THE EARLY CHURCH AND THE POPULACE
The transformation of early Christianity from an eschatological to a
socialized movement was the result of the interaction of three social
groups--three 'publics'--the Jewish, the Pagan, and the Christian. It
was a single movement, working itself out through these three 'crowds'.
Christianity, like all other great religions, was in its first
beginnings essentially a mob phenomenon--that is to say it was a very
slow movement which had a long history back of it.
Perhaps no current opinion is more unfounded than the notion that mob
movements are sudden and unpredictable. They are almost incredibly slow
of development. The range of action found in the mob is more narrowly
and rigidly circumscribed than in almost any other social group. A crowd
is open to suggestions that are in line with its previous experience,
and to no others.
The initial success of Christ with the Jewish crowds was only possible
because for generations the whole Jewish public had been looking forward
to a Messiah and a Messianic kingdom. In so far as Christ appeared to
fulfill this preconceived expectation he gained popular support. When he
disappointed it, he lost his popularity and his life.
The early and enormous success of the apostles on the day of Pentecost
and immediately afterwards was due primarily to the fact that the
Chiliastic expectation preached to the Jerusalem crowds was very closely
in line with their inherited beliefs. As soon as Christianity began to
develop doctrines and practices even slightly at variance with those
traditional to Judaism it lost the support of the Jewish public.
Beginning as a strictly Jewish sect, it alienated practically the whole
Jewish race within little more than a generation. This alienation was
the inevitable effect of an idea of universalism opposed to the
hereditary Jewish nationalism. This idea of universalism was not a new
thing. It was to be found in the ancient Jewish scriptures. But it had
never become popularized. It formed no part of the content of
contemporary public opinion among the Jews. Christianity met with
success in the great cosmopolitan centers, like Antioch and Alexandria,
where universalism was a tradition and had become a part of the crowd
sentiment. It succeeded best of all in Rome where universalism reached
its highest development. Yet even here a limitation is to be noted.
Christianity was universal in its willingness to receive people of all
races and nations. It was not universal in its willingness to
acknowledge the validity of other religions. This variation from the
traditional Greek and Roman universalism had momentous results. It made
the propagation of the Christian Gospel much more difficult and involved
the church, at least temporarily, in the current syncretism which was a
popular movement. So e.g., we find Justin calling Socrates a Christian
and asserting that the stories of Noah and Deucalion are merely versions
of the same event.
The main characteristics of crowd psychology are familiar enough. Crowds
do not reason. They accept or reject ideas as a whole. They are governed
by phrases, symbols, and shibboleths. They tolerate neither discussion
nor contradiction. The suggestions brought to bear on them invade the
whole of their understanding and tend to transform themselves into acts.
Crowds entertain only violent and extreme sentiments and they
unconsciously accord a mysterious power to the formula or leader that
for the moment arouses their enthusiasm.
Any movement in order to become popular, in order to 'get over' to the
general public, has to operate within the limits set by this psychology.
The amount of change, adaptation, and development necessary before a
movement can fit into these limitations and express itself powerfully
within them is so considerable that no historical example can probably
be found where the required accommodation has been accomplished in less
than three generations. It is the purpose of this chapter to trace, so
far as the surviving source material permits, the steps of this
accommodation in the case of early Christianity.
For some time before Christ the Jewish people had been restless. Their
desires and aspirations for national and religious greatness had been
repressed and inhibited. The unrest thus generated took various forms;
patriotic uprisings, religious revivals, etc. Christ was at first
considered merely as another Theudas or Judas of Galilee or John the
Baptist. In the pagan world the pax Romana produced a somewhat similar
restlessness. Travel increased; wandering, much of it aimless,
characterized whole classes of people;[1] there was a marked increase in
crime, vice, insanity, and suicide which alarmed all the moralists. This
condition of affairs was eminently suitable for the first beginnings of
a crowd movement; indeed no great crowd movement can begin except under
such circumstances. The wanderings of St. Paul and the other Christians
apostles--called missionary journeys--were really only particular cases
of a general condition. The same organic demand for new stimulation, the
same sense of shattered religious and philosophic ideals prevailed in
the pagan as in the Jewish world. It would be hard to find a greater
contrast of character than Christ and Lucian. Yet the fiery earnestness
with which Christ denounces contemporary Jewish religiosity and the cool
cynicism with which Lucian mocks at the pagan piety of the same age have
a like cause. Economic pressure on the lower strata of society
contributed to the unrest. The slave, the small shopkeeper, and the free
artisan had a hard time of it in the Roman world. Economically oppressed
classes are material ready to the hand of the agitator, religious or
other. In the crowd movements recorded in the Acts we can trace the
first beginnings of the Christian populace.[2] "In Iconium a great
multitude both of Jews and of Greeks believed but the Jews that were
disobedient stirred up the souls of the Gentiles and made them evil
affected against the brethren. But the multitude of the city was divided
and part held with the Jews and part with the apostles." At Lytra there
was a typical case of mob action where the apostles were first
worshipped and then stoned. In the cases of the mobs at Philippi and
Ephesus we see the economic motive, the threatened loss of livelihood,
entering along with anger at an attack on the received religion. In the
case of the Jerusalem and Athenian crowds we see acceptance, or at least
acquiescence, on the part of the crowd up to the point where
Christianity breaks with their tradition. In general we see anger on the
part of the crowds only after agitation deliberately stirred up by
interested parties; priests, sorcerers, craftsmen or the like. Generally
speaking the antipathy is no part of the crowd psychology, and on
occasion the crowd may be on the side of the missionaries of the new
religion. In general also the Christians were not sufficiently numerous
to make a counter crowd demonstration of their own.
In Pliny's letter to Trojan, although it is a generation later than the
Acts and refers to a region where Christianity had been preached for a
considerable period of time, we find a marked instability in the
attitude of the public: "Many of every age, every rank and even of both
sexes are brought into danger and will be in the future. The contagion
of that superstition has penetrated not only the cities but also the
villages and country places and yet it seems possible to stop it and set
it right. At any rate it is certain enough that the temples deserted
until quite recently begin to be frequented, that the ceremonies of
religion, long disused, are restored and that fodder for the victims
comes to market, whereas buyers for it were until now very few. From
this it may easily be supposed that a multitude of men can be reclaimed
if there be a place of repentence."[3]
There seems no reasonable ground for doubting that Pliny's judgment was
correct. While the blood of the martyrs is doubtless the seed of the
church, a continuous, general, and relentless persecution can extirpate
a religion in a given nation; as the history of the Inquisition
abundantly proves. Still more easily can propaganda for the older
religion win back its former adherents of the first and second
generations. It is not, in general, till a generation has grown up
entirely inside a new religion that such a religion is well established.
The generation which at maturity makes the rupture with the older faith
can be brought back to it by less expenditure of energy than was
expended by them in breaking away in the first place. The success of the
Jesuits e.g., is quite inexplicable on any other hypothesis. The
generation who are children at the time their parents make the break
with the old religion are notoriously undependable in the religious
matters. It was in all probability these people that Pliny had to deal
with. It is at least permissable to hazard the guess that the Laodiceans
who aroused the wrath of the author of the Revelation were of this
generation. It is certain that many of the 'Lapsi' who caused so much
trouble to Christian apologists and church councils belonged in this
chronological class.
In Justin Martyr we have a hint of a further development in the crowd
attitude toward the Christians. Justin says: "When you (Jews) knew that
He had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven as the prophets
foretold He would, you not only did not repent of the wickedness you had
committed, but at that time you selected and sent out from Jerusalem
chosen men through all the land to tell that the godless heresy of the
Christians had sprung up and to publish those things which all they, who
knew us not, speak against us. So that you are the cause not only of
your own unrighteousness but that of all other men."[4]
Irrespective of the exact historical accuracy of this statement, it is
indicative of the process, technically known as 'circular interaction,'
which is so essential a step in the development of popular opinion and
the building up of crowd sentiment. Before any group of people can
become either popular or unpopular there must be a focusing and fixation
of public attention upon them. Even in the new Testament we find the
Jews sending emissaries from city to city to call attention to the
Christian propaganda. Prejudice against the Christians was thus aroused
in persons who had never either seen or heard them. The basis of
'circular interaction' is unconscious or subconscious emotional
reaction. A's frown brings a frown to the face of B. B's frown in turn
intensifies A's. This simple process is the source of all expressions of
crowd emotion. By multiplication of numbers and increase in the stimuli
employed it is capable of provoking a vicious circle of feeling which
eventually causes individuals in a crowd to do things and feel things
which no individual in the crowd would do or feel when outside the
circle. It is to the credit or discredit of the Jews that they first set
this 'vicious circle' in operation against the Christians. Of course the
same psychological principle operated to produce zeal and enthusiasm and
contempt of pain and death in the Christian 'crowd'. By this process of
'circular interaction' the name, 'Christian,' had already in the time of
Justin become a mob shibboleth. It seems to have operated precisely as
the shibboleth 'traitor' operates on a patriotic crowd in war time, or
'scab' on a labor group. It became a shibboleth of exactly opposite
significance in the Christian 'crowd'. The way was thus prepared for the
next step in the process of developing the ultimate crisis. This
step--the disparate 'universe of discourse'--is exhibited in process of
formation in the account of the martyrdom of Polycarp. The account, as
we have it, undoubtedly contains later additions, but these additions
even of miraculous elements, do not necessarily invalidate those
portions of the story with which we are alone concerned. The
martyrologist certainly had no intention of writing his story for the
purpose of illustrating the principles of group psychology and the
undesigned and incidental statements of crowd reactions are precisely
the ones of value for our purpose. A few brief excerpts are sufficient
to illustrate the stage reached in the growth of the disparate 'universe
of discourse.' "The whole multitude, marvelling at the nobility of mind
displayed by the devout and godly race of Christians cried out: "Away
with the Atheists: let Polycarp be sought out."[5] He went eagerly
forward with all haste and was conducted to the Stadium where the tumult
was so great that there was no possibility of being heard."[6]
"Polycarp has confessed that he is Christian. This proclamation having
been made by the herald, the whole multitude both of the heathen and
Jews who dwelt in Smyrna cried out with uncontrollable fury and in a
loud voice: "This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians
and the overthrower of our gods, he who has been teaching many not to
sacrifice or to worship the gods." Speaking thus they cried out and
besought Phillip, the Asiarch, to let loose a lion upon Polycarp. But
Philip answered that it was not lawful for him to do so seeing the shows
of beasts were already finished. Then it seemed good to them to cry out
with one voice that Polycarp should be burned alive."[7]
"This then was carried into effect with greater speed than it was
spoken, the multitude immediately gathering together wood and fagots out
of the shops and baths, the Jews especially, according to custom eagerly
assisting them in it."[8]
"We afterwards took up his bones, as being more precious than the most
exquisite jewels and more purified than gold and deposited them in a
fitting place, whither, being gathered together as opportunity is
allowed us, with joy and rejoicing the Lord shall grant us to celebrate
the anniversary of his martyrdom both in memory of those who have
already finished their course and for the exercising and preparation of
those yet to walk in their steps."[9]
In the disparate universe of discourse in its complete form common
shibboleths produce entirely different mental reactions--usually
antagonistic ones. There is also complete accord as to the shibboleths.
The cry here is at one time against the Atheists, then against the
Christians. But the Christians could and did deny the charge of Atheism.
They were as antagonistic to Atheism as the Pagans. An incomplete
development of crowd feeling is evident on the part of the pagans. The
Jews are still the inciters and leading spirits of the mob. The very
statement that the Jews acted 'according to custom' shows that mobbing
Christians was still looked upon as a peculiarly Jewish trait. It was
not yet entirely spontaneous on the part of the pagan public. Most
noticeable of all is the indifference of the mob toward the Christians'
adoration of relics of the martyrs. No effort was made to prevent the
Christians from obtaining the bones of Polycarp. Either the cult of
relics was not known to the pagans and Jews--though it seems to be
firmly established among the Christians--or else, the effect of the cult
in perpetuating Christianity had not yet had time to make itself
manifest to the pagan public--or to the Jewish. In any case we have here
the plain evidence of the imperfectly developed condition of the crowd
mind, owing perhaps to a too short tradition.
Our next evidence is the martyrdoms of Lyons and Vienne preserved in a
letter quoted by Eusebius. "They (the Christians) endured nobly the
injuries inflicted upon them by the populace, clamor and blows and
draggings and robberies and stonings and imprisonments and all things
which an infuriated mob delight in inflicting on enemies and
adversaries."[10]
"When these accusations were reported all the people raged like wild
beasts against us, so that even if any had before been moderate on
account of friendship, they were now exceedingly furious and gnashed
their teeth against us.
"When he (Bishop Pothinus) was brought to the tribunal accompanied by a
multitude who shouted against him in every manner as if he were Christ
himself, he bore noble witness. Then he was dragged away harshly and
received blows of every kind. Those men near him struck him with their
hands and feet, regardless of his age, and those at a distance hurled at
him whatever they could seize, all of them thinking that they would be
guilty of great wickedness and impiety if any possible abuse were
omitted. For thus they thought to avenge their own deities."[11]
"But not even thus was their madness and cruelty toward the saints
satisfied. Wild and barbarous tribes were not easily appeased and their
violence found another peculiar opportunity in the dead bodies. For they
cast to the dogs those who had died of suffocation in the prison and
they exposed the remains left by the wild beasts and by fire mangled and
charred. And some gnashed their teeth against them, but others mocked at
them. The bodies of the martyrs having thus in every manner been exposed
for six days were afterwards burned and reduced to ashes and swept into
the Rhone so that no trace of them might appear on the earth. And this
they did as if able to conquer God and prevent their new birth; 'that',
as they said, 'they may have no hope of a resurrection through trust in
which they bring to us this foreign and new religion.' "[12]
We have in this account a marked advance, as regards the development of
the mob mind, over what is found in the martyrdom of Polycarp. Many of
the 'crowd' phenomena are indeed the same but the differences are even
more striking than the similarities. We find in Lyons no body of Jews or
other especially interested persons leading the mob on by manifestations
of peculiar zeal and forwardness. When the accounts are compared in
their entirety it becomes at once manifest that there is a consistency
of attitude, a whole heartedness in the actions of the Lyons mob
that is lacking in the case of the Syrmnaens. There is a degree of
familiarity with Christian doctrine--especially the doctrine of the
resurrection--which denotes a much more thorough permeation of the
public mind by Christianity. There may be no difference in the hatred of
the two mobs for the new faith, but it had more content in the mind of
the Gallic crowd. The degree of thought and pains taken by the Lyonese
persecutors--the guards placed to prevent the Christians from stealing
the relics of the martyrs, the elaborate efforts to nullify the
possibility of a resurrection--the very extent and thoroughness and
duration of the persecution are different from anything to be found in
the other martyrdom.
The difficulty to be explained--if it is a difficulty--from the point of
view of crowd psychology is that there is difference of only eleven
years--taking the ordinary chronology--between the two persecutions. It
is true that the Lyons persecution is the later, but the difference in
the mob behavior is such as might well demand the lapse of a generation
had the phenomena been exhibited by the public of the same city. There
must unquestionably have been a great difference in the demotic
composition of the populations of Lyons and Smyrna; the reference to
barbarians in Lyons shows as much, but the behavior of mobs as
controlled by the time needed for the focusing and fixation of attention
and the development of a disparate universe of discourse is very little
effected by difference of demotic composition. It has indeed been
suggested by one critic,[13] that the persecution at Lyons belongs in
the reign of Septimus Severus instead of that of Marcus Aurelius. This
would explain away the difficulty, but there seems no necessary reason
for adopting this opinion. It would rather appear that there existed
peculiar conditions in Lyons and vicinity which account for the fact
that the persecution, so far as we know, was confined to that locality
and also for the fact that the mob mind was in a maturer state of
antagonism to Christianity. Just what these peculiar conditions were, it
is impossible to say with entire certainty. However there is at least a
very suggestive hint in a paragraph by the greatest modern authority on
Roman Gaul[14] contained in his well known volume on Ancient France.[15]
The paragraph is also worth quoting as giving a valuable insight into
the psychology of the peoples of the ancient Roman World. "The Roman
Empire was in no wise maintained by force but by the religious
admiration it inspired. It would be without a parallel in the history of
the world that a form of government held in popular detestation should
have lasted for five centuries. It would be inexplicable that the thirty
legions of the Empire should have constrained a hundred million men to
obedience. The reason of their obedience was that the Emperor, who
personified the greatness of Rome was worshipped like a divinity by
unanimous consent. There were altars in honor of the Emperor in the
smallest townships of his realm. From one end of the Empire to the other
a new religion was seen to arise in those days which had for its
divinities the Emperors themselves. Some years before the Christian era
the whole of Gaul, represented by sixty cities, built in common a temple
near the city of Lyons in honor of Augustus. Its priests, elected by the
united Gallic cities, were the principal personages in their country. It
is impossible to attribute all this to fear and servility. Whole nations
are not servile and especially for three centuries. It was not the
courtiers who worshipped the prince, it was Rome, and it was not Rome
merely but it was Gaul, it was Spain. It was Greece and Asia."
While no dogmatic assertion is justified, it does not, perhaps, exceed
the limits of reasonable inference to suppose that the existence of this
noted center of Emperor worship in the immediate neighborhood of Lyons
may account, in part at least, for the especial hatred of the populace
of that city for persons who refused to sacrifice to the Emperor and
also for the maturity of their feeling against the Christians, who were
as far as we are aware, probably the only persons who refused thus to
sacrifice. This stray bit of evidence is admittedly not conclusive. It
is offered merely for what it may be worth. There is evidence that by
the middle of the second Century popular opinion was sufficiently
inflamed against the Christians to render the administration of justice
precarious because of mob violence. Edicts of Hadrian and Antonius Pious
specifically declared that the clamor of the multitude should not be
received as legal evidence to convict or to punish them, as such
tumultuous accusations were repugnant both to the firmness and the
equity of the law.[16]
This attitude seems to have persisted with relatively little change for
about a century. During this period the official 'persecutions' were
neither numerous nor severe. From the very few scattered and incidental
references which have alone survived regarding the mob feeling of the
time, we can assert no more than that it was an exasperated one, likely
to break out upon provocation but under ordinary circumstances more or
less in abeyance. On the whole it was undoubtedly more violent at the
end of the period than at the beginning.
Fortunately from the middle of the third Century onwards we have a
fairly continuous history of a single 'public' (Alexandria) which is
lacking before this time. The Alexandrian populace were noted for their
tumultuous disposition, but we have no reliable account of their
behavior towards the Christians until the time of Severus, 202 A.D. In
the account given by Eusebius of the martyrdom of the beautiful virgin,
Potamiaena, it is stated that: "the people attempted to annoy and insult
her with abusive words." As however the intervention of a single officer
sufficed to protect her from the people on this occasion, the public
sentiment cannot have been inflamed to any alarming extent. If we may
trust Palladius, her martyrdom was the result of a plot of a would-be
ravisher and in any case it was not the product of any spontaneous
popular movement.
In the period between 202 A.D. and 249 A.D. a well developed tradition
of hatred and violence grew up in the popular mind. We have no record of
the steps in the process but the extant accounts of the Decian and
Valerian persecutions in Alexandria leave no doubt of the fact. These
persecutions can only be called 'legal' by a violent stretch of verbal
usage. They were mob lynchings, sometimes sanctioned by the forms of
law, but quite as often without even the barest pretense of judicial
execution. They were quite as frequent and as savage in the later part
of the reign of Philip, as in the time of Decius. They were not called
forth by any imperial edict--they preceded the edict by at least a year
and were of a character such as no merely governmental, legal process
would ever, or could ever, take on. Mobbing Christians had become a form
of popular sport, a generally shared sort of public amusement--exciting
and not dangerous. The letter of Bishop Dionysius makes this very clear.
To quote: "The persecution among us did not begin with the royal decree
but preceded it an entire year. The prophet and author of evils to this
city moved and aroused against us the masses of the heathen rekindling
among them the superstition of their country and finding full
opportunity for any wickedness. They considered this the only pious
service of their demons that they should slay us." Then follows a long
list of mob lynchings of which we take a single specimen: "They seized
Serapion in his own house and tortured him and having broken all his
limbs, they threw him headlong from an upper story."[17] "And there was
no street, nor public read, nor lane open to us night or day but always
and everywhere all them cried out that if anyone would not repeat their
impious words, he should be immediately dragged away and burned. And
matters continued thus for a considerable time. But a sedition and civil
war came upon the wretched people and turned their cruelty toward us
against one another. So we breathed for a while as they ceased from
their rage against us."[18]
The mob broke loose against the Christians again the following year, but
there is no object in cataloguing the grewsome exhibitions of crowd
brutality. It is evident that what we have in this account is no
exhibition of political oppression by a tyrannical government, but a
genuine outbreak of group animosity which had been long incubating in
the popular mind. All the phenomena which are characteristic of fully
matured public feeling are found complete; circular interaction,
shibboleths, sect isolation devices and the rest. When public feeling
has developed to such a degree of intensity as this, the accumulated
sentiment and social unrest must of necessity discharge themselves in
some form of direct group action. This direct action however may take
the from either of physical violence or, under certain conditions, of
some sort of mystical experience; conversion, dancing, rolling on the
ground, etc. In exceptional cases the two forms are combined. An
illustration of this latter phenomenon is given by Bishop Dionysius in
this same letter; "In Cephus, a large assembly gathered with us and God
opened for us a door for the word. At first we were persecuted and
stoned but afterward not a few of the heathen forsook their idols and
turned to God."[19] It is necessary to mention perhaps the largest, and
certainly the most dignified and respectable crowd that is to be met
with in connection with this persecution--that of Carthage on the
occasion of the martyrdom of Bishop Cyprian. We find here neither rage
on one side nor unseemly exaltation on the other. Pagans and Christians
alike behaved with decent seriousness at the death of that famous man
who was equally respected by all classes of the population. But martyrs
of the social eminence of Cyprian were very rare, and orderly behaviour
in such a vast multitude as witnessed his end was still rarer.
To return to the populace of Alexandria. The long peace of the Church
which intervened between the persecution of Valerian and that of
Diocletian witnessed in Alexandria, as elsewhere, a great growth of
Christianity in numbers, influence, and wealth. It would perhaps be
going beyond the evidence to say that in this interval, the majority of
the population of the city were won over to the new faith, but it is
certain that the number of Christians became so great as to intimidate
the pagan portion of the people. The Alexandrian mob was still very much
in evidence but it gradually ceased to harrass the Christians except
under the most exceptional circumstances. The dangers of such action
became so considerable and the chances of success so problematical that
we find a period when a practice of mutual forbearance governed the
behavior of the hostile groups.
The study of crowd psychology presents no more impressive contrast than
that exhibited by the people of Alexandria during the Diocletian
persecution compared with their behavior during that of Decius. In the
last and greatest of the persecutions, in the most tumultuous city of
the empire, the mob took no part. Like the famous image of Brutus, it is
more conspicuous by its absence than it would be by its presence. The
persecution was a purely governmental measure officially carried out by
judges and executioners in accordance with orders. In one obscure and
doubtful instance we are told that the bystanders beat certain martyrs
when legal permission was given to the people to treat them so. In
another case we are told that the cruelty of the punishments filled the
spectators with fear. These are the only references to the public that
occur in the long and minute account of an eye witness of famous events
extending over a considerable number of years. Both before and after
this period the mob of the Egyptian metropolis exhibits the utmost
extreme of religious fanaticism. During this period that mob had to be
most carefully considered by the government in other than religious
matters. But as a religious power it did not exist. Had the persecution
of Diocletian happened a generation earlier it could have counted on a
very considerable degree of popular support, had it happened a
generation later it would have caused a revolt that could only have
been put down by a large army. Happening at the precise time it did, it
provoked no popular reaction at all.
This strange apathy is not peculiar to Alexandria. Practically without
exception the authentic acts of the martyrs of this persecution are
court records taken down by the official stenographers in the ordinary
course of the day's work. They are dry, mechanical, and repetitious to a
degree. They exhibit, in general, harrassed and exasperated judges
driven to the infliction of extreme penalties in the face of a cold and
skeptical public. One imperial decree ordered that all men, women, and
children, even infants at the breast, should sacrifice and offer
oblations, that guards should be placed in the markets and at the baths
in order to enforce sacrifices there. The popular reaction in Caesarea
is thus recorded: "The heathen blamed the severity and exceeding
absurdity of what was done for these things appeared to them extreme and
burdensome."[20] "He (the Judge) ordered the dead to be exposed in the
open air as food for wild beasts; and beasts and birds of prey scattered
the human limbs here and there, so that nothing appeared more horrible
even to those who formerly hated us, though they bewailed not so much
the calamity of those against whom these things were done as the outrage
against themselves and the common nature of man."[21]
The one thing to be said of this type of mob mind is manifestly that it
is transitional. The pendulum has swung through exactly half its arc and
for the brief instant presents the fallacious appearance of quiescence.
How transitory this quiet was on the part of the Alexandrian mob is
evidenced by the history of Athanasius. That great statesman conciliated
and consolidated public opinion in Egypt. Backed by this opinion he
practically cancelled the power of the civil authorities of the country
and negotiated as an equal with the emperors. For the first time in more
than three centuries the will of the common people again became a power
able to limit the military despotism which dominated the civilized
world.
The re-birth of popular government in the Fourth century through the
agency of Christian mobs is the most important preliminary step in the
growth of the political power of the Catholic Church. A study of the
mobs of Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople and other great cities shows
beyond question that the political power of the Church had its origin in
no alliance with imperial authority, but was independent of and
generally antagonistic to that authority. The history of these Christian
mobs lies outside the limits of our study but it is worth while in the
case of the Alexandrian populace to give two or three brief extracts
illustrating the final steps of the process which changed a fanatically
pagan mob into an equally fanatical Christian one. What we have to
consider is only the last stage of an evolution already more than half
complete at the time of the Nicene Council. Under extreme provocation
and certain of imperial complacency at their excesses, the pagan mob
during the reign of Julian indulged in one last outburst against the
exceedingly unpopular George of Cappadocia who had been forcibly
intruded into the seat of Athanasius. To quote the Historian Socrates:
"The Christians on discovering these abominations went forth eagerly to
expose them to the view and execration of all and therefore carried the
skulls throughout the city in a kind of triumphal procession for the
inspection of the people. When the pagans of Alexandria beheld this,
unable to bear the insulting character of the act, they became so
exasperated that they assailed the Christians with whatever weapons
chanced to come to hand, in their fury destroying numbers of them in a
variety of ways and, as it generally happens in such a case, neither
friends or relations were spared but friends, brothers, parents, and
children imbued their hands in each others blood. The pagans having
dragged George out of the church, fastened him to a camel and when they
had torn him to pieces they burned him together with the camel."[22] In
this account we see the last expiring efforts of the pagan mob movement.
Any mob movement collapses rapidly when it turns in upon itself, and the
evil results of its violence react immediately upon the members of the
mob. By this time it is evident that the number of Christians in
Alexandria was so large that any public persecution of them brought
serious and unendurable consequences upon the populace generally. Then
the movement ended.
But in the two centuries or more that the pagan movement lasted, a
contrary Christian mob movement had been developing along the same
general lines as the other. This movement, being later in its
inception, came to a head correspondingly later and reached its crisis
under the patriarch Cyril. Its violence was first directed against the
Jews whom the Christians appear to have hated even more than they hated
the pagans. The Jews were the weaker and less numerous faction opposed
to the Christians and as the Pagans seem to have liked them too little
to support them against the Christians, it is not surprising that the
Christian mob, which had pretty well reduced the political authorities
to impotence, should vent its rage against the Jews and their
synagogues. "Cyril accompanied by an immense crowd of people, going to
their synagogues, took them away from them and drove the Jews out of the
city, permitting the multitude to plunder their goods. Thus the Jews who
had inhabited the city from the time of Alexander were expelled from
it."[23]
Sometime after the expulsion of the Jews, the Christian mob, now
directing its spite against the rapidly disappearing paganism,
perpetrated perhaps the most atrocious crime that stains the history of
Alexandria--the murder of Hypatia. This beautiful, learned, and virtuous
woman, 'the fairest flower of paganism' is one of the very few members
of her sex who has attained high eminence in the realm philosophical
speculation. She enjoyed the deserved esteem of all the intellectual
leaders of her age--Christian as well as pagan--and to the latest ages
her name will be mentioned with respect by all those speculative
thinkers whose respect can confer honor. Socrates describes her murder
as follows: "It was calumniously reported among the Christian populace
that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the
bishop. Some of them therefore hurried away by a fierce and bigoted
zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning
home and dragged her from her carriage; they took her to the church
called Ceasareum where they completely stripped her and then murdered
her with oyster shells. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her
mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron and there burned them."[24]
Christian crowd sentiment when hardly yet at its full power was deprived
of its original object of animosity by the collapse of paganism. Being
under the psychological necessity of expressing itself, this mob feeling
happened to take as shibboleths some current theological catchwords.
The subsequent history of Alexandria and other great cities presents
therefore the strange scene of rival sects disturbing public order and
profoundly agitating vast throngs of people in a struggle over the most
abstruse and recondite metaphysical concepts. For the sake of clear
thinking it is necessary for us to remind ourselves that these concepts
are merely weird garments fortuitously snatched up to cover the
nakedness of a profound social and economic revolution.
The above sketch, imperfect as it is and full of lacunae due to the
inadequacy of the primary source material, is yet perhaps complete
enough to enable us to summarize the chief steps in the process of the
socialization in its aspect of a crowd movement. We have seen that this
crowd movement, like all others, had its origin in social unrest due to
shattered private and community ideals. The customary forms of
expression being inhibited or repressed, the balked disposition
experienced an organic demand for new stimulation. This new stimulation
was sought in various ways; aimless or practically aimless travelling or
local wandering, local disorder and agitation, increase in crime--and
insanity. Gradually this unrest focused itself and public attention
became fixed on Christianity. By the process of circular interaction,
the so-called 'vicious circle', public sentiment increased in intensity,
the name 'Christian' became a shibboleth. When applied to an individual
it let loose upon him the pent up emotion of the mob--an emotion or
unreflective rage and anger. By the further process of idealization or
sublimation, using the terms in their technical sense, the populace came
to believe that Christianity was the great and superhuman (daemoniac)
source of all evils; earthquakes, disease epidemics, famine etc. Seeking
release for psychic tensions which were not understood and largely
subconscious, they found it in a reversion to the oldest of the
'releasing instincts' that of hunting. The primary thing about the
persecutions is that they were man hunts. The cruelty exhibited, while
also serving as a tension release for mob feeling, is psychologically a
secondary form of such release--though a very old form. The discharge of
the accumulated public sentiment and of the severe social tensions
produced group action of two kinds: (a) Direct action: tearing the
victim in pieces, gathering wood to burn him, striking him with sticks,
stones, etc. (b) Expressive action, taking the form of shouts, cries
and ejaculations which became customary and traditional, 'Christianos ad
leones.' The very methods of lynching became ceremonial and even
ritualistic. The beasts were first choice, then burning and then other
forms in descending scale. The narrow range of the mob mind is
illustrated by the closeness with which it adhered to contemporary
judicial methods of punishment. The most obvious method of killing, and
one which had the advantage of enabling a great number of people to see
what was going on, the method of hanging, which is in such common use by
mobs of our day, does not seem to have been employed by the ancient
crowds--at any rate its use was rare in the modern form, strangling.
There are some cases of hanging naked women by one foot. Expressive
action also took the form of wild and fantastic legends of cannibalism,
child murder and such like. The crisis of this pagan mob movement came
about the middle of the third century. The Decian persecution appears to
have been 'popular' in the strict etymological sense of that word. The
persecution of Diolection, though the most severe, seems to have had no
great force of pagan public sentiment behind it. That sentiment was not
hostile; it was neutral. The populace did nothing to hinder the measures
of the government and it did nothing to help them. In another generation
the pagan movement had spent itself. This analysis of the pagan mob
sentiment against the Christians is applicable mutatis nominibus, to the
Christians' mob movement against the pagans and to the movement of the
'orthodox' Christians against the 'heretics.' Perhaps we should say
here, in defense of human nature, that these mob movements were not due
to human depravity; they were, in strict literalness, diseases,
epidemics of nervous disorder induced by pathological social conditions.
Before any persecuting attitude became habitual to the pagan populace
pagan common sense had exhausted argument, persuasion, expostulation and
every other intellectual device. Only after reason and religion (in the
pagan sense) had been employed in vain; only after long exasperation at
a hopeless situation, when absolutely nothing else could be done, was
popular violence aroused. Social conditions being what they were,
traditional mental attitudes common to pagan and Christians alike
required that something be done and mob action was the last desperate
alternative to the admission of a new intellectual concept.
The function of Chiliasm in this crowd movement is plain from its
history as previously sketched. It was a Christian shibboleth peculiarly
valuable for securing group cohesion, and for arousing individual
staying power in times of persecution. Of the numerous characteristics
of successful 'sect shibboleths' three are perhaps especially note
worthy: (a) Satisfaction of the demand for mystical experience. (b)
Operation as an isolating device. (c) Revolt against the prevailing
moral order. In the period of greatest need Chiliasm fulfilled these
requirements very well. Many a Christian of little education was lifted
out of himself to endure martyrdom by somewhat crass imaginations of
participation in the reign of the saints in the rebuilt Jerusalem. Many
a little band of sectaries maintained their group solidarity because of
the belief that they were the elect people 'chosen of God' for future
glory in the millennial kingdom. Many a faithful one who would otherwise
have given up in despair, must have gained strength and courage from the
thought of that happy era, soon to come, when the cruel persecutors of
the church would be slaves suffered to live only that their servitude
might augment the dignity and honor of the saints in the beatific
kingdom.
The relation of the Chiliastic expectation to that strange insensibility
to pain which was so remarkable a characteristic of the early martyrs
cannot be stated with exactness. It was probably close--at least in
numerous cases. We have what seems to be entirely trustworthy evidence
that not only strong men but even delicate and sensitive women exhibited
the power of inhibiting the normal reactions to the most excruciating
torments. This almost incredible power of inhibition can only be
explained as the result of the building up of a pathologically intense,
ecstatic, mental state. This ecstatic mental state would appear to have
been acquired by a series of psychic changes and organic, neuronic
adjustments requiring, ordinarily, a fairly considerable amount of time.
This peculiar psychological condition had not merely to be built up. It
must have attained an extraordinary degree of habituation in order to
render its subjects impervious to such extreme sensory excitations. The
requisite degree of imperviousness can hardly have been acquired without
such permeation of consciousness by imagination as constituted a
complete subjective universe. Many of the martyrs would seem to have
lived, more or less habitually, in a mental world of their own which
shut them off from susceptibility to external stimuli. This condition is
frequently found in artists and thinkers, and with the accompanying
insensibility to pain, is a common phenomenon in the 'trance' state as
well as in some forms of insanity.[25]
It would go beyond the evidence to claim that Chiliastic concepts
functioned exclusively, or even predominantly, in the production of the
'martyr psychosis,' but the evidence does point to the conclusion
that apocalyptic expectations held a more prominent place in the
consciousness of the martyrs than in that of the generality of
Christians. It is certain that Chiliasm became especially manifest in
times of persecution but Chiliasm must have operated even in ordinary
times to produce the phenomena which persecution brought into
prominence. Even today, in the entire absence of persecution, Chiliastic
excitement among certain groups of secretaries produces types of
religious psychosis closely similar to those exhibited by the
martyrs.[26]
On the whole the conclusion appears warranted that the increasing power
and progressive socialization of the church, which made persecution at
first hopeless and at last impossible, rendered Chiliasm, as a
crowd shibboleth, gradually useless and finally pernicious to the
ecclesiastical hierarchy. Had further persecutions been possible
Chiliasm would no doubt have been retained longer, but its usefulness
was fatally impaired when the majority of people nominally embraced
Christianity. It was of little or no value in those struggles with
heretical Christian sects which engaged the activities of orthodox mobs
from the time of Constantine onwards. Other shibboleths such as 'The
Church' and 'Catholicism' were more effective in this contest. Similarly
for the larger purpose of ecclesiastical polity, agencies like
monasticism and missionary enterprise were employed, which conserved the
shibboleth values of Chiliasm and were free from its defects as an
instrument of hierarchical ambition. The aims of the rulers of the
Church became increasingly social and political and with such aims
Chiliasm was fundamentally incompatible.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] E.g., the pagan philosophers.
[2] Acts 14:1-6.
[3] Pliny, Ep. xcvi.
[4] Dialogue XVIII.
[5] Mart. Poly. III.
[6] _Ibid._, VIII.
[7] _Ibid._, XII.
[8] _Ibid._, XIII.
[9] _Ibid._, XVIII.
[10] Hist. Ecc. VI.
[11] Hist. Ecc. V, I.
[12] Hist. Ecc. V, II.
[13] Prof. J. W. Thompson.
[14] Fustel de Coulanges.
[15] Hist. des insts. politique de l'ancienne France. Par. II.
[16] Eus. H. E. IV, 26.
[17] Eus. His. Ecc. VI, 41.
[18] Eus. His. Ecc. VI, 41.
[19] His. Ecc. VII, 11.
[20] Eus. Mart. Pal. II.
[21] _Ibid._, Chap. II.
[22] Hist. Ecc. III, 1.
[23] Socrates Hist. Ecc. IIII, 13.
[24] Hist. Ecc. VII, 15.
[25] Cf. E. Underhill 'Mysticism.'
[26] E.g., The Dukhabours.