Part 27 (1/2)
[163] This estimate is too liberal. 1,500,00 is probably nearer the truth. See Friedlaender, Sittengeschichte Roms, i. 25.--ED.
[164] Cicero describes this juridical comedy which was still in force in his time.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY
=The Christ.=--He whom the Jews were expecting as their liberator and king, the Messiah, appeared in Galilee, a small province of the North, hardly regarded as Jewish, and in a humble family of carpenters. He was called Jesus, but his Greek disciples called him the Christ (the anointed), that is to say, the king consecrated by the holy oil. He was also called the Master, the Lord, and the Saviour. The religion that he came to found is that we now possess. We all know his life: it is the model of every Christian. We know his instructions by heart; they form our moral law. It is sufficient, then, to indicate what new doctrines he disseminated in the world.
=Charity.=--Before all, Christ commended love. ”Thou shalt love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart and with all thy mind and thy neighbor as thyself.... On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” The first duty is to love others and to benefit them. When G.o.d will judge men, he will set on his right hand those who have fed the hungry, given drink to those who were thirsty, and have clad those that were naked. To those who would follow him the Christ said at the beginning: ”Go, ... sell all that ye have and give to the poor.”
For the ancients the good man was the n.o.ble, the rich, the brave.
Since the time of Christ the word has changed its sense: the good man is he who loves others. Doing good is loving others and seeking to be of service to them. Charity (the Latin name of love) from that time has been the cardinal virtue. Charitable becomes synonymous with beneficent. To the old doctrine of vengeance the Christ formally opposes his doctrine of charity. ”Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you ...
whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.... Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute you, ... that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.” He himself on the cross prayed for his executioners, ”Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
=Equality.=--The Christ loved all men; he died not for one people only, but for all humanity. He never made a difference between men; all are equal before G.o.d. The ancient religions, even the Jewish, were religions of peoples who kept them with jealous care, as a treasure, without wis.h.i.+ng to communicate them to other peoples. Christ said to his disciples, ”Go, and teach all nations.” And the apostle Paul thus formulated the doctrine of Christian equality: ”There is neither Greek nor Jew, circ.u.mcision nor uncirc.u.mcision, barbarian, bond nor free.”
Two centuries later Tertullian, a Christian writer, said, ”The world is a republic, the common land of the human race.”
=Poverty and Humility.=--The ancients thought that riches enn.o.bled a man and they regarded pride as a worthy sentiment. ”Blessed are the poor,” said Christ, ”for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” He that would not renounce all that he had could not be his disciple. He himself went from city to city, possessing nothing, and when his disciples were preoccupied with the future, he said, ”Be not anxious for what ye shall eat, nor for what ye shall put on. Behold the birds of the heaven, they sow not neither do they reap, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.”
The Christian was to disdain riches, and more yet, worldly honors. One day when his disciples were disputing who should have the highest rank in heaven, he said, ”He that is greatest among you shall be your servant.” ”Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” Till our day the successor of Saint Peter calls himself ”Servant of the servants of G.o.d.” Christ drew to himself by preference the poor, the sick, women, children,--in a word, the weak and the helpless. He took all his disciples from among the populace and bade them be ”meek and lowly of heart.”
=The Kingdom of G.o.d.=--Christ said that he had come to the earth to found the kingdom of G.o.d. His enemies believed that he wished to be a king, and when he was crucified, they placed this inscription on his cross, ”Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews.” This was a gross mistake. Christ himself had declared, ”My kingdom is not of this world.” He did not come to overturn governments nor to reform society. To him who asked if he should pay the Roman tax, he replied, ”Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to G.o.d the things that are G.o.d's.” And so the Christian accepted what he found established and himself worked to perfect it, not to remodel society.
To make himself pleasing to G.o.d and worthy of his kingdom it was not necessary to offer him sacrifices or to observe minute formulas as the pagans did: ”True wors.h.i.+ppers shall wors.h.i.+p the Father in spirit and truth.” Their moral law is contained in this word of Christ: ”Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”
THE FIRST CENTURIES OF THE CHURCH
=Disciples and Apostles.=--The twelve disciples who a.s.sociated with Christ received from him the mission to preach his doctrine to all peoples. From that time they were called Apostles. The majority of them lived in Jerusalem and preached in Judaea; the first Christians were still Jews. It was Saul, a new convert, who carried Christianity to the other peoples of the Orient. Paul (for he took this name) spent his life visiting the Greek cities of Asia, Greece, and Macedonia, inviting to the new religion not only the Jews, but also and especially the Gentiles: ”You were once without Christ,” said he to them, ”strangers to the covenant and to the promises; but you have been brought nigh by the blood of Christ, for it is he who of two peoples hath made both one.” From this time it was no longer necessary to be a Jew if one would become a Christian. The other nations, disregarded by the law of Moses, are brought near by the law of Christ. This fusion was the work of St. Paul, also called the Apostle to the Gentiles.
The religion of Christ spread very slowly, as he himself had announced: ”The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard-seed ...
which is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs ... and the birds of the air lodge under its branches.”
=The Church.=--In every city where Christians were found they a.s.sembled to pray together, to sing the praises of G.o.d, and to celebrate the mystery of the Lord's Supper. Their meeting was called Ecclesia (a.s.sembly). Usually the Christians of the same a.s.sembly regarded themselves as brothers; they contributed of their property to support the widows, the poor, and the sick. The most eminent directed the community and celebrated the religious ceremonies. These were the Priests (their name signifies ”elders”). Others were charged with the administration of the goods of the community, and were called Deacons (servants). Besides these officers, there was in each city a supreme head--the Bishop (overseer).
Later the functions of the church became so exacting that the body of Christians was divided into two cla.s.ses of people: the clergy, who were the officials of the community; the rest, the faithful, who were termed the laity.
Each city had its independent church; thus they spoke of the church of Antioch, of Corinth, of Rome; and yet they all formed but one church, the church of Christ, in which all were united in one faith. The universal or Catholic faith was regarded as the only correct body of belief; all conflicting opinions (the heresies) were condemned as errors.
=The Sacred Books.=--The sacred scripture of the Jews, the Old Testament, remained sacred for the Christians, but they had other sacred books which the church had brought into one structure (the New Testament). The four Gospels recount the life of Christ and the ”good news” of salvation which he brought. The Acts of the Apostles describes how the gospel was disseminated in the world. The Epistles are the letters addressed by the apostles to the Christians of the first century. The Apocalypse (Revelation) is the revelation made through St. John to the seven churches of Asia. Many other pseudo-sacred books were current among the Christians, but the church has rejected all of these, and has termed them apocryphal.
=The Persecutions.=--The Christian religion was persecuted from its birth. Its first enemies were the Jews, who forced the Roman governor of Judaea to crucify Christ; who stoned St. Stephen, the first martyr, and so set themselves against St. Paul that they almost compa.s.sed his death.
Then came the persecution by the Pagans. The Romans tolerated all the religions of the East because the devotees of Osiris, of Mithra, and of the Good G.o.ddess recognized at the same time the Roman G.o.ds. But the Christians, wors.h.i.+ppers of the living G.o.d, scorned the petty divinities of antiquity. More serious still in the eyes of the Romans, they refused to adore the emperor as a G.o.d and to burn incense on the altar of the G.o.ddess Roma. Several emperors promulgated edicts against the Christians, bidding the governors arrest them and put them to death. A letter of Pliny the Younger, then governor in Asia, to the emperor Trajan, shows the procedure against them. ”Up to this time, regarding the people who have been denounced as Christians, I have always operated as follows: I asked them if they were Christians; if they confessed it, I put the question to them a second time, and then a third time, threatening them with the penalty of death. When they persisted, I had them put to death, convinced that, whatever their fault that they avowed, their disobedience and their resolute obstinacy merited punishment. Many who have been denounced in anonymous writings have denied that they were Christians, have repeated a prayer that I p.r.o.nounced before them, have offered wine and incense to your statue, which I had set forth for this purpose together with the statues of the G.o.ds, and have even reviled the name of Christ. All these are things which it is not possible to compel any true Christians to do. Others have confessed that they were Christians, but they affirm that their crime and their error consisted only in a.s.sembling on certain days before sunrise to adore Christ as G.o.d, to sing together in his honor, and to bind themselves by oath to commit no crime, to perpetrate no theft, murder, adultery, nor to violate their word. I have believed it necessary in order to secure the truth to put to the torture two female slaves whom they called deaconesses; but I have discovered only an absurd and exaggerated superst.i.tion.”