since the geographical situation, as we before observed, of all the
countries bordering on the Mediterranean might be considered a
sufficiently wide natural frontier. The counties on the coast of Africa
were protected by the contiguous deserts; on the Northern side of the
empire, which was more menaced by invasion, the strongly fortified
borders of the Rhine and the Danube formed a secure barrier. Towards the
eastern and Asiatic frontier, the Parthians were indeed a powerful and
formidable enemy, but there was no probability they would ever seek, as
the Persians had once done, to penetrate so far beyond their boundaries;
while, on the other hand, the Romans had no real interest in extending
their conquests further into that region, or into the interior parts of
central Asia, as such a policy would only lead them further from the
centre of their empire and their power, now unalterably fixed in Italy
and the old, eternal city. The thoughts and feelings of all the better
Romans were no longer turned on the aggrandizement of their empire, but
solely and exclusively on a great internal regeneration of public
morals, and as far as was practicable, of the state itself, according to
those ideal conceptions which they formed of old Rome in her better and
more prosperous days. These projects of social regeneration were nearly
in the same spirit and of the same tendency as those which the better
emperors of succeeding ages, a Trajan and a Marcus Aurelius actually
attempted to accomplish. Others again were filled with apprehensions for
the future; and well indeed might they entertain the most alarming
presentiments; for when the licentiousness of public morals was growing
to a more and more fearful height, and a succession of indolent emperors
was hastening the downfall of the state, the strong fortifications of
the Northern frontier could afford little protection, and the nations of
the North must burst in without resistance upon the empire. This event
did really occur, though at a much later period; but all that was to
precede that event--the quarter whence the new principle would rise up
in the world, that was to overcome Rome herself and regenerate
mankind--all this was certainly not anticipated by any Roman of those
times, however generous and exalted might be his sentiments, and
profound and penetrative his understanding. Nay, when this phenomenon
did actually appear, it was but too evident that they were at first
unable to seize and comprehend its meaning and purport. And what was
then that new power, which was to conquer, and did really conquer, the
earthly conquerors of the world? The old universal empire of Persia, and
the subsequent one of Macedon, had long since passed away, and
disappeared from the face of the earth. The oppressive military
despotism of Rome had to fear no rival that would at all equal her in
power. The influence of the Greek Philosophy, which had previously sunk
into great degeneracy, was completely debased under the yoke of Roman
domination, and barely sufficed to adorn and dignify the Roman sway,
still less to work a fundamental change and reform in the Roman
government.
It was the divine power of Love, tried in sufferings, and sacrificing to
high Love itself not only life, but every earthly desire; and from which
proceeded the new words of a new life, a new light of moral and divine
science, that was to unfold new views of the world, introduce a new
organization of society, and give a new form to human existence. And
such was that primitive energy of Christian love, which displayed itself
in the internal harmony, and close union of the Christian church; in the
rapid diffusion of its doctrines through all the countries and among all
the nations of the then known world; in its courageous resistance to all
the assaults of persecution; in the careful preservation of its purity
from all alloy and corruption; in its firmer consolidation and more
manifold development in words, and works and deeds; in writings and in
life; that not many generations, and but a few centuries had passed
away, before Christianity became a ruling power in the world--an
indirect and spiritual power indeed, but more than any other active and
influential.
A passage on Elias in the Old Testament, which we have already had
occasion to cite, may be applied to the imperceptible beginnings of this
great moral revolution, produced in the world by a new effort of God's
power. When the prophet, from the bottom of his soul had sighed after
death, and had journeyed for the space of forty days towards the holy
mountain of Horeb, the splendour and omnipotence of the Deity were
revealed to him, and passed before his mortal eyes. There came a great
and strong wind, which overthrew the mountains and split the rocks; but,
as the scripture saith, God was not in the wind. There came afterwards a
violent earthquake with fire--but God was neither in the earthquake, nor
in the fire. Now there arose the soft breath and gentle whistling of a
tender air: in this, Elias recognized the immediate presence of his God,
and in awe and reverence he veiled his face. Such was the origin of
Christianity, as compared with the all-subduing and world-convulsing
sway of the conquering nations of preceding ages.
In the last years of Augustus, the first deified Emperor--occurs the
birth of our Saviour in the time of Tiberius, the foundation of the
Christian religion;--and in the reign of Nero, the first perfectly
authentic record of that great event in the Roman history. There is
indeed an account which says that, previously, Tiberius, on the report
of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, had received information of the
new religion, and had made a formal proposal to the Senate to place
Christ among the Gods, according to the Roman custom, and to declare him
worthy of divine honours. It is true indeed, that the single testimony
of Tertullian, on which this account rests, is not of such weight and
historical importance as not to be obnoxious to many serious doubts,
which perhaps however, have been carried somewhat too far. It still
remains a clear historical testimony on a matter of fact; and as long as
this is susceptible of a natural explanation, it argues a perverse
spirit of historical criticism, or rather a total absence of all
criticism, to be ever suspecting fabrications, and supposititious
writings. That an account of this great event might, nay must almost
necessarily, have been transmitted to Rome by the Roman Procurator of
the province of Judea, is proved by the narrative of Tacitus, who
connects the name of this governor with the first mention of the
Christians. Such an account may have been easily sent even by the Roman
captains, who were in Palestine, and one of whom we know, as an
eye-witness, gave such a memorable testimony in favour of the Son of
God, who had died upon the cross; for, according to the general
tradition of the church, this man afterwards became a Christian. There
is again in the character of Tiberius nothing at all at variance with
this account; for however dark, and mistrustful, and cruel, and corrupt
might be the character of that Emperor, we cannot deny he was possessed
of a powerful and profound understanding. He was by no means
unsusceptible of religious impressions, nor indifferent on matters of
religion; but he followed therein his own peculiar views and opinions;
and hence it is quite natural that his attention should be easily drawn
to any extraordinary religious event. He detested, and even persecuted
the Egyptian idolatry, and the Jewish worship, and ordered that the
sacerdotal robes and sacred vessels of their priests should be burned.
He had a strong faith in destiny, was somewhat addicted to astrology,
and dreaded signs in the heavens. If his hostility towards the Jews and
his persecution of that nation, be alledged as an objection to the truth
of this narrative, (as if it were absolutely necessary that he should
have confounded the Christians with the Jews); we may reply that this is
a purely arbitrary hypothesis, and that it is far more natural to
conclude that, when Tiberius had received from Pilate, or other Roman
captains, certain intelligence of the life and death of our Saviour, he
was no doubt informed by these eye-witnesses of the hatred and
persecution which our Saviour had sustained from the Jews. The single
fact indeed, that Christianity was so much opposed to the Pagan worship
and the political idolatry of the Romans--as for instance to the
sacrifice before the image of the Emperor--was in all probability not
stated nor clearly explained in this first account, composed by persons
very little acquainted with the true nature of the new Revelation.
Otherwise such an account would have produced on a man imbued with Roman
prejudices no other impression but that of aversion and disgust. The
idea and proposal itself of regarding an extraordinary man endowed with
wonderful and divine power, at God and as worthy of divine honours, has
nothing at all improbable in itself, or at all inconsistent with Roman
rites and usages, of with Roman opinions respecting Gods and deified
men. The only thing really improbable in the whole affair, is that the
Senate of that time should have dared to oppose and contradict Tiberius
in this matter. However, if the Senate, as we may easily imagine, were
hostile to the proposal of Tiberius, it was easy for them to adopt some
evasive form, and indirectly to impede and set aside this matter, which
as it regarded old national rites, fell entirely within their
jurisdiction. But this circumstance, as we said before, is the only
thing which appears at all exaggerated in this account. It is easy to
understand from this how the proposition of Tiberius, which was never
carried into execution should have fallen into complete oblivion, and
should never have come to the knowledge of Tacitus; as we may conclude,
from his account of the Christians, that he would not otherwise have
suffered this circumstance to pass unnoticed. Singular and remarkable as
this fact may be, it is of no importance in itself; it forms only a
single incident in the strange and contradictory impressions which the
new religion produced on the minds of the Romans. A passage of
Suetonius, in his history of Claudius, would show that the Christians
were confounded with the Jews, for, speaking of that Emperor, he says,
"he expelled the Jews from the Capital, for, at the instigation of
_Chrestus_, they were ever exciting troubles in the state." _Chrestus_
in the Greek pronunciation, has the same sound with Christus; and we may
easily conceive that what the Christians said of their invisible Lord
and Master, that he interdicted them such and such Pagan rites, may in a
matter so totally strange and unintelligible to the Romans, have been
easily misunderstood, as applying to a chief and party-leader actually
in existence. In the same way, by the troubles spoken of in the passage
above cited, may be understood the accustomed and just refusal of the
Christians to comply with the illicit demands of the Pagans.
A fuller light is thrown on this subject by the narrative of Tacitus in
his history of Nero; and, however much the Christian religion may be
misrepresented by the Roman historian, his account has still a character
thoroughly historical, and amidst its very misrepresentations, is
perfectly intelligible, if we take care to distinguish the chief
historical traits. When Nero, at the height of his crimes and
presumption had set Rome on fire, in order to have a lively and dramatic
spectacle of the burning of Troy, he afterwards strove to screen himself
from the odium of this misdeed, and to throw the blame entirely upon the
Christians, who must have been then tolerably numerous in Rome. Tacitus
thinks they were not the authors of the conflagration laid to their
charge; and his feelings revolt at the inhuman cruelties which Nero
inflicted upon them; but, he adds, many horrible things were said of
them, and that it was known in particular they were animated by
sentiments of hatred towards the whole human race. That we are to
understand by this hatred towards the human race nothing more than that
rigid rejection by the Christians of all the idolatrous rites, maxims
and doctrines of the Heathen world, is perfectly evident of itself.
Among the horrible things, of which the Christians were accused, we are
in all probability to understand _the repasts of Thyestes_, for their
enemies make use of that very term in their accusations;--accusations
which were received with eager credulity by a populace that held them in
abhorrence. Although this charge was no doubt afterwards the effect of
malicious calumny, and deliberate falsehood, yet it is very possible
that a gross misconception may originally have given rise to it, and
that this accusation, egregiously false as it was, proceeded from an
obscure and confused knowledge of the mystery of the holy sacrifice, and
of the reception of the Sacrament in that divine feast of love
solemnized in the Christian assemblies.
Even in the official report, which the better and well-meaning younger
Pliny transmitted to Trajan in the year 120, while he was governor of
Pontus and Bithynia, we can clearly discern the embarrassment of the
generous Roman, who was at a loss how to consider the new religion, so
perfectly mysterious and totally inexplicable did it appear to him; and
who in consequence was quite undetermined what he was to do, and how he
was to treat the matter. He writes that, according to the confessions
wrung from the Christians by torture, after the Roman custom, they were
found to entertain an excessive, strange, heterogeneous, an very
perverse, faith of superstition; but that in other respects they were
people of irreproachable morals, and who on a certain day of the week,
Sunday, assembled in the morning to sing the praises of their God
Christ, and to engage themselves to the fulfilment of the most important
precepts of virtue, and that they met again in the evening to enjoy a
simple and blameless repast. He adds that their numbers had already
increased to such an extent that the altars of Paganism were nearly
abandoned; and that a great number of women, boys and children belonged
to their sect. He is at a loss to know, with respect to the latter,
whether he should make any difference in the degree of punishment which,
it appears, they have inevitably incurred under the old Roman laws
against all societies and fraternities not sanctioned by the state; and
on this subject he demands further instructions from the emperor, in
this memorable official letter, which is still extant, and contains the
most ancient portrait of the Christians drawn by a Roman hand.
Thus then, in this period of the world, in this decisive crisis between
ancient and modern times, in this great central point of history, stood
two powers opposed to each other:--on one hand, we behold Tiberius,
Caligula and Nero, the earthly gods, and absolute masters of the world,
in all the pomp and splendor of ancient paganism--standing, as it were,
on the very summit and verge of the old world, now tottering to its
ruin:--and, on the other hand, we trace the obscure rise of an almost
imperceptible point of Light, from which the whole modern world was to
spring, and whose further progress and full development, through all
succeeding ages, constitutes the true purport of _modern history_.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Saemmtliche werke, vorrede, p. 8. vol. 6.
[2] Count Maistre.--See his Soirees de St. Petersbourg.
[3] The aristocracy of French literature, and a very splendid
aristocracy it is, has been for the last twenty years decidedly
Catholic. The enemies of the church are to be found almost
exclusively in the bourgeoisie, and still more in the canaille, of
that literature.
[4] The words which the King of Bavaria used at the moment of
founding this University, are remarkable. "I do not wish," said he,
"that my subjects should be learned at the cost of religion, nor
religious at the cost of learning."--See Baader's opening speech in
1826. _Philosophische Schriften_, page 366. These are golden words,
which ought to be engraven on the hearts of all princes. In other
words, the monarch meant to say, I wish to consecrate science by
religion, and I wish to confirm and extend religion by science. This
sovereign is the most enlightened, as well as munificent, patron of
learning in Europe; and whether we consider his zeal in the cause of
religion--his solicitude for the freedom and prosperity of his
subjects--his profound knowledge, as well as active patronage, of
art and science--and his true-hearted German frankness and probity;
he is, in every respect, a worthy namesake of the illustrious
Emperor Maximilian. He has assisted in making his capital a true
German Athens; and, small as it is, it may at this moment compete in
art, literature, and science, with the proudest cities in Europe.
[5] Geschichte der Religion.--1804-11.
[6] Essai sur l'indifference en matiere de religion: 4 vols. 8vo.
Paris, 1823;--a work where learning, eloquence, and philosophy have
laid their richest offerings at the shrine of Christianity.
[7] In the beautiful critique inserted in the Concordia on M. de la
Martine's "Meditations poetiques," (1820) Schlegel observes that Lord
Byron was the representative of a by-gone poesy, and La Martine the
herald of a new Christian poetry that was to come. Comparing the three
greatest contemporary poets out of his own country, Scott, Byron, and La
Martine, Schlegel saw in the productions of the first, the poetry of a
vague reminiscence--in those of the second, the poetry of despair; and
in those of the last, the commencement of a poetry of hope.[8] Much as
he reprobated the anti-christian spirit and tendency of Lord Byron's
muse, and much as he rejoiced that its pernicious influence was in some
degree counteracted by the noble effusions of the French rhapsodist, he
still rendered full justice to the great genius of the British bard. He
calls him in one of his last works, "the wonderful English poet--perhaps
the greatest--certainly the most remarkable poet of our times:"[9]--an
encomium which Byron's admirers may learn to appreciate, when they
remember who his contemporaries were, and who the critic was, that
pronounced this judgment.
[8] See his History of Literature, vol. 2. New edition in German.
[9] Philosophie des ebens, page 21.
[10] See the Preface to the Lectures on Dramatic Literature, in the
French translation.
[11] See Saemmtliche werke. vol. x. p. 267.
[12] Concordia, page 59.
[13] Concordia, page 363.
[14] See Concordia.
[15] In a number of the Concordia for 1820, Adam Mueller frankly
declared his opinion, that all the friends of social order would
soon concur in the necessity of re-establishing the constitution of
the three estates. This is language which at Vienna is as bold as it
is auspicious.
[16] Those political changes which since Schlegel's death have
occurred in the British constitution, while they have deprived
property of much of its legitimate influence, have caused
intelligence to be even less represented than heretofore in the
legislature.
[17] Philosophische Schriften. vol. ii.
[18] See Concordia, page 66.
[19] According to the just remark of Burke, the states-constitution
was in latter ages, better preserved in the Republics than in the
monarchies of Europe.--See his letters on a regicide peace.
[20] Among these great conservatives, M. de Bonald is the only one
who can be regarded as favourable to Absolutism. As long as this
great writer deals in general propositions, he seldom errs; but when
he comes to apply his principles to practice, then the political
prejudices in which he was bred, and which a too limited course of
reading has failed to correct--lead him sometimes into exaggerations
and errors. On the whole he is as inferior to Burke as a publicist,
as he is superior to him as a metaphysician.
[21] This view of the matter is confirmed by the high authority of
the great Catholic philosopher--Molitor. Speaking of Schelling and
his disciples, he says, (in the words of his recent French
translator,) _Quoique leurs premier ouvrages ne respirent pas encore
entierement l'esprit pur et veritable_, mais soient entaches plus ou
moins de pantheisme ou de naturalisme, comme cela etoit presque
necessaire a une epoque encore si profondement enfoncee dans
l'incredulite et l'orgueil, cependant leurs principes ont eveille
l'esprit religieux, et donne une base plus profonde aux verites de
cet ordre. C'est dans ce sens qu'on a retravaille toutes les
sciences, et l'on peut dire que ces hommes ont plus contribue a
conduire vers la religion, que cette multitude de compendium
dogmatiques du siecle dernier. He then adds, "Ou peut se faire une
idee de la direction religieuse de la physique par les ecrits de
Steffens, Schubert, Pfaff, et Baader. Cet esprit conduira encore a
de plus grands resultats; et bientot de nouvelles decouvertes faites
au ciel etoile, sur la terre et dans son interieur, aussi bien que
dans l'organisme, affermiront et mettront dans une nouvelle lumiere
ces hautes verites connues des anciens, mais que le sens stupide des
modernes rejetait comme des songes et des superstitions." p.p.
165-6. Philosophie de la Tradition, traduite de l'Allemand. Paris.
1834.
[22] Philosophie der Sprache, p. 118-19.
[23] Ibid. p. 121.
[24] Philosophie des Lebens, p. 142. N.B. I have somewhat abridged
the author's words.
[25] Philosophie des Lebens. pp. 86-7.
[26] Ibid, p. 85.
[27] See Philosophie de la Tradition, traduit de l'Allemand, p. 26.
Paris, 1834.
[28] Philosophie des Lebens, p. 126.
[29] Philosophie des Lebens, p. 129.