Christianity, he was also straining every nerve to reanimate and
restore Paganism. "He was," says his heathen panegyrist, Libanius,
"the best of priests as he was the first of Emperors." He valued the
title of Chief Pontiff, we are told, more highly than the dignity of
Emperor. As Chief Pontiff he made his influence felt throughout the
empire, reopening temples, restoring privileges, reinstituting
sacrifices. No deity and no rite in any corner of his dominions
escaped his vigilance. Whether it was the worship of the Phrygian
Cybele, or of the Apis at Memphis, or of the Daphnian Apollo at
Antioch, his interest was equally unflagging. He was everywhere
advising, coaxing, threatening, goading into activity, where he could
not fan into enthusiasm. And not content with thus exercising his
official superintendence, he was most assiduous in his own personal
services. In season and out of season he would ply the bystander with
questions as to his religious belief. In season and out of season he
would dispute against the Galileans. Wherever he went the altars
smoked with victims. He would offer sacrifices of a whole hecatomb at
once. He ransacked land and sea for rare birds and beasts, that he
might offer them in sacrifice to the gods. At Antioch his soldiers
were constantly seen borne away from the temple through the streets,
gorged and intoxicated, after the revelry of these religious
festivals. All kinds of divination, by flight of birds, by the
inspection of entrails, by the sound of waters, by oracular responses,
and by Sibylline books, were diligently sought out.
Every charlatan who pretended to some new secret of soothsaying was
welcomed by him. Strange to say, all this fervour of devotion did not
recommend Julian to his heathen subjects. It shows the hollowness of
Paganism at this time that his conduct was met either with ridicule or
with condemnation. The common people called him in derision a victim
butcher, and not a sacrificial priest. It was sneeringly said that if
he had returned triumphant from his Persian expedition the whole race
of cows must have become extinct. The devotion of the Emperor found no
response in the mass of his subjects.
But Julian was not only a restorer, he was also a reformer of
heathendom. Whether he was conscious of the difference or not, the
Paganism which he had set up as his ideal was quite another thing from
the Paganism which had been handed down from the past. He strove to
graft the morality and the organisation of Christianity on the stem of
heathendom. The priests of Paganism were merely the performers of
certain rites, the depositories of certain mysteries. They had no
moral, or educational, or philanthropic conscience. The Christian
clergy, on the other hand, over and above their duties in the public
services of the Church, were expected to be also the pastors and
teachers, the guides and examples, the ministers of comfort, and the
dispensers of alms to their flocks. Julian attempted to infuse this
pastoral element into the Pagan priesthood, to which it was wholly
foreign. In the letters which are extant the priests are enjoined by
him to abstain from the theatre or the tavern; they are forbidden to
engage in any degrading occupation; they are required to see that
their wives, and children, and servants attend regularly on the
service of the gods; they are told to imitate the grave demeanour and
the benevolent hospitality of Christian bishops. "It is shameful,"
writes the Emperor, "that the impious Galileans should support our
people as well as their own." Such a conception of the priest's office
must have surprised Julian's correspondents. They had not bargained
for anything of the kind.
But, with all his efforts, Julian made no real advance. There were, in
large numbers, apostasies when he apostatised, just as there had been
conversions when Constantine was converted; but these insincere
adherents from fashion or self-interest are the weakness, not the
strength, of any cause. Julian could not have deceived himself. He saw
none of the self-sacrifice which is the only evidence of genuine
religious conviction. He upbraided the crowds who flocked to the
temples, not to worship the gods, but to applaud the Emperor.
And now the end was fast approaching. About Midsummer 362, Julian took
up his residence at Antioch, where he spent nine months preparing for
his Persian campaign. This sojourn aggravated his disappointment. The
people of Antioch did not take kindly to their sovereign. Before long
he had succeeded in making himself equally unpopular with both the
great sections of the community. At Antioch, where Christianity had
first obtained its name, the Christians formed an exceptionally large
fraction of the whole population. They would not be predisposed
favourably towards an apostate, and his injustice only served to
confirm their hatred. A fire broke out in the temple of Apollo of
Daphne, and it was burnt to the ground. Without any adequate reason
his suspicions fell on the Christians; he put the suspected persons to
cruel tortures, but elicited no confession. Thus foiled, he ordered
the principal church of Antioch to be closed and razed to the ground.
The attitude of the Christians was one of stern defiance. Under the
walls of the palace, along the streets of the city, wherever the
Emperor would be likely to hear, were chanted the words of the
Psalmist--"Confounded be all they that worship carved images, and that
delight in vain gods. The idols of the heathen are silver and gold,
even the work of men's hands. Eyes have they and see not. They that
make them are like unto them, and so are all they that put their trust
in them." Nor was he more fortunate with the heathen population. He
and they were co-religionists, but his Paganism was not their
Paganism. The theatrical exhibitions, the festive orgies, the dancing
and the revelry, these were the very soul of religious worship to
them. He despised all such things. They ridiculed the officious
devotion with which he hurried from temple to temple and from altar to
altar, present at every festival, and participating in every rite. He
took his revenge by satirising their ungodliness. He told them at the
great festival of their patron god, the Daphnian Apollo, he had
expected to see costly victims smoking on the altar, but found there
only one miserable goose, the solitary offering of a poor priest.
Indeed, he was doomed to disappointment on all sides. One great
project which he entertained at this time was the rebuilding of the
temple of Jerusalem. It was not that he loved the Jews, but that he
hated the Christians. So he entered into communication with the Jewish
patriarch, and the work was commenced. The ruined walls were
demolished, the foundations of the new building begun; but as the
workmen penetrated underground, great globes of fire burst out from
the earth and drove them back. Again and again they renewed the
attempt; again and again they were repulsed. The project was
relinquished and the temple remains unbuilt to this day.
Thus irritated and disappointed, Julian left Antioch and commenced his
march. At his departure he vented his anger against the offending
people by declaring that he would not enter the city again, but on his
return he would go to Tarsus instead. He was as good as his word. He
did return to Tarsus; but he returned there a corpse. Disastrous
omens, we are told, thronged upon him. During his march on Hierapolis,
as he entered the city, a portico suddenly gave way, and crushed fifty
soldiers under its ruins. At Davana a huge stack of straw fell, and
smothered to death as many more. At Carrhae, the fatal scene of the
defeat of Crassus, he was troubled with sinister dreams. At Circesium
he received letters from Sallust, the Prefect of Gaul, entreating him
to suspend the ill-omened expedition. Here, too, was an apparition of
sinister augury. The corpse of an executed criminal was found lying
across the path. At another place an enormous lion confronted the
soldiers across their path. He was shot by them, and presented to
Julian. It portended the death of a king, but on the question what
king was meant there was a division of opinion. The Etruscan
soothsayers considered it a disastrous sign; the philosophers
interpreted it favourably. The next day a soldier named Julianus was
struck down by lightning. This omen again was differently explained.
The soothsayers and the philosophers took opposite sides.
Arrived at the scene of conflict, the Emperor, after obtaining some
successes, offered a magnificent sacrifice--ten fine bulls--to Mars
the Avenger. The omens were unmistakably sinister. Julian was
disgusted with the ingratitude of the god, and called Jupiter to
witness that he would not sacrifice to Mars again; "nor," adds the
historian, "did he belie his oath, being carried off prematurely by a
speedy death." These prodigies, with others, are related by a Pagan
who accompanied the army. Christian writers add an incident of which I
see no reason to question the proof, and which certainly deserves to
be true. Julian's common taunt against the Christians was their
worship of a dead man. While preparing for his expedition at Antioch,
he fell into dispute, after his manner, with a Christian whom he met
accidentally, and said mockingly, "What is the Son of the carpenter
doing now?" "He is making a coffin," was the prompt reply. The Son of
the carpenter was making a coffin--a coffin not for Julian only, but
for the Paganism of which Julian was the champion.
It is not necessary for me to follow out this expedition to its
disastrous issue. It is sufficient to say that Julian was inveigled,
surrounded, pierced by a spear from some unknown Persian or Saracen
hand. He perceived at once that he was mortally wounded. His words at
this moment are differently reported. According to one account, he
cried out, "Oh, Galilean, thou hast conquered!" Another story relates
that he took the blood welling from the wound in his hand, and flung
it up towards the sun, his patron god, with an imprecation--"There,
take thy fill." Neither saying, perhaps, is reported on sufficiently
good authority, but either would accord well with the disappointment
and irritation which marked the closing scenes of his life. He
inquired what was the name of the place. It was a small village called
Parthia. He had been forewarned long ago that in Parthia he should
die. He had supposed that the famous country of that name was meant.
We are reminded by this incident of an English sovereign lying on his
death-bed in the famous chamber at Westminster, which still bears the
name of Jerusalem. "It hath been prophesied to me many years I should
not die but at Jerusalem, which vainly I supposed the Holy Land."
Within a few hours Julian had breathed his last. He died on the 26th
June, 363, being not yet quite thirty-two years old, and with him
perished the last and best hope of Paganism. Less than twenty years
after, the Emperor Gratian refused the title of Supreme Pontiff. This
was the first overt act of disestablishment. Then blow followed blow
in rapid succession. Paganism was first disestablished, then
disendowed, then prohibited; yet it still continued to linger on till
at length it was buried in the grave of the empire. St. Augustine's
_City of God_ was the paean of victory over the enemy slain.
Julian's work had been found like a child's castle elaborately piled
up of sand on the brink of the ocean. The rising tide advanced
steadily, inexorably, relentlessly, and no traces of the structure
remain.
WOMAN AND THE GOSPEL.[11]
"And He took the damsel by the hand."--MARK v. 41.
In selecting this text I have no intention of saying many words on the
actual scene itself. The raising of Jairus's daughter attracts our
attention by its vivid narrative, and by its intense human pathos,
while the two foreign words, summing up the interest of the story,
linger strangely in our ears, impressing it effectually on our
memories. Nor, again, do I purpose speaking of its direct theological
import, whether as an answer to human faith, or as a manifestation of
the Divine power. In this latter aspect this is one of three signal
miracles, the anticipations of Christ's own resurrection. It claims,
and it has received, the most earnest study, both in itself and in
relation to other incidents of the same class.
These more obvious aspects of the text are beside my present purpose.
I wish to-day to treat it from a wholly different point of view.
Christ's miracles have always the highest spiritual significance. They
are not miracles only, but parables also. The Messiah's kingdom would
have achieved comparatively little for mankind if it had brought
deliverance to the captive in a literal sense only. A far heavier and
more galling bondage would still remain--the bondage of sin. Physical
blindness is only a type of moral blindness; Christ's healing power in
the one case is the pledge of His healing power in the other. The
palsy of the body symbolises the palsy of the soul. If the paralytic
is bidden to take up his bed and walk, this is before all things an
assurance to us that Christ is able and willing to heal the paralysis
of the soul. From this point of view the words of the text are full of
meaning to all who are met together to-day. "He took the damsel by the
hand, and said unto her, Damsel, I say unto thee, Arise. And
straightway the damsel arose, and walked; and they were astonished
with a great astonishment."
Need I remind you that this is the earliest miracle of raising the
dead recounted in the Gospels? Two others follow. The widow of Nain
and the sisters of Bethany receive back their dead. But the one was a
growing youth, the other was a man of mature age. The young woman was
Christ's first miracle of resurrection. On her was wrought first this
stupendous miracle. For her was won this earliest triumph over death
and hell. Is not this a significant fact in itself, but especially
significant for you, for it proclaims the fundamental principle of the
Gospel charter? It announces that the weak and the helpless in years,
in sex, in social status, are especially Christ's care. It declares
emphatically that in Him is neither male nor female. It is a call to
you, you women-workers, to do a sister's part to these your sisters.
Christ's action in this miracle is a foreshadowing of His action in
the Church. The Master found woman deposed from her proper social
position. The man had suffered not less than the woman by this her
humiliation. Jew and Gentile had conspired together in an unconscious
conspiracy to bring about this disastrous result. The Hebrew Rabbi and
the Greek philosopher alike had gone astray. It is the recorded saying
of a famous Jewish doctor that the words of the law were better burned
than committed to woman. It is an opinion ascribed to the most famous
Athenian statesman, that woman had then achieved her highest glory
when her name was heard amongst men least, either for virtue or for
reproach. A moral resurrection was needed for womanhood. It might seem
to the looker-on like a social death, from which there was no
awakening, but it was only the suspension of her proper faculties and
opportunities, a long sleep from which a revival must come sooner or
later. It was for Him, and Him alone, who was the Vanquisher of death,
who has the keys of Hades--for Him alone to open the door of her
sepulchral prison and resuscitate her dormant life and restore her to
her ordinary place in society. When all hope was gone, He took her by
the hand and bid her arise; and at the sound of His voice and the
touch of His hand she arose and walked, and the world was astonished
with a great astonishment. We ourselves are so familiar with the
results, the position of woman is so fully recognised by us, it is
bearing so abundant fruit every day and everywhere, that we overlook
the magnitude of the change itself. Only, then, when we turn to the
harem and the zenana do we learn to estimate what the Gospel has
achieved, and has still to achieve, in the emancipation of woman, and
her restitution to her lawful place in the social order. To ourselves
the large place which woman occupies in the Gospel and in the early
apostolic history seems only natural. To contemporaries it must have
appeared in the light of a social revolution. The very opening of the
Gospel is charged with Divine messages communicated to us through
woman--Mary, Elizabeth, Anna; women attend our Lord everywhere during
His earthly ministry. The sisters, Martha and Mary, are set before us
as embodying the two contrasted types of character, the practical and
the contemplative. To a woman, and to a woman alone, is given the
promise of an undying hope beyond the glory of the mightiest earthly
princes. Of her it is said: "Wheresoever this Gospel is preached in
the whole world, there shall this which this woman has done be told as
a memorial of her." To a woman were spoken those gracious words of
pardon most tender and compassionate, the consolation and the stay and
the hope of the penitent to all time: "Her sins, which are many, are
forgiven, for she loveth much." Women are the chief attendants at the
crucifixion, and the chief ministrants at the tomb. Woman is the first
witness of the resurrection; and as it was in Christ's personal
ministry, so it is in all the Apostolic Church. In the first gathering
of the little band after the Ascension, women are found assembled with
the apostles. This is a foreshadowing of the part which they are
destined to play in the subsequent narrative of the history of the
Church. Cast your eyes down the salutations in the Epistle to the
Romans. There is Phoebe, a deaconess of the Church of Cenchrea,
commended as having been the succourer of many, among others of the
Apostle himself. There is Priscilla, who with her husband had laid
down her neck for his life, to whom he himself not only gave thanks,
but all the Churches of the Gentiles. There is Mary, who bestowed much
labour upon him and others; Tryphena and Tryphosa, who laboured much
in the Lord. There is Persis, to whom the same testimony is borne.
There is the mother of Rufus, who had also been like a mother to
himself. There is Julia, and there is the sister of Nereus. A long
catalogue to appear in the salutations of a single epistle!
Turn again from the Church of which St. Paul knew least when he wrote,
to the Church of which he knew most. Witness his relation to his
beloved Philippian Church. He addresses himself first to the women who
resort to the places of prayer among the individual women with whom he
came in contact. At Philippi we read of Lydia, his earliest hostess in
this city, of the damsel from whom he cast out a spirit of divination,
and then of Euodias and Syntyche, women who laboured with him in the
Gospel; and indeed we know more of the women at Philippi than we know
of the men.
But it was not only this desultory, unrecognised service, however
frequent, however great, that women rendered to the spread of the
Gospel in its earliest days. The Apostolic Church had its organised
ministrations of women, its order of deaconesses, its order of widows.
Women had their definite place in the ecclesiastical system of those
early times, and in our own age and country again the awakened
activity of the Church is once more demanding the recognition of the
female ministry. The Church feels herself maimed of one of her hands.
No longer she fails to employ, to organise, to consecrate to the
service of Christ, the love, the sympathy, the tact, the self-devotion
of women. Hence the revival of the female diaconate in its
multiplication of sisterhoods. But these, though the most definite,
are not the most extensive developments of this revival. Everywhere
institutions are springing up, manifold in form and purpose, for the
organisation of women's work. There has been, and there is still, a
shameful waste of this latent power, boundless in its capacities if
only fostered and developed. The famous heroines of womanhood will
necessarily be few. It is rarely women's part to save a city or guide
a church. Only at long intervals on the stage of the history of the
world appear such women as Joan of Arc; but here and there God raises
up an exceptional heroine to do exceptional work, which a woman alone
can do, or do so effectually, for her age and country. But generally
it is in the quieter, less obtrusive, more homely, and more womanly
way, that she is called to test her power, certainly not less real or
less beneficent, though it may be less striking, than the power of
man. She is a mother in her own household, her own kindred, her own
parish, her own neighbourhood; the guide, the helper of man. Yes; a
priestess and a prophetess to the young, the sick, the frail and
erring, the poor and needy--needy whether of spiritual or bodily
healing. It is the province of the Church, when acting by the Spirit
and in the name of Christ, to develop the power of women, to take by
the hand and raise from its torpor that which seemed a death, but
which is only a sleep; and now, as then, revived life and beneficent
work will amaze the looker-on--"they were astonished with a great
astonishment."
Among the most recent developments of the work of the Church of Christ
your Girls' Friendly Society has taken a foremost place. I would say
in all sincerity, that when I read your last report with profound joy
and thankfulness, I was impressed, no less by the completeness of your
ideal, than by the variety and expansion of your work. I do not say
this to commend; this is not the time or the place for commendation.
"Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give the praise."
You will not be content, will you? you will not be content, if you are
true to your ideals, with holding out the hand of loving sympathy in
your own home and neighbourhood to a humble sister needing a sister's
care and guidance? Your love will follow her about that she may never
be lost sight of. It is a trite complaint that in this day the old
relations between master and servant have vanished, or almost vanished
away. The bond is no longer one of reciprocal loyalty, but of common
convenience. Hence it is liable to severance at any moment in the
feverish, ever-restless, fluctuating conditions of modern life. It was
impossible that these relations should remain unchanged while all else
was changing. The domestic servant or the shop girl has no longer a
fixed home; she is a wanderer on the earth. It is just here that the
catholicity of your plan should step in and counteract the evil. It is
your part to realise this catholicity. When a girl once enrolls herself
in your numbers, she is _yours_; everywhere, whithersoever she
may go, the friendly eye will rest upon her; the friendly hand will be
stretched out to her wheresoever she may be. She will find everywhere
a home, because she will find everywhere friends. You cannot set this
ideal before yourselves too definitely, or strive to realise it too
earnestly.