Part 15 (1/2)

SECTION IV.--ITS HISTORY.

This section does not pretend, within the short limits of some fifty pages, to give even a complete summary of Christian history. It proposes only to draw up an impeachment against Christianity from the facts of its history which occurred in the day of its power, from the time of Constantine, up to the time of the Reformation. If it be urged that Christianity was corrupt during this period, and ought not therefore to be judged by it, we can only reply that, corrupt or not, it is the only Christianity there was, and if only bad fruit is brought forth, it is fair to conclude that the tree which bears nothing else is also bad. If the bishops, and clergy, and missionaries were ignorant, sensual, tyrannical, and superst.i.tious, they are none the less the representatives of Christianity, and if these are not true Christians, _where are the true Christians_ from A.D. 324 to A.D. 1,500?

We propose, in this section, to practically condense the dark side of Mosheim's ”Ecclesiastical History,” as translated from the Latin by Dr.

A. Maclaine (ed. 1847), only adding, here and there, extracts from other writers; all extracts, therefore, except where otherwise specified, will be taken from this valuable history, a history which, perhaps from its size and dryness, is not nearly so much studied by Freethinkers as it should be; its special worth for our object is that Dr. Mosheim is a sincere Christian, and cannot, therefore, be supposed to strain any point unduly against the religion to which he himself belongs.

During the second and third centuries the Christians appear to have grown in power and influence, and their faith, made up out of many older creeds and forming a kind of eclectic religion, gradually spread throughout the Roman empire, and became a factor in political problems.

In the struggles between the opposing Roman emperors, A.D. 310-324, the weight of the Christian influence was thrown on the side of Constantine, his rivals being strongly opposed to Christianity; Maximin Galerius was a bitter persecutor, and his successor, Maximin, trod in his steps in A.D. 312, and 313, Maxentius was defeated by Constantine, and Maximin by Licinius, and in A.D. 312 Constantine and Licinius granted liberty of wors.h.i.+p to the Christians; in the following year, according to Mosheim, or in A.D. 314 according to Eusebius, a second edict was issued from Milan, by the two emperors, which granted ”to the Christians and to all, the free choice to follow that mode of wors.h.i.+p which they may wish ...

that no freedom at all shall be refused to Christians, to follow or to keep their observances or wors.h.i.+p; but that to each one power be granted to devote his mind to that wors.h.i.+p which he may think adapted to himself” (Eusebius, ”Eccles. Hist.” p. 431). Licinius, however, renewed the war against Constantine, who immediately embraced Christianity, thus securing to himself the sympathy and a.s.sistance of the faith which now for the first time saw its votary on the imperial throne of the world, and Licinius, by allying himself with Paganism, and persecuting the Christians, drove them entirely over to Constantine, and was finally defeated and dethroned, A.D. 324. From that date Christianity was supreme, and became the established religion of the State. Dr. Draper regards the conversion of Constantine from the point of view taken above. He says: ”It had now become evident that the Christians const.i.tuted a powerful party in the State, animated with indignation at the atrocities they had suffered, and determined to endure them no longer. After the abdication of Diocletian (A.D. 305), Constantine, one of the compet.i.tors for the purple, perceiving the advantages that would accrue to him from such a policy, put himself forth as the head of the Christian party. This gave him, in every part of the empire, men and women ready to encounter fire and sword in his behalf; it gave him unwavering adherents in every legion of the armies. In a decisive battle, near the Milvian bridge, victory crowned his schemes. The death of Maximin, and subsequently that of Licinius, removed all obstacles. He ascended the throne of the Caesars--the first Christian emperor. Place, profit, power--these were in view of whoever now joined the conquering sect. Crowds of worldly persons, who cared nothing about its religious ideas, became its warmest supporters. Pagans at heart, their influence was soon manifested in the Paganisation of Christianity that forthwith ensued. The emperor, no better than they, did nothing to check their proceedings. But he did not personally conform to the ceremonial requirements of the Church until the close of his evil life, A.D. 337”

(”History of the Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 39; ed.

1875). Constantine, in fact, was not baptised until a few days before his death.

The character of the first Christian emperor is not one which strikes us with admiration. As emperor he sank into ”a cruel and dissolute monarch, corrupted by his fortune, or raised by conquest above the necessity of dissimulation ... the old age of Constantine was disgraced by the opposite yet reconcilable vices of rapaciousness and prodigality”

(Gibbon's ”Decline and Fall,” vol. ii., p. 347). He was as effeminate as he was vicious. ”He is represented with false hair of various colours, laboriously arranged by the skilful artists of the time; a diadem of a new and more expensive fas.h.i.+on; a profusion of gems and pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a variegated flowing robe of silk, most curiously embroidered with flowers of gold.” To his other vices he added most bloodthirsty cruelty. He strangled Licinius, after defeating him; murdered his own son Crispus, his nephew Licinius, and his wife Fausta, together with a number of others. It must indeed have needed an efficacious baptism to wash away his crimes; and ”future tyrants were encouraged to believe that the innocent blood which they might shed in a long reign would instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration”

(Ibid, pp. 471, 472).

The wealth of the Christian churches was considerable during the third century, and the bishops and clergy lived in much pomp and luxury.

”Though several [bishops] yet continued to exhibit to the world ill.u.s.trious examples of primitive piety and Christian virtue, yet many were sunk in luxury and voluptuousness, puffed up with vanity, arrogance, and ambition, possessed with a spirit of contention and discord, and addicted to many other vices that cast an undeserved reproach upon the holy religion of which they were the unworthy professors and ministers. This is testified in such an ample manner by the repeated complaints of many of the most respectable writers of this age, that truth will not permit us to spread the veil which we should otherwise be desirous to cast over such enormities among an order so sacred.... The example of the bishops was ambitiously imitated by the presbyters, who, neglecting the sacred duties of their station, abandoned themselves to the indolence and delicacy of an effeminate and luxurious life. The deacons, beholding the presbyters deserting thus their functions, boldly usurped their rights and privileges; and the effects of a corrupt ambition were spread through every rank of the sacred order” (p. 73). During this century also we find much scandal caused by the pretended celibacy of the clergy, for the people--regarding celibacy as purer than marriage, and considering that ”they, who took wives, were of all others the most subject to the influence of malignant demons”--urged their clergy to remain celibate, ”and many of the sacred order, especially in Africa, consented to satisfy the desires of the people, and endeavoured to do this in such a manner as not to offer an entire violence to their own inclinations. For this purpose, they formed connections with those women who had made vows of perpetual chast.i.ty; and it was an ordinary thing for an ecclesiastic to admit one of these fair saints to the partic.i.p.ation of his bed, but still under the most solemn declarations, that nothing pa.s.sed in this commerce that was contrary to the rules of chast.i.ty and virtue” (p. 73).

Such was the morality of the clergy as early as the third century!

The doctrine of the Church in these primitive times was as confused as its morality was impure. In the first century (during which we really know nothing of the Christian Church), Dr. Mosheim, in dealing with ”divisions and heresies,” points to the false teachers mentioned in the New Testament, and the rise of the Gnostic heresy. Gnosticism (from [Greek: gnosis] knowledge), a system compounded of Christianity and Oriental philosophy, long divided the Church with the doctrines known as orthodox. The Gnostics believed in the existence of the two opposing principles of good and evil, the latter being by many considered as the creator of the world. They held that from the Supreme G.o.d emanated a number of aeons--generally put at thirty; (see throughout ”Irenaeus Against Heresies”)--and some maintained that one of these, Christ, descended on the man Jesus at his baptism, and left him again just before his pa.s.sion; others that Jesus had not a real, but only an apparent, body of flesh. The Gnostic philosophy had many forms and many interdivisions; but most of the ”heresies” of the first centuries were branches of this one tree: it rose into prominence, it is said, about the time of Adrian, and among its early leaders were Marcion, Basilides, and Valentinus. In addition to the various Gnostic theories, there was a deep mark of division between the Jewish and the Gentile Christians; the former developed into the sects, of Nazarenes and Ebionites, but were naturally never very powerful in the Church. In the second century, as the Christians become more visible, their dissensions are also more clearly marked; and it is important to observe that there is no period in the history of Christianity wherein those who laid claim to the name ”Christian” were agreed amongst themselves as to what Christianity was.

Gnosticism we see now divided into two main branches, Asiatic and Egyptian. The Asiatic believed that, in addition to the two principles of good and evil, there was a third being, a mixture of both, the Demiurgus, the creator, whose son Jesus was; they maintained that the body of Jesus was only apparent; they enforced the severest discipline against the body, which was evil, in that it was material; and marriage, flesh, and wine were forbidden. The Elcesaites were a judaising branch of this Asiatic Gnosticism; Saturninus of Antioch, Ardo of Syria, and Marcion of Pontus headed the movement, and after them Lucan, Severus, Blastes, Apelles, and Bardesanes formed new sects. Tatian (see ante, pp.

259, 260) had many followers called Tatianists, and in connection with him and his doctrines we hear of the Eucrat.i.tes, Hydroparastates (the water-drinkers), and Apotact.i.tes. The Eucrat.i.tes appear to have been in existence before Tatian professed Gnosticism, but he so increased their influence as to be sometimes regarded as their founder. The Egyptian Gnostics were less ascetic, and mostly favoured the idea that Jesus had a real body on which the aeon descended and joined himself thereunto.

They regarded him as born naturally of Joseph and Mary. Basilides, and Valentinus headed the Egyptians, and then we have as sub-divisions the Carpocratians, Ptolemaites, Secundians, Heracleonites, Marcosians, Adamites, Cainites, Sethites, Florinians, Ophites, Artemonites, and Hermogenists; in addition to these we have the Monarchians or Patripa.s.sians, who maintained that there was but one G.o.d, and that the Father suffered (whence this name) in the person of Christ. This long list may be closed with the Montanists, a sect joined by Tertullian (see his account of the orthodox after he became a Montanist, ante, p. 225); they held that Montanes, their founder, was the Paraclete promised by Christ, missioned to complete the Christian code; he forbade second marriages, the reception into the Church of those who had been excommunicated for grievous sin, and inculcated the sternest asceticism.

He opposed all learning as anti-Christian, a doctrine which was rapidly spreading among Christians, and which seems, indeed, to have been an integral part of the religion from its very beginning (Matt. xi. 25, 1 Cor. i. 26, 27). In the third century the heretic camp received a new light in the person of Manes, or Manichaeus, a Persian magus; he appears to have been a man of great learning, a physician, an astronomer, a philosopher. He taught the old Persian creed tinctured with Christianity, Christ being identical with Mithras (see ante, p. 362), and having come upon earth in an apparent body only to deliver mankind.

Manes was the paraclete sent to complete his teaching; the body was evil, and only by long struggle and mortification could man be delivered from it, and reach final blessedness. Those who desired to lead the highest life, _the elect_, abstained from flesh, eggs, milk, fish, wine, and all intoxicating drink, and remained in the strictest celibacy; they were to live on bread, herbs, pulse, and melons, and deny themselves every comfort and every gratification (see pp. 80-82). The Hieracites in Egypt were closely allied with the Manichaeans. The Novatians differed from the orthodox only in their refusal to receive again into the Church any who had committed grievous crimes, or who had lapsed during persecution. The Arabians denied the immortality of the soul, maintaining that it died with the body, and that body and soul together would be revivified by G.o.d. The controversies on the persons of the G.o.dhead now increased in intensity. Noctus of Smyrna maintained the doctrine of the Patripa.s.sians, that G.o.d was one and indivisible, and suffered to redeem mankind; Sabellius also taught that G.o.d was one, but that Jesus was a man, to whom was united a ”certain energy only, proceeding from the Supreme Parent” (p. 83). He also denied the separate personality of the Holy Ghost. Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, taught a cognate doctrine, and founded the sect of the Paulians or Paulianists, and was consequently degraded from his office. Thus we see that the history of the Church, before it came to power, is a ma.s.s of quarrels and divisions, varied by ignorance and licentiousness. If we exclude Origen, whose writings contain much that is valuable, the works produced by Christian writers in these centuries might be thrown into the sea, and the world would be none the poorer for the loss.

CENTURY IV.

Constantine attained undisputed and sole authority A.D. 324, and in the year 325 he summoned the first general council, that of Nicea, or Nice, which condemned the errors of Arius, and declared Christ to be of the same substance as the Father. This council has given its name to the ”Nicene Creed,” although that creed, as now recited, differs somewhat from the creed issued at Nice, and received its present form at the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381. During the reign of Constantine, the Church grew swiftly in power and influence, a growth much aided by the penal laws pa.s.sed against Paganism. The moment Christianity was able to seize the sword, it wielded it remorselessly, and cut its way to supremacy in the Roman world. Bribes and penalties shared together in the work of conversion. ”The hopes of wealth and honours, the example of an emperor, his exhortations, his irresistible smiles, diffused conviction among the venal and obsequious crowds which usually fill the apartments of a palace. The cities, which signalised a forward zeal by the voluntary destruction of their temples, were distinguished by munic.i.p.al privileges and rewarded with popular donatives; and the new capital of the East gloried in the singular advantage that Constantinople was never profaned by the wors.h.i.+p of idols. As the lower ranks of society are governed by imitation, the conversion of those who possessed any eminence of birth, of power, or of riches, was soon followed by dependent mult.i.tudes. The salvation of the common people was purchased at an easy rate, if it be true, that, in one year, twelve thousand men were baptised at Rome, besides a proportionable number of women and children; and that a white garment, with twenty pieces of gold, had been promised by the emperor to every convert” (Gibbon's ”Decline and Fall,” vol. ii. pp. 472, 473). With Constantine began the ruinous system of dowering the Church with State funds. The emperor directed the treasurers of the province of Carthage to pay over to the bishop of that district 18,000 sterling, and to honour his further drafts. Constantine also gave his subjects permission to bequeath their fortunes to the Church, and scattered public money among the bishops with a lavish hand. The three sons of Constantine followed in his steps, ”continuing to abrogate and efface the ancient superst.i.tions of the Romans, and other idolatrous nations, and to accelerate the progress of the Christian religion throughout the empire. This zeal was no doubt, laudable; its end was excellent; but, in the means used to accomplish it, there were many things worthy of blame” (p. 88). Julian succeded to part of the empire in A.D. 360, and to sole authority in A.D. 361. He was educated as a Christian, but reverted to philosophic Paganism, and during his short reign he revoked the special privileges granted to Christianity, and placed all creeds on the most perfect civil equality.

Julian's dislike of Christianity, and his philosophic writings directed against it, have gained for him, from Christian writers, the t.i.tle of ”the Apostate.” The emperors who succeeded were, however, all Christian, and used their best endeavours to destroy Paganism. Christianity spread apace; ”mult.i.tudes were drawn into the profession of Christianity, not by the power of conviction and argument, but by the prospect of gain, and the fear of punishment” (p. 102). ”The zeal and diligence with which Constantine and his successors exerted themselves in the cause of Christianity, and in extending the limits of the Church, prevent our surprise at the number of barbarous and uncivilised nations, which received the Gospel” (p. 90); and Dr. Mosheim admits that: ”There is no doubt but that the victories of Constantine the Great, the fear of punishment, and the desire of pleasing this mighty conqueror and his imperial successors, were the weighty arguments that moved whole nations, as well as particular persons, to embrace Christianity” (p.

91). Fraud, as well as force and favour, lent its aid to the progress of ”the Gospel.” We hear of the ”imprudent methods employed to allure the different nations to embrace the Gospel” (p. 98): ”disgraceful” would be a fitter term whereby to designate them, for Dr. Mosheim speaks of ”the endless frauds of those odious impostors, who were so far dest.i.tute of all principles, as to enrich themselves by the ignorance and errors of the people. Rumours were artfully spread abroad of prodigies and miracles to be seen in certain places (a trick often practised by the heathen priests), and the design of these reports was to draw the populace, in mult.i.tudes, to these places, and to impose upon their credulity ... Nor was this all; certain tombs were falsely given out for the sepulchres of saints and confessors. The list of the saints was augmented by fict.i.tious names, and even robbers were converted into martyrs. Some buried the bones of dead men in certain retired places, and then affirmed that they were divinely admonished, by a dream, that the body of some friend of G.o.d lay there. Many, especially of the monks, travelled through the different provinces; and not only sold, with most frontless impudence, their fict.i.tious relics, but also deceived the eyes of the mult.i.tude with ludicrous combats with evil spirits or genii. A whole volume would be requisite to contain an enumeration of the various frauds which artful knaves practised, with success, to delude the ignorant, when true religion was almost entirely superseded by horrid superst.i.tion” (p. 98). When to all these weapons we add the forgeries everywhere circulated (see ante, pp. 240-243), we can understand how rapidly Christianity spread, and how ”the faithful” were rendered pliable to those whose interests lay in deceiving them. During this century flourished some of the greatest fathers of the Church, pre-eminent among whom we note Ambrose, of Milan, Augustine, of Hippo, and the great ecclesiastical doctor, Jerome. Already, in this century, we find clear traces of the supremacy of the bishop of Rome, and ”when a new pontiff was to be elected by the suffrages of the presbyters and the people, the city of Rome was generally agitated with dissensions, tumults, and cabals, whose consequences were often deplorable and fatal”

(p. 94). By a decree of the Council of Constantinople, the bishop of that city was given precedence next after the Roman prelate, and the jealousy which arose between the bishops of the two imperial cities fomented the disputes which ended, finally, in the separation of the Eastern and Western Churches. Of the officers of the Church in this century we read that: ”The bishops, on the one hand, contended with each other, in the most scandalous manner, concerning the extent of their respective jurisdictions, while, on the other, they trampled upon the rights of the people, violated the privileges of the inferior ministers, and imitated, in their conduct, and in their manner of living, the arrogance, voluptuousness, and luxury of magistrates and princes” (pp.

95, 96).

In this century is the first instance of the burning alive of a heretic, and it was Spain who lighted that first pile. Theodosius, of all the emperors of this age, was the bitterest persecutor of the heretic sects.

”The orthodox emperor considered every heretic as a rebel against the supreme powers of heaven and of earth; and each of those powers might exercise their peculiar jurisdiction over the soul and body of the guilty.... In the s.p.a.ce of fifteen years [A.D. 380-394], he promulgated at least fifteen severe edicts against the heretics; more especially against those who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity; and to deprive them of every hope of escape, he sternly enacted, that if any laws or rescripts should be alleged in their favour, the judges should consider them as the illegal productions either of fraud or forgery.... The heretical teachers ... were exposed to the heavy penalties of exile and confiscation, if they presumed to preach the doctrine, or to practise the rites of their _accursed_ sects.... Their religious meetings, whether public or secret, by day or by night, in cities or in the country, were equally proscribed by the edicts of Theodosius: and the building or ground, which had been used for that illegal purpose, was forfeited to the imperial domain. It was supposed, that the error of the heretics could proceed only from the obstinate temper of their minds; and that such a temper was a fit object of censure and punishment....

The sectaries were gradually disqualified for the possession of honourable or lucrative employments; and Theodosius was satisfied with his own justice, when he decreed, that as the Eunonians distinguished the nature of the Son from that of the Father, they should be incapable of making their wills, or of receiving any advantages from testamentary donations” (Gibbon's ”Decline and Fall,” vol. iii. pp. 412, 413).

One important event of this century must not be omitted, the dispersion of the great Alexandrine library, collected by the Ptolemies. In the siege of Alexandria by Julius Caesar, the Philadelphian library in the museum, containing some 400,000 volumes, had been burned; but there still remained the ”daughter library” in the Serapion, containing about 300,000 books. During the episcopate of Theophilus, predecessor of Cyril, a riot took place between the Christians and the Pagans, and the latter ”held the Serapion as their head-quarters. Such were the disorder and bloodshed that the emperor had to interfere. He despatched a rescript to Alexandria, enjoining the bishop, Theophilus, to destroy the Serapion; and the great library, which had been collected by the Ptolemies, and had escaped the fire of Julius Caesar, was by that fanatic dispersed” (”Conflict of Religion and Science,” p. 54), A.D. 389. To Christian bigotry it is that we owe the loss of these rich treasures of antiquity.

Heresies grew and strengthened during this fourth century. Chief leader in the heretic camp was Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria; he a.s.serted that the Son, although begotten of the Father before the creation of aught else, was not ”of the same substance” as the Father, but only ”of like substance;” a vast number of the Christians embraced his definition, and thus began the long struggle between the Arians and the Catholics. Arius also ”took the ground that there was a time when, from the very nature of sons.h.i.+p, the Son did not exist, and a time at which he commenced to be, a.s.serting that it is the necessary condition of the filial relation that a father must be older than his son. But this a.s.sertion evidently denied the co-eternity of the three persons of the Trinity; it suggested a subordination or inequality among them, and indeed implied a time when the Trinity did not exist. Hereupon the bishop, who had been the successful compet.i.tor against Arius [for the episcopate], displayed his rhetorical powers in public debates on the question, and, the strife spreading, the Jews and Pagans, who formed a very large portion of the population of Alexandria, amused themselves with theatrical representations of the contest on the stage--the point of their burlesques being the equality of age of the Father and his Son”