All the languages of the world have not words of horror enough to
paint the agonies of man when the church had power. Tiberius, Caligula,
Claudius, Nero, Domitian, and Commodus were not as cruel, false,
and base as many of the Christian Popes. Opposite the names of these
imperial criminals write John the XII., Leo the VIII., Boniface the VII.,
Benedict the IX., Innocent the III., and Alexander the VI. Was it under
these pontiffs that the "church penetrated the moral darkness like a
new sun," and covered the globe with institutions of mercy? Rome was far
better when Pagan than when Catholic. It was better to allow gladiators
and criminals to fight than to burn honest men. The greatest of Romans
denounced the cruelties of the arena. Seneca condemned the combats even
of wild beasts. He was tender enough to say that "we should have a bond
of sympathy for all sentiment beings, knowing that only the depraved
and base take pleasure in the sight of blood and suffering." Aurelius
compelled the gladiators to fight with blunted swords. Roman lawyers
declared that all men are by nature free and equal. Woman, under Pagan
rule in Rome, become as free as man. Zeno, long before the birth of
Christ, taught that virtue alone establishes a difference between men.
We know that the Civil Law is the foundation of our codes. We know that
fragments of Greek and Roman art--a few manuscripts saved from Christian
destruction, some inventions and discoveries of the Moors--were the
seeds of modern civilization. Christianity, for a thousand years,
taught memory to forget and reason to believe. Not one step was taken in
advance. Over the manuscripts of philosophers and poets, priests, with
their ignorant tongues thrust out, devoutly scrawled the forgeries of
faith.