VIRTUE IS BETTER
THAN LEARNING.
The fewer dogmas, the fewer disputes; and the fewer disputes, the
fewer calamities: if this is not true I am much mistaken.
Religion is instituted to make us happy in this life and the next.
But what is required to make us happy in the life to come? To be
just. And in this? To be merciful and forbearing.
It would be the height of madness to pretend to bring all mankind to
think exactly in the same manner in regard to metaphysics. We might,
with much greater ease, subject the whole universe by force of arms
than subject the minds of all the inhabitants of one single village.
But Euclid found no difficulty in persuading every one of the truths
of geometry. And why? Because there is not one of them which is not a
self-evident corollary on this simple axiom: “Two and two make four.”
But is it not altogether the same with relation to the complicated
maxims in metaphysics and divinity.
Eusebius and Socrates tell us that when Bishop Alexander and Arius
the priest began first to dispute in what manner the Logos or word
proceeded from the Father, the Emperor Constantine wrote to them in
the following terms: “You are great fools to dispute about things
you do not understand.”
If the two contending parties had been wise enough to acknowledge
that the emperor was in the right Christendom would not have been
drenched in blood for upwards of three centuries.
And, indeed, what can be more ridiculous, or rather detestable, than
to address mankind in this manner: “My friends, it is not sufficient
that you are faithful subjects, dutiful children, tender parents,
and upright neighbors; that you live in the continual practice of
virtue; that you are grateful, benevolent, and generous, and worship
the Saviour of the world in peace; it is furthermore required of you
that you should know how a thing may be begotten from all eternity,
without being made from all eternity; and if you cannot distinguish
the homoousian in the hypostasis, we declare to you that you are
damned to all eternity; and in the meantime we shall begin by cutting
your throats”?
If such a decision as this had been presented to Archimedes,
Posidonius, Varro, Cato, or Cicero, what answer do you think they
would have given to it?
Constantine, however, did not persevere in silencing the two parties;
he might easily have summoned the chiefs of the disputes before
him, and have demanded of them by what authority they disturbed the
peace of mankind. “Are you,” he might have said, “possessed of the
genealogy of the heavenly family? What is it to you whether the
Son was made or begotten, provided that you are faithful to Him;
that you preach a sound doctrine, and practise that doctrine if you
can? I have committed many faults in my lifetime, and so have you;
I have been ambitious, so have you; it has cost me many falsehoods
and cruelties to attain to the empire; I have murdered my nearest
relative that stood in my way; but I now repent, and am willing to
make atonement for my crime by restoring peace to the Roman Empire;
do not you prevent me from doing the only good action which can
possibly make my former cruel ones forgotten; but rather assist me to
end my days in peace.” Perhaps Constantine might not, by this speech,
have prevailed over the minds of the disputants, and perhaps he might
rather be pleased with presiding in a council in a long crimson robe,
and his forehead glittering with jewels.
This, however, opened a passage to all those dreadful calamities
which overran the West from Asia. Out of every contested verse there
issued a fury armed with a quibble and a poniard, who inspired
mankind at once with folly and cruelty. The Huns, the Heruli,
the Goths, and Vandals, who came afterwards, did infinitely less
mischief; and the greatest they did was that of afterwards engaging
in the same fatal disputes.