witness -to the survival in the Christian Church of all the excesses of the -old Bacchanalia. Even the tradition that in the reign of Honorius -(404) the horrible gladiatorial games were abolished, is admitted by -Christian scholarship to be false. It may be that a humane monk did -lose his life in trying to stop them; but there is clear proof that -the games subsisted in Christian Gaul at a later date, though even -humane pagans had called for their abolition, and their cost was a -heavy burden on the falling revenue. Centuries before the time of -Honorius, Apollonius of Tyana was credited with causing them to be -abolished at Athens. Not till the Gothic conquest did the games cease -in the West; nor did the piety of Honorius and his advisers withhold -them from treacherous massacres, and from enacting the punishment of -burning alive for frauds on the fisc. - -And the wrong of wrongs was left not only untouched but -unchallenged. Slavery remained, and the average lot of the slave was -no better than in the Rome of Horace. Christian matrons in the East -were as cruel mistresses as those of the West in the days before -Nero. That Christian credences counted for little in setting up -even the species of virtue most esteemed may be gathered from the -Confessions of Augustine. By his own account, what first drew him in -his youth to moral reflection and conduct was not the pious teaching -of his mother but the writing of Cicero; he was scrupulous as a -Manichĉan before he became orthodox; and his charges of hypocrisy -against some Manichĉans merely place the heretical sect on a level -with the orthodox. As regarded the weightier matters of morals -there could be no vital reform, because there was at work neither an -intellectual force nor a self-saving pressure from the wronged orders -of society. The ethic which led Origen to make himself a eunuch was -not a force for betterment. - -A survey of the literature of the fourth and fifth centuries will -make equally clear the failure of Christianity to renew the mental -life which had been dwindling in the Hellenic world since the days -of Alexander, and in the western since those of Augustus. No modern -seeker for wisdom or beauty in ancient lore thinks of turning -for it to the Greek and Latin writings of the age of established -Christianity. Augustine, whose energy was sufficient for a great -literary performance, leaves a mass of work out of which two or -three treatises only have any truly literary as distinct from an -archĉological interest; and these are vitiated as compared with good -pagan work by their wearisome hysterical pietism no less than by their -utter lack of serenity. The Confessions, which might have been a great -human document, are reduced by their religious content almost to the -plane of the surrounding wilderness of rhetorical theology, whereof -a library still subsists, unreadable and unread. Rhetoric, the bane -of the decadent pagan literature, infects equally all the Christian -writers, giving to the most vehement the ring of inflation and false -passion. Literature of artistic or intellectual value was almost at -an end. Such Christian poets as Prudentius and Paulinus have indeed -merit in their kind; but they could not begin a literary renascence -under the conditions set up either by fanatical Christianity or by -the worldly spirit which divided with fanaticism the control of the -Christian Church and State in the West as in the East. And when the -spirit of literature did later revive, it turned with less zest to -the pietists named than to their pagan contemporary Claudian, who if -not a great poet is yet high among the lesser classics of Rome. - -It would seem as if Claudian, coming to the writing of Latin after -a Greek education, was partly saved by that circumstance from the -artistic fatuity which had become normal among the westerns as among -the easterns. The need to think in a new speech may have vitalized his -use of it. But he remained wholly pagan in his creed. And such pagan -thinkers as Macrobius and Simplicius, though unoriginal in comparison -with those whom they commented, reward attention in many ways better -than do their contemporaries of the Church. What of permanent appeal -there is in the teaching of Augustine comes largely from his early -philosophic culture; and Ambrose has hardly anything in the way of -serious or philosophic thought which he does not borrow from pagan -lore. Boethius, the last of the ancient philosophers, was a Christian -only in name, expounding its orthodox dogma as a lawyer might expound -law: when he came to write his consolations in prison he went back to -the ancient and universal ethic, putting aside his creed as he might -a mask. The vogue of his book in the Dark Ages is the expression of -thinking men's satisfaction in a late Latin treatise which brooded -gravely on life and death in terms of human feeling and wisdom, -with no hint of the formulas of the priest. - -On the side of science in particular and education in general the -Christian tendency was increasingly repressive. When Christianity was -established there were still grammar schools in every considerable -town in the empire, and many higher schools in the great cities; -and though for long the Christians were fain to use these schools, -pagan as they were in character, by reason of their almost purely -literary or rhetorical curriculum, the Church gradually let them die -out, never even attempting a Christian system of education, apart -from a few theological schools. Nor did the process of extinction of -knowledge end there. Early in the fifth century Theodosius II forbade -all public lecturing by non-official teachers; and a century later -Justinian plundered and abolished the philosophical schools at Athens, -thus ending the last vestige of the higher intellectual life. Pope -Gregory the Great fanatically discouraged literary culture; and in -the East it soon became a matter of orthodox rule that the laity -should not read the sacred books, the only literature that could -well come in their way. Science so-called was practically a synonym -for heresy: it was denounced as impious by zealous believers in the -third century; and in the sixth we find Cosmas "Indicopleustes," the -Indian voyager, a Nestorian Christian, denouncing the pagan doctrine -of the roundness of the earth, and religiously demonstrating that it -is an oblong plane. Medicine had gone far under pagan auspices, and -Antoninus Pius had provided for municipal physicians throughout the -empire; but the Christians, seeing heresy in all science, put prayer -and exorcism above leechcraft; the temple-schools of the healing God -Ĉsculapius were closed with the rest, and medical like other science -virtually died out of Christian hands, to be recovered from old Greek -lore by the Saracens. Gregory the Great exhibits the superstition of -an ignorant Asiatic. - -What the world needed above all things was new study and real knowledge -in place of rhetoric: the fatality of the Christian system was that -it set up the conviction that all vital knowledge was contained in -itself. Yet all the while the religious habit of mind, which saw in -pious fraud a service to deity, had almost destroyed the rational -conception of truth, so that a thousand years were to elapse before -human testimony could return to the standards of Thucydides, or human -judgment rise above a gross credulity. Had it been only in the West, -overrun by barbarism, that the lights of knowledge and art went out, -the barbarian invasion might be put as the cause; but the history -of Christian Byzantium is the history of an intellectual arrest of -a thousand years on the very soil of civilization. - - - - -§ 4. The Social Failure - -Of the eastern Christian empire as it is left curtailed of more than -half its area by the Moslem conquest, the one thing that cannot -be predicated is progress or transformation. Here again it would -be an error to regard Christianity as the cause of stagnation: the -whole political science of antiquity had been markedly conservative; -but it must be noted that historic Christianity absolutely endorsed -the ideal of fixity. Only conditions of stimulating culture-contact -could have preserved a vigorous mental life under its sway; and the -condition of Byzantium was unhappily one of almost complete racial -and religious isolation. The Byzantium of Justinian and Heraclius is -almost the ideal of ossification; its very disorders are normal, the -habitual outbreaks of a vicious organism. There is nothing in pagan -history to compare with the chronic pandemonium set up in Christian -Constantinople by the circus factions of blues and greens, whose mutual -massacres in generation after generation outdid the slaughters of many -civil wars. As painted by its own Christian censors, the Byzantine -town population of all orders was at least as worthless as that of -pagan Rome in its worst imperial days; it realized the ignorance and -unprogressiveness of imperial China without the Chinese compensations -of normal good nature, courtesy, domestic unity, and patient toil. - -Industry indeed there must have been; it was perhaps the silk -industry introduced by Justinian that began the economic salvation -of the State; but the law prescribed a system of industrial caste, -binding every man, as far as might be, to his father's trade, which -must have kept the working populace very much on the level of that -of ancient Egypt. Nor can matters have been socially much better -in the West, whether in Italy under Byzantine or Lombard rule, or -in the new barbarian States, Arian and Catholic. Everywhere the old -inequalities of law were rather worsened than cured, and no Christian -teacher dreamed of curing them. The ideals of the most earnest among -them, as Jerome and Paulinus, began and ended in mere pietism and -physical self-mortification. - -It is not surprising, then, that all over the Christian world the most -salient social result of the creed was the institution of monasticism, -a Christian adaptation of a usage long common in religious and -down-trodden Egypt. Everything conduced to promote it. The spectacle -of constant strife and sensuality in the cities moved suffering souls -of the unworldly type to withdraw to solitude or the cloister; all the -leading teachers applauded the ideal, while denouncing its abuses; -and for multitudes of unfortunate or inferior types, avoiding toil -or escaping tyranny, then as later, the life of the monk or even -of the hermit, though poor, was one of relative ease and idleness, -greatly preferable to that of the proletary, since all could count -on being at least maintained by popular charity, if not enriched by -the believers in their sanctity. To these types were added that of -the ignorant fanatic, which seems to have been as numerous as that -of the slothful, and which under monastic conditions seems to have -become more fanatical than ever. Thus some of the best and much of the -worse moral elements, the latter of course immensely predominating, -combined to weaken the social fabric, the former by withdrawing their -finer personalities from a world that doubly needed them; the latter -by withdrawing hands from labour and widening the realm of ignorant -faith. Some powerful personalities, as Basil and Chrysostom and -Gregory, were bred in the monastic life; but in the main it was a mere -impoverishment of civilization. In the critical period of Christian -history the monks are often found zealous in works of rabid violence, -such as the destruction of pagan temples and Jewish synagogues, and the -horrible murder of the pagan girl-philosopher Hypatia in Alexandria; -and they too had their furious dogmatic strifes, notably in the fourth -and fifth centuries, when those of Egypt constituted themselves the -champions of the orthodoxy (then impeached) of Origen, for no clear -reason save perhaps the fact of his self-mutilation. But, as Christian -historians have remarked, they seem to have done nothing to resist the -ruinous onslaught of Islam, which above all things despised monks. For -that matter, the hierarchy did no better. The hierocracy established -in Spain under the Visigoths served so to emasculate or paralyse the -race that after an undisturbed life of three hundred years it fell -in a day before a handful of Moslem filibusters from North Africa. - -There is reason to believe, finally, that the intellectual as well -as the political abjection of the Christian mass in Syria, Egypt, -and North Africa made multitudes ready material for Islam, even -as sectarian hatreds made others welcome the conqueror, and resent -only his toleration of their opponents. Christian faith availed so -little to make head against the new faith which assailed it, that we -must infer a partial paralysis on the Christian side as a result of -Moslem success. Success was the theological proof of divine aid; and -many calamities, such as earthquakes, had previously seemed to tell -of divine wrath against the Christian world. Such arguments shook -multitudes. Numbers apostatized at once; and when the Moslem rule -was established from Jerusalem to Carthage, the Christian Church, -tolerated only to be humiliated, dwindled to insignificance on its -former soil. In the African provinces it absolutely disappeared; -in the others it became incapable of moving either Arab or Frank -to respect. Nestorian Christianity, already settled in Persia, was -specially tolerated by the Saracens, as it had been by the Persians, -because of its enmity to Christian Byzantium; but though it continued -to subsist it was by toleration and not through strength. The Nestorian -clergy and laity throve somewhat as Jews had done in Rome; but they -made no headway against Islam, and some of the Asiatic States where -they had been numerous fell away wholly to Mohammedanism. Thus was -given once more the historic proof that any religion may in time be -destroyed or degraded by brute force, provided only that the brute -force be persistent, and efficiently applied. - -What pagan Rome did not do, for lack of systematic effort or continuous -purpose, Islam did with the greatest ease, the purpose and the effort -being wholehearted. And when we compare the later civilization of -the Saracens with that they overthrew, it is hard to feel that the -world lost by the change. If monotheism had any civilizing virtue -as against polytheism, it was the Moslems, not the Christians, who -were monotheists; and the Moslem scorn of Christian man-worship and -idolatry reproduced the old Christian tone towards paganism. On -the side of morals, Moslem polygamy was indeed relatively evil; -but on the other hand the giving of alms, so often claimed as a -specially Christian virtue, was under Islam an absolute duty; Moslems -could not hold Moslems as slaves; Islam knew no priestcraft; and it -substantially excluded the common Christian evils of drunkenness and -prostitution. Almost the only art carried on by the Byzantines from -their pagan ancestors was that of architecture, their churches being -often beautiful; and this art, as well as that of working in gold, -the Saracens preserved; while it is to their later adoption of the -ancient Greek science that the world owes the revival of knowledge -after the night of the Dark Ages. Sculpture and painting were already -become contemptible in Christian hands; and literature was in not -much better case. It is to be noted, too, that the traditional blame -of the Goths and Vandals for the disfigurement of ancient Rome is -misplaced, the worst wreckers being the generals of Justinian and -the inhabitants themselves, always ready to ruin a pagan memorial -for the sake of building material. - -When finally we seek to realize the aspect of the Hellenistic world -in the time of Mohammed, in contrast with that of the age of Pericles; -or the Rome of Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) in contrast with that -of Hadrian, we are conscious of an immense loss of human faculty for -beauty and joy, no less than for action. It is not too much to say that -the Christian ideal of sanctity meant not only self-mortification and -sadness but squalor in the individual life. Physical uncleanliness -became a Christian virtue; and the mark of a city built in the -Christian period came to be the absence of baths. Pagan Greece lives -for ever in men's thought as a dream of grace and beauty and enchanted -speech; and though behind the shining vision of art and song there -lingers immovably a sombre memory of strife and servitude, the art -and the song are a deathless gift to mankind. At every summit of its -attainment our civilization looks back to them with an unquenchable -envy, an impotent desire, as of a race disinherited. To regain that -morning glory of life is the spontaneous yearning of all who have gazed -on the distant light of it. But the man who would wish to re-create the -Constantinople of Justinian or Heraclius has not yet declared himself. - -Dream for dream, the child-like creed of the God-crowded Hellas -of Pheidias' day, peopled with statues and crowned with temples -of glorious symmetry, is an incomparably fairer thing than the -tortured dogma of the Byzantine church, visually expressing itself -in wretched icons, barbaric trappings, and infinite mummeries of -ceremonial. Idolatry for idolatry, the adoration of noble statues -by chanting bands of youths and maidens can have wrought less harm -to head and heart than the prostration of their posterity before the -abortions of Byzantine art. Superstition for superstition, there is -nothing in old Hellene religion, with all its survivals of savage -myth, to be compared for moral and mental abjection to the practice -of the Christian Greeks, with their pilgrimages to Arabia to kiss -Job's dunghill, and their grovelling worship of dead men's bones. Some -Christian historians, seeking a vital test, have concluded that under -paganism there was no good "life of the heart"; but whatever may be -the modern superiority in this regard, there is none to be discerned -in the Christian civilizations which in the seventh century still -spoke the classic tongues of paganism. - -In the West, where a spiritual power had begun obscurely to acquire -a Roman empire which parodied the old, there is indeed a potential -superiority predicable for the new. Gregory sending Augustine to -convert the Britons is a fairer moral spectacle than that of Cĉsar, -bent on plunder, seeking to conquer them. But whatever might be -the moral merit of a sincere fanaticism like that of Gregory, who -trampled down culture as eagerly as he pushed propaganda, the life -of too many Popes had already shown that the new Romanism was only -to be Cĉsarism with a difference, and that for the spiritual as for -the temporal empire the great end was gold. Tyranny for tyranny, -and power for power, the Rome of Trajan, superb and cruel, is hardly -a worse thing than the Rome in which Popes fought with hired bands -for their chair, or sat in it through the favour of courtesans; -and the Roman populace of the days of Gregory was no worthier than -that of the days of Caracalla or of Honorius. "Nothing can give a -baser notion of their degradation than their actions," says Milman, -describing the conduct of the Romans at Gregory's death, when they -had become thoroughly Christianized. As of old, the accident of real -merit in the ruler could avail for much in administration; but still -the calm Antonines can bear comparison as potentates and men with -any wearer of the triple crown. - - - - - - - - -PART III - -MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY - - -CHAPTER I - -EXPANSION AND ORGANIZATION - - -§ 1. Position in the Seventh Century - -When the swift triumph of Islam had cut off from Christendom the -populations among whom its creed had been evolved, that creed ruled in -the Byzantine State; in Italy, still half-imperial, half-Lombardic; -in Spain, then under Teutonic masters; in Frankish Gaul; in parts of -southern Germany; in Saxon Britain, of which the conversion was begun -by the lesser Augustine under Gregory the Great, after the overthrow -of the earlier Church by the heathen invaders; and in Ireland, which -had been largely Christianized in the fourth and fifth centuries, -apparently by Greek or eastern means. In the Moslem world, Christianity -existed on sufferance, and chiefly in heretical forms, being Nestorian -in Persia and Monophysite in Egypt, as also in Abyssinia; but Christian -Europe was now nominally agreed on the main official dogmas. - -In the more civilized European States, specific paganism still throve -more or less obscurely, both by way of educated antiquarianism and -of peasant persistence in old ways; and the Church framed canons -against the latter and treatises against the former. The mass of the -population, however, was satisfied with the ample elements of the old -system embodied in the new. In the more barbaric States, Christianity -was even less of a modifying force than in the others. Like the -people of the empire, the barbarians carried on their pagan rites, -festivals, and superstitions under the name of Christianity; and -whereas the educated world was in a measure forced by its pessimists -and its pietists to recognize the difference between its documents and -its practice, the more primitive races simply translated Christian -tradition and theory into the terms of their own life. Save for -an exaltation of celibacy, and a confessional inquisition, at once -prurient and puerile, into the details of the sexual relation, it in -no way changed the plane of their thought and conduct. What it did -alter was their political life, inasmuch as the co-ordination of the -priesthood made everywhere for the power of the prince, if he had the -wit to use it, the Church being everywhere shaped as far as might be -on the model and the ideal set up by Constantine. - -Wherever the Roman empire had been, unless anti-Christian violence -has intervened, the Church system to this day bears witness to the -union of Church and State. In France, for instance, there is still -a bishop, as a rule, wherever there was a Roman municipality, and -an archbishop wherever there was a provincial capital; and where in -imperial territory there were variations in the administration of -rural districts--some being under their own magistrates, some under -those of neighbouring towns--the Church system varied similarly. In -the East, rural bishops, or chorepiscopi, were common; but in the -West they seem to have prevailed only in the Dark Ages, the general -tendency being to give the rank of mere priests to the holders of -country benefices, and to make bishops the rulers of dioceses from -an urban seat or "cathedral" church. Country parishes, on the other -hand, were formed into groups, presided over by an archipresbyter, -without episcopal rank. The spirit of imperial rule pervaded all -Church life. Where large landowners under the Christian emperors had -sought to resist the centralizing system by appointing the priests -on their own estates, they were compelled to obtain the approval of -the nearest bishop; and when they sought next to do without priests, -a law was passed forbidding laymen to meet for worship without an -ecclesiastic. This principle was carried wherever the Church went, -and rigid subordination was the general result. To secure stability, -however, the Church had to rest on a recognized economic interest -throughout the priesthood; and the early practice of a communal life -for the bishop and his clergy, which was still common in Gaul and -Spain in the seventh century, was gradually broken up. The competition -of monasticism first forced upon all a stricter rule; and priests -living in their bishop's house became known as canonici regulares, -"canons regular," or under rule--a duplication of terms, since "canon" -originally meant "rule," and "canonical" was simply "regular." But -the obvious financial advantages, as well as the liberties of the -unattached priests, soon made their status the aim of all not devoted -to the monastic ideals. The change was furthered by the habit of -leaving endowments to individual churches and to individual offices; -till at length, even in the cathedral towns, the canons lived apart, -each with his own revenue, though often dining at a common table; -while the country priests necessarily became still more their own -masters in the matter of income. Thus arose the "secular clergy," -the title of "regular" being restricted to those who lived under a -monastic rule--as that of Benedict or that of Augustine; and these -in turn came to be classed with monks as distinguished from the -others. In addition, there sprang up in the Middle Ages a number of -unattached or itinerant priests, as well as private chaplains. - -In every order alike, however, an economic interest was sooner or -later the ruling motive. Beneficed priests wrought for the church -under which they had their income, keeping as much of it as they could, -but recognizing the need for official union; and the monastic orders -in their turn grew wealthy by endowments, and zealous in proportion -for the temporal power of the Church. As always, the self-denying -and devoted were a minority; but the worldly and the unworldly -alike wrought everywhere in the political interests of the kings, -who had established and endowed the Church to begin with, and who -in return were long allowed many liberties in the appointment and -control of bishops and priests. A common result was the appointment -of lay favourites or benefactors of the king; and bishoprics seem -almost as often as not to have been in some degree purchasable. The -Church, in short, was a social and political function of each State, -with the papal system loosely and variably co-ordinating the whole. - - - - -§ 2. Methods of Expansion - -Every extension of the Church being a means of power and revenue to -priests, the process was furthered at once by motives of selfishness -and by motives of self-sacrifice. In some cases the latter were -effectual, as when a pious hermit won repute among barbarians for -sanctity, and so acquired spiritual influence; but the normal mode of -conversion seems to have been by way of appeal to chiefs or kings. When -these were convinced that Christianity was to their interest, -the baptism of their more docile subjects followed wholesale. Thus -ten thousand Angli were claimed as baptized by Augustine in Kent on -Christmas Day in the year 597--a transaction which reduced the rite to -nullity, and the individuality of the converts to the level of that of -animals. In this case there can have been no rational consent. A little -later, Heraclius in the East caused multitudes of Jews to be dragged to -baptism by force; and the same course was taken in Spain and Gaul. Jews -so coerced were only more anti-Christian than before; and wholesale -relapses of barbarian converts were nearly as common as the wholesale -captures, till the cause of kings won the mastery. Nowhere does the -Church seem to have grown from within and upward among the barbarians -as it had originally done in the empire: the process is invariably -one of imposition from without and above, by edicts of kings, who -supported the missionaries with the sword. As at the outset of the -Church, there were deadly strifes among the pioneers. The earlier -British Church having been formed under influences from Ireland, there -was such utter hatred between its remnants and the Romanized Church -set up by Augustine that, apparently after his death, twelve hundred -monks of the older church were massacred at Bangor in one of the wars -between the two Christian parties; and the Britons, not unnaturally, -refused to have any intercourse with their brethren, regarding them as -worse than heathens. The Englishman Boniface, who played a large part -(720-55) in the Christianization of northern Germany, and who in the -usual fashion claimed to have baptized a hundred thousand natives in -one year, secured the excommunication of several rival bishops of the -anti-Roman school; and those who would not accept re-ordination at -his hands he sought to have imprisoned or flogged, denouncing them, -in the style of the Churchman of all ages, as "servants of the devil -and forerunners of Antichrist." His authority was established in new -districts at the head of an armed force; and when with fifty priests he -met his death (755) in Friesland at the hands of heathen natives, he -was marching with a troop of soldiers. Even where force was not used, -the persuasions offered were of the grossest kind. Thus a friend of -Boniface is found advising him to point out to the heathen that the -Christians have the bulk and the best of the world, possessing all -the rich lands which yield wine and oil, while the pagans are now -confined to the coldest and most barren regions. No religion was ever -more unspiritually propagated. - -Under Charlemagne, Christian missionary methods left those of Islam -in the rear. For the subjection of the still free Saxons, between the -Baltic and the borders of Thuringia and Hesse, he needed the aid of -the Church's organization; and they, realizing the state of the case, -for the most part refused to be baptized. In his wars with them, -accordingly, he decreed that those who rejected the gospel should be -put to death. As the wars lasted thirty-three years, the number of -the slain must be left to imagination. The survivors were finally -bribed into belief by a restoration of their local rights, and by -being freed from tribute to the king. They do not seem, however, to -have been freed from the exactions of the Church, which, according to -the testimony of Charlemagne's adviser, Alcuin, had been a main cause -of the exasperation of the Saxons against it. Among those exactions -Alcuin mentions not only tithes--which had now become a recognized -form of Church revenue--but the infliction of many penalties for moral -and ecclesiastical offences. Such exactions the monarch endorsed; -and he it was who enforced the payment of tithes. - -King and priest were thus natural allies as against the freemen or -the chieftains in each territory; and the advance of the Church was -bloody or bloodless according as the king was able to enforce his -will. In the Scandinavian countries the founding of Christianity was -a life-and-death struggle, lasting in all for some two hundred and -fifty years (820-1075), between the local liberties, bound up with -pagan usages, and the centralizing system of the Church. Again and -again the Church was overthrown, with the king who championed it; -and the special ferocity of the marauding vikings against Churchmen -wherever they went seems to have been set up by their sense of the -Church's monarchic function. The fact that many priests were ex-serfs -made them the more obnoxious; and they in turn would strive the -more zealously for the Church's protecting power. But the Church's -political work did not end with the humbling of the vikings, as such, -at the hands of the kings who finally mastered them; it endorsed the -aggressive imperialism of the Danish king Knut as it had done that -of Rome; and never till the time of the Crusades does the ostensible -universality of the Church seem to have checked the old play of racial -hatreds and the normal lust of conquest. So clearly did Charlemagne -realize the political use of the Church that, while he imposed it -everywhere in his own dominions, he vetoed its extension to Denmark, -where it would be a means of organizing a probably hostile power, -many of the stubborn Saxons having fled thither. From the moment of -its establishment it had been stamped with the principle of political -autocracy; and only when its own mounting power and wealth made -it a world-State in itself did it restrain, in its own interest, -the power of kings. In the earlier stages, king and Church supported -each other for their own sakes; and it was as a political instrument, -whose value had been proved in the Roman Empire, that the Church -was sooner or later accepted by the barbarian kings. All the while -popes and prelates complained bitterly that many of the converts -thus won were baptized and rebaptized, yet continued to live as -heathens, slaying priests and sacrificing to idols. When, however, -open heathenism was beaten down, the combined political and religious -prestige of the Christian priest gave him a hold over the multitude, -forever superstitious, such as those of the heathen times had never -wielded save in Gaul. To the new regal tyranny was added that of -the Church. When the Servians, who had been nominally Christianized -under the rule of Byzantium in the eighth century, regained their -independence in the ninth, they significantly renounced Christianity; -and only after re-conquest were they again "converted." To this day -their old pagan beliefs abound under cover of Christianity. - -To the general rule of propagation by regal edict or by bloodshed -there were a few partial exceptions. Vladimir, the first Christian -king of the Russians (980), destroyed the old monuments and images -in the usual fashion; but under the auspices of his wife, the sister -of the Byzantine emperor, Greek missionaries set up many schools and -churches, and the kingdom seems to have been bloodlessly Christianized -within three generations. It accordingly remained Christian under -the two and a half centuries of Mongol rule, from 1223. Elsewhere the -conversion of the Slavs was a process of sheer monarchic violence, as -in Scandinavia. Always it was the duke or king who was "converted," -and always his propaganda was that of the sword. Through three -reigns (870-936) heathen Bohemia was bedevilled by dukes who coerced -their subjects with the Church's help; a pagan prince who led a -successful revolt, but was overthrown by a German invasion, lives -in history as Boleslav the Cruel; and an equally cruel successor, -who with German help used the same means on behalf of Christianity, -figures as Boleslav the Pious (967-999). The same process went on -in Poland; the converted duke (967), backed by his German overlords, -seeking to suppress pagan worship with violence and meeting violent -resistance. So among the Wends, who were also under German vassalage, -the missionary was seen to be the tool of the tyrant, and the cause -of paganism was identified with that of national independence. After -generations of savage struggle, Gottschalk, the pious founder of the -Wendish empire, was overthrown (1066) and put to death with torture. So -in Hungary, where king Stephen (997-1038) combined slaughter with -better propaganda, the king's death was followed by a desperate pagan -revolt, which was twice renewed under his son. - -Century after century, expansion proceeded on the same lines. The -Finns, conquered in the twelfth century by a Christian king of Sweden, -were still persistently pagan in the thirteenth, and were bloodily -coerced accordingly. In the conversion of the Slavonic Pomeranians -in the twelfth century, armed force, headed by the duke, was needed -to secure wholesale baptisms after the fashion of Augustine and -Boniface; the people of Lübeck, on the opportunity of an emperor's -death, revolted in favour of paganism and independence; and the -pagans of the Isle of Rügen were Christianized in mass by Danish -conquest (1168). It is recorded by the biographer of St. Otho that -the Pomeranians expressly rejected Christianity on the score of its -cruelty, saying, "among the Christians are thieves and robbers [unknown -among the heathen Slavs]; Christians crucify men and tear out eyes and -do all manner of infamies; be such a religion far from us." The attempt -to convert Livonia by preaching was an absolute failure; two crusades -had to be set on foot by the Pope and the surrounding Christians to -crush its paganism (circa 1200); and finally an "Order of the Sword" -had to be organized to hold the religious ground. A little later, -two "Orders of Teutonic Knights" in succession were established to -conquer and convert the heathen Prussians; and after sixty years of -murderous and ruinous warfare, "a broken remnant, shielded in some -measure by the intervention of the popes, were induced to discontinue -all the heathen rites, to recognize the claims of the Teutonic Order, -and to welcome the instruction of the German priests." Another remnant, -utterly unsubduable, sought refuge with the heathen of Lithuania. - -The summary of seven hundred years of Christian expansion in northern -Europe is that the work was in the main done by the sword, in the -interests of kings and tyrants, who supported it, as against the -resistance of their subjects, who saw in the Church an instrument for -their subjection. Christianity, in short, was as truly a religion of -the sword as Islam. When the Mongols conquered part of Russia in 1223 -they not only left the Christians full religious liberty, but let the -priests go untaxed; and similarly the Turks left to the Bulgarians -their faith, their lands, and their local laws. Christianity gave no -such toleration; the lands of the heathen Slavs and Prussians being -distributed among their German conquerors. The heathen, broadly -speaking, were never persuaded, never convinced, never won by the -appeal of the new doctrine: they were either transferred by their kings -to the Church like so many cattle, or beaten down into submission -after generations of resistance and massacre. For a long time after -the German conquest any Slav found away from home was liable to be -executed on the spot, or killed like a wild beast by any Christian -who would. And centuries after the barbarian heathenism of Europe -was ostensibly drowned in blood, Christian Spain, having overthrown -the Moslem Moors, proceeded in the same fashion to dragoon Moslems -and Jews into the true faith, baptizing in droves those who yielded -or dissembled, and driving out of the country myriads more who would -not submit. The misery and the butchery wrought from first to last -are unimaginable. If the Spanish conquests of Mexico and Peru, with -their Church-blessed policy of suppressing heathenism, be added to the -record, the totality of evil becomes appalling; for the Spanish priest -Las Casas estimated the total destruction of native life at twelve -millions. All this slaughter took place by way of "expansion," and is -exclusive of the further record of the slaughters wrought by the Church -for the suppression of heresy within its established field. It is a -strange prepossession that, in face of such a retrospect, habitually -concentrates Christian thought on the remote and transient persecutions -of Christianity by ancient paganism. If the blood shed on the score -of religion by anti-Christian paganism and Christianity respectively -be carefully estimated, the former might say to the latter, in the -words of the latter-day heathen king of the Zulus who was crushed -by an ostentatiously Christian statesmanship: "The blood shed in my -reign was, to the blood shed since, as an ant in a pool of water." - - - - -§ 3. Growth of the Papacy - -One marked result of the triumph of Islam in the East and of barbarism -in the West was the growth of the Roman Papacy as the supreme -ecclesiastical power in Latin Christendom. So long as an emperor -had his seat in Italy, the bishop or patriarch of Rome was kept in -subordination to the State; and at Constantinople the subordination of -the patriarch never ceased. But even in the period from the reconquest -of Italy under Justinian to the final renunciation of Byzantine rule, -though the Roman patriarchs depended on the emperor to ratify their -election, the curtailment of the eastern empire, narrowing as it -did the range of the eastern Church, weakened that relatively to the -western; while the absence of local monarchy left the way open for -an ecclesiastical rule, calling itself theocratic. Had the Italian -kingdom of Theodoric subsisted, the development would certainly have -been different. As it was, even he, an Arian, was called in to control -the riotous strifes of papal factions in Rome. - -It belonged to all the patriarchates, as to all bishoprics, that -their tenants should magnify their office; and even in the second -century we have seen signs of an ambition in the Roman bishop to -rule the rest of the Church. Already, presumably, there existed the -gospel text: "Thou art Petros, and upon this rock (petra) I will -build my Church"--an interpolation probably made in the Roman -interest, and sure to sustain a Roman ambition for general headship. -But as late as the fifth century some codices seem to have read simply -"Thou hast said"; (sy eipas instead of sy ei Petros); and in the -third we find Cyprian of Carthage insisting on the independence of -his Church while admitting the ceremonial primacy of Rome--a proof -that the Roman claim was being pushed. In the fourth century Pope -Damasus sought to induce the eastern bishops to go to Rome for the -settlement of disputes as to certain eastern bishoprics; but was -sardonically admonished by a unanimous eastern council to alter his -attitude. While the old empire subsisted, the Roman bishop could get -no further than his old ceremonial status as holding the primary -see in order of dignity. Neither the emperor nor the patriarch at -Constantinople would consent to vest any supreme authority in the -bishop of the ancient and relatively effete capital; and Theodosius -definitely constituted the patriarch of Constantinople the equal of him -of Rome (381), though ceremonially second to him. At the same time, -the patriarch of Constantinople was set above those of Antioch and -Alexandria, a step which promoted the worst of the later schisms and -so helped to lose Egypt and Syria. On every side, the normal egoisms -and racial instincts can thus be seen determining the fortunes of -the faith. The fling of the Greek Basil at Rome, "I hate the pride of -that Church," is typical. Even while the Roman bishop was pushing his -claims to primacy, the see of Constantinople, backed by the emperor, -was taking province after province from the Roman jurisdiction; and in -451 the Council of Chalcedon, with the support of the eastern emperor, -decreed that the bishop of "New Rome" should enjoy equal honour and -privilege with his rival. At the same period the bishop of Jerusalem, -claiming primacy in his turn, contrived to gain ground as against -those of Antioch and Alexandria. Each patriarchate fought for its -own hand. The use of the special title of "Papa" by him of Rome was -probably an imitation of Mithraism, in the hierarchy of which the -chief priest was "Father of Fathers" as the God was "Father Mithra," -and, like Attis, probably called Papa. In the Eastern Church the name -became general, all priests being "popes." - -In the history of the Papacy, it is the two early bishops most -distinguished for widening the power of the Church that alone have won -the title of "Great"--to wit, Leo I (440-61) and Gregory I (590-604), -of whom the first began to build up the Church's local patrimony -on the fall of the western empire, and the second to establish -her spiritual reign in the north. It is under the latter that the -destiny of the Roman see as the head of the western Churches begins -clearly to reveal itself. The patriarch of Constantinople of that day -took to himself the title of OEcumenical or Universal; and Gregory, -whose predecessors had aimed at that very status, pronounced the -claim blasphemous, antichristian, and diabolical. A few years later, -he was securing through the lesser Augustine his own supremacy over -the previously independent Churches of Britain. He even seems to have -cringed to the usurping Byzantine emperor Phocas in order to get him to -veto the claim of his rival, a concession which appears to have been -granted to Boniface III in 606. Still, the papacy had to fight hard -for its claims in Britain, Gaul, and Spain; and towards the end of -the seventh century Bishop Julian of Toledo is found rating Benedict -II for ignorance and jealousy. As Julian was nevertheless sainted, -we may infer that the jealousies of rival candidates for the papacy, -leading to changes of policy, often checked its political growth. But -events forced a policy. In the eighth century the iconoclastic emperors -quarrelled with the papacy (under Gregory II) as well as with Greek -orthodoxy; whereupon the northern Lombards sought to become masters of -what remained of imperial territory in Italy; and of a series of eight -or nine Popes (730-72) the majority were fain to call in the help of -the Franks. Charles Martel did not actively respond; but his son Pepin -did twice, and as victor presented to the Pope (754) the sovereignty -of the exarchate, receiving in return the pontiff's sanction to depose -the last feeble Merovingian king, in whose name the house of Pepin had -ruled. The end of the new departure was the conquest of the Lombards by -Charlemagne in 774, and the establishment in 800 of the new "Holy Roman -Empire," wherein the Pope was the spiritual colleague of the emperor. - -Hitherto the bishop of Rome had been popularly elected like every -other, and subject like every other to acceptance by the emperor. But -after Pope Zacharias (741-52) the eastern emperor was ignored; and -Charlemagne was crowned as the successor, by Roman decision, not of -the old emperors of the West, but of the line of emperors which in -the East had never ceased. Constantine VI, who had just been deposed -by his mother Irene (797), was the sixty-seventh "Roman" emperor -in order from Augustus, and Charlemagne was enrolled in the West -as the sixty-eighth. He even received, with the diplomatic assent -of the Moslem Haroun Alraschid, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre from -the Patriarch of Jerusalem--an empty but suggestive honour. It was -thus inevitable that the new imperial line should sooner or later -seek to hold power over the papacy as the old had claimed to do; and -Charlemagne made his force felt very much as Constantine had done, -going even further in the way of appointing bishops, and lecturing the -pope at times with the consciousness of virtual supremacy. So long as -the emperor, needing and using the services of the Church to organize -his administration, enriched the hierarchy on all hands, enforcing -tithes and protecting the entire priesthood against lay turbulence, -his pretensions were naturally allowed. Everything depended on the -strength of the ruler; and already under Charlemagne's good but weak -son Louis we find many of the bishops, backed by the pope, supporting -the emperor's rebellious sons and claiming to depose him. About 875, -again, we find Pope John VIII not only hectoring the weak Charles the -Fat, but claiming the right to choose the emperor. Until, however, -there began to rise in Italy a new and vigorous civilization, the -papacy was on the whole discreetly subject to the ratification of -the northern emperors; and this is perhaps the period of maximum -demoralization and dishonour in its history; its economic evolution -being very much on the lines of that of the original Church in the -centuries from its establishment by Constantine till the humiliation of -the empire by the Moslems. Intellectually, the papacy had no prestige -within the Church. It was in 824 that a council of Frankish bishops -at Paris, following on previous declarations, denounced as absurdity -the decrees of the Pope enjoining the worship of images. Even when -the Pope Gregory IV entered France to support the bishops who backed -the rebellious sons of Louis, and threatened to excommunicate those -on the emperor's side, the latter treated him with indignant contempt. - -It is in this period, however, that there begins the process of -documentary fraud by which the Church, wielding the power of the -pen, gradually circumvented that of the sword. Centuries before, -the Roman see had made use of forged documents in its disputes with -Constantinople; and the Greeks of the day declared such forgeries to -be a special Roman industry. As a matter of fact, most of the early -ecclesiastical forgeries had been of eastern origin: for instance, -the so-called Apostles' Creed and the Apostolical Constitutions. Of -these the first grew up fortuitously in the third century, and received -its name after it won currency. Only in the later middle ages was it -adopted by the Latin Church. The Constitutions again were a deliberate -compilation; and the Roman Church had invented nothing on the same -scale. But in the ninth century there was trumped-up among the -Frankish bishops, under the name of Isidore (ostensibly the popular -encyclopedist of Seville, d. 636), a collection of professedly -ancient but really spurious papal decretals, partly proceeding -on previous practice, but greatly developing it as regarded the -local independence of bishops and their right of appeal to Rome. The -original motive of the fraud was local episcopal interest, the bishops -having endless causes of grievance against their archbishops, kings, -and lay lords. But Pope Nicholas I (858-67) adroitly adopted the -forged decretals, professing to have had ancient copies of them, -and thenceforth they were made the basis of the papal claims wherever -political circumstances gave a good opportunity. The bishops, being -thus delivered over to the papacy, lost much more than they gained. A -common use now made of the growing papal power was to give monasteries -an exemption from the local bishop's rule; and as the monks in general -at this period had a higher character for sanctity that the bishops, -who were often extremely unreverend, local sympathy was apt to go -with the former, and with the pope, whose distant misdeeds were little -known to the laity. - -As in previous ages, nevertheless, the disorders of the papacy itself -greatly hampered its advance. In the period from John XVIII to Leo IX -(1003-1048) six popes were deposed, two murdered, and one mutilated; -prolonged contests for the chair were frequent; and in the main it -was disposed of by factions of the Roman and Italian nobility. For -a time the counts of Tuscany made it hereditary in their family; -and once a Roman courtesan of the higher order decided the election, -by help of the general worthlessness of the Roman electoral populace, -who, having neither commerce nor industry, were fed by papal doles as -of old they had been by the emperors. In the tenth century, the papacy -had reached its nadir. The general expectation, based on the Apocalypse -and other Christian tradition, that the world would end with the year -1000, seems to have turned the thoughts of the more serious away from -worldly questions; while the more reckless types, lawless at best -in that age, exhibited something of the wild licence seen at times -in cities stricken by pestilence, and ships about to sink. When the -dreaded year was passed, riot was even quickened; but in the eleventh -century a moral instinct began slowly to assert itself. The elections -to the papacy had become so scandalous and ruinous--three pretenders -claiming the chair at once--that the clergy themselves conceded to -the emperor Henry III, in the year 1047, the right to appoint popes; -and he used his power four times with judgment and success. - -Naturally, however, the reform strengthened the papacy rather than -the emperor. Pope Nicholas II, acting on the advice of his powerful -secretary, the monk Hildebrand, who was to be one of his successors, -decreed (1059) that the election of all bishops should lie with the -local "chapters" and the pope; and that the election of the pope should -in future be made by the seven cardinal bishops of the Roman district, -with the assent first of the cardinal priests and deacons of the Roman -churches, and next of the laity; the choice to be ratified by Henry -IV, then a minor, or by such of his successors as should obtain the -same privilege. Yet, on the death of Nicholas, Hildebrand procured -the election and consecration of Alexander II, without waiting for -any ratification; and when he himself became pope as Gregory VII -(1073) he was on the alert for his famous struggle with Henry over -the claim of the temporal power to appoint bishops. Standing on the -forged decretals, with an almost maniacal belief in his divine rights, -he claimed as pope not only the sole power to confirm bishops, but -the power to take or give the possessions of all men as he would; -and he threatened deposition to any king who dared to gainsay him. It -was in the course of the struggle with Henry, by the use of the now -common weapon of excommunication, that he reduced the emperor to his -historic act of self-abasement (1077) at Canossa. - -The circumstances were in the main in the pope's favour. Henry was -rebelled against in Germany, and Gregory was well able to manipulate -disaffection. At the same time, Gregory's strenuous efforts to "reform" -the Church by forcing celibacy on the entire priesthood had set -against him multitudes of the Italian and northern clergy, married and -unmarried; and these were indignant at Henry's surrender. Stimulated -by their protests, and by the sympathy of various kings whom the -pope had arrogantly menaced, he took heart, put down his rebels and -rivals at home, and marched in force into Italy, where he met almost -no resistance and was crowned by the antipope Clement III, whom he -and his party had appointed. Gregory, besieged by his own flock in the -castle of St. Angelo, called in his late-made ally the Norman Robert -Guiscard, Duke of Sicily, who in releasing him burnt much of the city, -and, after a sack and massacre, sold most of the remaining inhabitants -as slaves. Everywhere the pope's cause was lost, and he died defeated, -in exile at Salerno under Norman protection, hated by both priests -and people as the bringer of slaughter and misery on Germany and -Italy alike. The "reforming" pontiff had wrought far more evil than -his most sinful predecessors, and still the Church was not reformed. - -Henry, rebelled against by his sons, died broken-hearted like his -enemy; and for half a century the strife over "lay investitures" -was carried on by popes and emperors. The papacy had thus become -the evil genius at once of Italy and of Germany, entering into and -intensifying every Italian feud, and giving to German feudalism a fatal -ground of combat for centuries. Out of all the strife the papacy made -ultimate profit. When the war of the investitures was over, it built -up the Decretum of the monk Gratian, a code embodying the Isidorean -frauds with others, such as the gross pretence that St. Augustine had -declared the Decretals to be of the same status with the canonical -scriptures. The war, meantime, had ended in a compromise from which -also the papacy substantially gained. The result was to turn it ere -long into a vast system of financial exploitation. Every evil in the -way of simony and corruption against which Hildebrand had revolted -was further developed under papal auspices. The people lost all power -of electing their bishops; and the rich chapters, on whom the right -devolved, became the field of simony for the nobles; while the pope -drew from the sale of his ratifications an immense revenue. So rapid -was the effect of the new relation that by the middle of the twelfth -century the bulk of the current literature of Europe, serious and -satirical, was bitterly hostile to Rome, which now impressed many -instructed men chiefly as a great machine for extortion. While the -Church officially denounced usury, its own usurers were everywhere -drawing interest from prelates who had had to borrow money to buy -their investitures. The pretence of making the clergy "unworldly" by -enforced celibacy was under such circumstances not edifying. Needless -to say, while clerical marriage could be officially put down, clerical -concubinage was not. - -The strength of the papacy as against its many enemies lay (1) in -the strifes of States and nations, in which the pope could always -intervene; (2) in the feeling of many serious men that a central -power was needed to control strife and tyranny; (3) in the compiled -system of canon law, which expanded still further the code of the -Decretals and of Gratian, and constantly exalted the papal power; -(4) in the orders of preaching friars, who acted as papal emissaries, -and kept in partial discredit the local clergy everywhere; and (5) -in the power of the pope to appeal to the worst motives of ignorant -believers. Thus at the beginning of the thirteenth century Innocent -III, a zealous champion of the papal power, was able in the teeth of -the common hostility of educated men to evoke an immense outburst of -brutal fanaticism by offering indulgences, spiritual and temporal, to -all who would join in a crusade of massacre against the Albigensian -and other heretics of Languedoc, where the Paulician and other -anti-clerical doctrines had spread widely. Twenty years of hideous -bloodshed and demoralization went far to create an atmosphere in -which criticism could not breathe; and the whole evocation of the -eastern Crusades, both before and after this period, was carried on -by the popes with a clear perception of the gain to their authority -from the armed consensus of Christendom under their appeal, on the -proffer of indulgences. They had hoped to extend their rule over the -East, Christian and paynim; but though this dream came to nothing they -were nonetheless aggrandized by the effort. The revived pretensions -to dispose of all unclaimed territory on the globe, to depose heretic -princes, and to confer sovereignties, were all reinforced. - -When the Crusades had ceased, the papal curia, growing ever more -exacting, began to draw all manner of yearly dues from Churchmen -throughout its jurisdiction, so that whereas in the thirteenth century -it had only one auditor camerĉ, in 1370 the pope had more than twenty, -and every cardinal had a number in addition, all living like their -superiors by traffic in privileges. Under Gregory XI (1370-78), seven -bishops were excommunicated by one order for failure to pay their -dues. Complaint was universal; but the vested interests made reform -impossible. When, therefore, the Renaissance gradually gained ground -against all obstacles, and masses of men became capable of judging the -papacy in the light of history and reason as well as of its own code, -it was inevitable that as soon as local economic interests became -sufficiently marked, an institution which was everywhere an economic -burden should incur an economic revolution. - -In the meantime, the papacy had possessed itself of the power of -life and death in the intellectual as well as in the religious -sphere. The power it arrogated to itself under the false Isidorean -Decretals carried implicitly if not explicitly the attribute of -infallibility. To pronounce doctrines true or false had anciently been -the function of councils; it now became the function of the pope, who -thus treated councils exactly as kings later treated parliaments. Of -old, successive popes had notoriously declared for contrary dogmas; -many had contradicted themselves; and down to the thirteenth century -there had been a score of papal schisms, all of which were surpassed -by those of the fourteenth century; but that reflection put no check -on later decisions on the most momentous problems. The religion -which began in private dissidence from Jewish and pagan orthodoxies -had become the most iron dogmatism the world had ever seen; and the -whole system of Christian credence had come to turn on the fiat of -one man. At his sole veto the sciences must be dumb; and to him must -come for sanction those who would found new schools. The faith that -had begun as "liberty from the yoke of the law" had come to elevate -the negation of mental liberty into a principle of universal polity, -translating into the inner life the despotism which the older Rome -had placed on the outer. - -Latin Christianity had thus duplicated on the one hand the development -of ancient Gaulish Druidism, wherein the priests were a sacred and -ruling caste and the arch-Druid semi-divine, and on the other hand -the evolution of the ancient Egyptian system, under which latterly -the priesthood compelled the king to obtain the approbation of the -sacred statues before taking any public step, till at length "the -true master of Egypt was the Premier Prophet of the Theban Ammon," -interpreter of the God, and priest also of the mediatorial Son-God -Khonsu. In all cases alike the sociological causation is transparent -from first to last; and equally clear are the special conditions -which prevented the Holy Roman Empire from following to the end the -path trodden by ancient Egyptian and Roman imperialism. - - - - - - - - -CHAPTER II - -RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION AND STRIFE - - -§ 1. Growth of Idolatry and Polytheism - -By the seventh century all that idolatry had meant for the early -Christists was reproduced within the Christian Church in East and -West. There was nothing, to begin with, in the inner life of the -populace in the Christian period that could keep them from the kinds -of belief natural to the multitude in pagan times. Only under the -stress of a zealous movement of reform, backed up by fanatical power, -had image-worship ever been put down for a single nation, as among the -Persians and later Jews; and only the original Jewish taboo, backed -by the Jewish sacred books, could have kept Christism anti-idolatrous -for any length of time after it had passed beyond the sphere of Jewish -proselytism. After it had become a State religion, the adoption of -images was as necessary to its popularity as the adoption of pagan -festivals and rites. Images of martyrs and holy men deceased seem -to have been first venerated; and when the bones of such were held -to have miraculous virtue, and their spirits were believed to haunt -their tombs, it was impossible that their effigies should not come to -have similar repute. Dust from Palestine or other holy places, again, -was early regarded as having magical virtue--a permitted belief which -prepared the way for others. So with the figure of the Christ. From -the first, the sign of the cross was held to be potent against evil -spirits; and Helena, the mother of Constantine, gave an irresistible -vogue to the worship of what was alleged to be the true cross, and -to have worked miraculous cures. As early as the fourth century the -Christians at Paneas in Palestine seem to have taken an old statue -of a male and a female figure as representing Jesus healing the -believing woman; and in the sixth century paintings on linen, held -to have been miraculously made by the face of the Saviour, began to -be revered. Being so different from pagan statues, the "idols" of -Jewish aversion, they readily passed the barrier of the traditional -veto on idolatry. Here again, however, the lead came from paganism, -as we know from Juvenal that many painters in his day "lived upon -Isis," then the fashionable foreign deity at Rome. Crucifixes and -images of all kinds inevitably followed. Valens and Theodosius passed -laws forbidding pictures and icons of Christ; but such laws merely -emphasized an irrepressible tendency. As for Mary, her worship seems -from the first to have been associated with that of old statues of a -nursing Goddess-Mother, and the statues followed the cult, some black -statues of Isis and Horus being worshipped to this day as representing -Mary and Jesus. - -When an image was once set up in a sacred place, there soon came into -play the old belief, common to Egyptians and Romans, that the spirit -of the being represented would enter the statue. Hence all prayers to -saints were addressed wherever possible to their images, and the same -usage followed the introduction of images of Jesus and the Virgin. And -while the Theodosian code contained laws prohibiting on pain of death -the placing of wreaths on pagan statues and the burning of incense -before them, the Christian populace within a century was doing those -very things to the statues of saints. In the same way the use of holy -water, which in the time of Valentinian was still held un-Christian, -became universal in the Church a century or two later. Images could not -well be left out. The old Judaic conception of the supreme being was -indeed too strong to permit of his being imaged; though in the fourth -century the Audĉans, a Syrian sect of a puritan cast, held that the -deity was of human shape, and were accordingly named Anthropomorphites; -but the orthodox insistence on the human form of Jesus was a lead -to image-making. Thus for the Moslems the eastern Christians were -idolaters as well as polytheists; and the epistles of Gregory the Great -show him to have zealously fostered the use of miraculous relics and -sacred images in the West. Professing to condemn the worship of images, -he defended their use against Bishop Selenus of Marseilles, who ejected -them from his church. One of Gregory's specialties in relics was the -chain of St. Paul, from which filings could be taken daily without -diminishing the total bulk. It was presumably while all pagan usages -were still familiar that the Italian Christians adopted the custom -of painting the statues of saints red, in the common pagan fashion, -as they did the old custom of carrying the images in procession. For -the rest, they had but to turn to the lore of the pagan temples for -examples of statues brought from heaven, statues which worked miracles, -statues which spoke, wept, perspired, and bled--all of which prodigies -became canonical in Christian idolatry. - -Some scrupulous and educated Christians, such as Epiphanius and -Augustine, had naturally set their faces against such a general -reversion to practical idolatry, just as many educated pagans had done -on philosophical grounds; and the council of Elvira in the fourth -century condemned the admission of pictures into churches. But this -had no lasting effect. In the eighth century, when it could no longer -be pretended that Christian images served merely for edification, -the Greek emperor Leo the Isaurian began the famous iconoclastic -movement in the East. It is probable that he was influenced by Saracen -ideas, with which he often came in contact; though it has been held -that his motive was mainly political, the local worship of images -having weakened the central authority of the Church. But after some -generations of struggle and fluctuation, despite the ready support -given to iconoclasm by many bishops, the throne reverted to orthodoxy, -and idolatry thenceforth remained normal in the Greek as in the Latin -Church. The one variation from pagan practice lay in the substitution -of pictures and painted wooden images or icons for the nobler statues -of past paganism, with which indeed Christian art could not pretend -for a moment to compete. - -In the West, though the iconoclastic emperors met from the popes not -sympathy but intense hostility, leading soon to the severance of Rome -from the empire, we find in the ninth century a remarkable opposition -to image-worship on the part of Claudius bishop of Turin, and Agobard -bishop of Lyons, both of whom show a surprising degree of rationalism -for their age. Claudius opposed papal claims as well as saint-worship -and image-worship, and when condemned by a council of bishops called -them asses. Agobard opposed all the leading superstitions of his day, -even going so far as to pronounce the theory of plenary inspiration -an absurdity. As both men were born in Spain, there is reason to -suspect that they like Leo had been influenced by the higher Saracen -thought of the time. In any case, their stand was vain; and though -the northern nations, mainly perhaps by reason of their backwardness -in the arts, were slow to follow the Italian lead, a century or two -sufficed to make the whole Latin Church devoutly image-worshipping. At -no time, of course, had any part of it been otherwise than boundlessly -credulous as to miracles of every order, and as to the supernatural -virtue of relics of every species; and both, accordingly, abounded -on all hands. The average mass of Christendom was thus on the same -religious and psychological plane as pagan polytheism. - -Polytheistic, strictly speaking, Christianity had been from the -first. The formula of the Trinity was no more truly monotheistic -for the new faith than it had been for ancient Egypt; and the mere -belief in an Evil Power was a negation of monotheism. But when -saints came to be prayed-to at separate shrines, and every trade -had its saint-patron, the Christian system was both theoretically -and practically as polytheistic as that of classic Greece, where -Zeus was at least as truly the Supreme God as was the Father for -Christians. And in the elevation of Mary to Goddesshood even the formal -semblance of monotheism was lost, for her worship was in the main -absolute. The worship, indeed, was long established before she received -technical divinization from the Church, such Fathers as Epiphanius and -Augustine having too flatly condemned her early worship to permit of -a formal declaration to the contrary. But in the thirteenth century, -St. Bonaventura, who expressly maintained that the same reverence must -be paid to the Virgin's image as to herself--a doctrine established -in the same period by Thomas Aquinas in regard to Christ--arranged -a Psalter in which domina was substituted for dominus (in te domina -speravi); and this became the note of average Catholicism. In the -twelfth century began the dispute as to the Immaculate Conception -of the Virgin--the doctrine, that is, of her supernatural birth--on -which in later ages the Dominicans and Franciscans fought a bitter -and obstinate battle, the latter affirming and the former denying -the dogma. After seven centuries of temporizing, the Papacy has in -recent times endorsed it (1854); but for a thousand years it has been -implicit in the ritual of the Catholic Church. - -It is not generally known among Protestants that the deification -of Joseph has long been in course of similar evolution. In the -fifteenth century, Saint Teresa seems to have regarded him as -the "plenipotentiary" of God (= Jesus), obtaining from the deity -in heaven whatever he asked, as he had done on earth according -to the Apocrypha. The cult has never been very prominent; but -the latter-day litany of St. Joseph treats him as at least the -equal of the Virgin. "The devotion to him," says Cardinal Newman, -"is comparatively of late date. When once it began, men seemed -surprised that it had not been thought of before; and now they hold -him next to the Blessed Virgin in their religious affection and -veneration." It had of course been dogmatically retarded by the -insistence on the virginity of Mary. But Gerson, one of the most -distinguished theologians of the fourteenth century, is credited by -modern Catholics with having suggested the recognition of a second or -created Trinity of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And seeing that Joseph -in the popular medieval representations of the Advent Mystery is -a constant figure, it is inferrible that for the multitude he had -practically a divine status. The process is strictly in keeping with -religious evolution in general; and the official apotheosis of Joseph -may one day take place. For a time, in the period of the Renaissance, -there was an amount of devotion paid to St. Anna, the mother of Mary, -which might conceivably have led to her deification. Pictures of that -period may still be seen in Holland, in which Anna, Mary, and Jesus -constitute a Holy Family. But the cultus of Anna had no persistent or -powerful advocate, and she seems latterly to have passed definitely -into the background. - - - - -§ 2. Doctrines of the Eucharist, Purgatory, and Confession - -In the first ages of the Church, the notion of the divinity of the -"body and blood" of the communion meal was vague and undefined. The -partakers certainly regarded the consecrated bread and wine as -carrying some supernatural virtue, since they took away portions -for medicinal use; but they thought of the meal very much as devout -pagans thought of one of the some kind in their mysteries or temple -ritual. When their ritual phraseology was challenged as giving colour -to the charge of cannibalism, the Fathers seem always to have explained -that the terms were purely figurative; and such was the doctrine laid -down by Augustine. But when pagan culture had passed away, and there -was none in the barbarized West to challenge the Church as such, -the strange literalness of the original liturgy set up the stranger -belief that what was eaten in the eucharist was by "transubstantiation" -the actual flesh and blood of the God-Man. Where such a belief was -possible, it was the special interest of the priesthood to make the -affirmation. A stupendous miracle, they claimed, was worked every -time the eucharist was administered; but it was worked through the -priest. He and he only could bring it about; and thus the central -mystery and prodigy of the faith, the command of its most essential -ministry, was a clerical monopoly. The economic and spiritual centre -of gravity of the entire system was fixed in the priestly order. - -Under such a dominating conception, Christianity was for the majority a -religion neither of faith nor of works: it was a religion of sacerdotal -magic. Not he that believed, still less he that loved his neighbour, -but he only that received the mystic rite at consecrated hands, was -to be saved. Moral teaching there might be, but more than ever it was -supererogatory. Already in the fourth century the sacerdotal quality -of the rite was defined by the practice of solemnly "elevating" the -wine and the hostia or sacrifice, as the bread was termed, before -every distribution; and it had become common to administer it two -or three times a week. Thus the missa or Mass, as it had come to be -termed (traditionally from the formula of dismissal, Ite, missio est, -corrupted into Missa est--another pagan detail), had passed from the -status of a periodical solemnity to that of a frequent service; and -the rite was developed by the addition of chants and responses till -it became the special act of Christian worship. The "symbols" were -thus already far on the way to be worshipped; and at the beginning -of the seventh century Gregory the Great enacted that the slightest -irregularities in their use should be atoned for by penances. Thus -"if a drop from the cup should fall on the altar, the ministering -priest must suck up the drop and do penance for three days; and the -linen cloth which the drop touched must be washed three times over -the cup, and the water in which it was washed be cast into the fire." - -In various other ways the traditional practice was modified. Originally -a "supper," it was frequently partaken of after the Agapĉ or love -feasts; but in the fourth century the irrepressible disorders of -those assemblages led to their being officially discountenanced, -and they gradually died out. Soon the Mass in the churches became a -regular morning rite, and the eucharist was taken fasting. After Leo -the Great, in the Roman services, it was even administered several -times in the day. Finally, in or before the eleventh century, the -priesthood, from motives either of economy or sobriety, began to -withhold the winecup from communicants, and to reserve it for the -priests--a practice which Leo the Great had denounced as heretical. The -official argument seems to have been that "the body must include -the blood," and that the miracle which turned the bread into flesh -created the divine blood therein. One of the most popular miracle -stories was to the effect that when once a Jew stabbed a Host, it -bled; and the Host in question was long on exhibition. Of older date, -apparently, is the administration of the bread in the form of a wafer, -this being admittedly an imitation either of the ancient pagan usage -of consecrating and eating small round cakes in the worship of many -deities, or of the Jewish unleavened bread of the Passover. It may, -indeed, have come through Manichĉism, which at this point followed -Mazdean usage; and as the Manichĉans also had the usage of bread -without wine, it may be that both practices came from them in the -medieval period. But as the priestly practice of turning round at -the altar was taken direct from ancient paganism, with the practice -of shaving the head, it is likely that the wafer was also. - -The rite thus settled being a conditio sine qua non of Church -membership and spiritual life, it became the basis of the temporal -power of the Church. Without it there was no "religion"; and as the -communicant in order to retain his rights must make confession to the -priest at least once a year, the hold of the Church on the people was -universal. Any one rejecting its authority could be excommunicated; and -excommunication meant the cessation of all the offices of social life, -each man being forced by fear for himself to stand aloof from the one -condemned. The obligation to confess, in turn, was an evolution from -the primitive practice of voluntary public confession of sin before -the Church. When that went out of fashion, private confession to the -priest took its place; and when the public reading of such confessions -by the priest gave offence, Leo the Great directed that they should -be regarded as secret. What was thus made for criminals an easy means -to absolution became at length an obligation for all. In the East, -indeed, it seems to have reached that stage in the fifth century, -when a scandal caused the rule to be given up, leaving to the Western -Church its full exploitation. Sacerdotal confession, thus instituted, -was one more hint from the book of paganism, sagaciously developed. In -the ancient Greek mysteries, priests had unobtrusively traded on the -principle that the initiate must be pure, first inviting confession -and then putting a scale of prices on ceremonial absolution; but in -the pagan world the system had never gone far. It was left to Roman -Christianity to made it coextensive with the Church, and thus to -create a species of social and economic power over mankind which no -other "civilized" religion ever attained. - -But yet a third hold over fear and faith was wrought by the -priesthood. Even as the priestly saying of Masses, bought at a price, -was needed to keep the Christian safe in life, so the buying of -Masses could hasten the release of his soul from purgatory after -death. Purgatory was, to begin with, yet another pagan tenet, which -in the first five centuries was regarded by the Church as heretical, -though the text about "the spirits in prison" (1 Peter iii, 19; cp. 1 -Cor. v, 5) gave colour to it, and Origen had entertained it. In all -the writings of Ambrose it is not mentioned; Augustine treats it as -dubious in despite of the authority of Origen; and the Eastern Church -has never accepted the tenet. But in the writings of Gregory the Great -it is treated as an established principle, with the economic corollary -that he who would save himself or his kindred from prolonged pains in -purgatory must lay out money on atoning Masses. Thus the whole cycle -of real and supposed human experience was under the Church's sway, -and at every stage on the course the pilgrim paid toll. The episodes -of birth, marriage, and death were alike occasions for sacraments, -each a source of clerical revenue; the fruits of the earth paid their -annual tithe; and beyond death itself the Church sold privilege in the -realm of shadows, winning by that traffic, perhaps, most wealth of all. - -It was a general corollary from the whole system that the Church -had the right to grant "indulgences" for sin. If the Church could -release from penalties in purgatory, it might grant pardons at will on -earth. Such a doctrine was of course only very gradually evolved. First -of all, perhaps again following a Manichĉan precedent, the bishops -individually began to waive canonical penances in consideration of the -donation by offenders of sums of money for religious purposes. The -principle is expressly laid down by Gregory I. There was at the -outset no thought of selling the permission to commit an offence; the -bishop merely used the opportunity of committed offences to enrich his -church, very much as the law in so many cases inflicts fines instead of -imprisonment. The procedure, too, was local and independent, even as -that of abbots and monks who sold the privilege of seeing and kissing -holy relics, which they often carried round the country in procession -for revenue purposes. Only after such means of income had long been -in use did the papacy attempt to monopolize the former, in virtue of -its prerogative of "the keys." But step by step it absorbed the power -to release from ordinary penances and to grant "plenary" remission -from penances; and finally it undertook, what the bishops had never -ventured on, to remit the penalties of purgatory in advance. Such -enterprise was evoked only by a great occasion--the Crusades. - -The earlier papal indulgences were remissions of penance, and were -often given on such tolerable grounds as pilgrimages to the Holy Land, -and loyal observance of the papal institution of a "Truce of God" on -certain days of the week; indeed, one of the original motives may even -have been that of controlling the mercenary proceedings of bishops. But -when once the popes had proffered plenary indulgence to all crusaders, -decency was at an end. It was obvious that the effect was demoralizing -to the last degree; and still the practice continued. At the beginning -of the thirteenth century Pope Innocent III offered absolution from -all sins past and future, dispensation from the payment of interest -on debts, and exemption from the jurisdiction of the ordinary law -courts, to all who would serve for a given period in the crusade -against the Albigensian and other heretics in the territory of the -Count of Toulouse. Later, similar inducements were offered to all who -would take up arms against the Moors in Spain. If the moral sense of -Christendom were not thus wholly destroyed, it is because all social -life necessitates some minimum of morality, which no system can uproot. - -Thenceforth the practice went from bad to worse, despite many earnest -protests from the better and saner sort of Churchmen, till it became -possible for popes to allot the traffic in indulgences in given -districts as kings allotted trading monopolies, and the enormity of -the practices of the agents gave a sufficient ground for the decisive -explosion of the Reformation. Before that explosion an attempt -was made, on the lines of ancient Roman law, to give the practice -plausibility by the formula that the indulgence was granted "out of -the superfluous merits of Christ and the saints," a treasure of spare -sanctity which it lay with the pope to distribute. But this doctrine, -which savoured so much of the counting-house, was contemporaneous -with the worst abuse the principle ever underwent after the age of -the Crusaders. - - - - -§ 3. Rationalistic Heresies - -As we have seen in connection with the growth of idolatry, there was -even in the Dark Ages an earnest minority within the Church which -resisted the downward bias of the majority and of their hierarchical -rulers. In no period, probably, was the spirit of reason wholly absent; -and from time to time it bore distinct witness. Thus we find alongside -of the effort of Claudius and Agobard against idolatry and extraneous -superstitions a less vigorous but no less remarkable testimony against -the central superstition of the priestly system. When the Frankish -monk Paschasius Radbert (831) put flatly what had become the orthodox -doctrine of Rome as to the transubstantiation of the eucharist, -some of the northern scholars who had preserved the pre-barbaric -tradition were found to gainsay him. As the discussion continued long, -the liberal-minded Frankish emperor, Charles the Bald, invited special -replies; and a learned monk, Ratramnus, wrote a treatise to the effect -that the "real presence" was spiritual, not corporeal. But John the -Scot (then = Irishman), otherwise known as Erigena, wrote on the same -invitation to the effect that the bread and wine were merely symbols or -memorials of the Last Supper--a heresy so bold that only the emperor's -protection could have saved the utterer. And his freethinking did -not end there, for in the discussion on predestination begun by the -monk Gottschalk, in which John was invited to intervene by the bigoted -abbot Hincmar, the Irish scholar was again recalcitrant to authority; -while on the question of Deity and Trinity he held a language that -anticipated Spinoza, and brought upon his memory, when he was long -dead, the anathema of the papacy. Another Irishman of the same period, -Macarius or Macaire, taught a similar pantheism in France. - -John Scotus, however, was by far the greatest thinker of the Dark Ages, -and it was impossible that his ideas should become normal. Not for -two hundred years was there any overt result from his and Ratramnus's -heresy on the eucharist. Then (1045) Berengar of Tours set forth a -modified doctrine of the eucharist which rested on that of Ratramnus, -and brought on him a series of prosecutions at Rome for heresy, -from the punishment for which he was saved by Hildebrand, as papal -adviser and later as pope; but also by his own formal retractations, -to which however he did not adhere. The populace, he tells us, would -gladly have slain him; and more than once he had narrow escapes. After -all he did but affirm a "spiritual real presence"; and while some of -his party went as far as John Scotus, the stand for reason was soon -tacitly abandoned, the great majority even of the educated class -accepting the priestly dogma. Not till the Reformation was it again -firmly challenged, and even then not by all the reformers. - -A similar fortune attended the attempt of the French canon Rousselin -(Roscellinus), also in the twelfth century, to rationalize the -doctrine of the Trinity. Proceeding logically as a "Nominalist," -denying the reality of abstractions, he argued that if the Three -Persons were one thing it was only a nominal thing. His heresy, -however, admittedly ended in simple tritheism; and after he, like -Berengar, had on pressure recanted, his subsequent withdrawal of his -recantation did not revive excitement. Not till the sixteenth century -did Unitarianism begin to assert itself against Trinitarianism, and -Deism against both. There was indeed a great development of general -rationalism in philosophy in the twelfth century, especially in France, -as represented by Abailard; and even in the eleventh the argument of -Anselm to prove the existence of God shows that very radical scepticism -had indirectly made itself heard; but no philosophic movement affected -the teachings and practices of the Church as such. As for the kind of -rationalism which denied the immortality of the soul, though it seems -to have been somewhat common in Florence early in the twelfth century, -it never took such propagandist form as to bring on it the assault of -the papacy; and the occasional philosophic affirmation of the eternity -of matter met the same immunity. It is remarkable that, despite the -denunciation of all the truths of ancient science by the Church, -the doctrine of the roundness of the earth was still affirmed in the -eighth century by an Irish priest of Bavaria named Vergilius, who was -duly denounced for his heresy by St. Boniface, and deposed by the pope, -but afterwards reinstated and finally sainted. How the doctrine fared -in detail does not appear, but the knowledge persisted; and though in -the fourteenth century Nicolaus of Autricuria was compelled to recount -his teaching of the atomistic theory, in the fifteenth his namesake -of Cusa taught with impunity the rotation of the earth on its axis, -being despite that made a cardinal; while the Italian poet Pulci with -equal impunity affirmed the existence of an Antipodes. Nicolaus of Cusa -even put forth the old pagan doctrine of the infinity of the physical -universe--the beginning of modern pantheistic and atheistic philosophy. - -As the "false dawn" of the Renaissance began to glimmer, a new source -of heresy can be seen in the higher teaching--heretical in its own -sphere--of Saracen philosophy, which under Aristotelian and Jewish -influences had gone far while Christendom was sinking in a deepening -darkness. The effects of Saracen contacts, acting on minds perhaps -prepared by the doctrine of John Scotus, first became obvious in -the pantheistic teaching of Amalrich of Bena and David Dinant at -the end of the twelfth century. Amalrich was forced to abjure; and -after his death his bones were dug up and burned (1209), and many of -his followers burned alive; David of Dinant having to fly for his -life. Then it was that a Council held at Paris vetoed all study of -Aristotle at the university. Yet in 1237 the veto was withdrawn; and as -Aristotle became the basis of the systematic theology of Thomas Aquinas -(d. 1274), his philosophy was thenceforth the orthodox system in the -schools. From the first it must have counted for indirect scepticism; -and in the great Summa Theologiĉ of Thomas himself are to be seen -abundant traces of the new doubt of the age, much of it set up by -reflection on the spectacle of conflicting religious dogmatisms -in the Crusades, some of it by Saracen philosophy, especially that -of Averroës [Ibn Roshd]. In Sicily and Southern Italy, which under -Frederick II were the special seat of this doubt and of the tendency -to tolerance which it generated, the spirit of reason ultimately fared -ill; but thenceforth an element of skepticism pervades the higher life -of Europe. Saracen science, medical, chemical, and astronomical--the -virtual foundation of all the modern science of Europe--tended in the -same direction. In Italy, in particular, respect for the Church and -papacy almost ceased to exist among educated men; and the revival of -such specific heresies as disbelief in immortality and belief in the -eternity of matter prepared the way for simple deism. - -But against all such heresy the Church could hold its ground in virtue -of its vast vested interests, as well as of the subjection of the -mass, superstitious even when irreverent. The practical danger to the -Church's power lay first in the growth of anti-clerical feeling among -people with religious instincts, and secondarily in the anti-clerical -economic interest of the nobility and upper classes in all the northern -countries. What delayed disaster was the slowness of the two hostile -elements to combine. - - - - -§ 4. Anti-clerical Heresies - -The kind of heresy which first stirred the Church to murderous -repression was naturally that which struck at its monopolies. After -the ancient schism of the Donatists, which so organized itself as to -set up a rival Church, the sect which was most bloodily persecuted -in the period of established Christianity from Theodosius onwards -was the Manichĉan, visibly the Church's most serious rival. So, in -the Dark Ages, the heresies which roused most priestly anger were -the movement against image-worship; the predestinarian doctrine of -Gottschalk, which, though orthodox and Augustinian, was now felt -to undermine the priest's power over souls in purgatory; and that -which impugned the priestly miracle of the eucharist, the main hold -of the priesthood over society. And the first resort to general and -systematic massacre as against heresy in the West was made after there -had arisen in the eleventh and twelfth centuries a movement of popular -schism which assailed not only a number of leading rites and dogmas, -but flatly denied the priestly prerogative. - -Of this movement the first stages occurred in the eastern empire, -in the sect known as Paulicians, who are first heard of under that -name in Armenia in the seventh century. Their founder, however, -one Constantine, afterwards known as Sylvanus, worked on existing -bases. The name of the sect seems to have stood for an appeal to -the teaching of Paul as against paganized Christianity; and it had -Marcionite elements; but though it was at first anti-Gnostic and -anti-Manichĉan, it acquired both Gnostic and Manichĉan or at least -Mazdean characteristics, even in the teaching of Sylvanus. On the -face of the case, it suggests both Persian and Moslem influences. Its -practical heresies were opposition to the adoration of images and -relics, to the use of the Old Testament, to the worship of saints, -angels, and the Virgin, and to the prerogatives of monks and priests; -the sectaries claiming to read the New Testament for themselves, -in defiance of the virtual veto of the Greek Church on such study by -the laity. For the rest, they insisted that baptism and the eucharist -were spiritual and not bodily rites, and even reaffirmed the "Docetic" -doctrine that Jesus had not a true human body, and so was incapable -of suffering. Their flat denial of priestly claims marked them out -as a specially obnoxious body, and they were fiercely persecuted, -the founder being stoned to death. - -Like all the other sects, they were in turn divided, and one section -had the protection of Leo the Iconoclast, who agreed with them as to -images. A later leader, Sergius or Tychicus, won for his sect the -favour of Nicephorus I; but the next iconoclast, Leo the Armenian, -resenting their other heresies, cruelly persecuted them; and like -previous heretical sects they were driven over to the national enemy, -which was now Islam. Constantine "Copronymus," seeking to remedy -this state of things, transplanted many of them to Constantinople -and Thrace, thus bringing their heresy into Europe; but in the ninth -century, on the final restoration of image-worship, a vast multitude -was massacred in Armenia. Most of the remnant there went over to the -Saracens, and became the fiercest enemies of the empire. - -From Thrace, meanwhile, their propaganda spread into Bulgaria, -where it prospered, with the help of refugees from Armenia. In the -tenth century they were to some extent favoured as a useful bulwark -against the Slavs; but in the eleventh they were again persecuted; -and as the malcontents of the empire in general tended to join them -they became the ruling party in Bulgaria. Thus it came about that -the name Bulgar, Bulgarian, became a specific name in mid-Europe -for heretic (and worse), surviving to this day in that sense in -the French form of bougre. The Paulicians, further, had their own -extremists, who held by the old Marcionite veto on marriage, and -received the Greek name of cathari, "the pure"--a title sometimes -given to the whole mass, from whom, however, the purists were in that -case distinguished as perfecti. Either from the Cathari or from the -Chazari, a Turkish tribe whose Christianity in the ninth century was -much mixed with Mohammedanism, came the Italian nickname gazzari, -and the German word for heretic, ketzer. Yet another eastern sect, -the Slavonic Bogomilians, who remained monotheistic as against the -dualism of the Paulicians, joined in the wave of new beliefs which -began to beat from the East on central Europe. - -From the very beginning of the eleventh century, outbreaks of the -new heresy, always anti-clerical and anti-ceremonial, occurred at -intervals in France, northern Italy, and Germany. In some cases, the -opposition to priests, images, and Virgin-worship extended to a denial -of all miracles and sacraments, and an assertion of the eternity -of matter--apparent signs of Saracen philosophic influence. But -the movement developed a thoroughness of enmity to everything -ecclesiastical, that told of a quite independent basis in the now -widespread hostility to the Church of Rome outside of its centre of -wealth and power. For one or two generations the crusades drew off -the superfluous energy of Europe, and the new heresies were somewhat -overshadowed; but in the first half of the twelfth century, when -the crusades had lost all religious savour, anti-clericalism sprang -up on all sides. Tanquelin in Flanders; Peter de Brueys (founder of -the Petrobrussians) in Languedoc; the monk Henry in Switzerland and -France; Eudo of Stello in Brittany, and Arnold of Brescia in Italy, -all wrought either religiously or politically against the Church; -and all died by her violence, or in prison. Arnold, the most capable -of all, was a pupil of Abailard, and his doctrine was that the entire -vested wealth of the Church should be taken over by the civil power, -leaving the clergy to live sparingly by the gifts of the faithful. His -movement, which lasted twenty years, and was very strong in Lombardy, -went so far as to set up a short-lived republic in Rome; but it needed -only a combination of the pope and the emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, -to bring the republic to the ground, and Arnold to crucifixion. - -Among the other revolters there was a good deal of fanaticism; -but all were more or less emphatic in denouncing priestly -pretensions, sacraments, cross-worship, prayers for the dead, penance, -image-worship, church bells, altars, and even churches. It seemed as if -the end of the Church had begun. For, though each new prophet in turn -was slain, new heretics seemed to rise from the ashes. With various -positive tenets, they were at one in their enmity to the priesthood. In -Italy there flourished a sect called the Pasagini (apparently = -Passagieri, Crusaders) or the Circumcised, who returned to the law of -Moses and to Ebionite views of Jesus; in France, a different order -of zealots, called Caputiati from the habit of carrying an image of -the Virgin on their hats, stood for a return to primeval equality and -liberty. Between such types of heresy stood the Apostolici, mostly poor -working-folk, but with powerful sympathizers, who urged a return to the -"apostolic" ideal of poverty and simplicity, and further discouraged -marriage, calling themselves "the chaste brethren and sisters." Two -of their leaders, Sagarelli and Fra Dolcino, had shown the usual -aversion to the Church, Dolcino predicting the formation of native -States and the purification of the papacy; so they, too, were put to -death, being burnt at the stake. And still new revolters appeared. - -At this stage there came to the front the sectaries known in -history as the Vaudois or Waldenses, a name standing properly for -the inhabitants of the Vaux or Valleys of Piedmont, but further -connected with the teaching of one Peter Waldus, a Lyons merchant, -whose followers received also the name of the Poor Men of Lyons. How -far the anti-Catholic tenets of the Waldenses derive from ancient -heresy is uncertain; but it is clear that late in the twelfth -century they were acted on by the immense ferment of new ideas around -them. Like the Paulicians, they insisted that the laity should read -the Bible for themselves; and their men and women members went about -preaching wherever they could get a hearing, and administering the -eucharist without priestly sanction. At the same time they condemned -tithes, opposed fasting and prayers for the dead, preached peace and -non-resistance, denied the authority of the pope, and impeached the -lives of the clergy. - -All of these forces of heresy, and yet others, were specially at -work in the rich and prosperous region of Languedoc, the patrimony -of Count Raymond of Toulouse. Paulicians and Waldenses, Cathari, -Albanensians or sectaries of Albano, Albigensians or sectaries of the -town of Alby or the district of Albigensium, Bogomilians, Apostolici, -Caputiati, and nondescript Paterini (a Milanese name for a popular -faction)--all were active in the name of religion; and in addition -there were at work heretics of another stamp--the gay, wandering -Goliards or satirical poets and minstrels, who loved the priests and -the papacy as little as did the zealots; and the graver doubters who -had got new views of life from Saracen science and philosophy. As -against the whole amorphous mass of misbelief, the papacy planned -and effected a stupendous crusade of slaughter. - -From the first the Manichĉans, as the Church loved to call the -heretics indiscriminately, had been bloodily punished. One bishop of -the eleventh century, Wazon of Liège, is to be remembered as having -protested against the universal policy of slaughter; and another, -Gerhard of Cambrai and Arras, is said to have won over some heretics -by persuasion; but these were voices in the wilderness. Fire, sword, -halter, and cross were the normal methods of repression; and during the -eleventh and twelfth centuries thousands probably so perished. But the -campaign which came to be known as the Albigensian crusade was planned -by Pope Innocent III to outdo all the isolated punishments of the past, -and it succeeded. Grounds for quarrel with the Count of Toulouse were -easily found; and the offer of indulgences, on the lines laid down in -the crusades against the Saracens, brought eager volunteers from all -parts of Europe, for only forty days' service was now called for. The -submission of Count Raymond was not permitted to check the massacre -of his subjects. It was in the first campaign that the papal legate -Arnold, abbot of Cliteaux, when asked at the storming of Beziers how -the heretics were to be distinguished from the true believers, gave -the historic answer, "Kill all; God will know his own." By his own -account they killed in that one place fifteen thousand men, women, -and children. The chroniclers, who make the slain twice or thrice as -many, tell how seven thousand of them were found in the great church -of Mary the Magdalene--her from whom, in the legend, had been cast -out seven devils without letting of blood. - -Begun in 1209, the Albigensian crusades outlasted the life of Innocent -III, who grew sick of the slaughter while the priesthood were calling -for its extension. They praised in particular the Anglo-French Simon -de Montfort, who slew many of his victims by torture, and tore out the -eyes of many more. For nearly twenty years the wars lasted, plunder -being a sufficient motive after heresy had been drowned in blood -or driven broadcast throughout Europe. It has been reckoned that a -full million of all ages and both sexes were slain. Yet as late as -1231 Pope Gregory IX was burning troops of the heretics at Rome, -and causing many more to be burned in France and Germany. - -The precocious civilization of Languedoc and Provence was destroyed, -and the region became a stronghold of Catholic fanaticism; but the -political diversity of Europe baffled the papal hope of destroying -heresy. Thenceforth the anti-clerical animus never died out: in the -course of the thirteenth century it reached even England, then the -most docile section of the Catholic fold. Generations before Wiclif, -there were heretics in the province of Canterbury who denied the -authority of the pope and even of the Fathers, professing to stand -solely on the Bible and the principle of "necessary reason." Wiclif -stood on a less heterodox plane, impugning chiefly the extreme form -of transubstantiation and the practices of the begging friars; and -he was proportionately influential. In the fourteenth century, when -international crusades of repression had become politically impossible, -the critical spirit is seen freshly at work on anti-papal lines in -England, Flanders, France, Germany, and Bohemia, as well as in Italy; -and again, the more energetic began in their earnest ignorance to -frame new schemes of life in the light of their sacred books. The -lapse of time and the continuance of orthodox culture had made an end -of the old Paulician heresy as such; and of the new movements many, -like that set up by Saint Francis in the period of the Albigensian -crusades, were meant to be strictly obedient to the Church. Such were -the "Brethren of the Common Lot," a body set up in Holland by educated -Churchmen after the so-called Beghards (otherwise Beguins or Beguttĉ) -had there for a time flourished and degenerated. But the Beghards and -the "Brethren of the Free Spirit," who spread widely over northern -Europe, had not only aimed at a communal life, but developed the -old tendency to pantheism, now gaining ground philosophically on the -lines of Averroism. Even among the Franciscans the "Spirituals," who -resented the falling away of the order from its ideals of poverty, -became heretical. Some adopted the new "Eternal Gospel," by Abbot -Joachim of Flora in Calabria, in which it was declared that there -now began a new dispensation of the Holy Spirit, superseding that -of Jesus. Others, called the Fraticelli, or Little Brothers, had a -"Gospel of the Holy Spirit," composed by John of Parma. In both cases -the spirit of revolt against the Church was marked. - -Of the heresy of the fourteenth century the high-water mark is seen -in English Lollardism, which, without touching on the philosophical -problem, proceeded on the basis of the teaching of Wiclif to a kind -of religious rationalism which not only repudiated the rule of the -pope but rejected the institutions of religious celibacy, exorcisms, -priestly benedictions, confession and absolution, pilgrimages, -masses for the dead, and prayers and offerings to images; and -even carried the ethical spirit to the point of denouncing war -and capital punishment. In that age, such an ethic could not long -thrive. Lollardism, encouraged by the self-seeking nobility while it -menaced only the wealth of the Church, which they hoped to gain, was -trodden down by them in conjunction with the king and the Church when -it turned against the abuses of feudal government. But its destruction -was most effectually wrought through the national demoralization set -up by the new imperialism of Henry V, who, after passing a new statute -for the burning of heretics, won the enthusiastic loyalty of his people -by his successful invasion of France. In the corruption of that policy -of plunder, and in the ensuing pandemonium of the Wars of the Roses, -Lollardism disappeared like every other moral ideal. The time for a -union of critical and rapacious forces against the hierarchy was not -yet; and when it came in the sixteenth century the critical spirit -was on the whole less rational than it had been at the beginning of -the fifteenth. - - - - - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE SOCIAL LIFE AND STRUCTURE - - -§ 1. The Clergy, Regular and Secular - -In a world so completely under priestly rule, the character of the -priest was in general the image of his influence. Whatever good -organized Christianity did was in virtue of the personal work of -good men in holy orders; and it is comforting to believe that in all -countries and in all ages there were some such, after the fashion of -the "parson" in Chaucer. To such men, the priestly status might give -a special power for righteousness. But seeing that in the average man -righteousness is in the ratio of reflection on knowledge, there is no -escape from the conclusion that in the Middle Ages most priests were -poor moral forces. For their general ignorance is beyond doubt. The -number who in a given district at a given time were unable to read -Latin may be a matter for dispute; but it is clear that what they -did read was as a rule merely distilled ignorance. And if we turn to -the records of ecclesiastical legislation, we find constant evidence, -for many centuries, of the laxity of priestly life in all grades. - -To say nothing of the perpetual scandal about concubinage--an -artificial form of sin, in itself no more decisive against a priest's -character than celibacy in its favour--there is in the canons of the -councils a most significant repetition of vetoes on various lines of -conduct which stand for a lack of single-mindedness, and of serious -interest in moral tasks. Century after century, the bishops are -found forbidding the clergy to tell fortunes, to practise magic, to -get drunk, to commit perjury, to take usury, to swear, and to haunt -taverns, as well as to keep concubines. At the same time many of the -bishops themselves had to be perpetually admonished. Under Justinian we -hear of two eastern bishops convicted of unnatural vice, and--the law -as usual exceeding the crime--punished by mutilation. Throughout the -Middle Ages, as to-day, the normal complaints against bishops are on -the score of avarice, luxury, and worldliness; but drunkenness is not -unheard of; and whatever might be said in councils as to concubinage, -it was certain that bishops took at least as much liberty of life as -popes and presbyters. So far as moral example went, then, the social -influence of the priesthood was mostly on the wrong side, since its -normal concubinage was a perpetual lesson in hypocrisy. - -On this side, doubtless, the priests were no worse than other men; the -trouble was that they set up to be better, and that the hierarchy was -always seeking to keep up the repute of clerical sanctity by a claim -to asceticism rather than by social beneficence. Thus they put it in -the power of the "average sensual man" to convict of moral imposture -a priesthood which, if free to marry, would have been much less -vulnerable; and by constantly stressing self-denial on a wrong line -they missed promoting self-control on right lines. The primary social -needs of the Middle Ages were peace, civism, and cleanliness; and for -none of these things did clerical teaching in general avail. On the -contrary, it was in effect hostile to all three, since it made virtue -consist in a right relation to the other world rather than to this, -made religion a special ground for warfare, and made uncleanliness -a meritorious form of "self-mortification," which in the Middle Ages -was about the last thing that could be truly said of it. - -It is not to be forgotten, indeed, that among the monks or other -clerical scholars of the Dark Ages was to be found most of what -learning and philosophy survived. The reason was that men and youths -with the studious instinct, averse to the brawling life around -them, turned to the monasteries and monastic schools as their one -refuge. But sloth and impotence equally turned thither; and where -the stronger spirits could find a peaceful and useful life without, -the sluggards failed. Monasteries were thus always half filled with -men to whom their vows were irksome; and as women were at the same -time frequently sent to convents against their will, nothing but an -iron discipline could keep the professed order. Given an easy abbot -or abbess, they became centres of scandal; and in the average they -were homes of fairly well-fed idleness. But the full fatality of -the case is seen only when we realize that their very successes, -their provision of a dim retreat for many men and women of refined -and unworldly type, worsened society by leaving the reproduction of -the race to the grosser and harder natures. - -The ostensible merit of monasteries, in the medieval period, was their -almsgiving. Without endorsing the mercantilist impeachment of all such -action, we are forced to recognize that theirs demoralized as many -as it relieved. Of a higher order than mere almsgiving, certainly, -was the earlier self-sacrificing service of the mendicant orders of -friars, whose rise is one of the great moral phenomena of the Middle -Ages. For a time, in the thirteenth century, the order of St. Francis -in particular not only organized but greatly stimulated human devotion -of the kind that, happily, is always quietly present somewhere; and -the contrast between the humble beneficence of the earlier friars -and the sleek self-seeking of the average secular priest at once -accredited the former and discredited the latter. But the history of -the mendicant friars as of the previous orders is a crowning proof of -the impossibility of bettering society on a mere religious impulse, -without social science. - -Credit for holiness brought large gifts and legacies from -well-meaning but ill-judging laymen and women; and nothing could -prevent the enrichment of orders which had begun under special vows -of poverty. Francis had expressly ruled that his friars should not on -any pretext hold property, and should not even be able to profit by it -through trustees; but the latter provision was annulled, and ere long -the order was as well provided for as any. The better the financial -footing, the more self-seekers entered; and these overruled the more -single-minded. This was the law of development of every "self-denying" -order of the Dark and Middle Ages, from the Benedictine monks to the -Knights Templars. One of the most rigorously planned monasteries of -the Middle Ages, that of the lonely Chartreuse, founded by St. Bruno -late in the eleventh century, at length relaxed its austerities, -and came latterly to be known as a wholesale manufactory of a -liqueur--the distinction by which most men now know also the name -of the Benedictines. In the end, the orders of monks and friars did -something for scholarship and education, after the institution of "lay -brothers," who did the menial work, left the domini in certain orders, -especially the Benedictine, free to devote themselves to learning; -but socially they achieved nothing. When once they had acquired -"foundations" they became plunderers instead of helpers of the poor, -exacting from them gifts, selling them post-mortem privileges, taking -the widow's mite and the orphan's blanket for verbal blessings. - -It is always to be remembered, here as before, that Christianity is -not the efficient cause of the failures or the evils which happen -under its auspices: we are not to suppose that had Osirianism or -Judaism or Manichĉism or Mithraism chanced to be the religion of -Europe these failures and evils would have been averted. What we -are to realize is, on the other hand, that the conventional view as -to Christianity having been an abnormally efficient cause for good -is a delusion. It is not Christianity that has civilized Europe, but -Europe--the complex of political and culture forces--that has civilized -Christianity. Byzantium and Abyssinia show what the religious system -could amount to of itself. Western Europe surpassed these States -in virtue of conditions more propitious to energy and to freedom: -that was the difference. At the best, medieval Europe was a world of -chronic strife, daily injustice, normal cruelty, abundant misery, and -ever-present disease. To show that Christianity, that is, the holding -of the Christian creed by the men of that world, made these evils less -than they would have been in the same place under any other creed, -is impossible. On the other hand, it is clear that the influence of -Christian doctrine and tradition was on some sides conservative of -evil and obstructive of good. - -Those tendencies may indeed be regarded as operating in the -intellectual life, which, though it is in reality only a side of the -sociological whole, we shall conveniently consider apart. Under that -head too we shall note the influence of the Church for culture on -the side of art. But on the side of ordinary life the influence of -the clergy as teachers had two specific tendencies which may here be -noted. One was the disparagement of women; the other the encouragement -of cruelty. - -On the first head, as on so many others, the conventional view is -a fallacy. That Christianity raised the status of women is still a -general assumption; but exact research, even when made by an orthodox -theologian, proves the contrary. Down to the nineteenth century, the -solidest rights women possessed were those secured to them by ancient -Roman law; and the tendency of Christian legislation was certainly -to restrict rather than to expand such rights. At the same time the -so-called "Manichĉan" element in gospel Christianity, the tendency -to regard the sexual instinct as something corrupt and unclean, gave -to the ordinary language of the Fathers concerning women a tone of -detraction and aversion. The one remedy for an overpoise of the sexual -element in life, and for over-emphasis of female function on that side, -is to secure the community of the sexes in the intellectual life; and -organized Christianity, instead of inculcating this, minimized the -intellectual life all round, thus making self-restraint a matter of -morbid asceticism as against the excess inevitably following on disuse -of mind. In particular, a priesthood nominally committed to celibacy, -yet always practising in the confessional a morbid inquisition into -sexual matters, was committed to treating women disparagingly as -forces of "temptation" when it was not yielding thereto. Nothing -could be more injurious to women's real credit. It is true that the -worship of the Virgin would in some measure counteract the discredit; -but this held equally true of the worship of many pagan Goddesses; -and there is nothing to show that the status of women was higher -in medieval Christendom than in ancient Egypt. Among the Teutons, -the moral status of women seems to have been greatly lowered by the -introduction of Christianity. - -As regards cruelty, the evidence is only too abundant. Mosheim admits -that in the Crusades the Christians were more ferocious than the -Saracens; and it is historically certain that the revival of the -ancient practice of judicial torture was the work of the papacy, -seeking to extirpate heresy in the thirteenth century. From the -tribunals of the Inquisition it passed to the ordinary Church courts, -and thence, more slowly, to the courts of justice. In time it became -a daily usage. In the old burg of Nuremberg there is preserved a -collection (sometimes exhibited elsewhere) of the instruments of -torture in common use down to the age of the Reformation. It is an -arsenal of horror. Such engines of atrocity were the normal punitive -expedients of a world in which the image of the Saviour on the cross -was supposed to move men to compassion and contrition; and in which -that Saviour's death was held to redeem men from the penalties of -their sins. Here the practical teaching and example of the priesthood -was all for cruelty. They presided or assisted when the heretic was -racked or burned alive; and their whole conception of morals made -for such methods. Holding the madman as possessed by a devil, they -taught that he should be cruelly scourged; holding that the leper -was stricken by God for sin, they taught that he should be shunned -the more. Paganism was saner. - -Nothing is more true in social psychology than the hard saying of -Feuerbach, that "only where reason rules, does universal love rule: -reason is itself nothing else than universal love. It was faith, -not love, not reason, that invented Hell." "Faith has within it a -malignant principle." Medieval Christendom is the demonstration. In -that age the spirit of reason was but occasionally glimpsed. It is seen -in the teaching of John Scotus, who, besides his concrete heresy on the -eucharist, held the all-embracing heresy that authority is derivable -solely from reason, and from his pantheism deduced the conviction that -the doctrine of hell is but an allegory, the actuality of which would -be the negation of divine goodness. But such teaching belonged rather -to pagan philosophy than to Christian faith, and was anathematized -accordingly. It never reached even the scholarly class in general; -and specifically Christian teaching which aimed at softening the -heart was spread abroad to little purpose. - - - - -§ 2. The Higher Theology and its Effects - -There is something saddening, though not really strange, in the failure -even of the most attractive elements in medieval Christianity to better -the world. To read of the life and teaching of St. Francis of Assisi -is to come as it were in the presence of a really elemental force of -goodness. His namesake of Sales was a persecutor; but the founder of -the Franciscan order seems free of that taint. In him the ecstasy -of pietism seems purified of that correlative of fanatic malignity -which so constantly dogs it in the literature of ancient Christianity, -from the epistles of Paul to the treatises of Augustine. We hear of -his love for all animals, of his seldom-failing goodwill to men, and -his sweet contentment in humble contemplation. Yet when we study him -in relation to his age there fronts us the startling fact that while -his active career is almost exactly synchronous with the horrible -Albigensian crusades, there is no trace in the records that he was -even saddened by them. They ought to have darkened for him the light -of the sun; but not once does he seem to have given even a deprecating -testimony against them. In him, the flower of medieval Christianity, -loyalty to the faith seems to have annulled some of the most vital -modes of moral consciousness. - -So again with the influence of such a religious classic as the -Imitatio Christi, attributed to Thomas à Kempis, but probably the work -of several hands, in different countries and centuries. Many men and -women must have supposed themselves to live by it; and its influence -seems wholly for peace and self-surrender. Yet it would be hard to show -that it ever restrained any corporate tendency of a contrary kind, -or ruled the corporate life of a single religious sect. The truth is -that its message was for a life of isolation, as that of the ideal monk -in his cell. Seclusion and not social life, mystic contemplation and -not wise activity, duty to God and not duty to man, are its ideals. It -was in a manner the Christian counterpart of the Meditations of Marcus -Aurelius or the Enchiridion of Epictetus--a manual of the higher or -inner life, making Christianity do for medieval men what Stoicism -could do for pagans in the decadent Roman empire. But Stoicism, by -Christian consent, made for good government; and there is no trace -of any such result from the Imitatio. The model Christian monarch, -St. Louis of France, lived in an earlier age; and even he was a -fanatic where heresy was concerned, and a promoter of religious wars. - -The same fatality appears, again, when we turn to the mystical -theology of the German fourteenth-century school of Tauler and -Eckhart, in which both Luther and some of our own day have seen a high -inspiration. Here, perhaps, we come on the secret of the failure we -are considering. Eckhart was a scholar, who had studied and taught at -Paris, and ranked as "provincial" of the Dominican order for Saxony; -and Tauler was his pupil before settling at Basle. Both men undoubtedly -influenced the Brethren of the Free Spirit and others of the so-called -Beghards and Beguins, before mentioned, in particular the sect who -called themselves the "Friends of God"; and they may so be said to -have affected society practically, since these movements aimed at a -species of communism. But the essence of their theology was alien -to that or any organized movement, and if lived up to would have -dissolved it without the interference of the priests and others who -under authority drove women of the Beguine movement from their homes -and seized their poor goods. "If thou wouldst have the Creator," says -Tauler, "thou must forego the creature. The less of the creature, -the more of God. Therefore abjure all creatures, with all their -consolations." Not thus were men in general to be taught to live -more brotherlike. The rude world of the Middle Ages went on its way, -unaffected in the main either by mysticism or by the movements which -set up self-centred societies within society. It needed a more human -spirit to affect humanity in mass. - -Such a human spirit, indeed, may be held to have shown itself in -the movement set up in Florence by Girolamo Savonarola near the end -of the fifteenth century. Savonarola was moved by a high concern -for individual conduct; and his gospel was substantially that of an -Ebionite Christian, wroth with all luxury as well as with all levity -of life. Thus he wielded a great influence, setting up in the splendid -Florence of the later Renaissance a forecast of the iron-bound Geneva -of Calvin. It is no final impeachment of him to say that, having gone -so far, he failed and fell; but it is clear that he could not have -been a durable civilizing force. His influence was that of a fanatic, -operating by contagion of excitement and superstitious fear, not that -of an enlightener or a statesmanlike guide. To him amenity and luxury, -art and vice, selfishness and skepticism, were alike anathema; and -he set up in Florence a kind of pietistic reign of terror, driving -impressionable believers to give up their pictures to the fire for -peace' sake, and even letting others be forced to it by fear. On the -great political need of the Italian cities, a fraternal federation, -he had no light whatever; and we find him encouraging his fellow -citizens in their fatal passion for dominating Pisa instead of making -of her an ally and a friend. Lacking light, he finally lacked force; -and when he fell, he fell utterly, leaving no enduring ideal or -discipline to his countrymen. - -Thus on every side and at every point in the history of the ages of -faith the ostensibly best religious influences are found failing -to heal society, failing to check the forces of oppression and -dissolution and strife. If we would trace the forces which really -affected social structure and raised masses of men some way in the -scale of manhood, we must turn to the clash of interests and classes, -the play of secular knowledge, the undertakings of laymen on normal -lines of aspiration and on secular views of right. - - - - -§ 3. Christianity and Feudalism - -We have seen, in studying the expansion of the Church, how it grew -by lending itself to the interests of kings and chiefs as against -subjects. On the same grounds, it made for empires as against -self-governing States. But inasmuch as the papacy ere long fell -out with the emperors of the new line it had itself consecrated, it -also contributed to the break-up of feudalism, in the widest sense -of the term; and it is possible to claim for the Church, further, -a restraining influence on the oppressive action of feudalism, early -and late, in various directions. Under this head would fall to be -judged, in particular, its action on slavery. - -As the institution of slavery was taken over by the Christian emperors -from the pagan without any hint of disapproval, it is clear, to -begin with, that the Church had in its days of struggle made no sign -of such condemnation. Nor was there anything in its sacred books to -suggest a repudiation of slavery; on the contrary, Jesus is made to -accept it as a matter of course (Luke xvii, 7-10; Gr.); and Paul, -in a passage which has been garbled in the English translation, -expressly urges that a Christian slave should remain so even if he -have a chance to become free (1 Cor. vii, 20, 21). He and some of the -Fathers certainly urge that slaves should be kindly treated; but many -pagans had done as much, and Seneca on that theme had outgone them -all. Laws for the protection of slaves, too, had been enacted by many -emperors long before Constantine. The only ground, then, on which -Christianity could be credited with setting up by religious appeal -an aversion to slavery would be a visible increase in manumissions -after the time of Constantine. No such increase, however, took place. - -A misconception on the subject has arisen by way of a hasty inference -from the fact that in the Christian period all manumissions were -religious acts, performed through the Church. This was no result of -any Christian doctrine, being in fact a deliberate imitation of pagan -practice. Before Constantine, as we have seen, the act of manumission -was a religious one, performed as such in the pagan temples; and when -Constantine adroitly transferred the function from those temples to -the churches, he probably put a check on the process of liberation, -since pagans would long be reluctant to go to the churches for any -purpose. For centuries manumission had been a common act, the number -of freedmen in Rome being notoriously great at all times, from the -day of Cicero onwards. It was almost a matter of course for a Roman -master to free a multitude of his slaves on his deathbed or by his -will, till Augustus enacted that no one should emancipate more than -a hundred at once. A diligent slave, in fact, could usually count on -getting his freedom by five or six years of service; and many were -allowed to buy it out of their savings, or out of earnings they were -permitted to make. - -So far were the earlier Christian emperors, with one exception, -from seeking to raise the status of slaves, that they re-enacted the -rule excluding them from the purview of the law against adultery, -"because of the vileness of their condition." The exception was the -law of Constantine forbidding the separation of slaves from their -families--a humane veto disregarded by Christian slave-owners in -modern times. But Constantine, on the other hand, enacted that if a -freewoman should cohabit with a slave, she should be executed, and -he burned alive; and the laws against fugitive slaves were made more -cruel. Gratian even enacted that any slave who dared to accuse his -master of any crime, unless it were high treason, should be burned -alive, without any inquiry into the charge. For the rest, the Fathers -justified slavery on the score of the curse passed on Ham; and the -theses of the Stoics as to the natural equality of men had from them -no countenance. - -Only in the reign of Justinian did the law begin expressly to -encourage manumission, to recognize freedmen as full citizens, and -to raise the slave status; and several circumstances are to be noted -as giving a lead to such a course. Justinian had pursued a policy of -great outlays where his immediate predecessors had been frugal, and -to sustain it he had to impose much fresh taxation on the land. For -fiscal purposes, it had long been recognized, the government did -well to limit the power of proprietors to dispose of their slaves; -and it is probable that the humane law of Constantine really had this -end in view. By raising slaves to the status of half-free peasants, -the State increased the number of its taxpayers. "The labourer of -the soil then became an object of great interest to the treasury, -and obtained almost as important a position in the eyes of the fisc -as the landed proprietor himself." In the process the small freeman -was put in a worse position than before; but the slave was at the -same time bettered--the hereditary slave, that is, for captives were -enslaved or bought throughout the history of the Byzantine empire. - -The legal change was thus made from economic motives; but one moral -gain did indirectly accrue from the existence of the Church as -such. Under Justinian the empire was re-expanded after having been -for a time curtailed; and this would under paganism have meant a -large addition to the number of slaves. The recovered lands, however, -were peopled by Christians; and all bishops were bound in their own -interest to resist the enslavement and deportation of their flocks; -so that Christianity at this point was favourable to freedom exactly as -was Islam, which forbade Moslems to enslave Moslems. And the indirect -benefit did not end there. The Church, like the fisc, had a good deal -to gain pecuniarily from the freeing of slaves; and, especially in -the West, though it supported slave-laws, it encouraged masters to -manumit for the sake of their souls' welfare in the next world. That -the motive here again was political and not doctrinal is clear from -the two facts--(1) that even when making serfs priests for its own -service the Church often did not legally free them, thus keeping them -more fully subject to discipline; and (2) that while urging laymen to -free the slaves or serfs on their lands Churchmen were the last to free -those on their own, on the score that no individuals in orders had the -right to alienate the property of the order as such. Other economic -causes, of course, effectually concurred to further the freeing of -slaves and serfs, else the institution would not have decayed as -it did in the Middle Ages. It is noteworthy, too, that while the -Jews were the great slave dealers for Europe in the Dark Ages, thus -dangerously deepening their own unpopularity and moving the Church to -thwart the traffic on Christian grounds, Christians everywhere were -long eager to buy and sell barbarians such as the Slavs (from whose -name came the very term "slave" in the modern languages); while the -Christian Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Normans for centuries maintained a -trade in kidnapped Anglo-Saxon or British children and young women, -selling them to Ireland after they were no longer saleable on the -continent. A similar traffic went on among the Bohemians, before the -eyes of St. Adalbert. What the Church did, broadly speaking, was to -restrain the enslavement of Christians by their fellows; and to raise -funds to redeem Christian captives from the Saracens. To a certain -extent the motive was religious: otherwise it was self-regarding. - -In similarly indirect ways, organized Christianity tended at times -to restrain feudal tyranny. The bishop and the abbot were territorial -magnates, who to some extent counterpoised the baron; and though the -bishops were too often only barons with a difference, they were often -a barrier to lay ambition and violence. Even as the king's rule might -protect the common people as against their local lords--though the -feudal system did not originally suppose this--so the Church might -be a local benefactor in virtue of its local interests. Here again, -however, the influence was not doctrinal; and Churchmen in general -endorsed the feudal law in letter and in spirit, always availing -themselves of its machinery to extort their own dues. - -On the other hand, insofar as the papacy in the twelfth century began -to throw its weight on the side of the popular party in Italy as -against the aristocratic and imperial party, thus constituting the -Guelph faction as against the Ghibeline, it indirectly furthered -the cause of self-government; and even in its official doctrine -there thus came to be inserted provisions in favour of the claim of -subjects to choose their rulers. The teaching of Thomas Aquinas to -this effect must have counted for something in the later evolution -of political doctrine. Nothing however is more remarkable than the -ease with which dutiful kings, as those of later Spain and France, -secured the assent of the Church, as the early barbarian kings had -done, to the suppression of all popular liberties. The economic or -administrative interest of the Church was always the determinant -of its action. It supplied no fixed principle conducive to peace; -on the contrary, it was always a force the more for war in Europe. - - - - -§ 4. Influence of the Crusades - -That some social gains may be correlative with great historic evils -is perhaps best seen in the case of the Crusades organized by the -Church against the Saracens in Palestine. These campaigns were first -conceived in the interests of the papal power; and as early as 999 Pope -Sylvester II (Gerbert), who had been anti-papal before his elevation, -sent a letter through Europe appealing for united action on behalf -of the Church of Jerusalem. There was no response. In 1074 Gregory -VII strove hard to the same end, seeing in a conquest of the Turks a -means to extend his power over the Eastern Church. Not, however, till -Europe was full of tales of the cruelties wrought by the new Eastern -power, the Turks, against Christian pilgrims--a marked change from -the comparative tolerance of the Caliphs--was it possible to begin a -vast crusading movement among all classes, aiming at the recovery of -the empty sepulchre from which the Christ had risen. To this movement -Pope Urban II zealously lent himself, backing up the wild appeal of -Peter the Hermit (1094) with the fatal bribe of indulgences. - -The first effect (1096) was to collect several immense and almost -formless mobs of men and women who by all accounts were in the main -the refuse of Europe. "That the vast majority looked upon their vow -as a licence for the commission of any sin there can be no moral -doubt." The devout exaltation of the few was submerged by the riot -of the many, who began using their indulgences when they began their -march, and rolled like a flood across Europe, massacring, torturing, -and plundering Jews wherever they found them, and forcibly helping -themselves to food where plunder was easy. Multitudes perished by -the way; multitudes more were sold as slaves in Byzantium to pay for -the feeding of the rest there; and of the seven thousand who reached -Asiatic soil with Peter the Hermit, four thousand were slain by the -Turks at Nicĉa; some 300,000 thus perishing in all. Inasmuch as Europe -was thus rid of a mass of its worst inhabitants, the first crusade -might be said so far to have wrought indirect good; but the claim is -hardly one to be pushed on religious grounds. - -The more organized military forces who soon followed under Godfrey -of Bouillon and other leaders, though morally not better witnesses -to Christianity, achieved at length (1099) the capture of Jerusalem, -and founded the Latin kingdom of Palestine, which subsisted in force -for less than a hundred years, and in a nominal form for a century -longer. As a display of Christian against "pagan" life and conduct, -the process of conquest was worse than anything seen in the East in -the Christian era. No armies were ever more licentious than those of -"the cross"; and those of Attila were hardly more ferocious. Their -own lives were lost in myriads, by the sword, by disease, and by -debauchery; they were divided by mutual hatred from first to last; -and the one force to unify them was the hatred against the infidel -which wreaked itself in the massacre of men, women, and children after -the capture of a city. Besieging Antioch, they shot heads of hundreds -of slain Turks into the city from their engines, and dug up hundreds -of corpses to put the heads on pikes. It is even recorded that when -their savage improvidence left them starving at the siege of Marra -they fed on the corpses they dug up; and when the place was stormed -Bohemond gave up to the general massacre even those inhabitants who -had paid him large sums for their lives, sparing only the young, whom -he sent to the slave-markets of Antioch. When Godfrey took Jerusalem, -the Jews there were all burned alive in their synagogues; and the -chronicles tell that the crusaders rode their horses to the temple -knee-deep in the blood of many thousands of slain misbelievers. On -the second day, in cold blood, there was wrought a fresh massacre -by way of solemn sacrifice; and in the name of Jesus were slain a -great multitude of every age--mothers with the infants in their arms, -little children, youths and maidens, and men and women bowed with -age. Thus was retrieved the mythic Saviour's sepulchre. - -Eight times, during two hundred years, was the effort repeated, as -the fortunes of the Christian principalities in the East were shaken -or overthrown by Moslem assailants, and as the papacy saw its chance -or need to weaken the emperor, or otherwise avert danger to itself, -by renewing the call to arms. No religious teacher seems ever to have -doubted the fitness of the undertaking. St. Bernard preached the -second Crusade as zealously as Peter did the first; eloquent monks -were found, as they were needed, to rouse enthusiasm for each of -the rest in turn; and King Louis IX of France, the model monarch of -Christendom, saw in his vain expedition to recover Jerusalem (1248) -the highest service he could do to God or man. As each successive -crusade failed in the act or was followed by decadence and defeat, -the Church professed to see in the disaster a penalty for Christian -sin; and under Innocent III the very cardinals of Rome vowed to mend -their ways, by way of reviving the warlike zeal of the laity. Among -other fruits of the crusading movement had been a vast increase in -the papal revenues; and whereas the imposts specially laid on for -crusading purposes were said by many to have been appropriated by the -papal court, the pope undertook to put the administration of all such -revenue under non-clerical trustees. But between the hardness of the -military task and the endless strifes and degeneracies of the leaders -on the one hand, and the growing distrust of the Church on the other, -the crusading spirit died out in the thirteenth century. - -To all who could sanely judge, it had become clear that the crusades -were at once a vast drain on the blood and treasure of Europe and -a vast force of demoralization. In the course of the fifth, the -government of Venice succeeded in using the crusaders, in despite of -the protests of Innocent III, to wrest the city of Zara from the king -of Hungary, himself a zealous crusader. Then the expedition, with the -pope's approval, proceeded to interfere in Byzantine strifes, making -and unmaking emperors, until they had created chaos, whereupon they -sacked Constantinople (1204) with every circumstance of vileness and -violence. The pope, who had hoped to reconcile the Byzantines to papal -rule, burst out in bitter indignation at the deeds of the men to whom -he had given his indulgences; but morality was at an end all round, as -might have been foretold; and the pope accepted the conquest for what -it was to bring him in new power. Christendom thenceforth crusaded -with its tongue in its cheek. From the first the papacy had taught -that no faith need be kept with unbelievers; and so was given a very -superfluous apprenticeship to bad faith between Christians. When -in 1212 there broke out the hapless Children's Crusades, out of -the 30,000 who followed the boy Stephen some way through France, -5,000 were shipped at Marseilles by merchants who, professing to -carry them "for the cause of God, and without charge," sold them as -slaves at Algiers and Alexandria. The last recruits furnished by pope -Nicholas IV to the Grand Master of the Templars were drawn from the -jails of Italy: the papacy itself had ceased to put any heart in the -struggle. It is a reasonable calculation that in the two centuries -from the first crusade to the fall of Acre (1291) there had perished, -in the attempts to recover and hold the Holy Land, nine millions of -human beings, at least half of them Christians. Misery and chronic -pestilence had slain most; but the mere carnage had been stupendous. - -Much has been written as to the gains to civilization from the -"intercourse" thus set up between West and East. Gains there were; -and if we remember that thus to have gained was the measure of the -incapacity of Christendom for peaceful traffic with the world of -Islam, we can learn from the process something of real sociological -causation. Men who, from ferocity and fanaticism, could not make quiet -acquaintance with their neighbours, were hurled against them in furious -hordes, generation after generation, and in the intervals of fighting -came to know something of their arts and their thought, exchanging -handicrafts and products. The crowning irony of the evolution lay -in the entrance of unbelief into the Christian world through the -very contact with the "infidel" who was to have been crushed. This -perhaps was the discovery that disillusioned the papacy. And but -for the spirit of faith and hate--the true correlatives in Christian -history--every gain from the Crusades might have been made ten times -over in commerce. To make such gains at the price of nine million -lives and unutterable evil is the contribution of the Crusades to -civilization. - -It is true that from the East the later crusaders learned what chivalry -they evolved; that Saladin became a kind of model hero for Christian -knights; and that he could hold knightly friendship with Richard of -England. But Richard nevertheless could massacre two thousand hostages -in cold blood for an unpaid debt; and his crusading left him as it -found him, a faithless ruffian, whom to honour is to be cheated by -a romance. Nor did passages of chivalry ever root out of crusaders' -hearts the creed that no faith need be kept with a misbeliever. - -It is true again that the Crusades involved much social metabolism -in Europe. The papal indulgence freed serfs from their masters, and -debtors from their usurers, while the crusade lasted; the crusading -barons freed many more serfs for a price down, and sold broad -lands to middle-class buyers in order to furnish themselves for the -campaign. And the mere stir of the exodus and the return, repeated for -so many generations, was a vivifying shock to the torpor of medieval -Europe, where war was for many the one relief to a vast tedium. But -the torpor must go to the credit of the creed if the shock does, since -the faith had vetoed the intercourse of peace; and to the same account -must be put the throwing back upon itself of the Saracen civilization, -of which Christian enmity directly or indirectly wrought the arrest -and ruin, first in the East, later in Spain. Such wreckages surely -block the path of the wrecker. If, finally, we seek to measure the -reactions of crusading savagery on the life of those who wrought and -those who applauded it--a reaction seldom reckoned in the discussion -of the "results"--we shall be well prepared for the discovery that -in the fourteenth century the general lot of men in Europe showed -no betterment; that the tillers of the soil had still to sweat blood -under feudal masters, save where the enormous loss of life through the -pestilence known as the Black Death had for a time raised the price of -labour; and that the institution which above all embodied for Europe -the memory of the Crusades, the Order of the Knights Templars, was -at length crushed in its home by as base a conspiracy and as cruel a -slaughter as ever marked the struggle of Christian with Mohammedan. It -was pretended by Philip the Fair of France, who began the plot, that -the Order was anti-Christian, and devoted to blasphemous rites; but -there is no proof of the occurrence of anything more than irregular -acts of irreverence, answering to the artistic ribaldries of the -mason-companies who built the cathedrals. That phenomenon is in itself -noteworthy, as showing how the Crusades had tended to shake faith; -but the Templars as a whole were no more unbelievers than the kings -who coveted their wealth. It was for that wealth, which was indeed -incongruously great, that they were conspired against by their fellow -Christians, who in two hundred years of a precarious union of enmity -against men of another faith had not learned goodwill towards those -of their own. The drama ended as it began, in hatred and crime. - - - - - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE - - -§ 1. Superstition and Intolerance - -In judging of the intellectual life of the Middle Ages, account -must always be taken of the fact that their earlier literature is -mainly religious and ecclesiastical, and that such literature often -gives a very faint idea of the higher mental life of the educated -laity. In our own time, and still more in the last two centuries, -the literature of devotion and of the Church seldom suggests the play -of intelligence that actually goes on in the world: taken by itself, -indeed, it would often imply intellectual decline. As we have seen -and shall see, the Middle Ages had an intellectual life apart from -the Church; and in the period we term the Renaissance that life was -far-reaching; there is reason therefore to question whether at a time -when authors were mostly clerics there was not some sane thinking of -which we read little or nothing. But even if such allowance be made, -the fact remains that the period of clerical supremacy in literature -is a period of enormous superstition. - -Under that term even religious people now include a habitual belief in -diabolical agency, a constant affirmation of miracles, portents, divine -and fiendish apparitions; and the Protestant adds to the definition -saint-worship, belief in the supernatural virtue of relics, and the -acceptance of the daily miracle of transubstantiation. But even if -questions of doctrine be put aside, we may sum up that the average -Christian in the Middle Ages was more credulous as to daily prodigies, -saintly and fiendish, than even the average Catholic peasant of to-day -in the more backward European countries. Doubters and unbelievers there -must always have been; but in the medieval period it was dangerous to -utter doubt, unless by way of attack on priests and monks in circles -where they were not popular. Ribald doubt, besides, came off best; -grave disbelief incurred suspicion; and where men cannot speak their -thought they are hindered in their thinking. The most unseemly debates, -such as that as to whether the eucharist when eaten passed through -the normal process of digestion ("stercoranism" was the name given -to the heresy that it did), and that set up by Ratramnus as to how -the impregnation of the Virgin actually took place--such discussions -could go on freely; but more decent controversy could not. Beyond -question, the influence of clerical literature was mainly for gross -credulity. The lives of the saints in general, from Gregory I onwards, -tell constantly of a puerility of judgment which to a Periclean Greek -would have been inconceivable, and which was incompatible not only -with rational thought but with tolerable veracity. Language and the -art of writing had become means of destroying common sense. In the -hands of the hagiographers, the use of miracle so far outgoes the -older tradition that it must have finally failed to suggest anything -divine--even to a believer. To a skeptic it suggests burlesque. - -On the other hand, medieval life was in the main as much ridden by -fear of evil spirits as that of any savages of our own time; for -every people had kept the notion of their hostile sprites, and the -Christian devil was simply made the God of that kingdom. Life, too, -was shorter than moderns can well realize; so high was the normal -death-rate, so frequent was pestilence, so little understood was -disease; and the nearness of death made men either reckless or -afraid. Where ignorance and fear go hand in hand, is the realm -of superstition. Average religion was summed up in a perfectly -superstitious use of the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist; -a devout hope in the intercession and protection of the saints; an -ever-present fear of the activity of the fiend; a singularly mechanical -use of formularies; an intense anxiety to possess or benefit by holy -relics, the easy manufacture of which must have enriched myriads; -a chronic fear of sorcery; and a conception of hell and purgatory -so literal that its general failure to amend or control conduct is a -revelation of the inconsequence of average morality. It is often hard -to distinguish in medieval religion between devotional and criminal -motives. In the life of the Italian St. Romuald (tenth century) it -is told that when he insisted on leaving the retreat in Catalonia -where he had won a saintly repute, the Catalans proposed to kill -him in order to possess his relics. He in turn cudgelled his father -nearly to death to make him adhere to his profession of the religious -life. Such ethical ideas expressed themselves in the monastic caste -not only in austerities but in systematic self-flagellation; and in -the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries the principle -evolved the chronic movements of the Flagellants, specially so-called, -whose wild and public self-tortures neither Church nor State could -put down while the mania lasted. - -In such a world, primed by a great caste of priests, intolerance had -its ideal habitat. Aversion to innovating thought is as natural to -man as egoism; and an innovating religion is no sooner established -than it finds equilibrium in denouncing innovation. Thus, even -apart from clerical action, and apart too from the ethnic animosity -to Mohammedanism, the medieval laity, knowing nothing of the long -intellectual and sectarian struggles which have forced tolerance on -modern polity, were spontaneous persecutors of heresy save where -it appealed primarily to their anti-clerical economic interests, -or carried them away by mere contagion of physical excitement. The -Flagellants, for instance, seem positively to have hypnotized many by -their procedure, as did the partly kindred and partly contrary sect of -Dancers, who flourished in Flanders and Germany late in the fourteenth -century. It is thus credible that some were cured by incantations, -which were hypnotic with a difference. But all such eccentrics -were normally liable to cruel ill-treatment from their conforming -fellows; and it is clear that in the fourteenth century the mystical -and communistic heresies of Beghards and Beguins, male and female, -were promptly persecuted by the general laity. The religion which -categorically taught men to love their enemies never seems to have -prepared them to endure in their neighbours a difference of doctrine. - -It is probable, too, that during the Dark Ages thousands of helpless -souls were put to death as sorcerers by mobs without process of -law, apart from those executed under the old laws against magic or -divination, and the Teutonic codes of the same order. In a similar -spirit, Christian mobs in all countries and ages had chronically -wreaked a half-religious, half-economic hatred on the Jews, of whom -enormous numbers died by massacre. Here the motive was not wholly -religious, since their unfortunate specialization in usury--albeit -forced upon them by Christian exclusiveness--had set up ill-will -against the Jews in the period of the pagan empire, and even among -the Moors, who had given them religious toleration. But Christian -animus certainly counted for much, and carried the passion to lengths -rarely reached in antiquity. Thus the common run of Christian life -was grossly intolerant. It was left to the Church as such, however, -to frame for the suppression of free thought in religion a machinery -never paralleled in human history. - - - - -§ 2. The Inquisition - -Though all the heresy hunts of the ancient Church had implied -an inquisitorial ideal, nothing in the nature of a "Holy Office" -had existed in the Church till the second quarter of the thirteenth -century. It was felt that the faithful could as a rule be trusted to -raise the cry of heresy wherever it could be scented. Such prompt -action we have seen taken in the cases of Jovinian, Pelagius, -Gottschalk, and Berengar. But in the twelfth century the spirit of -militant orthodoxy, as seen in zealots like St. Bernard, had reached -a strength which pointed to some systematic action on the part of the -now much aggrandized papacy. St. Bernard's attitude to Abailard is -that of the true Inquisitor: he suspects, to begin with, the accursed -spirit of independent thought, and he is straightway determined to -make an example of the upstart who dares to reason on all doctrines -for himself. But even St. Bernard, eager as he was for the blood of -Moslems, could hardly have anticipated the spirit in which the papacy -acted from the Albigensian crusade onwards. Coincident with that -crusade was the digging up of Amalrich's bones, the burning of his -followers, and the veto on the study of Aristotle at Paris. Intolerance -had entered on a new era. - -The first steps towards a systematic and centralized Inquisition were -taken about 1178, when, under Pope Alexander III, the Church began -moving against the "Manichean" heretics of Languedoc. A papal legate at -that time forced from the Count of Toulouse and his nobles a promise on -oath to resist heresy; and in a council of the following year orthodox -princes in general were invited to use force for the purpose. The pope -proceeded not only to excommunicate the heretics and their backers -but to declare, in the fashion already consecrated by the Crusades, -that no one need keep faith with them; further offering indulgences -for two years to all who should make war on them, and calling on -their lords to reduce them to slavery. As a result, a crusade was -made in 1181, so little marked by bloodshed as to be insignificant -in comparison with those of the next generation, but sufficient to -force an abjuration of heresy from the lords concerned. Thereafter, -in 1184, a Council held at Verona prescribed with a new precision and -emphasis a systematic search for heresy by all bishops, and called -upon the nobles to lend their support in the way of the necessary -violence. Innocent III had thus had the way marked out for him, alike -in suppression and in prevention; and the Inquisition as such dates -from the close of his crusade against the Albigenses, when Pope Gregory -IX took from the bishops the business of heresy-hunting and made -it a special task of the Dominican order (1233). After "Manichĉism" -had been stamped out there was a lull in persecution as in heresy; -but the institution remained, to prevent new growths. - -The broad outcome of its work was that whereas the twelfth century -had been one of intellectual dawn, and the thirteenth, despite its -murderous beginning, one of diffusion of light, the fourteenth was -on the whole one of stationary knowledge, save in Italy itself, -where the growing energies of the Renaissance for the time eluded -repression. Indeed the Church cared little about mere unbelief, as -distinct from anti-clerical heresy, where its political rule was not -thereby affected; and in Italy, when anti-clericalism was once put -down, its wealth made it secure. Even in Italy the literary life of -the fourteenth century was rather artistic than intellectual, science -and serious thought making little progress; while in northern Europe -they were visibly arrested. It was in the outlying States, where -heresy might mean a cessation of papal revenue, that the Dominicans -were specially hounded on to their work. In England, in the latter -part of the thirteenth century, the great spirit of Roger Bacon was -cabined and confined by inquisitorial enmities; and in France in -the fourteenth there was a signal suspension of intellectual life, -in the face of the activities of original thinkers such as William of -Occam. The throttling of the civilization of the south had reacted on -the north. Doubtless the desperate wars to which crusading experience -had given a new incitement counted for much, and the constant political -intrigues of the papacy for more, in arresting mental growth. "When a -city for any political proceeding had given offence to its political -head, emperor or king, or had irritated a Roman bishop by opposition, -the usual punishment, by command or interdict, was to inhibit -its professors from teaching, and to disperse its scholars." All -the political causes wrought together for the hindrance of human -advancement. The immense destruction of population by the Black Death, -finally, was a great incitement to superstition. - -The main effect of the Inquisition is seen in Spain, which in the -Saracen period had been one of the great sources of new thought -and knowledge. There, despite the element of intellectual curiosity -set up in the period of Moorish supremacy, when the Christians were -in general treated with tolerance, the spirit of fanaticism was in -some measure ingrained by the long struggle between Christians and -Moslems for the land, though there were also contrary developments; -and an inquisitorial war on Jewish and Moorish ideas was part of the -Christian campaign. As the Christians gained ground, ecclesiasticism -gained with them; yet when the Inquisition, not yet a permanent Spanish -tribunal, was set up in Spain in 1236, it was received by a large part -of the population with fear and dislike. It is an error to suppose -that there was something in "Spanish character" specially prone to -the methods of the Inquisition. Spanish orthodoxy is a manufactured -product, and represents the triumph, under special conditions, of the -fanatical element which belongs to every nation. Not only did many -eminent Spaniards detest and denounce the Inquisition in its first -and imperfectly destructive form: the common people rioted against -it when, in its permanent and more murderous form, it was constituted -in 1478-83, and put under Torquemada. That memorable persecutor long -felt his life to be in danger from the people, both in Aragon and -in Castile; and the first inquisitor-general of Aragon was actually -killed by them. - -Yet even the "ancient" Inquisition had been fatally successful. In -the two centuries from its establishment, while Averroism was rife -in Italy and France, Christian Spain must have been well nigh rid of -the other forms of heretical thought; and the first step of Ferdinand -and Isabella after their crowning triumph was to expel all Jews who -would not apostatize. On the remaining Moors the New Inquisition -went to work in a similar spirit, persecuting them, baptizing them by -force, burning their books, and driving them repeatedly to revolts, -which were always murderously put down. Finally, after the failure -of the great Armada against England, the Inquisitors decided that -the cause of the divine wrath was their undue toleration of heresy, -and a million of nonconforming Moriscoes were miserably driven out of -Spain, as a hundred and sixty thousand Jews had been a century before. - -As all civilization lives by the play of intellectual variation, -Spain was now stripped of a large part of her mental as well as her -material resources; and the continued work of the Inquisition at length -clinched the arrest of her brilliant literature for centuries, keeping -her devoid of science while the rest of Europe was gathering it. In -introducing the Inquisition the Church had destroyed the specific -civilization of southern France, thereby laming that of northern -France; and in thereafter applying the machine to the civilization -of Spain she reduced that to inanition. - -It should be remembered that the Inquisition's purpose was to destroy -books no less than men; and until printing overpowered the effort, -the check thus put on the spread of rational thought bade fair to -be fatal. In a single auto-da-fé ("act of faith") at Salamanca, -near the end of the fifteenth century, six thousand volumes were -burned, on the pretence that they contained Judaic errors, or were -concerned with magic and witchcraft. It is certain that many of them -were of another character. Elsewhere the work of destruction was less -ostentatiously done, but it was constant. - -In the matter of torture and slaughter, however, the work of the -Inquisition has become a proverb; and after all corrections have been -made on the earlier estimates by Llorente and other historians, the -figures remain frightful. In "a few years" the New Inquisition burned -alive, in Castile alone, nearly two thousand persons, and variously -penalized some twenty thousand more. At this rate, many thousands must -have been burned in a generation; and the statement that nearly two -hundred thousand passed through the Spanish Inquisition's hands in -thirty-six years is sadly credible. Its methods were the negation of -every principle of justice. Any evidence, including that of criminals, -children, and even idiots, was valid against an accused person, while -only that of the most unimpeachable kind was heard in his favour; -all proceedings were strictly private; false informers were almost -never punished; and the general principle was that anyone who was -tried must be somehow guilty, the Inquisition being like the pope -infallible. Thus, if a man could not be convicted of real heresy, -he could be punished for an error in the repetition of a prayer or -a creed. But the torture-chamber can seldom have failed to yield -whatever proof was sought for. No such reign of terror and horror -has occurred in any other period of European history; and only in the -practices of witch-finders among savages can its systematic atrocity -be anywhere paralleled. - - - - -§ 3. Classic Survivals and Saracen Contacts - -Ancient literature, as we have seen, was nearing its nadir when -Christianity was becoming supreme in the decadent Roman Empire; -and with the formal extinction of classic paganism came the virtual -extinction of fine letters, science, and philosophy, in the Byzantine -State no less than in the West. The last Christian writers of any -philosophic importance were really products of classic culture and -the ancient civilization. When that civilization had been outwardly -transformed to a Christian guise, the mental life shrank to the -field of theology, with a few fenced and meagre plots of scholastic -drilling-ground. Of the decayed discipline of ancient culture -Christian civilization preserved only the most mechanical formulas; -and the mental training of the Dark Ages consisted in a few handbooks -(notably those by Martianus Capella and Cassiodorus) of what was then -encyclopedic knowledge--the rules of Latin grammar, dialectics or -elementary logic, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, elementary geometry, and -some traditional astronomy. The first three constituted the trivium or -introductory course in the medieval schools; the others the quadrivium: -together "the seven liberal arts." The larger Encyclopedia of Isidore -of Seville, the standard authority for centuries, is as mechanical, as -devoid of living thought, as empty of scientific knowledge, as any of -the others. In the way of literature, there was left to most Westerns -little beyond a few of the later Latin writers, such as Boethius, who -could pass muster as being Christians. Gregory the Great had set the -note of theological anathema against the pagan poets and philosophers; -and classic history survived only in bad abstracts. - -Wherever in the Dark Ages we meet with any power of thought, it -is to be traced either to the influence of Saracen contacts or, as -in John Scotus, to the Greek scholarship that had been preserved in -Ireland while the western empire was being dissolved in barbarism. The -English Alcuin, who had loyally aided Charlemagne in his efforts to -spread education in the new "Holy Roman" empire, got his culture -in an atmosphere where that influence had partly survived. Beyond -this, the Latin world had preserved from the past, in the law schools -which never wholly died out in Italy, a professional knowledge of the -Justinian code, which the Lombards and Franks had allowed to subsist -for those who claimed to be judged by it, and which remained the -proper law of the papal territory after Charlemagne. In the sphere -of such special knowledge, though it was strictly monopolized, there -was doubtless an intellectual life largely independent of religion; -and there some classical culture probably always flourished. - -The first effectual movements of new mental life, however, come from -contact with the Saracens of Spain. While the Byzantine world let the -treasures of old Greek knowledge fall from its hands, the Mohammedans -in the East early acquired, at first through the Nestorian Christians, -some knowledge of Aristotle and of Greek mathematics, medicine, and -astronomy; and this in the progressive Saracen period was passed on to -the Moors of Spain. Thence came into the Latin world the beginnings -of science, as anciently known, with the beginnings of chemistry, -an Arab creation. After the period of John Scotus, all culture had -for centuries decayed: the few who cared to read were monks, taught -to hold pagan lore in horror; so that at the end of the ninth century -even such schooling as the trivium and quadrivium was rare in what -had been the realm of Charlemagne; and the later manuals, such as -that of St. Remi, were even more puerile than the older. Only from -new culture-contacts could new culture arise. - -One of the most fruitful impulses to such life was the introduction, -late in the tenth century, by Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II, -of an intermediate form of the Arabic notation, making possible the -decimal method. Gerbert had acquired in his youthful sojourn on the -Spanish march--not among the Moors, as the tradition has it--some -knowledge of Arab mathematics and of the logic of Aristotle; and -where his predecessors in the cathedral school at Rheims had for -the most part shunned the Latin classics, he used them freely in -teaching rhetoric. But the impulse he gave to the science of number, -so vital alike for astronomy and for chemistry, was his greatest -practical service. Those who used his method of calculating were -called Gerbertists; and in that still dark age even such knowledge -as his gave rise to the belief that he had dealings with the devil. - -The new life was slow to take root; and when in the eleventh century -the English monk Adelhard translated from the Arabic, which he had -learned in his travels in Spain and Egypt, the Elements of Euclid, -he found little welcome for it. Not till a century later did a -fresh translation of Euclid from the Arabic, by Campanus, make its -way in the schools. Algebra came from the same source, through a -travelling merchant of Pisa, about the beginning of the thirteenth -century. Thenceforth the infant sciences of physics held their ground, -and from those beginnings became possible the lore of Roger Bacon. A -genuine scientific spirit indeed was slow to grow; the ideals and -ethics of religion had almost atrophied among Christians the instinct -for simple truth; but the passion for astrology promoted astronomy, -and the passion for gold promoted chemistry, all its practitioners -hoping for the philosopher's stone, which should transmute lead into -gold. Always it is from the Arabs that the impulse comes. Under the -emperor Frederick II, who in his Sicilian seat gave free course to -Saracen culture and thought, was first translated from the Arabic -the Greek Ptolemy's great work on astronomy; and for Alphonso X of -Castile, by Moorish means, were compiled new astronomical tables. From -the Arabs, too, came trigonometry, which even for the Greeks had not -been a separate science; and only in the fifteenth century did Müller -of Königsberg ("Regiomontanus"), who perfected the decimal notation, -first give it new developments. - -New philosophic thought came by the same paths. Between the philosophy -of the Arab Averroës, with its Aristotelian basis and its lead to -pantheism and materialism on the one hand, and the moral reaction set -up by the Crusades on the other, the bases of Christian orthodoxy were -shaken. The legend that Frederick II wrote a treatise entitled The -Three Impostors, dealing with Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, is a fable; -there was probably no such book in the Middle Ages, for it would have -meant death at the hands of the Inquisition to possess it; but the -very phrase showed what men had become capable of thinking and saying. - -As the Renaissance proceeded in Italy in the teeth of the strifes which -ultimately destroyed Italian liberty, men turned with all the zest -of new intelligence to the remains of Latin literature. Virgil had -become for the Middle Ages a beneficent magician, a kind of classic -Merlin, and as such he is framed by Dante in his great poem of the -other world. Religion in Italy had been brought into something like -contempt by the lives and deeds of its ministers; and only in the -literature of civilized antiquity could intellectual men find at -once stimulus and satisfaction. It is to be said for the popes and -cardinals of Rome, now among the wealthiest princes of Christendom, -that they too promoted the revival of learning by their rewards. On -their urging, scholars retrieved classics from the garrets and cellars -of a hundred monasteries, or from the scrolls from which they had -been partly obliterated to make way for a theology that the scholars -despised. Popes and cardinals themselves, indeed, were commonly held in -the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to care little about theology -and to know less--a state of things which ultimately aided their -heretical adversaries, as did the scholarship they helped to spread. - -With the fall of Constantinople came the final decisive impulse -to new culture in western Europe. Ecclesiastical hates, and those -aroused by the crusading conquest of Byzantium, had for centuries -sundered the Greek and Latin worlds more completely than even -those of Christian Europe and Islam, setting up a Chinese wall where -paganism, albeit by fatal means, had effected mutual intercourse. But -on the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1452 numbers -of despairing Greek scholars sought refuge in the West, and were -eagerly welcomed by students who desired Greek, not to acquire the -theology of the Byzantines, but to read in the original the great pagan -masters. Thenceforth the forces of culture in Europe became too strong -for the forces of repression. It was thus by a return to the thought -and science of buried paganism that Christian civilization so-called -was put on a progressive footing. So long as Aristotle, known through -Latin translations made from the Arabic, was a university text-book -for students of theology under ecclesiastical supervision, he was but -a modified instrument of dogmatism; and his limitations were made the -measure of knowledge even as the Bible had been. With the free return -to the recovered lore of free Greece came a new spirit of freedom, -destined to break down the reign of all dogmatisms, and to build up -a lore of its own. - - - - -§ 4. Religion and Art - -On one line, happily, the Church of the Renaissance was able to do -a service to civilization while following its own ends. Among the -apophthegms which stand critical tests is that to the effect that -art has always been the handmaid of religion. So true is it that even -Protestant Christianity, which at its start set its face against all -pictorial expression of religious ideas, is in our own time visibly -much indebted to art for the preservation and cultivation of religious -sentiment. - -In antiquity, save in the anti-idolatrous cults, religion had been the -great patron of imitative art, inasmuch as it made the most constant -economic demand for sculptures and paintings. This law held good -from Hindostan to Rome; and even Judaism and Mazdeism had perforce to -subsidize architecture. That common need for splendid temples preserved -architectural ideals in Byzantium when the art of the higher sculpture -had utterly disappeared; and as the loss of skill in sculpture, -no less than the old aversion to statues as symbols of paganism, -prevented activity on that line, the Byzantines devoted themselves to -the carving and painting of wooden icons, and to mosaics, pictures, -and manuscript illuminations, for religious purposes. The results -were constrained and unprogressive; but hence, in the Dark Ages, -and during the short-lived Latin empire of Constantinople, came the -models for the first pictorial art of Italy; and from that beginning, -under the economic encouragement given by a priesthood whose wealth -was always increasing, and whose churches and palaces constantly -gained in splendour, came the immense artistic flowering of the -Renaissance. After the Reformation had cut off half the sources of -Italian ecclesiastical wealth, and Spanish rule had begun to ruin -industry, the artistic life of Italy rapidly died away; even as in -Protestant Holland, where the economic demand was non-clerical, coming -mainly from a wealthy trading class who sought portraits and secular -pictures, there was a rapid decline from the period of political and -economic contraction. - -It needed, however, the conditions of free civic life, such -as prevailed in the earlier part of the Renaissance, to raise -ecclesiastical art from the bondage of convention in which it had -been kept by the Byzantine Church, as by the priesthood of ancient -Egypt. It was the multiform intellectual competition of the Italian -States in their period of free growth, and even under their native -despots, that bred artistic spirits such as those who perpetually -widened the bounds of the arts of colour and form, from Giotto to -Michel Angelo and Titian. - -Under equivalent conditions took place the great evolution of -architectural art in France and northern Europe. It was mainly the -economic demand of the Church that evolved the admirable architecture -called "Gothic"--a misnomer first applied by the later artificial taste -which could see beauty only in classical symmetry, and disdained the -wild grace and power of the medieval architecture as mere barbarism. It -was really a special development of artistic faculty. Modern fancy has -ascribed to the guilds of cathedral-builders on the one hand a passion -for occult lore, supposed to be the source of the modern mummery of -"Freemasonry," and on the other hand a deep religious feeling, of which -the cathedral is supposed to be the expression. How far this is from -the truth may be gathered from a closer study of their sculptures in -many of the older cathedrals and churches, which reveal not only a -riotous irreverence and indecency, but at times a positive derision -for the faith. Nonetheless, organized Christianity had, by its demand -for their work, provided a wonderful artistic environment for a cult -which could no more than those of antiquity evolve a humanity worthy -of beautiful things. - - - - - - - - -CHAPTER V - -BYZANTINE CHRISTIANITY - - -The history of Christian Byzantium, from the rise of Islam to the fall -of Constantinople, is the typical instance of mental stagnation. During -a period of eight hundred years, even friendly research professes -to discover in Byzantine annals only one writer's name per century -which posterity can be expected to keep in memory. Such a history is -the complete confutation of the common theory that Christianity is -in itself a force of progress; but once more we must take note that -Christianity was not the determining cause of the arrest. Civilization -progresses by the contact of cultures; and where that is lacking the -results are the same under all religious systems. Byzantium presents -the symptoms of China, because, like China, it was politically and -intellectually isolated for a whole era, under a centralized government -which imposed certain norms of life and doctrine, and prevented the -variation and mutual reaction that would otherwise have arisen between -its provinces. Only inasmuch as it promoted and consecrated such a -system was Christianity a primary factor in the resulting arrest of -growth. As a matter of fact, it lent itself alternately to division -and to petrifaction. In the period to the end of the seventh century, -dogma was a source of strife which dismembered the empire; in the -period of contracted empire, face to face with the Moslem enemy, -religious feeling tended to prevent further disruption, very much as -the Church had been unified in the pagan period by persecution. - -Within the contracted empire, however, there was no durable -progress. Its condensed annals give a picture which even the barbarian -West could not outgo. In the period from 668 to 716 seven emperors -were dethroned, four of them were put to death, one (while drunk) -had his eyes put out, and two more, in addition to two brothers of -emperors, had their noses cut off--punishments which in Byzantium -became classical. Under Christianity there was certainly more cruelty -and demoralization than under early Islam. The Caliph Aboubekr had -given to his followers those injunctions: "Be just: the unjust never -prosper. Be valiant: die rather than yield. Be merciful: slay neither -old men, children, nor women. Destroy neither fruit-trees, grain, nor -cattle. Keep your word, even to your enemies." Only those who refused -either to become Moslems or to pay tribute were to be slain. In that -spirit the Caliph Moawyah rebuilt their Church for the Christians -of Edessa. Fifty years later, Justinian II invaded Armenia, and on -driving out the Saracens seized and sold as slaves the majority of the -Christian inhabitants, reducing the richest parts of the country to -desert. And when, after he had been dethroned, deprived of his nose, -and exiled for ten years, he returned to triumph over his enemies, -the Greek populace applauded him with Biblical quotations as he sat -in the circus with his feet on his rivals' necks. - -The advent of Leo the Isaurian (716) marks an epoch in Byzantine -history. Acting as head of the Church, the established function of the -eastern emperors, he set himself to check idolatry, first by ordering -that the pictures in the churches should be placed high enough to -prevent the people from kissing them. On this issue the populace and -the lower clergy united against him, to the length of rebellion; and -he in turn made his edicts more stringent. Whatever may have been his -motives, he acted on principles afterwards founded on by Protestantism; -and during a century and a half--save for a relapse from 787 to 813, -in which the government was sometimes tyrannically orthodox and -sometimes tolerant--his views were more or less fully maintained by -succeeding rulers. It is interesting to note that, as repeatedly -happened centuries later in the West, a long period of religious -strife through the whole State created a party in favour of complete -tolerance and liberty of conscience. But though they so far gained -ground as to convert the emperor Nicephorus I (802-811), who employed -some of them in his ministry, and treated both Paulician heretics -and rebels with unusual tolerance, there was no such intellectual -life in Byzantium as could long sustain a tolerant policy. It is a -miscalculation to suppose, as some do, that the triumph of iconoclasm -would have meant the regeneration of the empire. To work regeneration -there were needed further forces of variation, since Islam stagnated -without image-worship as Byzantium did with it. - -Leo the Armenian (813-820), who was averse to image-worship but -desirous of keeping the peace, was forced by the zeal of the -iconoclastic party and the obstinacy of the orthodox to resume an -iconoclastic policy. Under such circumstances numbers of the clergy -became temporizers, leaving to the monks the fanatical defence of -images; and as Leo himself was capable, with the approbation of -both parties, of an act of the grossest treachery toward his enemy -the king of the Bulgarians, it is clear that neither iconoclasm nor -image-worship was raising the plane of morals. Significantly enough, -it was at the beginning of the reign of Michael the Drunkard (842-867), -who was professedly orthodox, but openly burlesqued the ceremonies -of the Church, that image-worship was definitely restored under the -regency of his fanatical mother, Theodora. The great majority were -weary of the strife, and many of the iconoclasts had come to the -conclusion that relative sanity in religion was not worth fighting -for. For the rest, Michael was finally assassinated, as Leo the -Armenian had been before him. - -It was at this period that Photius, the most learned man of the -Dark Ages, became Patriarch of Constantinople, in the teeth of the -opposition of the pope of Rome, who after the formal restoration of -image-worship had been appealed to, as a champion of orthodoxy, for -the decision of some official disputes in the Eastern Church. After -his position was assured, Photius effectually fought the Roman claims, -completing the schism between the Churches; and in his own sphere -he did much for the preservation of learning, and even something -for the cultivation of judgment. In theology, it is admitted by one -of another school, "he made use of his own reason and sagacity"; -and he is notable, in his period and place, for having reached the -idea that earthquakes might not be divine portents. But Photius is -the high-water mark of Byzantine intelligence; and no man of equal -capacity and culture seems to have arisen during the six remaining -centuries of the eastern empire. - -It is impossible, indeed, to say whether there was not in Byzantium, -behind the official scenes, a higher intellectual life. It was from -Michael II ("the Stammerer") that Louis the son of Charlemagne received -(824) the copy of the writings of Dionysius "the Areopagite," from -which was made the first Latin translation; and as this writer had -a great influence on John Scotus, who may even have acquired his -first knowledge of him from that very copy, which he translated -afresh, it may be that in Greece also, where Dionysius was much -admired and studied among the monks, there were deep thinkers whom -he stimulated. But whereas even Scotus could reach few in the West, -any higher thought there may have been in the East remained entirely -latent. Learning fared better. After Photius, the East produced for -posterity the important Lexicon of Suidas, which apparently belongs -to the tenth century; and in the twelfth Eustathius of Thessalonica -produced his valuable commentary on Homer. But the populace in the -East was as ignorant and superstitious as that of the West; and -the system of caste occupations or hereditary pursuits made eastern -learning even a less communicable influence than western. - -In the political life there were fluctuations; and though in all ages -alike there were dethronements, assassinations, and mutilations of -emperors and of their suspected relatives, the time of the Basilian -dynasty (867-1057) was one of relative stability, with even some -military glory, and temporary recovery or expansion of territory, as -against Saracens and Bulgarians. Still the sum-total of each century's -life was practically stagnation. Under emperors, empresses, or eunuchs, -the administration was substantially the same. Alien elements, which -might under other conditions have generated new life, had entered the -empire with the Slavonians, whose race, after occupying Dalmatia and -Illyricum at the wish of Heraclius in the seventh century, flourished -and multiplied, and invaded the Peloponnesus early in the ninth. The -later iconoclastic emperors were vigorous enough to bring them to -submission; but Roman imperialism and Christian ecclesiasticism -between them undid all progressive influences, just as the policy of -militarism and fanaticism finally did among the Saracens. - -The attempts at change, indeed, were many. Conspiracies were chronic; -and when one failed the conspirators were blinded according to -Byzantine rule: emperors on the other hand were often unmade; but the -political machinery remained the same. In the period to Heraclius, -the ruling class at Constantinople were mainly of Roman stock; under -the Iconoclastic emperors, who were Asiatics, it was mainly Asiatic; -later it became substantially Greek, as each party drove out the other; -but all alike maintained the old imperial ideals. "Men of every rank," -says the historian Finlay, "were confined within a restricted circle, -and compelled to act in one unvarying manner. Within the imperial -palace the incessant ceremonial was regarded as the highest branch -of human knowledge.... Among the people at large, though the curial -system of castes had been broken down, still the trader was fettered -to his corporation, and often to his quarter or street ... amidst men -of the same profession.... No learning, no talent, and no virtue could -conduct either to distinction or wealth, unless exercised according -to the fixed formulas that governed the State and the Church. Hence -even the merchant, who travelled over all Asia, and who supported the -system by the immense duties that he furnished to the government, -supplied no new ideas to society, and perhaps passed through life -without acquiring any." - -Yet such is the strength of the biological force of variation that -even in religion there was chronic heresy. We have seen, in tracing -the history of western belief in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, -how a strenuous anti-clerical heresy, the Paulician, had arisen and -thriven in the East, defying the bloodiest persecution, and developing -in the old fashion into a force of hostility to the empire. After that -heresy had been thus fatally expelled, others arose. In the twelfth -century, under the theological emperor Manuel Comnenus, there was a -return to the inexhaustible problem of the incarnation: men disputed -as to how God could at the same time be a sacrifice and the offerer -thereof; and the emperor himself, convicted of heresy, came round to -the orthodox view, whatever it was. Soon the dispute took a new form, -over the awkward text "My Father is greater than I"; and the emperor -gave an orthodox decision which he engraved on tables of stone for the -great Church, denouncing death on all who taught otherwise. As usual, -the dispute was not settled, and the later emperor Andronicus was fain -to take down the tablets and forbid all discussion on the subject. All -the while anti-clerical and anti-ceremonial heresy persisted; and the -burning alive of the monk Basil, founder of the Gnostic Bogomiles, -did not mend matters. The brutal sack and pillage of Constantinople -by the Latin crusaders, and the generation of western tyranny that -followed, did much to unify the Greek people of the thirteenth century -in a common hatred of their masters, whom they at length cast out; -but this, again, meant no new intellectual life. To the last there -was a sufficiency of static Greek scholarship to preserve much of the -ancient heritage for the time when the Turks should scatter it through -the West; but no Byzantine name belongs to the roll of light-givers -in the age of the Renaissance. - -If we search for the bearing of religion on the popular life during the -thousand years of the eastern empire, the conclusion will remain very -much the same as that reached by a study of the conditions of the first -centuries of established Christianity. Boundless credulity, boundless -superstition, and zealous idolatry are the standing features from the -seventh century onwards. Conduct was substantially what it had been -in pagan times; and whatever might be the legal status of those born -in slavery, the myriads of captives enslaved in every successful war -can have had no better lot than those of the ancient world. Doubtless -the lot of the Byzantine people in the mass was better than that of -the westerns of the Dark Ages insofar as they were artisans living -under a regular government; but in the rural districts and outlying -regions they can have fared no better, either in peace or war. When the -Saracens wrested Crete and Sicily from Byzantium early in the ninth -century, the majority of the inhabitants seem to have been little -loth to turn Moslems. "In almost every case in which the Saracens -conquered Christian nations," says the Christian historian already -quoted, "history unfortunately reveals that they owed their success -chiefly to the favour with which their progress was regarded by the -mass of the people. To the disgrace of most Christian governments, -it will be found that their administration was more oppressive than -that of the Arabian conquerors." We have already seen that both the -Arabs and the Mongols, as apart from the Turks, were by far the more -tolerant. When the Byzantine empire recovered Crete in the tenth -century, its rulers planned to exterminate the Saracen population; -and though the purpose was not carried out, the Saracens who remained -were reduced to virtual serfdom. - -Of the moral and intellectual unprogressiveness of Byzantium we may -say, finally, that the Christian State, like those of the Saracens -and the Turks, was in large measure kept stationary precisely by the -relation of constant strife set up by the existence of the enemy. Each -was the curse of its antagonist. And Christianity did no more to raise -men above that deadlock of enmity than did Islam; nay, the further -factor of Byzantine isolation represented by the rupture between the -Greek and Latin Churches was a special product of the Christian system. - - - - - - - - -PART IV - -MODERN CHRISTIANITY - - -CHAPTER I - -THE REFORMATION - - -§ 1. Moral and Intellectual Forces - -As early as the eleventh century we have seen at work in both -eastern and western Europe movements of popular resistance at once -to the religious claims and the financial methods of the Christian -priesthood, to the dogmas on which those claims and methods proceeded, -and to the ceremonialism which backed them. Early in the thirteenth -century the region in which such heresy had most largely spread was -systematically warred upon by armies called out by the Church, and -there the movement was destroyed by many years of bloodshed, the once -heretical territory becoming a centre of orthodox fanaticism. The -scattered seeds, however, bore fresh fruit, and in the fourteenth -century movements of thought, some of which were no less deeply -heretical, and many no less anti-hierarchical, went far in the west -and north of Europe. Still they failed to effect any revolution; and -in the middle of the fifteenth century the Church of Rome, corrupt -as its rulers were, might have seemed to calculating observers more -surely established than ever before. It had passed through a long and -scandalous series of papal schisms, and its power seemed strengthened -by reunion after a century and a half of divisions. - -Heretical forces of course there were, several of the leading sects of -the fourteenth century being still active, especially in Germany and -the Low Countries. Thus the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit, -who leant to pantheism in doctrine and to some degree of antinomianism -in practice, persisted in spite of persecution, as did the kindred -movements of Beghards or Turlupins; members of these and similar sects -even found shelter in the lower orders of the Franciscans, Dominicans, -and Augustinians; and in Italy and France the heretical Franciscan -Fraticelli still obstinately fought the papacy, which followed them -up with fire and sword. But there are no signs that the papacy had -thus far been shaken; and more than one anti-clerical movement had -died out. Thus in England Lollardry had virtually disappeared in -the reign of Henry VI; and in Bohemia, where the Wiclifian John Huss -in the opening years of the century had preached vehemently against -clerical and papal abuses, not only had he been burned alive on the -sentence of the Council of Constance (1415), in iniquitous disregard -of the emperor's letter of safe-conduct, but his followers, after -long and savage wars in which great numbers were burned alive and -they themselves broke up into two sections, had finally been either -reconciled to the Church or reduced to peaceful nonconformity. - -Nowhere could the anti-papal spirit be said to be dangerously strong; -nor was it much regarded by the popes. A little earlier than Huss, -Matthew of Cracow, Bishop of Worms, had written "On the Pollutions -(de squaloribus) of the Roman Curia," but he was never molested. It -does not seem, further, that the cause of the cruel sentence on -Huss was so much his attacks on the clergy or the papacy as the -enmities he had aroused (1) in what passed for philosophy (he being -a zealous "Realist," and as such hated by the "Nominalists," [24] -who were strong in the Council) and (2) on the side of nationality, -he being a Czech nationalist and a vehement enemy of the German race -and interest, which also were present in force. And though the cruelty -and the gross treachery of the sentence on Huss, and the infliction -of the same cruel death on Jerome of Prague in the following year, -roused a furious revolt among the Hussites, these outrages awoke no -general sympathy in Europe. - -As the fifteenth century wore on, fresh movements of anti-papal -feeling rose, and some were put down. A professor of theology at the -university of Erfurt, John of Wesel (not to be confounded with John -Wessel, also a critical reformer in theology, but never persecuted), -began about the middle of the century to write against indulgences; -and when he became a popular preacher at Mayence and Worms he carried -his criticism further. The result was that in 1479 he was arraigned -before a "court of Inquisition" at Mayence and cast into prison, where -he soon died. Wesel was a Nominalist, and as such was no less hated by -the Realists than Huss had been by the Nominalists; but since he was -also denounced as a Hussite, and was further an extremely free-tongued -assailant of the hierarchy, there is reason in his case to suppose a -professional animus. Still there was no formidable movement. Before -John of Wesel, the Netherlander John of Goch, Confessor to the Nuns -of Tabor (d. 1475), had opposed both monasticism and episcopal power; -but he was associated with the orthodox Brethren of the Common Lot, -and had criticized the antinomian morals of the Brethren of the Free -Spirit, so that he hardly figured as a heretic. John Wessel, again -(d. 1489), anticipated, as Luther declared, most of the latter's -doctrines; but though he wandered in France and Italy, studied and -taught at Paris, and was a professor at Heidelberg, exercising a wide -influence, he never roused enmity enough to bring him into trouble. On -the other hand, Savonarola's strong dissentient movement at Florence, -as we have already noted, fell with him in 1498. - -All the while, nevertheless, there was proceeding an intellectual -process which had not before been possible--a permeation of the -northern part of the continent, especially Germany, by a spirit of -comparatively orthodox anti-Romanism, based on a growing scholarship, -which found in the sacred books themselves a basis for its course. The -scholarly impulse had come from Italy, where it had been fostered -by the papacy itself; but in the north it had a different social -and political effect. In Germany and the Netherlands, to begin -with, elementary education was gaining ground. The Brethren of the -Common Lot had done much for it, and many of their pupils started -fresh schools, which weakened the first, but carried further their -work. At the same time sprang up new universities; those of Tübingen, -Mayence, Wittemberg, and Frankfort-on-the-Oder being founded between -1477 and 1506. In the higher Biblical scholarship, further, there -had begun a new era. Laurentius Valla's Notes on the New Testament -created a spirit of scholarlike criticism; and John Reuchlin, after -a training in France, began in Germany an equally vigorous movement -of Hebrew scholarship by producing the first Hebrew grammar. Numbers -of educated men were now in a position of intellectual superiority -to the great mass of the clergy; and all the while the process -of translating the New Testament or the gospels into the modern -languages for the use of the unlearned was going on in all the more -civilized countries. There were German translations before Luther; -Wiclif's versions had been current in England among the Lollards; -and French and Italian versions had been made by several hands in the -fifteenth century. The important result was that anti-clerical heresy -began to claim to be the stricter orthodoxy, and the Church could no -longer bracket the sin of anti-clericalism with that of rejecting the -leading Christian dogmas. Thus, when Erasmus of Rotterdam began with -a new and remarkable literary skill to write Latin satires on the old -text of the vices and ignorance of the monks and other clergy, he had -such an audience as no man had yet had on that theme. In Petrarch's -day, a century before, though he too had exclaimed like every other -educated layman at the corruption of the papal court and system, -humanist literature was still largely a matter of exquisite art for -art's sake; in that of Erasmus it had begun to handle the most vital -intellectual and moral interests. - -Yet, though such an intellectual ferment was a condition precedent of -the Reformation, it was not the proximate cause of the explosion. The -doctrinal movement is seen at its strongest after Luther's disruptive -work had been done, in the allied movement set up in France by -Calvinism. More perhaps than in Geneva itself, the Huguenot cause in -France was one of moral and intellectual revolt, certainly fanatical -but in large measure disinterested. What precipitated the Reformation -in Germany was the coalition of the decisive economic interest of -the self-seeking nobles, and the anti-Roman national sentiment of -the people, with the moral and doctrinal appeal of Luther. - - - - -§ 2. Political and Economic Forces - -Even the grievance of indulgence-selling, which gave the immediate -impulse to Luther's action, was an economic as well as a moral -question. Many of the best Catholics were entirely at one with him -and such of his predecessors as Wesel and Wessel in deploring and -denouncing the form the traffic had taken. The process of farming -out the sale of indulgences to districts, as governments farmed -out the taxes, was enough to stagger all men capable of independent -judgment; and the expedition of the Dominican monk Tetzel had reduced -it to something like burlesque. Yet it was typical of what papal -administration had become. Archbishop Albert of Mayence and Magdeburg, -who was also margrave of Brandenburg, owed the pope the usual large sum -for his investiture, and could not pay. The pope, Leo X, greatly needed -money for his building outlays; and the supreme prince of the Church -gave to the lesser permission to set up in his province a vigorous -trade in indulgences. For this trade Tetzel was selected, not by the -pope but by the archbishop, as a notoriously suitable tool. Albert -in turn made a financial arrangement with the great German banking -house of Fuggers, and their agent accompanied Tetzel to take care of -the cash. Thus, though the transaction was strictly a German one, the -procedure was externally one of bleeding a German province, through -its superstition, in the financial interest of Rome. Well-informed -people knew that the papal agent carried off at least the archbishop's -debt; and others might plausibly surmise that there had gone a million -thalers more, as the takings had been abnormally great. - -Obviously the mass of the citizens were superstitious believers, -otherwise the traffic could not have gone on; and Luther in his pulpit -began merely by opposing the abuse of the practice, not the canonical -principle. In absolution, he correctly argued, there were according -to the established doctrine three elements--contrition, confession, -and remission of penalties; and indulgences could effect only the -third. He accordingly refused to absolve any on the mere ground of -an indulgence; whereupon Tetzel, finding his traffic thus ostensibly -hampered, preached against him, and the historic battle began. The -theses nailed to the Wittemberg church door by Luther (1517) did not -assail the Church or the pope; they simply challenged on orthodox -lines the abuse of indulgences; and when Luther began to publish his -views he expressed himself with perfect submission to the pope. - -What won him the support of a vigorous popular party, albeit a -minority, and of a sufficient section of the nobility, was in -the first place his courage, and in the second place the growing -restiveness of the Germans as such under what was practically an -Italian domination. In past history, the "Germanic empire" had been -wont to lord it over Italy on feudal grounds, and it was always a -sore point with many that Italy none the less received an increasing -tribute from Germany as from other States. The blunder of the papacy -in Luther's case lay in not realizing how far such feelings, in -connection with a fresh scandal, might go in setting up a northern tide -of anti-Roman animus. So long wont to brow-beat all insubordination, -and to decide doctrinal disputes by fiat instead of by persuasion, -it either prescribed or permitted to its agents the usual tone in -their dealings with Luther; and finally the pope thought to clinch -matters by a bull (1520) against his doctrines, giving him his choice -between submission and excommunication. His defiance, and the act of -excommunication, duly followed, and the Protestant Church began. - -Even now the papacy, witless of new developments, could very well -suppose the new heresy transient. Charles V, the new Emperor, was -thoroughly orthodox; and not many of the German nobles were ostensibly -otherwise. But Charles was under a deep obligation to Frederick the -Elector of Saxony for his election; and Frederick was one of those -who had begun, for racial and financial reasons, to contemplate -"home rule" in matters ecclesiastical. Frederick accordingly was -allowed to protect Luther, whose courage in going to the Diet of -Worms, with Huss's fate in common memory, further established his -popular influence. Manhood always loves manhood. After 1526, however, -the process of the Reformation in Germany was substantially one of -wholesale confiscation of Church lands and goods by the nobles, who -were thus irrevocably committed to the cause; and though Luther and -his more single-minded colleagues were naturally disgusted, there was -no other way in which they could have won, popular sympathy counting -for nothing in such a matter without military force. - -A rupture took place, finally, between the Emperor and the new Medicean -pope, Clement VII, over the desperate politics of Italy, the papacy for -once taking a national course in resisting an imperialist invasion. But -the invaders triumphed; Italy was overrun anew; Rome was sacked (1527) -with all the atrocity which historically distinguishes the Christian -conquests of the city from those of the ancient Gauls and Goths; -and during the critical years of the establishment of Protestantism -the emperor was in no mood to quarrel with his German friends in -the interests of a pope whose friendship he could not trust. All the -political conditions were thus abnormally favourable to the Lutheran -movement. At the same time, every menace from Rome led naturally to -intensification of the Lutheran heresy; and though it always remained -nearer Catholicism that did Calvinism, it emphasized more and more -its differences. - -In the meantime the success of the movement of Zwingli at Zurich -had proved independently that the strength of the Reformation lay -in its appeal to economic interest. Confiscation of the possessions -of the Church by the municipal authorities was a first step, and -one for which, once taken, the community would fight rather than -revoke it. With signal unwisdom, the Roman curia had contrived to -allot most of the Swiss town livings to Italians, so that the vested -interests were alien and not local. The municipality, on the other -hand, sagaciously pacified those interests by guaranteeing pensions or -posts as teachers or preachers to the whole twenty-four cantons of the -chapter; and there and in some other cantons the economic Reformation, -thus effected, was permanent. - -In the case of England, on the other hand, the primary factor in -the repudiation of papal rule was the personal insistence of Henry -VIII on a divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, the aunt -of the emperor, Charles V. Henry was so far from being inclined to -Protestantism that he caused to be compiled by his bishops (1521) -a treatise in reply to Luther, to which he put his name, thereupon -receiving from Leo X the title of "Defender of the Faith." To the very -last, he burned doctrinal Protestants as heretics, and despite revival -of the old Lollard propaganda the country remained substantially -Catholic in creed. But when it came to the king's demand for a divorce, -the new pope, Clement VII, was in a hopeless dilemma, since if he -granted the request, which he was personally and theologically not -unwilling to do, he would exasperate the emperor Charles, of whom -he dreaded to make an irreconcilable enemy, besides offending the -whole Catholicism of Spain and even much of that of England. When -once Henry decided to take ecclesiastical rule into his own hands -he found that, little as he liked the new doctrines, he must in -his own interest proceed to confiscate Church lands and bestow the -bulk of them on adherents, thereby establishing a firm anti-papal -interest. So little way did positive Protestant doctrine make that -when his daughter Mary came to the throne, though she dared not try -to resume the Church lands, the people were in substantial sympathy -with her faith, and only her marriage with Philip and her persecution -of heretics turned any large number against her. Even under Elizabeth -it was the new national enmity to Spain, and not religious propaganda, -that made the bulk of the people Protestant in creed and worship. - -The process of the Reformation in Scotland clearly follows the economic -law. So late as 1535 Scotland was so Catholic in belief, despite -the usual grievances against priestly rapacity and luxury, that the -parliament passed a law forbidding all importation of the writings of -Luther, and all discussion of his "damnable opinions." But as soon -as the English king by his confiscation of the rich monastery lands -(1536-39) showed the Scots nobles how they might enrich themselves by -turning Protestant, they began to favour heresy; and from the death -(1542) of the last Catholic king, James V, throughout the minority of -his daughter Mary, they protected the reforming preachers. In 1543 -began the wrecking of monasteries by mobs; in 1546 was assassinated -Cardinal Beaton, who had taken active steps to destroy heresy; and -though the ferocious war with England delayed developments, as did -the regency of the Queen's French mother, the preaching of Calvinism -by John Knox and others carried enough of the townspeople to make -easy the passing, in 1560, of an Act which made Protestantism the -established religion of the country. As usual, by far the greater -part of the plunder went to the landowning class, who brazenly broke -all their promises of endowment to the preachers. But the latter -had perforce to submit, indignant as they were; and when the young -Catholic queen Mary arrived in 1561 she found a Protestant kingdom, in -which the most powerful class was rich with church spoils. Again the -political and the economic forces had been the obviously determining -factors in the change. - -Scandinavian Protestantism, in turn, moved on the same line of economic -opportunity and pressure. A popular movement seems to have begun in -Denmark, but it was favoured by the throne; and the nobles, seeing the -possibilities of the case, soon followed; whereupon King Christian III, -who ruled both Denmark and Norway, suppressed Catholicism with the -nobles' help, and confiscated the rich possessions of the bishops. In -Sweden, on the other hand, Gustavus Vasa took the initiative against -the clergy, who had supported the Danish rule which he succeeded in -throwing off; and he naturally had with him the mass of the laity, -especially when he gave the nobles leave to reclaim the lands that -had been granted by their ancestors to the monasteries. Doctrinal -Protestantism followed in the wake of confiscation. - -The Protestantism of Holland, again, was plainly the result of the -mismanagement of Philip II. When Protestantism had in other countries -reached its fullest extension the Low Countries were still mainly -Catholic, only a few of the poorer classes having changed, apart -from the Anabaptist movement, which had a much larger following; and -the slaughter of such heretics by the Inquisition went on for many -years with the acquiescence of the middle and upper orders. In the -Netherlands the local Inquisition, conducted by natives, was positively -more cruel than that of Spain. It is thus clear that there was no -special bias to Protestantism in the "Teutonic" races as such. The -orthodox Protestant movement entered Holland not from the German but -from the French side; and it needed not only the ferocity but the -rapacity of Alva to create a permanent Protestant and rationalist -movement among the needy nobility. When the Protestant mobs began to -resort to image-breaking they put their cause in great peril. The -real reason of the slowness of the nobles to turn Protestant was, -doubtless, that they had little to gain from plunder of their Church -in any case, it having long been abnormally poor by reason of the -restrictive policy of the Flemish and Dutch feudal princes in the -past. When the rupture with Spain was complete the Church estates were -scrupulously disposed of in the public interest, Dutch Protestantism -being thus exceptionally clean-handed. - -Philip's attempts to enrich the priesthood were certainly part of -the provocation he gave his subjects in the Netherlands; but their -resentment was at the outset strictly political, not religious; -and it is reasonable to say that had he chosen to reside among -them and conciliate them he could easily have kept them Catholic, -while in that case Spain might very well have become Protestant, -and Dutch and Flemish resources would have been turned against -Spanish disaffection. Even in what remained the Spanish Netherlands -Catholicism entirely recovered its ground. The Teutonic Charles V had -been as rigidly Catholic as his predecessors on the Spanish throne, -and for the same reasons, (1) that the Church in his dominions helped -him and did not thwart him; and (2) that his large revenues from the -Netherlands made it unnecessary for him to plunder the Church as did -the Scandinavian kings and Henry VIII. - -In the case of France, where Protestantism reached its highest -development in point of intellectual and militant energy, but -became stationary after a generation of desperate strife, and later -decayed, the play of political and economic causation is little -less clear. There, as has been said, there was much less ostensible -pressure of wealth-seeking interest on the side of the Reformation -than in Germany and elsewhere; yet so far as the nobles were concerned -an economic motive was certainly at work. At the outset of his reign -Francis I had won from the pope, practically at the sword's point, -the concession (1516) of the right to appoint bishops and abbots, the -papacy in return receiving the annates, or first year's revenue. The -result was that the Gallican Church was at least as corrupt as any -other section of the fold, its dignities being usually bestowed on -court favourites, whose exactions exasperated the rural gentry as -much as those of papal nominees would have done. The throne being -strong, however, and the king having no special financial motive to go -further, the cause of reform had no help from his side. Had he turned -"reformer," as he once had some thought of doing, he could probably -have made France Protestant with less difficulty than Henry VIII met -with in England; but in view of the political divisions set up by -Lutheranism in Germany he decided against the new propaganda. - -That, nevertheless, proceeded. There had always been keen criticism -of the Church in France; and as early as 1512 there began at Meaux a -reform movement on substantially Protestant lines, under the auspices -of the local bishop. He, however, was put down by the threats of -the college of the Sorbonne, the ecclesiastical faculty of the -university of Paris; and the first notable signs of anti-Romanism -came from the Vaudois of Provence, a small population who had been -settled there after the virtual extermination of their predecessors -of the same name and stock in the thirteenth century, and who were -latterly found to have the same anti-clerical tendencies. Under -Louis XII the Church had sought to punish them, but he refused to -permit it, declaring them better people than the orthodox. Finding -themselves in sympathy with the Reform movement, they sent some of -their own preachers to Switzerland and Germany (1530) to learn from -it, and began a similar propaganda. Decrees were issued against them -in 1535 and 1540, but Francis proposed to spare them on condition -that they should enter the Church of Rome. This policy failing, and -Francis having made a treaty with Charles V, under which, on papal -pressure, he agreed to put down heresy, the Vaudois were given up -to coercion. There ensued a massacre so vile (1545) that the king, -now near his end, was revolted by it, declaring that his orders had -been grossly exceeded. A slow process of inquiry, left to his son, -dragged on for years, but finally came to nothing. - -The Vaudois had been nearly exterminated, in the old fashion; -but the massacre served to proclaim and spread their doctrine, -which rapidly gained ground among the skilled artisan class as -well as among the nobles, the Swiss printing-presses doing it -signal service. Persecution, as usual, kept pace with propaganda; -and in 1557 Pope Paul IV, with the king's approval, decreed that -the Inquisition should be set up in France, where it had never yet -been established. The legal "parliament" of Paris, jealous for its -privileges, successfully resisted; but the Sorbonne and the Church -carried on the work of heretic-burning, till at length the Huguenots -were driven to arms (1562). Their name had probably come from that of -the German-speaking Eidgenossen ("oath-fellows") of Switzerland; but -their doctrine was that of Calvin, who, driven from France (1533), -was now long established at Geneva; and their tenacity showed the -value of his close-knit dogmatism as a political inspiration. Catholic -fanaticism and treachery on the one hand, and Huguenot intemperance -on the other, brought about eight furious civil wars in the period -1562-94. The high-water mark of wickedness in that generation was -the abominable Massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572), which followed -on the third truce, and roused a new intensity of hatred. So evenly -balanced were the forces that only after more than twenty years of -further convulsions was the strife ended by the politic decision -of the Protestant Henry of Navarre to turn Catholic and so win the -crown (1594), on the score that "Paris was well worth a Mass." He -thus secured for his Protestant supporters a perfect toleration, -which he confirmed by the Edict of Nantes (1597). - -In Poland and Bohemia, where also Protestantism went far, on bases -laid by the old movements of the Hussites, the process was at first -facilitated, as in Germany, by the political conditions; and the -economic motive was clearly potent. The subsequent collapse and -excision of Protestantism in those countries, as in France, in the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, completes the proof that for the -modern as for the ancient world political and economic forces are the -determinants of a creed's success or failure, culture movements being, -as it were, the force of variation which they condition. - - - - -§ 3. Social and Political Results - -On the side of daily life, it fared with Protestantism as with the -early Church: where it was warred upon it was socially circumspect; -where it had easier course it was lax. Thus we have the express -admissions of Luther and of Calvin that under Protestantism they found -less spirituality around them than there had been under Romanism; and -there is abundant evidence that the first effect of the new regimen -in Germany was to promote what Catholic and Protestant teachers -alike professed to think the most serious form of immorality--sexual -licence. In point of fact, Luther's own doctrines of predestination -and grace were a species of unbought indulgences, sure to injure -good morals, even apart from the effect of a free use of the Bible -as a working code. Some of Luther's fellow-preachers justified and -practised bigamy; and he and his colleagues not only counselled Henry -VIII to marry a second time without divorcing his first queen, but gave -their official consent, albeit reluctantly, to such a proceeding on -the part of the Landgrave of Hesse. Among the common people, the new -sense of freedom quickly gave a religious impulse to the lamentable -Peasants' War, and later to the so-called Anabaptist movement, which, -though it contained elements of sincerity and virtue that are not -always acknowledged, amounted in the main to a movement of moral and -social chaos. - -Luther, during whose time of hiding in the Wartburg (1521-22) the new -ferment began at Wittemberg, came thither to denounce it as a work -of Satan; but it was a sequel of his own action. The new leaders, -Storch and Münzer and Carlstadt, had turned as he had advised to the -Bible, and there they found texts for whatever they were minded to -try, from image-smashing to the plunder and burning of monasteries -and castles, and a general effort at social revolution. In all they -did, they declared and believed they were moved by the Spirit of -God. Luther had done this service to Catholicism, that his course -led to the practical proof that the Bible, put in the hands of the -multitude as the sufficient guide to conduct, wrought far more harm -than good. Peasant revolts, indeed, had repeatedly occurred in Germany -before his time, the gross tyranny of the nobles provoking them; -but the religious frenzy of Münzer gave to the rising of 1524-25 in -Swabia and Franconia, though the formulated demands of the insurgents -were just and reasonable, a character of wildness and violence -seldom seen before. Luther, accordingly, to save his own position, -vehemently denounced the rising, and hounded on the nobles to its -bloody suppression, a work in which they needed no urging. His -protector, the wise Frederick of Saxony, then on his deathbed, -gave no such evil counsel, but advised moderation, and admitted the -guilt of his order towards the common people. The end was, however, -that at least 100,000 peasants were slain; and the lot of those left -was worse than before. The later Anabaptist movement, which set up a -short-lived republic (1535) in the city of Münster in Westphalia, and -spread to Holland, was too destitute of political sanity to gain any -but visionaries, and was everywhere put down with immense bloodshed. - -Yet vaster social and political evils were to come from the -Reformation. In 1526, at the Diet of Spires, the emperor Charles -V called for strong measures against Lutheranism, but was firmly -resisted by the new Elector of Saxony and the other Lutheran princes, -whereupon the emperor waived his claim, not caring to raise a war -in the pope's interest; and it was agreed that each head of a State -in the empire should take his own way in regard to religion, his -subjects being at his disposal. It was at this stage that the German -Reformation began its most decisive progress. In the next few years the -papal party, backed by the Emperor, twice carried decrees rescinding -that of 1526. First came the decree of the second Diet of Spires -(1529). Against this a formal protest was made to the emperor by the -Lutheran princes and a number of the free imperial cities of Germany -and Switzerland, whence arose first the title of "Protestants." In 1530 -the emperor convened a fresh Diet at Augsburg, to which the Lutherans -were required to bring a formal Confession of Faith. This was framed -on conciliatory lines; but the emperor issued a fresh coercive decree, -whereupon the Germans formed the defensive League of Smalkald, from -which the Swiss were excluded on their refusal to sign the Augsburg -Confession. At this stage the invasion of Austria by the Turks delayed -civil war, so that Luther was able to die in peace (1546). Then war -began, and the Protestant League was quickly and thoroughly overthrown -by the emperor. After a few years, however, the imperial tyranny, -exercised through Spanish troops, forced a revolt of the Protestant -princes, who with the help of France defeated Charles (1552). Now was -effected the Peace of Augsburg (signed 1555), which left the princes -as before to determine at their own will whether their States should -be Lutheran or Catholic, and entitled them to keep what Church lands -they had confiscated before 1552. No protection whatever was decreed -for Calvinists, with whom the Lutherans had long been at daggers drawn, -and who had not yet gained much ground in Germany. - -Such a peace failed to settle the vital question as to whether in -future the Protestant princes could make further confiscations, on the -plea of the conversion of Catholic bishops and abbots or otherwise. As -the century wore on, accordingly, the princes "secularized" many more -Church estates; and as Protestantism was all the while losing moral -ground in Germany through the adoption of Calvinism by several princes, -and the bitter quarrels of the sects and sub-sects, the Catholics held -the more strongly to their view of the Augsburg treaty, which was that -all bishoprics and abbeys held directly from the emperor were to remain -Catholic. Friction grew from decade to decade, and, civic wisdom making -no progress on either side, a number of the Lutherans and Calvinists -at length formed (1608) a militant union, led by the Calvinist prince -Christian of Anhalt, to defend their gains; and the Catholics, led -by Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, formed another. The Calvinists were -the chief firebrands; and Christian was bent on aggression, to the -end of upsetting the power of the Catholic House of Austria. - -The train, however, was fired from Bohemia, where the Protestant nobles -were at odds with their two successive kings, Matthias and Ferdinand, -both of that house, and both bent on putting down Protestantism on the -crown lands. The nobles began a revolt in a brutally lawless fashion; -and when, in a winter pause of the war, Ferdinand was elected emperor -(1619), they deposed him from the throne of Bohemia, and elected in his -place the Calvinist prince Frederick, Elector Palatine (son-in-law of -James I of England), who foolishly accepted. The capable Maximilian, -with Tilly for general, took the field on behalf of Ferdinand; -the Lutheran princes stood aloof from Frederick, who for his own -part had offended his Lutheran subjects by slighting their rites; -his few allies could not sustain him, and he was easily defeated -and put to headlong flight. At once the leading Protestant nobles of -Bohemia were put to death; their lands were confiscated; the clergy -of the chief Protestant body, the Bohemian Brethren, dating back -to the time of Huss, were expelled in mass; and Protestantism in -Bohemia was soon practically at an end. Many of both the Lutheran -and Calvinist churches, in their resentment at the slackness of the -German Protestant League, voluntarily went over to Catholicism. At -the same period the Protestant Prince of Transylvania had been in -alliance with the Turks to attack Vienna; and the Protestant faith -was thus discredited on another side. - -Meantime, however, the Thirty Years' War had begun. Frederick's -general, Mansfeld, held out for him in the Palatinate; the dissolution -of the army of the Protestant Union supplied him with fresh soldiers, -content to live by plunder; English volunteers and new German allies -joined; and the struggle went from bad to worse. The failure or -defeat of the first Protestant combatants brought others upon the -scene; James of England appealed to Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and -Christian IV of Denmark to join him in recovering the Palatinate for -his son-in-law, and, unable to subsidize Gustavus as he required, -made terms with Christian, who at once entered the war. Thereupon -the emperor employed Wallenstein, and the Protestants were defeated -and hard pressed, till the great Gustavus came to their aid. Under -his masterly leadership they regained their ground, but could not -decisively triumph. After his death at the battle of Lützen (1632) -new developments took place, France entering the imbroglio by way of -weakening her enemies Austria and Spain, the two pillars of the empire; -and one period of war passed into another without stay or respite. - -In the course of this inconceivable struggle children grew to middle -age, and men grew from youth to grey hairs; most of those who began -the strife passed away ere it had ended; the French Richelieu rose -to greatness and died; and the English Civil War passed through -nearly its whole course, a mere episode in comparison. When at length -there was signed the Peace of Westphalia (1648) the German world was -reduced to mortal exhaustion. The armies on both sides had been to the -common people as the monstrous dragons of fable, bestial devourers, -dealing ruin to friend and foe alike. Every sack of a city was a new -triumph of cruelty and wickedness; tortures were inflicted by the -mercenaries which almost redeemed the name of the Inquisition; and, -as of old in the Ireland of Elizabeth's day, peasants were found dead -with grass in their mouths. According to some calculations, half of -the entire population of Germany was gone; and it is certain that in -many districts numbers and wealth, man and beast, had been reduced -in a much greater proportion, whole provinces being denuded of live -stock, and whole towns going to ruin. German civilization had been -thrown back a full hundred years, morally and materially. No such -procession of brutality and vice as followed the armies of Tilly and -Wallenstein had been seen since the first Crusade; and the generation -which had seen them and been able to survive them was itself grown -callous. Capacity, culture, and conduct had alike fallen below the -levels of a century before. - -By the Peace of Westphalia were settled the boundaries of the two -creeds which had thus battled for a whole generation. In Germany -proselytism was at an end; but the States whose princes had been -Protestant remained so, they and their Catholic neighbours keeping -the right to impose their faith on their subjects. Protestantism -had gained nothing beyond rooting Catholicism more completely out of -Protestant States; and, on the other hand, the Catholics had rooted -heresy out of theirs. No racial dividing-line subsisted. Teutonic -Bavaria and Austria remained Catholic, as the five original Teutonic -cantons of Switzerland had done from the first; and between Lutherans -and Calvinists, of whatever stock, there remained a sullen doctrinal -division. Bohemia had been lost to Protestantism, and Poland was now -far on the way to the same fate. - -The diverse cases of Poland and France here supply yet another lesson -in economic causation. In France at the accession of Henry IV the -Protestants were a very strong party, including many of the nobles, -though a minority of the nation; in Poland, at the accession of -Sigismund III, in 1586, they were considerably stronger. Within -half-a-century they were in full decadence in both countries, -from similar causes. Sigismund (the cousin of Gustavus Adolphus), -though grandson of the Protestant Gustavus Vasa of Sweden, had been -bred a Catholic with a view to his inheriting the Polish crown; and -from the day of his accession he set himself to the aggrandizement -of his creed. He thereby lost the crown of Sweden, but he went far -to make Poland Catholic; and the newly constituted order of Jesuits -did the rest. To the Polish crown belonged the right of conferring -life appointments to which were attached great tracts of crown land; -and the constant use of this economic force for Catholicism during a -long reign began the downfall of the Protestantism of the nobility, -who, though including many men of superior capacity, had been moved as -usual by the economic motive in their heresy. The complete ascendancy -of the Jesuits during the seventeenth century ultimately wrought -the ruin of Poland, their policy having expelled the Protestants, -alienated the Cossacks, who belonged to the Greek Church, and paralyzed -the intellectual life of the nation. - -In France the decay of Protestantism was caused substantially by -economic means. When Richelieu obtained power the Huguenot party was -strong, turbulent, intolerant, and aggressive. Practising on the one -hand a firm political control, and on the other a strict tolerance, -he began the policy of detaching the ablest nobles from the Huguenot -interest by giving them positions of the highest honour and trust, the -holding of which soon reconciled them to the court. Thus deprived of -leaders who were men of the world, the Huguenot party fell into the -hands of its fanatical clergy, under whose guidance it became more -aggressive, and so provoked fresh civil war. The balance of military -power being now easily on the side of the crown, the revolts were -decisively put down; and the policy of anti-ecclesiasticism and -toleration, persisted in by Richelieu and carried on after him by -Mazarin, prevented any further strife. Thus French Protestantism -was irretrievably on the decline when Louis XIV, reverting to the -politics of Catholic bigotry, and not content with setting on foot -cruel persecutions which drove many from the country despite the -laws against emigration, committed the immense and criminal blunder -of revoking the Edict of Nantes (1685), and so expelling from France -the remnant of the Huguenots. He had been advised that the refusal of -liberty of worship would bring them to the Church, and that they could -be hindered from emigrating. On the contrary, his plan lost to France -fifty thousand families of industrious inhabitants, whose Protestantism -had ceased to be turbulent, though it remained austere; and by thus -grievously weakening a kingdom already heavily bled by his wars, the -French king prepared his own military humiliation, and the consequent -depression of his Church. It must always be remembered, however, -that his course was acclaimed by the élite of Catholic culture. - -The alarm and resentment set up by his act counted for much in stirring -the English people three years later to resist their Romanizing king -James II, who, had he gone his way more prudently, might have done -much to rehabilitate Catholicism in virtue of the fanatical devotion -to the throne already developed by the reaction against the Puritan -rebellion. On the other hand, the tyrannous policy which had kept -Ireland Catholic, by identifying Protestantism with oppression, and -Catholicism with the national memories, was cruelly carried on by -England, with the result of maintaining a perpetual division between -the two countries, and preparing a great source of Catholic population -for the United States in a later age. The profound decivilization -inflicted on Ireland by Protestant England is probably the greatest of -the social and political evils resulting from the Reformation; but the -persecution of dissenters in England, and the more savage dragooning -of Presbyterians in Scotland under Charles II and James II (which had -an excuse in the aggressive intolerance of the Covenanters) must go to -the same account. Nowhere, not even in Protestant Switzerland--save in -the case of Zurich, well led by Zwingli, and in that of the Grisons, -where Catholics and Protestants agreed to abolish feudal abuses--did -the Reformation work social betterment for the common people. In -England the tyranny of the Protestant nobles under Edward VI was both -corrupt and cruel; and the Norfolk rising of 1549 was as savagely -suppressed as that of Wat Tyler had been in Catholic times. - -In the processes by which Protestantism lost ground, as in those -by which Catholicism counteracted its own successes, there was a -considerable play of intellectual forces, which we shall consider -apart. But though the economic, the political, and the intellectual -forces always interact, the two former have had a potency which has -thus far been little acknowledged. It is essential to realize that -they have affected the movement of thought more than they have been -affected by it; and above all that they, and not the imaginary bias -of race, have determined the total fortunes of the Reformation. - - - - -§ 4. Intellectual Results - -The intellectual reactions set up by the Reformation were complex, -and on some sides apparently contradictory. Some populations, and in -general the populace of the countries which remained Protestant, were -made collectively more fanatical than they had been under Catholicism, -even as Catholicism itself became for a time more strenuous under the -stress of the conflict; but, on the other hand, there grew up on the -intellectual border of Protestantism forms of heresy which outraged -its majority; and within the political sphere of Catholicism there -came a new growth of skepticism. All these varying results can be -traced to the initial shock of the revolt against Rome. - -Luther and Calvin, it is clear, were alike bigots, as little disposed -to religious toleration as the papacy ever was. Of pope Paul III -(1534-49) it is recorded that he "bore with contradiction in the -consistory, and encouraged freedom of discussion." No such tribute -could be paid to the Protestant leaders of his day. Indeed, it is -noteworthy that while the Catholic hierarchy of the period were not -a little open to new scientific thought, Luther derided the teaching -of Copernicus, and would have suppressed it if he could. It resulted -from the spirit of such leaders that their polities could not be -reconciled. Luther, though he proceeded from a theoretical retention -of the Mass (set forth in the conciliatory Augsburg Confession of -1530, drawn up by Melanchthon) to a bitter denunciation of it, always -leant towards the Catholic doctrine of the eucharist in that he merely -substituted the dogma of "consubstantiation" for "transubstantiation," -and refused to go further. The Swiss Protestants took up another -position. Their chief founder, Ulrich Zwingli, a more rational -spirit than Luther, and brave enough to teach that good heathens -might be saved, went boldly back to the position of John Scotus, -and taught that the bread and wine of the sacrament were merely -memorial symbols. On this head, despite the efforts of Melanchthon, -Luther refused all compromise, and denounced the Zwinglians with his -usual violence. Calvin, whose power in Geneva was established in 1541, -tempered their formula after Luther's death to the extent of affirming, -in Lutheran language, that in the eucharist a certain divine influence -was communicated to faithful participants. But even this could not -secure the dogmatic agreement that the theological ideal demanded; and -the followers of Luther soon gave the quarrel a quality of incurable -bitterness. Even on the question of predestination the sects could not -agree, though both Luther and Calvin, in their different terminologies, -affirmed the foreordination of all things. - -These were only the most comprehensive of a multitude of Protestant -divisions. In the sixteenth century there are enumerated by -ecclesiastical historians at least eighty Protestant sects, all named -for certain special tenets, or after leaders who held themselves -apart. The general resort to the Bible had thus revived the phenomena -of the early ages of the faith; and each leading sect or church within -its own sphere sought in the papal fashion to suppress variation. The -result was a maximum of dogmatism and malice. Every sect split into -many. Thus there were some thirteen groups of Anabaptists; over thirty -separate confessions were drawn up among the main bodies; and Luther -enumerated nine varieties of doctrine on the eucharist alone. The -doctrine seldomest broached was that of mutual toleration. Between -Lutherans and Calvinists the quarrel went so far that when John -Laski, the learned Polish Calvinist, was sailing from England to the -continent on his expulsion with his adherents from England under Mary, -he was refused leave to remain at the Lutheran ports of Elsinore, -Hamburg, Lübeck, and Rostock. But as time went on the Lutherans -were divided endlessly and irreconcilably on doctrinal issues among -themselves. Melanchthon died declaring the gladness with which he -passed away from a world filled with the rabid hatreds of theologians; -and after his day matters grew worse instead of better. - -From the very first, in short, the temper of Protestant propaganda, met -as it was by brutal resistance, had been one of brutal animosity. There -is indeed no more grotesque spectacle in human history than the -association of the phrase "a religion of love" with the masses of -furious controversy which constitute the bulk of Christian theological -literature in all ages of faith. Amenity has been much rarer in -religious strife than in actual warfare, where animal good humour -could at times mitigate or overlay animal hate. Fighters could meet -and banquet after a fight: theologians could not. They could feel -kindly towards those only who joined them in hating the foe. England, -with her Pecock and her Hooker, makes as good a show in this matter as -any other country; but in England the temper of the struggle between -Protestantism and Catholicism is from the first one of intense hate, -the cultured Catholic Sir Thomas More showing as little capacity for -gentleness of spirit as do the violent assailants who exasperated -him. Bale, a typical Protestant polemist, seems habitually to foam -at the mouth. War was the natural and inevitable expression of such -hatreds wherever it could come about; and when the establishment of -Protestantism left the sectarian spirit free play as between sects, -they turned to the new debate all the ferocity that had marked the old. - -It was thus abundantly proved that the cult of the Bible gave no help -towards peace and goodwill; and Catholicism naturally profited by the -demonstration, many peaceable Protestants returning to its fold. In -Germany such reversions were set up alike by the attitude of Luther -towards the revolting peasants, many of whom in turn rejected his -doctrine, and by the wild licence of the Anabaptists, whose madness -could be traced to his impetus. Equally did Romanism gain from the -admission that freedom of profession was found to give outlets for -atheism; and from the open growth of Unitarianism which, taking rise -in Italy in the Lutheran period, was thence carried to Switzerland -and elsewhere, and made considerable headway in Poland. The younger -Socinus (Sozzini), who joined and developed the movement, was not its -founder even in Poland; but when modified and organized by him there -it received his name. The Socinian cult terrified many Protestants, -driving them back to the old ways; and it may have been partly the -resentful fear of such effects that led Calvin to commit his historic -crime of causing the Spaniard Servetus to be burned at the stake (1553) -for uttering Unitarian doctrine. But Calvin's language at every stage -of the episode, his heartless account of the victim's sufferings, -and his gross abuse of him afterwards, tell of the ordinary spirit -of the bigot--incensed at opposition and exulting in vengeance. - -Where a scholar could so sink, the bulk of the Protestant communities -inevitably became fanatical and hard. In Holland, where Calvin's -church became that of the republic, it treated Arminianism in the -seventeenth century as itself had been treated by Lutheranism in -the sixteenth. Arminius (Jacobus Harmensen) had sought in a halting -fashion to modify the dogma of predestination, and to prove that -all men might repent and be saved. Dying after much controversy -(1609), he left a sect who went further than he; and the strife came -to the verge of civil war, the Arminian Barneveldt being beheaded as -a traitor (1619), and the illustrious Grotius sentenced to perpetual -imprisonment, from which however he contrived to escape. In England in -the next generation the Presbyterians, whose doctrine was Calvinistic, -showed the same tyrannous temper; the Arminian archbishop Laud was no -better; and in Calvinist Scotland and Lutheran Germany alike the common -people were similarly intolerant. Standing with their leaders on the -Bible as the beginning and end of truth, the Protestants everywhere -assumed infallibility, and proceeded to decree pains and penalties -with a quite papal inhumanity. Had Luther been able to give effect to -his hatred of the Jews, they would have been persecuted as they never -had been--apart from the chronic massacres--in the Catholic period. He -would have left them neither synagogues nor homes, neither books nor -property. Thus taught, Protestants became persecutors in mass. - -In particular, they everywhere turned with a new zest to the burning -of witches, the old superstitions being frightfully reinforced by -the newly current doctrine of the Pentateuch. No argument--though -it was tried by some--could countervail the testimony of the Sacred -Book against witchcraft, and its decree of the death penalty. As the -frenzy of witch-burning was equally intense in the Catholic countries -in the Lutheran period, the mania may be traced in the first instance -to the Inquisition, which made a specialty of such action. But it -is clear that the new study of the Bible in Protestant countries -gave it as strong a stimulus. In England and Scotland, for instance, -there had been very little witch-burning in the Catholic period; and -the first English law for the purpose was passed under Henry VIII, -in 1541; but in both countries the madness thenceforth went step for -step with the growth of Puritanism; and the amount of insane cruelty -caused by it is past human power to realize. - -If the merits of Christianity as a civilizing force are to be in any -way determined by its influence in working bloodshed, its record in the -matter of witch-slaying alone would serve to place it, in that regard, -lower than any other creed. Classic paganism knew no such infamy. All -the horrors which Christians are wont to cite as typically heathen, -the legends of Juggernaut and the pictures of Dahomey, dwindle in -moral bulk beside the dreadful sum of evil set forth in the past of -their own faith. For the Protestant lands burned at least as many -hapless women for the imaginary crime of witchcraft as the Inquisition -burned men for heresy. Most of the victims were women whose sole -offence had been to have few friends. To be left a childless widow -or an old maid was to run the risk of impeachment as a witch by any -superstitious or malevolent neighbour; and the danger seems to have -been actually doubled when such a woman gave herself to the work of -rustic medicine-making in a spirit of goodwill to her kind. Lonely -women who suffered in their minds from their very loneliness were -almost sure to be condemned; and in cases where partial insanity did -not lead them to admit the insane charges against them, torture easily -attained the same end. But the mere repute for scientific studies could -bring a man to his death; and in Scotland a physician was horribly -tortured and at last burned on the charge of having raised the storm -which endangered the life of King James on his return voyage from -Denmark with his bride. - -The crowning touch of horror is the fact that in Protestant history -for generations there is hardly a trace of popular compassion for the -victims. In the north of Catholic Italy there was a rebellion against -witch-burning, perhaps because it was a part of the machinery of the -Inquisition; in the Protestant countries there was nothing of the -kind. Luther, a man normally fond of children, was capable of advising -that a "possessed" child should be thrown into the river to drown -or be cured. In Italy and France there had always been skepticism -on the matter among educated men; in the Protestant world the new -Bibliolatry made such skepticism go in fear of its life. Wherever -it arose, piety met it with the consciousness of perfect wisdom, -derived from revelation. Calvin was as confident on the subject as -Luther; and when Doctor John Wier of Clèves, apparently a believer in -demons, whose numbers he afterwards statistically estimated at over -seven thousand millions, ventured to argue in 1563 that many of the -so-called witches were simply lunatics, he met as little favour in -the Protestant as in the Catholic sphere. It is to be remembered, as -a landmark in intellectual history, that the great French publicist -Jean Bodin, the most original political thinker of his age, and far -from orthodox on the Christian creed, was the foremost champion of the -reigning superstition, which had become one of his rooted prejudices. - -In England, in 1584, a notable book was written against it, the -Discoverie of Witchcraft, by Reginald Scot; but still the mania -deepened. King James I caused Scot's book to be burned by the hangman -in the next generation; and the superstition, thus accredited, reached -its height in the period of the Commonwealth, whereafter it declined in -the skeptical era of the Restoration. Nowhere did effective resistance -arise on the religious plane. The reaction was conspicuously the work -of the skeptics, noted as such. Montaigne began it in France, by the -sheer force of his hardy and luminous common sense, which made no -account of either the theology or the learning arrayed against it; and -inasmuch as the most brutal fanaticism was in this matter everywhere -bound up with the popular creed, the new enlightenment became in -England anti-democratic because democracy there was the power of -persecution, as in France it became anti-clerical. The Protestant -movement had in its own despite set up a measure of mental freedom, -by breaking up the ecclesiastical unity of Europe; but its spirit soon -revealed to clear eyes that freedom of thought was not to be reached -by mere reform of the Church as such. It thus evolved a skepticism -which struck at the roots of all Christian beliefs. - -The intellectual fatality of the Reformation was that it set up against -the principle of papal authority not that of private judgment but that -of revelation, and thus still made ancient ignorance the arbiter in -the deepest problems. It is indeed vain to say, with Erasmus and with -Goethe, that Luther did ill to force a crisis, and that the reform of -the Church should have been left to time and the process of culture. No -culture could have reformed the papacy as an economic system: the -struggle there was finally not between knowledge and ignorance but -between vested interests and outsiders' rights. In the Rome of Leo -X, as Ranke has calculated, there were twenty-five hundred venal -offices, half of them created by Leo to raise funds for the building -of St. Peter's; and probably most were held by cultured men. What they -fought for was not dogma but revenue: Luther when among them had been -scandalized by their irreligion, not by their superstition. Looking -back, we may still say that a violent rupture was inevitable. Two -generations later, we find Pope Sixtus V (1585-90) raising money as -did Leo X by the sale of places, and putting the prices so high as -to promote official corruption in an extreme degree. - -Rome, as a city, lived on its ecclesiastical revenue, and the total -vested interest was irreversible. During the long papal schism in -which the main wealth of the Church went to the Popes of Avignon, -Rome sank visibly to the level of "a town of cowherds," and the old -church of St. Peter's was in danger of falling to pieces. From the -middle of the fifteenth century to the end of the sixteenth, the -popes laboured successively to make their city the most splendid in -Europe; and only a great revenue, extorted by corrupt or corrupting -methods, could maintain it. The great Council of Trent, begun in -1545 to reform and reorganize the Church, had accomplished at its -close in 1563 only a few doctrinal, disciplinary, and hierarchical -modifications; and its own history proved the impossibility of -a vital reform from within. Twice suspended for long periods, on -the pretext of the disturbed state of Europe, it revealed in its -closing session the inability of the nations as such to agree on any -curative policy. The emperor, Ferdinand I, called for many reforms in -a Protestant direction, such as marriage of priests, schools for the -poor, "the cup for the laity," and the reform of convents; and the -French prelates supported him; but those of Spain violently resisted, -though they agreed in wishing to restrict the pope's power; while the -Italians, the most numerous party, stood by the pope in all things, -denouncing all gainsayers. In the end, the diplomatic cardinal Morone -arranged matters with the different courts; the bishops had for the -most part to give way; and the powers of the pope, which in 1545 the -movers of the Council had been bent on curtailing, were established -in nearly every particular, without any important change being made -in the administrative system. The Council had indeed repudiated -the Lutheran and Calvinist doctrines of predestination to sin and -salvation; and on this head the Lutherans gradually came round to the -Catholic view; but on the side of Church government the Reformation -remained practically justified. Still, it is the historic fact that its -first general result was intellectual retrogression. Save in England, -where Elizabeth's irreligious regimen gave scope for a literary and -scientific renascence while it correlatively humiliated religion and -the Church, leaving the fanatical growth of Protestantism to come -later, the Protestant atmosphere was everywhere one of theological -passion and superstition, in which art and science and fine letters -were for a time blighted. - -And even in England, the result of plunging an ignorant population -into the turmoil of theological strife was markedly evil, whatever -countervailing force there was in the freer play of mental life -on other lines. Were it only in respect of the new ecclesiastical -quarrels, the fierce and scurrilous wrangles between prelatists -and anti-prelatists, the intensities of malice set up by questions -of vestments, the insoluble disputes over the meaning of the -eucharist--all heading towards the great Civil War of the seventeenth -century--the Reformation was a letting out of the waters of enmity. But -all intellectual life was bound to suffer from the erection of a -historic delusion into a popular code of moral and social law. Men -assured that the ethical and ceremonial law of the ancient Hebrews -was the beginning and end of all civic wisdom and righteousness could -not lead a sane civic life. The sermons of the Reformers were vain -asseverations of a non-existent moral order. All social evil, all -individual misfortune, was declared, in the Hebraic manner, to be -God's vengeance for sin; when all the while the infliction of evil -by persecutors was denounced as in itself sin against God. The most -popular preachers made the wildest promises of material welfare to the -faithful as the due reward of faith; and every failure of fulfilment -was as confidently explained in terms alternately of divine benevolence -and divine chastening. The most repellent teachings of the Hebrew -books were erected into infallible canons and commands; and every -contemporary problem was put on the rack of Hebrew precedent. On all -sides, the human soul was bewildered by unreason. - -No mode of mental activity could escape the play of -perversion. Hooker's appeal to reason in Church policy was forever -clouded by unreasoning resort to ancient texts. Bacon, complaining -of the theological mortmain on all mental life, tacitly endorsed it -by using the same tactic. With such standards in force at the upper -levels of thought, a superstitious populace invited to find its sole -light in the half-comprehended lore of ancient Palestine could make no -progress on its own part towards knowledge of nature, of man's past, -or of man's possibilities. Religious literature meant the semblance of -culture without the reality. The sole measurable gains were ĉsthetic, -and that mainly on the literary side; for the Biblical temper was -hostile to the plastic arts, though men of religion could not but -play their part in developing the instrument of language. Science -was at a discount till men wearied of theological debate. - -By reaction, some similar results accrued within the scope of -Catholicism in France and Italy. It is significant that "the -importance of the anatomical description of the heart by Vesalius -was not thoroughly comprehended by investigators for seventy-three -years (1543 to 1616); and the uses of the valves of the veins remained -unknown for more than half a century." This was the period of the wars -of religion in France, and of the theologians in Germany. Servetus -had gone far on the way to the theory of the circulation of the -blood in his Christianismi Restitutio (not in his work on the -Trinity, as is often asserted), but the fact remained absolutely -unknown in Switzerland and Germany. Scotland, which just before the -Reformation had in the works of Dunbar and Lyndsay what might have -been the beginning of a great literature, fell into a theological -delirium which lasted two hundred years, and from which the nation -emerged with its literary and intellectual continuity destroyed, and -needing new tillage from foreign thought to yield any new life. It was -only after the period of devout Protestantism had been succeeded by -strife-weariness, toleration and doubt, that Protestant Holland and -Switzerland began to count for anything in science and scholarship; -and Germany and Scandinavia had to wait still longer for a new birth. - -Catholic France, with all her troubles, fared on the whole better in -the mental life. Rabelais was for his country a fountain of riotous -wisdom all through the worst time of the civil wars; and before they -had ended Montaigne began effectually the new enlightenment. Only -in England, where Shakespeare and Bacon signalized Protestant -rule, was there any similar good fortune; and both in England and -France the period was one of extensive though necessarily cautious -skepticism. Alongside of the first stirrings of Protestantism there -had arisen in France a spirit of critical unbelief, represented by the -Cymbalum Mundi of Bonaventure des Periers (1537), who had set out as a -Protestant; and the ferocities of the war engendered in many a temper -like his. What Montaigne did was to give to practical skepticism the -warrant of literary genius, and to win for it free currency by the -skill of his insinuation. Without such fortunate fathering, rationalism -in England made much headway in the Elizabethan age. Shakespeare is -deeply impregnated with its spirit; [25] Bacon gave it a broad basis -under cover of orthodoxy; and even before their day there were loud -protests that atheism was on foot wherever continental culture came. - -By such complainants the evil was early traced to Italy; and it is -clear that there, after the Spanish conquest, men's energies turned -from the closed field of politics to that of religion and philosophy, -despite the Inquisition, very much as men in ancient Greece had -turned to philosophy after the rise of the Macedonian tyranny. From -Italy came alike Deism and Unitarianism, and such atheism as there -was. The Inquisition still burned all heretics alike when it could -catch them; but even among the clergy, nay, among the very inquisitors -themselves, there were many heretics; and the zealots had to call in -lay bigots to help them. Heretical books were burned by the thousand, -most being absolutely suppressed; and when there was established -(about 1550) the famous Index Expurgatorius, in imitation of the -example already set at Louvain and Paris, it was soon found that some -works by cardinals, and by the framer of the first Italian list, -had to be included. Protestantism was thus crushed out in Italy, -with due bloodshed to boot; and the heretical Franciscans were forced -in mass to recant; but in the end there was no gain to faith. Heresy -became more elusive and more pervasive; and when in the year 1600 the -papacy put to death Giordano Bruno, his work as the herald of a new -philosophy was already done. In the next generation appeared Galileo, -the pioneer of a new era of practical science. Thus even in her time -of downfall did Italy begin for Europe a second renascence. - -Thenceforth, in the sphere of the Church of Rome, unbelief persisted -either audaciously or secretly alongside of the faith. Within -the Church the long battle with Protestantism had evolved fresh -energies of propaganda, and even a measure of ascetic reformation. In -particular, the new Order of Jesuits (founded in 1534), which we have -seen completing the recapture of Poland, strove everywhere by every -available means, fair and foul, for the Church's supremacy. Where -treachery and cruelty could not be used, as they were in Poland, the -Jesuits made play with a system of education which realized the ideals -of the time; and besides thus training the young as adherents, the -Church developed within itself a revival of ecclesiastical learning -that made a formidable resistance to the learning of French and -English Protestantism. In the latter half of the seventeenth century -the combatants thus wrought by their literary warfare what they had -previously done by their physical strife--a gain to the spirit of -unbelief. Neither side convinced the other; and while the Protestants -discredited many of the old Catholic beliefs, their opponents more -subtly discredited the faculty of theological reason, putting all -human judgments in doubt as such. The outcome was a strengthening -of the anti-theological bias. Jesuit education, where it became at -all scientific, armed the born skeptics; and where it was limited -to belles lettres it failed in the long run to make either earnest -believers or able disputants. - -Thus the Reformation, in the act of giving Christianity a new -intensity of life among certain populations, where it fostered -and was fostered by a growth of intolerant democracy, unwittingly -promoted at once fanaticism and freethinking both in its own and -in its enemy's sphere. Deepened superstition forced a deepening of -skepticism; fanaticism drove moderate men to science; and theological -learning discredited theology. In papal and downtrodden Italy, in -monarchic and military France, in the England of the Restoration, -and in semi-democratic Holland, there worked in the seventeenth -century the same divergent forces. - -In both Holland and England, by help of the spirit of fanatical -democracy, the multiplication of sects and heresies in the second -generation of the seventeenth century was so great--180 being specified -in England alone--that no repressive policy could deal with them; -and under cover of their political freedom there arose some Unitarian -doctrine among the common people, even as anti-Scriptural Deism -spread among the educated. Devoutly religious men, such as George -Fox, the founder of Quakerism, by the very thoroughness of their -loyalty to the doctrine of the inward light, helped to shake among -sincere people the old docility of belief in revelation, though in -some cases they reinforced it, and in many more evoked, by reaction, -the spirit of persecution. - -The net gain from Protestantism thus lay in the fortuitous disruption -of centralized spiritual tyranny. The rents in the structure made -openings for air and light at a time when new currents were beginning -to blow and new light to shine. Twenty years before Luther's schism, -Columbus had found the New World. Copernicus, dying in 1543, left his -teaching to the world in which Protestantism had just established -itself. Early in the next century Kepler and Galileo began to roll -back for men the old dream-boundaries of the universe. The modern -era was at its dawn; and with it Christianity had begun its era of -reconsideration, revision, and slow decline. - - - - - - - - -CHAPTER II - -PROGRESS OF ANTI-CHRISTIAN THOUGHT - - -§ 1. The Physical Sciences - -It was primarily the growth of physical science, from the middle -of the sixteenth century, that gave solidity and permanence to the -new movements of rationalistic revolt aroused by the spectacle of -the Reformation and the strifes it engendered. That spectacle, and -in general the wars of religion which followed, tended more to make -scoffers or skeptics than to develop constructive rationalism. One of -the conclusions forced on statesmanlike minds by the religious wars -in France was that "a peace with two religions was better than a war -with none"; and the seventeenth century there began with a strong -though secretive tendency among the idle classes to what in the next -century became universally known as the Voltairean temper. In the -seventeenth, however, it was still almost wholly denied the use of -printing; and under this disadvantage it must have fared ill were -it not for the new studies which at once developed and buttressed -the spirit of inquiry. They built up a new habit of mind, the surest -obstacle to dogma. - -Were men wont to develop their beliefs logically, the teaching -of Copernicus alone, when once accepted, would have broken up the -orthodox faith, which at nearly every point implied the geocentric -theory. Giordano Bruno, recognizing this, wove on the one hand the -Copernican principle into his restatement of the ancient doctrine of -the infinity of the universe, and on the other hand derided alike -Catholicism and Protestantism. But a comprehensive philosophy is -not the kind of propaganda that first "comes home to men's business -and bosoms": the line of practical disturbance lay through exact -science; and it is in the practical and experimental work of Galileo -that Copernicanism begins (1616-38) strongly to stir the educated -intelligence of Europe. Bacon and Bodin, like Luther, had rejected -it as theoretically propounded. It was the telescopic discoveries of -Galileo that staggered the skeptics and alarmed the Church. - -The need for a solid discipline as a grounding for rationalism -is made clear by the aberrations of many of the earlier religious -doubters. Bodin, as we have seen, held fanatically by witchcraft; -and he likewise accepted astrology, as did many half-developed Italian -freethinkers who rejected the ideas of demons and sorcery, and doubted -much concerning the Bible. Men reasoned on such matters by the light -of their training, of what seemed to be probability, and of scanty -evidence, in matters where the traditional hypotheses could be properly -checked only by minute and patient scrutiny. Thus the disbelievers in -astrology were as a rule bigoted Christians who, like Luther, merely -rejected it as unscriptural, while Melanchthon leant to the belief. Of -the early English Protestants many theologically rejected it as regards -the moral life, while assenting to the theory of astral influence -on men's affairs in other regards. Only with new science could come -the rational challenge; and even men like Bacon, who consciously -strove after scientific method, remained partly prepossessed by the -old belief in astral forces. The word "influence," in this sense, -constantly appears in all kinds of Tudor and early Stuart literature. - -It has been said with broad truth that whereas Greece, with her -dialectic discipline, exhorted men to make their beliefs agree with one -another, and the Christian Church ordered them to make their beliefs -agree with her dogma, the modern spirit demands that beliefs should -agree with facts. Such a spirit first promoted and then was immensely -promoted by the study of natural science. Even in the Middle Ages, -as in antiquity, physicians were proverbially given to irreligion; -and the study of physics was still more conducive to religious doubt -than that of physic. In England the naturalistic spirit, as we may term -it, was notably popularized by Bacon in the course of the seventeenth -century, but the effectual growth of Protestant fanaticism began in his -day, and had to run its course before much energy was available for -scientific research; though both Gilbert the electrician and Harvey -the discoverer of the circulation of the blood belonged to Bacon's -generation. Only a small number of superior minds were capable of -the scientific attitude. But even before the Restoration educated -Englishmen were weary enough of strife to begin the gatherings which -afterwards became the Royal Society, devoted strictly to scientific -inquiry, with a positive veto on all theological discussion. - -To their scientific studies they had a powerful lead from France, -where Descartes had virtually begun a new era in philosophy by his -Discourse on Method (1637), a work which professed allegiance to the -Church but reversed all the Church's methods; and where Gassendi, a -truer if a less influential physicist than Descartes, controverted the -spiritualistic positions of the latter in a singularly modern spirit of -rationalism. By this time, too, had begun to appear the impotence of -the Church against the ubiquitousness of modern heresy. She contrived -to strike where she should have spared, and to spare where she ought -in consistency to have struck. Galileo was probably, as he professed -to be, an orthodox Catholic in his main theological beliefs, yet -he was persecuted by the Inquisition; and though the story of his -"Still it moves" is a fable, he was forced to recant under threat -of torture. Descartes, who protested his loyalty to the Church, -was at least a new support to theism; but because his teachings were -adopted in France by the Jansenists, the quasi-Protestant enemies of -the Jesuits within the Catholic Church, they were ecclesiastically -prohibited, and his supporters in the Church and the university were -persecuted; while the prudent Gassendi, who at times reasons like an -atheist, contrived without protestation to keep on good terms with -the Church, of which he was actually a Canon. He had taken orders -solely for the sake of an income; and he was never disturbed, though -he wrote a vindication of Epicurus, one of the most nearly atheistical -of the leading Greek philosophers. - -Nowhere is the new impulse to science more clearly seen than in papal -and Spanish-ruled Italy. There, as Bacon complained was the case nearly -everywhere throughout Europe, most scientific professors were poorly -paid, while the learned professions were well endowed; yet at the close -of the sixteenth century there did not exist a single distinguished -Greek scholar in the peninsula; and while this may have been due to -papal policy, the unfostered study of the natural sciences went forward -on all sides. Narrowly watched by the Church, the students nevertheless -propagated new science throughout north-western Europe. Unhappily, -as we have seen, the theological spirit still hampered its evolution, -but the study persisted. - -From the middle of the seventeenth century onwards it is clear -that physical science by its very method and character undermined -theology. Here there were possible rational proof and intelligent -agreement, instead of the eternal sterility of theological debate -on irrational propositions. In France, Holland, and England, the -followers of Descartes, even when agreeing on a fundamentally wrong -theory of cosmic physics, made for rationalism by their discipline as -well as by what was accurate in their detailed science; the influence -of the English Royal Society was recognizably anti-clerical; and -from Gassendi onwards the whole scientific movement told decisively -against superstition, so that the belief in witchcraft was discredited -within a generation from the time of its worst intensity. Glanvil, -who in England professed a scientific skepticism, on Cartesian -lines, defended the superstition as Bodin had done in France, -and was supported not only by the theologians but by such a pious -man of science as the chemist Boyle, who was equally skeptical in -his own proper sphere; yet they could not restore credulity among -the thinking minds. More august beliefs were shaken in turn. Boyle -in his latter years set himself anxiously to defend Christianity; -and Newton was moved to exert himself even in the cause of theism, -which was newly undermined. But Newton himself was a Unitarian; -his distinguished contemporary the astronomer Halley was reputed a -thorough unbeliever; and Newton's own philosophy, which proceeded -on Gassendi as well as on the devout Kepler, was denounced by some, -including the German Leibnitz, as tending to atheism. Leibnitz in turn -stood wearily aloof from the Church in his own country. No personal -bias or prejudice could cancel the fundamental dissidence between -exact science and "revealed" dogma. - -While the literary movement of English Deism in the eighteenth -century was not ostensibly grounded on physical philosophy, being -rather critical and logical, it always kept the new science in -view; and the movement in France, as set up by the young Voltaire, -connected itself from the first with the Newtonian philosophy, which -there had to drive out the Cartesian, now become orthodox. In the -hands of La Mettrie biological science pointed to even deeper heresy; -and for such propagandists as Diderot and D'Holbach all science was -an inspiration to a general rejection of religion. Even the pursuit -of mathematics developed pronounced unbelievers, such as D'Alembert -and Condorcet. When, finally, in the latter half of the century the -scientific spirit flagged or stagnated in England, first by reason of -the new growths of industry and the new imperial expansion, later by -reason of reaction against the French Revolution, it was the French -men of science, in particular the astronomers and mathematicians, -as Laplace, Lagrange, Lalande, and Delambre, who carried on the -profession of rationalism. In particular, Laplace's great contribution, -the nebular hypothesis, clinched on non-theistic grounds the whole -development of modern astronomy; and the philosopher Kant, who on that -point had in a measure anticipated him, never conformed to Christian -orthodoxy even while glosing it in the effort to conserve theism. - -All the later generalizations of science have told in the same way; -and all have had to struggle for life against the instinctive hostility -of the Christian Churches, Protestant and Catholic alike. Geology, -after generations of outcry, made an end in the nineteenth century of -the orthodox theory of cosmic creation; the evolution theory drove -home the negation with a new constructive doctrine; and Darwinism, -after a no less desperate contest, has upturned the very foundations of -Christian ethics as well as dogma. As represented by Huxley, its chief -polemist, it is definitely non-Christian and non-theistic. It does not -countervail this essential tendency that a number of men of science -in each generation profess to adhere to Christianity. The adherence is -seldom thorough, and when it is, it is commonly recognized to stand for -lack of culture on the historical and ethical sides of the issue. The -result is that Protestant Christianity nearly everywhere capitulates -outwardly to natural science, professing still to save its own more -essential dogmas; while Catholicism forces upon its adherents either -"scientific nescience" or a dissimulation fatal to zeal. - - - - -§ 2. Philosophy, Cosmic and Moral - -It lies on the face of our sketch of the movement of physical -science that it is subversive of Christian orthodoxy, though not of -extra-Christian theism. But since Giordano Bruno all cosmic philosophy -that keeps the tincture of religion has pointed to pantheism; and -all moral philosophy since Descartes has been more or less fatally -subversive of Christian dogma. In the great work of Spinoza (1671), -who partly proceeded on Descartes and partly transcended him, we have a -philosophy and an ethic that are reluctantly pronounced by respectful -theists to be virtually atheistic; and no great philosophy since has -reversed that impetus. The God of Kant and the God of Hegel are as -non-Christian as the Absolute of Bradley. - -Moral philosophy had begun to be non-theological in Montaigne's day -(1580); and his disciple, Charron, constructed in his Wisdom what is -pronounced to be the first modern treatise on that footing. Less than a -century later the English Cumberland, although a bishop of the Church, -took a similarly rationalistic course in morals in his reply to Hobbes -(1672), making no appeal to revelation, though of course making no -attack on it; and the almost undisguised naturalism of Hobbes was -thus tacitly countenanced in fundamentals from the clerical side, -in the very act of repudiation. Shaftesbury, who became the most -influential moralist of the first half of the eighteenth century, -did but develop the naturalistic principle on avowedly theistic and -non-Christian lines. Bishop Berkeley, who assailed both Spinoza and -Shaftesbury, could justify his Christian beliefs only by arguing -that skeptics themselves, in the study of mathematics, accepted -many arbitrary propositions, and might as well accept the mystery -of Jesus Christ. Even Locke, though he stood for a "reasonable" and -non-dogmatic Christianity, was in effect an influence for deism in -respect of his philosophy. - -All later moral philosophy of any standing has been either plainly -non-evangelical or essentially irreconcilable with the Christian -faith. Even the argumentation of Bishop Butler (1736) has no more -validity for it than for any other, and is finally as favourable to -atheism as to theism. Hume, who developed from deism into a final -agnosticism, was at all stages anti-Christian in his ethic as well as -in his metaphysic and his historical criticism of religion; and Adam -Smith was strictly deistic. The later and deeper German philosophies -of Kant and Fichte are no more truly helpful to Christianity, though -elaborate attempts have been made to adapt Kantism to its service; -and though Hegel finally proposed to rehabilitate its dogmas, his -German disciples for the most part became anti-Christian; one of -them, Feuerbach, becoming one of the most formidable critics of the -faith. The professionally Christian moral philosophies, such as that -of Paley in England (1785), have been abandoned by the sincerely -religious no less than by the students of philosophy. Coleridge, -seeking to give a philosophic aspect to the faith of his latter years, -had to fall back on the "modal" Trinity, and could make no judicial -defence of the doctrines of salvation and damnation. - -In the latter half of the nineteenth century, finally, the balance -of philosophic thought has been overwhelmingly hostile to Christian -beliefs. Everywhere, whether it be professedly utilitarian or -"transcendental," it is essentially monistic and evolutionist; -and while the expressly naturalistic doctrine, typified in the -teaching of Spencer, positively rejects all pretence of revelation, -the spiritistic schools do nothing for historic religion beyond -claiming to have reinstated a theism which is not "providential," -and so amounts in practice to pantheism. The so-called materialism -of Germany, represented by the writings of Moleschott and Büchner, -though constantly assailed on metaphysical grounds, is the common-sense -conviction of millions of educated men; and the metaphysical attack -makes scarcely a pretence of claiming belief for conventional -religion. Christianity thus subsists without anything that can -properly be described as philosophic support, save as regards some -Catholic systems which rationalists or men of science rarely take the -trouble to examine, and the sentimental mode of reasoning latterly -labelled Pragmatism. This is really an unwarrantable application of -a term which its framer, Mr. C. S. Pierce, applied to a practice of -testing beliefs by ascertaining how far they are acted on in life. The -so-called "Pragmatism" of Professor William James and Mr. Schiller -is the vitally different process of certificating beliefs as true by -the amount of comfort and stimulus derived from them. This procedure -Mr. Pierce repudiates; but the bulk of current "Pragmatism" flies -that flag, and not his. - -That method logically concludes nothing for or against any belief, -but may be made to seem to support almost any. It posits, in effect, -that true beliefs are those by which men can successfully live, but -offers no test of the reality of any alleged grounding of life upon -a belief. Empirically, the negative of any opinion may thus be as -easily substantiated as the affirmative, since the naturalist and the -supernaturalist may alike claim individual success and satisfaction; -and the adherents of the different faiths may do as much. For the -"Pragmatist" of this order, accordingly, two contraries may be equally -"true." Any resort to objective tests, the method of science, puts -that of Pragmatism (of this order) out of action. It has thus no -philosophic significance save as a quasi-philosophical reaffirmation of -the pietist claim of "experience," and leaves religion as it found it. - -Other quasi-philosophical defences of Christianity are even less -durable. A considerable amount of temporary favour has been won by -what may be termed the Irrationalist defence, typified by the works -of Mr. Benjamin Kidd and Mr. A. J. Balfour. As put by the former, -it is a suicidal process of reasoning against reliance on reason, -the necessary effect being to discredit the verdict claimed, -as being attainable only through the very act of reason that is -condemned. As more subtly handled by Mr. Balfour, the Irrationalist -case takes the form of a denial that scientific beliefs, so-called, -are any more capable of "ultimate proof" than the beliefs which -constitute religion. We have here a very modern reversion to the -orthodox forensic method anciently pursued by Cicero, and in later -times employed by Huet, Pascal, and Berkeley. Its complete practical -failure in all ages might serve to indicate its necessary nugatoriness -to those who most affect it. Were the central thesis true, there is -obviously no more warrant on that basis for any one creed than for -any other; and a "solipsism" which warrants any and every claim alike -is of no use to the Christian Church, which seeks to warrant a given -revelation. Whatever be their abstract right to certainty, most men -in search of it inevitably test the less certain proposition in the -light of the more certain: and this bias, bound up with all sincere -mental life, is as fatal to anti-critical defences as it is vital to -all scientific advance. An inquiring age is not to be made credulous -by the argument from nescience. - - - - -§ 3. Biblical and Historical Criticism - -Most men, in short, accept or reject religious creeds on the strength -not of any systematically philosophic reasoning, but of either -emotional bias or common-sense examination of concrete evidence. The -former is as a rule, though not always, susceptible of influence from -the latter. Thus the main instruments in turning men from Christian -credences have been the documentary and historical forms of criticism. - -Such criticism, secretly frequent among educated men in the -sixteenth century, never ventured into print till the seventeenth, -and even then did so very circumspectly. English Deism begins its -literary existence with Lord Herbert of Cherbury, whose first work, -produced under French influences, appeared in Latin in 1624. His -position was that the doctrine of forgiveness for faith is immoral; -that all pretences of revelation are repugnant to moral reason; -and that as all so-called revelations are sectarian and mutually -exclusive, human reason must proceed for itself on a basis of natural -theism. Such audacity was possible in virtue partly of the resort to -Latin, partly of the high personal standing of the writer. The next -outstanding anti-Christian work is the Leviathan (1651) of Hobbes, -who ventured to publish in English under the doctrinally tolerant -rule of Cromwell. In his treatise, not only is the attitude of faith -constantly disparaged, despite constant resort to scriptural citation, -but there is a beginning of open criticism of the inconsistencies -of the Pentateuch. Such criticism seems to have gone much further -in private discussion long before that time; and it is clear from -many apologetic treatises that doctrinal unbelief was abundant; -but the publication of a skeptical work that could be read by the -unlearned marks an era of germinating unbelief. Spinoza's Tractatus -Theologico-Politicus (1670) carries the principle of rational textual -criticism of the Bible further; and after the French Catholic professor -Richard Simon had published in French his critical treatises on the -texts of the Old and New Testaments (1678 and 1689), though these -were professedly orthodox, Biblical criticism began a new life. - -The first drastic attacks of a direct and businesslike kind on -orthodoxy were those of the English Deists of the early years of the -eighteenth century, typified in the works of Anthony Collins, who -soberly and amiably called in question alike revelation, prophecy, -and miracles. Soon such criticism was reinforced by the inquiry of -Middleton into Roman Catholic miracles, on lines which implicitly -called in question those of the gospels; and the essay of Hume on -miracles in general put the case against them on grounds which could -be turned only by arguments that evaded them. The polemic of the -whole French school of freethinkers, headed by Voltaire, thereafter -attacked every aspect of Jewish and Christian supernaturalism and -of Jewish and Christian history considered as a moral dispensation; -the English Unitarians, represented by Priestley, made a number -of converts to their compromise; and when Gibbon came to deal with -the rise of Christianity in his great work (1776-88), he set forth -on naturalistic grounds a tentative sociological explanation which -could not be overthrown by orthodox methods, and is to be superseded -only by a more searching analysis on the same lines. So decisive was -the total effect of the critical attack that in the last quarter of -the eighteenth century many German theologians within the Church had -begun to deal with the supernatural elements in the Old Testament on -rationalistic though temporizing methods, and some had even begun to -apply the same treatment to the New. Finally came, in England, the -powerful common-sense attack of Thomas Paine (1793), which at once -set up a movement of popular rationalism that has never since ceased. - -To all such rationalism, however, a strong check was set up for a -whole generation, especially in England, by the universal reaction -against the French Revolution. Hitherto the upper classes, there as -in France, had been noted mainly for unbelief in religious matters; -but when it was seen from the course of the Revolution that heterodoxy -could join hands with democracy, there was a rapid change of front, -on the simple ground of class interest. During the first generation -of the nineteenth century, accordingly, all English freethinking was -either driven under the social surface or classed as disreputable, -so that it was possible to assume a great revival of faith. In France, -similarly, the literary pietism of Chateaubriand seemed to have crowned -with success the official restoration of the Church's authority; and -even the intellectual revival was associated with Christian zeal on -the part of such energetic personalities as Guizot. Even in Germany, -though there the work of Biblical criticism on rationalist lines went -steadily on, there was a pietist revival. Before the middle of the -century was reached, however, it was clear that in France and Germany -rationalism was in full renascence; and in England, where such facts -are less readily avowed, scholarly writings even in the fourth decade -had begun to prove the solidarity of European culture. - -As regards Biblical criticism, there appears to be a certain -periodicity of action. In the eighteenth century, when the work -done was mainly of the common-sense order, the French physician Jean -Astruc laid down a basis for exact documentary analysis by pointing -to the two elements of Yahwist (Jehovist) and Elohist narrative as -indicating two distinct sources. On such lines the earlier German -scholars of the nineteenth century long laboured, till the common-sense -criticism was lost sight of. In the meantime, however, a long line of -partially rationalist criticism of the New Testament culminated in the -Life of Jesus by Strauss; and educated Christendom was shaken to its -foundations, insofar as it ventured to read. Side by side with that of -Strauss, there proceeded in Germany a great movement of documentary -and historical analysis, till professional theology there became -almost identified with the surrender of Christian supernaturalism. - -As the critical movement proceeded in England it came about that -an admired dignitary of its Church, Bishop Colenso, was convinced -on common-sense lines of the utterly unhistorical character of the -main Pentateuchal narrative, and courageously published his views -(1862). From that point the European criticism of the Old Testament, -which had been proceeding on the assumption of the genuineness -of the narrative, took a new course with such rapid success that -within a generation the whole mass of the Old Testament had been -either decisively or provisionally reduced, chiefly by Dutch and -German scholars, to a variety of sources never wholly in accordance -with the traditional ascription, and representing collectively a -vast historical process of fabrication. In the face of the facts, -the claim of "inspiration" still made for the books by some of the -scholars who expound the process of their composition is naturally -treated with indifference by educated men not professionally committed -to such a position. - -With whatever bias the problem be approached, all really critical study -of the documents latterly tells against the Christian position. Writers -who, like Renan, have treated Christian origins in a spirit of -literary sympathy with that of belief, none the less undo faith, -and offer at best a sentimental historical construction in place of -the destroyed tradition. The orthodox defence, on the other hand, -grows rapidly less confident in the hands of scholarly men. The -later development of professional study, as set forth in the English -Encyclopĉdia Biblica shows a progressive collapse of the traditional -belief on almost every detail, some continental theologians now going -further in their rejection of it than many professed rationalists. - -The general result of two generations of critical research and -controversy is that practically all Biblical students have accepted -the main results of the "higher criticism," whatever debate there -may still be over details. There is tacit or overt agreement that -the Hexateuch is a composite body of writings of many periods; -that the Mosaic authorship is a myth; that the quasi-historical -books are similarly works of redaction; that the Psalms are not -Davidic and the Solomonic books not Solomonic; and that the prophets -are endlessly manipulated. Even the view that all the prophets are -post-Maccabean finds some acceptance. And the dissolution of the Old -Testament tradition necessarily involves the New. Though the rigorous -documentary analysis of that lagged behind the criticism of the -Hebrew books, the general conceptions of miracles and of inspiration -have long lacked serious defence. Arnold's "Miracles do not happen" -startled only those who had been inattentive to the whole movement -of scientific and historical thought. - -To-day it can hardly be said that there is any serious defence of -New Testament supernaturalism. Some years ago a large number of -Anglican clerics signed a memorial calling for a liberal attitude -towards all historical criticism of the texts, and this was followed -by an appeal to the Bishop of London asking that belief in the Virgin -Birth should no longer be required of candidates for holy orders. The -appeal was of course refused; but no competent inquirer doubts that -hundreds of clergymen of the orthodox Churches are Unitarian in their -beliefs. Living controversy now turns, not on the supernaturalism -of the gospels, but on the purely historical question as to whether -the Gospel Jesus ever lived; and over this issue Unitarians are -found to be as resentful as Trinitarians ever were on the Unitarian -issue. In Germany the debate has gone far, some of the more open-minded -theologians admitting that the old lines of defence must be abandoned -as inadequate. In England all critical processes take place more -slowly, but there is now accumulating a defensive literature which -tells of widespread unsettlement. The method of confident bluster is -found not to avail in an age which has seen the rapid abandonment of -so many vital positions, all in their time maintained with the same -contemptuous confidence. - -The average layman has of course not yet been reached by such a -problem as that of the Historicity of Jesus; but he has long been well -accustomed to the defensive attitude in matters of faith. Down to the -time of Colenso the "sensations" of the controversy were over the books -which attacked. For a generation past the attack has been so general -that the new "sensations" were those set up by new attempts at defence -or counter-attack. Such books as the late Henry Drummond's Natural -Law in the Spiritual World, Mr. Benjamin Kidd's Social Evolution, -and Mr. Balfour's Foundations of Belief, in their turn elicited an -amount of excitement which told chiefly of eagerness for weapons of -defence against the rationalist invasion. None of the works named will -bear any critical scrutiny. Drummond's was repented of by its author, -as it well might; and the irrationalism of Mr. Kidd and Mr. Balfour -soon ceased to comfort the clergy who hastily hailed it as a means -of stablishing the faith. - -What subsists is the mass of mainly conventional, formal, and -uncritical orthodoxy, the custom of the majority, which stands for the -same mental inertia as preserved ancient paganism substantially intact -for five hundred years after Socrates, and enabled its traditional -polytheism to overgrow early Christianity. And the professional defence -to-day is at many points singularly like that put forward for pagan -polytheism by the Platonists and Neo-Platonists. At its best it is -certainly not more philosophical than the performance of Plotinus; -at its worst not more hollow than the performance of Cicero. - - - - - - - - -CHAPTER III - -POPULAR ACCEPTANCE - - -§ 1. Catholic Christianity - -All through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and till near -the end of the eighteenth, the masses of Europe remained attached to -their respective Churches in despite of the play of criticism among -the more instructed. Whether popular religion be regarded as a matter -of habit and superstition or as the expression of a higher happiness -in religious rites, it has unquestionably numbered the great majority -down till recent times. How the Catholic Church recovered large parts -of Germany, practically all Poland and Bohemia, and for a time the -complete control of France, we have seen. Within her sphere popular -conduct was certainly no worse than in the age of her undivided power; -and where she could number within her fold minds like Paolo Sarpi, -the historian of the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century; like -Pascal and Fénelon and Bossuet in the seventeenth; and like Vico in -the eighteenth, though in hardly any case are such leading spirits -found to be in thorough harmony with the papal system, she could not -but hold the respect of a great body even of educated people. - -Her swarms of missionaries, too, seemed for a time to have begun a -new era of Catholic expansion in Asia and America, finding footing -in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Japan, China, India, -Siam, Tonkin, as well as in North and South America. Sent forth by the -College of Propaganda (Congregatio de Propaganda Fide) founded in 1622, -they displayed a zeal never surpassed in the Church's history. In Japan -and China, in particular, they had for a time a dazzling success, -largely through the address of the Jesuits--whose policy was to win -converts by identifying native rites and beliefs with Christian, -never openly assailing but always seeking to assimilate them. As -early as 1549, Francis Xavier had preached the faith in Japan, -and at the beginning of the seventeenth century it seemed likely to -become the religion of the State. But Christians undid the Christian -cause. Between the various orders of Catholic missionaries there were -always deadly jealousies, all the others denouncing the Jesuits, -who in turn charged incompetence and malevolence on all; and the -increasing arrogance of the propagandists in Japan gave colour -to the hints of the Protestant traders, Dutch and English, that -Catholic missions were a prelude to Catholic conquest. The Japanese -emperor, accordingly, began a great persecution in 1587, and during -a number of years the Christian converts were slaughtered by tens of -thousands. Still the Jesuits persevered; but in the next generation -persecution began afresh. At length, in 1637, by a supreme effort, -the weakened Catholic flock were wholly destroyed or expelled. Once -more it had been demonstrated that really determined and rigorous -persecution by a majority in power can eradicate the Christian or -any other religion in a given sphere. - -In Siam in the next century a slight success was similarly followed -by expulsion; and in China, where an outward success had been won as -a sequel to the expansion in Japan, and where the Christian cause -subsisted longer, despite some persecution and despite the fierce -dissensions of the different orders on points both of doctrine and -corporate conduct, it dwindled in the eighteenth century. The success, -indeed, had been all along illusory, as the Chinese had adapted -rather than adopted Christian forms, and merely carried on their -usual rites under Christian auspices. When, accordingly, the rival -orders at length forced on the papacy, in the teeth of the Jesuits, -a decision as to whether Chinese Christians should or should not truly -conform to Christian doctrine, and a decision against the Jesuits -was given, the semblance of conversion melted away, and a reversion -to Jesuit methods could not restore it. A similar decision made an -end of a rather flourishing movement of Jesuit Brahmanism in India -about the middle of the eighteenth century; and the other labours of -the Catholic missionaries in India were undone by the cruelties of -their own Inquisition. - -Jesuitism had by this time been convicted of aiming in the old fashion -at its own worldly wealth, of troubling by its political plottings -the peace of every country it could enter, and of setting up its own -ambitions against the papal authority. In the East it had become a -great wealth-hunting corporation; in South America it was the same, -contriving for some generations to govern Paraguay in particular -wholly for its own enrichment; in Europe it provoked every Catholic -government in turn by its audacious attempts to control them. Thus it -was expelled from Portugal in 1759, from France in 1762, from Bohemia -in 1766; from Spain, Genoa, and Venice in 1767; and from Naples, Malta, -and Parma in 1768. At length, in 1773, the Society was suppressed by -a papal bull, and though it was revived in the nineteenth century it -has never since been the power it was, whether for evil or for good. - -Of her extensions beyond Europe there thus remained substantially -to the Church of Rome at the end of the eighteenth century only -the Catholic populations of Central and South America and Canada; -and at the outbreak of the French Revolution, marked as it was by the -wholesale abjurations of Catholic priests and populace, it might have -seemed as if the reign of Rome in Europe were coming to an end. The -political movement, however, had outrun the educational; and as we have -seen, there was even a literary reaction at the Restoration. In Italy, -where the revolutionary movement had been hostile to the Church, the -reaction after 1815 was very marked. All criticism of Catholicism was -made a penal offence, and in the Kingdom of Naples alone, in 1825, -there were twenty-seven thousand priests, eight thousand nuns, as -many monks, twenty archbishops, and seventy-three bishops. In Spain -and France, too, the clergy worked hard to recover authority over -the people; and in Catholic Ireland they had never lost it, despite -all the efforts of Protestantism. - -Everywhere, however, save in America, the struggle for existence has -gone against Catholicism in the nineteenth century. Catholic Ireland -has been in large measure depopulated through the failure of Protestant -England to solve its economic problems; and though this means a gain -to Romanism in the United States, there is no great likelihood that -that is permanent, or that Catholicism there will ever be very docile -to the papacy. France has become gradually more rationalistic, so much -so that the municipal government of Paris is usually in the hands of -freethinkers; and the recent expulsion of the recalcitrant religious -orders has proved the determination of the republican majority to put -down clerical influence. The movement of anti-theological Positivism, -founded by the teaching of Auguste Comte (d. 1857) on bases laid -by Saint-Simon, has never been numerically strong, but has affected -all French thought; and to-day there is scarcely one eminent French -writer who professes religious opinions. Even in Spain, so long the -stronghold of the faith, and still more generally in Italy, educated -men are as a rule either indifferent or hostile to the Church; and -the common people, especially the Socialists in the towns, have -gone the same way. Both in Spain and Portugal there are journals -zealously devoted to a propaganda of freethought; and the judicial -murder of Ferrer has but intensified hostility to the Church. National -union in Italy, accomplished in the middle of the century, has been -fatal to ecclesiastical supremacy. The papacy is unable to recover -its temporal power at Rome. In Catholic Belgium, the action of the -clergy is constantly fought by a ubiquitous freethought propaganda; -and Dutch Catholicism does not gain ground. - -Some appearance of Catholic revival occurred in England in the second -and third generations of the nineteenth century, the "Oxford movement" -preparing the ground; but though John Henry Newman was followed -into the Catholic Church by a number of clergymen and rich laymen, -the movement soon ceased to be intellectually important, and the -popular success seems to have reached its limits. Though there is -much leaning to Rome in the High Church section of the heterogeneous -Anglican body, it is certain that while the economic basis remains -Protestant there will be no great secession. Economic considerations, -again, have latterly set up even in Catholic Austria--which with -Southern Germany is perhaps the most believing section of the Catholic -world--a movement with the watchword "Loose from Rome." In Brazil, -again, there has been a quite extraordinary development of Positivism -among the educated class; and the revolution which peacefully expelled -the last emperor--himself personally estimable, and not an orthodox -Catholic--was ostensibly wrought by the Positivist party. Portugal, -finally, has taken the same path. - -Thus the age which saw the promulgation of the formal decree of Papal -Infallibility (1870) has seen the most vital decline that has ever -taken place in the total life and power of the Church of Rome. It -preserves its full hold to-day only on (1) the most ignorant or -most rural sections of the population of Catholic countries, (2) -the unintellectual sections of their middle and upper classes, and -(3) the emotionally religious or pietistic types, who are still, -by reason of the total circumstances, more numerous among women than -among men. Hence in the Catholic countries, female education being -there specially backward, the Church depends relatively even more on -women than do the churches of the Protestant world. But among women in -the Catholic countries also there goes on a process of rationalization, -Socialism doing some of the work of education where the other machinery -is inadequate. - - - - -§ 2. Protestant Christianity - -The failure of Protestantism to gain any ground in Europe after the -sixteenth century had naturally the effect of increasing the zeal -of its adherents within their own sphere; and though nowhere did -Protestant organization compare in energy with that shown by the -Society of Jesus and the Roman College of Propaganda, the system of -popular education in several countries--as Switzerland, Scotland, -and parts of Germany--was raised much above the popular Catholic -level. Presbyterians in particular felt the need of popular schools -for the maintenance of their polity. The result was, after a time, a -certain improvement in the capacity and conditions of the common people -where other causes did not interfere. Thus the Protestant cantons -of Switzerland have in general been noted for a greater material -prosperity than that of the Catholic cantons; and in the eighteenth -and nineteenth centuries Presbyterian Scotland, though naturally much -the poorer country, admittedly turned out a larger proportion of men -qualified for responsible positions than did episcopalian England. - -All the while, the influence of a Presbyterian clergy, in touch with -the people and able to ostracize socially those who avowed unbelief, -maintained in the Calvinistic countries a higher average of professed -orthodoxy, the normal effect of higher education being thus checked -on the side of religion. Scotland contributed little to the earlier -deistic movement of the eighteenth century, Smith and Hume having -taken it up after it had flourished for a generation in England; -and at no time was rationalism socially avowed to the same extent -in the north as in the south, the enlightenment of the lay authors -being confined to a small town circle. - -On the moral and ĉsthetic side, however, popular Presbyterianism -tended to be hard and joyless, with the natural result, seen alike in -Geneva and in Scotland, of breeding much licence. On the other hand -there arose a higher reaction, towards intellectual interests; and -the Switzerland of the eighteenth century produced a remarkably large -proportion of scientific men; while in Scotland, where centuries of -theological life and strife set up even in the Church a notable spirit -of "moderation," both the physical and the moral or social sciences -were conspicuously cultivated. Popular freethinking was beginning to -follow in both cases, when the reaction against the French Revolution -arose to arrest it. When in the next generation there began in Scotland -the ecclesiastical struggle which ended in the formation of the Free -Church (1842) a new impulse was given to doctrinal fanaticism, which -the competition of three rival Presbyterian Churches was well fitted -to maintain. - -Thus, though Scottish scholars have contributed largely to the "higher -criticism," the middle and working classes of Scotland all through -the nineteenth century have been at least outwardly more orthodox -than even those of England. They, too, however, have begun to exhibit -the common critical tendencies. As the results of Biblical criticism -become more generally known, church attendance tends to fall off, -despite the economic pressure Churchmen are able to use in small -communities. It is perhaps as much on account of the common need as -by reason of the growth of liberality that the two chief dissenting -Scottish Churches, the Free and the United Presbyterian (Voluntary), -have latterly amalgamated. Were it not that a large proportion of -the more energetic and stirring youth of the country leave it for -England and the colonies, the more conservative staying at home, -the process of change would probably be more rapid. - -In the small communities of Protestant Switzerland a democratic -church polity had equally served to maintain a greater stress of -orthodox belief and practice than was seen in surrounding countries; -and the appointment of Strauss to a chair of theology at Zurich by a -Radical Government in 1839 led to an actual insurrection, set up and -led by fanatical clergymen. Catholic cantons later showed themselves -no less medieval. Nothing, however, avails to shut out critical -thought; Zeller received a chair at Berne in 1847; rationalism has -ever since steadily progressed; the number of theological students -as steadily falls off; and among the Swiss theologians of to-day -are some of the most "subversive" of the professional writers on -Christian origins. Popular rationalism necessarily begins to follow, -though less rapidly than in countries where the people and the clergy -do not ecclesiastically govern themselves. - -In Protestant Holland and the Scandinavian States, of late years, -the decline of Christian faith has been still more marked. All are -considerably influenced by German culture; and in Protestant Germany -orthodoxy is gradually disappearing. There the long depression of -civilization begun by the troubles of the Reformation, and clinched -by the vast calamity of the Thirty Years War, was favourable to -a sombre religious feeling; and this, under the name of Pietism, -actually prevailed in the latter part of the seventeenth century, -triumphing over a movement of spontaneous freethinking. Peace and -the development of universities thereafter built up a learned class, -who especially cultivated ecclesiastical history; and as we have seen, -German theology had become in the primary sense rationalistic by the -end of the eighteenth century. After the fall of Napoleon there began -in earnest the education of the Prussian common people; and though to -this day the learned class are more apart from the general public in -Germany than in most other countries, the latter half of the nineteenth -century has seen a great development of popular secularism. - -In 1881 the church accommodation in Berlin sufficed for only two per -cent of the population, and even that was not at all fully used. This -is the social aspect of Protestant Germany; and it effectively -confutes the periodic statements as to revivals of orthodoxy in the -universities. Such revivals are officially engineered and financially -stimulated: the mass of the people of Protestant Germany, at least in -the towns, have practically given up the Christian creed, even when -they do not renounce their nominal membership in the State Church; -and the great Socialistic party, which contains over three millions -of adult males, is pronouncedly rationalistic. In Scandinavia the -literary influence of such masters of drama and fiction as Ibsen and -Björnson creates a freethinking spirit on a very wide scale among the -middle classes, though the clergy are still illiberal; and in Holland, -where the churches are increasingly latitudinarian, there has been a -more competent journalistic propaganda of rationalism than in almost -any other country. - -That the same general movement of things goes on in England -may be proved by reference to the almost daily complaints of the -clergy. Rationalism and secularism have advanced in all classes during -half a century, until their propaganda is accepted as a quite normal -activity; such writers as Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, and Clifford being -read by the more studious of all ranks. In recent years the cheap -reprints of the Rationalist Press Association have had millions of -readers. Churchgoing constantly declines in the towns; agnosticism -becomes more and more common among the educated classes; the average of -the workers in the large towns are fixedly alienated from the Church; -and the latter-day propaganda of the Salvation Army affects only the -less intelligent types even since, after refusing for twenty years -to deal with material problems, it has sought to establish itself as -a charitable organization for dealing with the "lapsed masses." As -regards the general influence of the churches it is observable that -whereas fifty years ago there were many clergymen and prelates noted -as important writers on non-theological matters, and whereas even -a few years ago there were still several bishops distinguished as -scholars and historians, there is now none so describable. So, in the -department of fine letters, there is scarcely a poet or novelist of -high standing who can be called a believing Christian. In the last -generation some distinguished men who were openly heterodox, as the -late Mr. Matthew Arnold, or very dubiously orthodox, as Mr. Lecky, -were wont to profess themselves good members of the Church of England; -but the normal tendency of rationalists is now to give the churches -up. The leading names in serious and even imaginative literature, -with a few exceptions which stand for popularity rather than weight, -are those of known unbelievers. In that category stood the late -Mr. George Meredith. - -Of the state of thought in the United States it is difficult to speak -with precision. The latitude allowed to or taken by the majority of -the clergy keeps within the ostensible pale of the numerous churches -much opinion that elsewhere would rank as extremely heterodox; and -it was from American churchmen that there came the project of the -so-called "Rainbow Bible," in which the heterogeneous sources of the -Old Testament books are indicated by printing in variously coloured -inks. As in all countries where the clergy are democratically in touch -with the people, the breach between authority and modern thought is -thus less marked than in the sphere of the Catholic and Anglican -Churches. But in such a civilization, development is inevitably -continuous. - -In the first half of the nineteenth century the prevailing creed -of educated New England, then noted for "plain living and high -thinking," was Unitarianism. This seems to have grown rapidly after the -Revolution, partly from seed sown by Priestley, who made New England -his home, partly from the Deism of the educated class. Nearly all the -leaders of the Revolution--Washington, Paine, Franklin, Jefferson, -Adams--had been Deists. But Deism is an inconvenient creed for -public men in a church-going or clerically-influenced world; and -Unitarianism, with its decorous worship and use of the Bible, was a -convenient compromise. Later "transcendental" teaching, such as the -movement around Emerson, led men in the same direction. Latterly, -however, the Unitarian congregations relatively dwindle; and while -some of the defection stands for the relapse of the children from -the strenuous thought of their fathers, some stands for complete -abandonment of the habit of worship. - -At the same time popular rationalism has been greatly diffused in the -United States by the lecturing of the late Colonel Ingersoll, one of -the greatest orators of his time, as was his contemporary Charles -Bradlaugh in England. Each of those men probably convinced more of -his fellow countrymen of the untruth of the Christian creed than were -ever rationally persuaded of its truth by the preachers or teachers -of modern times. What preserves the form of faith in the States is -probably less the socio-economic pressure seen so commonly in England -and Scotland (since all life is franker and freer in the New World, -especially in the West) than the simple lack of leisure for study in -a community where competition for income drives all men at a pace -that almost seems to belie prosperity. A shrewd and pliable clergy -keeps itself rather better abreast of new scholarship and criticism -than does the mass of the flock; and men and women who first learn -from the pulpit something of the change of view passing over Biblical -study are not apt to turn away from the teacher as Europeans do from -an unteachable priest. But despite all accommodation the sense of an -absolute change is diffused, and there is record of western preachers -bidding farewell to the pulpit and being chorussed by laymen forsaking -the pew. - -In strict keeping with the shrinkage of faith among the "higher" races -is the expenditure of effort to spread it among the "lower." Faith -naturally seeks the comfort of converts at lower intellectual levels; -and it is in some quarters able to report a certain expansion of -territory by such means. But the total statistics of Protestant -missions tell only of handfuls of converts scattered among the yellow -and brown and black races, a number grotesquely disproportionate to -the immense outlay. This goes on in virtue of the still sufficient -wealth of the churches, which are in consistency bound to respond to -missionary appeals while they profess belief in the Christian doctrine -of salvation. It is found, however, that the missionary system needs, -to maintain it, either an ever more substantial stipend or some other -opportunity of gain to the individual missionary; and the triviality -of the results becomes increasingly discouraging to all save the most -fervent faith. Disparagement of missionary labours on both moral and -political grounds is probably more common among professed churchmen -than among unbelievers, who sometimes, as in the case of Darwin, bear -cordial testimony to the merits and the success of some missionaries -as against the egoism of the normal trader in his relations with the -undeveloped races. - -The final problem of Protestantism is its collective relation to -Catholicism; and in the first half of the nineteenth century many -Protestants still hoped to gain ground at the expense of the Church -of Rome, now that propaganda was free. No such success, however, -has taken place. It is found on the contrary that the more devotional -types tend to revert from Protestantism to Rome, while those who reject -Catholicism rarely become Protestants. In France this is peculiarly -apparent. At the Revolution, it was found that proportionally as -many Protestant pastors as Catholic priests were ready to abjure -their creed. In the religious reaction both Churches alike regained -ground; and the Protestant Church in France has always had adherents -distinguished for learning and moral earnestness. To-day, however, -though its members are relatively numerous in places of political -power, by reason doubtless of their serious and practical education, -their Church does not make any corresponding gains. Its numbers may -not latterly dwindle as steadily as those of the Catholic mass; but -there is no prospect that it will recover strength through Catholic -defections. In Austria, the anti-Roman movement already mentioned may -conceivably give rise to a non-Romish Church; but it is impossible -to forecast the issue. - - - - -§ 3. Greek Christianity - -It is the pride of the Greek Church to call itself Orthodox; and in no -part of Christendom has the faith had less to fear from unbelief. Mere -sectarian strife, indeed, has never been lacking; and at the very -moment of the fall of Constantinople there was deadly schism between -the orthodox and those who were politically willing to unite with the -Latin Church. But vital heresy never throve. Political vicissitude in -the Eastern empire, from Constantine onwards, seems always to have -thrown the balance of force on the side of religious conservatism; -and so devoid is Greek ecclesiastical history since the Middle Ages -of any element of innovating life that the student is tempted almost -to surmise a national loss of faculty. Greek intellectual life since -the fall of Constantinople, however, is only a steady sequence from -that which went before. After the overthrow of the Latin kingdom set -up by the Crusaders, and the restoration of Greek rule, the whole -nation was very naturally thrown back on its traditions, recoiling -from further contact with the West; and the process of fixation -was repeated for what of Greek life was left after the Turkish -conquest. The extraordinary gift for despotic government shown by the -first race of Ottoman Turks brought about a resigned degradation on -the Christian side. Allowed a sufficient measure of toleration to make -them "prefer the domination of the Sultan to that of any Christian -potentate," they paid to him not only their taxes, but, for a time, -a large annual tribute of children, with perfect submission; and -thus, in the words of the British historian of modern Greece, they -"sank with wonderful rapidity, and without an effort, into the most -abject slavery." Many indeed became Mohammedans to escape the tribute -of children, which after a time ceased to be exacted, becoming rare -in the seventeenth century. - -In such circumstances the Christian priesthood and remaining laity -were thrown very closely together, somewhat as happened in Ireland -under English rule, and the result was a perfect devotion on the -part of the Greek peasantry to their creed. It is accordingly -claimed as the force which preserved their nationality. But the -nationality so preserved could not well do much credit to the creed, -which, in turn, gave Greeks a ground of differentiation from their -conquerors without supplying any force of retrieval or progress. What -was secured was not moral union but merely doctrinal persistence in -the state of subjection; and the conqueror "availed himself of the -hoary bigotry and infantine vanity of Hellenic dotage to use the -Greek Church as a means of enslaving the nation." The first Sultan -sagaciously appointed a conservative Patriarch, and left Christian -disputes alone. The result was that the Church was kept impotent -by its own quarrels and corruptions. Unity of forms alone remained; -simony "became a part of the constitution of the Orthodox Church," -the women of the Sultan's harem selling Christian ecclesiastical -offices; and Christian life as such set up in the Moslem onlookers an -immovable contempt. "No more selfish and degraded class of men has -ever held power," says Finlay, "than the archonts of modern Greece -and the Phanariots of Constantinople." Greek life remained at its -best in the rural districts, where the old village governments were -allowed to subsist, and where accordingly the people kept apart from -the corrupt and oppressive Turkish law courts. And in these districts, -as it happens, there has been the maximum of pagan survivals. - -The Church in particular exhibited in the sixteenth and seventeenth -centuries, in a worse degree, all the corruption and backwardness of -that of the West in the pre-Reformation period. Greek monasteries, -despite attempts at reform by single emperors, had long been in large -measure places of comfortable retreat for members of the upper classes; -and under Turkish rule they became still more so, acting however as -centres of political intrigue in addition. The result was that, with -every facility for such study as the Benedictines carried on in the -West, the Greek monks as a rule left learning alone, and were active -chiefly as Turkish political agents, in the manner of the Western -Jesuits. The secular clergy at the same time became so depressed -economically that they were commonly obliged to work with their -hands for a living; and though those of the country districts were -as a rule morally much superior to those of the towns, all alike were -necessarily very ignorant. In the towns, where many of the aristocracy -had become Moslems at the conquest, both clergy and monks frequently -apostatized to Islam, three cases being recorded in the year 1675; -and about that time there is a curious record of the Turks putting -a Christian renegade to death for cursing his own religion in the -divan. Moslems seem always to have retained a reverence for the Gospel -Jesus, considered as apart from his Church. - -It is needless to say that Greek Christianity never had the slightest -countervailing success in converting Moslems. In addition to the -spectacle of Christian degradation constantly under their eyes, -the Turks were in a position to say that no trust could ever be -put in the good faith of a Christian State which made a treaty with -them. Thus even when the usual diseases of despotism and dogmatism -corroded the Turkish polity, the Christians counted for nothing as -an element either of regeneration or of criticism; and no Turk ever -looked to their creed as a possible force of reform, though in the -period of energy the ablest Turkish statesman always saw the wisdom -of ruling them tolerantly, in the Turkish interest, and sought to win -them to Islam. Outside of Greece proper, accordingly, the Greek Church -never regained any ground in the Turkish empire; and in the age of the -conquest, when the expulsion of Jews from Spain drove many of that -race to Turkey, they were everywhere preferred to Christians, whom -they ousted, further, from many industrial and commercial positions -in the towns, becoming the chief bankers, physicians, and merchants, -and so helping to depress the Christians. - -No race could under such conditions maintain a high intellectual life; -and among Greek Christians orthodoxy was a matter of course. While -Venice held the Morea at the end of the seventeenth century, and while -Genoa ruled some of the islands, the same state of things prevailed -under Catholic rule. When accordingly the sense of nationality began to -grow in the eighteenth century, it was from the first associated with -the national religion. In the first quarter of the eighteenth century, -Catholic propaganda was carried on in Chios and elsewhere under French -auspices, and the Greek Church persuaded the Turkish Government to -prohibit proselytism. At no period does the strife between easterns -and westerns at the Holy Sepulchre seem to have ceased; and it -now began to worsen. The wars between Austria and Turkey, however, -began the gradual emancipation of the Greek people from servitude, by -putting an outside pressure on the Turkish Government; the Russians -continued the process; and the new friendly relations now set up -between Greek and other Christians developed a new Greek sentiment of -racial hostility to the Turks. At the same time, the hostility of the -Christian powers made the Porte inclined to attach the Greek upper -class by giving them privileges as Turkish officials, and thus the -national self-respect was on that side further encouraged, despite the -corruption of the favoured class. Probably Russian influence in the -eighteenth century did most to arouse national aspirations, Russia -being specially welcome as holding the Greek form of Christianity; -but the Russian attempt to secure sovereignty as the price of military -help checked the movement for independence; and it needed the contagion -of the French revolutionary movement to cause a vigorous revival. Then -Russia on political grounds combined with the Porte to resist French -influence from the Levant and the Ionian islands; and when in 1815 the -revived Ionian Republic was placed under British protection, Russia -and Turkey continued to combine in jealousy of Western influence. - -English rule in the Ionian Islands in turn was "neither wise nor -liberal," and while it subsisted did nothing for Greek development; -but it remains the fact that Russia, holding the Greek creed, never -aimed sympathetically at Greek liberation. That came about at length -through the fervour of national feeling set up at the French Revolution -and encouraged by a common European sympathy, grounded not on religion -but on admiration for ancient and pagan Greece as the great exemplar -of civilization and intellectual life. The same admiration for their -ancestors was naturally aroused among the Greeks themselves, and -was their strongest political impulse. "Ecclesiastical ties greatly -facilitated union, but they neither created the impulse towards -independence, nor infused the enthusiasm which secured success." - -Since the achievement of Greek independence, however, the people -have remained substantially orthodox. Though they are no longer -withheld from intercourse with the West, but have on the contrary -shown a large measure of cosmopolitanism, their intellectual life has -remained relatively fixed till the other day, the new complacency of -independence backing the old complacency of orthodoxy. An excessive -devotion to politics and political intrigue has absorbed the mental -activity of the people; and literary veneration for the classic past -has hampered the free play of intelligence on higher problems. The -"Gospel Riots" at Athens a dozen years ago exhibited the state of real -culture. On the urging of the Queen there had been made a translation -of the New Testament into the living language of the people, or into -one midway between that and the artificial academic tongue which -has been developed among the literary class. About that period, -however, what appears to be a more truly vernacular version began to -be published in an Athenian journal; and it was against this that the -students and others concerned directed their indignation, bringing -about by their disturbances an actual change of ministry. Orthodox -sentiment and orthodox ignorance appeared to be the moving forces; -so that at the beginning of the twentieth century Greece could -claim to be the most bigoted of Christian countries. Doubtless the -consciousness of possessing the continuous apostolic tradition has -been an important psychological factor in the special conservatism -of belief, as is literary past-worship in the conservatism of speech. - -When we turn to Russia, where the creed of the Greek Church, though -under an independent Patriarch, is that of the State, we find the -usual phenomena of European intellectual life specially marked. In no -other country, perhaps, is rationalism or indifference more nearly -universal among the educated class, which is relatively small; and -nowhere is faith more uncritical among the mass. Among them the use -and adoration of icons--pictures or images of Jesus or the Madonna -or of the saints, embellished in various ways--is universal in both -private and public devotion; and a certain number of images, credited -with miraculous virtue, earn great revenues for the monasteries or -churches which possess them. The mass of the parish clergy (who like -those of Greece may marry before ordination, but not a second time) -are so ignorant as to be unconcerned about educated unbelief; and -the Church as a whole has little or no political influence, being -thoroughly subject to the political administration, or at least to -the authority of the Tsar. - -In the medieval period monasteries in Russia underwent the same -evolution as elsewhere, the monks passing from poverty to corporate -wealth, and owning in particular multitudes of serfs. Their lands and -serfs, however, were secularized in the eighteenth century; and since -then, though some five hundred monasteries continue to exist, they have -counted for little in the national life. Ecclesiastical discipline -has in general been always rigorous under the autocracy; and in the -eighteenth century it was common to flog priests cruelly for almost -any breach of discipline. And though Russia has for ages abounded in -dissenting sects, at no time has any movement of reform come from the -clergy. No Church has been more steadily unintellectual. All progress -in Russia has come from the stimulus of western culture, beginning -under Peter the Great, and continuing throughout the eighteenth and -nineteenth centuries; and though some men of genius, as the great -novelist, Dostoyevsky, who was anti-rationalist, and Count Tolstoy, -who was heretically religious, have been exceptions to the rule, the -higher Russian culture is predominantly rationalistic. The greatest -Russian novelist, Tourguénief, was a freethinker, as is Gorky to-day. - -The numerous dissident sects of Russia, which represent in general -unorganized developments of the spirit of Bible-worshipping -Protestantism, have been broadly classed as follows: (1) Sects -such as the Molokani and Stundists, which found on the Scriptures, -but are not literalists, and resort at times to inward light for -interpretation. (2) Sects which disregard Scripture, and follow -the doctrine of special leaders. (3) Sects which believe in the -re-incarnation of Christ. (4) Sects given to the religion of physical -excitement; some being erotic, as the Jumpers; some flagellant, as -the Khlysti; some fanatically ascetic, as the Skoptsi or Eunuchs. All -alike, however near they may be to orthodoxy, are liable to official -persecution equally with the members of the modern sect of Dukhobortsi, -associated with Count Tolstoy, whose doctrine is non-resistance -and refusal to bear arms. Thus Christianity in Russia is variously -identified with the most medieval formalism and bigotry and the most -exalted enthusiasm for concord; while the march of intelligence -proceeds as far as it may in disregard of all supernaturalist -creeds. But the vast mass of the Russian peasantry stands for the -faith of the Middle Ages, and may now be said to constitute the most -religious section of total Christendom. - -Between eastern and western Christianity, finally, there seems to be no -prospect of ecclesiastical fraternization, though hopes of that kind -have been sometimes floated in the Anglican Church. At the church of -the Holy Sepulchre the Greeks and the Latins are in chronic strife; -it was one of their squabbles that brought about the Crimean War; and -in the present year they have shed blood in one of their scuffles. [26] -The visitor to Jerusalem thus witnesses the standing spectacle of an -impassive Turkish soldier keeping the peace between mobs of Christian -devotees, eager to fly at each other's throats. - - - - - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE RELATION TO PROGRESS - - -§ 1. Moral Influence - -It is a deeply significant fact that in recent times the defence -of Christianity takes much more often the form of a claim that it -is socially useful than that of an attempt to prove it true. The -argument from utility is indeed an old one: it is an error to say, -as did J. S. Mill, that men have been little concerned to put it in -competition with the argument from truth; but the former is now in -special favour. Insofar as it proceeds upon a survey of Christian -history it may here be left to the test of confrontation with the -facts; but as it is constantly urged with regard to the actual state -of life and faith, it is necessary to consider it in conclusion. - -The chief difficulty in such an inquiry is that the most irreconcilable -formulas are put forth on the side and in the name of belief. Commonly -it is claimed that all that is good in current morality is derived from -Christian sources; that morally scrupulous unbelievers are so because -of their religious training or environment; and that a removal of the -scaffolding of creed will bring to ruin the edifice of conduct that is -held to have been reared by its means. It is not usually realized that -such an argument ends in crediting to paganism and Judaism the alleged -moral merits of the first Christians. It might indeed be suggested, -as against the traditional account of their pre-eminent goodness, -that either they, in turn, owed their character to their antecedents, -or their creed lost its efficacy after the first generation. But the -historic answer to the claim is that there has never been any such -moralizing virtue in the Christian or any other creed in historically -familiar times as need alarm any one for the moral consequences of its -gradual disappearance. All sudden and revolutionary changes in popular -moral standards certainly appear to be harmful; but the great majority -of such changes in the Christian era have been worked under the -auspices of faith, having consisted not in the abandonment of belief, -but in the restatement of ethics in terms of "inspiration." Unbelief -proceeds with no such cataclysmic speed. It is not conceivable that -the gradual dissolution of supernaturalist notions will ever of itself -work such evil as is told of in the story of the military evangel -of Christianity in the Dark Ages, the Crusades, the Albigensian -massacres, the conquests of Mexico and Peru, the Anabaptist movement -at the outset of the Reformation, or the massacre of St. Bartholomew, -to say nothing of the death-roll of the Inquisition and the mania -against witchcraft. Even the bloodshed of the Reign of Terror in the -French Revolution, wrought under peculiar political perturbation, -was under the auspices not of atheists but of theists. - -If it be asked wherein lies the specific value of dogma as a moral -restraint, in terms of actual observation, there are to be found -no facts that can induce a scientific inquirer to struggle for the -maintenance of a creed believed to be untrue in the hope that it will -prove morally useful. Moral evils may for the purposes of such an -inquiry be broadly classed under the heads of vice, crime, poverty, -and war; and only in regard to the first is there even a plausible -pretence that supernaturalist belief is a preventive. It might indeed -seem likely, on first thought, that a cancelling of supernaturalist -vetoes on the pleasures of the senses may lead to increased indulgence; -but those vetoes apply to all sensual indulgence alike, and no one now -pretends that unbelievers are more given to gluttony and drunkenness -than believers; though the latter may doubtless claim, in respect of -the Catholic Church, to include a larger number of extreme ascetics, as -do the votaries of faiths pronounced by Catholics to be false. While, -then, there may and do arise modifications of the religious formulas -of ethics, there is absolutely no reason to apprehend that any form of -conduct will be less considerate on naturalist than on supernaturalist -principles. The Christian doctrine of forgiveness for sins must do more -to encourage licence than can be done by any rationalistic ethic. Even -where naturalism might give a sanction which Christian dogma withholds, -as in the case of suicides, it is not found that any statistical change -is set up by unbelief. Poverty, again, has probably been normally -worse in Christian Europe throughout the whole Christian era than in -any previous or non-Christian civilization; and the most systematic -schemes for its extinction in recent times are of non-Christian -origin, though a personal and habitual effort to modify the stress of -poverty is one of the more creditable features of organized Christian -work. As regards crime, the case is much the same. The vast majority -of criminals hold supernaturalist beliefs, atheism being extremely -rare among them; and while many Christians have in the past done good -and zealous work towards a humane and rational treatment of criminals, -the only scientific and comprehensive schemes now on foot are framed -on naturalist lines, and are denounced by professed Christians on -theological lines, either as being sinfully lenient to wrongdoing -or as being "cold-blooded." Thus supernaturalism remains prone to -a cruel and irrational ideal of retribution, even while some of its -champions profess to combat scientific methods in the name of humanity. - -It is in regard to the influence of religious teaching on international -relations, however, that the saddest conclusions are forced upon the -student of Christian history. The foregoing pages have shown how potent -has been organized Christianity to promote strife and slaughter, how -impotent to restrain them. If any instance could be found in history of -a definite prevention of war on grounds of Christian as distinguished -from prudential motive, it would have been there recorded. So flagrant -is the record that when it is cited the Christian defence veers round -from the position above viewed to one which unconsciously places the -source of civilization in human reason. Yet even thus the historic -facts are misstated. The enormity of Christian strifes in the past is -now apologetically accounted for by the fantastic theorem that hitherto -men have not "understood" Christianity, and that only in modern times -have its founder's teachings been properly comprehended. Obviously -there has been no such development: the gospel's inculcations of -love and concord are as simple as may be, and have at all times been -perfectly intelligible: what has been lacking is the habit of mind -and will that secures the fulfilment of such precepts. And recent -experience has painfully proved, once for all, that the religious or -"believer's" temper, instead of being normally conducive to such -action, is normally the worst hindrance to it. - -An explanation is to be found in a study of the normal results -of guiding conduct by emotional leanings rather than by critical -reflection. The former is peculiarly the process of evangelical -religion. Hence comes the practical inefficacy of a love of peace -derived either inertly through acceptance of a form of words declared -to be sacred, or through an emotional assent to such words emotionally -propounded. Emotions so evolved are of the surface, and are erased -as easily as they are induced, by stronger emotions proceeding from -the animal nature. Only a small minority of Christians, accordingly, -are found to resist the rush of warlike passions; and some who call -most excitedly for peace when there is no war are found among those -most excited by the war passion as soon as the contagion stirs. It -may be noted as a decisive fact in religious history that in regard -to the war which raged while these pages were first being penned, -[27] the movement of critical opposition and expostulation succeeded -almost in the ratio of men's remoteness from the Christian faith. Among -the Quaker sect, so long honourably distinguished by its testimony -against war, there was a considerable reversion to the normal temper, -as if the old conviction had been in many cases lost in the process -of merely hereditary transmission. Among the Christian Churches so -called, by far the most peace-loving is the Unitarian, which rejects -the central Christian dogma. And among the public men associated with -the protest against the war, the number known to be rationalists was -proportionally as large as that of the supernaturalists was small. The -personal excellence and elevation of moral feeling shown among the -latter group is thus no warrant for seeing the cause in their creed. In -such matters there is no invariable rule, every section exhibiting -psychical divergence within itself; but it is now statistically clear -that the standing claim for the conventional creed as being peculiarly -helpful to the cause of peace is false. The title of "Bible-loving" -had for a generation been applied to England by its pietists. The same -title is confessedly applicable to the Boers of South Africa. Yet no -consciousness of a common creed ever availed to restrain the hatred -of the Christian mass in England towards their "enemy." - -The recent history of the near East conveys a similar lesson. For -generations the Turkish autocracy was able to keep down the Christian -peoples under its rule by means of their mutual hates. It was -not community of religion that brought about the Balkan and Greek -combination of 1912: it was military and political calculation; and -the overthrow of Turkey was no sooner completed than the Christian -combatants were on the verge of war with each other. Between Greek and -Bulgarian there seems to be to-day the same animosity as existed in -the Dark Ages; and Greek orthodoxy declaims against the "irreligion" -of educated Bulgaria, while the mass of the Bulgarian people remains as -superstitious as that of Greece. As regards standards of conduct, the -former seem to have capped every savagery of which Turkish irregulars -have ever been guilty. Whatever may be the outcome of freedom for -self-development in the light of western civilization, there is plainly -nothing to choose as between Christian and Moslem moral material in -those regions after two thousand years of Christianity. Such facts -bring out once for all the sociological truth as to the part played -by Christianity in civilization. The progress of the more advanced -States has not been caused by creed. If that were the lifting factor, -Abyssinia should be on the same plane with the leading European -States. Once more, it is not Christianity that has civilized modern -Europe, but the variously caused and conditioned progress of Europe -that has civilized Christianity; even as the conditions and forces -of ancient Hellas civilized its paganism. - -Such tests are of course not those that will be first put by a -scrupulous mind seeking to know whether the Christian creed be -true. Rather they are forced on such a mind by the tactics of -believers, who as a rule seek to evade the fundamental issue. It -is not unlikely, therefore, in view of present painful experience, -that for some time to come the stress of defence will shift to the -attempt, never entirely abandoned, to defend the faith on evidential -or philosophic grounds. We have thus to consider finally the apparent -effects of Christian credences and institutions on the intellectual -life of the time. - - - - -§ 2. Intellectual Influence - -So far as it can be historically traced, the intellectual influence -of Christianity was relatively at its best when it began to be -propounded as a creed in critical relation to Judaism. Intellectual -gain was checked as soon as it became a substantive creed, demanding -submissive acceptance. From that point forward it becomes a restraint -on intellectual freedom, save insofar as it stirred believers to -a one-sided criticism of pagan beliefs, a process of which the -educational effect was promptly annulled by a veto on its extension -to the beliefs of the critics. It has been argued indeed that modern -science has been signally advanced by the mental bias that goes -with monotheism; but the historical fact is that Jewish monotheism -was much less friendly to science than Babylonian polytheism; that -the beginnings of Greek science were among polytheists and, perhaps, -atheists; that Saracen monotheism owed its scientific stimulus to the -recovered thought of polytheistic Greece; and that, whatever impulse -a truly monotheistic philosophy may have given to modern science, -the usual influence of Christian belief has been to override the idea -of invariable causation in nature. Even after the belief in recurrent -miracles is disavowed, the doctrine and practice of prayer remain to -represent the old concept. - -On the other hand, the kind of violence done to the instinct for -concrete or historical truth by the frauds and delusions of the early -and medieval Church, though greatly attenuated in modern times, has -never ended. Critical judgment has only slowly recovered the strength -and stature it had in the pre-Christian world; and wherever faith -has plenary rule such judgment is liable to arbitrary interdict. It -is true that even in the nineteenth century some great servants of -science have been either orthodox Christians or devout theists. Faraday -and Joule, Pasteur and Kelvin, are cases in point. But instead of the -religious creed having in such cases furnished the cue or the motive -to the scientific work done, it is found to be out of all logical -relation to it, and to be a mere obstruction to the scientific use -of the reason on the religious problem itself. - -To a considerable extent the rigid adherence to religious beliefs or -professions in defiance of evidence is on all fours with any other -form of conservatism, as the social and the political. Inasmuch, -however, as religion proffers both a specific comfort in this life and -a specific reward in another, it has a power of intellectual fixation -with which no other can compare; and there is something unique in the -spectacle of religious doctrines kept in an unchanged form by means -of an economic basis consecrated to them. It has been seen in the -foregoing history that for two thousand years no creed with such a -basis has been overthrown either wholly or locally save by a force -which confiscated its endowments or suppressed its worship. Thus, -and thus only, did Christianity triumph over southern and northern -paganism; thus did Islam triumph over Christianity in parts of its -world, and fall again before it in others; and thus did Protestantism -expel Catholicism from many countries and suffer expulsion in turn -from some of them. Where endowments can subsist, with freedom of -worship, no form of doctrine that is wedded to the endowments ever -yields directly to criticism. - -Christianity has thus had in the modern world a relatively more -sinister influence on the intellectual life than was wrought by any -phase of paganism even in periods when the intelligence of the ancient -world was divorced from its established religion. The divorce is now -more complete than ever before; but the bribe to conformity is greater -than ever, relatively at least to the light of the time. The result -is a maximum of insincerity, whether or not the bribe is given by a -standing endowment. Dissenting or voluntary churches in the Protestant -countries offer an income to more or less educated men on condition of -propounding the creed of the past; and the more intelligent minority -within the churches are weighed down in every effort at a modification -of doctrine by the orthodoxy of the uncritical or fanatical many, -who control the endowments. Social and commercial life conform -to the conditions, and everywhere the profession of belief is far -in excess of the actuality--a state of things unfavourable to all -morality. The very attempt to adjust the system to the pressure of -modern thought exhibits the process of demoralization. From the clergy -we have neither straightforward defence nor straightforward avowal of -old error. Christianity is defended not as being true but as being -socially useful and privately comforting; and a general pretence is -made of maintaining the continuity of a historic creed whose central -and fundamental dogmas are no longer held save by the most uncritical. - -It is not only in religion and ethics that the influence of endowed and -organized Christianity is thus intellectually baneful. Every science in -turn, from the days of Galileo, has had to fight for its life against -the sanctified ignorance of all the churches; and while the physical -sciences, which can be taught without open reference to traditional -error, have carried their point and received endowment in turn, -happily without being tied down to any documents, the moral sciences -are either kept in tutelage to theology in the universities of many -countries, our own included, or forced to leave out of their scope -the phenomena of religion itself, and in particular the sociological -problem of Christian history. At the beginning of the present century -there was not a single chair of sociology in a British university -[28]; and even in the United States, where such chairs are common, -they and the historical chairs alike are barred from any free treatment -of religious evolution. Ethical teaching is similarly limited; and a -science which on that side threatened to turn the flank of religious -doctrine--to wit, phrenology--was at an early stage of its progress -in the first half of the nineteenth century successfully ostracized, -so that, lacking the expert handling without which no science can -be kept sound, it has been relegated even for most naturalists to -the limbo of exploded error, without ever having been scientifically -developed or confuted. - -In fine, the science of society, the most momentous of all, is by -reason of the very nature of organized religion kept in trammels, -lest it should undermine the reign of faith. It makes its way in -virtue of the whole scientific movement of the age, and is perhaps most -progressive in the countries where, as in France and Italy, an official -Catholicism has prevented the academic compromise between faith and -science which is effected in the Protestant world, but is powerless to -keep independent science out of the universities. In those countries, -however, there are compromises of other kinds; and in modern France -there has been seen, in the case of Captain Dreyfus, the spectacle -of the clerical influence combining with that of the army to enforce -an insensate act of injustice, less from any intelligent motive of a -direct bearing than for the sake of a general alliance in which each of -the two great conservative and anti-progressive institutions backs the -other for general reactionary ends. Thus religious feeling abets social -and political malice; and such movements as that of anti-Semitism, -fostered by Christian organizations, can secure support from others -as the price of clerical support. - -As a result of its autocratic and centralized system, further, -Catholicism is a special force of political conservatism in Catholic -countries, with the single exception of Ireland, where its dependence -on the mass of the people has thus far kept it in close alliance with -their nationalist movement in despite of any papal restrictions. Such -an alliance is of course unfavourable to intellectual progress on other -lines; and English Protestant policy, largely directed by sectarian -feeling, has thus preserved in Ireland the type of Catholicism it -fears. Such Catholicism still tends to retard popular education; -and the one general advantage the Protestant countries can claim over -the Catholic is their lower degree of illiteracy. On the other hand, -the rationalism of the more enlightened Catholic countries, where the -Church lacks official power, is as a rule more explicit, more awake -to the nature of the force opposed to it; while in Protestant Germany -it is little concerned to oppose a Church with small organized or -academic influence, and till lately attempted little popular criticism -of faith. Every country thus presents some special type of intellectual -harm or drawback resulting from the presence of organized Christianity; -and in all alike it makes in varying degrees an obstacle to light. - -In the highest degree does this seem to be true of the land where it -has had the longest continuous life. Alone among the nations Greece -contributes nothing to the world's renovation. Italy, despite the -papacy, has a swarm of eager and questioning thinkers, working -at the human sciences; Spain stirs under all the leaden folds of -clericalism; but Greece, where the faith has never undergone eclipse -since Justinian's day, remains intellectually almost Byzantine, vainly -divided between Christian dogma and an external classic tradition, -neither ancient nor modern. Yet this is the one European country where -belief is ostensibly untroubled by its enemy. It is hard to say how -far the surface of orthodoxy conforms to the mental life underneath; -but there is no escape from the conclusion that a new mental life can -return to the land of Aristotle only in the measure in which it fully -readmits from the West the spirit of search and challenge which he -and Socrates left to re-inspire a world growing moribund under the -spell of faith. - - - - -§ 3. Conclusion and Prognosis - -It follows from the foregoing history and survey that Christianity, -regarded by its adherents as either the one progressive and civilizing -religion or the one most helpful to progress and civilization, is in -no way vitally different from the others which have a theistic basis, -and is in itself neither more nor less a force of amelioration than any -other founding on sacred books and supernaturalist dogmas. Enlightened -Christians with progressive instincts have justified them in terms -of Christian doctrine, even as enlightened Moslems, Brahmans, -and Buddhists have justified their higher ideals in terms of their -doctrine; and the special fortune of Christianity has lain in this, -that after nearly a thousand years in which it was relatively -retrograde as compared with Islam, which during a large part of -the time was progressive, both being what they were in virtue of -institutions and environment, the environment was so far politically -changed that the Christian countries gradually progressed, while the -Moslem countries lost ground. To-day it is becoming clear to instructed -eyes that the faiths were not the causal forces; and in Asia the rapid -development of Japan in the past generation has vividly demonstrated -the fallacy of the Christian view. As there was great progress under -ancient paganism, under each one of the great creeds or cults of Asia, -under Islam, and under Christianity, so there may be much greater -progress in the absence of them all, in virtue of a wider knowledge, -a more scientific polity, and a more diffused culture. - -The ultimate problem is to forecast the future. A confident faith -in continual progress is one of the commonest states of mind -of the present, the consciously scientific age; and in view of -the unmistakable decadence of the creeds as such, it is natural to -rationalists to expect an early reduction of Christianity to the status -now held by "folk-lore," a species of survival dependent on ignorance -upon the one hand and antiquarian curiosity on the other. But while -this may be called probable, there can be no scientific certainty in -the matter. For one thing, the process must for economic reasons be -much slower than used to be thought likely, for instance, in the time -of Voltaire, who allowed a century for the extinction of the Christian -creed. Voltaire was so far right that a century has seen Christianity -abandoned, after a reaction, by a large part of the best intelligence -of our age, as it was by that of his. But there may be more reactions; -and there is always a conceivable possibility of a total decadence, -such as overtook the civilization of the old Mediterranean world. - -The question is at bottom one of political science. Greek and Roman -civilization failed primarily through the incapacity of the ancient -States to set up a polity of international peace, secondarily -through the effects of the military despotism which that failure -superinduced. As the problem is all of a piece, avoidance of the -old error will presumably mean avoidance of the old doom. A similar -political failure in the modern world would in all likelihood mean the -same sequence of military imperialism, possibly with better economic -management, but with the same phenomena of intellectual decline and -reversion to fanaticism and superstition among populations debarred -from political activity and free speech. It is indeed dimly conceivable -that, as has been suggested by way of fiction, the mere warfare of -capital and labour may end in the degradation of the people, and -the consequent reduction of upper-class life to the plane of mere -sensuous gratification and "practical" science. In either event, a -religion now seen by instructed men to be incredible may be preserved -by a community neither instructed nor religious. - -The hope of the cause of reason then lies with the political ideals -and movements which best promise to save democracy and to elevate -the mass. It is hopefully significant that, as we have seen, the -most systematic and scientific of these movements are pronouncedly -rationalistic; and it is safe to say that their ultimate success -depends on their rationalism. All past movements for the social -salvation of the mass have failed for lack of social science; -and dogmatic Christianity in its most humane and sympathetic forms -remains the negation of such science. What is called "Christianity -without dogma" is merely humane sentiment misnamed. - -It is essential to a durable advance, however, that it should be pure -of violence, and utterly tolerant. When popular education has emptied -all or any of the churches, as it has already gone some way towards -doing, the spontaneous revenue of those which are voluntary bodies will -in the main have ceased; and by that time the majority will be in a -position to dispose of national funds in the social interest. Such -a course will be facile to a society which provides work for all -and sustains all; and when the bribe of sectarian endowment is thus -made void, the more factitious life of ancient error will be at an -end. But the most speculative construction of the future provides for -the widest individual and psychological freedom; and there will have -been no true triumph of reason if philosophic and historic error, -recognized as such, have not a free field. The Utopia of rationalism -will be reached when supernaturalism in the present sense of the -term shall have passed away as the belief in witchcraft has done, -without pressure of pains and penalties. And that Utopia will be the -rendezvous, belike, of more than one social ideal--of all, indeed, -which trust to reason for the attainment of righteousness. - - - - - - - - -SYNOPSIS OF LITERATURE - - -Part I--PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY - - -Chapter I--The Beginnings - -§ 1. Documentary Clues - -A good introduction to the rational discussion of the whole problem -of origins is furnished in Radical Views about the New Testament, -by Dr. G. A. van den Bergh van Eysinga, trans. from the Dutch by -S. B. Slack (R. P. A., 1912). The Unitarian view is freshly put by -Wilhelm Soltau in The Birth of Jesus Christ (Eng. tr., Black, 1903). Of -the countless works discussing early Christian literature and the -formation of the New Testament "Canon," the following may be consulted -with profit: All relevant articles in the Encyclopĉdia Biblica (A. & -C. Black); Supernatural Religion: An Inquiry into the Reality of -Divine Revelation, 6th ed. revised, 1875, two vols.; 3rd vol. 1877; -R. P. A. rep. in one vol., 1902; A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays, -by the same author, 1889; An Introduction to the Study of the New -Testament, by Dr. Samuel Davidson, 2nd ed. revised, 1882, two vols.; -The Apostolical Fathers, by Dr. James Donaldson, 1874 and later; -Renan's preface to his Saint Paul, the Appendice to his L'Antéchrist, -and his Les Évangiles; E. B. Nicholson's compilation, The Gospel -According to the Hebrews, 1879; History of the Canon in the Christian -Church, by Professor Reuss, Eng. tr. 1890; Apostolical Records of -Early Christianity, by the Rev. Dr. Giles, 1886; Strauss's second Leben -Jesu, tr. in Eng. (not always accurately) as A New Life of Jesus, 2nd -ed. 1879, two vols.; and the old research of Lardner on The Credibility -of the Gospels (Part II, ch. i to xxix in vol. ii of Works, ed. 1835) -which covers the ground pretty fully, indeed diffusely. As to the -Pauline epistles see Van Manen's article in the Encyclopĉdia Biblica, -and T. Whittaker's Origins of Christianity (R. P. A., 1909). The most -comprehensive account of the early sources is Harnack's Geschichte der -altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius (1893) in two great volumes; -and the still bulkier Chronologie which follows thereon. More -compendious surveys are Professor Gustav Krüger's Geschichte der -altchristlichen Literatur in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten, 1895; and -Dr. James Donaldson's History of Christian Literature and Doctrine, -three vols., 1864-66. Of real value is the survey of Professor Arnold -Meyer, Die moderne Forschung über die Geschichte des Urchristentums, -1898. [The writings ascribed to the Apostolic Fathers are translated -in the first volume of the "Ante-Nicene Library"; those ascribed to -Justin Martyr in the second volume.] - - - -§ 2. The Earliest Christian Sects - -The sources as to the Nazarenes and Ebionites are given by Bishop -Lightfoot in his ed. of the Epistle to the Galatians, p. 298, -ff. (diss. reprinted in Dissertations on the Apostolic Age, 1892, -p. 74, ff.); also in W. R. Sorley's Jewish Christians and Judaism, -1881, p. 66, ff. Both proceed on the traditional assumptions. Critical -discrimination between the Ebionites and "Nazarenes" begins in modern -times with Mosheim, Vindicia Antiquĉ Christianorum Disciplinĉ -contra Tolandi Nazarenum, 1720. See also his Commentarium de -rebus Christianorum ante Constantinum, 1753, Sĉc. II, § xxxix -(Eng. tr. vol. ii, p. 194, ff.). His position was developed by -Gieseler (1828), and has become the basis of later ecclesiastical -historiography, as in the above-cited writers, and in Weizsäcker's -Apostolic Age. A new and more searching analysis of the phenomena, on -lines previously suggested but not developed, is made by P. Hochart -in his Études d'histoire religieuse, 1890, chs. iv and v. For the -positions of the present section, in so far as they are not there -fully reasoned, the grounds will be found in the author's Christianity, -and Mythology, Part III, 1st Div. § 9, and in the National Reformer, -1888, March 18 and 25, April 1, 8, and 15. On the Nazareth problem -see Dr. Cheyne's article in the Encyclopĉdia Biblica, and Professor -Burkitt's paper on The Syriac Forms of New Testament Proper Names -(in Proc. of the British Academy, vol. v, 1912, pp. 17-18). - - - -§ 3. Personality of the Nominal Founder - -Of the more rationalistic Lives of Jesus, so-called, that of Renan -is the most charming and the least scientific; those by Strauss the -most systematic and educative; that of Thomas Scott, "The English Life -of Jesus," the most compendious view of the conflicts of the gospel -narratives. Evan Meredith's Prophet of Nazareth (1864) is rather a -stringent criticism of the whole Christian system of ethics, evidences, -and theology (rejecting supernaturalism but assuming a historical -Christ) than a scientific search for a personality behind the -Gospels. It however passes many acute criticisms. Later German Lives -of Christ, such as those of Keim and B. Weiss, are useful in respect -of their scholarly comprehensiveness, but have little final critical -value. A more advanced stage of documentary criticism than is seen in -any of these is reached in the second section of the article Gospels, -by Professor Schmiedel, in the Encyclopĉdia Biblica. The grounds -on which the present section carries the process of elimination yet -further are developed in the author's Christianity and Mythology, Part -III, The Gospel Myths, Div. ii; also in his Pagan Christs. Concerning -the Talmudic Jesus the documentary data are given by Lardner, Works, -ed. 1835, vol. ii; Baring Gould, The Lost and Hostile Gospels, 1874; -Joel, Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte, Breslau, 1880; Derenbourg, -Essai sur l'histoire et la Géographie de Palestine, 1867; Gustav Rösch, -Die Jesusmythen des Judenthums, in Theolog. Studien und Kritiken, -Jahrg. 1873, 1 Heft, pp. 75-115; R. T. Herford, Christianity in Talmud -and Midrash (1904); T. Theodores, essay on The Talmud in Essays and -Addresses by Professors and Lecturers of Owen's College (Macmillan, -1874), pp. 368-70; and Lightfoot, Horĉ Hebraicĉ, on Matt. ii, 14, -xxvii, 56, and Luke vii, 2. Later developments of the problem are -to be followed in the works of A. Kalthoff, The Rise of Christianity -(Eng. tr. R. P. A., 1907) and Was wissen wir von Jesus? (pamph. Berlin, -1904); T. Whittaker's Origins of Christianity; Professor Arthur -Drews's The Christ Myth (Eng. tr. Unwin); Professor W. B. Smith's -Der vorchristliche Jesus (1906) and Ecce Deus (R. P. A., 1912); and -Drews's The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus (Eng. tr. R. P. A., -1912). Compendious views of the process of textual analysis, as applied -to the Gospels by students who still hold to the historic actuality of -the Gospel Jesus, may be found in The Synoptic Problem, by A. J. Jolly -(Macmillan, 1893); The Formation of the Gospels, by F. P. Badham (Kegan -Paul, 2nd ed. 1892); The Common Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels, -by Dr. Abbott and W. G. Rushbrooke (Macmillan, 1884); and The First -Three Gospels, by J. Estlin Carpenter (Sunday School Association, 2nd -ed. 1890). Of the extensive continental literature of this subject -during the past half-century, typical and important examples are -Baur's Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien (1847), -Scholten's Het oudste Evangelie, 1868 (tr. in German, 1869); Gustave -D'Eichthal's Les Évangiles, 1863; H. J. Holtzmann's Die synoptischen -Evangelien, ihr Ursprung und geschichtliche Charakter, 1863; Berthold -Weiss's Text-kritik der vier Evangelien, 1899; J. Wellhausen, -Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, 1905; A. Schweitzer's -Von Reimarus zu Wrede (Eng. tr. The Quest of the Historical Jesus, -Black, 1910); and Alfred Loisy, Le quatrième Évangile, 1903; Les -Évangiles Synoptiques, two vols. 1907-8. Loisy's general conclusions -are given in his Jésus et la tradition évangélique, 1910. Holtzmann's -Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament -(2te. Aufl. 1885) is a good summary of the general discussion on the -documentary side up to its date. - - - -§ 4. Myth of the Twelve Apostles - -As to the Jewish Twelve Apostles, consult Jost, Geschichte des -Judenthums, 1850, ii, 159-60; Kitto's Cyclopedia of Biblical -Literature, art. Apostle; Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, ed. 1716, -liv. iii, ch. ii, §§ 7, 8, 10, 11; Mosheim's Commentaries as before -cited, Eng. tr. i, 121-23; and other authorities discussed by the -author in the National Reformer, 1887, May 8 and 15, November 20 -and 27, December 4; also in Christianity and Mythology, Part III, -Div. i, § 19. For recent views on the alleged apostolic epistles -see Professor Arnold Meyer's work, cited under § 1. The text of the -important Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, first published in 1883, -is ably edited and translated by Professors Hitchcock and Brown (London -ed. Nimmo), whose version was made the basis of a revised translation, -with variorum notes, by the author, published in the National -Reformer, November 1 and 8, 1891. The Teaching has appeared also in -the following translations: By Dr. Farrar, in the Contemporary Review, -May, 1884; by the Rev. A. Gordon (tr. sold at Essex Hall, London); -by M. Sabatier with text and commentary (Paris, 1885); by Professor -Harnack; and by the Rev. Mr. Heron in his Church of the Apostolic Age, -1888. As to its obviously Jewish basis compare Dr. Taylor's Teaching -of the Twelve Apostles, 1886, with Harnack's Die Apostellehre und die -jüdischen beiden Wege, 1886. On the "Brethren of the Lord" see Bishop -Lightfoot's excursus, reprinted in his Dissertations on the Apostolic -Age. The Judas myth and the characteristics of Peter are discussed -in Christianity and Mythology, Part III, Div. i, §§ 20, 21; also in -Professor Drews's Die Petrus Legende (Frankfurt a. M., 1910). For -the Egyptian God Petra see the Book of the Dead, Budge's tr., p. 123. - - - -§ 5. Primary Forms of the Cult - -The theory that the gospel narrative of the Last Supper, the Passion, -the Betrayal, Trial, Crucifixion, and Resurrection constitute a -mystery-play or plays is set forth by the author in Pagan Christs. On -pre-Christian Semitic "mysteries" see Professor Robertson Smith's -Religion of the Semites, Lect. vi-xi; and on the ancient conception of -sacrifice in general consult that work; also Wellhausen's Prolegomena -to the History of Israel, Eng. tr. Pt. I. ch. iii; the work of Fustel -de Coulanges on La Cité Antique; and Dr. J. G. Frazer's great treatise -The Golden Bough (2nd ed. three vols. 1900, 3rd ed. nine vols., -now in process of publication). Concerning the private religious -societies among the Greeks, the standard authority is M. Foucart, -Les Associations religieuses chez les Grecs, 1873; see also ch. xviii -of Renan's Les Apôtres. The imitation of pagan institutions in the -Christian Church is dealt with by the late Dr. Edwin Hatch, in his -Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, -1890; and some of the relations between the Jewish Passover and -coincident pagan feasts are suggested in the valuable old treatise -of J. Spencer, De Legibus Hebrĉorum (1685 and later), lib. ii, -cap 4. The part played by the child-image in pagan and Christian -mysteries is noted in Christianity and Mythology, Pt. II, Christ -and Krishna, sec. xiii. On other details consult Schürer, History -of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ, Div. II. The question -as to the rise of baptism comes up in the Clementine Homilies and -Recognitions, on which see Baur, Church History, Eng. tr., vol. i; -where also will be found the material of the controversy on the date -of the Easter sacrament. As to the manner of crucifixion in antiquity -see Dr. W. Brandt's Die evangelische Geschichte und der Ursprung des -Christenthums, 1893, Theil II, § 5, and Pf. Hermann Fulda's treatise, -Das Kreuz und die Kreuzigung (Breslau, 1878). - - - -§ 6. Rise of Gentile Christism. - -The early and bitter strife between the Jewish and Gentile parties in -the Christist movement was first exhaustively studied by the Tübingen -school. See the important works of its founder, F. C. Baur, Das -Christenthum und die christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte, -1853 (Eng. tr. The Church History of the First Three Centuries, 1878, -two vols.) and Paulus, 1845 (Eng. tr. two vols. 1873); also the work -of Zeller on the Contents and Origin of the Acts of the Apostles -(Eng. tr. two vols. 1875, with Overbeck's Introduction to the Acts, -from De Wette's Handbook). Compare the somewhat more conservative -treatise of Weizsäcker, The Apostolic Age of the Christian Church, -Eng. tr. two vols. 1894, and the orthodox Neander's History of -the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles -(Eng. tr. two vols. 1851), where however some decisive admissions are -made as to the narrative of the Acts. One of the most comprehensive -surveys of the documentary discussion is J. Jüngst's Die Quellen der -Apostelgeschichte (Gotha, 1895). Some interesting concessions are -made by Professor Ramsay in his work on The Church and the Roman -Empire before A.D. 170 (1893). On the Gentile parallels discussed -consult Frazer's Golden Bough and Havet's Le Christianisme et ses -origines. The questions raised by the vogue of the term "Chrestos" are -well set forth and discussed in the brochure of the late Dr. J. Barr -Mitchell, Chrestos: A Religious Epithet, its Import and Influence -(Williams and Norgate, 1880). Compare Renan, Saint Paul, p. 363, -and refs. Various aspects of the general problem are set forth in -the Monumental Christianity of J. P. Lundy (New York, 1876). For -a full view of Gnosticism see Baur, Die Christliche Gnosis, 1835, -and C. W. King, The Gnostics and their Remains, 2nd ed. 1887; and for -a survey of Samaritan tenets see J. W. Nutt, Fragment of a Samaritan -Targum, 1874 (Introduction), and Reland's Dissertatio de Monte Garizim, -in his Diss. Misc., Pars I, 1706. A view of the ancient practices of -cutting and gashing in the presence of the dead, etc., is given in John -Spencer's treatise De Legibus Hebrĉorum, lib. ii. cc. 13, 14. The Myth -of Simon Magus was discussed by the author in the National Reformer, -January 29, February 5, and February 19, 1893. - - - -§ 7. Growth of the Christ Myth - -For details and references as to the pagan myths embodied in the -Gospels, see the author's Christianity and Mythology, Parts II and -III. The evolution of the doctrine of the Logos is discussed by -Professor James Drummond, in The Jewish Messiah, 1877, and Philo -Judĉus, 1888; by M. Nicolas, Des doctrines religieuses des Juifs, -1860; and in Schürer's Jewish People in the Time of Christ, Div. II, -vol. iii. As to its early form among the Babylonians see Tiele, -Histoire comparée des anciennes religions égyptiennes et semitiques, -French tr. 1882, pp. 182-83. Dr. Frazer presents the evidence as to -the Semitic usage of sacrificing a mock king in his Golden Bough, -where however the problem is obscured by the acceptance of the -Gospels as historical records. See also the article on Jesus als -Saturnalien-König, by P. Wendland, in Hermes, xxxiii (1898). - - - - -Chapter II--The Environment - -§ 1. Social and Mental Conditions in the Roman Empire - -The sociological forces and tendencies in the Greek and Roman -civilizations are discussed in the author's Evolution of States, -Part I; also in A Short History of Freethought, vol. i, ch. iii, v, -vi, and vii. For the social bearing of ancient religion consult -Fustel de Coulanges, La Cité Antique; Boissier, La Religion -romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins (2 tom. 4e édit. 1892); Burckhardt, -Griechische Culturgeschichte, 3 Bde. 1898-1900; Farnell, The Cults -of the Greek States (five vols. 1896-1908); Maury, Histoire des -religions de la Grèce antique, 3 tom. 1857; and Kalthoff's Rise of -Christianity. Renan has many suggestive pages on social conditions, -particularly in Les Apôtres; but heed must be taken of the frequent -contradictions in his generalizations. As to the religious life of -the Greek private religious societies, see ch. xvii of Les Apôtres; -the treatise of M. Foucart, before cited; Dr. Hatch's Bampton lectures -on The Organization of the Early Christian Churches; and his Hibbert -lectures on The Influence of Greek Ideas, etc., before cited. For -Rome, see Professor W. Warde Fowler's Social Life at Rome in the Age -of Cicero (1909); and Professor Samuel Dill's Roman Society from Nero -to Marcus Aurelius (1908). - - - -§ 2. Jewish Orthodoxy - -Schürer's Jewish People in the Time of Christ gives the main clues -from Josephus, the Talmud, and the O. T. apocrypha. See further -M. Friedländer's Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Christenthums -(Wien, 1894) for light as to the relations between the Pharisees -and the common people. For a good general view see Reuss, Histoire -de la théologie chrétienne au siècle apostolique (2e édit. 1860), -liv. i. Nicolas, Des doctrines religieuses des Juifs, 1860, gives a -fuller research. Accounts of the surviving "Nestorians" are given in -Missionary Researches in Armenia, by E. Smith and H. D. O. Dwight, -1834, and in Dr. A. Grant's The Nestorians, 2nd. ed. 1843. - - - -§ 3. Jewish Sects - -A good conspectus and discussion of the data as to the Essenes is given -by Dr. Ginsburg in his pamphlet The Essenes, 1864. On the sects, see -also Schürer, Div. ii, vol. ii; Bishop Lightfoot, Dissertations on the -Apostolic Age; and Oskar Holtzmann, Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, -1895. - - - -§ 4. Gentile Cults - -A general view of non-Christian in relation to Christian religion is -most readably presented in M. Salomon Reinach's Orpheus: Histoire -generale des Religions (6e édit. 1909). The best mythological -dictionary is Roscher's great Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen -und römischen Mythologie, but Preller's Griechische Mythologie and -Römische Mythologie and Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography -and Mythology (three vols. 1844-49) give most of the data. A general -notion of the infiltration of pagan religion into Christianity may -be gathered from Les Saints Successeurs des Dieux by P. Saintyves -(1907); and Rendel Harris's The Dioscuri in Christian Legend (Oxford, -1903). In regard to the cults of Attis and Adonis, consult Frazer's -Adonis, Attis, Osiris (vol. iv of new ed. of Golden Bough) and Foucart -Des Associations religieuses chez les Grecs; for the cult of Dionysos, -the same and Frazer's Golden Bough; also (with caution) Mr. R. Brown's -Great Dionysiak Myth, two vols. 1877-8, and the older Recherches -sur le Culte de Bacchus of Rolle (3 tom. 1824), both works of great -learning. Lucian's treatise De Dea Syra gives special information -on Syrian religion. Sidelights are thrown on the cults in question -by the Christian Fathers, in particular Julius Firmicus Maternus, De -errore profanarum religionum (best ed. Halm's); Epiphanius, De Hĉresis; -Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies (trans. in Ante-Nicene Library, -vol. vi). The main clues to the Osiris cult are in The Book of the Dead -(Eng. tr. by Budge, 1898) and Plutarch's treatise On Isis and Osiris, -which should be read, however, in the light of Tiele's or some other -competent History of Egyptian Religion. The main data as to Mithraism -are collected in the author's essay in Pagan Christs. The standard -research on the subject is Cumont's Textes et Monuments Figurés -relatifs aux Mystères de Mithra (1896-9: add. vol. 1913). Valuable -light is thrown on the oriental side of Christian mythology by -Professor Hermann Gunkel, Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verständnis -des Neuen Testaments, 1903, trans. in The Monist, Chicago, 1903. - - - -§ 5. Ethics: Popular and Philosophic - -The parallels and coincidences between the teachings of Paul and of -Seneca are fully set forth by Bishop Lightfoot in the excursus on -Paul and Seneca reprinted in his Discussions on the Apostolic Age, -where also the significance of the parallels is considered and the -literature of the subject described. In the general connection may be -consulted Havet's Le Christianisme et ses origines, 4 tom. 1872-84; -Martha's Les Moralistes sous l'empire romain, 14e édit. 1881; Lecky's -History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne; Professor -Dill's Roman Society During the Last Century of the Empire of the West; -Baur's Drei Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der alten Philosophie und ihres -Verhältniss zum Christenthum (new ed. 1876), where there is a thorough -discussion of Seneca's case; Professor M. Baumgarten's Lucius Annĉus -Seneca und das Christenthum (1895); Uhlhorn's Conflict of Christianity -with Heathenism (Eng. tr. from 3rd Ger. ed. 1879); Renan's Marc Aurèle, -and ch. xvii. of Les Apôtres; W. Soltau's Das Fortleben des Heidentums -in der altchristlichen Kirche, 1906; Professor Max Pohlenz's Vom Zorne -Gottes: Eine Studie über den Einfluss der Griechischen Philosophie auf -das alte Christentum, 1909; J. A. Farrer's Paganism and Christianity, -1891 (rep. R. P. A.); W. M. Flinders Petrie's Religion and Conscience -in Ancient Egypt, 1898; and Ludwig Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity, -Eng. tr. by Marian Evans (George Eliot). The Jewish Rabbinical ethic is -defended as against Christian attack in an able article on "Rabbinic -Judaism and the Epistles of Paul" by C. G. Montefiore in the Jewish -Quarterly Review for January, 1901. Some of the other issues are -discussed in detail in the author's Short History of Freethought, -vol. i, chs. iv, vi, vii. - - - - -Chapter III--Conditions of Survival - -§ 1. Popular Appeal - -See the references to ch. ii. § 5, concerning the prevalent moral -ideas. As to the Montanists and other ascetic and antinomian sects -see Baur, Church History, Eng. tr. vol. i, Pt. III, also Hatch, -as cited. Concerning the results of the need to appeal to the pagan -populace, note the admissions of Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History, -2 Cent. Pt. II, chs. iii and iv; of Dr. John Stoughton, Ages of -the Church, 1855, Lect. iv; of Waddington, History of the Christian -Church, 1833, pp. 87, 89; and of Milman, History of Christianity, -B. iv, chs. i and iii. - - - -§ 2. Economic Causation - -The organization of the Assyrian and Babylonian priesthoods may be -gathered from Sayce, Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient -Babylonians. On the Greek priesthoods compare Burckhardt, Griechische -Culturgeschichte, Bd. II, Abs. II, § ii. As to the wealth of the -priestly caste in Egypt see Diodorus Siculus; and on that of Rome, -Gibbon's 15th chapter. On the later Judaic priestly finance see the -references given as to the Jewish Twelve Apostles under ch. i, § 4. The -process of growth of an order of "ethical lecturers" is indicated by -C. Martha, Les Moralistes sous l'empire romain, 4e édit. 1881; also by -E. Havet, Le Christianisme et ses origines, tom. i, ch. iii. Compare -Grote, History of Greece, end of ch. xlvi, and his Plato and the -Other Companions of Sokrates, per index, as to the sophists. The -financial side of the pagan mysteries is partly illustrated in the -Metamorphoses of Apuleius. Compare also Foucart, Des Associations -religieuses chez les Grecs. Gibbon's fifteenth chapter deals in the -main with a later period, but throws general light on this also. See -also Renan's Marc Aurèle, ch. xxxi; and especially Dr. Hatch's Hibbert -Lectures, lect. iv, and Lecky's History of European Morals. - - - -§ 3. Organization and Sacred Books - -Dr. Hatch's Organization of the Early Christian Churches recognizes, -on nominally orthodox principles, the fact that the structure -was a natural adaptation to environment, on old type-lines. Of the -movement of Apollonius of Tyana, good accounts are given by Professor -A. Réville, Apollonius of Tyana, the Pagan Christ of the Third Century, -Eng. tr. 1866; by Mr. T. Whittaker in his Apollonius of Tyana, and -other Essays (Sonnenschein, 1906); and in the essay of Baur in his -Drei Abhandlungen. Two somewhat "free" translations of Philostratus' -Life of Apollonius have lately been produced--by Dr. F. C. Conybeare -and Professor Phillimore (each 2 vols.)--as to which see the Literary -Guide of April, 1913. On the formation of the canon see the references -to ch. i, §§ 1, 3. As to Manichĉism see those given below, Pt. II, -ch. ii. - - - -§ 4. Concession and Fixation - -On developments of doctrine in general the fullest modern treatise -is Harnack's History of Dogma (Eng. tr. 1894, six vols.), but the -critical student must revise many of Harnack's judgments. The same -author's Outlines of the History of Dogma (Eng. tr. 1893) are at -many points suggestive; and Hagenbach's History of Dogma is still -useful. Hatch is well worth consulting in this connection. - - - -§ 5. Cosmic Philosophy - -As to the Fourth Gospel and the doctrine of the Logos see the -references given for ch. i, § 7; also the relevant articles in the -Encyclopĉdia Biblica; the work of Loisy on the Fourth Gospel, before -cited; the fourth and fifth chapters of Renan's Les Évangiles, which -give his latest ideas on the problem; Reuss's Histoire de la théologie -chrétienne au siècle apostolique, 2e édit. 1860, tom. ii, liv. vii; and -J. J. Tayler's treatise, An Attempt to Ascertain the Character of the -Fourth Gospel (1867). Baur and Strauss may also be profitably studied. - - - - -Part II--CHRISTIANITY FROM THE SECOND CENTURY TO THE RISE OF ISLAM - -Chapter I--Scope and Character of the Unestablished Church - - -§ 1. Numbers and Inner Life - -Gibbon's fifteenth chapter is still valuable here. Compare Hatch, -Organization; Renan, Saint Paul, concluding chapter; and the church -historians generally. As to Britain, see Wright's The Roman, the Celt, -and the Saxon, 4th ed. 1885. On the personnel and emotional life -of the early church compare Louis Ménard, Études sur les origines -du Christianisme, 1893; Loisy, L'Évangile et L'Église, 1904; Renan, -L'Église Chrétienne and Marc Aurèle; Tertullian, passim; J. A. Farrer, -Paganism and Christianity; Dr. John Stoughton, Ages of the Church -(pp. 42-43--orthodox admissions). - - - -§ 2. Growth of the Priesthood - -Hatch, as before cited, is here a specially good guide; and Neander, -General History of the Christian Religion and Church (trans. in Bohn -Lib.), gives a copious narrative (vol. i, sect. ii). On episcopal -policy compare the series of popular monographs under the title "The -Fathers for English Readers" (S.P.C.K.) and the anonymous treatise -On the State of Man Subsequent to the Promulgation of Christianity -(1852), Part II, ch. iv. Mosheim (Reid's ed. of Murdock's trans.) here -deserves study. The question of priestly morals is handled in almost -all histories of the Church. Cp. Gibbon, chs. xxi, xxv, xxxviii. Lea's -History of Sacerdotal Celibacy (2nd ed. 1884) is a full and valuable -record. As to the papacy see references given below, Part III, ch. i, -§ 3. - - - -§ 3. The Gnostic Movement in the Second Century - -Baur's Die christiche Gnosis (1835) remains perhaps the most -comprehensive study of this subject; but C. W. King's The Gnostics -and their Remains adds to his elucidations. Matter's Histoire -critique du Gnosticisme (2e édit. 1843-44) remains worth study; -as is Neander's general account of the Gnostic sects in vol. ii of -his General History. See shorter accounts in Baur's Church History -(vol. i), in Mosheim's, and in that of Jeremie (1855). - - - -§ 4. Marcionism and Montanism - -Neander, Hatch, and Baur, as last cited, give good views. Tertullian, -who wrote a treatise Against Marcion, and himself became a Montanist, -is a primary authority. See also De Soyres, cited on p. 98. - - - -§ 5. Rites and Ceremonies - -Bingham's Christian Antiquities (rep. 1855) gives abundant details; -but see also Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities. Mosheim -traces the development century by century. - - - -§ 6. Strifes over Primary Dogma - -These may be followed in brief in Mosheim, or at length in Harnack's -History of Dogma, or in Hagenbach's earlier manual, which is more -concise. Hatch's Influence of Greek Ideas is light-giving at some -points; and Dr. Albert Réville's Histoire du dogme de la divinité de -Jésus Christ (2e édit. 1876) is a good conspectus of its subject. For -a briefer general view see Stoughton's Ages of the Church, Lect. v and -vii. The history of the so-called Apostles' Creed is fully discussed -by M. Nicolas, Le Symbole des Apôtres, 1867, and in Harnack's work -on the same subject (Eng. tr. 1901). - - - - -Chapter II--Relations of Church and State - -§ 1. Persecutions - -Consult Gibbon, ch. xvi; Niebuhr, Lectures on Roman History, -Eng. tr. Lect. cxli; and Boissier, La Fin du Paganisme (2e édit. 1894), -tom. i, Appendice, for critical views, as distinguished from those -of the ecclesiastical historians. Compare also Milman's account in -the first chapter of his History of Latin Christianity. The alleged -Neronian persecution is specially sifted by Hochart, Études au sujet de -la persécution des Chrétiens sous Néron, 1885. For a complete record -of the cult of the emperors see Le Culte Impérial, son histoire et -son organisation, par l'Abbé E. Beurlier, 1891. - - - -§§ 2, 3, 4. Establishment and Creed-Making; Reaction under Julian; -Re-establishment; Disestablishment of Paganism. - -Boissier's La Fin du Paganisme goes very fully into the question of -Constantine's conversion and policy, but does not supersede Beugnot, -Histoire de la destruction du paganisme en occident, 1835, 2 tom. (Both -are misleading on the subject of the labarum, as to which see the -variorum notes in Reid's Mosheim, and in Bohn Gibbon, ad loc.) Compare -Gibbon, chs. xix-xxv, and Hatch, Organization. A good modern survey -is Victor Schultze's Geschichte des griechischrömischen Heidentums, -2 Bde. 1887. Newman's Arians of the Fourth Century gives an intensely -orthodox view of its subject. Mosheim and Milman and Neander are more -judicial. See also Harnack's Outlines, and the references given above -to ch. i, § 6. On Manichĉism it is still well to consult Beausobre, -Histoire critique de Manichée et du Manichéisme. Compare Mosheim, -Commentaries on the Affairs of the Christians, vol. iii, and the -account of Neander, General History, vol. ii. The legend of Manichĉus -is discussed in the author's Pagan Christs. Rendall's The Emperor -Julian: Christianity and Paganism, 1879, is a learned and competent -research, usually fair, and gives light on the previous reigns, as well -as on Julian's. Gibbon's survey here remains important. On Gregory -of Nazianzun there is a monograph by Ullmann (Eng. tr. 1851). See -Milman as to the falsity of the death-legend concerning Julian. As -to the disestablishment of paganism, Beugnot and Schultze are the -best guides, but Boissier is discursively instructive. - - - - -Chapter III--Failure with Survival - -The narrative may be checked throughout by Neander's General History of -the Christian Religion and Church (trans. in Bohn Lib.); by Mosheim, -with the variorum notes of Reid's edition; by Gibbon's chapters; -by the histories of dogma; by the above-cited monographs on the -Fathers, St. Chrysostom's Picture of his Age (S.P.C.K. 1875), and -Rev. W. E. Stephens's St. Chrysostom, His Life and Times (1872); -by Milman's History of Latin Christianity, vols. i and ii; by -Finlay's History of Greece (Tozer's ed.), vols. i and ii; and by -Bury's History of the later Roman Empire (two vols. 1889). On the -intellectual life compare further Boissier, La Fin du Paganisme; -Ampère, Histoire littéraire de la France, 1839, tom. i and ii; and -Lecky's History of European Morals. - - - - - -Part III--MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY - -Chapter I--Expansion and Organization - -§ 1. Position in the Seventh Century - -Hatch (Organization) is still a guide. For special details consult -Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities. Bede's Ecclesiastical -History gives some specific ideas as to the early life of the medieval -Church. Bryce's Holy Roman Empire is valuable for its general view. - - - -§ 2. Methods of Expansion - -Neander's General History of the Christian Religion and Church, -Milman's History of Latin Christianity, Hardwick's History of the -Christian Church: Middle Age (1853), and the variorum notes in Reid's -Mosheim, give most of the documentary clues. But national histories -should specially be consulted at this stage--e.g., Crichton and -Wheaton's Scandinavia (2nd ed. 1838, two vols.); Geijer's History of -Sweden (Eng. tr. of first three vols. in one, no date); Blok's History -of the Dutch People (Eng. tr., five vols. 1898-1907); Krasinski's -Sketch of the Religious History of the Slavonic Nations (1851). The -subject of Tithes is carefully and compendiously dealt with in A -History of Tithes, by the Rev. H. W. Clarke (Sonnenschein, 1891). - - - -§ 3. Growth of the Papacy - -In addition to the general histories consult Gregorovius' Geschichte -der Stadt Rom (Eng. tr. 2nd ed. 1901) and The Pope and the Councils, -by "Janus" (tr. 1869 from German). Hefele's History of the Christian -Councils (Eng. tr., 1871-1896, five vols.), though by a Catholic -scholar, is generally accepted as the standard modern work on its -subject. Hallam's View of the State of Europe during the Middle -Ages is still valuable for its general views. Fuller details may be -had from monographs on leading popes--e.g., Voigt's Hildebrand und -sein Zeitalter (French trans. by Abbé Jager, with added notes and -documents, 1847) and Langeron's Grégoire VII et les origines de la -doctrine ultramontaine (1874). On the ancient Egyptian parallels see -Maspero, Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'orient. - - - - -Chapter II--Religious Evolution and Strife - -Consult the ecclesiastical historians already cited, and compare -R. L. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought (1884), -as to Agobard and Claudius. For the special worships of Mary and -Joseph see the popular Catholic manual "The Glories of Mary," -and P. Paul Barrie's "Glories of Joseph" (Eng. trans. Dublin, -1843 and later)--extracts in C. H. Collette's Dr. Newman and his -Religious Opinions, 1866--also Newman's Letter to Dr. Pusey, as there -cited. Sketches of the history of auricular confession are given in -Rev. B. W. Savile's Primitive and Catholic Faith, 1875, ch. xiii, -and in Confession, a doctrinal and historical essay, by L. Desanctis, -Eng. tr. 1878; and sketches of the history of indulgences in Lea's -History of the Inquisition, i, 41-47; De Potter's Esprit de l'Église, -vii, 22-29; and Lea's Studies in Church History, 1869, p. 450. Of the -Albigensian crusades a full narrative is given by Sismondi, Histoire -des Français, tom. vi and vii--chapters collected and translated in -Eng. vol., History of the Crusades against the Albigenses (1826). The -most comprehensive study of the chief heresies of the Middle Ages -is Döllinger's Beiträge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters, 2 -Bde. 1890. On the rationalistic heresies consult Ueberweg's History -of Philosophy, Hermann Renter's Geschichte der religiösen Aufklärung -im Mittelalter (1875-77); Poole's Illustrations of Medieval Thought, -and Renan's Averroës et l'Averroïsme. On the anti-clerical and -anti-papal heresies compare Neander, Mosheim, Milman, Hardwick, -and Poole. The fortunes of the Lollard movement are discussed in the -author's Dynamics of Religion. - - - - -Chapter III--The Social Life and Structure - -Of the historians cited in the last chapter, most are serviceable -here. Consult in addition Lea's Superstition and Force (3rd ed. 1878), -Berington's Literary History of the Middle Ages, Dunham's Europe in the -Middle Ages, and Ampère's Histoire Littéraire, before cited. There -are good lives of Savonarola by Perrens (French) and Villari, -Eng. tr. See also J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: Age of the -Despots. On slavery compare Larroque, De l'esclavage chez les nations -chrétiennes (2e édit. 1864); or see the author's Evolution of States, -per index. An excellent general view of the Crusades is given in -the manual by Sir G. W. Cox ("Epochs of History" series). The latest -expert survey of the subject is that of M. Seignobos, in the Histoire -générale of MM. Lavisse and Rambaud. For a survey of the effect of -Christianity on European life in general see Mr. McCabe's The Bible -in Europe: an Inquiry into the Contribution of the Christian Religion -to Civilization (R. P. A., 1907) and The Religion of Woman (1905). - - - - -Chapter IV--The Intellectual Life - -Again the same general authorities may be referred to, in particular -Lea's History of the Inquisition; also White's History of the Warfare -of Science with Theology (two vols. 1896), Gebhart's Les origines de -la renaissance (1879), Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance -in Italy (Eng. tr. in one vol. 1892), Buckle's Introduction to the -History of Civilization in England, Whewell's History of the Inductive -Sciences, Baden Powell's History of Natural Philosophy (1834); and for -the different countries their special histories. Draper's Intellectual -Development of Europe is to be followed with caution. As to Gerbert -see the Vie de Gerbert of M. Olleris, 1867. On the general question -see the volumes of F. H. Perrycoste on Ritual, Faith, and Morals and -The Influence of Religion Upon Truthfulness (R. P. A. 1910, 1913). The -effect of the Inquisition on literature is exactly and instructively -set forth in G. H. Putnam's The Censorship of the Church of Rome -(two vols. 1906). - - - - -Chapter V--Byzantine Christianity - -Finlay's History of Greece and Professor Bury's History of the later -Roman Empire and History of the Eastern Roman Empire, 802-867 (1912) -are the main authorities in English apart from the ecclesiastical -histories. - - - - - -Part IV--MODERN CHRISTIANITY - -Chapter I--The Reformation - -In addition to Neander, Mosheim, Milman's History of Latin -Christianity, and Hardwick's Church History: The Reformation -(rep. 1886), consult Ullmann's Reformers before the Reformation -(Eng. tr. two vols. 1855), McCrie's Histories of the Reformation in -Spain and Italy, Ranke's History of the Reformation (Eng. tr. one -vol. ed. Routledge), and History of the Popes (Eng. tr. three -vols. Bohn Lib.), Beard's Hibbert Lectures on the Reformation, Felice's -Histoire des Protestants de France (trans. in Eng.), Krasinski's -History of the Reformation in Poland, Professor H. M. Baird's History -of the Rise of the Huguenots, two vols. 1880; also the current -Lives of the leading reformers, and the special histories of the -nations. Creighton's History of the Papacy during the Reformation -(six vols.) has special merit as a fresh and full research. As to the -witch-burning mania consult Lecky's Rise and Influence of Rationalism -in Europe. On the Jesuits compare Nicollini's History of the Jesuits, -1853, and Mr. McCabe's A Candid History of the Jesuits (1913). On -the medical work of Servetus and others see an interesting article -by Dr. Austin Flint, in New York Medical Journal, June 29, 1901. - - - - -Chapter II--Progress of Anti-Christian Thought - -As to the physical sciences, compare White, Baden Powell, Whewell, -and Draper, as above cited; also Draper's Conflict between Religion and -Science (Internat. Lib. of Science); and the series of Histories of the -Sciences published by the R. P. A. On the development of philosophy, -cosmic and moral, and of Biblical Criticism, see the references in -the author's Short History of Freethought. A specially full and -illuminating study of modern thought is made in Mr. A. W. Benn's -History of English Rationalism in the Nineteenth Century (two -vols. Longmans, 1906). - - - - -Chapter III--Popular Acceptance - -For the history of Catholicism since the seventeenth century consult -Mosheim and Neander, also the History of the Fall of the Jesuits, by -Count A. de Saint-Priest (Eng. tr. 1845), and Mr. Joseph McCabe's The -Decay of the Church of Rome (1909). There is an extensive literature -on the controversy between Anglicanism and Catholicism in the middle of -the nineteenth century, following on the Tractarian movement, as to the -latest phases of which see the Secret History of the Oxford Movement, -by Walter Walsh. For references as to recent developments in Protestant -and other countries see again the author's Short History of Freethought -and Mr. Benn's full record of the nineteenth century. The fortunes of -Greek Christianity may be traced through Finlay. Compare Villemain, -Essai sur l'état des Grecs depuis la conquête musulmane, in his Études -d'histoire moderne (nouv. ed. 1846). Concerning the state of religion -in modern Russia, see Wallace's Russia. As to missions in general, -see the able and comprehensive survey, Foreign Missions, by C. Cohen -(Freethought Publishing Company), and A Chinese Appeal to Christendom -Concerning Christian Missions (R.P.A., 1912). The existing situation -as between Christianity and rationalism is well set forth in Philip -Vivian's The Churches and Modern Thought (R.P.A., 1911). - - - - - - - - -NOTES - - -[1] Subsequently, on other lines, in the volume entitled Pagan Christs. - -[2] Comparative Religion, by J. Estlin Carpenter; "Home University -Library," 1912, end. - -[3] See Pagan Christs, 2nd ed. Pt. II, ch. ii, §§ 15-16. - -[4] The thesis that the epistles are all supposititious is ably -sustained by Van Manen in the Encyclopĉdia Biblica. See his positions -well summarised by Mr. T. Whittaker, The Origins of Christianity -(R. P. A.). - -[5] The point is discussed in Pagan Christs, 2nd ed. Pt. II, ch. i, -§ 10. - -[6] See Wladimir Lessevich, La Légende de Jesus et les traditions -populaires, 1903. (Ext. de la Revue Internationale de Sociologie.) - -[7] See Pagan Christs, 2nd ed. Pt. II, ch. i, §§ 7-12. - -[8] See Christianity and Mythology, 2nd ed. p. 209; Pagan Christs, -2nd ed. p. 143. - -[9] See Christianity and Mythology, 2nd ed., p. 396 and refs. - -[10] See Christianity and Mythology, 2nd ed. Pt. III, Div. i, § 29. - -[11] See Christianity and Mythology, 2nd ed. Pt. III, Div. i, § 10. - -[12] Id. ib. § 5. - -[13] See Christianity and Mythology, 2nd ed. Pt. III, Div. i, § 3. - -[14] Id. p. 367; Pagan Christs, 2nd ed. p. 145. - -[15] See Pagan Christs, 2nd ed. Pt. II, ch. ii, §§ 2-3. - -[16] Luke xvii, 7-10 (Gr. "Servant" is a wilful mistranslation: -the word is "slave"). - -[17] See Miss Harrison's Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, -2nd ed. pp. 413-425. - -[18] A myth of verbal misunderstanding. The original titanoi were -"white-clay-men," men with whitened faces, after the fashion of so -many mystic mummeries among savages. (Work cited, p. 493.) - -[19] This also derives from a primitive concept of a Beer-God. See -Miss Harrison, as cited, p. 419. - -[20] See "Mithraism" in Pagan Christs, 2nd ed. Pt. III, p. 327 sq. - -[21] See on the whole subject Christianity and Mythology, 2nd -ed. p. 403 sq. - -[22] Compare the Second Epistle of John, v. 7, as to the "many -deceivers" who "confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh." - -[23] As to Montanus, see Montanus and the Primitive Church, Hulsean -Prize Essay, by John De Soyres, 1878. - -[24] Realism derived from the doctrine, ascribed to Plato by Aristotle, -that "universals," the ideas of species, etc., exist independently of -individual objects, and existed before them. This is "Extreme Realism," -put in the formula, universalia ante rem. Nominalism was the doctrine -that only individuals have real existence, and that ideas of species -are but names. There was an intermediate position, that of Aristotle, -that universals exist in individual objects--universalia in re. This, -known as Moderate Realism, is but a verbal compromise, which does not -concede the Realist claim. The motive for that lay in the religious -bias to claim for ideas, or "spiritual" concepts, a higher validity -and reality than it accords to "material" things. The same tendency -expressed itself in the Moslem doctrine that the Koran is uncreated -and eternal. - -[25] See the author's Short History of Freethought, 2nd ed. ii, -34 sq.: and Montaigne and Shakespeare, 2nd ed. pp. 191, 196, 198 sq. - -[26] This was written in 1901. It holds equally true in 1913. - -[27] I.e., the South African War, in 1901. - -[28] A beginning has since been made. - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's A Short History of Christianity, by J. M. 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-} -table { -margin-left: auto; -margin-right: auto; -} -.tablecaption { -text-align: center; -}.pagenum, .linenum { -speak: none; -} -</style> - -<style type="text/css"> -div.footnote-body { --webkit-column-count: 2; --moz-column-count: 2; -column-count: 2; -} -div.index .divBody { --webkit-column-count: 3; --moz-column-count: 3; -column-count: 3; -} -div.index p { -margin-left: 1em; -text-indent: -1em; -margin-top: 0; -margin-bottom: 0; -} -/* CSS rules generated from @rend attributes in TEI file */ -.xd21e101width -{ -width:480px; -} -.xd21e108 -{ -text-align:center; -} -.xd21e116width -{ -width:446px; -} -.xd21e19456 -{ -text-align:center;font-size:small; -} -@media handheld -{ -} -</style> -</head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -Project Gutenberg's A Short History of Christianity, by J. M. Robertson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: A Short History of Christianity - Second Edition, Revised, With Additions - -Author: J. M. Robertson - -Release Date: July 10, 2016 [EBook #52550] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SHORT HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY *** - - - - -Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project -Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously -made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<div class="front"> -<div class="div1 cover"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first"></p> -<div class="figure xd21e101width"><img src="images/new-cover.jpg" alt= -"Newly Designed Front Cover." width="480" height="720"></div> -<p class="par"></p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 frenchtitle"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first xd21e108">A SHORT<br> -HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 titlepage"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first"></p> -<div class="figure xd21e116width"><img src="images/titlepage.png" alt= -"Original Title Page." width="446" height="720"></div> -<p class="par"></p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="titlePage"> -<div class="docTitle"> -<div class="mainTitle">A SHORT<br> -HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY</div> -</div> -<div class="byline">BY<br> -<span class="docAuthor">J. M. ROBERTSON</span></div> -<div class="docImprint">SECOND EDITION, REVISED, WITH ADDITIONS<br> -[ISSUED FOR THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LIMITED]<br> -<span class="sc">London</span>:<br> -WATTS & CO.,<br> -17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.<br> -<span class="docDate">1913</span></div> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e149" href="#xd21e149" name= -"xd21e149">v</a>]</span></p> -<div id="toc" class="div1 contents"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="main">CONTENTS</h2> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first"> <span class= -"tocPageNum">PAGE</span></p> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Preface to the First Edition</span> - <span class= -"tocPageNum">ix</span></p> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Preface to the Second Edition</span> - <span class= -"tocPageNum">xiii</span></p> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Part I</span></p> -<p class="par">PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY</p> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. I—The Beginnings</span></p> -<table class="tocList"> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 1.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.1.1" id="xd21e186" -name="xd21e186">Documentary Clues</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">1</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 2.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.1.2" id="xd21e196" -name="xd21e196">The Earliest Christian Sects</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">5</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 3.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.1.3" id="xd21e206" -name="xd21e206">Personality of the Nominal Founder</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">10</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 4.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.1.4" id="xd21e216" -name="xd21e216">Myth of the Twelve Apostles</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">16</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 5.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.1.5" id="xd21e226" -name="xd21e226">Primary Forms of the Cult</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">20</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 6.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.1.6" id="xd21e236" -name="xd21e236">Rise of Gentile Christism</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">28</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 7.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.1.7" id="xd21e246" -name="xd21e246">Growth of the Christ Myth</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum"><span class="corr" id="xd21e250" title= -"Not in source">36</span></td> -</tr> -</table> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. II—The -Environment</span></p> -<table class="tocList"> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 1.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.2.1" id="xd21e263" -name="xd21e263">Social and Mental Conditions in the Roman -Empire</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">41</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 2.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.2.2" id="xd21e273" -name="xd21e273">Jewish Orthodoxy</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">46</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 3.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.2.3" id="xd21e283" -name="xd21e283">Jewish Sects: the Essenes</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">49</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 4.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.2.4" id="xd21e293" -name="xd21e293">Gentile Cults</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">51</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 5.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.2.5" id="xd21e303" -name="xd21e303">Ethics: Popular and Philosophic</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">60</td> -</tr> -</table> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. III—Conditions of -Survival</span></p> -<table class="tocList"> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 1.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.3.1" id="xd21e319" -name="xd21e319">Popular Appeal</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">67</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 2.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.3.2" id="xd21e329" -name="xd21e329">Economic Causation</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">69</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 3.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.3.3" id="xd21e339" -name="xd21e339">Organization and Sacred Books</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">72</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 4.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.3.4" id="xd21e349" -name="xd21e349">Concession and Fixation</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">75</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 5.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s1.3.5" id="xd21e359" -name="xd21e359">Cosmic Philosophy</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">78</td> -</tr> -</table> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Part II</span></p> -<p class="par">CHRISTIANITY FROM THE SECOND CENTURY TO THE RISE OF -ISLAM</p> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. I—Developments in the -Unestablished Church</span></p> -<table class="tocList"> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 1.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s2.1.1" id="xd21e382" -name="xd21e382">Numbers and Inner Life</a> <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="xd21e388" href="#xd21e388" name= -"xd21e388">vi</a>]</span></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">81</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 2.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s2.1.2" id="xd21e393" -name="xd21e393">Growth of the Priesthood</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">87</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 3.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s2.1.3" id="xd21e403" -name="xd21e403">The Gnostic Movement in the Second Century</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">91</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 4.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s2.1.4" id="xd21e413" -name="xd21e413">Marcionism and Montanism</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">97</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 5.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s2.1.5" id="xd21e423" -name="xd21e423">Rites and Ceremonies</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">101</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 6.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s2.1.6" id="xd21e433" -name="xd21e433">Strifes over Primary Dogma</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">102</td> -</tr> -</table> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. II—Relations of Church and -State</span></p> -<table class="tocList"> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 1.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s2.2.1" id="xd21e449" -name="xd21e449">Persecutions</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">106</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 2.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s2.2.2" id="xd21e459" -name="xd21e459">Establishment and Creed-Making</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">114</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 3.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s2.2.3" id="xd21e469" -name="xd21e469">Reaction under Julian</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">127</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 4.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s2.2.4" id="xd21e479" -name="xd21e479">Re-establishment: Disestablishment of Paganism</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">133</td> -</tr> -</table> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. III—Failure with -Survival</span></p> -<table class="tocList"> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 1.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s2.3.1" id="xd21e495" -name="xd21e495">The Overthrow of Arianism</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">142</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 2.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s2.3.2" id="xd21e505" -name="xd21e505">The Cost of Orthodoxy</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">146</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 3.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s2.3.3" id="xd21e515" -name="xd21e515">Moral and Intellectual Stagnation</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">153</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 4.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s2.3.4" id="xd21e525" -name="xd21e525">The Social Failure</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">159</td> -</tr> -</table> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Part III</span></p> -<p class="par">MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY</p> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. I—Expansion and -Organization</span></p> -<table class="tocList"> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 1.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.1.1" id="xd21e547" -name="xd21e547">Position in the Seventh Century</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">165</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 2.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.1.2" id="xd21e557" -name="xd21e557">Methods of Expansion</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">168</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 3.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.1.3" id="xd21e567" -name="xd21e567">Growth of the Papacy</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">174</td> -</tr> -</table> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. II—Religious Evolution and -Strife</span></p> -<table class="tocList"> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 1.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.2.1" id="xd21e583" -name="xd21e583">Growth of Idolatry and Polytheism</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">184</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 2.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.2.2" id="xd21e593" -name="xd21e593">Doctrines of the Eucharist, Purgatory, and -Confession</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">189</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 3.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.2.3" id="xd21e603" -name="xd21e603">Rationalistic Heresies</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">194</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 4.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.2.4" id="xd21e613" -name="xd21e613">Anti-clerical Heresies</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">197</td> -</tr> -</table> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. III—The Social Life and -Structure</span></p> -<table class="tocList"> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 1.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.3.1" id="xd21e629" -name="xd21e629">The Clergy, Regular and Secular</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">205</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 2.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.3.2" id="xd21e639" -name="xd21e639">The Higher Theology and its Effects</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">211</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 3.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.3.3" id="xd21e649" -name="xd21e649">Christianity and Feudalism</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">213</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 4.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.3.4" id="xd21e659" -name="xd21e659">Influence of the Crusades</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">218</td> -</tr> -</table> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. IV—The Intellectual -Life</span></p> -<table class="tocList"> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 1.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.4.1" id="xd21e675" -name="xd21e675">Superstition and Intolerance</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">224</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 2.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.4.2" id="xd21e685" -name="xd21e685">The Inquisition</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">227</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 3.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.4.3" id="xd21e695" -name="xd21e695">Classic Survivals and Saracen Contacts</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">231</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 4.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s3.4.4" id="xd21e705" -name="xd21e705">Religion and Art</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">236</td> -</tr> -</table> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. V—Byzantine -Christianity</span> <span class= -"tocPageNum">238</span> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e719" href= -"#xd21e719" name="xd21e719">vii</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Part IV</span></p> -<p class="par">MODERN CHRISTIANITY</p> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. I—The -Reformation</span></p> -<table class="tocList"> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 1.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s4.1.1" id="xd21e736" -name="xd21e736">Moral and Intellectual Forces</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">245</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 2.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s4.1.2" id="xd21e746" -name="xd21e746">Political and Economic Forces</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">249</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 3.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s4.1.3" id="xd21e756" -name="xd21e756">Social and Political Results</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">257</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 4.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s4.1.4" id="xd21e766" -name="xd21e766">Intellectual Results</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">265</td> -</tr> -</table> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. II—Progress of -Anti-Christian Thought</span></p> -<table class="tocList"> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 1.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s4.2.1" id="xd21e782" -name="xd21e782">The Physical Sciences</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">278</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 2.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s4.2.2" id="xd21e792" -name="xd21e792">Philosophy, <span class="corr" id="xd21e794" title= -"Source: Cosmio">Cosmic</span> and Moral</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">283</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 3.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s4.2.3" id="xd21e805" -name="xd21e805">Biblical and Historical Criticism</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">286</td> -</tr> -</table> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. III—Popular -Acceptance</span></p> -<table class="tocList"> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 1.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s4.3.1" id="xd21e821" -name="xd21e821">Catholic Christianity</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">292</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 2.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s4.3.2" id="xd21e831" -name="xd21e831">Protestant Christianity</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">296</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 3.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s4.3.3" id="xd21e841" -name="xd21e841">Greek Christianity</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">303</td> -</tr> -</table> -<p class="par"><span class="sc">Chap. IV—The Relation to -Progress</span></p> -<table class="tocList"> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 1.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s4.4.1" id="xd21e857" -name="xd21e857">Moral Influence</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">310</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 2.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s4.4.2" id="xd21e867" -name="xd21e867">Intellectual Influence</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">315</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tocDivNum">§ 3.</td> -<td class="tocDivTitle" colspan="7"><a href="#s4.4.3" id="xd21e877" -name="xd21e877">Conclusion and Prognosis</a></td> -<td class="tocPageNum">319</td> -</tr> -</table> -<p class="par"><span class="sc"><a href="#biblio" id="xd21e886" name= -"xd21e886">Synopsis of Literature</a></span> - <span class= -"tocPageNum">323</span></p> -<p class="par"><span class="sc"><a href="#ix" id="xd21e894" name= -"xd21e894">Index</a></span> -<span class="tocPageNum">339</span> <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"xd21e900" href="#xd21e900" name="xd21e900">viii</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 errata"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="main">CORRIGENDA</h2> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">P. <a href="#pb55" class="pageref">55</a>, line 2, -and p. 56, footnote: Miss Harrison has latterly (in <i>Themis</i>, -1912) given up the etymologies on which this opinion was founded.</p> -<p class="par">P. <a href="#pb251" class="pageref">251</a>, line 4 from -bottom, <i>for</i> “that” <i>read</i> “than.” -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e924" href="#xd21e924" name= -"xd21e924">ix</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 preface"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="main">PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION</h2> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">An attempt to write the history of Christianity in -the space of an average novel is so obviously open to objections that, -instead of trying to parry them, I will merely state what seems to me -the possible compensation of brevity in such a matter. It is or may be -conducive to total comprehension, to coherence of judgment, and in a -measure even to the understanding of details. A distinguished expert in -historical and philological research has avowed that specialists -sometimes get their most illuminating ideas from a haphazard glance -into a popular and condensed presentment of their own subject. Without -hoping so to help the experts, I humbly conceive that the present -conspectus of Christian history may do an occasional service even to an -opponent by bringing out a clear issue. Writers of a different way of -thinking have done as much for me.</p> -<p class="par">The primary difficulty is of course the problem of -origins. In my treatment of this problem, going as I do beyond the -concessions of the most advanced professional scholars, I cannot expect -much acquiescence for the present. It must here suffice to say, first, -that the data and the argument, insofar as they are not fully set forth -in the following pages, have been presented in the larger work entitled -<i>Christianity and Mythology</i>,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e936src" -href="#xd21e936" name="xd21e936src">1</a> or in the quarters mentioned -in the Synopsis of Literature appended to this volume; and, secondly, -to urge that opponents should read the study on the Gospels by -Professor Schmiedel in the new <i lang="la">Encyclopædia -Biblica</i> before taking up their defensive positions. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="xd21e945" href="#xd21e945" name= -"xd21e945">x</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">One of the drawbacks of short histories is that in them -at times a disputable proposition has to be summarily put. I doubt, -however, whether this occurs oftener in the following pages than in -lengthy treatises, where full discussion is fairly to be expected. For -instance, I have held that the reference in <a class="biblink xd21e43" -title="Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Rev%202:8">Rev. ii, -8</a>, to “the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are -not, but are a synagogue of Satan,” is to the Pauline or other -Gentilizing Jew-Christists. That is the view of Renan. Harnack, who -passes for a more solid authority, pronounces summarily that the phrase -is cast by Jew-Christists at orthodox Jews. Such a decision seems to me -to be irrational, but it is impossible in such a work to give space to -a refutation, where Harnack has offered no argument on the other side -in a monumental treatise. The same authority has justified masses of -conformist historiography by the simple dogmatic assertion that the -time is near at hand when men will universally recognize, in matters of -Christian origins, “the essential rightness of tradition, with a -few important exceptions.” In putting forth a sketch which so -little conforms to that opinion, I would but claim that it is not more -unjudicial in its method than more conservative performances.</p> -<p class="par">After the period of “origins” has been -passed, there is happily less room for demur on any grounds. The -statements of facts in the second and third parts are for the most part -easily to be supported from the testimony of standard ecclesiastical -historians; and the general judgments sometimes cited in inverted -commas, in all four parts, are nearly always from orthodox writers. -What is special to the present treatise is the sociological -interpretation. It was indeed to the end of such interpretation that -the researches here summarized were begun, over sixteen years ago; and -in a documented work on <i>The Rise of Christianity, Sociologically -Considered</i>, I hope more fully to present it. But as my first -perplexity <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e956" href="#xd21e956" -name="xd21e956">xi</a>]</span>was to ascertain the real historical -<i>processus</i>, I have never subordinated that need to the desire for -explanation.</p> -<p class="par">It hardly needs actual experience of the risks of error -and oversight in a condensed narrative to convince one of the -difficulty of escaping them. Where no single authority is found -infallible, I must at times have miscarried, were it only because I -have aimed at something beyond a condensation of current accounts. No -criticism, therefore, will be more highly valued by me than one which -corrects my errors of fact.</p> -<p class="par">In order to cover the ground within the compass taken, -it was absolutely necessary to digest the subject-matter under general -heads; and the chronological movement may in consequence be less clear -than in histories which proceed by centuries. As a partial remedy, -dates have been frequently inserted in the narrative, and it is hoped -that the full index will help to meet the difficulty which may -sometimes be felt as to where a given name or episode should be looked -for.</p> -<p class="par">It is perhaps needless to add that the appended Synopsis -of Literature does not in the least pretend to be a bibliography for -professed students. It is designed merely as a first help to -painstaking readers to search and judge for themselves on the problems -under notice.</p> -<p class="par"><i>December, 1901.</i> <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"xd21e971" href="#xd21e971" name="xd21e971">xiii</a>]</span></p> -</div> -<div class="footnotes"> -<hr class="fnsep"> -<div class="footnote-body"> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e936" href="#xd21e936src" name="xd21e936">1</a></span> -Subsequently, on other lines, in the volume entitled <i>Pagan -Christs</i>. <a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e936src">↑</a></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 preface"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="main">PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION</h2> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">In the dozen years that have passed since this -book was written there has probably been some change in the outlook of -the more critical of the readers to whom it might be said to be -addressed. It challenges criticism on two main issues: that of -Christian origins, and that of the sociological interpretation of -Christian history. Twelve years ago, the thesis of the non-historicity -of the gospel story in respect of its “natural” no less -than of its supernatural matter found few serious listeners, even among -Rationalists; while the strictly naturalistic study of Christian -history incurred a good deal of resentment. To-day, perhaps, the thesis -as to origins may receive more attention; while the historic narrative -may arouse less impatience. On both issues, critical thought appears to -be at work.</p> -<p class="par">The primary problem may be left to the fortunes of -discussion: the question as to how Christian history is fitly to be -presented in summary is perhaps worth some introductory treatment.</p> -<p class="par">An attentive reading of the reviews of the first edition -left the author impressed by the fact that censure was generally passed -without any attempt to prove error of statement. Error there may well -have been; but it was not pointed out or founded on in the hostile -judgments passed by religious reviewers. One German Catholic -ecclesiastic was ironical at great length on the account given of the -history of the Catholic Church; but he did not seem to impugn any -particular historical statement. More serious reviewers made -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e982" href="#xd21e982" name= -"xd21e982">xiv</a>]</span>nothing clear save that they resented the -selection made of facts and the summing-up from these. So far as the -author could gather, they claimed that another set of data should have -been given, and another general impression set up. If he understood -them aright, they held that the way to write Christian history is to -look for all the utterances of good feeling, all the instances of -humane action, all the items of political, social, and intellectual -betterment that have occurred in the Christian era, and to call the -general statement of these—with, of course, a sympathetic account -of doctrinal evolution—a history of Christianity. The things on -the other side of the shield—the religious wars, the consecration -of error, the strangling of truth, the persecutions, the propagandist -massacres, the countless cruelties wrought in the name and on the -sanction of the faith—are from this point of view external to its -history: things to be set down to the perversity of men. All the good -that has happened is to be credited to Christianity; all the bad to -human nature.</p> -<p class="par">It seems necessary to explain that this is a wholly -puerile conception of historical science, and that the notion of -historical causation so reached is profoundly false. Impartially -applied, the method would yield equivalent panegyric for all religions -alike. All that is beautiful and heroic in pre-Christian and -non-Christian history would be shown to be due to the creeds of the -different times and races; all the harm would be set down, as before, -to human nature. The rational statement is that human nature evolved -all the religions in turn; that creeds, once established, become -special factors; that their varying fortunes are due to the reciprocal -reactions of creed and environment; and that to write the history of -any one religion it is necessary to consider narrowly how it -specifically reacts on conduct in given circumstances of culture and -socio-political structure. If it can be shown specifically to promote -right action on any line, let that be <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"xd21e986" href="#xd21e986" name="xd21e986">xv</a>]</span>duly credited -to the religion in question as the determinant. If, on the other hand, -it can be shown to promote wrong action, the fact must on the same -principle be put to its discredit. But no Christian historian, broadly -speaking, ever thinks of crediting to Greek polytheism the fairer -aspects of Greek life, or to Islam the virtues of veracity and courage -sometimes ascribed to Turks and Arabs; though professedly Christian -historians have been known to contrast the comparative decency of the -execution of Sokrates with the savage horrors of political executions -in Christendom down to recent times.</p> -<p class="par">Aristotle and Plato are still founded on for the -purposes of higher education in Christian countries; but no Christian -writer suggests that what is good or true in their thought is -ascribable to paganism <i>qua</i> paganism; though modern ethical -development is constantly set down to the score of Christianity. In the -same fashion, hospitals in Christian countries are constantly credited -to the Christian account, without a thought of admitting that Moslem -hospitals are the product of the Koran, or that the mutual helpfulness -of Eskimos is a specific result of their heathenism. Paganism is made -to figure in general as promoting vice and human sacrifices and -slavery; Christianity as putting these things down. The impartial -historian pronounces that it has indeed beneficently availed for the -suppression of human sacrifice in general, in virtue of its primary -dogma; but that <i>qua</i> religion it has no more told against slavery -than has Islam; that the slavery maintained till last century under -Christian sanctions and auspices has been as cruel as any seen in human -history; that the persistence of vice within the sphere of Christianity -is the despair of its devotees; and that even in the matter of human -sacrifice the hideous massacre wrought on that pretext by the crusaders -at Jerusalem tells of a terrible <i>per contra</i> to the account of -the faith. To claim for Christianity the <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"xd21e999" href="#xd21e999" name="xd21e999">xvi</a>]</span>latter-day -curtailment of slavery, finally, would be to ignore alike the potent -economic and the political causation, and to overlook the fact that the -strongest defence ever made of slavery as an institution was founded on -the Christian sacred books. These facts belong to the “history of -Christianity,” like the facts of missionary enterprise and the -establishment of universities by the Papacy in the Middle Ages: a mere -recital of all the forms of progress made in the Christian era has no -claim to such a title.</p> -<p class="par">Doubtless it is difficult to trace all the reactions of -creed upon society and polity; and it is not to be pretended that a -general sketch can even establish the main critical principles to be -applied, any more than it can complete the outline of the facts. But -inasmuch as the popular fashion of doing both is wholly fallacious, a -concise statement which aims at both is necessary, and may lead to -fuller and better elucidations. In the preface to the first edition, a -hope was expressed that such a conspectus might do an occasional -service even to an opponent by bringing out a clear issue; and one -hostile German critic was good enough to say that this service had been -done.</p> -<p class="par">If there has been more repudiation of the main historic -statement than the author expected, it may not unfairly be attributed -to the temper of dislike of all innovating judgment which has always -marked religious discussion. Spontaneous resentment operates in advance -of critical reflection; and blame is so much more simple than -refutation. Even men who have made concessions to one line of reasoned -objection are often slow to listen to another; and the practice of -“the higher criticism” leaves many at an uncritical -standpoint in regard to sociological problems. To readers who may be -under the sway of such prepossession, the author can but offer the -reminder that this history proceeds upon a definite view of historical -science. It is not an attempt to indicate <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"xd21e1005" href="#xd21e1005" name="xd21e1005">xvii</a>]</span>all the -good or all the evil wrought by Christians, any more than a work of -“natural history” so-called is an attempt to summarize the -lives of myriads of plants or animals. It is an attempt, in terms of -the data, to establish principles of causation, to trace broadly the -reactions of a given creed on polity, conduct, and thought, and to -summarize the reactions of those on the formation and fortunes of the -creed itself. To the adherents of the creed it will naturally figure as -“an attack” insofar as it gives an unflattering or -subversive account of the historical process. It is none the less a -work of scientific investigation, written with the object, first and -last, of getting at the historic truth.</p> -<p class="par">This, it must be observed, is a different thing from the -purpose of what is called “edification,” so often acted on, -and even professed, by professional theologians. Recently, for -instance, the Dean of Durham preached a special sermon to miners, in -which he urged, not that the Christian religion is true and the -disregard of it fatal to future salvation, but that “we are so -fashioned that a religion we must have.” All the while, the -confessed motive for the declaration was that so many actually feel no -such need; and the “You can’t do without it” thus -approximated to the advertisement of a new typewriter. Men who assert -and claim to prove that the given religion is “not true” -were at the same time represented by Dr. Henson as merely urging their -fellows to “give no thought to religion.” Here we have not -merely a negative but a positive indifference to truth.</p> -<p class="par">Unfortunately such indifference—at least the -negative—is countenanced in the name of science by some -“men of science” whose qualifications, however high, are -gained in the physical and not in the “human” sciences, and -who apply to the latter critical standards of a laxity which they would -refuse to recognize in their own province. By such propagandists, -ultimate questions of historic truth are never <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="xd21e1011" href="#xd21e1011" name= -"xd21e1011">xviii</a>]</span>subjected to scientific examination at -all, and tradition is at many points accepted more uncritically than by -many of the more scrupulous theological scholars. At the same time the -expediency of cultivating “religious fervour” is taken for -granted without any ostensible inquiry as to how religious fervour has -affected society in the past. In the following survey, the historical -and the sociological problems are alike sought to be treated as -scientific issues, calling for strictly scientific examination. The -only relevant answer, therefore, from the author’s point of view, -will be one which shows either that the historical statement is false -or that the sociological inferences are fallacious.</p> -<p class="par">Yet another phase of the professional defence of the -faith calls for notice. At the close of a very comprehensive and -catholic survey of the religions of the world, Professor J. E. -Carpenter writes:—</p> -<div class="blockquote"> -<p class="par first">There is no doubt whatever of the dependence of -Christianity upon Jewish Messianic expectation. Its pictures of human -destiny ... are pictures drawn by Jewish hands. Its promises of the -Advent of the Son of Man ... are couched in the language of earlier -Jewish books. For one religion builds upon another, and must use the -speech of its country and its time. Its forms must therefore change -from age to age.... But it will always embody man’s highest -thought concerning the mysteries that surround him, and will express -his finest attitude to life. Its beliefs may be gradually modified; ... -but history shows it to be among the most permanent of social forces, -and the most effective agent for the slow elevation of the -race.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1018src" href="#xd21e1018" name= -"xd21e1018src">1</a></p> -</div> -<p class="par"></p> -<p class="par">We have here two typical assumptions: first, that -religion <i>always</i> did, and always will, “embody man’s -highest thought” and “express his finest attitude to -life”; second, that it is “the most effective agent for the -slow elevation of the race.” No pretence is made of proving the -latter proposition; it is taken <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"xd21e1032" href="#xd21e1032" name="xd21e1032">ix</a>]</span>for -granted, like the other. And the writer has previously declared (p. 34) -that “Theologies may be many, but religion is one”: all -religions, therefore, are included in the closing panegyric. We are -thus presented with the profoundly pessimistic proposition that the -welfare of humanity has always depended mainly upon the acceptance of -illusory beliefs; for neither the writer nor anyone else pretends to -believe that the mass of credences in question are aught else. Yet he -brings them all within his generalization. Of the old Aztec religion he -writes (p. 57) that “out of the fusion of nationalities in Mexico -rose a developed polytheism in which lofty religious sentiment seems -strangely blended with a hideous and sanguinary ritual.”</p> -<p class="par">It becomes necessary to challenge emphatically the moral -and sociological science which thus certificates as “lofty” -beliefs admittedly bound up with systematic atrocity of action, and -sees an elevating force in creeds directly productive of immeasurable -evil. The religion last referred to was destroying the Aztec State, -morally and economically, when both alike were destroyed by Christian -invaders. Lay moral sense, now as so often in the past, must correct -the sacerdotal; and a false sociological generalization must be -confronted with the historic facts.</p> -<p class="par">The chapters which follow challenge, by simple historic -representation, both the ethical and the sociological judgments under -notice. If the reader is disposed, in deference to -“authority,” to assent to either, let him turn to another -volume in the same series with that of Professor Carpenter, the -<i>History of Freedom of Thought</i>, by Professor Bury; and he will -see presented, from a strictly historical point of view, the negation -of the doctrine that religion has been “the most effective agent -for the slow elevation of the race.” The sociological verdict of -the specialist in history is presumably as weighty as that of the -specialist in religion on the question of the causation of progress. -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e1041" href="#xd21e1041" name= -"xd21e1041">xx</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">But I am far from suggesting that the question is to be -settled by “authority” of any kind. The prime necessity is -detached, independent, self-consistent thinking upon a broad scrutiny -of the facts. If these pages in any degree promote that process, they -will have justified their production.</p> -<p class="par"><i>September, 1913.</i> <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb1" href="#pb1" name="pb1">1</a>]</span></p> -</div> -<div class="footnotes"> -<hr class="fnsep"> -<div class="footnote-body"> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1018" href="#xd21e1018src" name="xd21e1018">1</a></span> -<i>Comparative Religion</i>, by J. Estlin Carpenter; “Home -University Library,” 1912, <i>end</i>. <a class="fnarrow" -href="#xd21e1018src">↑</a></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="body"> -<div class="div0 part"> -<h2 class="label">PART I</h2> -<h2 class="main">PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY</h2> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter I</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">THE BEGINNINGS</h2> -<div id="s1.1.1" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e186">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Documentary -Clues</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">In the ancient history of religions, as in the -ancient history of nations, the first account given of origins is -almost always a myth. A divine or worshipful founder is craved by the -primitive imagination no less for cults and institutions, tribes and -polities, than for the forms of life and the universe itself; and -history, like science, may roughly be said to begin only when that -craving for first causes has been discredited, or controlled, by the -later arising instinct of exact observation. Such a check or control -tends to be set up by the presence of intelligently hostile forces, as -in the case of the religion of Mohammed, whose teaching warred with and -was warred on by rival faiths from the first, and whose own written and -definite doctrine forbade his apotheosis. Some of the early Christian -sects, which went far towards setting up independent cults, had their -origins similarly defined by the pressure of criticism from the main -body. But even in some such cases, notably in that of the -Manichæan movement, the myth-making process has partly eluded -hostile scrutiny;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1071src" href="#xd21e1071" -name="xd21e1071src">1</a> and earlier growths incurred much less of -critical inquiry. Before the Christian system had taken organised -historic form, in virtue of having come into the heritage of literary -and political method embodied in the Greco-Roman civilization, it is -rarely <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb2" href="#pb2" name= -"pb2">2</a>]</span>possible to trust the record of any cult’s -beginnings, even where it professes to derive from a non-supernatural -teacher; so ungoverned is the myth-making instinct in the absence of -persistent criticism. Buddha, Zoroaster, and Moses are only less -obviously mythical figures than Krishna, Herakles, and Osiris. Of the -Christian cult it can at best be said that it takes its rise on the -border-land between the historical and the unhistorical, since any -rational defence of it to-day admits that in the story of its origins -there is at least an element of sheer myth.</p> -<p class="par">The oldest documents of the cult are ostensibly the -Epistles of Paul; and concerning these there are initial perplexities, -some being more or less clearly spurious—that is, very different -from or much later in character than the rest—while all of the -others show signs of interpolation. Taken as they stand, however, they -reveal a remarkable ignorance of the greater part of the narratives in -the gospels, and of the whole body of the teachings there ascribed to -Jesus. In three respects only do the Pauline writings give any support -to the histories later accepted by the Christian Church. They -habitually speak of Jesus as crucified, and as having risen from the -dead; they contain one account of the institution of the Lord’s -Supper, in agreement with the gospel account; and they make one mention -of “the twelve.” But the two latter allusions occur in -passages (<a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Cor%2011">1 Cor. -xi</a> and <a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Cor%2015">xv</a>) -which have plain marks of interpolation; and when they are withdrawn -the Pauline letters tell only of a cult, Jewish in origin, in which a -crucified Jesus—called the Messiah or Christos or Anointed -One—figures as a saving sacrifice, but counts for absolutely -nothing as a teacher or even as a wonder-worker. Yet he is a God or -Demigod who has risen from the dead. A eucharist or religious meal is -celebrated in his name, but no mention is made of any teaching uttered -by the founder. And nothing in the epistles enables us even to date -them independently of the gospel narratives, which they so strangely -fail to confirm. Thus the case stands with the New Testament very much -as with the Old. As the Book of Judges reveals a state of Hebrew life -quite incompatible with that <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb3" href= -"#pb3" name="pb3">3</a>]</span>described in the Pentateuch as having -preceded it, so do the epistles of Paul reveal a stage of Christist -propaganda incompatible with any such prior development as is set forth -in the gospel. And the reasonable conclusion in the two cases seems to -be the same: that the documents setting forth the prior developments -are, as they now stand, not only later in composition but substantially -fictitious, even where they do not tell of supernatural events. The -only tenable alternative is the hypothesis of two separate movements of -Christism, which ignored or discredited each other.</p> -<p class="par">What needs to be explained in both cases is the way in -which the later narratives came to be compiled. Within a hundred years -from the date commonly assigned to the Crucifixion, there are Gentile -traces of a Jesuist or Christist movement deriving from Jewry, and -possessing a gospel or memoir as well as some of the Pauline and other -epistles, both spurious and genuine; but the gospel then current is -seen to have contained some matter not preserved in the canonical four, -and to have lacked much that those contain. Of those traces the -earliest are found in one epistle of Clement called Bishop of Rome (fl. -about 100), which, whether genuine or not, is ancient, and in the older -form of the epistles ascribed to the Martyr Ignatius (d. about 115?) of -which the same may be said. About the middle of the second century the -writings of Justin Martyr tell of a Christist memoir, but show no -knowledge of the Pauline epistles. All alike tell of a spreading cult, -with a theology not yet coherently dogmatic, founding mainly on a -crucified Jesus, faith in whom ensures salvation.</p> -<p class="par">Like the letters of Paul, those ascribed to Clement and -Ignatius tell of schisms and bitter strifes in the churches: that is -the constant note of Christian history from first to last. As to rites, -we have but a bare mention of the eucharist and of baptism; the story -of the founder’s parentage is still unknown to the makers of -documents, and his miracles are as unheard of as most of his teachings. -There is nothing in Clement, or in the older Ignatian epistles, or in -that ascribed to Polycarp (<i>circa</i> 150), or in that of Barnabas -(same period), to show <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb4" href="#pb4" -name="pb4">4</a>]</span>knowledge of the existing gospels of Luke or -John; a solitary parallel to Luke being rather a proof that the passage -echoed had been taken from some earlier document; and the gospel -actually cited as late as Justin is certainly not identical with either -Mark or Matthew. Even from Paul there is hardly any quotation; and -Clement, who mentions or is made to mention his epistles to the -Corinthians, pens a long passage in praise of love which has no -quotation from the apostle’s famous chapter on that head, though -it would have seemed made for his purpose. In view of their lax way of -quoting the Old Testament we may infer that the early Fathers or -forgers had few manuscripts; and it is plain that they set no such -store by Christian documents as they did by the Jewish; but the fact -remains that they fail to vouch for much even of those Pauline epistles -which commonly rank as incontestable. At times, as in the Pauline use -of the word <i>ektroma</i> (<a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Cor%2015:8">1 Cor. -xv, 8</a>), which occurs in a similar phrase in one of the Ignatian -epistles, there is reason to suspect that the “apostolic” -writing has been interpolated in imitation of the -“post-apostolic.” In the latter the expression is -appropriate; in the former it is not.</p> -<p class="par">It does not indeed follow that documents or chapters not -quoted or utilized by the Fathers were in their day non-existent. The -letters of Paul, supposing them to be genuine, would in any case be -only gradually made common property. All the evidence goes to show that -the early Christians were for the most part drawn from the illiterate -classes; and the age of abundant manuscripts would begin only with the -age of educated converts. But what is inconceivable is that one so -placed as Paul should never once cite the teachings of the founder, if -such teachings were current in his day in any shape; and what is -extremely improbable is that one so placed as Clement, or one forging -or interpolating in his name, should possess Paul’s First Epistle -to the Corinthians as it now stands, and yet should barely mention it -in a letter to the same church dealing with almost the same problems. -In the first case, we are almost forced to conclude that the gospel -narratives were non-existent for the writer or writers <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb5" href="#pb5" name="pb5">5</a>]</span>of the -Pauline epistles up to the point of the two interpolations which allege -an accepted tradition; and, in the second, that the Pauline epistles -themselves are nowhere to be taken as certainly genuine.<a class= -"noteref" id="xd21e1108src" href="#xd21e1108" name="xd21e1108src">2</a> -Such irremovable doubt is the Nemesis of the early Christian habits of -forgery and fiction.</p> -<p class="par">There emerges, however, the residual fact that Paul -ranked in the second century as a historical and natural personage, in -whose name it was worth while to forge. For Paul’s period, again, -Jesus was possibly a historical personage, since he was not declared to -be supernaturally born, though credited with a supernatural -resurrection. Broadly speaking, the age of an early Christian document -is found to be in the ratio of its narrative bareness, its lack of -biographical myth, its want of relation to the existing gospels. As -between the shorter and the longer form of the Ignatian epistles, the -question of priority is at once settled by the frequent citations from -the gospels and from Paul in the latter, and the lack of them in the -former. But all the documents alike appear to point to a movement which -remotely took its rise among the Jews long before the destruction of -the temple of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70, and subsisted in Jewry -long afterwards; and, as the Jewish environment lacked many of the -forces of change present in the Gentile, it is to the Jewish form of -the cult that we must first look if we would trace its growth.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s1.1.2" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e196">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>The Earliest -Christian Sects</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The first properly historical as distinct from the -“scriptural” notices of the Church at Jerusalem tell of a -quasi-Christian sect there, known as Ebionites or <i>Ebionim</i>, a -Hebrew word which signified simply “the poor.” From the -point of view of the Gentile Christians of the end of the second -century they were heretics, seeing that they used a form of the Gospel -of Matthew lacking the first two chapters, denied the divinity of -Jesus, and rejected the apostleship of Paul. As <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb6" href="#pb6" name="pb6">6</a>]</span>they -likewise rejected the Hebrew prophets, accepting only the Pentateuch, -there is some reason to suppose that they were either of Samaritan -derivation or the descendants of an old element in the Judean -population which, from the time of Ezra onwards, had rejected the later -Biblical writings as the Samaritans did. On either view it would follow -that the Jesuist movement rooted from the first in a lower stratum of -the population, hostile to orthodox or Pharisaic Judaism, as were the -Sadducees among the upper classes. The Samaritans made special account -of Joshua (=Jesus), having a book which bore his name; and we shall see -later that that name was anciently a divine one for some Syrian -populations.</p> -<p class="par">Later notices bring to light the existence of a smaller -sect, called by the Greeks <i>Nazoraioi</i>, Nazarites or -Nazaræans, the term said in the Acts of the Apostles (<a class= -"biblink xd21e43" title="Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=act%2024:5">xxiv, 5</a>) -to have been applied to the early Jesuists, and often applied in that -book as well as in the gospels to Jesus. According to one account this -sect objected to be called Christians, though it appears to have been -on the assumption of their derivation from the first Christians that -they had not earlier been stamped as heretics. Through the two sects -under notice may be gathered the probable development of early -Jesuism.</p> -<p class="par">It cannot have been from the place-name Nazareth that -any Jesuist sect were first called Nazaræans, a term standing -either for the variously-spelt <i>Nazir</i> (Nazarite, or, properly, -Nazirite) of the Old Testament, or for a compound of the term -<i>netzer</i> (=a branch), used in the passage of Isaiah (<a class= -"biblink xd21e43" title="Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Is%2011:1">xi, 1</a>), -supposed to be cited in the first gospel (<a class="biblink xd21e43" -title="Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mk%202:23">ii, 23</a>). -Even the form “Nazarene,” sometimes substituted in the -gospels for the other, could not conceivably have been, to start with, -the name for a sect founded by a man who, like the gospel Jesus, was -merely said to have been reared at a village called Nazareth or Nazara, -and never taught there. In none of the Pauline or other canonical -epistles, however, is Jesus ever called Nazarite, or Nazarene, or -“of Nazareth”; and the Ebionite gospel, lacking the -Nazareth story, would lack any such appellation. The Ebionite sect, -then, appears to have stood for the first form of the cult, and to have -developed the first form of gospel; while <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb7" href="#pb7" name="pb7">7</a>]</span>the later Nazaræan sect -appears to be either a post-Pauline but Judaic growth from the Ebionite -roots, or a post-Pauline grafting of another movement on the Jesuism of -the Ebionites.</p> -<p class="par">Ebionism, to begin with, whether ancient and -quasi-Samaritan or a product of innovation in the immediately pre-Roman -period, is intelligible as the label of a movement which held by the -saying “Blessed are ye poor” or “poor in -spirit,” found in the so-called Sermon on the Plain and Sermon on -the Mount (<a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lk%206:20">Luke vi, -20</a>; <a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mt%205:3">Matt. v, -3</a>). In poverty-stricken Jewry, with a prophetic and proverbial -literature in which, as generally in the East, the poor are treated -with sympathy, such a label would readily grow popular, as it had done -for the Buddhist “mendicants” in India. Its association, -however, with the cult of a slain and Messianic Jesus raises the -question whether the latter was not the germ of the movement; and there -are some grounds for surmising that the sect may have arisen around one -Jesus the son of Pandira, who is mentioned in the Talmud as having been -hanged on a tree and stoned to death at Lydda, on the eve of a -Passover, in the reign of Alexander Jannæus. It was customary to -execute important offenders at that season; and as the Paschal feast -had a specifically atoning significance, a teacher then executed might -come to be regarded as an atoning sacrifice. But there are traces in -the Old Testament of a Messianic movement connected with the name Jesus -at some uncertain period before the Christian era. In the book of -Zechariah, of which the first six chapters appear to be much later than -the rest, there is named one Jesus (<i>Heb.</i> Joshua), a high priest, -who figures Messianically as “the Branch,” and is doubly -crowned as priest and king. In the obscurity which covers most of the -prophetic literature, it is difficult to say for what historic -activities this piece of symbolism stands; but it must have stood for -something. From it, in any case, we gather the fact that much stress -was laid on the symbol of “the Branch” (or -“sprout”), called in the present text of Zechariah -<i>tsemach</i>, but in Isaiah <i>nazar</i> or <i>netzer</i>. Among the -Gentiles that symbol belonged to the worships of several Gods and -Goddesses—as Mithra, Attis, Apollo, and -Dêmêtêr—and appears to have meant the principle -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb8" href="#pb8" name= -"pb8">8</a>]</span>of life, typified in vegetation; among the Jews it -was certainly bound up with the general belief in a coming Messiah who -should restore Jewish independence. It is not impossible, then, that a -Messianic party were early called “Netzerites” or -“Nazaræans” on that account; and such a sect could in -the Judaic fashion find all manner of significances in the name of the -high priest, since “Jesus” (=Joshua) signified Saviour, and -the ancient and mythical Joshua was a typical deliverer. The Mosaic -promise (<a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Dt%2018:15">Deut. xviii, -15</a>) of a later prophet and leader, which in the Acts is held to -apply to the crucified Jesus, had formerly been held by Jews to apply -to the Joshua who succeeded Moses; and in that case there is reason to -surmise that an older myth or cult centring round the name had given -rise to the historical fiction of the Hebrew books. In some very -ancient MSS. the text of the epistle of Jude, verse 5, reads -“Jesus” where our version has “the Lord,” a -circumstance which suggests yet another Joshuan myth. But the subject -remains obscure. There is even some doubtful evidence of the later -existence of a sect of “Jesseans,” possibly distinct from -the historical “Essenes,” who may have founded on -Isaiah’s “Branch from the roots of Jesse.”</p> -<p class="par">The following, then, are the historical possibilities. A -poor sect or caste of <i>Ebionim</i>, marked off from orthodox Jewry, -and akin to the population of Samaria, may have subsisted throughout -the post-exilic period, and may either have preserved an old Jesuist -cult with a sacrament or adopted a later Samaritan movement. From that -might have been developed the “Nazarene” sect of Christist -history. On the other hand, a sect of “Nazaræans,” -holding by the Messianic name of Jesus, <i>may</i> have existed in the -pre-Roman period, but may have come to figure specially as Ebionim or -“poor” when the earlier or political form of Messianic hope -waned. Their name may also have led to their being either confused or -conjoined with the “Nazarites” of Jewry, a numerous but -fluctuating body, under temporary vows of abstention. But that body, -again, may have become generally Messianist, and may have adopted the -Messianic “Branch” in the verbalizing spirit so common in -Jewry, while continuing to call itself <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb9" href="#pb9" name="pb9">9</a>]</span>Nazarite in the old sense. It -is indeed on record that some Jews made vows to “be a Nazarite -when the Son of David should come”; and such were free to drink -wine on Sabbaths, though not on week days. Such Nazarites could have -constituted the first sacramental assemblies of the Christists. And as -the Hebrew <i>Nazir</i> (Sept. Gr. <i>Nazoraios</i>) had the meaning of -“consecrated” or “holy to the Lord,” the early -Gentile Christians may very well have translated the word into their -own languages instead of transliterating it. On that view the -<i>hagioi</i> or “saints” of the Acts and the epistles and -the Apocalypse may have strictly stood for “the Nazirites,” -“the <i>devoti</i>.”</p> -<p class="par">Seeing, however, that the later Nazaræans are -reported to have adopted the (obviously late) first and second chapters -of Matthew, while the Ebionites rejected them; and seeing that these -chapters, embodying the story of the flight into Egypt, make Jesus at -once a Jewish and a Gentile Christ, it would appear that the Gentile -movement had then reacted on the Jewish, and that the ultra-Jewish -Jesuists had now relinquished the name of Nazaræan to the less -rigid, who at this stage probably used a Greek gospel. Finally, as the -original sense of “Nazirite” implied either a Judaic -vow—irksome to the Gentile Christians, and probably to many of -the Jewish—or a specially Judaic character in the founder, and as -the political implication of the “netzer” (supposing that -to have adhered to the sect-name) was anti-Roman, there would arise a -disposition to seek for the term another significance. This, presumably -on the suggestion of Gentiles accustomed to hear Jewish sectaries -called “Galileans,” was found in the figment that the -founder, though declared to have been Messianically born in Bethlehem, -had been reared in the Galilean village of Nazareth or Nazara. Instead -of being a historical datum, as is assumed by so many rationalizing -historians, that record appears to be really a pragmatic myth -superimposed on the Bethlehem myth. The textual analysis shows that -wherever it occurs in the gospels and Acts the name Nazareth has been -foisted on the documents.</p> -<p class="par">Hence, however, arose the Greek form -“Nazarenos,” <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb10" href= -"#pb10" name="pb10">10</a>]</span>which finally became to a certain -extent imposed on the canonical gospels, but especially on that of -Mark, which appears to have been redacted under Roman authority in the -interests of ecclesiastical order. Naturally, the Latin Vulgate adopted -the same term throughout the gospels and Acts, save in the crucial -text, <a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mt%202:23">Matt. ii, -23</a>. Otherwise the texts are almost wholly in favour of the form -“Nazoraios”—that is, Nazaræan or Nazirite.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s1.1.3" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e206">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Personality -of the Nominal Founder</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Even for minds wont to see mere myth in the idea -of such long-worshipped Saviours as Apollo and Osiris, Krishna and -Mithra, it cannot but be startling to meet for the first time the -thought that there is no historic reality in a figure so long revered -and beloved by half the human race as the Jesus of the gospels. It was -only after generations of scrutiny that modern rationalism began to -doubt the actuality of the Teacher it had unhesitatingly surmised -behind the impossible demigod of the records. The first, indeed, to see -in him sheer myth were the students who were intent chiefly on the -myths of action in the story: to return to the teaching as such was to -recover the old impression of a real voice. It is only after a further -analysis—a scrupulous survey of the texts—that the inquirer -can realise how illusory that impression really is.</p> -<p class="par">The proposition is not that the mere lateness of the -gospels deprives them of authority as evidence (for they proceeded on -earlier documents), but that throughout they are demonstrably results -of accretion through several generations, and that the earliest -sections were put together long after the period they profess to deal -with. The older portions of the Pauline epistles show no knowledge of -any Jesuine biography or any Jesuine teaching—a circumstance -which suggests that the Jesus of Paul is much more remote from -Paul’s day than is admitted by the records. Later, the Christian -writers are found to have certain narratives, evidently expanded from -generation to generation, till at the end of the second century there -exist the four canonical gospels, which, <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb11" href="#pb11" name="pb11">11</a>]</span>however, are not known to -have been even then completed. Celsus, in his anti-Christian treatise, -supposed to have been written between 170 and 180, speaks of the -gospels as having undergone endless alteration; and additions were -still possible after the time of Origen, who weakly replied to Celsus -that the alterations were the work of heretics. Side by side with the -four there had grown up a number of “apocryphal” gospels, -of which some were long as popular as the canonical, though all were -ultimately discarded by the Councils of the Church. The principle of -exclusion was essentially that of the tentative criticism of modern -times—the critical sense of the inferiority of mere tales of -wonders to narratives which contained, besides wonders, elements of -moral instruction.</p> -<p class="par">In natural course criticism first rejects miraculous -episodes, next excludes teachings which purport to come from a God-man, -and then seeks to infer a personality from those which are left; but -inasmuch as those, like the rest, are disparate and even contradictory, -the process usually ends in an avowedly arbitrary selection. And to all -such selection the loyal study of the texts is fatal. To put aside, as -some still do, the fourth gospel, and then take a stand on the -synoptics, is merely to arrest factitiously the critical process, -which, when consistently pursued, leads to the conviction that the -synoptics were built up by the same order of impulses, under the same -conditions of unchecked invention and interpolation, as gave rise to -the most obvious fictions in the gospel of “John.” We are -led without escape to the conclusion that no strain of teaching in the -gospels can be fathered on the shadowy founder, who for Paul is only a -crucified phantom. The humanistic teachings are no more primordial, no -less capable of interpolation, than the mystical and the oracular. Some -of the best sayings are among the very latest; some of the narrowest -belong to the earliest tradition. Collectively, they tell of a hundred -hands.</p> -<p class="par">Surmising that the nominal founder of Paul’s -Jesuism may possibly be the slain Jesus Pandira of the Talmud, a -hundred years “before Christ,” we next ask whether any such -founder must not be supposed to have taught <i>something</i>, -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb12" href="#pb12" name= -"pb12">12</a>]</span>to make men see in him a Messiah and preserve his -name. The answer is that the name alone was a large part of the -qualification for a Jewish Messiah; that the chance of his execution on -the eve of the Passover would give it for some Jews a mystic -significance; and that a story of his resurrection, a story easily -floated in case of an alleged sorcerer, such as the Talmudic Jesus, -would complete the conditions required for the growth of a myth and a -cult, seeing that the Jews traditionally expected the Messiah to come -at midnight of the day of Passover. Doubtless the alleged sorcerer may -have been an innovating teacher. It is quite possible, indeed, that as -a bearer of the fated name he may have made Messianic claims: the form -of death said to have been inflicted on him suggests energetic priestly -or political hostility. But of his utterances history preserves no -trace: even in the Talmud his story has passed into legendary form. -Thus it is not even certain that “pre-Christian” Jesuism -took shape round the memory of an actual man. The mythic Joshua (Jesus) -of the Old Testament is seen to have been in all likelihood, like -Samson, an ancient Semitic Sun-God, his name, “the -Saviour,” being a common divine epithet; and as he is in -Perso-Arab tradition the son of the mythic Miriam (Mary), it may be -that the roots of the historic Christian cult go back to an immemorial -Semitic antiquity, when already the name of Jesus was divine.<a class= -"noteref" id="xd21e1237src" href="#xd21e1237" name="xd21e1237src">3</a> -In the shadow of that name its origins are hidden.</p> -<p class="par">What is clear is that the central narrative of the -gospel biography, the story of the Last Supper, the Agony, Betrayal, -Trial, and Crucifixion, is neither a contemporary report nor a -historical tradition, but the simple transcript of a Mystery-Drama. The -proof lies in the very structure of the document.</p> -<p class="par">Anyone who will attentively follow the account of the -Last Supper and its sequelæ in the first gospel will see that it -reproduces a series of closely-continuous dramatic scenes, with no room -given to such considerations as would naturally occur to a narrator of -real events, and no sign of perception <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb13" href="#pb13" name="pb13">13</a>]</span>of the extreme -improbability of the huddled sequence set forth. A more or less -unnatural compression of events is the specific mark of drama, even in -the hands of great masters, as Shakespeare and Ibsen; and the primitive -mystery-play, as might be expected, is excessively compressed, so as to -conform to the recognised Greek rule that the action of a drama should -be limited to twenty-four hours. Jesus is made to take the Passover -after dark; then to go forth in the night for no reason given with his -disciples, who sleep while he prays; then to be captured in the -darkness by a “multitude”; then to be taken straight to the -high priest, “where the scribes and elders were gathered -together.” These now proceed, in the dead of the night, to -“seek false witnesses,” and “many false -witnesses” come, to no purpose, till “afterward” come -two who testify to his words about destroying the temple; whereupon he -is judged and buffeted, and the night’s history ends with the -episode of Peter’s denial. No hint is ever given of anything said -or done or felt by Jesus on the way from the Supper to the Mount, or in -the interval between the Jewish and the Roman trials.</p> -<p class="par">Such a narrative cannot have been originally composed -for reading. A writer, whether inventing or reproducing hearsay, would -have sought to explain the strangely protracted midnight procedure of -the high priest and scribes and elders; would have given some thought -to the time necessary between event and event; would have thought of -the Lord in his dungeon. The story before us yields exactly what could -be scenically enacted, nothing more; and where on the stage the -successive scenes would originally raise no question of the time taken, -the unreflecting narrative loses all verisimilitude by making -everything happen in unbroken sequence, and by making the Master utter -words of prayer which, apart from the audience of the drama, there was -no one to hear. In the play the “false witnesses” would of -necessity be sent for and introduced without lapse of time, and the -action would raise in a popular audience no perplexity, where the -narrative loses all semblance of probability by turning the dramatic -act into a historical process. After the unspecified slight pause till -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb14" href="#pb14" name= -"pb14">14</a>]</span>“the morning was come,” the action is -resumed before Pilate with the same dramatic speed, and the execution -impossibly follows immediately on the trial. We are reading the bare -transcript of a mystery-drama; a transcript so bare that, in the scene -of the Passion, the speech beginning “Sleep on now,” and -that beginning “Arise, let us be going,” are put together -as if they were one utterance, without specification of the required -exit and entrance between.</p> -<p class="par">Such a clearly dramatic composition can be accounted for -only as a development, after the fashion of the pagan mystery-dramas, -from a remote, primitive rite of human sacrifice, such as we know to -have been long habitual among the Jews as among other Semites. To the -ancient rite the very name of Jesus probably belonged; and the existing -document is presumptively an adaptation, made after the fall of -Jerusalem by Gentile Christists, of a simpler and earlier Judaic -ritual-drama. We are thus left facing a myth, not a history—a -Jesus who compares not with Mohammed but with Dionysos and Osiris.</p> -<p class="par">When the historic Church set about a statement of its -history it could not even fix satisfactorily the year of its supposed -founder’s birth; and the “Christian era” was made to -begin some years—two, three, four, five, or eight—after -that on which the chronologists were later fain to fix, by way of -conforming to their most precise document. Their data, however, have no -more value than any other guess. So little of the semblance of -historical testimony do the gospels yield that it is impossible to -establish from them any proposition as to the duration of the -God-man’s ministry; and the early Church in general held by the -tradition that it lasted exactly one year, an opinion which again -points straight to myth, since it is either a dogmatic assumption based -on the formula of “the acceptable year of the Lord,” or a -simple reversion to the story of the Sun-God. Of the life of the -alleged teacher from the age of twelve to thirty—another -mythological period—there is not a single trace, mythical or -non-mythical, though at his death he is represented as the centre of a -large and adoring following. Ultimately, his birth was placed at the -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb15" href="#pb15" name= -"pb15">15</a>]</span>winter solstice, the birth-day of the Sun-God in -the most popular cults; and while that is fixed as an anniversary, the -date of his crucifixion is made to vary from year to year in order to -conform to the astronomical principle on which the Jews, following the -sun-worshippers, had fixed their Passover. Between those fabulous -points everything the gospels affirm as biographical fact is fortuitous -or purposive invention, which on scientific analysis “leaves not -a wrack behind” in the nature of objective history.</p> -<p class="par">Before accepting such a verdict the sympathetic seeker -is apt to grasp at the old argument that such a figure as the gospel -Jesus cannot have been created either by fortuitous fable or by -fictions; that its moral stature is above that of any of the men we can -trace in the gospel-making period; that its spiritual unity excludes -the theory of a literary mosaic. It must first be answered that these -positions beg the question and falsify the data. That the figure of the -gospel Jesus is actually devoid of moral unity is made clear by the -very attempts to unify it, since they one and all leave out much of the -records; and the claim to moral superiority collapses, even apart from -the obvious fact that the texts are aggregations, as soon as we compare -them with the contemporary and previous ethical literature of the Jews, -Greeks, Romans, and Hindus. There is not one teaching in the gospels -that is not there paralleled; and the passages which have been claimed -as most characteristic—for instance, the Sermon on the -Mount—are mere compilations of earlier Jewish utterances. Thus -the unity credited to the records, and the personality ascribed to the -founder, are but creations of the same sympathetic human imagination -that wove tissues of poetry and pathos round the figures of Dionysos -and Buddha, and framed for the cult of Krishna its most impressive -document when the cult was already ancient beyond reckoning. As man has -made his Gods, so he has made his Christs: it would be strange indeed -if the faculty which wrought the one could not create the other. -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb16" href="#pb16" name= -"pb16">16</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s1.1.4" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e216">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 4.</span> <i>Myth of the -Twelve Apostles</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">In one of the Pauline epistles, which are usually -understood to belong to the second generation after that of the -founder, there is mention of three chief Apostles with whom Paul had -disputes, but none of any contemporary group of Twelve; and the only -historical allusion to the latter number is in one of the -interpolations in First Corinthians, where it appears to be a patch -upon a patch. In the Acts of the Apostles, which though a fraudulent is -an ancient compilation, there is a preliminary story of the election of -an apostle to fill the place of Judas, deceased and disgraced; but not -only is there no further pretence of such a process of completion, the -majority of the twelve themselves speedily disappear from the history. -Once more we are dealing with a myth. In the Apocalypse, again, after -the original Judaic document has pictured a New Jerusalem with twelve -gates and angels, named after the twelve tribes, the Christian -interpolator has betrayed himself by the awkward invention of twelve -“basement courses” named after the “twelve Apostles -of the Lamb,” where an original Christian author would have given -the apostles the gates if anything, had a list of twelve Jesuist -apostles existed for him. In heaven the Lamb is surrounded, not by -twelve disciples, but by the “four and twenty presbyters” -of an older cult, probably that of Babylonia, which had twenty-four -“Counsellor Gods.”</p> -<p class="par">In the gospels the lack of historic foundation is no -less decisive. Circumstantial but irreconcilable accounts, obviously -mythical, are given of the selection of four or five apostles, -whereafter the narratives, without a word of preparation or -explanation, proceed to a sudden constitution of the group of twelve, -with only the mythological detail, in one case, that they were -“called” by the Master on a mountain. Thus the element of -the Twelve is not even an early item in the records. It has been -imposed on documents which set out with no such datum, but with primary -groups of five, four, and three.</p> -<p class="par">The historical solution of the problem as to the source -of the fiction is now tolerably certain. It is on record that the -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb17" href="#pb17" name= -"pb17">17</a>]</span>Jewish High Priest of the latter days of the -Temple, and after him the Patriarch at Tiberias, employed certain -“Apostles” as tribute-collectors and supervisors of the -many faithful Jews scattered throughout the neighbouring kingdoms. By -common Jewish usage these would number twelve. As the dispersed Jewish -race multiplied abroad after the fall of the Temple, it is probable -that under the upper grade of twelve there was created a body of -seventy-two collectors, who answered to the traditional number of -“the nations” in Jewish lore. Such a body is the probable -basis for the admittedly mythical “seventy” or -“seventy-two” of the third gospel. At this stage the twelve -appear to have exercised chiefly teaching and regulative functions, for -it is clear that the quasi-Christian document, <i>The Teaching of the -Twelve Apostles</i>, recovered in 1873 and published in 1883, was -originally a purely Jewish manual of moral exhortation, and as such -bore its existing title. To the six or seven purely Judaic and -non-Jesuist chapters which seem to constitute the original document, -and which contain passages copied in the so-called Sermon on the Mount, -there were gradually added others, introducing the rites of baptism and -the eucharist, the name of Jesus, the doctrine of the Trinity, and -various rules of economic procedure. In this gradual fashion a Jesuist -cult, in which Jesus is called the “servant” of God, was -grafted on an originally Judaic moral teaching, the prestige of the -Jewish “Twelve Apostles” being all the while carried on. It -was to give a Christian origin for this document, or for the -institution pointed to by its title, that the gospel myth of the Twelve -Apostles was framed. After the time of Athanasius, the expanded -document, being still unduly Judaic and otherwise unsuitable for the -purposes of the organized Church, passed into disuse; but the myth -remained.</p> -<p class="par">As regards the three “chief” apostles named -in one of the Pauline epistles, there is a reasonable presumption that -they were either leading propagandists of the Jesuist cult as it -existed at the time of the writing, or so reputed by later tradition; -but the assumption that they had been associates and disciples of the -founder must be abandoned with the rest of the gospel <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb18" href="#pb18" name= -"pb18">18</a>]</span>tradition. They were necessarily woven into the -gospel narrative by the later compilers; but the Epistle to the -Galatians lies under the general suspicion of having been interpolated, -if not wholly forged; and its very naming of the Judaic apostles is as -much a ground for question as a datum for construction. It is probable, -further, that the title “brethren of the Lord” was -originally a group-name, and that the literal construction of it was a -misconception by the later readers or interpolators of the epistles and -the gospels. Nothing in the gospels or the Acts can make intelligible -the appearance of certain actual brothers of the gospel Jesus at the -head of a Jesuist cult. The name of Peter, finally, became a nucleus -for many myths; and the two epistles which bear his name have so little -relation to the personality set forth in the gospels that both have -been widely discredited as forgeries; the second having indeed been so -reputed in the days of Eusebius. The Simon-Petros (Cephas) of the -gospels, however, is in himself a mere literary creation. Represented -there as basely denying his captured Master, he figures in the Acts as -the supernatural slayer of Ananias and Sapphira for a much slighter -sin. The gospel story must be one of the products of the anti-Judaic -animus of later Gentile Jesuists, for even the Ananias story is late. -All that holds good is the fact that a tradition grew round the names -in question, both of which hint of mythology—Petros (“the -Rock”) being the name of an Egyptian God and of the popular -Eastern deity Mithra; and Simon the name of a no less popular Semitic -God. In his final aspect as leader of the twelve, basis of the Church, -and keeper of the heavenly keys, Peter combines the attributes of -Mithra and of Janus, both official deities of the Roman military class, -as well as of the Egyptian Petra—who is door-keeper of heaven, -earth, and the underworld.</p> -<p class="par">The Epistle of James, by whomsoever written, is in no -sense a Christist document—containing as it does not a single -Jesuist or Christian doctrine, save perhaps the appended invective -against the rich, which is Ebionitic. Of its two namings of Jesus, one -is clearly an interpolation, and the other is presumptively so. There -remains only a moral exhortation <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb19" -href="#pb19" name="pb19">19</a>]</span>to Jews meeting in synagogues, a -teaching strictly comparable to that of the original and pre-Jesuine -“Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” though the epistle makes -no mention of any other apostles. Such writing tells of an essentially -different propaganda from that of the Christists proper; and its -preservation by them testifies to its priority. The epistles ascribed -to John, on the contrary, belong to a considerably later period; -telling as they do of a fanatical movement which swears by the name of -Jesus the Christ as one who has died to take away sin, but which is -full of apprehension as to the advent and functions of a number of -Anti-Christs.</p> -<p class="par">Judas (Ioudas), of whom there is no mention in any of -the epistles, and whose traditional treason is not recognized in the -lately-recovered “Gospel of Peter,” or in the -pseudo-Pauline reference to “the twelve,” is a late -creation; having probably taken shape first as a simple -<i>Ioudaios</i>, “a Jew,” in an early Christian -mystery-play of the crucifixion and resurrection. Mythologically, the -conception may derive from the <i>Diabolos</i> or -“Adversary” of Persian lore, as Judas in the gospels is -called “a devil”; and the tradition which gave him red hair -assimilated him to Typhon, the slayer of the Egyptian Saviour-God, -Osiris. On the other hand, the name may have a mythological connection -with the story of the betrayal of Joseph by his eleven brethren, of -whom Judas was the ringleader.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1297src" -href="#xd21e1297" name="xd21e1297src">4</a> The story of the betrayal -in the gospels is in any case plainly fabulous. The hired help of Judas -is represented as necessary to identify a teacher who figured daily in -the temple, and was a familiar figure to the populace. Such a myth can -be best explained on the theory that a Jesuist mystery-play, arising or -becoming modified among the Gentiles, would readily represent a Jew as -betraying the Lord, even as the twelve were represented as forsaking -their master. A bag to hold the blood-money would be a dramatic -accessory, and would originate the view that Judas had been the -treasurer of the apostolic group. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb20" -href="#pb20" name="pb20">20</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s1.1.5" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e226">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 5.</span> <i>Primary Forms -of the Cult</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">In its first traceable historic form Christianity -was simply a phase of Judaism, being the creed of a small number of -Jews and Jewish proselytes who believed that the long-desired Messiah -had come in the person of one Jesus, who had been so slain as to -constitute an atoning sacrifice. Such believers were wont to meet at -simple religious banquets, of a kind common in the Greco-Roman world, -where they ate and drank in a semi-ceremonial way. A sacrificial -banquet of this kind was one of the most universal features of ancient -religion, being originally the typical tribal ceremony; and though -among the Jews it had been to a remarkable extent superseded by -sacrifices without communion, the usage was once as general with them -as with the Gentiles. If grown rare in their life, the idea was -abundantly preserved in their sacred books. The presumption is that -such a banquet was connected with the Semitic God-name Jesus or Joshua -before the Christian era; otherwise we must conclude that a sect of -Jesuists, starting from the bare belief in the sacrificial death, -adopted arbitrarily a kind of rite which was identified with the -heathen worships of the surrounding Gentiles, and adopted also the -Gentile sun-worshippers’ practice of assembling by night. -Paul’s Corinthian converts are described as frequenting -indifferently the table of Jesus (“the Lord”) and the table -of “dæmons”—that is, of heathen Gods or -Demigods. As the less orthodox Jews had long<a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1320src" href="#xd21e1320" name="xd21e1320src">5</a> dabbled in -similar “mysteries,” there is every probability that -private “Holy Suppers” had been practised even in Jewry by -some groups long before the Christian period, whether or not in -connection with the name of Jesus “the Saviour.” The gospel -phrase “blood of the covenant” points to a standing usage, -the original form of which was probably the mutual drinking of actual -human blood by the parties to a solemn pledge. In the Hebrew system -some such covenant was held to be set up between the Deity and the -worshippers on the one hand, and among the latter themselves on the -other, when a <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb21" href="#pb21" name= -"pb21">21</a>]</span>sacrifice was partaken of. But it is further -probable that the idea of a mystical partaking of an atoning or -inspiring “body and blood” was of old standing in the same -kind of connection. Such a practice was certainly part of the great -Asiatic cults of Dionysos and Mithra; and as the ancient idea of a -sacrificial banquet in honour of a God usually was that in some sense -the worshipped power was either eaten, or present as partaker, it is -more than likely that any banquets in connection with the Syrian -worships of Adonis and (or) Marnas (each name = “the Lord”) -carried with them the same significance. In early Christian usage the -ministrant of the eucharist spoke in the person of the founder, using -the formulas preserved in the gospels; and as the priest in the cult of -Attis also personated the God, there is a strong presumption that the -same thing had been done in Jewry in the pre-Christian period, by way -of modifying a still older usage in which a deified victim was actually -slain and eaten.</p> -<p class="par">For such an ancient Jesuine eucharist (revived, perhaps, -as old mysteries were apt to be among the Jews, no less than among -other ancient peoples, in times of national disaster) a new meaning -<i>may</i> have been found in the story of an actually slain man Jesus, -whose death took a sacrificial aspect from its occurrence at the time -of the atoning feast. In the earliest written teaching, certainly, -Jesus is not a God; he is merely the Jewish God’s “holy -servant.” The eating of his symbolic body and blood, however, was -on a par with the rituals in which Pagans mystically partook of -<i>their</i> deities, and it thus lay in the nature of the eucharist -that he should become divine if he were not so originally. The -expression “Son of God,” once of common application, would -in his case come to have a special force, in terms of the ancient -Semitic doctrine that the great God Kronos or Saturn or El had -sacrificed his “only begotten Son.” Abraham undertakes to -do the same thing in the legend in Genesis; and Abraham and Isaac as -well as Jacob were presumptively ancient deities. On the other hand, -the evolution of a fabulous hero from man to demigod, and thence to a -status among the highest Gods, is a common phenomenon in the ancient -religions (Herakles and Dionysos <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb22" -href="#pb22" name="pb22">22</a>]</span>being typical cases), and among -the recognized Syrian worships there was already one of a -<i>Theandrios</i> or God-man. Even for the Jews the name Jehovah was -applicable to the Messiah. It lay, too, in the nature of the religious -instinct that the man-like and man-loving God should gradually take the -foremost place in a cult in which he was at first subordinate, as -happened in the worships of Dionysos, Mithra, Herakles, and Krishna. -Some such tendency is seen in the worship of Demigods among the earlier -Hebrews (<a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Dt%2032:17">Deut. xxxii, -17</a>; <i>Heb.</i>).</p> -<p class="par">It is not necessary to suppose that the Christian cult -arose solely by way of a mystic sacrament. There may have been a -blending of the usage of quasi-commemorative banquets, the simpler -<i>Agapæ</i> or love-feasts of antiquity, with that of a special -“mystery”; and in the case of the latter there may have -been many varieties, as there were later in the matter of liturgies. -The humble Corinthian banquets appear to have combined the features of -<i>Agapæ</i> and <i>Eucharistia</i>, and in the former aspect -they were anything but solemn; some of the members sleeping, some -drinking too much—a pathetic picture of the dim yearning for -communion among a heavy-laden caste. But the nature of the eucharist -proper, the claim to present an immortal “body and blood” -for regenerative eating and drinking, involved a striving after -sacro-sanctity; and as soon as a regular ministrant was appointed by -any group he would tend to develop into a priest of the Christist -mysteries, magnifying his office.</p> -<p class="par">The great feature of the Jewish Feast of the Passover -being the eating of a lamb “before the Lord,” that usage -would in Jewish circles be preferred to, or at least combined with, the -sacrament of bread and wine, “Ceres and Bacchus,” which was -perhaps commonest among the Gentiles. In the legend of Abraham and -Melchisedek, priest of the Phœnician God El Elyon, there figures -a sacramental meal of bread and wine (<a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Gn%2014:18">Gen. xiv, -18</a>); and in the non-canonical book of Ecclesiasticus there is a -passage (l, 15) which suggests a use of wine as symbolical of blood. -The “shew-bread,” too, seems to have had a measure of -sacramental significance. But while such a rite would seem to have -flourished in the background of Judaism, that of the Passover was one -of the great usages of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb23" href="#pb23" -name="pb23">23</a>]</span>the Jewish world, and the first Jesuists -clearly held by it. It is indeed one of the hierological probabilities -that the paschal lamb was anciently “Jeschu” or Jesus, the -springtide symbol of a Sun-God so named; for in the book of Revelation, -which is markedly Judaic, “the Lamb” figures as the known -symbol or mystic name of a Son of God “slain from the founding of -the world,” and identified with a mystic Jesus who is one with -Jehovah—this apparently long before the Christian cult in general -had arrived at such a doctrine. There is a mythological presumption -that such language had reference to the fact—dwelt on by later -Jewish writers—that the date of the Passover fell at the entrance -of the sun into the constellation Aries in the zodiac; and the rule -that the paschal lamb must be roasted, not boiled, tells also of the -sun-myth. Yet again, the lamb is the animal latterly substituted in the -myth of Abraham and Isaac for the sacrificed only-begotten son Isaac, -whose name in the Hebrew (Yischak) comes somewhat near to the common -form of the name Jesus (Yeschu), and who is mythologically identifiable -as a Sun-God. In any case, “the Lamb slain for us” in the -Apocalypse implies a recognized sacrament of lamb-eating, such as that -of the Passover, which was anciently the time for sacrificing -first-born sons (<a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ex%2022:29">Ex. xxii, -29</a>), and which is explained even in the priestly myth as a -commemoration of the sparing of the first-born of Israel when the -first-born of Egypt were divinely destroyed. To such a national -precedent the Hebrew Jesuists would tend to cling as they did to the -practice of circumcision.</p> -<p class="par">But mere poverty on the one hand, and on the other the -then common ascetic instinct (which in some cases put water for wine), -would tell among Gentiles against the eating of actual flesh even when -the pretence was to eat flesh and drink blood. In some early Christian -groups accordingly the sacrificial food took the shape of a model of a -lamb in bread<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1371src" href="#xd21e1371" -name="xd21e1371src">6</a> (a kind of device often resorted to in pagan -worship with a special form of animal sacrifice), while others actually -ate a lamb and drank its blood, as did some of the Mithraists and some -of the Egyptian <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb24" href="#pb24" name= -"pb24">24</a>]</span>worshippers of Ammon. The Pauline phrase, -“Our Passover also has been sacrificed, Christ”—which -may or may not be an interpolation—would square with either -practice. But that Jews who had been wont to make much of a paschal -lamb, and who held Jesus to have represented that lamb, should pass at -once to a sacred meal of simple bread and wine or water, is unlikely; -and the gospels themselves indicate that a dish of another kind -preceded the bread and wine formality in the traditional Supper.</p> -<p class="par">Light is thrown on the original nature of the Jesuist -rite by the Paschal controversy in which the Eastern and Western -churches are found embroiled towards the end of the second century. It -turned nominally on the different accounts of the crucifixion in the -synoptics and the fourth gospel. Whereas the synoptics make Jesus take -the Passover with his disciples in due course, and die on the cross on -the first day (the Jewish day being reckoned from evening to evening), -the fourth gospel makes him sup informally with his disciples on the -day before the Passover, and die at the very hour of the paschal meal. -The idea obviously is that implied in the Pauline phrase already -quoted—that he is henceforth the substitute for the lamb; and in -actual fact the Eastern Christians of the second century are found -breaking their Easter fast on the Passover day, while the Westerns did -not break it till the Sunday of the resurrection. Evidently the Eastern -Christians had all along preserved an immemorial usage of eating their -eucharist on the Passover. They did not do this as orthodox Jews, for -they called their meal one of “salvation” in a Christist -sense, and their opponents did not charge them with Judaizing; but they -argued that they must take the eucharist at the time at which Jesus -took it with his disciples; while the Westerns contended that the time -for rejoicing and commemoration was the day of resurrection. The -explanation is that the story of Jesus eating with his disciples is a -myth of the kind always framed to account for an ancient ritual -practice; that the Jewish circumstances naturally gave the story a form -which made Jesus obey a Judaic ordinance; and that the Westerns, coming -newly into the cult, either recoiled from the procedure <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb25" href="#pb25" name="pb25">25</a>]</span>of a -banquet on the very eve of the Lord’s betrayal, or followed an -Adonisian or Attisian usage, in which the original sacrificial banquet, -though perhaps not abandoned, had been overshadowed by the “love -feast” on the announcement that “the Lord has -arisen.”</p> -<p class="par">In the nature of the case, the controversy was insoluble -by argument. The Easterns had always taken the Holy Supper at the time -of the Passover, and they had the gospel story telling them to repeat -it “in remembrance” of the Lord who so supped at the -Passover. The Westerns had the fourth gospel as their evidence that -Jesus actually died at the time of the Passover, thus constituting a -universal substitute for the Jewish sacrifice; and as in this gospel -there is no use of bread and wine, but merely the nondescript meal -which precedes the ritual in the synoptics, and in which the only -symbolic act is the giving of a “sop” to the betrayer, they -were left to practise the traditional eucharist in the way most -conformable to their feelings or to their pre-Christian usages. All -theory was finally lost sight of in the historic church, with its daily -celebration of the “mass,” which is the annual sacrifice -turned into a weekly and daily one; but from the whole discussion there -emerges the fact that the sacrifice is the oldest element in the cult, -antedating its biographical myths. And as the symbolic eating of bread -and wine as “body and blood” in the pagan cults is a late -refinement on a grosser practice of primitive sacrifice, so it was in -the Christist. As the wafer in the Catholic ritual is the attenuated -symbol of the bread of the mystic supper, so that bread was in turn an -attenuated symbol of an earlier object.</p> -<p class="par">When Christianity comes into aggressive competition with -Paganism, one of the common charges of its Roman enemies is found to be -that the Christians were wont to eat the body of an actual child in -their mysteries. There is no good reason to believe that this horror -ever happened among them; though the language of the rite tells of a -pre-historic practice of human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism, such -as actually took place among the early Semites and the pre-Christian -Mexicans, and was said to have been in use among the Druids about the -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb26" href="#pb26" name= -"pb26">26</a>]</span>beginning of the Christian era; but it is probable -that in some Christist groups there was a usage of eating a baked image -of a child, as had been done in the Dionysian mysteries. The -manipulation of the Abraham and Isaac legend, taken with other data in -the Pentateuch and elsewhere, makes it clear that child-sacrifice had -been practised among the early Hebrews as among the Phœnicians, -and that the sacrifice of a lamb or kid became the equivalent, as it -was perhaps the prototype. When it was permitted to substitute a dough -image for the actual lamb, the mystical principle could be further -served by a dough image of the child that the lamb itself typified. -Under the veil of secrecy, which was as much a matter of course with -the early Christians as with the pagan initiates of the Eleusinian and -other mysteries, such variations of the cult were possible to an -indefinite extent. It was only when there grew up an ecclesiastical -organization, in the spirit and on the scale of the imperial system -itself, and when the compiled gospels had become a recognised code for -the Church in general, that they were reduced to the norm of the pagan -sacrament of bread and wine.</p> -<p class="par">The only other primary Christian rite, that of baptism, -is shown even in the gospels to have been pre-Christian; and the -anti-Judaic John the Baptist may have been a historic figure among the -Jews, though his connection with the Christos is a myth, seen in the -gospels in different stages of its development.<a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1394src" href="#xd21e1394" name="xd21e1394src">7</a> The -presumption is that it was framed at the stage at which the Jewish -Christists, faced by the Pauline and Gentile opposition to -circumcision, hitherto held binding among the Jesuists, decided to -substitute baptism (which already had a Jewish vogue) and thereby -maintain a Jewish primacy. But baptism too was a common Gentile usage, -as was the use of holy water, later adopted by the Christian -Church.</p> -<p class="par">With these Christist rites, it is clear, there was -originally associated a fixed belief in the speedily-approaching end of -the world, that being the notion which most completely pervades every -book in the New Testament. The rites then, like the <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb27" href="#pb27" name="pb27">27</a>]</span>similar -mysteries of the Pagans, were regarded as the way of entrance into the -future life, whether that were conceived as the apparition of a -supernatural New Jerusalem on earth, or as a transformed existence in a -material heaven in the skies. For the Pauline period, the approaching -catastrophe was evidently the supreme pre-occupation; and to the fear -of it the whole of the early Christian propaganda appealed. There is no -reason, however, to believe that the Christians at Jerusalem ever -“had all things in common,” as is asserted in the Acts of -the Apostles, where other passages confute the claim. Such communities -indeed had arisen in antiquity, and there was a kindred tradition that -Pythagoras had centuries before, in Italy, converted by one discourse a -multitude of hearers, who adopted a communal life. But the narrative in -the Acts, especially as regards the fable of Ananias and Sapphira, -seems to have been framed in the interest of some of the Christian -communist groups which arose after the period in question, and whose -promoters needed at once an apostolic precedent for their ideal and a -menace against those who temporized with it. In the Pauline epistles -the Gentile converts, so far from cultivating community of goods, are -seen going to law with each other before heathen judges.</p> -<p class="par">It is probable that the use of the sign of the cross, as -a mark of membership and a symbol of salvation, belonged to the -earliest stages of the cult; at least the sign in question figures as -the mark of a body of religious enthusiasts in Jewry as early as the -Book of Ezekiel (<a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ez%209:4">ix, 4</a>; -<i>Heb.</i>); and in the Apocalypse (<a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Rev%207:2-3">vii, 2, -3</a>) the “seal of the living God” appears to have been -understood in the same sense as the sign prescribed in the prophecy. -The Hebrew letter <i>tau</i>, there specified, is known to have -represented at different periods different forms of cross; and the -oldest of all is believed to have been the <i lang="la">crux ansata</i> -of the Egyptians, which was a hieroglyph of immortal life. Thus the -historic form of the crucifix was determined, not by the actual manner -of normal crucifixion (for in that the arms were drawn above the head -and not outspread), but by previous symbolism. In the Egyptian ritual -of Osiris a spreading of the arms on the cross was in <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb28" href="#pb28" name="pb28">28</a>]</span>remote -antiquity a form of mystic regeneration; and in some amulets the -<i>stauros</i> or tree-cross of Osiris is found represented with human -arms.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s1.1.6" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e236">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 6.</span> <i>Rise of -Gentile Christism</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">A severance between the Jewish and the Gentile -Christists was the necessary condition of any wide spread of the cult. -Though it was the success of Jewish proselytism that paved the way for -the propaganda of Christism, only a handful of Gentiles would willingly -bow to the Jewish pretension of holding all the sources of -“salvation.” That a Græcized Jew, as Paul is -represented to have been, should begin to make the cult cosmopolitan, -in despite of opposition from Jerusalem, is likely enough; and -continued opposition would only deepen the breach. The Judaic claim -involved a financial interest; and as local economic interest was a -factor in the development of every Gentile group of Christists, a -theological argument for Gentile independence was sure to be evolved. -As the composition of the Christ-myth proceeded, accordingly, various -episodes to the discredit of the mythic twelve disciples of Jesus are -framed: “one of the twelve” figures as the betrayer; Peter -openly denies his Master, and the others forsake him in a body in the -hour of trial; while their incapacity to understand him in life is -often insisted on. John the Baptist and Jesus, again, are made -explicitly to teach that the “Kingdom of God” is taken away -from the Jews, though Jesus also promises the twelve that they shall -sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes. Finally, there is a -manipulation of narratives on the question of the responsibility for -Jesus’ execution, the outcome being that it lies neither with the -Roman governor nor with the sub-Roman king, but with the Jewish priests -and people, even as the life of the Child-God at his birth is menaced -by the Jewish King. In all likelihood most of those episodes were first -set forth in a Gentile Passion-play, whence they passed into the common -stream of tradition; but such an item as the part played by Pilate is -likely to have been first introduced from the Jewish side, Pilate -having been an object of special Jewish detestation. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb29" href="#pb29" name="pb29">29</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">In such matters the literary or myth-making faculty of -the Gentiles, with their many Saviour-Gods, gave them the advantage -over the Judaists; but the strife of the two interests was long and -bitter. It flames out in the Judaic book of Revelation, in the allusion -to those who “say they are apostles and are not”; and long -after the time allotted to Paul we find him caricatured in certain -Judaizing writings, the so-called Clementine <i>Recognitions</i> and -<i>Homilies</i>, in the person of Simon Magus, an entirely unhistorical -personage, who also appears in the Acts of the Apostles. Simon Magus -is, in fact, a mythical figure evolved from Semo Megas or Great Sem -(=Sem-on, as Samson is Samas-on), an old Semitic Sun-God worshipped by -the polytheists of Samaria, and in connection with whose cultus there -was evidently a Gentile Christist movement, of a Gnostic or mythical -character, its Christ being conceived as non-human. Such a movement -being competitive with that of the Jewish Jesus, “Simon,” -to whom was ascribed an impressive Gnostic treatise, became the type of -anti-Jewish heresy; whence the late Christian story in the Acts, where -Elymas again (=Great El) is a mythical duplication of Simon.</p> -<p class="par">There are many signs that Samaritan elements entered -early into the Christist movement. The fourth gospel even represents -the founder to have been accepted in Samaria as the Messiah; and in so -far as the cult became Gentilised, even if the Ebionites did not stand -for an ancient local and quasi-Samaritan foundation, Samaritans would -be the more ready to join it, since they were thereby helping to -discomfit the more exclusive Jews. But they too had their Christ-myth; -and the conception of the Holy Spirit as a dove came from them to the -Christians. Seeking to found finally on the Old Testament, the -scripture-makers of the latter movement had to explain away their -Samaritan antecedents by myths of heresy.</p> -<p class="par">The book of Acts as a whole, however, stands for an -ecclesiastical tendency in the second century to make out that the -first apostles had not been divided; that Peter too was a preacher of -Gentile Christism, to which he had been converted by a vision; and that -Paul, in turn, had made concessions to <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb30" href="#pb30" name="pb30">30</a>]</span>Judaism. When the Judaic -Church became less and less dangerous as a possible monopolist, the -organizing Gentile churches could thus proceed to construct a theoretic -connection between Christianity and Judaism, the “new -dispensation” and the old, thus preserving for the new creed the -prestige of the Old Testament, with which, as a body of sacred books, -the New could not for a long time compete, even in the eyes of its -devotees. At the same time the apostles, who had long figured as -church-founders, were effectively glorified as wonder-workers, being -credited with miracles which rivalled those of the Christos himself; -and Peter raises a “Tabitha” from the dead as Jesus had -done the “Talitha” or maiden in the gospels—a myth -which was itself a duplicate of a traditional pagan miracle later -credited to Apollonius of Tyana.</p> -<p class="par">Alongside, however, of the systematizing or centripetal -process there went on a centrifugal one, the process of innovating -Gentile heresy. Already in Paul’s epistles we read of -“another Jesus” whom the apostle “had not -preached”; and in the second century a dozen -“Gnostic” heresies were honeycombing the movement. Their -basis or inspiration was the mystic claim to inner light, -“gnosis” or knowledge, disparaged in the Pauline phrase -about “knowledge [or science] falsely so-called.” It was in -nearly all cases a combination of ideas current in the theosophies of -Asia and Egypt with the God-names of the Judaic and Christian cults. So -powerful was the instinct of independence, then as in later periods of -political change, that the spirit of Gnosticism, in a Judaic form, -found its way into the expanding gospels, where Jesus is at times made -to pose as the holder of a mystical knowledge, denied to the capacities -of the multitude, but conveyed by him to his disciples; who, however, -are in other passages reduced to the popular level of spiritual -incapacity. It cannot be doubted that the ferment thus promoted by what -the systematizers denounced as heresy helped at first to spread the -cult, at least in name, since all Christists alike would tend to resort -to the eucharist, or to the assemblies which were to develop into -Churches.</p> -<p class="par">At first the Jewish Christists may well have shared in -the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb31" href="#pb31" name= -"pb31">31</a>]</span>ordinary Jewish detestation of the Roman tyranny; -and for them Nero may have been “Anti-Christ,” as he -appears to be in the Apocalypse; but there is no good reason to suppose -that in Nero’s day the historic Christians in Rome were a -perceptible quantity. Martyr-making later became an ecclesiastical -industry; and the striking passage in Tacitus which alleges the torture -and destruction of a “vast multitude” of Christians at -Nero’s hands is nowhere cited in Christian literature till after -the printing, under suspicious circumstances, of the <i>Annals</i>. No -hint of such a catastrophe is given in the Acts of the Apostles. An -equivalent statement to that of Tacitus is first found in the chronicle -of Sulpicius Severus in the fifth century, where it is an expanded -episode in the midst of an extremely curt epitome. The similarly -suspicious passage on the same subject in Suetonius is put in further -perplexity by the same writer’s statement that in the reign of -Claudius the Jews in Rome were constantly rioting, “Chrestus -stirring them up”—an expression which suggests, if -anything, that there was on foot in Rome a common Jewish movement of -Messianic aspiration, in which the Christ was simply expected as a -deliverer, apart from any such special cult as that of Jesus. It is -quite inapplicable to any such movement as is set forth in the Pauline -epistles. In any case, after the fall of Jerusalem Jesuist hopes were -visibly confined to the religious sphere; and Gentile Christianity -above all was perforce resigned to the imperial system, of which it was -one day to become a limb.</p> -<p class="par">There is seen too, even on the face of the Pauline -epistles, a superimposing of the new Greek terms and concepts on the -vocabulary of Jewish theology—terms of metaphysic and religion -such as <i>immortality</i>, <i>conscience</i>, <i>providence</i>, -<i>natural</i>, <i>corruptible</i>, <i>invisible</i>—and in the -language of the gospels and the Acts the Grecising influence becomes -more and more marked, increasing in the Acts and in the third gospel, -and becoming paramount in the fourth. The very conception of religious -as distinct from temporal salvation is Hellenistic or Persian rather -than Judaic; and the title of Saviour, which becomes the special -epithet of the Christ, is constituted as much by pagan usage -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb32" href="#pb32" name= -"pb32">32</a>]</span>as by the original significance of the name Jesus. -Gentile also, rather than Judaic—though common to the pre-Judaic -Semites and the idolaters among the Hebrews—was the idea -expressed in the Pauline epistles that the Christist who partakes of -the mystic rite <i>suffers with</i> and henceforth is one with the -slain demigod, being “crucified with Christ.” That -conception is precedented generally in all the cults of ritual -mourning, notably in that of Osiris, and particularly in that of Attis, -in which the worshippers gashed themselves and punctured their hands or -necks; some of the priests even mutilating themselves as the God was -mutilated in the myth. The Pauline expression is to be understood in -the light of the passage in which a bitter censure, for having taken up -a false Christism, is passed on the Galatians, “before whose eyes -Christ had been openly depicted, crucified” (cp. <a class= -"biblink xd21e43" title="Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Cor%2011:26">1 Cor. -xi, 26</a>, Gr. and A.V.). In some but not in all MSS. are added the -words “among you,” words which may either have been omitted -by late transcribers whom they embarrassed, or added by some one -desirous of accentuating the already emphatic expression of the -original. When we connect with these the further passage, usually taken -also without inquiry as purely metaphorical, in which Paul says he -“bears branded on his body the marks of Jesus,” we find -reason to surmise that, even as the ministrant in the Dionysian college -was called by the God’s name, Bacchus; as the Osirian worshipper -spread himself on the cross and became one with Osiris; and as the -priest of Attis personated Attis in his mysteries—so Paul or -another personated Jesus in the mysteries of his sect; that what has so -long passed for verbal metaphor stood originally for a process of acted -symbolism; and that the theory of the mystery was that he who -personated the crucified demigod became specially assimilated to him. -The Pauline language on this head coincides exactly with the general -and primordial theory of theanthropic sacrifice: “I have been -crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ -liveth in me.” (Cp. <a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Phil%203:11">Phil. iii, -11</a>.) Obscure and violent if understood as sheer metaphor, such -expressions fall into line with much ancient religious belief when read -as describing a symbolic rite. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb33" -href="#pb33" name="pb33">33</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">In any case, the first-cited passage seems to tell of -either a dramatic or a pictorial representation of the crucified Christ -in connection with the sacrament; a procedure which would probably not -be favoured by the art-hating Jews, but which, gradually developed -among the Gentiles in the fashion of the drama-loving Greeks, is the -probable origin of several of the gospel narratives. It belonged to the -conception of all such mysteries that their details should never be -divulged to outsiders; hence the rarity of such allusions, even in -letters to the faithful. The Christian cult adopted the very terms of -the heathen practice, and its initiates were called <i>mystæ</i>, -like those of all the rival religions.</p> -<p class="par">A study of the early Christian tombs shows how much of -more or less unconscious compromise took place wherever Christism made -converts. The charming myth of Psyche had become for Pagans a doctrine -of immortality; and in that sense the figure of the child-goddess was -without misgiving carved on early Christian tombs. So with the figure -of Hermes Kriophoros, Hermes the Ram-Bearer, who is the true original -of the Christian conception of the Good Shepherd, in art and in -thought, though a figure of Apollo in the same capacity may have been -the medium of conveyance. Orpheus was assimilated in the same fashion; -and when art began to be applied to the needs of the new cult, Jesus -was commonly figured as a beardless youth, like the popular deities of -the Pagans in general.</p> -<p class="par">Last but not least of the Gentile elements which -determined the spread of the Christist cult was the double meaning -attaching to the Greek form of the Messianic name. In the unplausible -passage above cited from Suetonius, that is spelt Chr<i>e</i>stus, -evidently after the Greek word <i>Chrēstos</i>=“good, -excellent, gracious,” which occurs frequently in the New -Testament, and which was a special title of the “infernal” -or underworld Gods of the Samothracian mysteries, also of Hermes, of -Osiris, and of Isis. The two words were pronounced alike; and the -coincidence is often such as would be made much of by ancient thinkers, -wont to lay great stress on words. In the gospel phrase so loosely -rendered “my yoke is easy” the Greek <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb34" href="#pb34" name= -"pb34">34</a>]</span>adjective is <i>chrēstos</i>; as also in that -translated: “he is kind towards the unthankful and evil” -(<a class="biblink xd21e43" title="Link to cited location in Bible" -href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lk%206:35">Lk. vi, -35</a>); and in the phrase “the Lord is gracious” -(<a class="biblink xd21e43" title="Link to cited location in Bible" -href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Pt%202:3">1 Pet. -ii, 3</a>). In the epistles, too, <i>chrēstotes</i> is the word -used in the phrase “the goodness of God”; and in the -familiar Pauline quotation from Menander “good manners” is -in the Greek <i>chrēsta ēthē</i>. Among the Pagans, -again, this epithet constantly figured on the kind of tomb called -<i>herōon</i>, erected to distinguished persons who thus received -the status of inferior deities or demigods, and who in consequence of -this very epigraphic formula came in later times to be regarded as -Christian martyrs, and to be so celebrated in festivals which were -really continuations of the pagan feasts in their honour. The -Christians themselves, on the other hand, habitually wrote their -founder’s name <i>Chrestos</i> or <i>Chreistos</i> on their tombs -in the second and third centuries, thus assimilating it to the pagan -epigraphic formula <i>chrēste chaire</i>; and the term Christian -frequently followed the same spelling. Several of the Fathers, indeed, -make play with the double spelling, claiming that the terms are for -them correlative. So fixed was the double usage that to this day the -spelling of the French word <i>chrétien</i> preserves the trace. -There was thus on the Christist side an appeal to Gentiles on the lines -of a name or badge already much associated with Gentile religion, and -attractive to them in a way in which the name “Christ” as -signifying “one anointed” would not be.</p> -<p class="par">How far this attraction operated may be partly inferred -from such a document as the apologetic treatise of Theophilus of -Antioch, conjecturally dated about the year 180, in which there is not -a single mention of Jesus as a basis of the Christian creed, while the -names Christos and Christian are repeatedly bracketed with -“chrēstos.” The writer figures less as a Pauline -Christist than as a Gentile proselyte who founded on the Hebrew sacred -books, and believed in some impersonal Christ at once -“good” and “anointed.” Similarly in the Apology -of Athenagoras, belonging to the same period, the founder figures -purely as the divine <i>Logos</i>, not being even mentioned as a person -with a biography, though the writer quotes the Logos through an -apocryphal gospel. In such a <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb35" href= -"#pb35" name="pb35">35</a>]</span>propaganda the Greek associations -with the epithet <i>chrēstos</i> would count for much more than -those of the Judaic standpoint.</p> -<p class="par">But above all other gains on this score may be reckoned -those made in Egypt, where the cult of the cross belonged alike to the -ancient worship of Osiris and the recent one of Serapis. Not only was -Osiris in especial <i>chrēstos</i>, the benign God, but the -hieroglyph of goodness, applied to him in common with others, had the -form of a cross standing on a hillock (= a grave?), while the cross -symbol in another form was the sign of immortal life. In the imported -worship of Serapis, which inevitably conformed in the main to that of -Osiris, the cross was equally a divine and mystic emblem. It thus -becomes intelligible that some devotees of Serapis should, as is stated -in the well-known letter of the Emperor Hadrian, figure as bishops of -Christ; and that Serapis-worshippers should rank as Christians, their -God being like Osiris “Chrēstos.” To gather into one -loosely-coherent mass the elements so variously collected was the work -of the gradually-developed hierarchical organization; and the process -involved a retention of some of the characteristics of the various -worships concerned.</p> -<p class="par">That there were yet other sources of membership for the -early Church, apart from direct conversion, is to be gathered from the -allegorical writing known as the <i>Pastor</i> of Hermas, which is -known to have been one of the most popular books in the whole Christian -literature of the second century. This work, apparently written in -Italy, never once mentions the name Jesus or the name Christ, and never -quotes from any book in either Testament, nor alludes to a crucifixion -or a eucharist; but speaks of One God, a Holy Spirit, and a Son of God -who underwent labours and sufferings; of a “Church” which -appears to mean the community of all good men; and of bishops and -apostles and presbyters. It is intelligible only as standing for some -species of pre-Jesuist propaganda very loosely related to Judaism, -inasmuch as it appears to cite some apocryphal Jewish work, yet utters -no Judaic doctrine. Its sole specified rite is <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb36" href="#pb36" name="pb36">36</a>]</span>baptism; -and its moral teaching barely recognizes the idea of vicarious -sacrifice. Such a work must have had its public before the Jesuist -movement took sectarian or dogmatic form; and its popularity in the -early Church must have come of the inclusion of its earlier following. -When the Church attained definite organization and a dogmatic system -the book was naturally discarded as having none of the specific -qualities of a Christian document.</p> -<p class="par">A “Church” such as is ambiguously set forth -in the <i>Pastor</i> may conceivably have been set up by one of the -movements of Samaritan Christism already mentioned, or by that -connected with the name of the Jew Elxai, who is recorded to have -written of “Christ” without making it clear whether he -referred to the gospel Jesus. As among the Elcesaites, so in the -<i>Pastor</i>, the “Son” is conceived as of gigantic -stature. On any view, being neither Christian nor anti-Christian, but -simply pre-Christian, yet turned to Christian uses, the book -strengthens the surmise that a number of the so-called heresies of the -early Church were in reality survivals of earlier movements which the -Church had absorbed, perhaps during times of persecution. The -“heresy” of Simon Magus was certainly such a pre-Christian -cult; that of Dositheus appears to be in the same case; and the ideas -of the <i>Pastor</i> conform to no canonical version of the Christian -creed.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s1.1.7" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e246">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 7.</span> <i>Growth of the -Christ Myth</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The Christist cult gained ground not because there -was anything new either in its dogma or in its promise, but on the -contrary because these were so closely paralleled in many pagan cults: -its growth was in fact by way of assimilation of new details from -these. Step by step it is seen to have adopted the mysteries, the -miracles, and the myths of the popular Gentile religions. The -resurrection of Jesus is made to take place like that of Mithra, from a -rock tomb; and to the sacred banquet of twelve represented by the Last -Supper there is added, in the fourth gospel, an episode which embodies -the common pagan usage of a sacred banquet of seven.<a class="noteref" -id="xd21e1586src" href="#xd21e1586" name="xd21e1586src">8</a> In -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb37" href="#pb37" name= -"pb37">37</a>]</span>the way of miracle the Christ is made to turn -water into wine, as Dionysos had been immemorially held to do; he walks -on the water like Poseidon; like Osiris and Phœbus Apollo he -wields the scourge; like the solar Dionysos, he rides on two asses and -feeds multitudes in the desert; like Æsculapius, he raises men -from the dead, gives sight to the blind, and heals the sick; and like -Attis and Adonis he is mourned over and rejoiced over by women. Where -the parallel is not exact we still find pagan myth giving rise to -Christian; for the fable of the temptation is but a new story told of -the oft-copied ancient Babylonian astronomical symbol in which the -Goat-God (the sign of Capricorn) stands beside the Sun-God—a -scene turned by the Greeks into the myths of Pan leading Jupiter to the -mountain-top, of Pan or Marsyas competing with Apollo, and of Silenus -instructing Dionysos.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1594src" href= -"#xd21e1594" name="xd21e1594src">9</a> Above all, the Christ had to be -born in the manner of the ever-cherished Child-God of the ancient -world; he must have a virgin for mother, and he must be pictured in -swaddling-clothes in the basket-manger, preserved from immemorial -antiquity in the myth of Ion and in the cult of Dionysos, in which the -image of the Child-God was carried in procession on Christmas day. Like -Horos he must be born in a stable—the stable-temple of the sacred -cow, the symbol of the Virgin Goddess Isis, queen of heaven; and the -apocryphal gospels completed the pagan parallel by making the stable a -cave, the birthplace of Zeus and Mithra and Dionysos and Adonis and -Hermes and Horos.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1600src" href="#xd21e1600" -name="xd21e1600src">10</a> Prudence excluded the last detail from the -canonical gospels, but it became part of the popular faith; and the -Christ’s birthday had been naïvely assimilated by the -populace to the solstitial birth-day of the Sun-God, December 25, long -before the Church ventured to endorse the usage.</p> -<p class="par">Judaic manipulation, however, was not lacking. Though -Jesus is born of a virgin, it is in the manner of Jewish theosophy; for -the “Spirit of God” broods over Mary as it had done on the -germinal deep in Genesis. Having been a Jewish Saviour before he was a -Gentile or Samaritan Christ, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb38" href= -"#pb38" name="pb38">38</a>]</span>Jesus had further to satisfy as many -as possible of the Jewish Messianic requirements. He must be of the -line of David, and born at Bethlehem; but inasmuch as Jewish tradition -expected both a Messiah Ben-David and a Messiah Ben-Joseph—the -latter being apparently a Samaritan requirement<a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1609src" href="#xd21e1609" name="xd21e1609src">11</a>—he -was made Ben-David by royal descent, and Ben-Joseph through his -putative father. Yet again, there being Messianists who denied the -necessity that the Anointed One should descend from David, there was -inserted in the gospels a story in which Jesus repudiates such descent; -the two opposed theories being thus alike harboured, without discomfort -and without explanation. In the same fashion the ascetics of the -movement made the Son of Man poor and homeless, while the anti-ascetics -made him a wine-drinker, ready to sit at meat with publicans and -sinners. For the Jews, too, he had to raise the “widow’s -son” as did Elijah and Elisha in the Old Testament story—a -Hebrew variant of the (pictured?) Gentile myth of the raising of the -dead Attis or Adonis, or the dead child Horos or Dionysos, further -reproduced in the resurrection of the Christ himself; and there had to -be at his birth a massacre of the innocents, as in the myth of Moses -and in the Arab myths of the births of Abraham and Daniel. Yet again, -he had to figure in his crucifixion as bearing the insignia of royalty, -like the sacrificed “only-begotten son” of the Semitic God -El, and the sacrificed God-man of the Babylonian feast of -Sacæa.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1615src" href="#xd21e1615" -name="xd21e1615src">12</a> It may be that Barabbas, “the son of -the father,” is a survival of the same conception and the same -ritual usage, similarly imposed on a narrative of which no part is -historical.</p> -<p class="par">As with action, so with theory. In the East there had -long prevailed the mystical dogma that the Supreme God, who was above -knowledge, had incarnated himself in or created a deity representing -his mind in relation to men, the <i>Logos</i> or Word, in the sense of -message or revealed reason. Such was Mithra, the Mediator, in the -Mazdean system, whence apparently the conception originated; such was -Thoth in the theosophy of Egypt; such was Hermes, son of Maia and -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb39" href="#pb39" name= -"pb39">39</a>]</span>messenger of the Gods, in the pantheon of the -Greeks; and the Jews had long been assimilating the principle, partly -by making the deity figure as the <i>Logos</i> in human or angelic form -(as in <a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Gn%2015">Gen. xv</a>); -partly in the form of a personalizing of <i>Sophia</i>, wisdom, as in -the books of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs and in the Old Testament -apocrypha; partly in the later form of a theoretic doctrine of the -<i>Logos</i>, as developed on the basis of Plato in the writings of -Philo the Jew of Alexandria, about the beginning of the Christian -era.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1643src" href="#xd21e1643" name= -"xd21e1643src">13</a> In the fourth gospel this doctrine is summarily -imposed on the Christist cult in an advanced form, though the three -synoptic gospels had shown no trace of it. The new myth was welcomed -like the others; all alike went to frame a deity who could compare and -compete with those of the other cults of the day.</p> -<p class="par">Doctrine followed the same law of assimilation; the -Christ must needs reflect in his teaching all the phases of the -religious thought of the age, however contradictory. First he had to -voice the Judaic hope of a kingdom of heaven, with stress laid on the -claims of the poor; he must insist on the speedy coming of the Judaic -doomsday and on his own function at the catastrophe; but yet again he -is made to present the kingdom of heaven as a kind of spiritual change; -and last of all he is made to utter the wisdom of the thinker who had -penetrated all the popular delusions and seen that “the kingdom -of heaven is among you”—or nowhere. In one gospel he -excludes Samaritans and Gentiles from his mission; in another he makes -a Samaritan the model “neighbour”; in another he goes among -the Samaritans in person. He becomes as manifold in doctrine as is -Apollo or Dionysos in function. Even when he is made to lay down, as -against Jewish superstition, the sane principle that victims of -fatalities are not to be reckoned worse sinners than other men, a later -hand appends a tag which reaffirms the very superstition impugned. -Every variety of ethic, within the limits of the Jewish and Gentile -ideals of the time, is imposed on him in turn. Alternately -particularist and universalist, a bigoted Jew and <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb40" href="#pb40" name="pb40">40</a>]</span>a -cosmopolitan, a lover of the people and a Gnostic despiser of their -ignorance, a pleader for love to enemies and a bitter denouncer of -opponents; successively insisting on unlimited forgiveness and on the -ostracism of recalcitrant brethren, on the utter fulfilment of the -Mosaic law and on its supersession; alternately promising and denying -temporal blessings, avowing and concealing his belief in his -Messiahship; prescribing by turns secrecy and publicity to his -auditors, blind faith and simple good works to his disciples—he -is the heterogeneous product of a hundred mutually frustrative hands, a -medley of voices that never was and could not be in one personality. -Through his supernatural mask there speak the warring sects and ideals -of three centuries: wisdom and delusion, lenity and bitterness, -ventriloquize in turns in his name. Even as the many generations of -Jewish teachers had preluded all their changing counsels with a -“thus saith the Lord,” so did their Christist successors -seek to mint their cherished dogmas, their rigid prejudices, and their -better inspirations, with the image and superscription of the new -Logos, the growing God of a transforming world. The later product is -thus as unreal as the older.</p> -<p class="par">It is only on presuppositions themselves the fruit of -belief in the myth that such a growth seems unlikely or impossible, or -that something supernormal is needed to account for the wide -development of the Christian system. Those who look upon the historic -flood in the broad and peopled plain are slow to conceive that it had -its rise in the minute rills and random brooks of a far-off mountain -land. But it is so that the great rivers begin. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb41" href="#pb41" name="pb41">41</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="footnotes"> -<hr class="fnsep"> -<div class="footnote-body"> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1071" href="#xd21e1071src" name="xd21e1071">1</a></span> See -<i>Pagan Christs</i>, 2nd ed. Pt. II, ch. ii, §§ -15–16. <a class="fnarrow" href= -"#xd21e1071src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1108" href="#xd21e1108src" name="xd21e1108">2</a></span> The -thesis that the epistles are all supposititious is ably sustained by -Van Manen in the <i lang="la">Encyclopædia Biblica</i>. See his -positions well summarised by Mr. T. Whittaker, <i>The Origins of -Christianity</i> (R. P. A.). <a class="fnarrow" href= -"#xd21e1108src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1237" href="#xd21e1237src" name="xd21e1237">3</a></span> The -point is discussed in <i>Pagan Christs,</i> 2nd ed. Pt. II, ch. i, -§ 10. <a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e1237src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1297" href="#xd21e1297src" name="xd21e1297">4</a></span> See -Wladimir Lessevich, <i lang="fr">La Légende de Jesus et les -traditions populaires</i>, 1903. (<span lang="fr">Ext. de la <i>Revue -Internationale de Sociologie</i>.</span>) <a class="fnarrow" href= -"#xd21e1297src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1320" href="#xd21e1320src" name="xd21e1320">5</a></span> See -<i>Pagan Christs</i>, 2nd ed. Pt. II, ch. i, §§ -7–12. <a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e1320src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1371" href="#xd21e1371src" name="xd21e1371">6</a></span> See -<i>Christianity and Mythology</i>, 2nd ed. p. 209; <i>Pagan -Christs</i>, 2nd ed. p. 143. <a class="fnarrow" href= -"#xd21e1371src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1394" href="#xd21e1394src" name="xd21e1394">7</a></span> See -<i>Christianity and Mythology</i>, 2nd ed., p. 396 and -refs. <a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e1394src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1586" href="#xd21e1586src" name="xd21e1586">8</a></span> See -<i>Christianity and Mythology</i>, 2nd ed. Pt. III, Div. i, § -29. <a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e1586src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1594" href="#xd21e1594src" name="xd21e1594">9</a></span> See -<i>Christianity and Mythology</i>, 2nd ed. Pt. III, Div. i, § -10. <a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e1594src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1600" href="#xd21e1600src" name="xd21e1600">10</a></span> <i>Id. -ib.</i> § 5. <a class="fnarrow" href= -"#xd21e1600src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1609" href="#xd21e1609src" name="xd21e1609">11</a></span> See -<i>Christianity and Mythology</i>, 2nd ed. Pt. III, Div. i, § -3. <a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e1609src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1615" href="#xd21e1615src" name="xd21e1615">12</a></span> -<i>Id.</i> p. 367; <i>Pagan Christs</i>, 2nd ed. p. 145. <a class= -"fnarrow" href="#xd21e1615src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1643" href="#xd21e1643src" name="xd21e1643">13</a></span> See -<i>Pagan Christs</i>, 2nd ed. Pt. II, ch. ii, §§ -2–3. <a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e1643src">↑</a></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter II</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">THE ENVIRONMENT</h2> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The artificial organism which we have seen -beginning to take shape is to be conceived, like organisms properly so -called, as depending on and adjusting itself to its environment. Of -this the nature has been partly set forth in tracing the beginnings of -the cult, but it must be considered in itself if the relation is to be -at all fully understood.</p> -<div id="s1.2.1" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e263">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Social and -Mental Conditions in the Roman Empire</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The world in which Christianity grew up was above -all things one of extinguished nationalities, of obliterated -democracies, of decaying intellectual energy. Wherever the Roman Empire -spread, a rigid limit was set to the play of public spirit, whether as -criticism of the political order or as effort to improve the social -structure. The forms of municipal government remained; but the natural -and progressive struggle of classes and interests was at an end. The -Jew must give up his polity of applied theocracy; the Greek his ideal -of the City State; even as the Roman Senate itself shrank into an -assembly of sycophants, content to register its master’s decrees. -All alike, on pain of extinction, must mutely or fawningly accept the -imperial system, and abandon hope of shaping their own political -destinies. In such a world the thinking faculty, denied almost all -exercise on the living problems of polity and conduct, necessarily -turned to the themes that were open to it; and as the very calibre of -men’s minds had narrowed with the suppression of their freedom, -which meant the curtailment of their personality, there was no such -general faculty available as could grasp the difficult problems of -science and philosophy led up to by the hardy speculation of the ages -of freedom and by the skilled specialism of the endowed students of -pre-Roman <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb42" href="#pb42" name= -"pb42">42</a>]</span>Alexandria. For the mass of the people, above all, -save where the Greek drama was still presented to them, concrete -religion was the one possible form of mental life; and for the more -serious such mental life was at once a solace and a preoccupation. -Under a despotism which in so many ways conformed to oriental types, -serious men developed something of the oriental aloofness from the -actual: from action they turned to brooding; from seen interests to the -problems of the unseen. Even in Rome itself, where the upper classes -were much more indifferent to Christism than those of the Eastern -provinces, the new conditions developed a new interest in theological -problems on the pagan side.</p> -<p class="par">Broadly speaking, types and classes of men have always -been meditatively religious or reflective in the degree of their -exclusion from practical concerns. In the ancient world the law reveals -itself at every vista. At one extreme stood the energetic Romans, -sedulous first in agriculture and later in warfare; superstitious but -unspeculative; making ritual religion a methodical province of polity, -a part of the mechanism of the republic: at the other the Hindus, -predestined to despotism by their physical and economic conditions, and -to inaction by their climate, the true children of reverie, for whom -religious evolution was a deepening absorption in boundless -speculation. Midway stood the Greeks, active but not laborious, too -alive for much brooding and too cultured for wholly pedantic -superstition, the natural framers of a religion of poetry and art. -Their science and philosophy began in Asia Minor, on the soil of the -half-scientific, half-religious lore of the overthrown Assyrian and -Babylonian cultures of the past, in a leisurely and half-oriental -atmosphere; and after the first free evolution of its germs in the -manifold life of their countless competitive City States, the most -notable growth of their philosophy was in the period when their -political failure began to declare itself, and the shadow of despotism -was falling on men sobered and chagrined by the spectacle of ceaseless -intestine strife. When despotism was fixed, thought still progressed -for a time in virtue of the acquired stores of culture and stress of -impulse; but in that air the higher life soon flagged, and philosophy -for the most <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb43" href="#pb43" name= -"pb43">43</a>]</span>part lapsed to the levels of ancient mysticism, -becoming a play of fantasy instead of an effort of critical reason.</p> -<p class="par">When the cultured few underwent such a destiny, the -uncultured crowd could but feed on the simpler religious doctrine that -came in their way. It necessarily ran to a more intimate employment of -the standing machinery of the creeds, to a use of the more emotional -rites, to a freer participation in the consolations and excitements of -the dramatic mysteries. Where civic life was precarious without being -self-ruling, the more serious came more and more under the sway of the -oriental preoccupation over the future—a habit of mind developed -in lands subject to chronic conquest and to the caprice of tyrants and -satraps. Growing Greece, while free, had taken from the East, centuries -before the Christian era, stimulating and emotional cults, especially -dear to women, with mysteries which promised to their initiates a -blessed life beyond the troublous present; and by a natural tendency -those who had least share in controlling the present clung most to such -comfort. So, in republican Rome, it was found that the women and the -imported slaves were always most hospitable to a new -“superstition”; and in times of dangerous war the -proclivity quickened.</p> -<p class="par">In this way there went on a kind of religious -enfranchisement in the Mediterranean world both before and after the -Romans became the universal masters. In the early City States of Greece -and Italy, but especially in Rome, worship was originally in large -measure a privilege of rank. The most constant and intimate worship was -naturally that of the household Gods, the <i>Lares</i> and -<i>Penates</i>; and the men with no ancestral home, whether slaves or -paupers, were outside of such communion. Only in the worship of the -Gods of the city was there general communion; and even here the -patrician orders long monopolised the offices of ministry in Rome; -while even in more democratic Greece, with some exceptions, the slaves -and the foreign residents were excluded from the sacred banquet which -was the mark of all cults alike, public or private. Even the first -imported cults were put under a civic control, which doubtless promoted -decorum, but also made for class <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb44" -href="#pb44" name="pb44">44</a>]</span>interests. In later republican -Rome the usage prevailed of bringing to the sacred banquet-table the -statues of the Gods, who were believed to partake with the worshippers; -and the company was naturally kept very select. For the Roman common -people, accordingly, religious association was mainly confined to the -worship of the public <i>Lares</i> and <i>Penates</i> instituted for -their benefit. In Greece the city banquet was liberalised with the -progress of democracy; but at best it was the heritage of the free -citizens; and the antique simplicity of its rites must have made it -lack emotional atmosphere. At times it was even necessary to practise -compulsion to secure the due attendance of “parasites” at -the smaller sacramental repasts (pagan types of the daily -“mass”) held daily in the temples, which would lack the -attraction of the public feasts.</p> -<p class="par">Thus it came about that in the course of the ages the -common people, especially the many aliens from Asia Minor, slave and -free, everywhere tended to seek more and more a religion for -themselves—something in which they could share equally and -intimately; somewhat as, in a later period, the common people in so -many parts of Europe recoiled from official Catholicism before as well -as at the Reformation, or as the townspeople in England later set up -their own dissenting chapels in dislike of the Established Church. As -early as the Peloponnesian war we find new religious societies arising -among the humbler Athenians, making accessible to them Dionysian or -other eastern mysteries of sacred baptism, and a sacred banquet of -“body and blood,” in which a kid was the victim. Some such -banquet was the normal basis; and the societies, which were numerous, -were self-supporting and self-governing, appointing their own priests -or priestesses, and keeping their own sacred books. In these cults -slaves, aliens, and women were alike admitted; and, though in some the -worship was orgiastic, in keeping with the then common level of popular -culture, it is not to be supposed that the avowed ideals of -“goodness, chastity, piety,” were for such groups in -general devoid of moral significance. They were condemned by the -educated classes alike in republican Greece and in republican Rome as -vulgar and licentious; but if these <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb45" -href="#pb45" name="pb45">45</a>]</span>imputations are to be fully -believed as against the pagan societies, they must be equally believed -as against the Christians, concerning whom, in turn, they were -generally made in the second and third centuries. Of neither movement, -probably, were they more than partially true. In any case, the Greek -societies gave a model to the early Christian churches in more than one -point of organisation, most of them having had “presbyters” -and a “bishop” (<i>episcopos</i>), and some being called -“synagogues,” a term synonymous with <i>ecclesia</i>. So -great, finally, became the competitive pressure of the private cults -that those of the State had to offer inducements as against them; and -in course of time the once exclusive Eleusinian mysteries of Athens -were opened to all members of the State, and latterly—save in -exceptional cases, such as those of avowed unbelievers, or Epicureans, -or Christians—to all members of the Roman empire. Even the -slaves, finally, were initiated at the public expense.</p> -<p class="par">So far as the gospels can be taken to throw light on -Christian beginnings, the cult grew up under conditions similar to -those above described. Some of “the poor” in Jewry as -elsewhere felt themselves in a manner outside the established worship; -and though declamation against the rich had long been popular, the -names given to the legendary disciples suggest that there too the new -cults were in large measure promoted by aliens. The accounts of the -founder as mixing much with “tax-gatherers and sinners” -tell of the presence of such in the sect; and there too the constant -presence of women stood for a sense either of feminine dissatisfaction -with the bareness of the official worship, or of the need for a -personal recognition which Judaism did not give to the subordinate sex. -It does not appear that slaves were similarly welcomed in the Jewish -stage of the movement; portions of the gospels even make Jesus appeal -to the ideals of the slave-owner<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1710src" -href="#xd21e1710" name="xd21e1710src">1</a>; and nowhere is the slave -himself sympathetically brought to the front. But it is clear that when -the cult entered on a Gentile development it admitted slaves like the -religious societies of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb46" href="#pb46" -name="pb46">46</a>]</span>the Greeks; and in the first Gentile period -the members appear to have paid their way and managed their own affairs -in the democratic Greek fashion.</p> -<p class="par">The determining political condition everywhere was the -social sway of the empire, keeping all men impotent in the higher -public affairs. Exclusion from public life, broadly speaking, had been -the cause of the special addiction of the women, the slaves, and the -unenfranchised foreigners of the Greek cities and of Rome to private -cults and communions. Under the empire, all the lay classes alike were -excluded from public power; and new interests must be found to take the -place of the old. Within the pale of the Roman “peace,” -those interests were summed up for the majority in athletics, the -theatre and the circus on the one hand; and on the other in the field -of religious practices. Hopes of betterment, and despair after vain -revolt, were alike fuel for the religious spirit; since the hope turned -to vaticination, and the despair crept for shelter to the mysteries -that promised a better life beyond the grave. But the prevailing lot of -men had become one of unwarlike submission; the material refinements of -<span class="corr" id="xd21e1722" title= -"Source: civilisation">civilization</span> had bred in the cities a new -sensitiveness, indeed a new neurosis; vice itself set up reactions of -asceticism; and over all there brooded the pessimism of the prostrate -East, the mood of men downcast, consciously the puppets of an -uncontrollable earthly destiny, and wistful for a higher vision and -rule.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s1.2.2" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e273">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>Jewish -Orthodoxy</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Between the new sect and the normal or established -Jewish religion, which had contained within it or was easily adaptable -to every element that went to make early Jesuism, the force of -separation was not doctrinal or intellectual, but political and -economic. Save for the later-evolved concept of an -Incarnation—which also, however, was foreshadowed in Jewish -thought—there is almost no principle in the Christian system that -was not to be found either in the sacred books or in the current -rabbinical teaching of the Jews, whose development is to be measured no -less by the liberal ethical teaching of <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb47" href="#pb47" name="pb47">47</a>]</span>such rabbis as Hillel -than by the mere traditionalism ascribed to the mass of the scribes and -Pharisees. Their sacred books spoke sympathetically of the poor; and -their sacred treasury must have fed many, although—as in the days -of the prophets and in our own time in Europe—there were many -irreconcilables. Even among the Pharisees there were some who -proclaimed the “law of the heart” as the highest. As -regarded religious thought, the Jews’ system of sacrifice on the -one hand, and their higher or supra-ecclesiastical ethic on the other, -provided for all the forms of bias appealed to in the gospels and -epistles, with the one exception of the kind of sentiment which sought -a Demigod rather than a God; a humanly sympathetic divinity, acquainted -with griefs, rather than a remote and awful Omnipotence. Even this -figure was partly evolved on Jewish lines, in the conception of a -Messiah who should suffer and die. But a Messiah who died and did not -soon come again in triumph had no easily tenable place in the Jewish -system; and when the cult of such a Messiah came into Gentile vogue, -especially after the ruin of Jerusalem, it was necessitated either to -take a new and substantive status outside of Jewry or disappear -altogether. It is true that the so-called Nestorians (properly -Nazaræans) of Armenia have reconciled Judaism with Christism by -defining the sacrifice of Jesus as the final sin-offering, while -maintaining the other sacrifices of the Mosaic law; but that course was -impossible to the hierarchy accused of causing the crucifixion; and the -Nestorians were as anti-Jewish as other Christians.</p> -<p class="par">Judaism, so to speak, was riveted at once to its -national and to its economic basis. Its primary appeals to Gentile -proselytes were those of a great historic shrine and a body of sacred -literature; and on both grounds the clerical class of Jerusalem claimed -a revenue from the faithful, Hebrew or proselyte. Financial interest -secured that the converted alien should be treated as the more liberal -prophetic literature urged; but it was of the essence of Judaism that -the temple or the Patriarchate should be the fiscal headquarters of all -the faithful; and herein lay a moral as well as a financial limit. -Ordinary racial instinct, and ordinary Gentile self-interest, -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb48" href="#pb48" name= -"pb48">48</a>]</span>must tend to clash with such claims in the case of -rabbinical Judea as in that of Papal Rome; and the merely moral or -ideal character of the Judaic influence, coupled with the effect of the -common Gentile disesteem for the Jewish personality, brought it about -that the Romanism of Jewry, always the more restricted, collapsed by -far the more swiftly. The later collapse of Jewish Jesuism was a -phenomenon of the same order.</p> -<p class="par">Early Jesuism, it is clear, flourished as a new means of -Jewish proselytism among the Gentiles; and the fact best established by -the dubious literature which surrounds the “apostles” is -that their Gentile converts were expected to contribute to -headquarters, just as did the ordinary Jew. Even after a Gentile -differentiation had definitely begun, whether under Paul or at the -hands of others who forged in his name, it was Jewish forces that did -the work so far as literature went. Throughout the synoptic gospels the -notion given of the Messiah’s function is for the most part -latter-day Jewish; he is to preside over the approaching day of -judgment, and his apostles are to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. -The early Jesuists, accordingly, must have held themselves included in -the Judaic fold. All sections alike, down to the rise of anti-Jewish -Gnosticism, founded on the Jewish sacred books in the Greek -translation; a moral manual of the Jewish Twelve Apostles, as we have -seen, served as a Jesuist handbook; and the ethic of the gospels is -throughout, even in its contradictions, substantially a Jewish product. -If John the Baptist could reject the racial pride and prejudice of the -Jews as he is alleged to have done, universalism had already begun -within the Jewish field. Even on the point of opposition to -divorce—an attitude deriving from non-Jewish rather than from -Jewish ideals—there were elements in Jewry on which to found as -against the looser orthodox practice; and it is quite likely that the -absolute as well as the qualified prohibition in the gospels came from -Jewish pens. Thus the moral and religious atmosphere of Judaism in -general was perfectly compatible with the early Jesuist way of life. It -is a sectarian fallacy to assume that the repellent aspects typified by -the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb49" href="#pb49" name= -"pb49">49</a>]</span>“Scribes and Pharisees,” or even by -the shambles of the Temple, were primary grounds for a moral revolt -among Jews and proselytes, or that Jesuism so began. The types of the -worse scribes and Pharisees were very speedily developed in the new -sect, as in every other; and such Jesuists as are portrayed in the -First Epistle to the Corinthians cannot be supposed to have rejected -Judaism on the score of its moral crudity. What they were much more -likely to resent was its demand for tribute concurrently with its -disparagement of the Gentile proselyte; and, last but not least, its -barbarous rite of circumcision, for which even the pro-Jewish Jesuists -had finally to substitute baptism.</p> -<p class="par">The relation of Judaism to Jesuism, then, was somewhat -as that of a mother country to a colony; the latter growing by help of -the former, deriving from it speech, lore, ideals, methods, models, and -prestige, till in time the new environment elicits special -characteristics, and mere geographical division no less than -self-interest vetoes the payment of the old tribute. As usual, there -was in the colony a loyalist party which bitterly resisted the -severance.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s1.2.3" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e283">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Jewish Sects: -the Essenes</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">While Josephus specifies four Jewish -“sects,” there was in Jewry really only one dissenting sect -in the modern sense of the term, apart from the Jesuists. Pharisees and -Sadducees were analogous rather to the sections or -“schools” of the Churches of Rome and England, the former -being “orthodox and more,” inasmuch as they held by the -law, but further insisted on the doctrine of a future state, which was -not contained in the Mosaic books; while the Sadducees, either from -pre-Maccabean conservatism or from Hellenistic scepticism, held by the -pure Mosaic system, of which, being for the most part of priestly -status, they were the main administrators. It is noteworthy that it is -the Pharisees, who held the tenet of a future life, rather than the -Sadducees, who rejected it, that are most acrimoniously handled in the -gospels: the former being naturally the most dangerous competitors of -the new cult within the Jewish pale. A third body mentioned by -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb50" href="#pb50" name= -"pb50">50</a>]</span>Josephus, that of Judas the Galilean, was rather a -political than a religious party, being bent simply on maintaining the -Jewish nationality as against the Romans.</p> -<p class="par">The term “sect,” however, to some extent -applies to the Essenes, whose existence and characteristics are -specially noteworthy in connection with Christian beginnings. All the -evidence goes to show that there had existed in Jewry for many -generations a body so named (or perhaps formerly called -<i>Chassidim</i>), living an ascetic life, rejecting animal food and -animal sacrifices, avoiding wine, warm baths, and oil for anointing, -wearing white garments and preferring linen to wool, forbidding all -oaths save one, and greatly esteeming celibacy. Many of them lived in a -male celibate community, by their own labour, with community of goods, -on the shores of the Dead Sea, under a strict hierarchical rule; but -many others lived scattered through the Jewish cities, some marrying, -but all maintaining ascetic principles. To secure entrance into the -community there was needed a long probation. On the side of creed they -held firmly by the law of Moses, yet also reverenced the sun, to which -they sang a morning hymn of praise; strictly observed the Sabbath; -conducted their religious services without priests, and studied magic -and angelology, but tabooed logic and metaphysics. Ethically the cult -was in the main one of physical purity and fraternal humility, hostile -to slavery and war as well as to the normal vices, but running to -mysticism on the line of a belief, often seen in early religion, that -asceticism could raise men to supernatural powers. As a whole, the -system had so much in common with that of the Pythagoreans on the one -hand, and with the Mazdean religion and Buddhism on the other, that it -must be held to prove a connection between these, and to point to a -movement which once spread over Asia as far as Buddhist India, and over -the Mediterranean world as far as early Grecian Italy, surviving for -many centuries in scattered sects.</p> -<p class="par">It thus appears that, without the intervention or even -the tradition of any quasi-divine personality, there could subsist in -Jewry a cult which outwent the Christist in point of asceticism and -humility, attaining the kind of fraternity at which the <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb51" href="#pb51" name="pb51">51</a>]</span>latter -ostensibly but vainly aimed, and maintaining itself for many -generations on substantially celibate lines, partly by accessions from -without under a rigid probation, and partly by the adoption and -education of children. Such a system, expressly aiming at selection and -exclusion, negated the idea of a world religion, and, though it was -still standing in the fifth century, could not survive the final ruin -of its environment, save as an ideal passed on to Christian -monasticism. But its long duration serves to make clear the range of -possibilities open to religious movements in Palestine and the East -apart from any abnormal gifts of leadership or any semblance of -supernatural innovation.</p> -<p class="par">How far Essenism reacted on early Jesuism cannot be -ascertained. Despite some approximations, such as the veto on oaths and -the esteem for celibacy, it is clear that there was no such close -resemblance between the movements as has been supposed by the writers -who seek to identify them; but they tell of a similar mental climate. -The non-mention of Essenism in the gospels is to be explained by the -fact that the two systems were not rivals. One was localized, monastic, -exclusive; the other peregrine and propagandist: and only in the minds -of the ill-informed Roman forgers of the second century could they be -supposed to have come into hostile contact. Essenism needed no -innovating Messiah; and Jesuism had to go afield for adherents.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s1.2.4" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e293">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 4.</span> <i>Gentile -Cults</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">What Christism had to compete with in the -Greco-Roman world was not so much the collective principle of -polytheism or the public worship of the endowed temples, as the class -of semi-private cults to which itself belonged, and the popular -worships equally associated with suffering and dying Saviour-Gods. Of -these the most prominent were the ancient worships of the Syrian -Adonis, the Phrygian Attis, Dionysos, and the Egyptian Osiris, all of -which had become partly assimilated in theory, in ritual, and in public -observance. But contemporarily with Christianity there began also to -spread through the empire the Persian cult of Mithra, which had been -first introduced <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb52" href="#pb52" name= -"pb52">52</a>]</span>into the Roman army after the Mithridatic wars; -and in the end this became the most dangerous rival of the new church. -All six cults alike gave prominence to the idea of the God’s -death and resurrection; and all lived in a common atmosphere of ancient -superstition, emotional unrest, craving for communion, anxious concern -for the future and for the washing out of guilt by religious rites and -penances. And all six deities were nominally “born of a -virgin.”</p> -<p class="par">Of the competing cults in the East the least developed -in a theological sense were those of Attis and Adonis, originally -deities of the Vegetation principle, whose annual death and -resurrection stood primarily for the yearly decay and rebirth of the -general life of Nature, and secondarily for the waning and waxing of -the power of the sun. While all cults in the ancient world tended to -assimilate, however, the older were marked by certain special usages; -and in the case of Attis and Adonis these were the festivals which -began with mourning and ended in rejoicing. Attis, son of the virgin -Myrrha, was symbolized by the cut pine-tree, which meant the life -principle in man and Nature; and at the spring equinoctial festival -this was carried in procession to the temple of Cybelê with the -effigy of a young man bound on it, to represent the dead and mutilated -God. Anciently, it would seem, there had been so bound an actual youth -who was slain as a victim, and whose death was supposed to ensure at -once physical fertility and moral well-being to his land and people; -but in virtue of the general law of mitigation a mystic ceremony at -length took the place of the primitive deed of blood. The bearing of -the God’s name by his priests in the mysteries was a memorial of -the older time.</p> -<p class="par">These mysteries were twofold. In the spring time Attis -figured as a self-slain youth, beloved by Cybelê, the Mother of -the Gods, and devoted to her cultus. Later in the year he figured as -<i>Papas</i>, “Father,” and Lord of All; and in this aspect -he was more important than Cybelê, who was throned beside him in -the mystic drama, with a crowd of women around. The initiate became -<i>mystes Atteos</i>, the initiate of Attis; and at this stage the God -was adored as the bringer of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb53" href= -"#pb53" name="pb53">53</a>]</span>peace to a disorderly world. But -“many were the thyrsus-bearers; few were the <i><span class= -"corr" id="xd21e1792" title= -"Source: mystae">mystæ</span></i>”: it was the spring -festival that dwelt in the common knowledge and memory; and then it was -that, after a day of procession and mourning, a day of solemn rites, -and a “day of blood” on which the high-priest cut his arms -and presented his blood as an offering, the slain Demigod rose from the -dead, and all was rejoicing for his resurrection. It was the great -Phrygian festival; and though the Romans, in introducing the worship of -the Great Mother while Hannibal maintained himself in Italy, nominally -accepted her alone, it was impossible that the allied worship of Attis -should be excluded from the later mysteries. The <i>galli</i> or -mutilated priests, who figured in her <i>Hilaria</i> festival, were in -fact the God’s representatives. Thus his was one of the popular -cults of the later Roman world.</p> -<p class="par">Bound Adonis, the Tammuz of old Assyria, there had -played for long ages a more tender devotion. For the Syrians his name -meant “the Lord” (=the <i>Adonai</i> of the Hebrew Bible); -and over the tale of his untimely slaughter by the boar on Mount -Lebanon the Eastern women had yearly wept for a hundred generations. -The “women weeping for Tammuz” in the temple of Jerusalem -before the exile were his worshippers; and in the Athens of the days of -the Peloponnesian war he received the same litany of mourning. For his -sacred city of Byblos he was as it were the soul and symbol of the -yearly course of Nature; the annual reddening of the Adonis river by -the spring floods being for his devotees a mystery of his shed blood. -Then came the ritual of grief, in which his wooden and painted effigy, -lying with that of Aphroditê, the Goddess who loved him, took the -place of the victim in the older rite in which he too was doubtless -slain “for the people.” The “gardens of -Adonis,” shallow trays in which various green plants grew quickly -and as quickly died, had been originally charms to hasten the fertility -of the spring, like the sacrifice itself; but long custom made them -mere symbols of untimely death, and the cult was one of pathos and -compassion, passing in the usual way to exultation and gaiety when, -after his effigies had been thrown as corpses into the sea or the -springs, the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb54" href="#pb54" name= -"pb54">54</a>]</span>God rose from the dead on the third day, and in -the presence of his worshippers, by some mummery of make-believe or -mechanical device, was represented as ascending to heaven. As in the -cult of Attis, it was women who “found” the risen Lord, -whose death they had mourned.</p> -<p class="par">In such worships, it will be seen, much depended on the -spirit of sex, which was evoked by the pairing of God and Goddess, a -common principle of the ancient Semitic pantheon, here subtilized by -romance. Such myths as those of Attis and Adonis, indeed, lent -themselves to contrary emotions, the amorous and the ascetic passions -figuring in the devotees by turns. Thus the very eunuch priests who -represented the extremity of anti-sexualism were credited with a mania -of licentiousness; and on the other hand the Great Mother, who in the -primitive myth was enamoured of Attis, and yet in one version mutilated -him, was by her graver devotees regarded in a holier light. So even -Aphroditê, the lover of Adonis, had her supernal aspect as -Urania; and the legend of the indifference of Adonis, like that of the -self-mutilation of Attis, conveyed a precept and pattern of chastity. -Everywhere, as the world grew sophisticated, and the primitive -simplicity of appetite was overborne by pessimism and asceticism, the -cruder cults tended to become refined and the Goddess-worships grew in -dignity. At the sacred city of Hierapolis, in Syria, there was long -worshipped a Goddess of immemorial fame, round whose history there -floated myths like those of Cybelê and Aphroditê, Attis and -Adonis, but whose prestige was apparently maintained rather by -minimising than by retailing them. In her cult all the worshippers were -wont to puncture their hands or necks, probably in mystic imitation of -a slain Demigod such as Attis, connected with her legend; and in her -service ascetic priests or hermits ascended phallic pillars to win -sanctity by vigils of a week long. Thus was set up for the Goddess a -religious renown comparable to that of Yahweh of Jerusalem, bringing -multitudes of strangers to her every festival, and filling the -treasuries of her priests with gifts.</p> -<p class="par">Of kindred character and equivalent range with the cults -of Attis and Adonis was that of Dionysos, the most many-sided -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb55" href="#pb55" name= -"pb55">55</a>]</span>of the divinities adopted by the Greeks from Asia. -Figuring first as Bacchus, a Thracian God of beer,<a class="noteref" -id="xd21e1815src" href="#xd21e1815" name="xd21e1815src">2</a> and later -as the God of wine, he seems to have made way in early Greece partly by -virtue of the sheer frenzy set up in his women worshippers by unwonted -potations. But such phenomena caused their own correction; and the -adoption of the cult by the cities brought it within the restraining -sway of Greek culture. Of all the older Greek worships, the most -popular was that (perhaps oriental in origin) of -Dêmêtêr and Persephonê, the Mourning Mother and -the Virgin Daughter, who had primarily signified mother earth and the -seed corn; and with their worship in the great Eleusinian mysteries was -bound up that of Dionysos. Son of Zeus and the Virgin Goddess -Persephonê or the mortal virgin Semelê—for the myths -were legion—he was carried in effigy as a new-born babe in a -manger-basket on the eve of the winter solstice. In this capacity he -was pre-eminently the Babe-God, Iacchos, “the suckling.” -Further, he figures in one myth as being torn to pieces by the -Titans,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1821src" href="#xd21e1821" name= -"xd21e1821src">3</a> and as restored to life or reborn (after Zeus has -terribly avenged him) by his mother Semelê (really an old -Earth-Goddess) or by the Mother-Goddess, Dêmêtêr; -wherefore he is represented as a suckling at -Dêmêtêr’s breast. In the triennial dramatic -mysteries in his honour an eating of raw flesh by the devotees was held -to commemorate his sacrificial death, which was, however, mystically -conceived to mean the making of wine from grapes. In other and commoner -forms of the sacred banquet, the wine figured specially as his blood, -and the bread as Dêmêtêr=Ceres; and in this -transparent form the symbolism of “body and blood” was a -household word among the Romans. In their popular religion, being -assimilated to an ancient Roman God, the Wine-God was known as Liber, -“the child,” as “Father Liber,” and as Bacchus, -while Ceres or Proserpine was paired with him as <i>Libera</i>. The -doctrine, found among the Manichæans in the <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb56" href="#pb56" name="pb56">56</a>]</span>fourth -century, that “Jesus hangs on every tree,” is in all -likelihood a development from this worship, in which Dionysos was God -of the vine in particular, but of all vegetation besides. For such -mystics as wrote and conned the Orphic hymns, however, he was a God of -manifold potency; and there centred round him a whole theosophy of -ascetic ethic, in which the ideal of the worshipper was to strive, -suffer, and conquer in common with the God, who was the giver of -immortality.</p> -<p class="par">Of his cult in particular it is difficult to grasp any -general significance, so inextricably did it become entwined with -others, in particular with the Phrygian cult of Sabazios,<a class= -"noteref" id="xd21e1834src" href="#xd21e1834" name="xd21e1834src">4</a> -and with the Corybantic mysteries, in connection with which are to be -traced a whole series of local deities of the same stamp as those under -notice, just as the myth of Apollo can be seen to have absorbed a whole -series of local Sun-Gods. Thus the mortal Jasion or Iasious is slain by -Zeus for being the lover of Cybelê, who however bears to him a -divine son, Korybas; and he in turn figures also as the son of the -Virgin Persephonê, and without father, human or divine. In the -Orphic hymns Korybas is the mighty Lord of the underworld, who frees -the spirit from all terrible visions, a giver of blessedness and of -sorrow, a God of double nature. So Dionysos, like the Hindu Fire-God -Agni, is born of two mothers; and like Hermes and Herakles he has -descended to Hades and returned, victorious over death. In all such -cults alike is to be noted the gradual emergence of the relation of -maternity as well as paternity, the Mother Goddess coming more and more -to the front as such; while the Son-God, in the case of Dionysos and -Dêmêtêr, tends to overshadow or supersede the -Daughter-Goddess, who in Rome had twinned with Bacchus under their -names of Liber and Libera.</p> -<p class="par">In the case of the far-famed cult of Osiris, again, -there gradually took place a similar transformation. In the oldest -Egyptian lore, Osiris is at once the brother and the husband of Isis, -who, when he is slain and dismembered by Typhon, gathers together the -scattered limbs for burial. Thereafter <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb57" href="#pb57" name="pb57">57</a>]</span>their son, Horus (who in -turn had been found dead in his floating cradle and reborn by his -mother), avenges his father, who remains Judge of the Dead in the -underworld. But as the cult develops, Horus, who in one of his -aspects—perhaps originally signifying different deities—is -an adult and powerful God, becomes specially the child of Isis and -Osiris, and is typically represented as a suckling at his -mother’s breast, or as the babe born like Jesus on the eve of the -winter solstice; while Osiris remains the suffering God, to be mourned -and rejoiced over; and it is to him that the devotee turns in the -mysteries for the mystic regeneration, which involved a worship of the -Osirian cross, the emblem of the God. “I clasp the sycamore -tree,” says the Osirified soul in the Book of the Dead; “I -myself am joined unto the sycamore tree, and its arms are opened unto -me graciously.” But Osiris in turn “shall establish as -prince and ruler his son Horus”; and the soul in the underworld, -in some rituals, becomes one with Horus, as in others with Osiris. Out -of the medley there emerged for the popular mind the dominant -impressions of Osiris as the Saviour and Judge of the Dead; of Isis as -the Queen of Heaven, the Sorrowing Goddess, the Mother-Goddess; and of -Horus as the Divine Son, Hor-pa-khrot, “Horus the Child,” -of whom the Greeks in their fanciful way made a Harpocrates, the God of -Silence, misunderstanding the symbol of the finger in the mouth, which -for the Egyptians meant merely childhood. As we have seen, the Osirian -cult and that of Serapis, grafted on it in the time of the Ptolemies, -made popular the symbol of the cross long before Christianity, and -prepared for the latter religion in many other ways.</p> -<p class="par">Perhaps its closest counterpart, however, was its most -tenacious rival, the worship of the Persian Sun-God Mithra, first -introduced into Rome in the time of Pompey, whose troops received it -from the Cilician pirates, the <i>débris</i> of the army of -Mithridates, whom he conquered and enlisted in the Roman service. -Mithra being the most august of all the Gods of war, his worship became -the special religion of the Roman army. Apart from its promise of -immortality, its fascination lay in its elaborate initiations, -baptisms, probations, sacraments, and <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb58" href="#pb58" name="pb58">58</a>]</span>mysteries, which were -kept at a higher level of moral stringency than those of almost any of -the competing cults. The God was epicene or bisexual, having a male and -a female aspect; and there seems to have been no amorous element in his -myth at the Christian period. Unless it be decided that such rituals -had prevailed all over the East, the Christian eucharist must be held -to have been a direct imitation of that of Mithraism, which it so -closely resembled that the early Fathers declared the priority of the -rival sacrament to be due to diabolic agency. But the Christian rite, -as we have seen, had old Palestinian roots, going back to sheer human -sacrifice. The Mithraist ritual, indeed, appears to have been the -actual source of part of the Christist mystery-play, inasmuch as -Mithra, whose special epithet was “the Rock,” was -liturgically represented as dead, buried in a rock tomb, mourned over, -and raised again amid rejoicing. For the Mithraists also the sign of -the cross, made on the forehead, was the supreme symbol; and it was -mainly their cult which established the old usage of calling the -Sun-day, the first of the week, “the day of the Lord,” -Mithra as the Sun being the first of the seven planetary spirits on -whose names the week was based. In the third century, the chief place -of the cult in the empire was on the Vatican mount at Rome; and there -it was that Christian legend located the martyrdom of Peter, who, as we -have seen, was assimilated to Mithra both in name and in -attributes.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1848src" href="#xd21e1848" name= -"xd21e1848src">5</a></p> -<p class="par">In a special degree the Osirian and Dionysian and -Mithraic cults seem to have insisted on the doctrine of immortality -correlatively with the doctrine of eternal punishment; and insofar as -Mithraism is to be known from the present form of the Zendavesta, which -is but a revised portion of the older Mazdean literature, it appealed -to the imagination on this side at least as winningly as did the -Jesuist literature in respect, for instance, of the Apocalypse. Mithra -was the God of the upper and the nether world, the keeper of the keys -of heaven and hell, of life and death; and, like Osiris, he was the -judge of men’s deeds. Like the other Saviour-cults, too, -Mithraism <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb59" href="#pb59" name= -"pb59">59</a>]</span>anticipated Christism in evolving the attraction -of a Mother-Goddess, the worship of Cybelê being adapted to his -as it had been to that of Attis. In one other aspect it seems to have -run closely parallel to early Jesuism. The singular phrase in the -Apocalypse about garments “washed in the blood of the Lamb” -points to an early Jesuist use of the practice of the -<i>kriobolium</i>, which with the <i>taurobolium</i> was one of the -most striking of the Mithraic rites. In these repulsive ceremonies the -ram or bull—always young, on the principle that the sacrifice -must be pure—was slain over a grating, so that the blood dripped -on the initiate, who was placed in a pit beneath, and who was -instructed to wear the blood-stained garment for some days. It was -believed that the ceremony had a supreme saving grace; and the initiate -was solemnly described as <i lang="la">in æternum renatus</i>, -“born again for eternity.” In regard to both animals the -symbolism was partly astronomical, having latterly reference to the -sun’s entrance into the constellations of the Bull and the Ram at -different stages of his course. Mithra’s oldest and best-known -symbol was the bull; but inasmuch as the sun had anciently been seen by -the Chaldean astronomers to be in the constellation Aries at the spring -season, the beginning of the ancient year, the lamb had long been -likewise adopted into the mysteries of the solar cults. About the -beginning of the Christian era the year-opening constellation was -Pisces; and the Divine Fish accordingly figures to a great extent in -early Christian symbols.</p> -<p class="par">As we have seen, the primordial Jesuism, with its Lamb -“slain from the founding of the world,” probably conceived -of its deity in terms of the astronomical symbol; but the prominence -given by Mithraism to the blood-ritual would serve to bring that into -disuse among the Gentile Christists, whose creed further made Jesus the -final paschal sacrifice, and reduced the apocalyptic phrase to a moral -metaphor. Nonetheless, the rites and theories of the great pagan cults, -all of which flourished in Palestine itself in the pre-Roman period, -must be recognized as factors in its creation.</p> -<p class="par">How completely Christianity belongs to the world of -religious ideas in which it arose may be realised, finally, by -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb60" href="#pb60" name= -"pb60">60</a>]</span>a glance at the worship of the Roman Emperor, -already established before the Christian era. In Virgil’s Fourth -Eclogue, written about 40 <span class="sc">B.C.</span>, there is sung -for Romans the universal myth of the coming Child, who is to be Saviour -and Lord of a rejuvenated earth, and whom Virgil was ready to identify -with the nephew of Augustus. But in the same period he sings of -Augustus as already divine; and Augustus in due course exploited for -himself the whole idea. Not only did he, like Alexander, set in -currency the typical fable of his mother’s intercourse with -Apollo, and a Roman version of the ancient myth which in the gospels -becomes the story of the Massacre of the Innocents: in edicts which are -in part actually preserved on monuments he gave himself out in the East -as a God and Saviour whose birthday was henceforth to be celebrated as -the beginning of an evangel to the world, and who was to make an end of -war and disorder. Later emperors continued the expedient, which had -been well tried by Persian and Egyptian kings in previous ages.</p> -<p class="par">Against such divine pretensions on the part of the Roman -conqueror the Jews would instinctively develop their own formulated -hope of a Jewish Messiah; and wherever in the Empire men revolted -against the apotheosis of the earthly autocrat, the Judæo-Gentile -cult of the slain and re-arising Christ, who was soon to come and judge -the world, would find devotees eager to accord to him the attributes -claimed by Cæsar, and whatever others might avail. The new -religion was thus in every aspect a syncretism of the religious -material of the time.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s1.2.5" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e303">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 5.</span> <i>Ethics: -Popular and Philosophic</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">It lies on the face of the case that the Christist -cult could make no rapid headway by offering to people of any class -higher ethical ideals than they had already been wont to recognize. To -claim that it did is to upset the concurrent theorem that the pagan -world into which Christianity entered was profoundly corrupt. If men -and women on all hands welcomed the new teaching for its moral beauty, -they must already have acquired a taste for such beauty, and cannot -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb61" href="#pb61" name= -"pb61">61</a>]</span>conceivably have been “sunk in trespasses -and sins.” It is true that in every unlettered -population—in modern India and pre-Christian Mexico as well as in -classic antiquity—a repute for asceticism has brought great -popular honour, men reverencing a self-denial they feel unable to -practise. But a cult and a community which actually seek to embrace the -common people cannot exact from them a “saintliness” which -in the terms of the case is a rare phenomenon. In reality the Christian -ethic was duplicated at every point by that of Judaism or of one or -other of the pagan schools or cults; and the contrast still commonly -drawn between the church and its moral environment is framed by merely -comparing Christian theory with popular pagan practice. Theory for -theory, and practice for practice, there was no such difference.</p> -<p class="par">If the ethical literature of the period be first taken, -it is found that the teaching of (for instance) Seneca had so many -points of identity with that of Paul as to give colour to a Christian -theory that the pagan moralist and the apostle had had intercourse. It -is now admitted that no such intercourse took place, and that the -pretended letters of Paul and Seneca are Christian forgeries. But the -community of doctrine is undisputed. It was largely traceable to -elements of oriental ethic which had been imported into Greek Stoicism -by writers of Semitic race; and on Seneca’s side the moral -principles involved are at some points much further developed than they -can be said to be in either the gospels or the epistles. In some -respects he is concrete and practical where the gospels are vague and -abstract, as when he condemns all war and urges habits of kindly -fellowship between masters and slaves. On the latter head, Philo of -Alexandria, the Jewish Platonist, went still further, explicitly -condemning slavery as the worst of evils and denying Aristotle’s -dictum that for some men it is the natural state. Such doctrines as -those of reciprocity and the forgiveness of injuries were of course the -common property of the moralists of all civilized countries before the -Christian era—of the teachers of China and India as well as of -Greece; and the duty of practical beneficence, which in a <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb62" href="#pb62" name="pb62">62</a>]</span>section -of the gentilizing third gospel is made the whole question of moral and -religious life, was indicated in almost exactly the same terms in the -much more ancient sacred books of Egypt.</p> -<p class="par">Where the Christist ethic differed most from that of the -higher paganism was on the point of sacrificial substitution or -“salvation by blood,” and on the point of moral -self-humiliation. Stoicism on the contrary cultivated self-respect, -here carrying on a strain of thought found in rabbinical Judaism; and -it is at least an open question whether “voluntary -humility” (which in the later epistles is disparaged) proved in -practice the more efficient moral principle. In such a writer as -Juvenal we find a protest against the habit of praying to the Gods for -all manner of boons, the argument being that the Gods know better than -their worshippers what the latter really need. In the gospel, similar -teaching precedes the Lord’s Prayer; and whereas in both cases -the principle laid down is deviated from, the pagan, who prays for a -sound mind in a sound body, is in no worse case than the Christist, who -proceeds to pray for daily bread—if, that is, the ordinary -rendering be accepted. If, as seems probable, the intention was to pray -for “spiritual food,” the contrast is again between a -cultivation of self-reliance and a cultivation of the sense of -spiritual dependence. Yet at bottom, inasmuch as the sense of divine -support would theoretically give confidence, the practical outcome was -probably the same, for good or for evil. When, however, to the doctrine -of salvation by faith the Pauline theology added the principle that God -was the potter and man the clay, without moral rights, there was set up -a conception of morals which could not but be demoralizing, and to -which there was no parallel in the higher pagan teaching.</p> -<p class="par">As regards the Christist doctrine of sacrificial -salvation, it is found that both under Judaism and under paganism -higher moral standards had been reached by many thinkers; and -Christism, as we have seen, was rather an adhesion to the popular -religious ethic, which on this side was of an immemorial antiquity. So, -too, many of the greater pagan and Jewish thinkers, while holding to -the belief in immortality, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb63" href= -"#pb63" name="pb63">63</a>]</span>had long before transcended the -doctrine of future rewards and punishments, and had repelled the -conception of a God of wrath; whereas the Christists stressed the -conceptions prevalent among average Jews and Gentiles, taking over -bodily, in particular, the popular idea of hell-torments, which was as -vivid, and as inefficacious, in the ancient world as in the medieval. -Worse still, the new faith ultimately introduced the frightful dogma of -the damnation of all unbaptized infants, a teaching before undreamt of, -and capable only of searing the heart. For the rest, the formal ethic -was very much the same in all cults as to the duties of honesty, -truthfulness, charity, and chastity; and the practice in all seems to -have been alike precarious. Not any more than any of the contemporary -religions did Christism offer any such social or political guidance as -might conceivably have arrested the political paralysis and decadence -of the whole imperial world. On the contrary, the gospels and epistles -alike predict a speedy doomsday, and counsel political submission, -showing no trace of any other ideal; while at the end of the second -century such a teacher as Origen is found coupling the principle of the -universal Roman dominion with that of the universal church. To any -surviving vestiges of the ideal of self-government, Christian -literature was broadly hostile. Inasmuch, too, as the gospel explicitly -urged celibacy as a condition of ready salvation (Lk. xx, 35; cp. Mt. -xix, 12), it tended to hold at arm’s length the mass of normal -people and to attract the fanatics and the pretenders to sanctity. In -all likelihood, however, such doctrines were stressed only by the more -ascetic teachers and sects; the Pauline letters, for instance, finally -holding a middle course.</p> -<p class="par">Insofar, finally, as the principle of brotherly love is -traditionally held to distinguish Christist teaching and practice from -that of either Jews or pagans, there has occurred a fallacy of -inference. All the documents go to show that the inculcation and -profession of mutual love came currently from mouths which passed with -no sense of incongruity to denunciation. In Christian tradition, the -John who figured as the preacher of love was without misgiving called a -“son of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb64" href="#pb64" name= -"pb64">64</a>]</span>thunder,” and reputed to have shown intense -malice towards a heretic; and all the early teachers in turn, from Paul -to Tertullian, are found alternating between praise of love and display -of its contrary, even as Jesus is made by the gospel-framers to -vituperate the contemporaries whom he was supposed to have exhorted to -love their enemies. Even the duty of forgiveness is in one passage -enforced by the threat of future torture at the hands of a Heavenly -Father who is thus to imitate the cruelties of human law; whereas -rationalistic thinkers among the Greeks a century or two before had -grounded the duty on the naturalness of error, urging that wrongdoers -should be taught rather than hated. So far were the Christists at any -period from attaining the height of feeling kindly towards those -outside their creed, that they exhibited an exceptional measure of -strife among themselves—this by mere reason of the openings for -strife set up by their dogmatic system and the need of unifying it. In -times of persecution, doubtless, they were thrown together in feeling, -as any other community would be; but here, in the terms of the case, it -was the persecution, not the creed, that created the fraternity. Nor -can it be said that any contemporary Christian teachers, unless it -might be some of the ostracized Gnostics, compare well in point of -serenity and self-control with such pagans as the later Stoics. For the -rest, the human material indicated in the Pauline accounts of the -congregational habit of <i>glossolalia</i>, “speaking with -tongues” (a mere hysterical outcry, of which the sounds had no -meaning), is clearly neurotic, and must have been liable to all manner -of lapses.</p> -<p class="par">To say this is but to say that actual Christianity at -length became popular in the only possible way—by assimilating -ordinary human nature in mass. Had it persistently transcended or -coerced average character, it could never have become one of the -world-religions. To say, again, that the written doctrine at its best -prescribed higher standards than those actually followed by its -adherents, is but to claim what can equally be claimed for many other -systems, popular and philosophic. The fundamental source of error in -this connection is the assumption that mere moral doctrine can -regenerate <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb65" href="#pb65" name= -"pb65">65</a>]</span>any society independently of a vital change in -social and intellectual conditions. In the ancient world, as in the -modern, these were the substantial determinants for the mass of men and -women.</p> -<p class="par">Even as regards the moral ideal itself, finally, it is -important to realize that what passes for the high-water mark of -Christian ethic is really pre-Christian doctrine. It is customary to -name the so-called Sermon on the Mount as the fine flower of gospel -teaching; and of that document the precept of love to enemies is felt -to be the finest word. Without asking how often it has been obeyed, -Christians are wont to regard it as marking the difference in moral -ideal between their lore and that of Jew and pagan. In point of fact, -the noblest parable for its illustration is furnished by the pagan tale -of Lycurgus and the young aristocrat who destroyed his eye; and the -precept in the gospel is demonstrably Jewish. Not only is it, like the -rest of the “Sermon” in general, fully paralleled in Old -Testament and other pre-Christian Hebrew literature<a class="noteref" -id="xd21e1915src" href="#xd21e1915" name="xd21e1915src">6</a>: the -gospel sentences are immediately adapted from the <i>Teaching of the -Twelve Apostles</i>, of which the priority is here self-evident. The -text there runs: “Bless them that curse you, and pray for your -enemies, and fast for them that persecute you; for what thank (have ye) -if ye love them that love you? Do not the foreigners [<i>ta -ethnē</i>, “the gentiles”] do the same? But love ye -them that hate you, and ye shall have no enemy.” In the gospel -(Mt. v, 44–47; rev. text) we have: “Do not even <i>the -tax-gatherers</i> the same?” and again: “Do not even the -foreigners (<i>ethnikoi</i>) the same?” The old <i lang= -"la">textus receptus</i>, now curtailed, has actually been amplified in -imitation of the <i>Teaching</i>; but the substitution of -“tax-gatherers” (<i>telonai</i>) for “gentiles” -tells of an earlier modification. In the <i>Teaching</i>, a primarily -Jewish document, the gentiles, “the strangers,” are quite -simply indicated as religiously alien in mass to the Jew: for the -gentilizing Christists the moral had to be pointed as between the -faithful and a class proscribed throughout the empire. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb66" href="#pb66" name="pb66">66</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">It was doubtless a deep spiritual experience that led -any sons of Israel, in an age of defeat and iron oppression, to realize -the vanity of hate, and the one way to cast off its burden. But not -only had the lesson been learned in the days “before -Christ”: it had actually been embodied in the manual carried by -the Twelve Apostles of the High Priest or the Patriarch for the -teaching of the Jews scattered throughout the Roman empire. “If -anyone ask from thee what is thine,” says the manual simply, -“ask it not back, for indeed <i>thou canst not</i>”—a -precept to the expatriated Jew to bear with meekness the wrongs for -which there was no legal remedy. As little as the Christian, perhaps, -did the Jew assimilate the doctrine of forgiveness; but at least let it -be noted that the doctrine had been framed by his race. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb67" href="#pb67" name="pb67">67</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="footnotes"> -<hr class="fnsep"> -<div class="footnote-body"> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1710" href="#xd21e1710src" name="xd21e1710">1</a></span> -<a class="biblink xd21e43" title="Link to cited location in Bible" -href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lk%2017:7-10">Luke -xvii, 7–10</a> (<i>Gr.</i> “Servant” is a wilful -mistranslation: the word is “slave”). <a class= -"fnarrow" href="#xd21e1710src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1815" href="#xd21e1815src" name="xd21e1815">2</a></span> See Miss -Harrison’s <i>Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion</i>, 2nd -ed. pp. 413–425. <a class="fnarrow" href= -"#xd21e1815src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1821" href="#xd21e1821src" name="xd21e1821">3</a></span> A myth -of verbal misunderstanding. The original <i>titanoi</i> were -“white-clay-men,” men with whitened faces, after the -fashion of so many mystic mummeries among savages. (Work cited, p. -493.) <a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e1821src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1834" href="#xd21e1834src" name="xd21e1834">4</a></span> This -also derives from a primitive concept of a Beer-God. See Miss Harrison, -as cited, p. 419. <a class="fnarrow" href= -"#xd21e1834src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1848" href="#xd21e1848src" name="xd21e1848">5</a></span> See -“Mithraism” in <i>Pagan Christs</i>, 2nd ed. Pt. III, p. -327 <i>sq.</i> <a class="fnarrow" href= -"#xd21e1848src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e1915" href="#xd21e1915src" name="xd21e1915">6</a></span> See on -the whole subject <i>Christianity and Mythology</i>, 2nd ed. p. 403 -<i>sq.</i> <a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e1915src">↑</a></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter III</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">CONDITIONS OF SURVIVAL</h2> -<div id="s1.3.1" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e319">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Popular -Appeal</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Overshadowed among the Jews by the common -traditions of Judaism, and faced among the Gentiles by such competition -as we have seen, the Christian cult had to acquire all the chief -attractions of popular pagan religion if it was to outdo its rivals. -Such success could never have been reached through mere superiority of -ethical ideal, even had such superiority been present: by the admission -even of Christian advocates, there were high moral ideals in most of -the pagan ethical systems current among the educated class; but those -systems never became popular, not seeking to be so. To gain the mass, -the new propagandists found, the tastes of the mass had to be -propitiated; and at best the more conscientious of them could but hope -to control the ignorance and the superstition they sought to attract. -When in the second and third centuries the more rigid Puritans, such as -the Montanists, formed themselves into special communities, they were -inevitably repudiated by the main body, which had to temper its -doctrine to the characters of the average laity and the average clergy. -Thus the development of primitive Christianity was necessarily such an -assimilation of neighbouring lore and practice as we have already in -part traced. The story of the Christ had to take on all the lasting -dramatic features of the prehistoric worships; and the mysteries had as -far as possible to embody those details in the dramatic pagan fashion. -Where dramatization was going on, new details would naturally be added, -all tending to the same end; and on the basis of these early dramatic -inventions would arise many of the gospel narratives. This, however, -must have been a matter of time. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb68" -href="#pb68" name="pb68">68</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">In the earlier stages of propaganda the appeal was -primarily to Jews, and secondarily to Jew proselytes; but after the -destruction of the temple of Jerusalem it must have been made in an -increasing degree to Gentiles, chiefly of the poorer classes, whether -artisans or traders. As among the pagan religious societies before -mentioned, slaves were admitted; such being not seldom in as good a -position as artisans. There is also evidence that, on the avowed -theological principles of the sect, men even of bad repute were -received, of course on condition of repentance. “Let him that -stole, steal no more,” is one of the injunctions in one of the -later epistles. In the nature of the case such adherents could not be -multiplied, in the teeth of the attractions of the other cults, without -a continual offer of congenial entertainment; and the weekly -“love-feast,” on the “day of the Lord,” would -be the first mainstay. The constant warnings and admonitions in the -epistles exclude the notion that these assemblies escaped the usual -risks of disorder; and the standing problem of the supervisors was to -maintain the social attraction without tolerating open licence. Insofar -as they succeeded, for a time, it was by appeal to ideals of abstinence -which, as we have seen, had long been current in the East.</p> -<p class="par">In the main, the popular success of the movement must -have depended on a compromise. When “freedom from the yoke of the -law” went so far as to set up a serious scandal among the pagans -(<a class="biblink xd21e43" title="Link to cited location in Bible" -href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Cor%205">1 Cor. -v</a>) it was necessarily suppressed; but from the first there -evidently occurred such irregularities as were later charged by -Tertullian against his fellow-Christians in the matter of their -nocturnal assemblies. Only out of average material could a popular -movement be made, and the more the cult spread the more was it -compelled to assimilate the usages of paganism, giving them whatever -new colour or pretext seemed best. But to the successful manipulation -of such a movement there was necessary a body of propagandists, a -written doctrine, and a machinery of organization; and it was chiefly -by the development of such machinery that the Christist movement -secured itself in the struggle for survival. In this regard its success -as against Mithraism <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb69" href="#pb69" -name="pb69">69</a>]</span>becomes perfectly intelligible. The priests -of Mithra seem never to have aimed at popular acceptance save insofar -as their cult became co-extensive with the Roman army; their ideal -being rather that of a religious freemasonry than that of an open -community. The Christists, on the other hand, seem to have carried on -from the first the Jewish impulses of fanaticism and proselytism, -aiming at popularity with the acquired Jewish knowledge of the -financial possibilities of any numerous movement.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s1.3.2" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e329">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>Economic -Causation</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The play of economic interest in the establishment -and maintenance of religions is one of the constant forces in their -history. In the simplest forms of savage life the medicine-man or -priest makes a superior living out of his function; and every powerful -cult in antiquity enriched its priests. The developed worships of -Assyria and Babylon, Phœnicia and Egypt, were carried on by great -priestly corporations, with enormous revenues; those of the Egyptian -priesthood in particular being reckoned even in the Roman period at a -third of the wealth of the nation. Early Greece and Rome, in -comparison, showed little ecclesiastical development by reason mainly -of the fact that their relative political freedom offered so many other -channels to acquisitive energy. In republican Rome priesthood was a -caste-privilege enjoyed by a select few, the majority of the ruling -class being content to have it so; and there and in Greece alike the -normal conception of deities as local, with local worships, precluded -even the thought of a universal priesthood, though the Roman policy -gave all the Gods of the extending State a place in the common -pantheon. In old Greece it came about that the fixed ideal of the -City-State, and the very multiplicity of cults even in the separate -states, kept all the worships isolated; while the republican habit kept -the priests and priestesses members of the body politic, and not -associations apart. The Christian church began its historic growth on -this ground, in the period of imperialism and decadence, with the -eastern examples before it, the Jewish system of church-finance and -propaganda to <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb70" href="#pb70" name= -"pb70">70</a>]</span>proceed upon, the Greek democratic practice to -facilitate its first steps, and the Roman sway to allow of its spread -and official organization. Lastly came the usage, imitated from the -later political and religious life of the Greeks, of Church Synods, in -which disruptive doctrinal tendencies were more or less controlled by -the principle of the majority vote, and the weaker groups were assisted -and encouraged by the others. In every aspect the evolution was by way -of adaptation on tried lines.</p> -<p class="par">As we have seen, Judaism in the Hellenistic and Roman -period was financed through a system of travelling -“apostles” and collectors, who followed up the dispersed -Jewish race wherever it flourished, and got together great revenues for -the temple service and the priestly and rabbinical class. Jesuism began -on those lines, and so set up habits of intercommunication between its -groups, which for their own part were locally and independently -financed by their members in the Greek and Jewish fashion. Whatever may -have been the practice of enthusiasts such as Paul would appear to have -been, the principle that “the labourer is worthy of his -hire” must have become general; and insofar as special preaching -was a requisite and an attraction for the members, the travelling -preachers would have to be fee’d or salaried. One of the later -epistles makes mention of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and -teachers, as different types; also of elders (presbyters), deacons, and -bishops (overseers); and as the groups increased and began to possess -buildings, the creation of professional opportunities set up a new -economic interest in propaganda.</p> -<p class="par">In neither Greek nor Roman life was the phenomenon new. -Centuries before the Christian era, the influx of the Dionysian and -other mystic cults in Greece had been followed by the rise of swarms of -religious mendicants, many of whom carried with them sacred books and -ministered consolation while playing on credulity; and on a higher -plane the educated “sophists” or humanists of the -pre-Macedonian period had made a livelihood by moral and philosophical -teaching or lecturing. Later, the Stoics and other philosophers became -a <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb71" href="#pb71" name= -"pb71">71</a>]</span>species of religious directors or “spiritual -advisers” as well as ethical lecturers; and in Rome especially -this calling had practically the status of a profession. Thus had -arisen a specific means of livelihood for educated men without official -posts or inherited incomes. But any religious cult which should set up -an organization would have as against such teachers an obvious -financial advantage, in respect of its power of attracting numbers, its -local permanence, and its means of collecting revenue; and even men -incapable of success as lecturers could attain relatively secure -positions as presbyters or “bishops”—that is, -overseers, first of single churches, and later of district groups. The -original function of the bishop was that later assigned to -“elders” in the presbyterian system—the supervision -of the public offerings or “collections” and their -distribution among needy brethren. Later, the bishop became the -religious head of the group, and its representative in communication -with others. Not till such organization was reached could the new sect -count on permanence.</p> -<p class="par">An important source of income from an early stage was -the munificence of the richer women converts; and insofar as the -Christist movement stood for a restraint on sexual licence it doubtless -gained from the moral bias as well as from the superstition of women of -the upper and middle classes throughout the empire. The richer women -were indeed made to feel that it was their duty to make -“oblations” in proportion to their means. On the other -hand, then as now, the giving of alms to the poor was a means of -enlisting the sympathetic support of serious women; and the Christists -here had a lead not only from oriental example in general and that of -later Judaism in particular, but from the policy of food-doles now -systematically pursued in the Roman empire. The later epistles show -that much was made of the good offices of “widows,” who, -themselves poor and wholly or partly supported by the congregations, -would serve as comforters of suffering or bereaved members, and -ministrants to the sick. The death-rate was doubtless high in the -eastern cities, then as now. In this way were attracted to the church -large masses <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb72" href="#pb72" name= -"pb72">72</a>]</span>of the outside poor who were not similarly -considered or sought for by any of the competing pagan cults. But it -was necessary to compete in other ways with the mass of itinerant -diviners and religious mendicants, who had much the same kind of vogue -as the begging friars of later Christendom; and exorcists were at an -early date a recognized class of officers in connection with the -Christian churches.</p> -<p class="par">At what stage revenue began to be derived from the usage -of praying for the souls of the dead it is impossible to say; but as -early as the third century it is found to be customary to recite before -the altar the names of givers of oblations, who were then publicly -prayed for. In various other ways the church was able to elicit gifts. -It lies on the face of all the canonical books that a prediction of the -speedy end of the world was one of the constant doctrines of the early -church; and such a belief would naturally elicit donations in the first -century as it did in the tenth. Obviously, too, the gradual development -of the “mysteries” would strengthen the hands of the -priestly class. In particular, as it was early made compulsory on all -baptized persons, except penitents, to take the sacrament, the -privilege of administering or withholding the eucharist was a sure -source of revenue, as was the power of initiation into the mysteries of -the other cults for their ministrants.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s1.3.3" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e339">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Organization -and Sacred Books</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">It was finally to the joined influences of -ecclesiastical organization and of popular sacred books that Christism -owed its measure of success as against the freely-competing pagan -cults; and on both sides its primary advantage, as we have seen, came -from its Judaic basis. For nearly two centuries the Hebrew Bible, made -widely accessible in the Septuagint version, was its literary mainstay, -by reason of the prestige attaching to such a mass of ancient religious -literature in the Greco-Roman world; and whereas other cults also had -their special lore, the Christist movement was specially buttressed by -its system of ecclesiastical union, also imitated from the <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb73" href="#pb73" name="pb73">73</a>]</span>Judaic. -The ecclesiastical system, above all, was a means to the development of -the new sacred books which completed the definition of Christianity as -something apart from Judaism; and these in turn made a permanent -foundation for the historic church. A glance at the cult associated -with the name of the pagan Apollonius of Tyana, who won fame in the -first century, makes it clear that even where a great renown attached -to a travelling religious reformer and reputed wonder-worker, and where -an adoring biography served in some degree to prolong his fame, the -lack of a hierarchy or connected series of religious groups prevented -on the one hand its continuance, and on the other hand the necessary -development of the literature which should conserve it.</p> -<p class="par">The first traceable literature special to the -Christians, as we have seen, consisted in “apostolic” and -sub-apostolic epistles of exhortation, which were read aloud in the -churches after the Jewish manner. Priestly needs conserved such -documents, and further evoked forgeries, aimed against new heresies and -schisms. But the mass of men are always more easily to be attracted by -narrative than by homilies; and the mystery-play, by means of which -alone could the church at the outset compete with the pagan cults -similarly provided, lent itself to a written as well as to an acted -history.</p> -<p class="par">Such a document as the gospel story of the Supper and -its sequel is in itself the proof of the priority of the mystery-play, -in some simple form, to the gospel story. In its present degree of -detail the play must belong to a stage of the movement at which it had -made some Gentile headway; and its reduction to writing for reading may -be supposed to have taken place either at a time when the Christians by -reason of persecution were prevented from carrying on their usual -rituals or festivals, or, more probably, when the hierarchy decided for -prudential or disciplinary reasons to abandon the regular resort to -dramatic spectacle. It does not follow, of course, that none of the -didactic parts of the gospel was in writing before the play was -transcribed; but the fact that none of the Pauline epistles quotes any -of the Jesuine teachings, and that the first Clementine epistle alludes -to but one or two, is a reason for holding that <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb74" href="#pb74" name="pb74">74</a>]</span>they -came very slowly into existence. The dramatic development would -naturally occur for the most part or wholly in Gentile hands. It is not -certain, indeed, that the later Jews remained uniformly averse to -drama, which was partly forced on them by the Herods; and the theory of -a dramatic origin for the Apocalypse is not quite untenable; but it -happens that the most obviously dramatic parts of the gospel story are -those which, on Gentile lines, throw the guilt of the crucifixion on -the Jews.</p> -<p class="par">When once a gospel existed, interpolation and alteration -were for some generations easy; and what happened was a multiplication -of doctrines and documents at the hands of different groups or sects or -leaders, the men with dogmatic or moral ideas taking this means to -establish them, without regard to the coherence or consistency of the -texts. Many passages are visibly inserted in order to countervail -others, it being easier to add than to suppress. Only late in the -second century can a canon have begun to be formed, as the Clementine -epistles quote a now lost document in the nature of a gospel, and -Justin’s “Memoirs of the Apostles” diverge from those -preserved. The later rejection by the Church of such documents proves -them to have been regarded as in part heretical; and parts of the -canonical gospels were altered for various dogmatic reasons after they -had been made to include much of the matter in the uncanonical. The -third gospel avows that “many” previous narratives existed; -and apart from all these there have been preserved a number of rejected -gospels, which run mainly to miraculous stories. Some of these were -long abundantly popular, that of “Nicodemus” having had -common vogue down to the Middle Ages. But the more thoughtful clergy -would soon recognize the greater value of documents which by their -teaching could impress the more educated of the laity; and the double -influence of the supernaturalism and the moral appeal went to create -cohesion throughout the movement.</p> -<p class="par">The organization, in turn, operated as a check on the -spread of heresies, which, after carrying it further afield, soon -threatened to dissolve the cult into an infinity of mutually repellent -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb75" href="#pb75" name= -"pb75">75</a>]</span>groups. Insofar, indeed, as these appealed to the -more speculative and quasi-philosophic minds, they were foredoomed to -decay with the decay of culture, and to be at best the creed of the -few. Those, in particular, who carried anti-Semitism to the point of -discrediting the Jewish Deity, lost the support of the Jewish sacred -books, of which the mere literary mass and variety constituted in such -an age a solid basis for a cultus. Yet even on those lines the -Manichæan cult spread far and lived long, so easy was it then for -any cult to rise. Survival lay with simple concrete myth of the popular -sort, concrete ritual, and explicit dogma backed by the force of the -State; and the needs of popular faith kept ever to the front the human -aspect of the crucified God, even when he was being dogmatically -declared to be at once distinct from and one with his co-eternal -Father. This indeed was but one of the many irreducible contradictions -imbedded in the sacred books. To bring these to consistency was -impossible; but the hierarchy could set up formal creeds over and above -them; and it mattered little to the official and financial continuity -of the Church that these creeds were themselves chronically altered. -What was necessary to success was simply some common standard and -common action.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s1.3.4" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e349">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 4.</span> <i>Concession -and Fixation</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">It is not to be supposed that any abnormal -sagacity presided over the formation of either the creed and canon or -the official system of the Church; but insofar as it survived it can be -seen to have done so in virtue alike of assimilation and of refusal to -assimilate. Much expansion was needed to make an area broad enough for -the pagan populace; and on the side of custom and myth hardly any pagan -element was ultimately refused. At the outset the great cause of strife -between Christian and pagan was the contemptuous refusal of the former -to show any respect for “idols”—a principle derived -by Jewry from Persia, and passed on to the first Jesuists. When, -however, the Christian cult became that of the State, it of necessity -reverted, as we shall see, to the psychology of the multitude, and -carried the use of images as far as pagans <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb76" href="#pb76" name="pb76">76</a>]</span>had ever -done. Even the so-called “animal-worship” of the Egyptians -partly survived in such usages as the presence of the sacred ox and ass -in the mystery-play of the Nativity (an immemorial popular rite, -belonging to sun-worship), in the adoption of the “four -<i>zoa</i>” of the Apocalypse (old Oriental figures) as the -symbols of the four evangelists, and in the conception of “the -Lamb.” Before the period of image-worship, too, the Church had -fully accepted the compromise by which countless pagan -“heroes” and “geniuses,” the subjects of local -cults, became enrolled as saints and martyrs, whose bones had given to -tombs and wells and shrines a sacred virtue, and whose old -festival-days became part of the new ecclesiastical calendar.</p> -<p class="par">Above all, there was finally forced on the Church a cult -of the Mother as Virgin Goddess, without which it could not have held -its own against the great and well-managed worships of Isis and -Rhea-Cybelê and Dêmêtêr; since the first and -last in particular aroused in multitudes a rapture of exalted devotion -such as was not psychologically possible towards even a crucified God, -save insofar as the emotion of women worshippers towards the slain -Demigod realized that of male devotees towards the Queen of Heaven and -the Mother and sustainer of things. If the original Jesus of the myth -had not had a mythical mother, it would have been necessary to invent -one. Once established, her elevation to the honours of Isis was -inevitable.</p> -<p class="par">No less necessary, on the other hand, to the official -survival of the new system was a dogmatic limit to new doctrine. Where -concrete myth and ritual enlarged the scope of the cult, freedom of -abstract speculation dissipated its forces and menaced its very -existence. All manner of streams might usefully flow into its current, -but when the main river threatened to break up into a hundred searching -rivulets there was a prospect of its being wholly lost in the sands. -This danger, sometimes charged solely upon the Gnostics, arose with the -very first spread of the cult: every Pauline epistle, early or late, -exhibited the scope it gave for schism and faction. Mere random -“prophesying,” which it was difficult to discountenance, -meant endless novelties of doctrine. At every <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb77" href="#pb77" name="pb77">77</a>]</span>stage at -which we can trace it the early Church is divided, be it by Judaism -against Gentilism, faith against works, Paul against Apollos, or one -Jesus against another: the very nature of the forces which made -possible the propaganda involved their frequent clash; and multitudes -of converts were doubtless won and lost in the chances of sectarian -strife. When to the Jews and proselytes and illiterates of the earlier -movement there began to be added speculative Gentile Gnostics, for whom -Yahweh was but one of many rival tribal Gods, and Jesus one of many -competitive slain Saviours, there came with them a species of heresy -which bade fair to lull all schism in a euthanasia of universalism. The -theosophies of Egypt and the East were alike drawn upon in the name of -Christism, and there resulted endless webs of grandiose mysticism, in -which the problem of the Cosmos was verbally solved by schemes of -intermediary powers between deity and man, and endless periods of -transformation between the first and the last states of matter. In -these philosophies Jesus was explained away or allegorized just as were -the Gods of paganism, and the motive force of fanatical ill-will -against those deities on the score of their characters was lost in a -reconciling symbolism. Framed for brooding minds that could not rest in -the primitive solutions of the popular cults, such systems on the other -hand could never attach or hold the mass of the people; and as they -were yet produced on all hands, the Christian organization was soon -forced to define its dogma if it would keep any distinguishing faith. -Insofar as so-called Gnosticism lent itself obediently to the -embellishment of the canonical writings and the confutation of the -heathen—as in the works of Clement of Alexandria—it was -accepted without much demur; but all new or independent theory was -tabooed. Speculative minds were dangerous things in a church aiming at -practical success; and they were assiduously barred out.</p> -<p class="par">The conservative process, of which we shall trace the -history, was carried on partly by documentary forgeries, partly by more -honest polemic, partly by administrative action and the voting of -creeds. But in the nature of the case the <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb78" href="#pb78" name="pb78">78</a>]</span>forgeries, where -successful, were the most central and decisive forces; and we may still -see, in the schematic narratives of the Acts of the Apostles, in the -interpolations of the Apocalypse, in some of the readjustments of the -gospel text, and in the more obviously spurious Pauline epistles, how -faction and fanaticism were fought with intelligent fraud; and how a -troublesome popular delusion was guarded against by creating another -that lent itself to official ends. The “true” creed is just -the creed which was able to survive.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s1.3.5" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e359">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 5.</span> <i>Cosmic -Philosophy</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">As we have seen, Gentile philosophy did actually -enter into the sacred books of the new faith, notably in the doctrine -of the <i>Logos</i> or “Word,” which in the fourth gospel -virtually reshapes the entire Jesuist system. That gospel, rather than -the preaching of Paul, is the doctrinal foundation of Gentile -Christianity. In the synoptics the founder broadly figures as a Judaic -Messiah, who is shortly to come again, at the world’s end, to -judge the quick and the dead; and only for a community convinced of the -speedy approach of doomsday could such a religion suffice. In the -Pauline as in the other epistles we see the belief in full play; and -only in one of the later forgeries (<a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Thes%202">2 Thess. -ii</a>) is a caveat inserted. When the period loosely specified for the -catastrophe was clearly passed, and the Church had become an economic -institution like another, it must needs present a religion for a -permanent world if it was to hold its own; and while the changing -speculations of the Gnostics had to be vetoed in the interests of -solidarity, some scheme of philosophic dogma was needed which, like -theirs, should envisage the world as an enduring process. Pauline -polemic did but claim for believing Gentiles a part in the Jewish -salvation, and such a view had been reached by Philo before Paul. The -fourth gospel, substituting the Christ-sacrifice for the Jewish -Passover, and putting a world-Logos in place of a descendant of David, -gave the theoretic basis of a permanent cosmopolitan cult analogous to -those of Egypt and Persia. The invention of a gentilizing history of -the first apostles was a part of the same process of adaptation; -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb79" href="#pb79" name= -"pb79">79</a>]</span>but the fourth gospel supplied the religion for -the Church which the official adaptors sought to develop.</p> -<p class="par">Such an evolution was psychologically prepared for by -the whole drift of latter-day Jewish thought outside of Judea. The idea -of “the Word” of the deity as an entity, capable of -personification, had long belonged to Jewish theology in terms of many -passages in the Old Testament, and is but one variant of the -psychological process by which Brahmans came to conceive of the Vedas, -and Moslems of the Koran, as eternal existences. The Chaldaic word -<i>Memra</i> had already much of the mystic significance of -<i>Logos</i>, which meant both “word” and -“reason”; the books of Proverbs, Job, and the Wisdom of -Solomon had made familiar the conception of a personified divine -Wisdom, dwelling beside the deity; and the Alexandrian Jew Philo had -made the <i>Logos</i> a central figure in his theosophy. But in the -theosophies of Egypt and Persia the same conception had long been -established; Plato had made it current in the theosophy of the Greeks, -combining it with a mystic doctrine of the cross; and Thoth and Hermes -and Mithra were already known as the <i>Logos</i> to their worshippers. -Thus, whether the fourth gospel were framed at Ephesus or at -Alexandria, by a cosmopolitan Jew or by a Gentile proselyte, it had -grounds of appeal to every Christist save the original Judaic Jesuists, -whose monopoly it was framed to overthrow. It of course gave no -coherent philosophy of the universe, and merely evaded the problem of -evil, which the Gnostics were constantly seeking to solve; but it was -none the worse a religious document for that.</p> -<p class="par">Nonetheless, it needed the stress of circumstance to -force it into its fitting place in the new religion. Despite the many -passages inserted to bring its narrative into harmony with the other -gospels, the fourth differs so much more from them than they do from -each other that only the vital needs of the cult in its struggle for -existence can account for the final adoption of all four. But these -needs were compulsive, and overrode the opposition the fourth gospel -evoked. Such a mass of doctrine purporting to come from the very mouth -of the founder could not in any case be refused by such a community; -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb80" href="#pb80" name= -"pb80">80</a>]</span>and when once the treatise on such grounds had -been taken into the canon it played its part in paralyzing the faculty -of judgment. The fourth gospel directly excludes the pretence that the -God-man was born at Bethlehem; yet it was grouped, like the second, -which ignores the tale, with the first and third, which -circumstantially yet discordantly enounce it. Where irreconcilable -differences on the most essential matters of biographical fact could -thus be let pass, the widest divergence of doctrinal idea could find -acceptance. The two pressures of predisposition and corporate interest -availed to override the difficulties they had created; and the primary -momentum of ignorant credulity among the faithful carried all before -it. Easiness of belief correlated with proneness to invention, and the -religious community cohered, as others do, by force of the gregarious -bias, the hostile environment, and the economic interest. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb81" href="#pb81" name="pb81">81</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div0 part"> -<h2 class="label">PART II</h2> -<h2 class="main">CHRISTIANITY FROM THE SECOND CENTURY TO THE RISE OF -ISLAM</h2> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter I</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">DEVELOPMENTS IN THE UNESTABLISHED CHURCH</h2> -<div id="s2.1.1" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e382">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Numbers and -Inner Life</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">When the “Catholic” Christian Church -becomes politically and socially distinguishable in the second century, -it is a much less numerous body than is pretended in the literature of -its champions. Formulas such as those used in the Acts of the Apostles -(chs. ii, iv, v, vi) greatly falsify the state of the case. The first -“churches” in the cities of Asia Minor, like the groups -addressed by “Paul” in the epistles, were but small -conventicles, meeting in private houses. Even in the fourth century, -sixty years after Constantine’s adoption of the faith, the church -of Antioch, one of the oldest and most important, appears to have -numbered only a fifth part of the population of the city, or about one -hundred thousand out of half-a-million. In the extensive diocese of -Neo-Cæsarea, in the third century, there were declared to be only -seventeen believers; and in the church of Rome itself, in the same -century, there were probably not more than fifty thousand members all -told out of a population of perhaps a million. In Egypt again there was -no church outside Alexandria till about the end of the second century. -Thus the language of Justin and Tertullian and other Fathers, echoing -the Acts, to the effect that the Christians were everywhere throughout -the empire, and that <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb82" href="#pb82" -name="pb82">82</a>]</span>the gospel had been preached and Jesus prayed -to in every nation, is mere rhetoric in the oriental taste. Only in the -towns of the empire—though often in small towns in the -East—did the church exist at all: the <i>pagani</i> or people of -the rural districts were so uniformly fixed in their beliefs that their -name became for Christians the generic term for the adherents of the -old faiths; and though there were some missionary movements in Persia -and Arabia, the western provinces were hardly at all reached by the -propaganda in the first two centuries. Even in Gaul there were few -adherents; while as regards Britain, where there is said to have been a -group at York in the third century, there is not to be found a single -monumental trace of the presence of Christianity during the four -centuries of the Roman occupation, though remains of the Mithraic cult, -which flourished in the army, are frequent. At the end of the second -century, then, probably not a hundredth part of the population even of -the central provinces of the Roman empire was Christianized, while the -outlying provinces were practically unaffected.</p> -<p class="par">Of the average inner life of the converts at this period -it is possible to form some idea by noting at once the current -doctrine, the claims of the apologists, the complaints of the apostolic -and later epistles, and the tenour and temper of the whole literature -of the Church. Something too may be inferred from the fact that the -early believers were mainly easterns even in Rome itself. Even on these -data, indeed, it would be a mistake to assume that any concrete -character type was predominant; but at several points we are entitled -to generalize as between the Christian movement and its antecedents and -surroundings. It was, for instance, very weakly developed on the -intellectual side, avowedly discouraging all use of reason, and -limiting the mental life to religious interests. Save for a certain -temperamental and moral energy in some of the Pauline epistles, there -is nothing in the propagandist literature of the early Church which -bears comparison with the best preceding literature of Greece and Rome. -The traditions concerning the apostles present men of a narrow and -fanatical vision and way of life, without outlook on human -possibilities, joyless save <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb83" href= -"#pb83" name="pb83">83</a>]</span>by way of religious exaltation, -painfully engrossed in theological contention and apocalyptic forecast. -The happiest teachers were perhaps the least intelligent. Papias, -bishop at Hierapolis, whom Eusebius later presents as having talked -with men who had heard the apostles, is pronounced by that historian to -have been of small understanding; and his ideas of the millennium, as -passed down, justify the criticism. Other traditional figures of the -second century, as the bishops Polycarp and Ignatius, are presented -mainly in their character of hortatory martyrs, the most advantageous -light in which ungifted men can be placed; and not a line ascribed to -them is above suspicion. Of the early Christians in general, indeed, a -transfiguring ideal has been shaped in terms of the aspect of martyrdom -and persecution—trials which, by forcing men and women back on -the central virtues of courage and constancy, positively ennoble -character. Such a compensating dignity of endurance is found where it -is apt to be least expected—in men and women long broken to -oriental tyranny; in Egyptian fellaheen, used to the lash; in peasants -wont mutely to toil and obey. But the possibility of such a correlation -does not alter the facts of normal life for the types in question. -Ignorance and fanaticism and superstition yield their normal fruits in -normal conditions. And there is Christian record that even among the -martyrs there were men of bad character, seeking a short way to -Paradise.</p> -<p class="par">Of the early Christian community many were slaves, and -perhaps from three to five per cent paupers. The proportion of women -was perhaps as large as it is in the churches of to-day; for it was one -of the pagan taunts that to women the preachers preferred above all to -address themselves, and rich women members seem to have been relatively -numerous. All orders alike believed fervently in evil spirits; and the -most constant aspect of their faith was as a protection against -demoniacal influence. In the service of the Church of Rome in the third -century there were forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, seven -sub-deacons, forty-two acolythes or clerks, and fifty -“readers,” <i>exorcists</i>, and janitors; and the -exorcists were at least as hard-worked as any other members of the -staff. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb84" href="#pb84" name= -"pb84">84</a>]</span>On the side of morality, much stress was laid on -the sins of the flesh, partly because these were the commonest, partly -because the idea of an intellectual ethic had not arisen; and while the -Church was liable to gusts of persecution its practice was naturally -somewhat strict. Men and women who had joined the body mainly for its -alms or its <i>agapæ</i> were not likely to adhere to it in times -of trouble; and the very proclamation of an ascetic standard would -primarily attract those persons, found in every community, who had a -vocation for asceticism. At almost any period, however, such were to be -found in the heretical or dissentient groups as well as in the main -body, while the testimony of the Pauline epistles is distinct as to the -antinomianism of many “apostolic” converts. Some Gnostic -sects were stringently ascetic if others were antinomian, the -<i>à priori</i> principle lending itself alternately to the -doctrines that the spirit must mortify the flesh, and that the deeds of -the flesh are nothing to the spirit. Within the main body, the -conflicting principles of faith and works, then as later, involved the -same divergences of practice. The evidence of Tertullian is emphatic as -to the illusoriness of much Christian profession in his day in the -churches of Carthage, where zeal was at least as abundant as -elsewhere.</p> -<p class="par">Taken individually, then, an average Christian of the -second century was likely to be an unlettered person of the -“lower-middle” or poorer classes; living in a town; either -bitterly averse to “idols,” theatres, the circus, and the -public baths, or persuaded that he ought to be; utterly credulous as to -demons and miracles; incapable of criticism as to sacred books; -neurotic or respectful towards neurosis; readily emotional towards the -crucified God and the sacred mystery in which were given the -“body and blood”; devoid alike of æsthetic and of -philosophic faculty; without the thought of civic duty or political -theory; much given to his ritual; capable of fanatical hatred and of -personal malice; but either constitutionally sober and chaste or -chronically anxious to be so, and in times of persecution exalted by -the passion of self-sacrifice; perhaps then transiently attaining to -the professed ideal of love towards enemies. But the effective bonds of -union for the community, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb85" href= -"#pb85" name="pb85">85</a>]</span>whether in peace or during -persecution, were rather the ruling passion of hostility to pagan -beliefs and usages, and the eager hope of “salvation,” than -any enthusiasm of humanity, social or even sectarian. And, as an -orthodox ecclesiastic has remarked, we cannot “even cursorily -read the New Testament without being astonished by the allusions so -often made to immoral persons calling themselves Christians.”</p> -<p class="par">Over such worshippers, in the first centuries, presided -a clergy of precarious culture, sometimes marked by force of character, -never by depth or breadth of thought. To compare the Christian writers -of the ancient world with the pagan thinkers who had preceded them by -three or more centuries is to have a vivid sense of the intellectual -decadence which had accompanied the growth of imperialism. From Plato -to Clement of Alexandria, from Aristotle to Tertullian, there is a -descent as from a great plateau to arid plains or airless valleys: the -disparity is as between different grades of organism. But even between -the early Christian fathers and the pagans near their own time the -intellectual and æsthetic contrast is flagrant. Justin Martyr and -Clement, put in comparison with either Plutarch or Epictetus, create at -once an impression of relative poverty of soul: the higher pagan life -is still the richer and the nobler; the Christian temper is more shrill -and acrid, even where, as in the case of Clement, it is nourished by -learning and pagan metaphysic. Even the cultured and relatively liberal -Origen, in his reply to Celsus, is often at a moral disadvantage as -against the pagan, who, especially when he passes from mere polemic on -Jewish lines to philosophic thought, is distinctly more masculine and -penetrating. So far from being less superstitious, the Christian -reverts to such vulgar beliefs as that in the magical virtue of certain -divine names. Yet Origen, who was born of educated Christian parents, -is almost the high-water mark of ancient Christian literature on the -side of culture and mental versatility (185–254).</p> -<p class="par">Up to the time of Clement and Origen, then, it may be -said, the Christian cult had won from paganism hardly one mind of any -signal competence; religious humanists such as <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb86" href="#pb86" name="pb86">86</a>]</span>Plutarch -and fine moralists such as Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus having gone to -their graves without being even transiently attracted by it. What -laughter was left in literature remained aloof from religion; Lucian -could have no place in the church, though it is probably his ridicule -of pagan deities that has won the preservation of his works at -Christian hands. It is only when the disease of empire has invaded all -the sources of the higher life, in the third and fourth centuries, that -the Christian writers, themselves representing no intellectual -recovery, begin to be comparable, mind for mind, with those of -contemporary paganism; and even then largeness of vision seems to -linger rather with the mystics of the older way of thought, as Porphyry -and Plotinus, than with the bitter polemists of the newer faith, as -Cyprian and Arnobius. The moral note which in the modern world is -supposed to be typically and primordially Christian, that of the -<i>Imitatio Christi</i>, is the one note never struck by the Christian -Fathers, or, if sounded, never sustained. It is rather a result of -medieval brooding, the outcome of many generations of cloister life and -of a settled ecclesiastical order, which walled-in an abnormal -peace.</p> -<p class="par">During those ages in which the Christian Church was so -spreading as to become at length the fit cultus of the decaying State, -its history is almost wholly one of internal and external strifes, -conflicts between the Church and its pagan persecutors, between its -literary champions and pagan criticism, between the champions of -orthodoxy and the innovating heretics, between the partisans of dogmas -whose life-and-death struggle was to determine what orthodoxy was to -be. The central sociological fact is the existence of an organization -with a durable economic life—durable because of ministering to an -enduring demand—in a society whose institutions were suffering -more and more from economic disease. Of this organization the component -parts united to resist and survive external hostility when that arose; -and for the command of its power and prestige, later, the conflicting -sections strove as against each other. In the history of both forms of -strife are involved at once that of its dogmas and that of its -hierarchic structure. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb87" href="#pb87" -name="pb87">87</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s2.1.2" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e393">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>Growth of the -Priesthood</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">In the Jesuist groups of the first century, as we -have seen, there were “bishops” or overseers, and other -“presbyters” or elders, so named in simple imitation of the -usages of other Greek-speaking religious societies, Jewish and Gentile, -in the eastern parts of the empire. The bishop was at first merely the -special supervisor and distributor of the “collection,” -whether of money or of other gifts, and was spiritually and socially on -the same level with the presbyters and deacons. None was specially -ordained, and ordinary members could at need even administer the -eucharist. Teaching or preaching was not at first a special function of -any member of a group, since any one could be a “prophet” -(unless indeed the “prophets” were so named later, after -the supervising priest or bishop in certain Egyptian temples, whose -function was to distribute revenue); but discourses were for a time -given by travelling apostles, who aimed at founding new groups, and who -ministered the eucharist wherever they went. It lay in the nature of -the case, however, that the function of the bishop should gain in moral -authority because of its economic importance; and that the informal -exhortations or “prophesyings” of the early days, which -were always apt to degenerate into the hysterical <i>glossolalia</i>, -or unintelligible “tongues,” should be superseded by the -regular preaching of ostensibly qualified men. In the first century -these must have been few, and they would usually be made the acting -bishops, who would gradually become more and more identified with the -administration of the “mysteries,” and would naturally -repel “lay” interference. Here again there was pagan -precedent, some of the pagan societies having a -“theologos,” while in all the “bishop” had a -certain precedence and authority.</p> -<p class="par">As congregations grew and services multiplied, however, -the bishop would need assistance, and to this end presbyters became -officially associated with him as con-celebrants. Only gradually, -however, did the sacerdotal spirit take full possession of the cult. -Liturgy was long a matter of local choice; and it is probable that the -complete mystery-play of the Agony and <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb88" href="#pb88" name="pb88">88</a>]</span>Crucifixion and -Resurrection was never performed save at a few large centres, in -competition with special pagan attractions of the same kind; but a -eucharist, with varying ritual and hymns, sung by special officials, -was the primary function of every church. As numbers and revenue -increased, men of an ambitious and administrative turn would inevitably -tend to enter the movement; and the second century was not out before -the avarice and arrogance of leading bishops were loudly complained of. -Nonetheless, their self-assertion promoted the growth of the sect. Such -men, in point of fact, tended to build up the Church as warlike nobles -later built up the fabric of feudalism, or self-seeking “captains -of industry” the special structure of modern commercial -societies. Righteousness and gentleness and spirituality could no more -create a popular and revenue-yielding Church in the Roman empire than -they can to-day create and maintain a “paying” industrial -organization. An early bishop, indeed, needed to recommend himself to -the congregation in order to get elected; but in a large town, with -personal magnetism and a staff of priests, he was certain to become a -determining force in church affairs. The aspiring priest looked forward -to a bishopric for himself; and in an illiterate congregation there -could be no effectual resistance to official assumptions which were -made with any tact. Thus were the scribes and Pharisees rapidly -duplicated.</p> -<p class="par">In an age of unbounded credulity the invitation to -deceit was constant; and, while credulity itself means the faculty for -innocent false witness, it could not be but that frauds were common in -matters of miracle-working of all kinds. To suppose that all the -miracle-stories arose in good faith when the deliberate manufacture of -false documents and calculated tamperings with the genuine were a main -part of the literary life of the Church, is to ignore all probability. -The systematic forgery and interpolation of “Sibylline -Books” by way of producing pagan testimonies and prophecies on -the side of Christism, is to be regarded as a clerical industry of the -second century. A bishop’s business was to forward the fame and -interests of his Church; and in Ambrose’s transparent account of -his discovery of miracle-working relics of saints at Milan in the -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb89" href="#pb89" name= -"pb89">89</a>]</span>fourth century we have a typical instance of the -methods by which the prestige of the faith was advanced. Ambrose was -above and not below the moral average of previous bishops. To find what -might pass for the bones and relics of saints and martyrs, to frame -false tales concerning them, to win illiterate and poor pagans to the -Church by imitating their festivals and ceremonies—these were, by -the grieving admission of many Christian historians, among the common -activities of the Church from the second or third century onwards; and -the priesthood were the natural agents of the work. By the very fact, -however, that there were special reputations for wonder-working, as -that of Gregory Thaumaturgus in the third century, we are reminded that -the pretence was not universal. Imposture is a variation like another; -and there must always have been a proportion of normally honest minds, -however unintelligent and uncritical. It was their incapacity that -evoked fraud. Some, on the other hand, have recorded how the bones of -executed robbers were at times made to do duty as relics of -martyrs.</p> -<p class="par">On one side the character of the early as of the later -clergy of the “Catholic” Church has suffered severely from -their own affirmation of a primitive theory of morals to which they -could not conform. In an age of lessening science and freedom, with -growing superstition, the barbarian ideal of asceticism gained ground -like other delusions. The idea that by physical self-mortification men -attain magical or intercessory power in spiritual things—an idea -found in all ancient religions, and enforced in numerous pagan -priesthoods—was imposed to some extent on Christism from the -first, and became more and more coercive as the cult passed out of -Jewish hands. The average presbyter of the second century, accordingly, -won his repute for sanctity in many cases by professing celibacy, which -in a large number of cases was too hard for him to maintain; and -between his own unhappy ideal and the demand of the crowd that he -should fulfil it, his life became in general a deception. In these -matters the multitude is always preposterously righteous. Aztecs in the -pre-Christian period, we know, were wont to put to death professed -ascetics <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb90" href="#pb90" name= -"pb90">90</a>]</span>who lapsed; and the normal denunciation of -priestly immorality in Europe in the Middle Ages seems rarely to have -been checked by the thought that the priest’s error consisted in -taking up a burden he could not bear. That priests ought to be celibate -the average priest-taught layman never doubted. Hence a premium on -hypocrisy in the period of church-creation. An artificial ethic created -an artificial crime, and Christian morality evolved demoralization. In -the second century began the practice of open priestly concubinage, -often on the naïve pretence of a purely spiritual union. Denounced -periodically by bishops and councils for hundreds of years, it was -never even ostensibly checked in the period of the empire; and the -later discipline of the Western Church did but drive the symptom -beneath the surface to form a worse disorder.</p> -<p class="par">In the Roman period no machinery existed by which -celibacy could be enforced. Councils varied in their stringency on the -subject, and many bishops were capable of voting for a rule to which -they did not in private conform. As for the bishopric of Rome, it had -at that time only a ceremonial primacy over the other provinces. In the -second century Bishop Victor of Rome is recorded to have passed -sentence of excommunication on the easterns who would not conform to -his practice in the observation of Easter; but his authority was -defied, and his successors do not seem even to have asserted it in any -similar degree for centuries. In the third century Bishop Cyprian of -Carthage, the first zealous prelatist in the literature of the Church, -claimed merely primacy, without superior authority, for the chief -bishoprics, and for Rome over the rest. All bishops he held to be -spiritually equal—and indeed all presbyters, bishops included. -This held good theoretically as late as the fourth and fifth centuries, -with the exception that by that time the bishop alone had the right to -appoint to Church offices—originally the function of the whole -community. But alike the internal and the external conditions made for -the creation of a hierarchy. When in the third century the puritan -party in the Church at Rome sought to appoint Novatian as its separate -bishop, alongside of another, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb91" href= -"#pb91" name="pb91">91</a>]</span>the bishops in the provinces, led by -Cyprian, zealously resisted, and secured the principle that no town -should have more than one bishop. In other ways the bishops necessarily -gathered power. To them had soon to be relegated the right of admitting -or refusing new members; and when there arose the question of the -treatment of those who lapsed in a time of persecution, there was no -way to secure uniformity of method save by leaving the matter to the -bishops, who in the main agreed on a rule. For such uniformity they -naturally strove in the days of danger; and the Church Synods, which -began in the second century and developed in the third, were tolerably -unanimous up to the time of the Establishment of the Church under -Constantine (313). It was when the Church as a whole had no longer -cause to fear the heathen that the worst strifes arose.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s2.1.3" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e403">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>The Gnostic -Movement in the Second Century</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">In New Testament Greek the same word has to stand -for “sect” and “heresy,” a fact premonitory of -what must happen to every new idea in religion. Any process of -reasoning whatever must have led to differences of opinion among the -converts of Paul or of the Pauline epistles; and such differences, -leading necessarily, among zealots, to animosities, are among the first -phenomena of Christism. As we have seen, the chief -“heresies” of the first century, stigmatized as such by the -later Church, were really independent cults older than itself; and -there is reason to think that the “Nicolitaines” execrated -in the Apocalypse were really the followers of Paul. At the beginning -of the second century, again, the first heretics on record are the -Elcesaites, who, however, as we saw, were obviously not an offshoot -from the Jesuists, but a separate body, their Christ being a gigantic -spirit and their doctrine a cluster of symbolisms. It is with the -so-called Gnostics, the claimants to a higher <i>Gnosis</i> or -knowledge, that heresy begins in Gentile Christianity; and as some of -these are already in evidence in the Pauline epistles, and had -interpolated the synoptics (Mt. xiii, Mk. iv, Lk. xii, 49, <i>sq.</i>), -to say nothing of framing the fourth gospel, they may fairly be -reckoned among “the first Christians.” <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb92" href="#pb92" name="pb92">92</a>]</span>Ere -long, however, they begin clearly to differentiate from the Christism -of the New Testament.</p> -<p class="par">If the early Gnostic systems be compared with that of -Paul, they will be found to have rather more in common with it than -with the Judaic Jesuism from which he ostensibly broke away. It is thus -not unlikely that their Christism, like his, is older than that of the -gospels, which is primarily of Jewish manufacture. The -“Simonians” of Samaria have every appearance of being -non-Jewish Christists “before Christ”; and the later -Gnostics have several Samaritan affinities. Like “Paul,” -they have no Jesuine biography; but whereas he ostensibly holds by an -actual man Jesus, however nondescript, they usually declare outright -for a mere divine phantom,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2194src" href= -"#xd21e2194" name="xd21e2194src">1</a> bearing a human semblance, but -uncontaminated by mixture with matter, which was the Gnostic symbol for -all evil. They did but attach the name of the Christos, and the hope of -salvation, to a general theosophy, as Paul attached it to Judaism; and -their great preoccupation was to account formally for the existence of -evil, which they commonly figured as either an evil power or an -essential quality of matter, forever opposed to the principle of good. -Hence the allusion to the “oppositions of science falsely -so-called”—that is, “the antithesis of the -Gnosis”—in the Pauline epistle. But they varied somewhat in -details according to their environment, being roughly divisible into -two groups—Asiatic and Egyptian.</p> -<p class="par">At the beginning of the second century those of Syria -are identified with the teaching of Saturninus of Antioch, in whose -theory a good God had made the seven angels, who in turn made the world -and created a low type of animal man in God’s image, whom, -however, God compassionately endowed with a reasonable soul. Of the -seven angels one was left to rule the world, and figured as God of the -Jews; but the others competed with him; and Satan, the chief evil -power, made a race of men with an evil soul. Thereupon the Supreme God -sent his son as Jesus Christ, human only in seeming, to bring men to -the knowledge of the Father and defeat the rebel angels. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb93" href="#pb93" name="pb93">93</a>]</span>Another -Syrian, Bardesanes, who lived in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, was less -anti-Jewish, and made the one God the creator of the world and of man, -who was at first ethereal and pure, but seduced and so degraded to the -form of flesh by the Adversary; the Christ’s function being to -secure a higher future life to those who accept him. From both points -of view, mortification of the flesh was a primary duty—all the -carnal instincts being evil—and Jesus on the same ground was -denied bodily existence. Always the effort is to account for evil as -involved in matter, the work not of the Supreme God, but of a -subordinate power who will be vanquished. Thus Tatian, a pupil of -Justin Martyr and contemporary with Saturninus, makes the world-creator -a subordinate God, and seems to have derived Judaism and the gospel -similarly from inferior deities. Some, as Bardesanes and Tatian, held -by a bodily resurrection; others, as Saturninus and Cerdo (fl. 140), -stressed the anti-material principle and denied that the resurrection -could be in bodily form. On such an issue, of course, it was easy to -compromise in the concept of a “spiritual body” the same to -the eye as the real body, but impalpable to touch—in short, the -“spirit” of all ages.</p> -<p class="par">It is reasonable to infer that the Gnostic systems were -suggested by the spectacle of the earthly Governments around them, no -less than by the previous theologies. Even as the Autocrator reigned -without governing, and the evils of misgovernment were chargeable on -proconsuls, so, it was thought, the head of the universe, the -Pantocrator, could not be implicated in the evil wrought under him. -Such a conception seems to have first arisen in the great monarchies of -the East. It followed, however, that as some satraps and proconsuls -governed well, there might be good subordinate deities; and in the -system of Basilides the Egyptian, who belonged to the brilliant reign -of Hadrian, the attribute of goodness is graded endlessly, down to the -angels of the 365th heaven, who made this world and its inhabitants. As -in the system of Saturninus, God gives these a reasonable soul, but the -angels rebel, and their chief, who becomes God of the Jews, draws on -that nation the hatred of all others by his arrogance. Egyptian -Gnosticism <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb94" href="#pb94" name= -"pb94">94</a>]</span>thus bore the stamp of the old Egyptian pantheism, -its every power emanating from the Unbegotten One; while the Asiatic -systems embody in some form the Mazdean principle of two opposed -powers, of which the worse is only ultimately to be defeated. Egyptian -precedent explains also the countless generations of the Gnostic -systems of Alexandria. As in Egyptian history dynasty followed on -dynasty, and as in the pantheon God was begotten of God, so in the -system of Basilides the Unbegotten produces from himself <i>Nous</i>, -Mind; which produces the <i>Logos</i>; which produces <i>Phronesis</i>, -Judgment; which produces <i>Sophia</i> and <i>Dynamis</i>, Wisdom and -Power; and these last in turn produce angels, who in turn reproduce -others down to the 365th grade. The system of Valentinus, assigned to -the period of Antoninus Pius, frames fresh complications, partly -suggestive of an immemorial bureaucracy which had duplicated itself in -the heavens, partly of an <i>à priori</i> psychology which -sought to explain the universe, now by first principles, after the -fashion of the early mythology of Rome, now by adaptations of the -current theosophy.</p> -<p class="par">In the hands of Valentinus religion becomes an imbroglio -which only an expert could master; and the functions of the Christ in -particular are a mere tangle of mystery. <i>Nous</i>, the first of many -“Æons,” is the “only begotten” Son, his -mother being <i>Ennoia</i>, Thought; yet with him is born Truth; and -these three with the Father make a first Tetrad. Then <i>Nous</i> -produces the <i>Logos</i> and Life; which beget Man and the Church; -which two pairs beget more Æons; and so on. In a later stage, -after a “fall,” <i>Nous</i> begets the Christos and the -Holy Spirit; while later still the Æons produce the Æon -Jesus, Sophia and Horos playing a part in the evolution. Such a maze, -though it is said to have had many devotees, could not possibly be the -creed of a popular Church, even in Egypt; and wherever the gospels went -their ostensibly concrete Jesus held his own against such spectral -competition. The systems which made Jesus non-human and those which -made of him an elusive abstraction were alike disadvantaged as against -that which declared him to have been born of woman and to have suffered -the last agony for the sons of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb95" -href="#pb95" name="pb95">95</a>]</span>men. Women could weep for the -crucified Man-God as they had immemorially done for Adonis and Osiris: -they could not shed tears for a phantasmagoric series of -Nous—Logos—Christ—Æons—Jesus, begetting -and begotten.</p> -<p class="par">Other Gnostics, still making mystical pretensions, were -content to represent Jesus as a superior human being born of Joseph and -Mary in the course of nature. Carpocrates of Alexandria, who so taught -in the reign of Hadrian, had a large following. Such tolerance of -“materialism,” however, brought on the sect charges of all -manner of sensuality; and there is categorical record that, following -Plato, they sought to practise community of women. Similarly, the -Basilidians were charged with regarding all bodily appetites as -indifferent, their founder having set his face against the -glorification of virginity, and taught that Jesus was not absolutely -sinless, since God could never permit an innocent being to be punished. -There is no proof, however, that any sect-founder was openly -antinomian; and while license doubtless occurred in many, we have the -evidence of the Pauline epistles that it could rise in the heart of the -primitive Church as easily as in any sect. In the same way, whatever -might be the doctrine of particular sections, it may be taken as -certain that the charge of bowing before persecution, cast at some, -held partly true of nearly all.</p> -<p class="par">Systems such as the bulk of those above described, -drawing as they did on any documents rather than the Old and New -Testaments, are obviously not so much Christian schisms as -differentiations from historic Christianity—developments, in most -cases, of an abstract Christism on lines not merely Gentile but based -on Gentile religions, as against the Jewish. Broadly speaking, -therefore, they tended to disappear from the Christist field, inasmuch -as paganism had other deities better suited to the part of the Gnostic -<i>Logos</i>. The intermediate type, bodiless at best, must die out. -Gnosticism had not only no canon of its own, but no thought of one: -while the fashion lasted every decade saw a new system, refining on the -last and multiplying its abstractions, till the very term <i>gnosis</i> -must have become a byword. Success, as has been <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb96" href="#pb96" name="pb96">96</a>]</span>said -above, must remain with the simple and concrete system, especially if -that were organized; and the Gnostics of the second century attempted -no general organization. Yet Gnosticism left a lasting impress on -Christianity. In its earlier stages, as we have seen, it modified the -gospels; and after it had evolved away from the gospel basis it left an -influence on the more philosophically-minded writers of the Church, -notably Clement of Alexandria, who is as openly anxious to approve -himself a “good Gnostic” as to found on the accepted sacred -books of the Church. Deriving as it partly did from the Jewish -Platonist Philo, it brought into the Church his fashion of reducing -Biblical narratives to allegories—a course much resorted to not -only by Origen but by Augustine, and very necessary for the defence of -Hebrew tales against pagan criticism. Further, the regular practice of -the Church in the matter of separating catechumens from initiates was -an adoption of the Gnostic principle of esoteric knowledge.</p> -<p class="par">In yet other ways, however, Gnosticism influenced early -Christianity. It was the Gnostics who first set up in it literary -habits: they were the first to multiply documents of all kinds; and it -is not unlikely that their early additions to the gospels gave a -stimulus to its expansion on other lines. They were, in short, the -first to introduce a tincture of letters and art into the cult; and it -was their spirit that shaped the fourth gospel, which gave to Christism -the only philosophical elements it ever possessed. They are not indeed -to be regarded as having cultivated philosophy to any good purpose, -though they passed on some of the philosophic impulse to the later -Platonists. Rather the average Gnostic is to be conceived as a leisured -dilettante in an age of learned ignorance and foiled intelligence, -lending an eager ear to new mysticisms, as so many half-cultured idlers -are seen still doing in our own day. They cared as much for -abracadabral amulets, apparently, as for theories; and their zeal for -secret knowledge had in it something of the spirit of class -exclusiveness, and even of personal arrogance. It would seem as if, -when tyrannies in the ancient world made an end of the old moral -distinctions <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb97" href="#pb97" name= -"pb97">97</a>]</span>of classes, men instinctively caught at new ways -of being superior to their fellows—for the spirit of Gnosticism -arose among the later Greek pagans, who here followed the lead of -Egyptian priests, as well as among Samaritans and Grecized Jews. At -most we may say of the Gnostics that they were much more concerned than -the orthodox to frame a complete and consistent theistic theory of -things, and that in their learned-ignorant way they sought to walk by -reason as well as by faith. Necessarily they were in a minority. It -was, however, their theoretic bent, surviving in the gospel-reading -Church, that determined the dogmatic development of the Christist -creed. Their recoil from the conception of a Saviour-God in a human -body comes out in the later debates and creeds as in the fourth gospel; -and if the final doctrine of the Trinity be not truly Gnostic, it is -because the Gnostics showed more concern for plausibility, and never -aimed at tying thought down forever to a plainly self-contradictory -formula. Much of their movement probably survived in Manichæism, -which, though sufficiently dogmatic, never flaunted such propositions -as those of the Nicene creed, and was a critical thorn in the flesh of -the Church. Even their amulets seem to have had a Christian vogue; and -the worship of angels, which began to flourish among Catholics in the -fourth century, seems to have been a reflex of their teaching.</p> -<p class="par">In some respects, finally, the modern Church has -confusedly reverted to their view of a future state. While the -“orthodox” Christians of the second century believed that -souls at death went to the under-world, to be raised with the body for -the approaching millennium, or thousand-years reign of Christ, the -Gnostics, scouting the millennium as a grossly materialistic -conception, held that at death the soul ascended to heaven. That -appears to be the prevailing fancy among Protestants at the present -day, though men have grown cautious of formal dicta on the subject.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s2.1.4" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e413">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 4.</span> <i>Marcionism -and Montanism</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Apart from Gnosticism, the Church of the second -century was affected by certain heretical or sectarian movements which -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb98" href="#pb98" name= -"pb98">98</a>]</span>centred round single teachers of an influential -sort, in particular Marcion of Sinope and Montanus, who became the -founders of something like separate churches. Montanus, like -Manichæus, has mythical aspects; and it is impossible to be sure -of the historicity of either;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2276src" href= -"#xd21e2276" name="xd21e2276src">2</a> but Marcionism sets up no such -difficulty. Marcion, who was a disciple of the Gnostic Cerdo, and like -him flourished in the reign of Antoninus Pius, held by some of the main -Gnostic theories, but differed from the Gnostics in general in that he -founded solely on New Testament writings and did not absolutely oppose -Judaism. In his system the Supreme God, who is Good, creates a Demiurge -or world-maker, who is merely Just or legalist, the God of the Jews; -while Satan, the offspring of Matter, governs the heathens. Only the -Christians are ruled by the Good God, who is first revealed to men -solely by the Christ. It was in this way that he applied the Gnostic -principle of “oppositions” or “antitheses,” in -a work bearing that title. His ethic appears to have been a sectarian -version of that of Bardesanes, who had defined the good as those who -did good even to the wicked; the just as those who did good only to the -good; and the wicked as those who did evil even to the good. It does -not seem to have occurred to Marcion that in classing all pagans as -outside of the pale of goodness he was stultifying his own avowed -principle of divine love and mercy; but in this respect at least he was -not heretical, for all who bore the Christian name agreed in limiting -salvation to Christists, and dooming all other men to hell-fire.</p> -<p class="par">That he was a fanatic of exceptional force of character -is proved by the facts that (1) it was he who forced on the Church the -problem of a canon, he being the first to form one, by way, as he -explained, of excluding Jewish documents and Jewish interpolations in -the gospel and the Pauline epistles; and that (2) he was able to form a -separate organization, which subsisted for centuries, with some -variations in doctrine, alongside of the “catholic” Church, -being heard of as late as the eighth century. The controversies he set -up affected the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb99" href="#pb99" name= -"pb99">99</a>]</span>whole literature of the Church for generations; -and though it was a point of honour with the orthodox to accuse him of -corrupting the texts as well as the faith, it is finally held that some -of his readings of the third gospel, which he specially favoured, are -really the original ones. Inasmuch, however, as he laid stress on -asceticism, to the extent of prohibiting marriage, he necessarily -failed to attract the multitude, though his was one of the influences -which fostered ascetic ideas within the Church from his time -onwards.</p> -<p class="par">The movement of Montanus, known also as the Cataphrygian -heresy, has two aspects—that of a sect apparently founded by a -zealot of strong personality, who felt that he had special inner light -and claimed (or was claimed) to be inspired by the Paraclete promised -in the gospel, and that of a general reaction against officialism in -the Church, somewhat in the spirit of the Quakers of the Reformation -period. It stressed all the extremer social tendencies of the early -Church, the prediction of the end of the world, the impropriety of -marriage and child-bearing in prospect of the catastrophe, the -multiplication of fasts, the absolute condemnation of second marriages, -the renunciation of earthly joys in general. Christ, said Montanus, had -withdrawn the indulgences granted by Moses; and through himself, the -Paraclete, cancelled those given by Paul. Thus true religion, having -had its infancy under Judaism, and its youth under the gospel, had -reached maturity under the Holy Spirit (an idea revived a thousand -years later in Catholic Europe). Hardness of heart had reigned till -Christ; weakness of flesh till the Paraclete. A special feature of the -Montanist schism—which spread far, and ultimately absorbed -Tertullian, who for a time had opposed it—was the association of -the founder with two wealthy women of rank, Maximilla and Priscilla, -who endowed the movement. It is noteworthy that this special growth of -asceticism took its rise in Phrygia, one of the regions specially -associated in pagan antiquity with sensuous and orgiastic worship. It -would seem as if an age of indulgence led in natural course to a -neurotic recoil. In any case it is neurosis that speaks in the ascetic -polemic of Tertullian, who became a typical Montanist. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb100" href="#pb100" name="pb100">100</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">Montanism, it has been said, was “all but -victorious”; but its victory was really impossible in the -circumstances. It would have meant arresting the growth of Christism to -the form of a moribund State Church by depriving it of all popular -attraction; and the vested interests were too great to permit of such a -renunciation. The movement may be loosely compared to the secession of -more rigid bodies from the relaxing sects of Methodism and Calvinism in -our own time: voluntary austerity must always be in a minority. A -Church which absolutely refused to retain or readmit any who committed -a cardinal sin or lapsed during persecution—saying they might be -saved by God’s grace, but must not be allowed human -forgiveness—was doomed to the background. But Montanism, -appealing as it did to an ideal of holiness which the average Christian -dared not repudiate, influenced the main body, especially through the -writings of such a valued polemist as Tertullian, who taunted them with -being inferior even to many pagans in the matter of chastity and -monogamy. The main body was not to be metamorphosed; but it read the -lesson as inculcating the need for at least nominal priestly celibacy. -Every notable “heresy” so-called seems thus to have left -its mark on the Church.</p> -<p class="par">What above all is proved by the movements of Marcion and -Montanus is the power of organization in that period to maintain a sect -with sacred books of any kind. They had learned the lesson taken from -Judaism by the first Christists, and proceeded to show that just as -organized Jesuism could live apart from Judaism in the Gentile field, -so new Christist sects could live apart from the orthodox Church when -once separation was forced on them. Montanism, like Marcionism, -survived for centuries, and seems to have been at length suppressed -only by sheer violence on the part of the Christian emperors, who could -persecute far more effectually than pagans ever did, having the Church -as an instrument. In the face of such developments, and still more in -view of the later success of Manichæism, which, as we shall see, -applied still better the principle of organization, there can be no -longer any difficulty in accounting for the rise of Christism on purely -natural <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb101" href="#pb101" name= -"pb101">101</a>]</span>grounds. Given the recognition of a few -essential conditions, the creation of a sect was a very simple and -facile matter. Montanism and Manichæism successively endured more -persecution, pagan and Christian, than the Christian Church ever did; -and it was only the essential unpopularity of the ideals of Montanism -that permitted of its suppression as a sect even by the persecuting -established Church. Manichæism, as we shall see, was almost -insuppressible, even when political changes had given the Church a -power of centralization and coercion which otherwise could never have -been developed. At the end of the third century, in short, the Church -of its own nature was rapidly approaching disruption into new and -irreconcilable organizations.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s2.1.5" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e423">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 5.</span> <i>Rites and -Ceremonies</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Apart from the habit of doctrinal discussion, -derived from Judaism, the Christianity of the third century had -distinctly become as much a matter of ritual and ceremonial as any of -the older pagan cults. Churches built for worship, rare in the second -century, had become common, and images had already begun to appear in -them, while incense was coming into general use, despite the earlier -detestation of it as a feature of idolatry. In the wealthier churches -gold and silver medals were often seen. Pagan example had proved -irresistible in this as in other matters.</p> -<p class="par">By this time baptism and the eucharist had alike become -virtual “mysteries,” to which new-comers were initiated as -in the pagan cults. Baptism was administered only twice a year, and -then only to those who had undergone a long preparation. The first -proceeding was a solemn exorcism, which was supposed to free the -initiates from the power of the evil spirit or spirits. Then, after -they had repeated a creed (which in the Western Churches had to be -recited both in Greek and Latin, the Greek being in the nature of a -magic formula), they were completely immersed, signed with the cross, -prayed over, and touched ceremonially with the hands of the officiating -bishop or presbyter; finally they partook of milk and honey, and -returned home decorated with a white robe and a crown. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb102" href="#pb102" name="pb102">102</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">The eucharist, commonly administered on Sundays, was -regarded as absolutely necessary to salvation and resurrection; and on -that account infants were made to partake of it, this before baptism -had been declared to be essential in their case. Only the baptized were -allowed to be present at the celebration; but portions of the -consecrated bread and wine were taken away for sick members, and -believed to have a curative virtue. The sign of the cross was now -constantly used in the same spirit, being held potent against physical -and spiritual evil alike, insofar as any such distinction was drawn. -But diseases, as among savages in all ages, were commonly regarded as -the work of evil spirits, and medical science was generally disowned, -the preferred treatment being exorcism. A baptized person might further -use the Lord’s Prayer, with its appeal against the Evil -One—a privilege denied to the catechumen or seeker for -membership.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s2.1.6" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e433">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 6.</span> <i>Strifes over -Primary Dogma</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The nucleus for a theistic-Christist creed, as we -have seen, was given to the Church in the fourth gospel. The first -Jewish Jesuists were simple Unitarians; and the Jesus of Paul, so far -as can be safely inferred from epistles indefinitely interpolated, was -certainly no part of a trinity in unity. At the beginning of the second -century the “orthodox” Christists had no more definite -theology than had the unlettered believers in any pagan Saviour-God; -and at most the gospels taught them to regard the supernaturally-born -Christ as having ascended to heaven, to sit in visible form at the -right hand of the Father, as Herakles or Dionysos or Apollo might sit -by his Father Zeus. At the middle of the century Justin Martyr speaks -of the Logos not as a personal form of deity, but as the inspiration -given by God to men in different degrees at different times. It is -after him that the fourth gospel begins to do its work. Christian -apologists, deriding the beliefs of the pagans, had to meet the charge -that they too were polytheists, and the old pagan challenge, put to -pagans: If the suffering Saviour were a man, why worship him? if he -were a God, why weep for his sufferings? <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb103" href="#pb103" name="pb103">103</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">An attempt to meet the difficulty was made in the heresy -of Praxeas, a member of the Church who, coming from Asia to Rome late -in the century, seems to have taught that the Son and the Holy Spirit -were not distinct from the Father, but simply functions of the One God, -the Father having descended into the Virgin and been born as Jesus -Christ. At once he was accused of “making the Father -suffer” on the cross, and his sect accordingly seem to have been -among the first called <i>Patripassians</i>. In the same or the next -century Noëtus of Smyrna is found preaching the same doctrine; and -in the hands of Sabellius of Libya, whose name was given to it by his -opponents, the teaching became one of the most influential heresies of -the age. Sabellius in fact formulated that theory of the Trinity which -alone gives it formal plausibility: the three <i lang= -"la">personæ</i> were for him (as they could etymologically be in -Latin and in the Greek term first used, <i>prosopon</i>) not persons, -but aspects or modes of the deity, as power, wisdom, and goodness; or -law, mercy, and guidance—a kind of solution which in later times -has captivated many theologians, including Servetus and Coleridge. But -Sabellius, like his predecessors, had to meet the epithet of -“Patripassian,” and he appears to have parried it with the -formula that only a certain energy proceeding from the Divine Nature -had been united to the man Jesus. In the way of rationalizing the -irrational and giving consistency to contradictories, the Church could -never do better than this. Under such a theorem, however, the Man-God -as such theoretically disappeared; and as that was precisely the side -of the creed which identified the cult, gave it popularity, and won it -revenue, Sabellianism, though accepted by many, even by many bishops, -could not become the official doctrine. It persistently remained, -nevertheless, in the background, the idea taking new forms and names in -succeeding generations, as new men arose with courage and energy enough -to reopen the insoluble strife, during a period of four hundred -years.</p> -<p class="par">A solution by a different approach was offered by such -second-century teachers as Theodotus of Byzantium, a learned tanner -living in Rome; another of the same name, a banker; and Artemon, all -founders of sects by whom Jesus was regarded <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb104" href="#pb104" name="pb104">104</a>]</span>as -merely a superior man, supernaturally born. As this form of the -Unitarian doctrine struck directly at the essential element of the -Christ’s deity, in respect of which the cult vied with others of -the same type, it was no more generally acceptable than the Sabellian; -and it is more than likely that the mere <i>odium theologicum</i> gave -rise to the story that Theodotus had first denied Christ under -persecution, and then framed a theology for his predicament. Yet such -doctrines as his must have gone on gaining ground among the more -stirring minds; for when in the next century Paul of Samosata, bishop -of Antioch, began to restate the Unitarian thesis, he found an -extensive following. The Logos, he taught, was not a person distinct -from the Father, but merely his wisdom, which descended into but was -not united with Jesus. Given forth about the year 260, Paul’s -teaching was condemned by a council at Antioch in 264, he giving a -promise of “reformation” which he did not keep. Another -council, which met in 269 or 270, deposed and excommunicated him; but -he refused to obey, and Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, who then ruled -Antioch, protected him. Not till 272, when Antioch was retaken by -Aurelian, did the majority succeed in ousting him, by the -emperor’s express intervention. And still the -“heresy” persisted, and the theological hatreds grew. It -belonged to the nature of the religion, a pyramid poised on its apex, -to be in unstable equilibrium wherever any breath of reason could -blow.</p> -<p class="par">The development of the councils in the third century is -a proof at once of the growth of organization in the Church and of the -need for it. It is not to be supposed that all orthodox Churchmen -looked practically to the main chance; it is clear, on the contrary, -that many were moved by the conservative zeal of the Bibliolater of all -ages, as the heretics were presumably moved by a spirit of reason; but -the bishops must at all times have included many who looked at -questions of creed from the standpoint of finance, like so many members -of modern political parties; and they would be apt to turn the scale in -every serious dispute. Even they, however, with whatever aid from -polemical propaganda, could not long have <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb105" href="#pb105" name="pb105">105</a>]</span>availed to preserve -anything like a preponderating main body if the Church were left to -itself. The polemical writers, broadly speaking, converted nobody, but -merely inflamed those already convinced; and party strife was becoming -more and more comprehensive, more furious, more menacing, when the -Church was saved from itself by the State. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb106" href="#pb106" name="pb106">106</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="footnotes"> -<hr class="fnsep"> -<div class="footnote-body"> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e2194" href="#xd21e2194src" name="xd21e2194">1</a></span> Compare -the Second Epistle of John, <i>v.</i> 7, as to the “many -deceivers” who “confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the -flesh.” <a class="fnarrow" href= -"#xd21e2194src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e2276" href="#xd21e2276src" name="xd21e2276">2</a></span> As to -Montanus, see <i>Montanus and the Primitive Church</i>, Hulsean Prize -Essay, by John De Soyres, 1878. <a class="fnarrow" href= -"#xd21e2276src">↑</a></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter II</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE</h2> -<div id="s2.2.1" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e449">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> -<i>Persecutions</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">It was involved in the aggressive attitude of the -Christist movement that it should be persecuted by a partly -countervailing fanaticism. The original bias of all ancient religion, -indeed, in virtue of the simple self-interest of priesthoods, had been -to resent and suppress any new worship; and though nowhere else is the -course so ferociously enjoined as in the Hebrew sacred books, there are -many traces of it in the pagan world. Thus the Dionysiak cult had been -violently resisted on its introduction into Greece; and the early Roman -law against foreign worships was turned against it, under circumstances -plainly exaggerated by Livy, about 187 <span class="sc">B.C.</span> -Later a religious panic led to the official suppression in Rome of the -worships of Isis and Serapis. Empire, however, everywhere involved some -measure of official toleration of diverging cults; and as in Babylon -and Egypt, so under the Hellenistic and Roman systems, the religions of -each of the provinces were more or less assimilated in all. When even -early Athens had been constrained to permit the non-aggressive cults of -the aliens within her walls, far-reaching empires could do no less. -Indeed, the very vogue of Christism depended on the fact that -throughout the empire there was taking place a new facility of belief -in strange Gods. There can be no more complete mistake than the common -assertion that it made its appeal in virtue of the prevalence of -“desolating scepticism.” On the contrary, rationalism had -practically disappeared; and even the Roman pagans most adverse to -Christism were friendly to other new cults.</p> -<p class="par">Had the Christian cult been, like its non-Jewish -contemporaries, a mere effort to “worship God according to -conscience,” <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb107" href="#pb107" -name="pb107">107</a>]</span>it need not have undergone pagan -persecution any more than they, or than Judaism, save when the State -imposed the duty of worshipping the emperor’s statue. A God the -more was no scandal to polytheists. Christism had taken from Judaism, -however, as a first principle, the detestation of “idols,” -and its propaganda from the first had included a violent polemic -against them. For the Christians the pagan Gods were not unrealities: -they were evil dæmons, constantly active. Insofar, too, as the -first Jesuists in the western part of the empire shared the Jewish -hatred for Rome that is expressed in the Apocalypse, they were likely -enough to provoke Roman violence. A constant prediction of the speedy -passing away of all things was in itself a kind of sedition; and when -joined with contumely towards all other religions it could not but -rouse resentment. Thus, though the story of the great Neronian massacre -is, as already noted, an apparent fiction as regards the Christians, -being unnoticed in the book of Acts, Jesuists and Jews alike ran many -chances of local or general hostility under the empire from the first. -The express doctrines, put in the mouth of the founder, that he had -come to bring not peace but a sword, and to create strife in families, -were not fitted to soften the prejudices aroused by the religious -claims of the new faith; and in the time of Tertullian they were -defined in the west as “enemies of the Gods, of the emperors, of -the laws, of morals, and of all nature.”</p> -<p class="par">According to Tertullian, writing under Severus or -Caracalla, only the bad emperors had persecuted the Church. But its -danger had always lain less in special imperial edicts than in the -ordinary bearing of the laws against secret societies and nocturnal -worships, and in the ordinary tendency of ignorant and priest-led -fanaticism to a panic of cruelty in times of popular distress or alarm. -An earthquake or pestilence was always apt to be visited on the new -“atheists” as provokers of the Gods. The mere habit of -midnight worship, which is one of the proofs that early Jesuism was in -some way affiliated to sun-worship, was a ground for suspicion; but as -Mithraism was freely tolerated in spite of its nocturnal rites, -Christism might have been, but for its other provocations. And even -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb108" href="#pb108" name= -"pb108">108</a>]</span>these were for long periods ignored by the -Government. If the often-quoted letter of Pliny to Trajan (about the -year 100) be genuine, it proves an official disposition to protect the -Christians, when politically innocent, from fanatical attacks; and -Tertullian, who speaks of such a letter, credits Marcus Aurelius with -limiting the scope of the laws which tended to injure the sect, though -we know from Marcus himself that Christians suffered death. By common -consent, though there was certainly much random persecution in the -first three centuries, the formula of “ten persecutions” is -fabulous; and that ascribed to Domitian is hardly better established -than that ascribed to Nero. That the Christists suffered specially as -tradition asserts in the reign of Hadrian, when the Jews were specially -hated because of their last desperate revolt, is probable; but Hadrian -gave no general orders, and is credited like the Antonines with -shielding the new sectaries. It is finally very doubtful whether any -ordained and legalized persecution of Christians ever took place save -(1) in Egypt under Severus, who at first and afterwards was friendly; -(2) on a small scale under Maximinus; (3) in the east under Decius and -(4) under Valerian; and (5) throughout the empire under Diocletian and -his colleagues (from 303 to 311). These episodes occurred within a -period of little over a hundred years.</p> -<p class="par">In all periods alike, from the end of the first century -down to Constantine, there was no doubt much chronic cruelty. The -letter from the Churches of Vienne and Lyons, cited by Eusebius and -assigned to the year 161, is a doubtful document; but the savageries -there described were only too possible. Public cruelty seems to have -worsened in the very period in which the inhabitants of cities had -become most unused to war, and the finer minds had grown most humane; -like the other animal instincts, it had grown neurotic in conditions of -vicious idleness, and many men had become virtuosi in cruelty as in -lust. The Christian gospel itself now held up “the -tormentors” as typical of the processes of divine punishment; and -torture was for many an age to be a part of Christian as of pagan legal -procedure. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb109" href="#pb109" name= -"pb109">109</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">Insofar as persecution was legalized, it is to be -understood not as a putting down of a new religious belief, but as an -attack on its political and social side. In the case, for instance, of -Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who after a flight and a banishment was -put to death under Valerian and Gallienus (258), the bishop’s -far-reaching activities are the presumptive reason for his fate. It is -to be remembered, as Gibbon notes, that in ten years of Cyprian’s -tenure of office four emperors themselves died by the sword, with their -families and their adherents. At times, no doubt, the attack on -Christians was unprovoked, consisting as it might in a challenge to a -Christian to swear allegiance by or sacrifice to the statue of the -emperor, when he was willing to swear by his own creed. The public -worship of the emperor was the one semblance of a centralized religious -organization which, like that of the Christian Church, existed -throughout the empire. Precedented by old Egyptian and eastern usage, -and by the practice of Alexander and his successors, it had first -appeared in Rome in the offer of the cringing senate to deify Julius -Cæsar, and in the systematic measures of Augustus to have Julius -worshipped as a God (<i>divus</i>), an honour promptly accorded to -himself in turn. The apotheosis was signalized by giving the names of -Julius and Augustus to the months Quintilis and Sextilis; and only the -final unpopularity of Tiberius prevented the substitution of his name -in turn for that of September, an honour offered to and refused by him -in his earlier life.</p> -<p class="par">Some of the madder emperors later tried to carry on the -process of putting themselves in the calendar, but were duly disobeyed -after death. Detested emperors, such as Tiberius and Nero and Domitian, -were even refused the apotheosis; but in general the title of -<i>divus</i> was freely accorded, so abject had the general mind grown -under autocracy; and it was usual in the provinces to worship the -living emperor in a special temple in association with the Genius of -Rome; while the cults of some emperors lasted long after their death. -The common sense as well as the sense of humour of some rulers led them -to make light of the institution; and the jest of the <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb110" href="#pb110" name= -"pb110">110</a>]</span>dying Vespasian, “I fancy I am turning -God,” is one of several imperial witticisms on the subject; but -it lay in the nature of autocracy, in Rome as in Egypt or in Incarian -Peru, to employ sagaciously all methods of abasing the human spirit, so -as to secure the safety of the throne. One of the most obvious means -was to deify the emperor—a procedure as “natural” in -that age as the deification of Jesus, and depending on the same -psychological conditions. And though the person of the emperor was -seldom quite safe from assassination by his soldiery, the imperial cult -played its part from the first in establishing the fatal ideal of -empire. No sequence of vileness or incompetence in the emperors, no -impatience of the insecurity set up by the power of the army to make -and unmake the autocrat, no experience of the danger of a war of -claimants, ever seems to have made Romans dream of a saner and nobler -system. Manhood had been brought too low.</p> -<p class="par">Imperialism being thus an official religion in itself, -the cult of the emperor lay to the hands of any magistrate who should -be disposed to put a test to a member of the sect which decried all -established customs and blasphemed all established Gods. It was the -recognized way of imposing the oath of allegiance apart from any -specific law. Where such a procedure was possible, any malicious pagan -might bring about a stedfast Christian’s death. There is -Christian testimony, however, that many frenzied believers brought -martyrdom wilfully on themselves by outrages on pagan temples and -sacred statues; and it is Tertullian who tells how Arrius Antoninus, -pro-consul in Asia, drove from him a multitude of frantic fanatics -seeking death, with the amazed demand to know whether they had not -ropes and precipices. The official temper evidently varied, as did that -of the Christians. In the period before Diocletian, save for the -intrigues of pagan priests and provincial demagogues, and the normal -suspicions of autocratic power, there was nothing in the nature of a -general and official animosity, though the Christian attitude was -always unconciliatory enough. But by the beginning of the fourth -century the developments on both sides had created a situation of -strain and danger. The great effort of Diocletian to give <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb111" href="#pb111" name="pb111">111</a>]</span>new -life to the vast organism of the empire, first by minute supervision, -and then by sub-division under two emperors, called Augusti, and two -Cæsars, wrought a certain seriousness of political interest -throughout the bureaucracy; and the Christian body, long regarded with -alternate contempt and dislike, had become so far organized and so -considerable a force that none who broadly considered the prospects of -the State could avoid reckoning with it.</p> -<p class="par">At the same time paganism had taken on new guises: the -Neo-Platonists, so-called, restated the ancient mythology and theology -in forms which compared very well with the abstract teaching of the -Church; and among the educated class there was some measure of -religious zeal against Christians as blasphemers of other men’s -Gods. It may or may not have needed the persuasion of his -anti-Christian colleague, the Cæsar Galerius, to convince such a -ruler as Diocletian that the Christian Church, a growing State within -the State, still standing by an official doctrine of a speedy -world’s-end, and rejecting the cult of the emperor, was an -incongruous and dangerous element in the imperial scheme. It was in -fact a clear source of political weakness, though not so deadly a one -as the autocracy itself. To seek to suppress it, accordingly, was -almost a natural outcome of Diocletian’s ideal of government. He -had sought to give a new air of sanctity to the worship of the emperor -by calling himself <i>Jovius</i> and his colleague Maximian -<i>Herculius</i>; and to make the effort succeed it might well seem -necessary to crush the one cult that directly stood in the way, alike -as a creed and as an organization. The refusal of some Christian -soldiers, too, to submit to certain commands which they considered -unlawful gave Galerius a special pretext for strong measures.</p> -<p class="par">It is not to be forgotten that the emperors and the -bureaucracy had some excuse for a policy of suppression in the bitter -strifes of the Christian sects and sections. Eusebius confesses that -these were on the verge of actual warfare, bishop against bishop and -party against party, each seeking for power; and for all it was a -matter of course to accuse opponents of the worst malpractices. Some of -the darkest <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb112" href="#pb112" name= -"pb112">112</a>]</span>charges brought by the pagans against Christians -in general were but distributions of those brought by the orthodox -against heretics, and by Montanists and others against the orthodox. A -credulous pagan might well believe that all alike carried on vile -midnight orgies, and deserved to be refused the right of meeting. It is -not probable, however, that the two emperors and the persecuting -Cæsar proceeded on any concern for private morals; and though -Galerius was a zealous pagan with a fanatical mother, the motive of the -persecution was essentially political. What happened was that the -passions of the zealots among the pagans had now something like free -scope; and, unless the record in Eusebius is sheer fable, the work was -often done with horrible cruelty. On the other hand, there is Christian -testimony to the humanity of many of the better pagans, who sheltered -their Christian friends and relatives; and the Cæsar Constantius -Chlorus, a tolerant pagan, who ruled in Gaul and Britain and Spain, -gave only a formal effect to the edict of the emperors, destroying -churches and sacred books, but sparing their owners. The fact, finally, -that in ten years of persecution the number of victims throughout the -eastern and central empire appears to have been within two thousand, -goes to suggest that the mass of the Christians either bowed to the -storm or eluded it. Bitter discussions, reviving some of the previous -century, rose afterwards as to the proper treatment of the -<i>traditores</i>, those who surrendered and forswore themselves; and -the more zealous sects and churches either imposed long penances or -refused to receive back the lapsed. As the latter course would only -weaken themselves, the majority of the churches combined policy with -penalty.</p> -<p class="par">The time was now at hand when the Church, from being an -object of aversion to the autocracy, was to become its instrument. Just -before his death in 311, Galerius, who was little of a statesman, began -to see what Diocletian would doubtless have admitted had he lived much -longer, and what Constantius Chlorus had probably suggested to his -colleagues, that the true policy for the government was to adopt -instead of crushing the Christian organization. Only the original -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb113" href="#pb113" name= -"pb113">113</a>]</span>anticivism of the cult, probably, had prevented -a much earlier adoption of this view by the more politic emperors. It -was the insistence on the imminent end of the world, the preaching of -celibacy, the disparagement of earthly dignitaries, the vehement -assault on the standing cults of the State, no less than the refusal to -sacrifice to the emperor’s statue, that had so long made -Christism seem the natural enemy of all civil government. The more the -Church grew in numbers and wealth, however, the more its bishops and -priests tended to conform to the ordinary theory of public life; and as -theirs was now the only organization of any kind that reached far -throughout the State, save the State itself and the cult of the -emperors, the latter must evidently either destroy it or adopt it. The -great persecution, aiming at the former end, served only to show the -futility of official persecution for such a purpose, since pagans -themselves helped to screen staunch Christians, and the weaker had but -to bow before the storm. Already Constantine, acting with a free hand -on his father’s principles, had given complete tolerance to the -Christians under his sway; and Maxentius, struggling with him for the -mastery of the West, had done as much. Even in the East, Maximin had -alternately persecuted and tolerated the Christians as he had need to -press or pacify Galerius. The language used by Galerius, finally, in -withdrawing the edict of persecution, suggests that besides recognizing -its failure he had learned from his opponents to conceive the -possibility of attaching to the autocracy a sect so much more widely -organized and so much more zealous than any of the other subsisting -popular religions, albeit still numbering only a fraction of the whole -population.</p> -<p class="par">To many of the Christians, on the other hand, long -persecution had doubtless taught the wisdom of recanting the extremes -of doctrine which had made even sceptical statesmen regard them as a -danger to any State. It is clear that bishops like Eusebius of -Cæsarea would readily promise to the government a loyal attention -to its interests in the event of its tolerating and befriending the -Church; and the sacred books offered texts for any line of public -action. The empire, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb114" href="#pb114" -name="pb114">114</a>]</span>always menaced by barbarism on its -frontiers, needed every force of union that could be used within; and -here, finally adaptable to such use, was the one organization that -acted or was fitted to act throughout the whole. To the leading -churchmen, finally, association with the State was the more welcome -because on the one hand general persecution would cease, and on the -other all the party leaders could hope to be able by the State’s -means to put down their opponents. A generation before, in the year -272, the Emperor Aurelian, on the express appeal of the party of -bishops who had deposed Paul of Samosata, had intervened in that -quarrel to give effect to the will of the majority, which otherwise -could not have been put in force; and such occasions were sure to arise -frequently. It needed only another innovating emperor to bring about -the coalition thus prepared.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s2.2.2" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e459">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>Establishment -and Creed-Making</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">On the abdication of the co-emperors Diocletian -and Maximian, the Cæsars, Galerius and Constantius Chlorus, -became the Augusti; the former, as senior, taking the East, and the -latter the West. At once the plans of Diocletian began to miscarry; and -Galerius, instead of raising to the Cæsarship, as the other had -wished, Maxentius the son of Maximian and Constantine the already -distinguished son of Constantius, gave the junior titles to his nephews -Severus and Maximin. The speedy death of Constantius, however, secured -the election of Constantine to the purple by his father’s troops -in Britain; and there ensued the manifold strifes which ended in -Constantine’s triumph. Maxentius, and his father, who returned to -power, put down Severus; and Maximian gave his daughter as wife to -Constantine, thus creating a state of things in which three emperors -were leagued against a fourth and one Cæsar. Soon Maximian and -Maxentius quarrelled, the father taking refuge first with Constantine -and later with Galerius; who, however, proceeded to create yet another -emperor, Licinius. Immediately the Cæsar Maximin revolted, and -forced Galerius to make him Augustus also. The old Maximian in the -meantime went to league himself afresh <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb115" href="#pb115" name="pb115">115</a>]</span>with Constantine, -who, finding him treacherous, had him strangled. Soon after, Galerius -dying (in 311), Maximin and Licinius joined forces; while Maxentius, -who held Italy and Africa, professing to avenge his father, declared -war on Constantine, who held Gaul. The result was the defeat and death -of the former, leaving Constantine master of the whole West (312). In -314 he fell out with Licinius, who had in the meantime destroyed -Maximin, and won from him Illyrium, Macedonia, and Greece. For ten -years thereafter Constantine divided the empire with Licinius; then, -quarrelling afresh with his rival, he captured and strangled him, and -was sole autocrat (324).</p> -<p class="par">Out of this desperate drama emerged Christianity as the -specially favoured cult of the Roman empire. Constantine, we saw, had -protected the Christians from the first, as his father had done before -him; and Licinius had acquiesced in the same policy, though in his -final war with Constantine he persecuted the Christians in order to -attach pagans to his cause. There has been much discussion, -nevertheless, as to whether Constantine turned Christian on political -or on religious grounds. The fact seems to be that, in the ordinary -spirit of ancient religion, he trusted to have the support of the God -of the Christians in his great struggle with Maxentius, who appealed to -the Gods of paganism with old and evil rites; and that after his first -great success he became more and more confirmed in his choice. The -story, however, of his having the <i>labarum</i> presented to him in a -dream or a vision is an obvious fiction, possible only to the ignorance -of the first Christian historians, who read the Greek letters -<span class="trans" title="Chr"><span class="Greek" lang= -"grc">Χρ</span></span> (Chr)—though the tradition ran -that the accompanying words, “In this sign conquer,” were -in Latin—in a solar symbol that had appeared on Egyptian and -other coins many centuries before, and had no reference whatever to the -name of Christ, though Constantine used it for that on his standards. A -similar tale is told of his son Constantius, on whose coins, however, -the symbol is associated with the pagan Goddess of Victory. For the -rest, Constantine was a Christian like another. His father had been a -monotheist, who protected the Christians on <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb116" href="#pb116" name= -"pb116">116</a>]</span>philosophical principles; and from the constant -success of Constantius in all his undertakings, as compared with the -ill fortune of his own rivals, the son argued that the religion of -“One God” was propitious to his house. His personal success -in war was always his main argument for the Christian creed, and in -such an age it was not the least convincing. The fact that he postponed -his baptism till shortly before his death is not to be taken as -necessarily indicating any religious hesitations on his part, though -such hesitation may have been his motive. Multitudes of Christians in -that age did the same thing, on the ground that baptism took away all -sin, and that it was bad economy to receive it early. In his case such -a reason was specially weighty, and there is no decisive reason to -suppose that he had any other of a religious nature. Since, however, -the pagans still greatly outnumbered the Christians, he could not -afford to declare definitely against all other cults; and, beginning by -decreeing toleration for all, he kept the pagan title of <i>pontifex -maximus</i>, and continued through the greater part of his life to -issue coins or medals on which he figured as the devotee of Apollo or -Mars or Herakles or Mithra or Zeus.</p> -<p class="par">While, however, he thus propitiated other Gods and -worshippers, he gave the Christians from the first a unique financial -support. Formerly, the clergy in general had been wont to supplement -their monthly allowances by trading, farming, banking, by handicraft, -and by practising as physicians; but the emperor now enacted that they -should have regular annual allowances, and that the church’s -widows and virgins should be similarly supported. Further, not only did -he restore the possessions taken from believers during the persecution, -he enacted that all their priests, like those of Egypt and of the later -empire in general, should be exempt from municipal burdens; a step as -much to their interest as it was to the injury of the State and of all -public spirit. The instant effect was to draw to the priesthood -multitudes of gain-seekers; the churches of Carthage and Constantinople -soon had 500 priests apiece; and so strong were the protests of the -municipalities against the financial disorder he had created that -Constantine was <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb117" href="#pb117" -name="pb117">117</a>]</span>fain to restrict his decree. Certainly -pagan flamens and public priests of the provinces, a restricted class, -had had the same privilege, and this he maintained for them despite -Christian appeals; nor does he seem to have withdrawn it from the -priests and elders of the Jewish synagogues, who had also enjoyed it; -but his direct gifts to the churches were considerable, and by -permitting them to receive legacies in the manner of the pagan temples -he established their financial basis. So great was their gain that laws -had to be passed limiting the number of the clergy; and from this time -forward laws were necessary to restrain priests and bishops from -further enriching themselves by lending at interest.</p> -<p class="par">Clerical power, however, was still further extended. -Bishops, who had hitherto acted as arbitrators in Christian disputes, -had their decisions legally enforced; and the important legal process -of freeing slaves was transferred from the temples to the churches. -Some pagan temples he temporarily suppressed, on moral grounds; some he -allowed to be destroyed as no longer in use; but though he built and -richly endowed several great Christian churches and passed some laws -against pagan practices, he never ventured on the general persecution -of pagans which his Christian hangers-on desired; and the assertions of -Eusebius as to his having plundered the temples and brought paganism -into contempt are among the many fictions—some of them perhaps -later forgeries—in the works of that historian. As it was, -Christian converts were sufficiently multiplied. Constantine’s -severest measures were taken against private divination, the practisers -of which he ordered to be burnt alive; but here he acted on the -standing principles of pagan law, and doubtless under the usual -autocratic fear of soothsaying against himself. The measure of course -had no effect on popular practice. The emperors themselves usually -consulted diviners before their own accession; and their veto on -divination for other people was thus not impressive.</p> -<p class="par">It is in his relations to his chosen church, code, and -creed that Constantine figures at his worst. In the year after his -victory over Licinius, when he was ostensibly a doubly convinced -Christian, he put to death his son Crispus, a nephew, <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb118" href="#pb118" name="pb118">118</a>]</span>and -his wife, Fausta; and he had strangled Licinius and <i>his</i> son -after promising to preserve their lives; but not a word of censure came -from the Christian clergy. At one stroke, their whole parade of -superior morality was gone; and the Church thenceforth was to be in the -main as zealous a sycophant of thrones as the priests of the past had -ever been. Constantine lived without rebuke the ordinary life of -autocrats; and by the admission of his episcopal panegyrist he was -surrounded by worthless self-seekers, Christians all. Such as he was, -however, Constantine was joyfully accepted as head of the Church on -earth. His creation of the new capital, Constantinople, was regarded as -the beginning of a new era, that of Christianity; since the upper -classes of Rome were the most zealous devotees of the old Gods, and -were said to have received Constantine on his last visit with open -disrespect. Remaining <i>pontifex maximus</i>, he presided over the -Œcumenical Council of the Church; and one of the abuses he -established was to put the entire imperial postal service, with its -relays of horses and chariots, at the service of the bishops travelling -to attend them. For all his efforts he had the reward of seeing them -quarrel more and more furiously over their central dogmas and over -questions of discipline. Under his eyes there arose the great schism of -Arius, and the schism of the Donatists in Africa, both destined to -deepen and worsen for many generations. The failure of the Church as a -means of moral union becomes obvious once for all as soon as the act of -establishment has removed the only previous restraining force on -Christian quarrels, fear of the pagan enemy. Clerical revenues being -mostly local, schism was still no economic disadvantage to any sectary; -and the Christian creed availed as little to overrule primary instincts -of strife as to provide rational tests for opinion or action.</p> -<p class="par">It would seem as if whatever mental impulse was left in -men must needs run in the new channels opened up for ignorant energy by -ecclesiasticism and theology in that world of deepening ignorance and -waning civilization. Literature as such was vanishing; art was growing -more impotent reign by reign; and the physical sciences, revived for a -time in their refuge at <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb119" href= -"#pb119" name="pb119">119</a>]</span>Alexandria by the Antonines and -Flavians, were being lost from the hands of the living. To attribute -the universal decadence to Christianity would be no less an error than -the old falsism that it was a force of moral and civic regeneration: it -was an effect rather than a cause of the general lapse. But, once -established as part of the imperial machinery, it hastened every -process of intellectual decay; and under such circumstances moral gain -could not be. A doctrine of blind faith could not conceivably save a -world sinking through sheer lack of light.</p> -<p class="par">To Constantine, the endless strifes of the clergy over -their creeds were as unintelligible as they were insoluble. Like the -centurion of the gospel story, wont to command and to be obeyed, he -looked for discipline in divine things; and as the theological feud -became more and more embroiled he passed from uneasiness to a state -between fear and rage. The <i>Divinitas</i>, he protested, would be -turned against all, clergy and emperor and laity alike, if the clergy -would not live at peace; and he quaintly besought them to leave points -of theory alone, or else to imitate the pagan philosophers, who could -debate without hatred. The ever-quarrelling Church was becoming a -laughing-stock to the Pagans, being derided in the very theatres; and -its new converts could be those only who went wherever there was chance -of gain. So, in one of his rages, he decreed murderous punishment -against intractable schismatics, only to find that the menace had -multiplied the offence. Such as it was, however, the Church was an -instrument of autocratic organization not to be dispensed with; and -thus, at the stage at which its theological impulses, unchecked by sane -moral feeling, would in the absence of persecution by the State have -rent it in mutually destroying factions, the official protection of the -State in turn came in to hold it together as a nominal unity. Thus and -thus did the organism survive—by anything rather than moral -vitality or intellectual virtue.</p> -<p class="par">Leaving to the councils the settlement or unsettlement -of dogmas, the emperor took upon himself, to the great satisfaction of -the clergy, the whole external administration of the Church, -assimilating it to his body politic. The four leading <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb120" href="#pb120" name= -"pb120">120</a>]</span>bishoprics—Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, and -Constantinople—were put on a level with the four prætorian -prefectures; under them were ecclesiastical exarchs, corresponding to -the thirteen civil exarchs of given territories or dioceses; and next -came metropolitans or archbishops who superintended the single -provinces, 116 in all. In the next century, the Bishop of Jerusalem, -formerly subject to Antioch, became independent; and those five sees -became known as the five Patriarchates. Numbers of churches still -remained for various reasons technically independent; but the natural -effect of the whole system was to throw all authority upwards, the -bishops overriding the presbyters, and all seeking to limit the power -of the congregations to interfere. As the latter would now include an -increasing number of indifferentists, the development was the more -easy. On the side of external ceremony, always the gist of the matter -for the majority, as well as in myth and theory, Christianity had now -assimilated nearly every pagan attraction: baptism, as aforesaid, was -become a close copy of an initiation into pagan mysteries, being -celebrated twice a year by night with a blaze of lights; and when -Constantine enacted that the Day of the Sun should be treated as -specially holy, he was merely bracketing together pagan and Christian -theology, the two sanctions being equally involved. It was of course -not a sacred day in the modern Puritan sense, being simply put on a -level with the other great festival days of the State, on which no work -was done, but play was free.</p> -<p class="par">It was in the year after his attainment of the sole -power that Constantine summoned a General Council at his palace of -Nicæa in Bithynia (325), to settle the theological status of the -founder of the Church. The question had been ostensibly decided as -against Paul of Samosata and the Sabellians (who made the Son a mere -manifestation or aspect of the Father) by the dictum that they were -different persons. That was for the time orthodox dogma. When, however, -Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, declared as against his bishop that -“the Son is totally and essentially distinct from the -Father,” the trouble began afresh. Arius found many adherents, -who accused the bishop of Sabellianizing when he affirmed that the Son -and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb121" href="#pb121" name= -"pb121">121</a>]</span>the Father were of the same essence; and the -Church saw itself once more driven to define its God. Bishop Alexander -had Arius cast out of the Church by two Alexandrian Councils, with the -effect of driving him to a more zealous propaganda, which succeeded as -promptly and as widely as any previous heresy. Thereupon the Council of -Nicæa, by a majority vote, enacted that the Son was of the same -essence (<i>homoousios</i>) with the Father, yet a different person, -and one-with yet born-of the Father; a creed to that effect was framed; -Arius was sent into exile; and the leading bishops on his side were -deposed. It was a mere snatch vote by a packed jury, since only some -300 bishops were present, whereas the Church contained at least 1,800; -and five years afterwards Constantine, who on his own part had ordered -that the writings of Arius should be burned, yet expressed himself as -an ultra-Arian, became persuaded that the heresiarch had been ill-used, -and recalled him from exile. Thereupon the restored Arian bishops began -to persecute their persecutors; and Athanasius the new bishop of -Alexandria having refused to reinstate Arius, <i>he</i> in turn was -deprived of his office by the Council of Tyre (335) and banished to -Gaul, other depositions following; while a large council held at -Jerusalem formally restored the Arians; and the emperor commanded the -bishop of Constantinople to receive the heresiarch. Before this could -be done, however, Arius died at Constantinople (336), apparently by -poison, and Constantine died the year after, baptized by an Arian -bishop, leaving the two parties at grips for their long wrestle of -hate. Within a few years, the emperor’s son Constans was -threatening to make war on his brother Constantine if he did not -reinstate Athanasius.</p> -<p class="par">No more insane quarrel had ever convulsed any society. -As an ecclesiastical historian has remarked, both parties believed in -salvation through the blood of Jesus: on this primitive dogma, -inherited from prehistoric barbarism, there was no dispute: and the -battle was over the hopeful point of “assigning him that rank in -the universe which properly belonged to him.” Orthodoxy would -have it that the Son was Son from all eternity—exactly, once -more, as devout Brahmans and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb122" href= -"#pb122" name="pb122">122</a>]</span>Moslems have maintained that the -Vedas and the Koran were “uncreated,” and existed from all -eternity. Man’s instinct of reverence seems to lead mechanically -to such conceptions in the absence of critical thought. But the -thought, on the other side, which made Jesus a God born in time, and -<i>homoiousios</i> (of <i>similar</i> essence) with the Father, was -only relatively saner. Thus the Arians, rational in one aspect, took -their stand on a fundamental irrationality; while the Trinitarians, as -represented by Athanasius, found a sufficient substitute for argument -in boundless vituperation. The fact that the Arians opposed monasticism -and the ideal of perpetual virginity served to heighten orthodox -resentment. The hatred was beyond all measure, and can be accounted for -only by recognizing that a creed which appeals to emotion and degrades -reason is potentially the worst stimulant of evil passions. On the -intellectual side, if it can be said to have had one, the theory of the -Trinity was a simple appropriation by Christianity of the conception of -divine Triads which prevailed in the old Egyptian and other systems; -and of which the Trinity of Osiris, Isis, and Horus was a well-known -instance. Athanasius was but adding Christian passion to yet another -pagan theorem, assimilated on Gnostic lines, with a new stress laid on -the verbal affirmation of monotheism.</p> -<p class="par">The one quasi-rational argument applicable to the case -would be the non-moral one that the cult was visibly between the Scylla -of polytheism and the Charybdis of a monotheism which reduced Jesus to -mere manhood; and that if a nakedly self-contradictory formula could -preserve it from collapse on either side such a formula should be -enacted. Such an argument was of course not put forward, but probably -it appealed to some of the shrewder and less honest bishops, who in the -ensuing strifes would nevertheless adapt themselves to the political -urgency of the moment. The State had happily created a species of -official pale, within which the warring members remained nominally one -church. Within that superficies the chaos became indescribable. The -Arians in their turn broke up into half-a-dozen mutually anathematizing -sects, each brandishing a creed; and every new phase of heresy -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb123" href="#pb123" name= -"pb123">123</a>]</span>evoked orthodox rejoinders which in turn were -found to be heresies in the other direction. On the first series of -strifes followed a second, as to the manner of the combination of the -divine and human natures in Jesus; with yet a third, over the -personality or modality of the Holy Ghost; till theology had become a -kind of systematic insanity.</p> -<p class="par">While Egypt and the East were thus embroiled, northern -Africa, “orthodox” on the Trinity, was being given up to -the schism of the Donatists, one of the many outbreaks of the Puritan -or ascetic instinct there, where of old had flourished some of the most -sensual worships. The quarrel began over the election of a bishop of -Carthage, and the puritan side received its title from one or both of -two bishops named Donatus. Council after council failed to compose the -feud; and the emperor fared no better when he took from the schismatics -some of their temples, banished some of their bishops, and put numbers -to death. In the year 330 one of their councils numbered 270 bishops; -and still the schism went on growing. Any sect, it was clear, might -grow as the Jesuist sect itself had done. Alongside of the others now -arose yet a new movement, named after its semi-legendary founder, -Manichæus or Manes, a Persian, which combined in Gnostic fashion -the Christian scheme and that of Mazdean dualism, identifying Jesus -with Mithra; and this cult in turn, being carefully organized, spread -fast and far, flourishing all the more because Manes was believed to -have been put to death by the Persian king as a heretic to Mazdeism (? -275). It had a president, representing Christ; twelve masters, -representing the twelve apostles; and seventy-two bishops, representing -the seventy-two apostles of the third gospel or the seventy-two -travelling collectors of the Jewish patriarchs. Like most of the -earlier Gnostics the Manichæans were “Docetists,” -holding that Jesus had only a seeming body and could not really suffer; -and they not only denounced the Old Testament, calling Jehovah the Evil -Spirit, but rejected the four gospels in favour of a new one, called -Erteng, which Manes claimed to have been dictated to him by God. -Improving on Montanus, he claimed, or was made to claim, to be the -promised Paraclete; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb124" href="#pb124" -name="pb124">124</a>]</span>thus beginning a new creed on all fours -with the Christist. On the side of ethics the new cult extolled and -professed all the ascetic virtues, and held by a theory of a twofold -purgatory, one of sacred water in the moon, and one of sacred fire in -the sun, which burned away the impure body, leaving an immortal spirit. -Giving out its independent gospel, Manichæism had all the popular -vitality of Montanism with the intellectual pretensions of Gnosticism. -Nothing, it was clear, could hinder the creation of new sects out of or -alongside the main body; and nothing but the most systematic and -destructive persecution could prevent their separate continuance while -zeal subsisted.</p> -<p class="par">Under the family of Constantine his creed and his policy -were maintained, with no better fruits under either the personal or the -political aspect. To his three sons—Constantine II, Constantius, -and Constans—with two of his nephews, he left the empire; but -immediately the nephews were massacred with their fathers; of the three -sons the second destroyed the first in war (340); and the third, -succeeding to the western provinces of the first, fell in war with a -new competitor, Magnentius (350); whereafter Constantius, defeating the -latter by deputy, became sole emperor (353–361). To him appears -to be chargeable the deliberate assassination at one stroke of the two -surviving brothers of his father and all their sons save two, Gallus -and Julian, the sons of Julius Constans; and at his hands began at -least the theoretical persecution of paganism on the eager pressure of -the church which forty years before had been persecuted. It thus -remains matter of history that while many pagans had been in favour of -tolerance before the establishment of Christianity, the Christians, who -had naturally condemned all persecution while they suffered from it, -were ready to become zealous persecutors as soon as they had the power. -The treatise of Julius Firmicus Maternus on pagan errors is an eager -appeal to the sons of Constantine to destroy all pagan worships. In -point of fact, pagans were not the first to suffer. Excommunications, -banishments, and executions of schismatics had been among the first -fruits of Constantine’s headship; and though for a time many -recoiled from putting to death their heretical fellow-Christians, -within a <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb125" href="#pb125" name= -"pb125">125</a>]</span>century that scruple too had disappeared. Thus -again was “the Church” enabled to survive.</p> -<p class="par">Christian persecution of paganism, on the other hand, -did not take effect as promptly as its instigators would seem to have -wished. In 341, Constans made an absurd law that “superstition -should cease, and the madness of sacrifices be abolished,” on -pain of death to all who persisted. No official action seems to have -been taken under this decree; and next year, being doubtless forced to -respect the pagan party, he enacted that though superstition must be -suppressed the old temples should be spared. In 353, Constantius in -turn appears from the Theodosian Code to have decreed that all temples -throughout the empire should be closed; that all who resorted to them -or offered sacrifice should be put to death, and their property -confiscated; and that governors who did not enforce the law should -themselves be so punished. In the same year he ostensibly struck at -nocturnal pagan rites at Rome, where Christian rites had so long been -nocturnal. Three years later, when Julian had become Cæsar under -him, he framed a law, signed by both, which in a few words reaffirms -the death penalty on all who sacrificed, or worshipped idols—this -when some Christians were already worshipping idols in their churches. -As there is no trace whatever of any official action being taken under -these laws, and as there is abundant monumental proof that at least in -the western empire and in Egypt the pagan worships were carried on -freely as before, we are forced to conclude that the edicts, if really -penned, were never given out by Constantius. It remains on record that -he, keeping the pagan title of <i>pontifex maximus</i>, passed -stringent laws, as Constans had done, against all who desecrated pagan -tombs; and further that he went on paying the stipends of flamens, -augurs, and vestals—personages usually of high rank. It appears -that in fact the autocrat could not or dared not yet enforce his laws -against the pagan worships. In the East in general, however, and even -in Italy, wherever temples were unfrequented and ill defended they were -liable to shameless plunder or destruction by Christians, who were safe -from punishment.</p> -<p class="par">On the other hand, Constantius multiplied the financial -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb126" href="#pb126" name= -"pb126">126</a>]</span>privileges of Christians, giving higher stipends -to the clergy and doles of corn to the congregations. He maintained, -too, an enormous retinue of vicious Christian parasites, the whole -process worsening the already desperate public burdens, and straining -to the utmost a financial system approaching the point of collapse. As -head of the Church, he presided at Councils; and as a semi-Arian he -encouraged Arianism and persecuted Athanasianism, the orthodox not -daring openly to gainsay him. As little did either party condemn him -when he brutally murdered the young Gallus, the Christian brother of -Julian, leaving only the latter alive of all Constantine’s house. -To the bishops assembled in council he announced that his will was as -good as a canon; and he forbade them to condemn opinions which he held. -One bishop he caused to be tortured; others to be banished; one he put -to death; and he would doubtless have slain Athanasius had not that -great agitator been so well concealed by the monks of Egypt. Under the -emperor’s pressure the council of Rimini declared for Arianism; -and for himself he framed the new title “His Eternity,” -calling himself the lord of the universe. Only the favour of the -empress, and the emperor’s own fears, saved Julian from his -brother’s fate, as his death seems to have been planned.</p> -<p class="par">The Church was worthy of its head. “At each -episcopal election or expulsion,” says an orthodox writer, -“the most exalted sees of Christendom—Constantinople, -Alexandria, Antioch—furnished scenes that would have disgraced a -revolution.” Julian has told how whole troops of those who were -called heretics were massacred, notably at Cyzicus and at Samosata; -while in Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, and many other provinces, -towns and villages were utterly destroyed. In one massacre at -Constantinople, the second in connection with the forcible -re-instalment of the semi-Arian bishop Macedonius (342), there perished -more than three thousand people—considerably more than had -suffered death in the whole ten years of the last pagan persecution. -The orthodox populace, divided in furious factions, fighting like -savages in their very churches, were as brutal as their masters; and no -priesthood was ever more powerless for good than the Christian -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb127" href="#pb127" name= -"pb127">127</a>]</span>clergy in face of these horrors. Gregory of -Nazianzun, whose own ferocities of utterance illustrate the character -of the period, declared truly that he had never seen a synod do aught -but worsen a quarrel. Such was Christianity under the first -Christian-bred emperor. And if Tiridates of Armenia (conv. 302) be -taken as the first Christian king, the beginnings of State Christianity -are not greatly improved, since there the new faith was spread by fire -and sword, and the old persecuted unremittingly for a hundred years, -during which time raged many wars of religion between Armenia and -Persia. The new faith had “come not to bring peace.”</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s2.2.3" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e469">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Reaction -under Julian</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">By common consent, the episode of the short pagan -“revival” under Julian is the most interesting chapter in -the later history of the Roman Empire proper. The one emperor after -Marcus Aurelius who attracts us as a human being and as a mind, he set -himself a task which, whether he failed or succeeded, must lift his -name high in the annals of a decadent civilization: his failure, in -fact, makes him the most living figure in the long line of autocrats -from Constantine to Charlemagne. It is by such contrast, indeed, that -he becomes eminent. Measured by the standards of progressive -civilizations, against the great minds of the pre-imperial world and -the best statesmen of later realms, he is neither a great ruler nor a -great intelligence. To look for a ruling mind of the highest order in -that environment of decay would be to miss the first and last lesson of -the history of the empire. Supposing a potentially great faculty to be -born in such a society, it could not conceivably grow to efficiency: -the intellectual and the emotional atmosphere forbade. Before there can -be all-round minds there must be all-round men; and the empire had made -an end of the species. Intellectual originality had long disappeared -from a world in which the topmost distinction stood for mere brute -force, cultured men grovelling before it like scourged animals. The -brooding intensity of Lucretius and the large sanity of Cæsar -were become as impossible to men of the Roman name as the life of the -forum of Coriolanus’ <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb128" href= -"#pb128" name="pb128">128</a>]</span>day, or the Greek literature of -the age of Aristophanes. The process of putting a yoke on the world had -duly ended in a world of yoke-bearers, whose best leaders could but -harness them.</p> -<p class="par">Julian, a wistful child, saved from the massacre of his -house, and growing up in a library whose lore there was no man -competent to comment for him, became finally a believer in every -religion save the one which sought to exterminate the rest. Steeped in -theosophies, he was capable of exulting in the disappearance of the -Epicureans, the sanest because the least credulous of the philosophic -sects. Yet the lore he loved, such as it was, had sufficed to make him -or keep him a model of temperance and self-control; chaste and -abstemious while master of the world; just and magnanimous under -provocations which, if he would, he could have met by wholesale -slaughter; caring above all for the inner life while wielding capably -the whole armed power of the State. If we talk of moral success, it -must still be said that Christianity never gave any section of the -Roman Empire a ruler worthy to stand by Marcus and Julian; and that on -all the thrones of the world to-day there is no man who can be put -above them for moral nobility. If, again, we keep our eyes on the age -of Constantine, we cannot but be struck by the fact that Constantius -“the pale,” the father of Constantine, a monotheist but not -a Christian, and Julian, who turned away from Christianity to -polytheism, are by far the best men in the series of rulers of that -house. Christianity attracted the worse men, Constantine and his sons, -and repelled or failed to satisfy the better; and the younger -Constantius, who was bred and remained a Christian, is the worst of -all. The finer character-values are all associated with paganism: on -the Christian side there is a signal defect of good men.</p> -<p class="par">Julian’s short life was crowded no less with -experience than with study. Educated as a Christian, he learned, while -his life lay at the mercy of Constantius, to keep his own counsel as to -the creed of which he had seen such bloody fruits. It seems to have -been before the murder of his brother (354) that he was secretly -converted to paganism, during his <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb129" -href="#pb129" name="pb129">129</a>]</span>studies at Pergamos. When he -was appointed Cæsar (355) it was under strict tutelage; and -during his five years of able generalship as Cæsar in Gaul and -Germany—even after the legions had proclaimed him Augustus -(360)—he concealed his creed. It was only when marching against -Constantius that he avowed it, and offered sacrifices to the ancient -Gods; but when the death of the terror-stricken emperor left him in -sole power (361) he at once proceeded zealously to reinstate the old -rites. Himself an ardent idealist and practical ascetic, he yearned to -make paganism a ministry of purity and charity, which should copy from -the Christians their primary Judaic practice of feeding the poor, and -set its face against popular ribaldry as steadfastly as they once had -done, but with a Stoic temperance rather than a gloomy fanaticism. To -this end he built and endowed new temples, re-endowed the priesthoods -where they had been robbed, and forced the return or repair of such of -their lands, buildings, and possessions as had been stolen or wrecked; -at the same time taking back the privileges and endowments accorded to -the Christians. For all this, and no less for his antipathy to the -vulgar side of paganism, he was scurrilously and insolently lampooned, -notably by the pagan and Christian mobs of Antioch; but he attempted no -vengeance, though he was sensitive enough to reply by satire. The -intensely malignant attacks on his memory by churchmen leave it clear -that he never descended to persecution, unless we so describe his -action in excluding Christians from teaching in the schools of -rhetoric, for which he had at least the pretext that they constantly -aspersed the pagan literature there studied, and ought in consistency -to have left it alone. Some of them indeed had earnestly desired the -total suppression of those very schools. What most exasperated his -Christian assailants, it is clear, was his sardonic attitude to -Christian quarrels. Instead of persecuting, he protected the factions -from each other, restored exiled heretics, and invited rival dogmatists -to dispute in his presence, where their animosities served to humiliate -their creed to his heart’s content. It was the sting of such a -memory that drove Gregory of Nazianzun, bitterly conscious of -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb130" href="#pb130" name= -"pb130">130</a>]</span>Christian hates, to such a passion of hate -against Julian, whose body he would fain have seen cast into the common -sewer.</p> -<p class="par">It has been questioned whether the eagerness of -Julian’s desire to discredit Christism would not have made him a -persecutor had he lived longer; and such a development is indeed -conceivable. His zeal was such that with all the load of empire and -generalship on his shoulders he found time in his short reign to write -a long treatise against the Christian books and the creed, of which his -full knowledge and excellent memory made him a formidable critic; and -his tone towards Athanasius seems to have grown more and more bitter. -It is hard for the master of thirty legions to tolerate opposition and -to remain righteous. On the other hand, Julian gave proofs not only of -an abnormal self-restraint, but of an exceptional judgment in things -purely political; and the very fact that his young enthusiasm had led -him astray, making him hope for a vital restoration of paganism out of -hand, would probably with such a mind have counted for caution after -the lesson had been learned. Falling in battle with the Persians (363) -after only twenty months of full power, he had no time to readjust -himself to the forces of things as experience disclosed them to him: he -had time only to feel disappointment. Had he lived to form his own -judgment instead of merely assimilating the ideas of his Neo-Platonic -teachers he would be in a fair way to frame a better philosophy of life -than either the polytheistic or the Christian. Such a philosophy had -been left by Epictetus, to name no other; and Julian’s passion -for rites and sacrifices was really a falling below pagan wisdom and -ethics current in his time, as his facile belief in myths was a falling -below the pagan rationalism set forth a little later by Macrobius, and -not unknown in Julian’s day. No less unworthy of the best pagan -thought was his affectation of cynic uncleanliness—an inverted -foppery likely to have passed with youth. A few years must have taught -him that men were not to be regenerated by pagan creeds any more than -by Christian; and to his laws for the reform of administration he might -have added some for the reform of culture. Dying in his prime, he has -formed a text for much Christian <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb131" -href="#pb131" name="pb131">131</a>]</span>rhetoric to the effect that -he had dreamed a vain dream. Insofar, however, as that rhetoric assumes -the indestructibility of the Christian Church at the hands of pagan -emperors, it is no sounder than the most sanguine hopes of Julian.</p> -<p class="par">To say that Julian had hopelessly miscalculated the -possibilities of paganism is to misconceive the whole sociological case -if it be implied that Christianity survived in virtue of its dogma or -doctrine, and that it was on the side of dogma or morality that -paganism failed. As a regenerating force Christianity was as impotent -as any pagan creed: it was indeed much less efficacious than one pagan -philosophy had been, and had visibly set up in the State new ferocities -of civil strife. Under the two Antonines, Stoic principles had governed -the empire so well, relatively to the possibilities of the system, that -many modern historians have been fain to reckon theirs the high-water -mark of all European administration. No such level was ever reached in -the Christian empire, from Constantine onwards. Julian himself schemed -more solid reforms of administration in his one year of rule than any -of his Christian successors ever accomplished, with the exceptions of -Marcian and Anastasius; and could he have foreseen how the empire was -to go in Christian hands he would certainly have had no reason to alter -his course. To take the mere actual continuance of Christianity as a -proof of its containing more truth or virtue than the whole of paganism -is to confuse biological survival with moral merit. “The survival -of the fittest,” a principle which holds good of every aspect of -Nature, is not a formula of moral discrimination, but a simple summary -of evolution. The camel which survives in a waterless desert is not -thereby proved a nobler animal than the horse or elephant which -perishes there. Christianity, as we have seen, while utterly failing -among the Jews, where it had birth, had subsisted from the first in the -pagan world (1) through adopting the attractive features of paganism, -and (2) because of its politico-economical adaptations. -Paganism—official paganism, that is—disappeared as an -institution because such adaptations were not given to it.</p> -<p class="par">Nor is it reasonable to say that Julian’s -undertaking was <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb132" href="#pb132" -name="pb132">132</a>]</span>impossible. His plans were indeed those of -an inexperienced enthusiast; but had he lived as long as Constantine, -and learned by experience, he might have witnessed his substantial -success; and a century of intelligently continuous policy to the same -end might have expelled Christianity as completely from the Roman world -as Buddhism was soon to be expelled from India. No one who has studied -the latter phenomenon can use the language commonly held of the attempt -of Julian. Buddhism, representing at least as high a moral impetus as -that of Christism, had arisen and nourished greatly in direct -opposition to Brahmanism; after centuries of success it is found -assimilating all the popular superstitions on which Brahmanism lived, -even as Christianity assimilated those of paganism; and it was either -by assimilating elements of Buddhism on that plane or by such policy -joined with coercive force that the Brahmans finally eliminated it from -their sphere. Had a succession of Roman emperors set themselves to -create a priestly organization of pagan cults, with as good an economic -basis as that of Brahmanism, or as that of Judaism was even after the -fall of the Temple, they could have created a force which might triumph -over the new cult in its own sphere even as Brahmanism and Judaism did. -And if at the same time they had left the Church severely alone, -allowing its perpetual strifes to do their own work, it would -inevitably have dissolved itself by sheer fission into a hundred -mutually menacing factions, an easy foe for a coherent paganism. Mere -spasmodic persecution had previously failed, for it is not random -persecution that kills creeds, though a really relentless and enduring -persecution can do much. In the period from 330 to 370, and again in -the sixth century, the Persian kings did actually, by sheer bloodshed, -so far crush orthodox Christianity in their kingdom (leaving only the -Nestorians as anti-Byzantine heretics) that it ceased to have any -importance there—a circumstance little noted by those who dwell -on its “success” in Europe. And the same Sassanide dynasty, -beginning in the middle of the third century, effected the systematic -revival of the Mazdean religion, which before had seemed corrupted and -discredited past remedy. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb133" href= -"#pb133" name="pb133">133</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">Had Julian lived to learn in Persia the methods so -successfully used by Ardeshir, he might no less successfully have -copied them. Only an idealist like Julian, of course, would have -thought the effort on peaceful lines worth while. A much abler and -better man than Jovian would reasonably decide in his place that the -religion of Mithra, having come from the now triumphant Persian enemy, -could hardly continue to be that of the Roman army; and that the most -politic course was to revert to the cult which Julian had opposed, and -whose champions saw in his death the hand of their God working for -them. Nonetheless, the common verdict on Julian as the victim of a -hopeless delusion is hardly better founded than the gross fable that on -receiving his death-wound he cried, “Thou hast conquered, -Galilean.” The Christians, indeed, might well exult and fabulize -over his death. It probably made all the difference between prosperity -and collapse for their creed, already riven in irreconcilable factions, -and capable of a general cohesion only through the coercive power of -the State.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s2.2.4" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e479">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 4.</span> -<i>Re-establishment: Disestablishment of Paganism</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">It is significant that neither the weak Jovian, -thrust on the throne by a cabal of Christian officers at the death of -Julian, nor the forceful Valentinian who succeeded him, attempted to -persecute paganism, though both were professed Christians. In the -assertions of the ecclesiastical historians to the contrary, in the -next century, the wish was father to the thought. Jovian’s -ignominious retreat from Persia was made after open pagan auguries; the -nominally Christian senate of Constantinople sent him a deputation -headed by the pagan Themistius, who exhorted him on high grounds of -pagan ethics to practise an absolute toleration; and he did, save as -regards the continued crusade against secret magical rites, though he -re-established the Christians in many of their privileges. Of -Valentinian it has been said that he of all the Christian emperors best -understood and maintained freedom of worship; and beyond confiscating -to the imperial domain the possessions formerly taken from pagan -temples and restored to them by Julian, he left them unmolested. Pagan -priests of the higher <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb134" href= -"#pb134" name="pb134">134</a>]</span>grades he treated with greater -fiscal favour than had been shown to them even by Julian, giving them -immunities and honours which exasperated the Christians. It may have -been the fact of his ruling the still strongly pagan West that made -Valentinian thus propitiate the old priesthoods; but his brother -Valens, who ruled the East, enforced the same tolerance, save insofar -as he, an Arian, persecuted the Athanasians. His forcing of monks to -re-enter the <i>curia</i>, that is, to resume the burdens of municipal -taxation, may have been motived by dislike of them, but was a -reasonable fiscal measure. The cruel persecution of diviners, carried -on by both brothers, was the outcome at once of fear and of anger at -the rapid spread of divination, to which was devoted at that time an -extensive literature: the public or official Roman divination by augury -was expressly permitted, as were the Eleusinian mysteries. All the -while, Christians were little less given to divination than pagans.</p> -<p class="par">Thus in the thirty years from the death of Constantine -to the accession of Theodosius the Great, while the Church continued to -grow in wealth, it can have made little progress politically, and it -certainly made none morally. The law of Valentinian against the -gain-seeking monks and priests of Rome is the testimony of a Christian -emperor to the new demoralization set up by his Church. Perhaps on -pagan pressure, but apparently with emphasis, he forbade ecclesiastics -to receive personal gifts or legacies from the women of property to -whom they acted as spiritual advisers. Such a law was of course evaded -by such expedients as trusteeships: greed was not to be baulked by -legal vetoes. The higher clergy showed the same instincts; and in the -final struggle of Damasus and Ursinus to secure by physical force the -episcopal chair of Rome (366), one hundred and thirty-seven dead bodies -were counted in the basilica, Damasus having hired gladiators to carry -his point. In the provinces, doubtless, the church was often better -represented; and the new species of <i>chorepiscopi</i> or rural -bishops must have included some estimable men; but at all the great -Christian centres reigned violence, greed, and hate. In North Africa -the feud between the Donatists and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb135" -href="#pb135" name="pb135">135</a>]</span>the rest of the Church had -reached the form of a chronic civil war, in which Donatist peasant -fanatics, called Circumcelliones, met the official persecution by -guerilla warfare of the savagest sort. In the East, the furious strifes -between Arians and Athanasians were sufficient to discredit the entire -Church as a political factor; and the better pagans saw in it a much -worse ethical failure than could be charged on their own philosophies. -“Make me bishop of Rome,” said the pagan prefect -Praetextatus jestingly to Damasus, “and I will be a -Christian.” What rational element lay in Arianism was -countervailed by the corruption set up by court favour; and orthodoxy -found its account in popular ignorance. One of the last notably -philosophic heretics was Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, who in 343 -revived the doctrine of a “modal” Trinity. Anathematized -and ostracized by Athanasians and Arians alike, he died in exile.</p> -<p class="par">The accession (379) of Theodosius, made co-emperor by -Gratian, son of Valentinian, on the fall of Valens, marks the final -establishment of Trinitarian Christianity, with the official -suppression of Arianism and paganism. The young Gratian had been partly -educated under Bishop Ambrose of Milan, one of the first notable types -of masterful ecclesiastic; and under that influence he confiscated the -lands of the pagan temples in the West, withdrew the privileges of the -priests, and caused to be removed from the Senate at Rome the ancient -and sacred statue of the Goddess Victory, formerly removed by -Constantius and restored by Julian. Fiscal needs seem to have had much -to do with the confiscations, for the economic life of the western -empire was steadily sinking. The young emperor did not attempt to -prohibit pagan worship or abolish the right of the temples to receive -legacies; and though he is said to have refused the title of Pontifex -Maximus it seems to have been officially given to him. His anti-pagan -policy, however, seems to have counted for something in his -unpopularity, which became so great that when Maximus revolted in -Britain and invaded Gaul, Gratian was abandoned on all hands.</p> -<p class="par">Maximus too was a Christian—another proof that -since Constantine many military men had come to think “the luck -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb136" href="#pb136" name= -"pb136">136</a>]</span>was changed”—and though he -conciliated the pagans he did not re-endow their cults. It was under -his auspices, too, that Priscillian, bishop of Avila, in Spain, who had -adopted Gnostic views closely resembling those of the Manichæans, -and had been banished under Gratian, was tried in Gaul for his heresy, -put to the torture, and executed at Treves with several of his -followers. A new step had thus been taken in the process of -establishment, so that when Theodosius overthrew Maximus and left the -empire of the West to the young Valentinian, the cause of official -paganism was much weakened. And when Valentinian in turn was deposed -and slain by the pagan party, though Ambrose confessedly thought the -Christian cause in the West was lost, Eugenius did not venture to -restore to the priesthoods the possessions and revenues which had been -turned to the support of the decaying State, menaced all along the -north by a hungry barbarism that grew ever more conscious of its power, -and of the impotence of the imperial colossus.</p> -<p class="par">When Eugenius and his party in turn fell before -Theodosius, the cause of State-paganism was visibly lost; and though -Theodosius died in the following year (395) he left the old cults -finally disestablished in Italy as well as in the East. In his reign of -sixteen years in the East he had as far as possible suppressed -Arianism, depriving the Arians of their churches; had caused or -permitted many of the already disendowed pagan temples to be robbed and -dismantled; and had prohibited all pagan worships, besides continuing -the crusade against divination. Under the shelter of such persecuting -edicts, monks and other enterprising Christians, calling themselves -“reformers,” were at liberty everywhere to plunder or -destroy the shrines, and even to secure the lands of pagans on the -pretence that they had defied the law and offered sacrifices. So gross -became the demoralization that Theodosius, more scrupulous than the -clergy, at length passed a law to punish the Christian spoilers; but -this could not save the pagans. Many of them, to save themselves, -affected conversion, and went to Christian altars to do inward -reverence to their old Gods. There can have been no worthy process of -moral suasion in such circumstances. Coercion, applauded by Augustine -and personally <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb137" href="#pb137" name= -"pb137">137</a>]</span>practised by such Christian leaders as St. -Martin of Tours, became the normal procedure; and naturally the -constrained converts brought with them into the Church all the -credences of their previous life. For the Church, such a triumph was -glory enough, especially when there was added to it a law by which all -Christian offenders, clerical or lay, were amenable to trial and -punishable before ecclesiastical tribunals only.</p> -<p class="par">It does not appear that the many cruel laws of -Theodosius against heretics and pagans were carried out to the letter: -it had sufficed for the overthrow of official paganism that it should -be cut off from its financial basis; and the emperor not only tolerated -but employed professed pagans, being even willing to grant to those of -Rome concessions which Ambrose could not endure. On their part the -pagans, though still very numerous, were non-resistant. Broadly -speaking, they consisted of two sorts—the more or less -philosophic few, who were for the most part monotheists, inclined to -see in all Gods mere symbols of the central power of the universe; and -the unphilosophic multitude, high and low, who believed by habit, and -whose spiritual needs were on the ordinary Christian plane. The former -sort were not likely to battle for the old machinery of sacrifice and -invocation; and the latter, with none to lead them, were not hard to -turn, when once new habits had time to grow. Whoever gave them a -liturgy and rites and sacraments, with shrines and places of adoration, -might count on satisfying their religious yearnings; and this the -Christian organization was zealously bent on doing. Their festivals -were preserved and adapted; their local “heroes” had become -Christian martyrs and patron saints; their mysteries were duplicated; -their holy places were but new-named; their cruder ideals were -embraced. In the way of ceremonial, as Mosheim avows, there was -“little difference in those times between the public worship of -the Christians and that of the Greeks and Romans.” The -<i>lituus</i> of the augur had become the crozier of the bishop; the -mitres and tiaras of the heathen priests were duly transferred to the -new hierarchy; and their processions were as nearly as possible copies -of those of the great ceremonial cults of Egypt and the East. -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb138" href="#pb138" name= -"pb138">138</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">A sample of the process of adaptation lies in the -ecclesiastical calendar, where in the month of October are (or were) -commemorated on three successive days Saint Bacchus, Saint Demetrius, -and Saints Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius, all described as -martyrs. The five names are simply those of the God Dionysos, whose -rustic festival was held at that season. In the same way, Osiris -becomes St. Onuphrius, from his Coptic name, Onufri. It is probable, -again, that from the year 376, when the shrine of Mithra at Rome was -destroyed by Christian violence, the Roman Pope, who succeeded the high -priest of Mithra at the Vatican mount, sat in the Mithraic sacred -chair, preserved in St. Peter’s to this day. As representing -Peter, he bore Mithra’s special symbols. And where the higher -paganism had come to repudiate the popular religion of trappings and -ceremonial no less than that of sacrifice and that of mere -self-mortification, established Christianity placed the essence of -religion anew in external usages on the one hand and asceticism on the -other; cherishing the while every “superstition” of the -past, and beginning a species of image-worship that the past had hardly -known. What was overthrown was merely public or official worship: the -religious essentials of paganism—to wit, polytheism; the belief -in the intercession of subordinate spiritual powers; the principles of -sacrifice and propitiation, penance, and atonement; the special -adoration of local shrines and images; the practice of ritual mysteries -and imposing ceremonies; the public association of a worship with the -fortunes of the State—all these were preserved in the Catholic -Church, with only the names changed. There was no “destruction of -paganism,” there was merely transformation. And so immeasurably -slow are the transformations of national habit that for many -generations even the terminology and the specific usages of paganism -survived in every aspect save that of open worship; so that Theodosius -and his sons were fain to pass law after law penalizing those who -ventured to revert from Christianity to paganism. Such reversions were -the measure of the moral as compared with the official success of -Christianity.</p> -<p class="par">The last act in the official crusade against paganism, -open <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb139" href="#pb139" name= -"pb139">139</a>]</span>spoliation, had become possible at length -through the sheer decadence of character in the empire. In the west, -so-called Romans had lived on a tradition of ancient rule till they -were become as masquerading apes in the light of the retrospect: all -that was left of patrician semblance was a faculty for declamation, -pedantry, and pomp. The repeated discussions over the removal of the -statue of Victory were on the senatorial side a tissue of artificial -rhetoric, on the Christian a mixture of frank bigotry and bad -sophistry. Religious fanaticism, the last and lowest form of moral -energy, abounded only with the mob; and the formless pagan crowd, never -in touch with priests or senators, and never conscious of a common -centre, was useless for political purposes when at length the upper -class had need of it; while the much smaller Christian mob, drilled and -incited to a common fervour, was a force formidable even to the -autocrat. Patricians whose line had for centuries cringed in all things -political were not the men to lose their lives for a ceremonial; and -those of them who as priests had been plundered by Gratian and -Theodosius were on this side also devoid of organization, and incapable -of joint action. The rule of Valentinian had forced the Christian -Church to remain in touch with its original and popular sources of -revenue; whereas the pagan priesthoods, once deprived of stipends and -domains, had nowhere to turn to, and may be said to have fallen without -a blow, unless the deposition of Valentinian II by Arbogastes, and the -short usurpation of Eugenius, be regarded as their last official effort -to survive.</p> -<p class="par">But the cause of empire in the West was no less moribund -than that of the ancient Gods. Italy was reaching the last stage of -economic and military depletion. The richest revenue-yielding provinces -of the empire lay in Africa and the East; and when there came the fatal -struggle with barbarism, the eastern and richer part of the empire, so -long wont to act independently of the western, let that succumb. It was -at least dramatically fit that the multiform and fortuitous contexture -of Roman paganism, evolved like the empire itself by a long series of -instinctive acts and adaptations, unruled by <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb140" href="#pb140" name="pb140">140</a>]</span>any -higher wisdom, should yield up its official form and sustenance to feed -the dying body politic, and should be expunged from the face of the -State before that was overthrown. Augustine might say what he would to -the reproachful pagans, but the last humiliation came under Christian -auspices; and the fanatical Jerome, type of the transformation of Roman -energy from action to private pietism, had to weep in his old age that -his cult could not save the immemorial city whose very name had so long -ruled the world, and was almost the last semblance of a great thing -left in it.</p> -<p class="par">It consisted with the universal intellectual decadence -that neither the pagans nor the Christians realized the nature of -either the religious or the political evolution. The former regarded -the new faith as a blasphemy which had brought on the empire the -ruinous wrath of the Gods; the latter called the barbaric invasion a -divine punishment both of pagan and Christian wickedness, and saw in -the decline of all pagan worship the defeat of a false faith by a true. -Neither had the slightest perception of the real and human causation; -the degradation of the peoples by the yoke of Rome; the economic ruin -and moral paralysis of Rome by sheer empire: and as little could they -realize that the fortunes of the creeds were natural socio-political -sequences. What had ecclesiastically happened was essentially an -economic process, albeit one set up by a religious credence. Paganism -as a public system disappeared because it was deprived of all its -revenues; Christianity as a system finally flourished because the -church was legally empowered to receive donations and legacies without -limit, and debarred from parting with any of its property. Any -corporation whatever, any creed whatever, would have flourished on such -a basis; while only a priesthood capable of building up a voluntary -revenue as the Christian church had originally done could survive on -pagan lines after the Christian creed had been established. The pagan -priesthoods, originally generated on a totally different footing, could -not learn the economic lesson, could not readjust themselves to a -process which, as we have seen, originated in conditions of fanatical -nonconformity, which latter-day <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb141" -href="#pb141" name="pb141">141</a>]</span>paganism could not reproduce. -But so far were the mental habitudes and the specific beliefs of -paganism from disappearing that Christian historians in our own day -bitterly denounce it for “infecting” their -“revealed” creed, which in the terms of their claim was -divinely designed to overthrow paganism, and which would assuredly have -rent itself into a medley of reciprocally anathematizing sects but for -the unifying coercion of the State. What had really died out on the -“spiritual” side was the primitive ideal of the Christian -Church. What survived as Christianity was really an idolatrous -polytheism. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb142" href="#pb142" name= -"pb142">142</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter III</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">FAILURE WITH SURVIVAL</h2> -<div id="s2.3.1" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e495">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>The Overthrow -of Arianism</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Theodosius was the last ruler of the empire proper -who was capable of leading his army; and from his death onwards the -fall of the western section proceeded at headlong rate. His sons, -Honorius and Arcadius, were worse weaklings than even the sons of -Valentinian: to fit for the throne a child born in the purple, always a -hard task, seemed impossible under Christianity. At the end of the -fourth century begins the series of convulsions which mark the end of -the Roman empire properly so-called. In the year after -Theodosius’ death, Alaric invaded and ravaged Greece; and, -manœuvred thence by Stilicho, proceeded to invade Italy. The -tentative character of these unsuccessful first attempts, and of that -of Rhadagast, only made more sure the triumph of the later; and -invasion followed on invasion, till by the middle of the fifth century -the West had lost Gaul, Spain, and Africa; and in the year 476 Rome, -thrice sacked, received at last a barbarian king.</p> -<p class="par">Through all these storms Christianity as a whole more -than held its ground. The invaders were Christians, like the invaded, -albeit heretics; the first conversion of Goths by the Arian Ulphilas in -the previous century having been widely extended. The form of the dogma -mattered nothing to the political function of the church, which was, -among the barbarians as in the empire, to promote centralization up to -the point at which schism became ungovernable. The Teutonic chieftains, -it is clear, saw in the Christian Church a means of partially welding -their peoples somewhat as Rome had been welded; and while Arianism held -the ground among them, it furthered the unity that in the eastern -empire was <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb143" href="#pb143" name= -"pb143">143</a>]</span>now being lost. And inasmuch as normal community -of creed made possible an assimilation between the invaders and the -conquered, Christianity positively facilitated the fall of the western -empire. In Africa, again, where the Donatists, with their four hundred -bishops, had been freshly persecuted under Honorius, the schism helped -the invading Vandals, who paid for the Donatists’ help by giving -them freedom of worship. It is probable that the Manichæans, who -were numerous in the same province, and who were also much persecuted, -at first welcomed the invaders. So obvious was the risk of such -alienations of heretics that Honorius, listening for a moment to the -advice of tolerant pagans, went so far as to issue a law of general -toleration. This, however, the orthodox clergy forced him to repeal, -and the persecution of Donatists went from bad to worse. All the while -the old paganism was still so common in the West that Honorius, who on -the advice of his pious minister Olympius, after the fall of Stilicho, -had sought to expel by edict all pagans and Arians from the service of -the State, was fain later to entreat leading pagans to return. But the -Arian Goths in turn showed the pagans no favour; in Greece, Alaric even -broke up the Eleusinian mysteries; and the Vandals in Africa soon -persecuted the Manichæans even more bloodily than they did the -Athanasians, whom they went far to drive out of the province. In this -way they in turn weakened their State, besides otherwise undergoing the -social diseases of empire, so that in the sixth century Belisarius was -able to reconquer it for Justinian, the emperor of the East. In Spain, -conquered by the Arian Visigoths, there was relative toleration. The -Arian clergy, however, being mostly unlettered Teutons, were less -useful instruments to the ruler than Catholics could be; and late in -the sixth century a new king at his accession there adopted -Trinitarianism.</p> -<p class="par">The further the orthodox faith went, the more dangerous, -it was clear, was the position of the remaining Arian kingdoms, since -their heresy was always a pretext for a union of the others to crush -them. A barbarian king, told by his clergy that he did God service in -destroying heretics, needed little <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb144" -href="#pb144" name="pb144">144</a>]</span>further encouragement to war; -and such counsel the orthodox Church was always ready to give. Already -at the end of the fifth century the immigrant Franks established in -Gaul under Clovis were “converted” in mass, by the mere -fiat of their king, to orthodox Christianity; and the reconquest of -Italy by Belisarius and Narses further strengthened the Catholic cause. -It was thus good policy for the Lombards, who in their turn conquered -the north and south but never the centre of Italy, to begin to give up -their Arianism at the end of the century. It is probable, however, that -in any case Arianism would in course of time have fallen in the new -barbaric States as it did in the eastern empire. The toleration given -by Theodoric in Italy, and by the earlier Arian Goths in Spain and -Gaul, to the Catholic creed, could avail nothing to stay the orthodox -purpose of destroying heresy; and the element of rationalism on the -Arian side was precisely what could least prosper in an era of -ignorance. Thus the Catholic creed had time and credulity on its side; -and, Christianity at that stage being above all things politically -useful as an aid to arbitrary government, the most pronounced and -sacerdotal and superstitious form of Christianity must be the most -useful from a calculating monarch’s point of view.</p> -<p class="par">Such, broadly, was the development in the East, where -the virtual suppression or expulsion of Arianism by Theodosius and his -successors showed what persistent persecution could do when carried on -by both penal and economic means, through a hierarchy who knew how and -where to strike, and had their hearts in the work. Arianism was not -destroyed; indeed all of the great heresies of the first five -centuries—Marcionism, Montanism, Arianism, Manichæism, -Monophysitism, to say nothing of the Nestorian Church in Asia—are -found subsisting in the eastern empire in the seventh century, despite -both disendowment and cruel persecution, thus in effect proving that -had Christianity been simply left alone, neither helped nor attacked by -the State, it would have been dissolved in a score of warring sects by -the fifth century. The Manichæans were as inflexible as ever were -any of the Christists; and as against the convictions of the heretics -in <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb145" href="#pb145" name= -"pb145">145</a>]</span>general the moral failure of the orthodox Church -was absolute. By executing Priscillian in the fourth century it simply -inflamed his following, which was strong in Spain two hundred years -later. But though the endowed clergy could not convert or exterminate -the others, they could keep them poor and ostracized, and wield against -them the subsidized mob as well as the whole machinery of the State. -Against such oppression the heretics could not compete as the early -Jesuists had done against the careless course of paganism, with its -isolated priests, so much more often indifferent than fanatical.</p> -<p class="par">Where early Christism had met the cravings alike of -ascetics, of mystics, of simple emotionalists, and of poor seekers -after a concrete God not hedged around with altars and priests, thus -appealing both to heretic Jews and to heretic Gentiles, the later -heresies ostensibly appealed as a rule either to ascetics or to -dogmatists, and offered nothing to the multitude that it could not find -within the Church, shades of dogma apart. Manichæism indeed -remained to prove that what was virtually a new religion could rise and -persist for centuries in the teeth of Christianity, by methods and -appeals very like those of Christism; but it also served to prove that -organized and endowed and established Christianity, inspired by an -enduring hate, could check and overshadow the rival religion where -unorganized paganism, for lack of general animus and systematic -official zeal, had failed to subdue Christianity. And the political -elimination of nominal Arianism in the West served to prove afresh that -orthodoxy finally triumphed in that regard by enlisting on its side not -only the instincts of polytheism but the interests of monarchy. It is -significant that, driven from the empire, Arianism flourished best in -the barbarian world, where for a time some mental freedom might be -supposed to subsist. If any rational motive is to be assigned for the -zealous adoption of the Athanasian creed by such rulers as Theodosius, -it is presumably their perception that the most irrational dogma went -best with discipline: that the spirit which presumed to rationalize -religion was the less ready for political obedience. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb146" href="#pb146" name="pb146">146</a>]</span>On -the other hand, the Trinitarian clergy of Spain found their advantage -as a hierarchy by bringing round their Arian masters to the orthodox -creed. In any case, the triumph of orthodoxy went step for step not -only with intellectual dissolution and moral paralysis, but with the -disruption of the empire.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s2.3.2" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e505">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>The Cost of -Orthodoxy</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The constant law of theological development was -that all stirrings of reason were anathematized as heresy, and that -dogmas became orthodox in the ratio of their extravagance. Paganizing -and polytheistic heresy such as that of the Collyridians of Arabia (4th -c.), who worshipped Mary as a Goddess and offered her cakes -(<i>collyridæ</i>) as their mothers had done to Ashtaroth, ran -little risk: their heresy in fact was on the way to be orthodoxy. Saner -heresies fared differently. Late in the fourth century we find the -Italian monk Jovinian opposing asceticism, urging a rational morality, -and explaining that Mary ceased to be a virgin on bringing forth Jesus; -for which offences he was condemned in Church Councils, flogged, and -banished to a desolate island. A little later, Vigilantius, a presbyter -from Gaul, ventured to oppose the growing worship of relics, prayers to -saints, the use of sacred tapers, vigils, and pilgrimages, as well as -to decry many current miracles. So furious was the outcry of Jerome in -his case that he had to hold his peace if he would save his life. No -leading churchman said a word for either reformer: Ambrose and Jerome -both condemned Jovinian; and the language of Jerome against Vigilantius -is a revelation of the new possibilities of intellectual malice created -by creed. On this side, human nature had reverted several degrees to -Hebraism.</p> -<p class="par">Later still, the heresy of Pelagius, also a western, -aroused a bitter orthodox opposition, led by Augustine. Pelagius (a -name probably the Grecized form of the British name Morgan) and -Cœlestius, an Irishman, both monks in Rome about the years -400–410, drew up a systematic argument against the doctrines of -human depravity, predestination, and salvation by grace; denied the -damnation of unbaptized infants and virtuous unbaptized adults; -rejected the Biblical teaching that Adam <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb147" href="#pb147" name="pb147">147</a>]</span>died in consequence -of his sin or entailed sin on posterity; and taught a relatively -rational ethic. Flying from Rome on Alaric’s invasion, they went, -Cœlestius to Carthage and Pelagius to the East; the former to be -condemned by a Council at Carthage (412), the latter to be for a time -supported against attacks, but later to be condemned likewise. -Henceforth the half-suppressed vestiges of Pelagianism (chiefly in the -hesitating form of semi-Pelagianism, according to which God -foreordained good but merely foreknew evil) were the only signs left in -the West, apart from Arianism, of the spirit of critical reason, till -the first stirrings of the medieval renascence.</p> -<p class="par">In the West, it will be observed, spontaneous heresy had -run to questions of action and ethics, partly following a Roman -tradition of concern for conduct, partly expressing barbarian -common-sense. To such thought, Christianity was alien, and it was cried -down by voluble theologians like Augustine, backed, doubtless, not only -by the average obedient priest, but by some who saw that the principles -of Pelagius, logically carried out, made an end on the one hand of the -whole Christian scheme, and on the other of the conception of an -omnipotent God. Such reasoners must equally have seen that the -Augustinian dogmas of predestination and grace made an end of human -responsibility; and this was urged by some Pelagians, but with no -effect. The irrational dogma best consisted with the functions and -finance of the church, and it was ecclesiastically established -accordingly.</p> -<p class="par">In the East, though there also Pelagius found followers, -spontaneous heresy, as we have seen, was usually a matter of abstract -dogma, as in the schisms of Praxeas, Sabellius, Paul of Samosata, -Arius, and the Gnostics. What critical thought there was continued to -follow the lead given to it by the older Greek dialectics. Aërius, -who raised in Asia Minor in the fourth century an agitation against -episcopacy, fasts, prayers for the dead, and the ceremony of slaying a -lamb at Easter, is an exception among eastern heretics; and the -dogmatic-dialectic tendency persisted. In the fifth century, Theodorus -of Mopsuestia, a voluminous writer, taught rationally that most of the -Old Testament prophecies applied by orthodoxy <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb148" href="#pb148" name="pb148">148</a>]</span>to -Jesus had reference to events in pre-Christian history. Needless to -say, this was heresy. But the chief new schisms of the period were -those of Nestorius and the Monophysites. Nestorius, Bishop of -Constantinople, a pupil of Theodorus, but a zealous persecutor of -heresy, became embroiled in the second stage of the endless wrangle as -to the nature of Christ. In the latter half of the fourth century, -Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea, a strong anti-Arian, holding that the -dogma of a God-Man was monstrous, had taught that Jesus was without a -human soul (or mind, as distinguished from mere animal life), having -only a divine one. This was to “confound the two natures”; -Apollinaris was condemned; and the Syrian orthodox rectified matters by -insisting that there <i>were</i> two, while the Egyptians, recoiling -from the risk of a theory of two Christs, insisted that the two were -nevertheless one.</p> -<p class="par">Nestorius stood with his fellow-Syrians, and sought to -crush the Apollinarians as he had helped to hound down Arians, -Novatians, and other misbelievers. The Apollinarians, however, had a -stronghold in their deification of Mary, whom they called -<i>Theotokos</i> or <i>Deipara</i>, “the mother (bearer) of -God”; and when the Nestorians denounced the common use of this -term they incurred the wrath of the multitude, who, wont in the past to -worship Goddess-mothers with a special devotion, and wroth at the -attempt to put Mary lower than Isis and Cybelê, naturally sought -to exalt Mary as they had exalted Jesus. A general Council (431) was -called at Ephesus to denounce Nestorius; and he, the heresy-hunter, was -convicted of blasphemy, classed with Judas, and banished for life. -Thenceforth, orthodox Christianity was for all practical purposes a -worship of a Goddess and two supreme Gods; and Nestorian Christianity, -flourishing in Asia, where its adherents were known by the old label of -“Nazaræans,” became a hostile religion. Thus in the -East as in the West the State was riven in new religious factions at -the very hour when it needed above all things unity. Persia was at that -very time beginning the acquisition of half of Armenia, as the Vandals -were beginning the conquest of North Africa. To Persia the Nestorians -were driven; and there, declaring themselves the <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb149" href="#pb149" name= -"pb149">149</a>]</span>friends of the enemies of the Byzantine empire, -they were fostered, while the orthodox Christians were persecuted, -massacred, and expelled.</p> -<p class="par">To a thoughtful pagan, viewing the course of things, it -must have seemed as if the Gods had given over the Christians to -madness. Among the chief enemies of Nestorius was Eutyches, an abbot of -a Constantinople monastery. In the year 448, by way of making an end of -Nestorianism, he explicitly taught that Christ had only one nature, the -divine. Instantly this was in turn denounced as a return to the -Apollinarian heresy, and Eutyches was cast out of the church by a -hostile council. Another council, skilfully packed, acquitted him, and -caused his accuser to be flogged and banished; but a third, that of -Chalcedon (451), again condemned him. Thus was the Christian dogma -fixed in the form of maximum arbitrariness and unintelligibility. The -Council of Nicæa (321) had determined against Arius that Christ -was truly God, co-equal and co-eternal with his Father, separate and -yet one; the Council of Constantinople (381) had determined against -Apollinaris that he was also truly man; that of Ephesus (431) had -established that the two natures were indivisibly one; and that of -Chalcedon (451) that they were nevertheless perfectly distinct. All -four dogmas became fixed constituents of the Christian creed. To this -length had men evolved a myth. And there were still developments to -come.</p> -<p class="par">The condemned Eutycheans, modifying their position, but -still calling themselves Monophysites, became in turn a force of fatal -cleavage. The emperor Zeno, in the year 482, conciliated them by an -edict called his Henoticon (“unifying”); but the orthodox -only opposed them the more; though all the while the Monophysites -professed to regard the “one nature” as a union of two, -“yet without any conversion, confusion, or commixture.” On -this absolutely unintelligible difference the sects finally sundered -their very nationality. Late in the sixth century, under a new leader, -Jacobus Baradæus, they became known as Jacobites; and when in the -next century the rising movement of the Mohammedan Arabs broke upon -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb150" href="#pb150" name= -"pb150">150</a>]</span>Egypt, where they abounded, the hatred of -Jacobites for Catholics was such as to make them welcome the -anti-Christian enemy, as they and others had previously welcomed the -Persians in Syria.</p> -<p class="par">It is not to be supposed, indeed, that the creed of -Christianity was the sole or primary cause of such a miserable -evolution. The very insanity of the strifes of Christians over -meaningless dogmas is primarily to be traced to the fatal constriction -of life and energy represented by the imperial system. It was because -men had no rational interests to strive over if they would that they -strove insanely over abracadabras of creed, and made war flags of the -two colours of the charioteers of the circus; even as in Egypt the -abject populations of the old cities, down to the time of Julian, -fought to the death for their respective animal-Gods. But it is -essential to note the absolute failure of Christianity to give to the -decaying civilization any light for its path. It flourished by reason -of decadence, and it could not arrest it. What ultimately preserved any -section of the Christian empire was the pagan heritage of law and -system, applied to a State shorn of all its outlying and alien -provinces, and reduced to the homogeneity and the status of a kingdom -proper with a commercial and industrial life. Justinian was fain to set -a non-Christian lawyer—Tribonian, a pagan or atheist—to -frame the code of laws by which Byzantium went on living. Himself we -find fulminating against revived heresies, anathematizing the long-dead -Origen, and latterly enouncing heresies of his own which, had he lived -longer, would have wrought fresh convulsions in the State.</p> -<p class="par">Such is the note of Greek-Christian life down to the -very hour of the supreme catastrophe which tore from the warlike -Heraclius the provinces of Syria and Egypt (632–639), and, -engulfing next North Africa, overthrew Christianity forever in the -lands in which it had been built up. Heraclius, struggling to save a -shaken empire, had early realized, as did Maurice before him, the -madness of driving myriads of Nestorians into the arms of Persia; and -after his triumph over Chosroes he sought to conciliate both Nestorians -and Monophysites by a <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb151" href= -"#pb151" name="pb151">151</a>]</span>decree (630) to the effect that, -while there were in Christ two natures, there was only one will, as was -admitted by the Nestorians. For a time all seemed well, and many -Monophysites in the outlying provinces returned to the Church. But in a -few years an orthodox zealot, Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, -reopened the eternal debate, and declared that the new formula was a -revival of the Eutychean heresy. In vain Heraclius, striving to save -the remnants of the empire, sought to enforce his solution (639) by an -<i>ecthesis</i>, or formula, which forbade further debate on the -subject. The Catholics decided that there were two wills, though they -always coincided; and the doctrine of one will—the -“Monothelite” heresy—at length became a ground for -the repudiation of the rule of Constans II over Italy, a hundred -bishops anathematizing the <i>typus</i> or formula in which he endorsed -the <i>ecthesis</i> of his grandfather. Finally, Constantine II (681) -accepted the doctrine that in Christ two wills were harmonized, and one -more orthodox countersense was added to the definition of the God-Man -who never was. The so-called Athanasian creed—really a product of -the Latin Church some centuries later than Athanasius—is a parade -of the whole series. To this much had Christianity attained after four -hundred years of indescribable strife. The one clue through the chaos -is the perception that in every stage the dispute logically went back -to the original issue of monotheism and polytheism. The church, holding -by the Hebrew sacred books as well as its own, was committed -doctrinally to the former, but practically to the latter. Every -affirmation of “one” tended to imperil the separate -divinity of the sacrificed Jesus; and every affirmation of duality gave -an opening to the polytheists. The one durable solution was, at each -crisis, to make both affirmations, and so baffle at once reason and -schismatic fanaticism.</p> -<p class="par">In effect, Christianity had become polytheistic; and -were it not that the personalities of Father<span class="corr" id= -"xd21e2690" title="Not in source">,</span> Mother and Son satisfied the -average religious need, as it had so long done in pre-Christian Egypt, -the dispute actually begun by Bishop Macedonius of Constantinople in -the fourth century over the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb152" href= -"#pb152" name="pb152">152</a>]</span>modality of the Holy Ghost would -have gone as far as those over the Son and “the Mother of -God.” In its first stage, the conception of the Holy Spirit, so -vague and purposeless in the orthodox doctrine, would seem to have been -distinctly that of a feminine Deity. We know from Origen that in the -lost gospel of the Hebrews Jesus was made to speak of “My Mother -the Holy Spirit.” This was a heretical reversion, on -Judæo-Gnostic lines, to the original Semitic theosophy, according -to which every God had his female counterpart; but ordinary Jewish -monotheism, which had put aside the female Spirit (<i>Ruach</i>) of its -older lore, was sufficiently strong to prevent the acceptance of such a -heresy in the gospel-making period; and the accepted gospel birth-myth -was better adapted to the general purposes of the cult. For the -paganized Church, finally, the divinization of Mary was a simple -matter, as we have seen; and the Holy Spirit, which had obscurely -entered the orthodox myth in a form really Samaritan, but permitted by -Judaic doctrine, thenceforth remained a gratuitous enigma, capping the -mystery of the co-eternal Father and Begotten Son. The Eastern Church, -recoiling from a reiteration of the latter countersense, decided (381) -that the Spirit “proceeded from” the Father, but not from -the Son, thus virtually depriving the Son, after all, of his so-often -affirmed equality.</p> -<p class="par">The root of the difficulty, as of the Trinitarian dogma -in general, is to be seen in the old Egyptian pantheism, according to -which the all-comprehending Amun “is at once the Father, the -Mother, and the Son of God”; but even as the Amunite priests made -play with the Son-God Khonsu after affirming the oneness of Amun, so -the Christian priesthood was forced at every step to distinguish the -Son while affirming the oneness of the Trinity; and each new dogma was -a fresh ground for the old quarrel. In the end the Western Church -rejected this Eastern heresy as it did the Monothelite; and the Council -of Toledo (589) added to the creed the <i>Filioque</i> clause, thus -stating that the Spirit proceeded from the Father “and from the -Son.” But at this point the Eastern Church remained obstinate; it -admitted that the Spirit came through <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb153" href="#pb153" name="pb153">153</a>]</span>the Son, but would -not say it “proceeded from” the Son; and the -<i>Filioque</i> clause remained a standing ground of feud between East -and West, as well as a standing instance of the irrationality of the -orthodox system. It is no wonder that in the seventh century eastern -churchmen were still writing treatises against paganism, which, despite -all the penal laws, persisted in virtue of its incoherent simplicity as -against the systematic unintelligibility of the Christian creed.</p> -<p class="par">A politic Christian, indeed, might point to the mere -history of heresy as showing the need for a dogma which should give no -foothold to reason. Like the Arians, the Monophysites had divided into -warring sects, their crux being that of the corruptibility or -incorruptibility of the body of Christ; and the two parties thus formed -split in turn into five. The total schism was in the main racial, -Egyptian opposing Greek; and the carnal jealousies of the patriarchs -and bishops seem to have played a great part in creating it; but -nothing could arrest the process of sub-division and strife. In one -furious feud over the election of a bishop of the Monophysite church of -Alexandria, a hundred and seventy years after the first Eutychean -schism, the fighting reached the lowest stage of savagery; and -Justinian’s general Narses, who supported the -“incorruptible” candidate at the behest of the empress -Theodora, had to burn a large part of the city before he could carry -his point. Soon afterwards, another imperial nominee, who entered the -city in battle array, had to fight for his place; and the carnage was -enormous. In every doctrinal strife in turn the parties proceeded to -bloodshed with a speed and zest which turned to derision the moral -formulas of their creed. Such social delirium was chronic in -Christendom from the age of Constantine to the triumph of the Saracens; -and, needless to say, under such conditions there was no progress in -civilization.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s2.3.3" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e515">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Moral and -Intellectual Stagnation</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">On the intellectual side, ancient Christianity is -on the whole at its strongest in the West, just before the fall of the -western empire, as if the last mental energies of the Roman -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb154" href="#pb154" name= -"pb154">154</a>]</span>world had there found a channel. Augustine -passed on to the middle ages a body of polemic theology sufficiently -vivacious to constitute a Christian classic; and in him at last the -Latin church had produced a personality comparable to Origen. Jerome, -on the other hand, could compare with Origen as a scholar, and like him -he laid bases for the scholarship of a later and reviving age. But the -total achievement of Christianity on behalf of ancient civilization had -amounted to nothing. By spreading the dogma that error of belief, -whether as paganism or as heresy, doomed men to eternal torment, it -negated the very basis of human brotherhood, and gave a new dominion to -hate, individual and corporate. It made neither good rulers nor a sound -society. Valentinian must have been made tolerant in state affairs by -the spirit of pagan policy: as a man he was so abnormally cruel that -had he been a pagan the historians would have compared him to Nero. -That a year after Julian’s death there should be on the throne a -Christian emperor who caused offenders to be thrown to wild bears in -his own presence is a memorable item in Christian history. Of his Arian -brother Valens it is told that he caused to be burned at sea a shipload -of eighty ecclesiastics who had come to him as a deputation. This may -be an orthodox fiction; but such fictions are themselves signal proofs -of demoralizing malignity; as is the orthodox suppression of the story -of how the Arian bishop Deogratius at Carthage succoured the captives -brought by the Vandals from the sack of Rome—one of the rare -records of magnanimous humanity in the history of the age.</p> -<p class="par">From the orthodox themselves we know how Pope Leo had -banished and imprisoned the Manichæans and Pelagians who sought -refuge at Rome when the Vandals attacked Carthage. The emperors exhibit -the process of decivilization. Valentinian died of rage: his pious sons -were weaklings; and Theodosius, when the rabble of Thessalonica braved -him by murdering his governor for enforcing the law against a popular -charioteer, treacherously planned a systematic and indiscriminate -massacre by which there perished from seven to fifteen thousand men, -women, and children. No pagan <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb155" -href="#pb155" name="pb155">155</a>]</span>emperor had ever done the -like; and no such number of Christians can have been put to death by -Nero. Heraclius, after beheading Phocas, sent his head and limbs to be -dragged through the streets of Constantinople—a reversion to -barbarism. Two centuries earlier (415) a rabble of Alexandrian monks, -acting in the interest of Cyril the Patriarch, seized the pagan teacher -Hypatia, stripped her, tore her flesh from her bones with shells, and -burned the remains. It is one of the anomalies of historiography that a -moral rebirth of the world should have been held to begin in an age in -which such things could be. Rather the Mediterranean world had grown -more neurotically evil than ever before. The facts that Bishop Ambrose -of Milan denounced the act of Theodosius, forcing him to do penance for -seven months before re-admitting him to worship, and that Theodosius in -his remorse submitted to the sentence and was afterwards less -vindictive, are the best that can be recorded <i>per contra</i>. -Ambrose himself warmly justified the burning of Jewish synagogues; and -while he, with all his ecclesiastical frauds, showed a public spirit, -it is a commonplace of Christian history that from the third century -onwards bishops in general were self-seekers, who battled furiously -over questions of diocesan boundaries, and were the ideal contrast to -the legendary apostles. Among the Christianized barbarians who in their -turn overran the empire the moral phenomena become even worse, their -religion seeming only to make them more savage and vicious.</p> -<p class="par">All that Christianity had yielded under the form of -moral betterment was an increasing glorification of chastity and -celibacy, with some restraint on infanticide. When the western empire -is on the verge of destruction, Rome being already sacked, we find -Jerome expanding in an insane exultation over the news that a young -Roman lady had taken the vow of virginity, an event to which he -ascribes cosmic importance. The mother of such a virgin, he declares, -becomes <i>ipso facto</i> “the mother-in-law of God.” As -always happens where sexual virtue is identified with abstinence, vice -was excessive. Chrysostom in the East, and Salvian in Gaul, testify -that alike in licence and in cruelty the Christianized <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb156" href="#pb156" name= -"pb156">156</a>]</span>State at the beginning of the fifth century was -the worsened copy of the pagan world of four centuries before. The -Greek Basil and the Italian Ambrose alike bear witness to the survival -in the Christian Church of all the excesses of the old Bacchanalia. -Even the tradition that in the reign of Honorius (404) the horrible -gladiatorial games were abolished, is admitted by Christian scholarship -to be false. It may be that a humane monk did lose his life in trying -to stop them; but there is clear proof that the games subsisted in -Christian Gaul at a later date, though even humane pagans had called -for their abolition, and their cost was a heavy burden on the falling -revenue. Centuries before the time of Honorius, Apollonius of Tyana was -credited with causing them to be abolished at Athens. Not till the -Gothic conquest did the games cease in the West; nor did the piety of -Honorius and his advisers withhold them from treacherous massacres, and -from enacting the punishment of burning alive for frauds on the -fisc.</p> -<p class="par">And the wrong of wrongs was left not only untouched but -unchallenged. Slavery remained, and the average lot of the slave was no -better than in the Rome of Horace. Christian matrons in the East were -as cruel mistresses as those of the West in the days before Nero. That -Christian credences counted for little in setting up even the species -of virtue most esteemed may be gathered from the Confessions of -Augustine. By his own account, what first drew him in his youth to -moral reflection and conduct was not the pious teaching of his mother -but the writing of Cicero; he was scrupulous as a Manichæan -before he became orthodox; and his charges of hypocrisy against some -Manichæans merely place the heretical sect on a level with the -orthodox. As regarded the weightier matters of morals there could be no -vital reform, because there was at work neither an intellectual force -nor a self-saving pressure from the wronged orders of society. The -ethic which led Origen to make himself a eunuch was not a force for -betterment.</p> -<p class="par">A survey of the literature of the fourth and fifth -centuries will make equally clear the failure of Christianity to renew -the mental life which had been dwindling in the Hellenic <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb157" href="#pb157" name= -"pb157">157</a>]</span>world since the days of Alexander, and in the -western since those of Augustus. No modern seeker for wisdom or beauty -in ancient lore thinks of turning for it to the Greek and Latin -writings of the age of established Christianity. Augustine, whose -energy was sufficient for a great literary performance, leaves a mass -of work out of which two or three treatises only have any truly -literary as distinct from an archæological interest; and these -are vitiated as compared with good pagan work by their wearisome -hysterical pietism no less than by their utter lack of serenity. The -Confessions, which might have been a great human document, are reduced -by their religious content almost to the plane of the surrounding -wilderness of rhetorical theology, whereof a library still subsists, -unreadable and unread. Rhetoric, the bane of the decadent pagan -literature, infects equally all the Christian writers, giving to the -most vehement the ring of inflation and false passion. Literature of -artistic or intellectual value was almost at an end. Such Christian -poets as Prudentius and Paulinus have indeed merit in their kind; but -they could not begin a literary renascence under the conditions set up -either by fanatical Christianity or by the worldly spirit which divided -with fanaticism the control of the Christian Church and State in the -West as in the East. And when the spirit of literature did later -revive, it turned with less zest to the pietists named than to their -pagan contemporary Claudian, who if not a great poet is yet high among -the lesser classics of Rome.</p> -<p class="par">It would seem as if Claudian, coming to the writing of -Latin after a Greek education, was partly saved by that circumstance -from the artistic fatuity which had become normal among the westerns as -among the easterns. The need to think in a new speech may have -vitalized his use of it. But he remained wholly pagan in his creed. And -such pagan thinkers as Macrobius and Simplicius, though unoriginal in -comparison with those whom they commented, reward attention in many -ways better than do their contemporaries of the Church. What of -permanent appeal there is in the teaching of Augustine comes largely -from his early philosophic culture; and Ambrose has hardly anything in -the way of serious or <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb158" href= -"#pb158" name="pb158">158</a>]</span>philosophic thought which he does -not borrow from pagan lore. Boethius, the last of the ancient -philosophers, was a Christian only in name, expounding its orthodox -dogma as a lawyer might expound law: when he came to write his -consolations in prison he went back to the ancient and universal ethic, -putting aside his creed as he might a mask. The vogue of his book in -the Dark Ages is the expression of thinking men’s satisfaction in -a late Latin treatise which brooded gravely on life and death in terms -of human feeling and wisdom, with no hint of the formulas of the -priest.</p> -<p class="par">On the side of science in particular and education in -general the Christian tendency was increasingly repressive. When -Christianity was established there were still grammar schools in every -considerable town in the empire, and many higher schools in the great -cities; and though for long the Christians were fain to use these -schools, pagan as they were in character, by reason of their almost -purely literary or rhetorical curriculum, the Church gradually let them -die out, never even attempting a Christian system of education, apart -from a few theological schools. Nor did the process of extinction of -knowledge end there. Early in the fifth century Theodosius II forbade -all public lecturing by non-official teachers; and a century later -Justinian plundered and abolished the philosophical schools at Athens, -thus ending the last vestige of the higher intellectual life. Pope -Gregory the Great fanatically discouraged literary culture; and in the -East it soon became a matter of orthodox rule that the laity should not -read the sacred books, the only literature that could well come in -their way. Science so-called was practically a synonym for heresy: it -was denounced as impious by zealous believers in the third century; and -in the sixth we find Cosmas “Indicopleustes,” the Indian -voyager, a Nestorian Christian, denouncing the pagan doctrine of the -roundness of the earth, and religiously demonstrating that it is an -oblong plane. Medicine had gone far under pagan auspices, and Antoninus -Pius had provided for municipal physicians throughout the empire; but -the Christians, seeing heresy in all science, put prayer and exorcism -above leechcraft; the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb159" href= -"#pb159" name="pb159">159</a>]</span>temple-schools of the healing God -<span class="corr" id="xd21e2750" title= -"Source: Aesculapius">Æsculapius</span> were closed with the -rest, and medical like other science virtually died out of Christian -hands, to be recovered from old Greek lore by the Saracens. Gregory the -Great exhibits the superstition of an ignorant Asiatic.</p> -<p class="par">What the world needed above all things was new study and -real knowledge in place of rhetoric: the fatality of the Christian -system was that it set up the conviction that all vital knowledge was -contained in itself. Yet all the while the religious habit of mind, -which saw in pious fraud a service to deity, had almost destroyed the -rational conception of truth, so that a thousand years were to elapse -before human testimony could return to the standards of Thucydides, or -human judgment rise above a gross credulity. Had it been only in the -West, overrun by barbarism, that the lights of knowledge and art went -out, the barbarian invasion might be put as the cause; but the history -of Christian Byzantium is the history of an intellectual arrest of a -thousand years on the very soil of civilization.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s2.3.4" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e525">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 4.</span> <i>The Social -Failure</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Of the eastern Christian empire as it is left -curtailed of more than half its area by the Moslem conquest, the one -thing that cannot be predicated is progress or transformation. Here -again it would be an error to regard Christianity as the cause of -stagnation: the whole political science of antiquity had been markedly -conservative; but it must be noted that historic Christianity -absolutely endorsed the ideal of fixity. Only conditions of stimulating -culture-contact could have preserved a vigorous mental life under its -sway; and the condition of Byzantium was unhappily one of almost -complete racial and religious isolation. The Byzantium of Justinian and -Heraclius is almost the ideal of ossification; its very disorders are -normal, the habitual outbreaks of a vicious organism. There is nothing -in pagan history to compare with the chronic pandemonium set up in -Christian Constantinople by the circus factions of blues and greens, -whose mutual massacres in generation after generation outdid the -slaughters <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb160" href="#pb160" name= -"pb160">160</a>]</span>of many civil wars. As painted by its own -Christian censors, the Byzantine town population of all orders was at -least as worthless as that of pagan Rome in its worst imperial days; it -realized the ignorance and unprogressiveness of imperial China without -the Chinese compensations of normal good nature, courtesy, domestic -unity, and patient toil.</p> -<p class="par">Industry indeed there must have been; it was perhaps the -silk industry introduced by Justinian that began the economic salvation -of the State; but the law prescribed a system of industrial caste, -binding every man, as far as might be, to his father’s trade, -which must have kept the working populace very much on the level of -that of ancient Egypt. Nor can matters have been socially much better -in the West, whether in Italy under Byzantine or Lombard rule, or in -the new barbarian States, Arian and Catholic. Everywhere the old -inequalities of law were rather worsened than cured, and no Christian -teacher dreamed of curing them. The ideals of the most earnest among -them, as Jerome and Paulinus, began and ended in mere pietism and -physical self-mortification.</p> -<p class="par">It is not surprising, then, that all over the Christian -world the most salient social result of the creed was the institution -of monasticism, a Christian adaptation of a usage long common in -religious and down-trodden Egypt. Everything conduced to promote it. -The spectacle of constant strife and sensuality in the cities moved -suffering souls of the unworldly type to withdraw to solitude or the -cloister; all the leading teachers applauded the ideal, while -denouncing its abuses; and for multitudes of unfortunate or inferior -types, avoiding toil or escaping tyranny, then as later, the life of -the monk or even of the hermit, though poor, was one of relative ease -and idleness, greatly preferable to that of the proletary, since all -could count on being at least maintained by popular charity, if not -enriched by the believers in their sanctity. To these types were added -that of the ignorant fanatic, which seems to have been as numerous as -that of the slothful, and which under monastic conditions seems to have -become more fanatical than ever. Thus some of the best and much of the -worse moral elements, the latter of course immensely <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb161" href="#pb161" name= -"pb161">161</a>]</span>predominating, combined to weaken the social -fabric, the former by withdrawing their finer personalities from a -world that doubly needed them; the latter by withdrawing hands from -labour and widening the realm of ignorant faith. Some powerful -personalities, as Basil and Chrysostom and Gregory, were bred in the -monastic life; but in the main it was a mere impoverishment of -civilization. In the critical period of Christian history the monks are -often found zealous in works of rabid violence, such as the destruction -of pagan temples and Jewish synagogues, and the horrible murder of the -pagan girl-philosopher Hypatia in Alexandria; and they too had their -furious dogmatic strifes, notably in the fourth and fifth centuries, -when those of Egypt constituted themselves the champions of the -orthodoxy (then impeached) of Origen, for no clear reason save perhaps -the fact of his self-mutilation. But, as Christian historians have -remarked, they seem to have done nothing to resist the ruinous -onslaught of Islam, which above all things despised monks. For that -matter, the hierarchy did no better. The hierocracy established in -Spain under the Visigoths served so to emasculate or paralyse the race -that after an undisturbed life of three hundred years it fell in a day -before a handful of Moslem filibusters from North Africa.</p> -<p class="par">There is reason to believe, finally, that the -intellectual as well as the political abjection of the Christian mass -in Syria, Egypt, and North Africa made multitudes ready material for -Islam, even as sectarian hatreds made others welcome the conqueror, and -resent only his toleration of their opponents. Christian faith availed -so little to make head against the new faith which assailed it, that we -must infer a partial paralysis on the Christian side as a result of -Moslem success. Success was the theological proof of divine aid; and -many calamities, such as earthquakes, had previously seemed to tell of -divine wrath against the Christian world. Such arguments shook -multitudes. Numbers apostatized at once; and when the Moslem rule was -established from Jerusalem to Carthage, the Christian Church, tolerated -only to be humiliated, dwindled to insignificance on its former soil. -In the African provinces it <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb162" href= -"#pb162" name="pb162">162</a>]</span>absolutely disappeared; in the -others it became incapable of moving either Arab or Frank to respect. -Nestorian Christianity, already settled in Persia, was specially -tolerated by the Saracens, as it had been by the Persians, because of -its enmity to Christian Byzantium; but though it continued to subsist -it was by toleration and not through strength. The Nestorian clergy and -laity throve somewhat as Jews had done in Rome; but they made no -headway against Islam, and some of the Asiatic States where they had -been numerous fell away wholly to Mohammedanism. Thus was given once -more the historic proof that any religion may in time be destroyed or -degraded by brute force, provided only that the brute force be -persistent, and efficiently applied.</p> -<p class="par">What pagan Rome did not do, for lack of systematic -effort or continuous purpose, Islam did with the greatest ease, the -purpose and the effort being wholehearted. And when we compare the -later civilization of the Saracens with that they overthrew, it is hard -to feel that the world lost by the change. If monotheism had any -civilizing virtue as against polytheism, it was the Moslems, not the -Christians, who were monotheists; and the Moslem scorn of Christian -man-worship and idolatry reproduced the old Christian tone towards -paganism. On the side of morals, Moslem polygamy was indeed relatively -evil; but on the other hand the giving of alms, so often claimed as a -specially Christian virtue, was under Islam an absolute duty; Moslems -could not hold Moslems as slaves; Islam knew no priestcraft; and it -substantially excluded the common Christian evils of drunkenness and -prostitution. Almost the only art carried on by the Byzantines from -their pagan ancestors was that of architecture, their churches being -often beautiful; and this art, as well as that of working in gold, the -Saracens preserved; while it is to their later adoption of the ancient -Greek science that the world owes the revival of knowledge after the -night of the Dark Ages. Sculpture and painting were already become -contemptible in Christian hands; and literature was in not much better -case. It is to be noted, too, that the traditional blame of the Goths -and Vandals for the disfigurement of ancient Rome is misplaced, the -worst wreckers <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb163" href="#pb163" name= -"pb163">163</a>]</span>being the generals of Justinian and the -inhabitants themselves, always ready to ruin a pagan memorial for the -sake of building material.</p> -<p class="par">When finally we seek to realize the aspect of the -Hellenistic world in the time of Mohammed, in contrast with that of the -age of Pericles; or the Rome of Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) -in contrast with that of Hadrian, we are conscious of an immense loss -of human faculty for beauty and joy, no less than for action. It is not -too much to say that the Christian ideal of sanctity meant not only -self-mortification and sadness but squalor in the individual life. -Physical uncleanliness became a Christian virtue; and the mark of a -city built in the Christian period came to be the absence of baths. -Pagan Greece lives for ever in men’s thought as a dream of grace -and beauty and enchanted speech; and though behind the shining vision -of art and song there lingers immovably a sombre memory of strife and -servitude, the art and the song are a deathless gift to mankind. At -every summit of its attainment our civilization looks back to them with -an unquenchable envy, an impotent desire, as of a race disinherited. To -regain that morning glory of life is the spontaneous yearning of all -who have gazed on the distant light of it. But the man who would wish -to re-create the Constantinople of Justinian or Heraclius has not yet -declared himself.</p> -<p class="par">Dream for dream, the child-like creed of the God-crowded -Hellas of Pheidias’ day, peopled with statues and crowned with -temples of glorious symmetry, is an incomparably fairer thing than the -tortured dogma of the Byzantine church, visually expressing itself in -wretched icons, barbaric trappings, and infinite mummeries of -ceremonial. Idolatry for idolatry, the adoration of noble statues by -chanting bands of youths and maidens can have wrought less harm to head -and heart than the prostration of their posterity before the abortions -of Byzantine art. Superstition for superstition, there is nothing in -old Hellene religion, with all its survivals of savage myth, to be -compared for moral and mental abjection to the practice of the -Christian Greeks, with their pilgrimages to Arabia to <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb164" href="#pb164" name="pb164">164</a>]</span>kiss -Job’s dunghill, and their grovelling worship of dead men’s -bones. Some Christian historians, seeking a vital test, have concluded -that under paganism there was no good “life of the heart”; -but whatever may be the modern superiority in this regard, there is -none to be discerned in the Christian civilizations which in the -seventh century still spoke the classic tongues of paganism.</p> -<p class="par">In the West, where a spiritual power had begun obscurely -to acquire a Roman empire which parodied the old, there is indeed a -potential superiority predicable for the new. Gregory sending Augustine -to convert the Britons is a fairer moral spectacle than that of -Cæsar, bent on plunder, seeking to conquer them. But whatever -might be the moral merit of a sincere fanaticism like that of Gregory, -who trampled down culture as eagerly as he pushed propaganda, the life -of too many Popes had already shown that the new Romanism was only to -be Cæsarism with a difference, and that for the spiritual as for -the temporal empire the great end was gold. Tyranny for tyranny, and -power for power, the Rome of Trajan, superb and cruel, is hardly a -worse thing than the Rome in which Popes fought with hired bands for -their chair, or sat in it through the favour of courtesans; and the -Roman populace of the days of Gregory was no worthier than that of the -days of Caracalla or of Honorius. “Nothing can give a baser -notion of their degradation than their actions,” says Milman, -describing the conduct of the Romans at Gregory’s death, when -they had become thoroughly Christianized. As of old, the accident of -real merit in the ruler could avail for much in administration; but -still the calm Antonines can bear comparison as potentates and men with -any wearer of the triple crown. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb165" -href="#pb165" name="pb165">165</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div0 part"> -<h2 class="label">PART III</h2> -<h2 class="main">MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY</h2> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter I</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">EXPANSION AND ORGANIZATION</h2> -<div id="s3.1.1" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e547">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Position in -the Seventh Century</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">When the swift triumph of Islam had cut off from -Christendom the populations among whom its creed had been evolved, that -creed ruled in the Byzantine State; in Italy, still half-imperial, -half-Lombardic; in Spain, then under Teutonic masters; in Frankish -Gaul; in parts of southern Germany; in Saxon Britain, of which the -conversion was begun by the lesser Augustine under Gregory the Great, -after the overthrow of the earlier Church by the heathen invaders; and -in Ireland, which had been largely Christianized in the fourth and -fifth centuries, apparently by Greek or eastern means. In the Moslem -world, Christianity existed on sufferance, and chiefly in heretical -forms, being Nestorian in Persia and Monophysite in Egypt, as also in -Abyssinia; but Christian Europe was now nominally agreed on the main -official dogmas.</p> -<p class="par">In the more civilized European States, specific paganism -still throve more or less obscurely, both by way of educated -antiquarianism and of peasant persistence in old ways; and the Church -framed canons against the latter and treatises against the former. The -mass of the population, however, was satisfied with the ample elements -of the old system embodied in the new. In the more barbaric States, -Christianity was even less of a modifying force than in the others. -Like the people of the empire, the barbarians carried on their pagan -rites, festivals, and superstitions under the name of Christianity; -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb166" href="#pb166" name= -"pb166">166</a>]</span>and whereas the educated world was in a measure -forced by its pessimists and its pietists to recognize the difference -between its documents and its practice, the more primitive races simply -translated Christian tradition and theory into the terms of their own -life. Save for an exaltation of celibacy, and a confessional -inquisition, at once prurient and puerile, into the details of the -sexual relation, it in no way changed the plane of their thought and -conduct. What it did alter was their political life, inasmuch as the -co-ordination of the priesthood made everywhere for the power of the -prince, if he had the wit to use it, the Church being everywhere shaped -as far as might be on the model and the ideal set up by -Constantine.</p> -<p class="par">Wherever the Roman empire had been, unless -anti-Christian violence has intervened, the Church system to this day -bears witness to the union of Church and State. In France, for -instance, there is still a bishop, as a rule, wherever there was a -Roman municipality, and an archbishop wherever there was a provincial -capital; and where in imperial territory there were variations in the -administration of rural districts—some being under their own -magistrates, some under those of neighbouring towns—the Church -system varied similarly. In the East, rural bishops, or -<i>chorepiscopi</i>, were common; but in the West they seem to have -prevailed only in the Dark Ages, the general tendency being to give the -rank of mere priests to the holders of country benefices, and to make -bishops the rulers of dioceses from an urban seat or -“cathedral” church. Country parishes, on the other hand, -were formed into groups, presided over by an <i>archipresbyter</i>, -without episcopal rank. The spirit of imperial rule pervaded all Church -life. Where large landowners under the Christian emperors had sought to -resist the centralizing system by appointing the priests on their own -estates, they were compelled to obtain the approval of the nearest -bishop; and when they sought next to do without priests, a law was -passed forbidding laymen to meet for worship without an ecclesiastic. -This principle was carried wherever the Church went, and rigid -subordination was the general result. To secure stability, however, the -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb167" href="#pb167" name= -"pb167">167</a>]</span>Church had to rest on a recognized economic -interest throughout the priesthood; and the early practice of a -communal life for the bishop and his clergy, which was still common in -Gaul and Spain in the seventh century, was gradually broken up. The -competition of monasticism first forced upon all a stricter rule; and -priests living in their bishop’s house became known as <i lang= -"la">canonici regulares</i>, “canons regular,” or under -rule—a duplication of terms, since “canon” originally -meant “rule,” and “canonical” was simply -“regular.” But the obvious financial advantages, as well as -the liberties of the unattached priests, soon made their status the aim -of all not devoted to the monastic ideals. The change was furthered by -the habit of leaving endowments to individual churches and to -individual offices; till at length, even in the cathedral towns, the -canons lived apart, each with his own revenue, though often dining at a -common table; while the country priests necessarily became still more -their own masters in the matter of income. Thus arose the -“secular clergy,” the title of “regular” being -restricted to those who lived under a monastic rule—as that of -Benedict or that of Augustine; and these in turn came to be classed -with monks as distinguished from the others. In addition, there sprang -up in the Middle Ages a number of unattached or itinerant priests, as -well as private chaplains.</p> -<p class="par">In every order alike, however, an economic interest was -sooner or later the ruling motive. Beneficed priests wrought for the -church under which they had their income, keeping as much of it as they -could, but recognizing the need for official union; and the monastic -orders in their turn grew wealthy by endowments, and zealous in -proportion for the temporal power of the Church. As always, the -self-denying and devoted were a minority; but the worldly and the -unworldly alike wrought everywhere in the political interests of the -kings, who had established and endowed the Church to begin with, and -who in return were long allowed many liberties in the appointment and -control of bishops and priests. A common result was the appointment of -lay favourites or benefactors of the king; and bishoprics seem almost -as often as not to have been in some degree purchasable. The Church, in -short, was <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb168" href="#pb168" name= -"pb168">168</a>]</span>a social and political function of each State, -with the papal system loosely and variably co-ordinating the whole.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s3.1.2" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e557">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>Methods of -Expansion</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Every extension of the Church being a means of -power and revenue to priests, the process was furthered at once by -motives of selfishness and by motives of self-sacrifice. In some cases -the latter were effectual, as when a pious hermit won repute among -barbarians for sanctity, and so acquired spiritual influence; but the -normal mode of conversion seems to have been by way of appeal to chiefs -or kings. When these were convinced that Christianity was to their -interest, the baptism of their more docile subjects followed wholesale. -Thus ten thousand Angli were claimed as baptized by Augustine in Kent -on Christmas Day in the year 597—a transaction which reduced the -rite to nullity, and the individuality of the converts to the level of -that of animals. In this case there can have been no rational consent. -A little later, Heraclius in the East caused multitudes of Jews to be -dragged to baptism by force; and the same course was taken in Spain and -Gaul. Jews so coerced were only more anti-Christian than before; and -wholesale relapses of barbarian converts were nearly as common as the -wholesale captures, till the cause of kings won the mastery. Nowhere -does the Church seem to have grown from within and upward among the -barbarians as it had originally done in the empire: the process is -invariably one of imposition from without and above, by edicts of -kings, who supported the missionaries with the sword. As at the outset -of the Church, there were deadly strifes among the pioneers. The -earlier British Church having been formed under influences from -Ireland, there was such utter hatred between its remnants and the -Romanized Church set up by Augustine that, apparently after his death, -twelve hundred monks of the older church were massacred at Bangor in -one of the wars between the two Christian parties; and the Britons, not -unnaturally, refused to have any intercourse with their brethren, -regarding them as worse than heathens. The Englishman Boniface, who -played a large part (720–55) in <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb169" href="#pb169" name="pb169">169</a>]</span>the Christianization -of northern Germany, and who in the usual fashion claimed to have -baptized a hundred thousand natives in one year, secured the -excommunication of several rival bishops of the anti-Roman school; and -those who would not accept re-ordination at his hands he sought to have -imprisoned or flogged, denouncing them, in the style of the Churchman -of all ages, as “servants of the devil and forerunners of -Antichrist.” His authority was established in new districts at -the head of an armed force; and when with fifty priests he met his -death (755) in Friesland at the hands of heathen natives, he was -marching with a troop of soldiers. Even where force was not used, the -persuasions offered were of the grossest kind. Thus a friend of -Boniface is found advising him to point out to the heathen that the -Christians have the bulk and the best of the world, possessing all the -rich lands which yield wine and oil, while the pagans are now confined -to the coldest and most barren regions. No religion was ever more -unspiritually propagated.</p> -<p class="par">Under Charlemagne, Christian missionary methods left -those of Islam in the rear. For the subjection of the still free -Saxons, between the Baltic and the borders of Thuringia and Hesse, he -needed the aid of the Church’s organization; and they, realizing -the state of the case, for the most part refused to be baptized. In his -wars with them, accordingly, he decreed that those who rejected the -gospel should be put to death. As the wars lasted thirty-three years, -the number of the slain must be left to imagination. The survivors were -finally bribed into belief by a restoration of their local rights, and -by being freed from tribute to the king. They do not seem, however, to -have been freed from the exactions of the Church, which, according to -the testimony of Charlemagne’s adviser, Alcuin, had been a main -cause of the exasperation of the Saxons against it. Among those -exactions Alcuin mentions not only tithes—which had now become a -recognized form of Church revenue—but the infliction of many -penalties for moral and ecclesiastical offences. Such exactions the -monarch endorsed; and he it was who enforced the payment of tithes. -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb170" href="#pb170" name= -"pb170">170</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">King and priest were thus natural allies as against the -freemen or the chieftains in each territory; and the advance of the -Church was bloody or bloodless according as the king was able to -enforce his will. In the Scandinavian countries the founding of -Christianity was a life-and-death struggle, lasting in all for some two -hundred and fifty years (820–1075), between the local liberties, -bound up with pagan usages, and the centralizing system of the Church. -Again and again the Church was overthrown, with the king who championed -it; and the special ferocity of the marauding vikings against Churchmen -wherever they went seems to have been set up by their sense of the -Church’s monarchic function. The fact that many priests were -ex-serfs made them the more obnoxious; and they in turn would strive -the more zealously for the Church’s protecting power. But the -Church’s political work did not end with the humbling of the -vikings, as such, at the hands of the kings who finally mastered them; -it endorsed the aggressive imperialism of the Danish king Knut as it -had done that of Rome; and never till the time of the Crusades does the -ostensible universality of the Church seem to have checked the old play -of racial hatreds and the normal lust of conquest. So clearly did -Charlemagne realize the political use of the Church that, while he -imposed it everywhere in his own dominions, he vetoed its extension to -Denmark, where it would be a means of organizing a probably hostile -power, many of the stubborn Saxons having fled thither. From the moment -of its establishment it had been stamped with the principle of -political autocracy; and only when its own mounting power and wealth -made it a world-State in itself did it restrain, in its own interest, -the power of kings. In the earlier stages, king and Church supported -each other for their own sakes; and it was as a political instrument, -whose value had been proved in the Roman Empire, that the Church was -sooner or later accepted by the barbarian kings. All the while popes -and prelates complained bitterly that many of the converts thus won -were baptized and rebaptized, yet continued to live as heathens, -slaying priests and sacrificing to idols. When, however, open -heathenism was beaten down, the combined <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb171" href="#pb171" name="pb171">171</a>]</span>political and -religious prestige of the Christian priest gave him a hold over the -multitude, forever superstitious, such as those of the heathen times -had never wielded save in Gaul. To the new regal tyranny was added that -of the Church. When the Servians, who had been nominally Christianized -under the rule of Byzantium in the eighth century, regained their -independence in the ninth, they significantly renounced Christianity; -and only after re-conquest were they again “converted.” To -this day their old pagan beliefs abound under cover of -Christianity.</p> -<p class="par">To the general rule of propagation by regal edict or by -bloodshed there were a few partial exceptions. Vladimir, the first -Christian king of the Russians (980), destroyed the old monuments and -images in the usual fashion; but under the auspices of his wife, the -sister of the Byzantine emperor, Greek missionaries set up many schools -and churches, and the kingdom seems to have been bloodlessly -Christianized within three generations. It accordingly remained -Christian under the two and a half centuries of Mongol rule, from 1223. -Elsewhere the conversion of the Slavs was a process of sheer monarchic -violence, as in Scandinavia. Always it was the duke or king who was -“converted,” and always his propaganda was that of the -sword. Through three reigns (870–936) heathen Bohemia was -bedevilled by dukes who coerced their subjects with the Church’s -help; a pagan prince who led a successful revolt, but was overthrown by -a German invasion, lives in history as Boleslav the Cruel; and an -equally cruel successor, who with German help used the same means on -behalf of Christianity, figures as Boleslav the Pious (967–999). -The same process went on in Poland; the converted duke (967), backed by -his German overlords, seeking to suppress pagan worship with violence -and meeting violent resistance. So among the Wends, who were also under -German vassalage, the missionary was seen to be the tool of the tyrant, -and the cause of paganism was identified with that of national -independence. After generations of savage struggle, Gottschalk, the -pious founder of the Wendish empire, was overthrown (1066) and put to -death with torture. So in Hungary, where <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb172" href="#pb172" name="pb172">172</a>]</span>king Stephen -(997–1038) combined slaughter with better propaganda, the -king’s death was followed by a desperate pagan revolt, which was -twice renewed under his son.</p> -<p class="par">Century after century, expansion proceeded on the same -lines. The Finns, conquered in the twelfth century by a Christian king -of Sweden, were still persistently pagan in the thirteenth, and were -bloodily coerced accordingly. In the conversion of the Slavonic -Pomeranians in the twelfth century, armed force, headed by the duke, -was needed to secure wholesale baptisms after the fashion of Augustine -and Boniface; the people of Lübeck, on the opportunity of an -emperor’s death, revolted in favour of paganism and independence; -and the pagans of the Isle of Rügen were Christianized in mass by -Danish conquest (1168). It is recorded by the biographer of St. Otho -that the Pomeranians expressly rejected Christianity on the score of -its cruelty, saying, “among the Christians are thieves and -robbers [unknown among the heathen Slavs]; Christians crucify men and -tear out eyes and do all manner of infamies; be such a religion far -from us.” The attempt to convert Livonia by preaching was an -absolute failure; two crusades had to be set on foot by the Pope and -the surrounding Christians to crush its paganism (<i>circa</i> 1200); -and finally an “Order of the Sword” had to be organized to -hold the religious ground. A little later, two “Orders of -Teutonic Knights” in succession were established to conquer and -convert the heathen Prussians; and after sixty years of murderous and -ruinous warfare, “a broken remnant, shielded in some measure by -the intervention of the popes, were induced to discontinue all the -heathen rites, to recognize the claims of the Teutonic Order, and to -welcome the instruction of the German priests.” Another remnant, -utterly unsubduable, sought refuge with the heathen of Lithuania.</p> -<p class="par">The summary of seven hundred years of Christian -expansion in northern Europe is that the work was in the main done by -the sword, in the interests of kings and tyrants, who supported it, as -against the resistance of their subjects, who saw in the Church an -instrument for their subjection. Christianity, in short, was as truly a -religion of the sword as <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb173" href= -"#pb173" name="pb173">173</a>]</span>Islam. When the Mongols conquered -part of Russia in 1223 they not only left the Christians full religious -liberty, but let the priests go untaxed; and similarly the Turks left -to the Bulgarians their faith, their lands, and their local laws. -Christianity gave no such toleration; the lands of the heathen Slavs -and Prussians being distributed among their German conquerors. The -heathen, broadly speaking, were never persuaded, never convinced, never -won by the appeal of the new doctrine: they were either transferred by -their kings to the Church like so many cattle, or beaten down into -submission after generations of resistance and massacre. For a long -time after the German conquest any Slav found away from home was liable -to be executed on the spot, or killed like a wild beast by any -Christian who would. And centuries after the barbarian heathenism of -Europe was ostensibly drowned in blood, Christian Spain, having -overthrown the Moslem Moors, proceeded in the same fashion to dragoon -Moslems and Jews into the true faith, baptizing in droves those who -yielded or dissembled, and driving out of the country myriads more who -would not submit. The misery and the butchery wrought from first to -last are unimaginable. If the Spanish conquests of Mexico and Peru, -with their Church-blessed policy of suppressing heathenism, be added to -the record, the totality of evil becomes appalling; for the Spanish -priest Las Casas estimated the total destruction of native life at -twelve millions. All this slaughter took place by way of -“expansion,” and is exclusive of the further record of the -slaughters wrought by the Church for the suppression of heresy within -its established field. It is a strange prepossession that, in face of -such a retrospect, habitually concentrates Christian thought on the -remote and transient persecutions of Christianity by ancient paganism. -If the blood shed on the score of religion by anti-Christian paganism -and Christianity respectively be carefully estimated, the former might -say to the latter, in the words of the latter-day heathen king of the -Zulus who was crushed by an ostentatiously Christian statesmanship: -“The blood shed in my reign was, to the blood shed since, as an -ant in a pool of water.” <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb174" -href="#pb174" name="pb174">174</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s3.1.3" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e567">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Growth of the -Papacy</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">One marked result of the triumph of Islam in the -East and of barbarism in the West was the growth of the Roman Papacy as -the supreme ecclesiastical power in Latin Christendom. So long as an -emperor had his seat in Italy, the bishop or patriarch of Rome was kept -in subordination to the State; and at Constantinople the subordination -of the patriarch never ceased. But even in the period from the -reconquest of Italy under Justinian to the final renunciation of -Byzantine rule, though the Roman patriarchs depended on the emperor to -ratify their election, the curtailment of the eastern empire, narrowing -as it did the range of the eastern Church, weakened that relatively to -the western; while the absence of local monarchy left the way open for -an ecclesiastical rule, calling itself theocratic. Had the Italian -kingdom of Theodoric subsisted, the development would certainly have -been different. As it was, even he, an Arian, was called in to control -the riotous strifes of papal factions in Rome.</p> -<p class="par">It belonged to all the patriarchates, as to all -bishoprics, that their tenants should magnify their office; and even in -the second century we have seen signs of an ambition in the Roman -bishop to rule the rest of the Church. Already, presumably, there -existed the gospel text: “Thou art Petros, and upon this rock -(<i>petra</i>) I will build my Church”—an interpolation -probably made in the Roman interest, and sure to sustain a Roman -ambition for general headship. But as late as the fifth century some -codices seem to have read simply “Thou hast said”; -(<span class="trans" title="sy eipas"><span class="Greek" lang= -"grc">σὺ εἶπας</span></span> -instead of <span class="trans" title="sy ei Petros"><span class="Greek" -lang="grc">σὺ εἶ -Πέτρος</span></span>); and in the third -we find Cyprian of Carthage insisting on the independence of his Church -while admitting the ceremonial primacy of Rome—a proof that the -Roman claim was being pushed. In the fourth century Pope Damasus sought -to induce the eastern bishops to go to Rome for the settlement of -disputes as to certain eastern bishoprics; but was sardonically -admonished by a unanimous eastern council to alter his attitude. While -the old empire subsisted, the Roman bishop could get no further than -his old ceremonial status as holding <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb175" href="#pb175" name="pb175">175</a>]</span>the primary see in -order of dignity. Neither the emperor nor the patriarch at -Constantinople would consent to vest any supreme authority in the -bishop of the ancient and relatively effete capital; and Theodosius -definitely constituted the patriarch of Constantinople the equal of him -of Rome (381), though ceremonially second to him. At the same time, the -patriarch of Constantinople was set above those of Antioch and -Alexandria, a step which promoted the worst of the later schisms and so -helped to lose Egypt and Syria. On every side, the normal egoisms and -racial instincts can thus be seen determining the fortunes of the -faith. The fling of the Greek Basil at Rome, “I hate the pride of -that Church,” is typical. Even while the Roman bishop was pushing -his claims to primacy, the see of Constantinople, backed by the -emperor, was taking province after province from the Roman -jurisdiction; and in 451 the Council of Chalcedon, with the support of -the eastern emperor, decreed that the bishop of “New Rome” -should enjoy equal honour and privilege with his rival. At the same -period the bishop of Jerusalem, claiming primacy in his turn, contrived -to gain ground as against those of Antioch and Alexandria. Each -patriarchate fought for its own hand. The use of the special title of -“Papa” by him of Rome was probably an imitation of -Mithraism, in the hierarchy of which the chief priest was “Father -of Fathers” as the God was “Father Mithra,” and, like -Attis, probably called <i>Papa</i>. In the Eastern Church the name -became general, all priests being “popes.”</p> -<p class="par">In the history of the Papacy, it is the two early -bishops most distinguished for widening the power of the Church that -alone have won the title of “Great”—to wit, Leo I -(440–61) and Gregory I (590–604), of whom the first began -to build up the Church’s local patrimony on the fall of the -western empire, and the second to establish her spiritual reign in the -north. It is under the latter that the destiny of the Roman see as the -head of the western Churches begins clearly to reveal itself. The -patriarch of Constantinople of that day took to himself the title of -Œcumenical or Universal; and Gregory, whose predecessors had -aimed at that very status, pronounced the <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb176" href="#pb176" name="pb176">176</a>]</span>claim blasphemous, -antichristian, and diabolical. A few years later, he was securing -through the lesser Augustine his own supremacy over the previously -independent Churches of Britain. He even seems to have cringed to the -usurping Byzantine emperor Phocas in order to get him to veto the claim -of his rival, a concession which appears to have been granted to -Boniface III in 606. Still, the papacy had to fight hard for its claims -in Britain, Gaul, and Spain; and towards the end of the seventh century -Bishop Julian of Toledo is found rating Benedict II for ignorance and -jealousy. As Julian was nevertheless sainted, we may infer that the -jealousies of rival candidates for the papacy, leading to changes of -policy, often checked its political growth. But events forced a policy. -In the eighth century the iconoclastic emperors quarrelled with the -papacy (under Gregory II) as well as with Greek orthodoxy; whereupon -the northern Lombards sought to become masters of what remained of -imperial territory in Italy; and of a series of eight or nine Popes -(730–72) the majority were fain to call in the help of the -Franks. Charles Martel did not actively respond; but his son Pepin did -twice, and as victor presented to the Pope (754) the sovereignty of the -exarchate, receiving in return the pontiff’s sanction to depose -the last feeble Merovingian king, in whose name the house of Pepin had -ruled. The end of the new departure was the conquest of the Lombards by -Charlemagne in 774, and the establishment in 800 of the new “Holy -Roman Empire,” wherein the Pope was the spiritual colleague of -the emperor.</p> -<p class="par">Hitherto the bishop of Rome had been popularly elected -like every other, and subject like every other to acceptance by the -emperor. But after Pope Zacharias (741–52) the eastern emperor -was ignored; and Charlemagne was crowned as the successor, by Roman -decision, not of the old emperors of the West, but of the line of -emperors which in the East had never ceased. Constantine VI, who had -just been deposed by his mother Irene (797), was the sixty-seventh -“Roman” emperor in order from Augustus, and Charlemagne was -enrolled in the West as the sixty-eighth. He even received, with the -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb177" href="#pb177" name= -"pb177">177</a>]</span>diplomatic assent of the Moslem Haroun -Alraschid, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre from the Patriarch of -Jerusalem—an empty but suggestive honour. It was thus inevitable -that the new imperial line should sooner or later seek to hold power -over the papacy as the old had claimed to do; and Charlemagne made his -force felt very much as Constantine had done, going even further in the -way of appointing bishops, and lecturing the pope at times with the -consciousness of virtual supremacy. So long as the emperor, needing and -using the services of the Church to organize his administration, -enriched the hierarchy on all hands, enforcing tithes and protecting -the entire priesthood against lay turbulence, his pretensions were -naturally allowed. Everything depended on the strength of the ruler; -and already under Charlemagne’s good but weak son Louis we find -many of the bishops, backed by the pope, supporting the emperor’s -rebellious sons and claiming to depose him. About 875, again, we find -Pope John VIII not only hectoring the weak Charles the Fat, but -claiming the right to choose the emperor. Until, however, there began -to rise in Italy a new and vigorous civilization, the papacy was on the -whole discreetly subject to the ratification of the northern emperors; -and this is perhaps the period of maximum demoralization and dishonour -in its history; its economic evolution being very much on the lines of -that of the original Church in the centuries from its establishment by -Constantine till the humiliation of the empire by the Moslems. -Intellectually, the papacy had no prestige within the Church. It was in -824 that a council of Frankish bishops at Paris, following on previous -declarations, denounced as absurdity the decrees of the Pope enjoining -the worship of images. Even when the Pope Gregory IV entered France to -support the bishops who backed the rebellious sons of Louis, and -threatened to excommunicate those on the emperor’s side, the -latter treated him with indignant contempt.</p> -<p class="par">It is in this period, however, that there begins the -process of documentary fraud by which the Church, wielding the power of -the pen, gradually circumvented that of the sword. Centuries before, -the Roman see had made use of forged <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb178" href="#pb178" name="pb178">178</a>]</span>documents in its -disputes with Constantinople; and the Greeks of the day declared such -forgeries to be a special Roman industry. As a matter of fact, most of -the early ecclesiastical forgeries had been of eastern origin: for -instance, the so-called Apostles’ Creed and the Apostolical -Constitutions. Of these the first grew up fortuitously in the third -century, and received its name after it won currency. Only in the later -middle ages was it adopted by the Latin Church. The Constitutions again -were a deliberate compilation; and the Roman Church had invented -nothing on the same scale. But in the ninth century there was -trumped-up among the Frankish bishops, under the name of Isidore -(ostensibly the popular encyclopedist of Seville, d. 636), a collection -of professedly ancient but really spurious papal decretals, partly -proceeding on previous practice, but greatly developing it as regarded -the local independence of bishops and their right of appeal to Rome. -The original motive of the fraud was local episcopal interest, the -bishops having endless causes of grievance against their archbishops, -kings, and lay lords. But Pope Nicholas I (858–67) adroitly -adopted the forged decretals, professing to have had ancient copies of -them, and thenceforth they were made the basis of the papal claims -wherever political circumstances gave a good opportunity. The bishops, -being thus delivered over to the papacy, lost much more than they -gained. A common use now made of the growing papal power was to give -monasteries an exemption from the local bishop’s rule; and as the -monks in general at this period had a higher character for sanctity -that the bishops, who were often extremely unreverend, local sympathy -was apt to go with the former, and with the pope, whose distant -misdeeds were little known to the laity.</p> -<p class="par">As in previous ages, nevertheless, the disorders of the -papacy itself greatly hampered its advance. In the period from John -XVIII to Leo IX (1003–1048) six popes were deposed, two murdered, -and one mutilated; prolonged contests for the chair were frequent; and -in the main it was disposed of by factions of the Roman and Italian -nobility. For a time the counts of Tuscany made it hereditary in their -family; and once a Roman courtesan of the higher order decided the -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb179" href="#pb179" name= -"pb179">179</a>]</span>election, by help of the general worthlessness -of the Roman electoral populace, who, having neither commerce nor -industry, were fed by papal doles as of old they had been by the -emperors. In the tenth century, the papacy had reached its nadir. The -general expectation, based on the Apocalypse and other Christian -tradition, that the world would end with the year 1000, seems to have -turned the thoughts of the more serious away from worldly questions; -while the more reckless types, lawless at best in that age, exhibited -something of the wild licence seen at times in cities stricken by -pestilence, and ships about to sink. When the dreaded year was passed, -riot was even quickened; but in the eleventh century a moral instinct -began slowly to assert itself. The elections to the papacy had become -so scandalous and ruinous—three pretenders claiming the chair at -once—that the clergy themselves conceded to the emperor Henry -III, in the year 1047, the right to appoint popes; and he used his -power four times with judgment and success.</p> -<p class="par">Naturally, however, the reform strengthened the papacy -rather than the emperor. Pope Nicholas II, acting on the advice of his -powerful secretary, the monk Hildebrand, who was to be one of his -successors, decreed (1059) that the election of all bishops should lie -with the local “chapters” and the pope; and that the -election of the pope should in future be made by the seven cardinal -bishops of the Roman district, with the assent first of the cardinal -priests and deacons of the Roman churches, and next of the laity; the -choice to be ratified by Henry IV, then a minor, or by such of his -successors as should obtain the same privilege. Yet, on the death of -Nicholas, Hildebrand procured the election and consecration of -Alexander II, without waiting for any ratification; and when he himself -became pope as Gregory VII (1073) he was on the alert for his famous -struggle with Henry over the claim of the temporal power to appoint -bishops. Standing on the forged decretals, with an almost maniacal -belief in his divine rights, he claimed as pope not only the sole power -to confirm bishops, but the power to take or give the possessions of -all men as he would; and he threatened deposition to any king who dared -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb180" href="#pb180" name= -"pb180">180</a>]</span>to gainsay him. It was in the course of the -struggle with Henry, by the use of the now common weapon of -excommunication, that he reduced the emperor to his historic act of -self-abasement (1077) at Canossa.</p> -<p class="par">The circumstances were in the main in the pope’s -favour. Henry was rebelled against in Germany, and Gregory was well -able to manipulate disaffection. At the same time, Gregory’s -strenuous efforts to “reform” the Church by forcing -celibacy on the entire priesthood had set against him multitudes of the -Italian and northern clergy, married and unmarried; and these were -indignant at Henry’s surrender. Stimulated by their protests, and -by the sympathy of various kings whom the pope had arrogantly menaced, -he took heart, put down his rebels and rivals at home, and marched in -force into Italy, where he met almost no resistance and was crowned by -the antipope Clement III, whom he and his party had appointed. Gregory, -besieged by his own flock in the castle of St. Angelo, called in his -late-made ally the Norman Robert Guiscard, Duke of Sicily, who in -releasing him burnt much of the city, and, after a sack and massacre, -sold most of the remaining inhabitants as slaves. Everywhere the -pope’s cause was lost, and he died defeated, in exile at Salerno -under Norman protection, hated by both priests and people as the -bringer of slaughter and misery on Germany and Italy alike. The -“reforming” pontiff had wrought far more evil than his most -sinful predecessors, and still the Church was not reformed.</p> -<p class="par">Henry, rebelled against by his sons, died broken-hearted -like his enemy; and for half a century the strife over “lay -investitures” was carried on by popes and emperors. The papacy -had thus become the evil genius at once of Italy and of Germany, -entering into and intensifying every Italian feud, and giving to German -feudalism a fatal ground of combat for centuries. Out of all the strife -the papacy made ultimate profit. When the war of the investitures was -over, it built up the Decretum of the monk Gratian, a code embodying -the Isidorean frauds with others, such as the gross pretence that St. -Augustine had declared the Decretals to be of the same status with the -canonical scriptures. The war, meantime, <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb181" href="#pb181" name="pb181">181</a>]</span>had ended in a -compromise from which also the papacy substantially gained. The result -was to turn it ere long into a vast system of financial exploitation. -Every evil in the way of simony and corruption against which Hildebrand -had revolted was further developed under papal auspices. The people -lost all power of electing their bishops; and the rich chapters, on -whom the right devolved, became the field of simony for the nobles; -while the pope drew from the sale of his ratifications an immense -revenue. So rapid was the effect of the new relation that by the middle -of the twelfth century the bulk of the current literature of Europe, -serious and satirical, was bitterly hostile to Rome, which now -impressed many instructed men chiefly as a great machine for extortion. -While the Church officially denounced usury, its own usurers were -everywhere drawing interest from prelates who had had to borrow money -to buy their investitures. The pretence of making the clergy -“unworldly” by enforced celibacy was under such -circumstances not edifying. Needless to say, while clerical marriage -could be officially put down, clerical concubinage was not.</p> -<p class="par">The strength of the papacy as against its many enemies -lay (1) in the strifes of States and nations, in which the pope could -always intervene; (2) in the feeling of many serious men that a central -power was needed to control strife and tyranny; (3) in the compiled -system of canon law, which expanded still further the code of the -Decretals and of Gratian, and constantly exalted the papal power; (4) -in the orders of preaching friars, who acted as papal emissaries, and -kept in partial discredit the local clergy everywhere; and (5) in the -power of the pope to appeal to the worst motives of ignorant believers. -Thus at the beginning of the thirteenth century Innocent III, a zealous -champion of the papal power, was able in the teeth of the common -hostility of educated men to evoke an immense outburst of brutal -fanaticism by offering indulgences, spiritual and temporal, to all who -would join in a crusade of massacre against the Albigensian and other -heretics of Languedoc, where the Paulician and other anti-clerical -doctrines had spread widely. Twenty years of hideous <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb182" href="#pb182" name= -"pb182">182</a>]</span>bloodshed and demoralization went far to create -an atmosphere in which criticism could not breathe; and the whole -evocation of the eastern Crusades, both before and after this period, -was carried on by the popes with a clear perception of the gain to -their authority from the armed consensus of Christendom under their -appeal, on the proffer of indulgences. They had hoped to extend their -rule over the East, Christian and paynim; but though this dream came to -nothing they were nonetheless aggrandized by the effort. The revived -pretensions to dispose of all unclaimed territory on the globe, to -depose heretic princes, and to confer sovereignties, were all -reinforced.</p> -<p class="par">When the Crusades had ceased, the papal curia, growing -ever more exacting, began to draw all manner of yearly dues from -Churchmen throughout its jurisdiction, so that whereas in the -thirteenth century it had only one <i lang="la">auditor -cameræ</i>, in 1370 the pope had more than twenty, and every -cardinal had a number in addition, all living like their superiors by -traffic in privileges. Under Gregory XI (1370–78), seven bishops -were excommunicated by one order for failure to pay their dues. -Complaint was universal; but the vested interests made reform -impossible. When, therefore, the Renaissance gradually gained ground -against all obstacles, and masses of men became capable of judging the -papacy in the light of history and reason as well as of its own code, -it was inevitable that as soon as local economic interests became -sufficiently marked, an institution which was everywhere an economic -burden should incur an economic revolution.</p> -<p class="par">In the meantime, the papacy had possessed itself of the -power of life and death in the intellectual as well as in the religious -sphere. The power it arrogated to itself under the false Isidorean -Decretals carried implicitly if not explicitly the attribute of -infallibility. To pronounce doctrines true or false had anciently been -the function of councils; it now became the function of the pope, who -thus treated councils exactly as kings later treated parliaments. Of -old, successive popes had notoriously declared for contrary dogmas; -many had contradicted themselves; and down to the thirteenth century -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb183" href="#pb183" name= -"pb183">183</a>]</span>there had been a score of papal schisms, all of -which were surpassed by those of the fourteenth century; but that -reflection put no check on later decisions on the most momentous -problems. The religion which began in private dissidence from Jewish -and pagan orthodoxies had become the most iron dogmatism the world had -ever seen; and the whole system of Christian credence had come to turn -on the fiat of one man. At his sole veto the sciences must be dumb; and -to him must come for sanction those who would found new schools. The -faith that had begun as “liberty from the yoke of the law” -had come to elevate the negation of mental liberty into a principle of -universal polity, translating into the inner life the despotism which -the older Rome had placed on the outer.</p> -<p class="par">Latin Christianity had thus duplicated on the one hand -the development of ancient Gaulish Druidism, wherein the priests were a -sacred and ruling caste and the arch-Druid semi-divine, and on the -other hand the evolution of the ancient Egyptian system, under which -latterly the priesthood compelled the king to obtain the approbation of -the sacred statues before taking any public step, till at length -“the true master of Egypt was the Premier Prophet of the Theban -Ammon,” interpreter of the God, and priest also of the -mediatorial Son-God Khonsu. In all cases alike the sociological -causation is transparent from first to last; and equally clear are the -special conditions which prevented the Holy Roman Empire from following -to the end the path trodden by ancient Egyptian and Roman imperialism. -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb184" href="#pb184" name= -"pb184">184</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter II</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION AND STRIFE</h2> -<div id="s3.2.1" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e583">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Growth of -Idolatry and Polytheism</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">By the seventh century all that idolatry had meant -for the early Christists was reproduced within the Christian Church in -East and West. There was nothing, to begin with, in the inner life of -the populace in the Christian period that could keep them from the -kinds of belief natural to the multitude in pagan times. Only under the -stress of a zealous movement of reform, backed up by fanatical power, -had image-worship ever been put down for a single nation, as among the -Persians and later Jews; and only the original Jewish taboo, backed by -the Jewish sacred books, could have kept Christism anti-idolatrous for -any length of time after it had passed beyond the sphere of Jewish -proselytism. After it had become a State religion, the adoption of -images was as necessary to its popularity as the adoption of pagan -festivals and rites. Images of martyrs and holy men deceased seem to -have been first venerated; and when the bones of such were held to have -miraculous virtue, and their spirits were believed to haunt their -tombs, it was impossible that their effigies should not come to have -similar repute. Dust from Palestine or other holy places, again, was -early regarded as having magical virtue—a permitted belief which -prepared the way for others. So with the figure of the Christ. From the -first, the sign of the cross was held to be potent against evil -spirits; and Helena, the mother of Constantine, gave an irresistible -vogue to the worship of what was alleged to be the true cross, and to -have worked miraculous cures. As early as the fourth century the -Christians at Paneas in Palestine seem to have taken an old statue of a -male and a female figure as representing Jesus healing the believing -woman; and in the sixth <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb185" href= -"#pb185" name="pb185">185</a>]</span>century paintings on linen, held -to have been miraculously made by the face of the Saviour, began to be -revered. Being so different from pagan statues, the “idols” -of Jewish aversion, they readily passed the barrier of the traditional -veto on idolatry. Here again, however, the lead came from paganism, as -we know from Juvenal that many painters in his day “lived upon -Isis,” then the fashionable foreign deity at Rome. Crucifixes and -images of all kinds inevitably followed. Valens and Theodosius passed -laws forbidding pictures and icons of Christ; but such laws merely -emphasized an irrepressible tendency. As for Mary, her worship seems -from the first to have been associated with that of old statues of a -nursing Goddess-Mother, and the statues followed the cult, some black -statues of Isis and Horus being worshipped to this day as representing -Mary and Jesus.</p> -<p class="par">When an image was once set up in a sacred place, there -soon came into play the old belief, common to Egyptians and Romans, -that the spirit of the being represented would enter the statue. Hence -all prayers to saints were addressed wherever possible to their images, -and the same usage followed the introduction of images of Jesus and the -Virgin. And while the Theodosian code contained laws prohibiting on -pain of death the placing of wreaths on pagan statues and the burning -of incense before them, the Christian populace within a century was -doing those very things to the statues of saints. In the same way the -use of holy water, which in the time of Valentinian was still held -un-Christian, became universal in the Church a century or two later. -Images could not well be left out. The old Judaic conception of the -supreme being was indeed too strong to permit of his being imaged; -though in the fourth century the Audæans, a Syrian sect of a -puritan cast, held that the deity was of human shape, and were -accordingly named Anthropomorphites; but the orthodox insistence on the -human form of Jesus was a lead to image-making. Thus for the Moslems -the eastern Christians were idolaters as well as polytheists; and the -epistles of Gregory the Great show him to have zealously fostered the -use of miraculous relics and sacred images in the West. Professing to -condemn the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb186" href="#pb186" name= -"pb186">186</a>]</span>worship of images, he defended their use against -Bishop Selenus of Marseilles, who ejected them from his church. One of -Gregory’s specialties in relics was the chain of St. Paul, from -which filings could be taken daily without diminishing the total bulk. -It was presumably while all pagan usages were still familiar that the -Italian Christians adopted the custom of painting the statues of saints -red, in the common pagan fashion, as they did the old custom of -carrying the images in procession. For the rest, they had but to turn -to the lore of the pagan temples for examples of statues brought from -heaven, statues which worked miracles, statues which spoke, wept, -perspired, and bled—all of which prodigies became canonical in -Christian idolatry.</p> -<p class="par">Some scrupulous and educated Christians, such as -Epiphanius and Augustine, had naturally set their faces against such a -general reversion to practical idolatry, just as many educated pagans -had done on philosophical grounds; and the council of Elvira in the -fourth century condemned the admission of pictures into churches. But -this had no lasting effect. In the eighth century, when it could no -longer be pretended that Christian images served merely for -edification, the Greek emperor Leo the Isaurian began the famous -iconoclastic movement in the East. It is probable that he was -influenced by Saracen ideas, with which he often came in contact; -though it has been held that his motive was mainly political, the local -worship of images having weakened the central authority of the Church. -But after some generations of struggle and fluctuation, despite the -ready support given to iconoclasm by many bishops, the throne reverted -to orthodoxy, and idolatry thenceforth remained normal in the Greek as -in the Latin Church. The one variation from pagan practice lay in the -substitution of pictures and painted wooden images or <i>icons</i> for -the nobler statues of past paganism, with which indeed Christian art -could not pretend for a moment to compete.</p> -<p class="par">In the West, though the iconoclastic emperors met from -the popes not sympathy but intense hostility, leading soon to the -severance of Rome from the empire, we find in the ninth <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb187" href="#pb187" name= -"pb187">187</a>]</span>century a remarkable opposition to image-worship -on the part of Claudius bishop of Turin, and Agobard bishop of Lyons, -both of whom show a surprising degree of rationalism for their age. -Claudius opposed papal claims as well as saint-worship and -image-worship, and when condemned by a council of bishops called them -asses. Agobard opposed all the leading superstitions of his day, even -going so far as to pronounce the theory of plenary inspiration an -absurdity. As both men were born in Spain, there is reason to suspect -that they like Leo had been influenced by the higher Saracen thought of -the time. In any case, their stand was vain; and though the northern -nations, mainly perhaps by reason of their backwardness in the arts, -were slow to follow the Italian lead, a century or two sufficed to make -the whole Latin Church devoutly image-worshipping. At no time, of -course, had any part of it been otherwise than boundlessly credulous as -to miracles of every order, and as to the supernatural virtue of relics -of every species; and both, accordingly, abounded on all hands. The -average mass of Christendom was thus on the same religious and -psychological plane as pagan polytheism.</p> -<p class="par">Polytheistic, strictly speaking, Christianity had been -from the first. The formula of the Trinity was no more truly -monotheistic for the new faith than it had been for ancient Egypt; and -the mere belief in an Evil Power was a negation of monotheism. But when -saints came to be prayed-to at separate shrines, and every trade had -its saint-patron, the Christian system was both theoretically and -practically as polytheistic as that of classic Greece, where Zeus was -at least as truly the Supreme God as was the Father for Christians. And -in the elevation of Mary to Goddesshood even the formal semblance of -monotheism was lost, for her worship was in the main absolute. The -worship, indeed, was long established before she received technical -divinization from the Church, such Fathers as Epiphanius and Augustine -having too flatly condemned her early worship to permit of a formal -declaration to the contrary. But in the thirteenth century, St. -Bonaventura, who expressly maintained that the <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb188" href="#pb188" name="pb188">188</a>]</span>same -reverence must be paid to the Virgin’s image as to -herself—a doctrine established in the same period by Thomas -Aquinas in regard to Christ—arranged a Psalter in which -<i>domina</i> was substituted for <i>dominus</i> (<i>in te domina -speravi</i>); and this became the note of average Catholicism. In the -twelfth century began the dispute as to the Immaculate Conception of -the Virgin—the doctrine, that is, of <i>her</i> supernatural -birth—on which in later ages the Dominicans and Franciscans -fought a bitter and obstinate battle, the latter affirming and the -former denying the dogma. After seven centuries of temporizing, the -Papacy has in recent times endorsed it (1854); but for a thousand years -it has been implicit in the ritual of the Catholic Church.</p> -<p class="par">It is not generally known among Protestants that the -deification of Joseph has long been in course of similar evolution. In -the fifteenth century, Saint Teresa seems to have regarded him as the -“plenipotentiary” of God (= Jesus), obtaining from the -deity in heaven whatever he asked, as he had done on earth according to -the Apocrypha. The cult has never been very prominent; but the -latter-day litany of St. Joseph treats him as at least the equal of the -Virgin. “The devotion to him,” says Cardinal Newman, -“is comparatively of late date. When once it began, men seemed -surprised that it had not been thought of before; and now they hold him -next to the Blessed Virgin in their religious affection and -veneration.” It had of course been dogmatically retarded by the -insistence on the virginity of Mary. But Gerson, one of the most -distinguished theologians of the fourteenth century, is credited by -modern Catholics with having suggested the recognition of a second or -created Trinity of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And seeing that Joseph in -the popular medieval representations of the Advent Mystery is a -constant figure, it is inferrible that for the multitude he had -practically a divine status. The process is strictly in keeping with -religious evolution in general; and the official apotheosis of Joseph -may one day take place. For a time, in the period of the Renaissance, -there was an amount of devotion paid to St. Anna, the mother of Mary, -which might conceivably have led to her deification. Pictures -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb189" href="#pb189" name= -"pb189">189</a>]</span>of that period may still be seen in Holland, in -which Anna, Mary, and Jesus constitute a Holy Family. But the cultus of -Anna had no persistent or powerful advocate, and she seems latterly to -have passed definitely into the background.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s3.2.2" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e593">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>Doctrines of -the Eucharist, Purgatory, and Confession</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">In the first ages of the Church, the notion of the -divinity of the “body and blood” of the communion meal was -vague and undefined. The partakers certainly regarded the consecrated -bread and wine as carrying some supernatural virtue, since they took -away portions for medicinal use; but they thought of the meal very much -as devout pagans thought of one of the some kind in their mysteries or -temple ritual. When their ritual phraseology was challenged as giving -colour to the charge of cannibalism, the Fathers seem always to have -explained that the terms were purely figurative; and such was the -doctrine laid down by Augustine. But when pagan culture had passed -away, and there was none in the barbarized West to challenge the Church -as such, the strange literalness of the original liturgy set up the -stranger belief that what was eaten in the eucharist was by -“transubstantiation” the actual flesh and blood of the -God-Man. Where such a belief was possible, it was the special interest -of the priesthood to make the affirmation. A stupendous miracle, they -claimed, was worked every time the eucharist was administered; but it -was worked through the priest. He and he only could bring it about; and -thus the central mystery and prodigy of the faith, the command of its -most essential ministry, was a clerical monopoly. The economic and -spiritual centre of gravity of the entire system was fixed in the -priestly order.</p> -<p class="par">Under such a dominating conception, Christianity was for -the majority a religion neither of faith nor of works: it was a -religion of sacerdotal magic. Not he that believed, still less he that -loved his neighbour, but he only that received the mystic rite at -consecrated hands, was to be saved. Moral teaching there might be, but -more than ever it was supererogatory. Already in the fourth century the -sacerdotal quality of the rite was defined by the practice of solemnly -“elevating” <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb190" href= -"#pb190" name="pb190">190</a>]</span>the wine and the <i lang= -"la">hostia</i> or sacrifice, as the bread was termed, before every -distribution; and it had become common to administer it two or three -times a week. Thus the <i lang="la">missa</i> or Mass, as it had come -to be termed (traditionally from the formula of dismissal, <i lang= -"la">Ite, missio est</i>, corrupted into <i lang="la">Missa -est</i>—another pagan detail), had passed from the status of a -periodical solemnity to that of a frequent service; and the rite was -developed by the addition of chants and responses till it became the -special act of Christian worship. The “symbols” were thus -already far on the way to be worshipped; and at the beginning of the -seventh century Gregory the Great enacted that the slightest -irregularities in their use should be atoned for by penances. Thus -“if a drop from the cup should fall on the altar, the ministering -priest must suck up the drop and do penance for three days; and the -linen cloth which the drop touched must be washed three times over the -cup, and the water in which it was washed be cast into the -fire.”</p> -<p class="par">In various other ways the traditional practice was -modified. Originally a “supper,” it was frequently partaken -of after the <i>Agapæ</i> or love feasts; but in the fourth -century the irrepressible disorders of those assemblages led to their -being officially discountenanced, and they gradually died out. Soon the -Mass in the churches became a regular morning rite, and the eucharist -was taken fasting. After Leo the Great, in the Roman services, it was -even administered several times in the day. Finally, in or before the -eleventh century, the priesthood, from motives either of economy or -sobriety, began to withhold the winecup from communicants, and to -reserve it for the priests—a practice which Leo the Great had -denounced as heretical. The official argument seems to have been that -“the body must include the blood,” and that the miracle -which turned the bread into flesh created the divine blood therein. One -of the most popular miracle stories was to the effect that when once a -Jew stabbed a Host, it bled; and the Host in question was long on -exhibition. Of older date, apparently, is the administration of the -bread in the form of a wafer, this being admittedly an imitation either -of the ancient pagan usage of consecrating and eating small round cakes -in the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb191" href="#pb191" name= -"pb191">191</a>]</span>worship of many deities, or of the Jewish -unleavened bread of the Passover. It may, indeed, have come through -Manichæism, which at this point followed Mazdean usage; and as -the Manichæans also had the usage of bread without wine, it may -be that both practices came from them in the medieval period. But as -the priestly practice of turning round at the altar was taken direct -from ancient paganism, with the practice of shaving the head, it is -likely that the wafer was also.</p> -<p class="par">The rite thus settled being a <i lang="la">conditio sine -qua non</i> of Church membership and spiritual life, it became the -basis of the temporal power of the Church. Without it there was no -“religion”; and as the communicant in order to retain his -rights must make confession to the priest at least once a year, the -hold of the Church on the people was universal. Any one rejecting its -authority could be excommunicated; and excommunication meant the -cessation of all the offices of social life, each man being forced by -fear for himself to stand aloof from the one condemned. The obligation -to confess, in turn, was an evolution from the primitive practice of -voluntary public confession of sin before the Church. When that went -out of fashion, private confession to the priest took its place; and -when the public reading of such confessions by the priest gave offence, -Leo the Great directed that they should be regarded as secret. What was -thus made for criminals an easy means to absolution became at length an -obligation for all. In the East, indeed, it seems to have reached that -stage in the fifth century, when a scandal caused the rule to be given -up, leaving to the Western Church its full exploitation. Sacerdotal -confession, thus instituted, was one more hint from the book of -paganism, sagaciously developed. In the ancient Greek mysteries, -priests had unobtrusively traded on the principle that the initiate -must be pure, first inviting confession and then putting a scale of -prices on ceremonial absolution; but in the pagan world the system had -never gone far. It was left to Roman Christianity to made it -coextensive with the Church, and thus to create a species of social and -economic power over mankind which no other “civilized” -religion ever attained.</p> -<p class="par">But yet a third hold over fear and faith was wrought by -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb192" href="#pb192" name= -"pb192">192</a>]</span>the priesthood. Even as the priestly saying of -Masses, bought at a price, was needed to keep the Christian safe in -life, so the buying of Masses could hasten the release of his soul from -purgatory after death. Purgatory was, to begin with, yet another pagan -tenet, which in the first five centuries was regarded by the Church as -heretical, though the text about “the spirits in prison” -(<a class="biblink xd21e43" title="Link to cited location in Bible" -href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Pt%203:19">1 -Peter iii, 19</a>; <i>cp.</i> <a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Cor%205:5">1 Cor. v, -5</a>) gave colour to it, and Origen had entertained it. In all the -writings of Ambrose it is not mentioned; Augustine treats it as dubious -in despite of the authority of Origen; and the Eastern Church has never -accepted the tenet. But in the writings of Gregory the Great it is -treated as an established principle, with the economic corollary that -he who would save himself or his kindred from prolonged pains in -purgatory must lay out money on atoning Masses. Thus the whole cycle of -real and supposed human experience was under the Church’s sway, -and at every stage on the course the pilgrim paid toll. The episodes of -birth, marriage, and death were alike occasions for sacraments, each a -source of clerical revenue; the fruits of the earth paid their annual -tithe; and beyond death itself the Church sold privilege in the realm -of shadows, winning by that traffic, perhaps, most wealth of all.</p> -<p class="par">It was a general corollary from the whole system that -the Church had the right to grant “indulgences” for sin. If -the Church could release from penalties in purgatory, it might grant -pardons at will on earth. Such a doctrine was of course only very -gradually evolved. First of all, perhaps again following a -Manichæan precedent, the bishops individually began to waive -canonical penances in consideration of the donation by offenders of -sums of money for religious purposes. The principle is expressly laid -down by Gregory I. There was at the outset no thought of selling the -permission to commit an offence; the bishop merely used the opportunity -of committed offences to enrich his church, very much as the law in so -many cases inflicts fines instead of imprisonment. The procedure, too, -was local and independent, even as that of abbots and monks who sold -the privilege of seeing and kissing holy relics, which they often -carried round the country in <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb193" href= -"#pb193" name="pb193">193</a>]</span>procession for revenue purposes. -Only after such means of income had long been in use did the papacy -attempt to monopolize the former, in virtue of its prerogative of -“the keys.” But step by step it absorbed the power to -release from ordinary penances and to grant “plenary” -remission from penances; and finally it undertook, what the bishops had -never ventured on, to remit the penalties of purgatory in advance. Such -enterprise was evoked only by a great occasion—the Crusades.</p> -<p class="par">The earlier papal indulgences were remissions of -penance, and were often given on such tolerable grounds as pilgrimages -to the Holy Land, and loyal observance of the papal institution of a -“Truce of God” on certain days of the week; indeed, one of -the original motives may even have been that of controlling the -mercenary proceedings of bishops. But when once the popes had proffered -plenary indulgence to all crusaders, decency was at an end. It was -obvious that the effect was demoralizing to the last degree; and still -the practice continued. At the beginning of the thirteenth century Pope -Innocent III offered absolution from all sins past and future, -dispensation from the payment of interest on debts, and exemption from -the jurisdiction of the ordinary law courts, to all who would serve for -a given period in the crusade against the Albigensian and other -heretics in the territory of the Count of Toulouse. Later, similar -inducements were offered to all who would take up arms against the -Moors in Spain. If the moral sense of Christendom were not thus wholly -destroyed, it is because all social life necessitates some minimum of -morality, which no system can uproot.</p> -<p class="par">Thenceforth the practice went from bad to worse, despite -many earnest protests from the better and saner sort of Churchmen, till -it became possible for popes to allot the traffic in indulgences in -given districts as kings allotted trading monopolies, and the enormity -of the practices of the agents gave a sufficient ground for the -decisive explosion of the Reformation. Before that explosion an attempt -was made, on the lines of ancient Roman law, to give the practice -plausibility by the formula that the indulgence was granted “out -of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb194" href="#pb194" name= -"pb194">194</a>]</span>the superfluous merits of Christ and the -saints,” a treasure of spare sanctity which it lay with the pope -to distribute. But this doctrine, which savoured so much of the -counting-house, was contemporaneous with the worst abuse the principle -ever underwent after the age of the Crusaders.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s3.2.3" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e603">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Rationalistic -Heresies</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">As we have seen in connection with the growth of -idolatry, there was even in the Dark Ages an earnest minority within -the Church which resisted the downward bias of the majority and of -their hierarchical rulers. In no period, probably, was the spirit of -reason wholly absent; and from time to time it bore distinct witness. -Thus we find alongside of the effort of Claudius and Agobard against -idolatry and extraneous superstitions a less vigorous but no less -remarkable testimony against the central superstition of the priestly -system. When the Frankish monk Paschasius Radbert (831) put flatly what -had become the orthodox doctrine of Rome as to the transubstantiation -of the eucharist, some of the northern scholars who had preserved the -pre-barbaric tradition were found to gainsay him. As the discussion -continued long, the liberal-minded Frankish emperor, Charles the Bald, -invited special replies; and a learned monk, Ratramnus, wrote a -treatise to the effect that the “real presence” was -spiritual, not corporeal. But John the Scot (then = Irishman), -otherwise known as Erigena, wrote on the same invitation to the effect -that the bread and wine were merely symbols or memorials of the Last -Supper—a heresy so bold that only the emperor’s protection -could have saved the utterer. And his freethinking did not end there, -for in the discussion on predestination begun by the monk Gottschalk, -in which John was invited to intervene by the bigoted abbot Hincmar, -the Irish scholar was again recalcitrant to authority; while on the -question of Deity and Trinity he held a language that anticipated -Spinoza, and brought upon his memory, when he was long dead, the -anathema of the papacy. Another Irishman of the same period, Macarius -or Macaire, taught a similar pantheism in France.</p> -<p class="par">John Scotus, however, was by far the greatest thinker of -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb195" href="#pb195" name= -"pb195">195</a>]</span>the Dark Ages, and it was impossible that his -ideas should become normal. Not for two hundred years was there any -overt result from his and Ratramnus’s heresy on the eucharist. -Then (1045) Berengar of Tours set forth a modified doctrine of the -eucharist which rested on that of Ratramnus, and brought on him a -series of prosecutions at Rome for heresy, from the punishment for -which he was saved by Hildebrand, as papal adviser and later as pope; -but also by his own formal retractations, to which however he did not -adhere. The populace, he tells us, would gladly have slain him; and -more than once he had narrow escapes. After all he did but affirm a -“spiritual real presence”; and while some of his party went -as far as John Scotus, the stand for reason was soon tacitly abandoned, -the great majority even of the educated class accepting the priestly -dogma. Not till the Reformation was it again firmly challenged, and -even then not by all the reformers.</p> -<p class="par">A similar fortune attended the attempt of the French -canon Rousselin (Roscellinus), also in the twelfth century, to -rationalize the doctrine of the Trinity. Proceeding logically as a -“Nominalist,” denying the reality of abstractions, he -argued that if the Three Persons were one thing it was only a nominal -thing. His heresy, however, admittedly ended in simple tritheism; and -after he, like Berengar, had on pressure recanted, his subsequent -withdrawal of his recantation did not revive excitement. Not till the -sixteenth century did Unitarianism begin to assert itself against -Trinitarianism, and Deism against both. There was indeed a great -development of general rationalism in philosophy in the twelfth -century, especially in France, as represented by Abailard; and even in -the eleventh the argument of Anselm to prove the existence of God shows -that very radical scepticism had indirectly made itself heard; but no -philosophic movement affected the teachings and practices of the Church -as such. As for the kind of rationalism which denied the immortality of -the soul, though it seems to have been somewhat common in Florence -early in the twelfth century, it never took such propagandist form as -to bring on it the assault of the papacy; and the occasional -philosophic affirmation of the eternity of matter met the <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb196" href="#pb196" name="pb196">196</a>]</span>same -immunity. It is remarkable that, despite the denunciation of all the -truths of ancient science by the Church, the doctrine of the roundness -of the earth was still affirmed in the eighth century by an Irish -priest of Bavaria named Vergilius, who was duly denounced for his -heresy by St. Boniface, and deposed by the pope, but afterwards -reinstated and finally sainted. How the doctrine fared in detail does -not appear, but the knowledge persisted; and though in the fourteenth -century Nicolaus of Autricuria was compelled to recount his teaching of -the atomistic theory, in the fifteenth his namesake of Cusa taught with -impunity the rotation of the earth on its axis, being despite that made -a cardinal; while the Italian poet Pulci with equal impunity affirmed -the existence of an Antipodes. Nicolaus of Cusa even put forth the old -pagan doctrine of the infinity of the physical universe—the -beginning of modern pantheistic and atheistic philosophy.</p> -<p class="par">As the “false dawn” of the Renaissance began -to glimmer, a new source of heresy can be seen in the higher -teaching—heretical in its own sphere—of Saracen philosophy, -which under Aristotelian and Jewish influences had gone far while -Christendom was sinking in a deepening darkness. The effects of Saracen -contacts, acting on minds perhaps prepared by the doctrine of John -Scotus, first became obvious in the pantheistic teaching of Amalrich of -Bena and David Dinant at the end of the twelfth century. Amalrich was -forced to abjure; and after his death his bones were dug up and burned -(1209), and many of his followers burned alive; David of Dinant having -to fly for his life. Then it was that a Council held at Paris vetoed -all study of Aristotle at the university. Yet in 1237 the veto was -withdrawn; and as Aristotle became the basis of the systematic theology -of Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), his philosophy was thenceforth the -orthodox system in the schools. From the first it must have counted for -indirect scepticism; and in the great <i lang="la">Summa -Theologiæ</i> of Thomas himself are to be seen abundant traces of -the new doubt of the age, much of it set up by reflection on the -spectacle of conflicting religious dogmatisms in the Crusades, some of -it by Saracen philosophy, especially that of Averroës [Ibn Roshd]. -In Sicily and Southern Italy, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb197" -href="#pb197" name="pb197">197</a>]</span>which under Frederick II were -the special seat of this doubt and of the tendency to tolerance which -it generated, the spirit of reason ultimately fared ill; but -thenceforth an element of skepticism pervades the higher life of -Europe. Saracen science, medical, chemical, and astronomical—the -virtual foundation of all the modern science of Europe—tended in -the same direction. In Italy, in particular, respect for the Church and -papacy almost ceased to exist among educated men; and the revival of -such specific heresies as disbelief in immortality and belief in the -eternity of matter prepared the way for simple deism.</p> -<p class="par">But against all such heresy the Church could hold its -ground in virtue of its vast vested interests, as well as of the -subjection of the mass, superstitious even when irreverent. The -practical danger to the Church’s power lay first in the growth of -anti-clerical feeling among people with religious instincts, and -secondarily in the anti-clerical economic interest of the nobility and -upper classes in all the northern countries. What delayed disaster was -the slowness of the two hostile elements to combine.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s3.2.4" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e613">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 4.</span> <i>Anti-clerical -Heresies</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The kind of heresy which first stirred the Church -to murderous repression was naturally that which struck at its -monopolies. After the ancient schism of the Donatists, which so -organized itself as to set up a rival Church, the sect which was most -bloodily persecuted in the period of established Christianity from -Theodosius onwards was the Manichæan, visibly the Church’s -most serious rival. So, in the Dark Ages, the heresies which roused -most priestly anger were the movement against image-worship; the -predestinarian doctrine of Gottschalk, which, though orthodox and -Augustinian, was now felt to undermine the priest’s power over -souls in purgatory; and that which impugned the priestly miracle of the -eucharist, the main hold of the priesthood over society. And the first -resort to general and systematic massacre as against heresy in the West -was made after there had arisen in the eleventh and twelfth centuries a -movement of popular <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb198" href="#pb198" -name="pb198">198</a>]</span>schism which assailed not only a number of -leading rites and dogmas, but flatly denied the priestly -prerogative.</p> -<p class="par">Of this movement the first stages occurred in the -eastern empire, in the sect known as Paulicians, who are first heard of -under that name in Armenia in the seventh century. Their founder, -however, one Constantine, afterwards known as Sylvanus, worked on -existing bases. The name of the sect seems to have stood for an appeal -to the teaching of Paul as against paganized Christianity; and it had -Marcionite elements; but though it was at first anti-Gnostic and -anti-Manichæan, it acquired both Gnostic and Manichæan or -at least Mazdean characteristics, even in the teaching of Sylvanus. On -the face of the case, it suggests both Persian and Moslem influences. -Its practical heresies were opposition to the adoration of images and -relics, to the use of the Old Testament, to the worship of saints, -angels, and the Virgin, and to the prerogatives of monks and priests; -the sectaries claiming to read the New Testament for themselves, in -defiance of the virtual veto of the Greek Church on such study by the -laity. For the rest, they insisted that baptism and the eucharist were -spiritual and not bodily rites, and even reaffirmed the -“Docetic” doctrine that Jesus had not a true human body, -and so was incapable of suffering. Their flat denial of priestly claims -marked them out as a specially obnoxious body, and they were fiercely -persecuted, the founder being stoned to death.</p> -<p class="par">Like all the other sects, they were in turn divided, and -one section had the protection of Leo the Iconoclast, who agreed with -them as to images. A later leader, Sergius or Tychicus, won for his -sect the favour of Nicephorus I; but the next iconoclast, Leo the -Armenian, resenting their other heresies, cruelly persecuted them; and -like previous heretical sects they were driven over to the national -enemy, which was now Islam. Constantine “Copronymus,” -seeking to remedy this state of things, transplanted many of them to -Constantinople and Thrace, thus bringing their heresy into Europe; but -in the ninth century, on the final restoration of image-worship, a vast -multitude was massacred in Armenia. Most <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb199" href="#pb199" name="pb199">199</a>]</span>of the remnant there -went over to the Saracens, and became the fiercest enemies of the -empire.</p> -<p class="par">From Thrace, meanwhile, their propaganda spread into -Bulgaria, where it prospered, with the help of refugees from Armenia. -In the tenth century they were to some extent favoured as a useful -bulwark against the Slavs; but in the eleventh they were again -persecuted; and as the malcontents of the empire in general tended to -join them they became the ruling party in Bulgaria. Thus it came about -that the name Bulgar, Bulgarian, became a specific name in mid-Europe -for heretic (and worse), surviving to this day in that sense in the -French form of <i lang="fr">bougre</i>. The Paulicians, further, had -their own extremists, who held by the old Marcionite veto on marriage, -and received the Greek name of <i>cathari</i>, “the -pure”—a title sometimes given to the whole mass, from whom, -however, the purists were in that case distinguished as -<i>perfecti</i>. Either from the <i>Cathari</i> or from the Chazari, a -Turkish tribe whose Christianity in the ninth century was much mixed -with Mohammedanism, came the Italian nickname <i>gazzari</i>, and the -German word for heretic, <i>ketzer</i>. Yet another eastern sect, the -Slavonic Bogomilians, who remained monotheistic as against the dualism -of the Paulicians, joined in the wave of new beliefs which began to -beat from the East on central Europe.</p> -<p class="par">From the very beginning of the eleventh century, -outbreaks of the new heresy, always anti-clerical and anti-ceremonial, -occurred at intervals in France, northern Italy, and Germany. In some -cases, the opposition to priests, images, and Virgin-worship extended -to a denial of all miracles and sacraments, and an assertion of the -eternity of matter—apparent signs of Saracen philosophic -influence. But the movement developed a thoroughness of enmity to -everything ecclesiastical, that told of a quite independent basis in -the now widespread hostility to the Church of Rome outside of its -centre of wealth and power. For one or two generations the crusades -drew off the superfluous energy of Europe, and the new heresies were -somewhat overshadowed; but in the first half of the twelfth century, -when the crusades had lost <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb200" href= -"#pb200" name="pb200">200</a>]</span>all religious savour, -anti-clericalism sprang up on all sides. Tanquelin in Flanders; Peter -de Brueys (founder of the Petrobrussians) in Languedoc; the monk Henry -in Switzerland and France; Eudo of Stello in Brittany, and Arnold of -Brescia in Italy, all wrought either religiously or politically against -the Church; and all died by her violence, or in prison. Arnold, the -most capable of all, was a pupil of Abailard, and his doctrine was that -the entire vested wealth of the Church should be taken over by the -civil power, leaving the clergy to live sparingly by the gifts of the -faithful. His movement, which lasted twenty years, and was very strong -in Lombardy, went so far as to set up a short-lived republic in Rome; -but it needed only a combination of the pope and the emperor, Frederick -Barbarossa, to bring the republic to the ground, and Arnold to -crucifixion.</p> -<p class="par">Among the other revolters there was a good deal of -fanaticism; but all were more or less emphatic in denouncing priestly -pretensions, sacraments, cross-worship, prayers for the dead, penance, -image-worship, church bells, altars, and even churches. It seemed as if -the end of the Church had begun. For, though each new prophet in turn -was slain, new heretics seemed to rise from the ashes. With various -positive tenets, they were at one in their enmity to the priesthood. In -Italy there flourished a sect called the Pasagini (apparently = -<i>Passagieri</i>, Crusaders) or the Circumcised, who returned to the -law of Moses and to Ebionite views of Jesus; in France, a different -order of zealots, called Caputiati from the habit of carrying an image -of the Virgin on their hats, stood for a return to primeval equality -and liberty. Between such types of heresy stood the Apostolici, mostly -poor working-folk, but with powerful sympathizers, who urged a return -to the “apostolic” ideal of poverty and simplicity, and -further discouraged marriage, calling themselves “the chaste -brethren and sisters.” Two of their leaders, Sagarelli and Fra -Dolcino, had shown the usual aversion to the Church, Dolcino predicting -the formation of native States and the purification of the papacy; so -they, too, were put to death, being burnt at the stake. And still new -revolters appeared. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb201" href="#pb201" -name="pb201">201</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">At this stage there came to the front the sectaries -known in history as the Vaudois or Waldenses, a name standing properly -for the inhabitants of the Vaux or Valleys of Piedmont, but further -connected with the teaching of one Peter Waldus, a Lyons merchant, -whose followers received also the name of the Poor Men of Lyons. How -far the anti-Catholic tenets of the Waldenses derive from ancient -heresy is uncertain; but it is clear that late in the twelfth century -they were acted on by the immense ferment of new ideas around them. -Like the Paulicians, they insisted that the laity should read the Bible -for themselves; and their men and women members went about preaching -wherever they could get a hearing, and administering the eucharist -without priestly sanction. At the same time they condemned tithes, -opposed fasting and prayers for the dead, preached peace and -non-resistance, denied the authority of the pope, and impeached the -lives of the clergy.</p> -<p class="par">All of these forces of heresy, and yet others, were -specially at work in the rich and prosperous region of Languedoc, the -patrimony of Count Raymond of Toulouse. Paulicians and Waldenses, -Cathari, Albanensians or sectaries of Albano, Albigensians or sectaries -of the town of Alby or the district of Albigensium, Bogomilians, -Apostolici, Caputiati, and nondescript <i>Paterini</i> (a Milanese name -for a popular faction)—all were active in the name of religion; -and in addition there were at work heretics of another stamp—the -gay, wandering Goliards or satirical poets and minstrels, who loved the -priests and the papacy as little as did the zealots; and the graver -doubters who had got new views of life from Saracen science and -philosophy. As against the whole amorphous mass of misbelief, the -papacy planned and effected a stupendous crusade of slaughter.</p> -<p class="par">From the first the Manichæans, as the Church loved -to call the heretics indiscriminately, had been bloodily punished. One -bishop of the eleventh century, Wazon of <span class="corr" id= -"xd21e3136" title="Source: Liege">Liège</span>, is to be -remembered as having protested against the universal policy of -slaughter; and another, Gerhard of Cambrai and Arras, is said to have -won over some heretics by <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb202" href= -"#pb202" name="pb202">202</a>]</span>persuasion; but these were voices -in the wilderness. Fire, sword, halter, and cross were the normal -methods of repression; and during the eleventh and twelfth centuries -thousands probably so perished. But the campaign which came to be known -as the Albigensian crusade was planned by Pope Innocent III to outdo -all the isolated punishments of the past, and it succeeded. Grounds for -quarrel with the Count of Toulouse were easily found; and the offer of -indulgences, on the lines laid down in the crusades against the -Saracens, brought eager volunteers from all parts of Europe, for only -forty days’ service was now called for. The submission of Count -Raymond was not permitted to check the massacre of his subjects. It was -in the first campaign that the papal legate Arnold, abbot of Cliteaux, -when asked at the storming of Beziers how the heretics were to be -distinguished from the true believers, gave the historic answer, -“Kill all; God will know his own.” By his own account they -killed in that one place fifteen thousand men, women, and children. The -chroniclers, who make the slain twice or thrice as many, tell how seven -thousand of them were found in the great church of Mary the -Magdalene—her from whom, in the legend, had been cast out seven -devils without letting of blood.</p> -<p class="par">Begun in 1209, the Albigensian crusades outlasted the -life of Innocent III, who grew sick of the slaughter while the -priesthood were calling for its extension. They praised in particular -the Anglo-French Simon de Montfort, who slew many of his victims by -torture, and tore out the eyes of many more. For nearly twenty years -the wars lasted, plunder being a sufficient motive after heresy had -been drowned in blood or driven broadcast throughout Europe. It has -been reckoned that a full million of all ages and both sexes were -slain. Yet as late as 1231 Pope Gregory IX was burning troops of the -heretics at Rome, and causing many more to be burned in France and -Germany.</p> -<p class="par">The precocious civilization of Languedoc and Provence -was destroyed, and the region became a stronghold of Catholic -fanaticism; but the political diversity of Europe baffled the papal -hope of destroying heresy. Thenceforth the anti-clerical <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb203" href="#pb203" name= -"pb203">203</a>]</span>animus never died out: in the course of the -thirteenth century it reached even England, then the most docile -section of the Catholic fold. Generations before Wiclif, there were -heretics in the province of Canterbury who denied the authority of the -pope and even of the Fathers, professing to stand solely on the Bible -and the principle of “necessary reason.” Wiclif stood on a -less heterodox plane, impugning chiefly the extreme form of -transubstantiation and the practices of the begging friars; and he was -proportionately influential. In the fourteenth century, when -international crusades of repression had become politically impossible, -the critical spirit is seen freshly at work on anti-papal lines in -England, Flanders, France, Germany, and Bohemia, as well as in Italy; -and again, the more energetic began in their earnest ignorance to frame -new schemes of life in the light of their sacred books. The lapse of -time and the continuance of orthodox culture had made an end of the old -Paulician heresy as such; and of the new movements many, like that set -up by Saint Francis in the period of the Albigensian crusades, were -meant to be strictly obedient to the Church. Such were the -“Brethren of the Common Lot,” a body set up in Holland by -educated Churchmen after the so-called Beghards (otherwise Beguins or -Beguttæ) had there for a time flourished and degenerated. But the -Beghards and the “Brethren of the Free Spirit,” who spread -widely over northern Europe, had not only aimed at a communal life, but -developed the old tendency to pantheism, now gaining ground -philosophically on the lines of Averroism. Even among the Franciscans -the “Spirituals,” who resented the falling away of the -order from its ideals of poverty, became heretical. Some adopted the -new “Eternal Gospel,” by Abbot Joachim of Flora in -Calabria, in which it was declared that there now began a new -dispensation of the Holy Spirit, superseding that of Jesus. Others, -called the <i>Fraticelli</i>, or Little Brothers, had a “Gospel -of the Holy Spirit,” composed by John of Parma. In both cases the -spirit of revolt against the Church was marked.</p> -<p class="par">Of the heresy of the fourteenth century the high-water -mark is seen in English Lollardism, which, without touching -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb204" href="#pb204" name= -"pb204">204</a>]</span>on the philosophical problem, proceeded on the -basis of the teaching of Wiclif to a kind of religious rationalism -which not only repudiated the rule of the pope but rejected the -institutions of religious celibacy, exorcisms, priestly benedictions, -confession and absolution, pilgrimages, masses for the dead, and -prayers and offerings to images; and even carried the ethical spirit to -the point of denouncing war and capital punishment. In that age, such -an ethic could not long thrive. Lollardism, encouraged by the -self-seeking nobility while it menaced only the wealth of the Church, -which they hoped to gain, was trodden down by them in conjunction with -the king and the Church when it turned against the abuses of feudal -government. But its destruction was most effectually wrought through -the national demoralization set up by the new imperialism of Henry V, -who, after passing a new statute for the burning of heretics, won the -enthusiastic loyalty of his people by his successful invasion of -France. In the corruption of that policy of plunder, and in the ensuing -pandemonium of the Wars of the Roses, Lollardism disappeared like every -other moral ideal. The time for a union of critical and rapacious -forces against the hierarchy was not yet; and when it came in the -sixteenth century the critical spirit was on the whole less rational -than it had been at the beginning of the fifteenth. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb205" href="#pb205" name="pb205">205</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter III</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">THE SOCIAL LIFE AND STRUCTURE</h2> -<div id="s3.3.1" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e629">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>The Clergy, -Regular and Secular</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">In a world so completely under priestly rule, the -character of the priest was in general the image of his influence. -Whatever good organized Christianity did was in virtue of the personal -work of good men in holy orders; and it is comforting to believe that -in all countries and in all ages there were some such, after the -fashion of the “parson” in Chaucer. To such men, the -priestly status might give a special power for righteousness. But -seeing that in the average man righteousness is in the ratio of -reflection on knowledge, there is no escape from the conclusion that in -the Middle Ages most priests were poor moral forces. For their general -ignorance is beyond doubt. The number who in a given district at a -given time were unable to read Latin may be a matter for dispute; but -it is clear that what they did read was as a rule merely distilled -ignorance. And if we turn to the records of ecclesiastical legislation, -we find constant evidence, for many centuries, of the laxity of -priestly life in all grades.</p> -<p class="par">To say nothing of the perpetual scandal about -concubinage—an artificial form of sin, in itself no more decisive -against a priest’s character than celibacy in its -favour—there is in the canons of the councils a most significant -repetition of vetoes on various lines of conduct which stand for a lack -of single-mindedness, and of serious interest in moral tasks. Century -after century, the bishops are found forbidding the clergy to tell -fortunes, to practise magic, to get drunk, to commit perjury, to take -usury, to swear, and to haunt taverns, as well as to keep concubines. -At the same time many of the bishops themselves had to be perpetually -admonished. Under Justinian we hear of two eastern bishops convicted of -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb206" href="#pb206" name= -"pb206">206</a>]</span>unnatural vice, and—the law as usual -exceeding the crime—punished by mutilation. Throughout the Middle -Ages, as to-day, the normal complaints against bishops are on the score -of avarice, luxury, and worldliness; but drunkenness is not unheard of; -and whatever might be said in councils as to concubinage, it was -certain that bishops took at least as much liberty of life as popes and -presbyters. So far as moral example went, then, the social influence of -the priesthood was mostly on the wrong side, since its normal -concubinage was a perpetual lesson in hypocrisy.</p> -<p class="par">On this side, doubtless, the priests were no worse than -other men; the trouble was that they set up to be better, and that the -hierarchy was always seeking to keep up the repute of clerical sanctity -by a claim to asceticism rather than by social beneficence. Thus they -put it in the power of the “average sensual man” to convict -of moral imposture a priesthood which, if free to marry, would have -been much less vulnerable; and by constantly stressing self-denial on a -wrong line they missed promoting self-control on right lines. The -primary social needs of the Middle Ages were peace, civism, and -cleanliness; and for none of these things did clerical teaching in -general avail. On the contrary, it was in effect hostile to all three, -since it made virtue consist in a right relation to the other world -rather than to this, made religion a special ground for warfare, and -made uncleanliness a meritorious form of -“self-mortification,” which in the Middle Ages was about -the last thing that could be truly said of it.</p> -<p class="par">It is not to be forgotten, indeed, that among the monks -or other clerical scholars of the Dark Ages was to be found most of -what learning and philosophy survived. The reason was that men and -youths with the studious instinct, averse to the brawling life around -them, turned to the monasteries and monastic schools as their one -refuge. But sloth and impotence equally turned thither; and where the -stronger spirits could find a peaceful and useful life without, the -sluggards failed. Monasteries were thus always half filled with men to -whom their vows were irksome; and as women were at the same time -frequently sent to convents against their will, nothing <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb207" href="#pb207" name="pb207">207</a>]</span>but -an iron discipline could keep the professed order. Given an easy abbot -or abbess, they became centres of scandal; and in the average they were -homes of fairly well-fed idleness. But the full fatality of the case is -seen only when we realize that their very successes, their provision of -a dim retreat for many men and women of refined and unworldly type, -worsened society by leaving the reproduction of the race to the grosser -and harder natures.</p> -<p class="par">The ostensible merit of monasteries, in the medieval -period, was their almsgiving. Without endorsing the mercantilist -impeachment of all such action, we are forced to recognize that theirs -demoralized as many as it relieved. Of a higher order than mere -almsgiving, certainly, was the earlier self-sacrificing service of the -mendicant orders of friars, whose rise is one of the great moral -phenomena of the Middle Ages. For a time, in the thirteenth century, -the order of St. Francis in particular not only organized but greatly -stimulated human devotion of the kind that, happily, is always quietly -present somewhere; and the contrast between the humble beneficence of -the earlier friars and the sleek self-seeking of the average secular -priest at once accredited the former and discredited the latter. But -the history of the mendicant friars as of the previous orders is a -crowning proof of the impossibility of bettering society on a mere -religious impulse, without social science.</p> -<p class="par">Credit for holiness brought large gifts and legacies -from well-meaning but ill-judging laymen and women; and nothing could -prevent the enrichment of orders which had begun under special vows of -poverty. Francis had expressly ruled that his friars should not on any -pretext hold property, and should not even be able to profit by it -through trustees; but the latter provision was annulled, and ere long -the order was as well provided for as any. The better the financial -footing, the more self-seekers entered; and these overruled the more -single-minded. This was the law of development of every -“self-denying” order of the Dark and Middle Ages, from the -Benedictine monks to the Knights Templars. One of the most rigorously -planned monasteries of the Middle Ages, that <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb208" href="#pb208" name="pb208">208</a>]</span>of -the lonely Chartreuse, founded by St. Bruno late in the eleventh -century, at length relaxed its austerities, and came latterly to be -known as a wholesale manufactory of a liqueur—the distinction by -which most men now know also the name of the Benedictines. In the end, -the orders of monks and friars did something for scholarship and -education, after the institution of “lay brothers,” who did -the menial work, left the <i>domini</i> in certain orders, especially -the Benedictine, free to devote themselves to learning; but socially -they achieved nothing. When once they had acquired -“foundations” they became plunderers instead of helpers of -the poor, exacting from them gifts, selling them <i>post-mortem</i> -privileges, taking the widow’s mite and the orphan’s -blanket for verbal blessings.</p> -<p class="par">It is always to be remembered, here as before, that -Christianity is not the efficient cause of the failures or the evils -which happen under its auspices: we are not to suppose that had -Osirianism or Judaism or Manichæism or Mithraism chanced to be -the religion of Europe these failures and evils would have been -averted. What we are to realize is, on the other hand, that the -conventional view as to Christianity having been an abnormally -efficient cause for good is a delusion. It is not Christianity that has -civilized Europe, but Europe—the complex of political and culture -forces—that has civilized Christianity. Byzantium and Abyssinia -show what the religious system could amount to of itself. Western -Europe surpassed these States in virtue of conditions more propitious -to energy and to freedom: that was the difference. At the best, -medieval Europe was a world of chronic strife, daily injustice, normal -cruelty, abundant misery, and ever-present disease. To show that -Christianity, that is, the holding of the Christian creed by the men of -that world, made these evils less than they would have been in the same -place under any other creed, is impossible. On the other hand, it is -clear that the influence of Christian doctrine and tradition was on -some sides conservative of evil and obstructive of good.</p> -<p class="par">Those tendencies may indeed be regarded as operating in -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb209" href="#pb209" name= -"pb209">209</a>]</span>the intellectual life, which, though it is in -reality only a side of the sociological whole, we shall conveniently -consider apart. Under that head too we shall note the influence of the -Church for culture on the side of art. But on the side of ordinary life -the influence of the clergy as teachers had two specific tendencies -which may here be noted. One was the disparagement of women; the other -the encouragement of cruelty.</p> -<p class="par">On the first head, as on so many others, the -conventional view is a fallacy. That Christianity raised the status of -women is still a general assumption; but exact research, even when made -by an orthodox theologian, proves the contrary. Down to the nineteenth -century, the solidest rights women possessed were those secured to them -by ancient Roman law; and the tendency of Christian legislation was -certainly to restrict rather than to expand such rights. At the same -time the so-called “Manichæan” element in gospel -Christianity, the tendency to regard the sexual instinct as something -corrupt and unclean, gave to the ordinary language of the Fathers -concerning women a tone of detraction and aversion. The one remedy for -an overpoise of the sexual element in life, and for over-emphasis of -female function on that side, is to secure the community of the sexes -in the intellectual life; and organized Christianity, instead of -inculcating this, minimized the intellectual life all round, thus -making self-restraint a matter of morbid asceticism as against the -excess inevitably following on disuse of mind. In particular, a -priesthood nominally committed to celibacy, yet always practising in -the confessional a morbid inquisition into sexual matters, was -committed to treating women disparagingly as forces of -“temptation” when it was not yielding thereto. Nothing -could be more injurious to women’s real credit. It is true that -the worship of the Virgin would in some measure counteract the -discredit; but this held equally true of the worship of many pagan -Goddesses; and there is nothing to show that the status of women was -higher in medieval Christendom than in ancient Egypt. Among the -Teutons, the moral status of women seems to have been greatly lowered -by the introduction of Christianity. <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb210" href="#pb210" name="pb210">210</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">As regards cruelty, the evidence is only too abundant. -Mosheim admits that in the Crusades the Christians were more ferocious -than the Saracens; and it is historically certain that the revival of -the ancient practice of judicial torture was the work of the papacy, -seeking to extirpate heresy in the thirteenth century. From the -tribunals of the Inquisition it passed to the ordinary Church courts, -and thence, more slowly, to the courts of justice. In time it became a -daily usage. In the old burg of Nuremberg there is preserved a -collection (sometimes exhibited elsewhere) of the instruments of -torture in common use down to the age of the Reformation. It is an -arsenal of horror. Such engines of atrocity were the normal punitive -expedients of a world in which the image of the Saviour on the cross -was supposed to move men to compassion and contrition; and in which -that Saviour’s death was held to redeem men from the penalties of -their sins. Here the practical teaching and example of the priesthood -was all for cruelty. They presided or assisted when the heretic was -racked or burned alive; and their whole conception of morals made for -such methods. Holding the madman as possessed by a devil, they taught -that he should be cruelly scourged; holding that the leper was stricken -by God for sin, they taught that he should be shunned the more. -Paganism was saner.</p> -<p class="par">Nothing is more true in social psychology than the hard -saying of Feuerbach, that “only where reason rules, does -universal love rule: reason is itself nothing else than universal love. -It was faith, not love, not reason, that invented Hell.” -“<i>Faith has within it a malignant principle.</i>” -Medieval Christendom is the demonstration. In that age the spirit of -reason was but occasionally glimpsed. It is seen in the teaching of -John Scotus, who, besides his concrete heresy on the eucharist, held -the all-embracing heresy that authority is derivable solely from -reason, and from his pantheism deduced the conviction that the doctrine -of hell is but an allegory, the actuality of which would be the -negation of divine goodness. But such teaching belonged rather to pagan -philosophy than to Christian faith, and was anathematized accordingly. -It never reached even the scholarly class in general; and specifically -Christian teaching <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb211" href="#pb211" -name="pb211">211</a>]</span>which aimed at softening the heart was -spread abroad to little purpose.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s3.3.2" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e639">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>The Higher -Theology and its Effects</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">There is something saddening, though not really -strange, in the failure even of the most attractive elements in -medieval Christianity to better the world. To read of the life and -teaching of St. Francis of Assisi is to come as it were in the presence -of a really elemental force of goodness. His namesake of Sales was a -persecutor; but the founder of the Franciscan order seems free of that -taint. In him the ecstasy of pietism seems purified of that correlative -of fanatic malignity which so constantly dogs it in the literature of -ancient Christianity, from the epistles of Paul to the treatises of -Augustine. We hear of his love for all animals, of his seldom-failing -goodwill to men, and his sweet contentment in humble contemplation. Yet -when we study him in relation to his age there fronts us the startling -fact that while his active career is almost exactly synchronous with -the horrible Albigensian crusades, there is no trace in the records -that he was even saddened by them. They ought to have darkened for him -the light of the sun; but not once does he seem to have given even a -deprecating testimony against them. In him, the flower of medieval -Christianity, loyalty to the faith seems to have annulled some of the -most vital modes of moral consciousness.</p> -<p class="par">So again with the influence of such a religious classic -as the <i>Imitatio Christi</i>, attributed to Thomas à Kempis, -but probably the work of several hands, in different countries and -centuries. Many men and women must have supposed themselves to live by -it; and its influence seems wholly for peace and self-surrender. Yet it -would be hard to show that it ever restrained any corporate tendency of -a contrary kind, or ruled the corporate life of a single religious -sect. The truth is that its message was for a life of isolation, as -that of the ideal monk in his cell. Seclusion and not social life, -mystic contemplation and not wise activity, duty to God and not duty to -man, are its ideals. It was in a manner the Christian counterpart of -the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius or the Enchiridion of -Epictetus<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb212" href="#pb212" name= -"pb212">212</a>]</span>—a manual of the higher or inner life, -making Christianity do for medieval men what Stoicism could do for -pagans in the decadent Roman empire. But Stoicism, by Christian -consent, made for good government; and there is no trace of any such -result from the <i>Imitatio</i>. The model Christian monarch, St. Louis -of France, lived in an earlier age; and even he was a fanatic where -heresy was concerned, and a promoter of religious wars.</p> -<p class="par">The same fatality appears, again, when we turn to the -mystical theology of the German fourteenth-century school of Tauler and -Eckhart, in which both Luther and some of our own day have seen a high -inspiration. Here, perhaps, we come on the secret of the failure we are -considering. Eckhart was a scholar, who had studied and taught at -Paris, and ranked as “provincial” of the Dominican order -for Saxony; and Tauler was his pupil before settling at Basle. Both men -undoubtedly influenced the Brethren of the Free Spirit and others of -the so-called Beghards and Beguins, before mentioned, in particular the -sect who called themselves the “Friends of God”; and they -may so be said to have affected society practically, since these -movements aimed at a species of communism. But the essence of their -theology was alien to that or any organized movement, and if lived up -to would have dissolved it without the interference of the priests and -others who under authority drove women of the Beguine movement from -their homes and seized their poor goods. “If thou wouldst have -the Creator,” says Tauler, “thou must forego the creature. -The less of the creature, the more of God. Therefore abjure all -creatures, with all their consolations.” Not thus were men in -general to be taught to live more brotherlike. The rude world of the -Middle Ages went on its way, unaffected in the main either by mysticism -or by the movements which set up self-centred societies within society. -It needed a more human spirit to affect humanity in mass.</p> -<p class="par">Such a human spirit, indeed, may be held to have shown -itself in the movement set up in Florence by Girolamo Savonarola near -the end of the fifteenth century. Savonarola was moved by a high -concern for individual conduct; and his <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb213" href="#pb213" name="pb213">213</a>]</span>gospel was -substantially that of an Ebionite Christian, wroth with all luxury as -well as with all levity of life. Thus he wielded a great influence, -setting up in the splendid Florence of the later Renaissance a forecast -of the iron-bound Geneva of Calvin. It is no final impeachment of him -to say that, having gone so far, he failed and fell; but it is clear -that he could not have been a durable civilizing force. His influence -was that of a fanatic, operating by contagion of excitement and -superstitious fear, not that of an enlightener or a statesmanlike -guide. To him amenity and luxury, art and vice, selfishness and -skepticism, were alike anathema; and he set up in Florence a kind of -pietistic reign of terror, driving impressionable believers to give up -their pictures to the fire for peace’ sake, and even letting -others be forced to it by fear. On the great political need of the -Italian cities, a fraternal federation, he had no light whatever; and -we find him encouraging his fellow citizens in their fatal passion for -dominating Pisa instead of making of her an ally and a friend. Lacking -light, he finally lacked force; and when he fell, he fell utterly, -leaving no enduring ideal or discipline to his countrymen.</p> -<p class="par">Thus on every side and at every point in the history of -the ages of faith the ostensibly best religious influences are found -failing to heal society, failing to check the forces of oppression and -dissolution and strife. If we would trace the forces which really -affected social structure and raised masses of men some way in the -scale of manhood, we must turn to the clash of interests and classes, -the play of secular knowledge, the undertakings of laymen on normal -lines of aspiration and on secular views of right.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s3.3.3" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e649">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Christianity -and Feudalism</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">We have seen, in studying the expansion of the -Church, how it grew by lending itself to the interests of kings and -chiefs as against subjects. On the same grounds, it made for empires as -against self-governing States. But inasmuch as the papacy ere long fell -out with the emperors of the new line it had itself consecrated, it -also contributed to the break-up of feudalism, in the widest sense of -the term; and it is possible <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb214" href= -"#pb214" name="pb214">214</a>]</span>to claim for the Church, further, -a restraining influence on the oppressive action of feudalism, early -and late, in various directions. Under this head would fall to be -judged, in particular, its action on slavery.</p> -<p class="par">As the institution of slavery was taken over by the -Christian emperors from the pagan without any hint of disapproval, it -is clear, to begin with, that the Church had in its days of struggle -made no sign of such condemnation. Nor was there anything in its sacred -books to suggest a repudiation of slavery; on the contrary, Jesus is -made to accept it as a matter of course (<a class="biblink xd21e43" -title="Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lk%2017:7-10">Luke xvii, -7–10</a>; Gr.); and Paul, in a passage which has been garbled in -the English translation, expressly urges that a Christian slave should -remain so even if he have a chance to become free (<a class= -"biblink xd21e43" title="Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Cor%207:20-21">1 Cor. -vii, 20, 21</a>). He and some of the Fathers certainly urge that slaves -should be kindly treated; but many pagans had done as much, and Seneca -on that theme had outgone them all. Laws for the protection of slaves, -too, had been enacted by many emperors long before Constantine. The -only ground, then, on which Christianity could be credited with setting -up by religious appeal an aversion to slavery would be a visible -increase in manumissions after the time of Constantine. No such -increase, however, took place.</p> -<p class="par">A misconception on the subject has arisen by way of a -hasty inference from the fact that in the Christian period all -manumissions were religious acts, performed through the Church. This -was no result of any Christian doctrine, being in fact a deliberate -imitation of pagan practice. Before Constantine, as we have seen, the -act of manumission was a religious one, performed as such in the pagan -temples; and when Constantine adroitly transferred the function from -those temples to the churches, he probably put a check on the process -of liberation, since pagans would long be reluctant to go to the -churches for any purpose<span class="corr" id="xd21e3261" title= -"Source: ,">.</span> For centuries manumission had been a common act, -the number of freedmen in Rome being notoriously great at all times, -from the day of Cicero onwards. It was almost a matter of course for a -Roman master to free a multitude of his slaves on his deathbed -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb215" href="#pb215" name= -"pb215">215</a>]</span>or by his will, till Augustus enacted that no -one should emancipate more than a hundred at once. A diligent slave, in -fact, could usually count on getting his freedom by five or six years -of service; and many were allowed to buy it out of their savings, or -out of earnings they were permitted to make.</p> -<p class="par">So far were the earlier Christian emperors, with one -exception, from seeking to raise the status of slaves, that they -re-enacted the rule excluding them from the purview of the law against -adultery, “because of the vileness of their condition.” The -exception was the law of Constantine forbidding the separation of -slaves from their families—a humane veto disregarded by Christian -<span class="corr" id="xd21e3268" title= -"Source: slaveowners">slave-owners</span> in modern times. But -Constantine, on the other hand, enacted that if a freewoman should -cohabit with a slave, she should be executed, and he burned alive; and -the laws against fugitive slaves were made more cruel. Gratian even -enacted that any slave who dared to accuse his master of any crime, -unless it were high treason, should be burned alive, without any -inquiry into the charge. For the rest, the Fathers justified slavery on -the score of the curse passed on Ham; and the theses of the Stoics as -to the natural equality of men had from them no countenance.</p> -<p class="par">Only in the reign of Justinian did the law begin -expressly to encourage manumission, to recognize freedmen as full -citizens, and to raise the slave status; and several circumstances are -to be noted as giving a lead to such a course. Justinian had pursued a -policy of great outlays where his immediate predecessors had been -frugal, and to sustain it he had to impose much fresh taxation on the -land. For fiscal purposes, it had long been recognized, the government -did well to limit the power of proprietors to dispose of their slaves; -and it is probable that the humane law of Constantine really had this -end in view. By raising slaves to the status of half-free peasants, the -State increased the number of its taxpayers. “The labourer of the -soil then became an object of great interest to the treasury, and -obtained almost as important a position in the eyes of the fisc as the -landed proprietor himself.” In the process the small freeman was -put in a worse position than before; but the slave was at the same time -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb216" href="#pb216" name= -"pb216">216</a>]</span>bettered—the hereditary slave, that is, -for captives were enslaved or bought throughout the history of the -Byzantine empire.</p> -<p class="par">The legal change was thus made from economic motives; -but one moral gain did indirectly accrue from the existence of the -Church as such. Under Justinian the empire was re-expanded after having -been for a time curtailed; and this would under paganism have meant a -large addition to the number of slaves. The recovered lands, however, -were peopled by Christians; and all bishops were bound in their own -interest to resist the enslavement and deportation of their flocks; so -that Christianity at this point was favourable to freedom exactly as -was Islam, which forbade Moslems to enslave Moslems. And the indirect -benefit did not end there. The Church, like the fisc, had a good deal -to gain pecuniarily from the freeing of slaves; and, especially in the -West, though it supported slave-laws, it encouraged masters to manumit -for the sake of their souls’ welfare in the next world. That the -motive here again was political and not doctrinal is clear from the two -facts—(1) that even when making serfs priests for its own service -the Church often did not legally free them, thus keeping them more -fully subject to discipline; and (2) that while urging laymen to free -the slaves or serfs on their lands Churchmen were the last to free -those on their own, on the score that no individuals in orders had the -right to alienate the property of the order as such. Other economic -causes, of course, effectually concurred to further the freeing of -slaves and serfs, else the institution would not have decayed as it did -in the Middle Ages. It is noteworthy, too, that while the Jews were the -great slave dealers for Europe in the Dark Ages, thus dangerously -deepening their own unpopularity and moving the Church to thwart the -traffic on Christian grounds, Christians everywhere were long eager to -buy and sell barbarians such as the Slavs (from whose name came the -very term “slave” in the modern languages); while the -Christian Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Normans for centuries maintained a -trade in kidnapped Anglo-Saxon or British children and young women, -selling them to Ireland after they <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb217" -href="#pb217" name="pb217">217</a>]</span>were no longer saleable on -the continent. A similar traffic went on among the Bohemians, before -the eyes of St. Adalbert. What the Church did, broadly speaking, was to -restrain the enslavement of Christians by their fellows; and to raise -funds to redeem Christian captives from the Saracens. To a certain -extent the motive was religious: otherwise it was self-regarding.</p> -<p class="par">In similarly indirect ways, organized Christianity -tended at times to restrain feudal tyranny. The bishop and the abbot -were territorial magnates, who to some extent counterpoised the baron; -and though the bishops were too often only barons with a difference, -they were often a barrier to lay ambition and violence. Even as the -king’s rule might protect the common people as against their -local lords—though the feudal system did not originally suppose -this—so the Church might be a local benefactor in virtue of its -local interests. Here again, however, the influence was not doctrinal; -and Churchmen in general endorsed the feudal law in letter and in -spirit, always availing themselves of its machinery to extort their own -dues.</p> -<p class="par">On the other hand, insofar as the papacy in the twelfth -century began to throw its weight on the side of the popular party in -Italy as against the aristocratic and imperial party, thus constituting -the Guelph faction as against the Ghibeline, it indirectly furthered -the cause of self-government; and even in its official doctrine there -thus came to be inserted provisions in favour of the claim of subjects -to choose their rulers. The teaching of Thomas Aquinas to this effect -must have counted for something in the later evolution of political -doctrine. Nothing however is more remarkable than the ease with which -dutiful kings, as those of later Spain and France, secured the assent -of the Church, as the early barbarian kings had done, to the -suppression of all popular liberties. The economic or administrative -interest of the Church was always the determinant of its action. It -supplied no fixed principle conducive to peace; on the contrary, it was -always a force the more for war in Europe. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb218" href="#pb218" name="pb218">218</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s3.3.4" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e659">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 4.</span> <i>Influence of -the Crusades</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">That some social gains may be correlative with -great historic evils is perhaps best seen in the case of the Crusades -organized by the Church against the Saracens in Palestine. These -campaigns were first conceived in the interests of the papal power; and -as early as 999 Pope Sylvester II (Gerbert), who had been anti-papal -before his elevation, sent a letter through Europe appealing for united -action on behalf of the Church of Jerusalem. There was no response. In -1074 Gregory VII strove hard to the same end, seeing in a conquest of -the Turks a means to extend his power over the Eastern Church. Not, -however, till Europe was full of tales of the cruelties wrought by the -new Eastern power, the Turks, against Christian pilgrims—a marked -change from the comparative tolerance of the Caliphs—was it -possible to begin a vast crusading movement among all classes, aiming -at the recovery of the empty sepulchre from which the Christ had risen. -To this movement Pope Urban II zealously lent himself, backing up the -wild appeal of Peter the Hermit (1094) with the fatal bribe of -indulgences.</p> -<p class="par">The first effect (1096) was to collect several immense -and almost formless mobs of men and women who by all accounts were in -the main the refuse of Europe. “That the vast majority looked -upon their vow as a licence for the commission of any sin there can be -no moral doubt.” The devout exaltation of the few was submerged -by the riot of the many, who began using their indulgences when they -began their march, and rolled like a flood across Europe, massacring, -torturing, and plundering Jews wherever they found them, and forcibly -helping themselves to food where plunder was easy. Multitudes perished -by the way; multitudes more were sold as slaves in Byzantium to pay for -the feeding of the rest there; and of the seven thousand who reached -Asiatic soil with Peter the Hermit, four thousand were slain by the -Turks at Nicæa; some 300,000 thus perishing in all. Inasmuch as -Europe was thus rid of a mass of its worst inhabitants, the first -crusade might be said so far to have wrought <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb219" href="#pb219" name= -"pb219">219</a>]</span>indirect good; but the claim is hardly one to be -pushed on religious grounds.</p> -<p class="par">The more organized military forces who soon followed -under Godfrey of Bouillon and other leaders, though morally not better -witnesses to Christianity, achieved at length (1099) the capture of -Jerusalem, and founded the Latin kingdom of Palestine, which subsisted -in force for less than a hundred years, and in a nominal form for a -century longer. As a display of Christian against “pagan” -life and conduct, the process of conquest was worse than anything seen -in the East in the Christian era. No armies were ever more licentious -than those of “the cross”; and those of Attila were hardly -more ferocious. Their own lives were lost in myriads, by the sword, by -disease, and by debauchery; they were divided by mutual hatred from -first to last; and the one force to unify them was the hatred against -the infidel which wreaked itself in the massacre of men, women, and -children after the capture of a city. Besieging Antioch, they shot -heads of hundreds of slain Turks into the city from their engines, and -dug up hundreds of corpses to put the heads on pikes. It is even -recorded that when their savage improvidence left them starving at the -siege of Marra they fed on the corpses they dug up; and when the place -was stormed Bohemond gave up to the general massacre even those -inhabitants who had paid him large sums for their lives, sparing only -the young, whom he sent to the slave-markets of Antioch. When Godfrey -took Jerusalem, the Jews there were all burned alive in their -synagogues; and the chronicles tell that the crusaders rode their -horses to the temple knee-deep in the blood of many thousands of slain -misbelievers. On the second day, in cold blood, there was wrought a -fresh massacre by way of solemn sacrifice; and in the name of Jesus -were slain a great multitude of every age—mothers with the -infants in their arms, little children, youths and maidens, and men and -women bowed with age. Thus was retrieved the mythic Saviour’s -sepulchre.</p> -<p class="par">Eight times, during two hundred years, was the effort -repeated, as the fortunes of the Christian principalities in the East -were shaken or overthrown by Moslem assailants, <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb220" href="#pb220" name="pb220">220</a>]</span>and -as the papacy saw its chance or need to weaken the emperor, or -otherwise avert danger to itself, by renewing the call to arms. No -religious teacher seems ever to have doubted the fitness of the -undertaking. St. Bernard preached the second Crusade as zealously as -Peter did the first; eloquent monks were found, as they were needed, to -rouse enthusiasm for each of the rest in turn; and King Louis IX of -France, the model monarch of Christendom, saw in his vain expedition to -recover Jerusalem (1248) the highest service he could do to God or man. -As each successive crusade failed in the act or was followed by -decadence and defeat, the Church professed to see in the disaster a -penalty for Christian sin; and under Innocent III the very cardinals of -Rome vowed to mend their ways, by way of reviving the warlike zeal of -the laity. Among other fruits of the crusading movement had been a vast -increase in the papal revenues; and whereas the imposts specially laid -on for crusading purposes were said by many to have been appropriated -by the papal court, the pope undertook to put the administration of all -such revenue under non-clerical trustees. But between the hardness of -the military task and the endless strifes and degeneracies of the -leaders on the one hand, and the growing distrust of the Church on the -other, the crusading spirit died out in the thirteenth century.</p> -<p class="par">To all who could sanely judge, it had become clear that -the crusades were at once a vast drain on the blood and treasure of -Europe and a vast force of demoralization. In the course of the fifth, -the government of Venice succeeded in using the crusaders, in despite -of the protests of Innocent III, to wrest the city of Zara from the -king of Hungary, himself a zealous crusader. Then the expedition, with -the pope’s approval, proceeded to interfere in Byzantine strifes, -making and unmaking emperors, until they had created chaos, whereupon -they sacked Constantinople (1204) with every circumstance of vileness -and violence. The pope, who had hoped to reconcile the Byzantines to -papal rule, burst out in bitter indignation at the deeds of the men to -whom he had given his indulgences; but morality was at an end all -round, as might have been foretold; and the pope accepted the conquest -for what it was <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb221" href="#pb221" -name="pb221">221</a>]</span>to bring him in new power. Christendom -thenceforth crusaded with its tongue in its cheek. From the first the -papacy had taught that no faith need be kept with unbelievers; and so -was given a very superfluous apprenticeship to bad faith between -Christians. When in 1212 there broke out the hapless Children’s -Crusades, out of the 30,000 who followed the boy Stephen some way -through France, 5,000 were shipped at Marseilles by merchants who, -professing to carry them “for the cause of God, and without -charge,” sold them as slaves at Algiers and Alexandria. The last -recruits furnished by pope Nicholas IV to the Grand Master of the -Templars were drawn from the jails of Italy: the papacy itself had -ceased to put any heart in the struggle. It is a reasonable calculation -that in the two centuries from the first crusade to the fall of Acre -(1291) there had perished, in the attempts to recover and hold the Holy -Land, nine millions of human beings, at least half of them Christians. -Misery and chronic pestilence had slain most; but the mere carnage had -been stupendous.</p> -<p class="par">Much has been written as to the gains to civilization -from the “intercourse” thus set up between West and East. -Gains there were; and if we remember that thus to have gained was the -measure of the incapacity of Christendom for peaceful traffic with the -world of Islam, we can learn from the process something of real -sociological causation. Men who, from ferocity and fanaticism, could -not make quiet acquaintance with their neighbours, were hurled against -them in furious hordes, generation after generation, and in the -intervals of fighting came to know something of their arts and their -thought, exchanging handicrafts and products. The crowning irony of the -evolution lay in the entrance of unbelief into the Christian world -through the very contact with the “infidel” who was to have -been crushed. This perhaps was the discovery that disillusioned the -papacy. And but for the spirit of faith and hate—the true -correlatives in Christian history—every gain from the Crusades -might have been made ten times over in commerce. To make such gains at -the price of nine million lives and unutterable evil is the -contribution of the Crusades to civilization. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb222" href="#pb222" name="pb222">222</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">It is true that from the East the later crusaders -learned what chivalry they evolved; that Saladin became a kind of model -hero for Christian knights; and that he could hold knightly friendship -with Richard of England. But Richard nevertheless could massacre two -thousand hostages in cold blood for an unpaid debt; and his crusading -left him as it found him, a faithless ruffian, whom to honour is to be -cheated by a romance. Nor did passages of chivalry ever root out of -crusaders’ hearts the creed that no faith need be kept with a -misbeliever.</p> -<p class="par">It is true again that the Crusades involved much social -metabolism in Europe. The papal indulgence freed serfs from their -masters, and debtors from their usurers, while the crusade lasted; the -crusading barons freed many more serfs for a price down, and sold broad -lands to middle-class buyers in order to furnish themselves for the -campaign. And the mere stir of the exodus and the return, repeated for -so many generations, was a vivifying shock to the torpor of medieval -Europe, where war was for many the one relief to a vast tedium. But the -torpor must go to the credit of the creed if the shock does, since the -faith had vetoed the intercourse of peace; and to the same account must -be put the throwing back upon itself of the Saracen civilization, of -which Christian enmity directly or indirectly wrought the arrest and -ruin, first in the East, later in Spain. Such wreckages surely block -the path of the wrecker. If, finally, we seek to measure the reactions -of crusading savagery on the life of those who wrought and those who -applauded it—a reaction seldom reckoned in the discussion of the -“results”—we shall be well prepared for the discovery -that in the fourteenth century the general lot of men in Europe showed -no betterment; that the tillers of the soil had still to sweat blood -under feudal masters, save where the enormous loss of life through the -pestilence known as the Black Death had for a time raised the price of -labour; and that the institution which above all embodied for Europe -the memory of the Crusades, the Order of the Knights Templars, was at -length crushed in its home by as base a conspiracy and as cruel a -slaughter as ever marked the struggle of <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb223" href="#pb223" name="pb223">223</a>]</span>Christian with -Mohammedan. It was pretended by Philip the Fair of France, who began -the plot, that the Order was anti-Christian, and devoted to blasphemous -rites; but there is no proof of the occurrence of anything more than -irregular acts of irreverence, answering to the artistic ribaldries of -the mason-companies who built the cathedrals. That phenomenon is in -itself noteworthy, as showing how the Crusades had tended to shake -faith; but the Templars as a whole were no more unbelievers than the -kings who coveted their wealth. It was for that wealth, which was -indeed incongruously great, that they were conspired against by their -fellow Christians, who in two hundred years of a precarious union of -enmity against men of another faith had not learned goodwill towards -those of their own. The drama ended as it began, in hatred and crime. -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb224" href="#pb224" name= -"pb224">224</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter IV</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE</h2> -<div id="s3.4.1" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e675">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Superstition -and Intolerance</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">In judging of the intellectual life of the Middle -Ages, account must always be taken of the fact that their earlier -literature is mainly religious and ecclesiastical, and that such -literature often gives a very faint idea of the higher mental life of -the educated laity. In our own time, and still more in the last two -centuries, the literature of devotion and of the Church seldom suggests -the play of intelligence that actually goes on in the world: taken by -itself, indeed, it would often imply intellectual decline. As we have -seen and shall see, the Middle Ages had an intellectual life apart from -the Church; and in the period we term the Renaissance that life was -far-reaching; there is reason therefore to question whether at a time -when authors were mostly clerics there was not some sane thinking of -which we read little or nothing. But even if such allowance be made, -the fact remains that the period of clerical supremacy in literature is -a period of enormous superstition.</p> -<p class="par">Under that term even religious people now include a -habitual belief in diabolical agency, a constant affirmation of -miracles, portents, divine and fiendish apparitions; and the Protestant -adds to the definition saint-worship, belief in the supernatural virtue -of relics, and the acceptance of the daily miracle of -transubstantiation. But even if questions of doctrine be put aside, we -may sum up that the average Christian in the Middle Ages was more -credulous as to daily prodigies, saintly and fiendish, than even the -average Catholic peasant of to-day in the more backward European -countries. Doubters and unbelievers there must always have been; but in -the medieval period it was dangerous to utter doubt, unless by way of -attack on priests and monks in circles where they were <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb225" href="#pb225" name="pb225">225</a>]</span>not -popular. Ribald doubt, besides, came off best; grave disbelief incurred -suspicion; and where men cannot speak their thought they are hindered -in their thinking. The most unseemly debates, such as that as to -whether the eucharist when eaten passed through the normal process of -digestion (“stercoranism” was the name given to the heresy -that it did), and that set up by Ratramnus as to how the impregnation -of the Virgin actually took place—such discussions could go on -freely; but more decent controversy could not. Beyond question, the -influence of clerical literature was mainly for gross credulity. The -lives of the saints in general, from Gregory I onwards, tell constantly -of a puerility of judgment which to a Periclean Greek would have been -inconceivable, and which was incompatible not only with rational -thought but with tolerable veracity. Language and the art of writing -had become means of destroying common sense. In the hands of the -hagiographers, the use of miracle so far outgoes the older tradition -that it must have finally failed to suggest anything divine—even -to a believer. To a skeptic it suggests burlesque.</p> -<p class="par">On the other hand, medieval life was in the main as much -ridden by fear of evil spirits as that of any savages of our own time; -for every people had kept the notion of their hostile sprites, and the -Christian devil was simply made the God of that kingdom. Life, too, was -shorter than moderns can well realize; so high was the normal -death-rate, so frequent was pestilence, so little understood was -disease; and the nearness of death made men either reckless or afraid. -Where ignorance and fear go hand in hand, is the realm of superstition. -Average religion was summed up in a perfectly superstitious use of the -sacraments of baptism and the eucharist; a devout hope in the -intercession and protection of the saints; an ever-present fear of the -activity of the fiend; a singularly mechanical use of formularies; an -intense anxiety to possess or benefit by holy relics, the easy -manufacture of which must have enriched myriads; a chronic fear of -sorcery; and a conception of hell and purgatory so literal that its -general failure to amend or control conduct is a revelation of the -inconsequence of average morality. It is often hard to <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb226" href="#pb226" name= -"pb226">226</a>]</span>distinguish in medieval religion between -devotional and criminal motives. In the life of the Italian St. Romuald -(tenth century) it is told that when he insisted on leaving the retreat -in Catalonia where he had won a saintly repute, the Catalans proposed -to kill him in order to possess his relics. He in turn cudgelled his -father nearly to death to make him adhere to his profession of the -religious life. Such ethical ideas expressed themselves in the monastic -caste not only in austerities but in systematic self-flagellation; and -in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries the principle -evolved the chronic movements of the Flagellants, specially so-called, -whose wild and public self-tortures neither Church nor State could put -down while the mania lasted.</p> -<p class="par">In such a world, primed by a great caste of priests, -intolerance had its ideal habitat. Aversion to innovating thought is as -natural to man as egoism; and an innovating religion is no sooner -established than it finds equilibrium in denouncing innovation. Thus, -even apart from clerical action, and apart too from the ethnic -animosity to Mohammedanism, the medieval laity, knowing nothing of the -long intellectual and sectarian struggles which have forced tolerance -on modern polity, were spontaneous persecutors of heresy save where it -appealed primarily to their anti-clerical economic interests, or -carried them away by mere contagion of physical excitement. The -Flagellants, for instance, seem positively to have hypnotized many by -their procedure, as did the partly kindred and partly contrary sect of -Dancers, who flourished in Flanders and Germany late in the fourteenth -century. It is thus credible that some were cured by incantations, -which were hypnotic with a difference. But all such eccentrics were -normally liable to cruel ill-treatment from their conforming fellows; -and it is clear that in the fourteenth century the mystical and -communistic heresies of Beghards and Beguins, male and female, were -promptly persecuted by the general laity. The religion which -categorically taught men to love their enemies never seems to have -prepared them to endure in their neighbours a difference of -doctrine.</p> -<p class="par">It is probable, too, that during the Dark Ages thousands -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb227" href="#pb227" name= -"pb227">227</a>]</span>of helpless souls were put to death as sorcerers -by mobs without process of law, apart from those executed under the old -laws against magic or divination, and the Teutonic codes of the same -order. In a similar spirit, Christian mobs in all countries and ages -had chronically wreaked a half-religious, half-economic hatred on the -Jews, of whom enormous numbers died by massacre. Here the motive was -not wholly religious, since their unfortunate specialization in -usury—albeit forced upon them by Christian -exclusiveness—had set up ill-will against the Jews in the period -of the pagan empire, and even among the Moors, who had given them -religious toleration. But Christian animus certainly counted for much, -and carried the passion to lengths rarely reached in antiquity. Thus -the common run of Christian life was grossly intolerant. It was left to -the Church as such, however, to frame for the suppression of free -thought in religion a machinery never paralleled in human history.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s3.4.2" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e685">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>The -Inquisition</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Though all the heresy hunts of the ancient Church -had implied an inquisitorial ideal, nothing in the nature of a -“Holy Office” had existed in the Church till the second -quarter of the thirteenth century. It was felt that the faithful could -as a rule be trusted to raise the cry of heresy wherever it could be -scented. Such prompt action we have seen taken in the cases of -Jovinian, Pelagius, Gottschalk, and Berengar. But in the twelfth -century the spirit of militant orthodoxy, as seen in zealots like St. -Bernard, had reached a strength which pointed to some systematic action -on the part of the now much aggrandized papacy. St. Bernard’s -attitude to Abailard is that of the true Inquisitor: he suspects, to -begin with, the accursed spirit of independent thought, and he is -straightway determined to make an example of the upstart who dares to -reason on all doctrines for himself. But even St. Bernard, eager as he -was for the blood of Moslems, could hardly have anticipated the spirit -in which the papacy acted from the Albigensian crusade onwards. -Coincident with that crusade was the digging up of Amalrich’s -bones, the burning of his <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb228" href= -"#pb228" name="pb228">228</a>]</span>followers, and the veto on the -study of Aristotle at Paris. Intolerance had entered on a new era.</p> -<p class="par">The first steps towards a systematic and centralized -Inquisition were taken about 1178, when, under Pope Alexander III, the -Church began moving against the “Manichean” heretics of -Languedoc. A papal legate at that time forced from the Count of -Toulouse and his nobles a promise on oath to resist heresy; and in a -council of the following year orthodox princes in general were invited -to use force for the purpose. The pope proceeded not only to -excommunicate the heretics and their backers but to declare, in the -fashion already consecrated by the Crusades, that no one need keep -faith with them; further offering indulgences for two years to all who -should make war on them, and calling on their lords to reduce them to -slavery. As a result, a crusade was made in 1181, so little marked by -bloodshed as to be insignificant in comparison with those of the next -generation, but sufficient to force an abjuration of heresy from the -lords concerned. Thereafter, in 1184, a Council held at Verona -prescribed with a new precision and emphasis a systematic search for -heresy by all bishops, and called upon the nobles to lend their support -in the way of the necessary violence. Innocent III had thus had the way -marked out for him, alike in suppression and in prevention; and the -Inquisition as such dates from the close of his crusade against the -Albigenses, when Pope Gregory IX took from the bishops the business of -heresy-hunting and made it a special task of the Dominican order -(1233). After “Manichæism” had been stamped out there -was a lull in persecution as in heresy; but the institution remained, -to prevent new growths.</p> -<p class="par">The broad outcome of its work was that whereas the -twelfth century had been one of intellectual dawn, and the thirteenth, -despite its murderous beginning, one of diffusion of light, the -fourteenth was on the whole one of stationary knowledge, save in Italy -itself, where the growing energies of the Renaissance for the time -eluded repression. Indeed the Church cared little about mere unbelief, -as distinct from anti-clerical heresy, where its political rule was not -thereby <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb229" href="#pb229" name= -"pb229">229</a>]</span>affected; and in Italy, when anti-clericalism -was once put down, its wealth made it secure. Even in Italy the -literary life of the fourteenth century was rather artistic than -intellectual, science and serious thought making little progress; while -in northern Europe they were visibly arrested. It was in the outlying -States, where heresy might mean a cessation of papal revenue, that the -Dominicans were specially hounded on to their work. In England, in the -latter part of the thirteenth century, the great spirit of Roger Bacon -was cabined and confined by inquisitorial enmities; and in France in -the fourteenth there was a signal suspension of intellectual life, in -the face of the activities of original thinkers such as William of -Occam. The throttling of the civilization of the south had reacted on -the north. Doubtless the desperate wars to which crusading experience -had given a new incitement counted for much, and the constant political -intrigues of the papacy for more, in arresting mental growth. -“When a city for any political proceeding had given offence to -its political head, emperor or king, or had irritated a Roman bishop by -opposition, the usual punishment, by command or interdict, was to -inhibit its professors from teaching, and to disperse its -scholars.” All the political causes wrought together for the -hindrance of human advancement. The immense destruction of population -by the Black Death, finally, was a great incitement to -superstition.</p> -<p class="par">The main effect of the Inquisition is seen in Spain, -which in the Saracen period had been one of the great sources of new -thought and knowledge. There, despite the element of intellectual -curiosity set up in the period of Moorish supremacy, when the -Christians were in general treated with tolerance, the spirit of -fanaticism was in some measure ingrained by the long struggle between -Christians and Moslems for the land, though there were also contrary -developments; and an inquisitorial war on Jewish and Moorish ideas was -part of the Christian campaign. As the Christians gained ground, -ecclesiasticism gained with them; yet when the Inquisition, not yet a -permanent Spanish tribunal, was set up in Spain in 1236, it was -received by a large part of the population with <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb230" href="#pb230" name="pb230">230</a>]</span>fear -and dislike. It is an error to suppose that there was something in -“Spanish character” specially prone to the methods of the -Inquisition. Spanish orthodoxy is a manufactured product, and -represents the triumph, under special conditions, of the fanatical -element which belongs to every nation. Not only did many eminent -Spaniards detest and denounce the Inquisition in its first and -imperfectly destructive form: the common people rioted against it when, -in its permanent and more murderous form, it was constituted in -1478–83, and put under Torquemada. That memorable persecutor long -felt his life to be in danger from the people, both in Aragon and in -Castile; and the first inquisitor-general of Aragon was actually killed -by them.</p> -<p class="par">Yet even the “ancient” Inquisition had been -fatally successful. In the two centuries from its establishment, while -Averroism was rife in Italy and France, Christian Spain must have been -well nigh rid of the other forms of heretical thought; and the first -step of Ferdinand and Isabella after their crowning triumph was to -expel all Jews who would not apostatize. On the remaining Moors the New -Inquisition went to work in a similar spirit, persecuting them, -baptizing them by force, burning their books, and driving them -repeatedly to revolts, which were always murderously put down. Finally, -after the failure of the great Armada against England, the Inquisitors -decided that the cause of the divine wrath was their undue toleration -of heresy, and a million of nonconforming Moriscoes were miserably -driven out of Spain, as a hundred and sixty thousand Jews had been a -century before.</p> -<p class="par">As all civilization lives by the play of intellectual -variation, Spain was now stripped of a large part of her mental as well -as her material resources; and the continued work of the Inquisition at -length clinched the arrest of her brilliant literature for centuries, -keeping her devoid of science while the rest of Europe was gathering -it. In introducing the Inquisition the Church had destroyed the -specific civilization of southern France, thereby laming that of -northern France; and in thereafter applying the machine to the -civilization of Spain she reduced that to inanition. <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb231" href="#pb231" name="pb231">231</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">It should be remembered that the Inquisition’s -purpose was to destroy books no less than men; and until printing -overpowered the effort, the check thus put on the spread of rational -thought bade fair to be fatal. In a single <i>auto-da-fé</i> -(“act of faith”) at Salamanca, near the end of the -fifteenth century, six thousand volumes were burned, on the pretence -that they contained Judaic errors, or were concerned with magic and -witchcraft. It is certain that many of them were of another character. -Elsewhere the work of destruction was less ostentatiously done, but it -was constant.</p> -<p class="par">In the matter of torture and slaughter, however, the -work of the Inquisition has become a proverb; and after all corrections -have been made on the earlier estimates by Llorente and other -historians, the figures remain frightful. In “a few years” -the New Inquisition burned alive, in Castile alone, nearly two thousand -persons, and variously penalized some twenty thousand more. At this -rate, many thousands must have been burned in a generation; and the -statement that nearly two hundred thousand passed through the Spanish -Inquisition’s hands in thirty-six years is sadly credible. Its -methods were the negation of every principle of justice. Any evidence, -including that of criminals, children, and even idiots, was valid -against an accused person, while only that of the most unimpeachable -kind was heard in his favour; all proceedings were strictly private; -false informers were almost never punished; and the general principle -was that anyone who was tried must be somehow guilty, the Inquisition -being like the pope infallible. Thus, if a man could not be convicted -of real heresy, he could be punished for an error in the repetition of -a prayer or a creed. But the torture-chamber can seldom have failed to -yield whatever proof was sought for. No such reign of terror and horror -has occurred in any other period of European history; and only in the -practices of witch-finders among savages can its systematic atrocity be -anywhere paralleled.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s3.4.3" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e695">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Classic -Survivals and Saracen Contacts</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Ancient literature, as we have seen, was nearing -its nadir <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb232" href="#pb232" name= -"pb232">232</a>]</span>when Christianity was becoming supreme in the -decadent Roman Empire; and with the formal extinction of classic -paganism came the virtual extinction of fine letters, science, and -philosophy, in the Byzantine State no less than in the West. The last -Christian writers of any philosophic importance were really products of -classic culture and the ancient civilization. When that civilization -had been outwardly transformed to a Christian guise, the mental life -shrank to the field of theology, with a few fenced and meagre plots of -scholastic drilling-ground. Of the decayed discipline of ancient -culture Christian civilization preserved only the most mechanical -formulas; and the mental training of the Dark Ages consisted in a few -handbooks (notably those by Martianus Capella and Cassiodorus) of what -was then encyclopedic knowledge—the rules of Latin grammar, -dialectics or elementary logic, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, elementary -geometry, and some traditional astronomy. The first three constituted -the trivium or introductory course in the medieval schools; the others -the quadrivium: together “the seven liberal arts.” The -larger Encyclopedia of Isidore of Seville, the standard authority for -centuries, is as mechanical, as devoid of living thought, as empty of -scientific knowledge, as any of the others. In the way of literature, -there was left to most Westerns little beyond a few of the later Latin -writers, such as Boethius, who could pass muster as being Christians. -Gregory the Great had set the note of theological anathema against the -pagan poets and philosophers; and classic history survived only in bad -abstracts.</p> -<p class="par">Wherever in the Dark Ages we meet with any power of -thought, it is to be traced either to the influence of Saracen contacts -or, as in John Scotus, to the Greek scholarship that had been preserved -in Ireland while the western empire was being dissolved in barbarism. -The English Alcuin, who had loyally aided Charlemagne in his efforts to -spread education in the new “Holy Roman” empire, got his -culture in an atmosphere where that influence had partly survived. -Beyond this, the Latin world had preserved from the past, in the law -schools which never wholly died out in Italy, a professional knowledge -of the Justinian code, which the Lombards and Franks had <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb233" href="#pb233" name= -"pb233">233</a>]</span>allowed to subsist for those who claimed to be -judged by it, and which remained the proper law of the papal territory -after Charlemagne. In the sphere of such special knowledge, though it -was strictly monopolized, there was doubtless an intellectual life -largely independent of religion; and there some classical culture -probably always flourished.</p> -<p class="par">The first effectual movements of new mental life, -however, come from contact with the Saracens of Spain. While the -Byzantine world let the treasures of old Greek knowledge fall from its -hands, the Mohammedans in the East early acquired, at first through the -Nestorian Christians, some knowledge of Aristotle and of Greek -mathematics, medicine, and astronomy; and this in the progressive -Saracen period was passed on to the Moors of Spain. Thence came into -the Latin world the beginnings of science, as anciently known, with the -beginnings of chemistry, an Arab creation. After the period of John -Scotus, all culture had for centuries decayed: the few who cared to -read were monks, taught to hold pagan lore in horror; so that at the -end of the ninth century even such schooling as the trivium and -quadrivium was rare in what had been the realm of Charlemagne; and the -later manuals, such as that of St. Remi, were even more puerile than -the older. Only from new culture-contacts could new culture arise.</p> -<p class="par">One of the most fruitful impulses to such life was the -introduction, late in the tenth century, by Gerbert, afterwards Pope -Sylvester II, of an intermediate form of the Arabic notation, making -possible the decimal method. Gerbert had acquired in his youthful -sojourn on the Spanish march—not among the Moors, as the -tradition has it—some knowledge of Arab mathematics and of the -logic of Aristotle; and where his predecessors in the cathedral school -at Rheims had for the most part shunned the Latin classics, he used -them freely in teaching rhetoric. But the impulse he gave to the -science of number, so vital alike for astronomy and for chemistry, was -his greatest practical service. Those who used his method of -calculating were called Gerbertists; and in that still dark age even -such knowledge as his gave rise to the belief that he had dealings with -the devil. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb234" href="#pb234" name= -"pb234">234</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">The new life was slow to take root; and when in the -eleventh century the English monk Adelhard translated from the Arabic, -which he had learned in his travels in Spain and Egypt, the Elements of -Euclid, he found little welcome for it. Not till a century later did a -fresh translation of Euclid from the Arabic, by Campanus, make its way -in the schools. Algebra came from the same source, through a travelling -merchant of Pisa, about the beginning of the thirteenth century. -Thenceforth the infant sciences of physics held their ground, and from -those beginnings became possible the lore of Roger Bacon. A genuine -scientific spirit indeed was slow to grow; the ideals and ethics of -religion had almost atrophied among Christians the instinct for simple -truth; but the passion for astrology promoted astronomy, and the -passion for gold promoted chemistry, all its practitioners hoping for -the philosopher’s stone, which should transmute lead into gold. -Always it is from the Arabs that the impulse comes. Under the emperor -Frederick II, who in his Sicilian seat gave free course to Saracen -culture and thought, was first translated from the Arabic the Greek -Ptolemy’s great work on astronomy; and for Alphonso X of Castile, -by Moorish means, were compiled new astronomical tables. From the -Arabs, too, came trigonometry, which even for the Greeks had not been a -separate science; and only in the fifteenth century did Müller of -Königsberg (“Regiomontanus”), who perfected the -decimal notation, first give it new developments.</p> -<p class="par">New philosophic thought came by the same paths. Between -the philosophy of the Arab Averroës, with its Aristotelian basis -and its lead to pantheism and materialism on the one hand, and the -moral reaction set up by the Crusades on the other, the bases of -Christian orthodoxy were shaken. The legend that Frederick II wrote a -treatise entitled <i>The Three Impostors</i>, dealing with Moses, -Jesus, and Mohammed, is a fable; there was probably no such book in the -Middle Ages, for it would have meant death at the hands of the -Inquisition to possess it; but the very phrase showed what men had -become capable of thinking and saying.</p> -<p class="par">As the Renaissance proceeded in Italy in the teeth of -the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb235" href="#pb235" name= -"pb235">235</a>]</span>strifes which ultimately destroyed Italian -liberty, men turned with all the zest of new intelligence to the -remains of Latin literature. Virgil had become for the Middle Ages a -beneficent magician, a kind of classic Merlin, and as such he is framed -by Dante in his great poem of the other world. Religion in Italy had -been brought into something like contempt by the lives and deeds of its -ministers; and only in the literature of civilized antiquity could -intellectual men find at once stimulus and satisfaction. It is to be -said for the popes and cardinals of Rome, now among the wealthiest -princes of Christendom, that they too promoted the revival of learning -by their rewards. On their urging, scholars retrieved classics from the -garrets and cellars of a hundred monasteries, or from the scrolls from -which they had been partly obliterated to make way for a theology that -the scholars despised. Popes and cardinals themselves, indeed, were -commonly held in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to care little -about theology and to know less—a state of things which -ultimately aided their heretical adversaries, as did the scholarship -they helped to spread.</p> -<p class="par">With the fall of Constantinople came the final decisive -impulse to new culture in western Europe. Ecclesiastical hates, and -those aroused by the crusading conquest of Byzantium, had for centuries -sundered the Greek and Latin worlds more completely than even those of -Christian Europe and Islam, setting up a Chinese wall where paganism, -albeit by fatal means, had effected mutual intercourse. But on the -capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1452 numbers of despairing -Greek scholars sought refuge in the West, and were eagerly welcomed by -students who desired Greek, not to acquire the theology of the -Byzantines, but to read in the original the great pagan masters. -Thenceforth the forces of culture in Europe became too strong for the -forces of repression. It was thus by a return to the thought and -science of buried paganism that Christian civilization so-called was -put on a progressive footing. So long as Aristotle, known through Latin -translations made from the Arabic, was a university text-book for -students of theology under ecclesiastical supervision, he was but a -modified instrument of dogmatism; and <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb236" href="#pb236" name="pb236">236</a>]</span>his limitations were -made the measure of knowledge even as the Bible had been. With the free -return to the recovered lore of free Greece came a new spirit of -freedom, destined to break down the reign of all dogmatisms, and to -build up a lore of its own.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s3.4.4" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e705">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 4.</span> <i>Religion and -Art</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">On one line, happily, the Church of the -Renaissance was able to do a service to civilization while following -its own ends. Among the apophthegms which stand critical tests is that -to the effect that art has always been the handmaid of religion. So -true is it that even Protestant Christianity, which at its start set -its face against all pictorial expression of religious ideas, is in our -own time visibly much indebted to art for the preservation and -cultivation of religious sentiment.</p> -<p class="par">In antiquity, save in the anti-idolatrous cults, -religion had been the great patron of imitative art, inasmuch as it -made the most constant economic demand for sculptures and paintings. -This law held good from Hindostan to Rome; and even Judaism and -Mazdeism had perforce to subsidize architecture. That common need for -splendid temples preserved architectural ideals in Byzantium when the -art of the higher sculpture had utterly disappeared; and as the loss of -skill in sculpture, no less than the old aversion to statues as symbols -of paganism, prevented activity on that line, the Byzantines devoted -themselves to the carving and painting of wooden icons, and to mosaics, -pictures, and manuscript illuminations, for religious purposes. The -results were constrained and unprogressive; but hence, in the Dark -Ages, and during the short-lived Latin empire of Constantinople, came -the models for the first pictorial art of Italy; and from that -beginning, under the economic encouragement given by a priesthood whose -wealth was always increasing, and whose churches and palaces constantly -gained in splendour, came the immense artistic flowering of the -Renaissance. After the Reformation had cut off half the sources of -Italian ecclesiastical wealth, and Spanish rule had begun to ruin -industry, the artistic life of Italy rapidly died away; even as in -Protestant Holland, where the economic <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb237" href="#pb237" name="pb237">237</a>]</span>demand was -non-clerical, coming mainly from a wealthy trading class who sought -portraits and secular pictures, there was a rapid decline from the -period of political and economic contraction.</p> -<p class="par">It needed, however, the conditions of free civic life, -such as prevailed in the earlier part of the Renaissance, to raise -ecclesiastical art from the bondage of convention in which it had been -kept by the Byzantine Church, as by the priesthood of ancient Egypt. It -was the multiform intellectual competition of the Italian States in -their period of free growth, and even under their native despots, that -bred artistic spirits such as those who perpetually widened the bounds -of the arts of colour and form, from Giotto to Michel Angelo and -Titian.</p> -<p class="par">Under equivalent conditions took place the great -evolution of architectural art in France and northern Europe. It was -mainly the economic demand of the Church that evolved the admirable -architecture called “Gothic”—a misnomer first applied -by the later artificial taste which could see beauty only in classical -symmetry, and disdained the wild grace and power of the medieval -architecture as mere barbarism. It was really a special development of -artistic faculty. Modern fancy has ascribed to the guilds of -cathedral-builders on the one hand a passion for occult lore, supposed -to be the source of the modern mummery of “Freemasonry,” -and on the other hand a deep religious feeling, of which the cathedral -is supposed to be the expression. How far this is from the truth may be -gathered from a closer study of their sculptures in many of the older -cathedrals and churches, which reveal not only a riotous irreverence -and indecency, but at times a positive derision for the faith. -Nonetheless, organized Christianity had, by its demand for their work, -provided a wonderful artistic environment for a cult which could no -more than those of antiquity evolve a humanity worthy of beautiful -things. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb238" href="#pb238" name= -"pb238">238</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter V</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">BYZANTINE CHRISTIANITY</h2> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The history of Christian Byzantium, from the rise -of Islam to the fall of Constantinople, is the typical instance of -mental stagnation. During a period of eight hundred years, even -friendly research professes to discover in Byzantine annals only one -writer’s name per century which posterity can be expected to keep -in memory. Such a history is the complete confutation of the common -theory that Christianity is in itself a force of progress; but once -more we must take note that Christianity was not the determining cause -of the arrest. Civilization progresses by the contact of cultures; and -where that is lacking the results are the same under all religious -systems. Byzantium presents the symptoms of China, because, like China, -it was politically and intellectually isolated for a whole era, under a -centralized government which imposed certain norms of life and -doctrine, and prevented the variation and mutual reaction that would -otherwise have arisen between its provinces. Only inasmuch as it -promoted and consecrated such a system was Christianity a primary -factor in the resulting arrest of growth. As a matter of fact, it lent -itself alternately to division and to petrifaction. In the period to -the end of the seventh century, dogma was a source of strife which -dismembered the empire; in the period of contracted empire, face to -face with the Moslem enemy, religious feeling tended to prevent further -disruption, very much as the Church had been unified in the pagan -period by persecution.</p> -<p class="par">Within the contracted empire, however, there was no -durable progress. Its condensed annals give a picture which even the -barbarian West could not outgo. In the period from 668 to 716 seven -emperors were dethroned, four of them were put to death, one (while -drunk) had his eyes put out, and two <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb239" href="#pb239" name="pb239">239</a>]</span>more, in addition to -two brothers of emperors, had their noses cut off—punishments -which in Byzantium became classical. Under Christianity there was -certainly more cruelty and demoralization than under early Islam. The -Caliph Aboubekr had given to his followers those injunctions: “Be -just: the unjust never prosper. Be valiant: die rather than yield. Be -merciful: slay neither old men, children, nor women. Destroy neither -fruit-trees, grain, nor cattle. Keep your word, even to your -enemies.” Only those who refused either to become Moslems or to -pay tribute were to be slain. In that spirit the Caliph Moawyah rebuilt -their Church for the Christians of Edessa. Fifty years later, Justinian -II invaded Armenia, and on driving out the Saracens seized and sold as -slaves the majority of the Christian inhabitants, reducing the richest -parts of the country to desert. And when, after he had been dethroned, -deprived of his nose, and exiled for ten years, he returned to triumph -over his enemies, the Greek populace applauded him with Biblical -quotations as he sat in the circus with his feet on his rivals’ -necks.</p> -<p class="par">The advent of Leo the Isaurian (716) marks an epoch in -Byzantine history. Acting as head of the Church, the established -function of the eastern emperors, he set himself to check idolatry, -first by ordering that the pictures in the churches should be placed -high enough to prevent the people from kissing them. On this issue the -populace and the lower clergy united against him, to the length of -rebellion; and he in turn made his edicts more stringent. Whatever may -have been his motives, he acted on principles afterwards founded on by -Protestantism; and during a century and a half—save for a relapse -from 787 to 813, in which the government was sometimes tyrannically -orthodox and sometimes tolerant—his views were more or less fully -maintained by succeeding rulers. It is interesting to note that, as -repeatedly happened centuries later in the West, a long period of -religious strife through the whole State created a party in favour of -complete tolerance and liberty of conscience. But though they so far -gained ground as to convert the emperor Nicephorus I (802–811), -who employed some of them in his ministry, and treated both Paulician -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb240" href="#pb240" name= -"pb240">240</a>]</span>heretics and rebels with unusual tolerance, -there was no such intellectual life in Byzantium as could long sustain -a tolerant policy. It is a miscalculation to suppose, as some do, that -the triumph of iconoclasm would have meant the regeneration of the -empire. To work regeneration there were needed further forces of -variation, since Islam stagnated without image-worship as Byzantium did -with it.</p> -<p class="par">Leo the Armenian (813–820), who was averse to -image-worship but desirous of keeping the peace, was forced by the zeal -of the iconoclastic party and the obstinacy of the orthodox to resume -an iconoclastic policy. Under such circumstances numbers of the clergy -became temporizers, leaving to the monks the fanatical defence of -images; and as Leo himself was capable, with the approbation of both -parties, of an act of the grossest treachery toward his enemy the king -of the Bulgarians, it is clear that neither iconoclasm nor -image-worship was raising the plane of morals. Significantly enough, it -was at the beginning of the reign of Michael the Drunkard -(842–867), who was professedly orthodox, but openly burlesqued -the ceremonies of the Church, that image-worship was definitely -restored under the regency of his fanatical mother, Theodora. The great -majority were weary of the strife, and many of the iconoclasts had come -to the conclusion that relative sanity in religion was not worth -fighting for. For the rest, Michael was finally assassinated, as Leo -the Armenian had been before him.</p> -<p class="par">It was at this period that Photius, the most learned man -of the Dark Ages, became Patriarch of Constantinople, in the teeth of -the opposition of the pope of Rome, who after the formal restoration of -image-worship had been appealed to, as a champion of orthodoxy, for the -decision of some official disputes in the Eastern Church. After his -position was assured, Photius effectually fought the Roman claims, -completing the schism between the Churches; and in his own sphere he -did much for the preservation of learning, and even something for the -cultivation of judgment. In theology, it is admitted by one of another -school, “he made use of his own reason and sagacity”; and -he is notable, in his period and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb241" -href="#pb241" name="pb241">241</a>]</span>place, for having reached the -idea that earthquakes might not be divine portents. But Photius is the -high-water mark of Byzantine intelligence; and no man of equal capacity -and culture seems to have arisen during the six remaining centuries of -the eastern empire.</p> -<p class="par">It is impossible, indeed, to say whether there was not -in Byzantium, behind the official scenes, a higher intellectual life. -It was from Michael II (“the Stammerer”) that Louis the son -of Charlemagne received (824) the copy of the writings of Dionysius -“the Areopagite,” from which was made the first Latin -translation; and as this writer had a great influence on John Scotus, -who may even have acquired his first knowledge of him from that very -copy, which he translated afresh, it may be that in Greece also, where -Dionysius was much admired and studied among the monks, there were deep -thinkers whom he stimulated. But whereas even Scotus could reach few in -the West, any higher thought there may have been in the East remained -entirely latent. Learning fared better. After Photius, the East -produced for posterity the important Lexicon of Suidas, which -apparently belongs to the tenth century; and in the twelfth Eustathius -of Thessalonica produced his valuable commentary on Homer. But the -populace in the East was as ignorant and superstitious as that of the -West; and the system of caste occupations or hereditary pursuits made -eastern learning even a less communicable influence than western.</p> -<p class="par">In the political life there were fluctuations; and -though in all ages alike there were dethronements, assassinations, and -mutilations of emperors and of their suspected relatives, the time of -the Basilian dynasty (867–1057) was one of relative stability, -with even some military glory, and temporary recovery or expansion of -territory, as against Saracens and Bulgarians. Still the sum-total of -each century’s life was practically stagnation. Under emperors, -empresses, or eunuchs, the administration was substantially the same. -Alien elements, which might under other conditions have generated new -life, had entered the empire with the Slavonians, whose race, after -occupying Dalmatia and Illyricum at the <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb242" href="#pb242" name="pb242">242</a>]</span>wish of Heraclius in -the seventh century, flourished and multiplied, and invaded the -Peloponnesus early in the ninth. The later iconoclastic emperors were -vigorous enough to bring them to submission; but Roman imperialism and -Christian ecclesiasticism between them undid all progressive -influences, just as the policy of militarism and fanaticism finally did -among the Saracens.</p> -<p class="par">The attempts at change, indeed, were many. Conspiracies -were chronic; and when one failed the conspirators were blinded -according to Byzantine rule: emperors on the other hand were often -unmade; but the political machinery remained the same. In the period to -Heraclius, the ruling class at Constantinople were mainly of Roman -stock; under the Iconoclastic emperors, who were Asiatics, it was -mainly Asiatic; later it became substantially Greek, as each party -drove out the other; but all alike maintained the old imperial ideals. -“Men of every rank,” says the historian Finlay, “were -confined within a restricted circle, and compelled to act in one -unvarying manner. Within the imperial palace the incessant ceremonial -was regarded as the highest branch of human knowledge.... Among the -people at large, though the curial system of castes had been broken -down, still the trader was fettered to his corporation, and often to -his quarter or street ... amidst men of the same profession.... No -learning, no talent, and no virtue could conduct either to distinction -or wealth, unless exercised according to the fixed formulas that -governed the State and the Church. Hence even the merchant, who -travelled over all Asia, and who supported the system by the immense -duties that he furnished to the government, supplied no new ideas to -society, and perhaps passed through life without acquiring -any.”</p> -<p class="par">Yet such is the strength of the biological force of -variation that even in religion there was chronic heresy. We have seen, -in tracing the history of western belief in the eleventh and twelfth -centuries, how a strenuous anti-clerical heresy, the Paulician, had -arisen and thriven in the East, defying the bloodiest persecution, and -developing in the old fashion into a force of hostility to the empire. -After that heresy had been <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb243" href= -"#pb243" name="pb243">243</a>]</span>thus fatally expelled, others -arose. In the twelfth century, under the theological emperor Manuel -Comnenus, there was a return to the inexhaustible problem of the -incarnation: men disputed as to how God could at the same time be a -sacrifice and the offerer thereof; and the emperor himself, convicted -of heresy, came round to the orthodox view, whatever it was. Soon the -dispute took a new form, over the awkward text “My Father is -greater than I”; and the emperor gave an orthodox decision which -he engraved on tables of stone for the great Church, denouncing death -on all who taught otherwise. As usual, the dispute was not settled, and -the later emperor Andronicus was fain to take down the tablets and -forbid all discussion on the subject. All the while anti-clerical and -anti-ceremonial heresy persisted; and the burning alive of the monk -Basil, founder of the Gnostic Bogomiles, did not mend matters. The -brutal sack and pillage of Constantinople by the Latin crusaders, and -the generation of western tyranny that followed, did much to unify the -Greek people of the thirteenth century in a common hatred of their -masters, whom they at length cast out; but this, again, meant no new -intellectual life. To the last there was a sufficiency of static Greek -scholarship to preserve much of the ancient heritage for the time when -the Turks should scatter it through the West; but no Byzantine name -belongs to the roll of light-givers in the age of the Renaissance.</p> -<p class="par">If we search for the bearing of religion on the popular -life during the thousand years of the eastern empire, the conclusion -will remain very much the same as that reached by a study of the -conditions of the first centuries of established Christianity. -Boundless credulity, boundless superstition, and zealous idolatry are -the standing features from the seventh century onwards. Conduct was -substantially what it had been in pagan times; and whatever might be -the legal status of those born in slavery, the myriads of captives -enslaved in every successful war can have had no better lot than those -of the ancient world. Doubtless the lot of the Byzantine people in the -mass was better than that of the westerns of the Dark Ages insofar as -they were artisans living <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb244" href= -"#pb244" name="pb244">244</a>]</span>under a regular government; but in -the rural districts and outlying regions they can have fared no better, -either in peace or war. When the Saracens wrested Crete and Sicily from -Byzantium early in the ninth century, the majority of the inhabitants -seem to have been little loth to turn Moslems. “In almost every -case in which the Saracens conquered Christian nations,” says the -Christian historian already quoted, “history unfortunately -reveals that they owed their success chiefly to the favour with which -their progress was regarded by the mass of the people. To the disgrace -of most Christian governments, it will be found that their -administration was more oppressive than that of the Arabian -conquerors.” We have already seen that both the Arabs and the -Mongols, as apart from the Turks, were by far the more tolerant. When -the Byzantine empire recovered Crete in the tenth century, its rulers -planned to exterminate the Saracen population; and though the purpose -was not carried out, the Saracens who remained were reduced to virtual -serfdom.</p> -<p class="par">Of the moral and intellectual unprogressiveness of -Byzantium we may say, finally, that the Christian State, like those of -the Saracens and the Turks, was in large measure kept stationary -precisely by the relation of constant strife set up by the existence of -the enemy. Each was the curse of its antagonist. And Christianity did -no more to raise men above that deadlock of enmity than did Islam; nay, -the further factor of Byzantine isolation represented by the rupture -between the Greek and Latin Churches was a special product of the -Christian system. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb245" href="#pb245" -name="pb245">245</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div0 part"> -<h2 class="label">PART IV</h2> -<h2 class="main">MODERN CHRISTIANITY</h2> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter I</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">THE REFORMATION</h2> -<div id="s4.1.1" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e736">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Moral and -Intellectual Forces</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">As early as the eleventh century we have seen at -work in both eastern and western Europe movements of popular resistance -at once to the religious claims and the financial methods of the -Christian priesthood, to the dogmas on which those claims and methods -proceeded, and to the ceremonialism which backed them. Early in the -thirteenth century the region in which such heresy had most largely -spread was systematically warred upon by armies called out by the -Church, and there the movement was destroyed by many years of -bloodshed, the once heretical territory becoming a centre of orthodox -fanaticism. The scattered seeds, however, bore fresh fruit, and in the -fourteenth century movements of thought, some of which were no less -deeply heretical, and many no less anti-hierarchical, went far in the -west and north of Europe. Still they failed to effect any revolution; -and in the middle of the fifteenth century the Church of Rome, corrupt -as its rulers were, might have seemed to calculating observers more -surely established than ever before. It had passed through a long and -scandalous series of papal schisms, and its power seemed strengthened -by reunion after a century and a half of divisions.</p> -<p class="par">Heretical forces of course there were, several of the -leading sects of the fourteenth century being still active, especially -in <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb246" href="#pb246" name= -"pb246">246</a>]</span>Germany and the Low Countries. Thus the Brethren -and Sisters of the Free Spirit, who leant to pantheism in doctrine and -to some degree of antinomianism in practice, persisted in spite of -persecution, as did the kindred movements of Beghards or Turlupins; -members of these and similar sects even found shelter in the lower -orders of the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians; and in Italy -and France the heretical Franciscan Fraticelli still obstinately fought -the papacy, which followed them up with fire and sword. But there are -no signs that the papacy had thus far been shaken; and more than one -anti-clerical movement had died out. Thus in England Lollardry had -virtually disappeared in the reign of Henry VI; and in Bohemia, where -the Wiclifian John Huss in the opening years of the century had -preached vehemently against clerical and papal abuses, not only had he -been burned alive on the sentence of the Council of Constance (1415), -in iniquitous disregard of the emperor’s letter of safe-conduct, -but his followers, after long and savage wars in which great numbers -were burned alive and they themselves broke up into two sections, had -finally been either reconciled to the Church or reduced to peaceful -nonconformity.</p> -<p class="par">Nowhere could the anti-papal spirit be said to be -dangerously strong; nor was it much regarded by the popes. A little -earlier than Huss, Matthew of Cracow, Bishop of Worms, had written -“On the Pollutions (<i>de squaloribus</i>) of the Roman -Curia,” but he was never molested. It does not seem, further, -that the cause of the cruel sentence on Huss was so much his attacks on -the clergy or the papacy as the enmities he had aroused (1) in what -passed for philosophy (he being a zealous “Realist,” and as -such hated by the “Nominalists,”<a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e3507src" href="#xd21e3507" name="xd21e3507src">1</a> <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb247" href="#pb247" name="pb247">247</a>]</span>who -were strong in the Council) and (2) on the side of nationality, he -being a Czech nationalist and a vehement enemy of the German race and -interest, which also were present in force. And though the cruelty and -the gross treachery of the sentence on Huss, and the infliction of the -same cruel death on Jerome of Prague in the following year, roused a -furious revolt among the Hussites, these outrages awoke no general -sympathy in Europe.</p> -<p class="par">As the fifteenth century wore on, fresh movements of -anti-papal feeling rose, and some were put down. A professor of -theology at the university of Erfurt, John of Wesel (not to be -confounded with John Wessel, also a critical reformer in theology, but -never persecuted), began about the middle of the century to write -against indulgences; and when he became a popular preacher at Mayence -and Worms he carried his criticism further. The result was that in 1479 -he was arraigned before a “court of Inquisition” at Mayence -and cast into prison, where he soon died. Wesel was a Nominalist, and -as such was no less hated by the Realists than Huss had been by the -Nominalists; but since he was also denounced as a Hussite, and was -further an extremely free-tongued assailant of the hierarchy, there is -reason in his case to suppose a professional animus. Still there was no -formidable movement. Before John of Wesel, the Netherlander John of -Goch, Confessor to the Nuns of Tabor (d. 1475), had opposed both -monasticism and episcopal power; but he was associated with the -orthodox Brethren of the Common Lot, and had criticized the antinomian -morals of the Brethren of the Free Spirit, so that he hardly figured as -a heretic. John Wessel, again (d. 1489), anticipated, as Luther -declared, most of the latter’s doctrines; but though he wandered -in France and Italy, studied and taught at Paris, and was a professor -at Heidelberg, exercising a wide influence, he never roused enmity -enough to bring him into trouble. On the other hand, Savonarola’s -strong dissentient movement at Florence, as we have already noted, fell -with him in 1498.</p> -<p class="par">All the while, nevertheless, there was proceeding an -intellectual process which had not before been possible—a -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb248" href="#pb248" name= -"pb248">248</a>]</span>permeation of the northern part of the -continent, especially Germany, by a spirit of comparatively orthodox -anti-Romanism, based on a growing scholarship, which found in the -sacred books themselves a basis for its course. The scholarly impulse -had come from Italy, where it had been fostered by the papacy itself; -but in the north it had a different social and political effect. In -Germany and the Netherlands, to begin with, elementary education was -gaining ground. The Brethren of the Common Lot had done much for it, -and many of their pupils started fresh schools, which weakened the -first, but carried further their work. At the same time sprang up new -universities; those of Tübingen, Mayence, Wittemberg, and -Frankfort-on-the-Oder being founded between 1477 and 1506. In the -higher Biblical scholarship, further, there had begun a new era. -Laurentius Valla’s <i>Notes on the New Testament</i> created a -spirit of scholarlike criticism; and John Reuchlin, after a training in -France, began in Germany an equally vigorous movement of Hebrew -scholarship by producing the first Hebrew grammar. Numbers of educated -men were now in a position of intellectual superiority to the great -mass of the clergy; and all the while the process of translating the -New Testament or the gospels into the modern languages for the use of -the unlearned was going on in all the more civilized countries. There -were German translations before Luther; Wiclif’s versions had -been current in England among the Lollards; and French and Italian -versions had been made by several hands in the fifteenth century. The -important result was that anti-clerical heresy began to claim to be the -stricter orthodoxy, and the Church could no longer bracket the sin of -anti-clericalism with that of rejecting the leading Christian dogmas. -Thus, when Erasmus of Rotterdam began with a new and remarkable -literary skill to write Latin satires on the old text of the vices and -ignorance of the monks and other clergy, he had such an audience as no -man had yet had on that theme. In Petrarch’s day, a century -before, though he too had exclaimed like every other educated layman at -the corruption of the papal court and system, humanist literature was -still largely a matter of exquisite art for art’s <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb249" href="#pb249" name= -"pb249">249</a>]</span>sake; in that of Erasmus it had begun to handle -the most vital intellectual and moral interests.</p> -<p class="par">Yet, though such an intellectual ferment was a condition -precedent of the Reformation, it was not the proximate cause of the -explosion. The doctrinal movement is seen at its strongest after -Luther’s disruptive work had been done, in the allied movement -set up in France by Calvinism. More perhaps than in Geneva itself, the -Huguenot cause in France was one of moral and intellectual revolt, -certainly fanatical but in large measure disinterested. What -precipitated the Reformation in Germany was the coalition of the -decisive economic interest of the self-seeking nobles, and the -anti-Roman national sentiment of the people, with the moral and -doctrinal appeal of Luther.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s4.1.2" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e746">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>Political and -Economic Forces</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Even the grievance of indulgence-selling, which -gave the immediate impulse to Luther’s action, was an economic as -well as a moral question. Many of the best Catholics were entirely at -one with him and such of his predecessors as Wesel and Wessel in -deploring and denouncing the form the traffic had taken. The process of -farming out the sale of indulgences to districts, as governments farmed -out the taxes, was enough to stagger all men capable of independent -judgment; and the expedition of the Dominican monk Tetzel had reduced -it to something like burlesque. Yet it was typical of what papal -administration had become. Archbishop Albert of Mayence and Magdeburg, -who was also margrave of Brandenburg, owed the pope the usual large sum -for his investiture, and could not pay. The pope, Leo X, greatly needed -money for his building outlays; and the supreme prince of the Church -gave to the lesser permission to set up in his province a vigorous -trade in indulgences. For this trade Tetzel was selected, not by the -pope but by the archbishop, as a notoriously suitable tool. Albert in -turn made a financial arrangement with the great German banking house -of Fuggers, and their agent accompanied Tetzel to take care of the -cash. Thus, though the transaction was strictly a German one, the -procedure was <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb250" href="#pb250" name= -"pb250">250</a>]</span>externally one of bleeding a German province, -through its superstition, in the financial interest of Rome. -Well-informed people knew that the papal agent carried off at least the -archbishop’s debt; and others might plausibly surmise that there -had gone a million thalers more, as the takings had been abnormally -great.</p> -<p class="par">Obviously the mass of the citizens were superstitious -believers, otherwise the traffic could not have gone on; and Luther in -his pulpit began merely by opposing the abuse of the practice, not the -canonical principle. In absolution, he correctly argued, there were -according to the established doctrine three elements—contrition, -confession, and remission of penalties; and indulgences could effect -only the third. He accordingly refused to absolve any on the mere -ground of an indulgence; whereupon Tetzel, finding his traffic thus -ostensibly hampered, preached against him, and the historic battle -began. The theses nailed to the Wittemberg church door by Luther (1517) -did not assail the Church or the pope; they simply challenged on -orthodox lines the abuse of indulgences; and when Luther began to -publish his views he expressed himself with perfect submission to the -pope.</p> -<p class="par">What won him the support of a vigorous popular party, -albeit a minority, and of a sufficient section of the nobility, was in -the first place his courage, and in the second place the growing -restiveness of the Germans as such under what was practically an -Italian domination. In past history, the “Germanic empire” -had been wont to lord it over Italy on feudal grounds, and it was -always a sore point with many that Italy none the less received an -increasing tribute from Germany as from other States. The blunder of -the papacy in Luther’s case lay in not realizing how far such -feelings, in connection with a fresh scandal, might go in setting up a -northern tide of anti-Roman animus. So long wont to brow-beat all -insubordination, and to decide doctrinal disputes by fiat instead of by -persuasion, it either prescribed or permitted to its agents the usual -tone in their dealings with Luther; and finally the pope thought to -clinch matters by a bull (1520) against his doctrines, giving him his -choice between submission <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb251" href= -"#pb251" name="pb251">251</a>]</span>and excommunication. His defiance, -and the act of excommunication, duly followed, and the Protestant -Church began.</p> -<p class="par">Even now the papacy, witless of new developments, could -very well suppose the new heresy transient. Charles V, the new Emperor, -was thoroughly orthodox; and not many of the German nobles were -ostensibly otherwise. But Charles was under a deep obligation to -Frederick the Elector of Saxony for his election; and Frederick was one -of those who had begun, for racial and financial reasons, to -contemplate “home rule” in matters ecclesiastical. -Frederick accordingly was allowed to protect Luther, whose courage in -going to the Diet of Worms, with Huss’s fate in common memory, -further established his popular influence. Manhood always loves -manhood. After 1526, however, the process of the Reformation in Germany -was substantially one of wholesale confiscation of Church lands and -goods by the nobles, who were thus irrevocably committed to the cause; -and though Luther and his more single-minded colleagues were naturally -disgusted, there was no other way in which they could have won, popular -sympathy counting for nothing in such a matter without military -force.</p> -<p class="par">A rupture took place, finally, between the Emperor and -the new Medicean pope, Clement VII, over the desperate politics of -Italy, the papacy for once taking a national course in resisting an -imperialist invasion. But the invaders triumphed; Italy was overrun -anew; Rome was sacked (1527) with all the atrocity which historically -distinguishes the Christian conquests of the city from those of the -ancient Gauls and Goths; and during the critical years of the -establishment of Protestantism the emperor was in no mood to quarrel -with his German friends in the interests of a pope whose friendship he -could not trust. All the political conditions were thus abnormally -favourable to the Lutheran movement. At the same time, every menace -from Rome led naturally to intensification of the Lutheran heresy; and -though it always remained nearer Catholicism <span class="corr" id= -"xd21e3558" title="Corrected by author from: that">than</span> did -Calvinism, it emphasized more and more its differences.</p> -<p class="par">In the meantime the success of the movement of Zwingli -at Zurich had proved independently that the strength of the -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb252" href="#pb252" name= -"pb252">252</a>]</span>Reformation lay in its appeal to economic -interest. Confiscation of the possessions of the Church by the -municipal authorities was a first step, and one for which, once taken, -the community would fight rather than revoke it. With signal unwisdom, -the Roman curia had contrived to allot most of the Swiss town livings -to Italians, so that the vested interests were alien and not local. The -municipality, on the other hand, sagaciously pacified those interests -by guaranteeing pensions or posts as teachers or preachers to the whole -twenty-four <span class="corr" id="xd21e3565" title= -"Source: canons">cantons</span> of the chapter; and there and in some -other cantons the economic Reformation, thus effected, was -permanent.</p> -<p class="par">In the case of England, on the other hand, the primary -factor in the repudiation of papal rule was the personal insistence of -Henry VIII on a divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, the -aunt of the emperor, Charles V. Henry was so far from being inclined to -Protestantism that he caused to be compiled by his bishops (1521) a -treatise in reply to Luther, to which he put his name, thereupon -receiving from Leo X the title of “Defender of the Faith.” -To the very last, he burned doctrinal Protestants as heretics, and -despite revival of the old Lollard propaganda the country remained -substantially Catholic in creed. But when it came to the king’s -demand for a divorce, the new pope, Clement VII, was in a hopeless -dilemma, since if he granted the request, which he was personally and -theologically not unwilling to do, he would exasperate the emperor -Charles, of whom he dreaded to make an irreconcilable enemy, besides -offending the whole Catholicism of Spain and even much of that of -England. When once Henry decided to take ecclesiastical rule into his -own hands he found that, little as he liked the new doctrines, he must -in his own interest proceed to confiscate Church lands and bestow the -bulk of them on adherents, thereby establishing a firm anti-papal -interest. So little way did positive Protestant doctrine make that when -his daughter Mary came to the throne, though she dared not try to -resume the Church lands, the people were in substantial sympathy with -her faith, and only her marriage with Philip and her persecution of -heretics turned any large number <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb253" -href="#pb253" name="pb253">253</a>]</span>against her. Even under -Elizabeth it was the new national enmity to Spain, and not religious -propaganda, that made the bulk of the people Protestant in creed and -worship.</p> -<p class="par">The process of the Reformation in Scotland clearly -follows the economic law. So late as 1535 Scotland was so Catholic in -belief, despite the usual grievances against priestly rapacity and -luxury, that the parliament passed a law forbidding all importation of -the writings of Luther, and all discussion of his “damnable -opinions.” But as soon as the English king by his confiscation of -the rich monastery lands (1536–39) showed the Scots nobles how -they might enrich themselves by turning Protestant, they began to -favour heresy; and from the death (1542) of the last Catholic king, -James V, throughout the minority of his daughter Mary, they protected -the reforming preachers. In 1543 began the wrecking of monasteries by -mobs; in 1546 was assassinated Cardinal Beaton, who had taken active -steps to destroy heresy; and though the ferocious war with England -delayed developments, as did the regency of the Queen’s French -mother, the preaching of Calvinism by John Knox and others carried -enough of the townspeople to make easy the passing, in 1560, of an Act -which made Protestantism the established religion of the country. As -usual, by far the greater part of the plunder went to the landowning -class, who brazenly broke all their promises of endowment to the -preachers. But the latter had perforce to submit, indignant as they -were; and when the young Catholic queen Mary arrived in 1561 she found -a Protestant kingdom, in which the most powerful class was rich with -church spoils. Again the political and the economic forces had been the -obviously determining factors in the change.</p> -<p class="par">Scandinavian Protestantism, in turn, moved on the same -line of economic opportunity and pressure. A popular movement seems to -have begun in Denmark, but it was favoured by the throne; and the -nobles, seeing the possibilities of the case, soon followed; whereupon -King Christian III, who ruled both Denmark and Norway, suppressed -Catholicism with the nobles’ help, and confiscated the rich -possessions of the bishops. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb254" href= -"#pb254" name="pb254">254</a>]</span>In Sweden, on the other hand, -Gustavus Vasa took the initiative against the clergy, who had supported -the Danish rule which he succeeded in throwing off; and he naturally -had with him the mass of the laity, especially when he gave the nobles -leave to reclaim the lands that had been granted by their ancestors to -the monasteries. Doctrinal Protestantism followed in the wake of -confiscation.</p> -<p class="par">The Protestantism of Holland, again, was plainly the -result of the mismanagement of Philip II. When Protestantism had in -other countries reached its fullest extension the Low Countries were -still mainly Catholic, only a few of the poorer classes having changed, -apart from the Anabaptist movement, which had a much larger following; -and the slaughter of such heretics by the Inquisition went on for many -years with the acquiescence of the middle and upper orders. In the -Netherlands the local Inquisition, conducted by natives, was positively -more cruel than that of Spain. It is thus clear that there was no -special bias to Protestantism in the “Teutonic” races as -such. The orthodox Protestant movement entered Holland not from the -German but from the French side; and it needed not only the ferocity -but the rapacity of Alva to create a permanent Protestant and -rationalist movement among the needy nobility. When the Protestant mobs -began to resort to image-breaking they put their cause in great peril. -The real reason of the slowness of the nobles to turn Protestant was, -doubtless, that they had little to gain from plunder of their Church in -any case, it having long been abnormally poor by reason of the -restrictive policy of the Flemish and Dutch feudal princes in the past. -When the rupture with Spain was complete the Church estates were -scrupulously disposed of in the public interest, Dutch Protestantism -being thus exceptionally clean-handed.</p> -<p class="par">Philip’s attempts to enrich the priesthood were -certainly part of the provocation he gave his subjects in the -Netherlands; but their resentment was at the outset strictly political, -not religious; and it is reasonable to say that had he chosen to reside -among them and conciliate them he could easily have kept them Catholic, -while in that case Spain might very <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb255" href="#pb255" name="pb255">255</a>]</span>well have become -Protestant, and Dutch and Flemish resources would have been turned -against Spanish disaffection. Even in what remained the Spanish -Netherlands Catholicism entirely recovered its ground. The Teutonic -Charles V had been as rigidly Catholic as his predecessors on the -Spanish throne, and for the same reasons, (1) that the Church in his -dominions helped him and did not thwart him; and (2) that his large -revenues from the Netherlands made it unnecessary for him to plunder -the Church as did the Scandinavian kings and Henry VIII.</p> -<p class="par">In the case of France, where Protestantism reached its -highest development in point of intellectual and militant energy, but -became stationary after a generation of desperate strife, and later -decayed, the play of political and economic causation is little less -clear. There, as has been said, there was much less ostensible pressure -of wealth-seeking interest on the side of the Reformation than in -Germany and elsewhere; yet so far as the nobles were concerned an -economic motive was certainly at work. At the outset of his reign -Francis I had won from the pope, practically at the sword’s -point, the concession (1516) of the right to appoint bishops and -abbots, the papacy in return receiving the <i>annates</i>, or first -year’s revenue. The result was that the Gallican Church was at -least as corrupt as any other section of the fold, its dignities being -usually bestowed on court favourites, whose exactions exasperated the -rural gentry as much as those of papal nominees would have done. The -throne being strong, however, and the king having no special financial -motive to go further, the cause of reform had no help from his side. -Had he turned “reformer,” as he once had some thought of -doing, he could probably have made France Protestant with less -difficulty than Henry VIII met with in England; but in view of the -political divisions set up by Lutheranism in Germany he decided against -the new propaganda.</p> -<p class="par">That, nevertheless, proceeded. There had always been -keen criticism of the Church in France; and as early as 1512 there -began at Meaux a reform movement on substantially Protestant lines, -under the auspices of the local bishop. He, <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb256" href="#pb256" name= -"pb256">256</a>]</span>however, was put down by the threats of the -college of the Sorbonne, the ecclesiastical faculty of the university -of Paris; and the first notable signs of anti-Romanism came from the -Vaudois of Provence, a small population who had been settled there -after the virtual extermination of their predecessors of the same name -and stock in the thirteenth century, and who were latterly found to -have the same anti-clerical tendencies. Under Louis XII the Church had -sought to punish them, but he refused to permit it, declaring them -better people than the orthodox. Finding themselves in sympathy with -the Reform movement, they sent some of their own preachers to -Switzerland and Germany (1530) to learn from it, and began a similar -propaganda. Decrees were issued against them in 1535 and 1540, but -Francis proposed to spare them on condition that they should enter the -Church of Rome. This policy failing, and Francis having made a treaty -with Charles V, under which, on papal pressure, he agreed to put down -heresy, the Vaudois were given up to coercion. There ensued a massacre -so vile (1545) that the king, now near his end, was revolted by it, -declaring that his orders had been grossly exceeded. A slow process of -inquiry, left to his son, dragged on for years, but finally came to -nothing.</p> -<p class="par">The Vaudois had been nearly exterminated, in the old -fashion; but the massacre served to proclaim and spread their doctrine, -which rapidly gained ground among the skilled artisan class as well as -among the nobles, the Swiss printing-presses doing it signal service. -Persecution, as usual, kept pace with propaganda; and in 1557 Pope Paul -IV, with the king’s approval, decreed that the Inquisition should -be set up in France, where it had never yet been established. The legal -“parliament” of Paris, jealous for its privileges, -successfully resisted; but the Sorbonne and the Church carried on the -work of heretic-burning, till at length the Huguenots were driven to -arms (1562). Their name had probably come from that of the -German-speaking <i lang="de">Eidgenossen</i> -(“oath-fellows”) of Switzerland; but their doctrine was -that of Calvin, who, driven from France (1533), was now long -established at <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb257" href="#pb257" name= -"pb257">257</a>]</span>Geneva; and their tenacity showed the value of -his close-knit dogmatism as a political inspiration. Catholic -fanaticism and treachery on the one hand, and Huguenot intemperance on -the other, brought about eight furious civil wars in the period -1562–94. The high-water mark of wickedness in that generation was -the abominable Massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572), which followed on -the third truce, and roused a new intensity of hatred. So evenly -balanced were the forces that only after more than twenty years of -further convulsions was the strife ended by the politic decision of the -Protestant Henry of Navarre to turn Catholic and so win the crown -(1594), on the score that “Paris was well worth a Mass.” He -thus secured for his Protestant supporters a perfect toleration, which -he confirmed by the Edict of Nantes (1597).</p> -<p class="par">In Poland and Bohemia, where also Protestantism went -far, on bases laid by the old movements of the Hussites, the process -was at first facilitated, as in Germany, by the political conditions; -and the economic motive was clearly potent. The subsequent collapse and -excision of Protestantism in those countries, as in France, in the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, completes the proof that for the -modern as for the ancient world political and economic forces are the -determinants of a creed’s success or failure, culture movements -being, as it were, the force of variation which they condition.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s4.1.3" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e756">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Social and -Political Results</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">On the side of daily life, it fared with -Protestantism as with the early Church: where it was warred upon it was -socially circumspect; where it had easier course it was lax. Thus we -have the express admissions of Luther and of Calvin that under -Protestantism they found less spirituality around them than there had -been under Romanism; and there is abundant evidence that the first -effect of the new regimen in Germany was to promote what Catholic and -Protestant teachers alike professed to think the most serious form of -immorality—sexual licence. In point of fact, Luther’s own -doctrines of predestination and grace were a species of unbought -indulgences, sure to injure good morals, even apart <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb258" href="#pb258" name="pb258">258</a>]</span>from -the effect of a free use of the Bible as a working code. Some of -Luther’s fellow-preachers justified and practised bigamy; and he -and his colleagues not only counselled Henry VIII to marry a second -time without divorcing his first queen, but gave their official -consent, albeit reluctantly, to such a proceeding on the part of the -Landgrave of Hesse. Among the common people, the new sense of freedom -quickly gave a religious impulse to the lamentable Peasants’ War, -and later to the so-called Anabaptist movement, which, though it -contained elements of sincerity and virtue that are not always -acknowledged, amounted in the main to a movement of moral and social -chaos.</p> -<p class="par">Luther, during whose time of hiding in the Wartburg -(1521–22) the new ferment began at Wittemberg, came thither to -denounce it as a work of Satan; but it was a sequel of his own action. -The new leaders, Storch and Münzer and Carlstadt, had turned as he -had advised to the Bible, and there they found texts for whatever they -were minded to try, from image-smashing to the plunder and burning of -monasteries and castles, and a general effort at social revolution. In -all they did, they declared and believed they were moved by the Spirit -of God. Luther had done this service to Catholicism, that his course -led to the practical proof that the Bible, put in the hands of the -multitude as the sufficient guide to conduct, wrought far more harm -than good. Peasant revolts, indeed, had repeatedly occurred in Germany -before his time, the gross tyranny of the nobles provoking them; but -the religious frenzy of Münzer gave to the rising of 1524–25 -in Swabia and Franconia, though the formulated demands of the -insurgents were just and reasonable, a character of wildness and -violence seldom seen before. Luther, accordingly, to save his own -position, vehemently denounced the rising, and hounded on the nobles to -its bloody suppression, a work in which they needed no urging. His -protector, the wise Frederick of Saxony, then on his deathbed, gave no -such evil counsel, but advised moderation, and admitted the guilt of -his order towards the common people. The end was, however, that at -least 100,000 peasants were slain; and the lot of those left was -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb259" href="#pb259" name= -"pb259">259</a>]</span>worse than before. The later Anabaptist -movement, which set up a short-lived republic (1535) in the city of -Münster in Westphalia, and spread to Holland, was too destitute of -political sanity to gain any but visionaries, and was everywhere put -down with immense bloodshed.</p> -<p class="par">Yet vaster social and political evils were to come from -the Reformation. In 1526, at the Diet of Spires, the emperor Charles V -called for strong measures against Lutheranism, but was firmly resisted -by the new Elector of Saxony and the other Lutheran princes, whereupon -the emperor waived his claim, not caring to raise a war in the -pope’s interest; and it was agreed that each head of a State in -the empire should take his own way in regard to religion, his subjects -being at his disposal. It was at this stage that the German Reformation -began its most decisive progress. In the next few years the papal -party, backed by the Emperor, twice carried decrees rescinding that of -1526. First came the decree of the second Diet of Spires (1529). -Against this a formal protest was made to the emperor by the Lutheran -princes and a number of the free imperial cities of Germany and -Switzerland, whence arose first the title of “Protestants.” -In 1530 the emperor convened a fresh Diet at Augsburg, to which the -Lutherans were required to bring a formal Confession of Faith. This was -framed on conciliatory lines; but the emperor issued a fresh coercive -decree, whereupon the Germans formed the defensive League of Smalkald, -from which the Swiss were excluded on their refusal to sign the -Augsburg Confession. At this stage the invasion of Austria by the Turks -delayed civil war, so that Luther was able to die in peace (1546). Then -war began, and the Protestant League was quickly and thoroughly -overthrown by the emperor. After a few years, however, the imperial -tyranny, exercised through Spanish troops, forced a revolt of the -Protestant princes, who with the help of France defeated Charles -(1552). Now was effected the Peace of Augsburg (signed 1555), which -left the princes as before to determine at their own will whether their -States should be Lutheran or Catholic, and entitled them to keep what -Church lands they had confiscated before 1552. No <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb260" href="#pb260" name= -"pb260">260</a>]</span>protection whatever was decreed for Calvinists, -with whom the Lutherans had long been at daggers drawn, and who had not -yet gained much ground in Germany.</p> -<p class="par">Such a peace failed to settle the vital question as to -whether in future the Protestant princes could make further -confiscations, on the plea of the conversion of Catholic bishops and -abbots or otherwise. As the century wore on, accordingly, the princes -“secularized” many more Church estates; and as -Protestantism was all the while losing moral ground in Germany through -the adoption of Calvinism by several princes, and the bitter quarrels -of the sects and sub-sects, the Catholics held the more strongly to -their view of the Augsburg treaty, which was that all bishoprics and -abbeys held directly from the emperor were to remain Catholic. Friction -grew from decade to decade, and, civic wisdom making no progress on -either side, a number of the Lutherans and Calvinists at length formed -(1608) a militant union, led by the Calvinist prince Christian of -Anhalt, to defend their gains; and the Catholics, led by Maximilian, -Duke of Bavaria, formed another. The Calvinists were the chief -firebrands; and Christian was bent on aggression, to the end of -upsetting the power of the Catholic House of Austria.</p> -<p class="par">The train, however, was fired from Bohemia, where the -Protestant nobles were at odds with their two successive kings, -Matthias and Ferdinand, both of that house, and both bent on putting -down Protestantism on the crown lands. The nobles began a revolt in a -brutally lawless fashion; and when, in a winter pause of the war, -Ferdinand was elected emperor (1619), they deposed him from the throne -of Bohemia, and elected in his place the Calvinist prince Frederick, -Elector Palatine (son-in-law of James I of England), who foolishly -accepted. The capable Maximilian, with Tilly for general, took the -field on behalf of Ferdinand; the Lutheran princes stood aloof from -Frederick, who for his own part had offended his Lutheran subjects by -slighting their rites; his few allies could not sustain him, and he was -easily defeated and put to headlong flight. At once the leading -Protestant nobles of Bohemia were put to death; their lands were -confiscated; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb261" href="#pb261" name= -"pb261">261</a>]</span>the clergy of the chief Protestant body, the -Bohemian Brethren, dating back to the time of Huss, were expelled in -mass; and Protestantism in Bohemia was soon practically at an end. Many -of both the Lutheran and Calvinist churches, in their resentment at the -slackness of the German Protestant League, voluntarily went over to -Catholicism. At the same period the Protestant Prince of Transylvania -had been in alliance with the Turks to attack Vienna; and the -Protestant faith was thus discredited on another side.</p> -<p class="par">Meantime, however, the Thirty Years’ War had -begun. Frederick’s general, Mansfeld, held out for him in the -Palatinate; the dissolution of the army of the Protestant Union -supplied him with fresh soldiers, content to live by plunder; English -volunteers and new German allies joined; and the struggle went from bad -to worse. The failure or defeat of the first Protestant combatants -brought others upon the scene; James of England appealed to Gustavus -Adolphus of Sweden and Christian IV of Denmark to join him in -recovering the Palatinate for his son-in-law, and, unable to subsidize -Gustavus as he required, made terms with Christian, who at once entered -the war. Thereupon the emperor employed Wallenstein, and the -Protestants were defeated and hard pressed, till the great Gustavus -came to their aid. Under his masterly leadership they regained their -ground, but could not decisively triumph. After his death at the battle -of Lützen (1632) new developments took place, France entering the -imbroglio by way of weakening her enemies Austria and Spain, the two -pillars of the empire; and one period of war passed into another -without stay or respite.</p> -<p class="par">In the course of this inconceivable struggle children -grew to middle age, and men grew from youth to grey hairs; most of -those who began the strife passed away ere it had ended; the French -Richelieu rose to greatness and died; and the English Civil War passed -through nearly its whole course, a mere episode in comparison. When at -length there was signed the Peace of Westphalia (1648) the German world -was reduced to mortal exhaustion. The armies on both sides had been to -the common people as the monstrous dragons of <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb262" href="#pb262" name= -"pb262">262</a>]</span>fable, bestial devourers, dealing ruin to friend -and foe alike. Every sack of a city was a new triumph of cruelty and -wickedness; tortures were inflicted by the mercenaries which almost -redeemed the name of the Inquisition; and, as of old in the Ireland of -Elizabeth’s day, peasants were found dead with grass in their -mouths. According to some calculations, half of the entire population -of Germany was gone; and it is certain that in many districts numbers -and wealth, man and beast, had been reduced in a much greater -proportion, whole provinces being denuded of live stock, and whole -towns going to ruin. German civilization had been thrown back a full -hundred years, morally and materially. No such procession of brutality -and vice as followed the armies of Tilly and Wallenstein had been seen -since the first Crusade; and the generation which had seen them and -been able to survive them was itself grown callous. Capacity, culture, -and conduct had alike fallen below the levels of a century before.</p> -<p class="par">By the Peace of Westphalia were settled the boundaries -of the two creeds which had thus battled for a whole generation. In -Germany proselytism was at an end; but the States whose princes had -been Protestant remained so, they and their Catholic neighbours keeping -the right to impose their faith on their subjects. Protestantism had -gained nothing beyond rooting Catholicism more completely out of -Protestant States; and, on the other hand, the Catholics had rooted -heresy out of theirs. No racial dividing-line subsisted. Teutonic -Bavaria and Austria remained Catholic, as the five original Teutonic -cantons of Switzerland had done from the first; and between Lutherans -and Calvinists, of whatever stock, there remained a sullen doctrinal -division. Bohemia had been lost to Protestantism, and Poland was now -far on the way to the same fate.</p> -<p class="par">The diverse cases of Poland and France here supply yet -another lesson in economic causation. In France at the accession of -Henry IV the Protestants were a very strong party, including many of -the nobles, though a minority of the nation; in Poland, at the -accession of Sigismund III, in 1586, they were considerably stronger. -Within half-a-century they <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb263" href= -"#pb263" name="pb263">263</a>]</span>were in full decadence in both -countries, from similar causes. Sigismund (the cousin of Gustavus -Adolphus), though grandson of the Protestant Gustavus Vasa of Sweden, -had been bred a Catholic with a view to his inheriting the Polish -crown; and from the day of his accession he set himself to the -aggrandizement of his creed. He thereby lost the crown of Sweden, but -he went far to make Poland Catholic; and the newly constituted order of -Jesuits did the rest. To the Polish crown belonged the right of -conferring life appointments to which were attached great tracts of -crown land; and the constant use of this economic force for Catholicism -during a long reign began the downfall of the Protestantism of the -nobility, who, though including many men of superior capacity, had been -moved as usual by the economic motive in their heresy. The complete -ascendancy of the Jesuits during the seventeenth century ultimately -wrought the ruin of Poland, their policy having expelled the -Protestants, alienated the Cossacks, who belonged to the Greek Church, -and paralyzed the intellectual life of the nation.</p> -<p class="par">In France the decay of Protestantism was caused -substantially by economic means. When Richelieu obtained power the -Huguenot party was strong, turbulent, intolerant, and aggressive. -Practising on the one hand a firm political control, and on the other a -strict tolerance, he began the policy of detaching the ablest nobles -from the Huguenot interest by giving them positions of the highest -honour and trust, the holding of which soon reconciled them to the -court. Thus deprived of leaders who were men of the world, the Huguenot -party fell into the hands of its fanatical clergy, under whose guidance -it became more aggressive, and so provoked fresh civil war. The balance -of military power being now easily on the side of the crown, the -revolts were decisively put down; and the policy of -anti-ecclesiasticism and toleration, persisted in by Richelieu and -carried on after him by Mazarin, prevented any further strife. Thus -French Protestantism was irretrievably on the decline when Louis XIV, -reverting to the politics of Catholic bigotry, and not content with -setting on foot cruel persecutions which drove many from <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb264" href="#pb264" name="pb264">264</a>]</span>the -country despite the laws against emigration, committed the immense and -criminal blunder of revoking the Edict of Nantes (1685), and so -expelling from France the remnant of the Huguenots. He had been advised -that the refusal of liberty of worship would bring them to the Church, -and that they could be hindered from emigrating. On the contrary, his -plan lost to France fifty thousand families of industrious inhabitants, -whose Protestantism had ceased to be turbulent, though it remained -austere; and by thus grievously weakening a kingdom already heavily -bled by his wars, the French king prepared his own military -humiliation, and the consequent depression of his Church. It must -always be remembered, however, that his course was acclaimed by the -<i>élite</i> of Catholic culture.</p> -<p class="par">The alarm and resentment set up by his act counted for -much in stirring the English people three years later to resist their -Romanizing king James II, who, had he gone his way more prudently, -might have done much to rehabilitate Catholicism in virtue of the -fanatical devotion to the throne already developed by the reaction -against the Puritan rebellion. On the other hand, the tyrannous policy -which had kept Ireland Catholic, by identifying Protestantism with -oppression, and Catholicism with the national memories, was cruelly -carried on by England, with the result of maintaining a perpetual -division between the two countries, and preparing a great source of -Catholic population for the United States in a later age. The profound -decivilization inflicted on Ireland by Protestant England is probably -the greatest of the social and political evils resulting from the -Reformation; but the persecution of dissenters in England, and the more -savage dragooning of Presbyterians in Scotland under Charles II and -James II (which had an excuse in the aggressive intolerance of the -Covenanters) must go to the same account. Nowhere, not even in -Protestant Switzerland—save in the case of Zurich, well led by -Zwingli, and in that of the Grisons, where Catholics and Protestants -agreed to abolish feudal abuses—did the Reformation work social -betterment for the common people. In England the tyranny of the -Protestant nobles under <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb265" href= -"#pb265" name="pb265">265</a>]</span>Edward VI was both corrupt and -cruel; and the Norfolk rising of 1549 was as savagely suppressed as -that of Wat Tyler had been in Catholic times.</p> -<p class="par">In the processes by which Protestantism lost ground, as -in those by which Catholicism counteracted its own successes, there was -a considerable play of intellectual forces, which we shall consider -apart. But though the economic, the political, and the intellectual -forces always interact, the two former have had a potency which has -thus far been little acknowledged. It is essential to realize that they -have affected the movement of thought more than they have been affected -by it; and above all that they, and not the imaginary bias of race, -have determined the total fortunes of the Reformation.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s4.1.4" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e766">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 4.</span> <i>Intellectual -Results</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The intellectual reactions set up by the -Reformation were complex, and on some sides apparently contradictory. -Some populations, and in general the populace of the countries which -remained Protestant, were made collectively more fanatical than they -had been under Catholicism, even as Catholicism itself became for a -time more strenuous under the stress of the conflict; but, on the other -hand, there grew up on the intellectual border of Protestantism forms -of heresy which outraged its majority; and within the political sphere -of Catholicism there came a new growth of skepticism. All these varying -results can be traced to the initial shock of the revolt against -Rome.</p> -<p class="par">Luther and Calvin, it is clear, were alike bigots, as -little disposed to religious toleration as the papacy ever was. Of pope -Paul III (1534–49) it is recorded that he “bore with -contradiction in the consistory, and encouraged freedom of -discussion.” No such tribute could be paid to the Protestant -leaders of his day. Indeed, it is noteworthy that while the Catholic -hierarchy of the period were not a little open to new scientific -thought, Luther derided the teaching of Copernicus, and would have -suppressed it if he could. It resulted from the spirit of such leaders -that their polities could not be reconciled. Luther, though he -proceeded from a theoretical <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb266" href= -"#pb266" name="pb266">266</a>]</span>retention of the Mass (set forth -in the conciliatory Augsburg Confession of 1530, drawn up by -Melanchthon) to a bitter denunciation of it, always leant towards the -Catholic doctrine of the eucharist in that he merely substituted the -dogma of “consubstantiation” for -“transubstantiation,” and refused to go further. The Swiss -Protestants took up another position. Their chief founder, Ulrich -Zwingli, a more rational spirit than Luther, and brave enough to teach -that good heathens might be saved, went boldly back to the position of -John Scotus, and taught that the bread and wine of the sacrament were -merely memorial symbols. On this head, despite the efforts of -Melanchthon, Luther refused all compromise, and denounced the -Zwinglians with his usual violence. Calvin, whose power in Geneva was -established in 1541, tempered their formula after Luther’s death -to the extent of affirming, in Lutheran language, that in the eucharist -a certain divine influence was communicated to faithful participants. -But even this could not secure the dogmatic agreement that the -theological ideal demanded; and the followers of Luther soon gave the -quarrel a quality of incurable bitterness. Even on the question of -predestination the sects could not agree, though both Luther and -Calvin, in their different terminologies, affirmed the foreordination -of all things.</p> -<p class="par">These were only the most comprehensive of a multitude of -Protestant divisions. In the sixteenth century there are enumerated by -ecclesiastical historians at least eighty Protestant sects, all named -for certain special tenets, or after leaders who held themselves apart. -The general resort to the Bible had thus revived the phenomena of the -early ages of the faith; and each leading sect or church within its own -sphere sought in the papal fashion to suppress variation. The result -was a maximum of dogmatism and malice. Every sect split into many. Thus -there were some thirteen groups of Anabaptists; over thirty separate -confessions were drawn up among the main bodies; and Luther enumerated -nine varieties of doctrine on the eucharist alone. The doctrine -seldomest broached was that of mutual toleration. Between Lutherans and -Calvinists the quarrel went so far that when John Laski, <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb267" href="#pb267" name="pb267">267</a>]</span>the -learned Polish Calvinist, was sailing from England to the continent on -his expulsion with his adherents from England under Mary, he was -refused leave to remain at the Lutheran ports of Elsinore, Hamburg, -<span class="corr" id="xd21e3671" title= -"Source: Lubeck">Lübeck</span>, and Rostock. But as time went on -the Lutherans were divided endlessly and irreconcilably on doctrinal -issues among themselves. Melanchthon died declaring the gladness with -which he passed away from a world filled with the rabid hatreds of -theologians; and after his day matters grew worse instead of -better.</p> -<p class="par">From the very first, in short, the temper of Protestant -propaganda, met as it was by brutal resistance, had been one of brutal -animosity. There is indeed no more grotesque spectacle in human history -than the association of the phrase “a religion of love” -with the masses of furious controversy which constitute the bulk of -Christian theological literature in all ages of faith. Amenity has been -much rarer in religious strife than in actual warfare, where animal -good humour could at times mitigate or overlay animal hate. Fighters -could meet and banquet after a fight: theologians could not. They could -feel kindly towards those only who joined them in hating the foe. -England, with her Pecock and her Hooker, makes as good a show in this -matter as any other country; but in England the temper of the struggle -between Protestantism and Catholicism is from the first one of intense -hate, the cultured Catholic Sir Thomas More showing as little capacity -for gentleness of spirit as do the violent assailants who exasperated -him. Bale, a typical Protestant polemist, seems habitually to foam at -the mouth. War was the natural and inevitable expression of such -hatreds wherever it could come about; and when the establishment of -Protestantism left the sectarian spirit free play as between sects, -they turned to the new debate all the ferocity that had marked the -old.</p> -<p class="par">It was thus abundantly proved that the cult of the Bible -gave no help towards peace and goodwill; and Catholicism naturally -profited by the demonstration, many peaceable Protestants returning to -its fold. In Germany such reversions were set up alike by the attitude -of Luther towards the revolting peasants, many of whom in turn rejected -his doctrine, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb268" href="#pb268" name= -"pb268">268</a>]</span>and by the wild licence of the Anabaptists, -whose madness could be traced to his impetus. Equally did Romanism gain -from the admission that freedom of profession was found to give outlets -for atheism; and from the open growth of Unitarianism which, taking -rise in Italy in the Lutheran period, was thence carried to Switzerland -and elsewhere, and made considerable headway in Poland. The younger -Socinus (Sozzini), who joined and developed the movement, was not its -founder even in Poland; but when modified and organized by him there it -received his name. The Socinian cult terrified many Protestants, -driving them back to the old ways; and it may have been partly the -resentful fear of such effects that led Calvin to commit his historic -crime of causing the Spaniard Servetus to be burned at the stake (1553) -for uttering Unitarian doctrine. But Calvin’s language at every -stage of the episode, his heartless account of the victim’s -sufferings, and his gross abuse of him afterwards, tell of the ordinary -spirit of the bigot—incensed at opposition and exulting in -vengeance.</p> -<p class="par">Where a scholar could so sink, the bulk of the -Protestant communities inevitably became fanatical and hard. In -Holland, where Calvin’s church became that of the republic, it -treated Arminianism in the seventeenth century as itself had been -treated by Lutheranism in the sixteenth. Arminius (Jacobus Harmensen) -had sought in a halting fashion to modify the dogma of predestination, -and to prove that all men might repent and be saved. Dying after much -controversy (1609), he left a sect who went further than he; and the -strife came to the verge of civil war, the Arminian Barneveldt being -beheaded as a traitor (1619), and the illustrious Grotius sentenced to -perpetual imprisonment, from which however he contrived to escape. In -England in the next generation the Presbyterians, whose doctrine was -Calvinistic, showed the same tyrannous temper; the Arminian archbishop -Laud was no better; and in Calvinist Scotland and Lutheran Germany -alike the common people were similarly intolerant. Standing with their -leaders on the Bible as the beginning and end of truth, the Protestants -everywhere assumed infallibility, and <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb269" href="#pb269" name="pb269">269</a>]</span>proceeded to decree -pains and penalties with a quite papal inhumanity. Had Luther been able -to give effect to his hatred of the Jews, they would have been -persecuted as they never had been—apart from the chronic -massacres—in the Catholic period. He would have left them neither -synagogues nor homes, neither books nor property. Thus taught, -Protestants became persecutors in mass.</p> -<p class="par">In particular, they everywhere turned with a new zest to -the burning of witches, the old superstitions being frightfully -reinforced by the newly current doctrine of the Pentateuch. No -argument—though it was tried by some—could countervail the -testimony of the Sacred Book against witchcraft, and its decree of the -death penalty. As the frenzy of witch-burning was equally intense in -the Catholic countries in the Lutheran period, the mania may be traced -in the first instance to the Inquisition, which made a specialty of -such action. But it is clear that the new study of the Bible in -Protestant countries gave it as strong a stimulus. In England and -Scotland, for instance, there had been very little witch-burning in the -Catholic period; and the first English law for the purpose was passed -under Henry VIII, in 1541; but in both countries the madness -thenceforth went step for step with the growth of Puritanism; and the -amount of insane cruelty caused by it is past human power to -realize.</p> -<p class="par">If the merits of Christianity as a civilizing force are -to be in any way determined by its influence in working bloodshed, its -record in the matter of witch-slaying alone would serve to place it, in -that regard, lower than any other creed. Classic paganism knew no such -infamy. All the horrors which Christians are wont to cite as typically -heathen, the legends of Juggernaut and the pictures of Dahomey, dwindle -in moral bulk beside the dreadful sum of evil set forth in the past of -their own faith. For the Protestant lands burned at least as many -hapless women for the imaginary crime of witchcraft as the Inquisition -burned men for heresy. Most of the victims were women whose sole -offence had been to have few friends. To be left a childless widow or -an old maid was to run the risk of impeachment as a witch by any -superstitious or <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb270" href="#pb270" -name="pb270">270</a>]</span>malevolent neighbour; and the danger seems -to have been actually doubled when such a woman gave herself to the -work of rustic medicine-making in a spirit of goodwill to her kind. -Lonely women who suffered in their minds from their very loneliness -were almost sure to be condemned; and in cases where partial insanity -did not lead them to admit the insane charges against them, torture -easily attained the same end. But the mere repute for scientific -studies could bring a man to his death; and in Scotland a physician was -horribly tortured and at last burned on the charge of having raised the -storm which endangered the life of King James on his return voyage from -Denmark with his bride.</p> -<p class="par">The crowning touch of horror is the fact that in -Protestant history for generations there is hardly a trace of popular -compassion for the victims. In the north of Catholic Italy there was a -rebellion against witch-burning, perhaps because it was a part of the -machinery of the Inquisition; in the Protestant countries there was -nothing of the kind. Luther, a man normally fond of children, was -capable of advising that a “possessed” child should be -thrown into the river to drown or be cured. In Italy and France there -had always been skepticism on the matter among educated men; in the -Protestant world the new Bibliolatry made such skepticism go in fear of -its life. Wherever it arose, piety met it with the consciousness of -perfect wisdom, derived from revelation. Calvin was as confident on the -subject as Luther; and when Doctor John Wier of Clèves, -apparently a believer in demons, whose numbers he afterwards -statistically estimated at over seven thousand millions, ventured to -argue in 1563 that many of the so-called witches were simply lunatics, -he met as little favour in the Protestant as in the Catholic sphere. It -is to be remembered, as a landmark in intellectual history, that the -great French publicist Jean Bodin, the most original political thinker -of his age, and far from orthodox on the Christian creed, was the -foremost champion of the reigning superstition, which had become one of -his rooted prejudices.</p> -<p class="par">In England, in 1584, a notable book was written against -it, the <i>Discoverie of Witchcraft</i>, by Reginald Scot; but still -the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb271" href="#pb271" name= -"pb271">271</a>]</span>mania deepened. King James I caused Scot’s -book to be burned by the hangman in the next generation; and the -superstition, thus accredited, reached its height in the period of the -Commonwealth, whereafter it declined in the skeptical era of the -Restoration. Nowhere did effective resistance arise on the religious -plane. The reaction was conspicuously the work of the skeptics, noted -as such. Montaigne began it in France, by the sheer force of his hardy -and luminous common sense, which made no account of either the theology -or the learning arrayed against it; and inasmuch as the most brutal -fanaticism was in this matter everywhere bound up with the popular -creed, the new enlightenment became in England anti-democratic because -democracy there was the power of persecution, as in France it became -anti-clerical. The Protestant movement had in its own despite set up a -measure of mental freedom, by breaking up the ecclesiastical unity of -Europe; but its spirit soon revealed to clear eyes that freedom of -thought was not to be reached by mere reform of the Church as such. It -thus evolved a skepticism which struck at the roots of all Christian -beliefs.</p> -<p class="par">The intellectual fatality of the Reformation was that it -set up against the principle of papal authority not that of private -judgment but that of revelation, and thus still made ancient ignorance -the arbiter in the deepest problems. It is indeed vain to say, with -Erasmus and with Goethe, that Luther did ill to force a crisis, and -that the reform of the Church should have been left to time and the -process of culture. No culture could have reformed the papacy as an -economic system: the struggle there was finally not between knowledge -and ignorance but between vested interests and outsiders’ rights. -In the Rome of Leo X, as Ranke has calculated, there were twenty-five -hundred venal offices, half of them created by Leo to raise funds for -the building of St. Peter’s; and probably most were held by -cultured men. What they fought for was not dogma but revenue: Luther -when among them had been scandalized by their irreligion, not by their -superstition. Looking back, we may still say that a violent rupture was -inevitable. Two generations later, we find Pope Sixtus V -(1585–90) raising <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb272" href= -"#pb272" name="pb272">272</a>]</span>money as did Leo X by the sale of -places, and putting the prices so high as to promote official -corruption in an extreme degree.</p> -<p class="par">Rome, as a city, lived on its ecclesiastical revenue, -and the total vested interest was irreversible. During the long papal -schism in which the main wealth of the Church went to the Popes of -Avignon, Rome sank visibly to the level of “a town of -cowherds,” and the old church of St. Peter’s was in danger -of falling to pieces. From the middle of the fifteenth century to the -end of the sixteenth, the popes laboured successively to make their -city the most splendid in Europe; and only a great revenue, extorted by -corrupt or corrupting methods, could maintain it. The great Council of -Trent, begun in 1545 to reform and reorganize the Church, had -accomplished at its close in 1563 only a few doctrinal, disciplinary, -and hierarchical modifications; and its own history proved the -impossibility of a vital reform from within. Twice suspended for long -periods, on the pretext of the disturbed state of Europe, it revealed -in its closing session the inability of the nations as such to agree on -any curative policy. The emperor, Ferdinand I, called for many reforms -in a Protestant direction, such as marriage of priests, schools for the -poor, “the cup for the laity,” and the reform of convents; -and the French prelates supported him; but those of Spain violently -resisted, though they agreed in wishing to restrict the pope’s -power; while the Italians, the most numerous party, stood by the pope -in all things, denouncing all gainsayers. In the end, the diplomatic -cardinal Morone arranged matters with the different courts; the bishops -had for the most part to give way; and the powers of the pope, which in -1545 the movers of the Council had been bent on curtailing, were -established in nearly every particular, without any important change -being made in the administrative system. The Council had indeed -repudiated the Lutheran and Calvinist doctrines of predestination to -sin and salvation; and on this head the Lutherans gradually came round -to the Catholic view; but on the side of Church government the -Reformation remained practically justified. Still, it is the historic -fact that its first general result was <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb273" href="#pb273" name="pb273">273</a>]</span>intellectual -retrogression. Save in England, where Elizabeth’s irreligious -regimen gave scope for a literary and scientific renascence while it -correlatively humiliated religion and the Church, leaving the fanatical -growth of Protestantism to come later, the Protestant atmosphere was -everywhere one of theological passion and superstition, in which art -and science and fine letters were for a time blighted.</p> -<p class="par">And even in England, the result of plunging an ignorant -population into the turmoil of theological strife was markedly evil, -whatever countervailing force there was in the freer play of mental -life on other lines. Were it only in respect of the new ecclesiastical -quarrels, the fierce and scurrilous wrangles between prelatists and -anti-prelatists, the intensities of malice set up by questions of -vestments, the insoluble disputes over the meaning of the -eucharist—all heading towards the great Civil War of the -seventeenth century—the Reformation was a letting out of the -waters of enmity. But all intellectual life was bound to suffer from -the erection of a historic delusion into a popular code of moral and -social law. Men assured that the ethical and ceremonial law of the -ancient Hebrews was the beginning and end of all civic wisdom and -righteousness could not lead a sane civic life. The sermons of the -Reformers were vain asseverations of a non-existent moral order. All -social evil, all individual misfortune, was declared, in the Hebraic -manner, to be God’s vengeance for sin; when all the while the -infliction of evil by persecutors was denounced as in itself sin -against God. The most popular preachers made the wildest promises of -material welfare to the faithful as the due reward of faith; and every -failure of fulfilment was as confidently explained in terms alternately -of divine benevolence and divine chastening. The most repellent -teachings of the Hebrew books were erected into infallible canons and -commands; and every contemporary problem was put on the rack of Hebrew -precedent. On all sides, the human soul was bewildered by unreason.</p> -<p class="par">No mode of mental activity could escape the play of -perversion. Hooker’s appeal to reason in Church policy was -forever clouded by unreasoning resort to ancient texts. Bacon, -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb274" href="#pb274" name= -"pb274">274</a>]</span>complaining of the theological mortmain on all -mental life, tacitly endorsed it by using the same tactic. With such -standards in force at the upper levels of thought, a superstitious -populace invited to find its sole light in the half-comprehended lore -of ancient Palestine could make no progress on its own part towards -knowledge of nature, of man’s past, or of man’s -possibilities. Religious literature meant the semblance of culture -without the reality. The sole measurable gains were æsthetic, and -that mainly on the literary side; for the Biblical temper was hostile -to the plastic arts, though men of religion could not but play their -part in developing the instrument of language. Science was at a -discount till men wearied of theological debate.</p> -<p class="par">By reaction, some similar results accrued within the -scope of Catholicism in France and Italy. It is significant that -“the importance of the anatomical description of the heart by -Vesalius was not thoroughly comprehended by investigators for -seventy-three years (1543 to 1616); and the uses of the valves of the -veins remained unknown for more than half a century.” This was -the period of the wars of religion in France, and of the theologians in -Germany. Servetus had gone far on the way to the theory of the -circulation of the blood in his <i lang="la">Christianismi -Restitutio</i> (not in his work on the Trinity, as is often asserted), -but the fact remained absolutely unknown in Switzerland and Germany. -Scotland, which just before the Reformation had in the works of Dunbar -and Lyndsay what might have been the beginning of a great literature, -fell into a theological delirium which lasted two hundred years, and -from which the nation emerged with its literary and intellectual -continuity destroyed, and needing new tillage from foreign thought to -yield any new life. It was only after the period of devout -Protestantism had been succeeded by strife-weariness, toleration and -doubt, that Protestant Holland and Switzerland began to count for -anything in science and scholarship; and Germany and Scandinavia had to -wait still longer for a new birth.</p> -<p class="par">Catholic France, with all her troubles, fared on the -whole better in the mental life. Rabelais was for his country a -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb275" href="#pb275" name= -"pb275">275</a>]</span>fountain of riotous wisdom all through the worst -time of the civil wars; and before they had ended Montaigne began -effectually the new enlightenment. Only in England, where Shakespeare -and Bacon signalized Protestant rule, was there any similar good -fortune; and both in England and France the period was one of extensive -though necessarily cautious skepticism. Alongside of the first -stirrings of Protestantism there had arisen in France a spirit of -critical unbelief, represented by the <i>Cymbalum Mundi</i> of -Bonaventure des Periers (1537), who had set out as a Protestant; and -the ferocities of the war engendered in many a temper like his. What -Montaigne did was to give to practical skepticism the warrant of -literary genius, and to win for it free currency by the skill of his -insinuation. Without such fortunate fathering, rationalism in England -made much headway in the Elizabethan age. Shakespeare is deeply -impregnated with its spirit;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3726src" href= -"#xd21e3726" name="xd21e3726src">2</a> Bacon gave it a broad basis -under cover of orthodoxy; and even before their day there were loud -protests that atheism was on foot wherever continental culture -came.</p> -<p class="par">By such complainants the evil was early traced to Italy; -and it is clear that there, after the Spanish conquest, men’s -energies turned from the closed field of politics to that of religion -and philosophy, despite the Inquisition, very much as men in ancient -Greece had turned to philosophy after the rise of the Macedonian -tyranny. From Italy came alike Deism and Unitarianism, and such atheism -as there was. The Inquisition still burned all heretics alike when it -could catch them; but even among the clergy, nay, among the very -inquisitors themselves, there were many heretics; and the zealots had -to call in lay bigots to help them. Heretical books were burned by the -thousand, most being absolutely suppressed; and when there was -established (about 1550) the famous <i>Index Expurgatorius</i>, in -imitation of the example already set at Louvain and Paris, it was soon -found that some works by cardinals, and by the framer of the first -Italian list, had to be included. Protestantism was thus crushed out in -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb276" href="#pb276" name= -"pb276">276</a>]</span>Italy, with due bloodshed to boot; and the -heretical Franciscans were forced in mass to recant; but in the end -there was no gain to faith. Heresy became more elusive and more -pervasive; and when in the year 1600 the papacy put to death Giordano -Bruno, his work as the herald of a new philosophy was already done. In -the next generation appeared Galileo, the pioneer of a new era of -practical science. Thus even in her time of downfall did Italy begin -for Europe a second renascence.</p> -<p class="par">Thenceforth, in the sphere of the Church of Rome, -unbelief persisted either audaciously or secretly alongside of the -faith. Within the Church the long battle with Protestantism had evolved -fresh energies of propaganda, and even a measure of ascetic -reformation. In particular, the new Order of Jesuits (founded in 1534), -which we have seen completing the recapture of Poland, strove -everywhere by every available means, fair and foul, for the -Church’s supremacy. Where treachery and cruelty could not be -used, as they were in Poland, the Jesuits made play with a system of -education which realized the ideals of the time; and besides thus -training the young as adherents, the Church developed within itself a -revival of ecclesiastical learning that made a formidable resistance to -the learning of French and English Protestantism. In the latter half of -the seventeenth century the combatants thus wrought by their literary -warfare what they had previously done by their physical strife—a -gain to the spirit of unbelief. Neither side convinced the other; and -while the Protestants discredited many of the old Catholic beliefs, -their opponents more subtly discredited the faculty of theological -reason, putting all human judgments in doubt as such. The outcome was a -strengthening of the anti-theological bias. Jesuit education, where it -became at all scientific, armed the born skeptics; and where it was -limited to <i lang="fr">belles lettres</i> it failed in the long run to -make either earnest believers or able disputants.</p> -<p class="par">Thus the Reformation, in the act of giving Christianity -a new intensity of life among certain populations, where it fostered -and was fostered by a growth of intolerant democracy, <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb277" href="#pb277" name= -"pb277">277</a>]</span>unwittingly promoted at once fanaticism and -freethinking both in its own and in its enemy’s sphere. Deepened -superstition forced a deepening of skepticism; fanaticism drove -moderate men to science; and theological learning discredited theology. -In papal and downtrodden Italy, in monarchic and military France, in -the England of the Restoration, and in semi-democratic Holland, there -worked in the seventeenth century the same divergent forces.</p> -<p class="par">In both Holland and England, by help of the spirit of -fanatical democracy, the multiplication of sects and heresies in the -second generation of the seventeenth century was so great—180 -being specified in England alone—that no repressive policy could -deal with them; and under cover of their political freedom there arose -some Unitarian doctrine among the common people, even as -anti-Scriptural Deism spread among the educated. Devoutly religious -men, such as George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, by the very -thoroughness of their loyalty to the doctrine of the inward light, -helped to shake among sincere people the old docility of belief in -revelation, though in some cases they reinforced it, and in many more -evoked, by reaction, the spirit of persecution.</p> -<p class="par">The net gain from Protestantism thus lay in the -fortuitous disruption of centralized spiritual tyranny. The rents in -the structure made openings for air and light at a time when new -currents were beginning to blow and new light to shine. Twenty years -before Luther’s schism, Columbus had found the New World. -Copernicus, dying in 1543, left his teaching to the world in which -Protestantism had just established itself. Early in the next century -Kepler and Galileo began to roll back for men the old dream-boundaries -of the universe. The modern era was at its dawn; and with it -Christianity had begun its era of reconsideration, revision, and slow -decline. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb278" href="#pb278" name= -"pb278">278</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="footnotes"> -<hr class="fnsep"> -<div class="footnote-body"> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e3507" href="#xd21e3507src" name="xd21e3507">1</a></span> Realism -derived from the doctrine, ascribed to Plato by Aristotle, that -“universals,” the <i>ideas</i> of species, etc., exist -independently of individual objects, and existed before them. This is -“Extreme Realism,” put in the formula, <i>universalia ante -rem</i>. Nominalism was the doctrine that only individuals have real -existence, and that ideas of species are but names. There was an -intermediate position, that of Aristotle, that universals exist -<i>in</i> individual objects—<i>universalia in re</i>. This, -known as Moderate Realism, is but a verbal compromise, which does not -concede the Realist claim. The motive for that lay in the religious -bias to claim for ideas, or “spiritual” concepts, a higher -validity and reality than it accords to “material” things. -The same tendency expressed itself in the Moslem doctrine that the -Koran is uncreated and eternal. <a class="fnarrow" href= -"#xd21e3507src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e3726" href="#xd21e3726src" name="xd21e3726">2</a></span> See the -author’s <i>Short History of Freethought</i>, 2nd ed. ii, 34 -<i>sq.</i>: and <i>Montaigne and Shakespeare</i>, 2nd ed. pp. 191, 196, -198 <i>sq.</i> <a class="fnarrow" href= -"#xd21e3726src">↑</a></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter II</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">PROGRESS OF ANTI-CHRISTIAN THOUGHT</h2> -<div id="s4.2.1" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e782">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>The Physical -Sciences</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">It was primarily the growth of physical science, -from the middle of the sixteenth century, that gave solidity and -permanence to the new movements of rationalistic revolt aroused by the -spectacle of the Reformation and the strifes it engendered. That -spectacle, and in general the wars of religion which followed, tended -more to make scoffers or skeptics than to develop constructive -rationalism. One of the conclusions forced on statesmanlike minds by -the religious wars in France was that “a peace with two religions -was better than a war with none”; and the seventeenth century -there began with a strong though secretive tendency among the idle -classes to what in the next century became universally known as the -Voltairean temper. In the seventeenth, however, it was still almost -wholly denied the use of printing; and under this disadvantage it must -have fared ill were it not for the new studies which at once developed -and buttressed the spirit of inquiry. They built up a new habit of -mind, the surest obstacle to dogma.</p> -<p class="par">Were men wont to develop their beliefs logically, the -teaching of Copernicus alone, when once accepted, would have broken up -the orthodox faith, which at nearly every point implied the geocentric -theory. Giordano Bruno, recognizing this, wove on the one hand the -Copernican principle into his restatement of the ancient doctrine of -the infinity of the universe, and on the other hand derided alike -Catholicism and Protestantism. But a comprehensive philosophy is not -the kind of propaganda that first “comes home to men’s -business and bosoms”: the line of practical disturbance lay -through exact science; and it is in the practical and experimental -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb279" href="#pb279" name= -"pb279">279</a>]</span>work of Galileo that Copernicanism begins -(1616–38) strongly to stir the educated intelligence of Europe. -Bacon and Bodin, like Luther, had rejected it as theoretically -propounded. It was the telescopic discoveries of Galileo that staggered -the skeptics and alarmed the Church.</p> -<p class="par">The need for a solid discipline as a grounding for -rationalism is made clear by the aberrations of many of the earlier -religious doubters. Bodin, as we have seen, held fanatically by -witchcraft; and he likewise accepted astrology, as did many -half-developed Italian freethinkers who rejected the ideas of demons -and sorcery, and doubted much concerning the Bible. Men reasoned on -such matters by the light of their training, of what seemed to be -probability, and of scanty evidence, in matters where the traditional -hypotheses could be properly checked only by minute and patient -scrutiny. Thus the disbelievers in astrology were as a rule bigoted -Christians who, like Luther, merely rejected it as unscriptural, while -Melanchthon leant to the belief. Of the early English Protestants many -theologically rejected it as regards the moral life, while assenting to -the theory of astral influence on men’s affairs in other regards. -Only with new science could come the rational challenge; and even men -like Bacon, who consciously strove after scientific method, remained -partly prepossessed by the old belief in astral forces. The word -“influence,” in this sense, constantly appears in all kinds -of Tudor and early Stuart literature.</p> -<p class="par">It has been said with broad truth that whereas Greece, -with her dialectic discipline, exhorted men to make their beliefs agree -with one another, and the Christian Church ordered them to make their -beliefs agree with her dogma, the modern spirit demands that beliefs -should agree with facts. Such a spirit first promoted and then was -immensely promoted by the study of natural science. Even in the Middle -Ages, as in antiquity, physicians were proverbially given to -irreligion; and the study of physics was still more conducive to -religious doubt than that of physic. In England the naturalistic -spirit, as we may term it, was notably popularized by Bacon in the -course of the seventeenth century, but the effectual growth of -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb280" href="#pb280" name= -"pb280">280</a>]</span>Protestant fanaticism began in his day, and had -to run its course before much energy was available for scientific -research; though both Gilbert the electrician and Harvey the discoverer -of the circulation of the blood belonged to Bacon’s generation. -Only a small number of superior minds were capable of the scientific -attitude. But even before the Restoration educated Englishmen were -weary enough of strife to begin the gatherings which afterwards became -the Royal Society, devoted strictly to scientific inquiry, with a -positive veto on all theological discussion.</p> -<p class="par">To their scientific studies they had a powerful lead -from France, where Descartes had virtually begun a new era in -philosophy by his <i>Discourse on Method</i> (1637), a work which -professed allegiance to the Church but reversed all the Church’s -methods; and where Gassendi, a truer if a less influential physicist -than Descartes, controverted the spiritualistic positions of the latter -in a singularly modern spirit of rationalism. By this time, too, had -begun to appear the impotence of the Church against the ubiquitousness -of modern heresy. She contrived to strike where she should have spared, -and to spare where she ought in consistency to have struck. Galileo was -probably, as he professed to be, an orthodox Catholic in his main -theological beliefs, yet he was persecuted by the Inquisition; and -though the story of his “Still it moves” is a fable, he was -forced to recant under threat of torture. Descartes, who protested his -loyalty to the Church, was at least a new support to theism; but -because his teachings were adopted in France by the Jansenists, the -quasi-Protestant enemies of the Jesuits within the Catholic Church, -they were ecclesiastically prohibited, and his supporters in the Church -and the university were persecuted; while the prudent Gassendi, who at -times reasons like an atheist, contrived without protestation to keep -on good terms with the Church, of which he was actually a Canon. He had -taken orders solely for the sake of an income; and he was never -disturbed, though he wrote a vindication of Epicurus, one of the most -nearly atheistical of the leading Greek philosophers.</p> -<p class="par">Nowhere is the new impulse to science more clearly seen -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb281" href="#pb281" name= -"pb281">281</a>]</span>than in papal and Spanish-ruled Italy. There, as -Bacon complained was the case nearly everywhere throughout Europe, most -scientific professors were poorly paid, while the learned professions -were well endowed; yet at the close of the sixteenth century there did -not exist a single distinguished Greek scholar in the peninsula; and -while this may have been due to papal policy, the unfostered study of -the natural sciences went forward on all sides. Narrowly watched by the -Church, the students nevertheless propagated new science throughout -north-western Europe. Unhappily, as we have seen, the theological -spirit still hampered its evolution, but the study persisted.</p> -<p class="par">From the middle of the seventeenth century onwards it is -clear that physical science by its very method and character undermined -theology. Here there were possible rational proof and intelligent -agreement, instead of the eternal sterility of theological debate on -irrational propositions. In France, Holland, and England, the followers -of Descartes, even when agreeing on a fundamentally wrong theory of -cosmic physics, made for rationalism by their discipline as well as by -what was accurate in their detailed science; the influence of the -English Royal Society was recognizably anti-clerical; and from Gassendi -onwards the whole scientific movement told decisively against -superstition, so that the belief in witchcraft was discredited within a -generation from the time of its worst intensity. Glanvil, who in -England professed a scientific skepticism, on Cartesian lines, defended -the superstition as Bodin had done in France, and was supported not -only by the theologians but by such a pious man of science as the -chemist Boyle, who was equally skeptical in his own proper sphere; yet -they could not restore credulity among the thinking minds. More august -beliefs were shaken in turn. Boyle in his latter years set himself -anxiously to defend Christianity; and Newton was moved to exert himself -even in the cause of theism, which was newly undermined. But Newton -himself was a Unitarian; his distinguished contemporary the astronomer -Halley was reputed a thorough unbeliever; and Newton’s own -philosophy, which proceeded on <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb282" -href="#pb282" name="pb282">282</a>]</span>Gassendi as well as on the -devout Kepler, was denounced by some, including the German Leibnitz, as -tending to atheism. Leibnitz in turn stood wearily aloof from the -Church in his own country. No personal bias or prejudice could cancel -the fundamental dissidence between exact science and -“revealed” dogma.</p> -<p class="par">While the literary movement of English Deism in the -eighteenth century was not ostensibly grounded on physical philosophy, -being rather critical and logical, it always kept the new science in -view; and the movement in France, as set up by the young Voltaire, -connected itself from the first with the Newtonian philosophy, which -there had to drive out the Cartesian, now become orthodox. In the hands -of La Mettrie biological science pointed to even deeper heresy; and for -such propagandists as Diderot and D’Holbach all science was an -inspiration to a general rejection of religion. Even the pursuit of -mathematics developed pronounced unbelievers, such as D’Alembert -and Condorcet. When, finally, in the latter half of the century the -scientific spirit flagged or stagnated in England, first by reason of -the new growths of industry and the new imperial expansion, later by -reason of reaction against the French Revolution, it was the French men -of science, in particular the astronomers and mathematicians, as -Laplace, Lagrange, Lalande, and Delambre, who carried on the profession -of rationalism. In particular, Laplace’s great contribution, the -nebular hypothesis, clinched on non-theistic grounds the whole -development of modern astronomy; and the philosopher Kant, who on that -point had in a measure anticipated him, never conformed to Christian -orthodoxy even while glosing it in the effort to conserve theism.</p> -<p class="par">All the later generalizations of science have told in -the same way; and all have had to struggle for life against the -instinctive hostility of the Christian Churches, Protestant and -Catholic alike. Geology, after generations of outcry, made an end in -the nineteenth century of the orthodox theory of cosmic creation; the -evolution theory drove home the negation with a new constructive -doctrine; and Darwinism, after a no less <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb283" href="#pb283" name="pb283">283</a>]</span>desperate contest, -has upturned the very foundations of Christian ethics as well as dogma. -As represented by Huxley, its chief polemist, it is definitely -non-Christian and non-theistic. It does not countervail this essential -tendency that a number of men of science in each generation profess to -adhere to Christianity. The adherence is seldom thorough, and when it -is, it is commonly recognized to stand for lack of culture on the -historical and ethical sides of the issue. The result is that -Protestant Christianity nearly everywhere capitulates outwardly to -natural science, professing still to save its own more essential -dogmas; while Catholicism forces upon its adherents either -“scientific nescience” or a dissimulation fatal to -zeal.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s4.2.2" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e792">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>Philosophy, -Cosmic and Moral</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">It lies on the face of our sketch of the movement -of physical science that it is subversive of Christian orthodoxy, -though not of extra-Christian theism. But since Giordano Bruno all -cosmic philosophy that keeps the tincture of religion has pointed to -pantheism; and all moral philosophy since Descartes has been more or -less fatally subversive of Christian dogma. In the great work of -Spinoza (1671), who partly proceeded on Descartes and partly -transcended him, we have a philosophy and an ethic that are reluctantly -pronounced by respectful theists to be virtually atheistic; and no -great philosophy since has reversed that impetus. The God of Kant and -the God of Hegel are as non-Christian as the Absolute of Bradley.</p> -<p class="par">Moral philosophy had begun to be non-theological in -Montaigne’s day (1580); and his disciple, Charron, constructed in -his <i>Wisdom</i> what is pronounced to be the first modern treatise on -that footing. Less than a century later the English Cumberland, -although a bishop of the Church, took a similarly rationalistic course -in morals in his reply to Hobbes (1672), making no appeal to -revelation, though of course making no attack on it; and the almost -undisguised naturalism of Hobbes was thus tacitly countenanced in -fundamentals from the clerical side, in the very act of repudiation. -Shaftesbury, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb284" href="#pb284" name= -"pb284">284</a>]</span>who became the most influential moralist of the -first half of the eighteenth century, did but develop the naturalistic -principle on avowedly theistic and non-Christian lines. Bishop -Berkeley, who assailed both Spinoza and Shaftesbury, could justify his -Christian beliefs only by arguing that skeptics themselves, in the -study of mathematics, accepted many arbitrary propositions, and might -as well accept the mystery of Jesus Christ. Even Locke, though he stood -for a “reasonable” and non-dogmatic Christianity, was in -effect an influence for deism in respect of his philosophy.</p> -<p class="par">All later moral philosophy of any standing has been -either plainly non-evangelical or essentially irreconcilable with the -Christian faith. Even the argumentation of Bishop Butler (1736) has no -more validity for it than for any other, and is finally as favourable -to atheism as to theism. Hume, who developed from deism into a final -agnosticism, was at all stages anti-Christian in his ethic as well as -in his metaphysic and his historical criticism of religion; and Adam -Smith was strictly deistic. The later and deeper German philosophies of -Kant and Fichte are no more truly helpful to Christianity, though -elaborate attempts have been made to adapt Kantism to its service; and -though Hegel finally proposed to rehabilitate its dogmas, his German -disciples for the most part became anti-Christian; one of them, -Feuerbach, becoming one of the most formidable critics of the faith. -The professionally Christian moral philosophies, such as that of Paley -in England (1785), have been abandoned by the sincerely religious no -less than by the students of philosophy. Coleridge, seeking to give a -philosophic aspect to the faith of his latter years, had to fall back -on the “modal” Trinity, and could make no judicial defence -of the doctrines of salvation and damnation.</p> -<p class="par">In the latter half of the nineteenth century, finally, -the balance of philosophic thought has been overwhelmingly hostile to -Christian beliefs. Everywhere, whether it be professedly utilitarian or -“transcendental,” it is essentially monistic and -evolutionist; and while the expressly naturalistic doctrine, typified -in the teaching of Spencer, positively rejects all pretence of -revelation, the spiritistic schools do nothing for <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb285" href="#pb285" name= -"pb285">285</a>]</span>historic religion beyond claiming to have -reinstated a theism which is not “providential,” and so -amounts in practice to pantheism. The so-called materialism of Germany, -represented by the writings of Moleschott and Büchner, though -constantly assailed on metaphysical grounds, is the common-sense -conviction of millions of educated men; and the metaphysical attack -makes scarcely a pretence of claiming belief for conventional religion. -Christianity thus subsists without anything that can properly be -described as philosophic support, save as regards some Catholic systems -which rationalists or men of science rarely take the trouble to -examine, and the sentimental mode of reasoning latterly labelled -Pragmatism. This is really an unwarrantable application of a term which -its framer, Mr. C. S. Pierce, applied to a practice of testing beliefs -by ascertaining how far they are acted on in life. The so-called -“Pragmatism” of Professor William James and Mr. Schiller is -the vitally different process of certificating beliefs as true by the -amount of comfort and stimulus derived from them. This procedure Mr. -Pierce repudiates; but the bulk of current “Pragmatism” -flies that flag, and not his.</p> -<p class="par">That method logically concludes nothing for or against -any belief, but may be made to seem to support almost any. It posits, -in effect, that true beliefs are those by which men can successfully -live, but offers no test of the reality of any alleged grounding of -life upon a belief. Empirically, the negative of any opinion may thus -be as easily substantiated as the affirmative, since the naturalist and -the supernaturalist may alike claim individual success and -satisfaction; and the adherents of the different faiths may do as much. -For the “Pragmatist” of this order, accordingly, two -contraries may be equally “true.” Any resort to objective -tests, the method of science, puts that of Pragmatism (of this order) -out of action. It has thus no philosophic significance save as a -quasi-philosophical reaffirmation of the pietist claim of -“experience,” and leaves religion as it found it.</p> -<p class="par">Other quasi-philosophical defences of Christianity are -even less durable. A considerable amount of temporary favour has been -won by what may be termed the Irrationalist defence, <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb286" href="#pb286" name= -"pb286">286</a>]</span>typified by the works of Mr. Benjamin Kidd and -Mr. A. J. Balfour. As put by the former, it is a suicidal process of -reasoning against reliance on reason, the necessary effect being to -discredit the verdict claimed, as being attainable only through the -very act of reason that is condemned. As more subtly handled by Mr. -Balfour, the Irrationalist case takes the form of a denial that -scientific beliefs, so-called, are any more capable of “ultimate -proof” than the beliefs which constitute religion. We have here a -very modern reversion to the orthodox forensic method anciently pursued -by Cicero, and in later times employed by Huet, Pascal, and Berkeley. -Its complete practical failure in all ages might serve to indicate its -necessary nugatoriness to those who most affect it. Were the central -thesis true, there is obviously no more warrant on that basis for any -one creed than for any other; and a “solipsism” which -warrants any and every claim alike is of no use to the Christian -Church, which seeks to warrant a given revelation. Whatever be their -abstract right to certainty, most men in search of it inevitably test -the less certain proposition in the light of the more certain: and this -bias, bound up with all sincere mental life, is as fatal to -anti-critical defences as it is vital to all scientific advance. An -inquiring age is not to be made credulous by the argument from -nescience.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s4.2.3" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e805">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Biblical and -Historical Criticism</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Most men, in short, accept or reject religious -creeds on the strength not of any systematically philosophic reasoning, -but of either emotional bias or common-sense examination of concrete -evidence. The former is as a rule, though not always, susceptible of -influence from the latter. Thus the main instruments in turning men -from Christian credences have been the documentary and historical forms -of criticism.</p> -<p class="par">Such criticism, secretly frequent among educated men in -the sixteenth century, never ventured into print till the seventeenth, -and even then did so very circumspectly. English Deism begins its -literary existence with Lord Herbert of Cherbury, whose first work, -produced under French influences, appeared in Latin in 1624. His -position was that <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb287" href="#pb287" -name="pb287">287</a>]</span>the doctrine of forgiveness for faith is -immoral; that all pretences of revelation are repugnant to moral -reason; and that as all so-called revelations are sectarian and -mutually exclusive, human reason must proceed for itself on a basis of -natural theism. Such audacity was possible in virtue partly of the -resort to Latin, partly of the high personal standing of the writer. -The next outstanding anti-Christian work is the <i>Leviathan</i> (1651) -of Hobbes, who ventured to publish in English under the doctrinally -tolerant rule of Cromwell. In his treatise, not only is the attitude of -faith constantly disparaged, despite constant resort to scriptural -citation, but there is a beginning of open criticism of the -inconsistencies of the Pentateuch. Such criticism seems to have gone -much further in private discussion long before that time; and it is -clear from many apologetic treatises that doctrinal unbelief was -abundant; but the publication of a skeptical work that could be read by -the unlearned marks an era of germinating unbelief. Spinoza’s -<i>Tractatus Theologico-Politicus</i> (1670) carries the principle of -rational textual criticism of the Bible further; and after the French -Catholic professor Richard Simon had published in French his critical -treatises on the texts of the Old and New Testaments (1678 and 1689), -though these were professedly orthodox, Biblical criticism began a new -life.</p> -<p class="par">The first drastic attacks of a direct and businesslike -kind on orthodoxy were those of the English Deists of the early years -of the eighteenth century, typified in the works of Anthony Collins, -who soberly and amiably called in question alike revelation, prophecy, -and miracles. Soon such criticism was reinforced by the inquiry of -Middleton into Roman Catholic miracles, on lines which implicitly -called in question those of the gospels; and the essay of Hume on -miracles in general put the case against them on grounds which could be -turned only by arguments that evaded them. The polemic of the whole -French school of freethinkers, headed by Voltaire, thereafter attacked -every aspect of Jewish and Christian supernaturalism and of Jewish and -Christian history considered as a moral dispensation; the English -Unitarians, represented by Priestley, made a number of converts to -their compromise; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb288" href="#pb288" -name="pb288">288</a>]</span>and when Gibbon came to deal with the rise -of Christianity in his great work (1776–88), he set forth on -naturalistic grounds a tentative sociological explanation which could -not be overthrown by orthodox methods, and is to be superseded only by -a more searching analysis on the same lines. So decisive was the total -effect of the critical attack that in the last quarter of the -eighteenth century many German theologians within the Church had begun -to deal with the supernatural elements in the Old Testament on -rationalistic though temporizing methods, and some had even begun to -apply the same treatment to the New. Finally came, in England, the -powerful common-sense attack of Thomas Paine (1793), which at once set -up a movement of popular rationalism that has never since ceased.</p> -<p class="par">To all such rationalism, however, a strong check was set -up for a whole generation, especially in England, by the universal -reaction against the French Revolution. Hitherto the upper classes, -there as in France, had been noted mainly for unbelief in religious -matters; but when it was seen from the course of the Revolution that -heterodoxy could join hands with democracy, there was a rapid change of -front, on the simple ground of class interest. During the first -generation of the nineteenth century, accordingly, all English -freethinking was either driven under the social surface or classed as -disreputable, so that it was possible to assume a great revival of -faith. In France, similarly, the literary pietism of Chateaubriand -seemed to have crowned with success the official restoration of the -Church’s authority; and even the intellectual revival was -associated with Christian zeal on the part of such energetic -personalities as Guizot. Even in Germany, though there the work of -Biblical criticism on rationalist lines went steadily on, there was a -pietist revival. Before the middle of the century was reached, however, -it was clear that in France and Germany rationalism was in full -renascence; and in England, where such facts are less readily avowed, -scholarly writings even in the fourth decade had begun to prove the -solidarity of European culture.</p> -<p class="par">As regards Biblical criticism, there appears to be a -certain <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb289" href="#pb289" name= -"pb289">289</a>]</span>periodicity of action. In the eighteenth -century, when the work done was mainly of the common-sense order, the -French physician Jean Astruc laid down a basis for exact documentary -analysis by pointing to the two elements of Yahwist (Jehovist) and -Elohist narrative as indicating two distinct sources. On such lines the -earlier German scholars of the nineteenth century long laboured, till -the common-sense criticism was lost sight of. In the meantime, however, -a long line of partially rationalist criticism of the New Testament -culminated in the <i>Life of Jesus</i> by Strauss; and educated -Christendom was shaken to its foundations, insofar as it ventured to -read. Side by side with that of Strauss, there proceeded in Germany a -great movement of documentary and historical analysis, till -professional theology there became almost identified with the surrender -of Christian supernaturalism.</p> -<p class="par">As the critical movement proceeded in England it came -about that an admired dignitary of its Church, Bishop Colenso, was -convinced on common-sense lines of the utterly unhistorical character -of the main Pentateuchal narrative, and courageously published his -views (1862). From that point the European criticism of the Old -Testament, which had been proceeding on the assumption of the -genuineness of the narrative, took a new course with such rapid success -that within a generation the whole mass of the Old Testament had been -either decisively or provisionally reduced, chiefly by Dutch and German -scholars, to a variety of sources never wholly in accordance with the -traditional ascription, and representing collectively a vast historical -process of fabrication. In the face of the facts, the claim of -“inspiration” still made for the books by some of the -scholars who expound the process of their composition is naturally -treated with indifference by educated men not professionally committed -to such a position.</p> -<p class="par">With whatever bias the problem be approached, all really -critical study of the documents latterly tells against the Christian -position. Writers who, like Renan, have treated Christian origins in a -spirit of literary sympathy with that of belief, none the less undo -faith, and offer at best a sentimental historical construction in place -of the destroyed tradition. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb290" href= -"#pb290" name="pb290">290</a>]</span>The orthodox defence, on the other -hand, grows rapidly less confident in the hands of scholarly men. The -later development of professional study, as set forth in the English -<i lang="la">Encyclopædia Biblica</i> shows a progressive -collapse of the traditional belief on almost every detail, some -continental theologians now going further in their rejection of it than -many professed rationalists.</p> -<p class="par">The general result of two generations of critical -research and controversy is that practically all Biblical students have -accepted the main results of the “higher criticism,” -whatever debate there may still be over details. There is tacit or -overt agreement that the Hexateuch is a composite body of writings of -many periods; that the Mosaic authorship is a myth; that the -quasi-historical books are similarly works of redaction; that the -Psalms are not Davidic and the Solomonic books not Solomonic; and that -the prophets are endlessly manipulated. Even the view that all the -prophets are post-Maccabean finds some acceptance. And the dissolution -of the Old Testament tradition necessarily involves the New. Though the -rigorous documentary analysis of that lagged behind the criticism of -the Hebrew books, the general conceptions of miracles and of -inspiration have long lacked serious defence. Arnold’s -“Miracles do not happen” startled only those who had been -inattentive to the whole movement of scientific and historical -thought.</p> -<p class="par">To-day it can hardly be said that there is any serious -defence of New Testament supernaturalism. Some years ago a large number -of Anglican clerics signed a memorial calling for a liberal attitude -towards all historical criticism of the texts, and this was followed by -an appeal to the Bishop of London asking that belief in the Virgin -Birth should no longer be required of candidates for holy orders. The -appeal was of course refused; but no competent inquirer doubts that -hundreds of clergymen of the orthodox Churches are Unitarian in their -beliefs. Living controversy now turns, not on the supernaturalism of -the gospels, but on the purely historical question as to whether the -Gospel Jesus ever lived; and over this issue Unitarians are found to be -as resentful as Trinitarians <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb291" href= -"#pb291" name="pb291">291</a>]</span>ever were on the Unitarian issue. -In Germany the debate has gone far, some of the more open-minded -theologians admitting that the old lines of defence must be abandoned -as inadequate. In England all critical processes take place more -slowly, but there is now accumulating a defensive literature which -tells of widespread unsettlement. The method of confident bluster is -found not to avail in an age which has seen the rapid abandonment of so -many vital positions, all in their time maintained with the same -contemptuous confidence.</p> -<p class="par">The average layman has of course not yet been reached by -such a problem as that of the Historicity of Jesus; but he has long -been well accustomed to the defensive attitude in matters of faith. -Down to the time of Colenso the “sensations” of the -controversy were over the books which attacked. For a generation past -the attack has been so general that the new “sensations” -were those set up by new attempts at defence or counter-attack. Such -books as the late Henry Drummond’s <i>Natural Law in the -Spiritual World</i>, Mr. Benjamin Kidd’s <i>Social Evolution</i>, -and Mr. Balfour’s <i>Foundations of Belief</i>, in their turn -elicited an amount of excitement which told chiefly of eagerness for -weapons of defence against the rationalist invasion. None of the works -named will bear any critical scrutiny. Drummond’s was repented of -by its author, as it well might; and the irrationalism of Mr. Kidd and -Mr. Balfour soon ceased to comfort the clergy who hastily hailed it as -a means of stablishing the faith.</p> -<p class="par">What subsists is the mass of mainly conventional, -formal, and uncritical orthodoxy, the custom of the majority, which -stands for the same mental inertia as preserved ancient paganism -substantially intact for five hundred years after Socrates, and enabled -its traditional polytheism to overgrow early Christianity. And the -professional defence to-day is at many points singularly like that put -forward for pagan polytheism by the Platonists and Neo-Platonists. At -its best it is certainly not more philosophical than the performance of -Plotinus; at its worst not more hollow than the performance of Cicero. -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb292" href="#pb292" name= -"pb292">292</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter III</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">POPULAR ACCEPTANCE</h2> -<div id="s4.3.1" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e821">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Catholic -Christianity</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">All through the sixteenth and seventeenth -centuries, and till near the end of the eighteenth, the masses of -Europe remained attached to their respective Churches in despite of the -play of criticism among the more instructed. Whether popular religion -be regarded as a matter of habit and superstition or as the expression -of a higher happiness in religious rites, it has unquestionably -numbered the great majority down till recent times. How the Catholic -Church recovered large parts of Germany, practically all Poland and -Bohemia, and for a time the complete control of France, we have seen. -Within her sphere popular conduct was certainly no worse than in the -age of her undivided power; and where she could number within her fold -minds like Paolo Sarpi, the historian of the Council of Trent, in the -sixteenth century; like Pascal and Fénelon and Bossuet in the -seventeenth; and like Vico in the eighteenth, though in hardly any case -are such leading spirits found to be in thorough harmony with the papal -system, she could not but hold the respect of a great body even of -educated people.</p> -<p class="par">Her swarms of missionaries, too, seemed for a time to -have begun a new era of Catholic expansion in Asia and America, finding -footing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Japan, China, -India, Siam, Tonkin, as well as in North and South America. Sent forth -by the College of Propaganda (<i lang="la">Congregatio de Propaganda -Fide</i>) founded in 1622, they displayed a zeal never surpassed in the -Church’s history. In Japan and China, in particular, they had for -a time a dazzling success, largely through the address of the -Jesuits—whose policy was to win converts by identifying -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb293" href="#pb293" name= -"pb293">293</a>]</span>native rites and beliefs with Christian, never -openly assailing but always seeking to assimilate them. As early as -1549, Francis Xavier had preached the faith in Japan, and at the -beginning of the seventeenth century it seemed likely to become the -religion of the State. But Christians undid the Christian cause. -Between the various orders of Catholic missionaries there were always -deadly jealousies, all the others denouncing the Jesuits, who in turn -charged incompetence and malevolence on all; and the increasing -arrogance of the propagandists in Japan gave colour to the hints of the -Protestant traders, Dutch and English, that Catholic missions were a -prelude to Catholic conquest. The Japanese emperor, accordingly, began -a great persecution in 1587, and during a number of years the Christian -converts were slaughtered by tens of thousands. Still the Jesuits -persevered; but in the next generation persecution began afresh. At -length, in 1637, by a supreme effort, the weakened Catholic flock were -wholly destroyed or expelled. Once more it had been demonstrated that -really determined and rigorous persecution by a majority in power can -eradicate the Christian or any other religion in a given sphere.</p> -<p class="par">In Siam in the next century a slight success was -similarly followed by expulsion; and in China, where an outward success -had been won as a sequel to the expansion in Japan, and where the -Christian cause subsisted longer, despite some persecution and despite -the fierce dissensions of the different orders on points both of -doctrine and corporate conduct, it dwindled in the eighteenth century. -The success, indeed, had been all along illusory, as the Chinese had -adapted rather than adopted Christian forms, and merely carried on -their usual rites under Christian auspices. When, accordingly, the -rival orders at length forced on the papacy, in the teeth of the -Jesuits, a decision as to whether Chinese Christians should or should -not truly conform to Christian doctrine, and a decision against the -Jesuits was given, the semblance of conversion melted away, and a -reversion to Jesuit methods could not restore it. A similar decision -made an end of a rather flourishing movement of Jesuit Brahmanism in -India about the middle of the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb294" -href="#pb294" name="pb294">294</a>]</span>eighteenth century; and the -other labours of the Catholic missionaries in India were undone by the -cruelties of their own Inquisition.</p> -<p class="par">Jesuitism had by this time been convicted of aiming in -the old fashion at its own worldly wealth, of troubling by its -political plottings the peace of every country it could enter, and of -setting up its own ambitions against the papal authority. In the East -it had become a great wealth-hunting corporation; in South America it -was the same, contriving for some generations to govern Paraguay in -particular wholly for its own enrichment; in Europe it provoked every -Catholic government in turn by its audacious attempts to control them. -Thus it was expelled from Portugal in 1759, from France in 1762, from -Bohemia in 1766; from Spain, Genoa, and Venice in 1767; and from -Naples, Malta, and Parma in 1768. At length, in 1773, the Society was -suppressed by a papal bull, and though it was revived in the nineteenth -century it has never since been the power it was, whether for evil or -for good.</p> -<p class="par">Of her extensions beyond Europe there thus remained -substantially to the Church of Rome at the end of the eighteenth -century only the Catholic populations of Central and South America and -Canada; and at the outbreak of the French Revolution, marked as it was -by the wholesale abjurations of Catholic priests and populace, it might -have seemed as if the reign of Rome in Europe were coming to an end. -The political movement, however, had outrun the educational; and as we -have seen, there was even a literary reaction at the Restoration. In -Italy, where the revolutionary movement had been hostile to the Church, -the reaction after 1815 was very marked. All criticism of Catholicism -was made a penal offence, and in the Kingdom of Naples alone, in 1825, -there were twenty-seven thousand priests, eight thousand nuns, as many -monks, twenty archbishops, and seventy-three bishops. In Spain and -France, too, the clergy worked hard to recover authority over the -people; and in Catholic Ireland they had never lost it, despite all the -efforts of Protestantism.</p> -<p class="par">Everywhere, however, save in America, the struggle for -existence has gone against Catholicism in the nineteenth <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb295" href="#pb295" name= -"pb295">295</a>]</span>century. Catholic Ireland has been in large -measure depopulated through the failure of Protestant England to solve -its economic problems; and though this means a gain to Romanism in the -United States, there is no great likelihood that that is permanent, or -that Catholicism there will ever be very docile to the papacy. France -has become gradually more rationalistic, so much so that the municipal -government of Paris is usually in the hands of freethinkers; and the -recent expulsion of the recalcitrant religious orders has proved the -determination of the republican majority to put down clerical -influence. The movement of anti-theological Positivism, founded by the -teaching of Auguste Comte (d. 1857) on bases laid by Saint-Simon, has -never been numerically strong, but has affected all French thought; and -to-day there is scarcely one eminent French writer who professes -religious opinions. Even in Spain, so long the stronghold of the faith, -and still more generally in Italy, educated men are as a rule either -indifferent or hostile to the Church; and the common people, especially -the Socialists in the towns, have gone the same way. Both in Spain and -Portugal there are journals zealously devoted to a propaganda of -freethought; and the judicial murder of Ferrer has but intensified -hostility to the Church. National union in Italy, accomplished in the -middle of the century, has been fatal to ecclesiastical supremacy. The -papacy is unable to recover its temporal power at Rome. In Catholic -Belgium, the action of the clergy is constantly fought by a ubiquitous -freethought propaganda; and Dutch Catholicism does not gain ground.</p> -<p class="par">Some appearance of Catholic revival occurred in England -in the second and third generations of the nineteenth century, the -“Oxford movement” preparing the ground; but though John -Henry Newman was followed into the Catholic Church by a number of -clergymen and rich laymen, the movement soon ceased to be -intellectually important, and the popular success seems to have reached -its limits. Though there is much leaning to Rome in the High Church -section of the heterogeneous Anglican body, it is certain that while -the economic basis remains Protestant there will be no great secession. -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb296" href="#pb296" name= -"pb296">296</a>]</span>Economic considerations, again, have latterly -set up even in Catholic Austria—which with Southern Germany is -perhaps the most believing section of the Catholic world—a -movement with the watchword “Loose from Rome.” In Brazil, -again, there has been a quite extraordinary development of Positivism -among the educated class; and the revolution which peacefully expelled -the last emperor—himself personally estimable, and not an -orthodox Catholic—was ostensibly wrought by the Positivist party. -Portugal, finally, has taken the same path.</p> -<p class="par">Thus the age which saw the promulgation of the formal -decree of Papal Infallibility (1870) has seen the most vital decline -that has ever taken place in the total life and power of the Church of -Rome. It preserves its full hold to-day only on (1) the most ignorant -or most rural sections of the population of Catholic countries, (2) the -unintellectual sections of their middle and upper classes, and (3) the -emotionally religious or pietistic types, who are still, by reason of -the total circumstances, more numerous among women than among men. -Hence in the Catholic countries, female education being there specially -backward, the Church depends relatively even more on women than do the -churches of the Protestant world. But among women in the Catholic -countries also there goes on a process of rationalization, Socialism -doing some of the work of education where the other machinery is -inadequate.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s4.3.2" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e831">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>Protestant -Christianity</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The failure of Protestantism to gain any ground in -Europe after the sixteenth century had naturally the effect of -increasing the zeal of its adherents within their own sphere; and -though nowhere did Protestant organization compare in energy with that -shown by the Society of Jesus and the Roman College of Propaganda, the -system of popular education in several countries—as Switzerland, -Scotland, and parts of Germany—was raised much above the popular -Catholic level. Presbyterians in particular felt the need of popular -schools for the maintenance of their polity. The result was, after a -time, a certain improvement in the capacity and conditions of the -common <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb297" href="#pb297" name= -"pb297">297</a>]</span>people where other causes did not interfere. -Thus the Protestant cantons of Switzerland have in general been noted -for a greater material prosperity than that of the Catholic cantons; -and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Presbyterian Scotland, -though naturally much the poorer country, admittedly turned out a -larger proportion of men qualified for responsible positions than did -episcopalian England.</p> -<p class="par">All the while, the influence of a Presbyterian clergy, -in touch with the people and able to ostracize socially those who -avowed unbelief, maintained in the Calvinistic countries a higher -average of professed orthodoxy, the normal effect of higher education -being thus checked on the side of religion. Scotland contributed little -to the earlier deistic movement of the eighteenth century, Smith and -Hume having taken it up after it had flourished for a generation in -England; and at no time was rationalism socially avowed to the same -extent in the north as in the south, the enlightenment of the lay -authors being confined to a small town circle.</p> -<p class="par">On the moral and æsthetic side, however, popular -Presbyterianism tended to be hard and joyless, with the natural result, -seen alike in Geneva and in Scotland, of breeding much licence. On the -other hand there arose a higher reaction, towards intellectual -interests; and the Switzerland of the eighteenth century produced a -remarkably large proportion of scientific men; while in Scotland, where -centuries of theological life and strife set up even in the Church a -notable spirit of “moderation,” both the physical and the -moral or social sciences were conspicuously cultivated. Popular -freethinking was beginning to follow in both cases, when the reaction -against the French Revolution arose to arrest it. When in the next -generation there began in Scotland the ecclesiastical struggle which -ended in the formation of the Free Church (1842) a new impulse was -given to doctrinal fanaticism, which the competition of three rival -Presbyterian Churches was well fitted to maintain.</p> -<p class="par">Thus, though Scottish scholars have contributed largely -to the “higher criticism,” the middle and working classes -of Scotland all through the nineteenth century have been at -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb298" href="#pb298" name= -"pb298">298</a>]</span>least outwardly more orthodox than even those of -England. They, too, however, have begun to exhibit the common critical -tendencies. As the results of Biblical criticism become more generally -known, church attendance tends to fall off, despite the economic -pressure Churchmen are able to use in small communities. It is perhaps -as much on account of the common need as by reason of the growth of -liberality that the two chief dissenting Scottish Churches, the Free -and the United Presbyterian (Voluntary), have latterly amalgamated. -Were it not that a large proportion of the more energetic and stirring -youth of the country leave it for England and the colonies, the more -conservative staying at home, the process of change would probably be -more rapid.</p> -<p class="par">In the small communities of Protestant Switzerland a -democratic church polity had equally served to maintain a greater -stress of orthodox belief and practice than was seen in surrounding -countries; and the appointment of Strauss to a chair of theology at -Zurich by a Radical Government in 1839 led to an actual insurrection, -set up and led by fanatical clergymen. Catholic cantons later showed -themselves no less medieval. Nothing, however, avails to shut out -critical thought; Zeller received a chair at Berne in 1847; rationalism -has ever since steadily progressed; the number of theological students -as steadily falls off; and among the Swiss theologians of to-day are -some of the most “subversive” of the professional writers -on Christian origins. Popular rationalism necessarily begins to follow, -though less rapidly than in countries where the people and the clergy -do not ecclesiastically govern themselves.</p> -<p class="par">In Protestant Holland and the Scandinavian States, of -late years, the decline of Christian faith has been still more marked. -All are considerably influenced by German culture; and in Protestant -Germany orthodoxy is gradually disappearing. There the long depression -of civilization begun by the troubles of the Reformation, and clinched -by the vast calamity of the Thirty Years War, was favourable to a -sombre religious feeling; and this, under the name of Pietism, actually -prevailed in the latter part of the seventeenth century, triumphing -over <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb299" href="#pb299" name= -"pb299">299</a>]</span>a movement of spontaneous freethinking. Peace -and the development of universities thereafter built up a learned -class, who especially cultivated ecclesiastical history; and as we have -seen, German theology had become in the primary sense rationalistic by -the end of the eighteenth century. After the fall of Napoleon there -began in earnest the education of the Prussian common people; and -though to this day the learned class are more apart from the general -public in Germany than in most other countries, the latter half of the -nineteenth century has seen a great development of popular -secularism.</p> -<p class="par">In 1881 the church accommodation in Berlin sufficed for -only two per cent of the population, and even that was not at all fully -used. This is the social aspect of Protestant Germany; and it -effectively confutes the periodic statements as to revivals of -orthodoxy in the universities. Such revivals are officially engineered -and financially stimulated: the mass of the people of Protestant -Germany, at least in the towns, have practically given up the Christian -creed, even when they do not renounce their nominal membership in the -State Church; and the great Socialistic party, which contains over -three millions of adult males, is pronouncedly rationalistic. In -Scandinavia the literary influence of such masters of drama and fiction -as Ibsen and Björnson creates a freethinking spirit on a very wide -scale among the middle classes, though the clergy are still illiberal; -and in Holland, where the churches are increasingly latitudinarian, -there has been a more competent journalistic propaganda of rationalism -than in almost any other country.</p> -<p class="par">That the same general movement of things goes on in -England may be proved by reference to the almost daily complaints of -the clergy. Rationalism and secularism have advanced in all classes -during half a century, until their propaganda is accepted as a quite -normal activity; such writers as Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, and Clifford -being read by the more studious of all ranks. In recent years the cheap -reprints of the Rationalist Press Association have had millions of -readers. Churchgoing constantly declines in the towns; agnosticism -becomes more and more common among the <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb300" href="#pb300" name="pb300">300</a>]</span>educated classes; the -average of the workers in the large towns are fixedly alienated from -the Church; and the latter-day propaganda of the Salvation Army affects -only the less intelligent types even since, after refusing for twenty -years to deal with material problems, it has sought to establish itself -as a charitable organization for dealing with the “lapsed -masses.” As regards the general influence of the churches it is -observable that whereas fifty years ago there were many clergymen and -prelates noted as important writers on non-theological matters, and -whereas even a few years ago there were still several bishops -distinguished as scholars and historians, there is now none so -describable. So, in the department of fine letters, there is scarcely a -poet or novelist of high standing who can be called a believing -Christian. In the last generation some distinguished men who were -openly heterodox, as the late Mr. Matthew Arnold, or very dubiously -orthodox, as Mr. Lecky, were wont to profess themselves good members of -the Church of England; but the normal tendency of rationalists is now -to give the churches up. The leading names in serious and even -imaginative literature, with a few exceptions which stand for -popularity rather than weight, are those of known unbelievers. In that -category stood the late Mr. George Meredith.</p> -<p class="par">Of the state of thought in the United States it is -difficult to speak with precision. The latitude allowed to or taken by -the majority of the clergy keeps within the ostensible pale of the -numerous churches much opinion that elsewhere would rank as extremely -heterodox; and it was from American churchmen that there came the -project of the so-called “Rainbow Bible,” in which the -heterogeneous sources of the Old Testament books are indicated by -printing in variously coloured inks. As in all countries where the -clergy are democratically in touch with the people, the breach between -authority and modern thought is thus less marked than in the sphere of -the Catholic and Anglican Churches. But in such a civilization, -development is inevitably continuous.</p> -<p class="par">In the first half of the nineteenth century the -prevailing creed of educated New England, then noted for “plain -living <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb301" href="#pb301" name= -"pb301">301</a>]</span>and high thinking,” was Unitarianism. This -seems to have grown rapidly after the Revolution, partly from seed sown -by Priestley, who made New England his home, partly from the Deism of -the educated class. Nearly all the leaders of the -Revolution—Washington, Paine, Franklin, Jefferson, -Adams—had been Deists. But Deism is an inconvenient creed for -public men in a church-going or clerically-influenced world; and -Unitarianism, with its decorous worship and use of the Bible, was a -convenient compromise. Later “transcendental” teaching, -such as the movement around Emerson, led men in the same direction. -Latterly, however, the Unitarian congregations relatively dwindle; and -while some of the defection stands for the relapse of the children from -the strenuous thought of their fathers, some stands for complete -abandonment of the habit of worship.</p> -<p class="par">At the same time popular rationalism has been greatly -diffused in the United States by the lecturing of the late Colonel -Ingersoll, one of the greatest orators of his time, as was his -contemporary Charles Bradlaugh in England. Each of those men probably -convinced more of his fellow countrymen of the untruth of the Christian -creed than were ever rationally persuaded of its truth by the preachers -or teachers of modern times. What preserves the form of faith in the -States is probably less the socio-economic pressure seen so commonly in -England and Scotland (since all life is franker and freer in the New -World, especially in the West) than the simple lack of leisure for -study in a community where competition for income drives all men at a -pace that almost seems to belie prosperity. A shrewd and pliable clergy -keeps itself rather better abreast of new scholarship and criticism -than does the mass of the flock; and men and women who first learn from -the pulpit something of the change of view passing over Biblical study -are not apt to turn away from the teacher as Europeans do from an -unteachable priest. But despite all accommodation the sense of an -absolute change is diffused, and there is record of western preachers -bidding farewell to the pulpit and being chorussed by laymen forsaking -the pew.</p> -<p class="par">In strict keeping with the shrinkage of faith among the -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb302" href="#pb302" name= -"pb302">302</a>]</span>“higher” races is the expenditure of -effort to spread it among the “lower.” Faith naturally -seeks the comfort of converts at lower intellectual levels; and it is -in some quarters able to report a certain expansion of territory by -such means. But the total statistics of Protestant missions tell only -of handfuls of converts scattered among the yellow and brown and black -races, a number grotesquely disproportionate to the immense outlay. -This goes on in virtue of the still sufficient wealth of the churches, -which are in consistency bound to respond to missionary appeals while -they profess belief in the Christian doctrine of salvation. It is -found, however, that the missionary system needs, to maintain it, -either an ever more substantial stipend or some other opportunity of -gain to the individual missionary; and the triviality of the results -becomes increasingly discouraging to all save the most fervent faith. -Disparagement of missionary labours on both moral and political grounds -is probably more common among professed churchmen than among -unbelievers, who sometimes, as in the case of Darwin, bear cordial -testimony to the merits and the success of some missionaries as against -the egoism of the normal trader in his relations with the undeveloped -races.</p> -<p class="par">The final problem of Protestantism is its collective -relation to Catholicism; and in the first half of the nineteenth -century many Protestants still hoped to gain ground at the expense of -the Church of Rome, now that propaganda was free. No such success, -however, has taken place. It is found on the contrary that the more -devotional types tend to revert from Protestantism to Rome, while those -who reject Catholicism rarely become Protestants. In France this is -peculiarly apparent. At the Revolution, it was found that -proportionally as many Protestant pastors as Catholic priests were -ready to abjure their creed. In the religious reaction both Churches -alike regained ground; and the Protestant Church in France has always -had adherents distinguished for learning and moral earnestness. To-day, -however, though its members are relatively numerous in places of -political power, by reason doubtless of their serious and practical -education, their Church does not make any corresponding gains. Its -numbers may <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb303" href="#pb303" name= -"pb303">303</a>]</span>not latterly dwindle as steadily as those of the -Catholic mass; but there is no prospect that it will recover strength -through Catholic defections. In Austria, the anti-Roman movement -already mentioned may conceivably give rise to a non-Romish Church; but -it is impossible to forecast the issue.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s4.3.3" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e841">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Greek -Christianity</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">It is the pride of the Greek Church to call itself -Orthodox; and in no part of Christendom has the faith had less to fear -from unbelief. Mere sectarian strife, indeed, has never been lacking; -and at the very moment of the fall of Constantinople there was deadly -schism between the orthodox and those who were politically willing to -unite with the Latin Church. But vital heresy never throve. Political -vicissitude in the Eastern empire, from Constantine onwards, seems -always to have thrown the balance of force on the side of religious -conservatism; and so devoid is Greek ecclesiastical history since the -Middle Ages of any element of innovating life that the student is -tempted almost to surmise a national loss of faculty. Greek -intellectual life since the fall of Constantinople, however, is only a -steady sequence from that which went before. After the overthrow of the -Latin kingdom set up by the Crusaders, and the restoration of Greek -rule, the whole nation was very naturally thrown back on its -traditions, recoiling from further contact with the West; and the -process of fixation was repeated for what of Greek life was left after -the Turkish conquest. The extraordinary gift for despotic government -shown by the first race of Ottoman Turks brought about a resigned -degradation on the Christian side. Allowed a sufficient measure of -toleration to make them “prefer the domination of the Sultan to -that of any Christian potentate,” they paid to him not only their -taxes, but, for a time, a large annual tribute of children, with -perfect submission; and thus, in the words of the British historian of -modern Greece, they “sank with wonderful rapidity, and without an -effort, into the most abject slavery.” Many indeed became -Mohammedans to escape the tribute of children, which after a time -ceased to be exacted, becoming rare in the seventeenth century. -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb304" href="#pb304" name= -"pb304">304</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">In such circumstances the Christian priesthood and -remaining laity were thrown very closely together, somewhat as happened -in Ireland under English rule, and the result was a perfect devotion on -the part of the Greek peasantry to their creed. It is accordingly -claimed as the force which preserved their nationality. But the -nationality so preserved could not well do much credit to the creed, -which, in turn, gave Greeks a ground of differentiation from their -conquerors without supplying any force of retrieval or progress. What -was secured was not moral union but merely doctrinal persistence in the -state of subjection; and the conqueror “availed himself of the -hoary bigotry and infantine vanity of Hellenic dotage to use the Greek -Church as a means of enslaving the nation.” The first Sultan -sagaciously appointed a conservative Patriarch, and left Christian -disputes alone. The result was that the Church was kept impotent by its -own quarrels and corruptions. Unity of forms alone remained; simony -“became a part of the constitution of the Orthodox Church,” -the women of the Sultan’s harem selling Christian ecclesiastical -offices; and Christian life as such set up in the Moslem onlookers an -immovable contempt. “No more selfish and degraded class of men -has ever held power,” says Finlay, “than the archonts of -modern Greece and the Phanariots of Constantinople.” Greek life -remained at its best in the rural districts, where the old village -governments were allowed to subsist, and where accordingly the people -kept apart from the corrupt and oppressive Turkish law courts. And in -these districts, as it happens, there has been the maximum of pagan -survivals.</p> -<p class="par">The Church in particular exhibited in the sixteenth and -seventeenth centuries, in a worse degree, all the corruption and -backwardness of that of the West in the pre-Reformation period. Greek -monasteries, despite attempts at reform by single emperors, had long -been in large measure places of comfortable retreat for members of the -upper classes; and under Turkish rule they became still more so, acting -however as centres of political intrigue in addition. The result was -that, with every facility for such study as the Benedictines carried on -in the West, the Greek monks as a rule left learning <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb305" href="#pb305" name= -"pb305">305</a>]</span>alone, and were active chiefly as Turkish -political agents, in the manner of the Western Jesuits. The secular -clergy at the same time became so depressed economically that they were -commonly obliged to work with their hands for a living; and though -those of the country districts were as a rule morally much superior to -those of the towns, all alike were necessarily very ignorant. In the -towns, where many of the aristocracy had become Moslems at the -conquest, both clergy and monks frequently apostatized to Islam, three -cases being recorded in the year 1675; and about that time there is a -curious record of the Turks putting a Christian renegade to death for -cursing his own religion in the divan. Moslems seem always to have -retained a reverence for the Gospel Jesus, considered as apart from his -Church.</p> -<p class="par">It is needless to say that Greek Christianity never had -the slightest countervailing success in converting Moslems. In addition -to the spectacle of Christian degradation constantly under their eyes, -the Turks were in a position to say that no trust could ever be put in -the good faith of a Christian State which made a treaty with them. Thus -even when the usual diseases of despotism and dogmatism corroded the -Turkish polity, the Christians counted for nothing as an element either -of regeneration or of criticism; and no Turk ever looked to their creed -as a possible force of reform, though in the period of energy the -ablest Turkish statesman always saw the wisdom of ruling them -tolerantly, in the Turkish interest, and sought to win them to Islam. -Outside of Greece proper, accordingly, the Greek Church never regained -any ground in the Turkish empire; and in the age of the conquest, when -the expulsion of Jews from Spain drove many of that race to Turkey, -they were everywhere preferred to Christians, whom they ousted, -further, from many industrial and commercial positions in the towns, -becoming the chief bankers, physicians, and merchants, and so helping -to depress the Christians.</p> -<p class="par">No race could under such conditions maintain a high -intellectual life; and among Greek Christians orthodoxy was a matter of -course. While Venice held the Morea at the end of the seventeenth -century, and while Genoa ruled some of the <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb306" href="#pb306" name= -"pb306">306</a>]</span>islands, the same state of things prevailed -under Catholic rule. When accordingly the sense of nationality began to -grow in the eighteenth century, it was from the first associated with -the national religion. In the first quarter of the eighteenth century, -Catholic propaganda was carried on in Chios and elsewhere under French -auspices, and the Greek Church persuaded the Turkish Government to -prohibit proselytism. At no period does the strife between easterns and -westerns at the Holy Sepulchre seem to have ceased; and it now began to -worsen. The wars between Austria and Turkey, however, began the gradual -emancipation of the Greek people from servitude, by putting an outside -pressure on the Turkish Government; the Russians continued the process; -and the new friendly relations now set up between Greek and other -Christians developed a new Greek sentiment of racial hostility to the -Turks. At the same time, the hostility of the Christian powers made the -Porte inclined to attach the Greek upper class by giving them -privileges as Turkish officials, and thus the national self-respect was -on that side further encouraged, despite the corruption of the favoured -class. Probably Russian influence in the eighteenth century did most to -arouse national aspirations, Russia being specially welcome as holding -the Greek form of Christianity; but the Russian attempt to secure -sovereignty as the price of military help checked the movement for -independence; and it needed the contagion of the French revolutionary -movement to cause a vigorous revival. Then Russia on political grounds -combined with the Porte to resist French influence from the Levant and -the Ionian islands; and when in 1815 the revived Ionian Republic was -placed under British protection, Russia and Turkey continued to combine -in jealousy of Western influence.</p> -<p class="par">English rule in the Ionian Islands in turn was -“neither wise nor liberal,” and while it subsisted did -nothing for Greek development; but it remains the fact that Russia, -holding the Greek creed, never aimed sympathetically at Greek -liberation. That came about at length through the fervour of national -feeling set up at the French Revolution and encouraged by a common -European sympathy, grounded not on religion but on <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb307" href="#pb307" name= -"pb307">307</a>]</span>admiration for ancient and pagan Greece as the -great exemplar of civilization and intellectual life. The same -admiration for their ancestors was naturally aroused among the Greeks -themselves, and was their strongest political impulse. -“Ecclesiastical ties greatly facilitated union, but they neither -created the impulse towards independence, nor infused the enthusiasm -which secured success.”</p> -<p class="par">Since the achievement of Greek independence, however, -the people have remained substantially orthodox. Though they are no -longer withheld from intercourse with the West, but have on the -contrary shown a large measure of cosmopolitanism, their intellectual -life has remained relatively fixed till the other day, the new -complacency of independence backing the old complacency of orthodoxy. -An excessive devotion to politics and political intrigue has absorbed -the mental activity of the people; and literary veneration for the -classic past has hampered the free play of intelligence on higher -problems. The “Gospel Riots” at Athens a dozen years ago -exhibited the state of real culture. On the urging of the Queen there -had been made a translation of the New Testament into the living -language of the people, or into one midway between that and the -artificial academic tongue which has been developed among the literary -class. About that period, however, what appears to be a more truly -vernacular version began to be published in an Athenian journal; and it -was against this that the students and others concerned directed their -indignation, bringing about by their disturbances an actual change of -ministry. Orthodox sentiment and orthodox ignorance appeared to be the -moving forces; so that at the beginning of the twentieth century Greece -could claim to be the most bigoted of Christian countries. Doubtless -the consciousness of possessing the continuous apostolic tradition has -been an important psychological factor in the special conservatism of -belief, as is literary past-worship in the conservatism of speech.</p> -<p class="par">When we turn to Russia, where the creed of the Greek -Church, though under an independent Patriarch, is that of the State, we -find the usual phenomena of European intellectual <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb308" href="#pb308" name="pb308">308</a>]</span>life -specially marked. In no other country, perhaps, is rationalism or -indifference more nearly universal among the educated class, which is -relatively small; and nowhere is faith more uncritical among the mass. -Among them the use and adoration of icons—pictures or images of -Jesus or the Madonna or of the saints, embellished in various -ways—is universal in both private and public devotion; and a -certain number of images, credited with miraculous virtue, earn great -revenues for the monasteries or churches which possess them. The mass -of the parish clergy (who like those of Greece may marry before -ordination, but not a second time) are so ignorant as to be unconcerned -about educated unbelief; and the Church as a whole has little or no -political influence, being thoroughly subject to the political -administration, or at least to the authority of the Tsar.</p> -<p class="par">In the medieval period monasteries in Russia underwent -the same evolution as elsewhere, the monks passing from poverty to -corporate wealth, and owning in particular multitudes of serfs. Their -lands and serfs, however, were secularized in the eighteenth century; -and since then, though some five hundred monasteries continue to exist, -they have counted for little in the national life. Ecclesiastical -discipline has in general been always rigorous under the autocracy; and -in the eighteenth century it was common to flog priests cruelly for -almost any breach of discipline. And though Russia has for ages -abounded in dissenting sects, at no time has any movement of reform -come from the clergy. No Church has been more steadily unintellectual. -All progress in Russia has come from the stimulus of western culture, -beginning under Peter the Great, and continuing throughout the -eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and though some men of genius, as -the great novelist, Dostoyevsky, who was anti-rationalist, and Count -Tolstoy, who was heretically religious, have been exceptions to the -rule, the higher Russian culture is predominantly rationalistic. The -greatest Russian novelist, Tourguénief, was a freethinker, as is -Gorky to-day.</p> -<p class="par">The numerous dissident sects of Russia, which represent -in general unorganized developments of the spirit of Bible-worshipping -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb309" href="#pb309" name= -"pb309">309</a>]</span>Protestantism, have been broadly classed as -follows: (1) Sects such as the Molokani and Stundists, which found on -the Scriptures, but are not literalists, and resort at times to inward -light for interpretation. (2) Sects which disregard Scripture, and -follow the doctrine of special leaders. (3) Sects which believe in the -re-incarnation of Christ. (4) Sects given to the religion of physical -excitement; some being erotic, as the Jumpers; some flagellant, as the -Khlysti; some fanatically ascetic, as the Skoptsi or Eunuchs. All -alike, however near they may be to orthodoxy, are liable to official -persecution equally with the members of the modern sect of Dukhobortsi, -associated with Count Tolstoy, whose doctrine is non-resistance and -refusal to bear arms. Thus Christianity in Russia is variously -identified with the most medieval formalism and bigotry and the most -exalted enthusiasm for concord; while the march of intelligence -proceeds as far as it may in disregard of all supernaturalist creeds. -But the vast mass of the Russian peasantry stands for the faith of the -Middle Ages, and may now be said to constitute the most religious -section of total Christendom.</p> -<p class="par">Between eastern and western Christianity, finally, there -seems to be no prospect of ecclesiastical fraternization, though hopes -of that kind have been sometimes floated in the Anglican Church. At the -church of the Holy Sepulchre the Greeks and the Latins are in chronic -strife; it was one of their squabbles that brought about the Crimean -War; and in the present year they have shed blood in one of their -scuffles.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4026src" href="#xd21e4026" name= -"xd21e4026src">1</a> The visitor to Jerusalem thus witnesses the -standing spectacle of an impassive Turkish soldier keeping the peace -between mobs of Christian devotees, eager to fly at each other’s -throats. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb310" href="#pb310" name= -"pb310">310</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="footnotes"> -<hr class="fnsep"> -<div class="footnote-body"> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e4026" href="#xd21e4026src" name="xd21e4026">1</a></span> This was -written in 1901. It holds equally true in 1913. <a class="fnarrow" -href="#xd21e4026src">↑</a></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="label"><span class="sc">Chapter IV</span></h2> -<h2 class="main">THE RELATION TO PROGRESS</h2> -<div id="s4.4.1" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e857">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Moral -Influence</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">It is a deeply significant fact that in recent -times the defence of Christianity takes much more often the form of a -claim that it is socially useful than that of an attempt to prove it -true. The argument from utility is indeed an old one: it is an error to -say, as did J. S. Mill, that men have been little concerned to put it -in competition with the argument from truth; but the former is now in -special favour. Insofar as it proceeds upon a survey of Christian -history it may here be left to the test of confrontation with the -facts; but as it is constantly urged with regard to the actual state of -life and faith, it is necessary to consider it in conclusion.</p> -<p class="par">The chief difficulty in such an inquiry is that the most -irreconcilable formulas are put forth on the side and in the name of -belief. Commonly it is claimed that all that is good in current -morality is derived from Christian sources; that morally scrupulous -unbelievers are so because of their religious training or environment; -and that a removal of the scaffolding of creed will bring to ruin the -edifice of conduct that is held to have been reared by its means. It is -not usually realized that such an argument ends in crediting to -paganism and Judaism the alleged moral merits of the first Christians. -It might indeed be suggested, as against the traditional account of -their pre-eminent goodness, that either they, in turn, owed their -character to their antecedents, or their creed lost its efficacy after -the first generation. But the historic answer to the claim is that -there has never been any such moralizing virtue in the Christian or any -other creed in historically familiar times as need alarm any one for -the moral consequences of its gradual disappearance. All sudden and -revolutionary changes <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb311" href= -"#pb311" name="pb311">311</a>]</span>in popular moral standards -certainly appear to be harmful; but the great majority of such changes -in the Christian era have been worked under the auspices of faith, -having consisted not in the abandonment of belief, but in the -restatement of ethics in terms of “inspiration.” Unbelief -proceeds with no such cataclysmic speed. It is not conceivable that the -gradual dissolution of supernaturalist notions will ever of itself work -such evil as is told of in the story of the military evangel of -Christianity in the Dark Ages, the Crusades, the Albigensian massacres, -the conquests of Mexico and Peru, the Anabaptist movement at the outset -of the Reformation, or the massacre of St. Bartholomew, to say nothing -of the death-roll of the Inquisition and the mania against witchcraft. -Even the bloodshed of the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution, -wrought under peculiar political perturbation, was under the auspices -not of atheists but of theists.</p> -<p class="par">If it be asked wherein lies the specific value of dogma -as a moral restraint, in terms of actual observation, there are to be -found no facts that can induce a scientific inquirer to struggle for -the maintenance of a creed believed to be untrue in the hope that it -will prove morally useful. Moral evils may for the purposes of such an -inquiry be broadly classed under the heads of vice, crime, poverty, and -war; and only in regard to the first is there even a plausible pretence -that supernaturalist belief is a preventive. It might indeed seem -likely, on first thought, that a cancelling of supernaturalist vetoes -on the pleasures of the senses may lead to increased indulgence; but -those vetoes apply to all sensual indulgence alike, and no one now -pretends that unbelievers are more given to gluttony and drunkenness -than believers; though the latter may doubtless claim, in respect of -the Catholic Church, to include a larger number of extreme ascetics, as -do the votaries of faiths pronounced by Catholics to be false. While, -then, there may and do arise modifications of the religious formulas of -ethics, there is absolutely no reason to apprehend that any form of -conduct will be less considerate on naturalist than on supernaturalist -principles. The Christian doctrine of forgiveness for sins must do more -to encourage licence than can be done <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb312" href="#pb312" name="pb312">312</a>]</span>by any rationalistic -ethic. Even where naturalism might give a sanction which Christian -dogma withholds, as in the case of suicides, it is not found that any -statistical change is set up by unbelief. Poverty, again, has probably -been normally worse in Christian Europe throughout the whole Christian -era than in any previous or non-Christian civilization; and the most -systematic schemes for its extinction in recent times are of -non-Christian origin, though a personal and habitual effort to modify -the stress of poverty is one of the more creditable features of -organized Christian work. As regards crime, the case is much the same. -The vast majority of criminals hold supernaturalist beliefs, atheism -being extremely rare among them; and while many Christians have in the -past done good and zealous work towards a humane and rational treatment -of criminals, the only scientific and comprehensive schemes now on foot -are framed on naturalist lines, and are denounced by professed -Christians on theological lines, either as being sinfully lenient to -wrongdoing or as being “cold-blooded.” Thus supernaturalism -remains prone to a cruel and irrational ideal of retribution, even -while some of its champions profess to combat scientific methods in the -name of humanity.</p> -<p class="par">It is in regard to the influence of religious teaching -on international relations, however, that the saddest conclusions are -forced upon the student of Christian history. The foregoing pages have -shown how potent has been organized Christianity to promote strife and -slaughter, how impotent to restrain them. If any instance could be -found in history of a definite prevention of war on grounds of -Christian as distinguished from prudential motive, it would have been -there recorded. So flagrant is the record that when it is cited the -Christian defence veers round from the position above viewed to one -which unconsciously places the source of civilization in human reason. -Yet even thus the historic facts are misstated. The enormity of -Christian strifes in the past is now apologetically accounted for by -the fantastic theorem that hitherto men have not -“understood” Christianity, and that only in modern times -have its founder’s teachings been properly comprehended. -Obviously there has been no such development: the gospel’s -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb313" href="#pb313" name= -"pb313">313</a>]</span>inculcations of love and concord are as simple -as may be, and have at all times been perfectly intelligible: what has -been lacking is the habit of mind and will that secures the fulfilment -of such precepts. And recent experience has painfully proved, once for -all, that the religious or “believer’s” temper, -instead of being normally conducive to such action, is normally the -worst hindrance to it.</p> -<p class="par">An explanation is to be found in a study of the normal -results of guiding conduct by emotional leanings rather than by -critical reflection. The former is peculiarly the process of -evangelical religion. Hence comes the practical inefficacy of a love of -peace derived either inertly through acceptance of a form of words -declared to be sacred, or through an emotional assent to such words -emotionally propounded. Emotions so evolved are of the surface, and are -erased as easily as they are induced, by stronger emotions proceeding -from the animal nature. Only a small minority of Christians, -accordingly, are found to resist the rush of warlike passions; and some -who call most excitedly for peace when there is no war are found among -those most excited by the war passion as soon as the contagion stirs. -It may be noted as a decisive fact in religious history that in regard -to the war which raged while these pages were first being -penned,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4060src" href="#xd21e4060" name= -"xd21e4060src">1</a> the movement of critical opposition and -expostulation succeeded almost in the ratio of men’s remoteness -from the Christian faith. Among the Quaker sect, so long honourably -distinguished by its testimony against war, there was a considerable -reversion to the normal temper, as if the old conviction had been in -many cases lost in the process of merely hereditary transmission. Among -the Christian Churches so called, by far the most peace-loving is the -Unitarian, which rejects the central Christian dogma. And among the -public men associated with the protest against the war, the number -known to be rationalists was proportionally as large as that of the -supernaturalists was small. The personal excellence and elevation of -moral feeling shown among the latter group is thus no warrant for -seeing the cause in their <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb314" href= -"#pb314" name="pb314">314</a>]</span>creed. In such matters there is no -invariable rule, every section exhibiting psychical divergence within -itself; but it is now statistically clear that the standing claim for -the conventional creed as being peculiarly helpful to the cause of -peace is false. The title of “Bible-loving” had for a -generation been applied to England by its pietists. The same title is -confessedly applicable to the Boers of South Africa. Yet no -consciousness of a common creed ever availed to restrain the hatred of -the Christian mass in England towards their “enemy.”</p> -<p class="par">The recent history of the near East conveys a similar -lesson. For generations the Turkish autocracy was able to keep down the -Christian peoples under its rule by means of their mutual hates. It was -not community of religion that brought about the Balkan and Greek -combination of 1912: it was military and political calculation; and the -overthrow of Turkey was no sooner completed than the Christian -combatants were on the verge of war with each other. Between Greek and -Bulgarian there seems to be to-day the same animosity as existed in the -Dark Ages; and Greek orthodoxy declaims against the -“irreligion” of educated Bulgaria, while the mass of the -Bulgarian people remains as superstitious as that of Greece. As regards -standards of conduct, the former seem to have capped every savagery of -which Turkish irregulars have ever been guilty. Whatever may be the -outcome of freedom for self-development in the light of western -civilization, there is plainly nothing to choose as between Christian -and Moslem moral material in those regions after two thousand years of -Christianity. Such facts bring out once for all the sociological truth -as to the part played by Christianity in civilization. The progress of -the more advanced States has not been caused by creed. If that were the -lifting factor, Abyssinia should be on the same plane with the leading -European States. Once more, it is not Christianity that has civilized -modern Europe, but the variously caused and conditioned progress of -Europe that has civilized Christianity; even as the conditions and -forces of ancient Hellas civilized its paganism.</p> -<p class="par">Such tests are of course not those that will be first -put by <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb315" href="#pb315" name= -"pb315">315</a>]</span>a scrupulous mind seeking to know whether the -Christian creed be true. Rather they are forced on such a mind by the -tactics of believers, who as a rule seek to evade the fundamental -issue. It is not unlikely, therefore, in view of present painful -experience, that for some time to come the stress of defence will shift -to the attempt, never entirely abandoned, to defend the faith on -evidential or philosophic grounds. We have thus to consider finally the -apparent effects of Christian credences and institutions on the -intellectual life of the time.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s4.4.2" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e867">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>Intellectual -Influence</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">So far as it can be historically traced, the -intellectual influence of Christianity was relatively at its best when -it began to be propounded as a creed in critical relation to Judaism. -Intellectual gain was checked as soon as it became a substantive creed, -demanding submissive acceptance. From that point forward it becomes a -restraint on intellectual freedom, save insofar as it stirred believers -to a one-sided criticism of pagan beliefs, a process of which the -educational effect was promptly annulled by a veto on its extension to -the beliefs of the critics. It has been argued indeed that modern -science has been signally advanced by the mental bias that goes with -monotheism; but the historical fact is that Jewish monotheism was much -less friendly to science than Babylonian polytheism; that the -beginnings of Greek science were among polytheists and, perhaps, -atheists; that Saracen monotheism owed its scientific stimulus to the -recovered thought of polytheistic Greece; and that, whatever impulse a -truly monotheistic philosophy may have given to modern science, the -usual influence of Christian belief has been to override the idea of -invariable causation in nature. Even after the belief in recurrent -miracles is disavowed, the doctrine and practice of prayer remain to -represent the old concept.</p> -<p class="par">On the other hand, the kind of violence done to the -instinct for concrete or historical truth by the frauds and delusions -of the early and medieval Church, though greatly attenuated in modern -times, has never ended. Critical judgment has only slowly recovered the -strength and stature <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb316" href="#pb316" -name="pb316">316</a>]</span>it had in the pre-Christian world; and -wherever faith has plenary rule such judgment is liable to arbitrary -interdict. It is true that even in the nineteenth century some great -servants of science have been either orthodox Christians or devout -theists. Faraday and Joule, Pasteur and Kelvin, are cases in point. But -instead of the religious creed having in such cases furnished the cue -or the motive to the scientific work done, it is found to be out of all -logical relation to it, and to be a mere obstruction to the scientific -use of the reason on the religious problem itself.</p> -<p class="par">To a considerable extent the rigid adherence to -religious beliefs or professions in defiance of evidence is on all -fours with any other form of conservatism, as the social and the -political. Inasmuch, however, as religion proffers both a specific -comfort in this life and a specific reward in another, it has a power -of intellectual fixation with which no other can compare; and there is -something unique in the spectacle of religious doctrines kept in an -unchanged form by means of an economic basis consecrated to them. It -has been seen in the foregoing history that for two thousand years no -creed with such a basis has been overthrown either wholly or locally -save by a force which confiscated its endowments or suppressed its -worship. Thus, and thus only, did Christianity triumph over southern -and northern paganism; thus did Islam triumph over Christianity in -parts of its world, and fall again before it in others; and thus did -Protestantism expel Catholicism from many countries and suffer -expulsion in turn from some of them. Where endowments can subsist, with -freedom of worship, no form of doctrine that is wedded to the -endowments ever yields directly to criticism.</p> -<p class="par">Christianity has thus had in the modern world a -relatively more sinister influence on the intellectual life than was -wrought by any phase of paganism even in periods when the intelligence -of the ancient world was divorced from its established religion. The -divorce is now more complete than ever before; but the bribe to -conformity is greater than ever, relatively at least to the light of -the time. The result is a maximum of insincerity, whether or not the -bribe is given by a standing endowment. <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb317" href="#pb317" name="pb317">317</a>]</span>Dissenting or -voluntary churches in the Protestant countries offer an income to more -or less educated men on condition of propounding the creed of the past; -and the more intelligent minority within the churches are weighed down -in every effort at a modification of doctrine by the orthodoxy of the -uncritical or fanatical many, who control the endowments. Social and -commercial life conform to the conditions, and everywhere the -profession of belief is far in excess of the actuality—a state of -things unfavourable to all morality. The very attempt to adjust the -system to the pressure of modern thought exhibits the process of -demoralization. From the clergy we have neither straightforward defence -nor straightforward avowal of old error. Christianity is defended not -as being true but as being socially useful and privately comforting; -and a general pretence is made of maintaining the continuity of a -historic creed whose central and fundamental dogmas are no longer held -save by the most uncritical.</p> -<p class="par">It is not only in religion and ethics that the influence -of endowed and organized Christianity is thus intellectually baneful. -Every science in turn, from the days of Galileo, has had to fight for -its life against the sanctified ignorance of all the churches; and -while the physical sciences, which can be taught without open reference -to traditional error, have carried their point and received endowment -in turn, happily without being tied down to any documents, the moral -sciences are either kept in tutelage to theology in the universities of -many countries, our own included, or forced to leave out of their scope -the phenomena of religion itself, and in particular the sociological -problem of Christian history. At the beginning of the present century -there was not a single chair of sociology in a British -university<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4094src" href="#xd21e4094" name= -"xd21e4094src">2</a>; and even in the United States, where such chairs -are common, they and the historical chairs alike are barred from any -free treatment of religious evolution. Ethical teaching is similarly -limited; and a science which on that side threatened to turn the flank -of religious doctrine—to wit, phrenology—was at an early -stage of its progress in the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb318" href= -"#pb318" name="pb318">318</a>]</span>first half of the nineteenth -century successfully ostracized, so that, lacking the expert handling -without which no science can be kept sound, it has been relegated even -for most naturalists to the limbo of exploded error, without ever -having been scientifically developed or confuted.</p> -<p class="par">In fine, the science of society, the most momentous of -all, is by reason of the very nature of organized religion kept in -trammels, lest it should undermine the reign of faith. It makes its way -in virtue of the whole scientific movement of the age, and is perhaps -most progressive in the countries where, as in France and Italy, an -official Catholicism has prevented the academic compromise between -faith and science which is effected in the Protestant world, but is -powerless to keep independent science out of the universities. In those -countries, however, there are compromises of other kinds; and in modern -France there has been seen, in the case of Captain Dreyfus, the -spectacle of the clerical influence combining with that of the army to -enforce an insensate act of injustice, less from any intelligent motive -of a direct bearing than for the sake of a general alliance in which -each of the two great conservative and anti-progressive institutions -backs the other for general reactionary ends. Thus religious feeling -abets social and political malice; and such movements as that of -anti-Semitism, fostered by Christian organizations, can secure support -from others as the price of clerical support.</p> -<p class="par">As a result of its autocratic and centralized system, -further, Catholicism is a special force of political conservatism in -Catholic countries, with the single exception of Ireland, where its -dependence on the mass of the people has thus far kept it in close -alliance with their nationalist movement in despite of any papal -restrictions. Such an alliance is of course unfavourable to -intellectual progress on other lines; and English Protestant policy, -largely directed by sectarian feeling, has thus preserved in Ireland -the type of Catholicism it fears. Such Catholicism still tends to -retard popular education; and the one general advantage the Protestant -countries can claim over the Catholic is their lower degree of -illiteracy. On the other hand, the rationalism of the more enlightened -Catholic <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb319" href="#pb319" name= -"pb319">319</a>]</span>countries, where the Church lacks official -power, is as a rule more explicit, more awake to the nature of the -force opposed to it; while in Protestant Germany it is little concerned -to oppose a Church with small organized or academic influence, and till -lately attempted little popular criticism of faith. Every country thus -presents some special type of intellectual harm or drawback resulting -from the presence of organized Christianity; and in all alike it makes -in varying degrees an obstacle to light.</p> -<p class="par">In the highest degree does this seem to be true of the -land where it has had the longest continuous life. Alone among the -nations Greece contributes nothing to the world’s renovation. -Italy, despite the papacy, has a swarm of eager and questioning -thinkers, working at the human sciences; Spain stirs under all the -leaden folds of clericalism; but Greece, where the faith has never -undergone eclipse since Justinian’s day, remains intellectually -almost Byzantine, vainly divided between Christian dogma and an -external classic tradition, neither ancient nor modern. Yet this is the -one European country where belief is ostensibly untroubled by its -enemy. It is hard to say how far the surface of orthodoxy conforms to -the mental life underneath; but there is no escape from the conclusion -that a new mental life can return to the land of Aristotle only in the -measure in which it fully readmits from the West the spirit of search -and challenge which he and Socrates left to re-inspire a world growing -moribund under the spell of faith.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div id="s4.4.3" class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e877">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Conclusion -and Prognosis</i></h3> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">It follows from the foregoing history and survey -that Christianity, regarded by its adherents as either the one -progressive and civilizing religion or the one most helpful to progress -and civilization, is in no way vitally different from the others which -have a theistic basis, and is in itself neither more nor less a force -of amelioration than any other founding on sacred books and -supernaturalist dogmas. Enlightened Christians with progressive -instincts have justified them in terms of Christian doctrine, even as -enlightened Moslems, Brahmans, and Buddhists have justified their -higher ideals in <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb320" href="#pb320" -name="pb320">320</a>]</span>terms of their doctrine; and the special -fortune of Christianity has lain in this, that after nearly a thousand -years in which it was relatively retrograde as compared with Islam, -which during a large part of the time was progressive, both being what -they were in virtue of institutions and environment, the environment -was so far politically changed that the Christian countries gradually -progressed, while the Moslem countries lost ground. To-day it is -becoming clear to instructed eyes that the faiths were not the causal -forces; and in Asia the rapid development of Japan in the past -generation has vividly demonstrated the fallacy of the Christian view. -As there was great progress under ancient paganism, under each one of -the great creeds or cults of Asia, under Islam, and under Christianity, -so there may be much greater progress in the absence of them all, in -virtue of a wider knowledge, a more scientific polity, and a more -diffused culture.</p> -<p class="par">The ultimate problem is to forecast the future. A -confident faith in continual progress is one of the commonest states of -mind of the present, the consciously scientific age; and in view of the -unmistakable decadence of the creeds as such, it is natural to -rationalists to expect an early reduction of Christianity to the status -now held by “folk-lore,” a species of survival dependent on -ignorance upon the one hand and antiquarian curiosity on the other. But -while this may be called probable, there can be no scientific certainty -in the matter. For one thing, the process must for economic reasons be -much slower than used to be thought likely, for instance, in the time -of Voltaire, who allowed a century for the extinction of the Christian -creed. Voltaire was so far right that a century has seen Christianity -abandoned, after a reaction, by a large part of the best intelligence -of our age, as it was by that of his. But there may be more reactions; -and there is always a conceivable possibility of a total decadence, -such as overtook the civilization of the old Mediterranean world.</p> -<p class="par">The question is at bottom one of political science. -Greek and Roman civilization failed primarily through the incapacity of -the ancient States to set up a polity of international peace, -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb321" href="#pb321" name= -"pb321">321</a>]</span>secondarily through the effects of the military -despotism which that failure superinduced. As the problem is all of a -piece, avoidance of the old error will presumably mean avoidance of the -old doom. A similar political failure in the modern world would in all -likelihood mean the same sequence of military imperialism, possibly -with better economic management, but with the same phenomena of -intellectual decline and reversion to fanaticism and superstition among -populations debarred from political activity and free speech. It is -indeed dimly conceivable that, as has been suggested by way of fiction, -the mere warfare of capital and labour may end in the degradation of -the people, and the consequent reduction of upper-class life to the -plane of mere sensuous gratification and “practical” -science. In either event, a religion now seen by instructed men to be -incredible may be preserved by a community neither instructed nor -religious.</p> -<p class="par">The hope of the cause of reason then lies with the -political ideals and movements which best promise to save democracy and -to elevate the mass. It is hopefully significant that, as we have seen, -the most systematic and scientific of these movements are pronouncedly -rationalistic; and it is safe to say that their ultimate success -depends on their rationalism. All past movements for the social -salvation of the mass have failed for lack of social science; and -dogmatic Christianity in its most humane and sympathetic forms remains -the negation of such science. What is called “Christianity -without dogma” is merely humane sentiment misnamed.</p> -<p class="par">It is essential to a durable advance, however, that it -should be pure of violence, and utterly tolerant. When popular -education has emptied all or any of the churches, as it has already -gone some way towards doing, the spontaneous revenue of those which are -voluntary bodies will in the main have ceased; and by that time the -majority will be in a position to dispose of national funds in the -social interest. Such a course will be facile to a society which -provides work for all and sustains all; and when the bribe of sectarian -endowment is thus made void, the more factitious life of ancient error -will be at an end. But the most speculative construction of the -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb322" href="#pb322" name= -"pb322">322</a>]</span>future provides for the widest individual and -psychological freedom; and there will have been no true triumph of -reason if philosophic and historic error, recognized as such, have not -a free field. The Utopia of rationalism will be reached when -supernaturalism in the present sense of the term shall have passed away -as the belief in witchcraft has done, without pressure of pains and -penalties. And that Utopia will be the rendezvous, belike, of more than -one social ideal—of all, indeed, which trust to reason for the -attainment of righteousness. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb323" href= -"#pb323" name="pb323">323</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="footnotes"> -<hr class="fnsep"> -<div class="footnote-body"> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e4060" href="#xd21e4060src" name="xd21e4060">1</a></span> -<i>I.e.</i>, the South African War, in 1901. <a class="fnarrow" -href="#xd21e4060src">↑</a></p> -<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id= -"xd21e4094" href="#xd21e4094src" name="xd21e4094">2</a></span> A -beginning has since been made. <a class="fnarrow" href= -"#xd21e4094src">↑</a></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="back"> -<div id="biblio" class="div1 bibliography"><span class= -"pagenum">[<a href="#xd21e886">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="main">SYNOPSIS OF LITERATURE</h2> -<div class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="sc">Part I—PRIMITIVE -CHRISTIANITY</span></h3> -<div class="div3 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h4 class="main"><span class="sc">Chapter I—The -Beginnings</span></h4> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Documentary -Clues</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">A good introduction to the rational discussion of -the whole problem of origins is furnished in <i>Radical Views about the -New Testament</i>, by Dr. G. A. van den Bergh van Eysinga, trans. from -the Dutch by S. B. Slack (R. P. A., 1912). The Unitarian view is -freshly put by Wilhelm Soltau in <i>The Birth of Jesus Christ</i> (Eng. -tr., Black, 1903). Of the countless works discussing early Christian -literature and the formation of the New Testament “Canon,” -the following may be consulted with profit: All relevant articles in -the <i lang="la">Encyclopædia Biblica</i> (A. & C. Black); -<i>Supernatural Religion: An Inquiry into the Reality of Divine -Revelation</i>, 6th ed. revised, 1875, two vols.; 3rd vol. 1877; R. P. -A. rep. in one vol., 1902; <i>A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot’s -Essays</i>, by the same author, 1889; <i>An Introduction to the Study -of the New Testament</i>, by Dr. Samuel Davidson, 2nd ed. revised, -1882, two vols.; <i>The Apostolical Fathers</i>, by Dr. James -Donaldson, 1874 and later; Renan’s preface to his <i>Saint -Paul</i>, the Appendice to his <i lang= -"fr">L’Antéchrist</i>, and his <i lang="fr">Les -Évangiles</i>; E. B. Nicholson’s compilation, <i>The -Gospel According to the Hebrews</i>, 1879; <i>History of the Canon in -the Christian Church</i>, by Professor Reuss, Eng. tr. 1890; -<i>Apostolical Records of Early Christianity</i>, by the Rev. Dr. -Giles, 1886; Strauss’s second <i lang="de">Leben Jesu</i>, tr. in -Eng. (not always accurately) as <i>A New Life of Jesus</i>, 2nd ed. -1879, two vols.; and the old research of Lardner on <i>The Credibility -of the Gospels</i> (Part II, ch. i to xxix in vol. ii of <i>Works</i>, -ed. 1835) which covers the ground pretty fully, indeed diffusely. As to -the Pauline epistles see Van Manen’s article in the <i lang= -"la">Encyclopædia Biblica</i>, and T. Whittaker’s -<i>Origins of Christianity</i> (R. P. A., 1909). The most comprehensive -account of the early sources is Harnack’s <i lang="de">Geschichte -der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius</i> (1893) in two great -volumes; and the still bulkier <i lang="de">Chronologie</i> which -follows thereon. More compendious surveys are Professor Gustav -Krüger’s <i lang="de">Geschichte der altchristlichen -Literatur in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten</i>, 1895; and Dr. James -Donaldson’s <i>History of Christian Literature and Doctrine</i>, -three vols., 1864–66. Of real value is the survey of Professor -Arnold Meyer, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb324" href="#pb324" name= -"pb324">324</a>]</span><i lang="de">Die moderne Forschung über die -Geschichte des Urchristentums</i>, 1898. [The writings ascribed to the -Apostolic Fathers are translated in the first volume of the -“Ante-Nicene Library”; those ascribed to Justin Martyr in -the second volume.]</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>The Earliest -Christian Sects</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The sources as to the Nazarenes and Ebionites are -given by Bishop Lightfoot in his ed. of the Epistle to the Galatians, -p. 298, ff. (diss. reprinted in <i>Dissertations on the Apostolic -Age</i>, 1892, p. 74, ff.); also in W. R. Sorley’s <i>Jewish -Christians and Judaism</i>, 1881, p. 66, ff. Both proceed on the -traditional assumptions. Critical discrimination between the Ebionites -and “Nazarenes” begins in modern times with Mosheim, -<i lang="la">Vindicia Antiquæ Christianorum Disciplinæ -contra Tolandi Nazarenum</i>, 1720. See also his <i lang= -"la">Commentarium de rebus Christianorum ante Constantinum</i>, 1753, -Sæc. II, § xxxix (Eng. tr. vol. ii, p. 194, ff.). His -position was developed by Gieseler (1828), and has become the basis of -later ecclesiastical historiography, as in the above-cited writers, and -in Weizsäcker’s <i>Apostolic Age</i>. A new and more -searching analysis of the phenomena, on lines previously suggested but -not developed, is made by P. Hochart in his <i lang="fr">Études -d’histoire religieuse</i>, 1890, chs. iv and v. For the positions -of the present section, in so far as they are not there fully reasoned, -the grounds will be found in the author’s <i>Christianity, and -Mythology</i>, Part III, 1st Div. § 9, and in the <i>National -Reformer</i>, 1888, March 18 and 25, April 1, 8, and 15. On the -Nazareth problem see Dr. Cheyne’s article in the <i lang= -"la">Encyclopædia Biblica</i>, and Professor Burkitt’s -paper on <i>The Syriac Forms of New Testament Proper Names</i> (in -Proc. of the British Academy, vol. v, 1912, pp. 17–18).</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Personality -of the Nominal Founder</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Of the more rationalistic Lives of Jesus, -so-called, that of Renan is the most charming and the least scientific; -those by Strauss the most systematic and educative; that of Thomas -Scott, “The English Life of Jesus,” the most compendious -view of the conflicts of the gospel narratives. Evan Meredith’s -<i>Prophet of Nazareth</i> (1864) is rather a stringent criticism of -the whole Christian system of ethics, evidences, and theology -(rejecting supernaturalism but assuming a historical Christ) than a -scientific search for a personality behind the Gospels. It however -passes many acute criticisms. Later German Lives of Christ, such as -those of Keim and B. Weiss, are useful in respect of their scholarly -comprehensiveness, but have little final critical value. A more -advanced stage of documentary criticism than is seen in any of these is -reached in the second section of the article <i>Gospels</i>, by -Professor Schmiedel, in the <i lang="la">Encyclopædia -Biblica</i>. The grounds on which the present section carries the -process of elimination yet further are developed in the author’s -<i>Christianity and Mythology</i>, Part III, <i>The Gospel Myths</i>, -Div. ii; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb325" href="#pb325" name= -"pb325">325</a>]</span>also in his <i>Pagan Christs</i>. Concerning the -Talmudic Jesus the documentary data are given by Lardner, <i>Works</i>, -ed. 1835, vol. ii; Baring Gould, <i>The Lost and Hostile Gospels</i>, -1874; Joel, <i lang="de">Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte</i>, -Breslau, 1880; Derenbourg, <i lang="fr">Essai sur l’histoire et -la Géographie de Palestine</i>, 1867; Gustav Rösch, -<i lang="de">Die Jesusmythen des Judenthums</i>, in <i lang= -"de">Theolog. Studien und Kritiken</i>, <span lang="de">Jahrg. 1873, 1 -Heft, pp. 75–115</span>; R. T. Herford, <i>Christianity in Talmud -and Midrash</i> (1904); T. Theodores, essay on <i>The Talmud</i> in -<i>Essays and Addresses by Professors and Lecturers of Owen’s -College</i> (Macmillan, 1874), pp. 368–70; and Lightfoot, -<i lang="la">Horæ Hebraicæ</i>, on <a class= -"biblink xd21e43" title="Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mt%202:14">Matt. ii, -14</a>, <a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mt%2027:56">xxvii, -56</a>, and <a class="biblink xd21e43" title= -"Link to cited location in Bible" href= -"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lk%207:2">Luke vii, -2</a>. Later developments of the problem are to be followed in the -works of A. Kalthoff, <i>The Rise of Christianity</i> (Eng. tr. R. P. -A., 1907) and <i lang="de">Was wissen wir von Jesus?</i> (pamph. -Berlin, 1904); T. Whittaker’s <i>Origins of Christianity</i>; -Professor Arthur Drews’s <i>The Christ Myth</i> (Eng. tr. Unwin); -Professor W. B. Smith’s <i lang="de">Der vorchristliche Jesus</i> -(1906) and <i lang="la">Ecce Deus</i> (R. P. A., 1912); and -Drews’s <i>The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus</i> (Eng. -tr. R. P. A., 1912). Compendious views of the process of textual -analysis, as applied to the Gospels by students who still hold to the -historic actuality of the Gospel Jesus, may be found in <i>The Synoptic -Problem</i>, by A. J. Jolly (Macmillan, 1893); <i>The Formation of the -Gospels</i>, by F. P. Badham (Kegan Paul, 2nd ed. 1892); <i>The Common -Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels</i>, by Dr. Abbott and W. G. -Rushbrooke (Macmillan, 1884); and <i>The First Three Gospels</i>, by J. -Estlin Carpenter (Sunday School Association, 2nd ed. 1890). Of the -extensive continental literature of this subject during the past -half-century, typical and important examples are Baur’s <i lang= -"de">Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien</i> -(1847), Scholten’s <i lang="nl">Het oudste Evangelie</i>, 1868 -(tr. in German, 1869); Gustave D’Eichthal’s <i lang= -"fr">Les Évangiles</i>, 1863; H. J. Holtzmann’s <i lang= -"de">Die synoptischen Evangelien, ihr Ursprung und geschichtliche -Charakter</i>, 1863; Berthold Weiss’s <i lang="de">Text-kritik -der vier Evangelien</i>, 1899; J. Wellhausen, <i lang="de">Einleitung -in die drei ersten Evangelien</i>, 1905; A. Schweitzer’s <i lang= -"de">Von Reimarus zu Wrede</i> (Eng. tr. <i>The Quest of the Historical -Jesus</i>, Black, 1910); and Alfred Loisy, <i lang="fr">Le -quatrième Évangile</i>, 1903; <i lang="fr">Les -Évangiles Synoptiques</i>, two vols. 1907–8. Loisy’s -general conclusions are given in his <i lang="fr">Jésus et la -tradition évangélique</i>, 1910. Holtzmann’s -<i lang="de">Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue -Testament</i> (<span lang="de">2te. Aufl. 1885</span>) is a good -summary of the general discussion on the documentary side up to its -date.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 4.</span> <i>Myth of the -Twelve Apostles</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">As to the Jewish Twelve Apostles, consult Jost, -<i lang="de">Geschichte des Judenthums</i>, 1850, ii, 159–60; -Kitto’s Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, art. <i>Apostle</i>; -Basnage, <i lang="fr">Histoire des Juifs</i>, ed. 1716, liv. iii, ch. -ii, §§ 7, 8, 10, 11; Mosheim’s <i>Commentaries</i> as -before cited, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb326" href="#pb326" name= -"pb326">326</a>]</span>Eng. tr. i, 121–23; and other authorities -discussed by the author in the <i>National Reformer</i>, 1887, May 8 -and 15, November 20 and 27, December 4; also in <i>Christianity and -Mythology</i>, Part III, Div. i, § 19. For recent views on the -alleged apostolic epistles see Professor Arnold Meyer’s work, -cited under § 1. The text of the important <i>Teaching of the -Twelve Apostles</i>, first published in 1883, is ably edited and -translated by Professors Hitchcock and Brown (London ed. Nimmo), whose -version was made the basis of a revised translation, with variorum -notes, by the author, published in the <i>National Reformer</i>, -November 1 and 8, 1891. The <i>Teaching</i> has appeared also in the -following translations: By Dr. Farrar, in the <i>Contemporary -Review</i>, May, 1884; by the Rev. A. Gordon (tr. sold at Essex Hall, -London); by M. Sabatier with text and commentary (Paris, 1885); by -Professor Harnack; and by the Rev. Mr. Heron in his <i>Church of the -Apostolic Age</i>, 1888. As to its obviously Jewish basis compare Dr. -Taylor’s <i>Teaching of the Twelve Apostles</i>, 1886, with -Harnack’s <i lang="de">Die Apostellehre und die jüdischen -beiden Wege</i>, 1886. On the “Brethren of the Lord” see -Bishop Lightfoot’s excursus, reprinted in his <i>Dissertations on -the Apostolic Age</i>. The Judas myth and the characteristics of Peter -are discussed in <i>Christianity and Mythology</i>, Part III, Div. i, -§§ 20, 21; also in Professor Drews’s <i lang="de">Die -Petrus Legende</i> (Frankfurt a. M., 1910). For the Egyptian God Petra -see the <i>Book of the Dead</i>, Budge’s tr., p. 123.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 5.</span> <i>Primary Forms -of the Cult</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The theory that the gospel narrative of the Last -Supper, the Passion, the Betrayal, Trial, Crucifixion, and Resurrection -constitute a mystery-play or plays is set forth by the author in -<i>Pagan Christs</i>. On pre-Christian Semitic “mysteries” -see Professor Robertson Smith’s <i>Religion of the Semites</i>, -Lect. vi-xi; and on the ancient conception of sacrifice in general -consult that work; also Wellhausen’s <i>Prolegomena to the -History of Israel</i>, Eng. tr. Pt. I. ch. iii; the work of Fustel de -Coulanges on <i lang="fr">La Cité Antique</i>; and Dr. J. G. -Frazer’s great treatise <i>The Golden Bough</i> (2nd ed. three -vols. 1900, 3rd ed. nine vols<span class="corr" id="xd21e4510" title= -"Not in source">.</span>, now in process of publication). Concerning -the private religious societies among the Greeks, the standard -authority is M. Foucart, <i lang="fr">Les Associations religieuses chez -les Grecs</i>, 1873; see also ch. xviii of Renan’s <i lang= -"fr">Les Apôtres</i>. The imitation of pagan institutions in the -Christian Church is dealt with by the late Dr. Edwin Hatch, in his -<i>Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church</i>, -1890; and some of the relations between the Jewish Passover and -coincident pagan feasts are suggested in the valuable old treatise of -J. Spencer, <i lang="la">De Legibus Hebræorum</i> (1685 and -later), lib. ii, cap 4. The part played by the child-image in pagan and -Christian mysteries is noted in <i>Christianity and Mythology</i>, Pt. -II, <i>Christ and Krishna</i>, sec. xiii. On other details consult -Schürer, <i>History of the Jewish People in the Time of -Christ</i>, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb327" href="#pb327" name= -"pb327">327</a>]</span>Div. II. The question as to the rise of baptism -comes up in the Clementine <i>Homilies</i> and <i>Recognitions</i>, on -which see Baur, <i>Church History</i>, Eng. tr., vol. i; where also -will be found the material of the controversy on the date of the Easter -sacrament. As to the manner of crucifixion in antiquity see Dr. W. -Brandt’s <i lang="de">Die evangelische Geschichte und der -Ursprung des Christenthums</i>, 1893, <span lang="de">Theil II, § -5</span>, and Pf. Hermann Fulda’s treatise, <i lang="de">Das -Kreuz und die Kreuzigung</i> (Breslau, 1878).</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 6.</span> <i>Rise of -Gentile Christism.</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The early and bitter strife between the Jewish and -Gentile parties in the Christist movement was first exhaustively -studied by the Tübingen school. See the important works of its -founder, F. C. Baur, <i lang="de">Das Christenthum und die christliche -Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte</i>, 1853 (Eng. tr. <i>The Church -History of the First Three Centuries</i>, 1878, two vols.) and <i lang= -"de">Paulus</i>, 1845 (Eng. tr. two vols. 1873); also the work of -Zeller on the <i>Contents and Origin of the Acts of the Apostles</i> -(Eng. tr. two vols. 1875, with Overbeck’s Introduction to the -Acts, from De Wette’s <i>Handbook</i>). Compare the somewhat more -conservative treatise of Weizsäcker, <i>The Apostolic Age of the -Christian Church</i>, Eng. tr. two vols. 1894, and the orthodox -Neander’s <i>History of the Planting and Training of the -Christian Church by the Apostles</i> (Eng. tr. two vols. 1851), where -however some decisive admissions are made as to the narrative of the -Acts. One of the most comprehensive surveys of the documentary -discussion is J. Jüngst’s <i lang="de">Die Quellen der -Apostelgeschichte</i> (Gotha, 1895). Some interesting concessions are -made by Professor Ramsay in his work on <i>The Church and the Roman -Empire before A.D. 170</i> (1893). On the Gentile parallels discussed -consult Frazer’s <i>Golden Bough</i> and Havet’s <i lang= -"fr">Le Christianisme et ses origines</i>. The questions raised by the -vogue of the term “Chrēstos” are well set forth and -discussed in the brochure of the late Dr. J. Barr Mitchell, -<i>Chrēstos: A Religious Epithet, its Import and Influence</i> -(Williams and Norgate, 1880). Compare Renan, <i>Saint Paul</i>, p. 363, -and refs. Various aspects of the general problem are set forth in the -<i>Monumental Christianity</i> of J. P. Lundy (New York, 1876). For a -full view of Gnosticism see Baur, <i lang="de">Die Christliche -Gnosis</i>, 1835, and C. W. King, <i>The Gnostics and their -Remains</i>, 2nd ed. 1887; and for a survey of Samaritan tenets see J. -W. Nutt, <i>Fragment of a Samaritan Targum</i>, 1874 (Introduction), -and Reland’s <i lang="la">Dissertatio de Monte Garizim</i>, in -his <i>Diss. Misc.</i>, Pars I, 1706. A view of the ancient practices -of cutting and gashing in the presence of the dead, etc., is given in -John Spencer’s treatise <i lang="la">De Legibus -Hebræorum</i>, lib. ii. cc. 13, 14. The Myth of Simon Magus was -discussed by the author in the <i>National Reformer</i>, January 29, -February 5, and February 19, 1893. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb328" -href="#pb328" name="pb328">328</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 7.</span> <i>Growth of the -Christ Myth</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">For details and references as to the pagan myths -embodied in the Gospels, see the author’s <i>Christianity and -Mythology</i>, Parts II and III. The evolution of the doctrine of the -<i>Logos</i> is discussed by Professor James Drummond, in <i>The Jewish -Messiah</i>, 1877, and <i lang="la">Philo Judæus</i>, 1888; by M. -Nicolas, <i lang="fr">Des doctrines religieuses des Juifs</i>, 1860; -and in Schürer’s <i>Jewish People in the Time of Christ</i>, -Div. II, vol. iii. As to its early form among the Babylonians see -Tiele, <i lang="fr">Histoire comparée des anciennes religions -égyptiennes et semitiques</i>, French tr. 1882, pp. -182–83. Dr. Frazer presents the evidence as to the Semitic usage -of sacrificing a mock king in his <i>Golden Bough</i>, where however -the problem is obscured by the acceptance of the Gospels as historical -records. See also the article on <i lang="de">Jesus als -Saturnalien-König</i>, by P. Wendland, in Hermes, xxxiii -(1898).</p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div3 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h4 class="main"><span class="sc">Chapter II—The -Environment</span></h4> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Social and -Mental Conditions in the Roman Empire</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The sociological forces and tendencies in the -Greek and Roman civilizations are discussed in the author’s -<i>Evolution of States</i>, Part I; also in <i>A Short History of -Freethought</i>, vol. i, ch. iii, v, vi, and vii. For the social -bearing of ancient religion consult Fustel de Coulanges, <i lang= -"fr">La Cité Antique</i>; Boissier, <i lang="fr">La Religion -romaine d’Auguste aux Antonins</i> (2 tom. 4e édit. 1892); -Burckhardt, <i lang="de">Griechische Culturgeschichte</i>, 3 Bde. -1898–1900; Farnell, <i>The Cults of the Greek States</i> (five -vols. 1896–1908); Maury, <i lang="fr">Histoire des religions de -la Grèce antique</i>, 3 tom. 1857; and Kalthoff’s <i>Rise -of Christianity</i>. Renan has many suggestive pages on social -conditions, particularly in <i lang="fr">Les Apôtres</i>; but -heed must be taken of the frequent contradictions in his -generalizations. As to the religious life of the Greek private -religious societies, see ch. xvii of <i lang="fr">Les -Apôtres</i>; the treatise of M. Foucart, before cited; Dr. -Hatch’s Bampton lectures on <i>The Organization of the Early -Christian Churches</i>; and his Hibbert lectures on <i>The Influence of -Greek Ideas</i>, etc., before cited. For Rome, see Professor W. Warde -Fowler’s <i>Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero</i> (1909); -and Professor Samuel Dill’s <i>Roman Society from Nero to Marcus -Aurelius</i> (1908).</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>Jewish -Orthodoxy</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Schürer’s <i>Jewish People in the Time -of Christ</i> gives the main clues from Josephus, the Talmud, and the -O. T. apocrypha. See further M. Friedländer’s <i lang= -"de">Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Christenthums</i> (Wien, 1894) for -light as to the relations between the <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb329" href="#pb329" name="pb329">329</a>]</span>Pharisees and the -common people. For a good general view see Reuss, <i lang="fr">Histoire -de la théologie chrétienne au siècle -apostolique</i> (2e édit. 1860), liv. i. Nicolas, <i lang= -"fr">Des doctrines religieuses des Juifs</i>, 1860, gives a fuller -research. Accounts of the surviving “Nestorians” are given -in <i>Missionary Researches in Armenia</i>, by E. Smith and H. D. O. -Dwight, 1834, and in Dr. A. Grant’s <i>The Nestorians</i>, 2nd. -ed. 1843.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Jewish -Sects</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">A good conspectus and discussion of the data as to -the Essenes is given by Dr. Ginsburg in his pamphlet <i>The -Essenes</i>, 1864. On the sects, see also Schürer, Div. ii, vol. -ii; Bishop Lightfoot, <i>Dissertations on the Apostolic Age</i>; and -Oskar Holtzmann, <i lang="de">Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte</i>, -1895.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 4.</span> <i>Gentile -Cults</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">A general view of non-Christian in relation to -Christian religion is most readably presented in M. Salomon -Reinach’s <i lang="fr">Orpheus: Histoire generale des -Religions</i> (6e édit. 1909). The best mythological dictionary -is Roscher’s great <i lang="de"><span class="corr" id="xd21e4788" -title="Source: Ausfürliches">Ausführliches</span> Lexikon der -griechischen und römischen Mythologie</i>, but Preller’s -<i lang="de">Griechische Mythologie</i> and <i lang="de">Römische -Mythologie</i> and Smith’s <i>Dictionary of Greek and Roman -Biography and Mythology</i> (three vols. 1844–49) give most of -the data. A general notion of the infiltration of pagan religion into -Christianity may be gathered from <i lang="fr">Les Saints Successeurs -des Dieux</i> by P. Saintyves (1907); and Rendel Harris’s <i>The -Dioscuri in Christian Legend</i> (Oxford, 1903). In regard to the cults -of Attis and Adonis, consult Frazer’s <i>Adonis, Attis, -Osiris</i> (vol. iv of new ed. of <i>Golden Bough</i>) and Foucart -<i lang="fr">Des Associations religieuses chez les Grecs</i>; for the -cult of Dionysos, the same and Frazer’s <i>Golden Bough</i>; also -(with caution) Mr. R. Brown’s <i>Great Dionysiak Myth</i>, two -vols. 1877–8, and the older <i lang="fr">Recherches sur le Culte -de Bacchus</i> of Rolle (3 tom. 1824), both works of great learning. -Lucian’s treatise <i lang="la">De Dea Syra</i> gives special -information on Syrian religion. Sidelights are thrown on the cults in -question by the Christian Fathers, in particular Julius Firmicus -Maternus, <i lang="la">De errore profanarum religionum</i> (best ed. -Halm’s); Epiphanius, <i lang="la">De Hæresis</i>; -Hippolytus, <i>Refutation of all Heresies</i> (trans. in Ante-Nicene -Library, vol. vi). The main clues to the Osiris cult are in <i>The Book -of the Dead</i> (Eng. tr. by Budge, 1898) and Plutarch’s treatise -<i>On Isis and Osiris</i>, which should be read, however, in the light -of Tiele’s or some other competent <i>History of Egyptian -Religion</i>. The main data as to Mithraism are collected in the -author’s essay in <i>Pagan Christs</i>. The standard research on -the subject is Cumont’s <i lang="fr">Textes et Monuments -Figurés relatifs aux Mystères de Mithra</i> -(1896–9: add. vol. 1913). Valuable light is thrown on the -oriental side of Christian mythology by Professor <span class= -"pagenum">[<a id="pb330" href="#pb330" name= -"pb330">330</a>]</span>Hermann Gunkel, <i lang="de">Zum -religionsgeschichtlichen Verständnis des Neuen Testaments</i>, -1903, trans. in <i>The Monist</i>, Chicago, 1903.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 5.</span> <i>Ethics: -Popular and Philosophic</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The parallels and coincidences between the -teachings of Paul and of Seneca are fully set forth by Bishop Lightfoot -in the excursus on <i>Paul and Seneca</i> reprinted in his -<i>Discussions on the Apostolic Age</i>, where also the significance of -the parallels is considered and the literature of the subject -described. In the general connection may be consulted Havet’s -<i lang="fr">Le Christianisme et ses origines</i>, 4 tom. -1872–84; Martha’s <i lang="fr">Les Moralistes sous -l’empire romain</i>, 14e édit. 1881; Lecky’s -<i>History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne</i>; -Professor Dill’s <i>Roman Society During the Last Century of the -Empire of the West</i>; Baur’s <i lang="de">Drei Abhandlungen zur -Geschichte der alten Philosophie und ihres Verhältniss zum -Christenthum</i> (new ed. 1876), where there is a thorough discussion -of Seneca’s case; Professor M. Baumgarten’s <i lang= -"de">Lucius Annæus Seneca und das Christenthum</i> (1895); -Uhlhorn’s <i>Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism</i> (Eng. -tr. from 3rd Ger. ed. 1879); Renan’s <i lang="fr">Marc -Aurèle</i>, and ch. xvii. of <i lang="fr">Les Apôtres</i>; -W. Soltau’s <i lang="de">Das Fortleben des Heidentums in der -altchristlichen Kirche</i>, 1906; Professor Max Pohlenz’s -<i lang="de">Vom Zorne Gottes: Eine Studie über den Einfluss der -Griechischen Philosophie auf das alte Christentum</i>, 1909; J. A. -Farrer’s <i>Paganism and Christianity</i>, 1891 (rep. R. P. -A.<span class="corr" id="xd21e4917" title="Not in source">)</span>; W. -M. Flinders Petrie’s <i>Religion and Conscience in Ancient -Egypt</i>, 1898; and Ludwig Feuerbach’s <i>Essence of -Christianity</i>, Eng. tr. by Marian Evans (George Eliot). The Jewish -Rabbinical ethic is defended as against Christian attack in an able -article on “Rabbinic Judaism and the Epistles of Paul” by -C. G. Montefiore in the <i>Jewish Quarterly Review</i> for January, -1901. Some of the other issues are discussed in detail in the -author’s <i>Short History of Freethought</i>, vol. i, chs. iv, -vi, vii.</p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div3 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h4 class="main"><span class="sc">Chapter III—Conditions of -Survival</span></h4> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Popular -Appeal</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">See the references to ch. ii. § 5, concerning -the prevalent moral ideas. As to the Montanists and other ascetic and -antinomian sects see Baur, <i>Church History</i>, Eng. tr. vol. i, Pt. -III, also Hatch, as cited. Concerning the results of the need to appeal -to the pagan populace, note the admissions of Mosheim, -<i>Ecclesiastical History</i>, 2 Cent. Pt. II, chs. iii and iv; of Dr. -John Stoughton, <i>Ages of the Church</i>, 1855, Lect. iv; of -Waddington, <i>History of the Christian Church</i>, 1833, pp. 87, 89; -and of Milman, <i>History of Christianity</i>, B. iv, chs. i and iii. -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb331" href="#pb331" name= -"pb331">331</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>Economic -Causation</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">The organization of the Assyrian and Babylonian -priesthoods may be gathered from Sayce, Hibbert Lectures on the -Religion of the Ancient Babylonians. On the Greek priesthoods compare -Burckhardt, <i lang="de">Griechische Culturgeschichte</i>, Bd. II, Abs. -II, § ii. As to the wealth of the priestly caste in Egypt see -Diodorus Siculus; and on that of Rome, Gibbon’s 15th chapter. On -the later Judaic priestly finance see the references given as to the -Jewish Twelve Apostles under ch. i, § 4. The process of growth of -an order of “ethical lecturers” is indicated by C. Martha, -<i lang="fr">Les Moralistes sous l’empire romain</i>, 4e -édit. 1881; also by E. Havet, <i lang="fr">Le Christianisme et -ses origines</i>, tom. i, ch. iii. Compare Grote, <i>History of -Greece</i>, end of ch. xlvi, and his <i>Plato and the Other Companions -of Sokrates</i>, per index, as to the sophists. The financial side of -the pagan mysteries is partly illustrated in the <i>Metamorphoses</i> -of Apuleius. Compare also Foucart, <i lang="fr">Des Associations -religieuses chez les Grecs</i>. Gibbon’s fifteenth chapter deals -in the main with a later period, but throws general light on this also. -See also Renan’s <i lang="fr">Marc Aurèle</i>, ch. xxxi; -and especially Dr. Hatch’s Hibbert Lectures, lect. iv, and -Lecky’s <i>History of European Morals</i>.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Organization -and Sacred Books</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Dr. Hatch’s <i>Organization of the Early -Christian Churches</i> recognizes, on nominally orthodox principles, -the fact that the structure was a natural adaptation to environment, on -old type-lines. Of the movement of Apollonius of Tyana, good accounts -are given by Professor A. Réville, <i>Apollonius of Tyana, the -Pagan Christ of the Third Century</i>, Eng. tr. 1866; by Mr. T. -Whittaker in his <i>Apollonius of Tyana, and other Essays</i> -(Sonnenschein, 1906); and in the essay of Baur in his <i lang="de">Drei -Abhandlungen</i>. Two somewhat “free” translations of -Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius have lately been -produced—by Dr. F. C. Conybeare and Professor Phillimore (each 2 -vols.)—as to which see the <i>Literary Guide</i> of April, 1913. -On the formation of the canon see the references to ch. i, §§ -1, 3. As to Manichæism see those given below, Pt. II, ch. ii.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 4.</span> <i>Concession -and Fixation</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">On developments of doctrine in general the fullest -modern treatise is Harnack’s <i>History of Dogma</i> (Eng. tr. -1894, six vols.), but the critical student must revise many of -Harnack’s judgments. The same author’s <i>Outlines of the -History of Dogma</i> (Eng. tr. 1893) are at many points suggestive; and -Hagenbach’s <i>History of Dogma</i> is still useful. Hatch is -well worth consulting in this connection.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 5.</span> <i>Cosmic -Philosophy</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">As to the Fourth Gospel and the doctrine of the -<i>Logos</i> see the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb332" href="#pb332" -name="pb332">332</a>]</span>references given for ch. i, § 7; also -the relevant articles in the <i lang="la">Encyclopædia -Biblica</i>; the work of Loisy on the Fourth Gospel, before cited; the -fourth and fifth chapters of Renan’s <i lang="fr">Les -Évangiles</i>, which give his latest ideas on the problem; -Reuss’s <i lang="fr">Histoire de la théologie -chrétienne au siècle apostolique</i>, 2e édit. -1860, tom. ii, liv. vii; and J. J. Tayler’s treatise, <i>An -Attempt to Ascertain the Character of the Fourth Gospel</i> (1867). -Baur and Strauss may also be profitably studied.</p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="sc">Part II—CHRISTIANITY FROM THE -SECOND CENTURY TO THE RISE OF ISLAM</span></h3> -<div class="div3 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h4 class="main"><span class="sc">Chapter I—Scope and Character -of the Unestablished Church</span></h4> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Numbers and -Inner Life</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Gibbon’s fifteenth chapter is still valuable -here. Compare Hatch, <i>Organization</i>; Renan, <i>Saint Paul</i>, -concluding chapter; and the church historians generally. As to Britain, -see Wright’s <i>The Roman, the Celt, and the Saxon</i>, 4th ed. -1885. On the <i>personnel</i> and emotional life of the early church -compare Louis Ménard, <i lang="fr"><span class="corr" id= -"xd21e5100" title="Source: Etudes">Études</span> sur les -origines du Christianisme</i>, 1893; Loisy, <i lang= -"fr">L’Évangile et <span class="corr" id="xd21e5107" -title="Source: L’Eglise">L’Église</span></i>, 1904; -Renan, <i lang="fr"><span class="corr" id="xd21e5111" title= -"Source: L’Eglise">L’Église</span> -Chrétienne</i> and <i lang="fr">Marc Aurèle</i>; -Tertullian, <i>passim</i>; J. A. Farrer, <i>Paganism and -Christianity</i>; Dr. John Stoughton, <i>Ages of the Church</i> (pp. -42–43—orthodox admissions).</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>Growth of the -Priesthood</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Hatch, as before cited, is here a specially good -guide; and Neander, <i>General History of the Christian Religion and -Church</i> (trans. in Bohn Lib.), gives a copious narrative (vol. i, -sect. ii). On episcopal policy compare the series of popular monographs -under the title “The Fathers for English Readers” -(S.P.C.K.) and the anonymous treatise <i>On the State of Man Subsequent -to the Promulgation of Christianity</i> (1852), Part II, ch. iv. -Mosheim (Reid’s ed. of Murdock’s trans.) here deserves -study. The question of priestly morals is handled in almost all -histories of the Church. Cp. Gibbon, chs. xxi, xxv, xxxviii. -Lea’s <i>History of Sacerdotal Celibacy</i> (2nd ed. 1884) is a -full and valuable record. As to the papacy see references given below, -Part III, ch. i, § 3.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>The Gnostic -Movement in the Second Century</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Baur’s <i lang="de">Die christiche -Gnosis</i> (1835) remains perhaps the most comprehensive study of this -subject; but C. W. King’s <i>The Gnostics and their Remains</i> -adds to his elucidations. Matter’s <i lang="fr">Histoire critique -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb333" href="#pb333" name= -"pb333">333</a>]</span>du Gnosticisme</i> (2e édit. -1843–44) remains worth study; as is Neander’s general -account of the Gnostic sects in vol. ii of his <i>General History</i>. -See shorter accounts in Baur’s <i>Church History</i> (vol. i), in -Mosheim’s, and in that of Jeremie (1855).</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 4.</span> <i>Marcionism -and Montanism</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Neander, Hatch, and Baur, as last cited, give good -views. Tertullian, who wrote a treatise <i>Against Marcion</i>, and -himself became a Montanist, is a primary authority. See also De Soyres, -cited on p. 98.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 5.</span> <i>Rites and -Ceremonies</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Bingham’s <i>Christian Antiquities</i> (rep. -1855) gives abundant details; but see also Smith’s <i>Dictionary -of Christian Antiquities</i>. Mosheim traces the development century by -century.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 6.</span> <i>Strifes over -Primary Dogma</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">These may be followed in brief in Mosheim, or at -length in Harnack’s <i>History of Dogma</i>, or in -Hagenbach’s earlier manual, which is more concise. Hatch’s -<i>Influence of Greek Ideas</i> is light-giving at some points; and Dr. -Albert Réville’s <i lang="fr">Histoire du dogme de la -divinité de Jésus Christ</i> (2e édit. 1876) is a -good conspectus of its subject. For a briefer general view see -Stoughton’s <i>Ages of the Church</i>, Lect. v and vii. The -history of the so-called Apostles’ Creed is fully discussed by M. -Nicolas, <i lang="fr">Le Symbole des Apôtres</i>, 1867, and in -Harnack’s work on the same subject (Eng. tr. 1901).</p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div3 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h4 class="main"><span class="sc">Chapter II—Relations of Church -and State</span></h4> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> -<i>Persecutions</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Consult Gibbon, ch. xvi; Niebuhr, <i>Lectures on -Roman History</i>, Eng. tr. Lect. cxli; and Boissier, <i lang="fr">La -Fin du Paganisme</i> (2e édit. 1894), tom. i, Appendice, for -critical views, as distinguished from those of the ecclesiastical -historians. Compare also Milman’s account in the first chapter of -his <i>History of Latin Christianity</i>. The alleged Neronian -persecution is specially sifted by Hochart, <i lang="fr">Études -au sujet de la persécution des Chrétiens sous -Néron</i>, 1885. For a complete record of the cult of the -emperors see <i lang="fr">Le Culte Impérial, son histoire et son -organisation</i>, par l’Abbé E. Beurlier, 1891.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§§ 2, 3, 4.</span> -<i>Establishment and Creed-Making; Reaction under Julian; -Re-establishment; Disestablishment of Paganism.</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Boissier’s <i lang="fr">La Fin du -Paganisme</i> goes very fully into the question of Constantine’s -conversion and policy, but does not supersede Beugnot, <i lang= -"fr">Histoire de la destruction du paganisme en occident</i>, 1835, 2 -tom. (Both are misleading on the subject of the <i lang= -"la">labarum</i>, as to which see the variorum notes in Reid’s -Mosheim, and in Bohn <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb334" href="#pb334" -name="pb334">334</a>]</span>Gibbon, <i>ad loc.</i>) Compare Gibbon, -chs. xix–xxv, and Hatch, <i>Organization</i>. A good modern -survey is Victor Schultze’s <i lang="de">Geschichte des -griechischrömischen Heidentums</i>, 2 Bde. 1887. Newman’s -<i>Arians of the Fourth Century</i> gives an intensely orthodox view of -its subject. Mosheim and Milman and Neander are more judicial. See also -Harnack’s <i>Outlines</i>, and the references given above to ch. -i, § 6. On Manichæism it is still well to consult Beausobre, -<i lang="fr">Histoire critique de Manichée et du -Manichéisme</i>. Compare Mosheim, <i>Commentaries on the Affairs -of the Christians</i>, vol. iii, and the account of Neander, <i>General -History</i>, vol. ii. The legend of Manichæus is discussed in the -author’s <i>Pagan Christs</i>. Rendall’s <i>The Emperor -Julian: Christianity and Paganism</i>, 1879, is a learned and competent -research, usually fair, and gives light on the previous reigns, as well -as on Julian’s. Gibbon’s survey here remains important. On -Gregory of Nazianzun there is a monograph by Ullmann (Eng. tr. 1851). -See Milman as to the falsity of the death-legend concerning Julian. As -to the disestablishment of paganism, Beugnot and Schultze are the best -guides, but Boissier is discursively instructive. <span class= -"sc">Chapter III—Failure with Survival</span></p> -<p class="par">The narrative may be checked throughout by -Neander’s <i>General History of the Christian Religion and -Church</i> (trans. in Bohn Lib.); by Mosheim, with the variorum notes -of Reid’s edition; by Gibbon’s chapters; by the histories -of dogma; by the above-cited monographs on the Fathers, <i>St. -Chrysostom’s Picture of his Age</i> (S.P.C.K. 1875), and Rev. W. -E. Stephens’s <i>St. Chrysostom, His Life and Times</i> (1872); -by Milman’s <i>History of Latin Christianity</i>, vols. i and ii; -by Finlay’s <i>History of Greece</i> (Tozer’s ed.), vols. i -and ii; and by Bury’s <i>History of the later Roman Empire</i> -(two vols. 1889). On the intellectual life compare further Boissier, -<i lang="fr">La Fin du Paganisme</i>; Ampère, <i lang= -"fr">Histoire littéraire de la France</i>, 1839, tom. i and ii; -and Lecky’s <i>History of European Morals</i>.</p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="sc">Part III—MEDIEVAL -CHRISTIANITY</span></h3> -<div class="div3 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h4 class="main"><span class="sc">Chapter I—Expansion and -Organization</span></h4> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 1.</span> <i>Position in -the Seventh Century</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Hatch (<i>Organization</i>) is still a guide. For -special details consult Smith’s <i>Dictionary of Christian -Antiquities</i>. Bede’s <i>Ecclesiastical History</i> gives some -specific ideas as to the early life of the medieval Church. -Bryce’s <i>Holy Roman Empire</i> is valuable for its general -view. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb335" href="#pb335" name= -"pb335">335</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 2.</span> <i>Methods of -Expansion</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Neander’s <i>General History of the -Christian Religion and Church</i>, Milman’s <i>History of Latin -Christianity</i>, Hardwick’s <i>History of the Christian Church: -Middle Age</i> (1853), and the variorum notes in Reid’s Mosheim, -give most of the documentary clues. But national histories should -specially be consulted at this stage—<i>e.g.</i>, Crichton and -Wheaton’s <i>Scandinavia</i> (2nd ed. 1838, two vols.); -Geijer’s <i>History of Sweden</i> (Eng. tr. of first three vols. -in one, no date); Blok’s <i>History of the Dutch People</i> (Eng. -tr., five vols. 1898–1907); Krasinski’s <i>Sketch of the -Religious History of the Slavonic Nations</i> (1851). The subject of -Tithes is carefully and compendiously dealt with in <i>A History of -Tithes</i>, by the Rev. H. W. Clarke (Sonnenschein, 1891).</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div4 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h5 class="main"><span class="divNum">§ 3.</span> <i>Growth of the -Papacy</i></h5> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">In addition to the general histories consult -Gregorovius’ <i lang="de">Geschichte der Stadt Rom</i> (Eng. tr. -2nd ed. 1901) and <i>The Pope and the Councils</i>, by -“Janus” (tr. 1869 from German). Hefele’s <i>History -of the Christian Councils</i> (Eng. tr., 1871–1896, five vols.), -though by a Catholic scholar, is generally accepted as the standard -modern work on its subject. Hallam’s <i>View of the State of -Europe during the Middle Ages</i> is still valuable for its general -views. Fuller details may be had from monographs on leading -popes—<i>e.g.</i>, Voigt’s <i lang="de">Hildebrand und sein -Zeitalter</i> (French trans. by Abbé Jager, with added notes and -documents, 1847) and Langeron’s <i lang="fr">Grégoire VII -et les origines de la doctrine ultramontaine</i> (1874). On the ancient -Egyptian parallels see Maspero, <i lang="fr">Histoire ancienne des -peuples de l’orient</i>.</p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div3 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h4 class="main"><span class="sc">Chapter II—Religious Evolution -and Strife</span></h4> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Consult the ecclesiastical historians already -cited, and compare R. L. Poole, <i>Illustrations of the History of -Medieval Thought</i> (1884), as to Agobard and Claudius. For the -special worships of Mary and Joseph see the popular Catholic manual -“The Glories of Mary,” and P. Paul Barrie’s -“Glories of Joseph” (Eng. trans. Dublin, 1843 and -later)—extracts in C. H. Collette’s <i>Dr. Newman and his -Religious Opinions</i>, 1866—also Newman’s <i>Letter to Dr. -Pusey</i>, as there cited. Sketches of the history of auricular -confession are given in Rev. B. W. Savile’s <i>Primitive and -Catholic Faith</i>, 1875, ch. xiii, and in <i>Confession, a doctrinal -and historical essay</i>, by L. Desanctis, Eng. tr. 1878; and sketches -of the history of indulgences in Lea’s <i>History of the -Inquisition</i>, i, 41–47; De Potter’s <i lang="fr">Esprit -de l’Église</i>, vii, 22–29; and Lea’s -<i>Studies in Church History</i>, 1869, p. 450. Of the Albigensian -crusades a full narrative is given by Sismondi, <i lang="fr">Histoire -des Français</i>, tom. vi and vii—chapters collected and -translated in Eng. vol., <i>History of the Crusades against -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb336" href="#pb336" name= -"pb336">336</a>]</span>the Albigenses</i> (1826). The most -comprehensive study of the chief heresies of the Middle Ages is -Döllinger’s <i lang="de">Beiträge zur Sektengeschichte -des Mittelalters</i>, 2 Bde. 1890. On the rationalistic heresies -consult Ueberweg’s <i>History of Philosophy</i>, Hermann -Renter’s <i lang="de">Geschichte der religiösen -Aufklärung im Mittelalter</i> (1875–77); Poole’s -<i>Illustrations of Medieval Thought</i>, and Renan’s <i lang= -"fr">Averroës et l’Averroïsme</i>. On the anti-clerical -and anti-papal heresies compare Neander, Mosheim, Milman, Hardwick, and -Poole. The fortunes of the Lollard movement are discussed in the -author’s <i>Dynamics of Religion</i>.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div3 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h4 class="main"><span class="sc">Chapter III—The Social Life and -Structure</span></h4> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Of the historians cited in the last chapter, most -are serviceable here. Consult in addition Lea’s <i>Superstition -and Force</i> (3rd ed. 1878), Berington’s <i>Literary History of -the Middle Ages</i>, Dunham’s <i>Europe in the Middle Ages</i>, -and Ampère’s <i lang="fr">Histoire Littéraire</i>, -before cited. There are good lives of Savonarola by Perrens (French) -and Villari, Eng. tr. See also J. A. Symonds, <i>Renaissance in Italy: -Age of the Despots</i>. On slavery compare Larroque, <i lang="fr">De -l’esclavage chez les nations chrétiennes</i> (2e -édit. 1864); or see the author’s <i>Evolution of -States</i>, per index. An excellent general view of the Crusades is -given in the manual by Sir G. W. Cox (“Epochs of History” -series). The latest expert survey of the subject is that of M. -Seignobos, in the <i lang="fr">Histoire générale</i> of -MM. Lavisse and Rambaud. For a survey of the effect of Christianity on -European life in general see Mr. McCabe’s <i>The Bible in Europe: -an Inquiry into the Contribution of the Christian Religion to -Civilization</i> (R. P. A., 1907) and <i>The Religion of Woman</i> -(1905).</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div3 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h4 class="main"><span class="sc">Chapter IV—The Intellectual -Life</span></h4> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Again the same general authorities may be referred -to, in particular Lea’s <i>History of the Inquisition</i>; also -White’s <i>History of the Warfare of Science with Theology</i> -(two vols. 1896), Gebhart’s <i lang="fr">Les origines de la -renaissance</i> (1879), Burckhardt’s <i>Civilization of the -Renaissance in Italy</i> (Eng. tr. in one vol. 1892), Buckle’s -<i>Introduction to the History of Civilization in England</i>, -Whewell’s <i>History of the Inductive Sciences</i>, Baden -Powell’s <i>History of Natural Philosophy</i> (1834); and for the -different countries their special histories. Draper’s -<i>Intellectual Development of Europe</i> is to be followed with -caution. As to Gerbert see the <i lang="fr">Vie de Gerbert</i> of M. -Olleris, 1867. On the general question see the volumes of F. H. -Perrycoste on <i>Ritual, Faith, and Morals</i> and <i>The Influence of -Religion Upon Truthfulness</i> (R. P. A. 1910, 1913). The effect of the -Inquisition on literature is exactly and instructively set forth in G. -H. Putnam’s <i>The Censorship of the Church of Rome</i> (two -vols. 1906). <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb337" href="#pb337" name= -"pb337">337</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div3 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h4 class="main"><span class="sc">Chapter V—Byzantine -Christianity</span></h4> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Finlay’s <i>History of Greece</i> and -Professor Bury’s <i>History of the later Roman Empire</i> and -<i>History of the Eastern Roman Empire, 802–867</i> (1912) are -the main authorities in English apart from the ecclesiastical -histories.</p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h3 class="main"><span class="sc">Part IV—MODERN -CHRISTIANITY</span></h3> -<div class="div3 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h4 class="main"><span class="sc">Chapter I—The -Reformation</span></h4> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">In addition to Neander, Mosheim, Milman’s -<i>History of Latin Christianity</i>, and Hardwick’s <i>Church -History: The Reformation</i> (rep. 1886), consult Ullmann’s -<i>Reformers before the Reformation</i> (Eng. tr. two vols. 1855), -McCrie’s <i>Histories of the Reformation in Spain and Italy</i>, -Ranke’s <i>History of the Reformation</i> (Eng. tr. one vol. ed. -Routledge), and <i>History of the Popes</i> (Eng. tr. three vols. Bohn -Lib.), Beard’s Hibbert Lectures on the Reformation, -Felice’s <i lang="fr">Histoire des Protestants de France</i> -(trans. in Eng.), Krasinski’s <i>History of the Reformation in -Poland</i>, Professor H. M. Baird’s <i>History of the Rise of the -Huguenots</i>, two vols. 1880; also the current Lives of the leading -reformers, and the special histories of the nations. Creighton’s -<i>History of the Papacy during the Reformation</i> (six vols.) has -special merit as a fresh and full research. As to the witch-burning -mania consult Lecky’s <i>Rise and Influence of Rationalism in -Europe</i>. On the Jesuits compare Nicollini’s <i>History of the -Jesuits</i>, 1853, and Mr. McCabe’s <i>A Candid History of the -Jesuits</i> (1913). On the medical work of Servetus and others see an -interesting article by Dr. Austin Flint, in <i>New York Medical -Journal</i>, June 29, 1901.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div3 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h4 class="main"><span class="sc">Chapter II—Progress of -Anti-Christian Thought</span></h4> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">As to the physical sciences, compare White, Baden -Powell, Whewell, and Draper, as above cited; also Draper’s -<i>Conflict between Religion and Science</i> (Internat. Lib. of -Science); and the series of Histories of the Sciences published by the -R. P. A. On the development of philosophy, cosmic and moral, and of -Biblical Criticism, see the references in the author’s <i>Short -History of Freethought</i>. A specially full and illuminating study of -modern thought is made in Mr. A. W. Benn’s <i>History of English -Rationalism in the Nineteenth Century</i> (two vols. Longmans, 1906). -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb338" href="#pb338" name= -"pb338">338</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div3 section"> -<div class="divHead"> -<h4 class="main"><span class="sc">Chapter III—Popular -Acceptance</span></h4> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">For the history of Catholicism since the -seventeenth century consult Mosheim and Neander, also the <i>History of -the Fall of the Jesuits</i>, by Count A. de Saint-Priest (Eng. tr. -1845), and Mr. Joseph McCabe’s <i>The Decay of the Church of -Rome</i> (1909). There is an extensive literature on the controversy -between Anglicanism and Catholicism in the middle of the nineteenth -century, following on the Tractarian movement, as to the latest phases -of which see the <i>Secret History of the Oxford Movement</i>, by -Walter Walsh. For references as to recent developments in Protestant -and other countries see again the author’s <i>Short History of -Freethought</i> and Mr. Benn’s full record of the nineteenth -century. The fortunes of Greek Christianity may be traced through -Finlay. Compare Villemain, <i lang="fr">Essai sur l’état -des Grecs depuis la conquête musulmane</i>, in his <i lang= -"fr">Études d’histoire moderne</i> (<span lang="fr">nouv. -ed. 1846</span>). Concerning the state of religion in modern Russia, -see Wallace’s <i>Russia</i>. As to missions in general, see the -able and comprehensive survey, <i>Foreign Missions</i>, by C. Cohen -(Freethought Publishing Company), and <i>A Chinese Appeal to -Christendom Concerning Christian Missions</i> (R.P.A., 1912). The -existing situation as between Christianity and rationalism is well set -forth in Philip Vivian’s <i>The Churches and Modern Thought</i> -(R.P.A., 1911). <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb339" href="#pb339" -name="pb339">339</a>]</span></p> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<div id="ix" class="div1 index"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#xd21e894">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divHead"> -<h2 class="main">INDEX</h2> -</div> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first">Abailard, <a href="#pb195" class= -"pageref">195</a>, <a href="#pb200" class="pageref">200</a>, <a href= -"#pb227" class="pageref">227</a></p> -<p class="par">Aboubekr, <a href="#pb239" class="pageref">239</a></p> -<p class="par">Abraham, <a href="#pb21" class="pageref">21</a>, -<a href="#pb22" class="pageref">22</a>, <a href="#pb26" class= -"pageref">26</a>, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a></p> -<p class="par">Absolution, <a href="#pb191" class="pageref">191</a>, -<a href="#pb193" class="pageref">193</a></p> -<p class="par">Abyssinia, Christianity in, <a href="#pb165" class= -"pageref">165</a>, <a href="#pb208" class="pageref">208</a>, <a href= -"#pb313" class="pageref">313</a></p> -<p class="par">Acolythes, <a href="#pb53" class="pageref">53</a></p> -<p class="par"><i>Acts</i>, Book of, <a href="#pb6" class= -"pageref">6</a>, <a href="#pb8" class="pageref">8</a>, <a href="#pb16" -class="pageref">16</a>, <a href="#pb27" class="pageref">27</a>, -<a href="#pb29" class="pageref">29</a>, <a href="#pb31" class= -"pageref">31</a>, <a href="#pb78" class="pageref">78</a>, <a href= -"#pb81" class="pageref">81</a>, <a href="#pb167" class= -"pageref">167</a></p> -<p class="par">Adalbert, St., <a href="#pb217" class= -"pageref">217</a></p> -<p class="par">Adams, <a href="#pb301" class="pageref">301</a></p> -<p class="par">Adelhard, <a href="#pb234" class="pageref">234</a></p> -<p class="par">Adonis, cult of, <a href="#pb21" class="pageref">21</a>, -<a href="#pb25" class="pageref">25</a>, <a href="#pb37" class= -"pageref">37</a>, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, <a href= -"#pb51" class="pageref">51</a>, <i>sq.</i> <a href="#pb95" class= -"pageref">95</a></p> -<p class="par">Advent, mystery-play of, <a href="#pb188" class= -"pageref">188</a></p> -<p class="par">Æons, Gnostic, <a href="#pb94" class= -"pageref">94</a></p> -<p class="par">Aërius, <a href="#pb147" class= -"pageref">147</a></p> -<p class="par">Æsculapius, <a href="#pb37" class= -"pageref">37</a>, <a href="#pb158" class="pageref">158</a></p> -<p class="par"><i>Agapæ</i>, <a href="#pb22" class= -"pageref">22</a>, <a href="#pb25" class="pageref">25</a>, <a href= -"#pb68" class="pageref">68</a>, <a href="#pb84" class="pageref">84</a>, -<a href="#pb190" class="pageref">190</a></p> -<p class="par">Agni, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a></p> -<p class="par">Agnosticism, <a href="#pb299" class= -"pageref">299</a></p> -<p class="par">Agobard, <a href="#pb187" class="pageref">187</a>, -<a href="#pb194" class="pageref">194</a></p> -<p class="par">Alaric, <a href="#pb142" class= -"pageref">142</a>–43</p> -<p class="par">Albert, Archbishop, <a href="#pb249" class= -"pageref">249</a></p> -<p class="par">Albigensian crusades, <a href="#pb181" class= -"pageref">181</a>, <a href="#pb193" class="pageref">193</a>, <a href= -"#pb201" class="pageref">201</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb211" class= -"pageref">211</a>, <a href="#pb227" class="pageref">227</a></p> -<p class="par">Alcuin, <a href="#pb169" class="pageref">169</a>, -<a href="#pb232" class="pageref">232</a></p> -<p class="par">Alexander, <a href="#pb60" class="pageref">60</a>, -<a href="#pb109" class="pageref">109</a></p> -<p class="par">—— Bishop, <a href="#pb121" class= -"pageref">121</a></p> -<p class="par">—— III (Pope), <a href="#pb228" class= -"pageref">228</a></p> -<p class="par">—— Jannæus, <a href="#pb7" class= -"pageref">7</a></p> -<p class="par">Alexandria, <a href="#pb42" class="pageref">42</a>, -<a href="#pb79" class="pageref">79</a>, <a href="#pb81" class= -"pageref">81</a>, <a href="#pb94" class="pageref">94</a>, <a href= -"#pb119" class="pageref">119</a>, <a href="#pb126" class= -"pageref">126</a>, <a href="#pb153" class="pageref">153</a>, <a href= -"#pb155" class="pageref">155</a>, <a href="#pb175" class= -"pageref">175</a></p> -<p class="par">Algebra, <a href="#pb234" class="pageref">234</a></p> -<p class="par">Allegory, use of, <a href="#pb77" class= -"pageref">77</a>, <a href="#pb96" class="pageref">96</a>, <a href= -"#pb210" class="pageref">210</a></p> -<p class="par">Alphonso of Castile, <a href="#pb234" class= -"pageref">234</a></p> -<p class="par">Alva, <a href="#pb254" class="pageref">254</a></p> -<p class="par">Amalrich of Bena, <a href="#pb196" class= -"pageref">196</a>, <a href="#pb227" class="pageref">227</a></p> -<p class="par">Ambrose, <a href="#pb88" class="pageref">88</a>, -<a href="#pb135" class="pageref">135</a>, <a href="#pb137" class= -"pageref">137</a>, <a href="#pb146" class="pageref">146</a>, <a href= -"#pb155" class="pageref">155</a>, <a href="#pb156" class= -"pageref">156</a>, <a href="#pb157" class="pageref">157</a>, <a href= -"#pb192" class="pageref">192</a></p> -<p class="par">America, Jesuits in, <a href="#pb292" class= -"pageref">292</a>, <a href="#pb294" class="pageref">294</a></p> -<p class="par">Amulets, Gnostic, <a href="#pb96" class= -"pageref">96</a>, <a href="#pb97" class="pageref">97</a></p> -<p class="par">Amun, <a href="#pb24" class="pageref">24</a>, <a href= -"#pb152" class="pageref">152</a>, <a href="#pb183" class= -"pageref">183</a></p> -<p class="par">Anabaptist movement, <a href="#pb258" class= -"pageref">258</a>–59, <a href="#pb266" class="pageref">266</a>, -<a href="#pb268" class="pageref">268</a>, <a href="#pb311" class= -"pageref">311</a></p> -<p class="par">Ananias and Sapphira, <a href="#pb18" class= -"pageref">18</a>, <a href="#pb27" class="pageref">27</a></p> -<p class="par">Anastasius, <a href="#pb131" class="pageref">131</a></p> -<p class="par">Anatomy, <a href="#pb274" class="pageref">274</a></p> -<p class="par">Andronicus, <a href="#pb243" class="pageref">243</a></p> -<p class="par">Angels, worship of, <a href="#pb94" class= -"pageref">94</a>, <a href="#pb97" class="pageref">97</a></p> -<p class="par">Angli, conversion of, <a href="#pb168" class= -"pageref">168</a></p> -<p class="par">Anglicanism, <a href="#pb295" class= -"pageref">295</a></p> -<p class="par">Animal-worship, <a href="#pb76" class="pageref">76</a>, -<a href="#pb150" class="pageref">150</a></p> -<p class="par">Anna, St., <a href="#pb188" class="pageref">188</a></p> -<p class="par"><i>Annates</i>, <a href="#pb255" class= -"pageref">255</a></p> -<p class="par">Anselm, <a href="#pb195" class="pageref">195</a></p> -<p class="par">Anthropomorphites, <a href="#pb183" class= -"pageref">183</a></p> -<p class="par">Anti-Christs, <a href="#pb19" class="pageref">19</a>, -<a href="#pb31" class="pageref">31</a>, <a href="#pb169" class= -"pageref">169</a></p> -<p class="par">Antinomianism, <a href="#pb62" class="pageref">62</a>, -<a href="#pb68" class="pageref">68</a>, <a href="#pb84" class= -"pageref">84</a>, <a href="#pb91" class="pageref">91</a>, <a href= -"#pb95" class="pageref">95</a></p> -<p class="par">Antioch, church of, <a href="#pb81" class= -"pageref">81</a>, <a href="#pb104" class="pageref">104</a>, <a href= -"#pb126" class="pageref">126</a>, <a href="#pb129" class= -"pageref">129</a>, <a href="#pb175" class="pageref">175</a>; siege of, -<a href="#pb219" class="pageref">219</a></p> -<p class="par">—— Council of, <a href="#pb104" class= -"pageref">104</a></p> -<p class="par">Antipodes, doctrine of, <a href="#pb196" class= -"pageref">196</a></p> -<p class="par">Anti-Semitism, <a href="#pb19" class="pageref">19</a>, -<a href="#pb48" class="pageref">48</a>, <a href="#pb74" class= -"pageref">74</a>, <a href="#pb75" class="pageref">75</a>, <a href= -"#pb93" class="pageref">93</a>, <a href="#pb123" class= -"pageref">123</a>, <a href="#pb318" class="pageref">318</a></p> -<p class="par">Antonines, the, <a href="#pb108" class= -"pageref">108</a>, <a href="#pb158" class="pageref">158</a>, <a href= -"#pb164" class="pageref">164</a>. <i>See</i> Marcus Aurelius</p> -<p class="par">Aphroditê, <a href="#pb53" class="pageref">53</a>, -<a href="#pb54" class="pageref">54</a>, <a href="#pb55" class= -"pageref">55</a></p> -<p class="par">Apocalypse, <a href="#pb16" class="pageref">16</a>, -<a href="#pb23" class="pageref">23</a>, <a href="#pb27" class= -"pageref">27</a>, <a href="#pb29" class="pageref">29</a>, <a href= -"#pb53" class="pageref">53</a>, <a href="#pb74" class="pageref">74</a>, -<a href="#pb76" class="pageref">76</a>, <a href="#pb78" class= -"pageref">78</a>, <a href="#pb91" class="pageref">91</a>, <a href= -"#pb107" class="pageref">107</a></p> -<p class="par">Apocrypha, the Christian, <a href="#pb11" class= -"pageref">11</a>, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a></p> -<p class="par">Apollinaris, heresy of, <a href="#pb148" class= -"pageref">148</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Apollo, <a href="#pb7" class="pageref">7</a>, <a href= -"#pb10" class="pageref">10</a>, <a href="#pb33" class="pageref">33</a>, -<a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href="#pb56" class= -"pageref">56</a>, <a href="#pb60" class="pageref">60</a>, <a href= -"#pb102" class="pageref">102</a></p> -<p class="par">Apollonius of Tyana, <a href="#pb30" class= -"pageref">30</a>, <a href="#pb73" class="pageref">73</a>, <a href= -"#pb156" class="pageref">156</a></p> -<p class="par">Apollos, <a href="#pb77" class="pageref">77</a></p> -<p class="par">Apostles, myth of twelve, <a href="#pb2" class= -"pageref">2</a>, <a href="#pb16" class="pageref">16</a>–19, -<a href="#pb28" class="pageref">28</a>, <a href="#pb30" class= -"pageref">30</a>, <a href="#pb48" class="pageref">48</a>; the real, -<a href="#pb17" class="pageref">17</a>, <a href="#pb70" class= -"pageref">70</a>, <a href="#pb82" class="pageref">82</a></p> -<p class="par">—— Jewish, <a href="#pb16" class= -"pageref">16</a>–17, <a href="#pb70" class="pageref">70</a></p> -<p class="par">—— Creed, <a href="#pb178" class= -"pageref">178</a></p> -<p class="par">Apostolical Constitutions, <a href="#pb178" class= -"pageref">178</a></p> -<p class="par"><i>Apostolici</i>, <a href="#pb200" class= -"pageref">200</a>, <a href="#pb201" class="pageref">201</a></p> -<p class="par">Apotheosis, <a href="#pb60" class="pageref">60</a>, -<a href="#pb109" class="pageref">109</a></p> -<p class="par">Aquinas, Thomas, <a href="#pb188" class= -"pageref">188</a>, <a href="#pb196" class="pageref">196</a>, <a href= -"#pb217" class="pageref">217</a></p> -<p class="par">Arab myths, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a></p> -<p class="par">Arabia, Christianity in, <a href="#pb82" class= -"pageref">82</a>, <a href="#pb146" class="pageref">146</a></p> -<p class="par">Arabic science, <a href="#pb233" class="pageref">233</a> -<i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Arbogastes, <a href="#pb139" class="pageref">139</a></p> -<p class="par">Arcadius, <a href="#pb142" class="pageref">142</a></p> -<p class="par">Archipresbyters, <a href="#pb166" class= -"pageref">166</a></p> -<p class="par">Architecture, Christian, <a href="#pb162" class= -"pageref">162</a>, <a href="#pb236" class="pageref">236</a>, <a href= -"#pb237" class="pageref">237</a></p> -<p class="par">Ardeshir, <a href="#pb133" class="pageref">133</a></p> -<p class="par">Aries, constellation of, <a href="#pb51" class= -"pageref">51</a></p> -<p class="par">Aristotle, on slavery, <a href="#pb61" class= -"pageref">61</a></p> -<p class="par">—— study of, <a href="#pb196" class= -"pageref">196</a>, <a href="#pb227" class="pageref">227</a>, <a href= -"#pb233" class="pageref">233</a>, <a href="#pb235" class= -"pageref">235</a></p> -<p class="par">Arithmetic, introduction of, <a href="#pb233" class= -"pageref">233</a></p> -<p class="par">Arius and Arianism, <a href="#pb118" class= -"pageref">118</a>, <a href="#pb120" class="pageref">120</a>–23, -<a href="#pb126" class="pageref">126</a>, <a href="#pb135" class= -"pageref">135</a>, <a href="#pb136" class="pageref">136</a>, <a href= -"#pb142" class="pageref">142</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb145" class= -"pageref">145</a>, <a href="#pb174" class="pageref">174</a> -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb340" href="#pb340" name= -"pb340">340</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">Armenia, conversion of, <a href="#pb127" class= -"pageref">127</a>; reconquest of, <a href="#pb239" class= -"pageref">239</a></p> -<p class="par">—— Nestorians in, <a href="#pb47" class= -"pageref">47</a>, <a href="#pb147" class="pageref">147</a>; heresy in, -<a href="#pb198" class="pageref">198</a>–99</p> -<p class="par">Arminianism, <a href="#pb268" class= -"pageref">268</a></p> -<p class="par">Arnobius, <a href="#pb86" class="pageref">86</a></p> -<p class="par">Arnold of Brescia, <a href="#pb200" class= -"pageref">200</a></p> -<p class="par">—— of Cliteaux, <a href="#pb202" class= -"pageref">202</a></p> -<p class="par">—— Matthew, <a href="#pb290" class= -"pageref">290</a>, <a href="#pb300" class="pageref">300</a></p> -<p class="par">Arrius Antoninus, <a href="#pb110" class= -"pageref">110</a></p> -<p class="par">Art and religion, <a href="#pb33" class= -"pageref">33</a>, <a href="#pb59" class="pageref">59</a>, <a href= -"#pb75" class="pageref">75</a>, <a href="#pb96" class="pageref">96</a>, -<a href="#pb101" class="pageref">101</a>, <a href="#pb162" class= -"pageref">162</a>, <a href="#pb187" class="pageref">187</a>, <a href= -"#pb209" class="pageref">209</a>, <a href="#pb236" class= -"pageref">236</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb308" class= -"pageref">308</a></p> -<p class="par">Ascetic ideals, <a href="#pb23" class="pageref">23</a>, -<a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, <a href="#pb46" class= -"pageref">46</a>, <a href="#pb50" class="pageref">50</a>, <a href= -"#pb54" class="pageref">54</a>, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a>, -<a href="#pb61" class="pageref">61</a>, <a href="#pb63" class= -"pageref">63</a>, <a href="#pb68" class="pageref">68</a>, <a href= -"#pb84" class="pageref">84</a>, <a href="#pb89" class= -"pageref">89</a>–90, <a href="#pb93" class="pageref">93</a>, -<a href="#pb99" class="pageref">99</a>, <a href="#pb100" class= -"pageref">100</a>, <a href="#pb123" class="pageref">123</a>, <a href= -"#pb129" class="pageref">129</a>, <a href="#pb138" class= -"pageref">138</a>, <a href="#pb156" class="pageref">156</a>, <a href= -"#pb184" class="pageref">184</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb200" class= -"pageref">200</a>, <a href="#pb206" class="pageref">206</a>, <a href= -"#pb209" class="pageref">209</a>, <a href="#pb309" class= -"pageref">309</a>, <a href="#pb311" class="pageref">311</a></p> -<p class="par">Ashtaroth and Mary, <a href="#pb146" class= -"pageref">146</a></p> -<p class="par">Asses, the two mythic, <a href="#pb37" class= -"pageref">37</a></p> -<p class="par">Assyrian religion, <a href="#pb53" class= -"pageref">53</a>, <a href="#pb69" class="pageref">69</a></p> -<p class="par">Astrology, <a href="#pb234" class="pageref">234</a>, -<a href="#pb279" class="pageref">279</a></p> -<p class="par">Astronomical myths, <a href="#pb23" class= -"pageref">23</a>, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href= -"#pb58" class="pageref">58</a>, <a href="#pb59" class="pageref">59</a>; -science, <a href="#pb196" class="pageref">196</a>, <a href="#pb233" -class="pageref">233</a></p> -<p class="par">Astruc, <a href="#pb289" class="pageref">289</a></p> -<p class="par">Athanasius and Athanasianism, <a href="#pb121" class= -"pageref">121</a>–22, <a href="#pb126" class="pageref">126</a>, -<a href="#pb134" class="pageref">134</a>, <a href="#pb135" class= -"pageref">135</a>, <a href="#pb143" class="pageref">143</a>, <a href= -"#pb145" class="pageref">145</a>, <a href="#pb151" class= -"pageref">151</a></p> -<p class="par">Atheism, <a href="#pb107" class="pageref">107</a>, -<a href="#pb275" class="pageref">275</a></p> -<p class="par">Athenagoras, <a href="#pb34" class="pageref">34</a></p> -<p class="par">Athens, ancient religion in, <a href="#pb44" class= -"pageref">44</a>, <a href="#pb45" class="pageref">45</a>, <a href= -"#pb53" class="pageref">53</a>, <a href="#pb106" class= -"pageref">106</a>, <a href="#pb156" class="pageref">156</a>; modern, -<a href="#pb307" class="pageref">307</a></p> -<p class="par">Attis, <a href="#pb7" class="pageref">7</a>, <a href= -"#pb21" class="pageref">21</a>, <a href="#pb25" class="pageref">25</a>, -<a href="#pb32" class="pageref">32</a>, <a href="#pb37" class= -"pageref">37</a>, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, <a href= -"#pb51" class="pageref">51</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb175" class= -"pageref">175</a></p> -<p class="par">Audæans, <a href="#pb185" class= -"pageref">185</a></p> -<p class="par">Augsburg, Confession of, <a href="#pb259" class= -"pageref">259</a>, <a href="#pb266" class="pageref">266</a>; Peace of, -<a href="#pb259" class="pageref">259</a></p> -<p class="par">Augurs, <a href="#pb137" class="pageref">137</a></p> -<p class="par">Augustine, St., <a href="#pb96" class="pageref">96</a>, -<a href="#pb136" class="pageref">136</a>, <a href="#pb140" class= -"pageref">140</a>, <a href="#pb146" class="pageref">146</a>, <a href= -"#pb147" class="pageref">147</a>, <a href="#pb154" class= -"pageref">154</a>, <a href="#pb156" class="pageref">156</a>, <a href= -"#pb157" class="pageref">157</a>, <a href="#pb167" class= -"pageref">167</a>, <a href="#pb186" class="pageref">186</a>, <a href= -"#pb187" class="pageref">187</a>, <a href="#pb189" class= -"pageref">189</a>, <a href="#pb192" class="pageref">192</a></p> -<p class="par">—— the lesser, <a href="#pb164" class= -"pageref">164</a>, <a href="#pb165" class="pageref">165</a>, <a href= -"#pb168" class="pageref">168</a>, <a href="#pb176" class= -"pageref">176</a></p> -<p class="par">Augustus, <a href="#pb60" class="pageref">60</a>, -<a href="#pb109" class="pageref">109</a>, <a href="#pb215" class= -"pageref">215</a></p> -<p class="par">Aurelian, <a href="#pb104" class="pageref">104</a>, -<a href="#pb114" class="pageref">114</a></p> -<p class="par">Austria, religion in, <a href="#pb260" class= -"pageref">260</a>, <a href="#pb262" class="pageref">262</a>, <a href= -"#pb296" class="pageref">296</a>, <a href="#pb303" class= -"pageref">303</a></p> -<p class="par">Autocrator, the, <a href="#pb93" class= -"pageref">93</a></p> -<p class="par">Averroës and Averroism, <a href="#pb196" class= -"pageref">196</a>, <a href="#pb203" class="pageref">203</a>, <a href= -"#pb230" class="pageref">230</a>, <a href="#pb234" class= -"pageref">234</a></p> -<p class="par">Avignon, <a href="#pb272" class="pageref">272</a></p> -<p class="par">Aztecs, <a href="#pb89" class="pageref">89</a></p> -<p class="par">Babe-God, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, -<a href="#pb55" class="pageref">55</a>, <a href="#pb57" class= -"pageref">57</a></p> -<p class="par">Babylonian religion, <a href="#pb16" class= -"pageref">16</a>, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href= -"#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, <a href="#pb59" class="pageref">59</a>, -<a href="#pb69" class="pageref">69</a></p> -<p class="par">Bacchanalia, Christian, <a href="#pb156" class= -"pageref">156</a></p> -<p class="par">Bacchus, <a href="#pb22" class="pageref">22</a>, -<a href="#pb32" class="pageref">32</a>, <a href="#pb37" class= -"pageref">37</a>, <a href="#pb55" class="pageref">55</a>, <a href= -"#pb56" class="pageref">56</a>, <a href="#pb138" class= -"pageref">138</a>. <i>See</i> Dionysos</p> -<p class="par">Bacon, Roger, <a href="#pb229" class="pageref">229</a>, -<a href="#pb234" class="pageref">234</a></p> -<p class="par">—— Francis, <a href="#pb273" class= -"pageref">273</a>, <a href="#pb275" class="pageref">275</a>, <a href= -"#pb279" class="pageref">279</a>, <a href="#pb280" class= -"pageref">280</a>, <a href="#pb281" class="pageref">281</a></p> -<p class="par">Bale, <a href="#pb267" class="pageref">267</a></p> -<p class="par">Balfour, <a href="#pb286" class="pageref">286</a>, -<a href="#pb291" class="pageref">291</a></p> -<p class="par">Balkan War, <a href="#pb313" class="pageref">313</a></p> -<p class="par">Bangor, massacre at, <a href="#pb168" class= -"pageref">168</a></p> -<p class="par">Banquets, religious, <a href="#pb20" class= -"pageref">20</a>–26, <a href="#pb43" class="pageref">43</a>. -<i>See</i> Eucharist</p> -<p class="par">Baptism, <a href="#pb3" class="pageref">3</a>, <a href= -"#pb26" class="pageref">26</a>, <a href="#pb36" class="pageref">36</a>, -<a href="#pb49" class="pageref">49</a>, <a href="#pb63" class= -"pageref">63</a>, <a href="#pb101" class="pageref">101</a>, <a href= -"#pb106" class="pageref">106</a>, <a href="#pb120" class= -"pageref">120</a>, <a href="#pb168" class="pageref">168</a>, <a href= -"#pb198" class="pageref">198</a>, <a href="#pb225" class= -"pageref">225</a></p> -<p class="par">Barabbas, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a></p> -<p class="par">Barbarism, Christianity and, <a href="#pb161" class= -"pageref">161</a>, <a href="#pb165" class="pageref">165</a>, <a href= -"#pb169" class="pageref">169</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Bardesanes, <a href="#pb93" class="pageref">93</a>, -<a href="#pb98" class="pageref">98</a></p> -<p class="par">Barnabas, epistle of, <a href="#pb3" class= -"pageref">3</a></p> -<p class="par">Barneveldt, <a href="#pb268" class="pageref">268</a></p> -<p class="par">Bartholomew, Massacre of St., <a href="#pb257" class= -"pageref">257</a>, <a href="#pb311" class="pageref">311</a></p> -<p class="par">Basil, <a href="#pb156" class="pageref">156</a>, -<a href="#pb161" class="pageref">161</a>, <a href="#pb175" class= -"pageref">175</a></p> -<p class="par">—— the monk, <a href="#pb243" class= -"pageref">243</a></p> -<p class="par">Basilides, <a href="#pb93" class="pageref">93</a>, -<a href="#pb94" class="pageref">94</a></p> -<p class="par">Baths, pagan and Christian, <a href="#pb163" class= -"pageref">163</a></p> -<p class="par">Bavaria, religion in, <a href="#pb262" class= -"pageref">262</a></p> -<p class="par">Beaton, Cardinal, <a href="#pb253" class= -"pageref">253</a></p> -<p class="par">Beghards and Beguins, <a href="#pb203" class= -"pageref">203</a>, <a href="#pb212" class="pageref">212</a>, <a href= -"#pb226" class="pageref">226</a>, <a href="#pb246" class= -"pageref">246</a></p> -<p class="par">Belgium, religion in, <a href="#pb295" class= -"pageref">295</a></p> -<p class="par">Belisarius, <a href="#pb143" class="pageref">143</a>, -<a href="#pb144" class="pageref">144</a></p> -<p class="par">Benedict, St., <a href="#pb167" class= -"pageref">167</a></p> -<p class="par">—— II (Pope), <a href="#pb176" class= -"pageref">176</a></p> -<p class="par">Benedictines, <a href="#pb207" class="pageref">207</a>, -<a href="#pb208" class="pageref">208</a></p> -<p class="par">Berengar, <a href="#pb195" class="pageref">195</a></p> -<p class="par">Berkeley, <a href="#pb284" class="pageref">284</a>, -<a href="#pb286" class="pageref">286</a></p> -<p class="par">Berlin, <a href="#pb299" class="pageref">299</a></p> -<p class="par">Bernard, St., <a href="#pb220" class="pageref">220</a>, -<a href="#pb227" class="pageref">227</a></p> -<p class="par">Berne, <a href="#pb298" class="pageref">298</a></p> -<p class="par">Bethlehem birth-myth, <a href="#pb9" class= -"pageref">9</a>, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, <a href= -"#pb80" class="pageref">80</a></p> -<p class="par">Beziers, sack of, <a href="#pb202" class= -"pageref">202</a></p> -<p class="par">Bible, use of in early Church, <a href="#pb30" class= -"pageref">30</a>, <a href="#pb72" class="pageref">72</a>, <a href= -"#pb75" class="pageref">75</a>, <a href="#pb132" class= -"pageref">132</a>; translations of, <a href="#pb284" class= -"pageref">284</a>; influence of, <a href="#pb266" class= -"pageref">266</a>, <a href="#pb268" class="pageref">268</a>–69, -<a href="#pb270" class="pageref">270</a>, <a href="#pb273" class= -"pageref">273</a>, <a href="#pb274" class="pageref">274</a></p> -<p class="par">—— the “Rainbow,” <a href= -"#pb300" class="pageref">300</a></p> -<p class="par">Biblical criticism, <a href="#pb286" class= -"pageref">286</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Bibliolatry, <a href="#pb270" class= -"pageref">270</a></p> -<p class="par">Biology, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a></p> -<p class="par">Bishops, <a href="#pb45" class="pageref">45</a>, -<a href="#pb70" class="pageref">70</a>, <a href="#pb71" class= -"pageref">71</a>, <a href="#pb87" class="pageref">87</a>, <a href= -"#pb88" class="pageref">88</a>, <a href="#pb90" class="pageref">90</a>, -<a href="#pb117" class="pageref">117</a>, <a href="#pb120" class= -"pageref">120</a>, <a href="#pb155" class="pageref">155</a>, <a href= -"#pb167" class="pageref">167</a>, <a href="#pb178" class= -"pageref">178</a>, <a href="#pb181" class="pageref">181</a>, <a href= -"#pb182" class="pageref">182</a>, <a href="#pb192" class= -"pageref">192</a>–93, <a href="#pb206" class="pageref">206</a>, -<a href="#pb210" class="pageref">210</a>; and papacy, <a href="#pb178" -class="pageref">178</a>–79, <a href="#pb182" class= -"pageref">182</a>; and feudal powers, <a href="#pb178" class= -"pageref">178</a></p> -<p class="par">Björnson, <a href="#pb299" class= -"pageref">299</a></p> -<p class="par">Black Death, the, <a href="#pb222" class= -"pageref">222</a>, <a href="#pb229" class="pageref">229</a></p> -<p class="par">Black Madonnas, <a href="#pb185" class= -"pageref">185</a></p> -<p class="par">Blood covenant, <a href="#pb20" class= -"pageref">20</a></p> -<p class="par">Bloodshed, Christian, <a href="#pb173" class= -"pageref">173</a></p> -<p class="par">Bodin, <a href="#pb270" class="pageref">270</a>, -<a href="#pb279" class="pageref">279</a>, <a href="#pb281" class= -"pageref">281</a></p> -<p class="par">Boers, <a href="#pb313" class="pageref">313</a></p> -<p class="par">Boethius, <a href="#pb158" class="pageref">158</a>, -<a href="#pb232" class="pageref">232</a></p> -<p class="par">Bogomilians, <a href="#pb199" class="pageref">199</a>, -<a href="#pb201" class="pageref">201</a>, <a href="#pb243" class= -"pageref">243</a></p> -<p class="par">Bohemia, conversion of, <a href="#pb171" class= -"pageref">171</a>; slavery in, <a href="#pb217" class= -"pageref">217</a>; heresy in, <a href="#pb246" class="pageref">246</a>; -Protestantism in, <a href="#pb257" class="pageref">257</a>, <a href= -"#pb260" class="pageref">260</a>; reversion of, <a href="#pb257" class= -"pageref">257</a>, <a href="#pb261" class= -"pageref">261</a>–62</p> -<p class="par">Bohemond, <a href="#pb219" class="pageref">219</a></p> -<p class="par">Boleslavs, the two, <a href="#pb171" class= -"pageref">171</a></p> -<p class="par">Bonaventura, St., <a href="#pb187" class= -"pageref">187</a></p> -<p class="par">Bonaventure des Periers, <a href="#pb274" class= -"pageref">274</a></p> -<p class="par">Boniface, <a href="#pb168" class="pageref">168</a>, -<a href="#pb169" class="pageref">169</a>, <a href="#pb196" class= -"pageref">196</a></p> -<p class="par">—— III(Pope), <a href="#pb176" class= -"pageref">176</a></p> -<p class="par">Books, destruction of, <a href="#pb231" class= -"pageref">231</a> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb341" href="#pb341" -name="pb341">341</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">Bossuet, <a href="#pb292" class="pageref">292</a></p> -<p class="par"><i>Bougre</i>, the name, <a href="#pb199" class= -"pageref">199</a></p> -<p class="par">Boyle, <a href="#pb281" class="pageref">281</a></p> -<p class="par">Bradlaugh, <a href="#pb301" class="pageref">301</a></p> -<p class="par">Bradley, <a href="#pb283" class="pageref">283</a></p> -<p class="par">Brahmanism, <a href="#pb132" class="pageref">132</a></p> -<p class="par">“Branch, the,” <a href="#pb7" class= -"pageref">7</a>–8</p> -<p class="par">Brazil, religion in, <a href="#pb296" class= -"pageref">296</a></p> -<p class="par">Bread and wine, rite of, <a href="#pb22" class= -"pageref">22</a>, <a href="#pb25" class="pageref">25</a></p> -<p class="par">Brethren of the Lord, <a href="#pb18" class= -"pageref">18</a></p> -<p class="par">——of the Common Lot, <a href="#pb203" class= -"pageref">203</a>, <a href="#pb247" class="pageref">247</a>, <a href= -"#pb248" class="pageref">248</a></p> -<p class="par">——of the Free Spirit, <a href="#pb204" -class="pageref">204</a>, <a href="#pb245" class="pageref">245</a></p> -<p class="par">Britain, ancient, Christianity in, <a href="#pb82" -class="pageref">82</a>, <a href="#pb112" class="pageref">112</a>, -<a href="#pb165" class="pageref">165</a>, <a href="#pb168" class= -"pageref">168</a>, <a href="#pb176" class="pageref">176</a></p> -<p class="par">Bruno, Giordano, <a href="#pb275" class= -"pageref">275</a>, <a href="#pb278" class="pageref">278</a>, <a href= -"#pb283" class="pageref">283</a></p> -<p class="par">——St., <a href="#pb208" class= -"pageref">208</a></p> -<p class="par">Büchner, <a href="#pb285" class= -"pageref">285</a></p> -<p class="par">Buddha and Buddhism, <a href="#pb2" class= -"pageref">2</a>, <a href="#pb7" class="pageref">7</a>, <a href="#pb15" -class="pageref">15</a>, <a href="#pb50" class="pageref">50</a>, -<a href="#pb132" class="pageref">132</a></p> -<p class="par">Bulgaria, Turkish conquest of, <a href="#pb173" class= -"pageref">173</a>; heresy in, <a href="#pb199" class="pageref">199</a>, -<a href="#pb313" class="pageref">313</a></p> -<p class="par">Bull-symbol, <a href="#pb59" class="pageref">59</a></p> -<p class="par">Butler, <a href="#pb284" class="pageref">284</a></p> -<p class="par">Byblos, <a href="#pb53" class="pageref">53</a></p> -<p class="par">Byzantium, <a href="#pb150" class="pageref">150</a>, -<a href="#pb159" class="pageref">159</a>, <a href="#pb160" class= -"pageref">160</a>, <a href="#pb163" class="pageref">163</a>, <a href= -"#pb208" class="pageref">208</a>, <a href="#pb216" class= -"pageref">216</a>, <a href="#pb218" class="pageref">218</a>, <a href= -"#pb220" class="pageref">220</a>, <a href="#pb232" class= -"pageref">232</a>, <a href="#pb235" class="pageref">235</a>, <a href= -"#pb236" class="pageref">236</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb238" class= -"pageref">238</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb318" class= -"pageref">318</a></p> -<p class="par">Calendar, the ecclesiastical, <a href="#pb138" class= -"pageref">138</a></p> -<p class="par">Calvin and Calvinism, <a href="#pb213" class= -"pageref">213</a>, <a href="#pb249" class="pageref">249</a>, <a href= -"#pb251" class="pageref">251</a>, <a href="#pb253" class= -"pageref">253</a>, <a href="#pb256" class="pageref">256</a>, <a href= -"#pb257" class="pageref">257</a>, <a href="#pb260" class= -"pageref">260</a>, <a href="#pb262" class="pageref">262</a>, <a href= -"#pb265" class="pageref">265</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb268" class= -"pageref">268</a>, <a href="#pb270" class="pageref">270</a></p> -<p class="par">Campanus, <a href="#pb234" class="pageref">234</a></p> -<p class="par">Cannibalism, religious, <a href="#pb25" class= -"pageref">25</a>, <a href="#pb189" class="pageref">189</a></p> -<p class="par">Canon, formation of, <a href="#pb98" class= -"pageref">98</a></p> -<p class="par">Canons, regular, <a href="#pb167" class= -"pageref">167</a></p> -<p class="par">Canute. <i>See</i> Knut</p> -<p class="par">Capital and labour, <a href="#pb321" class= -"pageref">321</a></p> -<p class="par">Capricorn, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a> -<i>Caputiati</i>, <a href="#pb200" class="pageref">200</a></p> -<p class="par">Cardinals, powers of, <a href="#pb179" class= -"pageref">179</a></p> -<p class="par">Carlstadt, <a href="#pb258" class="pageref">258</a></p> -<p class="par">Carpocrates, <a href="#pb95" class="pageref">95</a></p> -<p class="par">Carthage, church of, <a href="#pb84" class= -"pageref">84</a>, <a href="#pb90" class="pageref">90</a>, <a href= -"#pb116" class="pageref">116</a>, <a href="#pb123" class= -"pageref">123</a>, <a href="#pb126" class="pageref">126</a>, <a href= -"#pb154" class="pageref">154</a></p> -<p class="par">Cassiodorus, <a href="#pb232" class= -"pageref">232</a></p> -<p class="par">Caste, in Byzantium, <a href="#pb160" class= -"pageref">160</a></p> -<p class="par">Catechumens, <a href="#pb96" class="pageref">96</a>, -<a href="#pb102" class="pageref">102</a> <i>Cathari</i>, <a href= -"#pb199" class="pageref">199</a></p> -<p class="par">Cathedrals, <a href="#pb166" class="pageref">166</a>, -<a href="#pb167" class="pageref">167</a></p> -<p class="par">Catholicism, latter-day, <a href="#pb265" class= -"pageref">265</a>–66, <a href="#pb268" class="pageref">268</a>, -<a href="#pb274" class="pageref">274</a>, <a href="#pb283" class= -"pageref">283</a>, <a href="#pb285" class="pageref">285</a>, <a href= -"#pb292" class="pageref">292</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb311" class= -"pageref">311</a>, <a href="#pb318" class="pageref">318</a></p> -<p class="par">Cave-birth-myth, <a href="#pb37" class= -"pageref">37</a></p> -<p class="par">Celibacy, doctrine of, <a href="#pb63" class= -"pageref">63</a>, <a href="#pb89" class="pageref">89</a>–90, -<a href="#pb122" class="pageref">122</a>, <a href="#pb155" class= -"pageref">155</a>, <a href="#pb166" class="pageref">166</a>, <a href= -"#pb180" class="pageref">180</a>, <a href="#pb206" class= -"pageref">206</a>, <a href="#pb209" class="pageref">209</a></p> -<p class="par">Celsus, <a href="#pb11" class="pageref">11</a>, <a href= -"#pb85" class="pageref">85</a></p> -<p class="par">Cephas, <a href="#pb18" class="pageref">18</a>. -<i>See</i> Peter</p> -<p class="par">Cerdo, <a href="#pb93" class="pageref">93</a>, <a href= -"#pb98" class="pageref">98</a></p> -<p class="par">Ceres, <a href="#pb22" class="pageref">22</a>, <a href= -"#pb55" class="pageref">55</a>. <i>See</i> -Dêmêtêr</p> -<p class="par">Cetewayo, <a href="#pb173" class="pageref">173</a></p> -<p class="par">Chalcedon, Council of, <a href="#pb149" class= -"pageref">149</a>, <a href="#pb175" class="pageref">175</a></p> -<p class="par">“Chapters,” powers of, <a href="#pb179" -class="pageref">179</a>, <a href="#pb181" class="pageref">181</a></p> -<p class="par">Charlemagne, <a href="#pb127" class="pageref">127</a>, -<a href="#pb169" class="pageref">169</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb176" -class="pageref">176</a>, <a href="#pb177" class="pageref">177</a>, -<a href="#pb232" class="pageref">232</a></p> -<p class="par">Charles Martel, <a href="#pb176" class= -"pageref">176</a></p> -<p class="par">——the Bald, <a href="#pb194" class= -"pageref">194</a></p> -<p class="par">——the Fat, <a href="#pb177" class= -"pageref">177</a></p> -<p class="par">——V, <a href="#pb251" class= -"pageref">251</a>, <a href="#pb252" class="pageref">252</a>, <a href= -"#pb255" class="pageref">255</a>, <a href="#pb256" class= -"pageref">256</a></p> -<p class="par">Charron, <a href="#pb283" class="pageref">283</a></p> -<p class="par">Chartreuse, monks of, <a href="#pb208" class= -"pageref">208</a></p> -<p class="par">Chateaubriand, <a href="#pb288" class= -"pageref">288</a></p> -<p class="par">Chaucer, <a href="#pb204" class="pageref">204</a></p> -<p class="par">Chazari, <a href="#pb199" class="pageref">199</a></p> -<p class="par">Chemistry, rise of, <a href="#pb233" class= -"pageref">233</a></p> -<p class="par">Child-eating, charge of, <a href="#pb25" class= -"pageref">25</a>–26</p> -<p class="par">Child-God, the, <a href="#pb28" class="pageref">28</a>, -<a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href="#pb55" class= -"pageref">55</a>, <a href="#pb57" class="pageref">57</a></p> -<p class="par">Children’s crusades, <a href="#pb221" class= -"pageref">221</a></p> -<p class="par">China, ethics in, <a href="#pb61" class= -"pageref">61</a>; life of, <a href="#pb160" class="pageref">160</a>; -Christianity in, <a href="#pb292" class="pageref">292</a> <i>sq.</i> -<i>Chorepiscopi</i>, <a href="#pb134" class="pageref">134</a>, <a href= -"#pb166" class="pageref">166</a> <i>Chrēstos</i>, the name, -<a href="#pb31" class="pageref">31</a>, <a href="#pb33" class= -"pageref">33</a>–35</p> -<p class="par">Christ, the name, <a href="#pb92" class= -"pageref">92</a>; the myth, <a href="#pb28" class="pageref">28</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb34" class="pageref">34</a>, <a href="#pb36" -class="pageref">36</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb78" class= -"pageref">78</a>, <a href="#pb96" class="pageref">96</a>; the doctrine, -<a href="#pb39" class="pageref">39</a>, <a href="#pb78" class= -"pageref">78</a>, <a href="#pb91" class="pageref">91</a>, <a href= -"#pb98" class="pageref">98</a>, <a href="#pb102" class= -"pageref">102</a>, <a href="#pb120" class="pageref">120</a>, <a href= -"#pb148" class="pageref">148</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb152" class= -"pageref">152</a>, <a href="#pb266" class="pageref">266</a></p> -<p class="par">Christian III of Denmark, <a href="#pb253" class= -"pageref">253</a></p> -<p class="par">——IV of Denmark, <a href="#pb261" class= -"pageref">261</a></p> -<p class="par">——of Anhalt, <a href="#pb260" class= -"pageref">260</a></p> -<p class="par">Christians, the first, <a href="#pb2" class= -"pageref">2</a>–10, <a href="#pb22" class="pageref">22</a>, -<a href="#pb28" class="pageref">28</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb48" -class="pageref">48</a>, <a href="#pb63" class="pageref">63</a>, -<a href="#pb67" class="pageref">67</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb72" -class="pageref">72</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb81" class= -"pageref">81</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Christmas, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, -<a href="#pb55" class="pageref">55</a></p> -<p class="par">Chrysostom, <a href="#pb155" class="pageref">155</a>, -<a href="#pb161" class="pageref">161</a></p> -<p class="par">Church, origin of Christian, <a href="#pb45" class= -"pageref">45</a>, <a href="#pb48" class="pageref">48</a>, <a href= -"#pb75" class="pageref">75</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb81" class= -"pageref">81</a> <i>sq.</i>; State establishment of, <a href="#pb114" -class="pageref">114</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb133" class= -"pageref">133</a> <i>sq.</i>; early endowments of, <a href="#pb70" -class="pageref">70</a>, <a href="#pb116" class="pageref">116</a>, -<a href="#pb117" class="pageref">117</a>, <a href="#pb135" class= -"pageref">135</a>, <a href="#pb169" class="pageref">169</a>; -organization of, <a href="#pb166" class="pageref">166</a>, <a href= -"#pb170" class="pageref">170</a>, <a href="#pb172" class= -"pageref">172</a>, <a href="#pb174" class="pageref">174</a> <i>sq.</i>; -expansion of, <a href="#pb165" class="pageref">165</a> <i>sq.</i>; -slave-holding by, <a href="#pb216" class="pageref">216</a></p> -<p class="par">Churches, early use of, <a href="#pb101" class= -"pageref">101</a></p> -<p class="par">Cicero, <a href="#pb286" class="pageref">286</a>, -<a href="#pb291" class="pageref">291</a></p> -<p class="par">Circumcelliones, <a href="#pb135" class= -"pageref">135</a></p> -<p class="par">Circumcision, <a href="#pb23" class="pageref">23</a>, -<a href="#pb26" class="pageref">26</a>, <a href="#pb49" class= -"pageref">49</a></p> -<p class="par">Circus, at Constantinople, <a href="#pb159" class= -"pageref">159</a></p> -<p class="par">Civilization, Christianity and, <a href="#pb208" class= -"pageref">208</a>. <i>See</i> Decadence</p> -<p class="par">Claudian, <a href="#pb157" class="pageref">157</a></p> -<p class="par">Claudius, Bishop, <a href="#pb187" class= -"pageref">187</a>, <a href="#pb194" class="pageref">194</a></p> -<p class="par">Clement of Alexandria, <a href="#pb77" class= -"pageref">77</a>, <a href="#pb85" class="pageref">85</a>, <a href= -"#pb96" class="pageref">96</a></p> -<p class="par">——of Rome, <a href="#pb54" class= -"pageref">54</a>, <a href="#pb73" class="pageref">73</a>, <a href= -"#pb74" class="pageref">74</a></p> -<p class="par">——III (antipope), <a href="#pb180" class= -"pageref">180</a></p> -<p class="par">——VII (Pope), <a href="#pb251" class= -"pageref">251</a>, <a href="#pb252" class="pageref">252</a> -<i>Clementines</i>, the, <a href="#pb29" class="pageref">29</a></p> -<p class="par">Clergy, early Christian, <a href="#pb83" class= -"pageref">83</a>, <a href="#pb85" class="pageref">85</a>, <a href= -"#pb116" class="pageref">116</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb119" class= -"pageref">119</a>, <a href="#pb126" class="pageref">126</a>, <a href= -"#pb166" class="pageref">166</a> <i>sq.</i>; celibacy of, <a href= -"#pb89" class="pageref">89</a>–90, <a href="#pb180" class= -"pageref">180</a>, <a href="#pb204" class="pageref">204</a>, <a href= -"#pb205" class="pageref">205</a> <i>sq.</i>; secular and regular, -<a href="#pb167" class="pageref">167</a>; ignorance of, <a href= -"#pb205" class="pageref">205</a> <i>sq.</i>; influence of, <a href= -"#pb205" class="pageref">205</a>, <a href="#pb209" class= -"pageref">209</a>; misconduct of, <a href="#pb205" class= -"pageref">205</a> <i>sq.</i>; modern Greek, <a href="#pb304" class= -"pageref">304</a> <i>sq.</i>; Russian, <a href="#pb308" class= -"pageref">308</a></p> -<p class="par">Clifford, <a href="#pb299" class="pageref">299</a></p> -<p class="par">Clovis, <a href="#pb144" class="pageref">144</a></p> -<p class="par">Cœlestius, <a href="#pb147" class= -"pageref">147</a></p> -<p class="par">Colenso, <a href="#pb289" class="pageref">289</a>, -<a href="#pb291" class="pageref">291</a> <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb342" href="#pb342" name="pb342">342</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">Coleridge, <a href="#pb103" class="pageref">103</a>, -<a href="#pb284" class="pageref">284</a></p> -<p class="par">Collins, Anthony, <a href="#pb287" class= -"pageref">287</a></p> -<p class="par">Collyridians, <a href="#pb146" class= -"pageref">146</a></p> -<p class="par">Columbus, <a href="#pb277" class="pageref">277</a></p> -<p class="par">Communism, Christian, <a href="#pb27" class= -"pageref">27</a>, <a href="#pb167" class="pageref">167</a>, <a href= -"#pb212" class="pageref">212</a></p> -<p class="par">Comte, <a href="#pb295" class="pageref">295</a></p> -<p class="par">Concord, ideal of, <a href="#pb63" class= -"pageref">63</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Concubinage, priestly, <a href="#pb90" class= -"pageref">90</a>, <a href="#pb205" class= -"pageref">205</a>–206</p> -<p class="par">Condorcet, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a></p> -<p class="par">Confession, sacerdotal, <a href="#pb71" class= -"pageref">71</a>, <a href="#pb166" class="pageref">166</a>, <a href= -"#pb191" class="pageref">191</a>, <a href="#pb209" class= -"pageref">209</a></p> -<p class="par">Constance, Council of, <a href="#pb246" class= -"pageref">246</a></p> -<p class="par">Constans, <a href="#pb121" class="pageref">121</a>, -<a href="#pb124" class="pageref">124</a>, <a href="#pb125" class= -"pageref">125</a></p> -<p class="par">——II, <a href="#pb151" class= -"pageref">151</a></p> -<p class="par">Constantine, <a href="#pb113" class="pageref">113</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb127" class="pageref">127</a>, <a href="#pb151" -class="pageref">151</a>, <a href="#pb214" class="pageref">214</a>, -<a href="#pb215" class="pageref">215</a></p> -<p class="par">——II, <a href="#pb124" class= -"pageref">124</a>, <a href="#pb151" class="pageref">151</a></p> -<p class="par">——VI, <a href="#pb176" class= -"pageref">176</a></p> -<p class="par">——Copronymus, <a href="#pb198" class= -"pageref">198</a></p> -<p class="par">——the Paulician, <a href="#pb198" class= -"pageref">198</a></p> -<p class="par">Constantinople, ancient church of, <a href="#pb116" -class="pageref">116</a>, <a href="#pb118" class="pageref">118</a>, -<a href="#pb126" class="pageref">126</a>, <a href="#pb175" class= -"pageref">175</a>; Council of, <a href="#pb149" class= -"pageref">149</a>; life of, <a href="#pb159" class="pageref">159</a>, -<a href="#pb238" class="pageref">238</a> <i>sq.</i>; patriarch of, -<a href="#pb120" class="pageref">120</a>, <a href="#pb174" class= -"pageref">174</a>, <a href="#pb175" class="pageref">175</a>; fall of, -<a href="#pb220" class="pageref">220</a>, <a href="#pb235" class= -"pageref">235</a>, <a href="#pb243" class="pageref">243</a></p> -<p class="par">Constantius, <a href="#pb115" class="pageref">115</a>, -<a href="#pb124" class="pageref">124</a>–26, <a href="#pb128" -class="pageref">128</a></p> -<p class="par">——Chlorus, <a href="#pb112" class= -"pageref">112</a>–14, <a href="#pb128" class= -"pageref">128</a></p> -<p class="par">Conversion of barbarians, <a href="#pb168" class= -"pageref">168</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Copernicus, <a href="#pb265" class="pageref">265</a>, -<a href="#pb277" class="pageref">277</a>, <a href="#pb278" class= -"pageref">278</a> <i>Corinthians, Epistles to</i>, <a href="#pb4" -class="pageref">4</a>, <a href="#pb16" class="pageref">16</a>, <a href= -"#pb20" class="pageref">20</a>, <a href="#pb32" class="pageref">32</a>, -<a href="#pb49" class="pageref">49</a>, <a href="#pb68" class= -"pageref">68</a></p> -<p class="par">Corybantic mysteries, <a href="#pb56" class= -"pageref">56</a></p> -<p class="par">Cosmas Indicopleustes, <a href="#pb158" class= -"pageref">158</a></p> -<p class="par">Cossacks, creed of, <a href="#pb263" class= -"pageref">263</a></p> -<p class="par">Councils, church, <a href="#pb70" class= -"pageref">70</a>, <a href="#pb90" class="pageref">90</a>, <a href= -"#pb91" class="pageref">91</a>, <a href="#pb104" class= -"pageref">104</a>, <a href="#pb118" class="pageref">118</a>, <a href= -"#pb120" class="pageref">120</a>–21, <a href="#pb126" class= -"pageref">126</a>, <a href="#pb182" class="pageref">182</a></p> -<p class="par">Counsellor Gods, the Babylonian, <a href="#pb16" class= -"pageref">16</a></p> -<p class="par">Cow, the sacred, <a href="#pb37" class= -"pageref">37</a></p> -<p class="par">Creeds, use of, <a href="#pb75" class="pageref">75</a>, -<a href="#pb101" class="pageref">101</a>, <a href="#pb151" class= -"pageref">151</a></p> -<p class="par">Crete, Moslem conquest of, <a href="#pb244" class= -"pageref">244</a>; reconquest of, <a href="#pb244" class= -"pageref">244</a></p> -<p class="par">Crime, Christianity and, <a href="#pb312" class= -"pageref">312</a></p> -<p class="par">Crimean War, <a href="#pb309" class= -"pageref">309</a></p> -<p class="par">Crispus, <a href="#pb117" class="pageref">117</a></p> -<p class="par">Cromwell, <a href="#pb287" class="pageref">287</a></p> -<p class="par">Cross-symbol, <a href="#pb27" class= -"pageref">27</a>–28, <a href="#pb32" class="pageref">32</a>, -<a href="#pb35" class="pageref">35</a>, <a href="#pb57" class= -"pageref">57</a>, <a href="#pb58" class="pageref">58</a>, <a href= -"#pb79" class="pageref">79</a>, <a href="#pb101" class= -"pageref">101</a>–102</p> -<p class="par">Crucifix, the, <a href="#pb27" class="pageref">27</a>, -<a href="#pb185" class="pageref">185</a></p> -<p class="par">Crucifixion, mystic, <a href="#pb27" class= -"pageref">27</a>, <a href="#pb32" class="pageref">32</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb57" class="pageref">57</a></p> -<p class="par">——mythic, <a href="#pb15" class= -"pageref">15</a>, <a href="#pb57" class="pageref">57</a></p> -<p class="par">Cruelty, Christian and pagan, <a href="#pb64" class= -"pageref">64</a>, <a href="#pb108" class="pageref">108</a>, <a href= -"#pb154" class="pageref">154</a>, <a href="#pb155" class= -"pageref">155</a>, <a href="#pb156" class="pageref">156</a>, <a href= -"#pb161" class="pageref">161</a>, <a href="#pb171" class= -"pageref">171</a>, <a href="#pb172" class="pageref">172</a>, <a href= -"#pb173" class="pageref">173</a>, <a href="#pb181" class= -"pageref">181</a>–82, <a href="#pb198" class="pageref">198</a>, -<a href="#pb209" class="pageref">209</a>, <a href="#pb210" class= -"pageref">210</a>, <a href="#pb218" class="pageref">218</a>, <a href= -"#pb219" class="pageref">219</a>, <a href="#pb231" class= -"pageref">231</a>, <a href="#pb239" class="pageref">239</a>, <a href= -"#pb256" class="pageref">256</a>, <a href="#pb311" class= -"pageref">311</a></p> -<p class="par">Crusades, <a href="#pb182" class="pageref">182</a>, -<a href="#pb193" class="pageref">193</a>, <a href="#pb199" class= -"pageref">199</a>, <a href="#pb200" class="pageref">200</a>, <a href= -"#pb218" class="pageref">218</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb311" class= -"pageref">311</a></p> -<p class="par">Culture-conditions, Græco-Roman, <a href="#pb41" -class="pageref">41</a> <i>sq.</i>; medieval, <a href="#pb197" class= -"pageref">197</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb205" class="pageref">205</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb225" class="pageref">225</a>, <a href="#pb235" -class="pageref">235</a></p> -<p class="par">Cumberland, <a href="#pb283" class="pageref">283</a></p> -<p class="par">Cybelê, <a href="#pb52" class="pageref">52</a>, -<a href="#pb53" class="pageref">53</a>, <a href="#pb76" class= -"pageref">76</a></p> -<p class="par">Cyprian, <a href="#pb86" class="pageref">86</a>, -<a href="#pb90" class="pageref">90</a>, <a href="#pb91" class= -"pageref">91</a>, <a href="#pb109" class="pageref">109</a>, <a href= -"#pb174" class="pageref">174</a></p> -<p class="par">Cyril, <a href="#pb155" class="pageref">155</a></p> -<p class="par">D’Alembert, <a href="#pb282" class= -"pageref">282</a></p> -<p class="par">Damasus, Pope, <a href="#pb134" class= -"pageref">134</a>–35, <a href="#pb174" class= -"pageref">174</a></p> -<p class="par">Dancers, sect of, <a href="#pb226" class= -"pageref">226</a></p> -<p class="par">Daniel, myth of, <a href="#pb38" class= -"pageref">38</a></p> -<p class="par">Dante, <a href="#pb235" class="pageref">235</a></p> -<p class="par">Darwinism, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a>, -<a href="#pb299" class="pageref">299</a></p> -<p class="par">David, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a></p> -<p class="par">—— of Dinant, <a href="#pb196" class= -"pageref">196</a></p> -<p class="par">Deacons, <a href="#pb70" class="pageref">70</a>, -<a href="#pb83" class="pageref">83</a></p> -<p class="par">Death-rate, medieval, <a href="#pb225" class= -"pageref">225</a></p> -<p class="par">Decadence, ancient, promoted by Christianity, <a href= -"#pb85" class="pageref">85</a>, <a href="#pb86" class="pageref">86</a>, -<a href="#pb110" class="pageref">110</a>, <a href="#pb119" class= -"pageref">119</a>, <a href="#pb126" class="pageref">126</a>, <a href= -"#pb128" class="pageref">128</a>, <a href="#pb134" class= -"pageref">134</a>, <a href="#pb136" class="pageref">136</a>–37, -<a href="#pb140" class="pageref">140</a>, <a href="#pb142" class= -"pageref">142</a>, <a href="#pb146" class="pageref">146</a>, <a href= -"#pb150" class="pageref">150</a>, <a href="#pb152" class= -"pageref">152</a>, <a href="#pb154" class="pageref">154</a>, <a href= -"#pb159" class="pageref">159</a>, <a href="#pb160" class= -"pageref">160</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb173" class="pageref">173</a>, -<a href="#pb208" class="pageref">208</a>; medieval, <a href="#pb228" -class="pageref">228</a>, <a href="#pb238" class="pageref">238</a>; -modern, <a href="#pb262" class="pageref">262</a></p> -<p class="par">Decius, <a href="#pb108" class="pageref">108</a></p> -<p class="par">Decretals, the forged, <a href="#pb178" class= -"pageref">178</a>, <a href="#pb179" class="pageref">179</a>, <a href= -"#pb180" class="pageref">180</a>–82</p> -<p class="par">Deism, <a href="#pb195" class="pageref">195</a>, -<a href="#pb275" class="pageref">275</a>, <a href="#pb277" class= -"pageref">277</a>, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a>, <a href= -"#pb286" class="pageref">286</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb301" class= -"pageref">301</a></p> -<p class="par">Delambre, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a></p> -<p class="par">Dêmêtêr, <a href="#pb7" class= -"pageref">7</a>, <a href="#pb55" class="pageref">55</a>, <a href= -"#pb56" class="pageref">56</a>, <a href="#pb76" class="pageref">76</a> -<i>Demiourgos</i>, the, <a href="#pb98" class="pageref">98</a></p> -<p class="par">Democracy, fanatical, <a href="#pb276" class= -"pageref">276</a>, <a href="#pb277" class="pageref">277</a></p> -<p class="par">Denmark, conversion of, <a href="#pb170" class= -"pageref">170</a></p> -<p class="par">Deogratius, <a href="#pb154" class="pageref">154</a></p> -<p class="par">Descartes, <a href="#pb280" class="pageref">280</a>, -<a href="#pb281" class="pageref">281</a>, <a href="#pb283" class= -"pageref">283</a></p> -<p class="par">Devil, belief in, <a href="#pb187" class= -"pageref">187</a>, <a href="#pb224" class="pageref">224</a>, <a href= -"#pb225" class="pageref">225</a></p> -<p class="par">D’Holbach, <a href="#pb282" class= -"pageref">282</a> <i>Diabolos</i>, <a href="#pb19" class= -"pageref">19</a></p> -<p class="par">Diderot, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a></p> -<p class="par">Diocletian, <a href="#pb108" class="pageref">108</a>, -<a href="#pb111" class="pageref">111</a>–14</p> -<p class="par">Dionysius the Areopagite, <a href="#pb241" class= -"pageref">241</a></p> -<p class="par">Dionysos, cult of, <a href="#pb14" class= -"pageref">14</a>, <a href="#pb15" class="pageref">15</a>, <a href= -"#pb21" class="pageref">21</a>, <a href="#pb22" class="pageref">22</a>, -<a href="#pb26" class="pageref">26</a>, <a href="#pb32" class= -"pageref">32</a>, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href= -"#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, <a href="#pb44" class="pageref">44</a>, -<a href="#pb51" class="pageref">51</a>, <a href="#pb55" class= -"pageref">55</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb102" class="pageref">102</a>, -<a href="#pb106" class="pageref">106</a>, <a href="#pb138" class= -"pageref">138</a></p> -<p class="par">Disciples. <i>See</i> Apostles</p> -<p class="par">Divination, <a href="#pb117" class="pageref">117</a>, -<a href="#pb134" class="pageref">134</a></p> -<p class="par">Docetists, <a href="#pb123" class="pageref">123</a>, -<a href="#pb198" class="pageref">198</a></p> -<p class="par">Dogma, formation of, <a href="#pb120" class= -"pageref">120</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb144" class="pageref">144</a>, -<a href="#pb146" class="pageref">146</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb154" -class="pageref">154</a></p> -<p class="par">Dolcino, Fra, <a href="#pb200" class= -"pageref">200</a></p> -<p class="par">Dominicans, <a href="#pb188" class="pageref">188</a>, -<a href="#pb228" class="pageref">228</a>, <a href="#pb229" class= -"pageref">229</a>, <a href="#pb246" class="pageref">246</a></p> -<p class="par">Domitian, <a href="#pb108" class="pageref">108</a>, -<a href="#pb109" class="pageref">109</a></p> -<p class="par">Donatists, <a href="#pb118" class="pageref">118</a>, -<a href="#pb123" class="pageref">123</a>, <a href="#pb134" class= -"pageref">134</a>, <a href="#pb143" class="pageref">143</a></p> -<p class="par">Doomsday, doctrine of, <a href="#pb26" class= -"pageref">26</a>, <a href="#pb39" class="pageref">39</a>, <a href= -"#pb63" class="pageref">63</a>, <a href="#pb72" class="pageref">72</a>, -<a href="#pb78" class="pageref">78</a>, <a href="#pb107" class= -"pageref">107</a>, <a href="#pb111" class="pageref">111</a>, <a href= -"#pb179" class="pageref">179</a></p> -<p class="par">Dositheus, <a href="#pb36" class="pageref">36</a></p> -<p class="par">Dostoyevsky, <a href="#pb308" class= -"pageref">308</a></p> -<p class="par">Dove-symbol, <a href="#pb29" class="pageref">29</a></p> -<p class="par">Drama, Greek, <a href="#pb13" class="pageref">13</a>, -<a href="#pb33" class="pageref">33</a>, <a href="#pb42" class= -"pageref">42</a></p> -<p class="par">——in Jewry, <a href="#pb74" class= -"pageref">74</a></p> -<p class="par">Dreyfus case, <a href="#pb318" class= -"pageref">318</a></p> -<p class="par">Druids, <a href="#pb25" class="pageref">25</a>, <a href= -"#pb183" class="pageref">183</a></p> -<p class="par">Drummond, H., <a href="#pb291" class= -"pageref">291</a></p> -<p class="par">Dukhobortsi, <a href="#pb309" class= -"pageref">309</a></p> -<p class="par">Dunbar, <a href="#pb274" class="pageref">274</a> -<i>Dynamis</i>, <a href="#pb94" class="pageref">94</a></p> -<p class="par">Earthquakes and religion, <a href="#pb161" class= -"pageref">161</a></p> -<p class="par">Easter, <a href="#pb24" class="pageref">24</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb59" class="pageref">59</a>, <a href="#pb90" -class="pageref">90</a></p> -<p class="par">Ebionites, <a href="#pb5" class="pageref">5</a>–9, -<a href="#pb29" class="pageref">29</a> <i>Ecclesia</i>, the, <a href= -"#pb45" class="pageref">45</a> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb343" -href="#pb343" name="pb343">343</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par"><i>Ecclesiasticus</i>, Book of, <a href="#pb22" class= -"pageref">22</a></p> -<p class="par">Eckhart, <a href="#pb212" class="pageref">212</a></p> -<p class="par">Economic causation, <a href="#pb28" class= -"pageref">28</a>, <a href="#pb47" class="pageref">47</a>, <a href= -"#pb69" class="pageref">69</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb78" class= -"pageref">78</a>, <a href="#pb80" class="pageref">80</a>, <a href= -"#pb86" class="pageref">86</a>, <a href="#pb88" class="pageref">88</a>, -<a href="#pb117" class="pageref">117</a>, <a href="#pb126" class= -"pageref">126</a>, <a href="#pb132" class="pageref">132</a>, <a href= -"#pb134" class="pageref">134</a>, <a href="#pb135" class= -"pageref">135</a>, <a href="#pb139" class="pageref">139</a>, <a href= -"#pb140" class="pageref">140</a>, <a href="#pb168" class= -"pageref">168</a>, <a href="#pb189" class="pageref">189</a>, <a href= -"#pb197" class="pageref">197</a>, <a href="#pb216" class= -"pageref">216</a>, <a href="#pb217" class="pageref">217</a>, <a href= -"#pb220" class="pageref">220</a>, <a href="#pb222" class= -"pageref">222</a>, <a href="#pb249" class="pageref">249</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb265" class="pageref">265</a>, <a href="#pb271" class= -"pageref">271</a>, <a href="#pb296" class="pageref">296</a></p> -<p class="par">Education, pagan and Christian, <a href="#pb158" class= -"pageref">158</a>, <a href="#pb183" class="pageref">183</a>; in -fifteenth century, <a href="#pb248" class="pageref">248</a>; Jesuit -methods of, <a href="#pb276" class="pageref">276</a>; modern Catholic, -<a href="#pb296" class="pageref">296</a></p> -<p class="par">Egypt, ancient cults of, <a href="#pb18" class= -"pageref">18</a>, <a href="#pb27" class="pageref">27</a>, <a href= -"#pb62" class="pageref">62</a>, <a href="#pb69" class="pageref">69</a>, -<a href="#pb77" class="pageref">77</a>, <a href="#pb79" class= -"pageref">79</a>, <a href="#pb92" class="pageref">92</a>, <a href= -"#pb94" class="pageref">94</a>, <a href="#pb152" class= -"pageref">152</a> (<i>see</i> Isis and Osiris); Christianity in, -<a href="#pb81" class="pageref">81</a>, <a href="#pb108" class= -"pageref">108</a>, <a href="#pb138" class="pageref">138</a>, <a href= -"#pb150" class="pageref">150</a>, <a href="#pb161" class= -"pageref">161</a>, <a href="#pb165" class="pageref">165</a>; art in, -<a href="#pb237" class="pageref">237</a>; Gnosticism in, <a href= -"#pb93" class="pageref">93</a> <i>sq.</i>; Moslem conquest of, <a href= -"#pb150" class="pageref">150</a> <i>Ektroma</i>, <a href="#pb4" class= -"pageref">4</a></p> -<p class="par">El, <a href="#pb21" class="pageref">21</a>, <a href= -"#pb22" class="pageref">22</a>, <a href="#pb29" class="pageref">29</a>, -<a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a></p> -<p class="par">Elcesaites, <a href="#pb36" class="pageref">36</a>, -<a href="#pb91" class="pageref">91</a></p> -<p class="par">Elders. <i>See</i> Presbyters</p> -<p class="par">Eleusinian mysteries, <a href="#pb26" class= -"pageref">26</a>, <a href="#pb45" class="pageref">45</a>, <a href= -"#pb55" class="pageref">55</a>, <a href="#pb134" class= -"pageref">134</a>, <a href="#pb143" class="pageref">143</a></p> -<p class="par">Elijah and Elisha, <a href="#pb38" class= -"pageref">38</a></p> -<p class="par">Elizabeth of England<span class="corr" id="xd21e9916" -title="Not in source">,</span> <a href="#pb253" class= -"pageref">253</a>, <a href="#pb273" class="pageref">273</a></p> -<p class="par">Elvira, Council of, <a href="#pb186" class= -"pageref">186</a><a id="xd21e9929" name="xd21e9929"></a></p> -<p class="par">Elymas, <a href="#pb29" class="pageref">29</a></p> -<p class="par">Emerson, <a href="#pb301" class="pageref">301</a></p> -<p class="par">Emperors, worship of, <a href="#pb60" class= -"pageref">60</a>, <a href="#pb109" class="pageref">109</a></p> -<p class="par"><i lang="la">Encyclopædia Biblica</i>, <a href= -"#pb289" class="pageref">289</a></p> -<p class="par">End of world, doctrine of. <i>See</i> Doomsday</p> -<p class="par">England, Christianity in, <a href="#pb168" class= -"pageref">168</a>; heresy in medieval, <a href="#pb203" class= -"pageref">203</a>, <a href="#pb229" class="pageref">229</a>; -slave-trading in, <a href="#pb216" class="pageref">216</a>; -Protestantism in, <a href="#pb252" class="pageref">252</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb264" class="pageref">264</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb268" -class="pageref">268</a>, <a href="#pb273" class="pageref">273</a>, -<a href="#pb295" class="pageref">295</a>; Catholicism in, <a href= -"#pb295" class="pageref">295</a>; rationalism in, <a href="#pb281" -class="pageref">281</a>, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a>, -<a href="#pb283" class="pageref">283</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb286" -class="pageref">286</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb299" class= -"pageref">299</a> <i>sq.</i> <i>Ennoia</i>, <a href="#pb94" class= -"pageref">94</a></p> -<p class="par">Ephesus, Council of, <a href="#pb148" class= -"pageref">148</a>, <a href="#pb149" class="pageref">149</a></p> -<p class="par">Epictetus, <a href="#pb85" class="pageref">85</a>, -<a href="#pb86" class="pageref">86</a>, <a href="#pb130" class= -"pageref">130</a>, <a href="#pb211" class="pageref">211</a></p> -<p class="par">Epicureanism, <a href="#pb45" class="pageref">45</a>, -<a href="#pb128" class="pageref">128</a>, <a href="#pb280" class= -"pageref">280</a></p> -<p class="par">Epiphanius, <a href="#pb186" class="pageref">186</a>, -<a href="#pb187" class="pageref">187</a></p> -<p class="par">Erasmus, <a href="#pb248" class="pageref">248</a>, -<a href="#pb271" class="pageref">271</a></p> -<p class="par">Erigena. <i>See</i> John the Scot</p> -<p class="par">Essenes, <a href="#pb8" class="pageref">8</a>, <a href= -"#pb49" class="pageref">49</a>–51</p> -<p class="par">Establishment, Church, <a href="#pb112" class= -"pageref">112</a>, <a href="#pb114" class="pageref">114</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb127" class="pageref">127</a> <i>Eternal Gospel, The</i>, -<a href="#pb203" class="pageref">203</a></p> -<p class="par">Ethics, Christian and pagan, <a href="#pb41" class= -"pageref">41</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb60" class="pageref">60</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb68" class="pageref">68</a>, <a href="#pb71" -class="pageref">71</a>, <a href="#pb84" class="pageref">84</a>, -<a href="#pb89" class="pageref">89</a>, <a href="#pb155" class= -"pageref">155</a>, <a href="#pb156" class="pageref">156</a>, <a href= -"#pb193" class="pageref">193</a>, <a href="#pb204" class= -"pageref">204</a>, <a href="#pb218" class="pageref">218</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb228" class="pageref">228</a>, <a href="#pb239" class= -"pageref">239</a>, <a href="#pb257" class="pageref">257</a>, <a href= -"#pb284" class="pageref">284</a>, <a href="#pb310" class= -"pageref">310</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Eucharist, <a href="#pb2" class="pageref">2</a>, -<a href="#pb12" class="pageref">12</a>, <a href="#pb20" class= -"pageref">20</a>–26, <a href="#pb36" class="pageref">36</a>, -<a href="#pb44" class="pageref">44</a>, <a href="#pb101" class= -"pageref">101</a>, <a href="#pb102" class="pageref">102</a>, <a href= -"#pb190" class="pageref">190</a>; doctrine of, <a href="#pb189" class= -"pageref">189</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb194" class="pageref">194</a>, -<a href="#pb225" class="pageref">225</a>, <a href="#pb266" class= -"pageref">266</a></p> -<p class="par">Euclid, <a href="#pb234" class="pageref">234</a></p> -<p class="par">Eudo of Stello, <a href="#pb200" class= -"pageref">200</a></p> -<p class="par">Eugenius, <a href="#pb136" class="pageref">136</a></p> -<p class="par">Eusebius, <a href="#pb83" class="pageref">83</a>, -<a href="#pb108" class="pageref">108</a>, <a href="#pb111" class= -"pageref">111</a>, <a href="#pb113" class="pageref">113</a>, <a href= -"#pb117" class="pageref">117</a></p> -<p class="par">Eustathius, <a href="#pb241" class="pageref">241</a></p> -<p class="par">Eutyches, heresy of, <a href="#pb149" class= -"pageref">149</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Evangelists, <a href="#pb70" class="pageref">70</a></p> -<p class="par">Evil spirits, belief in, <a href="#pb83" class= -"pageref">83</a>, <a href="#pb84" class="pageref">84</a>, <a href= -"#pb101" class="pageref">101</a>, <a href="#pb102" class= -"pageref">102</a>, <a href="#pb184" class="pageref">184</a></p> -<p class="par">Exarchs, <a href="#pb120" class="pageref">120</a></p> -<p class="par">Exorcism, Christian, <a href="#pb72" class= -"pageref">72</a>, <a href="#pb83" class="pageref">83</a>, <a href= -"#pb101" class="pageref">101</a>, <a href="#pb102" class= -"pageref">102</a>, <a href="#pb158" class="pageref">158</a> -<i>Ezekiel</i>, Book of, <a href="#pb27" class="pageref">27</a></p> -<p class="par">Fanaticism, <a href="#pb54" class="pageref">54</a>, -<a href="#pb55" class="pageref">55</a>, <a href="#pb63" class= -"pageref">63</a>, <a href="#pb69" class="pageref">69</a>, <a href= -"#pb83" class="pageref">83</a>, <a href="#pb84" class="pageref">84</a>, -<a href="#pb98" class="pageref">98</a>, <a href="#pb104" class= -"pageref">104</a>, <a href="#pb107" class="pageref">107</a>, <a href= -"#pb110" class="pageref">110</a>, <a href="#pb126" class= -"pageref">126</a>, <a href="#pb135" class="pageref">135</a>, <a href= -"#pb139" class="pageref">139</a>, <a href="#pb155" class= -"pageref">155</a>, <a href="#pb160" class="pageref">160</a>, <a href= -"#pb211" class="pageref">211</a>, <a href="#pb213" class= -"pageref">213</a>, <a href="#pb221" class="pageref">221</a>, <a href= -"#pb229" class="pageref">229</a>, <a href="#pb257" class= -"pageref">257</a>, <a href="#pb265" class="pageref">265</a>, <a href= -"#pb277" class="pageref">277</a></p> -<p class="par">Faraday, <a href="#pb316" class="pageref">316</a></p> -<p class="par">Fausta, <a href="#pb118" class="pageref">118</a></p> -<p class="par">Fénelon, <a href="#pb292" class= -"pageref">292</a></p> -<p class="par">Ferdinand and Isabella, <a href="#pb230" class= -"pageref">230</a></p> -<p class="par">Ferdinand I, <a href="#pb260" class="pageref">260</a>, -<a href="#pb272" class="pageref">272</a></p> -<p class="par">Ferrer, <a href="#pb295" class="pageref">295</a></p> -<p class="par">Feudalism, Christianity and, <a href="#pb213" class= -"pageref">213</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb250" class= -"pageref">250</a></p> -<p class="par">Feuerbach, <a href="#pb210" class="pageref">210</a>, -<a href="#pb284" class="pageref">284</a></p> -<p class="par">Fichte, <a href="#pb284" class="pageref">284</a> -<i>Filioque</i> clause, <a href="#pb152" class= -"pageref">152</a>–53</p> -<p class="par">Finance, early Christian, <a href="#pb27" class= -"pageref">27</a>, <a href="#pb70" class="pageref">70</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb87" class="pageref">87</a>, <a href="#pb104" class= -"pageref">104</a>, <a href="#pb116" class="pageref">116</a>, <a href= -"#pb126" class="pageref">126</a>, <a href="#pb140" class= -"pageref">140</a>; modern, <a href="#pb317" class="pageref">317</a>, -<a href="#pb321" class="pageref">321</a>. <i>See</i> Papacy</p> -<p class="par">Finlay, cited, <a href="#pb242" class="pageref">242</a>, -<a href="#pb244" class="pageref">244</a>, <a href="#pb303" class= -"pageref">303</a>, <a href="#pb304" class="pageref">304</a> -<i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Finns, conversion of, <a href="#pb172" class= -"pageref">172</a></p> -<p class="par">Fish, the divine, <a href="#pb59" class= -"pageref">59</a></p> -<p class="par">Flagellants, <a href="#pb226" class= -"pageref">226</a></p> -<p class="par">Florence, religion at, <a href="#pb195" class= -"pageref">195</a>, <a href="#pb212" class= -"pageref">212</a>–13</p> -<p class="par">Food-doles, ancient, <a href="#pb71" class= -"pageref">71</a>, <a href="#pb126" class="pageref">126</a>, <a href= -"#pb179" class="pageref">179</a></p> -<p class="par">Forgery, Christian, <a href="#pb5" class= -"pageref">5</a>, <a href="#pb51" class="pageref">51</a>, <a href= -"#pb73" class="pageref">73</a>, <a href="#pb77" class="pageref">77</a>, -<a href="#pb78" class="pageref">78</a>, <a href="#pb88" class= -"pageref">88</a>, <a href="#pb117" class="pageref">117</a> -<i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Fourth Gospel, the, <a href="#pb11" class= -"pageref">11</a>, <a href="#pb29" class="pageref">29</a>, <a href= -"#pb31" class="pageref">31</a>, <a href="#pb39" class="pageref">39</a>, -<a href="#pb78" class="pageref">78</a>, <a href="#pb79" class= -"pageref">79</a>–80, <a href="#pb91" class="pageref">91</a></p> -<p class="par">Fox, George, <a href="#pb277" class= -"pageref">277</a></p> -<p class="par">France, heresy in, <a href="#pb194" class= -"pageref">194</a>–95, <a href="#pb229" class="pageref">229</a>; -Reformation in, <a href="#pb255" class="pageref">255</a> <i>sq.</i>; -decline of Protestantism in, <a href="#pb255" class="pageref">255</a>, -<a href="#pb263" class="pageref">263</a>, <a href="#pb302" class= -"pageref">302</a>; rationalism in, <a href="#pb271" class= -"pageref">271</a>, <a href="#pb277" class="pageref">277</a>, <a href= -"#pb278" class="pageref">278</a>, <a href="#pb282" class= -"pageref">282</a>, <a href="#pb287" class="pageref">287</a>, <a href= -"#pb294" class="pageref">294</a>, <a href="#pb295" class= -"pageref">295</a>, <a href="#pb302" class="pageref">302</a>. <i>See</i> -Gaul</p> -<p class="par">Francis I, <a href="#pb255" class="pageref">255</a>, -<a href="#pb256" class="pageref">256</a></p> -<p class="par">—— St., of Assisi, <a href="#pb203" class= -"pageref">203</a>, <a href="#pb207" class="pageref">207</a>, <a href= -"#pb211" class="pageref">211</a></p> -<p class="par">—— St., of Sales, <a href="#pb211" class= -"pageref">211</a></p> -<p class="par">Franciscans, <a href="#pb188" class="pageref">188</a>, -<a href="#pb203" class="pageref">203</a>, <a href="#pb246" class= -"pageref">246</a>, <a href="#pb276" class="pageref">276</a></p> -<p class="par">Franklin, <a href="#pb301" class="pageref">301</a></p> -<p class="par">Franks, religion of the, <a href="#pb144" class= -"pageref">144</a>, <a href="#pb194" class="pageref">194</a> -<i>Fraticelli</i>, <a href="#pb203" class="pageref">203</a>, <a href= -"#pb246" class="pageref">246</a></p> -<p class="par">Frauds, early Christian, <a href="#pb5" class= -"pageref">5</a>, <a href="#pb73" class="pageref">73</a>, <a href= -"#pb78" class="pageref">78</a>, <a href="#pb88" class="pageref">88</a>; -medieval, <a href="#pb177" class="pageref">177</a>–78, <a href= -"#pb315" class="pageref">315</a></p> -<p class="par">Frederick Barbarossa, <a href="#pb200" class= -"pageref">200</a></p> -<p class="par">—— II, <a href="#pb234" class= -"pageref">234</a></p> -<p class="par">—— of Saxony, <a href="#pb251" class= -"pageref">251</a>, <a href="#pb258" class="pageref">258</a></p> -<p class="par">—— Elector Palatine, <a href="#pb260" class= -"pageref">260</a></p> -<p class="par">Freemasonry, <a href="#pb237" class= -"pageref">237</a></p> -<p class="par">French Revolution, reaction against, <a href="#pb282" -class="pageref">282</a>, <a href="#pb288" class="pageref">288</a>, -<a href="#pb297" class="pageref">297</a>; effect of in Greece, <a href= -"#pb306" class="pageref">306</a>; bloodshed in, <a href="#pb311" class= -"pageref">311</a></p> -<p class="par">Friars, preaching and begging, <a href="#pb181" class= -"pageref">181</a>, <a href="#pb203" class="pageref">203</a>, <a href= -"#pb207" class="pageref">207</a> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb344" -href="#pb344" name="pb344">344</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">“Friends of God,” <a href="#pb212" class= -"pageref">212</a></p> -<p class="par">Future state, doctrine of, <a href="#pb27" class= -"pageref">27</a> <i>Galatians, Epistle to the</i>, <a href="#pb18" -class="pageref">18</a>, <a href="#pb32" class="pageref">32</a></p> -<p class="par">Galerius, <a href="#pb111" class= -"pageref">111</a>–15</p> -<p class="par">“Galileans,” <a href="#pb9" class= -"pageref">9</a></p> -<p class="par">Galileo, <a href="#pb276" class="pageref">276</a>, -<a href="#pb277" class="pageref">277</a>, <a href="#pb279" class= -"pageref">279</a>, <a href="#pb280" class="pageref">280</a>, <a href= -"#pb317" class="pageref">317</a> <i>Galli</i>, <a href="#pb53" class= -"pageref">53</a></p> -<p class="par">Gallus, <a href="#pb124" class="pageref">124</a>, -<a href="#pb126" class="pageref">126</a></p> -<p class="par">Gardens of Adonis, <a href="#pb53" class= -"pageref">53</a></p> -<p class="par">Gassendi, <a href="#pb280" class="pageref">280</a>, -<a href="#pb281" class="pageref">281</a>, <a href="#pb282" class= -"pageref">282</a></p> -<p class="par">Gaul, Christianity in, <a href="#pb82" class= -"pageref">82</a>, <a href="#pb112" class="pageref">112</a>, <a href= -"#pb144" class="pageref">144</a>, <a href="#pb155" class= -"pageref">155</a>–56, <a href="#pb176" class= -"pageref">176</a></p> -<p class="par">Geneva, religion in, <a href="#pb213" class= -"pageref">213</a>, <a href="#pb249" class="pageref">249</a>, <a href= -"#pb266" class="pageref">266</a>, <a href="#pb297" class= -"pageref">297</a></p> -<p class="par">Geniuses, worship of, <a href="#pb76" class= -"pageref">76</a>, <a href="#pb109" class="pageref">109</a></p> -<p class="par">Gentile Christism, <a href="#pb28" class= -"pageref">28</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb65" class="pageref">65</a></p> -<p class="par">Geology, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a></p> -<p class="par">Gerbert, <a href="#pb218" class="pageref">218</a>, -<a href="#pb233" class="pageref">233</a></p> -<p class="par">Gerhard of Cambrai, <a href="#pb201" class= -"pageref">201</a></p> -<p class="par">Germany, conversion of, <a href="#pb169" class= -"pageref">169</a>; and the papacy, <a href="#pb180" class= -"pageref">180</a>; heresy in, <a href="#pb248" class="pageref">248</a>; -Protestantism in, <a href="#pb248" class="pageref">248</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb274" class="pageref">274</a>; philosophy in, <a href= -"#pb248" class="pageref">248</a> <i>sq.</i>; rationalism in, <a href= -"#pb282" class="pageref">282</a>–84, <a href="#pb288" class= -"pageref">288</a>, <a href="#pb291" class="pageref">291</a>, <a href= -"#pb298" class="pageref">298</a>, <a href="#pb299" class= -"pageref">299</a></p> -<p class="par">Gerson, <a href="#pb188" class="pageref">188</a></p> -<p class="par">Gibbon, <a href="#pb109" class="pageref">109</a>, -<a href="#pb287" class="pageref">287</a></p> -<p class="par">Gilbert, <a href="#pb280" class="pageref">280</a></p> -<p class="par">Gladiatorial games, <a href="#pb156" class= -"pageref">156</a></p> -<p class="par">Glanvil, <a href="#pb281" class="pageref">281</a> -<i>Glossolalia</i>, <a href="#pb54" class="pageref">54</a>, <a href= -"#pb87" class="pageref">87</a></p> -<p class="par">Gnosticism, <a href="#pb30" class="pageref">30</a>, -<a href="#pb40" class="pageref">40</a>, <a href="#pb48" class= -"pageref">48</a>, <a href="#pb54" class="pageref">54</a>, <a href= -"#pb64" class="pageref">64</a>, <a href="#pb76" class="pageref">76</a>, -<a href="#pb77" class="pageref">77</a>, <a href="#pb78" class= -"pageref">78</a>, <a href="#pb79" class="pageref">79</a>, <a href= -"#pb84" class="pageref">84</a>, <a href="#pb91" class="pageref">91</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb98" class="pageref">98</a></p> -<p class="par">Goat-God, the, <a href="#pb37" class= -"pageref">37</a></p> -<p class="par">Goch, John of, <a href="#pb247" class= -"pageref">247</a></p> -<p class="par">Godfrey of Bouillon, <a href="#pb219" class= -"pageref">219</a></p> -<p class="par">Goethe, <a href="#pb271" class="pageref">271</a></p> -<p class="par">Goliards, <a href="#pb201" class="pageref">201</a></p> -<p class="par">Gorky, <a href="#pb308" class="pageref">308</a></p> -<p class="par">Gospels, date of, <a href="#pb3" class="pageref">3</a>, -<a href="#pb10" class="pageref">10</a>; composition of, <a href="#pb39" -class="pageref">39</a>, <a href="#pb65" class="pageref">65</a>, -<a href="#pb73" class="pageref">73</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb78" -class="pageref">78</a>, <a href="#pb79" class="pageref">79</a>, -<a href="#pb96" class="pageref">96</a>, <a href="#pb98" class= -"pageref">98</a>, <a href="#pb99" class="pageref">99</a>; criticism of, -<a href="#pb289" class="pageref">289</a></p> -<p class="par">Goths, religion of, <a href="#pb142" class= -"pageref">142</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">——and Vandals, <a href="#pb162" class= -"pageref">162</a></p> -<p class="par">Gottschalk the Wend, <a href="#pb171" class= -"pageref">171</a></p> -<p class="par">——the monk, <a href="#pb194" class= -"pageref">194</a>, <a href="#pb197" class="pageref">197</a></p> -<p class="par">Gratian, <a href="#pb135" class= -"pageref">135</a>–36, <a href="#pb139" class="pageref">139</a>, -<a href="#pb215" class="pageref">215</a></p> -<p class="par">——the monk, <a href="#pb180" class= -"pageref">180</a></p> -<p class="par">Greece, priesthoods of pagan, <a href="#pb69" class= -"pageref">69</a>; life of Christian, <a href="#pb238" class= -"pageref">238</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb303" class="pageref">303</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb318" class="pageref">318</a></p> -<p class="par">Greek influence on Christianity, <a href="#pb31" class= -"pageref">31</a>, <a href="#pb51" class="pageref">51</a>, <a href= -"#pb61" class="pageref">61</a>, <a href="#pb64" class="pageref">64</a>, -<a href="#pb70" class="pageref">70</a></p> -<p class="par">——life and culture (ancient), <a href= -"#pb41" class="pageref">41</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb48" class= -"pageref">48</a>, <a href="#pb51" class="pageref">51</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb69" class="pageref">69</a>, <a href="#pb70" class= -"pageref">70</a>, <a href="#pb163" class="pageref">163</a>, <a href= -"#pb313" class="pageref">313</a>; medieval, <a href="#pb283" class= -"pageref">283</a> <i>sq.</i>; modern, <a href="#pb303" class= -"pageref">303</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">——and Latin schism, <a href="#pb153" class= -"pageref">153</a>, <a href="#pb240" class="pageref">240</a>, <a href= -"#pb244" class="pageref">244</a>, <a href="#pb309" class= -"pageref">309</a></p> -<p class="par">Gregory Thaumaturgus, <a href="#pb89" class= -"pageref">89</a></p> -<p class="par">——of Nazianzun, <a href="#pb127" class= -"pageref">127</a>, <a href="#pb129" class="pageref">129</a></p> -<p class="par">——the Great (Pope), <a href="#pb158" class= -"pageref">158</a>, <a href="#pb159" class="pageref">159</a>, <a href= -"#pb161" class="pageref">161</a>, <a href="#pb163" class= -"pageref">163</a>, <a href="#pb164" class="pageref">164</a>, <a href= -"#pb165" class="pageref">165</a>, <a href="#pb175" class= -"pageref">175</a>, <a href="#pb185" class="pageref">185</a>, <a href= -"#pb186" class="pageref">186</a>, <a href="#pb190" class= -"pageref">190</a>, <a href="#pb192" class="pageref">192</a>, <a href= -"#pb225" class="pageref">225</a>, <a href="#pb232" class= -"pageref">232</a></p> -<p class="par">Gregory II (Pope), <a href="#pb176" class= -"pageref">176</a></p> -<p class="par">——IV (Pope), <a href="#pb177" class= -"pageref">177</a></p> -<p class="par">——VII (Pope), <a href="#pb179" class= -"pageref">179</a>–80</p> -<p class="par">——IX (Pope), <a href="#pb203" class= -"pageref">203</a>, <a href="#pb228" class="pageref">228</a></p> -<p class="par">——XI (Pope), <a href="#pb182" class= -"pageref">182</a></p> -<p class="par">Grisons, the, <a href="#pb264" class= -"pageref">264</a></p> -<p class="par">Grotius, <a href="#pb268" class="pageref">268</a></p> -<p class="par">Guelphs and Ghibelines, <a href="#pb217" class= -"pageref">217</a></p> -<p class="par">Guizot, <a href="#pb288" class="pageref">288</a></p> -<p class="par">Gustavus Adolphus, <a href="#pb261" class= -"pageref">261</a></p> -<p class="par">——Vasa, <a href="#pb254" class= -"pageref">254</a></p> -<p class="par">Hades, descent into, <a href="#pb56" class= -"pageref">56</a>; idea of, <i>see</i> Hell</p> -<p class="par">Hadrian, <a href="#pb35" class="pageref">35</a>, -<a href="#pb93" class="pageref">93</a>, <a href="#pb108" class= -"pageref">108</a>, <a href="#pb163" class="pageref">163</a> -<i>Hagioi</i>, <a href="#pb9" class="pageref">9</a></p> -<p class="par">Halley, <a href="#pb281" class="pageref">281</a></p> -<p class="par">Haroun <span class="corr" id="xd21e11422" title= -"Source: Abraschid">Alraschid</span>, <a href="#pb177" class= -"pageref">177</a></p> -<p class="par">Harpocrates, <a href="#pb57" class="pageref">57</a></p> -<p class="par">Harrison, Miss, <a href="#pb55" class="pageref">55</a> -<i>n.</i>, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a> <i>n.</i></p> -<p class="par">Harvey, <a href="#pb280" class="pageref">280</a></p> -<p class="par">Heaven, doctrine of, <a href="#pb27" class= -"pageref">27</a></p> -<p class="par">Hebrews, early beliefs of, <a href="#pb20" class= -"pageref">20</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb26" class="pageref">26</a>, -<a href="#pb27" class="pageref">27</a>, <a href="#pb32" class= -"pageref">32</a>, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href= -"#pb40" class="pageref">40</a>, <a href="#pb58" class= -"pageref">58</a></p> -<p class="par">Hegel, <a href="#pb283" class="pageref">283</a>, -<a href="#pb284" class="pageref">284</a></p> -<p class="par">Helena, <a href="#pb184" class="pageref">184</a></p> -<p class="par">Hell, doctrine of, <a href="#pb63" class= -"pageref">63</a>, <a href="#pb98" class="pageref">98</a>, <a href= -"#pb154" class="pageref">154</a>, <a href="#pb210" class= -"pageref">210</a>, <a href="#pb225" class="pageref">225</a></p> -<p class="par">Hellenistic religion, <a href="#pb31" class= -"pageref">31</a></p> -<p class="par">Henri IV, <a href="#pb257" class="pageref">257</a></p> -<p class="par">Henry III (emperor), <a href="#pb179" class= -"pageref">179</a></p> -<p class="par">——IV (emperor), <a href="#pb179" class= -"pageref">179</a>–80</p> -<p class="par">——the monk, <a href="#pb200" class= -"pageref">200</a></p> -<p class="par">——V of England, <a href="#pb204" class= -"pageref">204</a></p> -<p class="par">——VIII of England, <a href="#pb252" class= -"pageref">252</a>, <a href="#pb258" class="pageref">258</a>, <a href= -"#pb269" class="pageref">269</a></p> -<p class="par">Heraclius, <a href="#pb150" class="pageref">150</a>, -<a href="#pb151" class="pageref">151</a>, <a href="#pb155" class= -"pageref">155</a>, <a href="#pb163" class="pageref">163</a>, <a href= -"#pb168" class="pageref">168</a>, <a href="#pb242" class= -"pageref">242</a></p> -<p class="par">Herbert of Cherbury, <a href="#pb286" class= -"pageref">286</a>–87</p> -<p class="par">Hercules (Herakles), <a href="#pb2" class= -"pageref">2</a>, <a href="#pb21" class="pageref">21</a>, <a href= -"#pb22" class="pageref">22</a>, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a>, -<a href="#pb102" class="pageref">102</a></p> -<p class="par">Heresy, ancient, <a href="#pb91" class="pageref">91</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb102" class="pageref">102</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb118" class="pageref">118</a>, <a href="#pb119" class= -"pageref">119</a>, <a href="#pb120" class="pageref">120</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb145" class="pageref">145</a>, <a href="#pb146" class= -"pageref">146</a> <i>sq.</i>; medieval, <a href="#pb197" class= -"pageref">197</a> <i>sq.</i>; rationalistic, <a href="#pb194" class= -"pageref">194</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb275" class="pageref">275</a>; -anti-clerical, <a href="#pb197" class="pageref">197</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb201" class="pageref">201</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb245" -class="pageref">245</a></p> -<p class="par">Hermas, the <i>Pastor</i> of, <a href="#pb35" class= -"pageref">35</a></p> -<p class="par">Hermes, <a href="#pb33" class="pageref">33</a>, <a href= -"#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, -<a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a>, <a href="#pb79" class= -"pageref">79</a></p> -<p class="par">Herod, <a href="#pb28" class="pageref">28</a></p> -<p class="par">Heroes, worship of, Greek, <a href="#pb33" class= -"pageref">33</a>, <a href="#pb76" class="pageref">76</a>, <a href= -"#pb137" class="pageref">137</a></p> -<p class="par">Hierapolis, Goddess of, <a href="#pb54" class= -"pageref">54</a> <i>Hilaria</i>, the, <a href="#pb53" class= -"pageref">53</a></p> -<p class="par">Hildebrand, <a href="#pb179" class= -"pageref">179</a>–80, <a href="#pb181" class="pageref">181</a>, -<a href="#pb195" class="pageref">195</a></p> -<p class="par">Hillel, <a href="#pb47" class="pageref">47</a></p> -<p class="par">Hincmar, <a href="#pb194" class="pageref">194</a></p> -<p class="par">Hindus, <a href="#pb42" class="pageref">42</a></p> -<p class="par">Hobbes, <a href="#pb283" class="pageref">283</a>, -<a href="#pb287" class="pageref">287</a></p> -<p class="par">Holland, religion in, <a href="#pb203" class= -"pageref">203</a>; art in, <a href="#pb189" class="pageref">189</a>, -<a href="#pb236" class="pageref">236</a>; Protestantism in, <a href= -"#pb254" class="pageref">254</a>, <a href="#pb268" class= -"pageref">268</a>, <a href="#pb274" class="pageref">274</a>; -rationalism in, <a href="#pb277" class="pageref">277</a>, <a href= -"#pb298" class="pageref">298</a>, <a href="#pb299" class= -"pageref">299</a></p> -<p class="par">Holy Ghost, doctrine of, <a href="#pb35" class= -"pageref">35</a>, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href= -"#pb99" class="pageref">99</a>, <a href="#pb123" class= -"pageref">123</a>, <a href="#pb152" class="pageref">152</a></p> -<p class="par">——Roman Empire, <a href="#pb176" class= -"pageref">176</a>, <a href="#pb183" class="pageref">183</a> -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb345" href="#pb345" name= -"pb345">345</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par"><i>Holy Spirit, Gospel of the</i>, <a href="#pb203" -class="pageref">203</a></p> -<p class="par">Holy water, <a href="#pb185" class="pageref">185</a></p> -<p class="par">Homoousian dispute, <a href="#pb120" class= -"pageref">120</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Honorius, <a href="#pb142" class="pageref">142</a>, -<a href="#pb143" class="pageref">143</a>, <a href="#pb156" class= -"pageref">156</a></p> -<p class="par">Hooker, <a href="#pb267" class="pageref">267</a>, -<a href="#pb273" class="pageref">273</a></p> -<p class="par">Horus, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href= -"#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb94" class="pageref">94</a>, <a href="#pb185" -class="pageref">185</a></p> -<p class="par">Host, the, <a href="#pb190" class="pageref">190</a></p> -<p class="par">Huet, <a href="#pb286" class="pageref">286</a></p> -<p class="par">Huguenots, the, <a href="#pb256" class= -"pageref">256</a>, <a href="#pb263" class="pageref">263</a></p> -<p class="par">Hume, <a href="#pb284" class="pageref">284</a>, <a href= -"#pb287" class="pageref">287</a>, <a href="#pb297" class= -"pageref">297</a></p> -<p class="par">Hungary, conversion of, <a href="#pb171" class= -"pageref">171</a></p> -<p class="par">Huss, <a href="#pb246" class="pageref">246</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb251" class="pageref">251</a></p> -<p class="par">Huxley, <a href="#pb283" class="pageref">283</a>, -<a href="#pb299" class="pageref">299</a></p> -<p class="par">Hypatia, <a href="#pb155" class="pageref">155</a>, -<a href="#pb161" class="pageref">161</a></p> -<p class="par">Iacchos, <a href="#pb55" class="pageref">55</a></p> -<p class="par">Ibsen, <a href="#pb13" class="pageref">13</a>, <a href= -"#pb299" class="pageref">299</a></p> -<p class="par">Iconoclasts, the, <a href="#pb176" class= -"pageref">176</a>, <a href="#pb186" class="pageref">186</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb239" class="pageref">239</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Icons, <a href="#pb163" class="pageref">163</a>, -<a href="#pb186" class="pageref">186</a>, <a href="#pb236" class= -"pageref">236</a>, <a href="#pb308" class="pageref">308</a></p> -<p class="par">Idolatry, early Christian aversion to, <a href="#pb75" -class="pageref">75</a>, <a href="#pb84" class="pageref">84</a>, -<a href="#pb107" class="pageref">107</a>, <a href="#pb125" class= -"pageref">125</a>, <a href="#pb185" class="pageref">185</a>; later -Christian practice of, <a href="#pb75" class="pageref">75</a>, <a href= -"#pb101" class="pageref">101</a>, <a href="#pb125" class= -"pageref">125</a>, <a href="#pb163" class="pageref">163</a>, <a href= -"#pb177" class="pageref">177</a>, <a href="#pb184" class= -"pageref">184</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb241" class= -"pageref">241</a></p> -<p class="par">Ignatius, Epistles of, <a href="#pb3" class= -"pageref">3</a>, <a href="#pb4" class="pageref">4</a>, <a href="#pb5" -class="pageref">5</a>; character of, <a href="#pb83" class= -"pageref">83</a> <i>Imitatio Christi</i>, the, <a href="#pb86" class= -"pageref">86</a>, <a href="#pb211" class="pageref">211</a>, <a href= -"#pb212" class="pageref">212</a></p> -<p class="par">Immaculate Conception, <a href="#pb188" class= -"pageref">188</a></p> -<p class="par">Immortality, doctrine of, <a href="#pb27" class= -"pageref">27</a>, <a href="#pb35" class="pageref">35</a>, <a href= -"#pb49" class="pageref">49</a>, <a href="#pb57" class="pageref">57</a>, -<a href="#pb58" class="pageref">58</a>, <a href="#pb59" class= -"pageref">59</a>, <a href="#pb62" class="pageref">62</a>, <a href= -"#pb196" class="pageref">196</a></p> -<p class="par">Imperialism, Roman, <a href="#pb41" class= -"pageref">41</a>, <a href="#pb86" class="pageref">86</a>, <a href= -"#pb110" class="pageref">110</a>, <a href="#pb119" class= -"pageref">119</a>, <a href="#pb127" class="pageref">127</a>, <a href= -"#pb139" class="pageref">139</a>, <a href="#pb140" class= -"pageref">140</a>, <a href="#pb160" class="pageref">160</a>, <a href= -"#pb183" class="pageref">183</a>; modern, <a href="#pb204" class= -"pageref">204</a>, <a href="#pb242" class="pageref">242</a> -<i>Impostors, The Three</i>, <a href="#pb234" class= -"pageref">234</a></p> -<p class="par">Incarnation, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a></p> -<p class="par">"Incorruptibilist" controversy, <a href="#pb153" class= -"pageref">153</a> <i>Index Expurgatorius</i>, <a href="#pb275" class= -"pageref">275</a></p> -<p class="par">India, religions of, <a href="#pb42" class= -"pageref">42</a>, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a>, <a href= -"#pb61" class="pageref">61</a>; Christianity in, <a href="#pb292" -class="pageref">292</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Indulgences, doctrine of, <a href="#pb182" class= -"pageref">182</a>, <a href="#pb192" class="pageref">192</a>; traffic -in, <a href="#pb193" class="pageref">193</a>, <a href="#pb249" class= -"pageref">249</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Infant damnation, doctrine of, <a href="#pb63" class= -"pageref">63</a>, <a href="#pb146" class="pageref">146</a></p> -<p class="par">Infallibility, Papal, <a href="#pb183" class= -"pageref">183</a>, <a href="#pb296" class="pageref">296</a></p> -<p class="par">Ingersoll, <a href="#pb301" class="pageref">301</a></p> -<p class="par">Innocent III (Pope), <a href="#pb181" class= -"pageref">181</a>, <a href="#pb193" class="pageref">193</a>, <a href= -"#pb202" class="pageref">202</a>, <a href="#pb220" class= -"pageref">220</a>, <a href="#pb228" class="pageref">228</a></p> -<p class="par">Innocents, massacre of, <a href="#pb38" class= -"pageref">38</a>, <a href="#pb60" class="pageref">60</a></p> -<p class="par">Inquisition, the, <a href="#pb210" class= -"pageref">210</a>, <a href="#pb227" class="pageref">227</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb256" class="pageref">256</a>, <a href="#pb269" class= -"pageref">269</a>, <a href="#pb275" class="pageref">275</a>, <a href= -"#pb294" class="pageref">294</a>, <a href="#pb311" class= -"pageref">311</a></p> -<p class="par">Inspiration, <a href="#pb40" class="pageref">40</a>, -<a href="#pb64" class="pageref">64</a>, <a href="#pb73" class= -"pageref">73</a>, <a href="#pb79" class="pageref">79</a>, <a href= -"#pb85" class="pageref">85</a>, <a href="#pb96" class="pageref">96</a>, -<a href="#pb289" class="pageref">289</a></p> -<p class="par">Ion, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a></p> -<p class="par">Ireland, Christianization of, <a href="#pb165" class= -"pageref">165</a>, <a href="#pb168" class="pageref">168</a>, <a href= -"#pb232" class="pageref">232</a>; slavery in, <a href="#pb216" class= -"pageref">216</a>; decivilization of, <a href="#pb262" class= -"pageref">262</a>, <a href="#pb264" class="pageref">264</a>, <a href= -"#pb295" class="pageref">295</a>; Catholicism in, <a href="#pb264" -class="pageref">264</a>, <a href="#pb294" class="pageref">294</a>, -<a href="#pb304" class="pageref">304</a></p> -<p class="par">Irene, <a href="#pb176" class="pageref">176</a></p> -<p class="par">Irrationalism, <a href="#pb285" class= -"pageref">285</a>–86</p> -<p class="par">Isaac, <a href="#pb21" class="pageref">21</a>, <a href= -"#pb23" class="pageref">23</a>, <a href="#pb26" class= -"pageref">26</a></p> -<p class="par">Isidorean decretals, the, <a href="#pb178" class= -"pageref">178</a>–82</p> -<p class="par">—— Encyclopædia, <a href="#pb232" -class="pageref">232</a></p> -<p class="par">Isis, cult of, <a href="#pb33" class="pageref">33</a>, -<a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href="#pb56" class= -"pageref">56</a>, <a href="#pb57" class="pageref">57</a>, <a href= -"#pb76" class="pageref">76</a>, <a href="#pb106" class= -"pageref">106</a>, <a href="#pb185" class="pageref">185</a></p> -<p class="par">Islam. <i>See</i> Mohammedanism</p> -<p class="par">Italy under Christianity, <a href="#pb160" class= -"pageref">160</a>, <a href="#pb165" class="pageref">165</a>, <a href= -"#pb177" class="pageref">177</a>, <a href="#pb186" class= -"pageref">186</a>, <a href="#pb229" class="pageref">229</a>, <a href= -"#pb235" class="pageref">235</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb248" class= -"pageref">248</a>, <a href="#pb251" class="pageref">251</a>, <a href= -"#pb270" class="pageref">270</a>, <a href="#pb294" class= -"pageref">294</a>; rationalism in, <a href="#pb189" class= -"pageref">189</a>, <a href="#pb268" class="pageref">268</a>, <a href= -"#pb275" class="pageref">275</a>, <a href="#pb295" class= -"pageref">295</a></p> -<p class="par">Jacob, <a href="#pb21" class="pageref">21</a></p> -<p class="par">Jacobites, sect of, <a href="#pb149" class= -"pageref">149</a> <i>James, Epistle of</i>, <a href="#pb18" class= -"pageref">18</a></p> -<p class="par">James, W., <a href="#pb285" class="pageref">285</a></p> -<p class="par">James V of Scotland, <a href="#pb253" class= -"pageref">253</a></p> -<p class="par">—— I of England, <a href="#pb260" class= -"pageref">260</a>, <a href="#pb261" class="pageref">261</a>, <a href= -"#pb270" class="pageref">270</a>, <a href="#pb271" class= -"pageref">271</a></p> -<p class="par">—— II of England, <a href="#pb264" class= -"pageref">264</a></p> -<p class="par">Jansenists, <a href="#pb280" class="pageref">280</a></p> -<p class="par">Janus, myth of, <a href="#pb18" class= -"pageref">18</a></p> -<p class="par">Japan, Christianity in, <a href="#pb292" class= -"pageref">292</a> <i>sq.</i>; progress of, <a href="#pb320" class= -"pageref">320</a></p> -<p class="par">Jasion, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a></p> -<p class="par">Jefferson, <a href="#pb300" class="pageref">300</a></p> -<p class="par">Jehovah, <a href="#pb22" class="pageref">22</a>, -<a href="#pb54" class="pageref">54</a>, <a href="#pb77" class= -"pageref">77</a>, <a href="#pb123" class="pageref">123</a></p> -<p class="par">Jerome, <a href="#pb140" class="pageref">140</a>, -<a href="#pb146" class="pageref">146</a>, <a href="#pb154" class= -"pageref">154</a>, <a href="#pb155" class="pageref">155</a>, <a href= -"#pb160" class="pageref">160</a></p> -<p class="par">—— of Prague, <a href="#pb247" class= -"pageref">247</a></p> -<p class="par">Jerusalem, Jesuist life in, <a href="#pb27" class= -"pageref">27</a>; patriarchate of, <a href="#pb175" class= -"pageref">175</a>, <a href="#pb177" class="pageref">177</a>; capture of -by the Crusaders, <a href="#pb218" class="pageref">218</a> <i>sq.</i>; -Christians at, <a href="#pb300" class="pageref">300</a>, <a href= -"#pb309" class="pageref">309</a></p> -<p class="par">Jeschu, <a href="#pb23" class="pageref">23</a></p> -<p class="par">Jesseans, <a href="#pb8" class="pageref">8</a></p> -<p class="par">Jesuits, in Poland, <a href="#pb263" class= -"pageref">263</a>, <a href="#pb276" class="pageref">276</a>; success -of, <a href="#pb276" class="pageref">276</a>, <a href="#pb292" class= -"pageref">292</a> <i>sq.</i>; decline of, <a href="#pb293" class= -"pageref">293</a>–94</p> -<p class="par">Jesus, mythic personality of, <a href="#pb3" class= -"pageref">3</a>, <a href="#pb5" class="pageref">5</a>–15, -<a href="#pb17" class="pageref">17</a>, <a href="#pb20" class= -"pageref">20</a>, <a href="#pb21" class="pageref">21</a>, <a href= -"#pb28" class="pageref">28</a>, <a href="#pb33" class="pageref">33</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb36" class="pageref">36</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href= -"#pb40" class="pageref">40</a>, <a href="#pb59" class="pageref">59</a>, -<a href="#pb76" class="pageref">76</a>, <a href="#pb77" class= -"pageref">77</a>, <a href="#pb92" class="pageref">92</a>, <a href= -"#pb93" class="pageref">93</a>, <a href="#pb94" class="pageref">94</a>, -<a href="#pb100" class="pageref">100</a>–10, <a href="#pb122" -class="pageref">122</a>, <a href="#pb145" class="pageref">145</a>, -<a href="#pb148" class="pageref">148</a>, <a href="#pb290" class= -"pageref">290</a></p> -<p class="par">—— and Jesuism, <a href="#pb5" class= -"pageref">5</a>, <a href="#pb6" class="pageref">6</a>–15, -<a href="#pb17" class="pageref">17</a>, <a href="#pb102" class= -"pageref">102</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb151" class="pageref">151</a> -<i>sq.</i> <i>See</i> Christ</p> -<p class="par">—— the high-priest, <a href="#pb7" class= -"pageref">7</a></p> -<p class="par">—— Ben Pandira, <a href="#pb7" class= -"pageref">7</a>, <a href="#pb11" class="pageref">11</a></p> -<p class="par">Jews, variant beliefs of, <a href="#pb5" class= -"pageref">5</a>, <a href="#pb47" class="pageref">47</a>, <a href= -"#pb49" class="pageref">49</a> <i>sq.</i>; poverty of, <a href="#pb7" -class="pageref">7</a>; after fall of Temple, <a href="#pb14" class= -"pageref">14</a>; mysteries of, <a href="#pb14" class="pageref">14</a>, -<a href="#pb20" class="pageref">20</a>–24; and Christians, -<a href="#pb28" class="pageref">28</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb38" -class="pageref">38</a>, <a href="#pb39" class="pageref">39</a>, -<a href="#pb46" class="pageref">46</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb62" -class="pageref">62</a>, <a href="#pb65" class="pageref">65</a>, -<a href="#pb68" class="pageref">68</a>, <a href="#pb69" class= -"pageref">69</a>, <a href="#pb79" class="pageref">79</a>, <a href= -"#pb107" class="pageref">107</a>, <a href="#pb218" class= -"pageref">218</a>, <a href="#pb219" class="pageref">219</a>, <a href= -"#pb227" class="pageref">227</a>, <a href="#pb230" class= -"pageref">230</a>, <a href="#pb310" class="pageref">310</a>; -persecutions of by Christians, <a href="#pb155" class= -"pageref">155</a>, <a href="#pb161" class="pageref">161</a>, <a href= -"#pb168" class="pageref">168</a>, <a href="#pb173" class= -"pageref">173</a>; as slave-dealers, <a href="#pb216" class= -"pageref">216</a>; as usurers, <a href="#pb227" class= -"pageref">227</a>; in Turkey, <a href="#pb305" class= -"pageref">305</a></p> -<p class="par">Joachim of Flora, <a href="#pb203" class= -"pageref">203</a></p> -<p class="par">John, the disciple, <a href="#pb63" class= -"pageref">63</a> <i>John, Gospel of</i>, <a href="#pb11" class= -"pageref">11</a>, <a href="#pb29" class="pageref">29</a>, <a href= -"#pb31" class="pageref">31</a>, <a href="#pb39" class="pageref">39</a>, -<a href="#pb78" class="pageref">78</a>, <a href="#pb79" class= -"pageref">79</a>–80</p> -<p class="par">—— <i>Epistles of</i>, <a href="#pb19" -class="pageref">19</a>, <a href="#pb92" class="pageref">92</a> -<i>n.</i></p> -<p class="par">John the Baptist, <a href="#pb26" class= -"pageref">26</a>, <a href="#pb28" class="pageref">28</a>, <a href= -"#pb48" class="pageref">48</a></p> -<p class="par">—— VIII (Pope), <a href="#pb177" class= -"pageref">177</a></p> -<p class="par">—— the Scot, <a href="#pb194" class= -"pageref">194</a>–95, <a href="#pb196" class="pageref">196</a>, -<a href="#pb210" class="pageref">210</a>, <a href="#pb232" class= -"pageref">232</a>, <a href="#pb241" class="pageref">241</a></p> -<p class="par">—— of Parma, <a href="#pb203" class= -"pageref">203</a></p> -<p class="par">Joseph, Jewish myth of, <a href="#pb19" class= -"pageref">19</a>, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a></p> -<p class="par">—— father of Jesus, cult of, <a href= -"#pb188" class="pageref">188</a></p> -<p class="par">Joshua, <a href="#pb6" class="pageref">6</a>, <a href= -"#pb7" class="pageref">7</a>–8, <a href="#pb12" class= -"pageref">12</a>, <a href="#pb20" class="pageref">20</a></p> -<p class="par">Joule, <a href="#pb316" class="pageref">316</a></p> -<p class="par">Jovian, <a href="#pb133" class="pageref">133</a></p> -<p class="par">Jovinian, <a href="#pb146" class="pageref">146</a> -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb346" href="#pb346" name= -"pb346">346</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">Judaism, <a href="#pb5" class="pageref">5</a>–10, -<a href="#pb16" class="pageref">16</a>, <a href="#pb20" class= -"pageref">20</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb28" class="pageref">28</a>, -<a href="#pb46" class="pageref">46</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb49" -class="pageref">49</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb79" class= -"pageref">79</a></p> -<p class="par">Judas, <a href="#pb19" class="pageref">19</a>, <a href= -"#pb25" class="pageref">25</a>, <a href="#pb28" class= -"pageref">28</a></p> -<p class="par">——the Galilean, <a href="#pb50" class= -"pageref">50</a> <i>Jude, Epistle of</i>, <a href="#pb8" class= -"pageref">8</a></p> -<p class="par">Judge of the Dead, the, <a href="#pb57" class= -"pageref">57</a> <i>Judges</i>, Book of, <a href="#pb2" class= -"pageref">2</a></p> -<p class="par">Julian, <a href="#pb124" class= -"pageref">124</a>–26, <a href="#pb127" class="pageref">127</a> -<i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">——Bishop, <a href="#pb176" class= -"pageref">176</a></p> -<p class="par">Julius Cæsar, <a href="#pb109" class= -"pageref">109</a>, <a href="#pb127" class="pageref">127</a>, <a href= -"#pb164" class="pageref">164</a></p> -<p class="par">Jumpers, sect of, <a href="#pb309" class= -"pageref">309</a></p> -<p class="par">Jupiter, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a></p> -<p class="par">Justinian, <a href="#pb143" class="pageref">143</a>, -<a href="#pb150" class="pageref">150</a>, <a href="#pb158" class= -"pageref">158</a>, <a href="#pb159" class="pageref">159</a>, <a href= -"#pb163" class="pageref">163</a>, <a href="#pb205" class= -"pageref">205</a>, <a href="#pb215" class="pageref">215</a>, <a href= -"#pb216" class="pageref">216</a>; code of, <a href="#pb215" class= -"pageref">215</a>, <a href="#pb232" class="pageref">232</a></p> -<p class="par">——II, <a href="#pb239" class= -"pageref">239</a></p> -<p class="par">Justin Martyr, <a href="#pb3" class="pageref">3</a>, -<a href="#pb74" class="pageref">74</a>, <a href="#pb81" class= -"pageref">81</a>, <a href="#pb85" class="pageref">85</a>, <a href= -"#pb93" class="pageref">93</a>, <a href="#pb102" class= -"pageref">102</a></p> -<p class="par">Juvenal, <a href="#pb62" class="pageref">62</a>, -<a href="#pb185" class="pageref">185</a></p> -<p class="par">Kant, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a>, <a href= -"#pb283" class="pageref">283</a>, <a href="#pb284" class= -"pageref">284</a></p> -<p class="par">Kelvin, <a href="#pb316" class="pageref">316</a></p> -<p class="par">Kepler, <a href="#pb277" class="pageref">277</a>, -<a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a></p> -<p class="par">Keys of heaven and hell, <a href="#pb58" class= -"pageref">58</a></p> -<p class="par">Khlysti, <a href="#pb309" class="pageref">309</a></p> -<p class="par">Khonsu, <a href="#pb152" class="pageref">152</a>, -<a href="#pb183" class="pageref">183</a></p> -<p class="par">Kid, sacrament of, <a href="#pb44" class= -"pageref">44</a></p> -<p class="par">Kidd, B., <a href="#pb286" class="pageref">286</a>, -<a href="#pb291" class="pageref">291</a></p> -<p class="par">“Kingdom of God,” <a href="#pb28" class= -"pageref">28</a>, <a href="#pb39" class="pageref">39</a></p> -<p class="par">Knights Templars, <a href="#pb207" class= -"pageref">207</a>, <a href="#pb221" class="pageref">221</a>, <a href= -"#pb222" class="pageref">222</a>–23</p> -<p class="par">——Teutonic order of, <a href="#pb172" class= -"pageref">172</a></p> -<p class="par">Knox, John, <a href="#pb253" class="pageref">253</a></p> -<p class="par">Knut, <a href="#pb170" class="pageref">170</a></p> -<p class="par">Koran, <a href="#pb79" class="pageref">79</a>, <a href= -"#pb122" class="pageref">122</a></p> -<p class="par">Korybas, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a> -<i>Kriobolium</i>, <a href="#pb59" class="pageref">59</a></p> -<p class="par">Krishna, <a href="#pb2" class="pageref">2</a>, <a href= -"#pb15" class="pageref">15</a>, <a href="#pb22" class= -"pageref">22</a></p> -<p class="par">Kronos, <a href="#pb21" class="pageref">21</a> -<i>Labarum, the</i>, <a href="#pb115" class="pageref">115</a></p> -<p class="par">Lagrange, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a></p> -<p class="par">Lalande, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a></p> -<p class="par">Lamb, symbol and sacrament of, <a href="#pb22" class= -"pageref">22</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb26" class="pageref">26</a>, -<a href="#pb59" class="pageref">59</a>, <a href="#pb76" class= -"pageref">76</a>, <a href="#pb147" class="pageref">147</a></p> -<p class="par">La Mettrie, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a></p> -<p class="par">Languedoc, heresy in, <a href="#pb181" class= -"pageref">181</a>, <a href="#pb193" class="pageref">193</a>, <a href= -"#pb201" class="pageref">201</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb228" class= -"pageref">228</a></p> -<p class="par">Laplace, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a> -<i>Lares and Penates</i>, <a href="#pb43" class= -"pageref">43</a>–44</p> -<p class="par">Las Casas, <a href="#pb173" class="pageref">173</a></p> -<p class="par">Laski, John, <a href="#pb266" class= -"pageref">266</a>–67</p> -<p class="par">Last Supper. <i>See</i> Eucharist</p> -<p class="par">Laud, <a href="#pb268" class="pageref">268</a></p> -<p class="par">Laurentius Valla, <a href="#pb248" class= -"pageref">248</a></p> -<p class="par">Law, Christian and pagan, <a href="#pb150" class= -"pageref">150</a>, <a href="#pb156" class="pageref">156</a>, <a href= -"#pb160" class="pageref">160</a>, <a href="#pb169" class= -"pageref">169</a>, <a href="#pb214" class="pageref">214</a>, <a href= -"#pb232" class="pageref">232</a></p> -<p class="par">Lecky, <a href="#pb300" class="pageref">300</a></p> -<p class="par">Leibnitz, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a></p> -<p class="par">Leo I (Pope), <a href="#pb154" class="pageref">154</a>, -<a href="#pb175" class="pageref">175</a>, <a href="#pb190" class= -"pageref">190</a>, <a href="#pb191" class="pageref">191</a></p> -<p class="par">——IX (Pope), <a href="#pb178" class= -"pageref">178</a></p> -<p class="par">——X (Pope), <a href="#pb249" class= -"pageref">249</a>, <a href="#pb251" class="pageref">251</a>, <a href= -"#pb271" class="pageref">271</a></p> -<p class="par">——the Isaurian, <a href="#pb186" class= -"pageref">186</a>–87, <a href="#pb198" class="pageref">198</a>, -<a href="#pb239" class="pageref">239</a></p> -<p class="par">Leo the Armenian, <a href="#pb198" class= -"pageref">198</a>, <a href="#pb240" class="pageref">240</a></p> -<p class="par">Lepers, <a href="#pb263" class="pageref">263</a></p> -<p class="par">Lessevich, W., <a href="#pb19" class="pageref">19</a> -<i>n.</i></p> -<p class="par">Liber and Libera, <a href="#pb55" class= -"pageref">55</a>, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a></p> -<p class="par">Licinius, <a href="#pb114" class= -"pageref">114</a>–18</p> -<p class="par">Lithuania, paganism of, <a href="#pb172" class= -"pageref">172</a></p> -<p class="par">Liturgies, early, <a href="#pb57" class= -"pageref">57</a></p> -<p class="par"><i>Lituus</i>, the, <a href="#pb137" class= -"pageref">137</a></p> -<p class="par">Livonia, Christianity in, <a href="#pb172" class= -"pageref">172</a></p> -<p class="par">Livy, <a href="#pb106" class="pageref">106</a></p> -<p class="par">Locke, <a href="#pb284" class="pageref">284</a> -<i>Logos</i>, doctrine of, <a href="#pb34" class="pageref">34</a>, -<a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, <a href="#pb79" class= -"pageref">79</a>, <a href="#pb94" class="pageref">94</a>, <a href= -"#pb102" class="pageref">102</a>, <a href="#pb104" class= -"pageref">104</a></p> -<p class="par">Lollardism, <a href="#pb203" class= -"pageref">203</a>–204, <a href="#pb246" class= -"pageref">246</a></p> -<p class="par">Lombards, the, <a href="#pb144" class="pageref">144</a>, -<a href="#pb176" class="pageref">176</a></p> -<p class="par">Lord’s Day, the, <a href="#pb58" class= -"pageref">58</a>, <a href="#pb68" class="pageref">68</a></p> -<p class="par">——Prayer, the, <a href="#pb62" class= -"pageref">62</a></p> -<p class="par">Louis, son of Charlemagne, <a href="#pb177" class= -"pageref">177</a>, <a href="#pb241" class="pageref">241</a></p> -<p class="par">——St., <a href="#pb212" class= -"pageref">212</a>, <a href="#pb220" class="pageref">220</a></p> -<p class="par">——XII, <a href="#pb256" class= -"pageref">256</a></p> -<p class="par">——XIV, <a href="#pb263" class= -"pageref">263</a></p> -<p class="par">Love feasts. <i>See Agapæ</i></p> -<p class="par"><span class="corr" id="xd21e13547" title= -"Source: Lubeck">Lübeck</span>, paganism of, <a href="#pb172" -class="pageref">172</a></p> -<p class="par">Lucian, <a href="#pb86" class="pageref">86</a></p> -<p class="par">Lucretius, <a href="#pb127" class="pageref">127</a> -<i>Luke, Gospel of</i>, <a href="#pb31" class="pageref">31</a>, -<a href="#pb62" class="pageref">62</a>, <a href="#pb74" class= -"pageref">74</a></p> -<p class="par">Luther and Lutheranism, <a href="#pb212" class= -"pageref">212</a>, <a href="#pb247" class="pageref">247</a>, <a href= -"#pb249" class="pageref">249</a>, <a href="#pb250" class= -"pageref">250</a>, <a href="#pb253" class="pageref">253</a>, <a href= -"#pb257" class="pageref">257</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb265" class= -"pageref">265</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb270" class="pageref">270</a>, -<a href="#pb271" class="pageref">271</a>, <a href="#pb326" class= -"pageref">326</a>–28, <a href="#pb330" class="pageref">330</a>, -<a href="#pb335" class="pageref">335</a>–37, <a href="#pb342" -class="pageref">342</a></p> -<p class="par">Lycurgus, <a href="#pb65" class="pageref">65</a></p> -<p class="par">Lyndsay, <a href="#pb274" class="pageref">274</a></p> -<p class="par">Macarius, <a href="#pb194" class="pageref">194</a></p> -<p class="par">Macedonius, <a href="#pb126" class="pageref">126</a>, -<a href="#pb151" class="pageref">151</a></p> -<p class="par">Macrobius, <a href="#pb130" class="pageref">130</a>, -<a href="#pb157" class="pageref">157</a></p> -<p class="par">Magic, early Christian, <a href="#pb50" class= -"pageref">50</a>, <a href="#pb85" class="pageref">85</a>, <a href= -"#pb101" class="pageref">101</a>, <a href="#pb184" class= -"pageref">184</a>, <a href="#pb189" class="pageref">189</a></p> -<p class="par">Magnentius, <a href="#pb124" class="pageref">124</a></p> -<p class="par">Maia, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a></p> -<p class="par">Manger-basket, the, <a href="#pb37" class= -"pageref">37</a>, <a href="#pb55" class="pageref">55</a></p> -<p class="par">Manichæism, <a href="#pb1" class="pageref">1</a>, -<a href="#pb55" class="pageref">55</a>, <a href="#pb75" class= -"pageref">75</a>, <a href="#pb97" class="pageref">97</a>, <a href= -"#pb101" class="pageref">101</a>, <a href="#pb123" class= -"pageref">123</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb136" class="pageref">136</a>, -<a href="#pb143" class="pageref">143</a>, <a href="#pb144" class= -"pageref">144</a>, <a href="#pb145" class="pageref">145</a>, <a href= -"#pb156" class="pageref">156</a>, <a href="#pb191" class= -"pageref">191</a>, <a href="#pb192" class="pageref">192</a>, <a href= -"#pb197" class="pageref">197</a>, <a href="#pb201" class= -"pageref">201</a>, <a href="#pb209" class="pageref">209</a>, <a href= -"#pb228" class="pageref">228</a>. <i>See</i> Paulicians</p> -<p class="par">Mansfeld, <a href="#pb261" class="pageref">261</a></p> -<p class="par">Manuel Comnenus, <a href="#pb243" class= -"pageref">243</a></p> -<p class="par">Marcian, <a href="#pb131" class="pageref">131</a></p> -<p class="par">Marcion and Marcionism, <a href="#pb97" class= -"pageref">97</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb144" class= -"pageref">144</a></p> -<p class="par">Marcus Aurelius, <a href="#pb86" class="pageref">86</a>, -<a href="#pb108" class="pageref">108</a>, <a href="#pb127" class= -"pageref">127</a>, <a href="#pb211" class="pageref">211</a> <i>Mark, -Gospel of</i>, <a href="#pb4" class="pageref">4</a></p> -<p class="par">Mamas, <a href="#pb21" class="pageref">21</a></p> -<p class="par">Marsyas, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a></p> -<p class="par">Martianus Capella, <a href="#pb232" class= -"pageref">232</a></p> -<p class="par">Martin of Tours, <a href="#pb137" class= -"pageref">137</a></p> -<p class="par">Martyrs, <a href="#pb31" class="pageref">31</a>, -<a href="#pb83" class="pageref">83</a>, <a href="#pb110" class= -"pageref">110</a>; spurious, <a href="#pb76" class="pageref">76</a>, -<a href="#pb89" class="pageref">89</a>, <a href="#pb137" class= -"pageref">137</a>; heretical, <a href="#pb126" class= -"pageref">126</a></p> -<p class="par">Mary, myth and cult of, <a href="#pb12" class= -"pageref">12</a>, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href= -"#pb76" class="pageref">76</a>, <a href="#pb146" class= -"pageref">146</a>, <a href="#pb148" class="pageref">148</a>, <a href= -"#pb152" class="pageref">152</a>, <a href="#pb185" class= -"pageref">185</a>, <a href="#pb187" class="pageref">187</a>, <a href= -"#pb209" class="pageref">209</a>, <a href="#pb225" class= -"pageref">225</a></p> -<p class="par">——Queen of England, <a href="#pb252" class= -"pageref">252</a></p> -<p class="par">——Queen of Scotland, <a href="#pb253" class= -"pageref">253</a></p> -<p class="par">——Regent of Scotland, <a href="#pb253" -class="pageref">253</a> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb347" href= -"#pb347" name="pb347">347</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">Mass, the, <a href="#pb25" class="pageref">25</a>, -<a href="#pb44" class="pageref">44</a>, <a href="#pb190" class= -"pageref">190</a>, <a href="#pb192" class="pageref">192</a></p> -<p class="par">Massacres, Christian, <a href="#pb126" class= -"pageref">126</a>, <a href="#pb134" class="pageref">134</a>, <a href= -"#pb153" class="pageref">153</a>, <a href="#pb154" class= -"pageref">154</a>, <a href="#pb168" class="pageref">168</a>, <a href= -"#pb169" class="pageref">169</a>, <a href="#pb172" class= -"pageref">172</a>, <a href="#pb173" class="pageref">173</a>, <a href= -"#pb180" class="pageref">180</a>, <a href="#pb198" class= -"pageref">198</a>, <a href="#pb201" class="pageref">201</a>–202, -<a href="#pb218" class="pageref">218</a>, <a href="#pb219" class= -"pageref">219</a>, <a href="#pb227" class="pageref">227</a>, <a href= -"#pb256" class="pageref">256</a>, <a href="#pb257" class= -"pageref">257</a>, <a href="#pb269" class="pageref">269</a>, <a href= -"#pb311" class="pageref">311</a></p> -<p class="par">Materialism, <a href="#pb285" class= -"pageref">285</a></p> -<p class="par">Maternus, <a href="#pb124" class="pageref">124</a></p> -<p class="par">Mathematics, Arab, <a href="#pb233" class= -"pageref">233</a>–34 <i>Matthew, Gospel of</i>, <a href="#pb4" -class="pageref">4</a>, <a href="#pb5" class="pageref">5</a></p> -<p class="par">Matthew of Cracow, <a href="#pb246" class= -"pageref">246</a></p> -<p class="par">Matthias, <a href="#pb260" class="pageref">260</a></p> -<p class="par">Maurice, the Emperor, <a href="#pb150" class= -"pageref">150</a></p> -<p class="par">Maxentius, <a href="#pb113" class= -"pageref">113</a>–15</p> -<p class="par">Maximian, <a href="#pb111" class= -"pageref">111</a>–15</p> -<p class="par">Maximilian, <a href="#pb260" class="pageref">260</a></p> -<p class="par">Maximilla and Priscilla, <a href="#pb99" class= -"pageref">99</a></p> -<p class="par">Maximin, <a href="#pb113" class= -"pageref">113</a>–15</p> -<p class="par">Maximinus, <a href="#pb108" class="pageref">108</a></p> -<p class="par">Maximus, <a href="#pb136" class="pageref">136</a></p> -<p class="par">Mazarin, <a href="#pb263" class="pageref">263</a></p> -<p class="par">Mazdeism, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, -<a href="#pb50" class="pageref">50</a>, <a href="#pb58" class= -"pageref">58</a>, <a href="#pb94" class="pageref">94</a>, <a href= -"#pb123" class="pageref">123</a>, <a href="#pb132" class= -"pageref">132</a>, <a href="#pb191" class="pageref">191</a>, <a href= -"#pb198" class="pageref">198</a></p> -<p class="par">Mediator, the, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, -<a href="#pb77" class="pageref">77</a></p> -<p class="par">Medicine, ancient and modern, <a href="#pb102" class= -"pageref">102</a>, <a href="#pb158" class="pageref">158</a></p> -<p class="par">Melanchthon, <a href="#pb266" class="pageref">266</a>, -<a href="#pb267" class="pageref">267</a>, <a href="#pb279" class= -"pageref">279</a></p> -<p class="par">Melchizedek, <a href="#pb22" class="pageref">22</a> -<i>Memra</i>, <a href="#pb79" class="pageref">79</a></p> -<p class="par">Menander, <a href="#pb34" class="pageref">34</a></p> -<p class="par">Mendicants, religious, <a href="#pb7" class= -"pageref">7</a>, <a href="#pb70" class="pageref">70</a>, <a href= -"#pb207" class="pageref">207</a></p> -<p class="par">Meredith, <a href="#pb300" class="pageref">300</a></p> -<p class="par">Messiah, doctrine of, <a href="#pb2" class= -"pageref">2</a>, <a href="#pb8" class="pageref">8</a>, <a href="#pb9" -class="pageref">9</a>, <a href="#pb12" class="pageref">12</a>, <a href= -"#pb21" class="pageref">21</a>, <a href="#pb31" class="pageref">31</a>, -<a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href="#pb47" class= -"pageref">47</a>, <a href="#pb48" class="pageref">48</a>, <a href= -"#pb60" class="pageref">60</a></p> -<p class="par">Mexicans, religion of early, <a href="#pb25" class= -"pageref">25</a>, <a href="#pb61" class="pageref">61</a>, <a href= -"#pb89" class="pageref">89</a>; slaughter of, <a href="#pb173" class= -"pageref">173</a>, <a href="#pb311" class="pageref">311</a></p> -<p class="par">Michael the Drunkard, <a href="#pb240" class= -"pageref">240</a></p> -<p class="par">—— the Stammerer, <a href="#pb241" class= -"pageref">241</a></p> -<p class="par">Middleton, <a href="#pb287" class="pageref">287</a></p> -<p class="par">Midnight worship, <a href="#pb68" class= -"pageref">68</a>, <a href="#pb107" class="pageref">107</a>, <a href= -"#pb112" class="pageref">112</a>, <a href="#pb125" class= -"pageref">125</a></p> -<p class="par">Mill, J. S., <a href="#pb310" class= -"pageref">310</a></p> -<p class="par">Millennium, doctrine of, <a href="#pb97" class= -"pageref">97</a>, <a href="#pb179" class="pageref">179</a></p> -<p class="par">Milman, cited, <a href="#pb164" class= -"pageref">164</a></p> -<p class="par">Miracles, <a href="#pb11" class="pageref">11</a>, -<a href="#pb30" class="pageref">30</a>, <a href="#pb36" class= -"pageref">36</a>, <a href="#pb73" class="pageref">73</a>, <a href= -"#pb88" class="pageref">88</a>, <a href="#pb184" class= -"pageref">184</a>, <a href="#pb186" class="pageref">186</a>, <a href= -"#pb187" class="pageref">187</a>, <a href="#pb190" class= -"pageref">190</a>, <a href="#pb199" class="pageref">199</a>, <a href= -"#pb224" class="pageref">224</a>, <a href="#pb225" class= -"pageref">225</a>, <a href="#pb287" class="pageref">287</a>, <a href= -"#pb290" class="pageref">290</a></p> -<p class="par">Miriam, <a href="#pb12" class="pageref">12</a></p> -<p class="par">Missionaries, Catholic, <a href="#pb292" class= -"pageref">292</a> <i>sq.</i>; Protestant, <a href="#pb302" class= -"pageref">302</a></p> -<p class="par">Mithra and Mithraism, <a href="#pb7" class= -"pageref">7</a>, <a href="#pb18" class="pageref">18</a>, <a href= -"#pb21" class="pageref">21</a>, <a href="#pb22" class="pageref">22</a>, -<a href="#pb23" class="pageref">23</a>, <a href="#pb36" class= -"pageref">36</a>, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href= -"#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, <a href="#pb51" class="pageref">51</a>, -<a href="#pb57" class="pageref">57</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb69" -class="pageref">69</a>, <a href="#pb79" class="pageref">79</a>, -<a href="#pb82" class="pageref">82</a>, <a href="#pb107" class= -"pageref">107</a>, <a href="#pb123" class="pageref">123</a>, <a href= -"#pb133" class="pageref">133</a>, <a href="#pb138" class= -"pageref">138</a>, <a href="#pb175" class="pageref">175</a></p> -<p class="par">Mitres, <a href="#pb137" class="pageref">137</a></p> -<p class="par">Moawyah, Caliph, <a href="#pb239" class= -"pageref">239</a></p> -<p class="par">Mohammedanism, rise of, <a href="#pb1" class= -"pageref">1</a>, <a href="#pb150" class="pageref">150</a>, <a href= -"#pb161" class="pageref">161</a>, <a href="#pb162" class= -"pageref">162</a>, <a href="#pb165" class="pageref">165</a>; influence -of, <a href="#pb161" class="pageref">161</a>, <a href="#pb162" class= -"pageref">162</a>, <a href="#pb216" class="pageref">216</a>, <a href= -"#pb239" class="pageref">239</a>; Christian converts to, <a href= -"#pb244" class="pageref">244</a>, <a href="#pb303" class= -"pageref">303</a>, <a href="#pb305" class="pageref">305</a></p> -<p class="par">Moleschott, <a href="#pb285" class="pageref">285</a></p> -<p class="par">Molokani, <a href="#pb309" class="pageref">309</a></p> -<p class="par">Monarchy, Christianity and, <a href="#pb146" class= -"pageref">146</a>, <a href="#pb168" class="pageref">168</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb213" class="pageref">213</a>, <a href="#pb217" class= -"pageref">217</a></p> -<p class="par">Monasticism, <a href="#pb51" class="pageref">51</a>, -<a href="#pb122" class="pageref">122</a>, <a href="#pb160" class= -"pageref">160</a>–61, <a href="#pb167" class="pageref">167</a>, -<a href="#pb206" class="pageref">206</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Mongols, tolerance of, <a href="#pb173" class= -"pageref">173</a></p> -<p class="par">Monophysite heresy, <a href="#pb144" class= -"pageref">144</a>, <a href="#pb148" class="pageref">148</a>, <a href= -"#pb149" class="pageref">149</a>, <a href="#pb150" class= -"pageref">150</a>, <a href="#pb151" class="pageref">151</a>, <a href= -"#pb153" class="pageref">153</a>, <a href="#pb165" class= -"pageref">165</a></p> -<p class="par">Monotheism, pagan, <a href="#pb128" class= -"pageref">128</a>, <a href="#pb137" class="pageref">137</a>; and -science, <a href="#pb315" class="pageref">315</a></p> -<p class="par">Monothelite heresy, <a href="#pb151" class= -"pageref">151</a>, <a href="#pb152" class="pageref">152</a></p> -<p class="par">Montaigne, <a href="#pb271" class="pageref">271</a>, -<a href="#pb275" class="pageref">275</a>, <a href="#pb283" class= -"pageref">283</a></p> -<p class="par">Montanus and Montanism, <a href="#pb67" class= -"pageref">67</a>, <a href="#pb97" class="pageref">97</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb112" class="pageref">112</a>, <a href="#pb123" class= -"pageref">123</a>, <a href="#pb144" class="pageref">144</a></p> -<p class="par">Moors, persecution of, <a href="#pb173" class= -"pageref">173</a>, <a href="#pb193" class="pageref">193</a>, <a href= -"#pb229" class="pageref">229</a>, <a href="#pb230" class= -"pageref">230</a></p> -<p class="par">More, <a href="#pb267" class="pageref">267</a></p> -<p class="par">Morone, <a href="#pb272" class="pageref">272</a></p> -<p class="par">Moses, <a href="#pb2" class="pageref">2</a>, <a href= -"#pb8" class="pageref">8</a>, <a href="#pb38" class= -"pageref">38</a></p> -<p class="par">Mosheim, <a href="#pb137" class="pageref">137</a>, -<a href="#pb210" class="pageref">210</a></p> -<p class="par">Mother-Goddesses, <a href="#pb37" class= -"pageref">37</a>, <a href="#pb52" class="pageref">52</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb57" class="pageref">57</a>, <a href="#pb59" class= -"pageref">59</a>, <a href="#pb76" class="pageref">76</a>, <a href= -"#pb148" class="pageref">148</a>, <a href="#pb152" class= -"pageref">152</a>, <a href="#pb185" class="pageref">185</a></p> -<p class="par">Müller of Königsberg, <a href="#pb234" class= -"pageref">234</a></p> -<p class="par">Münzer, <a href="#pb258" class= -"pageref">258</a></p> -<p class="par">Myrrha, <a href="#pb52" class="pageref">52</a></p> -<p class="par">Mystæ, <a href="#pb33" class="pageref">33</a>, -<a href="#pb52" class="pageref">52</a>, <a href="#pb53" class= -"pageref">53</a></p> -<p class="par">Mysteries, Jewish, <a href="#pb20" class= -"pageref">20</a>, <a href="#pb21" class="pageref">21</a></p> -<p class="par">—— pagan, <a href="#pb20" class= -"pageref">20</a>, <a href="#pb21" class="pageref">21</a>, <a href= -"#pb23" class="pageref">23</a>, <a href="#pb26" class="pageref">26</a>, -<a href="#pb33" class="pageref">33</a>, <a href="#pb55" class= -"pageref">55</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb188" class= -"pageref">188</a></p> -<p class="par">—— Christian, <a href="#pb12" class= -"pageref">12</a>–14, <a href="#pb19" class="pageref">19</a>, -<a href="#pb28" class="pageref">28</a>, <a href="#pb32" class= -"pageref">32</a>, <a href="#pb67" class="pageref">67</a>, <a href= -"#pb72" class="pageref">72</a></p> -<p class="par">Mystery-play, the primary, <a href="#pb12" class= -"pageref">12</a>–14, <a href="#pb19" class="pageref">19</a>, -<a href="#pb28" class="pageref">28</a>, <a href="#pb73" class= -"pageref">73</a>, <a href="#pb87" class="pageref">87</a>–88</p> -<p class="par">Myth in history and religion, <a href="#pb1" class= -"pageref">1</a>–2, <a href="#pb15" class="pageref">15</a>, -<a href="#pb40" class="pageref">40</a></p> -<p class="par">—— and ritual, <a href="#pb24" class= -"pageref">24</a></p> -<p class="par">Nantes, Edict of, <a href="#pb257" class= -"pageref">257</a>; revoked, <a href="#pb264" class= -"pageref">264</a></p> -<p class="par">Naples, Catholicism in, <a href="#pb294" class= -"pageref">294</a></p> -<p class="par">Narses, <a href="#pb144" class="pageref">144</a>, -<a href="#pb153" class="pageref">153</a></p> -<p class="par">Nativity, mystery-play of, <a href="#pb76" class= -"pageref">76</a></p> -<p class="par">Nazara or Nazareth, <a href="#pb6" class= -"pageref">6</a>–10</p> -<p class="par">Nazarites and Nazarenes, <a href="#pb6" class= -"pageref">6</a>–10, <a href="#pb47" class="pageref">47</a>, -<a href="#pb148" class="pageref">148</a></p> -<p class="par">Neo-Platonism, <a href="#pb111" class="pageref">111</a>, -<a href="#pb130" class="pageref">130</a>, <a href="#pb291" class= -"pageref">291</a></p> -<p class="par">Nero, <a href="#pb31" class="pageref">31</a>, <a href= -"#pb107" class="pageref">107</a>, <a href="#pb109" class= -"pageref">109</a></p> -<p class="par">Nestorians, <a href="#pb47" class="pageref">47</a>, -<a href="#pb132" class="pageref">132</a>, <a href="#pb144" class= -"pageref">144</a>, <a href="#pb148" class="pageref">148</a>, <a href= -"#pb150" class="pageref">150</a>, <a href="#pb151" class= -"pageref">151</a>, <a href="#pb165" class="pageref">165</a></p> -<p class="par">Nestorius, <a href="#pb148" class="pageref">148</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb162" class="pageref">162</a></p> -<p class="par">Netherlands, <a href="#pb254" class= -"pageref">254</a>–55. <i>See</i> Holland <i>Netzer</i>, <a href= -"#pb6" class="pageref">6</a>, <a href="#pb7" class="pageref">7</a></p> -<p class="par">New Jerusalem, the, <a href="#pb27" class= -"pageref">27</a></p> -<p class="par">Newman, Cardinal, <a href="#pb188" class= -"pageref">188</a>, <a href="#pb295" class="pageref">295</a></p> -<p class="par">New Testament, criticism of, <a href="#pb289" class= -"pageref">289</a>, <a href="#pb290" class="pageref">290</a></p> -<p class="par">Newton, <a href="#pb281" class="pageref">281</a></p> -<p class="par">Nicæa, Council of, <a href="#pb120" class= -"pageref">120</a>–21, <a href="#pb149" class= -"pageref">149</a></p> -<p class="par">Nicene Creed, <a href="#pb97" class="pageref">97</a></p> -<p class="par">Nicephorus I, <a href="#pb198" class="pageref">198</a>, -<a href="#pb239" class="pageref">239</a></p> -<p class="par">Nicholas I (Pope), <a href="#pb178" class= -"pageref">178</a></p> -<p class="par">—— II (Pope), <a href="#pb179" class= -"pageref">179</a></p> -<p class="par">—— IV (Pope), <a href="#pb221" class= -"pageref">221</a> <i>Nicodemus, Gospel of</i>, <a href="#pb14" class= -"pageref">14</a></p> -<p class="par">Nicolaus of Autricuria, <a href="#pb196" class= -"pageref">196</a></p> -<p class="par">—— of Cusa, <a href="#pb196" class= -"pageref">196</a></p> -<p class="par">Nicolitaines, <a href="#pb91" class="pageref">91</a></p> -<p class="par">Nocturnal assemblies, <a href="#pb68" class= -"pageref">68</a>, <a href="#pb107" class="pageref">107</a>, <a href= -"#pb112" class="pageref">112</a>, <a href="#pb125" class= -"pageref">125</a></p> -<p class="par">Noëtus, <a href="#pb103" class= -"pageref">103</a></p> -<p class="par">Nominalism, <a href="#pb195" class="pageref">195</a>, -<a href="#pb246" class="pageref">246</a> <span class="pagenum">[<a id= -"pb348" href="#pb348" name="pb348">348</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par"><i>Nous</i>, <a href="#pb94" class="pageref">94</a></p> -<p class="par">Novatian and Novatians, <a href="#pb90" class= -"pageref">90</a>, <a href="#pb148" class="pageref">148</a></p> -<p class="par">Nuremberg, torture at, <a href="#pb210" class= -"pageref">210</a></p> -<p class="par">Oblations, <a href="#pb71" class="pageref">71</a></p> -<p class="par">Occam, <a href="#pb229" class="pageref">229</a></p> -<p class="par">Old Testament, analysis of, <a href="#pb2" class= -"pageref">2</a>; early Christian use of, <a href="#pb30" class= -"pageref">30</a>, <a href="#pb46" class="pageref">46</a>, <a href= -"#pb48" class="pageref">48</a>, <a href="#pb65" class="pageref">65</a>, -<a href="#pb72" class="pageref">72</a>, <a href="#pb75" class= -"pageref">75</a></p> -<p class="par">Olympius, <a href="#pb143" class="pageref">143</a></p> -<p class="par">“Only-begotten Son,” <a href="#pb21" class= -"pageref">21</a>, <a href="#pb23" class="pageref">23</a>, <a href= -"#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, <a href="#pb152" class= -"pageref">152</a></p> -<p class="par">Onuphrius, St., <a href="#pb138" class= -"pageref">138</a></p> -<p class="par">Origen, <a href="#pb11" class="pageref">11</a>, <a href= -"#pb63" class="pageref">63</a>, <a href="#pb85" class="pageref">85</a>, -<a href="#pb96" class="pageref">96</a>, <a href="#pb150" class= -"pageref">150</a>, <a href="#pb152" class="pageref">152</a>, <a href= -"#pb154" class="pageref">154</a>, <a href="#pb156" class= -"pageref">156</a>, <a href="#pb161" class="pageref">161</a>, <a href= -"#pb192" class="pageref">192</a></p> -<p class="par">Orpheus and Orphic cults, <a href="#pb33" class= -"pageref">33</a>, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a></p> -<p class="par">Osiris and Osirianism, <a href="#pb2" class= -"pageref">2</a>, <a href="#pb10" class="pageref">10</a>, <a href= -"#pb14" class="pageref">14</a>, <a href="#pb19" class="pageref">19</a>, -<a href="#pb27" class="pageref">27</a>, <a href="#pb32" class= -"pageref">32</a>, <a href="#pb35" class="pageref">35</a>, <a href= -"#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb95" class="pageref">95</a></p> -<p class="par">Otho, St., <a href="#pb172" class="pageref">172</a></p> -<p class="par">Oxford movement, 367 <i>Pagani</i>, <a href="#pb82" -class="pageref">82</a></p> -<p class="par">Paganism, ethics of, <a href="#pb15" class= -"pageref">15</a>, <a href="#pb60" class="pageref">60</a> <i>sq.</i>; -sacraments and mysteries of, <a href="#pb20" class="pageref">20</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb27" class="pageref">27</a>, <a href="#pb51" -class="pageref">51</a> <i>sq.</i>; theology of, <a href="#pb21" class= -"pageref">21</a>, <a href="#pb27" class="pageref">27</a>, <a href= -"#pb62" class="pageref">62</a>, <a href="#pb77" class="pageref">77</a>, -<a href="#pb137" class="pageref">137</a>; relation of to Christianity, -<a href="#pb25" class="pageref">25</a>, <a href="#pb33" class= -"pageref">33</a>, <a href="#pb36" class="pageref">36</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb51" class="pageref">51</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb60" -class="pageref">60</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb67" class= -"pageref">67</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb75" class="pageref">75</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb78" class="pageref">78</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href= -"#pb85" class="pageref">85</a>, <a href="#pb89" class="pageref">89</a>, -<a href="#pb107" class="pageref">107</a>, <a href="#pb140" class= -"pageref">140</a>; disestablishment of, <a href="#pb117" class= -"pageref">117</a>, <a href="#pb125" class="pageref">125</a>, <a href= -"#pb136" class="pageref">136</a>, <a href="#pb139" class= -"pageref">139</a>, <a href="#pb140" class="pageref">140</a>; -persecution of, <a href="#pb124" class="pageref">124</a>, <a href= -"#pb136" class="pageref">136</a>, <a href="#pb137" class= -"pageref">137</a>, <a href="#pb139" class="pageref">139</a>, <a href= -"#pb169" class="pageref">169</a>, <a href="#pb170" class= -"pageref">170</a>; persistence of, <a href="#pb120" class= -"pageref">120</a>, <a href="#pb138" class="pageref">138</a>, <a href= -"#pb141" class="pageref">141</a>, <a href="#pb143" class= -"pageref">143</a>, <a href="#pb165" class="pageref">165</a>, <a href= -"#pb170" class="pageref">170</a></p> -<p class="par">Paine, <a href="#pb288" class="pageref">288</a>, -<a href="#pb301" class="pageref">301</a></p> -<p class="par">Palestine, medieval, <a href="#pb218" class= -"pageref">218</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Paley, <a href="#pb284" class="pageref">284</a></p> -<p class="par">Pan, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a></p> -<p class="par">Paneas, statue at, <a href="#pb184" class= -"pageref">184</a></p> -<p class="par">Pantheism, <a href="#pb210" class="pageref">210</a>, -354</p> -<p class="par">Pantocrator, the, <a href="#pb93" class= -"pageref">93</a></p> -<p class="par">“Papa,” <a href="#pb52" class= -"pageref">52</a>, <a href="#pb175" class="pageref">175</a></p> -<p class="par">Papacy, growth of, <a href="#pb81" class= -"pageref">81</a>, <a href="#pb90" class="pageref">90</a>, <a href= -"#pb138" class="pageref">138</a>, <a href="#pb168" class= -"pageref">168</a>, <a href="#pb174" class="pageref">174</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb177" class="pageref">177</a>,182; disorders of, <a href= -"#pb178" class="pageref">178</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb180" class= -"pageref">180</a>; hostility to, <a href="#pb177" class= -"pageref">177</a>, <a href="#pb180" class="pageref">180</a>, <a href= -"#pb181" class="pageref">181</a>, <a href="#pb182" class= -"pageref">182</a>, <a href="#pb189" class="pageref">189</a>; strength -of, <a href="#pb181" class="pageref">181</a>, <a href="#pb182" class= -"pageref">182</a>; revenues of, <a href="#pb181" class= -"pageref">181</a>, <a href="#pb182" class="pageref">182</a>, <a href= -"#pb220" class="pageref">220</a>, <a href="#pb229" class= -"pageref">229</a>, <a href="#pb255" class="pageref">255</a>; attitude -of to Protestantism, <a href="#pb250" class="pageref">250</a>, <a href= -"#pb252" class="pageref">252</a>; incapable of economic reform, -<a href="#pb271" class="pageref">271</a>–72; present position of, -366</p> -<p class="par">Papias, <a href="#pb83" class="pageref">83</a></p> -<p class="par">Paraclete, the, <a href="#pb99" class="pageref">99</a>, -<a href="#pb123" class="pageref">123</a></p> -<p class="par">Paraguay, Jesuits in, <a href="#pb294" class= -"pageref">294</a></p> -<p class="par">“Parasites,” <a href="#pb44" class= -"pageref">44</a></p> -<p class="par">Paris, university of, <a href="#pb196" class= -"pageref">196</a>; freethought in, <a href="#pb295" class= -"pageref">295</a></p> -<p class="par">——Council of, <a href="#pb177" class= -"pageref">177</a></p> -<p class="par">——Parliament of, <a href="#pb256" class= -"pageref">256</a> <i>Pasagini</i>, <a href="#pb200" class= -"pageref">200</a></p> -<p class="par">Pascal, <a href="#pb286" class="pageref">286</a>, -<a href="#pb292" class="pageref">292</a></p> -<p class="par">Paschal controversy, <a href="#pb24" class= -"pageref">24</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Paschasius Radbert, <a href="#pb194" class= -"pageref">194</a></p> -<p class="par">Passion-play. <i>See</i> Mystery-play</p> -<p class="par">Passover, the, <a href="#pb7" class="pageref">7</a>, -<a href="#pb22" class="pageref">22</a>, <a href="#pb23" class= -"pageref">23</a>, <a href="#pb24" class="pageref">24</a></p> -<p class="par">Pasteur, <a href="#pb316" class="pageref">316</a> -<i>Pastor</i>, the, of Hermas, <a href="#pb35" class= -"pageref">35</a></p> -<p class="par">Pastors, early Christian, <a href="#pb70" class= -"pageref">70</a> <i>Paterini</i>, <a href="#pb201" class= -"pageref">201</a></p> -<p class="par">Patriarchates, the five, <a href="#pb120" class= -"pageref">120</a>, <a href="#pb174" class="pageref">174</a>, <a href= -"#pb175" class="pageref">175</a> <i>Patripassians</i>, <a href="#pb103" -class="pageref">103</a></p> -<p class="par">Paul, <a href="#pb2" class="pageref">2</a>, <a href= -"#pb3" class="pageref">3</a>, <a href="#pb4" class="pageref">4</a>, -<a href="#pb28" class="pageref">28</a>, <a href="#pb29" class= -"pageref">29</a>, <a href="#pb61" class="pageref">61</a>, <a href= -"#pb64" class="pageref">64</a>, <a href="#pb70" class="pageref">70</a>, -<a href="#pb81" class="pageref">81</a>, <a href="#pb92" class= -"pageref">92</a>; and Jesus, <a href="#pb4" class="pageref">4</a>, -<a href="#pb11" class="pageref">11</a>, <a href="#pb24" class= -"pageref">24</a>, <a href="#pb32" class="pageref">32</a>, <a href= -"#pb92" class="pageref">92</a>, <a href="#pb102" class= -"pageref">102</a></p> -<p class="par">——of Samosata, <a href="#pb104" class= -"pageref">104</a>, <a href="#pb114" class="pageref">114</a>, <a href= -"#pb120" class="pageref">120</a>, <a href="#pb147" class= -"pageref">147</a></p> -<p class="par">——III (Pope), <a href="#pb265" class= -"pageref">265</a></p> -<p class="par">——IV (Pope), <a href="#pb256" class= -"pageref">256</a></p> -<p class="par">Paulicians, the, <a href="#pb181" class= -"pageref">181</a>, <a href="#pb198" class="pageref">198</a>, <a href= -"#pb199" class="pageref">199</a>, <a href="#pb201" class= -"pageref">201</a>, <a href="#pb203" class="pageref">203</a>, <a href= -"#pb239" class="pageref">239</a>, <a href="#pb242" class= -"pageref">242</a></p> -<p class="par">Pauline epistles, <a href="#pb2" class= -"pageref">2</a>–5, <a href="#pb10" class="pageref">10</a>, -<a href="#pb11" class="pageref">11</a>, <a href="#pb16" class= -"pageref">16</a>, <a href="#pb20" class="pageref">20</a>, <a href= -"#pb27" class="pageref">27</a>, <a href="#pb31" class="pageref">31</a>, -<a href="#pb32" class="pageref">32</a>, <a href="#pb34" class= -"pageref">34</a>, <a href="#pb49" class="pageref">49</a>, <a href= -"#pb61" class="pageref">61</a>, <a href="#pb62" class="pageref">62</a>, -<a href="#pb73" class="pageref">73</a>, <a href="#pb78" class= -"pageref">78</a>, <a href="#pb82" class="pageref">82</a>, <a href= -"#pb95" class="pageref">95</a>, <a href="#pb211" class= -"pageref">211</a>, <a href="#pb214" class="pageref">214</a></p> -<p class="par">——theology, <a href="#pb62" class= -"pageref">62</a>, <a href="#pb63" class="pageref">63</a></p> -<p class="par">Paulinus, <a href="#pb157" class="pageref">157</a>, -<a href="#pb160" class="pageref">160</a></p> -<p class="par">Peasants’ War, <a href="#pb258" class= -"pageref">258</a>, <a href="#pb267" class="pageref">267</a></p> -<p class="par">Pecock, <a href="#pb267" class="pageref">267</a></p> -<p class="par">Pelagius and Pelagianism, <a href="#pb146" class= -"pageref">146</a>–47</p> -<p class="par">Pentateuch, <a href="#pb3" class="pageref">3</a>; -influence of, <a href="#pb269" class="pageref">269</a>; criticism of, -<a href="#pb289" class="pageref">289</a></p> -<p class="par">Pepin, <a href="#pb176" class="pageref">176</a></p> -<p class="par">Persecutions of Christians, <a href="#pb31" class= -"pageref">31</a>, <a href="#pb83" class="pageref">83</a>, <a href= -"#pb106" class="pageref">106</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb173" class= -"pageref">173</a>, <a href="#pb293" class="pageref">293</a>; of pagans, -<a href="#pb24" class="pageref">24</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb135" -class="pageref">135</a>–37, <a href="#pb138" class= -"pageref">138</a>, <a href="#pb139" class="pageref">139</a>, <a href= -"#pb168" class="pageref">168</a>–73; of heretics, <a href= -"#pb119" class="pageref">119</a>, <a href="#pb121" class= -"pageref">121</a>, <a href="#pb135" class="pageref">135</a>, <a href= -"#pb144" class="pageref">144</a>, <a href="#pb146" class= -"pageref">146</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb194" class="pageref">194</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb197" class="pageref">197</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb202" class="pageref">202</a>, <a href="#pb204" class= -"pageref">204</a>, <a href="#pb226" class="pageref">226</a>, <a href= -"#pb246" class="pageref">246</a>, <a href="#pb256" class= -"pageref">256</a>, <a href="#pb263" class="pageref">263</a>, <a href= -"#pb269" class="pageref">269</a>; by Protestants, <a href="#pb269" -class="pageref">269</a></p> -<p class="par"><span class="corr" id="xd21e15853" title= -"Source: Persephone">Persephonê</span>, <a href="#pb55" class= -"pageref">55</a>, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a></p> -<p class="par">Persia, religion of, <a href="#pb19" class= -"pageref">19</a>, <a href="#pb75" class="pageref">75</a>, <a href= -"#pb79" class="pageref">79</a>; Christianity in, <a href="#pb82" class= -"pageref">82</a>, <a href="#pb132" class="pageref">132</a>, <a href= -"#pb148" class="pageref">148</a>, <a href="#pb162" class= -"pageref">162</a></p> -<p class="par">"Persons" of Trinity, <a href="#pb103" class= -"pageref">103</a></p> -<p class="par">Peru, religion of, <a href="#pb110" class= -"pageref">110</a>; conquest of, <a href="#pb173" class= -"pageref">173</a>, <a href="#pb311" class="pageref">311</a></p> -<p class="par">Peter, myth of, <a href="#pb18" class="pageref">18</a>, -<a href="#pb28" class="pageref">28</a>, <a href="#pb29" class= -"pageref">29</a>, <a href="#pb30" class="pageref">30</a>, <a href= -"#pb58" class="pageref">58</a>, <a href="#pb138" class= -"pageref">138</a>, <a href="#pb174" class="pageref">174</a></p> -<p class="par">——Waldus, <a href="#pb201" class= -"pageref">201</a></p> -<p class="par">——the Hermit, <a href="#pb218" class= -"pageref">218</a>, <a href="#pb220" class="pageref">220</a> <i>Peter, -Gospel of</i>, <a href="#pb19" class="pageref">19</a></p> -<p class="par">——<i>Epistles of</i>, <a href="#pb18" class= -"pageref">18</a></p> -<p class="par">Petra, <a href="#pb18" class="pageref">18</a></p> -<p class="par">Petrarch, <a href="#pb248" class="pageref">248</a></p> -<p class="par">Petrobrussians, <a href="#pb200" class= -"pageref">200</a></p> -<p class="par">Pharisees, <a href="#pb6" class="pageref">6</a>, -<a href="#pb47" class="pageref">47</a></p> -<p class="par">Philip II, <a href="#pb232" class="pageref">232</a>, -<a href="#pb254" class="pageref">254</a></p> -<p class="par">——the Fair, <a href="#pb223" class= -"pageref">223</a></p> -<p class="par">——of Hesse, <a href="#pb258" class= -"pageref">258</a></p> -<p class="par">Philo, <a href="#pb39" class="pageref">39</a>, <a href= -"#pb61" class="pageref">61</a>, <a href="#pb78" class="pageref">78</a>, -<a href="#pb96" class="pageref">96</a></p> -<p class="par">Philosophy, cosmic, <a href="#pb77" class= -"pageref">77</a>, <a href="#pb78" class="pageref">78</a> <i>sq.</i>; -Greek, <a href="#pb60" class="pageref">60</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href= -"#pb78" class="pageref">78</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb85" class= -"pageref">85</a>, <a href="#pb158" class="pageref">158</a>; modern, -<a href="#pb195" class="pageref">195</a>, <a href="#pb282" class= -"pageref">282</a>, <a href="#pb283" class="pageref">283</a> -<i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Phocas, <a href="#pb155" class="pageref">155</a>, -<a href="#pb176" class="pageref">176</a></p> -<p class="par"><span class="corr" id="xd21e16062" title= -"Source: Phoenician">Phœnician</span> religion, <a href="#pb21" -class="pageref">21</a>, <a href="#pb22" class="pageref">22</a>, -<a href="#pb25" class="pageref">25</a>, <a href="#pb38" class= -"pageref">38</a>, <a href="#pb69" class="pageref">69</a></p> -<p class="par">Photinus, <a href="#pb135" class="pageref">135</a></p> -<p class="par">Photius, <a href="#pb240" class= -"pageref">240</a>–41 <i>Phronesis</i>, <a href="#pb94" class= -"pageref">94</a></p> -<p class="par">Phrygia, cults of, <a href="#pb51" class= -"pageref">51</a>–53, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a>, -<a href="#pb99" class="pageref">99</a></p> -<p class="par">Pierce, C. S., <a href="#pb285" class="pageref">285</a> -<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb349" href="#pb349" name= -"pb349">349</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">Pietism, <a href="#pb298" class="pageref">298</a></p> -<p class="par">Pilate, <a href="#pb28" class="pageref">28</a></p> -<p class="par">Plato and Platonism, <a href="#pb39" class= -"pageref">39</a>, <a href="#pb79" class="pageref">79</a>, <a href= -"#pb95" class="pageref">95</a>, <a href="#pb96" class="pageref">96</a>, -<a href="#pb291" class="pageref">291</a></p> -<p class="par">Pliny junior, <a href="#pb108" class= -"pageref">108</a></p> -<p class="par">Plotinus, <a href="#pb85" class="pageref">85</a>, -<a href="#pb291" class="pageref">291</a></p> -<p class="par">Plutarch, <a href="#pb85" class="pageref">85</a></p> -<p class="par">Poland, conversion of, <a href="#pb171" class= -"pageref">171</a>; Reformation in, <a href="#pb257" class= -"pageref">257</a>, <a href="#pb268" class="pageref">268</a>; recaptured -by Rome, <a href="#pb262" class="pageref">262</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Political causation, <a href="#pb41" class= -"pageref">41</a>, <a href="#pb63" class="pageref">63</a></p> -<p class="par">Polycarp, epistles of, <a href="#pb3" class= -"pageref">3</a>; character of, <a href="#pb83" class= -"pageref">83</a></p> -<p class="par">Polygamy, <a href="#pb162" class="pageref">162</a></p> -<p class="par">Polytheism, Christian, <a href="#pb138" class= -"pageref">138</a>, <a href="#pb141" class="pageref">141</a>, <a href= -"#pb151" class="pageref">151</a>, <a href="#pb162" class= -"pageref">162</a>, <a href="#pb185" class="pageref">185</a>, <a href= -"#pb187" class="pageref">187</a></p> -<p class="par">Pomeranians, conversion of, <a href="#pb172" class= -"pageref">172</a></p> -<p class="par">Pompey, <a href="#pb57" class="pageref">57</a> -<i>Pontifex Maximus</i>, Christian emperors as, <a href="#pb116" class= -"pageref">116</a>, <a href="#pb118" class="pageref">118</a>, <a href= -"#pb125" class="pageref">125</a>, <a href="#pb135" class= -"pageref">135</a></p> -<p class="par">Poor, religious movements of, <a href="#pb5" class= -"pageref">5</a>–7, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, -<a href="#pb43" class="pageref">43</a>, <a href="#pb45" class= -"pageref">45</a>; in Christian Church, <a href="#pb71" class= -"pageref">71</a>, <a href="#pb83" class="pageref">83</a></p> -<p class="par">Pope, the name, <a href="#pb175" class= -"pageref">175</a></p> -<p class="par">Porphyry, <a href="#pb85" class="pageref">85</a></p> -<p class="par">Portugal, rationalism in, <a href="#pb295" class= -"pageref">295</a></p> -<p class="par">Poseidon, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a></p> -<p class="par">Positivism, <a href="#pb295" class="pageref">295</a></p> -<p class="par">Poverty, ancient and modern, <a href="#pb71" class= -"pageref">71</a>–72, <a href="#pb312" class="pageref">312</a> -—— Christianity and, <a href="#pb162" class= -"pageref">162</a>, <a href="#pb207" class="pageref">207</a>, <a href= -"#pb312" class="pageref">312</a></p> -<p class="par">Praetextatus, <a href="#pb135" class= -"pageref">135</a></p> -<p class="par">Pragmatism, <a href="#pb285" class="pageref">285</a></p> -<p class="par">Praxeas, <a href="#pb103" class="pageref">103</a>, -<a href="#pb147" class="pageref">147</a></p> -<p class="par">Prayer, ethic of, <a href="#pb62" class= -"pageref">62</a></p> -<p class="par">Prayers for the dead, <a href="#pb72" class= -"pageref">72</a>, <a href="#pb147" class="pageref">147</a></p> -<p class="par">Preaching, rise of, <a href="#pb70" class= -"pageref">70</a>, <a href="#pb87" class="pageref">87</a></p> -<p class="par">Predestinarianism, <a href="#pb146" class= -"pageref">146</a>, <a href="#pb197" class="pageref">197</a>, <a href= -"#pb257" class="pageref">257</a></p> -<p class="par">Presbyterianism, <a href="#pb264" class= -"pageref">264</a>, <a href="#pb268" class="pageref">268</a>, <a href= -"#pb272" class="pageref">272</a>, <a href="#pb296" class= -"pageref">296</a>–97</p> -<p class="par">Presbyters, <a href="#pb16" class="pageref">16</a>, -<a href="#pb45" class="pageref">45</a>, <a href="#pb70" class= -"pageref">70</a>, <a href="#pb71" class="pageref">71</a>, <a href= -"#pb83" class="pageref">83</a>, <a href="#pb87" class="pageref">87</a>, -<a href="#pb90" class="pageref">90</a>, <a href="#pb120" class= -"pageref">120</a></p> -<p class="par">—— the twenty-four, <a href="#pb16" class= -"pageref">16</a></p> -<p class="par">Priesthood, Christian, morals of, <a href="#pb85" class= -"pageref">85</a>, <a href="#pb89" class="pageref">89</a>; growth of, -<a href="#pb87" class="pageref">87</a> <i>sq.</i>; avarice of, <a href= -"#pb116" class="pageref">116</a>, <a href="#pb126" class= -"pageref">126</a>, <a href="#pb134" class="pageref">134</a>, <a href= -"#pb155" class="pageref">155</a>, <a href="#pb167" class= -"pageref">167</a>, <a href="#pb181" class="pageref">181</a></p> -<p class="par">Priesthoods, ancient wealth of, <a href="#pb69" class= -"pageref">69</a></p> -<p class="par">Priestley, <a href="#pb287" class="pageref">287</a></p> -<p class="par">Priscillian, <a href="#pb136" class="pageref">136</a>, -<a href="#pb145" class="pageref">145</a></p> -<p class="par">Progress, Christianity and, <a href="#pb159" class= -"pageref">159</a>, <a href="#pb238" class="pageref">238</a>, <a href= -"#pb320" class="pageref">320</a>. <i>See</i> Decadence</p> -<p class="par">Propaganda, Catholic College of, <a href="#pb292" class= -"pageref">292</a>, <a href="#pb296" class="pageref">296</a></p> -<p class="par">Prophets, Christian, <a href="#pb70" class= -"pageref">70</a>, <a href="#pb76" class="pageref">76</a>, <a href= -"#pb87" class="pageref">87</a></p> -<p class="par">Proselytes, Jewish, <a href="#pb20" class= -"pageref">20</a>, <a href="#pb34" class="pageref">34</a></p> -<p class="par">Proserpine, <a href="#pb55" class="pageref">55</a>, -<a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a></p> -<p class="par">Protestantism, effects of, on civilization, <a href= -"#pb265" class="pageref">265</a> <i>sq.</i>; later position of, -<a href="#pb296" class="pageref">296</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Protestants, name, <a href="#pb259" class= -"pageref">259</a>; movement, <a href="#pb245" class="pageref">245</a> -<i>sq.</i>; sects of, <a href="#pb266" class="pageref">266</a>, -<a href="#pb277" class="pageref">277</a>; missions of, <a href="#pb302" -class="pageref">302</a></p> -<p class="par">Provence, heresy in, <a href="#pb201" class= -"pageref">201</a>–202</p> -<p class="par">Prudentius, <a href="#pb157" class="pageref">157</a></p> -<p class="par">Prussia, <a href="#pb299" class="pageref">299</a></p> -<p class="par">Psalms, the, <a href="#pb290" class= -"pageref">290</a></p> -<p class="par">Psyche, myth of<span class="corr" id="xd21e16564" title= -"Source: .">,</span> <a href="#pb33" class="pageref">33</a></p> -<p class="par">“Publicans and sinners,” <a href="#pb38" -class="pageref">38</a>, <a href="#pb45" class="pageref">45</a>, -<a href="#pb65" class="pageref">65</a></p> -<p class="par">Pulci, <a href="#pb196" class="pageref">196</a></p> -<p class="par">Purgatory, <a href="#pb124" class="pageref">124</a>, -<a href="#pb192" class="pageref">192</a>, <a href="#pb197" class= -"pageref">197</a>, <a href="#pb225" class="pageref">225</a></p> -<p class="par">Puritanism, <a href="#pb269" class="pageref">269</a></p> -<p class="par">Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism, <a href="#pb27" class= -"pageref">27</a>, <a href="#pb50" class="pageref">50</a></p> -<p class="par">Quadrivium, <a href="#pb232" class="pageref">232</a></p> -<p class="par">Quakers, <a href="#pb99" class="pageref">99</a>, -<a href="#pb277" class="pageref">277</a>, <a href="#pb313" class= -"pageref">313</a></p> -<p class="par">Queen of Heaven, the, <a href="#pb57" class= -"pageref">57</a>, <a href="#pb76" class="pageref">76</a></p> -<p class="par">Rabelais, <a href="#pb274" class="pageref">274</a></p> -<p class="par">Race, theory of, <a href="#pb254" class= -"pageref">254</a></p> -<p class="par">Ram-symbol, <a href="#pb59" class="pageref">59</a></p> -<p class="par">Ranke, <a href="#pb271" class="pageref">271</a></p> -<p class="par">Rationalism, pagan, <a href="#pb130" class= -"pageref">130</a>; modern, rise and growth of, <a href="#pb194" class= -"pageref">194</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb275" class="pageref">275</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb279" class="pageref">279</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Ratramnus, <a href="#pb194" class= -"pageref">194</a>–95, <a href="#pb225" class= -"pageref">225</a></p> -<p class="par">Raymond of Toulouse, <a href="#pb201" class= -"pageref">201</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Readers, <a href="#pb83" class="pageref">83</a></p> -<p class="par">Realism, <a href="#pb246" class="pageref">246</a></p> -<p class="par">Reformation, the, <a href="#pb193" class= -"pageref">193</a>, <a href="#pb245" class="pageref">245</a> <i>sq.</i>; -political results of, <a href="#pb257" class="pageref">257</a> -<i>sq.</i>; intellectual results of, <a href="#pb265" class= -"pageref">265</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Regiomontanus, <a href="#pb234" class= -"pageref">234</a></p> -<p class="par">Relics, adoration of, <a href="#pb88" class= -"pageref">88</a>–89, <a href="#pb164" class="pageref">164</a>, -<a href="#pb185" class="pageref">185</a>, <a href="#pb186" class= -"pageref">186</a>, <a href="#pb192" class="pageref">192</a>, <a href= -"#pb225" class="pageref">225</a></p> -<p class="par">Religion, conditions of evolution of, <a href="#pb40" -class="pageref">40</a>, <a href="#pb42" class="pageref">42</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb49" class="pageref">49</a>, <a href="#pb67" -class="pageref">67</a>, <a href="#pb69" class="pageref">69</a>, -<a href="#pb100" class="pageref">100</a></p> -<p class="par">Remi, St., <a href="#pb233" class="pageref">233</a></p> -<p class="par">Renaissance, the, <a href="#pb182" class= -"pageref">182</a>, <a href="#pb196" class="pageref">196</a>, <a href= -"#pb224" class="pageref">224</a>, <a href="#pb234" class= -"pageref">234</a></p> -<p class="par">Renan, <a href="#pb289" class="pageref">289</a></p> -<p class="par">Resurrection, myth and doctrine of, <a href="#pb36" -class="pageref">36</a>, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, -<a href="#pb52" class="pageref">52</a>, <a href="#pb53" class= -"pageref">53</a>, <a href="#pb93" class="pageref">93</a>, <a href= -"#pb97" class="pageref">97</a></p> -<p class="par">Reuchlin, <a href="#pb248" class="pageref">248</a> -<i>Revelation</i>, Book of, <a href="#pb16" class="pageref">16</a>, -<a href="#pb23" class="pageref">23</a>, <a href="#pb27" class= -"pageref">27</a>, <a href="#pb31" class="pageref">31</a></p> -<p class="par">Rhadagast, <a href="#pb142" class="pageref">142</a></p> -<p class="par">Rhea-Cybelê, <a href="#pb76" class= -"pageref">76</a></p> -<p class="par">Rhetoric, pagan and Christian, <a href="#pb156" class= -"pageref">156</a></p> -<p class="par">Richard I, <a href="#pb222" class="pageref">222</a></p> -<p class="par">Richelieu, <a href="#pb261" class="pageref">261</a>, -<a href="#pb263" class="pageref">263</a></p> -<p class="par">Rimini, Council of, <a href="#pb126" class= -"pageref">126</a></p> -<p class="par">Ritual, growth of, <a href="#pb84" class= -"pageref">84</a>, <a href="#pb87" class="pageref">87</a>, <a href= -"#pb101" class="pageref">101</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb137" class= -"pageref">137</a>, <a href="#pb163" class="pageref">163</a>, <a href= -"#pb184" class="pageref">184</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Robert Guiscard, <a href="#pb180" class= -"pageref">180</a></p> -<p class="par">Rock, the Mithraic, <a href="#pb58" class= -"pageref">58</a></p> -<p class="par">—— tomb, the, <a href="#pb36" class= -"pageref">36</a>, <a href="#pb58" class="pageref">58</a>, <a href= -"#pb60" class="pageref">60</a></p> -<p class="par">Roman Empire, <a href="#pb41" class="pageref">41</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb46" class="pageref">46</a>, <a href="#pb51" -class="pageref">51</a>, <a href="#pb60" class="pageref">60</a>, -<a href="#pb69" class="pageref">69</a>, <a href="#pb106" class= -"pageref">106</a>, <a href="#pb113" class="pageref">113</a>–14, -<a href="#pb166" class="pageref">166</a>; spread of Christianity in, -<a href="#pb81" class="pageref">81</a></p> -<p class="par">Rome, pagan cults of, <a href="#pb43" class= -"pageref">43</a>, <a href="#pb52" class="pageref">52</a>, <a href= -"#pb55" class="pageref">55</a>–56, <a href="#pb57" class= -"pageref">57</a>; pagan priesthoods of, <a href="#pb43" class= -"pageref">43</a>, <a href="#pb69" class="pageref">69</a>; early church -of, <a href="#pb81" class="pageref">81</a>, <a href="#pb83" class= -"pageref">83</a>, <a href="#pb174" class="pageref">174</a>; life of, -under Christianity, <a href="#pb164" class="pageref">164</a>, <a href= -"#pb178" class="pageref">178</a>; sack of, <a href="#pb251" class= -"pageref">251</a>; aspects of, under Papacy, <a href="#pb271" class= -"pageref">271</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">—— Church of, <a href="#pb81" class= -"pageref">81</a>, <a href="#pb90" class="pageref">90</a></p> -<p class="par">Romuald, St., <a href="#pb226" class= -"pageref">226</a></p> -<p class="par">Roscellinus, <a href="#pb195" class= -"pageref">195</a></p> -<p class="par">Royal Society, <a href="#pb281" class="pageref">281</a> -<i>Ruach</i>, the Hebrew, <a href="#pb152" class="pageref">152</a></p> -<p class="par">Russia, conversion of, <a href="#pb171" class= -"pageref">171</a>; influence of in Greece, <a href="#pb306" class= -"pageref">306</a> <i>sq.</i>; religion in, <a href="#pb307" class= -"pageref">307</a> <i>sq.</i> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb350" href= -"#pb350" name="pb350">350</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">Sabazios, cult of, <a href="#pb56" class= -"pageref">56</a></p> -<p class="par">Sabellius and Sabellianism, <a href="#pb103" class= -"pageref">103</a>, <a href="#pb120" class="pageref">120</a>, <a href= -"#pb147" class="pageref">147</a></p> -<p class="par">Sacæa, the, <a href="#pb38" class= -"pageref">38</a></p> -<p class="par">Sacerdotalism, Christian, <a href="#pb166" class= -"pageref">166</a>, <a href="#pb189" class="pageref">189</a></p> -<p class="par">Sacraments, pagan, <a href="#pb20" class= -"pageref">20</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb25" class="pageref">25</a>, -<a href="#pb32" class="pageref">32</a>, <a href="#pb44" class= -"pageref">44</a>, <a href="#pb55" class="pageref">55</a>; the four -Christian, <a href="#pb192" class="pageref">192</a>; rejection of, -<a href="#pb199" class="pageref">199</a>, <a href="#pb200" class= -"pageref">200</a></p> -<p class="par">Sacrifices, <a href="#pb20" class="pageref">20</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb47" class="pageref">47</a>, <a href="#pb52" -class="pageref">52</a>, <a href="#pb53" class="pageref">53</a></p> -<p class="par">Sadducees, <a href="#pb6" class="pageref">6</a>, -<a href="#pb49" class="pageref">49</a></p> -<p class="par">Sagarelli, <a href="#pb200" class="pageref">200</a></p> -<p class="par">Saint-Simon, <a href="#pb295" class= -"pageref">295</a></p> -<p class="par">Saints successors of Gods, <a href="#pb138" class= -"pageref">138</a></p> -<p class="par">—— worship of, <a href="#pb185" class= -"pageref">185</a>–86, <a href="#pb187" class="pageref">187</a>, -<a href="#pb234" class="pageref">234</a></p> -<p class="par">Saladin, <a href="#pb222" class="pageref">222</a></p> -<p class="par">Salvation Army, <a href="#pb300" class= -"pageref">300</a></p> -<p class="par">Salvian, <a href="#pb155" class="pageref">155</a></p> -<p class="par">Samaritan religion, <a href="#pb6" class= -"pageref">6</a>, <a href="#pb8" class="pageref">8</a>, <a href="#pb27" -class="pageref">27</a>, <a href="#pb29" class="pageref">29</a>, -<a href="#pb92" class="pageref">92</a></p> -<p class="par">—— elements in Christianity, <a href="#pb6" -class="pageref">6</a>, <a href="#pb8" class="pageref">8</a>, <a href= -"#pb29" class="pageref">29</a>, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, -<a href="#pb39" class="pageref">39</a>, <a href="#pb92" class= -"pageref">92</a>, <a href="#pb95" class="pageref">95</a>, <a href= -"#pb152" class="pageref">152</a></p> -<p class="par">Samothracian Gods, <a href="#pb33" class= -"pageref">33</a></p> -<p class="par">Samson, <a href="#pb12" class="pageref">12</a>, <a href= -"#pb29" class="pageref">29</a></p> -<p class="par">Saracens, science of, <a href="#pb159" class= -"pageref">159</a>; arts of, <a href="#pb162" class="pageref">162</a>; -influence of on Europe, <a href="#pb186" class= -"pageref">186</a>–87, <a href="#pb196" class="pageref">196</a>, -<a href="#pb199" class="pageref">199</a>, <a href="#pb201" class= -"pageref">201</a>, <a href="#pb221" class="pageref">221</a>, <a href= -"#pb229" class="pageref">229</a>, <a href="#pb232" class= -"pageref">232</a>, <a href="#pb233" class="pageref">233</a>, <a href= -"#pb315" class="pageref">315</a>. <i>See</i> Moors and -Mohammedanism</p> -<p class="par">Sarpi, <a href="#pb292" class="pageref">292</a></p> -<p class="par">Sassanides, the, <a href="#pb133" class= -"pageref">133</a></p> -<p class="par">Satan, <a href="#pb92" class="pageref">92</a>, <a href= -"#pb98" class="pageref">98</a></p> -<p class="par">Saturn, <a href="#pb21" class="pageref">21</a></p> -<p class="par">Saturninus, <a href="#pb92" class="pageref">92</a>, -<a href="#pb93" class="pageref">93</a></p> -<p class="par">Saviour-Gods, <a href="#pb10" class="pageref">10</a>, -<a href="#pb12" class="pageref">12</a>, <a href="#pb29" class= -"pageref">29</a>, <a href="#pb31" class="pageref">31</a>, <a href= -"#pb51" class="pageref">51</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb57" class= -"pageref">57</a>, <a href="#pb60" class="pageref">60</a>, <a href= -"#pb77" class="pageref">77</a>, <a href="#pb102" class= -"pageref">102</a></p> -<p class="par">Savonarola, <a href="#pb212" class="pageref">212</a></p> -<p class="par">Saxons, conversion of, <a href="#pb169" class= -"pageref">169</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Scandinavia, conversion of, <a href="#pb170" class= -"pageref">170</a> <i>sq.</i>; Protestantism in, <a href="#pb253" class= -"pageref">253</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb274" class="pageref">274</a>; -rationalism in, <a href="#pb298" class="pageref">298</a>, <a href= -"#pb299" class="pageref">299</a></p> -<p class="par">Scepticism, ancient, <a href="#pb106" class= -"pageref">106</a></p> -<p class="par">Schiller, Mr., <a href="#pb285" class= -"pageref">285</a></p> -<p class="par">Scholarship, promoted by Church in Renaissance, <a href= -"#pb235" class="pageref">235</a>; later revival of, <a href="#pb248" -class="pageref">248</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Schools, pagan and Christian, <a href="#pb158" class= -"pageref">158</a>, <a href="#pb183" class="pageref">183</a>, <a href= -"#pb248" class="pageref">248</a></p> -<p class="par">Science, Greek, <a href="#pb41" class="pageref">41</a>, -<a href="#pb42" class="pageref">42</a>, <a href="#pb118" class= -"pageref">118</a>, <a href="#pb158" class="pageref">158</a>, <a href= -"#pb232" class="pageref">232</a>; revival of, <a href="#pb196" class= -"pageref">196</a>–97, <a href="#pb233" class="pageref">233</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb276" class="pageref">276</a>, <a href="#pb278" -class="pageref">278</a>; and religion, <a href="#pb183" class= -"pageref">183</a>, <a href="#pb279" class="pageref">279</a>, <a href= -"#pb282" class="pageref">282</a>, <a href="#pb315" class= -"pageref">315</a> <i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Scot, Reginald, <a href="#pb270" class= -"pageref">270</a></p> -<p class="par">Scotland, Reformation in, <a href="#pb253" class= -"pageref">253</a>, <a href="#pb264" class="pageref">264</a>, <a href= -"#pb268" class="pageref">268</a>, <a href="#pb270" class= -"pageref">270</a>, <a href="#pb274" class="pageref">274</a>, <a href= -"#pb296" class="pageref">296</a></p> -<p class="par">Scribes and Pharisees, <a href="#pb49" class= -"pageref">49</a>, <a href="#pb88" class="pageref">88</a></p> -<p class="par">“Seal of God,” <a href="#pb27" class= -"pageref">27</a></p> -<p class="par">Sectarianism, Christian, <a href="#pb76" class= -"pageref">76</a>, <a href="#pb100" class="pageref">100</a>, <a href= -"#pb104" class="pageref">104</a>, <a href="#pb111" class= -"pageref">111</a>, <a href="#pb118" class="pageref">118</a>, <a href= -"#pb122" class="pageref">122</a>, <a href="#pb141" class= -"pageref">141</a>, <a href="#pb144" class="pageref">144</a>, <a href= -"#pb150" class="pageref">150</a>, <a href="#pb153" class= -"pageref">153</a>, <a href="#pb161" class="pageref">161</a>, <a href= -"#pb260" class="pageref">260</a>, <a href="#pb264" class= -"pageref">264</a>, <a href="#pb266" class="pageref">266</a>, <a href= -"#pb277" class="pageref">277</a>, <a href="#pb309" class= -"pageref">309</a></p> -<p class="par">Secular clergy, rise of, <a href="#pb167" class= -"pageref">167</a></p> -<p class="par">Selenus, Bishop, <a href="#pb186" class= -"pageref">186</a></p> -<p class="par">Semelê, <a href="#pb55" class="pageref">55</a></p> -<p class="par">Semitic religion, <a href="#pb11" class= -"pageref">11</a>–12, <a href="#pb15" class="pageref">15</a>, -<a href="#pb16" class="pageref">16</a>, <a href="#pb54" class= -"pageref">54</a>, <a href="#pb61" class="pageref">61</a>, <a href= -"#pb152" class="pageref">152</a></p> -<p class="par">Semo, <a href="#pb29" class="pageref">29</a></p> -<p class="par">Senate, the Roman, <a href="#pb41" class= -"pageref">41</a></p> -<p class="par">Seneca, <a href="#pb61" class="pageref">61</a>, <a href= -"#pb214" class="pageref">214</a></p> -<p class="par">Septuagint, <a href="#pb48" class="pageref">48</a>, -<a href="#pb72" class="pageref">72</a></p> -<p class="par">Sepulchre, the Holy, <a href="#pb219" class= -"pageref">219</a>, <a href="#pb306" class="pageref">306</a>, <a href= -"#pb309" class="pageref">309</a></p> -<p class="par">Serapis, <a href="#pb35" class="pageref">35</a>, -<a href="#pb57" class="pageref">57</a>, <a href="#pb106" class= -"pageref">106</a></p> -<p class="par">Sergius, <a href="#pb198" class="pageref">198</a></p> -<p class="par">Sermon on the Mount, <a href="#pb7" class= -"pageref">7</a>, <a href="#pb15" class="pageref">15</a>, <a href= -"#pb65" class="pageref">65</a></p> -<p class="par">Servetus, <a href="#pb103" class="pageref">103</a>, -<a href="#pb268" class="pageref">268</a>, <a href="#pb274" class= -"pageref">274</a></p> -<p class="par">Servia, conversion of, <a href="#pb171" class= -"pageref">171</a></p> -<p class="par">Seven, banquet of, <a href="#pb36" class= -"pageref">36</a></p> -<p class="par">—— angels, <a href="#pb92" class= -"pageref">92</a></p> -<p class="par">—— liberal arts, <a href="#pb232" class= -"pageref">232</a></p> -<p class="par">Seventy-two apostles, myth of, <a href="#pb17" class= -"pageref">17</a></p> -<p class="par">Severus, <a href="#pb107" class="pageref">107</a></p> -<p class="par">Shaftesbury, <a href="#pb283" class="pageref">283</a>, -<a href="#pb284" class="pageref">284</a></p> -<p class="par">Shakespeare, <a href="#pb13" class="pageref">13</a>, -<a href="#pb275" class="pageref">275</a></p> -<p class="par">Shepherd, the Good, <a href="#pb33" class= -"pageref">33</a></p> -<p class="par">Shew-bread, <a href="#pb22" class="pageref">22</a></p> -<p class="par">Siam, Jesuits in, <a href="#pb292" class= -"pageref">292</a>–93</p> -<p class="par">Sibylline books, <a href="#pb88" class= -"pageref">88</a></p> -<p class="par">Sicily, heresy in, <a href="#pb197" class= -"pageref">197</a>; Moslem conquest of, <a href="#pb244" class= -"pageref">244</a></p> -<p class="par">Sigismund III, <a href="#pb262" class= -"pageref">262</a>–63</p> -<p class="par">Silenus, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a></p> -<p class="par">Simon, a God-name, <a href="#pb18" class= -"pageref">18</a>, <a href="#pb29" class="pageref">29</a></p> -<p class="par">Simon de Montfort, <a href="#pb202" class= -"pageref">202</a></p> -<p class="par">—— Magus, <a href="#pb29" class= -"pageref">29</a>, <a href="#pb36" class="pageref">36</a>, <a href= -"#pb92" class="pageref">92</a></p> -<p class="par">—— Richard, <a href="#pb287" class= -"pageref">287</a></p> -<p class="par">Simony, <a href="#pb167" class="pageref">167</a>, -<a href="#pb181" class="pageref">181</a></p> -<p class="par">Simplicius, <a href="#pb156" class="pageref">156</a></p> -<p class="par">Sixtus V (Pope), <a href="#pb271" class= -"pageref">271</a></p> -<p class="par">Skoptsi, <a href="#pb309" class="pageref">309</a></p> -<p class="par">Slavery, <a href="#pb50" class="pageref">50</a>, -<a href="#pb61" class="pageref">61</a>, <a href="#pb117" class= -"pageref">117</a>, <a href="#pb156" class="pageref">156</a>, <a href= -"#pb162" class="pageref">162</a>, <a href="#pb163" class= -"pageref">163</a>, <a href="#pb214" class="pageref">214</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb218" class="pageref">218</a>, <a href="#pb221" class= -"pageref">221</a>, <a href="#pb222" class="pageref">222</a>, <a href= -"#pb239" class="pageref">239</a>, <a href="#pb308" class= -"pageref">308</a></p> -<p class="par">Slaves, in early cults, <a href="#pb44" class= -"pageref">44</a>, <a href="#pb45" class="pageref">45</a>, <a href= -"#pb68" class="pageref">68</a>; in Christian Church, <a href="#pb68" -class="pageref">68</a>, <a href="#pb83" class="pageref">83</a>, -<a href="#pb117" class="pageref">117</a>, <a href="#pb214" class= -"pageref">214</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb218" class="pageref">218</a>, -<a href="#pb221" class="pageref">221</a></p> -<p class="par">Slavs, conversion of, <a href="#pb171" class= -"pageref">171</a>, <a href="#pb173" class="pageref">173</a>; invasion -of Byzantium by, <a href="#pb241" class="pageref">241</a></p> -<p class="par">Smith, Adam, <a href="#pb284" class="pageref">284</a>, -<a href="#pb297" class="pageref">297</a></p> -<p class="par">Socialism, <a href="#pb229" class="pageref">229</a>, -<a href="#pb321" class="pageref">321</a></p> -<p class="par">Socinus and Socinianism, <a href="#pb268" class= -"pageref">268</a></p> -<p class="par">Sociology, <a href="#pb317" class="pageref">317</a></p> -<p class="par">“Son of God,” <a href="#pb21" class= -"pageref">21</a>, <a href="#pb35" class="pageref">35</a>, <a href= -"#pb36" class="pageref">36</a></p> -<p class="par">Sons, sacrifices of, <a href="#pb21" class= -"pageref">21</a>, <a href="#pb23" class="pageref">23</a>, <a href= -"#pb38" class="pageref">38</a> <i>Sophia</i>, <a href="#pb39" class= -"pageref">39</a>, <a href="#pb94" class="pageref">94</a></p> -<p class="par">Sophists, <a href="#pb70" class="pageref">70</a></p> -<p class="par">Sorbonne, the, <a href="#pb256" class= -"pageref">256</a></p> -<p class="par">Sorcery, <a href="#pb225" class="pageref">225</a>, -<a href="#pb227" class="pageref">227</a></p> -<p class="par">South African War, <a href="#pb313" class= -"pageref">313</a></p> -<p class="par">Spain, religion in, <a href="#pb144" class= -"pageref">144</a>, <a href="#pb145" class="pageref">145</a>, <a href= -"#pb146" class="pageref">146</a>, <a href="#pb161" class= -"pageref">161</a>, <a href="#pb173" class="pageref">173</a>, <a href= -"#pb176" class="pageref">176</a>, <a href="#pb187" class= -"pageref">187</a>, <a href="#pb294" class="pageref">294</a>; -inquisition in, <a href="#pb229" class="pageref">229</a> <i>sq.</i>; -ruin of, <a href="#pb230" class="pageref">230</a>; rationalism in, -<a href="#pb295" class="pageref">295</a>, <a href="#pb319" class= -"pageref">319</a></p> -<p class="par">Spencer, <a href="#pb284" class="pageref">284</a>, -<a href="#pb299" class="pageref">299</a></p> -<p class="par">Spinoza, <a href="#pb194" class="pageref">194</a>, -<a href="#pb283" class="pageref">283</a>, <a href="#pb284" class= -"pageref">284</a>, <a href="#pb287" class="pageref">287</a></p> -<p class="par">Spires, Diets of, <a href="#pb259" class= -"pageref">259</a></p> -<p class="par">Spirit, the Holy, <a href="#pb35" class= -"pageref">35</a>, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href= -"#pb99" class="pageref">99</a>, <a href="#pb123" class= -"pageref">123</a>, <a href="#pb152" class="pageref">152</a></p> -<p class="par">Stable-birth myth, <a href="#pb37" class= -"pageref">37</a> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb351" href="#pb351" -name="pb351">351</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">Stephen, the boy crusader, <a href="#pb221" class= -"pageref">221</a></p> -<p class="par">—— of Hungary, <a href="#pb172" class= -"pageref">172</a></p> -<p class="par">Stercoranism, <a href="#pb225" class= -"pageref">225</a></p> -<p class="par">Stilicho, <a href="#pb142" class= -"pageref">142</a>–43</p> -<p class="par">Stoicism, <a href="#pb61" class="pageref">61</a>, -<a href="#pb64" class="pageref">64</a>, <a href="#pb70" class= -"pageref">70</a>, <a href="#pb129" class="pageref">129</a>, <a href= -"#pb131" class="pageref">131</a>, <a href="#pb212" class= -"pageref">212</a>, <a href="#pb215" class="pageref">215</a></p> -<p class="par">Storch, <a href="#pb258" class="pageref">258</a></p> -<p class="par">Strauss, <a href="#pb289" class="pageref">289</a>, -<a href="#pb298" class="pageref">298</a></p> -<p class="par">Stundists, <a href="#pb309" class="pageref">309</a></p> -<p class="par">Suetonius, <a href="#pb31" class="pageref">31</a></p> -<p class="par">Suidas, <a href="#pb241" class="pageref">241</a></p> -<p class="par">Sulpicius Severus, <a href="#pb31" class= -"pageref">31</a></p> -<p class="par">Sun-day, <a href="#pb58" class="pageref">58</a>, -<a href="#pb120" class="pageref">120</a></p> -<p class="par">Sun-myth, <a href="#pb12" class="pageref">12</a>, -<a href="#pb23" class="pageref">23</a>, <a href="#pb56" class= -"pageref">56</a></p> -<p class="par">Sun-worship, <a href="#pb50" class="pageref">50</a></p> -<p class="par">Superstition, Christian, <a href="#pb84" class= -"pageref">84</a>, <a href="#pb101" class="pageref">101</a>–102, -<a href="#pb161" class="pageref">161</a>, <a href="#pb224" class= -"pageref">224</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb269" class="pageref">269</a> -<i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Supper, Holy. <i>See</i> Eucharist</p> -<p class="par">Sweden, Reformation in, <a href="#pb254" class= -"pageref">254</a></p> -<p class="par">Switzerland, Reformation in, <a href="#pb252" class= -"pageref">252</a>, <a href="#pb262" class="pageref">262</a>, <a href= -"#pb264" class="pageref">264</a>, <a href="#pb266" class= -"pageref">266</a>, <a href="#pb274" class="pageref">274</a>, <a href= -"#pb296" class="pageref">296</a>–98</p> -<p class="par">Sword, Order of the, <a href="#pb172" class= -"pageref">172</a></p> -<p class="par">Sylvanus, <a href="#pb198" class="pageref">198</a></p> -<p class="par">Sylvester II (Pope), <a href="#pb218" class= -"pageref">218</a>, <a href="#pb233" class="pageref">233</a></p> -<p class="par">Symbols, sacrificial, <a href="#pb23" class= -"pageref">23</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb190" class= -"pageref">190</a></p> -<p class="par">Synods, <a href="#pb70" class="pageref">70</a>, <a href= -"#pb91" class="pageref">91</a></p> -<p class="par">Synoptic Gospels, <a href="#pb11" class= -"pageref">11</a></p> -<p class="par">Syria, cults of, <a href="#pb53" class="pageref">53</a>, -<a href="#pb54" class="pageref">54</a>; Gnostics in, <a href="#pb92" -class="pageref">92</a></p> -<p class="par">Tabitha and Talitha, <a href="#pb30" class= -"pageref">30</a></p> -<p class="par">Tacitus, <a href="#pb31" class="pageref">31</a></p> -<p class="par">Tammuz, <a href="#pb53" class="pageref">53</a>. -<i>See</i> Adonis</p> -<p class="par">Tanquelin, <a href="#pb200" class="pageref">200</a></p> -<p class="par">Tatian, <a href="#pb93" class="pageref">93</a> -<i>Tau</i>, the Hebrew, <a href="#pb27" class="pageref">27</a></p> -<p class="par">Tauler, <a href="#pb212" class="pageref">212</a> -<i>Taurobolium</i>, <a href="#pb59" class="pageref">59</a></p> -<p class="par">Tax-gatherers, <a href="#pb65" class="pageref">65</a> -<i>Teaching of the Twelve Apostles</i>, <a href="#pb17" class= -"pageref">17</a>, <a href="#pb19" class="pageref">19</a>, <a href= -"#pb48" class="pageref">48</a>, <a href="#pb65" class="pageref">65</a>, -<a href="#pb66" class="pageref">66</a></p> -<p class="par">Templars, the Knights, <a href="#pb207" class= -"pageref">207</a>, <a href="#pb221" class= -"pageref">221</a>–23</p> -<p class="par">Temple, destruction of, <a href="#pb5" class= -"pageref">5</a></p> -<p class="par">Teresa, St., <a href="#pb188" class= -"pageref">188</a></p> -<p class="par">Tertullian, <a href="#pb64" class="pageref">64</a>, -<a href="#pb68" class="pageref">68</a>, <a href="#pb81" class= -"pageref">81</a>, <a href="#pb84" class="pageref">84</a>, <a href= -"#pb85" class="pageref">85</a>, <a href="#pb99" class="pageref">99</a>, -<a href="#pb100" class="pageref">100</a>, <a href="#pb107" class= -"pageref">107</a>, <a href="#pb110" class="pageref">110</a></p> -<p class="par">Tetrads, Gnostic, <a href="#pb94" class= -"pageref">94</a></p> -<p class="par">Tetzel, <a href="#pb249" class="pageref">249</a> -<i>sq.</i></p> -<p class="par">Teutonic Knights, <a href="#pb172" class= -"pageref">172</a> <i>Theandrios</i>, <a href="#pb22" class= -"pageref">22</a></p> -<p class="par">Themistius, <a href="#pb133" class="pageref">133</a></p> -<p class="par">Theodora, <a href="#pb153" class="pageref">153</a></p> -<p class="par">—— (mother of Michael), <a href="#pb240" -class="pageref">240</a></p> -<p class="par">Theodoric, <a href="#pb144" class="pageref">144</a>, -<a href="#pb174" class="pageref">174</a></p> -<p class="par">Theodorus of Mopsuestia, <a href="#pb147" class= -"pageref">147</a></p> -<p class="par">Theodosius the Great, <a href="#pb135" class= -"pageref">135</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb138" class="pageref">138</a>, -<a href="#pb139" class="pageref">139</a>, <a href="#pb142" class= -"pageref">142</a>, <a href="#pb144" class="pageref">144</a>, <a href= -"#pb145" class="pageref">145</a>, <a href="#pb154" class= -"pageref">154</a>, <a href="#pb155" class="pageref">155</a>, <a href= -"#pb175" class="pageref">175</a>, <a href="#pb185" class= -"pageref">185</a></p> -<p class="par">Theodosius II, <a href="#pb158" class= -"pageref">158</a></p> -<p class="par">Theodotus, <a href="#pb103" class="pageref">103</a>, -<a href="#pb104" class="pageref">104</a></p> -<p class="par">Theologians, hatred of, <a href="#pb267" class= -"pageref">267</a> <i>Theologos</i>, the, <a href="#pb87" class= -"pageref">87</a></p> -<p class="par">Theophilus of Antioch, <a href="#pb34" class= -"pageref">34</a></p> -<p class="par">Theosophies, ancient, <a href="#pb30" class= -"pageref">30</a></p> -<p class="par">Thirty Years’ War, <a href="#pb260" class= -"pageref">260</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb298" class= -"pageref">298</a></p> -<p class="par">Thomas Aquinas, <a href="#pb188" class= -"pageref">188</a>, <a href="#pb196" class="pageref">196</a>, <a href= -"#pb217" class="pageref">217</a></p> -<p class="par">—— à Kempis, <a href="#pb211" class= -"pageref">211</a></p> -<p class="par">Thoth, <a href="#pb38" class="pageref">38</a>, <a href= -"#pb79" class="pageref">79</a></p> -<p class="par">Thrace, heresy in, <a href="#pb198" class= -"pageref">198</a></p> -<p class="par">Thucydides, <a href="#pb159" class="pageref">159</a></p> -<p class="par">Tiberius, <a href="#pb109" class="pageref">109</a></p> -<p class="par">Tilly, <a href="#pb260" class="pageref">260</a>, -<a href="#pb262" class="pageref">262</a></p> -<p class="par">Tiridates, <a href="#pb127" class="pageref">127</a></p> -<p class="par">Titans, the, <a href="#pb55" class="pageref">55</a></p> -<p class="par">Tithes, <a href="#pb169" class="pageref">169</a>, -<a href="#pb177" class="pageref">177</a>, <a href="#pb192" class= -"pageref">192</a></p> -<p class="par">Toledo, Council of, <a href="#pb152" class= -"pageref">152</a></p> -<p class="par">Toleration, ideal of, <a href="#pb106" class= -"pageref">106</a>, <a href="#pb124" class="pageref">124</a>, <a href= -"#pb133" class="pageref">133</a>, <a href="#pb143" class= -"pageref">143</a>, <a href="#pb154" class="pageref">154</a>, <a href= -"#pb173" class="pageref">173</a>, <a href="#pb239" class= -"pageref">239</a></p> -<p class="par">Tolstoy, <a href="#pb308" class="pageref">308</a></p> -<p class="par">Tombs, sacred, <a href="#pb76" class= -"pageref">76</a></p> -<p class="par">Torquemada, <a href="#pb230" class="pageref">230</a></p> -<p class="par">Torture, use of, <a href="#pb64" class="pageref">64</a>, -<a href="#pb108" class="pageref">108</a>, <a href="#pb126" class= -"pageref">126</a>, <a href="#pb210" class="pageref">210</a>, <a href= -"#pb231" class="pageref">231</a></p> -<p class="par">Tourguénief, <a href="#pb308" class= -"pageref">308</a> <i>Traditores</i>, <a href="#pb112" class= -"pageref">112</a></p> -<p class="par">Trajan, <a href="#pb108" class="pageref">108</a>, -<a href="#pb164" class="pageref">164</a></p> -<p class="par">Transubstantiation, <a href="#pb189" class= -"pageref">189</a>, <a href="#pb194" class="pageref">194</a>, <a href= -"#pb224" class="pageref">224</a>, <a href="#pb266" class= -"pageref">266</a></p> -<p class="par">Transylvania, Prince of, <a href="#pb261" class= -"pageref">261</a></p> -<p class="par">Trent, Council of, <a href="#pb272" class= -"pageref">272</a></p> -<p class="par">Triads, Egyptian, <a href="#pb122" class= -"pageref">122</a></p> -<p class="par">Tribonian, <a href="#pb150" class="pageref">150</a></p> -<p class="par">Trinity, doctrine of, <a href="#pb17" class= -"pageref">17</a>, <a href="#pb97" class="pageref">97</a>, <a href= -"#pb102" class="pageref">102</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb122" class= -"pageref">122</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb135" class="pageref">135</a>, -<a href="#pb181" class="pageref">181</a>, <a href="#pb188" class= -"pageref">188</a>, <a href="#pb195" class="pageref">195</a>, <a href= -"#pb284" class="pageref">284</a></p> -<p class="par">Trivium, <a href="#pb232" class="pageref">232</a></p> -<p class="par">Truce of God, <a href="#pb193" class= -"pageref">193</a></p> -<p class="par">Turks, the, <a href="#pb173" class="pageref">173</a>, -<a href="#pb217" class="pageref">217</a>, <a href="#pb259" class= -"pageref">259</a>, <a href="#pb303" class="pageref">303</a> <i>sq.</i>, -<a href="#pb313" class="pageref">313</a></p> -<p class="par">Twelve apostles, myth of, <a href="#pb2" class= -"pageref">2</a>, <a href="#pb16" class="pageref">16</a>–19, -<a href="#pb28" class="pageref">28</a></p> -<p class="par">Typhon, <a href="#pb19" class="pageref">19</a>, <a href= -"#pb56" class="pageref">56</a></p> -<p class="par">Ulphilas, <a href="#pb142" class="pageref">142</a></p> -<p class="par">Uncleanliness, pious, <a href="#pb206" class= -"pageref">206</a></p> -<p class="par">Underworld, Gods of, <a href="#pb33" class= -"pageref">33</a>, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a>, <a href= -"#pb57" class="pageref">57</a></p> -<p class="par">Unitarianism, <a href="#pb54" class="pageref">54</a>, -<a href="#pb102" class="pageref">102</a>, <a href="#pb104" class= -"pageref">104</a>, <a href="#pb195" class="pageref">195</a>, <a href= -"#pb268" class="pageref">268</a>, <a href="#pb275" class= -"pageref">275</a>, <a href="#pb277" class="pageref">277</a>, <a href= -"#pb281" class="pageref">281</a>, <a href="#pb287" class= -"pageref">287</a>, <a href="#pb290" class="pageref">290</a>, <a href= -"#pb301" class="pageref">301</a>, <a href="#pb313" class= -"pageref">313</a>. <i>See</i> Arianism</p> -<p class="par">United States, religion in, <a href="#pb264" class= -"pageref">264</a>, <a href="#pb295" class="pageref">295</a>, <a href= -"#pb300" class="pageref">300</a>–301, <a href="#pb317" class= -"pageref">317</a></p> -<p class="par">Universities, rise of, <a href="#pb248" class= -"pageref">248</a></p> -<p class="par">Urania, <a href="#pb54" class="pageref">54</a></p> -<p class="par">Urban II (Pope), <a href="#pb217" class= -"pageref">217</a></p> -<p class="par">Usury, papal, <a href="#pb181" class="pageref">181</a>; -Jewish, <a href="#pb227" class="pageref">227</a></p> -<p class="par">Utilitarianism, Christian, <a href="#pb310" class= -"pageref">310</a>, <a href="#pb317" class="pageref">317</a></p> -<p class="par">Utopia, <a href="#pb322" class="pageref">322</a></p> -<p class="par">Valens, <a href="#pb134" class="pageref">134</a>, -<a href="#pb135" class="pageref">135</a>, <a href="#pb154" class= -"pageref">154</a>, <a href="#pb185" class="pageref">185</a></p> -<p class="par">Valentinian, <a href="#pb133" class= -"pageref">133</a>–34, <a href="#pb139" class="pageref">139</a>, -<a href="#pb154" class="pageref">154</a></p> -<p class="par">—— II, <a href="#pb136" class= -"pageref">136</a>, <a href="#pb139" class="pageref">139</a></p> -<p class="par">Valentinus, <a href="#pb94" class="pageref">94</a></p> -<p class="par">Valerian, <a href="#pb108" class="pageref">108</a>, -<a href="#pb109" class="pageref">109</a></p> -<p class="par">Valla, <a href="#pb248" class="pageref">248</a></p> -<p class="par">Vandals, the, <a href="#pb143" class= -"pageref">143</a></p> -<p class="par">Van Manen, <a href="#pb5" class="pageref">5</a>, -<i>n.</i></p> -<p class="par">Vaudois, the, <a href="#pb201" class="pageref">201</a>, -<a href="#pb256" class="pageref">256</a></p> -<p class="par">Vedas, <a href="#pb79" class="pageref">79</a>, <a href= -"#pb122" class="pageref">122</a> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb352" -href="#pb352" name="pb352">352</a>]</span></p> -<p class="par">Vegetation, symbol of, <a href="#pb7" class= -"pageref">7</a>–8; Gods of, <a href="#pb52" class= -"pageref">52</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb56" class="pageref">56</a></p> -<p class="par">Venice, <a href="#pb220" class="pageref">220</a></p> -<p class="par">Vergilius, the priest, <a href="#pb196" class= -"pageref">196</a></p> -<p class="par">Verona, Council of, <a href="#pb228" class= -"pageref">228</a></p> -<p class="par">Vesalius, <a href="#pb274" class="pageref">274</a></p> -<p class="par">Vespasian, <a href="#pb110" class="pageref">110</a></p> -<p class="par">Vico, <a href="#pb292" class="pageref">292</a></p> -<p class="par">Victor of Rome, <a href="#pb90" class= -"pageref">90</a></p> -<p class="par">Victory, Goddess of, <a href="#pb115" class= -"pageref">115</a>, <a href="#pb135" class="pageref">135</a>, <a href= -"#pb139" class="pageref">139</a></p> -<p class="par">Vienne and Lyons, churches of, <a href="#pb108" class= -"pageref">108</a></p> -<p class="par">Vigilantius, <a href="#pb146" class= -"pageref">146</a></p> -<p class="par">Vikings, <a href="#pb170" class="pageref">170</a></p> -<p class="par">Virgil, <a href="#pb60" class="pageref">60</a>, <a href= -"#pb235" class="pageref">235</a></p> -<p class="par">Virgin-mother myth, <a href="#pb37" class= -"pageref">37</a>, <a href="#pb52" class="pageref">52</a>, <a href= -"#pb76" class="pageref">76</a>, <a href="#pb225" class= -"pageref">225</a>, <a href="#pb290" class="pageref">290</a></p> -<p class="par">Visigoths, religion of, <a href="#pb143" class= -"pageref">143</a>, <a href="#pb161" class="pageref">161</a></p> -<p class="par">Vladimir, <a href="#pb171" class="pageref">171</a></p> -<p class="par">Voltaire, <a href="#pb282" class="pageref">282</a>, -<a href="#pb287" class="pageref">287</a>, <a href="#pb320" class= -"pageref">320</a></p> -<p class="par">Vulgate, the, <a href="#pb10" class="pageref">10</a></p> -<p class="par">Wafer, the consecrated, <a href="#pb25" class= -"pageref">25</a>, <a href="#pb190" class="pageref">190</a>, <a href= -"#pb191" class="pageref">191</a></p> -<p class="par">Waldenses, <a href="#pb201" class="pageref">201</a>, -<a href="#pb256" class="pageref">256</a></p> -<p class="par">Wallenstein, <a href="#pb261" class="pageref">261</a>, -<a href="#pb262" class="pageref">262</a></p> -<p class="par">War, Christianity and, <a href="#pb118" class= -"pageref">118</a>–27, <a href="#pb204" class="pageref">204</a>, -<a href="#pb258" class="pageref">258</a> <i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb267" -class="pageref">267</a>, <a href="#pb309" class="pageref">309</a>, -<a href="#pb313" class="pageref">313</a>. <i>See</i> Crusades</p> -<p class="par">Washington, <a href="#pb300" class="pageref">300</a></p> -<p class="par">Water in sacrament, <a href="#pb23" class= -"pageref">23</a></p> -<p class="par">Wazon of Liège, <a href="#pb201" class= -"pageref">201</a></p> -<p class="par">Wells, sacred, <a href="#pb16" class= -"pageref">16</a></p> -<p class="par">Wends, conversion of, <a href="#pb171" class= -"pageref">171</a></p> -<p class="par">Wesel, John of, <a href="#pb246" class= -"pageref">246</a>, <a href="#pb249" class="pageref">249</a></p> -<p class="par">Wessel, John, <a href="#pb246" class="pageref">246</a>, -<a href="#pb249" class="pageref">249</a></p> -<p class="par">Westphalia, Peace of, <a href="#pb261" class= -"pageref">261</a>–62</p> -<p class="par">Whittaker, T., <a href="#pb5" class="pageref">5</a> -<i>n.</i></p> -<p class="par">Wiclif, <a href="#pb203" class="pageref">203</a>, -<a href="#pb204" class="pageref">204</a>, <a href="#pb248" class= -"pageref">248</a></p> -<p class="par">Widow’s son, myth of, <a href="#pb38" class= -"pageref">38</a></p> -<p class="par">Widows in early Church, <a href="#pb71" class= -"pageref">71</a></p> -<p class="par">Wier, John, <a href="#pb270" class="pageref">270</a></p> -<p class="par">William of Occam, <a href="#pb229" class= -"pageref">229</a></p> -<p class="par">Wisdom, personification of, <a href="#pb39" class= -"pageref">39</a>, <a href="#pb79" class="pageref">79</a>, <a href= -"#pb94" class="pageref">94</a></p> -<p class="par">Witchcraft mania, <a href="#pb224" class= -"pageref">224</a>–47, <a href="#pb269" class="pageref">269</a> -<i>sq.</i>, <a href="#pb311" class="pageref">311</a></p> -<p class="par">Women and Christianity, <a href="#pb45" class= -"pageref">45</a>, <a href="#pb71" class="pageref">71</a>, <a href= -"#pb76" class="pageref">76</a>, <a href="#pb83" class="pageref">83</a>, -<a href="#pb206" class="pageref">206</a>, <a href="#pb209" class= -"pageref">209</a>, <a href="#pb212" class="pageref">212</a>, <a href= -"#pb269" class="pageref">269</a>, <a href="#pb296" class= -"pageref">296</a></p> -<p class="par">Word, the, <a href="#pb79" class="pageref">79</a>. -<i>See</i> Logos</p> -<p class="par">Xavier, <a href="#pb293" class="pageref">293</a></p> -<p class="par">Yahweh, <a href="#pb54" class="pageref">54</a>, <a href= -"#pb77" class="pageref">77</a>, <a href="#pb123" class= -"pageref">123</a></p> -<p class="par">Yeschu, <a href="#pb23" class="pageref">23</a></p> -<p class="par">Yischak, <a href="#pb23" class="pageref">23</a></p> -<p class="par">York, early Christians at, <a href="#pb82" class= -"pageref">82</a></p> -<p class="par">Zacharias, Pope, <a href="#pb176" class= -"pageref">176</a></p> -<p class="par">Zara, capture of, <a href="#pb220" class= -"pageref">220</a> <i>Zechariah</i>, Book of, <a href="#pb7" class= -"pageref">7</a></p> -<p class="par">Zeller, <a href="#pb298" class="pageref">298</a></p> -<p class="par">Zendavesta, <a href="#pb58" class="pageref">58</a></p> -<p class="par">Zeno, the emperor, <a href="#pb149" class= -"pageref">149</a></p> -<p class="par">Zenobia, <a href="#pb104" class="pageref">104</a></p> -<p class="par">Zeus, <a href="#pb37" class="pageref">37</a>, <a href= -"#pb56" class="pageref">56</a>, <a href="#pb102" class= -"pageref">102</a>, <a href="#pb187" class="pageref">187</a></p> -<p class="par">Zoa, the four, <a href="#pb76" class= -"pageref">76</a></p> -<p class="par">Zoroaster, <a href="#pb2" class="pageref">2</a></p> -<p class="par">Zulus, conquest of, <a href="#pb173" class= -"pageref">173</a></p> -<p class="par">Zurich, <a href="#pb251" class="pageref">251</a>, -<a href="#pb264" class="pageref">264</a>, <a href="#pb298" class= -"pageref">298</a></p> -<p class="par">Zwingli, <a href="#pb251" class="pageref">251</a>, -<a href="#pb264" class="pageref">264</a>, <a href="#pb266" class= -"pageref">266</a></p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 imprint"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first xd21e19456">PRINTED BY WATTS AND CO., -JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="div1 ads"><span class="pagenum">[<a href= -"#toc">Contents</a>]</span> -<div class="divBody"> -<p class="par first"><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</i></p> -<p class="par">ESSAYS TOWARDS A CRITICAL METHOD. (O. P.)</p> -<p class="par">NEW ESSAYS TOWARDS A CRITICAL METHOD.</p> -<p class="par">WINNOWINGS FROM WORDSWORTH.</p> -<p class="par">WALT WHITMAN: An Appreciation. (O. P.)</p> -<p class="par"><a class="pglink xd21e43" title= -"Link to Project Gutenberg ebook" href= -"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25535">MONTAIGNE AND SHAKESPEARE</a>. -(Second Edition, with additional Essays on cognate subjects.)</p> -<p class="par">BUCKLE AND HIS CRITICS: a Sociological Study.</p> -<p class="par">THE SAXON AND THE CELT: a Sociological Study.</p> -<p class="par">MODERN HUMANISTS: Essays on Carlyle, Mill, Emerson, -Arnold, Ruskin, and Spencer. (Fourth Edition.)</p> -<p class="par">THE FALLACY OF SAVING: a Study in Economics.</p> -<p class="par">THE EIGHT HOURS QUESTION: a Study in Economics. (Second -Edition.)</p> -<p class="par">THE DYNAMICS OF RELIGION: an Essay in English -Culture-History. (By “M. W. Wiseman.”) (O. P.)</p> -<p class="par"><a class="pglink xd21e43" title= -"Link to Project Gutenberg ebook" href= -"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51793">A SHORT HISTORY OF -FREETHOUGHT, Ancient and Modern.</a> (Second Edition: 2 vols.)</p> -<p class="par">PATRIOTISM AND EMPIRE. (Third Edition.) (O. P.)</p> -<p class="par">STUDIES IN RELIGIOUS FALLACY. (O. P.)</p> -<p class="par">WRECKING THE EMPIRE. (O. P.)</p> -<p class="par">CRITICISMS. 2 vols.</p> -<p class="par">TENNYSON AND BROWNING AS TEACHERS.</p> -<p class="par">ESSAYS IN ETHICS.</p> -<p class="par">ESSAYS IN SOCIOLOGY. 2 vols.</p> -<p class="par">LETTERS ON REASONING. (Second Edition.)</p> -<p class="par">DID SHAKESPEARE WRITE “TITUS -ANDRONICUS”?</p> -<p class="par">PIONEER HUMANISTS: Essays on Machiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes, -Spinoza, Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Gibbon, and Mary Wollstonecraft.</p> -<p class="par">TRADE AND TARIFFS.</p> -<p class="par">COURSES OF STUDY.</p> -<p class="par">CHAMBERLAIN: A STUDY.</p> -<p class="par"><a class="pglink xd21e43" title= -"Link to Project Gutenberg ebook" href= -"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45130">CHARLES BRADLAUGH.</a> By Mrs. -Bradlaugh Bonner. <a class="pglink xd21e43" title= -"Link to Project Gutenberg ebook" href= -"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45131">Part II.</a> by J. M. R.</p> -<p class="par">CHRISTIANITY AND MYTHOLOGY. (Second Edition.)</p> -<p class="par">PAGAN CHRISTS: Studies in Comparative Hierology. (Second -Edition, Revised and Expanded.)</p> -<p class="par">THE MEANING OF LIBERALISM.</p> -<p class="par"><a class="pglink xd21e43" title= -"Link to Project Gutenberg ebook" href= -"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39860">THE EVOLUTION OF STATES.</a> -(Revised and expanded edition of An Introduction to English -Politics.)</p> -<p class="par"><a class="pglink xd21e43" title= -"Link to Project Gutenberg ebook" href= -"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31941">RATIONALISM.</a></p> -<p class="par">THE BACONIAN HERESY.</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class="transcribernote"> -<h2 class="main">Colophon</h2> -<h3 class="main">Availability</h3> -<p class="par first">This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no -cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. 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These -links may not work for you.</p> -<h3 class="main">Corrections</h3> -<p>The following corrections have been applied to the text:</p> -<table class="correctiontable" summary= -"Overview of corrections applied to the text."> -<tr> -<th>Page</th> -<th>Source</th> -<th>Correction</th> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e250">v</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Not in source</i>]</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">36</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e794">vii</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Cosmio</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Cosmic</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e1722">46</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">civilisation</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">civilization</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e1792">53</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">mystae</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">mystæ</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e2690">151</a>, -<a class="pageref" href="#xd21e9916">343</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Not in source</i>]</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">,</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e2750">159</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Aesculapius</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Æsculapius</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e3136">201</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Liege</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Liège</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e3261">214</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">,</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">.</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e3268">215</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">slaveowners</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">slave-owners</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e3558">251</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">that</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">than</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e3565">252</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">canons</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">cantons</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e3671">267</a>, -<a class="pageref" href="#xd21e13547">346</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Lubeck</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Lübeck</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e4510">326</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Not in source</i>]</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">.</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e4788">329</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Ausfürliches</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Ausführliches</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e4917">330</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Not in source</i>]</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">)</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e5100">332</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Etudes</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Études</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e5107">332</a>, -<a class="pageref" href="#xd21e5111">332</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">L’Eglise</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">L’Église</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e9929">343</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">,</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Deleted</i>]</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e11422">344</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Abraschid</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Alraschid</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e15853">348</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Persephone</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Persephonê</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e16062">348</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Phoenician</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">Phœnician</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e16564">349</a></td> -<td class="width40 bottom">.</td> -<td class="width40 bottom">,</td> -</tr> -</table> -</div> -</div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's A Short History of Christianity, by J. 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