Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.arcliive.org/details/conflictofcliristOOulilliricli THE . CONFLICT OF CHEISTIANITY WITH HEATHENISM ' BY Dr. GERHARD UHLHORN ABBOT OF LOCCUM, AND MEMBER OF THE SUPREME CONSISTORY IN HANOVER 3&titt£t[ aniJ translate?! WITH THE AUTHOR'S SANCTION PROM THE THIRD GERMAN EDITION BY EGBERT C. SMYTH and C. J. H. ROPES NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1908 / • '■ '•lain Lite, HISTORr I OOPTBIOHT, 1879, Bt CHABLE8 SCKIBNER'8 SON! • • » • • •••, -• • • •• , • • • ." • •• • PEEFAClfi. The woik of which a translation is now offered to the public has been highly commended by leading reviews in Germany, and has been received with much popular favor. It has also been translated into the Dd,nish and Swedish languages. Its author's name is familiar to scholars through his contributions to the first edition of Herzog's Encyclo- paedia of Protestant Theology, as well as to the one now issuing ; through his work on the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions ; and through other historical and apologetic publications, one of which has been translated into English by the Rev. Charles E. Grinnell, and published under the title : " The Modern Representations of the Life of Jesus.*' At home Dr. Uhlhorn is known also as an eminent preacher, and as one of the most prominent of the Lutheran clerg3\ Several volumes of sermons have lately appeared from his pen, and also a collection of addresses on important topics of religious and social life. Gerhard Uhlhorn is the son of a shoemaker, and was bom in Osnabriick, Feb. 17, 1826. From the gymnasium of his native city he went to the University of Gottingen, 5 222023 6 FBBFACB. where he studied theology firom 1845 to 1848. He then became a private instructor in the University, and served successively as a ^' Repetent^^' and as a '' Privatdocent^** until 1855. During this period, besides preparing and publishing a volume of sermons, he was engaged in a criti- cal and thorough study of the early Christian history. In 1855 he became assistant preacher at the royal Schloss- Kirche in Hanover, and subsequently First Preacher to the Court, and a member of the Supreme Consistory of Hanover. In 1878 he was installed as Abbot of Loccum, a mediaeval Cistercian Abbey which, toward the close of the sixteenth century, accepted the principles of the Lutheran Reforma- tion, and is now a Seminary for the education of evangelical preachers. Its abbot is ex officio president of the principal- ity of Kalenberg, and at the head (der erste Geistliche) of the Lutheran Church in Hanover. The subject which Dr. Uhlhom has treated in the follow- ing work is fitted to call into exercise his best powers, — his quick and broad sympathies with humanity, especially the poor and wretched, his ample and thorough learning, and his ability to clothe his thoughts in forms fitted to interest wide circles of readers. Dr. Channing, in his Essay on F^nelon, has recognized the grandeur and importance of this theme, and its need of juster treatment. It is of permanent and universal interest. We are transported to an ancient battle-field, but the cause is our own. Christianity, from the beginning, had to encounter active, skilftil foes. Judaism and Heathenism were no abstractions, but armed warriors. The struggle was a vital one, — not a question of mere organization, or subsidiary doctrine, but of the origin, FBBFACB. 7 essence, authority, and power of the Gospel. The contest was also protracted. As it went on, all the forces which could be arrayed against the new religion had time to reach the field of conflict, and mingle in the strife. The victori- ous Roman, the acute and versatile Greek, the Oriental theo- sophist, the Jewish legalist, the power of the Empire, the learning of Alexandria, vested interests, wit, ridicule, sar- casm, reverence for the past, the pride of human reason, the cunning of covetousness, the accumulated resources of human wisdom and human depravity, were all marshalled md taxed. A conflict so real, so strenuous, so continuous ind vital, deserves the careful attention of every student >f history and lover of truth. And it has special claims in an age like our own, when the question of the super- natural origin and power of Christianity is so widely dis- cussed.^ In its treatment of this subject Dr. Uhlhom's book may be specially commended in the following particulars: (i.) its abundant use of the new materials which have been accumulated by the special investigations of Marquardt, Mommsen, Friedlander, Boissier, De Rossi, Keim, Overbeck, and others ; (ii.) the vividness with which the principles and ^ The German edition of this volume bears the secondary title . Bilder aus der Vergangenheit als SpiegeWilder fur die Gegenwart, Pictures trom the Past as Illustrations for the Present. This resemblance of the ancient conflict to the modem has also been noticed, on its Apologetic Bide, by Dr. Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine, vol. i., p. 103; and by Mr. Bolton in the Introduction to his useful collection and classification of the arguments of " the Apologists down to Augustine." Mr. Bolton also sketches the peculiar characteristics of the earlier contest, —t« Bome of which, in broader relations, I have alluded. 8 PBEFAGB. progress of the conflict are conceived, and the skill with which they are illustrated by apt citations from the writings of those engaged in it, and by the introduction of striking personal experiences and incidents of the period; (iii.) the success with which the author preserves the unity of his theme, and the consequent distinctness of impression which is produced. If these merits are justly attributable to the original work, and are not seriously impaired in its translation, it invites the attention of a much larger number of readers than those who may be supposed to have a professional interest in its subject. I cannot but hope that it will prove adapted to the wants of such persons j| that intelligent laymen will deem it not without freshness and value, that pastors may find it helpful in their provision of reading for some who may con suit them, and that it may fill a useful place in town and village and parish libraries. I shall be especially gratified if any young persons who have not as yet been attracted to the study of Church History may be allured by this volume to these rich fields of thought and knowledge. Desiring also that it may promote the study of this History in its sources, special pains has been taken to make the references to au- thorities exact and copious. The latter half of the translation (from page 244) , with the corresponding notes, has been prepared and edited by the Rev. C. J. H. Ropes of Ellsworth, Me. The transla- tors have endeavored so far to assimilate their work that the unity of the original may not seem to have been greatly impaired in its English form. £• C« S< AllDOVEtt ThBOLOQIOAIi SSMINABYt October, 1879. CONTENTS. BOOK FIRST. CHAPTER I. TffF BELIGIOUa CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN WORLD, ._. 1. The Commingling of Nations in the Roman Empire .... 13 2. Decline of Religion 29 3. Foreign Rites, and the Longing for Redemption 62 4. Judaism • 81 CHAPTER n. THE MORAL CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN WORLD, 1. Faith and Morals • . 92 2. Marriage and Family Life 97 3. Labor and Luxury • • 104 4. Public Games 119 5. Slavery 131 6. Th^f^d of Moral Renewal 141 CHAPTER nL THE CHRISTIANS. 1. The Preaching of the Gk>spel • • • • 160 2. Worship and Church-Life 160 3. Conduct of the Christians ••• • 165 4. Benevolence of the Christians •••••191 6. Martyrdom • ••••• 206 BOO^ SECOND. CHAPTER L THE FIRST ENCOUNTER. 1. Preliminary Survey ••••• S17 % The Persecution under Kero 241 lO CONTENTS. CHAPTER n. THE CHBISTIANS BEFORE THE TRIBUNALS. 1. Trajan's Legislation against the Christians 261 2. The Increasing Influence of Christianity 264 3. The Persecution under Marcus Aurelius 282 4. The First Signs of Victory .297 CHAPTER m. THE RE- ACTION, 1. The Internal Re-action in Heathenism 308 2. The Internal Re-action in Christianity 336 CHAPTER IV. THE GENERAL PER8E0UTI0NB, 1. From Marcus Aurelius to Decius 856 2. From Decius to Gallienus 865 BOOK THIRD. CHAPTER I. « THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE. 1. The Work of the Church among the Heathen 886 2. The Restoration of the Empire 803 3. The Persecution under Diocletian 407 CHAPTER II. THE VICTORY. 420 CHAPTER III. THE LAST EFFORT OF HEATHENISM, • ... 446 Notes 48] Index 5ii BOOK FIRST. THE POWERS IN CONFLICT. "Greater is He that is in you^ than he that is in the world." — Uohn iv.4. 1f» THE CONFLICT OP CHRISTIANITY WITH HEATHENISM CHAPTER I. THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OP THE HEATHEN WORLD. **Butt when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His S(yn, made of a woman.** — Gal. iv. 4. I. THE COMMINGLING OP NATIONS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Melito of Sardis, one of the earliest Apologists, calls attention to the fact that Christianity was born at the same time with the Roman Empire.^ Indeed the simple statement, in the story of our Lord's birth, of the de- cree of taxation issued by the first Roman Emperor, affords one of the plainest indications that the fulness of the time had come. The name of the Emperor Augus- tus marks the meridian of the ancient world ; for the ancient world culminated in Rome, and Roman historv in the rise of the Empire. And just at this culmina- tion of the old world, which was also the beginning of its decline. He appears whose coming was the point of transition from the ancient era to the new, the turning- point of the ages. As in Nature new shoots do not first start when the plant they are appointed to succeed is wholly dead, but while it is still outwardly vigorous put forth and grow, feeding upon the life whose disso- lution they hasten, so was it here. The Christian 13 l4 ' * COMMINGLING OF NATIONS. [book i world did not first appear when the old world was already decayed. To human eyes at least, although destroying forces were secretly at work, it still stood in full splendor and bloom when the germ of the new life was implanted, and henceforth the progressive decline of the old life, and the aspiring growth of the new. went on in constant and reciprocal interaction. The task of Rome was to unite, — to unite, we maj say as confidently, for Christ. Born at the same time^ the Roman Empire and the Christian Church were also providentiall}^ appointed for each other. The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of seed. If the seed is to be sown the field must be prepared. The Roman Empire was the prepared field. The kingdom of heaven is like leaven. If the leaven is to be mixed with the meal, the meal must be shaken together. The Roman Empire was the shaken heap of meal appointed first of all to take up the leaven. All the peoples of the old world which hitherto had lived and labored apart, all their gains and achievements, their riches and treasures, their works of art and scientific results, their ancient traditions and legends, their gods and rites of worsliip, all existing elements of culture and forces of civilization, were now comprised in one Empire. Other empires have ex- ceeded this in territory and in population, but there has never been a second empire in the whole course of his- tory which so united in itself all the cultivated nations of its time. The establishment of this kingdom was the historical task of the Romans. Rome's geographical position gave her the expectation of becoming the head of such ac Empire. Around the Mediterranean, the central sea of the ancient world, dwelt the cultivated nations. CHAP. ..J ROME'S TASK: CONQUEST OF THE WORLD. lb Far into the midst of this sea projects the long penin sula of Italy, and in the middle of this peninsula stood Rome, the centre of the centre. From tliis point tie world was conquered and controlled. For this were the Romans endowed. They were not a people of peace but of war, not a nation of thinkers but of deeds, not rich in arts but great in bravery and politi- cal sagacity, equipped with a rare power of assimilation, a marvellous gift for organization, and a strong instinct for legislation and government. They produced no philosophical systems, but they carried law to its highest perfection ; they built no Parthenon, but they constructed roads and bridges to bind countries to- gether, and walls and castles to protect them. They were "the robbers of the globe," but in the divine counsel their robberies, unknown to them, had a higher purpose of union, and their Empire, brought together by reckless violence, was constrained by a superior will to serve the kingdom which Eternal Love has under- taken to establish in the world. When the Republic ended, the conquest of the world was at least substantially accomplished. Then it re- ceived, in the Emperor, one ruler. From this point began the fusion of the heterogeneous mass of countries and peoples which at first were only externally united. The first Emperor, Augustus, erected in the Forum at Rome a golden milestone. It stood as a symbol that there was the centre of the world. A net-work of ar- tificial highways, even then nearly completed, extend- ed from this point through the entire Empire. From Cadiz in Spain, through France, through Italy, away up to the Cataracts of the Nile, from the lands of the Danube even to the pillars of Hercules, the travellei 16 COMMINGLING OF NATIONS. [book l could journey over well-built roads, and find every- where, at certain distances, mutationes for change of horses, and mansiones for lodging at night. T'lese roads were so many cords binding the conquered world to the centre, Rome, so many channels for the impulses which streamed forth from it. On these roads marched the legions to keep under control a subjugated world, and to protect the boundaries ; on these roads Pro- consuls and Praetors went into the provinces to ad- minister law and justice, and swift couriers bore the edicts of the Emperor to the extreme circumference of the broad Empire; over these highways commerce moved, and Romans of distinction journeyed to gain knowledge of the world; over these highways, too, went the messengers of the Gospel, bearing from city to city the jo}^ul tidings of a manifested Redeemer. A vast interchange now began tlirough the entire Empire. Hitherto War alone had brought men to- gether ; now for the first time this was accomplishe^d by Peace. For after the fearful assaults and revolutions of the Civil Wars the Empire was really peace ; " Now land and sea are safe, and cities flourish in concord and peace," exults an inscription in honor of Augustus. "All which has hitherto been concealed comes now into general use," says Pliny. And Philo : " The nox- ious elements are driven to the remotest distances, the salutary are gathered together from the ends of the earth into the Empire of the world." ^ To be sure, as compared with the commercial intercourse of to-da-^ that of the Roman world was but small. The imports, for example, from Asia into England from 1861 to 1869 amounted annually, on an average, to nearly seventy millions of dollars, while the entire Roman Eed CHAP. I. J LNTERCOURSE IN THE EMPIRE. 17 pire, according to an estimate found in Pliny, made use of only about five and a quarter million dollars' worth of merchandise from the East. Yet, in comparison with earlier times, traffic very largely increased during the age of the Emperors, and was of more importance in bringing the nations nearer together because mer- cantile intercourse was much more personal then than aow. Like the great commercial cities of the East, — A'exandria, Antioch, Ephesus, Smyrna, Corinth, — Rome was a centre of traffic, as no city has been before or since. Every thing rushed to Rome. Whoever had any thing in art or science whose claims he wished to have recognized, whoever hoped to gain any thing by being near persons in power, whoever sought his rights in the highest tribunal of appeal, whoever expected through honest business, or even through adventure and fraud, to become rich, or whoever had obtained wealth and wished to see with liis own eyes the wonders of the capital, and to share in the pleasures and luxu- ries which it afforded, went to Rome. On the streets of this matchless imperial city met the finely cultured Greek who sought here the sources for some history, and the half educated provincial who would gladlj^ pass for a genuine Roman ; the Alexandrian merchant, brought here by the corn trade, and the half savage African who perchance had come with an invoice of lions for the next hunting-show ; the wily Syrian who hoped to propagate the worship of a new god, or sold amulets and charms, and the Gaul who, proud of the Roman citizenship recently presented to him, offered his homage to the eternal city ; the Jew who for the sake of seme pecuniary gain, or even to win proselytes, shunned not the long journey, and the Illyrian and Tliracian who followed the Roman eagles. 18 COMMINGLING OF NATIONS. [book i The current toward Rome had a corresponding one outward into the provinces which, no less th&n the other, promoted the fusion of the nations. The admin- istrative officers who went forth to govern the con- quered lands in accordance with Roman laws, the knights who were drawn to the provinces by their financial operations, the armies and the colonies which Rome sent forth, all promoted that great process of assimilation which was now accomplishing with astonish- ing rapidity. In its numerous colonies Rome extended itself into the provinces. They were a part of Rome in the midst of Spain, Gaul, or Greece. The colonists carried with them their right of citizenship and their Roman law. Often foreigners were received into the colony, and even when they formed within it a separate community they still came under the constant influence of the Roman spirit. The stations of the legions on the Rhine and in Syria, in Britain and on the Danube, were so many points of support for this Romanizing process. And since the legions were obliged to recruit them- selves increasingly from the provinces, they were con- sequently all the more a school of civilization, especially as it was a principle never to station auxiliary troops in their native cantons. Separated from the soil of their birth by long years of military service, the stran- gers became Romans, and regarded Roman citizenship as their highest reward. How rapidly this transforma- lion was accomplished in the provinces can be seen in the case of Britain. This country was re-occupied in the year 43. Tacitus gives us a description of it in the ye'dv 61. How changed is every thing in these eighteen yeai's ! A net-work of camps and castles stretches over the conquered Southern part, individual chieftains have UHAT. 1 f PROGRESSIVE ASSIMILATION. 1?> wholly adopted Roman manners, and govern as pre- fects; the bloody Druid worship is exterminated, Roman customs are diffused ; the colony of Camulodu- num (Colchester) has grown to an important city, in the midst of which rises a temple of Divus Claudius. We find circuses, theatres, marble goddesses of victory. Londinium is an influential commercial city, where the fabrications of Roman industry and the products of Gaul find a market, and the people are already accus- tomed to Italian pleasures. This assimilation to Rome would naturally advance more rapidly and powerfully in countries hitherto pos- sessed of little or no culture. Spain, Gaul, North Africa, soon became wholly Romanized. It was other- wise in the East. Rome met in Greece a higher culture than its own. Externally the conqueror, it became inwardly more and more subjugated by the Greek mind. What France once was to Europe, Greece was at that time to the world. As philosophers and rhetoricians, as schoo) -masters and physicians, as artists and artisans, even as men-servants and maid-servants, numerous Greeks came to Italy and Rome and diffused there the Greek language and philosophy, Greek morality and immorality. Conversely, it soon became a mark of hon ton to visit the seats of ancient Greek culture. As in the last century people went to Paris to receive the Snest polish, so throngs of youths went to Athens, oi even to Rhodes and Marseilles, to become acquainted with Hellenic science and art, often enough too witlj Hellenic excesses. Already gaining ground toward the] end of the Republic, Hellenism made more and more rapid progress in the time of the Emperors, especialh under Nero. 20 COMMINGLING OF NATIONS. [book i. Thus Roman civilization, while it conquered the world, became itself more and more imbued with that of Greece. From this confluence of two streams issued a third, a new one, neither old Roman nor ancient Greek, but Grceco-Roman ; and it was this Grseco- Roman culture which, adjusting the old distinctions, filled the great Empire. Latin, indeed, was the popu lar language only in the Western provinces, almost sup planting there the old native tongues ; yet it was under stood, as the speech of the dominant race, even in Palestine and on the Nile. More nearly even than Latin was Greek raised to the rank of a universal lan- guage. Whoever spoke it could count upon being able to make himself understood everywhere in the East and in the West. In the Common Law Rome gave the world another bond of union, whose influence became more powerful in proportion as it was developed. On this firm basis the world became more and more accus- tomed to the same forms of social life. The East, true to the stable character it still pre- serves, adhered most firmly to its peculiarities. And though the Hellenized cities, Antioch, Nicomedia, above all Alexandria, were influential supporters of the Grseco-Roman culture, still the transformation in these regi'^ns was far less complete than in the West. The Oriental indeed should be recognized as a third element with the Roman and the Grecian, especially in the sphere of religion, it being faintly discernible from the beginning of the time of the Emperors, and more and more clearly so in the second and third centuries While the Roman spirit ruled in the domain of govern- ment and law, and the Greek in that of art and science, the Oriental impressed itself upon religious life. Thus THAP. i.J RISE OF COSMOPOLITANISM. 21 this part of the mighty Empire had a share in its inter- nal growth, and one all the more important since the real and highest end for which this Empire existed must be sought for in religious development. It is hardly necessary to suggest what aids to religious progress, particularly to the extension of Christianity, these facts imply. A religious impulse given at one point now, was no longer in danger as it might have been centuries earlier, of perishing in the little circle of an isolated people. If it only had sufficient power it easily propagated itself through the entire Empire. It no longer found anywhere a limit. The abundant means of communication, the wide-spread understanding of the two leading languages, Latin and Greek, the community of interests, the common law, the greatly increased similarity of social customs and forms, all came to its aid. We need only glance at the life and labors of Paul to find this everywhere confirmed. A missionary activity like his was possible only in an Empire like the Roman. But none of these particulars, however important each may be, is of chief moment. Of infinitely more consequence is it that there was now developing in the Roman Empire a Universalism hitherto entirely un- known, the first step to the Universalism of Chris- tianity. At no point does the providential significance of the Roman Empire stand forth more strikingly thaa iiere. The human race develops as nations in the Christian era, as well as in the pre-Christian. " God hath de- termined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation." With this word St. Paul, in hia discourse at Athens, gives us a glimpse into the divine 22 COMMINGLING OF NATIONS. [book I goverument and guidance of the nations of which thej^ themselves are unconscious. But in the times before Christ, the significance of nationality was entirely unlike what it has been since. In the ancient era the nations were strictly separated from each other. Each nation lived for itself and labored for itself. There was no com- mon work of civilization in which the nations recipro cally supplemented each other, and together made prog ress in a common development ; but rather, one nation transmitted its work to another to be continued by it, the Oriental nations to the Greeks, and they to the Romans. In the modern era, on the contrary, nations are interdependent. No one is the sole possessor of culture, so that all the rest must repair to it. Each shares in the work of civilization, and all mutually give and receive. Though distinct as States, and though each preserves its own individuality, their culture is a common one. Nations which have a Christian civiliza- tion are united as members of a graat whole. And their inner bond of union, however little inclination there may be in many quarters to-day to recognize this, is in reality their common Christianity. Rome is the connecting link between these two forms of national life, the transition from one to the other. In the ancient era we have only distinct nationalities, no unity; in the modern era distinct nationalities, yet above them a unity. In Rome, there were no longer distinct nation- alities, for all were outwardly comprised in one State ; yet a real inward unity, a common bond was still want^ ing, — it had yet to be developed. In the Roman Empire the old nationalities declined more and more ; not merely those of conquered nations, but that of Rome as weU. The old Roman families CHAP I.] DECLINE OF THE OLD NATIONALITIES. 23 died out; provincials took their places; and soon tLs Emperors, too, were from the provinces. Romans and nou-Romans came to be regarded as equals, and the Roman right of citizenship was shared by provin- cials in an ever-widening circle. As ancient Roman art and morality had degenerated, so also had the old Greek character. The Greek spirit in its purity with- drew ; Hellenism took its place. The Roman colony Corinth surpassed Athens, the Hellenized cities of Asia Minor were more important centres than the ancient seats of culture in Greece itself. More fully still did the subject nations of the West give up their nationality. Since all development took a purely national course, a certain narrowness adhered to ancient life. Modera- tion was the chief virtue of Antiquity. In it was rooted the artistic sense of the- old Greek, as well as the strict virtue of the old Roman. This narrowness now disappeared. Through the magnificent intercourse and interchange of the universal Empire, national con- sciousness expanded into one which was world-wide. In all departments of life there was manifested a free- dom from restraints which resulted in a disappear- ance of the old established forms, in a widening of view and of the entire circle of thought. The sharply dis- ci iminated philosophical systems lost their distinctive peculiarities. A practical philosophy was developed, which, far inferior in acuteness and logical consistency to the earlier, obtained for this very reason far wider acceptance. The styles of art commingled. Giecian finish and Oriental massiveness met in the colossai edifices of the Empire. But when purity of art waa thus lost, and the Age could no longer rival the crea 24 COMMlJNGLiJSU Ob JSATIONS. [book i tions of classic time, art gained instead a diifusioii nevei before attained. Never before nor since, has the world been so opulent in treasures of art. To say nothing of Rome, even provincial cities so abounded in lofty edi- rices, statues, and other works of sculpture, as greatly to exceed those of our cajjitals which are richest in such treasures. Never again has art so penetrated men's homes, adorning even all the utensils of daily life, and its entire environment. In the countries oa the Danube, and on the Rhine, manufactories of earthen ware copied Grecian patterns ; and the streets and pub- lic places of Roman colonial cities, in the midst of barbarous nations, were adorned with imitations of works of Grecian art whose originals, perchance, graced some place or palace in Rome. Culture, in a word, now tended to become universal. Numerous schools afforded to multitudes opportunities for knowledge hitherto available to only a few. The cheapness of books, and easily accessible public libra- ries, subserved the same end. Martial speaks of books which cost four or six sesterces, a trifle more than twenty or thirty cents.' The equivalent of a page of print cost from about two to two and a half cents. The diffusion of books was also great. Pliny expresses pleasure that his works are sold by booksellers in Lyons. Already in Rome Csesar had projected the plan of establishing a library. Asinius Pollio carried it into effect, founding in the temple of Liberty the first public libraiy of Rome. Augustus established two others, to which a great number were afterwards added. Learn- ing became somewhat encyclopyedic ; an educated man was expected to be well-informed upon all subjects- Every branch of knowledge was cultivated, Grammar, CHAP. I.] EXTENSION OF CULTURE. 25 Antiquities, Agriculture, and tlie science of war. Char- acteristic uf llie times was the special attention paid to Universal History and Geography. The view became broader, and whereas the ancient Greek or Roman cared only for his own people and land, the Roman of the age of the Emperors was interested in every thing, in foreign nations and countries, in the plants and ani- mals of distant zones. In Rome unknown animals and other curiosities from far off lands were exhibited as shows to great throngs. Even the Emperors provided such sights. Successful attempts were made to acclima- tize foreign plants and animals. The natural products of different countries were also interchanged. South- ern fruits were transplanted to Rome, and still farther towards the North. In this way Gaul received the cultivation of the olive and vine. Journeys became the fashion. Whoever had not seen Greece, and visited the East, whoever had not been in Athens and Alexan- dria, hardly counted among persons of education ; and just as we have to-day our guide-books for Italy and Switzerland, so had the Roman tourist his guide-book which pointed out all the various sights and designated the temples, statues, pictures, antiquities, which were of special interest. We see this fondness for travels, also, in the literature of romance ; whose appearance is itself a sign of the altered spirit of the age. It de- Lighted in narrating fictitious journeys; and "the in- credible things beyond Thule," or the like, were eagerly read. It has been disputed whether this whole development lihould be considered a decline or an advance. Men even of that time had a clear presentiment that Rome then stood at the height of its prosperity, and so at 26 COMMINGLING OF NATIONS. Lboor i the beginning of its decline. "Heaven gnjit that 1 may prove a false prophet, but I see Rome, proud Rome, fall a victim to its own prosperity," says Proper- tins,* and Tacitus saw with a ken truly prophetic that the Germans would destroy Rome. Their freedom jieomed to him more dangerous than the power of the Parthians.*^ Yet the controversy over the question of decline or progress is needless. Certainly that age, as compared with the palmy days of Greece and Rome, was one of decline. It was no longer productive as before. Feeling and reflection were stronger than energy of will. Nothing strictly new was produced. But must not the blossom fall before the fruit can ripen? Even if the commingling of nations, as of philosophical systems and of styles of art, which was accomplishing in the time of the Emperors, was a de- cline, it was also, as opposed to the earlier exclusive- ness, a salutary result of the mutual intercourse which was taking place. This widening of view, of thought, of interest, beyond the former narrowness, was no longer, it is true, the genuine ancient life, and neither a Sophocles nor a Phidias, neither a Pericles nor a Scipio, could then have arisen; yet who will deny that this expansion of knowledge, this general diffusion of art was also a progress? For do not Science and Art exist for this very purpose that as many as possible may enjoy their fruits ? Least of all can it be denied that this entire Universalism then developing was the fii'st step to the modern Christian era. Antic^uity went beyond itself and reached out its hands to the ne epoch. Itself passing out from the ancient narrowness into a world-wide breadth of thought and life, the old world became capable Universalism of CHA/". I.J CHBISTIA M UNIVEKbALISM. 21 Chiistianity. The thought of a religion not national but for all laces would have recoiled from the rocky masses of the unbroken nationalities of an earlier age. Now, when the old nationalities were demolished, the thought of a kingdom of God embracing all nations could strike root, and the idea of a universal Church, which would have been entirely unintelligible to an ancient Greek or Roman, was to the Roman of the age of the Emperors, though still strange, no longer incom- prehensible now that in the Empire he had before his eyes a universal kingdom. All this, indeed, was nothing more than preparation. The old world was not able to produce from itself a Christian universalism. The result of that great pro- cess of comminution which was wrought out in the vast Roman Empire was only uniformity, not true unity. True unity presupposes diversity. It is a comprehen- sion of the manifold under a higher principle of organi- zation. Here we encounter a limitation which was insuperable to the old world. It lacked the thought of Humanity, and since it knew not the whole, it could not rightly appreciate the parts. The unity of man- kind, and the organization of the entire race in nations, — the great truths which Paul preached in Athens, the centre of ancient wisdom, — were hidden from it. Therefore the meaning of nationality was not rightly imderstood. At first it was exaggerated. There was (mly national life, and nothing more. Afterwards it was undervalued. In the Roman Empi^ the various nation- alities failed to obtain their just rights. They were completely lost in the great whole. The result was, not a living universalism but only a shadowy one, an abstract cosmopolitanism which did not know how tc 28 COMMINGLING OF NATIONS. [boo» i appreciate the meaning of nationality as a compact organism. The ultimate reason lies deeper. There was no reli- gious unity. That which to-day holds cultivated na- tions in unity, notwithstanding all their diversity, is their common Christianity. Were this taken away their development in culture would gradually di\erge, and the nations would again, as in ancient times, confront each other as enemies, — unless, indeed, power were given to one of them to force them all into one empire. This, in many quarters to-day, will not be conceded. Appeal is made to the multiplied means of communication which now exist, and the consequent approximation of nations. Stress is laid on their com- mon culture, conceived of wholly apart from religion, — as if outward union could of itself create community of life ! as if the kernel of this entire common culture were not their Christianity! The thought of a hu- manity whose members are nations, is only possible where there is faith in one God and one Redeemer. As long as Polytheism rules, as long also as religion is purely national, humanity is split up into a multitude of nationalities rigidly secluded from each other. Even the Universalism of the Roman Empire was possible only because, in its religious development, a monotheis- tic tendency had already begun even within the limits of paganism, — a tendency to be sure which could not advance beyond a sliadowy Monotheism. The abstract pantheistic Deit}^ which was the result of tMs tendency corresponds exactly to the abstract, and pantheistically colored, cosmopolitanism which took the place of the earlier and vigorous consciousness of distinct nation- ality. When, instead of a dead deity, was preached CHAP. I.] RELIGIOUS LIFE OF AN:riQUITr. 29 the living God, Maker of heaven and earth, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, then for the first time hu- manity was able to advance from this abstract cosmo- politanism into the true Universalism which rules the Christian era. This brings us to the religious condition of the Age of the Emperors.^ II. DECLINE OF RELIGION. After Paul had gone through Athens observing with attentive eye the life, and especially what was to him of deepest interest, the religious life of the renowned city, he summed up in the opening of his discourse the impression he had received in the phrase which Luther translates, somewhat inaccurately, " allzu aber- glaubig" (too superstitious), but which, no doubt, would be more correctly rendered, "too god-fearing" or "deity-fearing," A survey of the religious life of the Roman Empire must produce the same impression. What a host of gods and goddesses whom the nations serve, how countless the temples and holy places adorned with vast wealth and the glory of art, how endlessly varied the rites and forms of worship ! In fact no reproach would be more unjust than to call the old world irreligious. LOn tho contrary Christians, to the heathen, must have seemed irreligious; and often enough were they thus reproached, be 3ause they had no -feligious ceremonies like those to wl ich the heathen were accustomed daily, and hourly, and at every step of life. The whole world was full of gods. Their temples rose in all places, — large and splendid edifices and little chapels, in cities and vilages, in field and forest, on the verge of the wilderness and on the sum- 80 DECLINE OF RELIGION. lBOO« i mit of the Great St. Bernard pass, where a temple of Jupiter^ invited the traveller who had come thus far to offer thanksgivings and vows for a safe return home. "Our country is so peopled with gods," Petronius makes a woman from Campania say, " that it is easier to find a god there than a man." ^ Or there were at least sacred trees, stones, rocks which were decked by heathen piety with garlands and ribbons, and which no one passed by without some sign of reverence. The entire life was permeated by religion. The State was founded upon religion. It was yery well understood that there must be something which binds the conscience and disposes men freely to obey the laws. This was faith in the gods, in Providence, in retributive justice. " Sooner," says Plutarch,^ " may a city exist without houses and ground, than a State without faith in the gods. This is the bond of union, the support of all legislation." Polybius praises the Romans especially for their piety. " Among them," he says, " the administration of public funds is more secure by means of the oath than elsewhere through the most extensive system of checks." ^" At every im- portant public transaction the gods were consulted, sacrifices offered, and religious rites observed ; every assembly of the people was opened with prayer. Au- gustus made an express decree that every senator, before he took his place, should go to the altar of the deity in whose temple the assembly was held, and offer a libation, and strew incense." Down even to the last days of the Republic it was the looking up to the ancestral deities which inspired the army. I When, before a battle, Pompey spoke to his soldiers of the art of war they remained unmoved, but when Cato re" CHAP, i J LOCAL RITES. DOMESTIC DEITIES 31 minded them of the dii patrii (thbugh himself without faith in them), he inflamed the whole army, and the battle was a victory. An^ as the entire State, so also every community, every city, every circle of cities, had its special cult, well-founded institutions, rich and dis* tinguished colleges for priests, and special feast-days and sacrifices. Every province, every city, every vil- lage, honored with local rites its protecting divinity, and everywhere the various religious observances were most intimately connected with the civil constitution of the community and sustained by local patriotism. I • In the same way all domestic and family life had a religious tone. Each period of life, every important event, was celebrated with religious services. Though the names of the numerous deities who are mentioned as presiding over domestic life designate rather functions of the deity than divine beings conceived of as hav- ing independent existence, yet these very names afford proof of what has just been stated. There was the goddess Lucina who watched over the birth of a child ; Candelifera in whose honor at such a time candles were lighted; Rumina who attended to its nursing; Nun- lina who was invoked on the ninth day when the name was given ; Potina and Educa who acc^^stomed it to food and drink. The day when the child first stepped upon the ground was consecrated to Statina ; Abeona taught it to walk : Farinus to lisp ; Locutinus to talk ; Cunina averted from it the evil enchantments lying in the cradle. There was a god of the door (Forculas), a. god of the threshold (Limentinus), a goddess of the hinges (Cardea). There was a god for the blind (Caeculus), a goddess for the childless (Orbana).^^ "Even the biothels," exclaims Tertullian, "and cook-shops and 32 DECLINE OF RELIGION. [book i prisons have their gods." ^' Every household festival was at the same time a divine service , each class had its gods whom it invoked, and from whom it expected help and protection in its work. ^ From the niche of a rafter, Epona, the goddess of horses, looked down upon the stable ; on the ship stood the image of Neptune ; tho merchants prayed to Mercury for successful bargains. All tillage of the soil began with prayer. Before har- vest a pig was sacrificed to Ceres, and the labor of fell- ing a forest was not commenced until pardon had been supplicated from the unknown gods who might inhabit it.i* This whole rich religious life of the ancient world makes at once an impression of the greatest variety. What diversity wherever we observe it, whether on the shores of the Nile or the Orontes, in the cities of Greece or at the Roman Capitol. How entirely different were the gods invoked by the Egyptian and Syrian, the Greek and the Roman.i^ The Orient degraded the deity to the level of Nature A materialistic tendency pervaded the religions of Egypt and Anterior Asia. Therefore they found so many adherents in the materialistic age of the Emperors. Sexual life, procreation, and death, were attributed to deity, and consequently the service of these monstrous beings was on the one hand gloomy and stern, dark and cruel, as they themselves, and on the other full of in- toxicating pleasure. Moloch delighted in the agonized ciies of the children burned in his honor, while in Melytta's temple prostitutes enticed to lewdness, and virgins sacrificed their chastity to the goddess. The Osiris myth in Egypt, the Adonis myth in Syria reflect the thoughts of death and resurrection which governed CHAP. I.] THE ORIENTAL AND GREEK RELIGIONS. 3? these religions. Adonis was killed in the hunt by a boar. The quickly withering little gardens planted at his festival were symbolic of his fate. By the side of the bier on which lay the image of Adonis with the open, bleeding wound, a cultus of moiirning-rites was celebrated with expressions of the most frantic grief. Women wailed : Alas, Lord ! his glory is gone I They tore their hair, and lacerated their breasts. Seven days the mourning lasted : then arose the cry, Adonis lives I Adonis has ascended I and festivals of wildest joy si' c- ceeded the mourning. The Greeks took the opposite course. They ideal Ized Nature. An idealistic tendency ruled their cultus, as a materialistic tendency ruled the cultus of the Orient. The holy God was hidden from them also. Instead of holiness, beauty took the supreme place. Unlike the Orientals, the Greek revered his gods, not as monstrous beings, but as human types of perfect beauty. Their worship was bright and cheerful. It lacked the earnestness pervading Oriental worship, which, with all its distortions, was more profound, and contained unconscious presages of the Deity who has indeed in birth and death descended to redeem us, but it was free from the gross materialism, the cruelty and licentiousness, which offend us in the temples of Asia. Upon the Greek dawned the presentiment of a moral order of the world. Is Baal, after all, only the sun who creates life, and then again parches and destroys what he himself has created, Zeus is also the guardian of justice. Does Aschera represent only the sensuous impulse of nature, Here is the protectress of marriage and domestic life. All here is purer, for in respect to chastity the Japhetic nations were in advance of the 84 DECLINE OF RELIGION. [book l early corrupted descendants of Ham. This, their fair- est inheritance, the Greeks very early squandered ; and, as the result, exhibited a wanton frivolity which was the exact opposite of Oriental earnestness. To his humanized gods the Greek in his rich mythology im- puted human failings and vices, and Olympus, with its carousals and conflicts, its craft and violence, its amor- ous intrigues and ambitious striving, is but a picture of Greek national life itself. While the Oriental was sub- ject to his gods, the Greek knew himself to be lord of his. He had himself made them; their images were the workmanship of his artists, their legends the crea- tions of his poets. Greece was also the land from which proceeded unbelief. As the Greeks, and the Romans whom they infected, lost their faith in the Olympian gods, the monstrous Oriental deities became again more powerful. They were still believed in ; and therefore they gained a marvellous power of attraction for those who no longer had faith in Zeus and Here, in Jupiter and Juno. Still differently was the religious life of Rome formed and developed. In Rome the State was every thing, therefore religion was interwoven with public life to a degree never elsewhere realized. " Our ancestors," says Cicero,^' very significantly, "were never wiser, never more inspired by the gods, than when they de- termined that the same persons should preside over the rites and ceremonies of religion and the government of the State." The priest, who had so important an in- fluence in the East, was completely overshadowed in Rome by the statesman. The Consul offered sacrifices, and though he was surrounded by priests, they were mere masters of ceremonies who showed what was CHAP. I.] ROMAN STATE RELIGION. 35 to be done and what words were to be used.^' In Rome the State, Rome itself, was honored as the su- preme deity. In the times of the Republic the State was represented by the Capitoline Jupiter. The con- rj[uerors marched to his temple, and brought to him their thank-offerings. When, however, Monarchy, Csesarism, had supplanted the Republic, the Emperors became representatives of the State, and thus, to a certain ex- tent, took the place of the Capitoline god. With per- fect logical consistency the Emperors themselves became gods, and the official worship of these Emperor-gods became the proper State religion. The Roman religion, like the Roman character, was somewhat prosaic and abstract. It lacked imagination. The Roman gods, unlike the Greek, had no rich legend- ary endowment. Every thing was practical, and con- trolled by a strong juridical bias. A Roman's reli- gious duties were prescribed for him with the greatest exactness, and to the last detail. What god he was to invoke, in what way, with what words, all this was defi- nitely settled by ancient tradition. In these particulars he was excessively punctilious, whereas he was entirely unconcerned as to the state of his soul while perform- ing these ceremonies. He was deemed religious who best knew the ritual, and most exactly observed it. Such a man expected the divine blessing as his right. " Whom the gods like, they favor." And because his religion was thus purely external (^Ceremonice Romance was the expressive name of the Roman religion), de- void of imagination and appeals to feeling, the genuine Roman had so profound a dread of all excess in religious matters. Super stitio^ immoderate piety, was hated by him as much as impietas^ impiety. He kept his accounts 38 DECLINE OF RELl^^^xOI^. [boob. . with the gods in order, would not remain in debt to them; but would only pay what he owed. It is im- portant to realize this character of the Roman religion, for the Romans were the ruling nation, and fi'om this point of view can be judged how unintelligible, how rejectable must have appeared to a genuine Roman that Christianity which in his eyes was only a repre- hensible super stitio. But however manifold, however variegated and ricJ a development Heathenism attained in the ancient world, it was still everywhere fundamentally the same. " They worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator," — this was always its essential character in all its forms. And because of this homogeneity these dissimilar forms could interchange, intermingle, and enter into new combinations. While the Mono- theist of necessity regarded all gods, save the one only God, as idols to be utterly rejected, the Polytheist readily acknowledged gods everywhere, even though they were not his own. Indeed he was disposed to find his own in foreign gods, and to recognize them in all places even in the strangest disguises. The Roman easily persuaded himself that the Olympian gods were identical with his own. Zeus was the same as Jupiter, Here as Juno ; even the grotesque deities of the Orient were not alien to him. Everywhere he sought and found his native gods, easily blended their forms with those of other deities, and transferred the symbols and names of the one to the other. Caesar ^^ found among the Gauls Mercury, Mars, Apollo ; indeed Pliny relates that the inhabitants of the distant island Tapobrane (Ceylon) worshipped Hercules.^^ A combination of deities arose which led at last to a pantheistic divinity CHAP. I.] FOREIGN GODS INVITED TO ROME. 37 An abstract Monotheism hovered more or less distinctly over Polytheism. As the commingling of nations gave rise to an abstract Universalism, the first step to a Christian universalism, so the blending of religions produced an abstract Monotheism, the first step to Christian monotheism. y^ Here also appears the significance of Rome as the^ collecting or uniting power. Arnobius justly calls Rome "the worshipper of all divinities." ^^ It was a maxim of the Roman State to tolerate all religions. Upon the conquest of a province, or city, its gods were invited with a solemn formula to come and take their seat in Rome. " If there be a god or goddess who has taken this people and city, N. u., under its protection, Deity, whosoever thou mayest be, I pray thee, I adjure thee, to forsake this people and city, to withdraw from this city and its temples, and come to Rome to me and mine, that our city, our temples and sacrifices, may be acceptable to thee. If thou wilt do this, I vow to thy divinity temples and games." ^^ The gods were not taken awaj^- captive, and while the whole conquered na- tion and territory were regarded as at the free dispo- sal of the conqueror, Rome acknowledged their deities. The Athenians retained their Athene, the Syrians their Syrian goddess, the Jews their Jehovah. However rigidly Rome centralized, in the religious domain the cities preserved what was peculiar to them, their frnv- tifioes and flammes, their local rites and institutions, which could not easily be alienated from their original design. This was not mere political sagacity; it was founded on the idea that the gods of other nations were also gods who if badly treated might harm the Ro- mans. It was therefore held to be a duty even to 88 DECLINE OF RELIGION. [book k honoi them. 'Augustus declared to the Alexandiiana that Le spared their city in honor of the great god Serapis.2^ He also sent presents to the temple in Jerusalem, and had sacrifices offered there for himself.^ However foreign it would have been to the Romans to deprive subjugated nations of their religions, they nevertheless took their own gods into the provinces. The armies, the public officers, the colonies carried with them the Oapitoline Jupiter, the ceremonice Ho- mance^ and required for them as friendly a recognition as they themselves extended to the local deities. This was all the more exacted because the official religion of Rome now culminated in the divine homage paid to the Emperor. A In the adoration of the Divus Augustus, and the other Bivi^ a universal State religion was con- stituted which had more profound significance than is commonly supposed. In this way there was effected in the provinces a strange medley of Roman and local deities. The soldiers, especially, were largely instru- mental in bringing this about. Ordinarily they were very superstitious. If they remained a long time in a country, they worshipped its gods and took them with them on their return. Very often the Roman and the Jocal deities were associated. A cavalry officer in an inscription between Syene and Phylse, gives thanks for his fortunate discovery of some new marble quarries to Jupiter Ammon Anubis and Juno Regina, the pro- tectress of mountains.^' Another, " zealous for all holy things," makes in Egypt a vow " for the welfare of his wife and children " to the great god Hermes Paytnu- phis.^* On the other hand the provincials were inclined to recognize and honor the Roman gods while they also retained their own. Thus under Tiberius a corporation CHAP. I THE MINGLING OF DEITIES. 89 of seamen in Paris erected to Jupiter OapUoUnus an altar on whose socle may be also seen the names of the old Celtic deities Esus and Tarvus.^^ Temple.^ have been found which were consecrated jointly to Apollc and the Gallic goddess Sirona, to Mercury and Ros- merta.'^® Moreover the gods worshipped in the provinces mi- grated to Rome. Every thing worthless and disgrace- ful, says Tacitus," flows from all quarters into Rome, and is there honored. The gods of the whole eartl» gathered together in the chief city of the worldi^ \nf however strenuously the genuine Roman spirit, as ex- pressed by Tacitus, at first rejected foreign rites, and numerous as were the edicts issued for their suppres- sion, or at least restriction, that commingling of deities which began as early as the decline of the Republic, and which characterized more than all else the period of the fall of Heathenism, went on uninterruptedly to its completion. As all nationalities dissolved and be- came fused in one mass, so there was also a dissolution of religions. A religious chaos unparalleled in history took the place of the national religions in order that out of this chaos a new world might be created. This entire process presupposes that the pagan faith was in its decline. Had it still retained its fresh, youthful vigor, such agitation, such restless fluctuation, would not have been possible. On the other hand it should not be overlooked that this process sprang from a strong religious need, and in a certain sense con- tributed to the strengthening of the popular religiun. The multitudinous forms of Heathenism arrayed them- selves as a unit against Christianity their common foe. And since the Roman gods had borrowed somewhat 40 DECLINB OF RELIGION. [book i from the Oriental, they were better fitted to appease the religious need, and consequently better able to resist the new faith. In general we must beware of the representation that Christianity, at its advent, found the religious life of the pagan world already dead, or even in complete decay. Victory was not made so easy for it. The usual statements as to the decay of religion in the earlier years of the period of the Emperors, are, I am convinced, greatly exaggerated, and need in more re- spects than one essential qualification. This much is true : the decline had already begun, but its completion went on very slowly, constantly retarded by mighty forces, and interrupted by seasons of new progress, such as for instance was the time of the Empire when compared with the last days of the Republic. If we would endeavor to trace a picture of the religious con- dition of that time we should do well first of all to realize how difficult it is to estimate the general state of faith in an age. This is one of the hardest of tasks even when copious contemporary materials are at com- mand. How much more difficult is it when we possess only fragments of its literature, isolated and as it were accidental remains, inscriptions, and the like. The literature of the time bears indeed a strongly marked acepticai and rationalistic (aufklarerischen) character, but this is no certain test since a people can have more faith than their literature indicates, for this always proceeds from a particular class; while, if we take into account inscriptions and similar memorials, we 6hould always bear in mind that in public documents, in accordance with traditional custom, a faith is often confessed which in reality no longer exists. The two CHAP. I.] CONTINUED OBSERVANCE OF PAGAN RITES. 41 soui'ces must be combined if we would obtain a correct insight into the religious life of Heathenism at thai time. It would certainly be a mistake to suppose that Paganism was already in manifest outward decline. On the contrary there was as yet no visible sign of de- cay. The temples still stood in all their splendor, — those destroyed in the civil wars having been restored with great magnificence, — and were visited by thou- sands. Feasts and sacrifices were celebrated with great pomp. The altars were not without suppliants and seekers for aid. The oracles were still consiilted; aud though they had lost their political importance, Pyt]iia in Delphi, and many others, still responded to the in- quiries of persons in private life. How large was the number of sacrifices can be inferred from the fact that in Rome alone, on the accession of the Emperor Caligula, 100,000 animals were peror the divine honor which was his due, was not to be endured. Not their abandonment of other religious rites of Pagan- ism, but their refusal to strew incense to the Emperor, was what decided the fate of most of the martyrs. The worship of the Emperor strengthened heathen- ism by giving it a common centre and by connecting together its diversified forms ; yet it also sensibly weakened it. Men saw too plainly what the gods were to whom temples were erected and reverence paid. When the Emperor Claudius died, poisoned by mush- rooms, as the report ran, he too was transferred to the gods. As was the custom, witnesses appointed for this purpose testified upon oath that they had seen his soul ascend into heaven. Seneca delivered an address which extolled him as a god. His apotheosis was celebrated with great pomp. And immediately afterwards the same Seneca, teacher and minister of the new Emperor, published a satire upon this deification under the title : '' The translation of Claudius into the society of the pumpkins," ^^ in which not only the memory of the Emperor was smirched with poor witticisms, but even the facts about his death were intimated quite plainly. Nero himself said with forced wit that mushrooms must be a divine food since Claudius by eating them had become a god. In Rome this was laughed at; yet none the less temples to the new god arose in the Capi- tal and in the provinces, and it was a part of official piety to offer to him the usual homage. Nero had a daughter by Poppsea Sabina who died when three months old. She too was exalted to the Divoe^ and was lionored with temples and offerings. So with Poppsea «/ 62 DECLINE OF RELIGION. [book ^ Sabina herself. Hadrian afterwards crowned the whola by deifying his beautiful page Antinous, for whom he entertained an unnatural affection. Monuments, t^^m pies, and statues, were dedicated to him, and even a city was specially set apart for his worship. And when in the provinces, as was not the case in Rome, at leai>t in the beginning, temples and altars were erected co the Emperors during their life-time, what sort of an impression must have been made on their inhabitants when they came to Rome and saw the Emperor Nero, the god whose temple stood in their native city, appear before the people as a player on the cithera, or as a singer, exhibit his tricks, and then on bended knees submissively await the verdict of the assembly. What gods were these! Could the inquiry be repre<^ed whether the other deities who were worshipped were any better and more worthy of confidence ? m. FOREIGN RITES AND THE LONGING FOR REDEMPTION. Nothing shows more conclusively that the people also had begun to lose confidence in their gods, than the foreign cults which were more and more crowding in. For philosophical convictions do not take the place of a lost faith with the multitude as they do with the edu- cated. On the contrary there arises either perfect indifference toward all religious rites, or, since such a vacuum soon becomes intolerable, the old gods are . exchanged for new ones in the hope that the new may «y prove more powerful than the old. /How changed was the religious life of Rome as early even as the beginning of the Empire. No longer were seen there merely the ancient and venerable brotherhoods of priests, austere Vestals who guarded the sacred fire, augurs and harus- CHAP. I] THE WORLD SEEKS NEW GODS. 63 pices who searched into the future. Gauls went about the streets, — priests of the great goddess Cybele, now transferred to Rome. Howling and with dishevelled hair they lashed themselves to blood with thongs, struck their sounding cymbals, and offered for a hun- dred eggs to ward off the diseases of Autumn. Priests cf the Egyptian Isis were also there, in long linen robes, \Tilh the dog-mask before their faces, and their peculiar r -it tie (sistrum) in their hands. Roman ladies thronged the synagogues of the despised Jews, and many a Roman observed the Jewish Sabbath in the hope of propitiating the great Jehovah. All sorts of sooth- sayers were there, — Chaldseans, astrologers, people pretending to possess Oriental wisdom.^^ There too Roman soldiers, while officially paying due honor to their own deities, revered, though at first only in secret, an entirely new god which they had brought back witk them from some piratical war, Mithras, the Persian god of light. It was a perfect Babel of religions. Scarcely a type of worship could be found which had not its adherents. Even the lowest form of Heathenism, Feti- cism, reappeared. The Emperor Nero, having become tired of the goddess Astarte, no longer worsliipped any deity, but only an amulet which had been given him.^* The ruler of a world-wide Empire which em- braced all culture had become the devotee of a fetish ! The Roman laws against foreign rites were very strict. Cicero ^^ cites a regulation which forbade any one tc have gods separately, or privately to worship new gods or foreign ones unless they had been legally sanctioned. This forbade not only the public introduc- tion of a new cultus, but also its private observance at home and in retirement. Livy gives the law jq a some (54 FOREIGN RITES. REDEMPTION. [book i. what milder form. According to his statement foreign rites were prohibited only so far as they were practised in public, or in some sacred place.^^ xhc two accounts may be reconciled, perhaps, by supposing that Cicero states what was strictly legal, Livy the usual practice. The Romans were religiously scrupulous about inter- dicting outright the cult of any god. Significant, in this respect, is an opinion reported by Livy : " When the worship of the gods is used as a pretext for the commission of crime the soul is seized with fear lest in punishing the human wickedness, some divine right blended with it may be violated." ^ Even in the terri- ble suppression of the Bacchanalia the government did not venture to wholly prohibit this cult. Whoever deemed it a matter of conscience could obtain from the Praetor permission for its observance, on condition that not more than ^yq persons should be present at the sacrifice.^ This explains why the laws against foreign religions had so little force. No one ventured to exe- cute them with rigor. It would have been lawful to enter private houses and forbid such worship even there ; but this was not done, and therefore the foreign cults came out from the houses on to the streets, and the public places. There was, also, an inconsistency in acknowledging a foreign god in his own land, but not in Rome, — as when, for example, Augustus declared expressly that he spared the city Alexandria in honor of the great god Serapis, and then destroyed his temple in Rome.^^ Every nation, every province was expected to keep its own gods to itself. This religious decen- tralization, however, was not consistent with the intense centralization in political affairs. A blending of reli- gions was as essential to the Roman Empire as a fusion «7HAP. i.l THE WORLD SEEKS NEW GODS 65 of politics and of nationalities. Thus it came to pass that repeated efforts on the part of the State to sup- press foreign rites, proved wholly ineffectual. However quickly the Chaldseans and astrologers, or the Jews, were expelled from Rome, however promptly the tem- ple of Isis, or any other foreign god, was closed, or the laws against forbidden worships enforced anew, the cur- rent waxed stronger and stronger, until, a century later, Roman Emperors themselves built sanctuaries for Isis and Serapis side by side with the temples of Jupiter and Vesta ; noble Roman ladies walked in the proces- sions of Isis, shaking costly golden sistra, or, clad in linen robes and with bare feet, watched out the nighi in her temple to obtain expiation for their frivolous lives. And, later still, the sacred treasures of proud Rome herself, the Palladium and the eternal fire, were borne into the newly-built temple of some obscure god brought from some far off place in the East. We stand here before one of the most significant of phenomena. The old world had become perplexed about its century honored gods, and grew daily more unsettled. The time of secure certitude was past; a day of seeking and questioning had begun. Men sought and asked for new gods, gods who could fulfil what had been promised in vain for the old. The greater the distance from which a god had been brought, the more ancient, the more mysterious and singular his cultus, so much the better, so much greater the hope that he would be the right one. Above all, — let us mark it well, — it was Oriental deities who found most adherents. The religious current flowed manifestly from East to West. It was a refluent tide. From the days of Alexander the Great Gr?eco- Roman culture Q() FOREIGN RITES. REDEMPTION. [book i had penetrated deeply into the East. Olympian gods had their temples hard by the fantastic deities of Syria and the animal gods of Egypt, either crowding tliem out or at least tlirowing them into the shade. Now the stream flowed back, and the gods from the Orontes and from the Nile won a place in Greece and Rome, in Gaul and on the Danube. This, also, was a preparation for Christianity. To the world seeking for mightier gods was preached the true God. Men looked for a new god to the East; from the East, according to God's counsel. He was actually to be proclaimed to the world, as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us examine this momentous movement more closely. How came it to pass that the old world was perplexed about its gods ? The fact is far too weighty and significant to allow of our even attempting to ex- plain it either from any isolated causes, or from mere personal influence. The scorn and mockery of a scepti- cal literature surely could not have destroyed faith if it had still possessed a vigorous life. On the contrary, this scorn and mockery set in precisely because the old faith was undermined. The wonderful phenomenon can only be explained by the fact that a transformation had been effected in men's entire view of the world, in the fundamental ideas by which they were impelled and controlled. The gods were siill the same that they had always been, but they could no longer be the same to men as heretofore because men themselves had changed, because they sought and asked for something else, and desired something different from their gods. Let us try to make this change clear. Here, especially, shall we discover 'hat the heathen world was prepared for the acceptance of Christianity, that the fulness of the time was come. OTAP. I.] THIS WORLD AND THE NEXT. 67 Ancient life was directed to this world, not to the future. Pleasure in existence, joy in the ever new glory of the world, in the beauty and greatness of human life, was its fundamental characteristic. The belief in immortality^, firmly held at least so long as pagan faith retained its vitality, did not at all change this. For the dead were thought of as still turning ever toward this life. This was the reason why men so gladly buried their dead upon the streets where many persons were accustomed to pass (recall, for instance, the rows of tombs on the Appian Way in Rome) ; they were to remain connected, as it were, with the living. So, likewise, many epitaphs represent the dead as con- tinually holding intercourse with the living, as, for example, this one : " Titus LoUius Musculus is laid here by the way-side that those who go by may say : Hail ! Titus LoUius ! " ^^ Another epitaph contains a formal colloquy between the buried man and the passers by : " Farewell, Victor Fabian I — May the gods heap bless- ings upon you, my friends. And you, also, travellers, may the gods protect you as a reward for having tarried a moment at the tomb of Fabian. May your journey and your return be free from accident. And you who have brought me crowns and flowers, may you be able to do this many years." ^^ It was the custom for those who went by a grave to say : " The earth be light upon thee I " " "Whatsoever wayfarer goes by, let him say at tJils burial mound : Rufinus ! Greeting ! The earth be light upon thee ! that after his death ono may als(.> wish for him : The earth be light upon thee I " runs another inscription.^^ Sacrifices, also, and libations were offered, and meals eaten at the graves. Wreaths of roses and violets were laid upon them, and the dead 08 rOREIGN RITES. REDEMPTION. [book i were supposed to rejoice in the light of the grave-lamp and in the fragrance rising from the sweet-scented oil. The horrors of death were veiled from men. They lived joyously in the present with little concern about death and eternity. They knew not the word : " The wages of sin is death." Sin, also, was still veiled from men. It was the times of ignorance, as Paul says (Acts xvii. 30) ; for as the tendency of ancient life was toward this world not the other, so it was occupied with what is without, rather than with that which is within man. Hence the in- clination for art, especially for architecture and sculp- ture. Hence the taste for decoration, the fondness for the theatre, the predilection for spectacles of every kind, for pomps and triumphal processions. Hence, too, the absorption of the man in the citizen. Man as man had no value, the infinite worth of a human soul was not yet recognized. The word of the Lord : " What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul," is a wisdom that was hidden from an- tiquity. Men looked without not within, not into their own hearts, therefore they did not find sin. They did not attempt to look any more deeply into Nature. The natural science of the ancients did not go beyond mere external description. With a vivid sense of the beauty of Nature they lacked susceptibility to its grandeur and sublimity. The glory of the Alpine world never dawned upon the Romans.^^ They liked only gentle and pleas- ing landscapes. Christianity first unlocked the sense for Nature, by teaching us to understand a creation groaning with us, and by showing the connection of Nature with ourselves and our own life. The great transformation which now took place wa« . I.] WHAT IS VRUTH? 69 the turning from what is without to what is within, from this life to the life to come. If we trace this change up to its origin we may say, it begins with the word of Socrates : " Know thyself." From this aphor- ism may be dated the dissolution of ancient life, from this point it turned to a new life which came into the world with the call of which that word of the greatest sage of Greece was only an anticipation : " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Man as man was now respected, the real Ego came to the front, the devel- opment of personality proper became of chief impor- tance. Though at first apprehended only in a pagan way and with reference to the present life, the question of salvation arose : How may I become happy ? how shall I attain peace ? This was the great question which now occupied the wise, over which the centuries wearied them- selves, to come at last to the conclusion that all is in vain. But when the ancient world had reached this point, it was able to listen to the message of salvation by grace. Whoever will be happy must strive after knowledge. The wise, the well-educated man is the happy man. To him is the hidden nature of things revealed, and to him, the man of understanding, evil has become unreal. But can we know any thing? know with certainty? One philosophical school followed another. What one proclaimed for truth was denied by its successor ; the end was complete scepticism, doubt, and despair of all truth. " What is truth ? " asked Pilate, and with him multitudes of his contemporaries. In long array Cicero adduces the doctrines of different philosophers concern- ing the human soul, and then adds : " Which of these opinions may be true, a god mav know ; which may be TO FOREIGN RITES. REDEMPTION. [book i. only probable is a difficult question." ^^ Ah ! if one only might have a guide to truth, sighs Seneca.''^ Thus men now looked for guides; Plato, Pythagoias, the ancient philosophers, must be such. The quest went beyond the Greeks ; Egjrptian, Indian wisdom seemed to offer still greater assurance. Thus something brought from far, replete with mystery, inspired confi- dence at first. Here too men discovered that they were deceived. "We will wait," Plato had already said, "for One, be it a god or a god-inspired man, to teach as our religious duties, and, as Athene in Homer says to Diomed, to take away the darkness from our eyes," " and in another place ; " We must lay hold of the best human opinion in order that borne by it as on a raft we may sail over the dangerous sea of life, unless we can find a stronger boat, or some word of God, which will more surely and safely carry us.""^ The old world, convinced of the fragility of its self-constructed float, now desired this stancher vessel ; confused by its own wisdom, it longed for a Revelation. There were two leading ways by which happiness was liought. Enjoy ! said Epicurus. Enjoy to the full the good things of this life, this is the way to happiness. Forego ! exhorted the Stoic, or, to speak with the chief representative of this school in the age of the Empe- rors, Epictetus : Abstain and endure ! True happiness is only to be found in tranquillity of spirit wherein man, renouncing all things and calmly accepting what fate appoints for him, allows nothing to disquiet him. The Stoic school was the leading one in the time of the Empire ; all thought which dealt with the more serious questions belonged to it in greater or less degree. Hap- piness was not to be found in enjoyment, therefore it CHiP. I.] PESSIMISM. 71 was sought in renunciation! The Scepticism, also, of which we have before spoken, was itself a renunciation — a despair of attaining to assured knowledge. The times, too, were no longer favorable to enjoyment, they preached abstinence loudly enough. For the world once so gay had become more and more gloomy. The days were past when in sunny Greece men built the Parthenon, and rejoiced in the creations of a Phidias and Praxitsles; departed, also, from Rome were the days of republican greatness when men lived and strove for father-land. The One, the Emperor, was now all, and there was no longer room for men like the Gracchi and the Scipios. To be sure it seemed as if society under the first Emperors, when men revelled in the treasures of a conquered world, was everywhere joyous. But it was not really so bright as it appeared. Men were not satisfied. That refined luxury, those voluptu- ous banquets, those orgies became themselves sources of pain. One symptom of such dissatisfaction was the widely-spread inclination to dream one's self back into simpler times, when the cows still pastured on the Pala- tine, and Senators, clad in the skins of animals, counselled on the meadow. It was precisely as in the last century, when men were enraptured by Rousseau.^* The age in which the treasures of the world were squandered in luxurious pleasure, ran swiftly enough to its end. Un- der Emperors like Caligula and Nero, all property, all pleasure, life itself, became insecure. And while some, indeed, solicitous to spend all the more quickly an existence which was uncertain, sought in the most refined revelry compensation for the higher good life no longer afforded, from others were heard for this very reason all the more frequent complaints of the corrup- 72 FOREIGN EITES. REDEMPTION. [book i tion of the world, and the vanity of all that is earthly The view of life as a whole became more and more pessimistic. Such tones were not unfamiliar to Greece, even in its palmy days. From Homer on, a low, yet distinct lamentation sounds through all its splendor, testify- ing to a misgiving that something was wanting, that the solution of the riddle of the world believed to have been found, could not be the right one. How Plomer sighs over the frailty of men. They fade like leaves, no being is more miserable. Like shadows, says Pindar, like a dream, says ^schylus, they pass away. Ever recurs the thought : it were best never to have been born ; the next best, to die early ; and with pro- found sadness Sophocles gives expression to this senti- ment in the (Edipus at Colonus : " Happiest beyond compare Never to taste of life ; Happiest in order next, Being bom, with quickest speed Thither again to turn From whence we came."'* These tones became unmistakably stronger and stronger, the lamentation louder, the resignation great- er. According to Homer ^^ two jars stand in the palace of Zeus, one with evil, one with good, gifts for men. Later, there were two with evil gifts, and only one with good, and, later still, Simonides says: "Sorrow follows sorrow so quickly that not even the air can penetrate between them." ^^ Happiness was no longer the goal of Philosophy. Men despaired of attaining it. '' The aim of all Philosophy," says Seneca, " is to despise CHAP. I.] LONGING FOR ANOTHER LIFE. 78 life." Here, too. Heathenism ended m barrenness and sheer despair, and at last the only comfort was ihat 'nen are free to leave this miserable world by suicide. P(r(et eodtus ! The way out of this life stands open I That is the last consolation of expiring Heathenism. " Seest thou," exclaims Seneca, " yon steep height '^ Thent^e is the descent to freedom. Seest thou yon sea, yon river, yon well ? F'reedom sits there in the depths. Seest thou yon low, withered tree? There freedom hangs. Seest thou thy neck, thy throat, thy heait? They are ways of escape from bondage." ^* Can the bankruptcy of heathenism be more plainly de- clared than in these words ? Despairing of every kind of happiness it had no further consolation for the evils of this life than suicide, and it knew no other victory over the world than this flight out of it. But who does not also hear how the cry breaks forth ever louder and louder from the heathen world : " O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" If happiness cannot be found in this life, men look all the more longingly to the next. The thought of another world was not unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans, but it was for them only one of shadows. This world alone was real, alone offered true happi- ness ; the other was the gloomy, joyless, lower world. Ulysses, in Homer, sees the dead as shadows greedily drink the blood which for a moment at least restores to them real life, and Achilles would rather linger- upon earth in the lowest station than be a king among the shades.*^^ Men shuddered at the thought of that other world. The heathen through life were slaves to the fear of death. " My temples are gray," sings the pleas 74 FOREIGN RITES. REDEMPTION. [book i uro-ioving Anacreoii,^^ " and white my head ; beautiful youth is gone. Not much remains of sweet life. Therefore I often sigh, fearing Tartarus, dreadful abyss of Hades. Full of horror is the descent thither, and whoever has once gone down there never returns." But the less this world fulfilled what it promised, and the more its evil and its emptiness were felt, and the gpirit of resignation was developed, the more was this view reversed. Life in this world began to be looked upon as shadowy, and the true life was sought first in the life to come. Joy in existence, in the beauty and glory of the earth and of human life, disappeared ; the consciousness of weakness, of the limitations of human nature, the sense of the vanity of all earthly things, increased. The body was now spoken of as the prison of the soul,^^ and death, which Anacreon dreaded as a fearful descent into Tartarus, was extolled as an eman- cipation. "After death," says Cicero, "we shall foi the first time truly live." ^^ How often in the schools of the rhetoricians is this theme discussed: Death no evil ! How often the thought recurs in Seneca, that the body is only an inn for the spirit, that the other world is its real home. Indeed, just as did the primitive Christians, he calls the day of death " the birth-day of eternity." ^3 While, however, the glory of this world faded before the eyes of men, tt^e other grew in distinct uess and reality ; and more thaii once we meet in liter- ature and in works of art with pictures of the future life as one of joy, a symposium, a banquet, where the souls of the departed rejoice together with gods, heroes and sages. Already had Cicero in the Dream of Scipio thus described the other life, and Seneca paints it yet more vividly. Plutarch delights to contemplate it, dHAP. I.] HOPELESSNESS. 75 and rejoices that there " God will be our Leader and King, and that in closest union with Him we shall un- weariedly and with ardent longing behold that beauty which is ineffable and cannot be expressed to men."^ Is there then another world? Heathenism now stood face to face with this great question, and was wholh unable to make any reply. Many answered it with a resigned No ! Caesar, indeed, had once said in the Senate with cool composure: "Beyond this life there is no place for either trouble or joy," and Cato had ap- provingly responded : "Beautifully and excellently has Caius Caesar spoken in this assembly concerning life and death, esteeming as false those things which are related of the lower world." ^ Indeed we find not a few sepulchral inscriptions which confirm the apostle's declaration that the heathen are "without hope." We read : " To eternal sleep ! " " To eternal rest I " Or the 0x1 recurring distich : " I was not, and became : I was, and am no more. This much is true, whoever says otherwise does not speak the truth, for I shall not be ! " or, " We all, whom Death has laid low, are decay- ing bones and ashes, nothing else ! " or, " I was nought, and am nought. Thou who readest this: Eat, drink, make merry, come ! " ^^ Many inscriptions blend with resignation a tone of frivolity. Thus we read on the grave-stone of a veteran of the Fifth Legion : " So long as I lived, I gladly drank ; drink, ye who live I " ^^ Complete resignation is expressed by Pliny : ^^ " What folly is it to renew life after death! Where shall created beings find rest if you suppose that shades in hell, and souls in heaven, continue to have any feeling. You rob us of man's greatest good, death. Let us rather find in the tranquillity which nreceded oiu* ex- 76 FOREIGN RITES. REDEMPTION. [book h fetence, the pledge of the repose which is to follow it." Still more decidedly Lucretius : " The fear of the lower world must be driven headlong forth. It poisons life to its lowest depths, it spreads over all things the black ness of death, it leaves no pleasure pure and unal- loyed." Utter annihilation was its consolation. " When we have ceased to be, nothing can excite our feelings, nothing disturb our rest, even though heaven, earth, and sea should be commingled." ^^ Yet Plutarch had already replied : " What is gained by substituting for fear of the lower world dread of annihilation. It is as if one should say to passengers in a vessel who are frightened by a storm : Keep calm, the ship will soon go to the bottom." ^^ Others left it uncertain whether all is over at death, or not. The celebrated physician Galen, no doubt, only expressed the conviction of thousands when, not venturing himself to decide the question, he said that he intended as little to affirm as to deny immortality ; ^ and there is almost a touch of pathos in what Tacitus writes in his life of Agricola : " If there is a place for the spirits of the pious, if as the wise suppose, great souls do not become extinct with their bodies : " . . .^^ "If" — in that If lies the utter disconsolateness, the whole torturing uncertainty, and no less the ardent longing of Heathenism. If? Who gave the answer? Men sought and asked here and there ; no other question so occupied all the profounder minds as did the question of immortality; now they believed that the Eastern religions would shed light, for these religions revolved wholly about birth and death; now they knocked at the gates of the under world with magic formulas, adjurations and rites of consecration. But no answer. Tht more joyless this HAP. i] CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN. 77 world became, the more every thing faded which in the freshness of youth had shone so brightly, the State, Art, Science offering no more satisfaction, public life affording no longer a field for activity, private life, property, pleasure, life itself becoming insecure, so much the more did men long for another world whose portals still stood closed before them. With what power then must have come the preaching of thia word : " Christ is risen ! The wages of sin is death : but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Nothing led more believers to Christianity, even from cultivated circles, than the sure answer it gave to the question respecting another world, and the hope it offered of eternal life to those whose earthly expectations had been destroyed. But the question of a future life necessarily raises a further question. If there is another life how can men secure it? How may they attain to the communion of the blest ? The consciousness of sin also now began to awake, and with it the same question. Strictly speak- ing the ancient world knew nothing of sin. It deplored the need, the misery, the transitoriness of human life ; but it had no conception of the corruption of human nature. Sin as a defection from God, sin as guilt, was liidden from it. In this respect, too, there was now a change. Seneca discourses of the depravity of man in words which have often been thought to sound like Paul's. " We have all binned, some grievously, others more lightly, some purposely, others accidentally im- pelled or led astray, and not only have we transgressed, we shall continue to do so till the end of life." " It was the complaint of our ancestors, it is our own, it will be that of posterity, that morals are subverted, 78 FOREIGN RITES. REDEMPTION. [boor i that corruption reigns." Seneca sought for the cause of this in man himself. " The human mind is by na ture perverse, and strives for what is forbidden. Om fault is not external to us, it is within us and cleaves to our souls." ^ Indeed Plutarch openly expresses the idea of an evil principle. "For, since nothing can arise without a cause, and good cannot be the ground of evil, therefore evil as well as good must have a special ori- gin."^ The conviction now became wide-spread that •nan as he is cannot enter into the society of the blessed, but only when he is purified and cleansed from sins, when he is transformed and renewed. For this the old gods and their cults were insuiOficient. The Olym- pian deities were gods for the prosperous; they satis- fied men so long as life shone in the serene light of a beautiful present. A man conscious of sin, anxious for salvation found them inadequate to his needs The Capitoline Jupiter, Vesta, Victoria, were Statt; gods. They sufficed, so long as the man was absorbed in the citizen. They were gods for publicity. A man who turned his gaze in upon himself, who looked into the depravity of his own heart, who sought for peace, could no longer rest in them. This was the deepest reason why the heathen were perplexed about their gods, why men turned pre-eminently to the Oriental cults with their gloomy sadness, their penances and purifications, why the mysteries now became universal instead of local, and new ones were added to the old with ever increasing extravagance. It is the awakened need of Redemption which is mirrored in all this. Let us reflect a moment on the character of the Roman religion as above described. It was predominantly a ceremonial service. Men kept their accounts with the CHAP. I.] PRESAGES OF REDEMPTION. 79 gods in order by the punctual performance of the pre* scribed rites. Priests, in the exact sense of the word, mediators between God and men, were unknown. The magistrates offered sacrifices ; the priest was only a mas- ter of ceremonies. There were no expiations, properly speaking, — there was no sense of need of them, for there was no consciousness that man by sin is separated from God. There was no desire to approach the gods ; nothing was more remote from the dry prosaic Roman cultus than such mystical excitements. Therefore, the more the consciousness of sin awoke, the less did the Roman cultus satisfy. What was lacking in it the oriental religions offered in richest measure. They had a priesthood which undertook to reconcile man with Deity; they had purifications and propitiations; they offered to m?.n a religion which corresponded to what he now required, that he be brought into immediate contact with God. Hence the current that now set from the East to the West, hence the power which the religions of the Orient gained over men's minds. In this way the anticipation became more general that Redemption would soon dawn. For this also men's eyes turned to the East. From thence was help to come. These presentiments clothed themselves partly in heathen garb. The cycle of the ages, it was said, is completed. The golden age has been followed by the silver, this by the iron. Now this also, is passing away; then will the cycles begin anew, Saturn will again assume the government, and the golden age re- turn. In part however these presages bore a Jewish coloring, and their origin in Hebrew prophecy can be more or less clearly perceived. Suetonius and Tacitus both report a wide-spread rumor that the Orient would go FOREIGN RITES. REDEMPTION. [BOOK i become powerful, and the dominioD of the world be assigned by Fate to the Jews. Even among the Roman legions which Titus led against Je.iisalem there were indications of such thoughts. They looked on the holy city which they were come to destroy with a cer- tain superstitious awe, and even during the siege there were not wanting deserters who could bring nothing else to the city encircled with iron arms than the ex- pectation of some extraordinary divine aid, and the hope of participating in the dominion promised to it. Remarkably do these presentiments re-echo in the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil. The poet there celebrates a child who shall restore the Golden Age, in pictures which, directly or indirectly, are derived from the ninth and eleventh chapters of Isaiah. The boy descends from heaven, then peace prevails on the earth which without culture liberally yields its gifts, the herds are no longer afraid of the lions, the yoke is taken ofP from the ox, and the vine-dresser toils no more in the sweat of his brow. It is supposed that these words are to be applied to a son of Asinius PoUio. If this is correct the illusion was indeed great. This very child of whom Virgil sings as Messiah, when grown to manhood, became one of Nero's numerous victims, and starved himself to death in prison.^* So the prophecy of the coming salvation went forth from Israel into the heathen world. We come thus to ftn element which we have not yet considered, but which was of great importance among the religioug factors of that age, Judaism. CHAP. I.] THE MISSION OF ISRAEL. 81 IV. JUDAISM. Israel's mission was twofold. It was to be the birth place of the Christian Church, and to prepare a way for it among the heathen. At first glance the two seem essentially opposed, yet in Israel the apparent contra- diction was wonderfully reconciled. In order to become the birthplace of Christianity, Israel was neressarily ^ chosen people, separated from all the heathen, indeed strongly antagonistic to them, as the sole possessor of a divine revelation, and alone knowing the living God whose will had been made known to them in the law. That they might pave the way for Christianity among the heathen, it was necessary that the Jews should be dispersed among them, dwell in the midst of them, and be in constant intercourse with them. In every respect the Jews were qualified to meet, these, at first view, irreconcilable demands. The country assigned them as a dwelling-place was specially adapted to this end. Pal- estine was a secluded land, shut in like a garden by mountains, deserts, and sea, yet opening on all sides to other lands, and affording easy access to the chief cen- tres of the world. The character of the people was suited to the same purpose. No nation possessed so marked an individuality, none at the same time was so endowed for universality : none preserved so tenaciously its own peculiarities, and remained, even in the midst of other nations, so distinct and exclusive, and yet none understood so well the art of everywhere pushing itself into favor, and adapting itself to circumstances. The Jew settled as a citizen in all regions, knew how everywhere to make a place for himself, and yet every- where remained a «Iew. The wa,y in which the people 32 JUDAISM. [BOOK L had been led was another qualification. " Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred." This call of Abraham was the beginning of Jewish history. It began with separation, and for centuries all God's dealings with the chosen people had this design, to set them apart, to seclude them, to establish their national character. Then there came a change, and every thing tended to their dispersion. The Captivity was the turning point. From this time on, with Palestinian Judaism appeared the Judaism of the Dispersion — the Diaspora; with the Temple, the ritual centre of the entire nation, the Synagogue, promoting doctrine more than ritual, yet creating in all countries and cities new centres of Jew- ish life ; with the Hebrew Old Testament, the Septua- gint, appointed to carry to the Heathen also the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms of David. Palestinian Judaism, with the Temple and the Hebrew Old Testa- ment, was in the highest degree a centralizing power. To it gravitated all the countless scattered Jewish con- gregations. The Diaspora, with the Synagogue and the Septuagint, was a widely operative centrifugal power ; through it Israel became a messenger of God, a missionary to the heathen world. Only a part of the Jewish people had returned from the Captivity. The larger portion had either remained in Babylon, or wandered to other lands. This number was continually increased, partly by those who had been carried away prisoners of war, and through their own industry, and because the Romans knew not what to do with such strange superstitious people, had acquired freedom and remained in foreign countries, and partly by those who had voluntarily left over-popu- lous Palestine for purposes of gain elsewhere. Thus CHAP. I.] DISPERSION OF THE JEWS. 8S the Jews were scattered over the whole Roman Empire, and even beyond it. " Already," says the Geographer Strabo,^ " a Jewish population has entered every city and it is not easy to find a place in the habitable world which has not received this race, and is not possessed by it." Naturally they were most strongly represented in the Eastern countries. Babylonia and Eastern Syria-. In Egypt, they constituted more than one-eighth of the entire population ; and in Leontopolis they had a tem- ple of their own, whose erection, it is true, was di.iap- proved by those dwelling in Palestine, yet was carried through without actual schism. In Alexandria, that great commercial centre, they occupied two of its five wards; and were scattered throughout the others.* Not less numerous were they in Antioch, that metropo- lis on the other side of Palestine. Antiochus the Great had transplanted thousands of Jewish families to Phry- gia and Lydia. From there they spread over aU of Asia Minor, and thence found their way into Greece. Taurus in Cilicia, Ephesus in Asia, were centres of Jewish life. Throughout Greece, in Northern Africa, in Sicily and in Italy were Jewish settlements. In Rome under Augustus the Jews numbered perhaps 40,000, in the time of Tiberius perhaps 80,000. They occupied the fourteenth district, across the Tiber, and a part of the city near the Porta Capena, the beginning of the Appian way. Their residences stood, also, ir. the most aristocratic portion of the city. The existence of seven synagogues in Rome has been dennitely estab- lished, and probably there were others. In Spain, in Gaul, even as far as Britain, representatives of the Jews were not wanting, and the recent discovery of one of their cemeteries of the first century proves their presence in the lands of the Danube.^'' 84 JUDAISM. Tbook r, Their principal business was trade. Retailing, ped- dling, and especially the smaller money-transactions (the larger were carried on by the Roman knights, the bank- ers of that time) were almost wholly in their hands, and they prosecuted this traffic with such characteristic industry and shrewdness that the cities of Asia MinoT complained to the Emperor that they were completely drained by the Jews. The wholesale trade, also, was in many places entirely under their control. In Alex- andria they almost monopolized the corn-trade, and carried on an extensive traffic with the more distant East. Wherever money was to be made, there the Jew, especially if liberalized, was to be found. We meet him in Rome as scholar, poet, actor, and even singer. " The Jews sell every thing," says Juvenal. Though in the writings of the Roman poet just named, and of others, the Jews appear as a beggarly race,^ — the father buying old glass and other rubbish, the children peddling matches, — many of them obtained great wealth; and this wealth, together with their adroitness in improving every favorable opportunity to put themselves unconditionally at the service of what- ever government was in power, though at heart un- friendly to the entire constitution of the State and indifferent to its weal and woe, had procured for them important privileges. They were exempt from military duty, 99 and from the payment of certain taxes, and could not be summoned on the Sabbath before a court So far was this consideration for them carried, that the municipalities were obliged to pay them money instead of corn and oil which were regarded by them as impure. Indeed, when the delivery of these supplies f«lJ on a Sabbath, payment to the Jews was required to CHAP, i.l THE SYNAGOGUES. 85 be made on another day.^^ Above all, they had perfect freedom in their religious observances. Wherever they dwelt together in sufficient numbers they had a Syna- gogue, or at least a place of prayer (a Froseueha^ Acts xvi. 13), formed a distinct communion under chosen presidents, and exercised a large autonomy which, in consequence of their religious and national isolation from the heathen among whom they lived, embraced not merely matters of religion, but much besides. All these Jewish congregations were most intimately connected with each other, and with the centre of Judaism, Jerusalem. Every Jew, however far away he dwelt, regarded himself as a member of the chosen peo- ple, and strove to keep the bonds of union fresh and strong. He paid yearly his temple tax,^^^ sent offerings and gifts to Jerusalem, and once, at least, in his life went up to visit the holy city and to keep the feast.^^ The Supreme Council in Jerusalem sent annually the calen- dar of festivals to the congregations of the Dispersion, communicated to them important decisions, and took care that they received information of all events which concerned the Jewish people. Since the Jews as mer- chants were great travellers, brethren often came bring- ing news of other congregations, and such guests were gladly permitted to speak in the Synagogues. In brief, whether one of their congregations was located on the banks of the Danube, or on the margin of the Libyan desert, it was a part of a universal society. The Jews well understood how to use this connection for the promotion of their own interests. If a Jewish con- gregation received any injury, all alike broke out into sedition, and this skill in exciting alarm had not a little to do in securing for them, notwithstanding the uni- 86 JUDAISM. [book I. versal hate and contempt which they had to endure, the greatest respect from every Roman official up even to the Proconsul. Apart from this, hatred and contempt were their usual lot. To the heathen their whole appearance was strange and utterly unintelligible, so entirely different were they in all respects from the other nations. If we would be convinced how unique this people was in history, if we would obtain an immediate impression of this, we need only recall the judgments of the heathen upon them. What marvellous tales concerning them were in circulation ! ^^^ Now they were said to have sprung from Mount Ida in Crete ; now from lepers who had been expelled from Egypt. In the desert, when there was a great scarcity of water, an ass showed them a fountain ; therefore they worshipped the head of an ass as God. Tacitus thinks that Moses, in order to make sure of the people, gave them new customs con- tradictory to all the usages of mankind. " They deem profane what we hold sacred, and permit what we abominate." ^^ To the Romans the commandments about food and fasting appeared ridiculous in the ex- treme. The prohibition of swine's flesh was an inex- haustible theme for their wit. The Sabbath rest they could explain only by laziness. Juvenal ^^ thus ridi- cules an idler : " His sire's the fault, who every seventh day- Neglected work, and idled time away; " and Tacitus relates with entire seriousness: "After- wards when inactivity became agreeable the seventh year (the Sabbatical) was also given up to idleness." ^^ Particularly offensive was their worship without images, CHAP. I.] PAGAN ANIMOSITY. 87 and their entire faith was to the heathen the acme of superstition and credulity. " Credat Judceus Apella^'' " A Jew may believe that," ^^^ says 'Horace in order to characterize something wholly incredible. This wide-spread hatred of the Jews, — to which countless bloody sacrifices were offered, especially dur- ing the Jewish war, — was doubtless, to some extent, a consequence of their hatred of the heathen. They were treated with contempt because they themselves despised the unclean Gentiles. The Jew had a large self-consciousness. He looked upon himself as a mem- ber of the elect people, who possessed, in contrast with the blind heathen, a divine revelation. This self-con- sciousness was intensified b}^ his Messianic hopes. He was destined, he believed, soon to receive the dominion of the world, and he made no reserve of this expecta- tion even when face to face with the heathen. The Jess its depressed and enslaved present harmonized with this hope for the future, the more absurd must it have seemed to the proud Roman that this filthy race of beggars should dream of such things. We need only glance at the writers of the Empire to meet every- where witticisms about the circumcised Jews.^^^ Wher- ever the Jew went or stood he was encompassed by pagan ridicule. In the theatre he was the object of coarse sallies, which were sure to call forth laughter; on the street he had frequently to endure brutal abuse. Hatred and contempt might well be increased by the fact that the heathen could not be insensible to the wide and profound influence which the Jews were ex- erting. Seneca says of them, "the vanquished have given laws to the victors." '^^ At a time when the old gods no longer satisfied the heathen, when so many long- 88 JUDAISM. [book I ing spirits, anxious for happiness, were seeking peace by foreign gods, and secret doctrines and expiations, how attractive must Judaism have been ! Here Monotheism, which wise men taught as an esoteric religion for the cultivated, appeared as a religion for the people ; here was a spiritual cult infinitely superior to the wild, and often immoral, heathen cults; here was a revealed word of God ; here were offerings and expiations. It is true that only a small number of heathen passed, by circumcision, wholly over to Judaism, great as was the trouble the Pharisees gave themselves, compassing sea and land to make one proselyte (Matt, xxiii. 15). Those who were gained, were for the most part com- plete slaves of Pharisaism, allowing themselves to be led blindly by blind leaders, fanatics, proud saints, who afterward became the most zealous persecutors of the Christians. Often worldly advantages would come into play, particularly exemption from military service, for there was certainly a special reason why Tiberias, in the year 19 of our era, inflicted on the Jewish com- munity in Rome precisely this punishment of recruiting from it. Our Lord, also, passed, in the passage just referred to, a severe judgment on these proselytes. The largest number by far of those who attached them- selves to Judaism were only the so-called Proselytes of the Gate. Without receiving circumcision, and thus obliging themselves to keep the whole ceremonial law, they were bound merely to avoid idolatry, to serve the one God, and to keep the so-called precepts of Noah. On these conditions they had a part in the blessings of Judaism. They are the devout men and women so often spoken of in the book of Acts. They were, for the most part, souls anxious for salvation, who sought in CHAP. I.] INFLUENCE OF THE HEATHEN. 69 the synagogues for that peace of heart whicn they had failed to find in the proud temples of Greece, and the intoxicating cults of the Orient. There was, in all the cities, a great number of such persons, for the most part women.ii^ In Damascus, almost all the women are said to have belonged to this class, and, in Rome, there were many even from the higher circles. On the gravestones of Jewish cemeteries we read names from many an illus- trious old Roman family, the gens Fulvia, Flavia, Valina, and others. The report spread that even the Empress Poppsea Sabina was a proselyte. Even without becom- ing exactly proselytes many attached themselves to the synagogue, fasted, prayed, kept the Sabbath, and lighted candles on Jewish festival days. In this there may have been much superstition. The experiment which had been tried with so many other gods was repeated with Jehovah. But on the other hand many a soul thirsting after the living God found there its refuge. A circle formed itself about the synagogue which, no longer pagan, nor yet Jewish, was in suspense and in a position of expectancy, and thus was prepared for the preaching of the Gospel. Those who belonged to it had re- nounced idolatry, had learned to hearken to a revela- tion. The Old Testament was known to them, the law had awakened in them a consciousness of sin, and prophecy a longing for salvation, and yet they did not share in that pride of Jewish descent and Pharisaic righteousness of the law which with the Jews them- selves was so great a hindrance to the reception of the preaching of the cross. These devout heathen were everywhere, as at Philippi (Acts xvi. 14) and Thessa- lonica (Acts xvii. 4), the first to receive the message of Christ. 90 JUDAISM. [book l How wonderfully every thing here, also, was prepared for the Gospel. What Palestine was for the whole world, the synagogue was for every city. How could the youthful Christianity possibly have made its way through the unyielding, rock-like mass of Heathenism without the Diaspora ? Now it found channels every- where cut, a net-work of canals extending over the whole Roman Empire, and was able to diffuse itself rapidly in every direction. Knowing the chief seats of Judaism, we know already in advance the chief seats of early Christianity. Everywhere the ways were made ready for it, the centres determined. Moreover we should remember that the privileges of Judaism were at first of service to the Christian Church. So long as Christianity was regarded by the heathen as a Jewish sect, it appears to have been tolerated by them. Juda- ism served as a protecting sheath to the young plant, until it had gained sufficient strength to endure the storms. Truly the times were fulfilled; the old world was ready, not to produce Christianity from itself, but to receive it. In Greece, in Rome, had been shown what the human spirit can accomplish in its own strength. It is capable of great things, and gloriously has it wrought, but all the greatness sank into ruin, all the glory paled, and one thing it could not do, it could not appease the longing of every human soul for the eternal, for God. The end of Heathenism, as respects religion, is complete inefficiency, perfect despair of itself. Man can know nothing with certainty, this is the end of all questioning. Patet exitus! This is the end of all search for happiness, suicide is the last consolation. But, in the act of expiring, Heathenism reaches forth CHAP. I.] THE FULNESS OF THE TIMES. 91 to the new creation which God will provide. Every- where coming events cast their shadow before them, the universality of Christianity is adumbrated in the universality of the Roman Empire, faith in the one living God in the Monotheism which through the labor of Philosophy and the mingling of national gods opens a way for itself into ever widening circles. Everywhere is disclosed a seeking and questioning which wait for their fulfilment and will find it, the seeking for Re- demption in the Saviour of all nations, the questioning respecting the other life in the preaching of the risen One. And in the midst of the seeking heathen world Israel stands as a Prophet, fulfilling here also its mission to prepare a place for Him who is to come. Here, if anywhere, can it be perceived, not to say grasped with the hand, that every thing in the history of our race, according to the plan and counsel of God who is rich in mercy, finds its goal in Him in whom all the prom- ises of God are Yea and Amen, in Christ the Lord. CHAPTER II. THE MORAL CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN WORLD. " We ourselves also viere sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, servina divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.'^ — Tit. iii. 3. I. FAITH AND MORALS. An age which has become unsettled in its faith is wont to lay all the greater stress upon morality. Our own age of Illuminism, for instance, — how prone it was to moralizing. What voluminous compends of Ethics, what a flood of moral sermons, moral tales, moral songs, what space was given in the catechisms to lessons on the virtues, of which too many could pot be enumerated I There was a consciousness that something had been lost, and at the same time an un- willingness to acknowledge it; a misgiving that, with faith, morality also must decline, and a desire to prove, at least by words and looks, that this was not so. Men would gladly have kept the fruit although they had cut off the roots. They had so much to say about the fruit because they wished to persuade themselves that this was still uninjured. But soon enough it appeared that with the root the fruit as well was irrecoverably lost. 92 CHAP, n.] LAUDATION OF VIRTUE. 93 The first century was a similar period. Tf we sur- vey its literature we shall feel ourselves tempted to regard it as moral to an extraordinary degree. Men moralized abundantly. Philosophy was wholly absorbed by Ethics. Casuistry was perfected, even to the mi- nutest details, so that the wise man was provided witlj a rule of conduct for every relation and event of life. Seneca's purpose is not so much to teach philosophy as to prepare for a successful life.^ Characteristic is his relation to Annaeus Serenus, captain of the watch under Nero. Seneca regulates his life even to the smallest detail, points out what he shall read, how lie may best spend the day. Serenus lays before him the state of his soul, and Seneca discusses it like a father confessor. So should Serenus attain tranquillity of mind, that blessed state in which the soul has inwaril peace, and exemption from all disquietude. Similar relations often appear. Indeed it became the custom to receive philosophers into the family as teachers, one might almost say as confessors and chaplains, in order to obtain from them counsel and guidance for the whole ordering of life; and how beautifully and admirably they could talk about all possible virtues. The ethical essays of Seneca, to mention only one of these philoso- phers, have appeared so excellent to many persons in later times that they have thought them explainable only on the theory of a Christian influei.ee, and tlie A>OTj arose of a personal intercourse between the philosopher and the Apostle Paul.^ But what are these moral sermons ? Words, nothing but words. The same Seneca who could discourse so finely upon the abstemi- ousness and contentment of the philosopher, who on all occasions paraded his contempt for earthly things as 94 FAITH AND MORALS. [boo* t nothingness and vanity, amassed, during the four years of his greatest prosperity and power, a fortune of three hundred millions of sesterces (over $15,000,000), and, while writing a treatise on Poverty, had in his house five hundred citrus tables, tables of veined wood brought from Mount Atlas, which sometimes cost as much as $25,000, and even $70,000. The same Seneca who preached so much about purity of morals was openly accused of adultery with Julia and Agrippina, and led nis pupil Nero into still more shameful practices. He wrote a work upon Clemency, yet had, beyond ques- tion, a large part of Nero's atrocities upon his con- science. It was he, too, who composed the letter in which Nero justified before the Senate the murder of his own mother. What was accomplished, then, by such ethical homilies as Seneca's? Leaving entirely out of account that it was not in the least his intention to influence the mass of the people, what good did he do to individuals ? He put their minds into a state of feverish excitement, induced habits of morbid intro- spection, but such results contained no power of moral renovation. That very Serenus whom he guided so like a father confessor was unable to withstand the in- fection of Nero's court ; he it was who brought about Nero's amour with Acte. This period, as well aa others, affords a proof of the indissoluble connection between faith and morals. Restricting the question tc the imperfect morality of Heathenism, we see even here tJiat, when faith goes, morals perish with it. Not untU we perceive the moral condition of the heathen world, do we discover the depth and completeness of its decay Such a view, however, it is difficult to secure. 1 might, indeed, simply refer to contemporary representa CHAP n.] CONTEMPORARY DESCRIPTIONS. 9b tions which portray the state of morals. What a picture it is ! Seneca says, " All things are full of iniquity and vice. More crimes are committed than can be remedied by force. A monstrous contest of wickedness is '^s.rrisd on. Daily the lust of sin increases ; daily the sense of shame diminishes. Casting away all regard for what is good and honorable, pleasure runs riot without re- straint. Vice no longer hides itself, it stalks forth be- fore all eyes. So public has iniquity become, so ihightily does it flame up in all hearts, that innocence is no longer rare : it has ceased to exist." ^ Somewhat later Lucian exclaims: "If any one loves wealth, and ifi dazed by gold, if any one measures happiness by purple and power, if any one brought up among flatterers and slaves has never had a conception of liberty, frankness and truth, if any one has wholly surrendered himself to pleasures, full tables, carousals, lewdness, sorcery, false- hood, and deceit, let him go to Rome ! " * Or, if we would have in addition to these somewhat rhetorical representations a sober and calm opinion, we may take that of the historian Livy: "Rome has become great by her virtues till now, when we can neither bear our vices nor their remedies."^ But it may be replied: These are general representations, which proceed from pessimistic views, and from their very generality, are oi little value ; for it cannot be denied that they are not universally applicable, and that with the darkness whicl? is all that is here recognized there was still some light. Instead, then, of these general descriptions I might give details, an anthology of the horrors committed in that age. I might draw the portrait of a Messalina, oi relate how Nero murdered his brother, his wife, and his own mother, how secretly plotting her death he first 96 FAITH AND MORA LS. [BOOK i wove about her a web of intrigues, and, when this failed, used biaital violence, and himself sent the murderer to plunge the sword into the body of her who had borne him , how he then with lies justified to the Senate what had bbe:i done, and that assembl}^ transparent as were these lies, in slavish subjection decreed new honors for che Emperor, and offered prayers of thanksgiving in the temples of the gods ; how, greeted by the Senate, and welcomed by the people arranged in tribes, with their wives and children in festal attire, the matricide entered Rome as a triumphator. I might describe the im- perial frenzy of a Caligula, or the government of freed- men under Claudius, and then say : This is the Age ! But with reason I should be answered, that in all ages we meet with individual instances of deeds of horror, and yet the error should not be committed of judging a whole period by such cases without further evidence. I might, it is true, reply in turn, that such atrocious crimes are but the summit of a pyramid whose broad base is in the life of the nation, that shapes like ]\Iessa- lina's are not to be encountered in every age, and that an Emperor who murders his mother, a Senate which decrees thanksgivings therefor, a people who go out to meet the murderer as a triumphator^ do indeed presup- pose, in order to the mere possibility of such occur- rences, a unive]real and horrible decay of morals. And yet I concede that there is no poorer way of character- izing an age than that of sweeping all the dirt which can b-^ found into one heap. Though every detail may be co.Tect, the picture as a whole is false. Thi^- much is clear. If we would obtain a tolerably correct impression of those times we must neither be content with mere generalizations which from thefr CHAP, n.l POSITION OP WOMAN IN GREECE. 97 very nature imply that there are exceptions, nor look too exclusively at individual facts, since their signifi- cance for the entire period can always be called in question. The best course will be to go through the different departments of life, and thus at last, from a mass of details, compose for ourselves a comprehensive picture.^ n. MARRIAGE AND FAMILT LIFE. We begin with that relation which is fundamental to all others, whose soundness, therefore, is a prerequisite to the healthfulness of a nation's life, whose stability is for this reason, the surest criterion of the moral charac- ter of an age — with Marriage and Family Life. The Japhetic nations received as their choicest in- heritance, shame, chastity, and modesty. It was these traits which distinguished them so definitely from the descendants of Ham, and elevated them so high in comparison. But they acted like the prodigal son. They wasted their portion. First of all, the Greeks. They too in their youth were not wanting in chastity and modesty (recall Penelope), but as early as the palmy days of Greece this treasure Was already lost. Almost all their great men — not merely so notorious a libertine as Alcibiades,^ but even a Themistocles and a Fericles — were impure. The female sex had a low position in Greece, was shut out from education, and t(»ok no part in any of the employments of men, in public life, in the affairs of their country. Plato ® rep- resents a State as wholly disorganized, where slaves are disobedient to their masters, and wives are on an equal- ity with their husbands. Aristotle ^ expressly character izes women as beings of an inferior kind. Family life, 08 MAIIRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE. [book i. in the true meaning of the words, the Greek did not know. He was at home as little as possible, and sought happiness elsewhere than at his own hearth. " Is there a human being," asks Socrates of one of his friends, " with whom you talk less than with your wife ? " " And Demosthenes" says, without the least embarrass- aient : " We have hetcerce for our pleasure, wives to boar us children and to care for our households." So the courtesan became the complement to the wife, and it is easy to understand why there is such an almost entire absence of noble women throughout the history of Greece, and so great prominence given to the posi- tion occupied by courtesans and the role which they played in the national life. They frequented the lec- ture-rooms of the philosophers, wrote books, and were on terms of intercourse with prominent statesmen. Even Socrates went to hear Aspasia.^'^ Famous men collected their witty sayings, • and wrote their histories. Aristo- phanes of Byzantium mentions one hundred and thirty- five of these hetoercB^ Apollodorus a yet larger num- ber.^' They gave themselves also as models for images of the gods. Phryne — the courtesan who promised the Thebans to rebuild their walls if they would write on them in golden letters; "Alexander destroyed them, Phryne rebuilt them " — served Praxiteles as a model for Ids renowned statue of the Cnidian Aphrodite. Thus the Greeks lifted their hands to public prostitutes wrhen they prayed in their temples, and the extent ct this shamelessness is sufficiently shown by the fact that this very Phryne, at the festival of Poseidon in Eleusis, appeared as Aphrodite Anadyomene, and having laid aside her garments and unloosed her hair, descended into the sea before the eyes of applauding Greece.^^ CHAP, n.] LOSS OF EARLY SIMPLICITY. 9% TKe Rom.ins kept their inheritance much longer Their power was rooted in chastity, modesty, and the strict morals of the earlier time. Nothing immodest was tolerated. No nude images of the gods violated the sense of shame. Marriage was considered sacred, and children grew up under the watchful care of chaste mothers in the simple relations of home. According to Plutarch it was 230, according to others it was 520, years before a divorce occurred in Rome.^^ The Romans were acquainted with true family life. When work was done they went home, and gladly remained in the bosom of the family. A genial profligate like Alcibiades could have gained no foothold in Rome, an Aspasia or Phrjrne could have played no part. It was otherwise when, with Greek culture, Greek frivolity as well entered Rome, when the riches of the conquered world flowed thither, and the luxury of the Empire took the place of republican simplicity. The ancient simple domesticity disappeared. Chastity and modesty perished. Luxury in dress came into vogue, and with it a finicalness and unnaturalness such as per- haps have never since been equalled. A fashionable Ro- man lady protected her complexion with a fine artificial paste, which she laid at night on her face, and then bathed in ass's milk. Of artificial washes, sweet- smelling oils, salves, perfumeries, pigments, there was no end. Female slaves thoroughly skilled in all the arts of the toilet stood at her beck, and often, while dressing her, were roughly and cruelly treated, being pricked with long needles, or beaten. For each separ- ate pigment a particular slave was appointed who had been perfectly trained to color the eyebrows black, or the cheeks red. Thb hair was dressed in the most arti 100 MABRIAGB AND FAMILY LIFE. (booh: i. ficial way, dyed, or entirely cut off and replaced b;y false hair. Auburn hair was specially piLzed in the first period of the Emperors. The dealers could not procure enough of it from Germany. What magnifi- cence, what changes of apparel, what wealth of gold, pearls, and precious stones, ear-rings, and bracelets I Lollia Paulina, the spouse of Caligula, wore at a mar- riage festival a set of emeralds which she was prepared to prove by documents was worth forty millions of sesterces ($2,000,000).^^ The famous necklace of Queen Marie Antoinette, which in the French Revolution became so fatal, cost but 1,600,000 francs, not one-sixth as much. They wear two or three estates suspended from their ears, says Seneca.^^ Naturally there was a desire to display such orna- ments. In earlier days a Roman wife remained at home, seldom allowed herself to be seen on the streets, and then only when veiled, or in a closed chair. Now, the motto was, as TertuUian says : " See, and be seen." ^^ In their walks, at the theatre, the circus, and at entertainments, they exhibited themselves and their finery. Those who did not own what was necessary to such a show could hire clothes, jewels, a sedan-chair, cushions, even an old waiting-woman or a fair-haired lady's maid, for a day at the theatre or circus.^^ How demoralizing this must have been is obvious; all the more so because the performances in the theatre were thoroughly immoral, and everywhere at soc'al entertain- ments mythological paintings on the wall.;, tables and utensils for food, representations of naked forms, pic- tures often positively immodest, surrounded the guests — to say nothing of the dances, shows, music and songs.^ The result was that domestic chastity and morality CHAP, n.] DECAY OF MARRIAGE. 101 almost wholly disappeared. Conceding that the lepre* sentations of the satirists, of Juvenal and Persiua, may be exaggerations, that much of what we read in Horace, and especially in Ovid, may be poetical embellishment, enough remains to warrant this conclusion. Marriages now were effected as easily as they were dissolved. Inclination was not taken into account. For a man, marriage was a financial transaction, for a maiden the longed-for means of escape from the narrow limits of the nursery (for usually the transition was almost immediate from the nursery to married life), and of becoming free. "There are women who count their years not by the number of Consuls, but by the number of their husbands," ^^ says Seneca. " They allow them- selves to be divorced," mocks Juvenal, "before the nuptial garlands have faded ; " ^ and Tertullian : "They marry only to be divorced." ^^ Friends ex- changed wives, and it was not considered in the least dishonorable to employ the name of friendship for the purpose of seducing a friend's wife. Seneca goes so far as to affirm that marriage is only contracted because adul- tery affords a new and piquant charm.^* Matrimonial fidelity was made a subject of ridicule. " Whoever haa no love affairs is despised," affirms the same Seneca.^ Not only did the theatre and the circus offer opportu- nities for beginning and continuing amorous intrigues, tlie temples were not too holy nor the brothels too foul for them.2^ It came to pass (a more horrible symptom of demoralization can scarcely be imagined), that ladies of high birth had themselves enrolled in the police register of common prostitutes in order that they might abandon themselves entirely to the most wanton excesses. So frequently did this scandal occur that it 102 MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE. Ibook - became necessary to pass laws against it. The blessing of children was only a burden. Infanticide, and a yet more shameful practice, were not regarded as crimes, for according to heathen ideas the father had absolute power over his children.^^ Household employment were despised, and the children, as they grew largerj ^ were left to the care of the slaves. Mothers wexe * more concerned about their toilets, or what flute or cithara player would receive the crown in the next con ^ test, what horse would win at the next race, what athlete or gladiator would come off victorious in the amphitheatre, than they were about the education of their children.^^ As a matter of course marriage itself fell of necessity into deeper and deeper contempt. Who would marry merely for the sake of supplying a disobedient wife with means for extravagance ? The men, too, preferred the freedom of single life. To such a degree did celibacy and childlessness prevail, that the State deemed it necessary to interfere. As early as Augustus laws were enacted imposing fines and increased taxes on those persons who remained unmarried beyond a cer- tain age. These were at first opposed in the Senate, ' and the insubordination of women was pleaded as a reason for this aversion to marriage. Later still the laws were again and again renewed and made more severe, yet without removing the deep-seated evil. M any preferred to accept the penalties decreed against the unmarried, and the childless. A single life was wholly unrestricted; childlessness had its advantages. An unmarried man had something to ^ devise, and was flattered and honored with all sorts of attention by those who counted on being remembered in his will. CHAP, n.] LEGACY HUNl'ING. 108 Legacy hunting had become an established evil in the first period of the Empire, and was so much a matter of course, so little perceived to be contemptible, that Seneca, for example, in a letter of condolence to a mother upon the loss of her only son, does not hesitate to remind her, by way of special consolation, that she will now, as a childless widow, be so much the more honored and beloved by such as hope for an inheiit- aiice.^ It would be unseemly to lift the veil from the sins of impurity of which the heathen world was full. " God gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between them- selves," writes St. Paul (Rom. i. 24) ; and for every line of the frightfully dark picture which he there sketches, proofs can easily be adduced. In shapes like Nero's, we can clearly perceive how thirst for blood went hand in hand with sensuality ; and in the orgies of the age, as for instance in the great festivals which the prefect Tigellinus gave on an artificial island in ■^.he lake of Agrippa, the shamelessness was so conspicu- ous that the wildest carousals of later times do not offer even a resemblance. We know not which is the more shocking, the effrontery with which sensuality came forth, or the cunning with which it sought what was more and more unnatural. Even the temples promoted lewdness, the priestesses were prostitutes, and, shame- ful to relate, this was esteemed and practised by the heathen as a part of religious worship.^® There were doubtless many exceptions. Even if the epitaphs did not prove, it, we should assume that there were siill good housewives and faithful marriages, especially among the middle nlasses, even while the 104 LABOR AND LUXURY. [book. higher orders were much more deeply corrupted. Not infrequently is to be read on some grave-stone erected by a husband to his wife : " She never caused me p pang but by her death," '* and the praise of domesticity of piety, of chastity, is often expressed. Yet this much is certain, that married and domestic life were widely corrupted and destroyed, and a lawlessness and disso- luteness prevailed which far exceeded even the woist which is presented by our large cities of to-day. Noblei souls felt this. With what earnestness did Tacitus hold up as an example to his contemporaries the puiity and modesty of German women. Effort after effort was made to repress the evil, but the stream of cor- ruption spread wider and wider. Indeed it was favored by all the conditions of the age. The world was con- quered, what had been won was now to be enjoyed. For a century and longer, pleasure was the motto with high and low, and greater seriousness did not return until the time of enjoyment was past, and the increasing need, the deepening misery, toward the end of the second, and during the third century had inclined the world to become more earnest again. m. LABOR AND LUXURY. Enormous wealth flowed from the conquered prov- inces to Rome, and immense sums were continually collected from the provinces even after the imperial government had introduced a stricter management ol the finances. Especially when the treasures which foi centuries had been accumulating in the East fell to the victors the influx of gold was such as before had never been thought of as possible. From the temple in Jerusalem alone Crassus plundered 10,000 talents HHAP. n.] ROMAN WEALTH. CONTEMPT OF LABOR. 105 ($11,316,600).^ As Proconsul of Syria Gabinius ex- acted one hundred millions of denarii (|16,839,360).3' From Ptolemy Auletes the same Gabinius took away 10,000 talents after Caesar had already taken 6,000, in all, therefore, about eighteen millions of dollars.^ The other provinces, Spain, Gaul, also contributed largely. Quintus Servilius Csepio alone carried off from the Tectosagan city Tolosa 15,000 talents ($16,974,900).^ Wealth is not merely hazardous to the individua;, it 13 also dangerous to a nation, doubly dangerous when it pours in suddenly, as in Rome, and has not been gradually acquired as the fruit of labor. In Rome it resulted in the ruin of the middle class, the accumula- tion of colossal wealth in the hands of a few, the im- poverishment of the masses, and finally in unrestrained luxury and voluptuousness. Antiquity had no knowledge of a middle class such as modern times are acquainted with, for labor, the basis of a sound middle class, was not regarded as hon- orable but as a disgrace. Plato ^^ deemed it right to despise men whose employment did not permit them to devote themselves to their friends and to the State. According to Aristotle,^ all forms of labor which re- quire physical strength are degrading to a freeman. Nature has created for such purposes a special class ; they are those whom we reduce to bondage that they may work for us as slaves or day-laborers. In Athens we can plainly trace the process by which the middle class was obliterated by slavery. In the earlier period of its history Athens had such a class composed of free laborers, but this was unable, w^en wealth increased, to maintain itself against the combination of capital and labor. The capitalists owned great factories iii 106 LABOR AND LUXX7BY. [book i. which the foremen as well as the operatives were slaves. Nothing was left to the free laborer but to work side by side with slaves in the factory, or to remain idle and depend on the State for support. Thus instead of a people living, as Solon intended, by labor, and treating labor with respect, there was a people prone to idleness, corrupted by contact with slaves, and involved in all the vices of Athenian life. The course of things in Rome was similar. There, too, labor fell more and more into disgrace. There all work by which money is earned was despised as an ignoble bondage. Medicine, architecture and commerce were alone excepted as honorable employments for a freeman. "The mechanic's occupation is degrading. A work-shop is incompatible with any thing noble." ^ Again we see the curse of slavery. Where it exists free labor cannot be respected, nor a middle class arise consisting of free laborers. In the country Italy had formerly possessed such a class in the free peasants who industriously tilled the arable land on small farms such as the soil of Italy requires for its cultivation. This free peasant class which formed the kernel of the legions had been an- nihilated by the civil wars. More than once the dis- banded legions of the conqueror were rewarded with landed property in Italy. Sulla had distributed among twenty-three legions such munidpia as had shown themselves hostile to him. The soldiers entered tri- umphantly into Florence, Prseneste, and other places appointed for them, drove away the inhabitants, and took pcssession of housos and lands. Octavian had treated thirty-four legions in the same way. The old soldiers seldom became industrious farmers. What had CHAP n.j RUIN OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. 107 been easily won was easily squandered. Speculators bought up the farms. The Roman magnates, who had acquired wealth in the East, or in Gaul, invested in them their capital. Thus arose great latifundia^ im- mense estates, often miles square. These could be worked more profitably with slaves than with free laborers. The slave therefore everywhere drove out the free laborer. Only in regions the most remote, where slaves could not be controlled, and under hard conditions, did the freeman, as villicus, maintain his position. At most he received one-fifth of the prod- uce.^ Or he was allowed a chance where the country was unhealthy and capitalists hesitated to take the costly risks involved in slaves* In consequence of the size of the landed property and the poor quality of the labor (a slave is always a bad and dear workman) the cultivation of the soil ceased to be profitable, and gave place to the raising of cattle, which required less labor, and offered a more sure reward. Where once luxuriant corn-fields waved and gardens stood full of delicious fruit, nothing could now be seen for miles but a barren heath grazed by cattle. Where in earlier times numerous villages, in the midst of well-cultivated fields and gardens, had delighted the eye, stood now, at great distances apart, the ergastula, prison-like dwellings, which concealed hundreds of miserable slaves. The two maxims then often heard : " A purchased laborer is better tlian a hired one," and : " Grazing is more lucrative than farming,"*^ mark the steps in the progress of deterioration. As the flat country became depopulated the large cities became crowded. Those who could no longer maintain themselves in the country^ flocked into the 108 LABOR AND LUXURY. [WMW, h cities, especially into Rome. And what a population was there crowded together! We do not know with entire accuracy the number of inhabitants of Rome at the beginning of the Empire .^^ Some estimate it at one and a half, others, for instance Hoeck, at two millions and upwards. Of these perhaps only about 10,000 belonged to the higher orders, senators and knights ; then, according to Hoeck, there were one mil- lion of slaves, and about 50,000 foreigners ; the remain- der constituted the Plehs urhana^ who were absolutely destitute. Of service for hire there was little in Rome. For even here the free laborer had to come into compe- tition with the slave, and here, too, the latter took away his work. What the rich needed in their homes was produced for them by their many slaves. Even large buildings were erected by slaves in the employ of con- tractors. Craftsmen thus had but few customers. The only other opportunities for earning money were those afforded by positions as inferior attendants upon the magistrates, as servants in the colleges of priests and assistants at funerals. There was no real middle class. Many sought their living as clients at the houses of the great, a living scanty enough, and little better than slavery. From early in the morning till late in the evening, whether it was hot or whether it snowed, the clients were obliged to be ready in their togas for ser- vice to their patron, waiting upon him in ti:e house, and accompanying him by the way. For such attend- ance they received from him a gift, and were invited on festival occasions to his house that they might help swell the pomp. In other respects they were often subjected to most shameful and degrading treatment even from the freedmen and slaves of their lord. The CHAF. n.] DISTRIBUTION OP CORN. 109 great mass of the people lived in almost complete idl& ness and were supported by the State. Even in earlier times corn was delivered to Roman citizens at a moderate price. In the year of the city 695 Claudius carried through a law which provided for its gratuitous distribution. During the Civil Wars the number of receivers of corn increased considerably, since every ruler naturally courted the favor of the people. In Csesar's time this number rose to 320,000, Afterwards, through the sending away of colonies of the poor, it was reduced to 130,000, under Augustus to 100,000, but it always increased again. Inquiry was made into the need, but no attention was paid to morals and conduct. " The thief," says Seneca,*^ " as well as the perjurer and the adulterer receives the public corn ; every one, irrespective of morals, is a citizen." On an appointed day of the month each person enrolled in the lists received the tessera frumentalis, a check for five bushels of wheat. This amount was then measured out in the magazines to every one who brought and showed the tessera. Fo^ this reason the checks were often sold, especially as the measure was so large that it was more than enough for one person. In addition to this gift of corn, largesses in money (congiaria) were distributed. These were either alms which were dis pensed solely for the benefit of the recipients of grain, or they were presents which were bestowed upon all, down even to the boys ; as, for instance, in the yeara of the city 725, 730, 742, when every one received 400 sesterces (about twenty dollars). Each congiarium of this sort cost the State 250,000,000 sesterces, about »12,500,000. Such munificence the world has never again wit- 110 LABOR AND LUXURlf [book i nessed, but we do well to reflect that it was not benevo- lence. Not man, but the Roman citizen was taken into consideration ; not the needy, but strong men, able to work, received the gift; not the individual, but the State was the giver ; not love, but justice was the criterion. The congiarium was, after all, but each Ro- man citizen's share in the spoil of a conquered world, a premium which the rich out of fear paid to idleness. Hence what was received only increased the demand. In the dajs of Augustus the people clamored for wine in ad- dition to corn. The Emperor replied : " The provision made by aqueducts is so ample that no one need thirst." *' Later Emperors were obliged to do more. Septimius Severus caused oil to be distributed. Aurelian, at his triamph, gave bread. This remained the rule when the people demanded it. The Emperor would even have given wine. When the praetorian prefect remon- strated : " If we grant the people wine, we must also serve out to them chickens and geese," he desisted, but took care that wine should be furnished to the people at cheaper prices.^ Such a system of largesses could only work demoralizingly. Love elevates the poor man, such gifts degrade him. Christianity first intro- duced true benevolence, and as it has ennobled labor so it has also honored innocent poverty. Whilst the mass of the people lived by alms, the few who possessed wealth revelled in unheard of luxury. Down to the time of Augustus, Rome, compared with what it afterwards became, had been rather a poor city. Augustus could boast that instead of the city of brick which he found he had left one of ma,rble. Not only pul)lic buildings, but also private dwellings show from this date an incomparable magnificence. A residence . n.J LUXURY OF THE RICH. Ill whicli with its appurtenances (gardens, etc J embraced four acres, was considered small. What a splendid spectacle was offered by the atria with their lofty pil- lars, for which the most costly stones were collected from tlie whole world. Beams of Hymettian marble rented on pillars from Africa ; the walls were formed of costly slabs of variegated marble, or alabaster bordered with green serpentine, brought from distant Egypt, or from the Black Sea. The arches glistened with mosaics of glass, the floors were artistically tessel- lated. In the intervening spaces were green shrub- beries and plashing fountains, while high above, for protection from the sun, a crimson awning stretched from one pillared roof to another, suffusing the mosaic floor and the mossy carpet with a rosy shimmer. All this was surpassed by Nero's Golden House, which was like a city in size. Its colonnades were each a mile long. In its vestibule stood a colossal statue of the Emperor 120 feet high. The other di- mensions of the palace were on the same scale. It em- braced fields and gardens, meadows and forests, and even a lake. The halls and saloons were overlaid with gold, and adorned with precious stones and mother-of- pearl, or with glass mirrors which reflected to the be- holder his entire figure. Smaller apartments had walls which were completely covered with pearls. The ban- queting-rooms were decorated with special magnificence, and the baths afforded the rarest luxu -y. The banquetr ing-rooms had gilded, carved, and painted ceilings which were changed to suit the various courses of the meal, and so constru3ted that flowers and perfumes could be scat- tered upon the guests. Water from the sea, as well as sulphurated water from the springs of the Tiber, was 112 LABOR AND LUXURY. [book k conducted to the baths through magnificjent conduits, and flowed from gold and silver faucets into basins of variegated marble, so that it looked now red, now green, now white. " Now I am lodged as a man should be," said Nero when he took possession of it.'*^ Otho granted three millions for an enlargement of this palace, and yet Vitellius found it still unworthy of an Emperor. Naturally these extensive houses rendered building sites extraordinarily dear, and there was as little room in Rome for the poor as there is now in our large cities. Under Nero a law was passed which forbade the pur- chase of houses for the sake of pulling them down and speculating with the sites. Beside his city residence a wealthy Roman had a number of country houses in the mountains or by the sea, in Southern Italy or in the North. For miles away stretched the most magnificent parks, such as only a strongly developed taste for natural beauty, with enormous means at command, could create. If one had seen in his travels a landscape which seemed to him specially beautiful, he sought to imitate it, or found satisfaction in producing one under circumstances and in places where every preliminary condition was want- ing. Where the sea had been, he made land, and laid out a villa on it, merely for the sake of being able to say that he had wrested it from the waters ; or he had earth brought at an enormous expense and spread upon naked rocks in order to plant there a garden or a grove. Nature and art, wealth and taste, were combined to insure, in a land whose climate is enchantingly beau- tiful, an enviable existence for the rich. That these great villas drove the poorer class away from land and soil, withdrew the fields from the culture of com, wine (THAI, n.] PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND WORKS 113 and fruit, products to whicli they were naturally adapted, and so helped increase the proletariat what did the rich care for this ? Consider first the public buildings! A real frenzy for architecture ruled the age, and when pure art was declining men strove to supply the lack of genuine artistic perfection by colossal size and excessive decora tioa. We can scarcely imagine now the magnificence and splendor of a city like Rome. The most beautiful and wealthy capitals of modern times are far inferior to it. In comparison with such a profusion of works of art, of palaces and temples, of theatres and baths, of triumphal arches and statues numbered by thousands, they appear actually poor. And when we remember the many other large cities, some of which like Anti- och and Alexandria, for instance, rivalled Rome, when we recall even smaller cities like Pompeii which a favorable fortune has preserved for us, we see every- where such wealth of artistic decoration, and, apart from occasional defects of taste, such unvarying pleas- antness, such cleanliness and neatness, that we find here continually our models. If we then represent to ourselves only approximately the grandeur of the public works, the bridges, streets, aqueducts, through- out the entire Empire, whose ruins in Africa and in the Eifel, in France and in Syria, still excite our admira- tion, the picture as a whole is indeed astonishing, and we obtain some idea of the power still resident in that imperial Rome to whom most of these works owed their origin. The interior of the dwellings presented nothing of what we now call comfort, but, all the more, weiltb and sumptuousness. Even here it is apparent, that th« 114 LABOR AND LUXURY. [book l life of the ancient world was directed to what is exter- nal, not to what is within. We seek above all else in a dwelling an agreeable and comfortable home; the ancient world inclined everywhere, even in the house, to show. The occupant of a mansion desired most of all to make a brilliant display of his wealth and his importance. The rooms compared with ours were empty, containing, instead of a large amount of furni- ture for daily use, only a few articles which were sa much the more superb and costly, — expensive tables with covers of citrus wood and resting on ivory feet, couches inlaid with gold and silver and covered with Babylonian tapestry, splendid vases of Corinthian bronze, or the somewhat enigmatical Murrha, vessels of which were worth $T,500 and even $37,500, ^ginetan candelabra, sideboards with antique silver plate, and statues and paintings by renowned artists. Every thing, even down to the common household utensils, was, in an incomparably higher degree than with us, artistically formed and finished. Then the life in these magnificent houses! Inordi- nate longing for enjoyment, effeminacy and voluptuous- ness, reigned supreme. Numerous slaves stood waiting the nod of their master, ready to render all kinds of service in order to relieve him of the slightest trouble. There were even some slaves who knew by heart Homer or Virgil, and standing behind the clair of their mas- ter whispered in his ear a citation frobi the classic poets whenever he deemed it appropriate to introduce such a passage into the conversation. Earnest labor was not thought of, at most only a dilettante occupation with the fine arts. Apart from this, life was one prolonged revel. Entertainments and feasts chased one another, CHAP, n.] EXTRAVAGANCE AND VOLUPTUOUSNESS. 115 each in turn more recherche than the preceding. Tha means of enjoyment were gathered from every quarter of the globe, and the more rare and costly they were the more highly were they prized. Men out-vied each other in the art of squandering at a single meal hun- dreds of thousands, until the Emperor Vitellius ex- ceeded all by running through, in the few months of his reign, one hundred and fifty millions. That the pleasure of eating might be prolonged emetics were made use of. " They vomit to eat, and eat to vomit," .^ays Seneca, " and do not deign to digest the feasts col- lected from all parts of the world." ^ What extrava gance in yet other respects was committed at these ban- quets ! Thousands were expended in a single day for flowers — roses and violets in the middle of winter — which were showered upon the guests, for ointments and fragrant waters. In every thing there was exag- geration even to unnaturalness, and often our belief is taxed as though we were in an enchanted castle, where, as fairy-tales relate, every thing is of silver and gold. As, for instance, when we hear that Poppaea Sabina, the wife of Nero, took with her on a journey five hundred asses in order that cosmetic baths might be prepared for her from their milk, and that these animals had gold and silver shoes, and that her husband, when he amused himself with fishing, used nets interwoven with threads of gold. Only an age utterly wanting in earnestness, destitute of any high purpose or endeavor, and wholly aban- doned to sensual enjoyment, could have fallen into such practices. And, conversely, this life of pleasure must have proved increasingly destructive to morals. " Through dissipation." complains a contemporary, HQ LABOR AND LUXURY. [book i "the minds of indolent youth have become sluggish, and no one rouses himself to the trouble and toil of an honorable employment. Sleep and lassitude, and what is worse than both, zeal in wrong-doing, have taken possession of them. The disgraceful pursuit of song and dance makes them effeminate ; their darling passion is to curl their hair, to weaken their voices to feminine accents of flattery, to vie with women in pampering the body, to excel in the foulest vices. Who of your contemporaries is full of spirit? Who is full of desire for knowledge ? Who is even a man ? " This was the race as Pliny and the physician Galen, in this matter a competent witness, depict it for us, " with pale faces, flabby cheeks, swollen eyes, trembling hands, enfeebled understanding, and ruined memory."*" These were jhe people who, morally rotten, completely enervated, cringed before the Emperor in the Senate and answered every kick with new and studied flatteries, these aristo- crats who boasted of their proud old names and their wealth, and yet in Nero's presence were mere slaves, or at most, in company with shameless women, plotted conspiracies which they could not find courage to carry out, even in death dastards or profligates. How dull, how stale, life seemed to all this hlasS race. Intoxicated with pleasure and sensual enjoyment, able to gratify every whim however absurd, they were nevertheless thoroughly discontented, and sought in vain by ever new devices to impart fresh zest to exist- ence. Life, in the time of the Emperors, was utterly tedious and uninteresting. There were no elevating influences. Interest in public affairs had died out from the time that the Emperor alone ruled the world according to his own caprices, or, as might happen, CHAP, n.] PBIVOLITT. 117 allowed it to be ruled by women or valeta de chambre. Religious life bad disappeared. Pbilosopby bad degen- erated iQto a vain display of mere words. Between an inordinately wealthy aristocracy and a populace accus- tomed to be fed by its lords, there was no opportunity for creative, progressive labor. In the absence of serious occupation life became filled with mere frivolities. Men ceased to work. The obligations of society and politeness assumed a ridicu- lous importance. " It is astonishing," Pliny writes in one of his letters,*^ "how time is passed in Rome. Take any day by itself and it either is, or seems to be, well spent; yet review many days together and you will be surprised to discover how unprofitable they have been. Ask any one : What have you done to-day? He will tell you : I was at a friend's who gave his son the toga virilis ; another requested me to be a witness to his will ; a third asked me to a consultation. All of these things appear at the time extremely necessary. But when we reflect that day after day has been thus spent, such employments seem trifling." Where life was not passed in frivolity and dissipation the most important occupations were writing, reading to others what had been written, hearing lectures, composing poems, and admiring those produced by others. " Dur- ing the whole month of April," Pliny ^^ relates, " there was scarcely a day in which some one did not recite a poem." "We suffer from a superfluity of sciences," Seneca had already remarked.^^ Instead of going to the Forum, or elsewhere, to important business, one went to hear some rhetorician declaim about morality, or to the baths — the clubs of that day — to talk about e^ery thing and nothing. Or one was invited by a 118 LABOR AND LUXURY. [book i friend to hear some history or poem. They declaimed througli life. The sense for true beauty became more and more impaired. If a poet or rhetorician succeeded in successfully imitating the works of the ancients, he received the highest applause. A striking proof of the spiritual condition of many persons at that time is afforded by the beginning of Seneca's treatise "On Tranquillity of Mind." Serenus, the captain of the watch, already referred to, had dis- closed to Seneca the state of his soul, and begged him to name the evil from which he was suffering. Seneca's reply describes what the outlook then was for many persons. It is an indescribable medley of energy and weakness, of ambition and impotence, a rapid succes- sion of undefined hopes and groundless discourage- ments, a consuming ennui, an utter disgust with self, which allows no place of rest and finally renders every thing odious. The world seems monotonous, life uni- form, pleasures fatigue, the least efforts exhaust, and tliis vague sadness becomes at last so heavy a burden that one contemplates escaping from it by death.'^ I gladly acknowledge that the description I have given of the moral life of that age needs qualification on this side, or on that ; that there were, beyond ques- tion, sounder and nobler elements ; that, by comparison with other times which offer similar phenomena, much can be set in a milder light ; and yet, after all such allowances are made, one thing must at any rate be admitted, of which all these details are only a symptom, and which itself is the most unerring symptom of the degradation of the old world : the exhaustion from life of every lofty purpose. OHAP. 11.] PASSION FOR GAMES. 119 IV. PUBLIC GAMES. This appears pre-eminently in the wide-spread pas- Bion among the higher classes for personally taking part in the theatre, the circus, the chariot-races, and the gladiatorial sports. Nero led the way in this by his example. Prouder than any triumphator he entered Rome with eighteen hundred and eight victors' wreaths which he had won in the Grecian games, and hung them on the obelisk in the Circus Maximus even while the Nemesis of his bloody deeds was already knock- ing at the gates. So general did this inclination become that more earnest Emperors endeavored to restrain it by legislation. It can be explained only by the crav- ing for new and more powerful stimulants. Satiated with all possible enjoyments, people sought in the cir- cus, and in the arena, for an excitement they no longer found elsewhere, and, grown indifferent to every thing, staked in the gladiatorial games a life which had ceased to have for them any value. In general the absorbing interest of this age in all sorts of spectacles was in the highest degree characteristic, and it is worth while to contemplate it somewhat more closely from this point of view, since, in this way, a profound insight can be obtained into the morality of that time, as well as of al) antiquity. Spectacles (taking the word at first in the broadest sense) had for ancient life generally a higher impor- tance than for modern. Here, again, that tendency of the former to externals which has been already repeat- edly noticed may be seen in its delight in artistic rep- resentation, and, consequently, in public parades and displays of all sorts. This is apparent even in public 120 PUBLIC GAMES. [book l worship. The whole cultus had a theatrical tendency ; processions constituted a large part of it. What an important place did the theatre occupy in the popular life of the Greeks. In this domain lie in part the high- est achievements of Greek genius, in the dramas of an .^chylus, Sophocles and Euripides. To be sure, the day when such creations of genius were rejoiced in was long gone by. The tall figures in the cothurn and with the mask, with solemn step and solemn speech, had dis- appeared from the boards. The Greeks of that time, to say nothing of the Romans, would have found no pleas- ure in the OEdipus, nor in the Antigone. The later comedy continued longest in favor, at least the fine- ness of the acting proved attractive. Buffoonery and pantomimes became popular. The Attellana^ a sort of Punchinello comedy with grotesque drollery and coarse jokes, the Mimus^ a loosely connected representation of characters in common life, with jesters and much stage art, with rich decorations and astonishing scene shift- ings, were now the favorite amusements. The lofty deeds of heroes were no longer held up for imitation, nor were the follies of the time derided ; the adventures of deceived husbands, adulteries and amorous intrigues formed the staple of the plots. Virtue was made a mock of, and the gods scoffed at; every thing sacred and worthy of veneration was dragged in the mire. 1 n obscenity, unveiled and unambiguous, in impure speeches and exhibitions which outraged the sense of shame, these spectacles exceeded all besides. Ballet dancers threw away their dresses and danced half naked, and even wholly naked, on the stage. Art was left out of account, every thing was designed for mf* re sensual gratification. SHAP. n.] THEATRE, CIECUS. 121 Apart from such exhibitions the theatre proper was decidedly out of favor. The popular taste inclined chiefly to the amusements of the circus and amphithea- tre. These festivals, of religious origin and still con- nected with religious ceremonies, had acquired in the time of the Emperors a political significance Those in power found it to be strongly for their interest to keep the people busy and diverted. Bread and Games ! was the demand, and so long as Kome had enough to eat and was amused, the Emperor had little to fear. Hence the great watchfulness respecting the supply of corn, hence the pains taken to provide at so enormous an expense for games. The more political life decayed, the greater the place occupied by sports. The Empe- rors, therefore, good and bad without distinction, ex- pended on them immense sums. The most economical felt obliged to have money for them, and the most inflexible and simple had to yield in this matter to the pleasure of the people. In the times of the Republic games were observed within moderate limits. As early as Augustus they were celebrated for sixty-six days ; under Marcus Aure- lius the number had increased to one hundred and thirty-five. Besides these there were extraordinary festivals. Titus gave the people, at the dedication of the Flavian Amphitheatre, a festival which lasted a hundred days; Trajan, on the occasion of his Dacian triumph, one of one hundred and twenty-three days, fco it was in Rome, where, to be sure, every thing was carried to extremes. Yet ther^ were not wanting games in the provinces, although in a more moderate degree, as is proved by the ruins of numerous, and often colossal, amphitheatres in all parts of the Roman 122 PUBLIC GAMES. [book i Empire. Even in Palestine King Agrippa, to the hor- ror of the Jews, caused a circus to be built, and his race horses are said to have contended for the stakes with the Roman. On the walls of Pompeii we see to-day the posters in which the holding of games was announced. It belonged to the most burdensome and pressing duties of municipal officers even in the medium-sized cities to provide games at their own expense, and we know accidentally of a gladiatorial show in an Italian city of middle rank at the beginning of the Empire, which lasted three days, and cost 20,880 dollars. Often the people were feasted at the games, and entire days were appointed for magnificent banquetings. Slaves of the Emperor carried around viands and wine on broad platters and in large baskets. All the people, men, women and children, senators and knights, the court and the Emperor himself, ate at great tables in the broad public places of Rome. Or figs, dates, nuts and cakes were thrown among the people, — it rained roasted fowls and pheasants. Lottery tickets were distributed entitling to smaller or larger prizes, per- chance articles of clothing or household furniture, gold and silver, houses too, and landed estates. Whoever had luck could become rich in a day. The people thronged to these games. Not unfrequently lives were lost in the crowd. The greatest enthusiasm was felt for the chariot races in the Circus ; there the passions were most fear- fully excited. Which of the four parties designated by the colors worn by horses and drivers would win at the next race, whether the red or the green, the blue or the white, was a question which occupied Rome for CHAT, n.] CHABIOT RACES 128 days in advance. Wagers were often concluied for hundreds of thousands, for entire estates. Saciifices were offered, soothsayers questioned, even magical arts employed, in order to obtain the victory for the favorite party. " Does the green lose," says Juvenal, " then is Home struck aghast as after the defeat at CannsB."*' "Whether a Nero governed the Empire or a Marcus Aurelius," writes Friedlander, from whose representa- tions of Roman life I borrow much, "whether the Empire was at peace or aflame with civil war, or the barbarians stormed at the frontiers, in Rome the ques- tion of chief moment for freemen and slaves, for sen- ators, knights and people, for men and women, was whether the blue would win or the green." Already on the night before the people streamed into the Circus in order to secure seats, for, immense as was the number of places provided, it was yet difficult to obtain one. In Caesar's time the Circus had 150,000 seats; Titus added 100,000 more; finally there were 385,000.53 A religious service introduced the sports From the Capitol, to the sound of trumpets and flukes, advanced a great procession, led by the magistrate who gave the games standing on a chariot as a triumpTiator^ followed by images of the gods and emperors borne on litters and accompanied by the colleges of priests in full dress. Then the whole pompa diabolic as Tertullian says, ent tered the Circus through the chief gate and moved with stately slowness over the course, the spectators rising to their feet and receiving it with jubilant cheer- ing and clapping of hands. All eyes now turn in breathless suspense to the balcony from which the Praetor lets fall the signal for beginning the race. The 124 PUBLIC GAMES. [book \ white cloth flutters toward the couise. Msit! misit! he has thrown it, calls one to the other, and as the rope which had hitherto closed the track is cast off, as the chariots burst forth and veiled in dust speed over the course, as now this now that faction has an advan- tage, and is applauded accordingly by its partisans Among the spectators, spurred on with cheers, or loaded with curses, as the chariots often dash in pieces on the turning-post and horses and drivers roll on the ground in a confused heap, the excitement increases every moment even to frenzy and vents itself in infuriated roaring. At length the victor reaches the goal and is greeted with thunders of applause. Ribbons, favors, garlands fly to him. Before the seat of the Emperor he receives the prize-purse, filled with gold, and the palm branch, and amid the shouts of the people passes slowly along the course to the porta triumphalis. The race is ended, but only to be soon followed by another. Often there were twenty-four in succession with merely a short pause at noon. Even then many persons did not go home; they ate in the Circus and kept their places until evening brought the show to an end. Another sort of spectacles was furnished by the Amphitheatres. Here occurred the gladiatorial con- tests, the hunting of animals, the representations of battles on land and sea. In the horse-races of the present day we have something like the chariot races of the Circus, but the spectacles of the Amphitheatre are wholly unlike any thing moder i. In Christendom the only relic of them which can be foimd — and that but slight — -is in the bull-fights of Spain. On the walls of Pompeii we may still read the Inscription: "If the weather allows, the gladiatorial CHAP, n.] GLADIATORIAL CONTESTS. 125 bands of the ^Edile Suetius Certus will fight, on the 30th of July, in the Arena at Pompeii. There will also be a hunt of animals. The place for spectators is cov- ered, and will be sprinkled." ^ Such an amphitheatre must have been a splendid sight, the seats, rising one above another, all filled, below, people of rank, sena- tors, knights, ladies magnificently arrayed, sparkling with gold and precious stones. Vestals in their sacred gaib ; higher up the other orders ; at the top the com- mon people, country-folk, soldiers, house-slaves. Far over the arena stretched an awning supported by masts gay with pennons, many colored tapestries covered bal- ustrades and parapets, festoons of roses linked pillar to pillar, and in the spaces between stood glittering stat- ues of the gods before whom rose from tripods fragrant odors. Every thing exhaled pleasure and joy. People laughed, talked, interchanged cpurtesies, spun love- affairs, or bet on this or that combatant. And yet what a horrible show it was at which the multitude lingered. It began with a pompous procession of gladiators in full armor. Before the Emperor they lowered their arms and cried: "Hail, Imperator! they who are about to die salute tnee." At first only a sham fight took place, then the dismal tones of the tuhce gave the signal for the combat with sharp weapons. The most varied scenes followed in rapid succession. Singly or in companies the retiarii camt forward, almost naked, without armor, their only weapons a dagger and tri- dent, and en leavored each to throw a net over the head of his antagonist in order to inflict a death-blow. The Samnites, with large shields and short straight swords, engaged the Thracians with small round shields 12d PUBLIC GAMES. [book i. and curved swords. Combatants clad in complete armor aimed at the joints in the armor of their oppo- nents, knights tilted at each other with long lances, and others, in imitation of the Britons, fought standing on chariots of war. All this was not for show nor in sport, but in down- right, terrible earnest. If one fell alive into the hands cf his opponent, the giver of the entertainment left the decision of life or death to the spectators. The van- quished begged for his life by holding up a finger. If they waved their handkerchiefs his life was granted him, if they turned up their thumbs this was a com- mand for the fatal stroke. Women even, and timid girls, gave lightly and without hesitation the sign which doomed a man to death. The brave who despised death received abundant applause, the timorous excited the anger of the people who considered it an affront if a gladiator would not cheerfully die. They were trained for this in gladiatorial schools and learned there also how to breathe out their lives with theatrical grace. For this, too, the giver of the show had hired them from the lanista, the owner of the school. This fact appears in the Institutes as a question of law. A lanista furnished a private person a number of gladia- tors on the condition that he should pay for every one who returned from the fight uninjured, or without seri- ous wounds, twenty denarii^ for every one killed or badly hurt, one thousand denarii. The question arose : Was this purchase or hire? Caius decided: In the case of the first class it was hire, for they went back to their master ; in the case of the second it was pur- chase, since they belong to him whom they have served, for what is the lanista to do with the dead or mutilated? CHAP, n.] EXHIBITIONS IN THE AMPHITHEATRE. 127 A right had thus been purchased in their death, and accordingly those who hesitated to die were driven into the fight with scourges and red-hot irons. In- flamed to madness the spectators screamed : Kill ! lash I b^irn ! Why does he take the death-blow with so little bravery ? Why does he die so reluctantly ? At the first spilling of blood, the roar and acclamar tioMS of the crowd increased, it fairly thirsted for Liood. Before the vanquished had time to implore mercy the cry for blood resounded, and the stroke followed which put an end to life. Officials in the mask of the god of the lower world dragged the still palpi- tating body with a hook into the death chamber, whilst the victors proudly flourished their palm branches, and the spectators, at the highest pitch of excitement, stand- ing on the benches, shouted approval. In the pauses between the fighting the soil of the arena, saturated with blood, was turned-up with shovels, Moorish slaves threw on fresh sand, and smoothed again the place of combat. Then the shedding of blood began anew. Together with the gladiatorial shows proper, fights with wild beasts were extremely popular, and were carried out on a splendid scale. Wild animals were hunted in all parts of the world in order to supply the Amphitheatre at Rome, and those of other great cities. The hippopotamus was transported from Egypt, the wild boar from the Rhine, the lion from Africa, the elephant from India. Even rhinoceroses, ostriches, and giraffes were not wanting. The beasts of the desert were brought not singly but by hundreds into the arena. Six hundred bears, five hundred lions, are mentioned at one festival. At the games given by Trajan in honor of the Dacian triumph in the yeai 128 PUBLIC GAMES. [book v A.D. 106, there fought in all eleven thousand animals of the most diverse species. There was also great vaiiety in the contests. Now the wild beasts fought with one another, now with dogs trained for this pur- pose, now with men on foot or mounted. Still more magnificent were the battles, especially the naval battles, which took place in the Amphitheatre Arranged for their display, or on lakes excavated for this special purpose. Whole fleets engaged in these contests. Claudius exhibited on the lake Fucinus a sea-fight between vessels of three and four benches of oars, in which there were nineteen thousand combat- ants. Domitian had a new and larger lake dug, on which battles were fought by fleets almost as large as those commonly employed at that time in war. These were not mock-fights, but all real combats in which thousands fell or were drowned. While these spectacles still impress us by their mag- nificence, the public executions, also exhibited as shows in the Amphitheatre, excite only emotions of horror and disgust. Wholly unarmed, or furnished with vreapons solely that their torments might be protracted, the condemned were bound to stakes and exposed to famished beasts. There they lay bleeding and with torn garments, while the people shouted for joy. And yet worse than this occurred. Those under condemna- tion were used for theatrical spectacles at which all the arts of decoration in which that age was so proficient were brought into requisition -^ only in these plays death, sufferings, and agonies were not feigned, but actually endured. The unfortunate victims appeared in garments interwoven with threads of gold, and with «rowns on their heads, when suddenly flames burst OHAP. n.] INDIFFERENCE TO SUFFERING. 129 from their clothing and consumed them. There Mucins Scaevola was seen holding his hand in a brazier of live coals; there Hercules ascended on Mount CEta his funeral pile, and was burned alive; tliere robbers, hanging on crosses, were torn limb from limb by bears. All this with complete theatrical ma- r.hinery hr the delight of a sight-loving people.^ We t irn away from such scenes with abhorrence. Antiquity had no such feeling. We should searcl literature in vain for expressions which censure and repudiate this shedding of blood. Even a man like Pliny,^^ who usually manifests a nobler and more humane spirit, praises, in his Panegyric upon Trajan, games " which do not enervate the minds of men, but on the contrary inflame them to honorable wounds and contempt of death as they perceive even in slaves and criminals the love of praise and desire for victory." Seneca calls them a light amusement. Once only, when he had accidentally seen, in the recess at noon, that unpractised gladiators were allowed to engage in combats which were mere butchery, does he express indignation that men were permitted to slaughter each other merely for the amusement of those who remained during the int-^rval in the Amphitheatre.^^ Ovid^ even instructs those present at these sights to improve the offered opportunity for love making. One speaks to his neighbor and in the eagerness of conversation touches her hand, or asks of her the programme and bets with htr on the issue of the combat. For women, too, beheld these sights, and while blood flowed in streams, and men wrestled with death in the arena below, those above engaged in thoughtless gallantries. Such eagerness was there fjr these spectacles, that 180 PUBMO GAMES. [book & even at social entertainments gladiatorial combats were held, and not infrequently at these carousals the blood that was shed mingled with the spilt wine. This is Heathenism, and let us mark it well, not Heathenism uneducated and rude, but at the height of its culture. I know very well what in ancient culture is fundamental and exemplary for all ages, so that wc read, and rightly, in our schools the Greek and Roman classics, and open to youth a view of the beauty and glory of the ancient world, but it would be one-sided and untrue, should we for this reason overlook its great defect. It lacked a genuine culture of the heart. With all the perfection of form the heart still remained the old, natural, undisciplined, human heart. A complete change of heart, a work of purification wrought by a man within himself, these were wholly strange con- ceptions to Heathenism. Herbart has said, that one object of classical instruction is to show the young that durable life was not attained in Greece and Rome. The heart was not satisfied. The view which we thus obtain of the complete ex- haustion from life of moral aims, is appalling. Life really had no longer an object. The one great end for which men had lived, the development of the State, no longer existed. From the time when the Emperor could say: "I am the State I" political life had ceased. All that was left — the assemblies of the people, the Senate, the offices derived from the Republic — was mere pretence. No wonder that men were wholly absorbed in enjoyment, and that " Bread and Games " became the motto for all classes. But there was a deeper reason yet for this exhaustion of life. Heathenism knew no goal in the life beyond, and consequently had no true aim in the raiAP. n.J IGNORAJ7CB OF THE WORTH OF MAN. 131 present life. When a man has found the goal of exist ence in the other world, his one great task, however in other respects his life may shape itself, is always within his own heart. For him life continually retains the sublime significance of a school for the life to come, and in darkest seasons never becomes empty and un- meaning. The heathen knew nothing of all this. Therefore in times of decline, like those of the Empire, their only resource was amusement. This drove them to the circus and the theatre, and made it an event in their eyes whether the horses with red colors or those with green first reached the goal, whether this or that gladiator was victorious. And if then, wholly inconceivable as this now seems to us, men and women, high and low, feasted their eyes on murder and bloodshed, and saw nothing there- in but a light amusement, it was because they did not regard those who died in the arena amid horrible tor- tures as men, but only as barbarians, foreigners, prison- ers of war, slaves, criminals, outcasts of the human race, worthless and dangerous. Antiquity lacked any genu- ine conception of humanity. The worth of man as man, a wor^h shared by all, even by foreigners and barba- rians, which remains inamissible for all, even the most degraded criminal, which is to be honored in all, even in enemies, this was a truth hidden from the heathen. Here, too, was the root of slavery, which prevailed everywhere in Antiquity, and was considered by Greeks and Romans as a perfectly justifiable and indispensable mstitution. V. SLAVERY. A slave was not regarded by the ancients as a man, he had neither a free will nor any claim whatever to 132 SLAVBBY. [BOOK . justice, nor any capacity for virtue. Plato, the noblest thinker of antiquity, wavers somewhat on th:s subject. He concedes that there are slaves who have practised virtue, and who have saved their masters by sacrificing themselves; he affirms that the question how slavery shall be estimated is a difficult one, but comes at last tc the conclusion that it is a natural institution since Nature herself has destined some to bear rule, others to serve. Aristotle admits no objections at all. In a well-arranged household, he thinks, there are two sorts of instruments — inanimate and animate. The former are slaves without souls, the latter (slaves) are instru- ments with souls. But though a soul is thus attributed to slaves, it is explained to be imperfect, it is a sou. without will. The Romans speak in precisely the same way. Florus ^^ characterizes the slaves as another race of men. According to Varro,^ in his work on Agricul ture, there are three kinds of implements for tillage, those that are dumb, e.g. wagons, those that utter in- articulate sounds, e.g. oxen, and those that talk. The last are slaves. Even a man like Cicero does not rise above this. When his slave Sositheus, to whom he was much attached, died, he wrote to Atticus : " Sositheus is dead, and his death has moved me more than the death of a slave should," ^^ just as we sometimes apolo gize for ourselves when troubled by the death of a dog or a canary-bird. The Praetor Domitius caused a sla\R who made the mistake on a hunt of killing a boar a : the wrong time, to be crucified as a punishment for ]iitn offence. Cicero passes merely this judgment there- upon : *' This might, perhaps, seem harsh." ^ These views were impressed with the greatest dis- tinctness on the Roman law. The slave was not a per CHAP, n.] POSITION OF THE SL^l VB. 138 son, but only a thing whose owner had in it all the rights of property, the right to use it or misuse it. The slave himself had no rights.^^ He could not hold prop- erty. Whatever he had belonged to his master. Hence he could not be prosecuted by the latter for theft. If a slave stole any thing from his owner, it was still his master's. He could contract no marriage, nor could any action be brought against him for adultery. Nei- ther paternity nor kinship could be affirmed of him. The words might be used ; it might be said, the slave has a father, or relatives, but such language had no legal meaning.^* His testimony was inadmissible in a court of juslJice. If his deposition was needed, he was subjected to torture. Only in this way could his evi- dence have weight. Though in many cases the actual treatment of slaves was milder than the laws, it corresponded in the main to the principles which have been stated. Slaves were bought and sold, given away as presents and ex- changed, inherited and bequeathed, according to caprice or need. They were also lent and hired out. If the hirer treated a slave badly, if a slave suffered an injury, was maimed, or any thing of the sort, this was regarded simply as deterioration of property. The loss was made up to the owner, and the matter was considered as adjusted ; no inquiry was made respecting the slave himself. The slave-market was managed as w'th us the cattle-market. The slaves, male and female, stood ':here, the more valuable ones apart, often upon a raised plat- form, those of less price in gangs. The vendor cried up his wares, and r<^ed all sorts of means to make them better looking ; the Duyers looked at them, handled and felt them, to be sure they were sound. The slaves 134 SLAYEBY. [BOOK I were required to walk, run, leaj», open their mouths, show their teeth, etc. When purchased they were assigned, according to ability or opportunity, to some handicraft or art, to agriculture or to begging, or even to the gladiatorial sports and the brothel. As porters they were chained in front of the gate as with us a house dog,^^ and at night were shut up in the ergastula like animals in stalls. Like them they were branded and marked ;^^ they were also flogged and crucified, often on the least occasion.^^ So long as there was any hope of profit from them they were spared, and when dead they were cast into a pit with dead animals, unless indeed they had been previously exchanged, according to Cato's advice, for old oxen and cows.^ As to-day a course of instruction in veterinary science forms a part of the education of a farmer, so then a large proprietor was obliged to have some knowledge of medicine for the treatment of sick slaves. Gener- ally the old and diseased were turned off without con- cern, or they were killed outright as one kills a brute beast. In the city of Rome they were usually exposed on an island in the Tiber. Claudius enacted a law that those thus exposed should be free, and if they got well should not be obliged to return to their masters. Who- ever killed his slaves, instead of exposing them, might be indicted for it.^^ Not that the slaves were systematically abused. They were so much property, a costly capital, to be managed with the greatest economy. But the owners of this capital, regardless of the fact that it consisted of human beings, sought to make it as profitable as possible. Therefore they exacted the maximum of labor while they gave only the minimum of what was CHIP. n.I HAED LOT OP THE SLAVES. 185 absolutely necessary for maintenance. The meanest laborer to-day is infinitely better off than the slave of that time. The hardest lot was that of the slaves who cultivated the fields. There were many thousands of them, for the extensive plantations of the Roman magnates were carried on solely by slaves. It appears that a rich Roman, C. Caecilius Claudius Isidorus, left over four thousand slaves, and others certainly had no less. But few had liberty of motion, and these found a dwelling, perchance, as Cato directed, near the feeding-place in the ox-stall. The majority worked in chains, and then spent the night on the damp ground of the ergastur lum. These ergastula were slave-prisons, partially under- ground, filthy and unhealthy. Augustus once had them investigated, not however, as we should suppose, in the interest of humanity, but simply for the purpose of ascertaining whether strangers might not be unlaw- fully imprisoned in them. Nothing was said about improving the lot of the slaves, although the horrors of their condition were fully disclosed. Worse, if possi- ble, was the state of the slaves who worked in the city in great factories, or who were otherwise employed. The field-slave enjoyed at least the free air ; but they, scantily clothed, their heads haK shorn, their breasts branded, were compelled to toil all day in the low work-house without respite. On the other hand the position of house-slaves, of whom there were often many hundreds in the palaces of Rome, was more tolerable. They were sometimes, especially at the Imperial court, persons of position and wealth, and had, even as slaves, and still more as freedmen, great influence with their masters. Still their lot too was 136 SLAVERY. [BOOK l hard, and in many cases horrible. Dumb and fasting such a slave must stand whole nights long behind the chair of his carousing master, wipe off his spittle or quickly remove his drunken vomit. Woe to him if by whispering, or even by sneezing or coughing, he dis- turbed the peace of the feaster. He was exposed to every caprice of his owner. A word, and he was sent to the field-slaves m the prisons on one of his master's numerous estates, or scourged till blood came, or horribly killed, or thrown as food to the fishes. Caligula caused a slave who had made some trifling mistake at a public spectacle, to be thrown into prison, tortured for several days in succession, and then executed when at last the putrefying brain of the poor wretch diffused too strong an odor for the cruel monster. A Roman magnate con- demned a slave, who carelessly broke a valuable vase at a banquet in the presence of Augustus, to be thrown to the fishes, and not even the Emperor's intercession could save him. Not merely the arbitrariness of a capricious master, but the law also dealt thus rigor- ously with the slaves. According to the old Roman law, when a master was killed in his house, the slaves who had passed the night under his roof were all exe- cuted if the murderer was not discovered. This law was still in force as late as the time of the Empire. When, under Nero, the city prefect Pedanius Secundus was murdered, four hundred slaves of every sex and age, down even to the smallest children, were put to death. To be sure opposition arose in the Senate, but a senator of distinction, C. Cassius, made a speech iii favor of the old usage with such effect that the Senate decided to carry the law rigorously through, and it was even proposed to render it ^till more severe by CHAP, n.] SPEECH OF CASSIUS. 137 requiring that all freedmen who had been in the house should be banished from Italy. The speech of Caiuj^ Cassius, preserved by Tacitus, gives us a deep insight into the customs of that age, as well as into the per- nicious consequences of slavery. He reminded his hearers of the danger to which all masters of slaves would be exposed if the ancestral usage should in this case be forsaken. Whom will his own dignity secure when that of the prefecture of the city has been of no avail? Whom will the number of his slaves defend when four hundred have not protected Pedanius Secundus? It is impossible that the murderer could have planned and executed the deed without excilr ing suspicion. The slaves in the house must ha^e observed some indications of the crime, but they haie not divulged. The slaves must be brought to do th?8 by fear. " If the slaves disclose we can live single among many, safe among the anxious, and, if we must perish, be not unavenged among the guilty. The di's- positions of slaves were regarded with suspicion by our ancestors even when they were born on the same estates, or in the same houses with them, and from infancy had experienced the love of their masters. Now, however, when we have nations among our slavoa with various rites, with foreign religions, or none at aL, it is not possible to control such a rabble except by fear." Thus mistrust on the part of the masters and feai oi: the part of the slaves, were the principles in accord ance with which the slave-holders, and in their interest :he State also, were obliged to act. Should the objec tioi: be raised that thus innocent persons would perish, Cassius replies : " When every tenth person in a de- feated army is put to death, some who have been brave 188 SLAVERY. [BOOK I. draw the fatal lot. Every great example has pome- thing unjust in it, but this is counterbalanced by the public good." 7^ Never has an opponent of slavery set forth its demor alizing effects so clearly as did the representative of the slave-holders on this occasion in the Senate. The influ- i ence of slavery was necessarily disastrous on the morals of the higher classes. A man can exercise dominion over a brute without degradation, for it is subordinated to him, but to govern his fellow-man like a beast must lower him morally, for, since no restraint is laid upon him, he is always in danger of giving the reins to his passions. Slavery made masters cruel and hard, and not seldom even women, renouncing the gentleness oi their sex, took pleasure in torturing their female slaves. Among their slaves the masters found pliant tools for every deed of shame, otherwise sins against purity especially could never have become so excessive and appalling. The low position of woman in Antiquity was also a consequence of slavery. Its effects upon children were even more injurious. They were wholly abandoned to the care of the slaves. The slave had no authority and was ready to please the child in every \ thing, otherwise he had reason to fear the anger of his master, or mistress. There must have been many a father who exclaimed to his slave like the father in the comedy: "Wretch, thou hast ruined my son!" The worst result of slavery was, that every form of honor- able labor was despised, and became, as a service of Slaves, a disgrace. Slavery did not allow the formation of a middle class, and so the check was wanting which might have restrained the wider diffusion of the moral ruin pre\alent among the higher orders. That Id CHAP. n.1 PERNICIOUS EFFECTS OF SLAVERY. 139 Rome the corruption proceeding from the Imperial court and a debased aristocracy penetrated so quickly and so deeply the entire people, is due, in no slight degree, to slavery. The slaves, in return, became what their treatment made them. As they were deemed incapable of any virtue, and arbitrarily and capriciously treated, so they became low-minded, lazy, lying, and treacherous. The sly, perfidious slave is a constantly recurring character in Greek as well as Roman comedy. No one thought of improving the slaves morally. There was but one virtue for them, — absolute obedience to their masters, for good or for ill. A slave had no moral responsibility whatsoever. Conversely, the slaves looked upon their masters as only their enemies, and were inclined, when- ever opportunity occurred, to revenge and insurrection. So many slaves as a man has, so many foes has he, was a saying often heard. The freedmen were another very bad and pernicious element in the life of the Roman people. They were exceedingly numerous. During the civil wars many slaves had served in the army and had been rewarded by the victor with their liberty. Manumissions fre- quently occurred, also, in other ways ; occasionally from attachment and gratitude, oftener from self-interest, — IS those who were enfranchised had to furnish a ransom, or pay a heavy tax, from their earnings to their mas- ters, — and from vanity, in order that great throngs of freedmen might parade in the funeral procession of their master. It became necessary to restrict manu- missions by special laws. All classes of the population were fiUed with freedmen. From them were recruited the lower officials, mechanics, and tradesmen. Soma 140 SLAVERY. [BOOK i acquired large wealth and shone as parvenus by a prod^ igality as senseless as extravagant. Many remained in the families of their former masters as valets, secre- taries, or stewards, and played an important part, not merely in the houses of Roman magnates, but also at the Imperial court. The free Roman shunned every relation which implied service. He deemed it a dis- grace even to serve the Emperor, and would rather be fed by the State as a proletary. Consequently the Emperors were obliged to seek their servants among the freedmen. The posts of secretaries, and treasurers, were regularly held by them under the Julian Emperors, and more than once freedmen actually ruled the State. Still the stain of their birth always clung to them ; they never attained to the dignity of a freeman, and consequently did not possess the character and spirit of a freeman, but even as freed remained servile. Among them tyrants found their most manageable tools, and from their ranks helpers for every deed of violence could easily be obtained. At home in all classes of the population, they were specially influential in the diffusion of moral contagion. We should, indeed, err, if we supposed that in Antiquity no one thought of the rights of the slaves as human beings. Such a sentiment is clearly and beau- tifully expressed by the older Greek poets. " Many a slave bears the infamous name whose mind, neverthe- less, is freer than theirs who are not slaves," says Eurip- ides,'^^ and another Greek poet"^ says yet more posi- tively : " Though he be a slave, he is, O master, none the less a man." The Stoic school with much greater eneigy began to advocate the human rights of the slave Thid was a coisenuence of its doctrine of the unity of CfHAP. 1A.J HUMANER SENTIMBNTS. 141 mankind " Man is a sacred thing to man," says Sen- eca : " we are all formed from the same elements* and have the same destiny." "^^ "He errs who thinks that slavery takes possession of the whole man. His better part is excepted. Bodies are subject to masters, the soul remains free." ^^ He regards it as a misfortune if a man is born a slave, but this is not a determination of nature, and in one place he calls the slaves his " hum- ble friends." ^^ We shall see, further on, that such thoughts became increasingly prevalent in the heathen world, and more and more transformed Roman laws and customs. But at first they had little influence. Slavery was held to be absolutely necessary, and there- fore justifiable. Notwithstanding all that was said, it had on its side established usage, law, and public opinion."^^ Not until men were taught that whom the Son makes free, they are free indeed, not till He was pro- claimed who Himself took the form of a servant and died the death of a slave on the cross, did the full day of liberty begin to break for slaves, a day which neither the theories of the Stoics, nor Seneca's fine words respecting the dignity of man, could ever have brought. Much is said, at the present time, about humanity, and it is opposed to Christianity as something higher, or at least it is brought forward as a substitute for Christian- ity which is assumed to be in a state of decrepitude. This is wholly to forget that true humanity is the prod- uct of Christianity ."^^ VI. THE NEED OF MORAL RENEWAI« A gloomy picture has imrolled itself before us. I am conscious that I have not designedly painted it toe 142 NEED OF MORAL RENEWAL. [book i dark, but that it may not seem blacker than the reality, let us not forget that in the midst of this fearful cor- ruption some sounder elements must still have existed. Otherwise the Roman Empire could not have stood so long as it did. What we know of its moral life is derived chiefly from Rome itself, and unquestionably there, at the centre, the corruption was greatest, whilst in the provinces, and in the camps of the legions, it had not made so great progress. From thence accorc' ingly came a reaction, which brought to the Empire, when the Julian house had passed away, a brilliant after-smnmer under the noble Emperors of the second century. We must remember, also, that in accounts concerning that time, as all others, the unfavorable aspects are very naturally the most emphasized. For goodness has always but little to say about itself, and in times of declension is peculiarly apt to be quiet. We may safely assume, therefore, that even then there were peaceful, decorous homes into which corruption had not penetrated, where the labor of the hands pro- cured the simple fare, and the discreet house-wife reared her children as a good mother. Yet when all this is taken into account, the general conclusion must still be that the heathen world was ethically as well as reli- giously at the point of dissolution, that it had become aa bankrupt in morals as in faith, and that there was no power at hand from which a restoration could proceed. It has indeed recently been affirmed that the corrup- tion of morals was not worse then than at many other periods ; and parallels from later centuries have been adduced in justification of this assertion. Without doubt there are such. The court of Louis XIV., and those of the princes of his day, afford many a counter^ CHAP, n.] RELIGION AND MORALITY. 143 part to tlie Imperial court in Rome. Yet two things should not be overlooked. First, that at no other period has moral corruption been so universal as in that of the Emperors. At the time when the greatest dissoluteness prevailed in the court at Versailles, what simplicity and strictness characterized the life of the people I Such an entire stratum of population not yet open to corruption, no longer existed in Rome. Sec- ondly, — and this is of chief importance, — for Chris- tian nations there is provided in Christianity a power which can restore the moral life again and again from the deepest degradation. The ancient world was desti- tute of any such power. After its palmy age — a time of comparative soundness — was gone, after corruption had once entered, it degenerated beyond recovery. Heathenism bore within itself no power of moral renewal. Or, where can such a power be supposed to have resided ? In Religion ? We shall see that later, towards the end of the second century, there occurred a strong reaction of pagan faith. In place of the unbe- lief which prevailed in the first century, superstition gained the ascendancy, and this change reacted upon mcrals; but reaction is not regeneration. Though the pagan faith once more arose in might, and ap peared, especially against Christianity, as an impor- tant power, it could not effect a moral transformation., because the relation which subsisted between heathen faith and morality was wholly unlike that which exists between Christian faith and Christian life. There was indeed a connection. The gods were regarded by the heathen as the protectors of the moral law ; they pun- ished evil and rewarded goodness. But there was thia 144 NEED OF MORAX. RENEW AX.. [book i great difference between the two systems : the heathen deities were neither the authors of the moral law nor its exemplars. Just as little could they impart strength for its fulfilment. On the contrary, judged by its requirements, the gods themselves were the most hein- ous transgressors. What immoralities do the pagan myths relate of the gods, and instances are by no means wanting in which the heathen appeal, in justifica- tion of their iniquities, to the examples of the gods. Looking up to them had a demoralizing, rather than a purifying, effect. " If I could only catch Aphrodite ! " once exclaimed Antisthenes, a friend of Socrates, "I would pierce her through with a javelin, she has cor- rupted so many of our modest and excellent women." ^^ In the writings of Terence ^^ an adulterer expressly pleads the example of Jupiter, an incident assuredly not merely invented, but taken from life. " If a god does it," so he concludes, " why should not I, a man ? " From such deities no purifying influence could proceed. For his moral life the pagan was referred wholly to himself. This is the reason why there was no virtue in which the ancient world was so deficient as humil- ity. It was utterly incomprehensible to a Greek or a Roman, for such virtues as he possessed were self- acquired without divine aid. Therefore he was proud of them, and boasted of them even in comparison with the gods. The Stoics deemed themselves as good as the gods. Even Seneca, who complains so often about human frailty, says : " Give your whole mind to Philos- ophy, be absorbed in it, cultivate it, and you will far surpass all other men, and be little inferior to the gods." ^ StiU more characteristic is the maxim also to be found in the writings of Seneca : " Admire only thy- CHAP, n.] THE STATE AND MORALITY. 146 self." ®' Repentance, renewal througli contrition, were to the heathen utterly strange ideas. This is the pro- foundest reason why a reactionary movement might proceed from the heathen religion, but not a moral recovery, not a regeneration. Or could such a restoration emanate from the State? This preserved, unquestionably, the best which that age had. There still remained, in a good degree, the old Roman bravsry, patriotism, and readiness to make sacri- fices for the public good. Among the legions which along the Rhine protected the frontier 5rom the barba- rians already storming against it, and which more than once bore their victorious eagles to Germany and beyond the sea to Britain, and on the North and East extended the boundaries of the Empire, making theii camps at the same time centres of civilization, some- thing of the old spirit still survived. For this reason the sovereignty naturally fell into their hands, and it was the soldier Emperors who had grown up in the camps, who, for a while, kept the structure of the old civilization fi'om falling to pieces. But from this source a moral renewal could not come. The State was sick to the very marrow, and this dominion of soldiers was itself only a symptom of the disease. What the State lacked was the bond of conscience, which secures the obedience of citizens to the laws not merely from com- pulsion, but for conscience' sake. No State can exist without sj'ibmission to the laws, but woe to the State which endeavors to secure this result simply by force, and whose citizens no longer render a willing obedience from conscientious regard to its authority. The heathen faith, the dread of the avenging deities, had been such a moral bond. This bond was loosened and £46 NEED OF MORAIi BENEWAIi. [book l from day to day became increasingly relaxed, the more religion declined. The State itself needed regenera- tion, if it was not to fall asunder ; and the nobler Empe- rors of the later time, even down to Diocletian, sought for a religions basis, on which alone such regeneration was possible, sought for a new bond of conscience with which to unite again what was falling apart. They found none. Religion can quicken the life of the State 80 that it may flourish anew after temporary decay, but the process cannot be reversed. Never can the moral and religious life of a people be restored by any powers at the command of the State. There remains Philosophy. Often looked upon dis trustfully by the first Emperors, often persecuted out- right because it was suspected that behind the philoso- pher was a republican, it grew in favor, until, in the person of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher, it ascended the Imperial throne. It became indispensable to the culture of a Roman noble to frequent the schools of the philosophers. Such schools were promoted in every way, and even the salaries for their teachers were provided by government. The more philosophy was absorbed in ethics, and the philosopher's task was not merely to teach but to train in virtue, so much the more prevalent became the custom of taking Buch persons into families, and the house-philosopher became as regular an appendant of a household cf rank as in the Middle Ages the castle-chaplain. The family philosopher, like a father confessor or pastor, was expected to be ready with counsel for those in- trusted to his charge, and to impart consolation in the hour of death. This was a need which doubtless fipened a way for Christianity, by which alone it co aid raAP. n.] rHILOSOPHY AND MORALITY. 147 be truly satisfied. The phUosopliers discoursed even in the streets. In the midst of the tumult of sen- sual pleasures, to which the world was devoted, the roices of the Cynics rang out, proclaiming renuncia- tion, and freedom from wants, as the way to peace. Not unlike the mendicant monks of the Middle Ages, they roved about without fixed habitation or family, often clad in a ragged mantle or simply a bear-skin, with unkempt hair and shaggy beard, a wallet slung over the shoulders, and alms their only means of support. In the Forum they stopped the rich to declare to them that nothing is more unhappy than a man who has never met with any thing untoward ; on the street they stood in the midst of the rabble and discoursed of the corrup- tion of the world. Often they were rewarded only with taunts, or even a cudgelling, but they took it calmly, for, they said, it is the will of the Deity, to which all things must be subordinated and sacrificed. Certainly these phenomena make us feel that the old world was not contented with its condition. Here too its longing and yearning for renewal are apparent, and just as really, its inability of itself to bring this to pass. What sort of persons usually were these preach- ers of repentance ? They inculcated renunciation and virtue, but if one offer them a piece of cake, mocks a contemporary, they lower their speech and evince their greatness of soul by accepting nothing small. And though there were nobler figures among the plmcao- phers than these philosophasters, what was it, after all, that was cultivated in their schools ? Rhetoric, nothing more. They discoursed about virtue, oh with how many fine words, with what art of facial expression and of gesture; they declpzmed without end upon the old 148 NEED OF MORAL RENEWAL. tBa>K i themes ; " Death is no evil," " The wise man who kec^a himself free from all needs is the happy man ; " the old examples were praised; men plumed themselves upon the splendor of their own virtue; but in reality all this (as we have already seen in the case of Seneca) was mere words. How a man attains to the virtue which is praised so much, how he becomes another man, how he conquers death, no one of those who talked so finely could really tell. Upon the people Philosophy had at first no influence at all. They were even despised by these proud professors of an esoteric wisdom, and deemed incapable of any higher culture and virtue. "With its empty heaven, its single doc- trine of duty, its sole reward in a satisfied conscience, its proud bearing toward the gods, from whom it asked nothing, and the annihilation which it contemplated without trembling. Stoicism was made for select souls, not for the masses."^ For the heathen Philosophy can be claimed neither the glory which St. Paul ascribes to the preaching of the cross, that it was not in lofty words, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, nor that of the Gospel, that it was preached to the poor. Thus there was nowhere to be found a power com- petent to the gigantic task of a moral renewal of the ancient world. This power must come from another source, from above. When to those who " were some- times foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another," the kindness and love toward man of God our Saviour appeared, then was first opened the fountain from which a new and healthful life flowed forth for diseased humanity ; then the Gospel gathered OHAP. II.] POWBB FROM ABOVE 149 communions the opposite of that which the heathen world had become, modest, chaste, diligent, their affec- tions set upon things above, the salt of the earth, the light of the world. But obviously the more corrupt the world was in the midst of which they stood, the more terrible must have been the conflict, until, in place of the old pagan world, appeared a new Christian world, in which indeed sin is always present, and moral- ity is only fragmentary, but in which grace is mightier than sin, in which the powers of the world to come rule as powers of regeneration, and in which, therefore, we can say: We were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived ; we were, but are so no more. To God be praise and thanksgiving ! CHAPTER in. THE CHEISTIANS. " T%6it ye may be without rebuke, in the midst of a crooks andperovrm nation, umong whom ye shine as lights in the world.'* — 'Phil. ii. 16. I. THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL. Never in the whole course of human history have two so unequal powers stood opposed to each other as ancient Heathenism and early Christianity, the Roman State and the Christian Church. Apparently, the weakest of forces confronted the strongest. Remem- ber the enormous power concentrated in the Roman Empire ; consider not merely the material resources of the State, but, also, that Heathenism had possession of every sphere of life, public and private, that it filled the State and the family, and ruled all culture, and bear in mind, besides, the tenacious power dwelling in a cultus which has prevailed for centuries. Contrast with this the Christian Church as it was in its begin- nings, totally destitute of all this might, possessing nei- ther political power nor wealth, neither art nor science, a little company, in the world's judgment, of unlearned men, fishermen, publicans, tent-makers, with only the 150 CHAP. ra.j ASSURANCE OP VIOTOBT. 161 word of the cross, the message that the promised Messiah has appeared, that in the crucified and riser? One there is salvation for all peoples. Verily, the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, small and insignificant ; is like leaven, little as compared with the mass of the meal ; but it is a living seed, it is a transforming leaven, it bears within itself an energy which is not of this world, and therefore ia mightier than the whole world. Think once more of Paul on the Areopagus in Athens. The glory of the ancient world surrounds him, before his eyes are the noblest works of art which Greece has produced, the Propylaea, the Parthenon, the masterpieces of a Phidias. In his wanderings through this city of ancient renown he has seen the numerous temples, the altars and images of the gods, and the zeal with which they are worshipped. Around him are philosophers reared in the schools of Grecian wisdom, Epicureans and Stoics, proud of their wisdom, masters of form and style. And yet tliis Jewish tent-maker stands forth and preaches to them that all this belongs to a past time, that now a new era has begun, and offers to make known to them something before which all that glory fades, all their worship proves futile, and all their wisdom is as foolishness. Such language expressed more than human courage ; there was in it a joyfulness such as could have sprung only from the certainty of pos- sessing in the Gospel a divine power able to cope with all those earthly forces, an assurance to which this same Apostle gives expression when he writes to the Corinthians (1 Cor. i. 25) : " The foolishness of God ia wiser than men, and the weakness of God is strongei than men." 152 THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL. [book i From the beginning Christianity bore within itseli the consciousness of universal dominion, and the full assurance of victory over all the powers of the world " Ye are the salt of the earth, ye are the light of the world ! " the Lord had said to the disciples, and, " Go ye and make disciples of all the nations," was his part- ing command. So they went forth to conquer the world for Him to whom they belonged, admitting no doubt that the victory would be theirs. " Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world I " and "our faith is the victory which hath overcome the world ! " exclaims John ; and in proof that the Chris- tians, even after the times of the Apostles, in the midst of a conflict to human view so unequal, held fast this joyful assurance, it will be enough to recall the beauti- ful words of the Epistle to Diognetus : " What the soul is in the body, that are Christians in the world. The soul is diffused through all the members of the body, Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, yet is not of the body, so Christians dwell in the world, yet are not of the world. The soul is imprisoned in the body, yet it holds the body together ; so Christians are co&fined in this world as in a prison, yet they hold the world together." ^ In truth all that Christianity had to oppose to the whole might of Heathenism was simply the word, the testimony, of Christ. But this testimony was preached from a living faith, with demonstration of the Spirit and of power, and was accompanied by the testimony of life and conduct as a palpable proof for all, of the transforming and renewing power inherent in this word. The preaching of the love of God in Christ approved CHAP, in.] IMPRESSION UPON THE HEATHEN. 163 itself in the practice of love to the brethren, and what Christians confessed they sealed in suffering with their blood. Ye shall testify of me ! was the Master's com- mission to His disciples, and thus He pointed out to them the way to overcome the world. The early (/hris- tians were also witnesses, and testifying of Christ by word and life, in their love and suffering they won the victory ; or rather. He Himself conquered through His witnesses. In the Roman Catacombs among the oldest pictures, which certainly are as early as the second century, there is a representation of the gift of water in the desert as Moses smites the rock with his rod, and the people, with vessels for drinking, press round the gushing water.2 The picture unquestionably reflects the impression made at that time by the preaching of the word. In the barren wilderness of Heathenism where men had sought and dug for water so long that at last they were in despair of finding any, now welled freshly forth the fountain of living water springing up into everlasting life, and thus many a soul among the heathen thirsting for truth, many a seeker after wisdom in the schools of the philosophers, in the temples of gods the most diverse, or in Jewish houses of prayer, found here his deepest longing satisfied. We possess two narratives of the conversion of heathen, which although not belonging to the very earliest period, are yet admirably adapted to show us the unpression made by Christian truth upon suscepti- ble spirits, and the ways in which they came to it. One of these narratives is contained in a kind of romance from the middle of the second century, the sio-called Clementine Homilies, in which ostensibly Clem 154 THE PEEACHINQ OP THE GOSPEL. Lbook i ent of Rome relates to us his history. " From my ear- liest youth," he says, "I thought much concerning death, and of what may be after death. When I die shall I cease to exist and be remembered no more? Has the world been made, and what was there before it was made ? In order to learn something definite about these and similar questions, I used to resort to the schools of the philosophers. But nought else did I see chan the setting up and knocking down of doctrines, and strifes and contentions, and artificial reasonings and invention of premises. Now the opinion pre- vailed that the soul is immortal, now that it is mortal. If the former I was glad, if the latter I was sorrowful. Perceiving that opinions were deemed true or false according to the ability of those who maintaiaed them, and not according to their real nature, I was more than ever perplexed. Wherefore I groaned from the depths of my soul. For neither was I able to establish any thing, nor could I refrain from solicitude concerning such themes. And again I said to myself: Why do I labor in vain ? If I am not to live after death, I need not distress myself now while I am alive. I will reserve my grief till that day when, ceasing to exist, I shall cease to be sad. But if I am to exist, of what advan- tage is it to me now to distress myself? And immedi- ately another thought came to me. Shall I not suffer worse there than now ? If I do not live piously, shall I not be tormented like Sisyphus and Ixion and Tan- talus ? And again I replied : But there is no ti-uth in such stories. But if there be ? Therefore, said I, since the matter is uncertain, it is safer for me to live piously. But I am not fully persuaded what is t?iat righteous thing that is pleasing to God, neither do I kno\f caatAF. ra.J STOBY OF CLEMENT. JUSTIN MARTYE. 156 whether the soul is immortal or mortal, nor do I find any sure doctrine, nor can I abstain from such reason- ings. What am I to do ? I will go into Egypt, and seek and find a magician, and will persuade hini with large bribes to conjure up a soul. And so I shall learn by ocular proof whether the soul is immortal." From this purpose he was dissuaded by a friendly philosopher, on the ground that the gods are angry with those who disturb the dead. Clement therefore remained without relief, until, hearing of Christ and his Apostles, he determined to seek them. He first found Barnabas, and was greatly impressed by the fact that in his preaching, Barnabas did not concern himself with the objections of the philosophers, their subtle questions and their ridicule of his simple and illogical discourses, but calmly declared such things as he had heard and seen Jesus do and say, and substantiated his statements by witnesses instead of by artificial demonstrations. Afterwards he found Peter, obtained from him a sure answer to his questions, and became a Christian. All this is only fiction, but the colors of the picture were certainly taken from life, and the imaginary narrative of Clement was doubtless the actual history of many. In a similar manner Justin Martyr tells us of his fruitless wanderings through the schools of the philoso- phers in search of certainty and peace of mind. A Stoic, under whose instruction he first placed himself, asserted that the sure knowledge of God, which Justin chiefly longed for, was a subordinate question of philo- sophical speculation. A Peripatetic, of whom he next inquired, demanded, after a few days, as of primary importance, that he should settle the fee. This repelled Justin, and he went to a Pythagorean, who dismissed 156 THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL. [book i him immediately, because he had no knowledge of music, geometry and astronomy, an acquaintance with which the Pythagorean declared was pre-requisite to the study of philosophy, since they are the means by which the soul absorbed in earthly things may be purified. Justin then turned to a Platonist, and supposed that he had reached the goal, for his teacher introduced him to the Platonic doctrine of ideas, and the pupil already dreamed that he had become a sage and was near to the vision of Deity. Then, walking alone one day on the shore of the sea, he met an old man, a mature Christian, and fell into conversation with him on divine things. The venerable man showed him that God can be per- ceived only by a mind sanctified by the Spirit of God, and so affected him that all at once his proud dream of knowledge vanished. The old man, seeing his conster- nation, pointed him to the divine Word as the source of all true knowledge of God, and began to tell him of Christ. Following these hints, Justin found in Chris- tianity that sure knowledge of God which he had sought for in vain in the different schools of philoso- phers.^ Doubtless, what principally attracted the heathen and held them fast, was the fact that with the Christians was to be found full assurance of faith on the basis of a divine revelation. They did not ask : What is truth? but they preached: "Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." They did not dispute pro and contra as in the schools, nor was their final conclusion that we can know nothing with certainty, but: " That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes and our hands have handled of the word of life, that declare we unto you." They did not prate about trifles like een given for the sake of the living God, and that He might be praised therefor. If a Christian had occasion to borrow money, the note which he must sign would contain an oath by the heathen gods. He could only refuse to execute the note." CHIP, m.] DIFFICULT POSITION OF CHRISTIANS. 173 Many special relations of life brought the Christiana into still more difficult situations. A master would order a Christian slave to do something wholly unob- jectionable from a heathen point of view, but sinful according to a Christian standard, and yet the slave was completely in the power of his master, who co'ild have him, if disobedient, tortured and even killed. How should the Christian wife, who had a heathen husband, fulfill her Christian obligations, attend divine worship, visit the sick, entertain strangers, distribute alms, without offending her husband ? How could the officer, or the soldier, perform his duties without deny- ing his faith ? For long the two callings were deemed incompatible, and the officer preferred to resign his position, the soldier to leave the ranks, rather than to give up his Christian profession.^^ Those who could not do this were often obliged to purchase fidelity to their Lord with their blood. Many a person also, in order to become and to remain a Christian must have relinquished the trade or the employment which pro- cured him a livelihood. All who had obtained a sup- port by the heathen cultus, servants and laborers in the temples, idol-makers, sellers of incense, as well as actors, fencing-masters in th j gladiatorial schools, etc., were admitted by the chureA to baptism only on con- dition that they should abandon their occupations, and whoever as a Christian engaged in such employments was excluded from fellowship.^^ Generally the churches maintained a strict discipline. The morals and conduct of church members were care fully watched over, and their faults earnestly reproved. Those who fell into gross sins, the so-called mortal Bins, — idolatry, blasphemy, adultery, impurity, mup 174 CONDUCT OF THE CHRISTIANS. r»OOK » der, fraud, false testimony, — were separated from the church. Only after a long probation, and after evi- dence of earnest lepentance, could such offenders be re-admitted. And this restoration, in accordance with earlier usage, was possible but once. Whoever fell away a second time, could not again be taken back. Til us by strict discipline the church endeavored to keep itself free from impure elements, and at the same time to offer support to the weak. In spite of such effort it was not wholly free from corruption, and no little weakness comes to light. The primitive church was not a perfect communion of saints, but, like the church of all other times, a field in which the wheat and the tares grew together. Yet, notwithstanding these de- fects the Christian churches stood like far-shining lights in the midst of darkness, and proved themselves by their life and conduct new powers of life, powers of the world to come, capable of renewing from within the old and decaying world. If human society was to be really regenerated, it was necessary that the foundations should be laid anew. These lie in marriage, and in the family. Mar- ried and domestic life had fallen into decay in the heathen world. Christianity re-established them by restoring freedom of marriage, by infusing mto it a new spirit, by showing again to the wife her divinely- appointed position, and by making her once more 1 er husband's helper instead of his slave. In Antiquity marriage, like every thing else, cen- tred in the State. Its end was to produce citizens. The individual, therefore, was under obligation to the State to marry, and the State, as already remarked, ieemed itself constrained to enforce the fulfillment of . m.] MARRIAGE. 176 this duty by penalties. Christianity made marriage free. It honored the liberty of the individual, and left it to him to decide whether he would marry or not. It honored also the unmarried state, and though we must concede that, in this respect, false and unevangelical opinions soon found acceptance, and an exaggerated estimate was put on the celibate life as peculiarly holy, a notion nowhere sanctioned in Scripture, yet it should not be overlooked that this regard for celibacy implies a conquest over the false and pagan conception of marriage. For contempt of marriage in favor of celibacy did not prevail until long afterwards. On the contrary mar- riage then first received its due honor by being recog- nized and treated as a divine institution. Matrimony was contracted with the privity and sanction of the church. Intended marriages were notified to the bish- op, and were entered upon with his blessing.^* Mar- riages which were concluded without the co-operation of the church were not regarded by it as true marriages. A higher aim was now set than Heathenism had ever known. " Marriage," says Clement of Alexandria,'^ " is a school of virtue for those who are thus united, de- signed to educate them and their children for eternity. Every home, every family must be an image of the church, for, says our Lord, where two 3^*=) gathered in my name there am I in their midst." A much closer and stronger tie now united husband and wife, the bond of a common faith. We find in Tertullian" a eulogy of Christian marriage in which he compares a complete union, where both parties, husband and wife, are Christians, with a mixed marriage where a Chris- tian wife is joined to a pagan husband. From his noble 176 CONDUOT OF THE CHRISTIA3!fS. [isOOK i words we see not only the high estimate put upon marriage, but also how it was elevated by being imbued with a Christian spirit. " How shall we fully describe that marriage which the church cements, the oblation confirms, and the benediction seals ; of which angels carry back the tidings, and which the Father regards as ratified? What a union is that of two believers, who have one hope, one rule of life, and one service ? They are brother and sister, two fellow-servants ; there is 110 difference of spirit or of flesh. Nay, they are truly two in one flesh. Where the flesh is one, one also is the spirit. Together they pray, together they pros- trate themselves, together they fast ; each teaching the other, each exhorting the other, each sustaining the other. They go together to the church of God, and to the Supper of the Lord. They share each other's tribulations, persecutions and refreshments. Neither hides aught from the other, neither shuns the other, neither is a burden to the other. The sick are visit- ed freely, the poor supported. Alms are given with* out constraint, sacrifices attended without scruple, the daily devotions held without hinderance; there is no stealthy signing with the cross, no trembling greeting, no mute benediction. In alternate song echo psalms and hymns; they vie with each other who best shall praise their God. When Christ sees and hears such things. He rejoices. To these He sends His own peace. Where two are, there also is He. Where He is, there the Evil One is not." In a house thus ordered, chil- dren could grow up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, and of such Christian families Clement of Alex- andria justlj- says : " The children glory in their mother, the husband in his wife, and she in them, and all in God."" fHAP m.J THE CHRISTIAN WIFE. 177 As the whole life of the people was founded npou that of the family, so this in turn depended upon the position held by the wife. It is true that in marriage the husband is the head according to divine institution, yet the character of domestic and family life is more determined by the wife than by the husband. For this reason no sound family life could exist in the pagan world, because the wife did not occupy her true place. Among the Greeks, she was the slave of her husband. Among the Romans, she was more highly honored, yet was destitute of rights apart from him. Full and perfect worth as a human being Antiquity never con- ceded to woman. Man alone possessed this dignity. Christianity freed woman from this enslaved and un- protected state by making her the equal of man in that which is supreme, the relation to Christ and the king- dom of God. They are "heirs together of the grace of life." "The husband and wife," so Clement of Alexandria expresses this thought, " may share equally in the same perfection." ^ All the rest follows of itself. Though the wife remains, as respects the natural life, subordinate to her husband, she is no longer his ser- vant, but his helper. "Thou didst not disdain that Thy only begotten Son should be born of a woman," says the consecrating prayer for deaconesses in the ancient church.^^ This fact, the birth of the Son of God from a woman, gave to woman a new position. [t is true that as God created her to serve, so this remained her calling in the church. She should not teach publicly in the church, for that would invest her with an authority which is not her lot. But since all is service in the church, even the office of teacher and that of ruler, there is implied in this no degradation of 178 CONDUCT OF THE CHRISTIANS [book l woman, but only the assignment to hei of a place corresponding to that divinely assigned hei in creation. Women emancipated from this divine order were a product of Paganism, though even in Rome, in the time of its decline, in spite of the low estimate put upon their sex, women who caroused with men through the night and fought in gladiatorial armor, made them- selves notorious. But as mothers who trained for the church its standard-bearers, as deaconesses in the ser- vice of mercy, as martyrs who vied with men for the immortal crown, serving everywhere, praying, toiling, enduring, women shared in the great conflict, and to them surely, in no small degree, was the victory due. Esteeming service to be her calling, and the service of Christ as her highest honor, it followed of course that a Christian matron no longer indulged in the extrava- gant and unnatural luxury of dress which characterized the high-born women of the time. She renounced all such display when she became a Christian, and hence- forth appeared, according to apostolic injunction, in neat and simple attire, gladly allowing it to be said : "She goes about in poorer garb since she became a Christian," ^^ conscious that she was really much richer, and that modesty, purity, simplicity and naturalness were her most attractive ornaments. She had no fur- ther occasion for her former splendor. She no longer f]'equented the temples and the theatre, no longer observed the pagan festivals. She ruled in the quiet of home; labored there with her hands, cared for her husband and children, and cheerfully and heartily dispensed the rites of hospitality.^^ When she went out she visited the sick, or went to church to bear the word of God and to celebrate the Eucharist, — CHAP, m.] SIMPLICITY OP CHRISTIAN WOMEN. ITS what need for finery there? And e;'en if she called upon her heathen friends, or accepted an invitation to the homes of heathen relatives, she was not ashamed even there to appear with entire simplicity. Going thus, to use TertuUian's words, armed with her own weapons, she showed that there is a difference between the servants of God and the servants of the Devil, and she was an example to others for their profiting, that God, according to the word of the Apostle, might be glorified in her body.*® There appeared in the ancient church a strong oppo- sition to the feminine luxury which had then reached so unexampled an excess. TertulKan *^ vehemently de- claims, and not he alone but other church teachers as well, against dyeing the hair, and all artificial head- gear I " The Lord has said : Which of you can make one hair white or black ? They refute God ! Be- hold! say they, instead of white or black hair we make it auburn " (then the fashionable color) " so that it is more attractive. Far from the daughters of Wis- dom be such folly ! What service does so much labor spent in arranging the hair render to salvation ? Why is no rest allowed to your hair, which must now be bound, now loosed, now raised up, now pressed flat? Some are anxious to force their hair into curls, others, with seeming yet not commendable simplicity, to let it fall loDse and flying. Beside which you affix I know not what enormities of false braids of hair, which now like a cap or helmet cover the head, now are massed backward toward the neck. I am very much mistaken if this is not contending against the precepts of the Lord. He has said that no man can add any thing to his stature. If the enormity does not cause yo i shame, let the J 80 CONBUCT OF THE CHRISTIANS. [book i impurity, lest you may be putting on a holy and Chris- tian head the hair which has been taken from the head of some one else, perhaps of an unclean person, guilty perchance, and destined to hell. Nay rather, banish from your free head all this slavery of ornamentation. In that day of Christian exultation I shall see whether you will rise with your white and red and yellow pig- ments, and in all that parade of head-gear; whether the angels will carry women thus tricked out to meet Christ in the air. Keep yourselves now from those things which are condemned. To-day let God see you such as He will see you then." TertuUian is zealous also, against the use of pig- ments. It is a sin, he says, for they who put on rouge desire to make themselves more beautiful than God has made them, and thus censure the Artificer of ,all things. He rejects purple garments, for if God had wished such to be worn. He would have created sheep with purple wool. Even garlands find no favor with Him. If God had wished for garlands. He would have caused not merely flowers but garlands to grow. This sounds strange to us, and it is unquestionably one-sided, yet it reveals a justifiable reaction against the unnatural- ness of the luxury of that day. Tertullian contends for simplicity and naturalness, in opposition to unnat- uralness and artificiality. "That which grows is the work of God, that which is artificial is the Devil's work," is a proposition which he is never weary of maintaining. Let us not forget all that among the heathen was connected with these arts of the toilet, and the horrors of licentiousness which "^hey served. A severe reaction was needed in order to restore the simplicity and modesty of feminine life. OHAP. m.] DEMANDS OF THE TIMES. 181 Lastly, let us consider the strenuousness of the times, and their demands upon a Christian wife. They were days of conflict, little suited to the cultivation of the beautiful, even to a legitimate extent. It was far more important to foster energy and courage. " Pleasures must be discarded whose softness may weaken the courage of faith. I know not whether the wrist, accustomed to a bracelet, will endure if the hard chain makes it stiff. I know not whether the leg will suffer itself to be fettered in the gyve, instead of by an anklet. I fear that the neck, hung with pearls and emeralds, will give no room to the broadsword. Wherefore, blessed of the Lord, let us meditate on hardships and we shall not feel them ; let us relinquish pleasant things and we shall not desire them; let us stand ready to endure every violence, having nothing which we may fear to leave behind. The days of Christians are always, and now more than ever, not golden but iron. The robes of martyrs are preparing, they are held up by angel bearers. Go forth, then, amply supplied with the cosmetics and ornaments of prophets and apostles, taking your dazzling whiteness from simplicity, and your ruddy hue from modesty; painting your eyes with bashfulness, and your mouth with silence ; inserting in your ears the words of God, and fastening on your necks the yoke of Christ. Sub- mit your head to your husbands, and you will be suffi- cisntly adorned. Busy your hands with spinning, and keep your feet at home, and hand and foot will please more than if arrayed in gold. Clothe yourselves with the silk of uprightness, the fine linen of holiness, the purple of modesty. Thus adorned you will have Gcd fc: your lover." *^ 182 CONDUCT OF THE CHRISTIANS. [book 1 The heathen often sneered at the large number of women in the Christian churches. They ct led Chris- tianity in contempt a religion for old women and children. But they were constrained to learn what Christianity made of these women, and to acknowledge, against their will, the difference between a heathen and a Christian woman. In the one case a passion foi finery, vanity, coquetry beyond measure, in the other ^iimplicity and naturalness ; there immodesty and shame- lessness, here chastity and propriety ; there women who divided their time between making and displaying their toilet, and who shone at the theatre and the circus, at dinner-parties and festivals, here wives who dressed to please their husbands, mothers who lived for their chil- dren ; there an enervated sex, painted, and spoiled by art, here heroines who paled not even at the sight of the lions in the amphitheatre, and calmly bent their necks to the sword. " What women there are among the Christians ! " exclaimed the astonished pagan Liba- nius. To children, also, the Gospel first gave their rights. They, too, in Antiquity were beyond the pale of the laws. A father could dispose of his children at will. If he did not wish to rear them, he could abandon or kill them. The law of the Twelve Tables expressly" awarded to him this right. Plato and Aristotle ap- proved of parents' abandoning weak and sickly cliil- dren, whom they were unable to support, or who coiild not be of use to the State. Whoever picked up a chi ^ who had been deserted could dispose of it, and treat it as a slave. The father's power over his children was limitless; life and death were at his disposal. Chris- tianity, on the contrary, taught parents that their chil- CHAP, m.] CHILDREN. FAMILY TV ORSHIP. 185 dren were a gift from God, a pledge intrusted to them for which thej were responsible to Him. It spoke not merely of the duties of children, but also of the duties of parents, and since it invested these, as representa- tives of God, with something of His majesty and honor, it appointed to them the lofty task of educating their baptized offspring as children of God, and for His king- dom. The baptism of children soon became customary, and thus they shared from their earliest years in the blessings of Christianity. The exposition of children was looked upon by Christians as plainly unlawful, — it was regarded and treated as murder. And though paternal authority was highly esteemed, there could no longer be any claim to an unconditional right over chil- dren after men had learned to look upon them as God's property. Every Christian home now became a temple of God, where His word was diligently read,*^ and prayer was offered with fidelity and fervor. " If thou hast a wife, pray with her," we read in one of the canons of the Egyptian Church, " let not marriage be a hinderance to prayer." ^ The singing of psalms and hymns was often heard. The day was opened with united reading of the Scriptures, and prayer, concluding with the Halle- lujah. Then all the members of the family gave each other the kiss of peace, and went to theii work. No meal was taken without a blessing. Each repast, how- ever simple, had something of the character of the holy Supper, the Eucharist.'*^ The day was closed by again joining in devotions. Under the name c' "The Candle Hymn," an ancient hymn has been preserved*^ as it was heard in Christian homes : — 184 CONDUCT OF THE CHRISTIANS. faooK l "Joyful Light of holy Glory, Of the Father everlasting, Jesus Christ I Having come to the setting of the sun, And seeing the evening light. We praise the Father, and the Son, And the Holy Spirit of God. Thou art worthy to be praised At all times, with holy voices. Son of Grod, who hast given life ; Therefore the world glorifieth Thee." No less did Christianity transform the relation be- iween masters and servants. It gave liberty to the jlave. "The grace of God that bringeth salvation aath appeared to all men " — before this announcement jlavery could not stand. Now it was proclaimed : '' There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond lor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus " (Gal. iii. 28). " Christian justice makes all equal who bear the name of man " is the ex- plicit statement of an ancient teacher in the Church.*^ [t is the Son who makes all free. As He delivered us from sin and the bondage of the law, so from Him also has come freedom for all the spheres of life. " Where "ihe Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty " (2 Cor. iii. 17). While the heathen valued a man according to his outward position, the Christian did not take this into account, a man's real worth was independent of it. Whether he was a slave, or a master, was merely acci- dental. The slave might be in truth, that is inwardly, free, and the master might be in reality, that is in- wardly, a slave. There is only one real slavery, the bondage of sin, and only one true liberty, freedom in Christ. For this reason the Christian Church did not in the OHAp. m.] SLAVES. 185 least entertain the thought of immediate emancipation. It recognized in this matter, as in others, the existing laws, and taught the slave to respect them according to the will of God. "Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called," is the rule laid down by the Apostle. Indeed spiritual freedom assumed such supreme importance to Christians, that they often wholly disregarded outward civil liberty. Tertullian, in his treatise " On the Crown," alluding to the custom of slaves' wearing chaplets at their manumission, ad- dresses a Christian as follows: "The conferring of secular liberty is an occasion of crowning. But you have been already ransomed by Christ, and that at a great price. How shall the world set free the servant of another ? Though it seems to be liberty, it will be found to be bondage. All things in the world are imaginary, nothing is real. For even then, as redeemed by Christ, you were free from man, and now, although liberated by man, you are Christ's servant." ^ Yet the Church did not leave every thing as it was. The new principle took effect, and wrought a moral transforma- tion in the relation of master and slave. The treat- ment of slaves by their Christian masters, and the relation of Christian slaves to their masters, underwent an immediate change. They looked upon each other now as brethren, as Paul writes to Philemon of the slave Onesimus, " that thou shouldest receive him, not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother be- loved." As members of the church there was no differ- ence between them. They came to the same house of God, adored one God, acknowledged one Lori, prayed and sang together, ate of the same bread, and drank from the same cup. This must have transformed the 186 CONDUCT OF THE CHRISTIANS. [book l disposition of a master toward his slaves. He could not possibly continue to treat as a thing one who was his brother in Christ. The Church, it is true, would not receive a slave without a certificate of good conduct from his Christian master, but when this condition was complied with he became a full member without any j limitations. He was even eligible to its offices, not ex- < oepting that of bishop. Not infrequently it occurred that a slave was an elder in the same church of which his master was only a member. . The church bestowed labor on both slaves and mas- ' ters. It exhorted the slaves to obedience ; they were not to make the knowledge that their masters were their brethren a pretext for disobedience, but only a reason for more faithful service. According to pagan conceptions slaves were incapable of morality. The church trained them for virtue, and not unsuccessfully. There were many slaves who, in extremely difficult circumstances, attested the reality of their Christian life with fidelity and great endurance. Even among the martyrs there was an unbroken line of slaves. The fairest crown fell to them, as well as to the free. Mas- ters, on the other hand, were exhorted to love their j slaves, to be just to them and gentle. " Thou shalt not issue orders with bitterness to thy man-servant nor thy , maid-servant, who hope in the same God," ^ is the in- | junction of the Epistle of Barnabas. Harsh treatment of slaves was considered a sufficient ground for excom- i munication.^^ The slave should not be urgent for man- 1 umission. " Am I a slave, I endure servitude. Am I free, I do not make a boast of my free birth." These words of Tatian'^'^ express the disposition which was rdtivated in the slave. J£ he could not obtain his free- 0H4P. m.] TREATMENT OF SLAVES. 181 dom, he was to bear his lot and be content, knowing that he possessed true liberty. The demand for re- demption by the church was especially prohibited.^ The church would not minister to the merely natural desires of the slaves for liberty. Yet it deemed it a praise-worthy act for a master to emancipate a slave .^ It did not prescribe to any one the duty of enfranchise- ment ; such an act should be voluntary. But it gladly recognized emancipation as a work of Christian love, and manumissions often occurred. Many, when they became Christians, set all their slaves at liberty on the day of their baptism, or on the feast days of the church, especially at Easter, that they might in this way testify their gratitude for the grace which they had received. It is narrated of a rich Roman, in the time of Trajan, that having become a Christian he presented their freedom, at an Easter festival, to all his slaves, of whom there were twelve hundred and fifty .^ After the third century, it was customary to perform the act of manumission in the church, before the priest and the congregation. The master led his slaves by the hand to the altar ; there the deed of emancipation was read aloud, and at the close the priest pronounced the bene- diction. Thus formal expression was given to the thought that they owed to the church their freedom. This appeared to be, as it was, the protectress and dispenser of liberty. The freedmen were truly free. While so many of those whom heathen vanity, or love of gain, had liberated, merely exchanged one kind of slavery for another, and, thrust without means of sup- port into a society in which labor had no honor, and left to themselves and destitute of moral ^tamina, only swelled the proletariat^ those who were ser free in the 188 CONDUCT OF THE CHRISTIANS. [bock i Christian community had a wholly different position. Their former masters esteemed it their duty to help and counsel them as Christian brethren, and thus they did not find themselves isolated, but in the midst of a communion which instructed them in the right use of their liberty, and trained them to be active and useful men. For Christians now put a very different estimate upon labor. It no longer seemed to them, as to the heathen, a disgrace, but an honor; not an unworthy bondage, but something commanded by God for alJ men. Indeed the Lord Himself had been a carpenter, and the son of a carpenter. The Apostles, too, had been laborers, Peter a fisherman, Paul a tent-maker. The Fathers often emphasized the fact that manual laborers had a better knowledge of God than heathcE philosophers.^^ "You will find artisans among us," says Athenagoras,^^ "who, if they cannot with words prove the benefit of our doctrine, yet prove it by deeds." The circumstance that Christians were shut out from so many employments — e.g. those of soldiers, public officers, assistants at services in the temples — by which the heathen gained a livelihood, contributed to increase the honor which they gave to manual labor. The so-called Apostolic Constitutions expressly refer to this kind of labor, and exhort all church members to industry: "For the Lord our God hates the slothful For no one of those who worship God ought to be idle." ^ The Bishop was also enjoined to be solicitous to procure work for artisans who were without employ- ment.^^ The greatest sages of Antiquity, Plato and Aristotle, declare labor degrading to a freeman; the Apostle exhorts that every one labor with quietness, OBAP. m.] LABOB. 189 and eat his own bread, and lays down categorically tie principle : He who does not work, shall not eat. From this simple proposition has grown a new world that has wrought greater things than any Plato and Aristotle ever saw. The correlate, among the heathen, to contempt of labor was the passion for shows. Bread and games! was the oft-heard signal. Men wished to be supported without labor by the State, and to be amused with games at the public expense. The watchword of the Christians was: Pray and labor. From this point of view we understand the decision with which the ancient church condemned the exhibitions in the theatre, the circus, and the arena. Labor performed " in quietness " presents a picture precisely opposite to that offered by the circus and the amphitheatre.- There was no quiet- ness, but passionate excitement. " God has enjoined on us," says Tertullian,^^ " to deal calmly and gently with the Holy Spirit, Whose nature is tender and sensitive, and not to disquiet Him with rage, or anger, or grief. How shall this be made to accord with the shows ? For there is no show without vehement agitation of mind." "In the circus," he says, "excitement presides. See the people coming to it, already tumultuous, already passion-blind, already agitated about their bets. The praetor is too slow for them ; their eyes are ever lolling with the lots in his urn. Then they wait anxiously for the signal, there is one shout of common madness. He has thrown it, they say, and announce to each other what was seen at once by all. I have evi- dence of their blindness, they do not see what is thrown. They think it a cloth, but it is the likeness of the devil cast headlong from on high. From thence 190 CONDUCT OP THE CHRISTIANS. [book i. therefore they go on to fury, and passions, and dissen- sions, and whatever is unlawful for priests of peace. Then there are curses without just cause of hatred; there are cries of applause with nothing to merit them." " Will one," he asks in another place, " at that time think upon God? He will have, I suppose, peace in his mind while contending for a charioteer." Besides, every tiling there was purposeless, the opposite of ear- nest work ; vain were the racings, still more vain the throwing and leaping. It was profitless, in TertuUian's eyes, to spend so much labor in training the body to the suppleness of a serpent, and for all the arts of the arena. Still more decidedly would the gladiatorial sports be condemned, the baiting of wild animals, the capital punishments in the amphitheatre. There " with murder they comfort themselves over death." In short, the amphitheatre was the temple of all evil spirits. All such shows a Christian avoided. He had, as Cyprian represents, other and better spectacles. He had the beauty of the world to look upon and admire, the rising of the sun, the expanse of seas, the earth, the air, and all their tenants, the constant succession of sunshine and rain. He had in the Scriptures the great deeds of God, the lofty spectacle of the conflict be- tween Christ and the devil, the devil and the whole power of the world lying prostrate under the feet of Christ. " This is an exhibition which is given by neither praetor nor consul, but by Him who is alona, and before all things, and above all things, and of whom are all things, the Father of our Lord Jesu9 Christ." CHAP, in.] THE TRUE END 01' LABOR. 19i IV. BENEVOLENCE OP THE CHRISTIANS. When St. Paul exhorts (Eph. iv. 28); "Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, work- ing with his hands the thing which is good," he adds, " that he may have to give to him that needeth." The true end of labor was thus for the first time pointed out. It is not a mere selfish acquisition of one's own livelihood, still less the obtainment of riches and enjoy- ment. On the contrary we are to labor in order to serve our brethren, and to find the noblest reward of toil in the exercise of compassion. The primitive Chris- tians adhered to this principle. Working with their hands they helped their brethren with the products of their labor. They, the poor, in this sense also, made many rich. The church in later years increased in wealth and dispensed more alms, its institutions for the care of the poor became more magnificent, but at no other time has its exercise of charity been relatively so large, and, all things considered, so pure, as in the period of conflict. Richly was the word of our Lord fulfilled : " By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." The heathen recognized this sign. With amazement they gazed upon this new strange life of love, and it is not too much to say that the victory of the church like that of her Lord was a victory of ministering love. This was something wholly foreign to the heathen. " A new commandment I give unto you," thus does our Lord introduce the commandment of love. Pagan an- tiquity was thoroughly egoistic. Charity, compassion- ate love, was no virtue of the ancient world, says Boeckh, one of the highest authorities respecting it 192 BENEVOLENCE OF THE CHRISTIANS. [book x Every one sought Ms own interests regardless of others, and ignorant of any life but the present, knew no other aim than happiness which in its essen^^e was only en- joyment, whether coarser or more refined. Self was tlie centre around which every thing revolved. A man of the ancient world despised whatever he drew into his service, and hated every thing which opposed him. This egoism was limited only by the egoism of the State. The individual, in order to be happy, needed the State. It was also essential to his happiness that he should live in a well-ordered State. The individual was of account only as a member of the whole body, as a citizen. Man was completely a fwoy TtohruiSv, a political being, all virtues were only political. On the monument of -^s- chylus was inscribed merely that he had shared in the fight at Marathon, not a word about his having been a great poet. The State itself, moreover, was built upon thoroughly selfish foundations. Whoever was not a citizen of the State, was in reality not a man ; he was a barbarian, against whom every thing was lawful. No bond united nations ; each had before it an open course for its selfishness. It had the right to subject to itself other nations and to make them its slaves. There were no duties to the conquered. Justice to the weak, com- passion to the oppressed was unknown to Antiquity. We are actually startled when we contemplate this consistent and thorough-going egoism. " A man is a wolf to a man whom he does not know," says Plautus," and the whole life of Antiquity is a proof of this. The views even of Plato, the noblest of sages, respect- ing the State, were thoroughly egoistic. All beggars must be driven out. No one shall take an interest in the poor, when they are sick. If the constitution of a (MAT. in.] THE NEW COMMANDMENT OF LOVE. 198 laboring man cannot withstand sickness, the ph78icia^ may abandon him without scruple, he is good foi nothing except to be experimented on. " Can you con descend so far that the poor do not disgust you ? " asks Quinctilian. The aid bestowed — this was the thought — is of no help to the poor (i.e., it does not make them rich, the only happiness) ; it simply prolongs their wretchedness. " He deserves ill of a beggar," we read in Plautus,®^ "who gives him food and drink. For that which is given is thrown away, and the life of the beggar is protracted to his misery." We need at most do good to those who have done good to us ; those who injure us we may hate, indeed it is our duty to hate them. According to Aristotle, anger and revenge are lawful passions. Without them men would lack power- ful incentives to good. Even Cicero's ideal rises no higher. "The good man is to perform even to a stranger all the service that he can, and to harm no one even when provoked by injustice ; but the helping whom he can is to be limited by this, that he shall not himself suffer injury thereby."*^ Of self-denial, of a love which gives more than it can deprive itself of without harm, of love even to one's enemies, Cicero has as little a presentiment as the rest of Antiquity. It discoursed indeed gladly a. id much of magnanimity, of generosity, of hospitality, but behind all these virtues there was still only egoism. Magnanimity and the much -praised mercy were at bottom only aristocratic pride, which looked down with contempt upon others, and seemed to itself far too great to be injured by them. Liberality was exercised toward friends and fellow-citizens, not toward all men ; it was practised because it created fame and esteem, and was useful to 194 BENEVOLENCE OF THE CHRISTIANS. [b^k i the State. Hospitality was not a common virtue ; it be- longed exclusively to the rich, who entertained each other with careful regard to rank and position. We need only compare it with Christian hospitality in the earliest churches, where the poor man was as welcome as the rich, where the feet of all the saints were washed, and its splendor fades away. Even when Seneca speaks, AS he often does, of benevolence, the egoism shines through. One must give without any prompting of the heart, with a perfectly tranquil spirit. Compassion is at bottom only weakness." Thus the ancient world had no knowledge of true benevolence. To be sure, as we have seen, it was not without public spirit, nor did it lack gifts and bequests for purposes of public utility. There was a distribu- tion of corn; and not merely in Rome, but in the provinces as well, care was taken, and on the largest scale, that the people should have their gratifications and sports. But all this expenditure bore a different character from Christian benevolence. Love to man was not the impelling motive. It was an offering brought to vanity, to avarice, or to policy; it was a ransom which wealth paid to poverty in order not to be disturbed by it. We seek in vain for true regard for penury, and heai-t-felt compassion. The statesman, or the Emperor, who ordered the means of life to be distributed, acted from no such considerations, and the rich Roman who caused the sportula to be given to his clients had no genuine feeling of sympathy for them. They promoted the splendor of his house, and were paid for it. Consequently the extravagantly rich pres- ents which were made brought no blessing. They de- graded both those who gave, and those who received CHAT. m.J THE NEW COMMANDMENT OF LOVE. 195 them. As love was wanting on the one side, so waa gratitude on the other. This judgment will not be changed by the fact that individual acts of charity to the poor and needy oc- curred in the pagan world. We ought not to imagine that the natural feeling of compassion was wholly want- ing. When, during the reign of Tiberius, forty-six thousand persons were either killed or wounded by the fall of an amphitheatre at Fidenza, the Roman aristoc- racy sent physicians, medicines and food to the suffer- ers, and even received some of them into their own houses.^ Titus exhibited a noble activity in aiding the unfortunate victims of the great calamities which befell his reign, the fearful outbreak of Vesuvius which de- stroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii, the fire at Rome and the pestilence which raged there. It need scarcely be mentioned, also, that many gifts were made to beggars who sat in the streets and especially before the temples. WttS.t, however, was wanting was a regulated and systematic benevolence. This did not exist where we should at first expect to meet with it, in the associa- tions. Natural as it would seem to have been for the burial-clubs, whose object was to secure for their mem- bers a respectable interment with the appropriate reli- gious rites, or for the confraternities of artisans, and many similar societies, to furnish assistance to their needy members, as was done by the guilds of the Middle Ages, we find in fact little or no such provision. Even the many bequests to the members of such clubs were not given for the benefit of the poor and needy in them, but on the contrary were gifts in which the officers of the socieliy, or even all its members, shared in order that they might honor the memory of the donor. A 196 BENEVOLENCE OP THE CHRISTIANS. [wow. a real care of the poor, as now understood, was unknown Hospitals existed only for soldiers, gladiators and slaves. The manual laborer who was without means, the poor man who was not a slave, found no place of refuge. Without consolation, without hope for the life to como, he was also without material help in sickness. Espe- cially in time of epidemics did the ancient egoism appear without disguise. Men feared death, and took no interest in their own sick, but drove them out of the ho ise, and left them to their fate. The ancient world was a world without love. There was much that was admirable in it; it produced great men and heroes, but this bond of perfectness was wanting. Whence should love have come? Religion taught none, and awakened none. It taught love to one's native coun- try, obedience to the laws, bravery in war, sacrifice for the greatness and honor of the State — but not philan- thropy. The ancient man was the natural man in his richest development. But the natural man is an ego- ist, and remains such until love from above transforms him. It has done this. The life of the Christian Church is the actual proof. It was a life of love. Nothing more astonished the heathen, nothing was more incom- prehensible to them. " Behold," they exclaimed, " how they love one another."^ Among themselves Chris- tians called each other brethren, and this fraternal name was no mere word. They lived as brothers. The kiss with which they greeted each other at the celebration of the Holy Supper, was no empty form; the church was in reality one family, all its members children of one Heavenly Father. Each served the other, each prayed for all the rest. They had all CHAP, m.] j^GOISM. CHRISTIAN LC VB. 197 tilings in common. Even the stranger who came from far, if he but brought a letter of recommendation from his church which certified him as a Christian, was received and treated as a brother. "They love each other without knowing each other ! " says a pagan in astonishment. This was indeed the most direct antith- esis to the heathen saying : " Man is a wolf to a man whom he does not know." This fraternal love ex- panded to a universal love of man. The church, born of love, and living in love, was the appropriate organ for the practice of love. It interested itself first in those of its members who needed help in any way, then it went beyond them to embrace in its love those who stood without. For these were to be won for the church. Love worked in a missionary way. It ex- cluded none, as the grace which kindled it excluded no one, not even enemies and persecutors. Without doubt individual members of the churches performed by themselves many works of benevolence. Christians made earnest with the word of our Lord: "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." One of the earliest of the Fathers, Barnabas, exhorts : " Thou shalt not hesitate to give, nor murmur when thou givest." ^ " Why do you select persons ? " says Lactan- tius. " He is to be esteemed by you as a man, whoever implores you, because he considers you a man."^ Ter- fcullian shows us the obstacles which a Christian woman, living with a pagan husband, had to encounter in her acts of benevolence. "Who," he asks, "would allow his wife, for the sake of visiting the brethren, to go round from street to street to other men's, and indeed to all the poorer cottages? Who will suffer her to 198 BENEVOLENCE OP THE CHRISTIANS. [book i creep into a prison to kiss the chains of a martyr? If a stranger brother arrives, what hospitality for him in an alien's home ? If bounty is to be distributed to any, the granary, the storehouses are closed against her." *■ Assuredly, this manifold and rich benevolence of the Christian woman was not exercised merely by direc- tion of the church. It was expressly enunciated that the official benevolence of the deaconess should not exclude the private charity of the woman. Every woman should be in this respect a deaconess. "If any one of you would do good without being a presby- teress or deaconess, do it according to your inclination, for such deeds are the most precious treasures of the Lord." ^* That alms were also distributed in the freest way upon the streets is evident from a remark of Tertullian's, upbraiding the heathen : " our compassion gives more in the streets than your religion in the temples." ''^ Such personal charity withdraws itself from observa- tion. The Lord alone knows what was then done by individuals, history has not preserved it. In her record appears only the charily practised by the church, and this, all things considered, is of incomparably greater importance. Precisely here is to be found what was new, what was higher — the existence of a communion whose vocation was to exercise compassici. From the beginning, from the days of the church of Jerusalem, the practice of charity was as necessary an activity of; churoh life as the preaching of the Word and the ad« ministration of the sacraments ; and for the one as well as for the others the church provided organs and ordi- nances. The means for its charities flowed to it from the free-will offerings of its members. The principle of CHAP, in.] PRrVATB AND ORGANIZED CHARITY. 199 entire voluntariness, which the Apostle (2 Cor. ix. 7) had already emphasized, was most rigidly adhered to. "Such as are prosperous and willing," says Justin, " give what they will, each according to his choice." ^ "Each of us," says TertuUian, "deposits a small gift when he likes, but only if it be his pleasure, and only if he be able, for no one is under compulsion." "^ And IrensBus rightly sees in this freedom the higher position of the New Testament. " There were," he says, " obla- tions among the Jewish people ; there are such in the church : but with this difference, that there they were offered by slaves, here by freemen. The Jews were constrained to a regular payment of tithes ; Christians, who have received liberty, assign all their possessions to the Lord, bestowing freely ntt the lesser portions of their property, since they have the hope of greater things."*^* S« strictly was this principle carried out that, when the Gntstic Marcion separated from the church, the tw4 hundred thousand sesterces which he had given at his baptism were returned to him.*^^ When the children of a man who had bequeathed to the church in his will a certain sum, refused to pay it, Cyprian, though he reminded them of their duty to fulfil the purpose of their father, at the same time declared, as though it were a matter of course, that they were at perfect liberty to deliver the money or not. As the church would have no forced gifts, so it would have none from persons who did not in spirit belong to her, who did not give from love or froiK property rightly acquired. The Apostolic Constitu- tions contain upon this subject very definite directions."'* The usual form of giving was that of the offerings., or oblations, at the Lord's Supper. The communicanta 200 BBNEVOLENCE OF THE CHRISTIANS. Lbook i brought gifts, chiefly natural products. From these was taken what was necessary for the bread and wine of communion, and the remainder went to the support of the clergy and the poor. The names of the ofi'erers were inscribed on tablets, the so-called diptychs, and were mentioned in the prayer. For deceased persons their relatives brought gifts on the anniversary of their death, a beautiful custom which vividly exhibited the connection between the church above and the church below."" Even those who had fallen asleep still continued, as it were, to serve the church. Giving was practised also in connection with special occasions, joy- inil occurrences, the day of christening. Cyprian sold his gardens, and made a present of the proceeds on the day of Ms baptism.*^^ Reside this tliere stood in the place of meeting a box for the poor (called -by Tertul- lian arca^ by Cyprian corban), in which was placed every week a free-will offering. This was evidently an Jjnitation of the custom which had grown up in the clubs, and was legally established. Every member paid monthly a regular tax. The Christians did likewise, only in their case the contribution was voluntary, and was not expended, as frequently by the associations, in feasting, but rather in providing for the poor.^ Were larger means needed, a general collection was taken up, to which every one contributed from the avails of his labor. Poor persons, who had nothing, fast€d in order to give what they saved. Sometimes a general fast was appointed in the church, and the pro- ceeds expended for benevolent purposes.^ " Blessed," Bays Origeri; " is he who fasts to feed a poor person," ** and, indeed, no more beautiful way of giving alms cai be imagined. CHAP, m.] OFFERINGS AND COLLECTIONS. 201 What the church received it immediately expended Nothing was converted into capital. Present needs were great enough, and care for the future could be trustfuKy committed to love. The necessities of the times, also, compelled such a course. In the midst oi the persecutions church property was insecure. The best mode of preserving it was to give it away. When the persecution under Decius broke out, Cyprian di- vided the entire sum which had been collected for the poor among the presbyters and deacons for distribution. When, afterwards, there was need, he directed that the deficit should be met from his private property.^ When Bishop Sixtus II. was taken prisoner, his deacon, Lau- rentius, assembled the poor of the church, and distrib- uted the whole of the church property among them. He even sold the holy vessels in order to give the proceeds to the poor.^ The Bishop superintended the care of the poor,** assisted by the deacons and deaconesses. The names of those who were to be regularly supported were on- rolled in a register, after careful examination into their circumstances. When this had been done, they received aid.^ To this class belonged those who could no longer earn a livelihood, or who by joining the churct had lost their means of support because they had fol- lowed a trade or business which the church did not allow.^ Yet it was strictly maintained that every one should labor to the extent of his ability. To those who had been obliged to relinquish their business, some other occupation was assigned, whenever possible, and they were not permitted to decline this, even if it was inferior to their former occupation. If they were un- willing to work, they received no aid. For conversion 202 BENEVOLENCE OP THE CHRISTIANS. [book i. to the church was not to be made by idlers a source of worldly advantage. A special class of beneficiaries consistea of widows," for whose maintenance the Apostle gives particular directions. If their life was passed in reputable widow- hood, they were highly honored in the church, and were cared for during life. In return they served the church, particularly in the education of children. Destitute orphans ^ were reared by widows or deaconesses, under the supervision of the bishop. The boys learned a trade, and when grown up received the tools necessary for its prosecution. The girls, unless they joined the number of those who remained unmarried, the deaconesses for instance, were married each to some Christian brother. Often children who had been abandoned by the hea- then,^ — and the number of such was large, — were received and given a Christian education together with the orphans. Even slaves^ were also accepted, their freedom purchased with the church funds, and help afforded them to earn a living. Or, where captives had fallen into the hands of the barbarians, a ransom was paid for their liberation. Those who had been impris- oned on account of their faith needed special care. They were visited in their prisons, and provided for so far as possible. Cyprian, in his letters written while in exile, is unwearied in commending them again and again to the watchful attention of the deacons.®^ This benevolence extended beyond the bounds of the particular church. One church helped another.^ Thus, as early as the Apostles' day, the Gentile churches aided the impoverished church of Jerusalem. So the church at Rome, under Soter (A.D. 150), sent lich gifts into the provinces in order to alleviate there the misery oi CHAP, m.] SCOPE OP THIS BENEVOIJJNCB. 203 a famine.^ At a time when the unity of the church was not manifested in outward organic forms, the church was held and bound together bj its one faith and its one love. An active benevolence extended its» net over the whole broad empire, and wherever a Chris- tian went, even to the borders of barbarous tribes, and beyond these, too, he knew that he was near to brethren who were ready at any moment to minister to to his need. The means that were available for this care of the poor must have been very considerable ; and when we consider that the churches in the first centuries were re- cruited chiefly from the lower classes, it seems the more remarkable that such resources could have been accu- mulated. From the earliest age, it is true, we have no information as to the scope of the benevolence of individual churches, but judging by what we know of a later time, it was, even in respect to merely pe- cuniary gifts, very large. Cjprian easily collected in his church five thousand dollars, in order to help the Numidian bishop in ransoming prisoners.^ Somewhat later, in the time of the Decian persecution, the Roman church supported fifteen hundred poor persons, widows, and children.^*^ Still later, the church in Antioch, numbering, perhaps, one hundred thousand members, had three thousand beneficiaries.^ Still more worthy of admiration is the spirit in which this labor of love was prosecuted. Among the heathen the poor, the weak, the oppressed had been despised. The principle was established, that a man is to be valued according to his possessions. In the church it was said : Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. In a certain sense erery one must become poor in ordei 204 BENEVOLENCE OF THE CHRISTIANS. [boob^ \. to gain this kingdom. External wealth and outward poverty, are merely accidental. The godly poor are in truth rich; the godless rich in reality poor. "It is not the census," says one of the fathers, "that makes rich, but the soul." ^ Conscious of having be- come rich through the lowly Jesus, the church looked upon the poor as her treasures. In them she served the Lord. "When, after the martyrdom of Bishop Sixtus, his deacon was required to point out and surrender the treasures of the church, he called all its poor together and showed them to the prefect of the city, with the words : " These are the treasures of the church." ^ A church which has such riches must conquer. In its benevolence it has the means of the purest propaganda means which in the end must win even its opponents. This benevolence made a deeper impression on the heathen because they were not exclude4 by the Chris- tians from their love. "Our religion," says Justin,^ "requires us to love not only our own, but also strangers and even those who hate us." "All men," says Tertullian,^^ "love their friends. Christians alone love their enemies." This was not mere words. When in the time of Cyprian a great pestilence raged in Carthage, and the heathen abandoned their sick, and, instead of burying their bodies, cast tliem out on the streets, the bishop convened the church and made these representations to them : " If we show kindness only to our own, we do no more than publicans and heathen. As Christians who would become perfect we must over- come evil with good, love our enemies, as the Lord exhorts, and pray for our persecutors. Since we are born of God we must show ourselves to be children of our Father who continually causes His sun to rise, ard rHAP. ra.J LOVE TOWARD ENEMIES. 206 from time to time gives showers to nourish the seed^ exhibiting all these kindnesses not only to His people, but to aliens also." Upon his summons the church engaged in the work. Some gave money, others shared in the labor, and soon the dead were buried.^^^ So was it, also, at Alexandria, in connection with a pes- tilence in the time of the Emperor Gallienus. While the heathen fled, while the sick were thrust out of doors, and the half-dead thrown into the streets, tht Christians cared for all, spared not themselves in the service of the sick and dying, and many brethren, even presbyters and deacons, sacrificed their lives in such ministry.^^ And they did this immediately after they had been most horribly persecuted by the heathen, and while the sword still hung daily over their heads.^®^ V. MABTTKDOM. With love went sorrow hand in hand. The witness of word, of conduct, of love was perfected in the witness of blood, in martyrdom. The power of the martyr's death lay precisely in this fact, that this event was the completion of the testimony given by his life. For it is not suffering in itself considered, it is not merely the martyr's pangs and death-throes which give to martyrdom its value, but the disposition in which all this is endured. Not every martyrdom is a victory for the church, but only those which are genuine and pure. It is first of all essential to genuineness and purity of martyrdom, that the disposition and demeanor of the martyr be free from insubordination toward the State, and the magistracy ordained by God. The Chris- tian has to recognize at all times, and in every particu- lar, the civil government which is over him, and tc 206 MARTYRDOM. [book ;^ honor all its laws and ordinances as proceeding from his rulers, even when these laws and ordinances are contrary to God's Word. In such a case he cannot, indeed, honor them by obeying them, for he must obey God and not man, but by willingly and patiently sub- mitting to whatever penalties for this reason the laws award to him. Then he honors the government and the laws by suffering, and in truth a man cannot more fully attest his regard for the law than by sacrificing to it his life. And every act of insubordination toward the government, every failure to show respect to the laws which it enacts, is to the Christian a sin. When he suffers not for evil doing, but for well doing (1 Pet. ii. 20, iii. 17), he suffers simply for Christ's sake. Then it may be said : " Who is he that will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good?" (1 Pet. iii. 13.) The early Christians preserved this purity of martyr- dom most solicitously. Always and everywhere they showed their readiness to honor the Emperor, and to obey him in all things as dutiful subjects, save when he commanded them to forsake Christ, and to worship idols. Nowhere is to be found a trace of disobedience, or even of want of respect toward the magistracy, and they suffered patiently the penalties awarded them by its authority on account of their confession, praying even in death for the welfare of the Emperor. Innu- merable are the times when the martyrs, under the ago- nies of torture, testified before their judges, at the place of execution, that they were willing to obey the Em- peror, but to worship him, to strew incense to him, that they could not do. The Apologists often protested that the Christians were obedient subjects who made it a CHAP. in.J PURITY OF MAETTBDCM. 207 matter of conscience not to break the law5 of the State in the smallest particulars. "Therefore I will honor the Emperor," says Theophilus in his work addressed to Autolycus, " not worshipping him but praying for him. I worship the true God only, knowing that the Empe- ror is made by Him. You will say then to me : Why do you not worship the Emperor ? Because he is not made to be worshipped, but to be reverenced with lawful honor. For he is not God, but a man, appointed by God, not to be worshipped, but to judge justly."^®* Tertullian calls the attention of the heathen to the fact,^*^ that the Christians were in a condition to make resistance, and to acquire by violence liberty of faith, since their numbers were so great, constituting almost a majority in every city. Yet they obeyed the injunc- tions of patience taught in their divine religion, and lived in quietness and soberness, recognizable in no other way than by the amendment of their former lives. The Christians, he rightly points out, were truer and more obedient subjects of the Emperor than the hea- then. In irony he exclaims: "We acknowledge the faithfulness of the Romans to the Csesars ! If o con- spiracy has ever broken out, no Emperor's blood has ever fixed a stain in the Senate or even in the palace ; never has their majesty been dishonored in the prov- inces. And yet the soil of Syria still exhales the odor of their corpses, and Gaul has not yet washed away their blood in the waters of its Rhone." ^^ Then he Bets in contrast the fidelity and obedience of the Chris- tians, who join in no intrigues nor riots, who pray for the Emperor whatever his character, who supplicate for him from God a long life, a peaceful reign, security in his palace, brave armies, loyalty in the Senate, virtue 208 MARTTTBDOM. [BOOK i among the people, peace in the whole world. "So that," he covicluies, "I might say on valid grounds that the Emperor is more ours than jours, for our God has appointed him."^*^ Even in the midst of the excite- ment of a bloody persecution the most conscientious care was observed lest any thing sliould be done which might occasion the semblance of disobedience. Thus, for example, Cyprian ^^^ expressed disapproval in the strongest terms when some persons who had been ban- ished on account of their Christian faith returned with- out the express permission of the authorities. "For how great a disgrace," he says, " is suffered by your name when one returns to that country whence he was banished, to perish when arrested, not now as being a Christian, but as being a criminal." Even to a perse- cuting government, even to its injustice and cruelty the Christian should oppose nothing but quiet and patient suffering. This purity of martyrdom was most fittingly ex- pressed by the martyrs' dying with praise and thanks- giving. " A Christian even when he is condemned gives thanks," ^^ — the truth of these words is often attested in the Acts of the Martyrs. "O Lord God Almighty," prayed Poly carp as he stood on the funeral pile, "Father of Thy beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ by whom we have received the knowledge of Thee, the God of angels and powers, and of the whole creation and of all the race of the righteous who live before Thee, I bless Thee that Thou hast counted me worthy of this day and this hour, that I should have a part in the number of Thy witnesses, in the cup of Thy Christ." "® When the Scillitan martyrs in Numidia (about 200 A. D.) received their sentence of CHiP. m.] PURITY OF MARTYRDOM. 209 death, they praised God, and when they reached the place of execution, falling on their knees, they gave thanks anew.^^^ We often hear, also, that like the first martyr Stephen they prayed for their enemies. A Palestinian Christian named Paulus prayed, before he received the death-stroke, that God would lead all the heathen to faith and salvation, and he forgave the judge who had condemned him, and the executioner who carried the sentence into effect.^^^ Pionius, a mar- tyr in Smyrna, was heard supplicating, from the flames of the pyre, for the Emperor, for his judges, and for all the heathen. When an audible Amen was on his lips, the flames smote together above him, and ended his life."' We hear no expressions of revenge, nor of anger, no maledictions, no curse. Even among the inscriptions of the Catacombs nothing of the sort appears. No where is judgment invoked on their persecutors. Only one sigh is recorded, in the Catacomb of Callistus: "O sorrowful times, when we cannot even in caves escape our foes." "* Even pictures of persecution (with but one exception, that of the trial of a Christian, in the cemetery of Praetextatus) are not to be found. Symbolic representations only are common, — Daniel in the lions' den, the Three Children in the fiery fur- nace, Elijah ascending to heaven in the chariot of fire."^ When we consider the burning hatred with which the heathen persecuted the Christians, the inhuman cruel- ties which were allowed (enough concerning these will be said), we learn to admire the purity of a martyr- dom which even in this respect followed the word of the apostle: "Reo^mpense to no man evil for evil!" and the admonition of the Lord : " Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." 210 MARTYRDOM. [book i In this purity of martyrdom lay its power. If the Christians had allowed themselves to be tempted to offer open resistance to the persecuting State, they had been lost. The State would have ground them to pieces with its gigantic power. If they had been en- ticed into wrath and revenge their strength would have been broken, their consciences stained, and their martyrdom deprived of its power to act upon the con- science. For the might of true martyrdom lies in this, that it not merely turns the edge of opposition by its patience, but also, as a testimony, touches the con- science. Not infrequently it came to pass that the persecutors themselves, moved by this irresistible testi- mony, were converted at the place of execution, and became Christians. The genuineness of Christian martyrdom was proved, secondly, by its freedom from enthusiasm and fanati- cism. Enthusiasm is an impure flame which blazes up quickly and is as quickly extinguished. It could not have accomplished any thing in the conflict we are considering, it would have been quickly defeated by the power of the Roman State, and it could not have produced the moral effects which martyrdom did. Fa- naticism has never yet built up the Church, and when it has had successes they have been merely momentary. Fanaticism is a heat which only scorches. The Chris- tians allowed themselves no mockery of the heathen rites or idols, nor any use of cutting and insulting language. The case was wholly exceptional in which a Christian broke in pieces an image of a god."* It came to pass that individual Christians, excited to enthusi- asm, pressed forward to martyrdom ; the chiirch al- ways most decidedly disapproved of this. " We do no* OTAP. m.] FREEDOM PROM FANATICISM. 2H praise," writes the church in Smyrna in the letter in which it gives an account of the maityrdom of its bishop, Polycarp, "those who give themselves up, for the Gospel does not so teach." "^ Cyprian exhorted his people during a violent persecution : " Keep peace and tranquillity, as you have been so very often taught by me. Let no one stir up any tumult for the brethren, nor voluntarily offer himself to the Gentiles. For when apprehended and delivered up he ought to speak, inasmuch as God abiding in us speaks in that hour." "^ When, during a plague in Carthage, some Christians lamented that they should die on a sick-bed, instead of dying as martyrs, the Bishop reminded them ; " In the first place martyrdom is not in your power, but de- pends upon the grace of God. Then, besides, God, the searcher of the reins and heart, sees you, and praises and approves you. It is one thing for the spirit to be wanting for martyrdom, and another for martyrdom to have been wanting for the spirit. For God does not ask for our blood, but for our faith. This sickness is sent to prove it.""^ The church teachers never failed to remind their people that persecution was at once a judgment on the church, and an earnest admoni- tion to repentance. With the same sobriety of judgment the Christians used all available means for escaping persecution. Opin- ions differed as to whether it was right to flee. Ter- tullian decided in the negative .^^ The majority took the affirmative, appealing to the well-known command of our Lord. Yet the flight should not imply denial. It must be merely a withdrawal, in which he who retires leaves every thing to the Lord, and holds him- self in readiness when hijs: hour comes. Thus Polycarp 212 MARTTBDOM. [book i. retired for a long time, as did Cyprian. But both showed by a martyr's death that their retieat was no flight, but only an act of self-preservation for the right moment. To purchase freedom in a time of per- secution, to obtain safety by bribery, was generally regarded as denial. On the other hand. Christians were to avoid every thing which could attract to them the attention of the heathen, or excite them to greater violence. Cyprian, at the beginning of a persecution, prudently prescribed the arrangements which were thereby rendered necessary. The clergy in visiting the confessors in the prisons should take turns; the people should not press thither in crowds. " For," he writes, " meek and humble in all things, as becomes the servants of God, we ought to accommodate ourselves to the times, and to provide for quietness." ^^^ Calmly each awaited the moment when the hour of his perse- cution should arrive, and then stood the firmer, and with greater patience bore whatever came. Out of such purity of martyrdom, out of a good con- science to suffer only for Christ's sake, on the one hand, out of such a spirit of sobriety and clearness on the other, were born the peace and joy with which those who witnessed for Christ met death, and endured what w-as worse than death. The worst, indeed, was not instantaneous death, nor the exquisite tortures which often preceded it. In order to measure completely the greatness of the contest, we must look into that inward conflict which preceded or accompanied that which was external. Great must have been the temptation to refine away the necessity of suffering, to represent death as a needless sacrifice which might as well be avoided, especially when it was so easy to escape suf OHAP. in.l JOY OF THE MABTYBS. 218 fering, when, as was actually the case, venal judges offered Christians for money a certificate, as though they had offered sacrifice, or when kindly disposed judges represented to the accused that it was only a question of a mere ceremony, that could be complied with without surrender of one's convictions. More painful than all the torments which iron and fire, hunger and tlurst, prepared, must it have been to part from father and mother, wife and child, and to turn away from their entreaties, their lamentations, their tears. Harder than instantaneous death at the place of execution was banishment to the mines, where Chris- tians were compelled to work among the offscouring of mankind, and like them have scanty fare, be clothed in rags, and be beaten by rough overseers, though at the price of a single word they could be free.^^ And yet worse than this some endured. Christian virgins (it is verily devilish) were condemned to be taken to the public brothels, to be abandoned there to the most horrible abuse.^^' The heathen knew how highly the Christians esteemed chastity, and that to them its loss was worse thasi death. And yet, when the Christian virgin Sabina, in Smyrna, was apprised of this sen- tence, she replied, "Whatever God willsl"^ That was the heroism of martyrdom, that was to conquer all through Christ. A faith which so loved and suffered wan invincible. Its victory was sure. And of it could the Apostle say, even before the conflict had begun: "Our faith is the victory which hath overcome the world." BOOK SECOND. THE CONFLICT. ** ThiBik not that lam come to send peace on earth : I came not to peace, Imt a sword" ~ Matt. x. 34. CHAPTER I. THE FIRST ENCOUNTER. - Fe shall he hated of all men for my name's sake.** — ^Iatt. x. 22. I. PRELIMINART SURVEY. *' Think not that I am come to send peace on earth ; I came not to send peace, but a sword." Thus had oui Lord spoken. He had not concealed from His disciples the conflict which awaited them, a conflict for life and death. " Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. They shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and intc prisons, and whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service." It could not be otherwise. Nevei in human history have two opposing powers had a sharper encounter than Christianity and ancient Hea- thenism, the Christian Church and the Roman State. It is the antagonism between that which is from below and that which is from above, between natural develop- ment and the new creation, between that which is bom of the flesh and that which is born of the Spirit, while behind all this, according to the Scriptures, is the cod 217 218 PRELIMINARY SURVEY. [book ul flict between the Prince of this world and the Lord from heaven. Two such powers could not exist peaceably side by side. The conflict must come, and be for life or death. Every possibility of a compromise was excluded. This contest might be occasionally interrupted ; but it could end only in the conquest of one or the other power. Christianity entered the conflict as the absolute reli- gion, as a divine revelation, as unconditionally true, and claimed to be the religion for all nations, because it brought to all salvation. A religion co-existing with others the heathen could have tolerated, as they did so many religions. The absolute religion they could not tolerate. Diverging opinions about God and divine things could be allowed, but not the perfect truth, which, because it was the truth, excluded every thing else as false. A new religion for a single nation might have given no offence. It would have been recognized, as were so many heathen cults, and monotheistic Juda- ism as well. But a universal religion could not be thus allowed. The conflict was for nothing less than the dominion of the world. From its nature it could only end in the complete victory of one side or the other. Christianity entered the field conscious, through the assurances of our Lord, that the world was its promised domain. Its messengers knew that they were sent on a mission of universal conquest for their Lord, and the youthful Christianity itself proved that it was a world- subduing power by the wonderful rapidity with which it spread. After it had passed beyond the bounda- ries of the land and the people of Judaea, after the great step was taken of carrying the Gospel to the heathen, and receiving them into the Christian Chiuob CHAP. 1.] SFBEAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 219 without requiring circumcision or their becoming Jews, it secured in Syrian Antioch its first missionary centre ; and from this point Paul, the great Apostle of the Gen- tiles, bore it from city to city through Asia Minor to Europe, through Greece to Kome, the metropolis of the world. His line of march was along the great roads, the Iiighways of travel, which the Komans had built. Everywhere the Jewish communities served his pur- poses, like the magazines provided for soldiers. The synagogues were the points at which Christianity could be planted. There Paul and his co-laborers preached the risen Messiah, and proved from the prophets that Jesus is the Christ. The Jews, it is true, for the most part opposed, but the proselytes were a prepared field in which the scattered seed soon sprang up. The Jewish opposition resulted in a separation from the synagogue communities. Independent Christian socie- ties were formed, under their own overseers. And in them the converts won from among the proselytes formed a means of connection with others who had hitherto belonged wholly to Heathenism. We know too little of this first period, apart from what is told us in the Book of Acts, to obtain an exact view of this diffusion of Christianity. Yet when we notice that Paul, even in his first journey to Rome, finds Christians in Italy, and this not merely in the capital, but also in little Puteoli, we are warranted in assuming that after a few decades there were in all the cities, large and small. Christian churches, or, if not perfectly organ- ized societies, at least little bands of Christians. In the same way the church spread eastward and south- wf ,rd, and yet more vigorously, for the Jewish popula- tion was denser. We find Peter in Babylon. Edessa 220 PRELIMINARY SURVEY. [book n. is already a missionary centre. Still moie important was the church of Alexandria, whose founder is said to have been John Mark. Still others, even earlier, had carried the Gospel beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire ; Thomas to Parthia, Andrew to Scythia, Bar tholomew to India, that is, probably, to Yemen. From Rome, moreover, the church appears to have been trans- planted on the one side into Africa, on the other into Gaul and as far as Germany and Britain. At least hardly a century had passed since the day of Pente- cost before the entire Roman Empire was covered with a net-work of Christian churches. Although these may still have been small as respects the number of their members, yet, even in the time of Nero, Tacitus speaks of a great multitude of Christians in Rome, and other indications point to the conclusion that Christianity had gained an uncommonly rapid diffusion not only territorially, but also as respects the number of its professors. How did this extension take place ? Without doubt by means of missions. The church in Antioch was not the only one which esteemed it a duty to send forth messengers of the Gospel (Acts xiii. 2), and though Paul could say that he had labored more abundantly than they all, yet other laborers stood by his side. Though many things which are reported to us concern- ing the activity of the other Apostles are legendary, this much stands firm — they did :aot fold their hands ^ From a later time Origen informs as explicitly that the city churches sent out their own missionaries in order to preach the Gospel to the villages. Then we must recall our Lord's sajdng respecting the self-growing seed (Mark iv. 26-28): "So is the kingdom of God, 0HAP. I.] WAYS AND MEANS OF EXTENSION. 221 as if a man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear; after that the full corn in the ear." Every Christian became a missionary, a witness to the Lord in whom he had found comfort and peace. Trav- elling craftsmen and traders (for example Aquila and Priscilla, who appear so often in the Epistles of Paul) told of the Messiah who had come, and brought tidings of what had occurred at Jerusalem. Others completed the narrations. A small company meet in private houses. Some one is found for a leader, and the little circle forms itself into a churcJli. Public preaching on the streets or squares of the cities was not wanting, as for instance the Apostle's sermon in Athens. There was nothing unusual in this, inasmuch as at that age philosophers, or whoever had a new doctrine to pro- claim, appeared in public and addressed the people. The private diffusion of Christianity was, perhaps, even more powerful and effective. One person told to another where he had found peace and comfort — one laborer to another, one slave to his fellow-slave. What was heard was interchanged, as was also what was received in writing, a Gospel, it may be, or an apostoli- cal Epistle. The susceptibility of these Christian bands, on the one side, and on the other the kindling — we might say, the inflaming — power of Cliristianity, to- gether with the activity of the Apostles and apostolic men, are the elements to be especially considered in this extension of Christianity. These facts have also already indicated in what circles the preaching of the Crucified One first found accept 222 PRELIMINARY SURVEY. [book n. ance. " See your calling," writes St. Paul (1 Cor. i. 26, 27), "how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise: and God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and tilings which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are." "Not m:»,ny" — some, however, from the higher classes were even thus early to be found. At least the recent investigations in the Catacombs at Rome, and the discovery of Chris- tian burial-chambers whose rich artistic ornamentation belongs to the first, or the beginning of the second, century, have made it probable that Christianity must have found access earlier than has been believed, and to a greater degree, to the higher Roman families. De Rossi,^ the explorer of the Roman Catacombs, has shown that in the oldest part of the Catacomb of Callistus, which is named for St. Lucina, members of the gens Pomponia, — from which Atticus, Cicero's friend, sprang, — and perhaps members of the Flavian house, were interred. So early had the Christian faith made its way into the old Roman families. Still, the great majority were people of inferior rank. Even toward the end of the second century Celsus scoffs that wool-dressers, cobblers, and tanners were the most zealous Christians. Above all it was the poor, who as the poor in spirit embraced the Gospel of the lowly Jesus who makes many rich. The oppressed and harassed, whom the spirit of Antiquity despised, the laboring classes, the slaves, were the ones who opened their hearts to the message of the kingdom of God as CHAP I.] RECEPTION OF CHRISTIAXETY. 223 the realm of liberty and peace. Or wherever there were yearning souls, already at variance with the an- cient views of the world, and whom neither the pagan religion nor the pagan philosophy could satisfy, souls weary and heavy laden, there were those who had an open ear for the preaching of the Gospel. But while this attracted some, it excited in others — at first by far the larger part — oppooition and hate. Every thing about it was too strangw to the heathen, too repugnant to the views with which they had been familiar from childhood, for them to be able to under- stand it. To a cultivated and high-born Roman this whole fellowship of artisans and slaves was far too con- temptible, and its superstition far too absurd, to admit of his at all busying himself with it and inquiring with any special care as to its precise character. Accurately as contemporary writers collect whatever else is worthy of note, Christianity is scarcely mentioned by them down to the middle of the second century. Pliny the Younger, and even Tacitus, although he relates the persecution by Nero, evidently do not regard it as worth while to concern themselves about this generall} despised mass of men. That such persons, on the whole, deserved nothing better than to be thus persecuted, even without investigation, passed with them as some- thing settled. Precisely where something of the gen- uine Roman spirit prevailed was the opposition the most powerful, for the Christian spirit and the Roman stood in sharpest antagonism. The circles of the aristocracy were the most difficult in which the church could make conquests. They were for the most part morally too corrupt to have any feeling for what is higher. And where a better spirit prevailed, where the endeavor was 224 PRELIMINARY SURVEY. [book ix to maintain tlie old Roman character and to re-invig* orate it, this effort in itself involved ill-will toward an oriental religion which was numbered without examina- tion with " the detestable and senseless " that flowed to Rome, and with the innovations which must be set aside in order to restore the State and the national life to the old traditional basis. The sentiment of the middle classes is mare known to us in the ingenious colloquy which Minr.cius Felix wrote in defence of Christianity under the title Octa- vius. Csecilius, who defends Heathenism, represents in his views a class of persons large then as always, persons having a certain measure of culture yet in- capable of any profound knowledge, and touching the subject of religion only on the surface. Conserva- tive in their disposition they adhere to the faith in which they are born neither from choice, nor from inclination, but from decorum and love of quiet. They regard it as a mark of good breeding not to dispute* much upon such a topic. They are no dreamers, nor mystics. On the contrary they are somewhat scepti- cal, and inclined it may be to ridicule religious be- liefs. Yet they are unwilling to see the old traditions disturbed, and they are easily inflamed against reli- gious innovators, and are credulous of every absurdity which is reported about them. Nothing in Christianity more excites the anger of Csecilius than its claim to be in possession of assured truth. Often enough does he repeat that one can know nothing with certainty.^ "Human mediocrity is so inadequate to the explo- ration of things divine that it is not granted us to know, nor is it permitted to search, nor is it religious to force the things which are upheld suspended in the CHAP. I.] SENTIMENT OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 225 heavens above us, nor those which are sunk deep in subterranean abysses." Yet in spite of his scep- ticism he adheres to what has been handed down. " Since then either chance is certain, or nature is un- certain," this is his last word, " is not the tradition of the fathers the most venerable and the best guide tou truth? Let us follow the religion which they have handed down to us, let us adore the gods whom we have been trained from childhood to fear rather than to know with familiarity, and let us beware of disputing about them." 8 This seemed to him the surest and most useful method. He clings to the utility of the old religion inasmuch as its truth cannot be determined. "Since all nations agree to recognize the immortal gods, although their nature or their origin may be uncertain, I cannot endure that any one swelling with audacity and such irreligious knowledge should strive to dissolve or weaken a religion so old, so useful, so salutary." * Without doubt many held the same posi- tion. They had no longer any heart for the old reli- gion, yet they did not venture directly to break with it. They doubted, they reckoned it a sign of culture no longer to hold the ancient creed with exactness, they occasionally scoffed at it, — this was a mark of being well bred ; yet at last they helc fast to the old faith They lacked the energy which was necessary to seize a new one. Besides this there was the depressed condition of the Christians — an offence to all. Much was involved in attaching one's self to these despised, persecuted men. What we call /public opinion is for the most part determined by success. The God of the Chris- tians had so far shown few successes. The Roman 226 PRELIMINABY SURVEY. [book n deities had made Rome great, had given her the victory in countless battles, had laid at the feet of the city on the Tiber the dominion of the world. But this God of the Christians, why did He not interest Himself in those who believed in Him ? Why allow them to be so despised and trodden under foot ? Did the Christians appeal to the future, did they point to the day of final redemption and completion of the kingdom of God, to the resurrection and the coming blessedness, this was to the heathen of no importance, since the present was so troubled. " Where is the God ? " asks Csecilius, " that can help those who come to life again, while He does nothing for the living? Do not the Romans govern and reign without your God? Do they not enjoy the whole world and rule over you ? The great- est and best portion of you are the prey of want and cold, are naked and hungry. Your God suffers this, and seems not to know it. Either He can not, or will not, help His own : thus He is either weak, or unjust." ^ A mode of reasoning which must certainly have struck home to the heathen, to whom the present was all, and whose worship had this ultimate aim — the attainment of something from their gods as a reward for their zealous veneration. The less Christianity was understood, and the more foreign and contradictory every thing about it was to the opinions which hitherto had been accepted, the more easy was it for misunderstanding and hatred to excite the strangest reports ; and the more absurd these were, the more readily did they obtain currency, not only among the masses who are always credulous, but even more widely and in select circles. The spiritual worship of the Christians was something cmAT. I.] SLANDEROUS REPORTS. 227 utterly unintelligible to the heathen. No pagan could conceive of a religious service without temples and images, without altars and sacrifices. Since the Chris- tians had none of these they could not have a God. It is true they talked of an invisible, omnipresent God, but such a Deity was to the heathen inconceiv- able. " What absurdities," exclaims Caecilius,^ " do these Christians invent I Of the God whom they can neither show nor see they recount that He is every- where present, that He comes and goes, that He knows and judges the actions of men, their words, and even their secret thoughts. They make Him out to be a spy, a troublesome policeman, who is always in motion."^ How can He attend to every particular, when He is occupied with the whole ? Or how can He be sufficient for the whole, when He is engaged with particulars ? " ' Therefore the Christians appeared to them to be god- less, to be atheists. Away with the atheists ! was the customary cry of popular rage in the persecutions. Or, since the Christians according to pagan thought must have some sort of a deity, the slander circulated about the Jews was transferred to them — they adored the head of an ass. Thus in Tertullian's day, there was circulated a picture of a figure with the ears of an ass, clothed with a toga, holding a book in its hands, and with these words inscribed beneath : " The God of the Christians.''^ So likewise, among the ruins of the Palace of the Csesars in Rome, there has recently been found a sketch, roughly drawn with charcoal on the wall, representing a man with an ass's head hanging on a cross, and below, in rude Greek letters : " Alexamenoa adores his god." Evidently a scoif of the soldiers at some Christian comrade.^® 228 PEELIMINARY SURVEY [book u Even worse accusations were made. The close con- nection of Christians with each other, their brotherlj love, their firm union even to death, it was believed, could only be explained by the fact that they were united in a secret sacrilegious covenant by horrid oaths and yet more horrible practices. Men shuddered as they related that in the Christian assemblies, at the Agapce^ human flesh was eaten, and human blood drunk. "The story about the initiation of novices," Caecilius narrates, " is as much to be detested as it is well known. An infant covered over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary, is placed before the neophytes. This in- fant is slain by the young pupil, with dark and secret wounds, he being urged on as if to harmless blows on the surface of the meal. Thirstily — O horror ! — they lick up its blood ; eagerly they divide its limbs ; by this victim they are pledged together ; with this conscious- ness of wickedness they are covenanted to mutual silence." After the feast, it is further related, when they are intoxicated, a dog that has been tied to the chandelier is provoked by throwing a morsel to jump, and by the leap he extinguishes the light, and in the darkness thus occasioned, deeds of the most abominable lust are committed and the wildest orgies are cele- brated. Even cultivated and thoughtful heathen like the Orator Fronto under Marcus Aurelius, and even, it appears, the Emperor himself credited such reports; and those who did not wholly accept them were oi the opinion that things so utterly impious, and only to be mentioned with apology, would not be reported unless there were some foundation in truth. But apart from such stories, — which with the lapse of time must have been seen to be wholly baseless, CHAF, 1.] ENEMIES OF MANKIND. 229 though believed through many a decade and often enough kindling the rage of the populace and influ- encing even the measures of the government, — the Christians passed with the heathen as a race averse to all that is great, fair and noble in our humanity, as even hostile to it, and haters of mankind. In its origin their religion was barbarian : they despised all science. This is the rule laid down by them," writes Celsus : ^^ " Let no one come to us who has been educated, or who is wise or prudent, for such qualifications are deemed evil by us; but if there be any ignorant, or unculti- vated, or unintelligent, or foolish person, let him come with confidence." Their teachers, he affirms, say : " See that none of you lay hold of knowledge ! Knowledge is an evil. Knowledge causes men to lose their sound- ness of mind; they perish through "wisdom." ^^ Since the Christians were obliged to withdraw from public life, since they took no part in the pleasures of the heathen nor shared in their interests, they were regarded as useless, as a gloomy and light-shunning race. Their life seemed to the heathen joyless and dismal. " We," says one of their number, " worship the gods with cheer- fulness, with feasts, songs and games, but you worship a crucified man who cannot be pleased by those who have all this enjoyment, who despises joy and condemns pleasures." ^* Even what the Christians said of a judg- ment for the godless, of eternal punishments in hell, was deemed a proof of their hatred of men. To the pagan Caecilius ^^ they are a " reprobate, unlawful, des- perate faction," who had conspired against all that is good and beautiful, a "people skulking and shunning the light, silent in public, but garrulous in corners. They despise the temples as charnel-houses, they abhoi 230 PRELIMINARY SURVEY. [book a the gods, they laugh at sacred things; wretched, thej pity, if they are allowed, the priests ; half naked them« selves, they disdain honors and purple robes. In their wondrous folly and incredible audacity they despise present torments, though they dread those which are uncertain and future ; and, while they fear to die after death, they do not fear to die for the present. So does a deceitful hope, the consolations of a revival, soothe their fear." The solicitude of the Christians for their salvation was to the heathen something wholly unintelligible and even absurd, and they regarded the Christians as the most irrational and wretched of men because they renounced the sure, substantial blessings and enjoyments of this world for the sake of things future and wholly uncertain in order to escape an ima- ginary evil and attain to an imaginary blessedness. " You in the mean time, in suspense and anxiety," says Caecilius,^^ " are abstaining from respectable enjoyments. You do not visit the shows; you are not present in solemn processions ; you do not appear at public ban- quets; you abhor the sacred contests, and the meats and drinks a portion of which has been offered and poured out upon the altars. You do not wreathe your heads with flowers ; you do not honor your bodies with odors ; you reserve unguents for funeral-rites, you even refuse garlands to your sepulchres — pale, trembling beings, worthy of pity, even the pity of our gods. Thus, wretched ones, you neither rise again, nor mean- while do you live." Surely if Csecilius was correct in this last statement, he was altogether right in calling the Christians the most wretched of human beings. For if in this life only we have hope in Christ, if we ai*e not born again by the resurrection of Christ tc a CHAF. I.] POLITICAL ACCtTSATIOKS. 231 li\ing hope, we are indeed of all men the most miser- able (1 Cor. XV. 19). The greatest peril for the Christians lay in this, that these reproaches had a political side, or that they could so easily be turned in this direction. Just because public life was wholly interwoven with Heathenism, were Christians compelled to withdraw from it. Their demeanor towards the State was, it is true, everywhere determined by the command : " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake," "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers," but while the State was thoroughly pagan their relation to it could only be a negative one. Their interests lay elsewhere than in the Roman State, and in its grandeur and honor. " Nothing," Tertullian acknowledges with perfect frankness, "is more foreign to us than public affairs." ^^ They avoided military service and public offices, for the soldier was obliged to assist at sacrifices, and civil officers to superintend the performance of religious rites. Therefore it was said : " You are a lazy race, useless and indolent in public affairs, for it behooves a man to live for his native land and the State." ^^ While the heathen religions were thoroughly national, Christianity (and this was to pagan thought something wholly absurd) appeared as a universal reli- gion, as a religion for all nations. Even those who were not Romans, even the barbarians, who confessed Christ, were to the Christians brothers. The reproach w as close at Land : You yourselves are not Romans, you are enemies to the State. Christianity seemed to the heathen anti-national, and the church, firmly united in its faith and separate from all other men, was looked upon as a dangerous faction in the State. Waa 232 PRELIMINARY SURVEY. [book a the Emperor's birtMay celebrated, the houses of the Christians remained dark in the illuminated cities, and their doors were not garlanded. Were games given in honor of some triumph, no Christian allowed himself to be seen in the circus, or in the amphitheatre. To strew incense to the Emperor, to do homage to the image of the Emperor, to swear by his Genius, was accounted by the Christians a fall into idolatry. Of course they were deemed guilty of high treason, ene- mies of the Emperor. To Romans the eternal duration of Rome was an indisputable truth. How often Rome appears on coins as " the eternal city." " To them," says Jupiter in Virgil, " I set neither limit, nor times ; I have given them dominion without end." ^^ The Christians spoke of a destruction of the whole world; therefore of Rome. They even expected this speedily, and rejoiced in it as in a redemption. They hoped for another, better country, and regarded this earthly one only as a foreign land. Thus they were a people with- out a fatherland. It was even charged that they plotted the destruction of Rome. Let them protest as often as they might that they were obedient, peaceable subjects, that in their congregations and in their houses they prayed assiduously for the Emperor, that they paid punctually their taxes, what did it all avail ? Here, in truth, was an antagonism which necessarily led to - bloody conflicts. All the States of Antiquity had a theocratic founda- tion, Rome not less than an} other. As national life was everywhere interwoven with religion, so the reli- gious life was a part of the political. It. was the duty of a citizen to honor the national gods, and to obey the laws of the State in religious things as in all others. OHAP. I.] GUILrY OF TREASON. 2C3 Human life was on all sides absorbed in civil lif vV the State embraced and regulated all its departments. \ pagan could not conceive the possibility of there being any sphere of human life which was not reached by the power of the State. It was to him wholly incompre- hensible that a man could believe himself constrained from regard to his conscience, for the sake of God, aod in order to obey God, to refuse obedience to any law or ordinance of the State whatsoever. The State itself was to him, so to speak, God, and its laws divine. In Rome this theocratic tendency culminated in the wor- ship of the Emperors. What other gods a man might worship, was his private concern, — in this respect the State was exceedingly tolerant, — but he must honor the divine Emperor, this was his duty as a citizen. The crimen Icesce majestatis, the crime of violating the majesty of the Emperor, and the crimen Icesce publicce religionis, the crime of violating the established reli- gion, were most intimately connected. From this point of view all the charges above mentioned were true. Christianity was for Romans anti-national, hostile to State and Emperor, un-Roman, an opposition to the State religion, and therefore to the State itself. And so long as the State was built on such foundations it could not act otherwise than it did, it must treat and persecute Christianity as a prohibited religion. Won licet esse vos^^ you have no right to exist, this was the constantly repeated cry against Christianity. "Your associations are contrary to law," thus Celsus begins his book against the Christians, passing, as it were, sentence of death before the trial. The judicial proceedings against the Christians, as these fall unier our notice in numerous Acts of the Martyrs, always become decisive 234 PRELIMINARY SlTRVEY [book n at this point, — the refusal of the accused to pay divine honor to the Emperor. "You ought to love our princes," said the Proconsul to the martyr Achatius, — to give merely a single instance of thousands, — " as behooves a man who lives under the laws of the Ro- man Empire." Achatius answered : " By whom is the Emperor more loved than by the Christians ? We sup- plicate for him unceasingly a long life, a just govern- ment of his peoples, a peaceful reign, prosperity for the army and the whole world." — " Good," replied the Pro- consul, " but in order to prove your obedience, sacrifice with us to his honor." Upon this Achatius explained : ''I pray to God for my Emperor, but a sacrifice neither he should require nor we pay. Who may offer divine honor to a man?" Upon this declaration he was sen- tenced to death. This one transaction is typical for all. The pagan-Roman State, so long as it bore this charac- ter could not do otherwise than persecute the Christians. In refusing divine honors to the Emperor, they denied the State in its profoundest principles. Conversely, if the Christians had obeyed in this particular, they would have renounced Christianity in its inmost essence. Here was a conflict which could be settled by no com- promise, which could only be gotten rid of by a battle for life or death. Not until the Emperor bowed before the Supreme God, not until Christianity became tht foundation of the State, could the era of persecution come to an end. Let us not unjustly censure the Emperors who perse- cuted the Christians, nor the judges who sentenced them to death. Let us not make of them, as did the later legends of the martyrs (not the ancient and genuine martyria so many of which have been pre CHAP. I.] CHARACTER OF THE CONFLICT. £36 served), fanatical and bloodthirsty tyrants. The judgea decided simply in accordance with the laws, and, in the great majority of cases, did so coolly, calmly, with- out passion, as men who were simply discharging their duty. Among the Emperors there were some, who like Nero and Domitian, that " piece of Nero in cruelty," " as Tertullian says, were persecutors from cruelty and thirst for blood, but most of them were actuated by nobler motives. Those of the second century recog- nized more as by instinct, those of the third clearly, the danger which threatened the Roman State in the new spirit of Christianity, and they strove to protect it. We must concede that in this matter they were not deceived. Christianity was, in fact, a power hostile to the Roman State as it had hitherto existed. The new spirit which inspired the Christians would inevitably destroy the old political organization. The Emperors could not as yet perceive what renewing and rejuvenat- ing powers for the State were possessed by Christianity. It would be unjust to expect from the Emperors of the second century the act of Constantine. It would have been in all respects premature. Let us avoid forming a wrong conception of the whole conflict. It was not, as later times have thought in an entirely unhistorical way, a fanatical war waged with uninterrupted fury by the old faith on the new. It was a religious contest on the part of the Christians ftlone, who suffered and died for their faith. Only in its last stages at most did it assume this character to the heathen. In this fact lay, from the beginning, the weakness of Heathenism, and the strength of Chris- tianity. Not the priests, but the Emperors led the attack, and the Emperors did not fight for their faith — 236 PBELBUNAKY SURVEY. [booh ji indeea the most zealous persecutors were pre-eminently sceptical as to the heathen religions, while those who were believers in them often left the Christians unmo- lested, — they fought for the existing order of the State, and the object of their endeavors was, not to convert the Christians again to the pagan faith, but to compel them to submit to the established laws. It i^ true the Christians never rebelled against the State. They cannot be reproached with even the appearance of a revolutionary spirit. Despised, persecuted, abused, they still never revolted, but showed themselves every- where obedient to the laws, and ready to »pay to the Emperors the honor which was their due. Yet in one particular they could not obey, the worship of idols, the strewing of incense to the Caesar-god. And in this one thing it was made evident that in Christianity lay the germ of a wholly new political and social order. This is the character of the conflict which we are now to review. It is a contest of the spirit of Antiquit} against that of Christianity, of the ancient heathen order of the world against the new Christian order. Ten persecutions are commonly enumerated, viz., under Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aa- relius, Septimius Severus, Maximinus the Thracian, Decius, Valerian, and Diocletian.^^ This traditional enameration is, however, very superficial, and leaves entirely unrecognized the real course of the struggle. The persecutions are made by it to appear as arbitrary acts of particular Emperors, as though some persecuted, while others recognized, Christianity. Though times of relative tranquillity occurred, Christianity remained, notwithstanding, a prohibited religion. This being the case, the simple arrangement of the persecutions in a OHAP. I.J CHBISTIAKrrY PROHIBITED. 237 series makes the impression that they were all of the same character, while in fact the persecution under Nero was wholly different from that under Trajan and his successors, and this again varied essentially from those under Decius and Diocletian. The first persecu- tion which was really general and systematically aimed at the suppression of the Church, was the Decian. That under Trajan and his successors consisted merely of more or less frequent processes against individual Christians, in which the established methods of trial were employed, and the existing laws were more or less sharply used against them.^* Finally, the persecutions under Nero and Domitian were mere outbreaks of per- sonal cruelty and tyrannical caprice. In what has preceded I have indicated the three periods which mark the course of the conflict. The strictness of the Roman laws against foreign religions has been already noticed. Christianity be- longed to this class. It was therefore from the outset a prohibited religion. The Christian churches were illegal societies (collegia illicita). Participation in for- bidden associations was severely punished. The penalty for membership was the same as for appearing at public places or temples with weapons in the hand, the pun- ishment of treason; that is, the guilty party could, according to the decision of the judge, be either be- neaded, or cast to the wild beasts, or burned. If these severe laws had been at once rigidly employed against the youthful Christianity, ;t must have immediately succumbed to the attack. But, apart from the fact already noticed that the Romans were somewhat timid about strictly enforcing these laws, two circumstances came to the help of Christianity, and secured to it at 238 PRELIMINARY SURVEY. [book ii least sufficient protection to enable it to gain Btrength until it could withstand open assault. One of these was the protection which the Christians could obtain under the laws concerning the collegia. To these legally sanctioned collegia belonged the burial clubs, — associa- tions, mostly, of the poorer class of people, who joined together to secure to their members, by regular contri* butions, suitable burial upon their decease, and the due observance of the usual religious solemnities at their interment and on anniversary days. The extensive catacombs in Rome and elsewhere prove that the Chris- tians enjoyed legal protection for their graves. There are also many other indications that they endeavored in every possible way to avail themselves of the shelter afforded by the laws and usages respecting associations for burial purposes. In this way they could not only bury their dead in safety without molestation from the heathen, they were also able to meet together under the protection of law, to arrange collections for the poor, and above all to hold their services of religious worship at the cemeteries.^* Of greater importance than this means of protection — which, indeed, was of more avail for the dead than the living — was the other fact to which I have referred, that the heathen at first were unable to distinguish the Christians from the Jews. The Christian brotherhood^ passed continually with the Romans for Jewish associa- tions, and thus they remained unmolested ; and more than once it was the Roman law which afforded protec- tion to the nascent Christianity against the fanatical hatred of the unbelieving Jews. Paul appealed suc- cessfully to his rights as a Roman citizen, and in Cor inth the Proconsul Gallio drove the Jews with their I.J MEANS OF PROTECTION. 23^ accusation against Paul from his judgment-seat, with the declaration that he was not disposed to be a judge of their disputes."^^ On the other hand the Christians inherited all the hatred which so heavily oppressed the Jews; and this hatred did not diminish, but only augmented as the heathen ere long discovered, especially in the large cities, that there was a difference between Jews and Christians. The Jews themselves, who every- where persecuted the Christians most violently, took care to make it plain that the latter did not belong to them. At first the Christians appeared to the heathen only as a faction of the Jews, and, indeed, as the most dangerous and objectionable faction of these despisable and irrational beings, and therefore when the cruelty and murderous passion of an Emperor like Nero seized upon these Christians in order to make them atone for a crime of which they were guiltless, he could be sure of the assent of the great mass of the people. In other respects, though the zeal of a governor who thought in this way to recommend himself to the Emperor, or some outburst of popular rage demanded here and there a victim, no systematic persecution of the Chris- tians occurred in this period. They were still protected by the pagan ignorance of the true character of their religion. They were, besides, too insignificant to make it possible for them to be regarded as an important opponent by the heathen world in the fullness of its power. The situation changed when, with the destruction of Jerusalem and the complete overthrow of the Jewish State, the protecting sheath fell off from Christianity ; when it could no lonsrer remain concealed from th« 240 PRELIMINABY SURVEY. [book a heathen that Christianity was a tertium genus, a third religion by the side of Heathenism ^od Judaism; and when at the same time, about the beginning of the second century, this religion spread with such power that for the first time the thought occurred to Roman statesmen that it might become dangerous to the State. Now a definite position in regard to it could no longer be avoided; and this was taken in the rescript of Trajan to Pliny, in which the Emperor communicated exact directions respecting legal proceedings against the Christians. This introduces the second period of- the contest, for the edict of Trajan remained substan- tially the law for the following century and a half. The effort was to limit the growth of the church by the use of the established laws in the ordinary methods of judicial transactions. Meanwhile, however, Chris- tianity kept on growing ; and as early as the reign of Marcus Aurelius it had become evident that these means for its suppression were inadequate. Already they had to be employed on so large a scale that the persecution, in many places at least, was universal. Yet all this was only preparatory to the decisive conflict. This was first kindled when the question arose, on what should the State be founded, on a re- stored Heathenism with anniliilation of Christianity, or on Christianity with an abandonment of Heathen- ism. On the one side, the revolution maturing within Heathenism itself, which we have characterized above as its restoration, on the other, the magnificent devel- opment of the Christian church, first brought the op- posing parties into a position in which the decisive battle could be fought. The general persecutions be- gan with Decius. They aimed at a complete suppref* OHAP I.] THE THREE PERIODS OP THE CONFLICT. 241 sion of Christianity. All previous col flic ts had been, as it were, single combats. Now the contest raged along the whole line of battle. On both sides all the forces at command were brought into action. Hea- thenism, now become fanatical, put for^h its last stren- uous exertions, and the contest ended only with the full victory of the Cross. II. THE PERSECUTION UNDER NERO. Not much more than three decades had passed away since Pentecost, the birthday of the Christian Church, when there occurred its first bloody encounter with the Roman State. It took place, characteristically enough, in Rome, in the world's chief city, and no less a person than the Emperor gave the signal for a contest which was to bring grave anxieties to many of his successors on the throne of the Caesars, until, again before the gates of Rome, at the Milvian bridge, the legions of the first Christian Emperor won, under the sign of the long-persecuted Cross, the decisive and final victory. We do not know when the Gospel was first preached In Rome. It was certainly at an early date. The inter- course between Rome and the East was very active. N amerous vessels came from Antioch and the coast of Asia Minor. And on one of them, perhaps, came the first converted, and for us nameless, Jew who bore to the large Jewish communion there the tidings of the Messiah who had appeared, the crucified and risen Jesus. The earliest, indistinct trace of this introduc- tion :f Christianity into Rome is to be found in Sueto- nius s report of the expulsion of the Jews, which is mentioned also in Acts xviii. 1. Suetonius alleges as the cause of this expulsion that the Jews had excited 242 THE PERSECCJTIO^ UNDBI NERO. [book a constant disturbance at the instiga 4on of a certain Ohrestus. This Chrestus, whom Suetonius appears to regard as a leader of the Jews at that time, can only be Christ, as the verbal form Chrestus not unfrequently appears instead of Christus.^ It was the controversy whether the Messiah had already appeared, or was stDl JO be expected, which excited the Jews. The Roman Jewish community shared in the disquiet which now disturbed more and more the whole Jewish world Rejecting the true Messiah they looked all the more enthasiastically for a Messiah who should correspond to their own expectations, a Messiah who should break in pieces the Roman yoke. Incited by the Pharisaic party fanaticism flamed higher and higher. Already in the Holy Land the clouds were gathering for the fearful tempest which was soon to break upon that unhappy country, and the expulsion of the Jews from Rome was a sign of the approaching storm. Although they soon returned, they were henceforth increasingly suspected by the Romans, and whereas, down to this time, it had been one of the traditions of the Julian house to show them especial favor, they now met from the government many tokens of displeasure. Meanwhile the number of the Christians increased perceptibly. It may have happened that many, like Aquila and Priscilla, departed as Jews and returned as Christians. Doubtless the two persons just named, to whom Paul in the Epistle to the Romans gives the first place in his greetings, ^o-rgely contributed to the founding and enlargement of the Roman church. Paul, on Lis arrival in the city, found an important church already in existence, and through his efforts, while he lived as a prisoner two years in a hired house; CTHAP. I.] THE CHURCH IN ROME. 243 it considerably increased. It could no lc:iger remain wholly concealed from the heathen as a distinct com- munity, and although it may still have been regarded as a fraction of Judaism, yet as such it now became of note. The consequence, indeed, was only greater hatred and profounder contempt. The Christians ap- peared to the heathen to be the most dangerous fraction of Judaism, more unreasonable than the rest of the Jews, more hostile to the whole Roman State, to all that in their eyes was great, noble and good. Judaism was still a national religion, Christianity wholly anti- national, and this anti-national religion was rapidly diffusing itself with its superstition among the lower orders. It contradicted every thing which hitherto had been esteemed sacred, and it could only be explained by assuming that it originated in hatred to all that is human. The Jews who were hostile to Christianity stirred up, so far as they were able, the ill-will and hatred of the heathen towards the Christians, and it is not improbable that they, above all others, diffused and kept alive the horrible reports about the Christians which even thus early appeared and were only too readily credited, the stories of the abominations which the Christians were said to practise in their secret assemblies, their eating human flesh, and their licen- tiousness. The hostile feeling of the people toward the Chris^- tians which was thus excited forms the background of the First, the Neronian Persecution, which, as before remarked, was no persecution in the latei meaning of the word, but only a sudden, fierce outburst t^f hate, though for this reason all the more bloody and horrible.^ On the night of the eighteenth of July, \.D. 64 (the 244 THE PERSECUTION UNDER NERO. [book n same day of the year on which the Gauls had once Bet fire to the eity, a fact to which the superstitious ascribed especial importance), a great conflagration broke out in Rome. The fire originated in the stalls near the Circus Maximus, in which many of the Jews carried on their traffic, and there, where combustibles of different kinds were accumulated, it found its first sup- ply of fuel. Then it seized the Circus with its wooden stagings and seats, and lashed by the wind spread with astonishing rapidity. All efforts of the firemen and soldiers, who tore down houses with engines of war, to arrest the flames, proved abortive. The fire raged six days and nights, until it was finally conquered far away from where it began, at the wall of Servius TuUius near the gardens of Maecenas. Nor did this suffice. The fire broke out anew in another quarter of the city, and raged three days more. Of the fourteen " regions " of the city only four entirely escaped. The metropolis of the world was a vast heap of ruins. The calamity was immeasurable. As always happens at such times, the origin of the fire was the object of the most eager and excited in- quiry ; and among the people the suspicion arose, that Nero himself had instigated the conflagration. It was asserted that men had been seen to hurl firebrands into the houses, and to hinder the extinction of the flames. Moreover they were said to have declared that they thus acted by order of the Emperor. Others believed that they had recognized these incendiaries as his ser- vants. Yet others narrated that Nero himself had exulted in the splendor of the sea of fire; that from the tower of Maecenas, he had been a spectator of the conflagration, and in his well-krown stage costume had declaimed over it a poem on the burning of Troy. CHAP. 1.] THE GREAT FIRE OP ROME. 246 It is, to-day, hardly possible to discover whett.er there was any truth in these reports. The impartial verdict of history must be that it is at least very improbable that Nero was really the incendiary, since he was not in Rome at all, but at Antium, and did not return till the fire threatened to attack his palace. But this at least is certain, the reports found credence. Nero w&s ao- cused of having set fire to the world's capital for his own pleasure. It made no difference that, during the conflagration, he hurried to and- fro directing and ur- ging on the efforts for its extinction, or that after the fire he cared for the people and promoted the rebuilding of the city in the most munificent manner. The sacri- fices too which he offered and the services of atonement and consecration which he instituted, were in vain, The rumor held its ground in spite of all. The rage of the people demanded a victim, and for the sacrifice the Christians were chosen. Nero, says Tacitus, falsely charged the Christians with the crime. It need not be wondered at that, when a crime had been committed, these were selected to expiate it, though they were tie farthest of all from perpetrating the crime. They were hated for deeds of shame im- puted to them, and so seemed equally capable of the crime and worthy of the punishment. Besides, as al- ready indicated, suspicion might easily be made to fall on the Jews, and the Christians were still considered AS Jews. The conflagration had begun near the circi:^ where the Jews had their shops, and the quarters in- habited by them were among the few parts of the city, which the fire spared. But, the Christians were reg-ard- ed as the worst and the most dangerous among the Jews, because their numbers constantly increased. By 246 THE PERSECUTION UNDER NERO. [book n making them suffer death, an additional advantage would be gained in getting rid of them. It is possible, also, that the Jews, being enemies of the Christians, managed to divert suspicion from themselves, to those whom they so much hated. Whether Poppsea Sabina, Nero's con- sort, and the friend of the Jews, had a part in it or not, cannot be decided. We have no information on the subject, and the story told by French historians of an intrigue of Poppaea against Nero's mistress Acte, whom they suppose to have been a Christian, is a romance spun from sparse and wholly inadequate materials. However, some Christians were arrested and confessed — what and how, we are not told. Perhaps only that they were Christians, but if also that they took part in kindling the fire, then those who confessed it were no Christians, or torture forced untrue confessions from their weakness. In the narrative of Tacitus there is a veil over this matter, and this veil was not thrown over it by the historian, but before him by those who exam- ined the accused. The prefect, Tigellinus, who was at no loss for the witnesses necessary to convict Nero's innocent wife Octavia, of all sorts of infamous deeds, would not feel any embarrassment in this case. From the testimony of those first arrested, a more searching inquisition was instituted for the Chriitians. A multi- tude of arrests were made, and if the prisoners could not be convicted of kindling the conflagration, yet as Tacitus reports with icy coldness, they could be con- demned for hating the human race. That was sufficient ; of such people the worst was probable, and they might be treated as incendiaries even though proof of the deed was not to be had. There followed a carnival of Iloodshed such as Rome, •HAP. I.] CABNTVAL OF BLOODSHED IN BOMB. 247 thoroughly accustomed as it then was to murde* , had never yet seen. It was not enough simply to put the supposed criminals to death, for of couise the more cruelly they were treated, the more guilty would thej^ l^e made to appear. And so the most horrible torments were employed, and new modes of execution were in- vented to torture them. Those who were crucified and thus imitated their Lord in their death, could consider themselves favored. Others were sewed up in the skins of wild beasts and torn to pieces by dogs. Still others were used in tragic spectacles in the manner before mentioned. We have a scene from this persecution recalled by the words of Clement of Rome in his Epistle to the Corinthians : ^* " By reason of jealousy, women, Danaids and Dirces, being persecuted, after that they had suffered cruel and unholy insults, safely reached the goal in the race of faith, and received a noble reward, feeble though they were in body." Christian women personating the Danaids and Dirce were brought upon the stage, and there certainly happened to the one who represented Dirce, what, according to the legend, befell her, namely that she was bound to a raging bull, and dragged to death. But the evening was the climax of the carnival. The populace as- sembled in Nero's garden to behold a magnificent dis- play. All around, huge torches were blazing to dispel the darkness. They were Christians who, covered with tow and coated with pitch, and then bound to stakes of pine, were lighted and burned as torches. Juvenal, who probably was an eye witness, describes * how << At the stake they shine, Who stand with throat transfixed and smoke and bum." 248 THE PERSECUTION UNDER NERO. [book n Among tiem Nero drove about, fantastically attired aa a cliarioteer, and the people shouted with delight. This was the first of the persecutions, as it were the fiery portal, through which the Christians entered the arena in which they were now called to strive, to bleed, to die for their faith during two and a half centuries. This first persecution was no carefully-planned attempt to suppress Christianity, founded upon civil or religious policy, but only a cruel outburst of hatred, which Nero turned to account in his own interest. Heathenism had not as yet learned to understand Christianity at all. It appeared to the heathen only as something entirely strange, utterly opposed to every existing and tradi- tional belief. And the Christians were regarded as men who, since they hated every thing human, deserved nothing but hatred, in dealing with whom therefore any thing was permissible, and all considerations of humanity might be set aside. Now Christians might learn what awaited them. Heathenism had openly de- clared by action, that Christianity was not to be tole- rated, that it was to be annihilated as inhuman, hostile to the human race. Now, too, might the heathen know what they had to expect from the Christians. In patient silence they endured all. The Heroic Age of the Christian Church had begun, a heroism not of action, but of a suffering mightier than all deeds. It is certainly significant that Nero, the most blood- thirst;' and cruel of all the Emperors, was the one who heads the list of the persecutors of the Christians. It is not difficult to understand why the defenders of Christianity in later times have often referred to the fact that a Nero began the persecutions, nor to see how the legend arose that Nero was Antichrist, and would CHAP. I.] CilRISTIANITY AND ANTI-CHRIST. 249 return in that character at the end of the wc/rld. In- deed here Christianity and Anti-Christianity stood con- fronting one another more directly than they will again antagonize till the end of time. Here we see the Chris- tian church still in its original simplicity and purity, still under the guidance of apostles, full of living faith and active love and (in all the weakness and imperfec- tion, which even then were not absent) as yet in truth composed of saints who sought holiness, who included all in their brotherly love and who were prepared to endure all things for their faith. Opposed to these stood the Emperor, stained with the blood of many inno- cent victims, with the blood of his brother, of his wife, of his mother, wallowing in licentiousness and the in- dulgence of every lust; and a degenerate people, a populace clamoring only for " bread and games." And while the Christians, innocent, but accused of the most disgraceful crimes, writhed in mortal agony and blazed as torches at the stake, the Emperor made his vanity as an actor conspicuous, pt jaded his skill as a charioteer, and a rabble drunk with sensual pleasure saluted him with shouts of applause. In the metropolis of the world Heathenism and Chris- tianity then for the first time came into collision. The conflict had begun, and the way in which it began left no doubt on which side th*» victory would be. Of those who fell at that time we know only two by name, the great apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul. The apostle of the Jews and the apostle of the Gentiles, whose paths often led them far apart in life, in death united theii praises to the one Lord who "wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision and was mighty in Paul toward the Gentiles " (Gal. ii. 8). Tho 250 THE PERSECUTION UNDER NERO. [book n rest^ whose charred and mangled remains were thrown into a common pit, after the carnival of murder was past, were probably from the lower classes, artisans and slaves, nameless in life and nameless in death. But the seer beheld their souls " under the altar, resting for a little season until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed, as they were, should be fulfilled" (Rev. vi. 10, 11). And throughout the book of Revelation sounds the Hallelujah over the victory these nameless ones gained by their death, the sure pledge of the final triumph. CHAP PER n. THE CHRISTIANS BEFORE THE TRIBUNALS. " They I nil deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues ; and ye shall he brought before governors and kir,gs fof my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.'^ — Matt. x. 17, 18. Fearfully as the Neronian persecution raged in Rome itself, it seems to have been principally confined to the capital.^ Yet it is not improbable that the man- ner in which the Emperor himself attacked the confes- sors of the new faith, drew attention to them where they were prominent in the provinces, and that 'ss. a few cases the local officials may have proceeded against them. At least we hear of a martyr Antipas in Perga- mnm (Rev. ii. 13), whose martyrdom probably belongs to this period. The persecution was like a sudden itorm which soon spent its fury. Those who escaped the clutches of Nero's minions probably remained in hiding for a time and then went back to their former positions, while some who had fled the city were per- mitted to return without molestation. Tacitus indeed expressly tells us that the fate of the Christians slain by Nero awakened sympathy for them (though tiiey 281 252 TRAJAN'S LEGISLATION. [book n. deserved to suffer the worst of punishments), on the ground that they were destroyed not for the public good, but to glut the cruelty of a single man. The only results of Nero's action were that the heroism of the martyrs strengthened the faith of the survivors, and the example of the dead stimulated the zeal of the living. The spread of Christianity was not hindered but rather helped by this event. Not until the reign of Domitian do we again hear of persecutions. Primarily, of course, these had the Jews for their object. After the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple, they were obliged to pay their for- mer temple-dues, the Didrachma, to the Capitoline Jupi- ter, and this poll-tax was often collected in a harsh and cruel manner, because some Jews refused to pay a trib- ute to a heathen deity .^ In the conflicts which thus arose, the Christians, especially the Jewish Christians, were often involved, for the heathen had not yet learned to distinguish definitely between Jews and Christians. We learn also that some were condemned for defection from the religion of the State to Judaism, or, as the accusation sometimes reads, for atheism.' The Empe- ror condemned even his own cousin. Flavins Clemens and his wife Flavia Domitilla. Flavins Clemens was executed soon after the close of A. D. 96, the year of his consulate, and Flavia Domitilla was banished to the island Pandateria. The historian Suetonius calls Clemens a man " of the most despicable indolence." * Many to-day regard it as clear that the accusation of being a Christian is covered by this expressioD, and therefore that Clemens is to be regarded as a martyr. But the ancient authorities show no knowledge of this, »nd it must appear very doubtful, that, if the Church . n.] THE TIME OF DOMITI^N. 253 could really count among the martyrs of that day a man of consular rank, it could have passed so com- pletely out of remembrance.^ In any case we here find the very earliest traces that Christianity had begun to gain a foothold among the higher classes. For the first time also there seems to have sprung up in the ruling circles a certain anxiety on account of Christianity. Hegesippus ^ informs us, that Domitian ^d heard there were still living in Palestine relatives .)f Jesus, descendants of the royal house of David, ^e was terrified at the news, and summoned them — t.vo grandsons of Judas, the brother of Jesus — before hxn. But, when they told him, that, togelLier, they pa.38ssed only an estate of the value of nine thousand der>:rii (about $1,800) and cultivated it themselves, as tbey proved by showing their homy hands ; when they tnstiii'^d on his asking about the kingdom of Christ, that it war 'aot of this world, and would not come till the eiid of iiU things, the Emperor dismissed them without doling t^;v:m any harm. The pxV'secutions under Domitian were very short, and Ner^'^i Lis successor recalled those who had been banished arvl restored to them their confiscated posses- sions, in pa^t C^om his private purse. With the beginning of the second century there came a great change in the situation of the Christians. The sepai'ation of Christianity from Jur aism was completed 80 as to be recognized even by heathen eyes. The iestru^tion of Jerusalem put an end to the outward exisbenoe of the Jewish nationality. The temple fell, the sacrifices ceased. And yet, without a temple, with* out a daily sacrifice, without a visible centre, Judaism, the most hardy of national religions, managed to pre 254 TRAJAN'S LEGISLATION. [book n serve its existence, even after the insunection undez Bar Cocheba had been quenched in blood, and, thereby, the Jews' last hope of regaining their old position had been destroyed. Their religion now became consoli- dated into the real Judaism, in essentials such as we see it to-day. Spread abroad over the earth, without a local centre, or the bond which had existed hitherto in the temple service, Judaism henceforth was united only by the common Law, and by the common doctrine con- tained in the newly collected Talmud. Thus it became completely separated from Christianity. Talmudic Ju- daism severed all the connections which had hitherto bound it to Christianity. Henceforth three times 6very day in the synagogues was invoked the awful curse on the renegades, the Christians. It came to be a rare exception for a Jew to go over to Christianity, while the heathen thronged into the Church in ever increas- ing numbers. The remainder of the Jewish Christians dwindled away or disappeared entirely in the churches of heathen Christians, or turned heretics and were cut off from the Church. The Church now found the field for its work and growth almost exclusively in the heathen world, and became composed entirely of Gentile Chris- tians. It was therefore no longer possible to confound the Christians with the Jews. Henceforth they were recognized by the heathen as a genus tertium, as they were often called — a third party beside Heathenism and Judaism. Thus Christianity lost the protection which it had hitherto enjoyed as a supposed Jewish sect. Like a young plant, it now showed itself, free from the sheath which had shielded it, and exposed to every storm. From the iroment when Christianity was recognized aa