Superstition flourishes because knowledge is still the luxury of the

few. By education alone can we hope to attain to the extinction of that

phase of mind termed belief, or faith, which has always been inculcated

as a virtue or a duty by the priest, and condemned as a vice of the

intellect by the philosopher. In every age, the ability to discern

the lines of demarcation which separate the known from the unknown is

the initial stage of advancement; and in the training of youth, the

prime object of the educator should be to confer this power on every

individual; for in the uninformed minds of a great majority of mankind,

fact and fancy are for the most part inextricably entangled. The

efforts of authority to dispel or perpetuate error are most potent when

acting on the impressionable faculties of early life. In a sane and

progressive world the first conception to be engrafted in the expanding

mind should be that knowledge has no foothold beyond the causeways

pushed by science into the ocean of the unknown.[866]

I do not design to produce under this heading a lengthy disquisition

on paedagogics among the Byzantines, but merely to indicate, by some

broad lines, upon what stock of common knowledge the foundations of

civilization rested in this age. The student of early Roman history

will scarcely need to be reminded that the virtues of the Republic

were not derived from the schools of art or philosophy; or that the

aesthetic tastes of those blunt citizens only developed in proportion

as they found themselves lords over the culture as well as over the

country of the Greeks.[867] Towards the middle of the second century

B.C., Greek professors of literature and eloquence began to establish

themselves at Rome, where they held their ground for some decades on

a very precarious footing, owing to the strong disfavour with which

they were regarded by those who considered the preservation of ancient

manners as the salvation of the state.[868] Gradually, however, the

new discipline prevailed; eminent teachers were accorded recognition

by the government, and before the end of the first century A.D., the

privilege of maintaining at the public expense a faculty of professors

to impart higher instruction to the rising generation, was granted to

every town of any magnitude throughout the Empire.[869] To facilitate,

therefore, the prosecution of _liberal studies_, for such they were

officially named, suitable buildings were erected in every populous

centre. Architecturally, a state school comprised a handsome hall or

lecture theatre, with class-rooms attached, the whole being surrounded

essentially by a portico.[870] The extent and decorative elaboration

of these edifices depended doubtless on their local or general

importance. The greater institutions, as denoted by their being the

resort of a large concourse of students, were liberally provided with

the adornments of painting and statuary.[871] Objective instruction

was given by means of tabular expositions of the subjects taught

affixed to the walls of the colonnades, among which maps conveying not

only geographical, but also historical information, were particularly

conspicuous.[872] Until the barbarian invasion of Greece by Alaric at

the close of the fourth century, Athens maintained an easy pre-eminence

as a centre of polite learning, and bestowed the greatest prestige

on those who passed through her schools.[873] The most pronounced

effort for the advancement of higher education in the East at this

epoch was the definite constitution of the schools of Constantinople

in an Auditorum on the Capitol, almost as the counterpart of a

modern University, by Theodosius II, in 425. The teaching staff of

this college consisted, under their official titles, of three Orators

and ten Grammarians for the Latin language; of five Sophists and ten

Grammarians for the Greek tongue; of one Philosopher; and of two

Jurists, thirty-one members in all.[874] To insure the success of

this foundation, the decree for its establishment was accompanied

by an injunction against the public lecturing of professors other

than those appointed to hold forth within its walls.[875] A body of

scriveners, technically named antiquarians, was also maintained for the

multiplication of copies of manuscripts in the public libraries of the

capital, which were rich in literature.[876]

In addition to these teachers, who were settled in various localities,

the itinerant professor, who travelled from place to place delivering

public harangues and taking pupils for a short course of instruction,

was a feature in the life of the period. With considerable vanity

they distinguished themselves by wearing a long beard, carrying a

staff, and enfolding themselves in a cloak of an unusual tint.[877]

Rhetoricians affected a garb of scarlet or white, philosophers of gray,

and physicians of blue.[878] When addressing an audience, they usually

presented themselves crowned with flowers, reeking with perfumes, and

displaying a gold ring of remarkable size.[879] The advent of these

self-ordained instructors of the public into a provincial town was

often the occasion of much local enthusiasm, and a throng of citizens

advanced to meet them for some distance, in order to conduct them to

their lodgings.[880] All professors, whether in the pay of the state

or otherwise, enjoyed a complete immunity from the civil duties and

imposts enforced on ordinary individuals, thus presenting the singular

contrast of being licensed to live in a condition of ideal freedom

under a political system which restricted personal liberty at every

turn.[881] Such material advantages inevitably became liable to abuse

through imposture, and the country was permeated by charlatans in

the guise of philosophers, who coveted distinction and emolument at

the easy price of a merely personal assertion of competence.[882]

In the fourth century this evil was scarcely checked by Imperial

enactments which required that professors of every grade should

procure credentials as to character and attainments from the Curia of

their native place.[883] The cost of education is a somewhat obscure

subject, but we are justified in assuming that all the state seminaries

were open gratuitously to the youth of the district; and we know that

even private teachers of eminence were accustomed to remit the fees to

students who were unable to pay.[884]

The ancients, like the moderns, assigned certain courses of instruction

to pupils according to their age and the estimated development of their

intelligence. As with us, the recipient of a full liberal education

passed through three stages, adapted respectively to the capacity

of the child, the boy, and the youth, which may be discussed under

the headings of Elementary, Intermediate, and Final. To these must

necessarily be added, in the case of those destined for a special

vocation, a fourth stage, viz., the Professional. Their conception,

however, of the periods of early life was more defined, and differed

somewhat from our own, the first terminating at twelve, the second at

fourteen, the third at twenty, and the fourth at twenty-five years of

age.[885] Primary education began at from five to seven, and the pupils

were usually sent to a day-school in the charge of a slave, named a

paedagogue. There they were taught to read, write, and to count; and

suitable pieces were given to them to learn by rote. A wooden tablet

faced with wax, upon which they scratched with a style, took the

place of the modern slate or copy-book. Calculation was restricted to

some simple operations of mental arithmetic, owing to the cumbersome

method of figuring employed by the ancients, which did not lend itself

easily to the manipulation of written numbers.[886] The schoolmasters

who presided over such preparatory establishments did not rank as

professors, and were not accorded any privileges beyond those of

ordinary citizens.[887]

II. At twelve the work of mental cultivation commenced seriously, and

the pupil entered on the study of the _seven liberal arts_, viz.,

grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and

music.[888] These subjects were taken in two stages, which in the

West were beginning to be called the _Trivium_ and _Quadrivium_.[889]

Two years were devoted to the _Trivium_, the scope of which may

be apprehended from a brief summary. 1. The grammar of the period

dealt with the eight parts of speech in a sufficiently exhaustive

manner; conveyed some notions, often crude and erroneous, as to the

derivation of words; and, in the absence of precise anatomical or

acoustic science, attempted in a primitive fashion a classification

of the letters and a physiology of vocalization. The construction of

sentences was analyzed with considerable minuteness; and passages

selected from eminent writers were set for the student to parse with

an exactitude seldom called for at the present day.[890] The laws of

poetical metre were taught as a leading branch of the subject; and a

familiarity with literature was promoted by reading the best authors,

especially Homer.[891] The copious Latin grammarian Priscian flourished

at Constantinople under Anastasius, and his monumental work in eighteen

books is still extant.[892]

2. In the province of dialectics it was sought to instill the art of

reasoning correctly into the mind of the pupil. Thus he was introduced

to the elementary principles of logic; the categories, or the modes

of regarding and classifying phenomena, were explained to him; and he

was exercised in the practice of accurate deduction according to the

various forms of the syllogism.

3. Without a practical acquaintance with the art of rhetoric it was

considered that no one could pretend to occupy any desirable position

in the civil service of the Empire.[893] This course was the extension

and application of the two previous ones of grammar and logic, upon

which it was based. The rules of composition and the arts of argument,

which the ingenuity of the Greeks had unravelled and defined under a

hundred apposite names, were exemplified to the student,[894] who

wrote extracts to dictation chosen from various illustrative authors.

The sophist or rhetorician addressed his class on some stated theme,

and spoke alternately on both sides of the question. The management

of the voice and the use of appropriate gesture were systematically

taught.[895] Finally the pupils were set to compose speeches of their

own and to debate among themselves on suitable subjects.[896]

III. The four divisions of the _Quadrivium_ were grouped together as

the mathematical arts; and six years were allotted to their study. 1.

In geometry the discipline did not include the learning of theorems

and problems as set forth in the Elements of Euclid, but merely an

acquaintance with the definitions and with the ordinary plane and solid

figures.[897] The teaching in this section, however, was mainly of

geography.[898] It was asserted doubtfully that the earth was a globe

and that there was an inferior hemisphere of which nothing certain

could be predicated.[899]

2. Arithmetic was not practised methodically by the setting of sums to

be worked out by the pupils, but consisted chiefly in demonstrating

the more obvious properties of numbers, such as odd, even, prime,

perfect, etc., together with many fanciful absurdities.[900] Operations

with figures were indicated verbally in a disconnected manner;

multiplication tables to be learnt by heart had not been invented; the

higher rules and decimal fractions were unknown.

3. Systematic astronomy at this period and for long after, as is well

known, was conceived of on false principles which, whilst admitting

of the correct solution of some problems, such as the prediction

of eclipses, left the vastness of the universe and its physical

constitution totally unapprehended. All the heavenly bodies were

regarded as mathematically, if not teleologically disposed about the

earth, to which as a centre even the fixed stars, at varying and

immeasurable distances as they are, were constrained fantastically

by a revolving sphere of crystal.[901] The reasoning, however, by

which these views were upheld was not sufficiently convincing to gain

universal acceptance; and the outlines of the science communicated

to students generally received some modifications from the minds

of individual teachers.[902] Much of the course was taken up with

treating of the constellations and the zodiac, not without a tincture

of astrology, and some primitive observations on meteorology were

included.[903]

4. Music as known to us is virtually a modern creation; and that of the

Greeks would doubtless impress us as a wild and disorderly performance,

adapted only to the ears of some semi-barbaric people of the East.

Their most extended scale did not range beyond eighteen notes;[904]

in order to obtain variety their only resource was a shift of key,

that is, a change of pitch, or the adoption of a different mode,

that is, of a gamut in which the semitones assumed novel positions;

and their harmony was restricted to the consonance of octaves. Time

was not measured according to the modern method, but there was a

rhythm fixed in relation to the various metres of poetic verse. Their

usual instruments were the pipe or flute, the lyre, a simple form of

organ,[905] and, of course, the human voice. Practically, therefore,

their music consisted of melody of a declamatory or recitatival type,

to which a peculiar character was sometimes given by the use of quarter

tones; and choral singing was purely symphonic. But the vibrational

numbers of the scale had been discovered by Pythagoras when making

experiments with strings; and each of the eighteen notes and fifteen

modes had received a descriptive name. Hence the limited scope of

the art did not prevent the theory of music from ultimately becoming

elaborated with a complexity not unworthy of the native subtlety of the

Greeks.[906] In practice the musical training of pupils consisted in

their learning to sing to the lyre.[907]

Such in brief were the component parts of a liberal education, with

which, however, under the name of philosophy, it was considered

essential that a complement of ethical teaching should be conjoined.

This complement was digested into three branches, under which were

discussed the duty of the individual to himself, to the household, and

to the community at large or to the state.[908]

IV. It now remains for us to glance at the more protracted training of

those who had resolved to devote their lives to some particular sphere

of activity. Aspirants for the position of professor of the liberal

arts, or who wished to utilize their acquirements in a political

career, would continue and extend their studies on the lines above

indicated; but those who intended to follow the professions of law

or physic, or engage in practice of art proper, had to direct their

energies into new channels.

1. As the administration of the Empire was almost monopolized by the

members of the legal profession, it may be inferred that the throng of

youths intent on becoming lawyers fully equalled in number the students

of every other calling. Hence we find that not only were schools of

law established in every city of importance, notably Constantinople,

Alexandria, and Caesarea, but that a provincial town of minor rank

obtained a unique celebrity through the teaching of jurisprudence.

Berytus, on the Syrian coast, in the province of Phoenicia, with an

academic history of several centuries[909] at this date, had attained

to that position; and was habitually spoken of as the “mother”

and “nurse of the laws.”[910] Four jurists of eminence, double the

number allotted to any other school, under the title of Antecessors,

lectured in the auditorium;[911] and a progressive course of study

was arranged to extend over five years. In each successive year the

candidate assumed a distinctive designation which marked his seniority

or denoted the branch of law on which he was engaged.[912] Before

the sixth century the legal archives of the Empire had been swollen

to such proportions that it had become an almost impossible task to

thread the maze of their innumerable enactments. During the lapse of a

thousand years the constitutions of the emperors had been engrafted on

the legislation of the Republic, and the complexity of the resultant

growth was capable of bewildering the most acute of legal minds. On

three occasions, beginning from the time of Constantine, attempts had

been made to separate and classify the effective laws;[913] and the

Code of Theodosius II, published in 438, the only official one, was

at present in force. But this work, executed in a narrow spirit of

piety which decreed that only the enactments of Christian emperors

should be included, was universally recognized as both redundant and

insufficient. A still wider entanglement existed in the literature

which had accumulated around the interpretation and application of the

statutes; during the administration of justice a myriad of perplexing

points had arisen to exercise the keenest forensic judgement in order

to arrive at equitable decisions; and it was estimated that two

thousand treatises, emanating from nearly forty authors, contained in

scattered passages matter essential to a correct apprehension of the

principles and practice of the law.[914] Such was the arduous prospect

before a legal student who desired to win a position of repute in his

profession.[915]

2. As Berytus had become famous for its law school, so Alexandria,

and even some centuries earlier, had gained a noted pre-eminence as a

centre of medical education;[916] but with respect to the course of

study and the methods of instruction no details have come down to

us. We have seen that the regulations for the establishment of the

auditorium at Constantinople did not provide for a chair of physic,

whence it may be inferred that it was left entirely to those who had

attained to the position of senior or arch-physician to organize

the teaching and training of pupils. The public medical officers,

who attended the poor at their own homes or in the _nosocomia_ or

hospitals existing at this date,[917] would doubtless have excellent

opportunities for forming classes and rendering students familiar

with the aspect and treatment of disease. The medical and surgical

science of antiquity had come to a standstill by the end of the second

century, when the indefatigable Galen composed his great repertory

of the knowledge of his own times. That knowledge comprised almost

all the details of macroscopic anatomy, but had advanced but a little

way towards solving the physiological problems as to the working of

the vital machine. The gross absurdities of the preceding centuries

had, however, been finally disposed of, such as that fluids passed

down the windpipe into the lungs,[918] or that the arteries contained

air.[919] Ordinary operations were performed freely; and the surgeon

was conscious that it was more creditable to save a limb than to

amputate it.[920] Three centuries before the Christian era Theophrastus

had laid the foundations of systematic botany, as had his master

Aristotle those of zoology and comparative anatomy.[921] The resources

of therapeutics were extensive and varied, but the action of drugs

was not well understood. Remedies were compounded not only from the

vegetable kingdom, but also with animal substances[922] to an extent

which seems likely to be equalled by the more precise medication with

the principles of living tissues gaining ground at the present day.

Knowledge of minerals, however, was too deficient for such bodies to

take a prominent place in pharmacology.[923]

3. The arts of Greece, after having flourished in perfection from the

time of Pericles to that of Alexander in the various departments of

architecture, sculpture, painting, and literature, remained dormant for

some centuries until the establishment of universal peace under the

dominion of Rome provided a new theatre for their exercise. Fostered

in the Augustan age by the indolence and luxury of the Imperial city,

which offered the prospect of fortune to every artist of ambition and

talent, they were communicated to the Latins, who strove earnestly

to imitate and equal their masters. The exotic art bloomed on the

foreign soil to which it had been transplanted; and the Italians, if

they never displayed creative genius or originality of conception,

at least learned to reproduce with consummate skill and novelty of

investment the emanations of Hellenic inspiration. But the elements

of permanency were wanting to such factitious aptitudes, as they were

in fact to the fabric of the Empire itself; and the wave of political

stability was closely followed in its rise and fall by the advance or

decline of the arts. After the reign of Augustus the tide of prosperity

ebbed for about half a century until it reached its lowest level

during the Civil Wars which heralded the settlement of Vespasian on

the throne. It rose again, and for more than fifty years maintained

an active flow during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian, subsequent

to which its course is marked by a gently descending line, under the

benign rule of the Antonines, until it sinks somewhat abruptly in the

temporary dissolution of the Empire, which preceded the triumph of

Severus. Thenceforward, but two centuries from its foundation,[924]

the sovereignty of Rome entered on shoals and quicksands, calamity

succeeded calamity, and a position of stable equilibrium was never

afterwards regained; but in the vicissitudes of fortune before the

final catastrophe, an illusive glow appeared to signalize more than

once a return of the supremacy of the Caesars.[925]

By the time of Constantine the neglect and degradation of art had

become so pronounced that artists could scarcely be found competent to

execute, even in an inferior style, any monumental record of the events

of the age; or for the construction of the public buildings so lavishly

planned by that monarch in his attempted renovation of the Empire.[926]

To meet the difficulty he promulgated decrees, which were kept in

force and multiplied by his successors, with the view of stimulating

his subjects to devote themselves to arts and the allied handicrafts.

Immunity from all civil burdens was guaranteed; and salaries, with the

free occupation of suitable premises in public places, were offered to

those who would undertake to teach.[927] These measures undoubtedly

tended to the elevation of taste and the maintenance of civilization,

although they could not infuse a new genius into the people of a

decadent age.

At the opening of the sixth century Constantinople was the focus of

civilization not only in the East, but also with respect to those

western countries which had until lately been united as members of

the same political system. The suzerainty of the eastern Emperor was

still tacitly allowed, or, at least, upheld; and the prestige of his

capital was felt actively throughout the ruder West as a refining

influence which only waned after the period of the Renaissance. The

main characteristic of art at this epoch is an unskilled imitation

of ancient models; and the conventional style regarded as typically

Byzantine, which at one time prevailed so widely in Europe, was not

to become apparent for many centuries to come.[928] But by the fifth

century certain modifications of design, betraying the infiltration of

Oriental tastes, also began to be observable.[929]

_a._ Architecture at Constantinople remained essentially Greek, or,

at least, Graeco-Roman; and the constant demand for new buildings,

especially churches, ordained that it should still be zealously

studied. In the provinces, however, particularly on the Asiatic side,

some transitional examples would have enabled an observer to forecast

already an era of cupolar construction.[930]

_b._ On the other hand, statuary almost threatened to become a lost

art. The devotion to athletic contests, which prevailed among the

Greeks, caused them to lay great stress on physical culture; and at

the public games, as well as in the preparatory gymnasia, they were

constantly familiarized with the aspect of the human figure undraped

in every phase of action and repose.[931] The eye of the artist thus

acquired a precision which enabled him to execute works in marble with

a perfection unapproached in any later age. To the anthropomorphic

spirit of polytheism it was necessary that the images of the gods

should be multiplied in temples and even in public places; and the

Greeks essayed to express the ideal beauty of their divinities

under those corporeal forms which appeared most exquisite to the

human senses. Received as being of both sexes and as fulfilling

the conception of faultless excellence in a variety of spheres, a

boundless field lay open before the artist in which to represent them

according to their diverse attributes of sovereignty, of intellect,

or of grace.[932] But the traditions of Hebrew monotheism sternly

forbid any material presentation of the Deity, and sculpture in the

round was almost abolished at the advent of Christianity. In one minor

department, however, that of ivory carving, a school of artists was

constantly exercised in order to provide the annual batch of consular

diptychs, which it was customary to distribute throughout the provinces

every new year.[933] On each set of these plates, figured in low

relief, appeared generally duplicate likenesses of the consul of the

day, clad in his state robes and surrounded by subsidiary designs. The

style of these productions, perfunctorily executed it may be, suggests

that the average artist of the period was incapable of portraiture or

of tracing correctly the lines of any living form.[934]

_c._ Less unfortunate with reference to religion were the pictorial

arts at this date. The decoration of churches, in brilliant colour

and appropriate iconography, was gradually carried to a degree of

elaboration which has never since been surpassed. The intrinsic

nature of popular devotion insensibly established the convention that

images in the flat did not contravene the divine prohibitions; and

ecclesiastical prejudice yielded to expediency. On the iconostasis

and around the walls of the sacred edifice, in proximity to the

worshippers, Christ, the Virgin, the Apostles, and the Saints, with

many a scene of Gospel history, were depicted in glowing tints on

a blue or a golden ground. On every available space of the ceiling

similar subjects, but of larger dimensions, were executed in a

brilliant glass mosaic, and the mass of colour overhead completed the

gorgeous effect of the interior.[935] Accordantly it was considered

that reverence for the holy scriptures was fittingly shown by the

reproduction of copies in the most costly form; and hence the painting

of manuscripts in miniature revived and endured as one of the staple

industries of the age. But in all these cases defective drawing and

perspective are often painfully conspicuous, and a meretricious display

of colour seems to be regarded by the artist as the highest expression

of his skill.[936]

_d._ By the end of the fifth century we are on the verge of that

new era in literature, introduced by the Byzantines, when to make a

transcript of some previous writer was to become an author.[937] In

other branches of art from time to time some obvious merit becomes

visible on the surface, but in the domain of poetry, during nearly

fourteen centuries previous to the fall of the Empire, a single name

only, that of Claudian, survives to remind us that both Greeks and

Latins once possessed the faculty of expressing themselves in verse

with nobility of thought and felicity of diction. Poetasters existed

in abundance, but without exception their compositions exemplify the

futility of striving after an object which in that age had resolved

itself into the unattainable. The usefulness of prose as a medium of

information, however low may be its literary level, often compensates

us for lack of talent in an author; and the bald chronicler, who

plagiarized his predecessors in the same field and presented their work

as his own, is sometimes as welcome to the investigator as a writer of

more ambitious aims. In these barren centuries, however, history and

theology are occasionally illustrated by some work of original power.

In the foregoing paragraphs I have dealt with education in relation

only to the male sex, and it remains for me to say a few words

respecting the mental training of the female. In keeping with the rule

as to their social seclusion, the instruction of girls was conducted

in the privacy of the family circle. There they received, in addition

to the usual rudiments, a certain tincture of polite learning, which

implied the methodical reading of Homer and a limited acquaintance

with some of the other Greek poets and the dramatists.[938] Music, as

being an elegant accomplishment, was also taught to them.[939] They

were not, however, debarred from extending the scope of their studies,

and instances of learned ladies are not altogether wanting to this age,

for example, the Empress Athenais or Eudocia[940] and the celebrated

Hypatia.[941]

A glance at the slight structure of knowledge, the leading lines of

which I have just lightly traced, may enable the modern reader to

appreciate the conditions of intellectual life among the ancients,

and to perceive within how narrow an area was confined the exercise

of their reasoning faculties. Viewed in comparison with the vast body

of contemporary science, all the information acquired by the Greeks

must appear as an inconsiderable residue scarcely capable of conveying

a perceptible tinge to the whole mass. For fully eighteen hundred

years, from the age of Aristotle to that of Columbus and Copernicus,

no advance was made in the elucidation of natural phenomena or even

towards exploring the surface of the globe. The same globe has been

surveyed and delineated in its widest extent by the industry of our

cartographers, has been seamed with a labyrinth of railways for the

conveyance of substance, and invested in a network of wire for the

transmission of thought. In the universe of suns our solar system

appears to us as a minute and isolated disc, the earth a speck within

that disc; to the ancients the revelations of telescopic astronomy

were undreamt of, and the world they inhabited (all but a tithe of

which was concealed from them, and whose form they only mistily

realized) seemed to them to be the heart of the universe, of which the

rest of the celestial bodies were assumed to be merely subordinate

appendages. Geological investigation has penetrated the past history

of the earth through a million of centuries to those primeval times

when meteorological conditions first favoured the existence of organic

life; the people of antiquity were blinded by unfounded legends which

antedated the origin of things to a few thousand years before their

own age. Spectroscopic observation has assimilated the composition of

the most distant stars to that of our own planet. Chemical analysis

has achieved the dissolution of the numberless varieties of matter

presented to our notice, and proved them to arise merely from diverse

combinations of a few simple elements; and electrical research has

almost visually approached that primordial substance in which is

conceived to exist the ultimate unity of all things.[942] Synthetical

chemistry has acquired the skill to control the inherent affinities

of nature, and to compel her energies to the production of myriads of

hitherto unknown compounds.[943] By the aid of the microscope we can

survey the activities of those otherwise invisible protoplasmic cells

which lie at the foundation of every vital process; and the possibility

is foreshadowed that, in the alliance of biology and chemistry, we

may one day succeed in crossing the bridge which links the organic

to the inorganic world and command the beginnings of life.[944] In

all these departments of objective knowledge the speculations and

researches of the Greek philosophers had not even broken the ground.

For these primitive observers, without history and without science, the

world was a thing of yesterday, a novel appearance of which almost

anything might be affirmed or denied. Magnetism was known merely as

an interesting property of the lodestone; electricity, as yet unnamed,

had barely arrested attention as a peculiarity of amber, when excited

by friction, to attract light substances. Nor had the mechanical

arts been developed so as to admit of any practical application

and stimulate the industries of civilization. Although automatic

toys were sometimes constructed with considerable ingenuity,[945]

the simplest labour-saving machine was as yet uninvented.[946]

In the early centuries of our era knowledge had become stagnant,

and further progress was not conceived of. One half of the world

lived on frivolity; the individuality of the other half was sunk in

metaphysical illusion. The people of this age contemplated nature

without comprehending her operations; her forces were displayed before

their eyes, but it never entered into their heads to master them and

make them subservient to the needs of human life; they moved within a

narrow cage unconscious of the barriers which confined them, without

a thought of emerging to the freedom of the beyond; and an ordinary

citizen of the present day is in the possession of information which

would surprise and instruct the greatest sage of ancient Greece.

III. RELIGIOUS.

The increase of knowledge in the nineteenth century has stripped every

shred of supernaturalism from our conception of popular religions.

The studies and inventions of modern science have illuminated every

corner of the universe; and our discovery of the origins has cleared

the greatest stumbling-block from the path of philosophy and removed

the last prop which sustained the fabric of organized superstition.

The world will one day have to face the truth about religion; and it

may then become necessary to restrain by legal enactment those who

would draw away the masses to some old historical, or to some new-born

superstition.[947]

In primitive times the curiosity and impatience of mankind demanded

an immediate explanation of the activities of nature; and by a simple

analogy they soon conceived the existence of a demiurge or maker of

worlds who, in his loftier sphere, disposed of the materials of the

universe by methods comparable to those of their own constructive

operations.[948] Or, perchance, by even less speculative reasoning

they were led to accept the phenomenal world as the result of a

perpetual generation and growth which accorded closely with their

everyday experience of nature; whilst a divinity of some kind seemed to

lurk in every obscurity and all visible objects to be instinct with a

life and intelligence of their own.[949] In either case they believed

themselves to be in the presence of beings of superior attributes whom

it was desirable or necessary to conciliate by some form of address

adapted to gain their favour or to avert their enmity. Hence worship,

the parent of some system of ritual likely to become more elaborate

in the lapse of time; and the ultimate establishment of a priestly

caste who would soon profess to an intercourse with the unseen not

vouchsafed to ordinary mortals. Gradually the first vague notions of

a celestial hierarchy grew more realistic by imaginative or expedient

accretions; and in a later age the sense of a less ignorant community

would not be revolted by incredible details as to the personal

intervention of divinities in the history of their progenitors when

such events were relegated to a dimly realized past. But, although

a belief in revelation as seen through the mists of antiquity

prevails readily at all times among the unthinking masses, a spirit

of scepticism and inquiry arises with the advent of civilization and

increases concurrently with the vigour of its growth. Then the national

mythology is submitted to the test of a dispassionate logic, and its

crude constituents become more and more rejected by the sagacity of

a cultured class. They, however, always hitherto an inconsiderable

minority, feel constrained to an indulgence more or less qualified of

the superstitions of the vulgar for fear of disturbing the political

harmony of the state.

The early Greek philosophers awoke into life to find themselves endowed

with vast intelligence in a world of which they knew nothing. No

record of the past, no forecast of the future disturbed the serenity

of their intellectual horizon. In a more aesthetic environment they

renewed the impulse to interpret nature with a finer sense of congruity

than was possessed by their rude ancestors, but their methods were

identical, and they believed they could advance beyond the bounds of

experience by the exercise of a vivid imagination. The coarse myths of

polytheism were thrust aside, and the void was filled with fantastic

cosmogonies, some of which included, whilst others dispensed with, the

agency of a Deity.[950] The truth and finality of such speculations

was shortly assumed, and schools of philosophy, representing every

variety of doctrine, were formed, except that in which it was foreseen

that knowledge would be attained only by the long and laborious path

of experimental investigation. But whilst disciples were attracted to

different sects by the personal influence of a teacher, by the novelty

of his tenets, or by their own mental bias, the general sense of the

community remained unconvinced; and the independent thinkers of the

next generation perceived the futility of inquiries which evolved

nothing coherent and revealed no new facts. Scientific research, for

the deliberate striving after deeper insight ranked as such in the

unpractised mind of the period, was discredited, and an impression

that the limits of human knowledge had already been reached began

to prevail universally. A reign of scepticism was inaugurated, the

evidence of the senses in respect even of the most patent facts was

doubted, and the study of nature was virtually abandoned.[951] Then

philosophy became synonymous with ethics, but by ethics was understood

merely the rule of expediency in public life, a subject which was

debated with much sophistry. The inspiration of Socrates impelled

him to combat this tendency, to search earnestly after truth, and

to inculcate an elevated sense of duty. His mind was pervaded by an

intense philanthropy which affected his associates so profoundly

that his teaching did not lose its influence for centuries after his

death. From the time of Socrates the fruits of experience began to be

gathered, and new schools of philosophy were organized on the sounder

basis of divulging to their votaries how to make the best use of their

lives. The views entertained on this question were as various as the

divergences of human temperament, and adapted to countenance the

serious or the frivolous proclivities of mankind.[952] A theological or

cosmical theory was a usual part of the equipment of these schools,

but in outward demeanour they conformed, more or less strictly, with

the religion of the state. The intellectual movement among the Greeks

culminated after about two centuries of activity in the career of

Aristotle, who undertook to sift, to harmonize, and to codify all the

knowledge of his age.[953] A great work had been accomplished; all

that wild outgrowth with which savage intellection is wont to encumber

the domain of reason had been swept away, and the ground had been

subjected to an orderly, though unproductive planting. The conception

that nature would yield a harvest as the reward of rational study had

been awakened, but the efforts lapsed because the method had yet to be

discovered of fertilizing the vacant soil.[954]

The conception of social ethics or of mutual obligation among the

members of a community appears to have been one of those influences

which presided at the birth of civilization, and to have attained

theoretical perfection far back in the prehistoric past; whilst the

perpetual conflict between duty and individual advantage has always

inhibited altruism from being accepted as an invariable guide to

conduct without the artificial support of penal law. In Homer and

Hesiod we find almost every rule for living uprightly adequately

expressed. A man should honour his parents, love and be generous to his

friends, be a good neighbour, and succour strangers and suppliants.

He should be truthful, honest, continent, and industrious; and should

consider sloth to be a disgrace.[955] In the next age Hellenic

refinement could add little more than fuller expression to these simple

precepts. But from Pythagoras to Socrates, from Aristotle to Cicero,

from Seneca to Marcus Aurelius, a constant emission of ethical doctrine

was maintained. Amid the wealth of disquisition, innumerable striking

aphorisms might be selected, but only a few such can be recorded here:

We should scan the actions of each day before resigning ourselves to

sleep;[956] We have contracted with the government under which we live

to submit ourselves to its laws, even should they condemn us to death

unjustly;[957] We should pity the man who inflicts an injury more than

him who suffers it, for the one is harmed only in his body, the other

in his more precious soul;[958] Do not unto others what it angers you

to suffer yourself;[959] Even should we be able to conceal our conduct

from gods and men, we are not the less bound to act uprightly;[960] The

judge, as well as the criminal, is on his trial that he may deliver

just decisions;[961] Do not revile the malefactor, but commiserate him

as one who knows not right from wrong;[962] Blame none, for men only do

evil involuntarily.[963] By the first century slaves had begun to be

considered in a more humane light; and masters were enjoined to look

on them as humble friends, as brothers with whom it was no disgrace to

sit at meat.[964] The iniquity of the gladiatorial shows was beginning

to be felt in the time of Cicero,[965] and they were denounced in no

measured terms by Seneca.[966] Such exhibitions had never been proper

to the Greek communities and, when an attempt was made to introduce

them at Athens in the second century, the cynic philosopher Demonax

restrained his fellow citizens by declaring that before doing so they

should first demolish the altar of Pity.[967] The exposure of new-born

infants was one of the besetting sins of antiquity, and the practice

was universal among the Latins and Greeks.[968] The inhumanity of it

was, however, perceived early in our era; yet not until the reign of

Severus do we find a legal pronouncement against it.[969] Constantine

discountenanced it, but no comprehensive enactment for its suppression

was promulgated till the end of the fourth century.[970] Charity

towards the needy was a recognized duty from the earliest times, and

Homer voices the general sentiment when he writes that strangers and

the poor are to be treated as emissaries from the gods.[971] At Athens,

in its palmy days, an allowance was made to indigent citizens;[972] and

the lavish system of outdoor relief denoted by the trite phrase, _Panem

et circenses_, as introduced by the Caesars, threatened to pauperize

the urban population of the Empire.[973] The origin of charitable

asylums is not well ascertained, but there is evidence that in the

first century at least the foundation of such institutions was already

being promoted by the rulers of the state.[974] The Roman Empire

entered the Christian era equipped with a civilization scarcely at all

inferior to that of the present day in relation to art, literature,

and social ethics, but a sustaining principle, which could endow

the splendid fabric with quality of permanency, was wanting. It was

vulnerable within and without; and two powerful enemies, superstition

and the barbarian, were awaiting the opportune moment to prey upon it.

The dissolution commenced within; ignorance of natural science allowed

the first to work havoc in its vital parts; the barbarian assaulted the

infected mass from without, and the ruin became complete.

The political unification of the most civilized portion of the globe

was begun by the conquests of Alexander and completed by those of

Rome. Sociological homogeneity was attendant on centralization of

government. From Britain to North Africa and from Spain to Asia Minor

thought flowed through the same channels. Rome and Greece dominated

the world between them; while the former assumed the physical control

of the nations, the latter held their mental faculties in subjection.

Progressively, however, influences began to permeate the Empire which

were foreign to both Latins and Hellenes. East and west confronted each

other on the Asiatic frontier; Egyptians and Jews were commingled with

the Latin and Greek races in the great mart of Alexandria. Oriental

mysticism became rife, and gods of every nationality were received

into the bosom of Rome.[975] In the first century of the Christian

era the times were ripe for new religious beliefs. By the expansion of

the Roman dominions the classes had become cosmopolitan, and a wide

experience of men and manners had dissipated the rustic simplicity

of the Republic. The society of the Empire was enlightened by the

speculations of Greek philosophy; it became versed in metaphysical

discussion, and soon conceived an irreverence for the divinities of a

ruder age.[976] Everywhere the same level of mental apprehension was

ultimately reached. Then the inanity of earthly existence began to be

acutely felt. The thoughtful looked through the void and saw nowhere

for the mind to rest. Zeal for public distinction had been suppressed

by military despotism, and the pride which animates the strenuous

virtues of a rising commonwealth was extinct. Levity pervaded the

aimless crowd who lived only for the diversion of the hour. Nature had

been interrogated repeatedly with an invariably negative result; her

secret, if she possessed one, seemed to be impenetrable and destined

to remain for ever unknown. No discovery in science had opened up the

vista of a path which led through inexhaustible fields of knowledge.

The psychical unrest longed for new ideals and was willing to be

appeased by the slightest semblance of a revelation. Religion-making

became a craft which was followed by more than one practitioner in

all the chief cities of the Empire. A host of charlatans arose and

made many victims by pretending to theurgic powers.[977] Agitated by

vague impulses the social units drifted with indeterminable currents,

for more than a century before the heterogeneous elements which were

in commotion showed a tendency to group themselves under any concrete

forms. At length the appearances of a settlement became visible, and

three distinct forms emerged successively from the previously existing

chaos, each of which claimed to have sounded the abysmal depths and to

have brought to the surface the inestimable balm which was to salve the

bruised souls of humanity. But they beheld each other with horror and

contempt, and a contest was initiated between them on the theatre of

the Empire for the spiritual dominion of mankind.

I. In the year 28 A.D., the fifteenth of the reign of Tiberius, Pontius

Pilate was governor of Judaea, the subordinate officer of Aelius

Lamia, the Imperial legate of Syria.[978] At that point of time a man,

previously unknown among the Jews, assumed the rôle of a public teacher

of religion and ethics and devoted himself to an itinerant mission

throughout the cities and districts of Palestine. He seemed to be about

thirty years old and it was soon realized that he was a certain Jesus

who had hitherto worked as a carpenter, his father’s trade, in his

native village of Nazareth. He preached a reformation of manners among

the people generally, and rebuked with a penetrating bitterness the

pride and hypocrisy of the chief men of his own race. At the outset

of his career he summoned to his assistance twelve men of the same

humble rank as himself and enjoined them to follow his example. He did

not confine himself to hortatory discourses, but proved on numerous

occasions that he had the gift of working miracles. At his command

the sick were healed and even the dead returned to life. Those who

were possessed with devils he immediately released from their baleful

thraldom.[979] The laws of nature appeared to be subject to his will

and were reversed whenever he thought fit to exert his power over them.

Finally he declared himself to be the Messiah or Christ, a more than

mortal being whom the Jews expected to rescue them from their political

abasement and raise them to a position of national supremacy. Israel

as a body rejected his claims with scorn and derision; his ministry

of peace afforded no prospect of the rehabilitation they aspired

to.[980] He met them in the temple at Jerusalem and they demanded

of him a sign that he was an emissary sent from heaven. In reply he

assailed them with vituperation and hurried from the precincts. Amongst

his own following he explained himself; his design had been entirely

misconceived; he was the son of Jehovah and his kingdom was not of this

world. He had been sent to reconcile his own nation to his father, the

ruler of the universe, whom they had offended by their moral laxity

and corruption. He would shortly depart from the earth, but he would

soon return with all the powers of heaven to judge the inhabitants of

this lower sphere. Then the just would be received into a state of

bliss without end, whilst the wicked should be consigned to everlasting

torment. He persisted in his didactic work, which tended to make the

chief priests and elders odious in the eyes of the people, until they

determined to compass his destruction. Ultimately he was seized and

brought before the Roman governor as a mover of sedition, but Pilate

was unconcerned and wished to release him. His accusers insisted, he

yielded and, after suffering every indignity, Jesus was crucified

between two thieves on mount Calvary during the Paschal festival of

A.D. 29, under the consulship of the two Gemini.[981] But his disciples

had been forewarned by their master that his death in the guise of a

malefactor was preordained as an atonement to effect the redemption

of the world from sin. Had it been otherwise legions of angels would

descend to discomfort his impious antagonists. At the same time he

predicted that he would rise from the dead on the third day after the

burial of his body. This promise was fulfilled, his sepulchre was found

empty, and Jesus appeared again to his disciples. He discoursed with

them for forty days, constituted them apostles to preach his Gospel

not only to the Jews, but also to the Gentiles, and in their presence

ascended into the heavens until the clouds received him out of their

sight.

Such was the astounding relation elicited with some difficulty from

a sect of new religionists called Christians, who, as early as the

reign of Nero, were sufficiently numerous at Rome to have incurred

the hatred of the populace through their austere disposition and

their stern abjuration of the national gods.[982] In the year 64

the city was devastated by an appalling conflagration of which the

insensate emperor was himself accused, but he shifted the odium

to the already discredited recusants, and condemned many of them

to perish in the flames by a peculiarly atrocious method.[983]

Nevertheless the Christians maintained their ground and thirty years

later were regarded with hostility by the tyrant Domitian as a body

of proselytizing Jews in the capital.[984] At the dawn of the second

century the younger Pliny found them so numerous in his province of

Bithynia as almost to have subverted the established religion. In

great concern he wrote to the Emperor Trajan questioning whether he

should proceed to extremities in his efforts to suppress them. This

epistle is extant, and through it some details were first made public

as to their tenets and mode of worship. Before daybreak on a certain

day they met and recited an address to Christ as to a god; bound

themselves by oath to commit no crime against society, and partook

together of a common meal. The cultured Roman, imbued with literature

and philosophy, estimated the Christian belief as a depraved and

extravagant superstition, the eradication of which was dictated by

state policy, but his master counselled him to disregard it unless

popular animosity should in particular instances compel him to drag

its devotees from their obscurity.[985] The Christian missionaries

pursued their labours unremittingly and were especially active among

the proletariat, from whom during the first centuries their converts

were almost exclusively drawn.[986] Throughout the length and breadth

of the Empire they persistently undermined the existing order of

things by teaching doctrines which were at variance with the received

conception of Roman citizenship. Not only did they revile the pagan

deities, whom they classed as demons instead of gods, and shun their

festivals,[987] but they evinced an utter aversion for military

service.[988] The polytheists were incensed at the pretensions of a

deity who would not share the theocracy, but claimed to oust all other

divinities from their seats and occupy the celestial throne alone,[989]

whilst statesmen became alarmed at the prospect of political defection,

and began to second the vulgar prejudice by systematic efforts at

exterminating the spreading sect. The benignant Marcus Aurelius was

induced to believe that the Christians were a danger to the state and

he issued a decree (_c._ 177) that they should be sought out and put

to death unless willing to abandon their faith.[990] This was the

first decided persecution, but, although many perished, it proved

ineffective, as no means available were strong enough to extinguish the

flames of fanaticism. On the contrary, those who stood firm before the

tribunals and were allowed to escape with their lives ranked afterwards

as “Confessors,” a title more glorious in the eyes of their fellows

than any temporal dignity; whilst constancy to the death became the

essential qualification of Martyrs or witnesses to the truth, Saints

who were admitted forthwith among the heavenly host as mediators

between God and man.[991] As soon as the repressive measures were

relaxed all the weaker brethren, who had abjured in the face of danger,

prayed for readmission to the conventicles, and were usually received

after the infliction of a term of penance. Once and again during the

next century and a half widespread persecution was had recourse to by

Decius and by Diocletian, but the Christians throve and prospered in

the intervals despite of fitful and local hostility.[992] The memorable

battle of the Milvian bridge in 312 proved to be a turning-point in

the history of Rome and of Christianity; and the state religion of the

ancient world was involved in the fall of the dissolute Maxentius.

The victorious Constantine, as sole Emperor of the West, immediately

concerted a measure with his colleague of the East, Licinius, for the

establishment of religious toleration throughout their dominions.[993]

Thenceforward Christianity was free to expand in obedience to the

charge she had received at her origin and to apply herself to the task

of supplanting every other belief.

The acceptance of all religions is pressed by an appeal to the

supernatural sub-structure on which they profess to be based; and

this claim is substantiated by the presentment of some miraculous

circumstances from which they are asserted to have derived their birth.

Evidential obscurity has always been the soul of such pretensions;

and the truth of the most improbable occurrences has been resolutely

maintained because assured witnesses could not be produced in order to

prove a negative. But the time for historical discussion or sifting

of evidence in relation to such matters has long gone by; and in the

twentieth century the philosopher is enabled without examination

to dismiss with a smile the mere suggestion that such events have

occurred.[994] That any narrative, which in its essential statements

consists largely of the marvellous, should be rejected as false in

its entirety has almost risen to the dignity of a canon of historical

criticism. The principle, however, has often been unduly strained in

its application; and no judicious investigator would refuse to allow

that a slender thread of fact may sometimes be extricated from a mass

of incredible legend. The awe-inspiring life of Jesus emanates from

authors of unascertainable date and repute. No neutral scribe, no

adverse critic, has furnished us with any personal impressions of his

career bearing the intrinsic marks of truth and simplicity. Nor can

it be affirmed that any character fairly discernible on the stage of

history ever knew an apostle. The Twelve who are credited with having

disseminated the faith of the Gospel from east to west lie buried

in a more than prehistoric obscurity, the writings ascribed to them

doubted, denied, or clearly disproved.[995] It can scarcely be a matter

of surprise, therefore, if some serious scholars of modern times have

committed themselves to an absolute denial that the nominal founder

of Christianity has had any real existence.[996] Yet the cause of

mysticism was well served by the impenetrable cloud which hung over

the mundane activity of Jesus. No common inquiry enabled the diligent

adversaries of Christianity to strip the veil from the idealized

figure, and expose its features to the gaze of vulgar observation. The

philosophic critic was reduced to mere expressions of incredulity; and

the despair of historians became the firmest pillar of belief in the

church.[997]

II. In an idle hour Plato applied himself to shadowing forth a

theological doctrine which should account for the origin and

guidance of the objective universe.[998] A supreme god, the One or

the Good,[999] at a certain moment conceived a creative design and

fashioned the material world out of pre-existing elements.[1000] This

task completed, he created intellect and soul; and by combining the two

together produced living intelligence.[1001] He was now provided with

all the requisite ingredients for peopling the world he had made; and

his next step was to form a primal race of spiritual beings or daemons

whom he endowed with immortality. From these by generation issued

the whole progeny of gods worshipped by the Greeks, for whom their

pedigrees and actions were recorded by Orpheus, Homer, and Hesiod.

Among the divine existences were also to be reckoned the stars. At

this stage the creative work of the One came to an end. He addressed

the daemons and said: “You have observed my method of procedure when

engaged in moulding yourselves. Follow my example and set about the

production of mortal natures to inhabit the air, the water, and the

earth.” They obeyed his behests, and the whole animal kingdom was the

result of their labours. But the grosser matter with which mortal

souls are weighed down is the essence of evil, and the just man will,

therefore, desire to escape from the body in order to be free from

its impure passions.[1002] For the Creator had appointed that each

soul should be associated with a particular star, to whose blissful

abode it might return as the reward of a life well spent on earth. The

unrighteous soul, however, must first be chastened by an ordeal of

transmigration through descending grades of lower animal natures, the

least abased being that of a woman.

This cosmological phantasy of Plato was destined, after lying dormant

for more than five centuries, to breathe a new spirit into the almost

inanimate body of polytheism. The higher social caste, still adhering

languidly to the old belief, counted among them many elevated minds

devoted to the traditions of the past, who apprehended with dismay

the dissolution of all they prized in the ebbing tide of Paganism.

The effete superstition could only be sustained by some process of

depuration capable of reconciling it with the more refined perceptions

of the age. The required influence was at hand. From Alexandria, where

an international fusion of philosophies and religions had been in

progress almost since the foundation of the city, a new dispensation

proceeded before the middle of the third century. In that capital,

the Greek was penetrated by the spirit of Oriental mysticism, and the

Jew was fascinated by the intellectual ascendancy of the schools of

Athens. The ancient rivalry of sects had almost died out, and a later

generation of inquirers adopted freely whatever they could assimilate

from various systems of philosophy.[1003] After passing tentatively

through several stages from the first years of our era, a theological

doctrine under the name of Platonism was elaborated by the Egyptian,

Plotinus,[1004] with sufficient completeness to be presented to the

devout polytheist as a rule of life. In general conception, the new

faith did not differ essentially from the scheme advanced by the

founder of the Academy, but, with its deficiencies supplied from exotic

sources, it was propounded solemnly as a theosophy which revealed

the whole purport of human existence. As a practical religion, this

revival, Neoplatonism by name, enjoined a purity of life which should

free the soul from defilement by contact with the world, and allow it

to coalesce with the divine potential whence it had emanated.[1005] The

crowning allurement of the system was that this blissful conjunction

might be attained by the fervid votary even during life. Those who

had subjugated all their natural, and, therefore, evil passions,

might rise by contemplation to an ecstatic union with the Deity, the

transcendant One; or, to express it irreverently in modern language,

might acquire the faculty of passing into a hypnotic trance.[1006] As

soon as Plotinus had perfected his invention, he proceeded to Rome

(_c._ 244), with the view of professing his doctrine to the mystically

inclined on the most extended theatre in the Empire. Here his success

was very considerable, and he gained numerous adherents, especially as

he conceded that all forms of Pagan worship availed as a real approach

to the Deity and enshrined germs of truth derived from some primitive

revelation. He became influential at Court and was about to organize

a Utopian community on the lines of Plato’s ideal republic under the

auspices of Gallienus when the fall of that Emperor frustrated his

design.

Plotinus died in 270, leaving many disciples to continue the work

of his school, the foremost of whom was Porphyry, known as a keen

assailant of Christianity.[1007] To him succeeded the Syrian,

Iamblichus, a contemporary of Constantine, who gave the final form

to Neoplatonism and adapted it for widest acceptance. The religion

of Plotinus was an ineffable creed which avowedly excluded vulgar

participation, and was addressed only to cultured aspirants;[1008] but

a descent was made by his successors who, with the object of amplifying

their influence, embraced gradually all the crass superstitions of

the multitude. A mystical signification was read into the sacred

books of the Greeks, as the poems of Orpheus, Homer, and Hesiod

may appropriately be termed, by an allegorical interpretation of

every phrase or incident in the text. All trivial circumstances or

immoral pictures were thus disclosed to be fraught with spiritual or

ethical meaning for the pious reader.[1009] The endless procession of

invisible beings with which Eastern fancy had peopled space, angels,

demons, archons, and demigods, were accepted by the latter school

and associated to the theocracy as mediators who could be summoned

and suborned to human purposes by magic rites, incantations, and

sacrifices.[1010] By the time this stage had been reached, Neoplatonism

appeared to be fully equipped for satisfying the occult proclivities of

all classes, and asserting its right to become the prevailing religion

of the state.

III. The most distinctive and irrepressible theological principle

which entered Western civilization from the East, was the dualistic

conception of nature inherent in the old Babylonian religions. The

seers of that ancient people could not resolve the problem as to the

providential government of the world, without postulating a perpetual

strife between two opposed powers, who were engaged in determining the

course of events. The spectacle of suffering humanity enforced the

belief that a potent spirit of evil shared the control of the existing

order of things to an equal extent with the benign Deity from whom all

blessings flowed. The eastern provinces of the Empire became saturated

with these views, and the prime mover in diffusing them was said to be

that Simon Magus who, although he makes but a brief and insignificant

appearance in Gospel history, occupies a very considerable space

in extra-biblical literature.[1011] Under the name of Gnostics,

recipients of a special enlightenment or _gnosis_, his reputed progeny

swarmed about the early Christian Church, whose presence seemed to

rouse them into vitality; for, in the doctrine of redemption by Jesus,

they found, as they imagined, the key to much that was unexplained

in their own system.[1012] Diversity in the apprehension of detail

was an innate characteristic of the Gnostic brood; whence it followed

that they became apparent in small sects only, computed at some

scores, and, though numerous, never attained the weight of union as a

religious body. Gradually they were dissolved by the preponderance of

the Catholic Church, which absorbed their members and proscribed their

peculiar tenets.[1013]

There was, however, one form of dualism which arose beyond the borders

of the Empire, and, from its centre in Persia, spread with great

rapidity eastwards to the frontiers of China, and westwards as far as

the Atlantic ocean. This international faith, for such it became in

less than a century, was called Manichaeism from its founder Mani, of

whom little certain is known; but he was probably a native of Ecbatana,

the Median capital.[1014] As the prophet of a new dispensation, Mani

belongs to the second class of makers of religion, that is, he did

not claim to be himself a god, but only an apostle commissioned by

the Deity. His life extended to upwards of sixty years, and he was

countenanced by more than one of the Sassanian kings. At length,

however, he fell a victim to the jealousy of the Magi, the exponents

of the established belief of Zarathushtra, at whose instigation he was

crucified and flayed by Bahram I. In the system of Mani the fundamental

conception is the antithesis of light and darkness, by which the

opposition between good and evil is vividly denoted; and the present

world originates in the accident of a war breaking out between the

respective powers. Satan, the Prince of Darkness, discovers by chance

the kingdom of light, the existence of which was previously unknown

to him, and, with his army of demons, makes an incursion into it. The

God of Light, sustained by his pure spirits, engages and defeats him,

but during the campaign a commingling has occurred of elements of the

two realms. The contest now resolves into the efforts of the Deity to

regain, and of Satan to retain, the portions of light which were lost

in the darkness. The first step is the formation by the former of this

world, but the latter creates man as a secure receptacle for the light

he had acquired. Hence this creature is animated by two souls, an evil

one as well as a soul of light; and Satan enslaves him by exciting

his bad passions.[1015] The process of restoring the light goes on

continually, and the sun and moon are great reservoirs into which it

is poured by the active agents of the superior Deity. The human race

is placed in possession of the clue to paradise by having this gnosis

imparted to it. A rigid asceticism must be practised according to

prescribed rules. There were, however, two ranks of Manichaeans, the

Elect and the Auditors. The earnest votaries joined the first, and on

them celibacy and a vegetarian diet were imposed. Membership of the

second was adapted to the masses, from whom only moderate abstinence

was required. They ministered religiously to the Elect, whom they thus

enlisted as redeemers on their behalf, so that with the addition of a

term of purgatory after death, they also became fitted for paradise.

Mani utilized some of the ideas of Christianity in order to connect

his religion practically with mankind, but his transferences are

rather imitations than acceptances of anything really Christian. Thus

he acknowledged a Jesus Christ, who abides in the son, as the “primal

man” or first-born of the Deity.[1016] He had visited the earth as a

prophet, and from him Mani had received his apostolic mission, whence

he usurped the title of the Paraclete, whose advent was promised

in the Gospels. He also instructed twelve disciples to preach his

doctrine. The success and prevalence of Manichaeism was at one time

very great, for it arose as the revivifying force of more than one

aspect of dualism in the East and West. It fostered the time-honoured

traditions of the inhabitants of the Euphrates valley, and drew to

itself the disintegrating coteries of Gnostics within the Roman

Empire. A Manichaean popedom was established, which had its seat for

several centuries in Babylon. As early as 287 Diocletian denounced the

propagation of the religion as a capital offence, on the grounds that

the “execrable customs and cruel laws” of the Persians might thereby

gain a footing among his “mild and peaceful” subjects.[1017]

From the foregoing summary it will be seen that in the first years

of the fourth century polytheism, as resuscitated by Neoplatonism,

held the field against its rivals with the support and approval of

the government. We cannot attempt here to fathom the motives, so

prolific as a literary theme, which induced Constantine first to

favour Christianity, then to embrace it for himself and his family,

and finally to raise it into the safe position of being the only

religion recognized by the state. In the blank outlook of the times

some definite belief was a necessity, and, whether from policy or

conviction, he steered his course in the direction where the tide

seemed to set most strongly. Pure Neoplatonism was congenial only

to persons of a meditative temperament; to the sober-minded it was

artificial and unconvincing. Its loftier heights were inaccessible to

the masses, and in its later development it threatened to make common

cause with the jugglers and charlatans who risked a conflict with the

law.[1018] Manichaeism had only begun to rear its head, and at the best

contained much that was fantastic and incomprehensible to a non-Semitic

people.[1019] Christianity was simple, positive, socialistic, a

leveller of class distinctions, for the slave as well as for the free

man, and absolutely intolerant of every other religion. Its emissaries

believed implicitly in their mission, and worked incessantly among the

lower stratum of the population, to whom they delivered the message of

their Gospel in clear and precise terms. By their vehement assertion

there was no escape from, and no alternative to the acceptance of their

creed. The Day of Judgment was at hand; at any moment Jesus might

return to inaugurate a golden age of one thousand years upon the earth;

and all those who had been regenerated by baptism would participate in

His glory.[1020] The primitive church was communistic in principle, and

exceptional solicitude was shown in the administration of charity to

its indigent members. Liberality in this sense was doubtless the means

of winning over many converts, for its bounty was not withheld from the

poor on account of any difference in religion.[1021]

The Christian Church from its inception gradually unfolded itself as

an anarchical association, consisting of affiliated branches scattered

throughout the Empire. At first all members possessed equal rank, and

the status of each one as a presbyter or propagandist was limited only

by his natural capacity for the work. Enthusiasm prevailed in the

secret assemblies, and the excitable, whether male or female, relieved

themselves by impassioned utterances which were accepted by the

listeners as prophetic inspiration.[1022] Subsequent history relates

the development of a hierarchy with the consequent formation of two

parties in the Church, clergy and laity, and the ultimate suppression

of all spiritual assumption by the latter.[1023] Rites and ceremonies

of increasing complexity were instituted, rules of discipline were

elaborated, and proselytes were no longer admitted hastily to

the congregations, but were previously relegated for a course of

instruction to the class of _catechumens_ or probationers. About the

end of the second century Christianity assumed some importance in the

eyes of the educated and wealthy,[1024] so that its doctrines began to

be scrutinized in the spirit of Greek philosophy. A catechetical school

was founded at Alexandria (_c._ 170) for the training of converts

of higher mental capacity; and learned teachers, notably Clement and

Origen, essayed to prove that the new religion could be substantiated

theologically by reference to Plato and Aristotle.[1025] At the same

time the Church began to discard the policy of stealthiness under which

it had grown up, and to indulge the expansive vigour which pervaded

its constitution. Soon the conventicles ceased to meet under the cloak

of secrecy; and by a few decades public edifices were erected with an

architectural ostentation and a treasure of ornaments rubric which

roused the indignation of those who frequented the Pagan temples in the

vicinity.[1026] From that moment the encroaching temper of Christianity

and its uncompromising antagonism to polytheism became manifest to the

government, and zealous officials prepared themselves for a determined

effort to overthrow the upstart power which was undermining the old

order of society.[1027] The futile struggle of Paganism against

Christianity was terminated by Theodosius the Great, who promulgated

edicts both in the East and in the West for the abolition of the

pristine religion of the Empire.[1028] During more than half a century

previously the battle between the two faiths had been open and violent;

and the mild Christians of earlier times often appeared in the light of

ruthless fanatics more conspicuously than had their heathen adversaries

in the heat of a legalized persecution.[1029] The Church triumphant

now entered on its career of quasi-political predominance; wealth and

honours were showered on those who attained to its highest offices; and

the precepts of the poor carpenter, whose constant theme was humility,

were inculcated by a succession of haughty prelates who equalled the

magnificence and exceeded the arrogance of kings.[1030]

From the day of its birth almost to the present hour the Church has

been agitated by internal dissensions generated by the efforts of

reason to understand and to define those inscrutable mysteries, to a

belief in which every supernatural religion must owe its existence.

The primitive religion of the ancients was a natural growth, accepted

insensibly during a state of savagery and maintained politically

long after it had been repudiated by philosophy, but Christianity

was offered to a world already advanced in civilization, and had to

pass through a process of intellectual digestion before it could take

its place as an unassailable national belief. The Church, before it

stands clearly revealed in the light of history, had been inspired

with the conception of a Trinity by a contemplation of the Platonic

philosophy; and the problem as to how this doctrine could be expounded

as not inconsistent with monotheism occasioned the first of those great

councils called Oecumenical. It met in 325 at Nicaea of Bithynia,

and there formulated the Nicene creed, which branded as heretics the

presbyter Arius and his supporters for asserting that the Word, the

Son, the man Jesus, had not eternally existed as of one substance

with the Father, but had been created out of nothing at some date

of an inconceivably remote past. Under the emperors who succeeded

Constantine, however, the Arians returned to power in the East, and

for long oppressed their opponents, the Catholics, until they were

finally reduced to impotence by the orthodox Theodosius I.[1031] But

centuries were yet to elapse before the Church could desist from

weaving those subtleties of dogma as to the inexpressible nature of the

Godhead, in the study of which later theologians discover an exercise

for their memory rather than for their understanding.[1032] Numerous

other councils were convened before the opening of the sixth century,

but of these only three were allowed to rank as Oecumenical, that of

Constantinople in 381, that of Ephesus in 431, and that of Chalcedon in

451. The first of these did little more than to confirm the decisions

of Nicaea, but it won from Theodosius a tacit permission to proceed

to extremities against Paganism.[1033] The second anathematized the

heresy of Nestorius, Patriarch of the Eastern capital, who wished to

deprive the Virgin Mary of the title of Theotokos, or Mother of God.

The bishops who assembled at the Asiatic suburb of Chalcedon, under the

supervision of the Emperor Marcian, were less successful in producing

concord in the Church than those who composed any of the previous

councils; and their resolutions were debated for long afterwards by

dissentient ecclesiastics throughout the East. On this occasion the

orthodox party delivered their last word as the mystic junction of

the divine and human in the Incarnate Christ, and repudiated for ever

the error of the Monophysites that the Saviour was animated only by a

celestial essence.[1034] This was the first instance in which the new

Rome triumphed over her great rival in the East, Alexandria, which

had previously trampled on her Patriarchs, Chrysostom, Nestorius,

Flavian; as the doctrine of the one nature was peculiarly dear to the

Egyptian Church. But the spiritual peace of the Asiatic and African

provinces had been too rudely disturbed for an immediate settlement to

ensue; and more than thirty years later the Emperor Zeno was forced

to issue a _Henoticon_, or Act of Union, in which he sought to induce

unanimity among the prelates of his dominions by effacing the harsher

expressions of the Chalcedonian canons.[1035] The measure, however,

was ineffectual; the conflict of doctrine could not be quelled; and

even Anastasius was branded as a heretic by the Byzantines for not

adopting a hostile attitude towards the Monophysites.[1036] The state

of religious parties under that Emperor may be summarized briefly

as follows: Europe was firmly attached to the Council of Chalcedon,

Egypt was bitterly opposed to it, whilst in Asia its adversaries and

adherents were almost equally divided. Of Arians there were not a

few, but they were everywhere severely repressed. Nevertheless, in

the capital itself a handsome church was reserved for those addicted

to that heresy, St. Mocius in the Exokionion. But this was an

indulgence conceded exclusively to the Gothic soldiery, all bigoted

Arians, with whose faith no emperor ever dared to tamper.[1037] At the

same time polytheism appeared to be extinct; the Pagan temples were

everywhere evacuated, and for the most part purposely ruined.[1038]

After the murder of Hypatia the Neoplatonists deserted Alexandria

and betook themselves to Athens, where they were disregarded as a

merely philosophical association without the privilege of public

worship.[1039] Manichaeans were numerous within the Empire, but could

only exist in secret as a proscribed sect subject to severe penalties,

confiscation, loss of civil rights, and relegation to the mines, if

convicted.[1040] Relics of minor denominations, more or less obscure

and impotent, need not be more particularly alluded to in this place.

Nothing in this age accelerated the social descent towards barbarism so

much as the illusion that bliss in a future state was most positively

assured to those Christians who denied themselves every natural

gratification whilst on earth. By the end of the fourth century

the passion for the mortification of the flesh had risen to such a

height that almost one half of the population of the Empire, male

and female, had abandoned civilized life and devoted themselves to

celibacy and ascetic practices.[1041] By choice, and even by legal

prescription,[1042] they sought desert places and vast solitudes to

pass their lives in sordid discomfort, at one time grazing like wild

beasts, at another immured in noisome cells too narrow to admit of any

restful position of the body or limbs.[1043] Some joined the class of

stylites, or pillar saints, who lived in the air at a considerable

altitude from the ground on the bare top of a slender column.[1044]

Such were the anchorites or hermits, who arose first in order of time

and claimed for their founder an illiterate though well-born youth of

Alexandria,[1045] Anthony, the subject of familiar legends. A little

later, however, Pachomius,[1046] also an Egyptian, instituted the

coenobites, or gregarious fraternity of ascetics, whose assemblage of

cells, called a _laura_, was generally disposed in a circle around

their common chapel and refectory. The extensive waste lands of Egypt

greatly favoured the development of monachism; and within half a

century the isle of Tabenna in the Nile, the Nitrian mountain, and

the wilderness of Sketis, became densely populated with these fanatic

recluses.[1047] From Egypt the mania for leading a monastic life spread

in all directions, and religious houses, on the initiative of Basil,

began to invade the towns and suburban districts.[1048] One of the most

remarkable of these foundations was the monastery of Studius, erected

at Constantinople (in 460) for the _Acoemeti_, or sleepless monks,

whose devotional vigils were ceaseless both night and day.[1049] After

the promotion of Christianity to be the state religion, one emperor

only, the ordinarily ineffective Valens, assumed a hostile attitude

towards the monks.[1050] He denounced them as slothful renegades from

their social duties and dispatched companies of soldiers to expel them

from their retreats and reclaim them for civil and military life. A

considerable number were massacred for attempting resistance to the

decree; but under the successors of Valens monachism flourished as

before with the Imperial countenance and the popular regard.[1051]

The supersession of dogmatic religions founded on prehistoric

mythologies by the success of modern research, confers the right of

free speculation on contemporary philosophers, and urges them to

construct, from the ample materials at their command, an intellectual

theory of the universe. In proportion as experimental physics teaches

us to apprehend more profoundly the constitution of matter, reason

advances impulsively from the outposts of knowledge to suspend itself

over the abyss in those dimly-lighted regions where science and

mysticism seem to hold each other by the hand. The atomic conception

of nature, first broached as a phantasy by the Greeks, derives an

actuality from the growth of chemical and electrical discoveries at

the present day, which goes far to establish it as an immediate, if

not the ultimate, explanation of phenomena. Our mind has thus been

prepared to realize the vision of swarms of atoms in the possession

of limitless space, each one of which is instinct in the prime

degree with all the attributes of life: with consciousness, will,

motion, the bias of habit, and an unquenchable desire for association

and aggregation.[1052] They become conjoined, numerically and

morphologically, in progressive grades of complexity, originating by

one kind of alliance the chemical elements which constitute the organic

world, and by another the vital elements, which form the protoplasmic

basis of animal and plant life.[1053] The organic kingdom rests

upon the inorganic, and preys upon it, evolving itself throughout

endless time into more highly differentiated forms by its incessant

appetite for material acquisition and sensuous stimulation in its

environment.[1054]

Whilst the records of ages assiduously collated from every quarter

of the globe exhibit the irrepressible folly of undisciplined human

thought and the immeasurable credulity of ignorance, the boundless

expansion of our intellectual horizon compels us to reject as

irrational, the belief in an almighty and intelligent Father, who

regards with equanimity the disruption of worlds, but is capable of

being delighted by a choir of fulsome praise emanating from their

ephemeral inhabitants.[1055] From the earliest times the infertile

efforts to approach and win the favour of such a being have

constituted the heaviest drag on civilization and progress; and, as man

rises in the sphere of rationality, the highest lesson he can learn

is to discard definitively all such dreams. He must convince himself

that there is nothing divine, nothing supernatural, no providence

but his own, that prayer is futile, piety impossible; and the sage

may postulate that humanity is God until some higher divinity be

discovered. The mythological terrors of antiquity are effete in the

world of to-day, and any citizen who has learned to live uprightly

should be above all religion, and free from the bondage of every

superstition. By self-reliance and his own exertions alone can man be

led upwards; his advancement depends on the extent to which he can

penetrate the mystery of, and subdue the forces which surround him; and

to preach the dominion of man over nature is the work of the modern

prophet or apostle.[1056] By a retrospect of the past he is justified

in cherishing the hope of a brighter future for his descendants; no

obstacle appears in view to bar their journey along the upward path;

the illimitable capacity of protoplasm for physiological elevation may

triumph over the universal cycle of birth, maturity, and decay; and

in humanity as it exists we may see the progenitors of an infinitely

superior, perhaps of an immortal race, the ultimate expression and end

of evolution and generation.[1057]

The student of European civilization cannot fail to wonder what

sociological manifestation would have taken the place of Christianity

had that religion never seen the light, or failed to win a predominant

position in the Graeco-Roman world. Was the disintegration of the

Empire, he must ask, and the retreat of its inhabitants almost to

the threshold of barbarism a result of the prevalence of the Gospel

creed? or was the new faith merely a fortuitous phenomenon which became

conspicuous on the surface of an uncontrollable social cataclysm? No

decision could be accepted as incontestable when dealing with such

far-reaching questions, but with the wisdom which follows the event we

may recognize that contingencies not very remote might have altered

materially the course of history. The dissolution of powerful political

organizations was no new feature in the ancient world; in Egypt, in

Asia, dynasties with their dominions had periodically collapsed,

but in Europe the Roman supremacy was the first to consolidate the

principal countries into a compact and homogeneous state. Civil wars,

however, had been waged on several occasions; princes unfit to reign

had been the cause of serious administrative perturbation. Did these

vicissitudes, we may inquire, herald the break-up of the Empire,

unassailable as it was by any civilized adversary? Had the national

genius and vigour so declined that armies could not be recruited to

repeat the successes of Marius, of Trajan, of Diocletian, against

hordes of barbarians ill-disciplined and ill-armed? The proposition

cannot be entertained; the individuals were as capable as ever, but

the purview of life had changed. Religious dissension had engendered

personal rancour, neighbour distrusted neighbour, and the name of Roman

no longer denoted a community with kindred feelings and aspirations.

The Persian and the Teuton beyond the border were not more hostile

to the subjects of the Empire than were they among themselves when

viewed as separate groups of Pagans, of Manichaeans, of Arians, and

of Catholics. This disseverance was not, however, quite permanent;

after a couple of generations had passed away a partial reunion was

effected by the submission of all classes to Christianity; and strife

was limited to controversies between differing sects of the same

church. But in the process mankind were led to break with all past

traditions; the world became effete in their eyes; and to be released

from it in order to gain admission to the celestial sphere was preached

as the sole object of human existence. Civilization succumbed to the

despotic influence of religion, a new field of effort was opened to

the race of mortals, and all the genius of the age was exhausted in

the attempt to advance the pseudo-science of theology. That genius

was as brilliant as any which has hitherto been seen upon the earth.

The administrative and literary powers of a Tertullian, an Origen,

a Cyprian, a Eusebius, an Athanasius, of the Gregories, of Basil,

Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom, and many others might have raised the

Empire above the level of the most glorious period of the past. It is

scarcely an exaggeration to say that these ecclesiastics founded a

dominion which surpassed that of Rome in its widest extent; but it was

a dominion over men’s minds which precipitated material progress into

a gulf out of which it was not to rise again for more than a thousand

years. Their success was facilitated by the confirmation of despotism

and the abolition of free institutions under the first Caesars; but

without Christianity there would probably have been no exacerbation of

religious fervour more intense than was involved in Neoplatonism. That

new departure in polytheism was not likely to have caused a serious

drain upon the energies of the state. Julian, its most impassioned

votary, was not less imbued with the spirit of a conqueror than were

Alexander and Trajan.[1058] Neoplatonism, and especially Manichaeism,

borrowed Christian elements and might not have aspired to more than

a passive influence but for their rivalry with that religion. From

these considerations we may draw the inference that only for the

Palestinian capture of the psychical yearnings of the age history might

never have had to record the lapse of social Europe into the slough

of mediaevalism; and the experience of a terrestrial hierarch who

should give laws to kings and incite the masses to rebel against their

political rulers would have been lost to Western civilization. That

the Empire would have subsisted until modern times is inconceivable;

the tendency to disruption of the vast fabric soon became apparent,

and its unity was only restored by reconquest on several occasions;

notably by Severus, by Constantine, by Theodosius. Under Diocletian it

was virtually transformed into a number of federated states; and by

the sixth or seventh century a somewhat similar partition might have

become definite and permanent. With the maintenance of sociological

institutions at the original level, barbarism would have been repelled

and civilization would have penetrated more rapidly the forests of

Scythia and Germany. The spirit of scientific inquiry which was

manifest in Strabo, in Pliny, in Ptolemy, in Galen, might have been

fostered and extended; and many a leading mind, whose vigour was

absorbed by the arid waste of theology, might have taken up the work

of Aristotle and carried his researches into the heart of contemporary

science.[1059] The condition of the proletariat was not elevated by

the diffusion of the Gospel after their wholesale acceptance of it had

been assured by coercion. Whatever ethical purity may have adorned the

lives of the first converts, Christianity as an established religion

was not less of a grovelling superstition than Paganism in its worst

forms. The worship of martyrs, of saints, the factitious miracles

wrought at their graves, the veneration of their relics and images,

were but a travesty of polytheism under another name without the saving

graces of the old belief.[1060] A large section of the community were

encouraged to fritter away their lives in the sloth of the cloister;

and the ecclesiastical murder, disguised under the charge of heresy,

of opponents who dared to think and speak became a social terror in

grim contrast with the easy tolerance of Pagan times.[1061] At length

the night of superstition began to wane and the unexpected advent of

a brighter era was announced by a great social upheaval. Again the

tide of cosmopolitanism began to flow between the Atlantic and the

Euphrates, and a new unification of the detached fragments of the

Roman Empire was brought about. Amid the turmoil of two centuries of

barren Crusades[1062] the active intercourse of numerous peoples taught

Europe to think and judge; and she began to appraise the harvest which

had been reaped during so long a period of blind devotion to a creed.

The result of the scrutiny was disheartening; the store of gold was

found to have turned to dross; and, while one type of man struggled to

break the chains which bound them in spiritual subjection, another

bent their minds to discover whether through nature and art they could

not reach some goal worthy of human ambition. The Renaissance and

the Reformation were almost contemporary movements.[1063] From that

period to the present, more than five centuries, the history of the

world has been one of continued advancement. Since Dante composed his

great poem and Copernicus elaborated his theory of the heavens, the

well of literature has not run dry nor has the lamp of science been

extinguished. Yet in all these years while the rising light has been

breaking continuously over the mountain tops the spacious valleys

beneath have lain buried in the gloom of unenlightened ages. The peace

of society has never ceased to be disturbed by the discord of religious

factions; and the task of a modern statesman is still to reconcile

conflicting prejudices in a world of ignorance and folly.[1064]