Christianity, in having been educated a Christian.(224) Associating when a
student at the schools of Athens with Gregory of Nazianzum and Basil, he
had every opportunity for understanding the Christian religion and
measuring its claims. The first cause of his apostasy from it remains
uncertain. One tradition states that the shock to his creed arose from
some early injury received through the fraud of a professing Christian.
Something is probably due to exasperation at the severity endured from
Constantius; and perhaps still more is due to the natural peculiarity of
his character. He was swayed by the imagination rather than the reason,
and was kindled with an enthusiastic admiration of the old heathen
literature and the historic glories of the heathen world. His very style
exhibits traces of imitation of the old models after which he formed
himself.(225) With a spirit which the Italian writers of the Renaissance
enable us to understand, his sympathies clung round heathens until they
entwined in their embrace heathenism itself. To a mind of this natural
bias sufficient grounds unhappily would easily be found to produce
aversion to Christianity, in the quarrels among sections of the church,
and in the ambition and inconsistency of the numbers of nominal converts
who embraced the religion when its public establishment had rendered it
their interest to do so; and prejudice would add arguments for rejecting
it.
Accordingly he devoted his short reign to restore the ancient heathenism.
Like Constantine, having arrived at the throne through a troublous war, he
found the religion of the state opposed to his own convictions, and
determined to substitute that which he himself professed. The difference
however was great. The religion of Constantine was young and progressive;
that of Julian was effete. It is in this respect that Julian has been
compared,(226) in his character and acts, to those who in modern times,
both in literature and in politics, have devoted their lives to roll back
the progress of public opinion, and reproduce the spirit of the past by
giving new life to the relics of bygone ages. If Julian had succeeded in
his attempt, the victory could not have been permanent.
The steps by which he strove to carry out his views were not unlike those
of Constantine.(227) He first proclaimed the establishment of the
emperor’s religion as the religion of the state, permitting toleration for
all others. He next transferred the Christian endowments to heathens,
acting on the principle previously established by Constantine. But beyond
this point he proceeded to measures which had the nature of persecution.
He declared the Christian laity disqualified for office in the state,—a
measure which could only be sophistically maintained on the plea of
self-defence; and, afraid of the engine of education, forbade Christian
professors to lecture in the public schools of science and literature: and
probably he at last imposed a tax on those who did not perform sacrifice.
At the same time he saw the necessity of a total reformation in paganism,
if it was to revive as the rival of Christianity; and planned, as Pontifex
Maximus, a scheme for effecting it, which involved the concealment of the
absurdity of its origin by allegorical interpretation, together with the
establishment of a discipline and organisation similar to the Christian,
and special attention on the part of the priesthood to morality and to
public works of mercy.(228) His bitter contempt for Christianity
manifested itself in a public edict, which commanded that Christians
should be denominated by the opprobrious epithet “Galilæans;” and in some
of his extant letters(229) he evinces a bitterness against it which finds
its parallel in Voltaire and Shelley.
A work remains, the Philopatris, (18) usually falsely assigned to Lucian,
but which internal evidence proves to belong to the reign of Julian, in
which the unknown author, imitating the manner but wanting the power of
Lucian, holds up to ridicule the sermons and teaching of some Christian
preachers. This work probably conveys the creed of the imperial party,
which is simply Deism. This however is not the only source for
ascertaining the creed of Julian, and the nature of his objections to
Christianity. In his letters, and in the reply of Cyril to his now lost
work, we possess more exact means for determining his position and
sentiments. (19)
He omitted, as we might expect, the grosser and more frivolous charges
against Christianity which had been formerly expressed by those who were
ignorant of its real character. Indeed he seems to have been willing to
recognise it as one form of religion, but declined to admit its monopoly
of claim to be regarded as the only true form. Though himself a
Theist,(230)—his view of Deity being more simply monotheistic than that of
his predecessors, derived furtively from the Hebrew idea transmitted
through Christianity; he nevertheless considered that discrepancy of
national character required corresponding differences in religion.(231) In
his work he seems to have repeated some of the objections of the older
assailants, Celsus and Porphyry; attacking the credibility of scripture
and of the Christian scheme in its doctrines and evidences. He offered in
it a criticism on primæval and Hebrew history;(232) attacking the
probability of many portions of the book of Genesis;(233) objecting to the
Hebrew view of Deity as too appropriating in its character, and as making
the divine Being appear cruel.(234) He denied the originality of the
Hebrew moral law,(235) and pointed out the supposed defectiveness of the
Hebrew polity; comparing unfavourably the type of the Hebrew lawgiver as
seen in Moses, and of the king as seen in David, with the great heroes of
Greek history.(236) The Hebrew prophecy he tried to weaken by putting it
in comparison with oracles. In estimating the character of Christ, he
depreciated the importance of his miracles;(237) and noticing the
different tone of the fourth Gospel from those of the Synoptists, he
asserted that it was St. John who first taught Christ’s divinity.(238) He
regarded Christianity as composed of borrowed ingredients; considered it
to have assumed its shape gradually; and regarded its progress to have
been unforeseen by its founder and by St. Paul;(239) attacked its relation
to Judaism in superseding it while depending on it;(240) regarded
proselytism as absurd; and directed some few charges, which may have been
more deserved, against practices of his day, such as Staurolatry(241) and
Martyrolatry.(242)
With the death of Julian the hopes of heathenism departed; and two
eloquent orations of Gregory Nazianzen(243) still convey to us the
Christian words of triumph. Christianity progressed, protected by the
favour of the sovereigns. Heathenism no longer expressed itself in free
examination of Christianity, and lingered only in the prejudices of the
people. In the West it is merely seen as it pleads for toleration,(244) or
makes itself heard in the murmurs which attributed the woes of the
Teutonic invasions to the displeasure of the heathen gods at the neglect
of their worship.(245) In the East it disappears altogether. Doubt there
expires, because speculation ceases and Christian thought becomes fixed;
nor will it be necessary in future to recur to the history of the eastern
church.
In this survey we have tried to understand the objections alleged by
unbelievers during the first four centuries, successively changing in
character, from the calumnies of ignorance in the second century, to the
statements of intelligent disbelief in the third and fourth, until they
finally subside in the fifth into the murmuring of popular superstition;
and have endeavoured to give their natural as well as literary history, by
exhibiting them as corollaries from the various views concerning religion
enumerated at the commencement of the lecture. The blind prejudices of the
uneducated populace, and the attachment, merely political, to heathen
creeds, manifested themselves in deeds rather than words; but each of the
other lines of thought there indicated gave expression in literature to
its opinion concerning Christianity; the flippant impiety of Epicureanism
in Lucian, the debased form then prevalent of Platonism in Celsus, the
subtle and mystic philosophy of the neo-Platonists in Porphyry, the
oriental Theosophy in Hierocles, the romantic attachment to the old pagan
literature in Julian.
If these causes be still further classified for comparison with the
enumeration of intellectual causes stated in the previous lecture, we find
only the adumbration of some of the forms there named. The attack from
physical science, so prevalent since the era of modern discovery, is
barely discernible in the passing remarks on the Mosaic cosmogony in
Celsus and Julian.(246) The attack from criticism is seen in a trifling
form in Celsus; in a superior manner in the perception which Porphyry
exhibits of the literary characteristics of the Old Testament, and Julian
of the New. The chief ground of the attack was derived from metaphysical
science, which acted not so much in its modern form of a subjective
inquiry into the tests of truth, as in the shape of rival doctrines
concerning the highest problems of life and being, which preoccupied the
mind against Christianity. If the eclectic attempts to adjust such
speculations to Christianity which marked the progress of Gnosticism could
have been embraced in our inquiry, the force of this class of causes would
have been made still more apparent.
The obvious insufficiency however of this analysis to afford an entire
explanation of the prejudices of these early unbelievers points to the
close union before noticed(247)of the emotional with the intellectual
causes. While asserting the possibility of the independent action of the
intellectual element under peculiar circumstances as a cause of doubt, and
while thus vindicating the importance of investigating the history of free
thought from the intellectual side, we admitted the necessity of taking
the probability of the action of the moral element into account when we
pass from the abstract study of tendencies to form a judgment on concrete
instances. Here accordingly, in the mental history of these early
unbelievers, we already encounter cases where philosophy as well as piety
requires that a very large share in the final product be referred to the
influence of emotional causes. Christianity addresses itself to the
compound human nature, to the intellect and heart conjoined. Accordingly
the excitement of certain forms of moral sensibility is as much
presupposed in religion as the sense of colour in beholding a landscape.
The means fail for estimating with historic certainty the particular
emotional causes which operated in the instances now under consideration.
The moral chasm which separates us from heathens is so great that we can
hardly realize their feelings.
If however we cannot pronounce on the positive presence of moral causes
which produced their disbelief, we may conjecture negatively the nature of
those, the absence of which precluded the possibility of faith.
Christianity demands a belief in the supernatural, and a serious spirit in
the investigation of religion, both of which were wholly lacking in
Lucian. It requires a deep consciousness of guilt and of the personality
of God, which were wanting in Celsus. It exacts a more delicate moral
taste to appreciate the divine ideal of Christ’s character than Hierocles
manifested. Porphyry and Julian are more difficult cases for moral
analysis. Porphyry is so earnest a character, so spiritual in his
tastes,(248) that we wonder why he was not a Christian; and except by the
reference of his conduct to general causes, such as philosophical pride,
we cannot understand his motives without a more intimate knowledge than is
now obtainable of his personal history. The difficulty of understanding
Julian’s character arises from its very complexity. Who can divine the
many motives which must have combined with intellectual causes at
successive moments of his life, to change the Christian student, into the
apostate, to convert disbelief into hatred, and to degrade the philosopher
into the persecutor? History happily offers so few parallels to enable us
to form a conjecture on the answer, that we may be content to leave the
problem unsolved.
We have now summed up the causes which operated in the first great
intellectual struggle in which Christianity was engaged. No means exist
for estimating the amount of harm done by the writings of unbelievers. The
retributive destruction of some of them and the indignant alarm of the
Christian apologists indicate the probability that these works had excited
attention. But under a merciful Providence truth has in the end gained
rather than lost by this first conflict of reason against Christianity.
The church encountered the unbelievers by apologetic treatises, and met
the Gnostics by dogmatic decisions. The truths brought out by the action
and reaction, and embodied in the literature stimulated by Gnosticism, in
the apologies created by unbelief, and in the creeds suggested as a
protest against heresy, are the permanent result which the struggle has
contributed to the world.
The contest however is not quite obsolete, and has a practical as well as
antiquarian interest. Though the analogy to the attacks of ancient
unbelievers must be sought in pagan countries in the objections of modern
heathens, yet some resemblance to them may be found in the unbelief of
Christian lands. Such parallels are frequently hasty generalizations
founded on a superficial perception of agreement, without due recognition
of the differences which more exact observation would bring to view; for
identity of cause as well as result is necessary in order to establish
philosophical affinity. In the present cases however the agreement is
moral if not intellectual, in spirit if not in form, generally also in
condition if not in cause. The flippant wit of Lucian, which attributes
religion to imposture and craft, is repeated in the French criticism of
the last century. Some of the doubts of Celsus reappear in the English
deists. The delicate criticism of Porphyry is reproduced in the modern
exegesis. The disposition to explain Christianity as a psychological
phenomenon, as merely one form of the religious consciousness, an organic
product of human thought, unsuited for men of superior knowledge, who can
attain to the philosophical truth which underlies it, is the modern
parallel to Julian.
Accordingly the conduct of the early church during this struggle has a
living lesson of instruction for the church in Christian lands, as well as
in its missionary operations to the heathen. The victory of the early
church was not due wholly to intellectual remedies, such as the answers of
apologists, but mainly to moral; to the inward perception generated of the
adaptation of Christianity to supply the spiritual wants of human
nature.(249) As the heathen realized the sense of sin, they felt
intuitively the suitability of salvation through Christ; as they witnessed
the transforming power of belief in Him, they felt the inward testimony to
the truth of Christianity. The external evidence of religion had its
office in the early church, though the belief(250) in magic and in oracles
probably prevented the full perception of the demonstrative force due to
the two forms of external evidence, miracles and prophecy. But the
internal evidences,—Christ, Christianity, Christendom, were the most
potent proofs offered,—the doctrine of an atoning Messiah filling the
heart’s deepest longings, and the lives of Christians embodying heavenly
virtues.
The modern church may therefore take comfort, and may hope for victory.
The weak things of the world confounded the strong, not only because the
Holy Spirit granted the dew of his blessing, but because the scheme and
message of reconciliation which the church was commissioned to announce,
were of divine construction. Each Christian who tries, however humbly, to
spread the knowledge of Christ by word or by example is helping forward
the Redeemer’s kingdom. Let each one in Christ’s strength do his duty, and
he will leave the world better than he found it; and in the present age,
as in the times of old, Gnosticism and heathenism will retire before
Christianity; the false will be dissipated, the good be absorbed, by the
beams of the Sun of righteousness.
LECTURE III. FREE THOUGHT DURING THE MIDDLE AGES, AND AT THE RENAISSANCE;
TOGETHER WITH ITS RISE IN MODERN TIMES.
LUKE xxi. 33.
_Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not pass
away._
We have studied the history of unbelief down to the fall of heathenism. A
period of more than seven hundred years elapses before a second crisis of
doubt occurs in church history. The interval was a time of social
dissolution and reconstruction; and when the traces of the free criticism
of religion reappear, the world in which they manifest themselves is new.
Fresh races have been introduced, institutions unknown to the ancient
civilization have been mingled with or have replaced the old; and the
ancient language of the Roman empire has dissolved into the Romance
tongues. But Christianity has lived through the deluge, and been the ark
of refuge in the storm; and its claims are now tested by the young world
which emerged into being when the waters of confusion had retired. The
silence of reason in this interval was not the result of the abundance of
piety, but of the prevalence of ignorance; a sign of the absence of
inquiry, not of the presence of moral and mental satisfaction.(251) Even
when speculation revived, and reason re-examined religion, the literary
monuments in which expression is given to doubt are so few, that it will
be possible in the present lecture not only to include the account of the
second and third crises which mark the course of free thought in church
history, but even to pass beyond them, and watch the dawn of unbelieving
criticism caused by the rise of the modern philosophy which ushers in the
fourth of the great crises named in a previous lecture.(252)
The former of these periods which we shall now examine, the second in the
general scheme, may be considered to extend from A.D. 1100 to 1400. Its
commencement is fixed by the date at which the scholastic philosophy began
to influence religion, its close by the revival of classical learning. The
history of free thought in it is complicated, by being to some extent the
struggle of deeds as well as of ideas, a social as well as a religious
struggle. It was the period which witnessed both the dissolution of
feudalism and the theocratic centralization in the popedom; and while
reason struggled on the one side against the dogmatic system, it struggled
on the other to assert the rights of the state against the church, and to
put restraints upon the privileges, dominion, and wealth, of the pope and
clergy. The social struggle, to vindicate the liberty of the state against
the undue power of the church, so far as it is the effect of free thought,
appertains to our subject, in the same manner as was the case with the
early attempts of a converse character of the Roman emperors to deny due
liberty to the church, whenever, as in the case of Julian, they were the
result of a deliberate examination of religion. Free thought in the middle
ages is at once Protestantism, Scepticism, and Ghibellinism.(253)
The intellectual action in this crisis is marked by four forms;—(1) the
criticism created by the scholastic philosophy, which has been thought to
mark in Abélard the commencement of doubt; (2) the introduction of the
idea of progress in religion, in the sense that Christianity is to be
replaced by a better religion; (3) the idea of the comparison of
Christianity with other religions, so as to obliterate its exceptional
character; (4) the traces of disbelief in the doctrine of immortality. The
two former are free thought as doubt, the two latter as disbelief.
It will be necessary, for illustrating the first of those forms, to
explain the nature of the scholastic philosophy, so far as to show how it
might become the means of producing heresy or scepticism, when applied to
theology.
Scholasticism is the vague name which describes the system of inquiry
common in the middle ages.(254) In truth it marks a period rather than a
system; a method rather than a philosophy. In spite of difference of form,
it links itself with the speculations of other ages in community of aim,
in that it strove to gain a general philosophy of the universe, to reach
some few principles which might offer an interpretation of all
difficulties.
In the present age the science which attempts this grand problem is
denominated Logic, or Metaphysics, according to the different sphere which
it covers.(255) But in the middle ages these two fields were not clearly
distinguished; in the same manner as in the Διαλεκτικὴ of Plato, method
and the realities attained by method were not separated.(256) Yet it was
mainly in reference to the former that scholasticism wears the aspect of a
method, and to the latter the aspect of a philosophy. Adopting deduction
as the type of a perfect science, it assumed its data partly on the ground
of innate ideas, partly from the truths of revelation, partly from the
metaphysical dicta of Aristotle; and from these principles attempted to
work out deductively a solution of universal nature. It was the Σοφία of
Aristotle executed from a Christian point of view. In respect to the
logical method there was a general agreement of opinion, but difference of
system arose in the metaphysical. The form that the problem of science
then assumed was peculiar. Instead of examining the data from which
deduction starts, with a view of finding their subjective certainty as
thoughts, the inquirers strove to settle the problem of their objective
nature as things. The question asked was this: Are the genera and species
which the mind contemplates, in its attempts to classify and interpret
phenomena, real in nature, or produced only by human thought and speech? A
comparison with the modern mode of investigation will explain the
importance which the question possessed, and the reason why it monopolized
the entire field of inquiry.
The progress of discovery has forced upon us a subdivision of the sciences
into two classes, unknown in the middle ages; in one of which we discover
causes; in the other, in which we are unable to find causes, we rest
content with classification by species and genera. In the former we
discover antecedents, in the latter types.(257) But in mediæval science,
as in Greek, the latter class was regarded as the sole form of all perfect
science. Hence the reason will appear why the question as to the true
nature of genera and species had a monopoly of the field of inquiry; and
also why the theory of predication was exalted into the most important
part of logic.(258) Those who thought that genera had a real existence as
essences apart from man’s mind and from nature, were denominated Realists:
those who denied to them any real existence, and considered them to be a
common quality labelled by a common name, were Nominalists: those who held
the intermediate view, and assumed them to exist, not only as artificial
names but also as general classes in the human mind, were Conceptualists.
With the realist, classification was not arbitrary, but true and
determined for man. With the nominalist and conceptualist it was created
by man, and amenable to correction.
The question, though now relegated from metaphysical to physical science,
has still sufficient importance to enable us to perceive likewise the
reason why these different theories could be the means of dividing men
into parties. The bitterness with which a zoological inquiry of analogous
character into the perpetuity of natural species(259) has been lately
assailed may enable us to realize the earnestness shown on this point in
the middle ages. The question, as viewed by the schoolmen, was really the
fundamental one as respects knowledge; and the opinions on it are the
counterpart to those which relate to the tests of truth and the nature of
being in modern metaphysics. The spirit of realism was essentially the
spirit of dogmatism, the disposition to pronounce that truth was already
known.(260) Nominalism was essentially the spirit of progress, of inquiry,
of criticism. Realism was in spirit deductive, starting from accepted
dogmas: Nominalism was in spirit, though not in form, inductive. It tested
classifications, and admitted opportunities for the existence of doubt.
“Believe that you may know,” was the expression of the former: “Know that
you may believe,” that of the latter.(261)