DID THERE EXIST AT THE EPOCH WHEN CHRISTIANITY APPEARED ANY OTHER
PRINCIPLE OF REGENERATION?
In what condition did Christianity find the world? This is a question
which ought to fix all our attention, if we wish to appreciate
correctly the blessings conferred by that divine religion on
individuals and on society, if we are desirous of knowing the real
character of Christian civilization. Certainly at the time when
Christianity appeared, society presented a dark picture. Covered with
fine appearances, but infected to the heart with a mortal malady,
it presented an image of the most repugnant corruption, veiled by
a brilliant garb of ostentation and opulence. Morality was without
reality, manners without modesty, the passions without restraint, laws
without authority, and religion without God. Ideas were at the mercy
of prejudices, of religious fanaticism, and philosophical subtilties.
Man was a profound mystery to himself; he did not know how to estimate
his own dignity, for he reduced it to the level of brutes; and when
he attempted to exaggerate its importance, he did not know how to
confine it within the limits marked out by reason and nature: and it
is well worthy of observation, that while a great part of the human
race groaned in the most abject servitude, heroes, and even the most
abominable monsters, were elevated to the rank of gods.
Such elements must, sooner or later, have produced social dissolution.
Even if the violent irruption of the barbarians had not taken place,
society must have been overturned sooner or later, for it did not
possess a fertile idea, a consoling thought, or a beam of hope, to
preserve it from ruin.
Idolatry had lost its strength; it was an expedient exhausted by time
and by the gross abuse which the passions had made of it. Its fragile
tissue once exposed to the dissolving influence of philosophical
observation, idolatry was entirely disgraced; and if the rooted force
of habit still exercised a mechanical influence on the minds of
men, that influence was neither capable of re-establishing harmony
in society, nor of producing that fiery enthusiasm which inspires
great actions--enthusiasm which in virgin hearts may be excited by
superstition the most irrational and absurd. To judge of them by the
relaxation of morals, by the enervated weakness of character, by the
effeminate luxury, by the complete abandonment to the most repulsive
amusements and the most shameful pleasures, it is clear that religious
ideas no longer possessed the majesty of the heroic age; no longer
efficacious, they only exerted on men's minds a feeble influence, while
they served in a lamentable manner as instruments of dissolution. Now
it was impossible for it to be otherwise: nations who had obtained
the high degree of cultivation of the Greeks and Romans; nations
who had heard their great sages dispute on the grand questions of
divinity and man, could not continue in the state of simplicity which
was necessary to believe with good faith the intolerable absurdities
of which Paganism is full; and whatever may have been the disposition
of mind among the ignorant portion of the people, assuredly those who
were raised above the common standard did not believe them--those
who listened to philosophers as enlightened as Cicero, and who daily
enjoyed the malicious railleries of their satirical poets.
If religion was impotent, was there not another means, viz. knowledge?
Before we examine what was to be hoped from this, it is necessary to
observe, that knowledge never founded a society, nor was it ever able
to restore one that had lost its balance. In looking over the history
of ancient times, we find at the head of some nations eminent men
who, thanks to the magic influence which they exercised over others,
dictated laws, corrected abuses, rectified ideas, reformed morals, and
established a government on wise principles; thus securing, in a more
or less satisfactory manner, the happiness and prosperity of those
who were confided to their care. But we should be much mistaken if we
imagined that these men proceeded according to what we call scientific
combinations. Generally simple and rude, they acted according to the
impulses of their generous hearts, only guided by the wisdom and good
sense of the father of a family in the management of his domestic
affairs: never did these men adopt for their rule the wretched
subtilties which we call theories, the crude mass of ideas which we
disguise under the pompous name of science. Were the most distinguished
days of Greece those of Plato and Aristotle? The proud Romans, who
conquered the world, certainly had not the extent and variety of
knowledge of the Augustan age; and yet who would exchange the times or
the men?
Modern times also can show important evidences of the sterility of
science in creating social institutions; which is the more evident as
the practical effects of the natural sciences are the more visible. It
seems that in the latter sciences man has a power which he has not in
the former; although, when the matter is fully examined, the difference
does not appear so great as at the first view.
Let us briefly compare their respective results.
When man seeks to apply the knowledge which he has acquired of the
great laws of nature, he finds himself compelled to pay respect to
her; as, whatever might be his wishes, his weak arm could not cause
any great _bouleversement_, he is obliged to make his attempts limited
in extent, and the desire of success induces him to act in conformity
with the laws which govern the bodies he has to do with. It is quite
otherwise with the application made of the social sciences. There man
is able to act directly and immediately on society itself, on its
eternal foundations; he does not consider himself necessarily bound
to make his attempts on a small scale, or to respect the eternal laws
of society; he is able, on the contrary, to imagine those laws as
he pleases, indulge in as many subtilties as he thinks proper, and
bring about disasters which humanity laments. Let us remember the
extravagances which have found favor, with respect to nature, in the
schools of philosophy, ancient and modern, and we shall see what would
have become of the admirable machine of the universe, if philosophers
had had full power over it. Descartes said, "Give me matter and motion,
and I will form a world!" He could not derange an atom in the system of
the universe. Rousseau, in his turn, dreamed of placing society on a
new basis, and he upset the social state. It must not be forgotten that
science, properly so called, has little power in the organization of
society: this ought to be remembered in modern times, when it boasts so
much of its pretended fertility. It attributes to its own labors what
is the fruit of the lapse of ages, of the instinctive law of nations,
and sometimes of the inspirations of genius; now neither this instinct
of nations nor genius at all resembles science.
But without pushing any further these general considerations, which
are, nevertheless, very useful in leading us to a knowledge of man,
what could be hoped from the false light of science which was preserved
in the ruins of the ancient schools at the time we are speaking of?
However limited the knowledge of the ancient philosophers, even the
most distinguished, may have been on these subjects, we must allow that
the names of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle command some degree of
respect, and that amid their errors and mistakes they give us thoughts
which are really worthy of their lofty genius. But when Christianity
appeared, the germs of knowledge planted by them had been destroyed;
dreams had taken the place of high and fruitful thoughts, the love of
disputation had replaced that of wisdom, sophistry and subtilties had
been substituted for mature judgment and severe reasoning. The ancient
schools had been upset, others as sterile as they were strange had
been formed out of their ruins; on all sides there appeared a swarm
of sophists like the impure insects which announce the corruption
of a dead body. The Church has preserved for us a very valuable
means of judging of the science of that time, in the history of the
early heresies. Without speaking of what therein deserves all our
indignation, as, for example, their profound immorality, can we find
any thing more empty, absurd, or pitiable?[14]
The Roman legislation, so praiseworthy for its justice and equity, its
wisdom and prudence, and much as it deserves to be regarded as one of
the most precious ornaments of ancient civilization, was yet incapable
of preventing the dissolution with which society was threatened.
Never did it owe its safety to jurisconsults; so great a work is
beyond the sphere of action of jurisprudence. Let us suppose the laws
as perfect as possible, jurisprudence carried to the highest point,
jurisconsults animated by the purest feelings and guided by the most
honest intentions, what would all this avail if the heart of society is
corrupt, if moral principles have lost their force, if manners are in
continual opposition with laws? Let us consider the picture of Roman
manners such as their own historians have painted them; we shall not
find even a reflection of the equity, justice, and good sense which
made the Roman laws deserve the glorious name of written reason.
To give a proof of impartiality, I purposely omit the blemishes from
which the Roman law was certainly not exempt, for I do not desire
to be accused of wishing to lower every thing which is not the work
of Christianity. Yet I must not pass over in silence the important
fact, that it is by no means true that Christianity had no share in
perfecting the jurisprudence of Rome; I do not mean merely during the
period of the Christian emperors, which does not admit of a doubt, but
even at a prior period. It is certain that some time before the coming
of Jesus Christ the number of the Roman laws was very considerable,
and that their study and arrangement already occupied the attention of
many of the most illustrious men. We know from Suetonius (_In Cæsar._
c. 44) that Julius Cæsar had undertaken the extremely useful task of
condensing into a small number of books those which were the most
select and necessary among the immense collection of laws; a similar
idea occurred to Cicero, who wrote a book on the methodical digest of
the civil law (_de jure civili in arte redigendo_), as Aulus Gellius
attests. (_Noct. Att._ lib. i. c. 22.) According to Tacitus, this work
also occupied the attention of the Emperor Augustus. Certainly these
projects show that legislation was not in its infancy; but it is not
the less true that the Roman law, as we possess it, is in great part
the product of later ages. Many of the most famous jurists, whose
opinions form a considerable part of the law, lived long after the
coming of Jesus Christ. As to the constitutions of the emperors, their
very names remind us of the time when they were digested.
These facts being established, I shall observe that it does not follow
that because the emperors and jurists were pagans, the Christian
ideas had no influence on their works. The number of Christians was
immense in all places; the cruelty alone with which they had been
persecuted, the heroic courage which they had displayed in the face
of torments and death, must have drawn upon them the attention of the
whole world; and it is impossible that this should not have excited,
among men of reflection, curiosity enough to examine what this new
religion taught its proselytes. The reading of the apologies for
Christianity already written in the first ages with so much force of
reasoning and eloquence, the works of various kinds published by the
early Fathers, the homilies of Bishops to their people, contain so
much wisdom, breathe such a love for truth and justice, and proclaim
so loudly the eternal principles of morality, that it was impossible
for their influence not to be felt even by those who condemned the
religion of Christ. When doctrines having for their object the greatest
questions which affect man are spread everywhere, propagated with
fervent zeal, received with love by a considerable number of disciples,
and maintained by the talent and knowledge of illustrious men, these
doctrines make a profound impression in all directions, and affect
even those who warmly combat them. Their influence in this case is
imperceptible, but it is not the less true and real. They act like the
exhalations which impregnate the atmosphere; with the air we inhale
sometimes death, and sometimes a salutary odor which purifies and
strengthens us.
Such must necessarily have been the case with a doctrine which was
preached in so extraordinary a manner, propagated with so much
rapidity, and the truth of which, sealed by torrents of blood, was
defended by writers such as Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Irenæus,
and Tertullian. The profound wisdom, the ravishing beauty of these
doctrines, explained by the Christian doctors, must have called
attention to the sources whence they flowed; it was natural that
curiosity thus excited should put the holy Scriptures into the hands
of many philosophers and jurists. Would it be strange if Epictetus had
imbibed some of the doctrines of the Sermon on the Mount, and if the
oracles of jurisprudence had imperceptibly received the inspiration
of a religion whose power, spreading in a wonderful manner, took
possession of all ranks of society? Burning zeal for truth and justice,
the spirit of brotherhood, grand ideas of the dignity of man, the
continued themes of Christian instruction, could not remain confined
among the children of the Church. More or less rapidly they penetrated
all classes; and when, by the conversion of Constantine, they acquired
political influence and imperial authority, it was only the repetition
of an ordinary phenomenon; when a system has become very powerful
in the social order, it ends by exerting an empire, or at least an
influence, in the political.
I leave these observations to the judgment of thinking men with perfect
confidence; I am sure that if they do not adopt them, at least they
will not consider them unworthy of reflection. We live at a time
fruitful in great events, and when important revolutions have taken
place; therefore we are better able to understand the immense effects
of indirect and slow influences, the powerful ascendency of ideas, and
the irresistible force with which doctrines work their way.
To this want of vital principles capable of regenerating society,
to all those elements of dissolution which society contained within
itself, was joined another evil of no slight importance,--the vice
of its political organization. The world being under the yoke of
Rome, hundreds of nations differing in manners and customs were
heaped together in confusion, like spoils on the field of battle,
and constrained to form a factitious body, like trophies placed upon
a spear. The unity of the government being violent, could not be
advantageous; and moreover, as it was despotic, from the emperor down
to the lowest proconsul, it will be seen that it could not produce
any other result than the debasement and degradation of nations, and
that it was impossible for them to display that elevation and energy
of character which are the precious fruit of a feeling of self-dignity
and love for national independence. If Rome had preserved her ancient
manners, if she had retained in her bosom warriors as celebrated for
the simplicity and austerity of their lives as for the renown of their
victories, some of the qualities of the conquerors might have been
communicated to the conquered, as a young and robust heart reanimates
with its vigor a body attenuated by disease. Unfortunately such was not
the case. The Fabiuses, the Camilluses, the Scipios, would not have
acknowledged their unworthy posterity; Rome, the mistress of the world,
like a slave, was trodden under the feet of monsters who mounted to the
throne by perjury and violence, stained their sceptres with corruption
and cruelty, and fell by the hands of assassins. The authority of the
Senate and people had disappeared; only vain imitations of them were
left, _vestigia morientis libertatis_, as Tacitus calls them, vestiges
of expiring liberty; and this royal people, who formerly disposed of
kingdoms, consulships, legions, and all, then thought only of two
things, food and games,
"Qui dabat olim
Imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se
Continet, atque duas tantum res anxius optat,
Panem et Circenses."--JUVENAL, _Satire_ X.
At length, in the plenitude of time Christianity appeared; and without
announcing any change in political forms, without intermeddling in
the temporal and earthly, it brought to mankind a twofold salvation,
by calling them to the path of eternal felicity, but at the same time
bountifully supplying them with the only means of preservation from
social dissolution, the germ of a regeneration slow and pacific,
but grand, immense, and lasting, and secure from the revolutions of
ages; and this preservative against social dissolution, this germ
of invaluable improvements, was a pure and lofty doctrine, diffused
among all mankind, without exception of age, sex, and condition, as
the rain which falls like a mild dew on an arid and thirsty soil. No
religion has ever equalled Christianity in knowledge of the hidden
means of influencing man; none has ever, when doing so, paid so high
a compliment to his dignity; and Christianity has always adopted the
principle, that the first step in gaining possession of the whole man
is that of gaining his mind; and that it is necessary, in order either
to destroy evil or to effect good, to adopt intellectual means: thereby
it has given a mortal blow to the systems of violence which prevailed
before its existence; it has proclaimed the wholesome truth, that in
influencing men, the weakest and most unworthy method is force; a
fruitful and beneficial truth, which opened to humanity a new and happy
future. Only since the Christian era do we find the lessons of the
sublimest philosophy taught to all classes of the people, at all times
and in all places. The loftiest truths relating to God and man, the
rules of the purest morality, are not communicated to a chosen number
of disciples in hidden and mysterious instructions; the philosophy of
Christianity has been bolder; it has ventured to reveal to man the
whole naked truth, and that in public, with a loud voice, and that
generous boldness which is the inseparable companion of the truth.
"That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light; and that
which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetop." (Matt. x. 27.)
As soon as Christianity and Paganism met face to face, the superiority
of the former was rendered palpable, not only by its doctrines
themselves, but by the manner in which it propagated them. It might
easily be imagined that a religion so wise and pure in its teachings,
and which, in propagating them, addressed itself directly to the mind
and heart, must quickly drive from its usurped dominion the religion
of imposture and falsehood. And, indeed, what did Paganism do for
the good of man? What moral truths did it teach? How did it check
the corruption of manners? "As to morals," says St. Augustine, "why
have not the gods chosen to take care of those of their adorers, and
prevent their irregularities? As to the true God, it is with justice
that He has neglected those who did not serve Him. But whence comes
it that those gods, the prohibition of whose worship is complained of
by ungrateful men, have not established laws to lead their adorers to
virtue? Was it not reasonable that, as men undertook their mysteries
and sacrifices, the gods, on their side, should undertake to regulate
the manners and actions of men? It is replied, that no one is wicked
but because he wishes to be so. Who doubts this? but the gods ought not
on that account to conceal from their worshippers precepts that might
serve to make them practise virtue. They were, on the contrary, under
the obligation of publishing those precepts aloud, of admonishing and
rebuking sinners by their prophets; of publicly threatening punishment
to those who did evil, and promising rewards to those who did well.
Was there ever heard, in the temples of the gods, a loud and generous
voice teaching any thing of the kind?" (_De Civit._ lib. ii. c. 4.)
The holy doctor afterwards paints a dark picture of the infamies and
abominations which were committed in the spectacles and sacred games
celebrated in honor of the gods--games and shows at which he had
himself assisted in his youth; he continues thus: "Thence it comes
that these divinities have taken no care to regulate the morals of the
cities and nations who adore them, or to avert by their threats those
dreadful evils which injure not only fields and vineyards, houses and
properties, or the body which is subject to the mind, but the mind
itself, the directress of the body, which was drenched with their
iniquities. Or if it be pretended that they did make such menaces,
let them be shown and proved to us. But let there not be alleged a
few secret words whispered in the ears of a small number of persons,
and which, with a great deal of mystery, were to teach virtue. It
is necessary to point out, to name the places consecrated to the
assemblies--not those in which were celebrated games with lascivious
words and gestures; not those feasts called _fuites_, and which
were solemnized with the most unbridled license; but the assemblies
where the people were instructed in the precepts of the gods for the
repression of avarice, moderating ambition, restraining immodesty;
those where these unfortunate beings learn what Perseus desires them
to know, when he says, in severe language, 'Learn, O unhappy mortals,
the reason of things, what we are, why we come into the world, what
we ought to do, how miserable is the term of our career, what bounds
we ought to prescribe to ourselves in the pursuit of riches, what use
we ought to make of them, what we owe to our neighbor, in fine, the
obligations we owe to the rank we occupy among men.' Let them tell us
in what places they have been accustomed to instruct the people in
these things by order of the gods; let them show us these places, as
we show them churches built for this purpose wherever the Christian
religion has been established." (_De Civit._ lib. ii. c. 6.) This
divine religion was too deeply acquainted with the heart of man ever
to forget the weakness and inconstancy which characterize it; and
hence it has ever been her invariable rule of conduct unceasingly
to inculcate to him, with untiring patience, the salutary truths on
which his temporal well-being and eternal happiness depend. Man easily
forgets moral truths when he is not constantly reminded of them; or
if they remain in his mind, they are there like sterile seeds, and do
not fertilize his heart. It is good and highly salutary for parents
constantly to communicate this instruction to their children, and that
it should be made the principal object of private education; but it
is necessary, moreover, that there should be a public ministry, never
losing sight of it, diffusing it among all classes and ages, repairing
the negligences of families, and reviving recollections and impressions
which the passions and time constantly efface.
This system of constant preaching and instruction, practised at all
times and in all places by the Catholic Church, is so important for
the enlightenment and morality of nations, that it must be looked
upon as a great good, that the first Protestants, in spite of their
desire to destroy all the practices of the Church, have nevertheless
preserved that of preaching. We need not be insensible on this account
to the evils produced at certain times by the declamation of some
factious or fanatical ministers; but as unity had been broken, as
the people had been precipitated into the perilous paths of schism,
we say that it must have been extremely useful for the preservation
of the most important notions with respect to God and man and the
fundamental maxims of morality, that such truths should be frequently
explained to the people by men who had long studied them in the sacred
Scriptures. No doubt the mortal blow given to the hierarchy by the
Protestant system, and the degradation of the priesthood which was the
consequence, have deprived its preachers of the sacred characteristics
of the Holy Spirit; no doubt it is a great obstacle to the efficacy of
their preachers, that they cannot present themselves as the anointed
of the Lord, and that they are only, as an able writer has said, _men
clothed in black, who mount the pulpit every Sunday to speak reasonable
things_; but at least the people continue to hear some fragments of
the excellent moral discourses contained in the sacred Scriptures,
they have often before their eyes the edifying examples spread over
the Old and New Testament, and, what is still more precious, they are
reminded frequently of the events in the life of Jesus Christ,--of
that admirable life, the model of all perfection, which, even when
considered in a human point of view, is acknowledged by all to be the
purest sanctity _par excellence_, the noblest code of morality that was
ever seen, the realization of the finest _beau idéal_ that philosophy
in its loftiest thoughts has ever conceived under human form, and which
poetry has ever imagined in its most brilliant dreams. This we say is
useful and highly salutary; for it will always be salutary for nations
to be nourished with the wholesome food of moral truths, and to be
excited to virtue by such sublime examples.