of the history of thought, that even the odious becomes valuable as an
object of study, the pathology of the soul as well as its normal action.
Philosophy takes cognisance of error as well as of truth, inasmuch as it
derives materials from both for discovering a theory of the grounds of
belief and disbelief. Hence it follows that the study of the natural
history of doubt combined with the literary, if it be the means of
affording an explanation of a large class of facts relating to the
religious history of man and the sphere of the remedial operations of
Christ’s church, will have a practical value as well as speculative.
Such an inquiry, if it be directed, as in the present lectures, to the
analysis of the intellectual rather than the emotional element of
unbelief, as being that which has been less generally and less fully
explored, will require to be supplemented by a constant reference to the
intermixture of the other element, and the consequent necessity of taking
account of the latter in estimating the whole phenomenon of doubt. But
within its own sphere it will have a practical and polemical value, if the
course of the investigation shall show that the various forms of unbelief,
when studied from the intellectual side, are corollaries from certain
metaphysical or critical systems. The analysis itself will have indirectly
the force of an argument. The discovery of the causes of a disease
contains the germ of the cure. Error is refuted when it is referred to the
causes which produce it.
Nor will the practical value of the inquiry be restricted to its use as a
page in the spiritual history of the human mind, but will belong to it
also as a chapter in the history of the church. For even if in the study
of the contest our attention be almost wholly restricted to the movements
of one of the two belligerents, and only occasionally directed to the
evidences on which the faith of the church in various crises reposed, and
by which it tried to repel the invader, yet the knowledge of the scheme of
attack cannot fail to be a valuable accompaniment to the study of the
defence.(117)
Thus the natural history of doubt, viewed as a chapter of human history,
like the chapter of physiology which studies a disease, will point
indirectly to the cure, or at least to the mode of avoiding the causes
which induce the disease; while the literary history of it, viewed as a
chapter of church history, will contribute the results of experience to
train the Christian combatant.
The subject will however not only have an intellectual value in being at
once didactic and polemical, offering an explanation of the causes of
unbelief and furnishing hints for their removal; but it cannot fail also
to possess a moral value in reference to the conscience and heart of the
disputant, in teaching the lesson of mercy towards the unbeliever, and
deep pity for the heart wounded with doubts. An intelligent acquaintance
with the many phases of history operates like foreign travel in widening
the sympathies; and increase of knowledge creates the moderation which
gains the victory through attracting an enemy instead of repelling him.
Bigotry is founded on ignorance and fear. True learning is temperate,
because discriminating; forbearing, because courageous. If we place
ourselves in the position of an opponent, and try candidly to understand
the process by which he was led to form his opinions, indignation will
subside into pity, and enmity into grief: the hatred will be reserved for
the sin, not for the sinner; and the servant of Jesus Christ will thus
catch in some humble measure the forbearing love which his divine Master
showed to the first doubting disciple.(118) As the sight of suffering in
an enemy changes the feeling of anger into pity, so the study of a series
of spiritual struggles makes us see in an opponent, not an enemy to be
crushed, but a brother to be won. The utility of a historic treatment of
doubt is suggested by moral as well as intellectual grounds.
I hope therefore that if I follow the example of some of my
predecessors,(119) in giving a course of lectures historical rather than
polemical, evincing the critic rather than the advocate, seeking for truth
rather than victory, analysing processes of evidence rather than refuting
results, my humble contribution toward the knowledge of the argument of
the Christian evidences will be considered to come fairly within the
design intended by the founder of the lecture.
It may well be believed that in the execution of so large a scheme I have
felt almost overwhelmed under a painful sense of its difficulty. If even I
may venture to hope that a conscientious study in most cases of the
original sources of information may save me from literary mistakes, yet
there is a danger lest the size of the subject should preclude the
possibility of constant clearness; or lest the very analysis of the errors
of the systems named, may produce a painful, if not an injurious,
impression. In an age too of controversy, those who speak on difficult
questions incur a new danger, of being misunderstood from the
sensitiveness with which earnest men not unreasonably watch them. The
attitude of suspicion may cause impartiality to be regarded as
indifference to truth, fairness as sympathy with error. I am not ashamed
therefore to confess, that under the oppressive sense of these various
feelings I have been wont to go for help to the only source where the
burdened heart can find consolation; and have sought, in the communion
with the Father of spirits which prayer opens to the humblest, a temper of
candour, of reverence, and of the love of truth. In this spirit I have
made my studies; and what I have thus learned I shall teach.
LECTURE II. THE LITERARY OPPOSITION OF HEATHENS AGAINST CHRISTIANITY IN
THE EARLY AGES.
1 COR. i. 22-24.
_The Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified;
unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called,
Christ the wisdom of God._
It has been already stated(120), that in the first great struggle of the
human mind against the Christian religion the action of reason in
criticising its claims assumed two forms, Gnosticism or rationalism within
the church, and unbelief without.
The origin and history of the former of these two lines of thought were
once discussed in an elaborate course of Bampton Lectures;(121) and though
subsequent investigation has added new sources of information,(122) and it
would be consonant to our general object to trace briefly the speculations
of the various schools of Gnostics,—Greek, Oriental, or Egyptian,—the want
of space necessitates the omission of these topics. In the present lecture
we shall accordingly restrict ourselves to the history of the other line
of thought, and trace the grounds alleged by the intelligent heathens who
examined Christianity, for declining to admit its claims, from the time of
its rise to the final downfall of heathenism.
The truest modern resemblance to this struggle is obviously to be found in
the disbelief shown by educated heathens in pagan countries to whom
Christianity is proclaimed in the present day. It was not until the
establishment of Christianity as the state religion by Constantine had
given it political and moral victory, that it was possible for unbelief to
assume its modern aspect, of being the attempt of reason to break away
from a creed which is an acknowledged part of the national life. The first
opponents accordingly whose views we shall study, Lucian, Celsus,
Porphyry, Hierocles, are heathen unbelievers. Julian is the earliest that
we encounter who rejected Christianity after having been educated in it.
The resemblance however to this struggle is not wholly restricted to
heathen lands. There have been moments in the history of nations, or of
individuals, when a Christian standard of feeling or of thought has been
so far obliterated that a state of public disbelief and philosophical
attack similar to the ancient heathen has reappeared, and the tone of the
early unbelievers, and sometimes even their specific doubts, have been
either borrowed or reproduced.(123)
In this portion of the history we encounter a difficulty peculiar to it,
in being compelled to form an estimate of the opinions described, from
indirect information. The treatises of the more noted writers that opposed
Christianity have perished; some through natural causes, but those of
Porphyry and Julian through the special order of a Christian emperor,
Theodosius II., in A.D. 435.
In the absence accordingly of the original writings, we must discover the
grounds for the rejection of Christianity by the aid of the particular
treatises of evidence written by Christian fathers expressly in refutation
of them, which occasionally contain quotations of the lost works; and also
by means of the general apologies written on behalf of the Christian
religion, together with slight notices of it occurring in heathen
literature. The latter will inform us concerning the miscellaneous
objections current, the former concerning the definite arguments of the
writers who expressly gave reasons for disbelieving Christianity.(124)
We possess a large treatise of Origen against Celsus; passages, directed
against Porphyry, of Eusebius, Jerome, and Augustin; a tract of Eusebius
against Hierocles; and a work of Cyril of Alexandria against Julian. Yet
it is never perfectly satisfactory to be obliged to read an opinion
through the statement of an opponent of it. The history of philosophical
controversy shows that intellectual causes, such as the natural tendency
to answer an argument on principles that its author would not concede, to
reply to conclusions instead of premises, or to impute the corollaries
which are supposed to be deducible from an opinion, may lead to
unintentional misrepresentation of a doctrine refuted, even where no moral
causes such as bias or sarcasm contribute to the result. Aristotle’s
well-known criticism of Plato’s theory of archetypes is a pertinent
illustration.(125)
The slight difficulty thus encountered, in extracting the real opinions of
the early unbelievers out of the replies of their Christian opponents, may
for the most part be avoided by first realising the state of belief which
existed in reference to the heathen religion, which for our present
purpose may be treated as homogeneous throughout the whole Roman world. We
shall thus be enabled as it were to foresee the line of opinion which
would be likely to be adopted in reference to a new religion coming with
the claims and character of Christianity. This prefatory inquiry will also
coincide with our general purpose of analysing the influence of
intellectual causes in the production of unbelief.
Four separate tendencies may be distinguished among heathens in the early
centuries in reference to religion:(126) viz. the tendency, (1) to
absolute unbelief, (2) to a bigoted attachment to a national creed, (3) to
a philosophical, and (4) a mystical theory of religion.
The tendency to total disbelief of the supernatural prevailed in the
Epicurean school. A type of the more earnest spirits of this class is seen
at a period a little earlier than the Christian era in Lucretius, living
mournfully in the moral desert which his doubts had scorched into
barrenness.(127) The world is to him a scene unguided by a Providence:
death is uncheered by the hope of a future life. An example of the
flippant sceptic is found in Lucian in the second century, A.D. The great
knowledge of life which travel had afforded him created a universal
ridicule for religion; but his unbelief evinced no seriousness, no
sadness. His humour itself is a type of the man. Lacking the bitter
earnestness which gave sting to the wit of Aristophanes, and the courteous
playfulness exhibited in the many-sided genius of Plato, he was a
caricaturist rather than a painter: his dialogues are farces of life
rather than satires. It has been well remarked, that human society has no
worse foe than a universal scoffer. Lacking aspirations sufficiently lofty
to appreciate religion, and wisdom to understand the great crises that
give birth to it, such a man destroys not superstition only but the very
faculty of belief.(128) It is easy to perceive that to such minds
Christianity would be a mark for the same jests as other creeds.
A second tendency, most widely opposed in appearance to the sceptical, but
which was too often its natural product, showed itself in a bigoted
attachment to the national religion.(129) Among the masses such faith was
real though unintelligent, but in educated men it had become artificial.
When an ethnic religion is young, faith is fresh and gives inspiration to
its art and its poetry. In a more critical age, the historic spirit
rationalizes the legends, while the philosophic allegorizes the myths; and
thoughtful men attempt to rise to a spiritual worship of which rites are
symbols.(130) But in the decay of a religion, the supernatural loses its
hold of the class of educated minds, and is regarded as imposture, and the
support which they lend to worship is political. They fall back on
tradition to escape their doubts, or they think it politically expedient
to enforce on the masses a creed which they contemn in heart. Such a
ground of attachment to paganism is described in the dialogue of the
Christian apologist, Minucius Felix.(131) It would not only coincide with
the first-named tendency in denying the importance of Christianity, but
would join in active opposition. In truth, it marks the commencement of
the strong reaction which took place in favour of heathenism at the close
of the second century,—twofold in its nature; a popular reaction of
prejudice or of mysticism on the part of the lower classes, and a
political or philosophical one of the educated.(132) Both were in a great
degree produced by Eastern influences. The substitution which was
gradually taking place of naturalism for humanism, the adoration of
cosmical and mystical powers instead of the human attributes of the
deities of the older creed, was the means of re-awakening popular
superstition, while at the same time the Alexandrian speculations of
Neo-Platonism gave a religious aspect to philosophy.
Accordingly the third, or philosophical tendency in reference to religion,
distinct from the two already named, of positive unbelief in the
supernatural on the one hand, and devotion sincere or artificial to
heathen worship on the other, comprises, in addition to the older schools
of Stoics and Platonists, the new eclectic school just spoken of. The
three schools agreed in extracting a philosophy out of the popular
religion, by searching for historic or moral truth veiled in its symbols.
The Stoic, as being the least speculative, employed itself less with
religion than the others. Its doctrine, ethical rather than metaphysical,
concerned with the will rather than the intellect, juridical and formal
rather than speculative, seemed especially to give expression to the Roman
character, as the Platonic to the Greek, or as the eclectic to the hybrid,
half Oriental half European, which marked Alexandria. In the writings of
M. Aurelius, one of the emperors most noted for the persecution of the
church, it manifests itself rather as a rule of life than a subject for
belief, as morality rather than religion.(133) The Stoic opposition to
Christianity was the contempt of the Gaul or Roman for what was foreign,
or of ethical philosophy for religion.
The Platonic doctrine, so far as it is represented in an impure form in
the early centuries, sought, as of old, to explore the connexion between
the visible and invisible worlds, and to rise above the phenomenon into
the spiritual. Hence in its view of heathen religion it strove to rescue
the ideal religion from the actual, and to discover the one revelation of
the Divine ideal amid the great variety of religious traditions and modes
of worship. But its invincible dualism, separating by an impassable chasm
God from the world, and mind from matter, identifying goodness with the
one, evil with the other, prevented belief in a religion like
Christianity, which was penetrated by the Hebrew conceptions of the
universe, so alien both to dualism and pantheism.
The line is not very marked which separates this philosophy from the
professed revival of Plato’s teaching, which received the name of
Neo-Platonism, which was the philosophy with which Christianity came most
frequently into conflict or contact during the third and two following
centuries (10). Fastening on the more mystical parts of Plato, to the
neglect of the more practical, it probably borrowed something also from
Eastern mysticism. The object of the school was to find an explanation of
the problem of existence, by tracing the evolution of the absolute cause
in the universe through a trinal manifestation, as being, thought, and
action. The agency by which the human mind apprehended this process lay in
the attainment of a kind of insight wherein the organ of knowledge is one
with the object known, a state of mind and feeling whereby the mind gazes
on a sphere of being which is closed to the ordinary faculties.
Schelling’s theory of “intellectual intuition” is the modern parallel to
this Neo-Platonic State of ἔκστασις or ἐνθουσιασμός. This philosophy,
though frequently described in modern times as bearing a resemblance to
Christianity in method, as being the knowledge of the one absolute Being
by means of faith, is really most widely opposed in its interior spirit.
It is essentially pantheism. Its monotheistic aspect, caught by contact
with Semitic thought, is exterior only. Its deity, which seems personal,
is really only the personification of an abstraction, a mere instance of
mental realism. Man’s personality, which Christianity states clearly, was
lost in the universe; religious facts in metaphysical ideas.(134) Religion
accordingly would be exclusive, confined to an aristocracy of education;
and the existing national cultus would be appropriated as a sensuous
religion suited for the masses, a visible type of the invisible. The
analogy which this philosophy bore to Christianity in aim and office, as
well as the rivalry of other schools which is implied in its eclectic
aspect, caused it to take up an attitude of opposition to the Christian
system to which it claimed to bear affinity.
The mystical element in this philosophy enabled some minds to find a home
for the theurgy which had been increased by the importation of eastern
ideas.(135) They form as it were the connecting link with the fourth
religious tendency, which manifested itself in the craving for a
communication from the world invisible, which found its satisfaction in
magic and in a spirit of fanaticism. Some of these fanatics were doubtless
also impostors;(136) but some were high-minded men struggling after truth,
of whom possibly an example is seen at an early period in Apollonius of
Tyana; deceived rather than deceivers. This tendency operated in some
minds to cause them to reduce Christianity to ordinary magic and
prodigies; while among a few it created yearnings for a nobler
satisfaction, which drew them toward Christianity, as in the case of the
Clemens, whose autobiography professes to be given in the well-known work
of the early ages, the Clementines. (11)
Such seem to have been the chief forms of religious thought existing among
the heathen to whom Christianity presented itself, on which were founded
the preparation of heart which led to the acceptance of its message, or
the prejudices which rejected its claims;—viz. among the masses, a
sensuous unintelligent belief in polytheism;—among the educated,
disorganization of belief; either materialism, the total rejection of the
supernatural, and a political attachment on the principle of expedience to
existing creeds; or philosophy, ethical, dualistic, pantheistic, despising
religions as mere organic products of national thought, and trying to
seize the central truths of which they were the expression; or a mystical
craving after the supernatural, degrading its victims into fanatics. The
further analysis of these tendencies would show their connexion with the
threefold classification before given of the tests of truth into sense,
reason, and feeling.
We have thus prepared the way for interpreting the lines of argument used
in opposition to Christianity, and shall now proceed to sketch in
chronological succession the history of the chief intellectual attacks
made by unbelievers.
It is not until the middle of the second century that we find Christianity
becoming the subject of literary investigation. Incidental expressions
either of scorn or of misapprehension form the sole allusions in the
heathen writers of earlier date (12); but in the reigns of the Antonines,
the Christians began to attract notice and to meet with criticism. We read
of a work written against Christianity by a Cynic, Crescens, in the reign
of Antoninus Pius;(137) and of another by the tutor of Marcus Aurelius,
Fronto of Cirta,(138) in which probably the imperial persecution was
justified.
It is at this time too that we meet with an attempt to hold the Christians
up to ridicule in a satire of Lucian,(139) which well exemplifies the
views belonging to the sceptical of the four classes into which we have
divided the religious opinions of the heathens. His tract, the Peregrinus
Proteus, it can hardly be doubted, is intended as a satire on Christian
martyrdom (13). Peregrinus(140) is a Cynic philosopher, who after a life
of early villainy is made by Lucian to play the hypocrite at Antioch and
join himself to the Christians, “miserable men” (as he calls them), “who,
hoping for immortality in soul and body, had a foolish contempt of death,
and suffered themselves to be persuaded that they were brethren, because,
having abandoned the Greek gods, they worshipped the crucified sophist,
living according to his laws.”(141) Peregrinus, when a Christian, soon
rises to the dignity of bishop, and is worshipped as a god; and when
imprisoned for his religion is visited by Christians from all quarters.
Afterwards, expelled the church, he travels over the world; and at last
for the sake of glory burns himself publicly at Olympia about A.D. 165.
His end is described in a tragico-comic manner, and a legend is recounted
that at his death he was seen in white, and that a hawk ascended from his
pyre.
Lucian has here used a real name to describe a class, not a person. He has
given a caricature painting from historic elements. There seems internal
evidence to show that he was slightly acquainted with the books of the
early Christians.(142) It has even been conjectured that he might have
read and designed to parody the epistles of Ignatius.(143) With more
probability we may believe that he had heard of and misunderstood the
heroic bearing of the Christian martyrs in the moment of their last
suffering. Pope Alexander VII. in 1664 placed this tract in the index of
prohibited books: yet even beneath the satire we rather hail Lucian as an
unconscious witness to several beautiful features in the character of the
Christians of his time:(144) viz. their worship of “the crucified
sophist,” who was their adorable Lord; their guilelessness; their
brotherly love; their strict discipline; their common meals; their union;
their benevolence; their joy in death. The points which he depicts in his
satire are, their credulity in giving way to Peregrinus; their
unintelligent belief in Christ and in immortality; their factiousness in
aiding Peregrinus when in prison; their pompous vanity in martyrdom, and
possibly their tendency to believe legends respecting a martyr’s death.
His satire is contempt, not anger, nor dread. It is the humour of a
thorough sceptic, which discharged itself on all religions alike; and
indicates one type of opposition to Christianity; viz. the contempt of
those who thought it folly.