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Teel S Avs. nA ‘s 4; yy 5 &, hee : aN RANGA HAE £ NN cuts seh Ae, RS) ‘ ae y ‘3 é SNK: PAY) AY Be ERY oo ' v + “ Sat S RAYE 1 os at 4 Jt; eae iain bs. eels: ae The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN L161— 0-1096 4h Lf eh eh We Ni sh EUROPEAN MORALS. VOL. II. HISTORY OF EKUROPEAN MORALS | FROM AUGUSTUS TO CHARLEMAGNE. BY WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY, M.A, NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 90, 92 & 94 GRAND STREET. 1870, 7p ou . : " : y f : " 5 ¢ 2 * wa i ; Ms '= 7, " Shaye ‘ b t a, ‘ ee 2 . € ) 1 ‘ $ : ’ - , d ~ yy VhA AV) CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. CHAPTER IV. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. Difference between the moral teaching of a palasaphy and that of a religion ; , ‘ ] Moral efficacy of the Christian sense of sin 3 Dark views of human nature not common in the early Church 9) The penitential system 7 Admirable efficacy of Christianity in alciting ¢ disinterested enthusiasm ‘ ‘ : 9 Great purity of the early Christians. F ner ya The promise of the Church for many centuries falsified . ae t General sketch of the moral condition of the Hagen and Western Empires. 13 The question to.be examined in this chapter i 1S, the cause of this comparative failure. : : : . : apr rra 6. First Consequence of Christianity, a new Sense of the Sanctity of Human Life This sense only very gradually acquired A - : peed Abortion.—Infanticide . 2 oe Care of exposed children. —History of founding hospital . 984 Suppression of the gladiatorial shows : 37 Aversion to capital punishments . : ; . 4] Its effect upon persecutions . : . ° eras) Penal code not af gions by Christianity , : : 44 Suicide : ; : “A6-65 Second Piuleers of Cho istianity, to an Paes Brother- hood Laws concerning slavery . « CHD ee wel 934% “euler &03 4G 38667 vi CONTENTS OF PAGE The Church discipline and services brought master and slave together . ; : : : : ae (5. Consecration of the servile virtues ; : : ; ee Impulse given to manumission . : ° ° : Peg: Serfdom . . ‘ : ‘ ° ° . . Sn: Ransom of captives . ee aha Charity.—Measures of the Pagans ‘for the relief of the poor Ae ie! Noble enthusiasm of the Christians in the cause of charity os eae Their exertions when the Empire was subverted . : ee: Inadequate place given to this movement in history : 1, Two Qualifications to our Admiration of the Charity of the Church Theological notions concerning insanity . Bates fr : ee | History of lunatic asylums . : 94 Indiscriminate almsgiving.—The political economy ‘of charity . 96 Injudicious charity often beneficial to the donor . pee History of the modifications of the old views about charity « “LO2 Beneficial effect of the Church in supplying nifre images to the imagination . 105 Summary of the philanthropic achievements of Christianity - 5 ae The Growth of Asceticism Causes of the ascetic movement . : ° . ° - 108 Its rapid extension : . ° ° : . . s. £42 The Saints of the Desert ; General characteristics of their legends . ° . . - 114 Astounding penances attributed to the saints . 114 Miseries and joys of the hermit life— Dislike to knowledge 121 Hallucinations . . 124 The relations of female devotees with the anchorites 127 Celibacy was made the primal virtue. ae ow this upon moral teaching . ; erg ; J ie0 Gloomy hue imparted to religion : ; ; ° : - 180 Strong assertion of freewill . : get Depreciation of the qualities that accompany a strong physical temperament . 131 Destruction of the domestic virtues. —Inhumanity of saints to their relations . . ° ° ° -. 132 Encouraged by leading theologians : ° Pe Later instances of the same kind . : ; . ° - 143 Extreme theological animosity . ° ° ° . - 146 Decline of the Civic Virtues History of the relations of Christianity to patriotism . . 149 Influence of the former in hastening the fall of the Empire > hod Permanent difference between ancient and modern societies in the matter of patriotism . : : ‘ : : - 153 THE SECOND VOLUME, Influence of this change on moral philosophy . : , ° Historians exaggerate the importance of civic virtues. : General Moral Condition of the Byzantine Empire Stress laid by moralists on trivial matters . ° Corruption of the clergy : : : . : , Childishness and vice of the populace. : : ° The better aspects of the Empire . : : ‘ ° Distinctive Excellencies of the Ascetic Period Asceticism the great school of self-sacrifice . : ; . Moral beauty of some of the legends , : . - Legends of the connection between men and animals produced humanity to the latter. : , . : Pagan legends of the intelligence of animals . ; : 2 Legal protection of animals . ; . ‘Traces of humanity to animals in the Roman Empire Taught by the Pythagoreans and Plutarch : The first influence of Christianity not favourable to it Legends in the lives of the saints connected with animals Progress in modern times of humanity to animals . : ‘The ascetic movement in the West took practical forms . Attitude of the Church to the barbarians.—Conversion of the latter ; : : : : ; ; ‘ ; Christianity adulterated by the barbarians.—Legends of the conflict between the old gods and the new faith . ° . Monachism Causes of its attraction : ° ; . : ; ° New value placed on obedience and humility.—Results of this change . : ‘ : ‘ ; : ° ° ° Relation of Monachism to the Intellectual Virtues Propriety of the expression ‘ intellectual virtue’ . : The love of abstract truth : : : : ; ; The notion of the guilt of error, considered abstractedly, absurd : : : ; : ‘ 2 ; ; Some error, however, due to indolence or voluntary partiality And some to the unconscious bias of a corrupt nature : The influence of scepticism on intellectual progress : The Church always recognised the tendency of character to govern opinion ' . : ‘ ‘ : Total destruction of religious liberty . : . ° ; The Monasteries the Receptacles of Learning Preservation of classical literature.—Manner in which it was regarded by the Church . . d : Charm of monkish scholarship. : . : : The monasteries not on the whole favourable to knowledge vill CONTENTS OF PAGE They were rather the reservoirs than the creators of literature 221 Fallacy of attributing to the monasteries the genius that was 221 displayed in theology : : : ' ; : Other fallacies concerning the services of the monks ° - 222 Decline of the love of truth . ; : . . , Mey 715] Value which the monks attached to pecuniary compensations for crime. ; . 3 ‘ ; ‘ ‘ ee 2a Doctrine of future torment much elaborated as a means of extorting money. : . ° ° : ° ., Oe Visions of hell . ‘ 3 A : : é i 3 268 Peter Lombard . ; é . . 4 ‘ . 240 Extreme superstition and terrorism ° . : »« 241 Purgatory . : : : : : . ° : « 246 Moral Condition of Western Europe Scanty historical literature . : ; - é " s 24d9 Atrocious crimes . : : ‘ > ‘ ‘ : a The seventh century the age of saints ' : ‘ . 258 Manner in which characters were estimated illustrated by the account of Clovis in Gregory of Tours : 4 : . 254 Benefits conferred by the monasteries . , ‘ 5 Oe Missionary labours : 4 > é , . ‘ «oe Growth of a Military and an Aristocratic Spirit Antipathy of the early Christians to military life . 262 The belief that battle was the special sphere of Providential __ interposition consecrated it : : 3 : . oe Military habits of the barbarians . r ; 4 : ... 265 Military triumphs of Mahommedanism . : ; : eo Legends protesting against military Christianity . : + OS Review of the influence of Christianity upon war . ° . *a00 Consecration of Secular Ranks The Pagan Empire became continually more despotic. oy The early Christians taught passive obedience in temporal, but independence in religious matters : : ‘ eee After Constantine, their policy much governed by their interests 276 Attitude of the Church towards Julian . : : : one And of Gregory the Great towards Phocas_. : : . oee The Eastern clergy soon sank into submission to the civil | power . : 5 : : : : : é Rede cet Independence of the Western clergy——Compact of Leo and Pepin’ . ‘ ; : ; , ; : i. fe eee Effect of monachism on the doctrine of passive obedience . 289 The ‘ benefices’ . . are | : : : ‘ . 286 Fascination exercised by Charlemagne over the popular imagi- nation . : : " : ; ; - ° .. 2nd A king and a warrior became the ideal of greatness : seeee Conclusion . r : : : . ; ‘ : 5. eek THE SECOND VOLUME, CHAPTER V. THE POSITION OF WOMEN. Importance and difficulties of this branch of a oe : Women in savage life . < First stage of progress the cessation of the sale of wives. Rise of the. mOWry. we" go : : : : Second stage the establishment of monogamy : Women in the poetic age of Greece Women in the historical age ranked lower. —Diieulty of real- ising the Greek feelings on the subject Nature of the problem of the relations of the SeXes Recognition in Greece of two distinct orders of womanhood Position of the Greek wives ; ° ; ° . ° The Courtesans Elevated by the worship of Aphrodite . : ° . ° And by the esthetic enthusiasm .. é : Z And by the unnatural forms Greek vice Be inet q : p General estimate of Greek public opinion concerning women . Roman Public Opinion much purer The flamens and the vestals . d ‘ : : ° Position of women during the Republic : . Dissolution of manners at the close of the Republic ; ‘ Indisposition to marriage. ‘ ; ‘ ; : : Legal emancipation of women : : . Unbounded liberty of divorce. —Its consequences ; : Amount of female virtue which still subsisted in Rome . Legislative measures to enforce female virtue Moralists begin to enforce the Seasetan of obligation in in mar- riage. . And to censure prostitution. —Egyptian views of chastity y : Christian Influence Laws of the Christian emperors . Effects of the area aa and of the examples of the martyrs . : : : : : Legends. : : : : Asceticism greatly degraded : marriage Disapproval of second marriages. —History of the opinions of Pagans and Christians on the subject . The celibacy of the onits aE and effects of this doc- trine Asceticism pr oduced a very ‘low view of the character of wo- men,—Jewish opinions on this point The canon law unfavourable to the proprietary rights of women . ; ; f : : A ; : CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME, The barbarian invasions assisted the Church in purifying morals : ° + Ae Barbarian heroines Long continuance of polygamy among the Kings of Gaul Laws of the barbarians. Strong Christian assertion of the equality ‘of obligation in marriage 5 : : . This doctrine has not retained its force . . Condemnation of transitory connections. —Roman concubines . A religious ceremony slowly made an essential in marriage Condemnation of divorce . : ° ibe nae : : Compulsory marriage abolished Condemnation of mixed marriages. —Domestic unhappiness caused by theologians : 5 ; : ° ° ° Relation of Christianity to the Feminine Virtues Comparison of male and female characteristics The Pagan ideal ss masculine.—Its contrast ta the Chasen ideal ; s ‘ e Conspicuous part of women in the early Church Deaconesses : . ‘ ° : ; ° . Widows . ° : ° . : . Reverence bestowed on ‘the Virgin At the Reformation the feminine type remained with Catho- Ligiarn. See. : ° : ° : ° ° The conventual system . : ° . ° : ° Conclusion . ; ; gg oe oo of ees HISTORY OF HUROPEAN MORATS CHAPTER IV. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, Havine in the last chapter given a brief, but I trust not altogether indistinct account of the causes that ensured the triumph of Christianity in Rome, and of the character of the opposition it overcame, I proceed to examine the nature of the moral ideal the new religion introduced, and also the methods by which it attempted to realise it, And at the very outset of this enquiry it is necessary to guard against a serious error. It is common with many persons to establish a comparison between Christianity and Paganism, by placing the teaching of the Christians In juxtaposition with corresponding passages from the writings of Marcus Aurelius or Seneca, and to regard the superiority of the Christian over the philosophical teach- ing as a complete measure of the moral advance that was effected by Christianity. But a moment’s reflection is sufficient to display the injustice of such a conclusion. The ethics of Paganism were part of a philosophy. The ethics of Christianity were part of a religion. The first 2 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. were the speculations of a few highly cultivated indivi- duals, and neither had nor could have had any direct in- fluence upon the masses of mankind. ‘The second were indissolubly connected with the worship, hopes, and fears of a vast religious system, that acts at least as powerfully on the most ignorant as on the most educated. The ob- jects of the Pagan systems were to foretell the future, to explain the universe, to avert calamity, to obtain the assistance of the gods. They contained no instruments of moral teaching analogous to our institution of preach- ing, or to the moral preparation for the reception of the sacrament, or to confession, or to the reading of the Bible, or to religious education, or to united prayer for spiritual benefits. To make men virtuous was no more the function of the priest than of the physician. On the other hand, the philosophic expositions of duty were wholly unconnected with the religious ceremonies of the temple. To amalga- mate these two spheres, to incorporate moral. culture with religion, and thus to enlist in its behalf that desire to enter, by means of ceremonial observances, into direct communication with Heaven, which experience has shown to be one of the most universal and powerful passions of mankind, was among the most important achievements of Christianity. Something had no doubt been already attempted in this direction. Philosophy, in the hands of the rhetoricians, had become more popular. The Pytha- goreans enjoined religious ceremonies for the purpose of purifying the mind, and expiatory rites were common, especially in the Oriental religions. But it was the dis- tinguishing characteristic of Christianity, that its moral influence was not indirect, casual, remote, or spasmodic. Unlike all Pagan religions, it made moral teaching a main function of its clergy, moral discipline the leading object of its services, moral dispositions the necessary condition of the due performance of its rites. By the pulpit, by its iti) “ i ioe == I he ee i ‘i FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 3 ceremonies, by all the agencies of power it possessed, it laboured systematically and perseveringly for the regene- ration of mankind. Under its influence, doctrines con- cerning the nature of God, the immortality of the soul, and the duties of men, which the noblest intellects of antiquity could barely grasp, have become the truisms of the village school, the proverbs of the cottage and of the alley. But neither the beauty of its sacred writings, nor the perfection of its religious services, could have achieved this great result without the introduction of new motives to virtue. These may be either interested or disinterested, and in both spheres the influence of Christianity was very great. In the first, it effected a complete revolution by its teaching concerning the future world and concern- ing the nature of sin. The doctrine of a future life was ‘far too vague among the Pagans to exercise any power- ful general influence, and among the philosophers, who clung to it most ardently, it was regarded solely in the light of a consolation. Christianity made it a deterrent influence of the strongest kind. In addition to the doc- trines of eternal suffering, and the lost condition of the human race, the notion of a minute personal retribution must be regarded as profoundly original. That the com- mission of great crimes, or the omission of creat duties, may be expiated hereafter, was indeed an idea familiar to the Pagans, though it exercised little influence over their lives, and seldom or never produced, even in the case of the worst criminals, those scenes of deathbed repentance which are so conspicuous in Christian biographies. But the Christian notion of the enormity of little sins, the belief that all the details of life will be scrutinised here- ater, that weaknesses of character and petty infractions of & HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. duty, of which the historian and the biographer take no | note, which have no perceptible influence upon society, and which scarcely elicit a comment among mankind, may be made the grounds of eternal condemnation be- yond the grave, was altogether unknown to the ancients, and at a time when it possessed all the freshness of no- velty, it was well fitted to transform the character. The eye of the Pagan philosopher was ever fixed upon virtue, the eye of the Christian teacher upon sin. The first sought to amend men by extolling the beauty of holiness ; the second, by awakening the sentiment. of remorse. Each method had its excellencies and its defects. Philo- sophy was admirably fitted to dignify and ennoble, but altogether impotent to regenerate mankind. It did much to encourage virtue, but little or nothing to restrain vice. A relish and taste for virtue was formed and cultivated, which attracted many to its practice; butin this, as m the case of all our other higher tastes, a nature that was once thoroughly vitiated became altogether incapable of ap- preciating it, and the transformation of such a nature, which was continually effected by Christianity, was con- fessedly beyond the power of philosophy.! Experience has _ abundantly shown that men who are wholly insensible to the beauty and dignity of virtue, can be convulsed by the fear of judgment, can be even awakened to such a genuine remorse for sin, as to reverse the current: of their Henna detach them from the most inveterate habits, and renew the whole tenor of their lives. But the habit of dilating chiefly on the darker side ot | human nature, while it has contributed much to the re- generating efficacy of Christian teaching, has not been 1 There is a remarkable passage of Celsus, on the impossibility of re- storing a nature once thoroughly depraved, quoted by Origen in his answer to him A Le ee ee eS ee ee ae ee. FROM CON STANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 5 without its disadvantages. Habitually measuring cha- racter by its aberrations, theologians, in their estimates of those strong and passionate natures in which great virtues are balanced by great failings, have usually fallen into a signal injustice, which is the more inexcusable, because in their own writings the psalms of David are a conspicuous proof of what a noble, tender, and passionate nature could survive, even in an adulterer and a murderer. Partly, too, through this habit of operating through the sense of sin, and partly from a desire to show that man is in an abnormal and dislocated condition, they have continually propounded distorted and degrading views of human nature, have represented it as altogether under the em- pire of evil, and have sometimes risen to such a height of extravagance as to pronounce the very virtues of the heathen to be of the nature of sin. But nothing can be more certain than that that which is exceptional and dis- tinctive in human nature is not its vice, but its excellence. It is not the sensuality, cruelty, selfishness, passion, or envy, which are all displayed in equal or greater degrees in different departments of the animal world; it is that moral nature which enables man apparently, alone of all created beings, to classify his emotions, to oppose the current of his desires, and to aspire after moral perfection. Nor is it less certain that in civilised, and therefore deve- loped man, the good greatly preponderates over the evil. Benevolence is more common than cruelty; the sight of suffering more readily produces pity than joy; gratitude, not ingratitude, is the normal result of a conferred benefit. The sympathies of man naturally follow heroism and goodness, and vice-itself_is usually but an exaggeration or distortion of tendencies that are in their own nature perfectly innocent. But these exaggerations of human depravity, which 6 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. have attained their extreme limits in some Protestant sects, do not appear in the Church of the first three cen- turies. ‘The sense of the sin was not yet accompanied by a denial of the goodness that exists in man. Christianity was regarded rather as a redemption from error than from sin,’ and it is a significant fact that the epithet ‘ well deserving,’ which the Pagans usually put upon their tombs, was also the favourite inscription in the Christian cata- combs. The Pelagian controversy, the teaching of St. Augustine, and the progress of asceticism, gradually in- troduced the doctrine of the utter depravity of man, which has proved in later times the fertile source of degrading superstition. In sustaining and defining the notion of sin, the early Church employed the machinery of an elaborate legisla- tion. Constant communion with the Church was regarded as of the very highest importance. [Participation in the. Sacrament was believed to be essential to eternal life. At a very early period it was given to infants, and at least as early as the time of St. Cyprian we find the practice uni- ‘versal in the Church, and pronounced by at least some of the Fathers to be ordinarily necessary to their salvation.? Among the adults 1t was customary to receive the Sacra- ment daily; in some churches four times a week.? Even 1 This is well shown by Pressensé in his Hist. des trois premiers Siécles. 2 See a great deal of information on this subject in Bingham’s Anti- . quities of the Christan Church (Oxford, 1853), vol. v. pp. 870-878. It is curious that those very noisy contemporary divines who profess to re- suscitate the manners of the primitive Church, and who lay so much stress on the minutest ceremonial observances, have left uupractised what was undoubtedly one of the most universal, and was believed to be one of the most important, of the institutions of early Christianity. Bingham shows that the administration of the Eucharist to infants continued in France till the twelfth century. | 3 See Cave’s Primitive Christianity, part i. ch. xi. At first the Sacrament was usually received every day; but this custom soon declined in the Eastern Church, and at last passed away in the West. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 7 in the days of persecution the only part of their service Christians consented to omit was the half secular agape.’ The clergy had power to accord or withhold access to the ceremonies, and the reverence with which they were regarded was so great that they were able to dictate their own conditions of communion. From these circumstances there very naturally arose a vast system of moral discipline. It was always acknow- ledged that men could only rightly approach the sacred table in certain moral dispositions, and it was very soon added that the commission of crimes should be expiated by a period of penance, before access to the communion was granted. A multitude of offences, of very various degrees of magnitude, such as prolonged abstinence from religious services, prenuptial unchastity, prostitution, adultery, the adoption of the profession of gladiator or actor, idolatry, the betrayal of Christians to persecutors, and paideristia or unnatural love, were specified, to each of which a definite spiritual penalty was annexed. The lowest penalty consisted of deprivation of the Eucharist for a few weeks. More serious offenders were deprived of it for a year, or for ten years, or until the hour of death, while in some cases the sentence amounted to the greater excommunication, or the deprivation of the Eucha- rist for ever. During the period of penance the penitent was compelled to abstain from the marriage bed, and from all other pleasures, and to spend his time chiefly in religious exercises. Before he was readmitted to com- munion, he was accustomed publicly, before the assem- bled Christians, to appear clad in sackcloth, with ashes strewn upon his head, with his hair shaven off, and thus to throw himself at the feet of the minister, to confess. 1 Plin. Ep. x. 97. 30 8 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, aloud his sins, and to implore the favour of absolution, The excommunicated man was not only cut off for ever from the Christian rites; he was severed also from all intercourse with his former friends. No Christian, on pain of being himself excommunicated, might eat with him or speak with him. He must live hated and alone in this world, and be prepared for damnation in the next. This system of legislation, resting upon religious ter- rorism, forms one of the most important parts of early ecclesiastical history, and a leading object of the Councils was to develope or modify it. Although confession was not yet an habitual and universally obligatory rite, al- though it was only exacted in cases of notorious sins, it is manifest that we have in this system, not potentially or in germ, but in full developed activity, an ecclesiastical despotism of the most crushing order. But although this recognition of the right of the clergy to withhold from men what was believed to be essential to their salvation, laid the foundation of the worst superstitions of Rome, it had, on the other hand, a very valuable moral effect. Every system of law is a system of education, for it fixes in the minds of men certain conceptions of right and wrong, and of the proportionate enormity of different crimes ; and no legislation was enforced with more solem- nity, or appealed more directly to the religious feelings, than the penitential discipline of the Church. More than, perhaps, any other single agency, it confirmed that con- viction of the enormity of sin, and of the retribution that follows it, which was one of the two great levers by which Christianity acted upon mankind. ¢ * The whole subject of the penitential discipline is treated minutely in Marshall’s Penitential Discipline of the Primitive Church (first published in 1714, and reprinted in the library of Anglo-Catholic Theology), and also in Bingham, vol. vii. Tertullian gives a graphic description of the public penances, De Pudicit. v. 18. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 9 But if Christianity was remarkable for its appeals to the selfish or interested side of our nature, it-was far more remarkable for the empire it attained over disinterested enthusiasm. The Platonist exhorted men to imitate God, the Stoic, to follow reason, the Christian, to the love of Christ. The later Stoics had often united their notions of excellence in an ideal sage, and Epictetus had even urged his disciples to set before them some man of sur- passing excellence, and to imagine him continually near them ; but the utmost the Stoic ideal could become was a model for imitation, and the admiration it inspired could never deepen into affection. It was reserved for Chris- tianity to present to the world an ideal character, which through all the changes of eighteen centuries has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love, has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and conditions, has been not only the highest pattern of virtue but the strongest incentive to its practice, and has exercised so deep an influence that it may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhorta- tions of moralists. This has indeed been the wellspring of whatever is best and purest in the Christian life. Amid all the sins and failings, amid all the priestcraft and per- secution and fanaticism that have defaced the Church, it has preserved, in the character and example of its Founder, an enduring principle of regeneration. Perfect love knows no rights. It creates a boundless, uncalculating self-abnegation that transforms the character, and is the parent of every virtue. Side by side with the terrorism and the superstitions of dogmatism, there have ever existed in Christianity those who would echo the wish. of St. Theresa, that she could blot out both heaven and hell, to 10 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. serve God for Himself alone ; and the power of the love of Christ has been displayed alike in the most heroic pages of Christian martyrdom, in the most pathetic pages of Christian resignation, in the tenderest pages of Christian charity. It was shown by the martyrs who sank beneath the fangs of wild beasts, extending to the last moment their arms in the form of the cross they loved ;? who or- dered their chains to be buried with them as the insignia of their warfare ;? who looked with joy upon their ghastly wounds, because they had been received for Christ ;? who welcomed death as the bridegroom welcomes the bride, because it would bring them near to Him. S&t. Felicitas was seized with the pangs of childbirth as she lay in prison awaiting the hour of martyrdom, and as her suffer- ings extorted from her a cry, one who stood by said, ‘If you now suffer so much, what will it be when you are thrown to wild beasts?’ ‘What I now suffer,’ she an- swered, ‘concerns myself alone; but then another will suffer for me, for I will then suffer for Him.’* When 8t. Melania had lost both her husband and her two sons, kneeling by the bed where the remains of those she loved were laid, the childless widow exclaimed, ‘ Lord, I shall serve thee more humbly and readily for being eased of the weight thou hast taken from me.’® _ Christian virtue was described by St. Augustine as ‘the 1 Eusebius, H. £. viii. 7. | 2 St. Chrysostom tells this of St. Babylas. See Tillemont, Mém. pour servr aU Hist, eccl. tome iii. p. 403. 3 In the preface to a very ancient Milanese missal it is said of St, Agatha, that as she lay in the prison cell, torn by the instruments of torture, St. Peter came to her in the form of a Christian physician, and offered to dress her wounds; but she refused, saying that she wished for no physician but Christ. St. Peter, in the name of that Celestial Physician, commanded her wounds to close, and her body became whole as before. (Tillemont, tome ili. p. 412.) 4 See her acts in Ruinart,. 5 St. Jerome, Ep, xxxix. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. i}. order of love.’* Those who know how imperfectly the simple sense of duty can with most men resist the energy of the passions; who have observed how barren Mahom- medanism has been in all the higher and more tender vir- tues, because its noble morality and its pure theism have been united with no living example; who, above all, have traced through the history of the Christian Church the in- fluence of the love of Christ, will be at no loss to estimate the value of this purest and most distinctive source of Chris- tian enthusiasm.” In one respect we can scarcely realise its effects upon the early Church. The sense of the fixity of natural laws is now so deeply implanted in the minds of men, that no truly educated person, whatever may be his religious opinions, seriously believes that all the more startling phenomena around him—storms, earthquakes, invasions, or famines—are results of isolated acts of super- natural power, and are intended to affect some human interest. But by the early Christians all these things were directly traced to the Master they so dearly loved. The result of this conviction was a state of feeling we can now barely understand. A great poet, in lines which are among the noblest in English literature, has spoken of one who had died as united to the all-pervad- ing soul of nature, the grandeur and the tenderness, the beauty and the passion of his being blending with the kindred elements of the universe, his voice heard in all its melodies, his spirit a presence to be felt and known, a part of the one plastic energy that permeates and ani- mates the globe. Something of this kind, but of a far more vivid and real character, was the belief of the early Christian world. The universe, to them, was transfigured by love. All its phenomena, all its catastrophes were * ‘Definitio brevis et vera virtutis; ordo est amoris,,—De Civ. Dei, XV. o2: 12 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, read in a new light, were endued with a new signifi- cance, acquired a religious sanctity. Christianity offered a deeper consolation than any prospect of endless life, or of millennial glories. It taught the weary, the sorrowing, and the lonely, to look up to heaven and to say, ‘ Thou, God, carest for me.’ | It is not surprising that a religious system, which made it a main object to inculcate moral excellence, and which, by its doctrine of future retribution, by its organisation, and by its capacity of producing a disinterested enthu- slasm, acquired an unexampled supremacy over the human mind, should have raised its disciples to a very high condition of sanctity. There can indeed be little doubt that, for nearly two hundred years after its establishment in Europe, the Christian community exhibited a moral purity which, if it has been equalled, has never for any long period been surpassed. Completely separated from the Roman world that was around them, abstaining alike from political life, from appeals to the tribunals, and from military occupations; looking forward continually to the immediate advent of their Master, and the destruction of the empire in which they dwelt, and animated by all the fervour of a young religion, the Christians found within themselves a whole order of ideas and feelings sufficiently powerful to guard them from the contamination of their age. In their general bearing towards society, and in the nature and minuteness of their scruples, they probably bore a greater resemblance to the Quakers than to any other existing sect.!. Some serious signs of moral deca- 1 Besides the obvious points of resemblance in the common, though not universal, belief that Christians. should abstain from all weapons and from all oaths, the whole teaching of the early Christians about the duty of simplicity, and the wickedness of ornaments in dress (see especially the writings of Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Chrysostom, on this subject), is exceedingly like that of the Quakers. The scruple of Ter- FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 18 dence might indeed be detected even before the Decian persecution ; and it was obvious that the triumph of the Church, by introducing numerous nominal Christians into its pale, by exposing it to the temptations of wealth and prosperity, and by forcing it into connection with secular politics, must have damped its zeal and impaired its purity ; yet few persons, I think, who had contemplated Christianity as it existed in the first three centuries would have imagined it possible that it should completely super- sede the Pagan worship around it ; that its teachers should bend the mightiest monarchs to their will, and stamp their influence on every page of legislation, and direct the whole course of civilisation for a thousand years, and yet that the period in which they were so supreme should have been one of the most contemptible in history. The leading features of that period may be shortly told. From the death of Marcus Aurelius, about which time Christianity assumed an important influence in the Roman world, the decadence of the empire was rapid and almost. uninterrupted. The first Christian emperor transferred his capital to a new city, uncontaminated by the tradi- tions and the glories of Paganism ; and he there founded an empire which derived all its ethics from Christian sources, and which continued in existence for about eleven hundred years. Of that Byzantine Empire the universal verdict of history is that it constitutes, without a single — exception, the most thoroughly base and despicable form that civilisation has yet assumed. Though very cruel and very sensual, there have been times when cruelty assumed tullian (De Corond) about Christians wearing, in military festivals, laurel wreaths, because laurel was called after Daphne, the lover of Apollo, was much of the same kind as that of the Quakers about recognising the gods Tuesco or Woden by speaking of Tuesday or Wednesday. On the other hand, the ecclesiastical aspects and the sacramental doctrines of the Church were the extreme opposites of Quakerism. 14 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. more ruthless, and sensuality more extravagant aspects ; but there has been no other enduring civilisation so absolutely destitute of all the forms and elements of greatness, and none to which the epithet mean may be so emphatically applied. The Byzantine Empire was pre- eminently the age of treachery. Its vices were the vices of men who had ceased to be brave without learning to be virtuous. Without patriotism, without the fruition or desire of liberty, after the first paroxysms of religious agitation, without genius or intellectual activity ; slaves, and willing slaves, in both their actions and their thoughts immersed in sensuality and in the most frivolous pleasures, the people only emerged from their listlessness when some theological subtlety, or some rivalry in the chariot races, stimulated them into frantic riots. They exhibited all the externals of advanced civilisation. They possessed know- ledge; they had continually before them the noble litera- ture of ancient Greece, instinct with the loftiest heroism 7 but that literature, which afterwards did so much to revivify Europe, could fire the degenerate. Greeks with no spark or semblance of nobility. The history of the empire is a monotonous story of the intrigues of priests, eunuchs, and women, of poisonings, of conspiracies, of uniform ingratitude, of perpetual fratricides. After the conversion of Constantine there was no prince in any section of the Roman Empire altogether so depraved, or at least so shameless, as Nero or Heliogabalus ; but the By- zantine Empire can show none bearing the faintest resem- blance to Antonine or Marcus Aurelius, while the nearest approximation to that character at Rome was furnished by the emperor Julian, who contemptuously abandoned the Christian faith. At last the Mahommedan invasion termi- nated the long decrepitude of the Eastern Empire. Con-' stantinople sank beneath the Crescent, its inhabitants FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 15 wrangling about theological differences to the very mo- ment of their fall. The Asiatic churches had already perished. The Chris- tian faith, planted in the dissolute cities of Asia Minor, had produced many fanatical ascetics and a few illustrious theo- logians, but it had ‘no renovating effect upon the people at large. It introduced among them a principle of inter- minable and implacable dissension, but it scarcely tem- pered in any appreciable degree their luxury or their sen- suality. The frenzy of pleasure continued unabated, and in a great part of the empire it seemed indeed only to have attained its climax after the triumph of Christianity. The condition of the Western Empire was somewhat different. Not quite a century. after the conversion of Constantine, the Imperial city was captured by Alaric, and a long series of barbarian invasions at last dissolved the whole framework of Roman society, while the barbarians themselves, having adopted the Christian faith and sub- mitted absolutely to the Christian priests, the Church, which remained the guardian of all the treasures of an- tiquity, was left with a virgin soil to realise her ideal of human excellence. Nor did she fall short of what might be expected. She exercised for many centuries an almost absolute empire over the thoughts and actions of _ mankind, and created a civilisation which was permeated in every part with ecclesiastical influence. And the dark ages, as the period of Catholic ascendancy is justly called, do undoubtedly display many features of great and genuine excellence. In active benevolence, in the spirit of reverence, in loyalty, in co-operative habits, they far transcend the noblest ages of Pagan antiquity, while in that humanity which shrinks from the infliction of suf- fering, they were superior to Roman, and in their respect for chastity, to Greek civilisation. On the other hand, 16 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. they rank immeasurably below the best Pagan civilisations in civic and patriotic virtues, in the love of liberty, in the number and splendour of the great characters they pro- duced, in the dignity and beauty of the type of character they formed. They had their full share of tumult, anarchy, injustice, and war, and they should probably be placed, in all intellectual virtues, lower than any other period in the history of mankind. A boundless intole- rance of all divergence of opinion was united with an equally boundless toleration of all falsehood and deliberate fraud that could favour received opinions. Credulity being taught as a virtue, and all conclusions dictated by authority, a deadly torpor sank upon the human mind, which for many centuries almost suspended its action, and was only broken by the scrutinising, innovating, and free-thinking habits that accompanied the rise of the in- dustrial republics in Italy. Few men who are not either priests or monks would not have preferred to live in the best days of the Athenian or of the Roman republics, in the age of Augustus or in the age of the Antonines, rather than in any period that elapsed between the triumph of Christianity and the fourteenth century. It is indeed difficult to conceive any clearer proof than was furnished by the history of the twelve hun- dred years after the conversion of Constantine, that while theology has undoubtedly introduced into the world — certain elements and principles of good, scarcely if at all known to antiquity, while its value as a tincture or modifying influence in society can hardly be overrated, it is by no means for the advantage of mankind that in the form which the Greek and Catholic Churches present, it should become a controlling arbiter of civilisation. It is often said that the Roman world before Constantine was in a period of rapid decay, that the traditions and FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 17 vitality of half-suppressed Paganism account for many of the aberrations of later times; that the influence of the Church was often rather nominal and superficial than supreme; and that, in judging the ignorance of the dark ages, we must make large allowance for the dislocations of society by the barbarians. In all this there is much truth ; but when we remember that in the Byzantine Empire the renovating power of theology was tried in a new capital free from Pagan traditions, and for more than one thousand years unsubdued by barbarians, and that in the West the Church, for at least seven hundred years after the shocks of the invasions had subsided, exercised a control more absolute than any other moral or in- tellectual agency has ever attained, it will appear, I think, that the experiment was very sufficiently tried. It is easy to make a catalogue of the glaring vices of antiquity, and to contrast them with the pure morality of Christian writings; but if we desire to form a just estimate of the realised improvement, we must compare the classical and ecclesiastical civilisations as wholes, and must observe in each case not only the vices that were repressed, but also the degree and variety of positive excellence attained. In the first two centuries of the Christian Church the ‘moral elevation was extremely high, and was continually appealed to as a proof of the divinity of the creed. In the century before the con- version of Constantine, a marked depression was already manifest. The two centuries after Constantine are uni- formly represented by the Fathers as a period of general and scandalous vice. The ecclesiastical civilisation that followed, though not without its distinctive merits, as- suredly supplies no justification of the common boast about the regeneration of society by the Church. That the civilisation of the last three centuries has risen in 18 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. most respects to a higher level than any that had pre- ceded it, I at least firmly believe; but theological ethics, though very important, form but one of the many and complex elements of its excellence. Mechanical in- ventions, the habits of industrialism, the discoveries of physical science, the improvements of government, the expansion of literature, the traditions of Pagan antiquity, have all a distinguished place, while, the more fully its history is investigated, the more clearly two capital truths are disclosed. The first is that the influence of theology having for centuries numbed and paralysed the whole intellect of Christian Europe, the revival, which forms the starting-point of our modern civilisation, was mainly due to the fact that two spheres of intellect still remained un- controlled by the sceptre of Catholicism. The Pagan literature of antiquity, and the Mahommedan schools of science, were the chief agencies in resuscitating the dor- mant energies of Christendom. The second fact, which I have elsewhere endeavoured to establish ail, is that during more than three centuries the decadence of theo- logical influence has been one of the most invariable signs and measures of our progress. In medicine, physical science, commercial interests, politics, and even ethics, the reformer has been confronted with theological affirma- tions which barred his way, which were all defended as of vital importance, and were all in turn compelled to yield before the secularising influence of civilisa- F tion. We have here, then, a problem of deep interest and im- portance, which I propose to investigate in the present chapter. We have to inquire why it was that a religion which was not more remarkable for the beauty of its moral teaching than for the power with which it acted upon mankind, and which during the last few centuries FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 19 has been the source of countless blessings to the world, should have proved itself for so long a period, and under such a variety of conditions, altogether unable to regene- rate Europe. The question is not one of languid or im- perfect action, but of conflicting agencies. In the vast and complex organism of Catholicity there were some parts which acted with admirable force in improving and elevating mankind. There were others which had a directly opposite effect. The first aspect in which Christianity presented itself to the world was as a declaration of the fraternity of men in Christ. Considered as immortal beings, destined for the extremes of happiness or of misery, and united to one another by a special community of redemp- tion, the first and most manifest duty of a Christian man was to look upon his fellow-men as sacred beings, and from this notion grew up the eminently Christian idea of the sanctity of all human life. JI have already endea- voured to show—and the fact is of such capital import- ance in meeting the common objections to the reality of natural moral perceptions, that I venture, at the risk of tediousness, to recur to it—that nature does not tell man that it is wrong to slay without provocation his fellow- men. Not to dwell upon those early stages of barbarism in which the higher faculties of human nature are still undeveloped, and almost in the condition of embryo, it is an historical fact, beyond all dispute, that refined, and even moral societies, have existed, in which the slaughter of men of some particular class or nation has been re- garded with no more compunction than the slaughter of animals in the chase. The early Greeks, in their dealings with the barbarians; the Romans, in their dealings with gladiators, and, in some periods of their history, with slaves; the Spaniards, in their dealings with Indians ; 20 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. nearly all colonists removed from European supervision, in their dealings with an inferior race ; an immense pro- portion of the nations of antiquity, in their dealings with new-born infants, display this complete and absolute cal- lousness, and we may discover traces ‘of it even in our own islands and within the last three hundred years. And difficult as it may be to realise it in our day, when the atrocity of all wanton slaughter of men has become an essential part of our moral feelings, it is nevertheless an incontestable fact that this callousness has been con- tinually shown by good men, by men who in all other respects would be regarded in any age as conspicuous for their humanity. In the days of the Tudors, the best Englishmen delighted in what we should now deem the most barbarous sports, and it is absolutely certain that in — antiquity men of genuine humanity—tender relations; loving friends, charitable neighbours—men in whose eyes. the murder of a fellow-citizen would have appeared as atrocious as in our own, frequented, instituted, and ap- plauded gladiatorial games, or counselled without a scruple the exposition of infants. But it is, as I conceive, a complete confusion of thought to imagine, as is so- commonly done, that any accumulation of facts of this nature throws the smallest doubt upon the reality of innate moral perceptions. All that the intuitive moralist asserts is that we know by nature that there is a distinction between humanity and cruelty, that the first belongs to the higher or better part of our nature, and that it is our duty to cultivate it. The standard of the age, which is itself determined by the general condition of society, con- * See the masterly description of the relations of the English to the [rish in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in Froude’s History of England, ch. xxiv.; and also Lord Macaulay’s description of the feelings of the Master of Stair towards the Highlanders. (Hist. of England, ch. xviii.) FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 21 stitutes the natural line of duty ; for he who falls below it contributes to depress it. Now, there is no fact more absolutely certain, than that nations and ages which have differed most widely as to the standard have been per- fectly unanimous as to the excellence of humanity. Plato, who recommended infanticide ; Cato, who sold his aged slaves ; Pliny, who applauded the games of the arena; the old generals, who made their prisoners slaves or gladiators, as well as the modern generals, who refuse to impose upon them any degrading labour ; the old legis- lators, who filled their codes with sentences of torture, mutilation, and hideous forms of death, as well as the modern legislators, who are continually seeking to abridge the punishment of the most guilty ; the old disciplinarian, who governed by force, as well as the modern education- alist, who governs by sympathy ; the Spanish girl, whose dark eye glows with rapture as she watches the frantic bull, while the fire streams from the explosive dart that quivers in its neck; the English lady, whose sensitive humanity shudders at the chase; the reformers we some- times meet, who are scandalised by all field sports, or by the sacrifice of animal life for food; or who will eat only the larger animals, in order to reduce the sacrifice of life to a minimum; or who are continually inventing new methods of quickening animal death—all these persons, widely as they differ in their acts and in their judgments of what things should be called ‘ brutal,’ and what things should be called ‘fantastic,’ agree in believing humanity to be better than cruelty, and in attaching a definite con- demnation to acts that fall below the standard of their country and their time. Now, it was one of the most important services of Christianity, that besides quickening greatly our benevolent affections, it definitely and dogma- tically asserted the sinfulness of all destruction of human 22 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. life as a matter of amusement, or of simple convenience, and thereby formed a new standard higher than any which then existed in the world. The influence of Christianity in this respect began with the very earliest stage of human life. The practice of abortion was one to which few persons in antiquity at- tached any deep feeling of condemnation. I have noticed in a former chapter that the physiological theory that the foetus did not become a living creature till the hour of birth, had some influence on the judgments passed upon this practice ; and even where this theory was not gene- rally held, it is easy to account for the prevalence of the act. The death of an unborn child does not appeal very powerfully to the feeling of compassion, and men who had not yet attained any strong sense of the sanctity of human life, who believed that they might regulate their conduct on these matters by utilitarian views, ac- cording to the general interest of the community, might very readily conclude that the prevention of birth was in many cases an act of mercy. In Greece, Aristotle not only countenanced the practice, but even desired that it should be enforced by law, when population had exceeded certain assigned limits." No law in Greece, or in the Ro- man Republic, or during the greater part of the Empire, condemned it ;? and if, as has been thought, some measure was adopted condemnatory of it in the latter days of the Pagan Empire, that measure was altogether inoperative. A long chain of writers, both Pagan and Christian, repre- sent the practice as avowed and almost universal. They describe it as resulting, not simply from licentiousness or from poverty, but even from so slight a motive as * See on the views of Aristotle, Labourt, Recherches historiques sur les Enfants trouvés (Paris, 1848), p. 9. ? See Gravina, De Ortu et Progressu Juris Civilis, lib. i. 44. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 23 vanity, which made mothers shrink from the disfigure- ment of childbirth. They speak of a mother who had never destroyed her unborn offspring as deserving of signal praise, and they assure us that the frequency of the crime was such that it gave rise to a reeular profes- sion. At the same time, while Ovid, Seneca, Favorinus the Stoic of Arles, Plutarch, and Juvenal, all speak of abortion as general and notorious, they all speak of it as unquestionably criminal.’ It was probably regarded by the average Romans of the later days of Paganism much as Englishmen in the last century regarded convivial excesses, as certainly wrong, but so venial as scarcely to deserve censure. The language of the Christians from the very beginning was very different. With unwavering consistency and with : ‘Nunc uterum vitiat que vult formosa videri, Raraque in hoc evo est, que velit esse parens.’ Ovid, De Nuce, lines 22-23. The same writer has devoted one of his elegies (ii. 14) to reproaching his mistress Corinna with having been guilty of this act. It was not with- out dangers, and Ovid says, ‘ Seepe suos utero que necat ipsa perit.’ A niece of Domitian is said to have died in consequence of having, at the command of the emperor, practised it (Sueton. Domit, xxii.), Plutarch notices the custom (De Sanitate Tuenda), and Seneca eulogises Helvia (Ad Helv. xvi.) for being exempt from vanity and having never destroyed her unborn offspring. Favorinus, in a remarkable passage (Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att. xii. 1), speaks of the act as ‘publica detestatione communique odio dignum,’ and proceeds to argue that it is only a degree less criminal for mothers to put out their children to nurse. Juvenal has some well- known and emphatic lines on the subject :— “Sed jacet aurato vix nulla puerpera lecto ; Tantum artes hujus, tantum medicamina possunt, Quee steriles facit, atque homines in ventre necandos Conducit,’ Sat. vi. lines 592-595. There are also many allusions to it in the Christian writers. Thus Minucius Felix (Octavius, xxx.): ‘Vos enim video procreatos filios nunc feris et avibus exponere, nunc adstrangulatos misero mortis genere elidere. Sunt que in ipsis visceribus medicaminibus epotis, originem futuri hominis. extinguant et parricidium faciant antequam pariant.’ 36 24 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. the strongest emphasis, they denounced the practice, not simply as inhuman, but as definitely murder. In the penitential discipline of the Church, abortion was placed in the same category as infanticide, and the stern sen- tences to which the guilty person was subject imprinted on the minds of Christians, more deeply than any mere exhortations, a sense of the enormity of the crime. By the Council of Ancyra the guilty mother was excluded from the Sacrament till the very hour of death, and though this penalty was soon reduced, first to ten and afterwards to seven years’ penitence, the offence still ranked among the gravest in the legislation of the Church. In one very remarkable way the reforms of Christianity in this sphere were powerfully sustained by a doctrine which is perhaps the most revolting in the whole theo- logy of the Fathers. To the Pagans, even when condemn- ing abortion and infanticide, these crimes appeared com- paratively trivial, because the victims seemed very insigni- ficant and their sufferings very slight. The death of an adult man who is struck down in the midst of his enter- prise and his hopes, who is united by ties of love or friendship to multitudes around him, and whose departure causes a perturbation and a pang to the society in which - he has moved, excites feelings very different from any produced by the painless extinction of a new-born infant, which, having scarcely touched the earth, has known none of its cares and very little of its love. But to the theolo-. gian this infant life possessed a fearful significance. The moment, they taught, the foetus in the womb acquired . animation, it became an immortal being, destined, even if — it died unborn, to be raised again on the last day, re- sponsible for the sin of Adam, and doomed, if it perished — without baptism, to be excluded for ever from heaven 1 See Labourt, Recherches sur les Enfans trouvés, p. 25. a ee a0 ee FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 25 and to be cast, as the Greeks taught, into a painless and Joyless limbo, or, as the Latins taught, into the abyss of hell. It is probably, in a considerable degree, to this doctrine that we owe in the first instance the healthy sense of the value and sanctity of infant life which so broadly distin- guishes Christian from Pagan societies, and which is now so thoroughly incorporated with our moral feelings as to be independent of all doctrinal changes. That which ap- pealed so powerfully to the compassion of the early and medizeval Christians, in the fate of the murdered infants, was not that they died, but that they commonly died un- baptised; and the criminality of abortion was immeasur- ably aggravated when it was believed to involve, not only the extinction of a transient life, but also the damnation of an immortal soul.’ In the ‘ Lives of the Saints’ there is a ? Among the barbarian laws there is a very curious one about a daily compensation to the parents of children who had been killed in the womb on account of the daily suffering of those children in hell, < Propterea diuturnam judicaverunt antecessores nostri compositionem et judices post- quam religio Christianitatis inolevit in mundo. Quia diuturnam postquam incarnationem suscepit anima quamvis ad nativitatis lucem minime per- venisset, patitur poenam, quia sine sacramento regenerationis abortivo modo tradita est ad inferos.’—Leges Byuvariorum, tit. vii. cap. xx. in Canciani, Leges Barbar. vol. ii. p. 874, The first foundling hospital of which we have un- doubted record is that founded at Milan, by a man named Datheus, in a.p. 789, Muratori has preserved (Antich. Ital. Diss. Xxxvil.) the charter embodying the motives of the founder, in which the following sentences occur :—‘ Quia frequenter per luxuriam hominum genus decipitur, et exinde malum homicidii generatur, dum concipientes ex adulterio ne prodantur in publico, fetos teneros necant, et absque Baptismatis lavacro parvulos ad Tar- tara mittunt, quia nullum reperiunt locum, quo servare vivos valeant,’ &e. Henry II. of France, 1556, made a long law against women who, ‘adve- nant le temps de leur part et délivrance de leur enfant, occultement s’en délivrent, puis le suffoquent et autrement suppriment sans leur avoir fait empartir le Saint Sacrement du Baptéme.’—Labourt, Recherches sur les Enf. trouvés,p. 47, There is astory told of a Queen of Portugal (sister to Henry V. of England, and mother of St. Ferdinand) that, being in childbirth, her life was despaired of unless she took a medicine which would accelerate the birth but probably sacrifice the life of the child. She answered that “she would not purchase her temporal life by the eternal salvation of her son.’—Bollandists, Act. Sanctor., June 5th. 26 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, — curious legend of a man who, being desirous of ascertain- ing the condition of a child before birth, slew a pregnant woman, committing thereby a double murder, that of the mother and of the child in her womb. Stung by remorse, the murderer fled to the desert, and passed the remainder of his life in constant penance and prayer. At last, after many years, the voice of God told him that he had been forgiven the murder of the woman. But yet his end was a clouded one. He never could obtain an assurance that he had been forgiven the death of the child. If we pass to the next stage of human life, that of the new-born infant, we find ourselves in presence of that practice of infanticide which was one of the deepest stains of the ancient civilisation. The natural history of this crime is somewhat peculiar.2 Among savages, whose _ feelings of compassion are very faint, and whose warlike and nomadic habits are eminently unfavourable to infant life, it 1s, as might be expected, the usual custom for the parent to decide whether he desires to preserve the child he has called into existence, and if he does not, to expose or slay it. In nations that have passed out of the stage of barbarism, but are still rude and simple in their habits, the practice of infanticide is usually rare; but unlike Tillemont, Mémoires pour servir al Histoire ecclésiastique (Paris, 1701) tome x. p. 41. St. Clem. Alexand. says that infants in the womb and ex- posed infants have guardian angels to watch over them. (Strom. v.) * There is an extremely large literature devoted to the subject of infan- ticide, exposition, foundlings, &e. The books I have chiefly followed are Terme et Monfaicon, Histoire des Enfans trouvés (Paris, 1840) ; Remacle, Des Hospices d’Enfans trouvés (1838); Labourt, Recherches historiques sur les LEnfans trouvés (Paris, 1848); Kcenigswarter, Essai sur la Législation des Peuples anciens et modernes relative aux Enfans nés hors Mariage (Paris, 1842). There are also many details on the subject in Godefroy’s Commentary to the laws about children in the Theodosian Code, in Malthus On Popula- tion, in Edward’s tract On the State of Slavery in the Early and Middle Ages of Christianity, and in most ecclesiastical histories, ee ee ee a FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 27 other crimes of violence, it is not naturally diminished by the progress of civilisation, for after the period of savage life is passed, its prevalence is influenced much more by the sensuality than by the barbarity of a people. We may trace, too, in many countries and ages, the notion that children, as the fruit, representatives, and dearest pos- sessions of their parents, are acceptable sacrifices to the gods.” Infanticide, as is well known, was almost uni- versally admitted among the Greeks, being sanctioned, and in some cases enjoined, upon what we should now call ‘the greatest happiness principle,’ by the ideal legis- lations of Plato and Aristotle, and by the actual legislations of Lycurgus and Solon. Regarding the community as a whole, they clearly saw that it is in the highest degree for the interests of society that the increase of population should be very jealously restricted, and that the State should be as far as possible free from helpless and unpro- ductive members; and they therefore concluded that the * It must not, however, be inferred from this that infanticide increases in direct proportion to the unchastity of a nation. Probably the condition of civilised society in which it is most common, is where a large amount of actual unchastity coexists with very strong social condemnation of the sinner, and where, in consequence, there is an intense anxiety to conceal the fall. A recent writer on Spain has noticed the almost complete absence of infanticide in that country, and has ascribed it to the great leniency of public opinion towards female frailty. Foundling hospitals, also, greatly influence the history of infanticide; but the mortality in them was long so great that it may be questioned whether they have diminished the number of the deaths, though they have, as I believe, greatly diminished the number of the murders of children. Lord Kames, writing in the last half of the eight- eenth century, says, ‘In Wales, even at present, and in the Highlands of Scotland, it isscarce a disgrace for a young woman to havea bastard. In the country last mentioned, the first instance known of a bastard child being destroyed by its mother through shame is alateone. The virtue of chastity appears to be thus gaining ground, as the only temptation a woman can have to destroy her child is to conceal her frailty.’— Sketches of the History of Man—On the Progress of the Female Sex. The last clause is clearly inaccurate, but there seems reason for believing that maternal affection is generally stronger than want, but weaker than shame, * See Warburton’s Divine Legation, vii. 2. 28 HISTORY, OF EUROPEAN MORALS. painless destruction of infant life, and especially of those infants who were so deformed or diseased that their lives, if prolonged, would probably have been a burden to themselves, was on the whole a benefit. The very sensual tone of Greek life rendered the modern notion of prolonged continence wholly alien to their thoughts, and the extremely low social and intellectual condition of Greek mothers, who exercised no appreciable intfiuence over the habits of thought of the nation should also, I think, be taken into account, for it has always been observed that mothers are much more distinguished than fathers for their affection for infants that have not yet manifested the first dawning of reason. Even in Greece, however, infanticide and exposition were not universally permitted. In Thebes these offences were punished by death." The power of life and death, which in Rome was originally conceded to the father over his children, would appear to involve an unlimited permission of in- fanticide; but a very old law, popularly ascribed to Romulus, in: this respect restricted the parental rights, enjoining the father to bring up all his male children, and at least his eldest female child, forbidding him to destroy any well-formed child till it had completed its third year, when the affections of the parent might be supposed to be developed, but permitting the exposition of deformed or maimed children with the consent of their five nearest relations. The Roman policy was 1 Milian. Varia Hist. ii. 7. Passages from the Greek imaginative writers, representing exposition as the avowed and habitual practice of poor parents, are collected by Terme et Monfalcon, Hist. des Enfans_ trouvés, pp. 89-45. Tacitus notices with praise (Germania, xix.) that the Germans did — not allow infanticide. He also notices (Hist. v. 5) the prohibition of infan- ticide among the Jews, and ascribes it to their desire to increase the popu- lation. 2 Dion. Halic. ii. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 29 always to encourage, while the Greek policy was rather to restrain population, and infanticide never appears to have been common in Rome till the corrupt and sensual days of the Empire. The legislators then absolutely condemned it, and it was indirectly discouraged by laws which accorded special privileges to the fathers of many children, exempted poor parents from most of the burden of taxation, and in some degree provided for the security of exposed infants. Public opinion probably differed little from that of our own day as to the fact, though it differed from it much as to the degree, of its criminality. It was, as will be remembered, one of the charges most frequently brought against the Christians, and it was one that never failed to arouse popular indignation. Pagan and Christian authorities are, however, united in speaking of infanticide as a crying vice of the Empire, and Ter- tullian observed that no laws were more easily or more constantly evaded than those which condemned itt A broad distinction was popularly drawn between infanticide and exposition. The latter, though probably condemned, was certainly not punished by law ;* it was practised on a 1 Ad Nat. i. 15. * The well-known jurisconsult Paulus had laid down the proposition, ‘Necare videtur non tantum is qui partum perfocat sed et is qui abjicit et qui alimonia denegat et qui publicis locis misericordiz causa exponit quam ipse non habet.’ (Dig. lib. xxv. tit. iii. 1. 4.) These words have given rise to a famous controversy between two Dutch professors, named Noodt and Bynkershoek, conducted on both sides with great learning, and on the side of Noodt with great passion. Noodt maintained that these words are simply the expression of a moral truth, not a judicial decision, and that exposition was never illegal in Rome till some time after the establishment of Christianity. His opponent argued that exposition was legally identical with infanticide, and became, therefore, illegal when the power of life and death was withdrawn from the father. (See the works of Noodt (Cologne, 1763) and of Bynker- shoek (Cologne, 1761). It is at least certain that exposition was notorious and avowed, and the law against it, if it existed, inoperative. Gibbon (Decline and Fall, ch. xliv.) thinks the law censured but did not punish ex- position. See, too, Troplong, Influence du Christianisme sur le Droit, p. 271. 80 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, gigantic scale and with absolute impunity, noticed by writers with the most frigid indifference, and at least, in the case of destitute parents, considered a very venial offence.! Often, no doubt, the exposed children perished, but more fre- quently the very extent of the practice saved the lives of the victims. They were brought systematically to a column near the Velabrum, and there taken by speculators who. educated them as slaves, or very frequently as prostitutes.2 * Quintilian speaks in a tone of apology, if not justification, of the expo- sition of the children of destitute parents (Decl. ccevi.), and even Plutarch speaks of it without censure. (De Amor. Prolis.) There are several curious illustrations in Latin literature of the different feelings of fathers and mothers on this matter. Terence (Heauton, Acts iii. Scene 5) represents Chremes as having, as a matter of course, charged his pregnant wife to — have her child killed provided it was a girl. The mother, overcome by pity, shrank from doing so, and secretly gave it to an old woman to expose it, in hopes that it might be preserved. Chremes, on hearing what had been done, reproached his wife for her womanly pity, and told her she had been not only disobedient but irrational, for she was only consigning her daughter to the life of a prostitute. In Apuleius (Metam. lib. x.) we have a similar picture of a father starting for a journey, leaving his wife in childbirth, and giving her his parting command to kill her child if it should be a girl, which she could not bring herself to do. The girl was brought up secretly. In the case of weak or deformed infants infanticide seems to have been habitual. ‘Portentos foetus extinguimus, liberos quoque si debiles mon- strosique editi sunt, mergimus. Non ira sed ratio est a sanis inutilia secernere.’—Seneca, De Ira, i.15. Terence has introduced a picture of the exposition of an infant into his Andria, Act iy. Scene 5. See, too, Suet. August. lxv. According to Suetonius (Calig. v.), on the death of Ger- manicus, women exposed their new-born children in sign of grief. Ovid had dwelt with much feeling on the barbarity of these practices. It is a very curious fact, which has been noticed by Warburton, that Chremes, whose sentiments about infants we have just seen, is the very personage into whose mouth Terence has put the famous sentiment, ‘Homo sum humani nihil a me alienum puto.’ * That these were the usual fates of exposed infants is noticed by several writers. Some, too, both Pagan and Christian (Quintilian, Decl. ccevi. ; Lactantius, Div. Inst, vi. 20, &c.), speak of the liability to incestuous mar- riages resulting from frequent exposition. In the Greek poets there are several allusions to rich childless men adopting foundlings, and Juvenal says if was common for Roman wives to palm off found]ings on their hus- bands for their sons. (Sat. vi. 603.) There is an extremely horrible declama- tion in Seneca the Rhetorician (Controvers. lib. y, 33) about exposed children FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 31 On the whole, what was demanded on this subject was not any clearer moral teaching, but rather a stronger enforcement of the condemnation long since passed upon infanticide, and an increased protection for exposed infants. By the penitential sentences, by the dogmatic considerations I have enumerated, and by the earnest ex- hortations both of her preachers and writers, the Church laboured to deepen the sense of the enormity of the act, and especially to convince men that the guilt of abandon- ing their children to the precarious and doubtful mercy of the stranger was scarcely less than that of simple in- fanticide.'!' In the civil law her influence was also dis- played, though not, I think, very advantageously. By the counsel, it is said, of Lactantius, Constantine, in the very year of his conversion, in order to prevent the fre- quent instances of infanticide by destitute parents, issued a decree applicable in the first instance to Italy, but extended in a.p. 322 to Africa, in which he ordered that those children whom their parents were unable to support should be clothed and fed at the expense of the State,? a policy which had already been pursued on a large scale under the Antonines. In AD. 331, a law intended to multiply the chances of the exposed child being taken charge of by some charitable or interested person, pro- vided that the foundling should remain the absolute pro- perty of its saviour, whether he adopted it as ason or employed it as a slave, and that the parent should not have power at any future time to reclaim it.3 By another who were said to have been maimed and mutilated, either to prevent their recognition by their parents, or that they might gain money as beggars for their masters. * See passages on this point cited by Godefroy in his Commentary to the Law De Expositis, Codex Theod. lib. y. tit. 7. * Codex Theod. lib. xi. tit. 27, eibidaltb.-y, tit.7,lex J, ® BZ HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, law, which had been issued in a.p. 829, it had been pro- vided that children who had been not exposed but sold, might be reclaimed upon payment by the father.! The two last laws cannot be regarded with unmingled satisfaction. That reoulating the condition of exposed children, though undoubtedly enacted with the most bene- volent intentions, was in some degree a retrograde step, the Pagan laws having provided that the father might always withdraw the child he had exposed from servitude, by payment of the expenses incurred in supporting it,? while Trajan had even decided that the exposed child could not become under any circumstance a slave.? The law of Constantine, on the other hand, doomed it to an irrevocable servitude, and this law continued in force till A.D. 529, when Justinian, reverting to the principle of Trajan, decreed that not only the father lost all legitimate authority over his child by exposing it, but also that the person who had saved it could not by that act deprive it of its natural liberty. But this law applied only to the Eastern Empire; and in part at least of the West* the servitude of exposed infants continued for centuries, and appears only to have.terminated with the general extinc- tion of slavery in Europe. The law of Constantine con- cerning the sale of children was also a step, though perhaps a necessary step, of retrogression. A series of emperors, among whom Caracalla was conspicuous, had denounced and endeavoured to abolish as ‘ shameful,’ the traffic in free children, and Diocletian had expressly and absolutely condemned it. The extreme misery, how- ever, resulting from the civil wars under Constantine, had 1 Codex Theod. lib. v. tit. 8, lex 1. * See Godefroy’s Commentary to the Law. Ina letter to the younger Pliny. (Zp. x.72.) * See on this point Muratori, Antich. Italian. Diss. xxxvii. * See on these laws, Wallon, Hist. de ’ ESclavage, tome iii. pp. 52-58. t ee a es FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 83 rendered it necessary to authorise the old practice of selling children in the case of absolute destitution, which, though it had been condemned, had probably never altogether ceased. Theodosius the Great attempted to take a step in advance, by decreeing that the children thus sold might regain their freedom without the re- payment of the purchase-money, a temporary service be- ing a sufficient compensation for the purchase ;! but this measure was repealed by Valentinian III. The sale of children in case of great necessity, though denounced by the Fathers,” continued long after the time of Theodosius, nor does any Christian emperor appear to have enforced the humane enactment of Diocletian. Together with these measures for the protection of exposed children, there were laws directly condemnatory of infanticide. This branch of the subject is obscured by much ambiguity and controversy; but it appears most probable that the Pagan legislature reckoned infanticide as a form of homicide, though, being deemed less atrocious than other forms of homicide, it was punished, not by death, but by banishment.2 ‘Afflictos civitatis relevavit; puellas puerosque natos parentibus egestosis sumptu publico per Italic oppida ali jussit.’—Sext. Aurelius Victor, Epitome, ‘Nerva.’. This measure of Nerva, though not mentioned by any cther writer, is confirmed by the evidence of medals. (Naudet, p. 75.) § Plin. Panegyr. xxvi. xxviii. 82 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. support of 270 children.!' Private benevolence followed in the same direction, and several inscriptions which still remain, though they do not enable us to write its history, sufficiently attest its activity. The younger Pliny, be- sides warmly encouraging schools, devoted a small pro- perty to the support of poor children in his native city of Como.” The name of Ceelia Macrina is preserved as the foundress of a charity for 100 children at Terracina.’ Hadrian increased the supplies of corn allotted to these charities, and he was also distinguished for his bounty to peor women.* Antoninus was accustomed to lend money to the poor at four per cent., which was much below the normal rate of interest,° and both he and Marcus Aurelius dedicated to the memory of their wives institutions for the support of girls.6 Alexander Severus in like manner dedicated an institution for the support of children to the memory of his mother.’ - Public hospitals were probably unknown before Christianity ; but there were private in- firmaries for slaves, and also, it is believed, military hos- pitals. Provincial towns were occasionally assisted by the Government in seasons of great distress, and there are some recorded instances of private legacies for their benefit.’ These various measures are by no means inconsiderable, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that many similar 1 We know of this charity from an extant bronze tablet. See Schmidt, Essai historique sur la Société romaine, p. 428. ? Plin. Ep. i. 8; iv. 18. | ~ 3 Schmidt, p. 428. * Spartianus, Hadrian. > Capitolinus, Antoninus. 6 Capitolinus, Anton., Mare. Aurel. 7 Lampridius, A, Severus. § Seneca (De Ira, lib. 1, cap. 16) speaks of institutions called valetudinania, ‘ which most writers think were private infirmaries in rich men’s houses. The opinion that the Romans had public hospitals is maintained in a yery learned and valuable, but little-known work, called Collections relative to the Systematic Relief of the Poor. (London, 1815.) See Tacit. Annal. xii. 58; Pliny, v. 7; x. 79. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 83 steps were taken, of which all record has been lost. _ The history of charity presents so few salient features, so little that can strike the imagination or arrest the at- tention, that it is usually almost wholly neglected by historians; and it is easy to conceive what inadequate notions of our existing charities could be gleaned from the casual allusions in plays or poems, in political his- tories or court memoirs. There can, however, be no question that neither in practice nor in theory, neither in the institutions that were founded nor in the place that was assigned to it in the scale of duties, did charity in antiquity occupy a position at all comparable to that which it has obtained by Christianity. Nearly all relief was a State measure, dictated much more by policy than by benevolence, and the habit of selling young children, the innumerable expositions, the readiness of the poor to enroll themselves as gladiators, and the frequent famines, show how large was the measure of unrelieved distress. A very few Pagan examples of charity have, indeed, descended to us. Among the Greeks, Epaminondas was accustomed to ransom captives and collect dowers for poor girls ;+ Cimon, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked ;* Bias, to purchase, emancipate, and furnish with dowers the captive girls of Messina.* Tacitus has de- scribed with enthusiasm how, after a catastrophe near Rome, the rich threw open their. houses and taxed all their resources to relieve the sufferers.4 There existed, too, among the poor, both of Greece and Rome, mutual insurance societies, which undertook to provide for their sick and infirm members.® The very frequent reference é 1 Cornelius Nepos, Epaminondas, cap. 3. 2 Lactantius, Div. Inst. vi. 9. 8 Diog. Laért. Bias. 4 Tac. Annal. iv. 635. 5 See Pliny, Ep. x. 94, and the remarks of Naudet, pp. 38-39, 84 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. to mendicancy in the Latin writers show that beggars, and therefore those who relieved beggars, were numerous. The duty of hospitality was also strongly enjoined, and was placed under the special protection of the supreme Deity. But the active, habitual, and detailed charity of private persons, which is so conspicuous a feature in all Christian societies, was scarcely known in antiquity, and there are not more than two or three moralists who have even noticed it. Of these, the chief rank belongs to Cicero, who devoted two very judicious but somewhat cold chapters to the subject. Nothing, he said, is more suitable to the nature of man than benefi- ‘ cence and liberality, but there are many cautions to be urged in practising it. We must take care that our bounty is a real blessing to the person we relieve; that it does not exceed our own means; that it is not, as was the case with Sylla and Cesar, derived from the spoliation of others; that it springs from the heart and not from os- tentation ; that the claims of gratitude are preferred to the mere impulses of compassion, and that due regard is paid both to.the character and to the wants of the recipient.? Christianity for the first time made charity a rudi- mentary virtue, giving it the foremost place in the moral type, and in the exhortations of its teachers. Besides its general influence in stimulating the affections, it effected a complete revolution in this sphere, by representing the poor as the special representatives of the Christian Founder, and thus making the love of Christ rather than the love of man the principle of charity. Even in the days of persecution, collections for the relief of the poor — were made at the Sunday meetings. The Agape or feasts of love were intended mainly for the poor, and food ' De Offic. i. 14-16. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. | 85 that was saved by the fasts was devoted to their benefit. A vast organisation of charity, presided over by the bishops, and actively directed by the deacons, soon ra- mified over Christendom, till the bond of charity became the bond of unity, and the most distant sections of the Christian Church corresponded by the interchange of mercy. Long before the era of Constantine, it was ob- served that the charities of the Christians were so exten- slve—it may, perhaps, be said so excessive—that they drew very many impostors to the Church,’ and when the victory of Christianity was achieved, the enthusiasm for charity displayed itself in the erection of numerous in- stitutions that were altogether unknown to the Pagan world. A Roman lady, named Fabiola, in the fourth century, founded at Rome, as an act of penance, the first public hos- pital, and the charity planted by that woman’s hand over- spread the world, and will alleviate, to the end of time, the darkest anguish of humanity. Another hospital was soon after founded by St. Pammachus; another of great celebrity by St. Basil, at Ceesarea. St. Basil also erected at Caesarea what was probably the first asylum for lepers. Xenodochia, or refuges for strangers, speedily rose, es- pecially along the paths of the pilgrims. St. Pammachus founded one at Ostia; Paula and Melania founded others at Jerusalem. The Council of Nice ordered that one should 1 Lucian describes this in his famous picture of Peregrinus, and Julian, much later, accused the Christians of drawing men into the Church by their charities. Socrates (Hist. Eccl. vii. 17) tells a story of a Jew who, pre- tending to be a convert to Christianity, had been often baptised in different sects, and who had amassed a considerable fortune by the gifts he received on those occasions. He was at last miraculously detected by the Novatian bishop Paul. There are several instances in the Lives of the Saints of judg- ments falling on those who duped benevolent Christians, 86 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. be erected in every city. In the time of St. Chrysostom the church of Antioch supported 3,000 widows and virgins, besides strangers and sick. Legacies for the poor became common, and it was not unfrequent for men and women who desired to live a life of peculiar sanctity, and especially for priests who attained the episcopacy, as a first act to bestow their entire properties in charity. Even the early Oriental monks, who for the most part were extremely removed from the active and social virtues, supplied many noble examples of charity. St. Ephrem, in a time of pestilence, emerged from his solitude to found and superintend a hospital at Edessa. A monk named Tha- lasius collected blind beggars in an asylum on the banks of the Euphrates. A merchant named Apollonius founded on Mount Nitria a gratuitous dispensary for the monks. The monks often assisted by their labours provinces that were suffering from pestilence or famine. We may trace the remains of the pure socialism that marked the first phase of the Christian community in the emphatic lan- guage with which some of the Fathers proclaimed charity to be a matter not of mercy but of justice, maintaining that all property is based on usurpation, that the earth by right is common to all men, and that no man can claim a superabundant supply of its goods except as an administrator for others. A Christian, it was maintained, should devote at least one-tenth of his profits to the poor.’ 1 See on this subject Chastel, Etudes historiques sur la Charité (Paris, 1853) ; Martin Doisy, Hist. de la Charité pendant les quatre premiers Siécles (Paris, 1848); Champagny, Charité chrétienne ; Tollemer, Origines de la Cha- rité catholique (Paris, 1863) ; Ryan, History of the Effects of Religion upon Mankind (Dublin, 1820); and the works of Bingham and of Cave. I am also indebted, in this part of my subject, to Dean Milman’s histories, Neander’s Ecclesiastical History, and Private Life of the Early Christians, and to Migne’s Encyclopédie. ; FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 8? The enthusiasm of charity, thus manifested in the Church, speedily attracted the attention of the Pagans. The ridicule of Lucian, and the vain efforts of Julian, to produce a rival system of charity within the limits of Paganism,’ emphatically attested both its pre-eminence and its catholicity. During the pestilences that desolated Carthage in A.D. 326, and Alexandria in the reigns of Gallienus and of Maximian, while the Pagans fled panic- stricken from the contagion, the Christians extorted the admiration of their fellow-countrymen by the courage with which they rallied around their bishops, consoled the last hours of the sufferers, and buried the abandoned dead.’ In the rapid increase of pauperism arising from the emancipation of numerous slaves, their charity found free scope for action, and its resources were soon taxed to the utmost by the horrors of the barbarian invasions. The conquest of Africa by Genseric, deprived Italy of the supply of corn upon which it almost wholly depended, arrested the gratuitous distribution by which the Roman poor were mainly supported, and produced all over the land the most appalling calamities. The history of Italy became one monotonous tale of famine and pestilence, of starving populations and ruined cities. But everywhere 1 See the famous epistle of Julian to Arsacius, where he declares that it is shameful that ‘the Galileans should support not only their own, but also the heathen poor. Sozomen (fist. eccl. vy. 16), and the comments of the historian, * The conduct of the Christians, on the first of these occasions, is described by Pontius, Vit. Cypriant,ix. 19. St. Cyprian organised their efforts. On the Alexandrian famines and pestilences, see Eusebius, H. EF. vii. 22; ix. 8. $ The effects of this conquest have been well described by Sismondi, Hist. de la Chute de 1 Empire romain, tome i. pp. 258-260, Theodoric afterwards made some efforts to re-establish the distribution, but it never regained its former proportions. The pictures of the starvation and depopulation of Italy at this time are appalling. Some fearfu facts on the subject are col- lected by Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xxxvi.; Chateaubriand, vim® Dise.. 2¢¢ partie. ii 88 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. amid this chaos of dissolution we may detect the ma- jestic form of the Christian’ priest mediating between the hostile forces, straining every nerve to lighten the calami- ties around him. When the Imperial city was captured and plundered by the hosts of Alaric, a Christian church remained a secure sanctuary, which neither the passions nor the avarice of the Goths transgressed. When a fiercer than Alaric had marked out Rome for his prey, the Pope St. Leo, arrayed in his sacerdotal robes, con- fronted the victorious Hun, as the ambassador of his fellow-countrymen, and Attila, overpowered by religious awe, turned aside in his course. When, twelve years later, Rome lay at the mercy of Genseric, the same Pope interposed with the Vandal conqueror, and obtained from him a partial cessation of the massacre. The Archdeacon Pelagius interceded with similar humanity and similar success, when Rome had been captured by Totila. In Gaul, Troyes is said to have been saved from destruction by the influence of St. Lupus, and Orleans by the in- fluence of St. Agnan. In Britain an invasion of the Picts was averted by St. Germain of Auxerrois. The relations of rulers to their subjects, and of tribunals to the poor, were modified by the same intervention. When Antioch was threatened with destruction on account of its rebellion against Theodosius, the anchorites poured forth from the neighbouring deserts to intercede with the ministers of the emperor, while the Archbishop Flavian went himself as a suppliant to Rome. St. Ambrose imposed public penance on Theodosius, on account of the massacre of Thessalonica. Synesius excommunicated for his oppres-_ sions a governor named Andronicus, and two French Councils, in the sixth century imposed the same penalty on all great men who arbitrarily ejected the poor. Special laws were found necessary to restrain the turbu- FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 89 lent charity of some priests and monks, who impeded the course of justice, and even snatched criminals from the hands of the law.t St. Abraham, St. Epiphanius, and St. Basil are all said to have obtained the remission or reduc- tion of oppressive imposts. To provide for the interests of widows and orphans was part of the official ecclesiastical duty, and a Council of Macon anathematised any ruler who brought them to trial without first apprising the bishop of the diocese. A Council of Toledo, in the fifth century, threatened with excommunication all who robbed priests, monks, or poor men, or refused to listen to their expostulations. One of the chief causes of the inordinate power acquired by the clergy was their mediatorial office, and their gigantic wealth was in a great degree duc to the legacies of those who regarded them as the trustees of the poor. As time rolled on, charity assumed many forms, and every monastery became a centre from which it radiated. By the monks the nobles weré overawed, the poor protected, the sick tended, travellers sheltered, prisoners ransomed, the remotest spheres of suffering ex- plored. During the darkest period of the middle ages, monks founded a refuge for pilgrims amid the horrors of the Alpine snows. A solitary hermit often planted him- self, with his little boat, by a bridgeless stream, and the charity of his life was to ferry over the traveller.2. When the hideous disease of leprosy extended its ravages * Cod. Theod. ix. xl. 15-16, The first of these laws was made by Theo- dosius, A.D. 392 ; the second by Honorius, .p, 398. * Cibrario, Economica politica del Medio Evo, lib. ii. cap. iii. . The most remarkable of these saints was St. Julien l’Hospitalier, who, having under a mistake, killed his father and mother, as a penance became a ferryman of a great river, and, having embarked on a very stormy and dangerous night, at the voice of a traveller in distress, received Christ into his boat, His story is painted in a window of the thirteenth century, in Rouen Cathedral. See Langlois, Essai historique sur la Peinture sur verre, PP. 32-37, 90 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. over Europe, when the minds of men were filled with terror, not only by its loathsomeness and its contagion, but also by the notion that it was in a peculiar sense supernatural,! new hospitals and refuges overspread Europe, and monks flocked in multitudes to serve in them.? Sometimes, the legends say, the leper’s form was in a moment transfigured, and he who came to tend the most loathsome of mankind received his reward, for he found himself in the presence of his Lord. There is no fact of which an historian becomes more speedily or more painfully conscious than the great differ- ence between the importance and the dramatic interest of the subjects he treats. Wars or massacres, the horrors of martyrdom or the splendours of individual prowess, are susceptible of such brillant colouring, that with but little literary skill they can be so pourtrayed that their impor- tance is adequately realised, and they appeal powerfully to the emotions of the reader. But this vast and unosten- tatlous movement of charity, operating in the village hamlet and in the lonely hospital, staunching the widow’s tears and following all the windings of the poor man’s griefs, presents few features the imagination can grasp, and leaves no deep impression upon ‘hie mind. The greatest things are often those which are most imperfectly realised ; and surely no achievements of the Christian Church are more truly great than those which it has effected in the sphere of charity. For the first time in the history of © mankind, it has inspired many thousands of men and women, at the sacrifice of all worldly interests, and often 1 The fact of leprosy being taken as the image of sin gave rise to some curious notions of its supernatural character, and to many legends of saints curing leprosy by baptism. See Maury, Légendespieuses du Moyen Age, pp. 64-65. * See on these hospitals Cibrario, Econ, politic, del Medio Evo, lib, iii. cap. li. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 91 under circumstances of extreme discomfort or danger, to devote their entire lives to the single object of assuaging the sufferings of humanity. It has covered the globe with countless institutions of mercy, absolutely unknown to the whole Pagan world. It has indissolubly united, in the minds of men, the idea of supreme goodness with that of active and constant benevolence. It has placed in every parish a religious minister, who, whatever may be his other functions, has at least been officially charged with the superintendence of an organisation of charity, and who finds in this office one of the most important as well as one of the most legitimate sources of his power. There are, however, two important qualifications to the admiration with which we regard the history of Christian charity—one relating to a particular form of suffering, and the other of a more general kind. A strong, ill-defined notion of the supernatural character of insanity had existed from the earliest times; but there were special circumstances which rendered the action of the Church peculiarly unfavourable to those who were either predisposed to or afflicted with this calamity. The reality, both of witchcraft and diabolical possession, had been distinctly recognised in the Jewish writings. The received opinions about eternal torture, and ever-present demons, and the continued strain upon the imagination, in dwelling upon an unseen world, were pre-eminently fitted to produce madness in those who were at all predisposed to it, and, where insanity had actually ap- peared, to determine the form and complexion of the hallucinations of the maniac.' Theology supplying * Calmeil observes, ‘On a souvent constaté depuis un demi-sidcle que la folie est sujette a prendre la teinte des croyances religieuses, des idées phi- losophiques ou superstitieuses, des préjugés sociaux qui ont cours, qui sont actuellement en vogue parmi les peuples ou les nations; que cette teinte varie dans un méme pays suivant le caractére des événements relatifs a la 92 | HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, all the images that acted most powerfully upon the imagination, most. madness, for many centuries, took a theological cast. One important department of it appears chiefly in the lives of the saints. Men of lively imagina- tions and absolute ignorance, living apart from all their fellows, amid the horrors of a savage wilderness, practis- ing austerities by which their physical. system was thoroughly deranged, and firmly persuaded that innu- merable devils were continually hovering about their cells and interfering with their devotions, speedily and very naturally became subject to constant hallucinations, which probably form the nucleus of truth in the legends of their lives. But it was impossible that insanity should confine itself to the orthodox forms of celestial visions, or of the apparitions and the defeats of devils. Very fre- quently it led the unhappy maniac to some delusion, which called down upon him the speedy sentence of the Church. Sometimes he imagined he was himself identi- fied with the objects of his devotion. Thus, in the year 1300, a beautiful English girl appeared at Milan, who imagined herself to be the Holy Ghost, incarnate for the redemption of women, and who accordingly was put to death. In the year 1359, a Spaniard declared himself to be the brother of the archangel Michael, and to be destined for the place in heaven which Satan had lost ; and he added that he was accustomed every day both to mount into heaven and descend into hell, that the end * politique extérieure, le caractére des événements civiles, Ja nature des pro- ductions littéraires, des représentations théatrales, suivant la tournure, la ilirection, le genre d’élan qu’y prennent Vindustrie, les arts et les sciences.’ De la Folie, tome i. pp. 122-123. 1 ¢Venit de Anglia virgo decora valde, pariterque facunda, dicens, Spiri- tum Sanctum incarnatum in redemptionem mulierum, et baptisavit mulieres in nomine Patris, Filii et sui. Que mortua ducta fuit in Mediolanum, ibi et cremata.’—Annales Dominicanorum Colmariensium (in the ‘Rerum.’ Ger- manic. Scriptores). FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 93 of the world was at hand, and that it was reserved for him to enter into single combat with Antichrist. The poor lunatic fell into the hands of the Archbishop of Toledo, and was burnt alive. In other cases the hallu- cination took the form of an irregular inspiration. On this charge, Joan of Arc, and another girl who had been fired by her example, and had endeavoured, apparently under a genuine hallucination, to follow her career,” were burnt alive. A famous Spanish physician and scholar, named Torralba, who lived in the sixteenth century, and who imagined that he had an attendant angel continually about him, escaped with public penance and confession ; ® but a professor of theology in Lima, who laboured under the same delusion, and added to it some wild notions about his spiritual dignities, was less fortunate. He was burnt by the Inquisition of Peru. Most commonly, however, the theological notions about witchcraft either produced madness or determined its form, and, through the influence of the clergy of the different sections of the Christian Church, many thousands of unhappy women, who, from their age, their loneliness, and their infirmity, were most deserving of pity, were devoted to the hatred of mankind, and, having been tortured with horrible and ingenious cruelty, were at last burnt alive. The existence, however, of some forms of natural mad- 1 Martin Goncalez, du diocése de Cuenca, disoit quil étoit frére de Varchange S. Michel, la premiére vérité et ’échelle du ciel; que c’étoit pour lui que Dieu réservoit la place que Lucifer avoit perdue ; que tous les jours il s’élevoit au plus haut de l’Empirée et descendoit ensuite au plus profond des enfers; qu’a la fin du monde, qui étoit proche, il iroit au devant de )’Antichrist et qu’il le terrasseroit, ayant 4 sa main la croix de Jésus-Christ et sa couronne d’épines. L’archevéque de Toléde, n’ayant pu convertir ce fanatique obstiné, ni l’empécher de dogmatiser, l’avoit enfin livré au bras séculier.—Touron, Hist. des Hommes tllustres de Vordre de St. Dominique, Paris, 1745 (Vie d’Eyméricus), tome ii. p. 635. ? Calmeil, De la Folie, tome i. p. 134, 3 Ibid. tome i. pp. 242-247, * Ibid. tome i. p. 247. 94 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. ness was generally admitted; but the measures for the relief of the unhappy victims were very few, and very ill judged. Among the ancients, they were brought to the temples, and subjected to imposing ceremonies, which were believed supernaturally to relieve them, and which probably had a favourable influence through their action upon the imagination. The great Greek physicians had devoted considerable attention to this malady, and some of their precepts anticipated modern discoveries ; but no lunatic asylum appears to have existed in antiquity In the first period of the hermit life, when many anchorites. became insane through their penances, a refuge is said to have been opened for them at Jerusalem.?. This appears, however, to be a solitary instance, arising from the exi- gencies of a single class, and no lunatic asylum existed in Christian Europe till the fifteenth century. The Ma-— hommedans, in this form of charity, preceded the Chris- tians. A writer of the seventh century notices the existence of several of these institutions at Fez, and mentions that the patients were restrained by chains? The asylum of Cairo is said to have been founded in A.D. 1304,* and it is probable that the care of the insane was a general form of charity in. Mahommedan countries. Among the Christians it first appeared in quarters con- tiguous to the Mahommedans; but there is, I think, no real evidence that it was derived from Mahommedan example. The Knights of Malta were famous as the one order who admitted lunatics into their hospitals; but no Christian asylum expressly for their benefit existed till 1409. The honour of instituting this form of charity in Christendom belongs to Spain. A monk named Juan Gila- 1 See Esquirol, Maladies mentales. 2 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xxxvii. 3 Leo Africanus, quoted by Esquirol. * Desmaisons, Asides d Alhénés en Espagne, p. 53. FROM .CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 95 berto Joffre, filled with compassion at the sight of the maniacs who were hooted by crowds through the streets of Valencia, founded an asylum in that city, and his ex- ample was speedily followed in other provinces. In a.p. 1425, an asylum was erected at Saragossa. In a.p. 1436, both Seville and Valladolid followed the example, as did also Toledo, in a.p. 1483. All these institutions ex- isted before a single lunatic asylum had been founded in any other part of Christendom. Two other very honour able facts may be mentioned, establishing the pre-eminence of Spanish charity in this field. The first s, that the oldest lunatic asylum in the metropolis of Catholicism ras that erected by Spaniards, in a.p. 1548.2 The second is, that, when at the close of the last century, Pinel began his great labours in this sphere, he pronounced Spain to be the country in which lunatics were treated with most wisdom and most humanity.? In most countries their condition was indeed truly deplorable. While many thousands were burnt as witches, those who were recognised as insane were compelled to en- dure all the horrors of the harshest imprisonment. Blows, bleeding, and chains were their usual treatment, and most horrible accounts were given of madmen who had spent decades bound in dark cells.4. The treatment naturally aggravated their malady, and that malady in many cases rendered impossible the resignation and ultimate torpor ' I have taken these facts from a very interesting little work, Desmaisons, Des Asiles d Aliénés en Espagne ; Recherches historiques et médicales (Paris, 1859). Dr. Desmaisons conjectures that the Spaniards took their asylums from the Mahommedans ; but, as it seems to me, he altogether fails to prove his point. His work, however, contains much curious information on the history of lunatic asylums. * Amydemus, Pietas Romana (Oxford, 1687), p. 21; Desmaisons, p. 108. ° Pinel, Traité médico-philosophique, pp. 241-242. * See the dreadful description in Pinel, Traité médico-philosophique sur ”Aliénation mentale (2nd ed.), pp. 200-202, oe HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. which alleviate the suffering of ordinary prisoners. Not until the eighteenth century was the condition of this unhappy class seriously improved. The combined pro- gress of theological scepticism and scientific knowledge, relegated witchcraft to the world of phantoms, and. the exertions of Morgagni in Italy, of Cullen im Scotland, and of Pinel in France, renovated the whole treatment of acknowledged lunatics. The second qualification to the sammie with which we regard the history of Christian charity arises from the undoubted fact that a large proportion of charitable institutions have directly increased the poverty they were intended to relieve. The question of the utility and nature of charity is one which, since the modern dis- coveries of political economy, has elicited much discussion, and in many cases, I think, much exaggeration. What political economy has effected on the subject may be comprised under two heads. It has elucidated more clearly, and in greater detail than had before been done, the effect of provident self-interest in determining the welfare of societies, and it has established a broad distine- tion between productive and unproductive expenditure. It has shown that, where idleness is supported, idleness will become common ; that, where systematic public pro- vision is made for old age, the parsimony of foresight will be neglected; and that therefore these forms of charity, by encouraging habits of idleness and improvidence, ultimately increase the wretchedness they were intended to alleviate. It has also shown that, while expenditure in amusements or luxury, or others of what are called unproductive forms, is undoubtedly beneficial to those who provide them, the fruit perishes in the usage, while the result of productive expenditure, such as that which is devoted to the manufacture of machines, or the improve- FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 97 ment of the soil, or the extension of commercial enter- prise, give a new impulse to the creation of wealth; that the first condition of the rapid accumulation of capital is the diversion of money from unproductive to productive channels, and that the amount of the accumulated capital is one of the two regulating influences of the wages of the labourer. From these positions some persons have in- ferred that charity should be condemned as a form of unproductive expenditure. But in the first place, all charities that foster habits of forethought and develope new capacities in the poorer classes, such as popular education, or the formation of savings banks, or insurance companies, or, in many cases, small and discriminating loans, or measures directed to the suppression of dissipa- tion, are in the strictest sense productive; and the same may be said of many forms of employment, given in exceptional crises through charitable motives; and in the next place, it is only necessary to remember that the hap- pimess of mankind, to which the accumulation of wealth should only be regarded as a means, is the real object of charity, and it will appear that many forms which are not strictly productive, in the commercial sense, are in the highest degree conducive to this end, and have no serious counteracting evil. In the alleviation of those sufferings that do not spring either from improvidence or from vice, the warmest as well as the most enlightened charity will find an ample sphere for its exertions.! Blindness, and other exceptional calamities, against the effects of which prudence does not and cannot provide, 1 Malthus, who is sometimes, though most unjustly, described as an enemy to all charity, has devoted an admirable chapter (On Population, book iv. ch. ix.) to the ‘direction of our charity; ’ but the fullest examina- tion’ of this subject with which I am acquainted is the very interesting work of Duchatel, Sur la Charité. 98 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, | the miseries resulting from epidemics, from war, from famine, from the first sudden collapse of industry, pro- duced by new inventions or changes in the channels of commerce ; hospitals, which, Heide: other advantages, are the greatest schools of medical science, and withdraw from the crowded alley multitudes who would otherwise form centres of contagion—these, and such as these, will long tax to the utmost the generosity of the wealthy ; while, even in the spheres upon which the political economist looks with the most unfavourable eye, excep- tional cases will justify exceptional assistance. The charity which is pernicious is commonly not the highest but the lowest kind. The rich man, prodigal of money, which is to him of little value, but altogether incapable of devoting any personal attention to the object of his. alms, often injures society by his donations; but this is rarely the case with that far nobler charity which makes men familiar with the haunts of wretchedness, and follows the object of its care through all the phases of his life. The question of the utility of charity is simply a question of ultimate consequences. Political economy has no doubt laid down some general rules of great value on the sub- ject; but yet, the pages which Cicero devoted to it nearly two thousand years ago might have been written by the most enlightened modern economist; and it will be con- tinually found that the Protestant lady, working in her parish, by the simple force of common sense and by a scrupulous and minute attention to the condition and character of those whom she relieves, 1s unconsciously illustrating with perfect accuracy the enlightened charity of Aa si But in order that charity should be useful, it is essential that the benefit of the sufferer should be a real object to the donor; and a very large proportion of the evils that have arisen from catholic charity may be traced FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 99 to the absence of this condition. The first substitution of devotion for philanthropy, as the motive of benevo- lence, gave so powerful a stimulus to the affections, that it may on the whole be regarded as a benefit, though, by making compassion operate solely through a theological medium, it often produced among theologians a more than common indifference to the sufferings of all who were external to their religious community. But the new principle speedily degenerated into a belief in the expiatory nature of the gifts. A form of what may be termed selfish charity arose, which acquired at last gigantic proportions, and exercised a most pernicious influence upon Christendom. Men gave money to the poor, simply and exclusively for their own spiritual benefit, and the welfare of the sufferer was altogether foreign to their thoughts.! The evil which thus arose from some forms of catho- lic charity, may be traced from a very early period, but it only acquired its full magnitude after some centuries. The Roman system of gratuitous distribution was, in the eyes of the political economist, about the worst that could be conceived, and the charity of the Church being, in at least a measure, discriminating, was at first a very great, though even then not an unmingled good. Labour was also not unfrequently enjoined as a duty by the Fathers, and at a later period the services of the Benedictine monks, in destroying by their example the stigma which slavery had attached to it, were very great. Still, one of the first consequences of the exuberant charity of the Church was 1 This is very tersely expressed by a great Protestant writer: ‘I give no alms to satisfy the hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and accomplish - the will and command of my God.’—Sir T. Brown, Religio Medici, part ii. § 2. A saying almost exactly similar is, if I remember right, ascribed to St. Elizabeth of Hungary. some oe x ete, aye 100 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. to multiply impostors and mendicants, and the idleness of the monks was one of the earliest complaints. Valen- tinian made a severe law, condemning robust beggars to perpetual slavery. As the monastic system was increased, and especially after the mendicant orders had consecrated mendicancy, the evil assumed gigantic dimensions, Many thousands of strong men, absolutely without private means, were in every country withdrawn from produc- tive labour, and supported by charity. The notion of the meritorious nature of simple almsgiving immeasurably multiplied beggars. The stigma, which it is the highest interest of society to attach to mendicancy, it became a main object of theologians to remove. Saints wandered through the world begging money, that they might give to beggars, or depriving themselves of their garments, that they might clothe the naked, and the result of their teaching was speedily apparent. In all Catholic countries where ecclesiastical influences have been permitted to develope unmolested, the monastic organisations have proved a deadly canker, corroding the prosperity of the nation. Withdrawing multitudes from all production, encouraging a blind and pernicious almsgiving, diffusing habits of improvidence through the poorer elasses, foster- ing an ignorant admiration for saintly poverty, and an equally ignorant antipathy to the habits and aims of an industrial civilisation, they have paralysed all energy and proved an insuperable barrier to material progress. The poverty they have relieved has been insignificant com- pared with the poverty they have caused. In no case was the abolition of monasteries effected in a more inde- fensible manner than in England; but the transfer of pro- perty that was once employed, in a great measure in charity, to the courtiers of King Henry, was ultimately a. _ vast. benefit to the English poor; for no misapplication FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 101 of this property by private persons could produce as much evil as an unrestrained monasticism. The value of Catho- lic services in alleviating pain and sickness, and the more exceptional forms of suffering, can never be overrated. The noble heroism of her servants, who have devoted themselves to charity, has never been surpassed, and the perfection of their organisation has, I think, never been equalled; but in the sphere of simple poverty it can hardly be doubted that the Catholic Church has created more misery than it has cured. Still, even in this field, we must not forget the benefits resulting, if not to the sufferer, at least to the donor. Charitable habits, even when formed in the first instance from selfish motives, even when so misdirected as to be positively injurious to the recipient, rarely fail to exer- cise a softening and purifying influence on the charac- ter. All through the darkest period of the middle ages, amid ferocity and fanaticism and brutality, we may trace the subduing influence of Catholic charity, blending strangely with every excess of violence and every out- burst of persecution. It would be difficult to conceive a more frightful picture of society than is presented by the history of Gregory of Tours; but that long series of atrocious crimes, narrated with an almost appalling tran- quillity, is continually interspersed with accounts of kings, queens, or prelates, who, in the midst of the disorganised society, made the relief of the poor the main object of their lives. No period of history exhibits a larger amount of cruelty, licentiousness, and fanaticism than the Crusades; but side by side with the military enthusiasm, and with the almost universal corruption, there expanded a vast movement of charity, which covered Christendom with hospitals for the relief of leprosy, and which erappled nobly, though ineffectually, with the many forms of 102 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. suffering that were generated. St. Peter Nolasco, whose great labours in ransoming captive Christians I have already noticed, was an active participater in the atro- cious massacre of the Albigenses.1 Of Shane O’Neale, one of the ablest; but also one of the most ferocious Irish chieftains who ever defied the English power, it is related, amid a crowd of horrible crimes, that, ‘sittmg at meat, before he put one morsel into his mouth he used to slice a portion above the daily alms, and send it to some beggar at his gate, saying it was meet to serve Christ first.’ ? | The great evils produced by the encouragement of mendicants, which have always accompanied the uncon- trolled development of Catholicity, have naturally given rise to much discussion and legislation. William de St. Amour denounced the mendicant orders at Paris in the thirteenth century, and one of the disciples of Wycliffe, named Nicholas of Hereford, was conspicuous for his oppo- sition to indiscriminate gifts to beggars;* but few measures of an extended order appear to have been taken till the Reformation» In England, laws of the most savage cruelty were passed, in hopes of eradicating mendicancy. A. par- liament of Henry VIII, before the suppression of the monasteries, issued a law providing a system of organised 1 See Butler’s Lives of the Saints. 2 Campion’s Historie of Ireland, book ii. chap. x. 8 Fleury, Hist. eccl. lib. Ixxxiv. 57. It does not appear, however, that the indiscriminate charity they encouraged had any part in his invective. He wrote his Perils of the Last Times in the interest of the University of Paris, of which he was a Professor, and which was at war with the men- dicant orders. See Milman’s Latin Christianity, vol. vi. pp. 348-306. 4 Henry de Knyghton, De Eventibus Angle. 5 There was some severe legislation in England on the subject after the Black Death. Eden’s History of the Working Classes, vol. i. p. 84. In France, too, a royal ordinance of 1350 ordered men who had been con- victed of begging three times to be branded with a hot iron. Monteil, Hist. des Francais, tome i. p. 434, FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 108 charity, and imposing on anyone who gave anything to a beggar a fine of ten times the value of his gift. A sturdy beggar was to be punished with whipping for the first offence, with whipping and the loss of the tip of his ear for the second, and with death for the third! Under Edward VI., an atrocious law, which, however, was re- pealed in the same reign, enacted that every sturdy beggar who refused to work should be branded, and adjudged for two years as a slave to the person who gave information against him; and if he took flight during his period of servitude, for the first offence he was condemned to perpetual slavery, and for the second to death. The master was authorised to put a ring of iron round the neck of his slave, to chain him and to scourge him. Any- one might take the children of a sturdy beggar for apprentices, till the boys were twenty-four and the girls twenty.” Another law, made under Elizabeth, punished with death any strong man under the age of eighteen who was convicted for the third time of begging ; but the penalty in this reign was afterwards reduced to a life-long service in the galleys, or to banishment, with a penalty of death to the returned ¢onvict.3 Under the same queen the poor-law system was elaborated, and Malthus long afterwards showed that its effects in discouraging par- simony rendered it scarcely less pernicious than the monastic system that had preceded it. In many Catholic countries, severe, though less atrocious measures, were taken to grapple with the evil of mendicancy. That shrewd and sagacious pontiff, Sixtus V., who, though not the greatest man, was by far the greatest statesman who has ever sat on the papal throne, made praiseworthy efforts to check it at Rome, where ecclesiastical influence had 1’ Eden, vol. i. pp. 83-87. 2 Ibid. pp. 101-108. ’ pp pp $ Thid. pp. ELD, 1 104 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. always made it peculiarly prevalent. Charles V., in 1531, issued a severe enactment against beggars in the Netherlands, but excepted from its operation mendicant friars and pilerims.? Under Lewis XIV., equally severe measures were takenin France. But though the practical evil was fully felt, there was little or no philosophical in- vestigation of its causes before the eighteenth century. Locke in England,? and Berkeley in Ireland,* briefly slanced at the subject, and in 1704 Defoe published a very remarkable tract, called, ‘Giving Alms no Charity,’ in which he noticed the extent to which mendicancy existed in England, though wages were higher than in any continental country.® A still more remarkable book, written by an author named Ricci, appeared at Modena in 1787, and excited considerable attention. ‘The author pointed out with much force the gigantic development of mendicancy in Italy, traced it to the excessive charity of the people, and appears to have regarded as an evil all charity which sprang from religious motives, and was’ ereater than would spring from the unaided instincts of men.® The freethinker Mandeville assailed charity schools, 1 Morighini, Instetutions pieuses de Rome. 2 Eden, Hist. of the Labouring Classes, vol. i. p. 83. 3 Locke discussed the great increase of poverty, and a bill was brought in suggesting some remedies, but did not pass. (Kden, vol. i. pp. 243-248.) * In a very forcible letter addressed to the Irish Catholic clergy. _ 5 This tract, which is extremely valuable for the light it throws upon the social condition of England at the time, was written in opposition to a Bill providing that the poor in the poor-houses should do wool, hemp, iron, and other works. Defoe says that wages in England were higher than anywhere on the Continent, though the amount of mendicancy was enor- mous. ‘The reason why so many pretend to want work is, that they can live so well with the pretence of wanting work. ... I affirm of my own knowledge, when I have wanted a man for labouring work, and offered nine shillings per week to strolling fellows at my door, they have frequently told me to my face they could get more a-begging.’ © Reforma deg? Instituti pii di Modena (published first anonymously at Modena). It has been reprinted in the library of the Italian economists, FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 105 and the whole system of endeavouring to elevate the poor, and Magdalen asylums and foundling hospitals have had fierce, though I believe much mistaken, adver- saries.” The reforms of the poor-laws, and the writings of Malthus, gave a new impulse to discussion on the subject ; but with the qualifications I have stated, no new dis- coveries have, I conceive, thrown any just cloud upon Christian charity ; and though its administration is often extremely injudicious, the principles that regulate it, in Protestant countries at least, require but little reform. The last method by which Christianity has laboured to soften the characters of men has been by accustoming the Imagination to expatiate continually upon images of ten- derness and of pathos. Our imaginations, though less influential than our occupations, probably affect our moral characters more deeply than our judements, and, in the case of the poorer classes especially, the cultivation of this part of our nature is of inestimable importance. Rooted, for the most part, during their entire lives, to a single spot, excluded by their ignorance and their circum- stances from most of the varieties of interest that animate the minds of other men, condemned to constant and plod- ding labour, and engrossed for ever with the minute cares of an immediate and an anxious present, their whole natures would have been hopelessly contracted, were 1 Essay on Charity Schools. * Magdalen Asylums have been very vehemently assailed by M. Charles Comte, in his Traité de Législation. On the subject of Foundling Hospitals there is a whole literature. They were vehemently attacked by, I believe, Lord Brougham, in the Edinburgh Review, in the early part of this century. Writers of this stamp, and indeed most political economists, greatly exagee- rate the forethought of men and women, especially in matters where the passions are concerned. It may be questioned whether one woman in a hundred, who plunges into a career of vice, is in the smallest degree influ- enced by a consideration of whether or not charitable institutions are pro- vided for the support of aged penitents. 106 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. there no sphere in which their imaginations could expand. Religion is the one romance of the poor. It alone extends the narrow horizon of their thoughts, supplies the images of their dreams, allures them to the supersensual and the ideal. The graceful beings with which the creative fancy of Paganism peopled the universe shed a poetic glow on the peasants’ toil. Every stage of agriculture was pre- sided over by a divinity, and the world grew bright by the companionship of the gods. But it is the peculiarity of the Christian types, that while they have fascinated the imagination, they have also purified the heart. The tender, winning, and almost feminine beauty of the Christian Founder, the Virgin mother, the agonies of Geth- semane or of Calvary, the many scenes of compassion and suffering that fill the sacred writings, are the pictures which, for eighteen hundred years, have governed the imaginations of the rudest and most ignorant of mankind. Associated with the fondest recollections of childhood, with the music of the church bells, with the clustered lights and the tinsel splendour, that seem to the peasant the very ideal of majesty ; painted over the altar where he received the companion of his life, around the cemetery where so many whom he had loved were laid, on the stations of the mountain, on the portal of theevineyard, on the chapel where the storm-tossed mariner fulfils his srateful vow; keeping guard over his cottage door, and looking down upon his humble bed, forms of tender beauty and gentle pathos for ever haunt the poor man’s fancy, and silently win their way into the very depths of his being. More than any spoken eloquence, more than any dogmatic teaching, they transform and subdue his character, till he learns to realise the sanctity of weakness and suffering, the supreme majesty of compassion and gentleness, FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 107 Imperfect and inadequate as is the sketch I have drawn, it will be sufficient to show how great and multi- form have been the influences of Christian philanthropy. The shadows that rest upon the picture I have not con- cealed; but when all due allowance has been made for them, enough will remain to claim our deepest admiration. The high conception that has been formed of the sanctity of human life, the protection of infancy, the elevation and final emancipation of the slave classes, the suppression of barbarous games, the creation of a vast and multifarious organisation of charity, and the education of the imagi- nation by the Christian type, constitute together a move- ment of philanthropy which has never been paralleled or approached in the Pagan world. The effects of this movement in promoting happiness have been very great. Its effect in determining character has probably been still greater. In that proportion or disposition of qualities which constitutes the ideal character, the gentler and more benevolent virtues have obtained, through Chris- tianity, the foremost place. In the first and purest period they were especially supreme, but in the third century a great ascetic movement arose, which gradually brought a new type of character into the ascendant, and diverted the enthusiasm of the Church into new channels. Tertullian, writing in the second century, in a passage which has been very frequently quoted, contrasts the Christians of his day with the gymnosophists or hermits of India, declaring that, unlike these, the Christians did not fly from the world, but mixed with the Pagans in the forum, in the market-places, in the public baths, in the ordinary business of life! But although the life of the 1 Apol. ch, xlii. 108 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. hermit or the monk was unknown in the Church for more than two hundred years after its foundation, we may detect, almost from the earliest time, a tone of feeling which pro- ducesit. The central conceptions of the monastic system are the meritoriousness of complete abstinence from all sexual intercourse, and of complete renunciation of the world. ‘The first of these notions appeared in the very earliest period, in the respect attached to the egpdition of virginity, which was alwayseregardéd as sacy€d, and es- pecially esteemed in the clergy, though for a, long time it was not imposed as an obligation. The second was shown in the numerous efforts that were made to separate the Christian community as far a8 possible %rom the society in which it existed. Nothing could be more natural than that, when the increase and afterwards the triumph of the Church had thrown the bulk of the Christians into active political or military labour, some should, as an exercise of piety, have endeavoured to imitate the separation from the world which was once the common condition of all. Besides this, a movement of asceticism had long been raging like a mental epidemic through the world. Among the Jews—whose law, from the great stress it laid upon marriage, the excellence of the rapid multiplication of population, and the hope of being the ancestor of the Messiah, was peculiarly repug- nant to monastic conceptions—the Exssenes had consti- tuted a complete monastic society, abstaining from marriage and separating themselves wholly from the world. In Rome, whose practical genius was, if possible, even more opposed than that of the Jews to an inactive monasticism, and even among those philosophers who most represented its active and practical spirit, the same tendency was shown. The Cynics of the later empire recommended a complete renunciation of civic and do- FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 109 mestic ties, and a life spent wholly in the contemplation of wisdom. The Egyptian philosophy, that soon after acquired an ascendency in Europe, anticipated still more closely the monastic ideal. On the outskirts of the Church, the many sects of Gnostics and Manicheans all held under different forms the essential evil of matter. The Docetz, following the same notion, denied the reality of the body of Christ. The Montanists and the Novatians surpassed and stimulated the private penances of the orthodox.t The soil was thus thoroughly prepared for a great outburst of asceticism, whenever the first seed was sown. This was done during the Decian persecution. Paul, the hermit, who fled to the desert during that per- secution, is said to have been the first of the tribe.” Antony, who speedily followed, greatly extended the movement, and in a few years the hermits had become a mighty nation. Persecution, which in the first instance drove great numbers as fugitives to the deserts, soon aroused a passionate religious enthusiasm that showed itself in an ardent desire for those sufferings which were believed to lead directly to heaven, and this enthusiasm, after the peace of Constantine, found its natural vent and sphere in the macerations of the desert life. The imagina- tions of men were fascinated by the poetic circumstances of that life which St. Jerome most eloquently embellished. Women were pre-eminent in recruiting for it. The same * On these penances, see Bingham, Antig. book vii. Bingham, I think, justly divides the history of asceticism into three periods, During the first, which extends from the foundation of the Church to:a.p. 250, there were men and women who, with a view of spiritual perfection, abstained from marriage, relinquished amusements, accustomed themselves to severe fasts, and gave up their property to works of charity; but did this in the middle of society and without leading the life of either a hermit or a monk, During the second period, which extended from the Decian persecution, anchorites were numerous, but the custom of a common or ccenobitic life was unknown. It was originated in the time of Constantine by Pachomius. * This is expressly stated by St. Jerome (Vit. Pauli). 110 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, spirit that had formerly led the wife of the Pagan official to entertain secret relations with the Christian priests, now led the wife of the Christian to become the active agent of the monks. While the father designed his son for the army, or for some civil post, the mother was often straining every nerve to induce him to become a hermit ; the monks secretly corresponded with her, they skilfully assumed the functions of education, in order that they might influence the young; and sometimes, to evade the precautions or the anger of the father, they concealed their profession, and assumed the garb of lay pedagogues.? The pulpit, which had almost superseded, and immea- surably transcended in influence, the chairs of the rheto- ricians, and which was filled by such men as Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom, Basil, and the Gregories, was continually exerted in the same cause, and the extreme luxury of the great cities produced a violent, but not unnatural, reaction of asceticism. The dignity of the monastic position, which sometimes brought men who had been simple peasants into connection with the empe- rors, the security it furnished to fugitive slaves and eri- minals, the desire of escaping from those fiscal burdens which, in the corrupt and oppressive administration of the empire, had acquired an intolerable weight, and espe- cially the barbarian invasions, which produced every variety of panic and wretchedness, conspired with the new religious teaching in peopling the desert. A theology of asceticism was speedily formed. The examples of Elijah and Ehsha, to the first of whom, by a bold flight of the imagination, some later Carmelites ascribed the origin of their order, and the more recent instance of the 1 See on this subject some curious evidence in Neander’s Life of Chry- sostom. St. Chrysostom wrote a long work to console fathers whose sons were thus seduced to the desert. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 111 Baptist were at once adduced. To an ordinary layman the life of the anchorite might appear in the highest degree opposed to that of the Teacher who began His mission in a marriage feast; who was continually re- proached by His enemies for the readiness with which He mixetl with the world, and who selected from the female sex some of His purest and most devoted fol- lowers; but the monkish theologians avoiding, for the most part, these topics, dilated chiefly on His immaculate birth, His virgin mother, His life of celibacy, His ex- hortation to the rich young man. The fact that St. Peter, to whom a general primacy was already ascribed, was unquestionably married, was a difficulty which was in a measure met by a tradition that he, as well as the other married apostles, abstained from intercourse with their wives after their conversion.! St. Paul, however, was probably unmarried, and his writings showed a decided preference for the unmarried state, which the ingenuity of theologians also discovered in some quarters where it might be least expected. Thus, St. Jerome assures us that when the clean animals entered the ark by sevens, and the unclean ones by pairs, the odd number typified the celibate, and the even the married condition. Even of the unclean animals but one pair of each kind was admitted, lest they should perpetrate the enormity of second marriage.” Ecclesiastical tradition sustained the tendency, and the apostle James, as he has been portrayed by Hegesippus, became a kind of ideal saint, a faithful picture of what, according to the notions of theologians, was the true type of human nobility. He ‘ was converted,’ it was said, ‘from his mother’s womb.’ He drank neither wine nor fermented liquors, and abstained from animal 1 On this tradition see Champagny, Les Antonins, tome i. p. 193, 2 Ep. cxxiii. po ncinggls ws 112 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. food. A razor never came upon his head. He never anointed with oil, or used a bath. He alone was allowed to enter the sanctuary. He never wore woollen, but linen garments. He was in the habit of entering the temple alone, and was often found upon his bended knees, and interceding for the forgiveness of the people, so that his knees became as hard as a camel’s.! The progress of the monastic movement, as has been truly said, ‘ was not less rapid or universal than that of Christianity itself? Of the actual number of the anchorites, those who are acquainted with the extreme unveracity of the first historians of the movement will hesitate to speak with confidence. It is said that St. Pachomius, who early in the fourth century founded the ccenobitic mode of life, enlisted under his jurisdiction 7,000 monks;* that in the days of St. Jerome nearly 50,000 monks were sometimes assembled at the Easter festivals ;* that in the desert of Nitria alone there were, in the fourth century, 5,000 monks under a single abbot;° that an Egyptian — city named Oxyrinchus devoted itself almost exclusively to the ascetic life, and included 20,000 virgins and 10,000 monks ;° that St. Serapion presided over 10,000 monks,’ and that, towards the close of the fourth century, the monastic population in that country was nearly equal to the population of the cities.§ Eeypt was the parent of monachism, and it was there that it attained both its extreme development and its most austere severity ; but there was very soon scarcely any Christian country in 1 Kuseb. Eccl. Hist. ii. 23. 2 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xxxvii.; a brief but masterly sketch of the progress of the movement. § Palladius, Hist. Laus. xxxviii. 4 Jerome, Preface to the Rule of St. Pachomius, § 7. 5 Cassian, De Cenob. Inst. iv. 1. 6 Rufinus, Hist. Monach. ch. v. Rufinus visited it himself. 7 Palladius, Hist. Laus. lxxvi. 8 Rutinus, Hist. Mon. vii. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 113 which a similar movement was not ardently propagated. St. Athanasius and St. Zeno are said to have introduced it into Italy, where it soon afterwards received a great stim- ulus from St. Jerome. St. Hilarion instituted the first monks in Palestine, and he lived to see many thousands subject to his rule, and towards the close of his life to plant monachism in Cyprus. Lustathius, Bishop of Sebastia, spread it through Armenia, Paphlagonia, and Pontus. St. Basil laboured along the wild shores of the Kuxine. §St. Martin of Tours founded the first monastery in Gaul, and 2,000 monks attended his funeral. Unre- corded missionaries planted the new institution in the heart of Aithiopia, amid the little islands that stud the Mediterranean, in the secluded valleys of Wales and Treland.? But even more wonderful than the many thousands who thus abandoned the world, is the reverence with which they were regarded by those who, by their attainments or their character, would seem most opposed to the monastic ideal. No one had more reason than Augustine to know the danger of enforced celibacy, but St. Augustine exerted all his energies to spread monasticism through his diocese. St. Ambrose, who was by nature an acute statesman; St. Jerome and St. Basil, who were ambitious scholars ; St. Chrysostom, who was pre-emi- nently formed to sway the refined throngs of a metro- polis, all exerted their powers in favour of the life of 1 There is a good deal of doubt and controversy about this. See a note in Mosheim’s Zccl. Hist. (Soame’s edition), vol. i. p. 354. * Most of the passages remaining on the subject of the foundation of monachism are given by Thomassin, Discipline de ’ Eglise, part i. livre iii. ch. xii. This work contains also much general information about mona- chism. A curious collection of statistics of the numbers of the monks in different localities, additional to those [ have given and gleaned from the Lives of the Saints, may be found in Pitra (Vie de S. Léger, Introd. p. lix.) ; 2,100, or, according to another account, 3,000 monks, lived in the monastery of Banchor. ' y14 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. solitude, and the three last practised it themselves. St. Arsenius, who was surpassed by no one in the extrava- gance of his penances, had held a high office at the court of the Emperor Arcadius. Pilgrims wandered among the deserts, collecting accounts of the miracles and the austerities of the saints, which filled Christendom with admiration ; and the strange biographies which were thus formed, wild and grotesque as they are, enable us to realise very vividly the general features of the anchorite life, which became the new ideal of the Christian world.? There is, perhaps, no phase in the moral history of mankind, of a deeper or more painful interest than this ascetic epidemic. A hideous, sordid, and emaciated maniac, without knowledge, without patriotism, without natural affection, passing his life in a long routine of use- less and atrocious self-torture, and quailing before the ghastly phantoms of his delirious brain, had become the ideal of the nations which had known the writings of Plato and Cicero and the lives of Socrates or Cato. For about two centuries, the hideous maceration of the body was regarded .as the highest proof of excellence. St. Jerome declares, with a thrill of admiration, how he had seen a monk, who for thirty years had lived exclusively 1 The three principal are the Mistoria Monachorum of Rufinus, who visited Egypt .p. 373, about seventeen years after the death of St. Antony ; the Institutiones of Cassian, who, having visited the Eastern monks about A.D. 394, founded vast monasteries containing, it is said, 5,000 monks, at Marseilles, and died at a great age about a.p. 448; and the Mistoria Lau- staca (so called from Lausus, Governor of Cappadocia) of Palladius, who was himself a hermit on Mount Nitria, in A.D. 888. The first and last, as well as many minor works of the same period, are given in Rosweyde’s invaluable collection of the lives of the Fathers, one of the most fascinating volumes in the whole range of literature. The hospitality of the monks was not without drawbacks. In a church on Mount Nitria three whips were hung on a palm-tree—one for chastising monks, another for chastising thieves, and a third for chastising guests. (Palladius, Hist. Laus. vii.) ; is 7 ‘ FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 115 on a small portion of barley bread and of muddy water ; another, who lived in a hole and never eat more than five figs for his daily repast;! a third, who cut his hair only on Haster Sunday, who never washed his clothes, who never changed his tunic till it fell to pieces, who starved himself till his eyes grew dim, and his skin ‘like a pumice stone,’ and whose merits, shown by these austerities, Homer himself would be unable to recount.” For six months, it is said, St. Macarius of Alexandria slept in a marsh, and exposed his body naked to the stings of venomous flies. He was accustomed to carry about with him eighty pounds of iron. His disciple, St. Eusebius, carried one hundred and fifty pounds of iron, and lived for three years in a dried-up well. St. Sabinus would only eat corn that had become rotten by remaining for a month in water. St. Besarion spent forty days and nights in the middle of thorn-bushes, and for forty years never lay down when he slept,? which last penance was also during fifteen years practised by St. Pachomius.* Some saints, like St. Marcian, restricted themselves to one meal a day, so small that they continually suffered the pangs of hunger.® Of one of them it is related that his daily food was six ounces of bread and a few herbs; that he was never seen to recline on a mat or bed, or even-to place his limbs easily for sleep ; but that sometimes, from excess of weariness, his eyes would close at his meals, and the food would drop into his mouth.® Other saints, however, eat only every second 1 Vita Paul. St. Jerome adds, that some will not believe this, be- cause they have no faith, but that all things are possible for those that believe. * Vita St. Hilarion. 3 See a long list of these penances in Tillemont, Wém. pour servir a U Hist. ecclés. tome viii. 4 Vite Patrum (Pachomius). He used to lean against a wall when over- come by drowsiness. 5 Vite Patrum, ix. 3. . ® Sozomen, vi. 29. 116 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. day;’ while many, if we could believe the monkish historian, abstained for whole weeks from all nourish- ment.” St. Macarius of Alexandria is said during an entire week to have never lain down, or eaten anything but a few uncooked herbs on Sunday.? Of another famous saint, named John, it is asserted that for three whole years he stood in prayer, leaning upon a rock; that during all that time he never sat or lay down, and that his only nourishment was the Sacrament, which was brought him “on Sundays.* Some of the hermits lived in deserted dens of wild beasts, others in dried-up wells, while others found a congenial resting-place among the tombs.® Some disdained all clothes, and crawled abroad like the wild beasts, covered only by their matted hair. In Meso- potamia, and part of Syria, there existed a sect known by the name of ‘ Grazers,’ who never lived under a roof, who eat neither flesh nor bread, but who spent their time for ever on the mountain side, and eat grass like cattle. The 1 Eg. St. Antony, according to his biographer St. Athanasius. * “Ty eut dans le désert de Scété des solitaires d’une éminente perfection. . » « On prétend que pour l’ordinaire ils passoient des semaines entiéres sans manger, mais apparemment cela ne se faisoit que dans des occasions parti- culiéres.’—Tillemont, Mém. pour servir 4 U Hist. ecckh tome viii. p. 580. Even this, however, was admirable ! 8 Palladius, Hist. Laus. cap. xx. * “Primum cum accessisset ad eremum tribus continuis annis sub cujus- dam saxi rupe stans, semper oravit, ita ut nunquam omnino resederit neque acuerit. Somni autem tantum caperet, quantum stans capere potuit; cibum vero nunquam sumpserat nisi die Dominica, Presbyter enim tunc veniebat ad eum et offerebat pro eo sacrificium idque ei solum sacramentum erat et victus.’—Rufinus, Hist. Monach. cap. xv. * Thus St. Antony used to live in a tomb, where he was beaten by the devil. (St. Athanasius, Life of Antony.) ® Booxoit. See on these monks Sozomen, vi. 83; Evagrius, i.21. It is mentioned of a certain St. Mare of Athens, that having lived for thirty years naked in the desert, his body was covered with hair like that of a wild beast. (Bollandists, March 29.) St. Mary of Egypt, during part of her period of penance, lived upon grass. (Vite Patrum.) FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 117 cleanliness of the body was regarded as a pollution of the soul, and the saints who were most admired had become one hideous mass of clotted filth. St. Athanasius relates with enthusiasm how 8t. Antony, the patriarch of mona- chism, had never, in extreme old age, been guilty of wash- ing his feet.’ The less constant St. Poemen fell into this habit for the first time when a very old man, and, with a glimmering of common sense, defended himself against the astonished monks by saying that he had ‘learnt to kill not his body, but his passions.’? §t. Abraham the hermit, however, who lived for fifty years after his con- version, rigidly refused from that date to wash either his face or his feet.? He was, it is said, a person of singular beauty, and his biographer somewhat strangely remarks, that ‘ his face reflected the purity of his soul.’* St. Am- mon had never seen himself naked.® A famous virgin named Silvia, though she was sixty years old, and though bodily sickness was a consequence of her habits, reso- lutely refused, on religious principles, to wash any part of her body except her fingers.® St. Euphraxia joined a con- vent of one hundred and thirty nuns, who never washed their feet, and who shuddered at the mention of a bath.’ An anchorite once imagined that he was mocked by an illusion of the devil, as he saw gliding before him through 1 Life of Antony. * Tl ne faisoit pas aussi difficulté dans sa vieillesse de se laver quelque- fois les piez. Et comme on témoignoit s’en étonner et trouver que cela ne répondoit pas a la vie austére des anciens, il se justifioit par ces paroles: Nous avons appris 4 tuer, non pas notre corps mais nos passions.’—Tillemont, Mém. Hist. eccl. tome xv. p. 148. This saint was so very virtuous, that he sometimes remained without eating for whole weeks. * “Non appropinquavit oleum corpusculo ejus. Facies vel etiam pedes a die conversionis suze nunquam diluti sunt.’— Vite Patrum, c. xvii. * ‘Tn facie ejus puritas animi noscebatur.’—Ibid. ec. xviii. > Socrates, iv. 23. 6 Heraclidis Paradisus (Rosweyde), c. xlii. 7 “Nulla earum pedes suos abluebat; aliquante vero audientes de balneo loqui, irridentes, confusionem et magnam abominationem se audire 118 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. the desert a naked creature black with filth and years of exposure, and with white hair floating to the wind. It was a once beautiful woman, St. Mary of Egypt, who had thus, during forty-seven years, been expiating her sins.’ The occasional decadence of the monks into habits of decency was a subject of much reproach. ‘ Our fathers,’ said the abbot Alexander, looking mournfully back to the past, ‘never washed their faces, but we frequent the public baths.’ It was related of one monastery in the desert, that the monks suffered greatly from want of water to drink; but at the prayer of the abbot Theodosius, a copious stream was produced. But soon some monks, tempted by the abundant supply, diverged from their old austerity, and persuaded the abbot to avail himself of the stream for the construction of the bath. The bath was made. Once, and once only, did the monks enjoy their ablutions, when the stream ceased to flow. Prayers, tears, and fastings were in vain. A whole year passed. At last the abbot destroyed the bath, which was the object of the Divine displeasure, and the waters flowed afresh.? But of all the evidences of the loathsome excesses to judicabant, que neque auditum suum hoc audire patiebantur.’—Vit. S. Euphrax. ¢. vi. (Rosweyde.) 1 See her acts, Bollandists, April 2, and in the Vite Patrum. * ¢Patres nostri nunquam facies suas lavabant, nos autem lavacra publica balneaque frequentamus.’—Moschus, Pratum Spirituale, clxviii. 3 Pratum Spirituale, \xxx. An Irish saint, named Coemgenus, is said to have shown his devotion in a way which was directly opposite to that of the other saints I have men- tioned—by his special use of cold water—but the principle in each case was the same—to mortify nature. St. Coemgenus was accustomed to pray for an hour every night in a pool of cold water, while the devil sent a horrible beast to swim round him. An angel, however, was sent to him for three purposes. ‘Tribus de causis 4 Domino missus est angelus ibi ad S. Coemgenum. Prima ut a diversis suis gravibus laboribus levius viveret paulisper ; secunda ut horridam bestiam sancto infestam repelleret ; tertia, ut frigiditatem aque calefaceret.—Bollandists, June, 3. The editors say these acts are of doubtful authenticity. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 119 which this spirit was carried, the life of St. Simeon Stylites is probably the most remarkable. It would be difficult to conceive a more horrible or disgusting picture than is given of the penances by which that saint commenced his ascetic career. He had bound a rope around him so that it became imbedded in his flesh, which putrefied around it. ‘A horrible stench, intolerable to the by- standers, exhaled from his body, and worms dropped from him whenever he moved, and they filled his bed’ Some- times he left the monastery and slept in a dry well, in- habited, it is said, by demons. He built successively three pillars, the last being sixty feet high, and scarcely two cubits in circumference, and on this pillar, during thirty years, he remained exposed to every change of climate, ceaselessly and rapidly bending his body in prayer almost to the level of his feet. A spectator attempted to number these rapid motions, but desisted from weariness when he had counted 1,244. For a whole year, we are told, St. Simeon stood upon one leg, the other being co- vered with hideous ulcers, while his biographer was com- missioned to stand by his side, to pick up the worms that fell from his body, and to replace them in the sores, the saint saying to the worm, ‘ Eat what God has given you.’ From every quarter pilgrims of every degree thronged todo him homage. As Tillemont puts it: ‘Il se trouva trés-peu de saints en qui Dieu ait joint les talens extérieurs de l’éloquence et de la science avec la grace de FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 123 the passion for asceticism was general, many scholars became ascetics, the great majority of the early monks appear to have been men who were not only absolutely ignorant themselves, but who also looked upon learning with positive disfavour. St. Antony, the true founder of monachism, refused when a boy to learn letters, because it would bring him into too great intercourse with other boys.’ At atime when &t. Jerome had suffered himself to feel a deep admiration for the genius of Cicero, he was, as he himself tells us, borne in the night before the tribunal of Christ, accused of being rather a Ciceronian than a Christian, and severely flagellated by the angels. This saint, however, afterwards modified his opinions about the Pagan writings, and he was compelled to de- fend himself at length against his more jealous brethren, who accused him of defiling his writings with quotations from Pagan authors, and of Minldeiha some monks in copying Cicero, and of explaining Virgil to some children at Bethlehem.? Of one monk it is related, that being especially famous as a linguist, he made it his penance to remain perfectly silent for thirty years. Of another, that having discovered a few books: in the cell of a brother la prophétie et des miracles. Ce sont des dons que sa Providence a presque toujours séparéz.’—Mém. Hist. ecclés, tome iv. p. 815. 1 St. Athanasius, Vit. Anton. * Ep. xxii. He says his shoulders were bruised when he awoke. ° Ep. Ixx.; Adv. Ruyfinum, lib. i. ch. xxx. He there speaks of his vision as a mere dream, not binding. He elsewhere (Zp. cxxv.) speaks very sensibly of the advantage of hermits occupying themselves, and says he learnt Hebrew to keep away unholy thoughts. * Sozomen, vi. 28; Rufinus, Hist. Monach. ch. vi. Socrates tells rather a touching story of one of these illiterate saints, named Pambos. Being unable to read, he came to some one to be taught a psalm. Having learnt the single verse, ‘I said I will take heed to my ways, that I offend not with my tongue,’ he went away, saying that was enough if it were practically acquired. When asked six months, and again many years after, why he did not come to learn another verse, he answered that he had never been able truly to master this. (H. EL. iv. 23.) 124 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. hermit, he reproached the student with having thus de- frauded of their property the widow and the orphan ;? of others, that their only books were copies of the New Testament, which they sold to relieve the poor.’ With such men, living such a life, visions and miracles were necessarily habitual. All the elements of halluci- nation were there. Ignorant and superstitious, believing as a matter of religious conviction that countless dzemons filled the air, attributing every fluctuation of his own tem- perament, and every exceptional phenomenon in surround- ing nature to spiritual agency ; delirious, too, from solitude and long-continued austerities, the hermit soon mistook for palpable realities the phantoms of his brain. In the ghastly gloom of the sepulchre, where, amid mouldermg corpses, he took up his abode; in the long hours of the night of penance, when the desert wind sobbed around his lonely cell, and the cries of wild beasts were borne upon his ear, visible forms of lust or terror appeared to haunt him, and strange dramas were enacted by those who were’ contending for his soul. An imagination strained to the utmost limit, acting upon a frame attenuated and diseased by macerations, produced bewildering psycho- logical phenomena, paroxysms of conflicting passions, sudden alternations of joy and anguish, which he regarded as manifestly supernatural. Sometimes, in the very ecstasy of his devotion, the memory of old scenes would crowd upon his mind. The shady groves and soft voluptuous gardens of his native city would arise, and, kneeling alone upon the burning sand, he seemed to see around him the fair groups of dancing-girls, on whose warm, undulating limbs and wanton smiles his youthful eyes had too fondly dwelt. Sometimes his temptation sprang from remem- 1 Tillemont, x. p. 61. 2 Thid. viii. 490; Socrates, H. EZ, iv. 23. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 125 bered sounds. The sweet, licentious songs of other days came floating on his ear, and his heart was thrilled with the passions of the past. And then the scene would change. As his lips were murmuring the psalter, his imagination, fired perhaps by the music of some martial psalm, depicted the crowded amphitheatre. The throng, and passion, and mingled cries of eager thousands were present to his mind, and the fierce joy of the gladiators passed, through the tumult of his dream. The simplest incident came at last to suggest diabolical influence. An old hermit, weary and fainting upon his journey, once thought how refreshing would be a draught of the honey of wild bees of the desert. At that moment his eye fell upon a rock on which they had built a hive. He passed on with a shudder and an exorcism, for he believed it to be a temptation of the devil.? But most terrible of all were the struggles of young and ardent men, through whose veins the hot blood of passion continually flowed, physically incapable of a life of celibacy, and with all that pronencss to hallucination which a southern sun engenders, who were borne on the wave of enthusiasm to the desert life. In the arms of Syrian or African brides, whose soft eyes answered love with love, they might have sunk to rest, but in the lonely wilderness no peace could ever visit their souls. The lives of the saints paint with an 1 T have combined in this passage incidents from three distinct lives. St. Jerome, in a very famous and very beautiful passage of his letter to Eusto- chium (Zp. xxii.), describes the manner in which the forms of dancing-girls appeared to surround him as he knelt upon the desert sands. St. Mary of Lgypt (Vite Patrum, ch. xix.) was especially tortured by the recollection of the songs she had sung when young, which continually haunted her mind. St. Hilarion (see his Zzfe by St. Jerome) thought he saw a gladia- torial show while he was repeating the psalms. The manner in which the different visions faded into one another like dissolving views is repeatedly described in the biographies. * Rufinus, Hist. Monach. ch. xi. This saint was St. Helenus. 126 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. appalling vividness the agonies of their struggle. Multi- plying with frantic energy the macerations of the body, beating their breasts with anguish, the tears for ever streaming from their eyes, imagining themselves. conti- nually haunted by ever-changing forms of deadly beauty, which acquired a greater vividness from the very passion with which they resisted them, their struggles not unfre- quently ended in insanity and in suicide. It is related that when St. Pachomius and St. Palemon were conversing together in the desert, a young monk, with his counte- nance distracted with madness, rushed into their presence, and, with a voice broken with convulsive sobs, poured out his tale of sorrows. A woman, he said, had entered his cell, had seduced him by her artifices, and then vanished miraculously in the air, leaving him half dead upon the ground ;—and then with a wild shriek the monk broke away from the saintly listeners. Impelled, as they ima- gined, by an evil spirit, he rushed across the desert, till he arrived at the next village, and there, leaping into the open furnace of the public baths, he perished in the flames. Strange stories were told among the monks of revulsions of passion even in the most advanced. Of one monk especially, who had long been regarded as a pattern of asceticism, but who had suffered himself to fall into that self-complacency which was very common among the anchorites, it was told that one evening a fainting woman appeared at the door of his cell, and implored him to give her shelter, and not permit her to be devoured by the wild beasts. In an evil hour he yielded to her prayer. With all the aspect of profound reverence she won his regards, and at last ventured to lay her hand upon him. But that touch convulsed his frame. Passions ? Life of St. Pachomius (Vit. Patrum), cap. ix. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 127 long slumbering and forgotten rushed with an impetuous fury through his veins. In a paroxysm of fierce love, he sought to clasp the woman to his heart, but she vanished from his sight, and a chorus of demons, with peals of laughter, exulted over his fall, The sequel of the story, as it is told by the monkish writer, is, I think, of a very high order of artistic merit. The fallen hermit did not seek, as might have been expected, by penance and prayers to renew his purity. That moment of passion and of shame had revealed in him a new nature, and severed him irrevocably from the hopes and feelings of the ascetic life. The fair form that had arisen upon his dream, though he knew it to be a deception luring him to destruction, still governed his heart. He fled from the desert, plunged anew into the world, avoided all in- tercourse with the monks, and followed the light of that ideal beauty even into the jaws of hell. Anecdotes of this kind, circulated among the monks, contributed to heighten the feelings of terror with which they regarded all communication with the other sex. But to avoid such communication was sometimes very difficult. Few things are more striking in the early his- torlans of the movement we are considering, than the manner in which narratives of the deepest tragical in- terest alternate with extremely whimsical accounts of the profound admiration with which the female devotees * Rufinus, Hist. Monach. cap. i. This story was told to Rufinus by St. John the hermit. The same saint described his own visions very graphi- cally. ‘Denique etiam me frequenter demones noctibus seduxerunt, et neque orare neque requiescere permiserunt, phantasias quasdam per noctem totam sensibus meis et cogitationes suggerentes. Mane vero velut cum quadam illusione prosternebant se ante me dicentes, Indulge nobis, abbas, quia laborem tibi incussimus tota nocte.’—Ibid. St. Benedict in the desert is said to have been tortured by the recollection of a beautiful girl he had once seen, and only regained his composure by rolling in thorns, (St. Greg. Dial, ii, 2.) 128 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, regarded the most austere anchorites, and the unwearied perseverance with which they endeavoured to force them- selves upon their notice. Some women seem in this re- spect to have been peculiarly fortunate. St. Melania, who devoted a great portion of her fortune to the monks, accompanied by the historian Rufinus, made near the end of the fourth century a long pilgrimage through the Syrian and Eeyptian Rene But with many of the hermits it was a rule never to look upon the face of any woman, and the number of years they had escaped this contamination was commonly stated as a conspicuous proof of their excellence. St. Basil would only speak to a woman under extreme necessity.” St. John of Lycopolis had not seen a woman for forty-eight years.’ . A tribune was sent by his wife on a pilgrimage to St. John the hermit to implore him to allow her to visit him, her desire being so intense that she would probably, in the opinion of her husband, die if it was ungratified. At last the hermit told his supplant that he would that night visit his wife when she was in bed in her house. The tribune brought this strange message to his wife, who that night saw the hermit in a dream,4 A young Roman girl made a pilgrimage from Italy to Alexandria, to look upon the face, and obtain the prayers of St. Arsenius, into whose presence she forced herself. Quailing beneath his rebuffs, she flung herself at his feet, imploring him with tears to grant her only request—to remember her, and to pray for her. ‘ Remember you,’ cried the indignant 1 She lived also for some time in a convent at Jerusalem which she had founded. Melania (who was one of St. Jerome’s friends) was a lady of rank and fortune, who devoted her property to the monks. See herjourney in Rosweyde, lib. ii. 2 See his life in Tillemont. 5 Tbid. x. p. 14. A certain Didymus lived entirely alone till his death, which took place when he was ninety. (Socrates, H. £. iv. 23.) 4 Rufinus, Hist. Monachorum, cap. i. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 129 saint, ‘It shall be the prayer of my life that I may forget you.’ The poor girl sought consolation from the Archbishop of Alexandria, who comforted her by assur- ing her that though she belonged to the sex by which demons commonly tempt saints, he doubted not the hermit would pray for her soul, though he would try to forget her face. Sometimes this female enthusiasm took another and a more subtle form, and on more than one occasion women were known to attire themselves as men, and to pass their lives undisturbed as anchorites. Among others, St. Pelagia, who had been the most beautiful, and one of the most dangerously seductive actresses of Antioch, having been somewhat strangely converted, was appointed by the bishops to live in penance with an elderly virgin of irreproachable piety ; but impelled, we are told, by her desire for a more austere life, she fled from her companion, assumed a male attire, took refuge among the monks on the Mount of Olives, and, with something of the skill of her old profession, supported her feigned character so consistently, that she acquired great renown, and it was only (it is said) after her death that the saints discovered who had been living among them 1 Verba Seniorum, § 65. * Pelagia was very pretty, and, according to her own account, ‘her sins were heavier than the sand.’ The people of Antioch, who were very fond of her, called her Marguerita, or the pearl. ‘II arriva un jour que divers évesques, appelez par celui d’Antioche pour quelques affaires, estant ensemble a la porte de l’église de 8.-Julien, Pélagie passa devant eux dans tout l’éclat des pompes du diable, n’ayant pas seulement une coeffe sur sa teste ni un mouchoir sur ses épaules, ce qu’on remarque comme le comble de son im- pudence. Tous les évesques baissérent les yeux en gémissant pour ne pas voir ce dangereux objet de péché, hors Nonne, trés-saint évesque d’Héliople, qui la regarda avec une attention qui fit peine aux autres” However, this bishop immediately began crying a great deal, and reassured his brethren, and a sermon which he preached led to the conversion of the actress, (Tillemont, Mém. d’ Hist. ecclés. tome xii. pp. 378-880.) See, too, on women, ‘under pretence of religion,’ attiring themselves as men, Sozomen, ili, 14.) 130 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. The foregoing anecdotes and observations will, I hope, ‘have given a sufficiently clear idea of the general nature of the monastic life in its earliest phase, and also of the writings it produced. We may now proceed to examine the ways in which this mode of life affected both the ideal type and the realised condition of Christian morals. And in the first place, it is manifest that the proportion of virtues was altered. If an impartial person were to glance over the ethics of the New Testament, and were asked what was the central and distinctive virtue to which the sacred.writers most continually referred, he would doubtless answer, that it was that which is described as love, charity, or philanthropy. If he were to apply a similar scrutiny to the writings of the fourth and fifth centuries, he would answer that the cardinal virtue of the religious type was not love, but chastity. And this chastity, which was regarded as the ideal state, was not the purity of an undefiled marriage. It was the abso- lute suppression of the whole sensual side of our nature. The chief form of virtue, the central conception of the saintly life, was a perpetual struggle against all unchaste impulses, by men who altogether refused the compromise of marriage. From this fact, if I mistake not, some in- teresting and important consequences may be deduced. In the first place, religion gradually assumed a very sombre hue. The business of the saint was to eradicate a natural appetite, to attain a condition which was em- phatically abnormal. The depravity of human nature,. and especially the essential evil of the body, were felt with a degree of intensity that could never have been attained by moralists who were occupied mainly with transient or exceptional vices, such as envy, anger, or cruelty. And in addition to the extreme inveteracy of the appetite which it was desired to eradicate, it should be remem- bered that a somewhat luxurious and indulgent life, even FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 151 when that indulgence is not itself distinctly evil, even when it has a tendency to mollify the character, has naturally the effect of strengthening the animal passions, and is therefore directly opposed to the ascetic ideal. The consequence of this was first of all a very deep sense of the habitual and innate depravity of human nature, and in the next place, a very strong association of the idea of pleasure with that of vice. All this was the necessary consequence of the supreme value placed upon virginity. The tone of calm and joyousness that charac- terises Greek philosophy, the almost complete absence of all sense of struggle and innate sin that it displays, is probably i in a very vie degree to be ascribed to the fact that, in the department of morals we are considering, Greek moralists made no serious efforts to improve our nature, and Greek public opinion acquiesced, without scandal, in an almost boundless indulgence of illicit pleasures. But while the great prominence at this time given to the conflicts of the ascetic life threw a dark shade upon the popular estimate of human nature, it contributed, I think, very largely to sustain and deepen that strong con- viction of the freedom of the human will which the Catholic Church has always so strenuously upheld; for there is, probably, no other form of moral conflict in which men are so habitually and so keenly sensible of that distinction between our will and our desires, upon the reality of which all moral freedom ultimately depends. It had also, I imagine, another result, which it is difficult to describe with the same precision. What may be called a strong animal nature—a nature, that is, in which the passions are in vigorous, and at the same time healthy action, is that in which we should most naturally expect to find several moral qualities. Good humour, frankness, 182 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. generosity, active courage, sanguine energy, buoyancy of temper, are the usual and appropriate accompaniments of a vigorous animal temperament, and they are much more rarely found either in natures that are essentially feeble and effeminate, or in natures which have been artificially emasculated by penances, distorted from their original tendency, and habitually held under severe control. The ideal type of Catholicism being, on account of the supreme value placed upon virginity, of the latter kind, the quali- ties I have mentioned have always ranked very low in the Catholic conceptions of excellence, and the steady tendency of Protestant and industrial civilisation has been to elevate them. I do not know whether the reader will regard these speculations—which I advance with some diffidence—as far-fetched and fanciful. Our knowledge of the physical antecedents of different moral qualities is so scanty, that it is difficult to speak on these matters with much con- fidence; but few persons, I think, can have failed to observe that the physical temperaments I have described, differ not simply in the one great fact of the intensity of the animal passions, but also in the aptitude of each to produce a distinct moral type, or, in other words, in the harmony of each with several qualities, both good and evil. in vain. No woman was admitted within the precincts of his dwelling, and he refused to permit her even to look upon his face. Her entreaties and tears were mingled with words of bitter and eloquent reproach.? ? Bollandists, June 6. I avail myself again of the version of Tillemont, ‘ Lorsque S. Pemen demeuroit en Egypte avec ses fréres, leur mére, qui avoit un extréme désir de les voir, venoit souvent au lieu ot ils estoient, sans pouvoir jamais avoir cette satisfaction. Une fois enfin elle prit si bien son temps qu’elle les rencontra qui alloient 4 l’église, mais dés qu’ils la virent ils s’en retournérent en haste dans leur cellule et fermérent la porte sur eux. Elle les suivit, et trouvant la porte, elle les appeloit avec des larmes et des cris capables de les toucher de compassion. . . . Pemen s’y leva et s'y en alla, et l’entendant pleurer il luy dit, tenant toujours la porte fermée, “ Pourquoi vous lassez-vous inutilement & pleurer et crier ? N’étes-vous pas déja assez abattue par la vieillesse ?” Elle reconnut la voix de Pemen, et s'efforgant encore davantage, elle s’écria, “ H6é, mes enfans, c’est que je vou- drois bien vous voir: et quel mal y a-t-il que je vous voie? Ne suis-je pas votre mére, et ne vous ai-je pas nourri du lait de mes mammelles? Je suis déja toute pleine de rides, et lorsque je vous ay entendu, l’extréme envie que j’ay de vous voir m’a tellement émue que je suis presque tombée en défaillance.” ’—Mémoires de Hist. ecclés. tome xv. pp. 157-158. ® The original is much more eloquent than my translation. ‘ Fili, quare hoc fecistiP Pro utero quo te portavi, satiasti me luctu, pro lactatione qua te lactavi dedisti mihi lacrymas, pro osculo quo te osculata sum, dedisti mihi amaras cordis angustias; pro dolore et labore quem passa sum, imposuisti mihi szvissimas plagas.’— Vita Simeonis (in Rosweyde). 5 ae os" ae — ee ae ee ee ee ee o cate Sei hy he EAR PRAT Se Cee eer eee i a ca ores ss i ph itl ay Be eae a Soe FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 139 ‘My son,’ she is represented as having said, ‘ Why have you done this? I bore you in my womb, and you have wrung my soul with grief. I gave you milk from my breast, you have filled my eyes with tears. For the kisses I gave you, you have given me the anguish of a broken heart; for all that I have done and suffered for you, you have repaid me by the most bitter wrongs.’ At last the saint sent a message to tell her that she would soon see him. ‘Three days and three nights she had wept and entreated in vain, and now, exhausted with grief and age and privation, she sank feebly to the ground and breathed her last sigh before that inhospitable door. Then for the first time the saint, accompanied by his followers, came out. He shed some pious tears over the corpse of his murdered mother, and offered up a prayer consigning her soul to heaven. Perhaps it was but fancy, perhaps life was not yet wholly extinct, perhaps the story is but the invention of the biographer; but a faint mo- tion—which appears to have been regarded as miracu- lous—is said to have passed over her~ prostrate form. Simeon once more commended her soul to heaven, and then, amid the admiring murmurs of his, disciples, the saintly matricide returned to his devotions. The glaring mendacity that characterises the lives of the Catholic saints, probably to a greater extent than any other important branch of existing literature, makes it not unreasonable to hope that many of the foregoing anecdotes represent much less events: that actually took place than ideal pictures generated by the enthusiasm of the chroniclers. ‘They are not, however, on that account the less significant of the moral conceptions which the ascetic period had created. The ablest men in the Christian community vied with one another in inculcating as the highest form of duty the abandonment of social 140 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. ties and the mortification of domestic affections. A few faint restrictions were indeed occasionally made. Much— on which I shall hereafter touch—was written on the liberty of husbands and wives deserting one another; and something was written on the cases of children forsaking or abandoning their parents. At first, those who, when children, were devoted to the monasteries by their parents, without their own consent, were permitted, when of mature age, to return to the world; and this hberty was taken from them for the first time by the fourth Council of Toledo, in A.D. 633.4. The Council of Gangra con- demned the heretic Eustathius for teaching that children might through religious motives forsake their parents, and St. Basil wrote in the same strain;? but cases of this kind of rebellion against parental authority were con- tinually recounted with admiration in the lives of the saints, applauded by some of the leading Fathers, and vir- tually sanctioned by a law of Justinian, which prohibited parents either from restraining their children from en- tering monasteries, or disinheriting them if they had done so without their consent.2 St. Chrysostom relates with enthusiasm the case of a young man who had been de- signed by his father for the army, and who was lured away into a monastery. The eloquence of St. Ambrose is said to have been so seductive, that mothers were ac- customed to shut up their daughters to guard them against his fascinations.® The position of affectionate parents was at this time extremely painful. The touching language: is still preserved, in which the mother of St. Chrysostom —who had a distinguished part in the conversion of her son—implored him, if he thought it his duty to fly to the desert life, at least to postpone the act till she had died.® 1 Bincham, Antiquities, book vii. ch. iii. 2 Thid. > Thidk 4 Milman’s Early Christianity (ed. 1867), vol. ii. p. 122. — 5 Thid. vol. ili. p. 153. 6 Thid. vol. iii. p. 120. PERN MT SOO NS TE RN ae aed - ee : Ni Stel RE Samos Ane bis eae” - Fe eee a ali > eo eS FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 141 St. Ambrose devoted a chapter to proving that, while those are worthy of commendation who entered the monasteries with the approbation, those are still more worthy of praise who do so against the wishes, of their parents; and he pro- ceeded to show how small were the penalties the latter could inflict when compared with the blessings asceticism could bestow.! Even before the law of Justinian, the invec- tives of the clergy were directed against those who endea- voured to prevent their children flying to the desert. St. Chrysostom explained to them that they would certainly be damned.? St. Ambrose showed, that even in this world they might not be unpunished. A girl, he tells us, had resolved to enter into a convent, and as her relations were expostulating with her on her intention, one of those present tried to move her by the memory of her dead father, asking whether, if he were still alive, he would have suffered her to remain unmarried. ‘Perhaps,’ she calmly answered, ‘it was for this very purpose he died, that he should not throw any obstacle in my way.’ Her words were more than an answer, they were an oracle. The indiscreet questioner almost immediately died, and the relations, shocked by the manifest providence, desisted from their opposition, and even implored the young saint to accomplish her design.? St. Jerome tells with rapturous enthusiasm of a little girl, named Asella, who, when only twelve years old, devoted herself to this reli- gious life, refused to look on the face of any man, and whose knees, by constant prayer, became at last like those of a camel.* A famous widow, named Paula, upon the death of her husband, deserted her family, listened with ‘ dry eyes’ to her children, who were imploring her to stay, fled to the society of the monks at Jerusalem, 1 De Virginibus, i. 11. ? Milman’s Early Christianity, vol. iti. p. 121. 3 De Virginibus, i. 11. 4 Epist. xxiv. 142 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, made it her desire that ‘she might die a beggar, and leave not one piece of money to her son,’ and having dissipated the whole of her fortune in charities, be- queathed to her children only the embarrassment of her debts.‘ It was carefully inculcated that all money given or bequeathed to the poor, or to the monks, produced spiritual benefit to the donors or testators, but that no spiritual benefit sprang from money bestowed upon rela- tions ; and the more pious minds recoiled from disposing of their property in a manner that would not redound to the advantage of their souls. Sometimes parents made it a dying request of their children that they would preserve none of their property, but would bestow it all among the poor.” It was one of the most honourable incidents of the life of St. Augustine, that he, like Aurelius, Bishop of Carthage, refused to receive legacies or donations which unjustly spoliated the relatives of the benefactor.2 Usu- ally, however, to outrage the affections of the nearest and dearest relations was not only regarded as innocent, but proposed as the highest virtue. ‘A young man,’ it was acutely said, ‘who has learnt to despise a mother’s grief, will easily bear any other labour that is imposed * St. Jerome describes the scene at her departure with admiring eloquence. ‘Descendit ad portum fratre, cognatis, affinibus et quod majus est liberis prosequentibus, et clementissimam matrem pietate vincere cupientibus. Jam carbasa tendebantur, et remorum ductu navis in altum protrahebatur. Parvus Toxotius supplices manus tendebat in littore, Ruffina jam nubilis ut suas expectaret nuptias tacens fletibus obsecrabat. Et tamen illa siccos tendebat ad calum oculos, pietatem in filios pietate in Deum superans. Nesciebat se matrem ut Christi probaret ancillam.’—Zp. cvyiii. In another place he says of her, ‘Testis est Jesus, ne unum quidem nummum ab ea filiee derelictum, sed, ut ante jam dixi, derelictum magnum es alienum.’— Ibid. And again, ‘ Vis, lector, ejus breviter scire virtutes? Cums suos pauperes, pauperior ipsa dimisit.’—Ibid. 2 See Chastel, Ltudes historiques sur la Charité, p. 231. The parents of ‘At. Gregory Neca had made this request, which was faithfully observed. § Chastel, p. 232. PN a eee aaa ‘ cas Bey sew rd Yeaeed = aioe oy FT Ne et a er bbe eee See me elie ak pee ee Ba ee ere ae FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 143 upon him.’? §St. Jerome, when exhorting Heliodorus to desert his family and become a hermit, expatiated with a fond minuteness on every form of natural affection he desired him to violate. ‘Though your little nephew twine his arms around your neck; though your mother, with dishevelled hair and tearing her robe asunder, point to the breast with which she suckled you; though your father fall down on the threshold before you, pass on over your father’s body. Fly with tearless eyes to the banner of the cross. In this matter cruelty is the only piety. . . . Your widowed sister may throw her gentle arms around you. ... Your father may implore you to wait but a short time to bury those near to you, who will soon be no more; your weeping mother may recall your childish days, and may point to her shrunken breast and to her wrinkled brow. Those around you may tell you that all the household rests upon you. Such chains as these, the love of God and the fear of hell can easily break. You say that Scripture orders you to obey your ' parents, but he who loves them more than Christ loses his soul. The enemy brandishes a sword to slay me. Shall I think of a mother’s tears ? ”? The sentiment manifested in these cases continued to be displayed in the later ages. Thus, St. Gregory the Great assures us that a certain young boy, though he had enrolled himself as a monk, was unable to repress his love for his parents, and one night stole out secretly to visit them. But the judgment of God soon marked the enormity of the offence. On coming back to the monastery, he died that very day, and when he was 1 See a characteristic passage from the Life of St. Fulgentius, quoted by Dean Milman. ‘Facile potest juvenis tolerare quemcunque imposuerit laborem qui poterit maternum jam despicere dolorem,’—Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 82. ? Ep. xiv. (Ad Heliodorum). 144 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. buried, the earth refused to receive so heinous a criminal. His body was repeatedly thrown up from the grave, and it was only suffered to rest in peace when St. Benedict had laid the Sacrament upon its breast.) One nun re- vealed, it is said, after death, that she had been con- demned for three days to the fires of purgatory, because she had loved her mother too much.? Of another saint it is recorded, that his benevolence was such that he was never known to be hard or inhuman to anyone except his relations.? St. Romuald, the founder of the Camal- dolites, counted his father among his spiritual children, and on one occasion punished him by flagellation.* The first nun, whom St. Francis of Assisi enrolled, was a beau- tiful girl of Assisi, named Clara Scifi, with whom he had for some time carried on a clandestine correspondence, and whose flight from her father’s home he both counselled and planned.’ As the first enthusiasm of asceticism died away, what was lost in influence by the father was gained by the priest. The confessional made this personage the confidant in the most delicate secrets of domestic life. The supremacy of authority, of sympathy, and sometimes even of affection, passed away beyond the domestic circle, and by establishing an absolute authority over the most secret thoughts and feelings of nervous and credulous women, the priests laid the foundation of the empire of the world. The picture I have drawn of the inroads made in the first period of asceticism upon the domestic affections, tells, I think, its own story, and I shall only add a very 1 St. Greg. Dial. ii. 24. * Bollandists, May 3 (vol. vii. p. 561). 3 “Hospitibus omni loco ac tempore liberalissimus fuit. . . . Solis con- sanguineis durus erat et inhumanus, tamquam ignotos illos respiciens,’— Bollandists, May 29. 4 See Helyot, Dict. des Ordres religieux, art. ‘Camaldules,’ ° See the charming sketch in the Life of St. Francis, by Hase. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 145 few words of comment. That itis necessary for many men who are pursuing a truly heroic course to break loose from the trammels which those about them would cast over their actions or their opinions, and that this severance often constitutes at once one of the noblest and one of the most painful incidents in their career, are unquestionable truths ; but the examples of such occasional and excep- tional sacrifices, endured rather than relinquish some creat unselfish end, cannot be compared with the conduct of those who regarded the mortification of domestic love as in itself a form of virtue, and whose ends were mainly or exclusively selfish. The suffermgs endured by the ascetic who fled from his relations were often, no doubt, very great. Many anecdotes remain to show that warm and affectionate hearts sometimes beat under the cold exterior of the monk,! and St. Jerome, in one of his letters, remarked, with much complacency and congratu- lation, that the very bitterest pang of captivity is simply this irrevocable separation which the superstition he preached induced multitudes to inflict upon themselves. But if, putting aside the intrinsic excellence of an act, we attempt to estimate the nobility of the agent, we must consider not only the cost of what he did, but also the motive which induced him to do it. It is this last con- sideration which renders it impossible for us to place the heroism of the ascetic on the same level with that of the great patriots of Greece or Rome. A man may be as 1 The legend of St. Scholastica, the sister of St. Benedict, has been often quoted. He had visited her, and was about to leave in the evening, when she implored him to stay. He refused, and she then prayed to God, who sent so violent a tempest that the saint was unable to depart. (St. Greg. Dial. ii, 33.) Cassian speaks of a monk who thought it his duty never to see his mother, but who laboured for a whole year to pay off a debt she had incurred. (Ccenob. Inst. v. 38.) St. Jerome mentions the strong natural affection of Paula, though she considered it a virtue to mortify it. (Zp. cviii.) 146 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. truly selfish about the next world as about this. Where an overpowering dread of future torments, or an intense realisation of future happiness, is the leading motive of action, the theological virtue of faith may be present, but the ennobling quality of disinterestedness is assuredly ab- sent. In our day, when pictures of rewards and punish- ments beyond the grave act but feebly upon the imagina- tion, a religious motive is commonly an unselfish motive; but it has not always been so, and it was undoubtedly not so in the first period of asceticism. The terrors of a future judgment drove the monk into the desert, and the whole tenor of the ascetic life, while isolating him from human sympathies, fostered an intense, though it may be termed a religious selfishness. The effect of the mortification of the domestic affections upon the general character was probably very pernicious. The family circle is the appointed sphere not only for the performance of manifest duties, but also for the cultivation of the affections ; and the extreme ferocity which so often characterised the ascetic was the natural consequence of the discipline he imposed upon himself. Severed from all other ties, the monks clung with a desperate tenacity to their opinions and to their Church, and hated those who dissented from them with all the intensity of men whose whole lives were concentrated on a single subject, whose ignorance and bigotry prevented them from con- ceiving the possibility of any good thing in opposition to themselves, and who had made it a main object of their discipline to eradicate all natural sympathies and affec- tions. We may reasonably attribute to the fierce bio- erapher the words of burning hatred of all heretics which St. Athanasius puts in the mouth of the dying patriarch of the hermits ;* but ecclesiastical history, and especially the | Life of Antony. See, too, the sentiments of St. Pachomius, Vit. cap. et Wipes 2 ine Paige a OD ce ae ee ee be ; ~ > ? " FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 147 writings of the later Pagans, abundantly prove that the sentiment was a general one. To the Christian bishops it is mainly due that the wide and general, though not perfect recognition of religious liberty in the Roman legis- lation was replaced by laws of the most minute and stringent intolerance. To the monks, acting as the exe- cutive of an omnipresent, intolerant, and aggressive clergy, is due an administrative change, perhaps even more im- portant than the legislative change that had preceded it. The system of conniving at, neglecting, or despising forms of worship that were formally prohibited, which had been so largely practised by the sceptical Pagans, and under the lax police system of the empire, and which is so im- portant a fact in the history of the rise of Christianity, was absolutely destroyed. Wandering in bands through the country, the monks were accustomed to burn the temples, to break the idols, to overthrow the altars, to engage in fierce conflicts with the peasants, who often defended with desperate courage the shrines of their gods. It would be impossible to conceive men more fitted for the task. Their fierce fanaticism, their persuasion that every idol was tenanted by a literal demon, and their belief that death incurred in this iconoclastic crusade was a form of martyrdom, made them careless of all conse- quences to themselves, while the reverence that attached to their profession rendered it scarcely possible for the civil power to arrest them. Men who had learnt to look with indifference on the tears of a broken-hearted mother, and whose ideal was indissolubly connected with the degradation of the body, were but little likely to be moved either by the pathos of old associations, and of reverent, though mistaken worship, or by the gran- deur of the Serapeum, or the noble statues of Phidias and Praxiteles. Sometimes the civil power ordered the 148 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. reconstruction of Jewish synagogues or heretical churches which had been illegally destroyed ; but the doctrine was early maintained, that such a reconstruction was a deadly sin. Under Julian some Christians suffered martyrdom sooner than be parties to it; and St. Ambrose from the pulpit of Milan, and Simeon Stylites from his desert pillar, united in denouncing Theodosius, who had been guilty of issuing this command. Another very important moral result to which asceti- cism largely contributed, was the depression and some- ~ times almost the extinction of the civic virtues. A candid examination will show that the Christian civilisations have been as inferior to the Pagan ones in civic and intellectual virtues as they have been superior to them in the virtues -of humanity and of chastity. We have already seen that one remarkable feature of the intellectual movement that preceded Christianity was the gradual decadence of pa- triotism. In the early days both of Greece and Rome, the first duty enforced was that of a man to his country. This was the rudimentary or cardinal virtue of the moral type. It gave the tone to the whole system of ethics, and different moral qualities were valued chiefly in propor- tion to their tendency to form illustrious citizens. The destruction of this spirit in the Roman Empire was due, as we have seen, to two causes—one of them being poli- tical and the other intellectual. The political cause was the amalgamation of the different nations in one great despotism, which gave indeed an ample field for personal and intellectual freedom, but extinguished the sentiment of nationality and closed almost every sphere of political activity. The intellectual cause, which was by no means unconnected with the political one, was the growing as- cendency of Oriental philosophies, which dethroned the active stoicism of the early empire, and placed its ideal sii 20-7) pega CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 149 of excellence in contemplative virtues and in elaborate purifications. By this decline of the patriotic sentiment the progress of the new faith was greatly aided. In all, matters of religion the opinions of men are governed much more by their sympathies than by their judgments, and it rarely or never happens that a-religion which is opposed to a strong national sentiment, as Christianity was in Judea, as Catholicism and Episcopalian Protes- tantism have been in Scotland, and as Anglicanism is even now in Ireland, can win the acceptance of the people. The relations of Christianity to the sentiment of patriotism were from the first very unfortunate. While the Christians were, from obvious reasons, completely separated from the national spirit of Judea, they found themselves equally at variance with the lingering rem- nants of Roman patriotism. Rome was to them the power of Antichrist, and its overthrow the necessary prelude to the millenniai reign. They formed an illegal organisa- tion, directly opposed to the genius of the empire, an- ticipating its speedy destruction, looking back with some- thing more than despondency to the fate of the heroes who had adorned its past, and refusing resolutely to partici- pate in those national spectacles which were the symbols and the expressions of patriotic feeling. Though scrupu- lously averse to all rebellion, they rarely concealed their “sentiments, and the whole tendency of their teaching was to withdraw men as far as possible both from the functions and the enthusiasm of public life. It was at once their confession and their boast, that no interests were more indifferent to them than those of their country.! They regarded the lawfulness of taking arms as very questionable, and all those proud and aspiring qualities * “Nec ulla res aliena magis quam publica.’—Tertullian, Apol. ch. xxxviii. & a 150 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. that constitute the distinctive beauty of the soldier’s cha- racter as emphatically unchristian. Their home and their interests were in another world, and, provided only they were unmolested in their worship, they avowed with frankness, long after the empire had become Christian, that it was a matter of indifference to them under what rule they lived.! Asceticism, drawing all the enthusiasm of Christendom to the desert life, and elevating as an ideal the extreme and absolute abnegation of all patriotism,” formed the culmination of the movement, and was un- doubtedly one cause of the downfall of the Roman Em- pire. There are, probably, few subjects on which popular judgments are commonly more erroneous than upon the relations between positive religions and moral enthusiasm. 1 ‘Quid interest sub cujus imperio vivat homo moriturus, si illi qui im- perant, ad impia et iniqua non cogant.’—St. Aug. De Civ. Dei, v. 17. 2 ‘Monachum in patria sua perfectum esse non posse, perfectum autem esse nolle delinquere est.’—Hieron. Zp. xiv. Dean Milman well says of a later period, ‘According to the monastic view of Christianity, the total abandonment of the world, with all its ties and duties, as well as its trea- sures, its enjoyments, and objects of ambition, advanced rather than dimi- nished the hopes of salvation. Why should they fight for a perishing world, from which it was better to be estranged ? . . . It is singular, indeed, that while we have seen the Eastern monks turned into fierce undisciplined soldiers, perilling their own lives and shedding the blood of others without remorse, in assertion of some shadowy shade of orthodox expression, hardly anywhere do we find them asserting their liberties or their religion with intrepid resistance. Hatred of heresy was a more stirring motive than the dread or the danger of Islamism. After the first defeats the Christian mind was still further prostrated by the common notion that the invasion was a. just and heayen-commissioned visitation; . . . resistance a vain, almost an impious struggle to avert inevitable punishment.’ — Milman’s Latin Chris- tianity, vol. ii. p. 206. Compare Massillon’s famous Discours au Régiment de Catinat :—‘ Ce qu’il y a ici de plus déplorable, c’est que dans une vie rude et pénible, dans des emplois dont les devoirs passent quelquefois la rigueur des cloitres les plus austéres, vous souffrez toujours en vain pour l’autre vie. . . . Dix ans de services ont plus usé votre corps qu’une vie entiére de péni- tence . . . un seul jour de ces souffrances, consacré au Seigneur, vous aurait peut-étre valu un bonheur éternel.’ Se eee ae me FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 151 Religions have, no doubt, a most real power of evoking a latent energy which, without their existence, would never have been called into action; but their influence is on the whole probably more attractive than creative. They supply the channel in which moral enthusiasm flows, the banner under which it is enlisted, the mould in which it is cast, the ideal to which it tends. The first idea the phrase ‘a very good man’ would have suggested to an early Roman, would probably have been that of great and distinguished patriotism, and the passion and interest of such a man in his country’s cause were in direct proportion to his moral elevation. Ascetic Christianity decisively diverted moral enthusiasm into another channel, and the civic virtues, in consequence, necessarily declined. The extinction of all public spirit, the base treachery and corruption pervading every department of the Govern- ment, the cowardice of the army, the despicable frivolity of character that led the people of Treves, when fresh from their burning city, to call for theatres and circuses, and the people of Roman Carthage to plunge wildly into the excitement of the chariot races, on the very day when their city succumbed beneath the Vandal;* all these things coexisted with extraordinary displays of ascetic and of missionary devotion. The genius and the virtue that might have defended the empire were engaged in fierce disputes about the Pelagian controversy, &t the very time when Attila was encircling Rome with his armies,’ and there was no subtlety of theological metaphysics which did not kindle a deeper interest in the Christian leaders than 1 See a very striking passage in Salvian, De Gubern. Div. lib. vi. 2 Chateaubriand very truly says, ‘qu’Orose et saint Augustin étoient plus occupés du schisme de Pélage que de la désolation de PAgioue et des Gaules.’—Htudes histor. vim discours, 29 partie. The remark might cer-- tainly be extended much further. 44 152 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN RALS. the throes of their expiring country. The moral enthu- siasm that in other days would have fired the armies of Rome with an invincible valour, impelled thousands to abandon their country and their homes, and consume the weary hours in a long routine of useless and horrible macerations. When the Goths had captured Rome, St. Augustine, as we have seen, pointed with a just pride to the Christian Church, which remained an unviolated sanctuary during the horrors of the sack, as a proof that a new spirit of sanctity and of reverence had descended upon the world. The Pagan, in his turn, pointed to what he deemed a not less significant fact—the golden statues of Valour and of Fortune were melted down to pay the ransom to the conquerors! Many of the Christians con-: templated with an indifference that almost amounted to complacency what they regarded as the predicted ruin of the city of the fallen gods.2. When the Vandals swept over Africa, the Donatists, maddened by the persecution of the orthodox, received them with open arms, and con- tributed their share to that deadly blow.2 The immortal pass of Thermopylee was surrendered without a strugele to the Goths. A Pagan writer accused the monks of having betrayed it.* It is more probable that they had absorbed or diverted the heroism that. in other days would have defended it. The conquest, at a later date, of Egypt by the Mahommedans, was in a great measure due to an Invitation from the persecuted Monophysites.> Subse- quent religious wars have again and again exhibited the 7 Zosimus, Hist. v.41. This was on the first occasion when Rome was menaced by Alaric. * See Merivale’s Conversion of the Northern Nations, pp. 207-210. ° See Sismondi, Hist. de la Chute de ? Empire romain, tome i. p. 230. * Eunapius. There is no other authority for the story of the treachery, which is not believed by Gibbon. > Sismondi, Hist. de la Chute de ?Empire romain, tome ii. pp. 52-54; Milman, Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 218. The Monophysites were TT te gre oe ee Oe eee Oe Se eer NE Sa ee ee eae Le LP EEE Ee ‘ aes Alpceoy ‘e is “at ; eA - FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 153 same phenomenon. ‘The treachery of a religionist to his country no longer argued an absence of all moral feeling. It had become compatible with the deepest religious en- thusiasm, and with all the courage of a martyr. It is somewhat difficult to form a just estimate of how far the attitude assumed by the Church to the barbarian invaders has on the whole proved beneficial to mankind. The empire, as we have seen, had already been, both morally and politically, in a condition of manifest decline ; its fall, though it might have been retarded, could scarcely have been averted, and the new religion, even in its most superstitious form, while it did much to displace, did also much to elicit moral enthusiasm. It is impossible to deny that the Christian priesthood contributed very materially, both by their charity and by their arbitration, to mitigate the calamities that accompanied the dissolution of the empire ;? and it is equally impossible to doubt that their political attitude greatly increased their power for good. Standing between the conflicting forces, almost indifferent to the issue, and notoriously exempt from the passions of the combat, they obtained with the conqueror, and used for the benefit of the conquered, a degree of influence they would never have possessed, had they been regarded as Roman patriots. Their attitude, however, marked a complete, and, as it has proved, a permanent change in greatly afflicted because, after the conquest, the Mahommedans tolerated the orthodox, who believed that two concurring wills existed in Christ, as well as themselves, who believed that Christ had only one will. In Gaul, the orthodox clergy favoured the invasions of the Franks, who alone, of the barbarous conquerors of Gaul, were Catholics, and St. Aprunculus was obliged to fly, the Burgundians desiring to kill him on account of his suspected con- nivance with the invaders. (Greg. Tw. ii. 23.) 1 Dean Milman says of the Church, ‘If treacherous to the interests of the Roman Empire, it was true to those of mankind.’—Mst. of Christianity, vol. iii. p. 48. So Gibbon, ‘If the decline of the Roman Empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, the victorious religion broke the violence of the fall and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors.’—Ch. xxxviil. 154 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. the position assigned to patriotism in the moral scale. It has occasionally happened, in later times, that Churches have found it for their interest to appeal to this sen- timent in their conflict with opposing creeds, or that patriots have found the objects of churchmen in harmony with their own; and in these cases a fusion of theological and patriotic feeling has taken place, in which each has intensified the other. Such has been the effect of the conflict between the Spaniards and the Moors, between the Poles and the Russians, between the Scotch Puritans and the English Episcopalians, between the Irish Catholics and the English Protestants. But patriotism itself, as a duty, has never found any place in Christian ethics, and a strong theological feeling has usually been directly hostile to its growth. cclesiastics have no doubt taken a very large share in political affairs, but this has been in most cases solely with the object of wresting them into conformity with ecclesiastical designs; and no other body of men have so uniformly sacrificed the interests of their country to the interests of their class. For the repug- nance between the theological and the patriotic spirit, three reasons may, I think, be assigned. The first is that tendency of strong religious feeling to divert the mind from all terrestrial cares and passions, of which the ascetic life was the extreme expression, but which has always, under different forms, been manifested in the Church. The second arises from the fact that each form of theolo- gical opinion embodies itself in a visible and organised church, with a government, interest, and policy of its own, and a frontier often intersecting rather than follow- ing national boundaries ; and these churches attract to themselves the attachment and devotion that would natu- rally be bestowed upon our country and its rulers. The third reason is, that the saintly and the heroic cha- ‘ FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 155 racters, which represent the ideals of religion and of patriotism, are generically different; for although they have no doubt many common elements of virtue, the dis- tinctive excellence of each is derived from a proportion or disposition of qualities altogether different from that of the other.? Before dismissing this very important revolution in moral history, I may add two remarks. In the first place, we may observe that the relation of the two great schools of morals to active and political life has been completely changed. Among the ancients, the Stoics, who regarded virtue and vice as generically different from all other things, participated actively in public life, and made this participation one of the first of duties, while the Epicu- reans, who resolved virtue into utility, and esteemed hap- piness its supreme motive, abstained from public life, and taught their disciples to neglect it. Asceticism fol- lowed the stoical school in teaching that virtue and happiness are generically different things; but it was at the same time eminently unfavourable to civic virtue. On the other hand, that great industrial movement which has arisen since the abolition of slavery, and which has always been essentially utilitarian in its spirit, has been one of the most active and influential elements of political progress. ‘This change, though, as far as I know, entirely 1 Observe with what a fine perception St. Augustine notices the essen- tially unchristian character of the moral dispositions to which the greatness of Rome was due. He quotes the sentence of Sallust: ‘ Civitas, incredibile memoratu est, adepta libertate quantum brevi creverit, tanta cupido gloriz incesserat ;’ and adds, ‘ Ista ergo laudis aviditas et cupido gloriz multa illa miranda fecit, laudabilia scilicet atque gloriosa secundum hominum existima- tionem . . . causa honoris, laudis et gloriz consuluerunt patric, in qua ipsam gloriam requirebant, salutemque ejus saluti suze preeponere non dubitaverunt, pro isto uno vitio, id est, amore laudis, pecunis cupiditatem et multa alia vitia comprimentes. .. . Quid aliud amarent quam gloriam, qua volebant etiam post mortem tanquam vivere in ore laudantium?’—De Civ. Dei, Vv. 12-137 156 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, unnoticed by historians, constitutes, I believe, one of the ereat landmarks of moral history. The second observation I would make relates to. the estimate we form of the value of patriotic actions. How- ever much an historian may desire to extend his researches to the private and domestic virtues of a people, civic virtues are always those which must appear most prom1- nently in his pages. History is concerned only with large bodies of men. The systems of philosophy or religion, which produce splendid results on the great theatre of public life, are fully and easily appreciated, and readers and writers are both liable to give them very undue ad- vantages over those systems which do not favour civic virtues, but exercise their beneficial influence in the more obscure fields of individual self-culture, domestic morals, or private charity. If valued by the selfsacrifice they imply, or by their effects upon human happiness, these last rank very high, but they scarcely appear in history, and they therefore seldom obtain their due weight in historical comparisons. Christianity has, I think, suffered peculiarly from this cause. Its moral action has always been much more powerful upon individuals than upon societies, and the spheres in which its superiority over other religions is most incontestable, are precisely those which history is least capable of realising. In attempting to estimate the moral condition of the Roman and Byzantine Empires during the Christian period, and before the old civilisation had been dissolved by the barbarian or Mohammedan invasions, we must — continually bear this last consideration in mind. We must remember, too, that Christianity had acquired the ascendency among nations which were already deeply tainted by the inveterate vices of a corrupt and decaying civilisation, and also that many of the censors from whose FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 157 pages we are obliged to form our estimate of the age were men who judged human frailties with all the fastidious- ness of ascetics, and who expressed their judgments with all the declamatory exaggeration of the pulpit. Modern critics will probably not lay much stress upon the relapse of the Christians into the ordinary dress and usages of the luxurious society about them, upon the ridicule thrown by Christians on those who still adhered to the primitive austerity of the sect, or upon the fact that multitudes who were once mere nominal Pagans had become mere nominal Christians. We find, too, a frequent disposition on the part of moralists to single out some new form of luxury, or some trivial custom which they regarded as indecorous, for the most extravagant denunciation, and to magnify its importance in a manner which in a later age it is difficult even to understand. Txamples of this kind may be found both in Pagan and in Christian writings, and they form an extremely curious page in the his- tory of morals. Thus Juvenal exhausts his vocabulary of invective in denouncing the atrocious criminality of a certain noble, who in the very year of his consulship did not hesitate—not, it is true, by day, but at least in the sight of the moon and of the stars—with his own hand to drive his own chariot along the public road.t Pliny assures us that the most monstrous of all criminals was the man who first devised the luxurious custom of wear- ing golden rings.” Apuleius was compelled to defend : ‘Preeter majorum cineres atque ossa, volucri Carpento rapitur pinguis Damasippus et ipse, Ipse rotam stringit multo sufflamine consul ; Nocte quidem ; sed luna videt, sed sidera testes Intendunt oculos. Finitum tempus honoris Quum fuerit, clara Damasippus luce flagellum Sumet,’—Juvenal, Sat. viii. 146. 2 1 Plin, Hist. Nat. x. 6. 2 A long list of legends about dogs is given by Legendre, in the very curious chapter on animals, in his Traité de ’ Opinion, tome i. pp. 808-327. 3 Pliny tells some extremely pretty stories of this kind (2st. Wat. ix. 8-9). See, too, Aulus Gellius, xvi. 19, The dolphin, on account of its love for its young, became a common symbol of Christ among the early Christians. 4 A very full account of the opinions, both of ancient and modern philo- sophers, concerning the souls of animals, is given by Bayle, Dvct. arts. ‘ Pereira E,’ ‘ Rorarius K.’ 8 The Jewish law did not confine its care to oxen. The reader will re- ae ng ee Pig pene a een On ee nore ene ee ~~ ae FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 173 the same feeling was carried so far, that for a long time it was actually a capital offence to slaughter an ox, that animal being pronounced, in a special sense, the fellow- labourer of man.’ A similar law is said to have in early times existed in Greece.” The beautiful passage in which the Psalmist describes how the sparrow ‘could find a shelter and a home in the altar of the temple, was as applicable to Greece as to Jerusalem. The sentiment of Xenocrates who, when a bird pursued by a hawk took refuge in his breast, caressed and finally released it, say- ing to his disciples, that a good man should never give up a suppliant,’ was believed to be shared by the gods, and it was regarded as an act of impiety to disturb the birds who had built their nests beneath the porticoes of the temple.* A case is related of a child who was even put to death on account of an act of aggravated cruelty to birds.® member the touching provision, ‘Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk’ (Deut. xiy. 21); and the law forbidding men to take a parent bird that was sitting on its young or on its eggs. (Deut. xxii. 6-7.) * ‘Cujus tanta fuit apud antiquos veneratio, ut tam capital esset bovem necuisse quam civem.’—Columella, lib. vi. in procem. ‘ Hic socius hominum in rustico opere et Cereris minister. Ab hoc antiqui manus ita abstinere voluerunt ut capite sanxerint si quis occidisset.’—Varro, De Re Rustic. lib. ii. cap. v. * See Legendre, tome ii. p. 338. The sword with which the priest sacrificed the ox was afterwards pronounced accursed. (A®lian, Hist. Var. lib. viii. cap. iii.) 5 Diog. Laért. Xenocrates. * There is a story told in some classical writer, of an ambassador who was sent by his fellow-countrymen to consult the oracle of Apollo about a suppliant who had taken refuge in the city, and was demanded with menace by the enemies. The oracle, being bribed, enjoined the surrender. The ambassador on leaving, with seeming carelessness, disturbed the sparrows under the portico of the temple, when the voice from behind the altar denounced his impiety for disturbing the guests of the gods. The ambas- sador replied with an obvious and withering retort.. AZlian says (Hist. Var.) that the Athenians condemned to death a boy for killing a sparrow that had taken refuge in the temple of Asculapius. » Quintillian, Jnsé. v. 9. 174 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. The general tendency of nations, as they advance from a rude and warlike to a refined and peaceful con- dition, from the stage in which the realising powers are faint and dull, to those in which they are sensitive and vivid, is undoubtedly to become more gentle and humane in their actions ; but this, like all other general tendencies in history, may be counteracted or modified by many special circumstances. The law I have mentioned about oxen was obviously one of those that belong to a very early stage of progress, when legislators are labouring to form agricultural habits among a warlike and nomadic people." The games in which the slaughter of animals bore so large a part, having been introduced but a little before the extinction of the republic, did very much to arrest or retard the natural progress of humane senti- ments. In ancient Greece, besides the bull-fights of Thes- saly, the combats of quails and cocks? were favourite amusements, and were much encouraged by the legis- ' In the same way we find several chapters in the Zendavesta about the criminality of injuring dogs; which is explained by the great importance of shepherds’ dogs to a pastoral people. * On the origin of Greek cock-fighting, see Alian, Hist. Var. ii. 28. Many particulars about it are given by Atheneeus. Chrysippus maintained that cock-fighting was the final cause of cocks, these birds being made by Providence in order to inspire us by the example of their courage. (Plu- tarch, De Repug. Stoic.) The Greeks do not, however, appear to have known ‘ cock-throwing,’ the favourite English game of throwing a stick called a ‘cock-stick’ at cocks, It was a very ancient and very popular amusement, and was practised especially on Shrove Tuesday, and by school-boys. Sir Thomas More had been famous for his skill in it. (Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes, p. 283.) Three origins of it have been given :—Ist, that in the Danish wars the Saxons failed to surprise a certain city, in consequence of the crowing of cocks, and had in consequence a great hatred of that bird ; 2nd, that the cocks (galli) were special representatives of Frenchmen, with whom the English were constantly at war; and 8rd, that they were con- nected with the denial of St. Peter. As Sir Charles Sedley said :— ‘ Mayst thou be punished for St. Peter’s crime, And on Shrove Tuesday perish in thy prime.’ Knight’s Old England, vol. ii. p. 126, er ee ae ee Pee eee a in) oh ee =a ot FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 175 lators, as furnishing examples of valour to the soldiers, The colossal dimensions of the Roman games, the cir- - cumstances that favoured them, and the overwhelming interest they speedily excited, I have described in a for- mer chapter. We have seen, however, that notwith- standing the gladiatorial shows, the standard of humanity towards men was considerably raised during the empire. It is also well worthy of notice, that notwithstanding the passion for the combats of wild beasts, Roman literature and the later literature of the nations subject to Rome abound in delicate touches displaying in a very high de- gree a sensitiveness to the feelings of the animal world. This tender interest in animal life is one of the most distinctive features of the poetry of Virgil. Lucretius, who rarely struck the chords of pathos, had at a still earlier period drawn a very beautiful picture of the sorrows of the bereaved cow, whose calf had been sacri- ficed upon the altar.’ Plutarch mentions, incidentally, that he could never bring himself to sell, in its old age, the ox which had served him faithfully in the time of its strength.” Ovid expressed a similar sentiment with an almost equal emphasis. Juvenal speaks of a Roman lady with her eyes filled with tears on account of the death of a sparrow.* Apollonius of Tyana, on the ground 1 De Natura Rerum, lib. ii. 2 Life of Mare, Cato. 8 ‘Quid meruere boves, animal sine fraude dolisque, Innocuum, simplex, natum tolerare labores ? Immemor est demum nec frugum munere dignus, Qui potuit curvi dempto modo pondere aratri Ruricolam mactare suum.’— Metamorph. xy. 120-124. 4 ‘Cujus Turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos.’ Juvenal, Sat. vi. 7-8, There is a little poem in Catullus (iii.) to console his mistress upon the death of her favourite sparrow; and Martial more than once alludes to the pets of the Roman ladies, 176 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, of humanity, refused, even when invited by a king, to par- ticipate in the chase.t Arrian, the friend of Epictetus, in his book upon coursing, anticipated the beautiful picture which Addison has drawn of the huntsman refusing to sacrifice the life of the captured hare which had given him so much pleasure in its flight.? These touches of feeling, slight as they may appear, indicate, I think, a vein of sentiment such as we should scarcely have expected to find coexisting with the gigantic slaughter of the amphitheatre. The progress, however, was not simply one of sentiment—it was also shown in distinct and definite teaching, Pythagoras and Empedocles were quoted as the founders of this branch of ethics. The moral duty of kindness to animals was in the first instance based upon a dogmatic assertion of the transmigration of souls, and the doctrine that animals are within the circle of human duty, being thus laid down, subsidiary considerations of humanity were alleged. The rapid growth of the Pythagorean school, in the latter days of the empire, made these considerations familiar to the people.? . Porphyry elaborately advocated, and even Compare the charming description of the Prioress, in Chaucer :— ‘ She was so charitable and so pitous, She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous Caughte in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde. Of smale houndes had she that she fedde With rosted flesh and milke and wastel brede, But sore wept she if on of them were dede, Or if men smote it with a yerde smert: And all was conscience and tendre herte.’ Prologue to the ‘ Canterbury Tales,’ 1 Philost. Apol. i. 38. * See the curious chapter in his Kuynyeriéc, xvi. and compare it with No. 116 in the Spectator. 3 In his De Abstinentia Carnis, The Paitiroveedl between Origen and Celsus furnishes us with a very curious illustration of the extravagancies into which some Pagans of the third century fell about animals. Celsus objected to the Christian doctrine about the position of men in the universe;’ FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 177 Seneca for a time practised, abstinence from flesh But the most remarkable figure in this movement is unques- tionably Plutarch. Casting aside the dogma of transmi- gration, or at least speaking of it only as a doubtful conjecture, he places the duty of kindness to animals on the broad ground of the affections, and he urges that duty with an emphasis and a detail to which no adequate parallel can, I believe, be found in the Christian writ- ings for at least seventeen hundred years. He condemns absolutely the games of the amphitheatres, dwells with great force upon the effect of such spectacles in hardening the character, enumerates in detail, and denounces with unqualified energy, the refined cruelties which gastronomic fancies had produced, and asserts in the strongest lan- guage that every man has duties to the animal world as truly as to his fellow-men.! If we now pass to the Christian Church, we shall find that little or no progress was at first made in this sphere. Among the Manicheans, it is true, the mixture of Oriental notions was shown in an absolute prohibition of animal food, and abstinence from this food was also fre- quently practised upon totally different grounds by the orthodox. One or two of the Fathers have also men- tioned with approbation the humane councils of the Pythagoreans.? But, on the other hand, the doctrine of transmigration was emphatically repudiated by the Catho- lics; the human race was isolated, by the scheme of re- that many of the animals were at least the equals of men both in reason and in religious feeling and knowledge. (Orig. Cont. Cels. lib. Iv.) * These views are chiefly defended in his two tracts on eating flesh. Plutarch has also recurred to the subject, incidentally, in several other works; especially in a very beautiful passage in his Life of Marcus Cato. * See, for example, a striking passage in Clem. Alex. Strom. lib. ii. St. Clement imagines Pythagoras had borrowed his sentiments on this subject from Moses. 178 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. demption, more than ever from all other races; and in the range and circle of duties inculcated by the early Fathers those to animals had no place. This is indeed the one form of humanity which appears more prominently in the Old Testament than in the New. The many beautiful traces of it in the former, which indicate a sentiment,! even where they do not very strictly define a duty, gave way before an ardent philanthropy which regarded human interests as the one end, and the relations of man to his Creator as the one question of life, and dismissed some- what contemptuously, as an idle sentimentalism, notions of duty to animals.’ A refined and subtle sympathy with animal feeling is indeed rarely found among those who are engaged very actively in the affairs of life, and it was not without a meaning or a reason that Shakspeare placed that exquisitely pathetic analysis of the sufferings of the wounded stag, which is perhaps its most perfect poetical expression, in the midst of the morbid meee of Ly diseased and melancholy Jacques. But while what are called the rights of aniiaad had no place in the ethics of the Church, a feeling of sympathy with the irrational creation was in some degree inculcated indirectly by the incidents of the hagiology. It was very natural that the hermit, living in the lonely deserts of the Hast, or in the vast forests of Europe, should come into 1 There is, I believe, no record of any wild beast combats existing among the Jews, and the rabbinical writers have been remarkable for the great emphasis with which they inculcated the duty of kindness to animals. See some passages from them, cited in Wollaston, Religion of Nature, § ii. § 1, note. Maimonides believed in a future life for animals, to recompense them for their sufferings here. (Bayle, Dict. art. ‘Rorarius D.’) There is a curious collection of the opinions of different writers on this last point in a little book called the Rights of Animals, by William Drummond (London, 1888), pp. 197-205. * Thus St. Paul (1 Cor. ix. 9) turned aside the precept, ‘ Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn,’ from its natural meaning, with the contemptuous question, ‘Doth God take care for oxen ?? ae Vas ae oe cee es a x Gd An ON Ty, Pete PP (Lee IT RTT EN aN ENS ea see 7 eee ee a p i ‘ w Bc Gs! fe ’ i FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 179 an intimate connection with the animal world, and it was no less natural that the popular imagination, when de- picting the hermit life, should make this connection the centre of many picturesque and sometimes touching legends. The birds, it was said, stooped in their flight at the old man’s call; the lion and the hyena crouched sub- missively at his feet; his heart, which was closed to all human interests, expanded freely at the sight of some suffering animal; and something of his own sanctity de- scended to the companions of his solitude and the objects of his miracles. The wild beasts attended St. Theon when he walked abroad, and the saint rewarded them by giving them drink out of his well. An Egyptian hermit had made a beautiful garden in the desert, and used to sit beneath the palm-trees while a lion eat fruit from his hand. When St. Poemen was shivering in a winter night, a lion crouched beside him, and became his covering. Lions buried St. Paul the hermit and St. Mary of Egypt. They appear in the legends of St. Jerome, St. Gerasimus, St. John the Silent, St. Simeon, and many others. When an old and feeble monk, named Zosimas, was on his journey to Czsarea, with an ass which bore his pos- sessions, a lion seized and devoured the ass, but, at the command of the saint, the lion itself carried the burden to the city gates. St. Helenus called a wild ass from its herd to bear his burden through the wilder- ness. ‘The same saint, as well as St. Pachomius, crossed the Nile on the back of a crocodile, as St. Scuthinus did the Irish Channel on a sea monster. Stags continually ac- companied saints upon their journeys, bore their burdens, ploughed their fields, revealed their relics. The hunted stag was especially the theme of many picturesque legends. A Pagan, named Branchion, was once pursuing an ex- hausted stag, when it took refuge in a cavern, whose 180 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. threshold no inducement could persuade the hounds to cross. The astonished hunter entered, and found himself in presence of an old hermit, who at once protected the fugitive and converted the pursuer. In the legends of St. Hustachius and St. Hubert, Christ is represented as having assumed the form of a hunted stag, which turned upon its pursuer, with a crucifix glittering on its brow, and, addressing him with a human voice, converted him to Christianity. In the full frenzy of a chase, hounds and stags stopped and knelt down together to venerate the relics of St. Fingar. On the festival of St. Reoulus, the wild stags assembled at the tomb of the saint, as the ravens used to do at that of St. Apollinar of Ravenna. St. Eras- mus was the special protector of oxen, and they knelt down voluntarily before his shrine. St. Anthony was the protector of hogs, who were usually introduced into his pictures. St. Bridget kept pigs, and a wild boar came from the forest to subject itself to her rule. A horse fore- shadowed by its lamentations the death of St. Columba. The three companions of St. Colman were a cock, a mouse, anda fly. The cock announced the hour of devotion, the mouse bit the ear of the drowsy saint till he got up, and if in the course of his studies he was afflicted by any - wandering thoughts, or called away to other business, the fly alighted on the line where he had left off, and kept the place. Legends, not without a certain whimsical beauty, described the moral qualities existing in animals. ° A hermit was accustomed to share his supper with’ a wolf, which, one evening entering the cell before the return of the master, stole a loaf of bread. Struck with remorse, it was a week before it ventured again to visit the cell, and when it did so, its head hung down, and its whole demeanour manifested the most profound contri- tion. The hermit ‘stroked with a gentle hand its bowed Co FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 181 down head,’ and gave it a double portion as a token of forgiveness. A lioness knelt down with lamentations before another saint, and then led him to its cub, which was blind, but which received its sight at the prayer of the saint. Next day the lioness returned, bearing the skin of a wild beast asa mark of its gratitude. Nearly the same thing happened to St. Macarius of Alexandria : a hyena knocked at his door, brought its young, which was blind, and which the saint restored to sight, and re- paid the obligation soon afterwards, by bringing a fleece of wool. ‘O hyena!’ said the saint, ‘how did you obtain this fleece? you must have stolen and eaten a sheep.’ Full cf shame, the hyena hung its head down, but persisted in offering its gift, which, however, the holy man refused to receive till the hyena ‘had sworn’ to cease for the future to rob. The hyena bowed its head in token of its acceptance of the oath, and St. Macarius atterwards gave the fleece to St. Melania. Other legends simply speak of the sympathy between saints and the irrational world. The birds came at the call of St. Cuthbert, and a dead bird was resuscitated by his prayer. _ When St. Aengussius, in felling wood, had cut his hand, the birds gathered round, and with loud cries lamented his misfortune. A little bird, struck down and mortally wounded by a hawk, fell at the feet of St. Kieranus, who shed tears as he looked upon its torn breast, and offered up a prayer, upon which the bird was instantly healed. | + Ihave taken these illustrations from the collection of hermit literature in Rosweyde, from different volumes of the Bollandists, from the Dia- logues of Sulpicius Severus, and from what is perhaps the most interesting of all collections of saintly legends, Colgan’s Acta Sanctorum Hibernie. M. Alfred Maury, in his most valuable work, Légendes pieuses du Moyen Age, has examined minutely the part played by animals in symbolising virtues . and vices, and has shown the way in which the same incidents were 182 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. Many hundreds, I should perhaps hardly exaggerate were I to say many thousands of legends, of this kind exist in the lives of the saints. Suggested in the first in- stance by that desert life which was at once the earliest phase of monachism and one of the earliest sources of Christian mythology, strengthened by the symbolism which represented different virtues and vices under the forms of animals, and by the reminiscences of the rites and the superstitions of Paganism, the connection be- tween men and animals became the key-note of an infinite variety of fantastic tales. In our eyes they may appear extravagantly puerile, yet it will scarcely, I hope, be necessary to apologise for introducing them into what purports to be a grave work, when it is remembered that for many centuries they were universally accepted by mankind, and were so interwoven with all local traditions, and with all the associations of education, that they at once determined and reflected the inmost feelings of the heart. Their tendency to create a certain feeling of sympathy towards animals is manifest, and this is probably the utmost the Catholic Church has done in that direc- tion.’ A very few authentic instances may, indeed, be cited of saints whose natural gentleness of disposition was displayed in kindness to the animal world. Of St. James of Venice—an obscure saint of the thirteenth century— it is told that he was accustomed to buy and release the birds with which Italian boys used to play by attaching repeated, with slight variations, in different legends. M. de Montalembert has devoted what is probably the most beautiful chapter of his Moines d Occident (‘Les Moines et la Nature’) to the relations of monks and the animal world ; but the numerous legends he cites are all, with one or two exceptions, different from those I have given. 1 Chateaubriand speaks, however (Etudes historiques, étude vi™*, partie l'*), of an old Gallic law, forbidding to throw a stone at an ox attached to the plough, or to make its yoke too tight. 3 FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 183 them to strings, saying that ‘he pitied the little birds of the Lord,’ and that his ‘tender charity recoiled from all cruelty, even to the most diminutive of animals.’! St. Francis of Assisi was a more conspicuous example of the same spirit. ‘If I could only be presented to the em- peror,’ he used to say, ‘I would pray him, for the love of God, and of me, to issue an edict prohibiting anyone from catching or imprisoning my sisters the larks, and ordering that all who have oxen or asses should at Christmas feed them particularly well.’ A crowd of legends turning upon this theme were related of him. A wolf, near Gubbio, being adjured by him, promised to abstain from eating sheep, placed its paw in the hand of the saint, to ratify the promise, and was afterwards fed from house to house by the inhabitants of the city. A crowd of birds, on another occasion, came to hear the saint’ preach, as fish did to hear St. Anthony of Padua. A falcon awoke him at his hour of prayer. A grasshopper encouraged him by her melody to sing praises to God. The noisy swallows kept silence when he began to teach.? On the whole, however, Catholicism has done very little to inculcate humanity to animals. The fatal vice of theologians, who have always looked upon others solely through the medium of their own special dogmatic views, has been an obstacle to all advance in this direction. The animal world, being altogether external to the scheme of ? Bollandists, May 31. Leonardo da Vinci is said to have had the _ same fondness for buying and releasing caged birds, and (to go back a long way) Pythagoras to have purchased one day, near Metapontus, from some fishermen all the fish in their net, that he might have the pleasure of releasing them, (Apuleius, Apologia.) * See these legends collected by Hase (St. Francis. Assist), Itis said of Cardinal Bellarmine, that he used to allow vermin to bite him, saying, ‘We shall have heaven to reward us for our sufferings, but these poor creatures have nothing but the enjoyment of this present life,’ (Bayle, Dict, philos, art, ‘ Bellarmine.’) 46 184 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. redemption, was regarded as beyond the range of duty, and the notion of our having any kind of obligation to them has never been inculcated—has never, I believe, been even admitted by Catholic theologians. In the ‘popular legends, and in the recorded traits of individual amiability, it is curious to observe how constantly those who have sought to -inculcate kindness to animals have done so by endeavouring to associate them with some- thing distinctively Christian. The legends I have noticed glorified them as the companions of the saints. The stag was honoured as especially commissioned to reveal the relics of saints, and as the deadly enemy of the serpent. In the feast of asses, that animal was led with veneration into the churches, and a rude hymn proclaimed its dig- nity, because it had borne Christ in His flight to Eeypt, and on His entry into Jerusalem. St. Francis always treated lambs with a peculiar tenderness, as being symbols of his Master. Luther grew sad and thoughtful at a hare hunt, for it seemed to him to represent the pursuit of souls by the devil. Many popular legends exist, associating some bird or animal with some incident in the evangelical nar- rative, and securing for them, in consequence, an unmo- lested life. But such influences have never extended far. There are two distinct objects which may be considered by moralists in this sphere. They may regard the cha- racter of the men, or they may regard the sufferings of the animals. ‘The amount of callousness or of conscious cruelty displayed or elicited by amusements or prac- tices that inflict sufferings on animals, bears no kind of proportion to the intensity of that suffering. Could we follow with adequate realisation the pangs of the wounded birds that are struck down in our sports, or of the timid hare in the long course of its flight, we should probably conclude that they were not really less than those caused. ay 4; ee Bee ST Tay ge NO ER ae ce, cee A en eet ee eT] aE eT oe ody ea Lie ge ae at e ae ae we igi es FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 185 by the Spanish bull-fight, or by the English pastimes of the last century. But the excitement of the chase refracts the imagination; the diminutive size of the victim, and the undemonstrative character of its suffering, withdraw it from our sight, and these sports do not, in consequence, exercise that prejudicial influence upon character which they would exercise if the sufferings of the animals were vividly realised, and were at the same time accepted as an element of the enjoyment. That class of amusements of which the ancient combats of wild beasts form the type, have no doubt nearly disappeared from Christendom, and it is possible that the softening power of Christian teaching may have had some indirect influence in abolish- ing them; but a candid judgment will confess that it has been very little. During the periods, and in the countries, in which theological influence was supreme, they were unchallenged. They disappeared? at last, because a lux- urious and industrial. civilisation involved a refinement of manners ; because a fastidious taste recoiled with a sensa- tion of disgust from pleasures that an uncultivated taste would keenly relish ; because the drama, at once reflect- ing and accelerating the change, gave a new form to popular amusements, and because, in consequence of this * I have noticed, in my History of Rationalism, that although some Popes did undoubtedly try to suppress Spanish bull-fights, this was solely on account of the destruction of human life they caused. Full details on this subject will be found in Concina, De Spectaculis (Rome, 1752). Bayle says, ‘Il n’y a point de casuiste qui croie qu’on piche en faisant combattre des taureaux contre des dogues,’ &c. (Dict. philos. ¢ Rorarius, C.’) * On the ancient amusements of England the reader may consult Sey- mour’s Survey of London (1784), vol. i. pp. 227-235 ; Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes of the English People. Cock-fighting was a favourite children’s amusement in England as early as the twelfth century. (Hampson’s Medi? vt Kalendarii, vol. i. p. 160, It was, with foot-ball and several other amusements, for a time suppressed by Edward III, on the ground that they were diverting the people from archery, which was necessary to the mili« tary greatness of England. ; ' 186 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. revolution, the old practices being left to the dregs of society, they became the occasions of scandalous disor- ders! In Protestant countries the clergy have, on the 1 The decline of these amusements in England began with the great development of the theatre under Elizabeth. An order of the Privy Council, in July 1591, prohibits the exhibition of plays on Thursday, because on Thursdays bear-baiting and suchlike pastimes had been usually practised, and an injunction to the same effect was sent to the Lord Mayor, wherein it was stated that, ‘in divers places the players do use to recite their plays, to the great hurt and destruction of the game of bear-baiting and like pastimes, which are maintained for Her Majesty’s pleasure.’— Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth (ed. 1823), vol. i. p. 438, The reader will remember the picture in Kenilworth of the Duke of SuSsex petitioning Elizabeth against Shakespeare, on the ground of his plays distracting men from bear-baiting. Elizabeth (see Nichols) was extremely fond of bear- baiting. James I. especially delighted in cock-fighting, and in 1610 was present at a great fight between a lion and a bear. (Home, Every Day Book, vol. i. pp. 255-299). The theatres, however, rapidly multiplied, and a writer who lived about 1629 said, ‘that no less than seventeen playhouses had been built in or about London within threescore years.’ (Seymour's Survey, vol. i. p. 229.) The Rebellion suppressed all public amusements, and when they were re-established after the Restoration, it was found that the tastes of the better classes no longer sympathised with the bear-garden. Pepys’ (Diary, August 14, 1666) speaks of bull-baiting as ‘a very rude and nasty pleasure,’ and says he had not been in the bear-garden for many . years. Evelyn (Diary, June 16, 1670), having been present at these shows, describes them as ‘ butcherly sports, or rather barbarous cruelties,’ and says he had not visited them before for twenty years. A paper in the Spectator (No. 141, written in 1711) talks of those who ‘seek their diversion at the bear-garden, . . . where reason and good manners have no right to disturb them.’ In 1751, however, Lord Kames was able to say, ‘The bear-garden, which is one of the chief entertainments of the English, is held in abhor- rence by the French and other polite nations.’—LEssay on Morals (Ist ed.), p. 7; and he warmly defends (p. 30) the English taste. During the latter half of the last century there was constant controversy on the subject (which may be traced in the pages of the Annual Register), and several forgotten clergymen published sermons upon it, and the frequent riots resulting from the fact that the bear-gardens had become the resort of the worst classes assisted the movement. ‘he London magistrates took mea- sures to suppress cock-throwing in 1769 (Hampsoni’s Med. A%v. Kalend. p. 160) ; but bull-baiting continued far into the present century. Windham and Canning strongly defended it; Dr. Parr is said to have been fond of it (Southey’s Commonplace. Book, vols iv. p. 585) ; and as late as 1824, Sir Robert (then Mr.) Peel argued strongly against its prohibition. (Parhae mentary Debates, vol. x. pp. 182-133, 491-495.) : FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 187 whole, sustained this movement. In Catholic countries it has been much more faithfully represented by the school of Voltaire and Beccaria. In treating, however, amuse- ments which derived their zest from a display of the natural ferocious instincts of animals, and which suggest the alternative between death endured in the frenzy of combat and that endured in the remote slaughter-house, a judicious moralist may reasonably question whether they have, in any appreciable degree, added to the sum of animal misery, and will dwell less upon the suffering in- flicted upon the animal than upon the injurious influence the spectacle may sometimes exercise on the character of the spectator. But there are forms of cruelty which must be regarded in a different light. The horrors of vivisection, often so wantonly, so needlessly practised,! the prolonged and atrocious tortures, sometimes inflicted in * Bacon, in an account of the deficiencies of medicine, recommends vivi- section in terms that seem to imply that it was not practised in his time. ‘ As for the passages and pores, it is true which was anciently noted, that the more subtle of them appear not in anatomies, because they are shut and latent in dead bodies, though they be open and manifest in live; which being supposed, though the inhumanity of anatomia vivorum was by Celsus justly reproved, yet, in regard of the great use of this observation, the en- quiry needed. not by him so slightly to have been relinquished altogether, or referred to the casual practices of surgery; but might have been well diverted upon the dissection of beasts alive, which, notwithstanding the dissimilitude of their parts, may sufficiently satisfy this enquiry.,—Advance- ment of Learning, x. 4. Harvey speaks of vivisections as having contri- buted to lead him to the discovery of the circulation of blood. (Acland’s Harvevan Oration (1865), p. 55.) Bayle, describing the treatment of ani- mals by men, says, ‘Nous fouillons dans leurs entrailles pendant leur vie afin de satisfaire notre curiosité.’—Dict. philos. art. ‘Rorarius, C.’ Public opinion in England was very strongly directed to the subject in the pre- sent century, by the atrocious cruelties perpetrated by Majendie at his lectures. See a most frightful account of them in a speech by Mr. Martin (an eccentric Irish member, who was generally ridiculed during his life, and has been almost forgotten since his death, but to whose untiring exertions the legislative protection of animals in England is due).— Parliament. Hist. vol. xii, p. 652. Mandeville, in his day, was a very strong advocate of kindness to animals.—Commentary on Fable of the Bees, 188 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. order to procure some gastronomic delicacy, are so far removed from the public gaze, that they exercise little influence on the character of men. Yet no humane man can reflect upon them without a shudder. To bring these things within the range of ethics, to create the notion of duties towards the animal world, has, so far as Christian countries are concerned, been one of the peculiar merits of the last century, and, for the most part, of Protestant nations. However fully we may recognise the humane spirit, transmitted to the world in the form of legends, from the saints of the desert, it must not be forgotten that the inculcation of humanity to animals on a wide scale is mainly the work of a recent and a secular age; that the Mohammedans and the Brahmins have in this sphere con- siderably surpassed the Christians, and that Spain and Southern Italy, in which Catholicism has most deeply planted its roots, are even now, probably beyond all other countries in Europe, those in which inhumanity to ani- mals is most wanton and most unrebuked. The influence the first form of monachism has exer- cised upon the world, as far as it has been beneficial, has been chiefly through the imagination, which has been fascinated by its legends. In the great periods of theolo- . gical controversy, the Eastern monks had furnished some leading theologians, but in general, in Oriental lands, the hermit life predominated, and extreme maceration was the chief merit of the saint. But in the West monachism assumed very different forms, and exercised far higher functions. At first the Oriental saints were the ideals of Western monks. The Eastern St. Athanasius had been the founder of Italian monachism. St. Martin of Tours excluded labour from the discipline of his monks, and he - and they, like the Eastern saints, were accustomed to FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 189 wander abroad, destroying the idols of the temples.' But three great causes conspired to direct the monastic spirit ' in the West into practical channels. Conditions of race and climate have ever impelled the inhabitants of these lands to active-life, and have at the same time rendered them constitutionally incapable of enduring the austerities or enjoying the hallucinations of the sedentary Oriental. There arose, too, in the sixth century, a great legislator, whose form may be dimly traced through a cloud of fantastic legends, and the order of St. Benedict, with that of St. Columba and some others, founded on substantially the same principle, soon ramified through the greater part of EKurope, tempered the wild excesses of useless penances, and, making labour an essential part of the monastic system, directed the movement to the pur- poses of general civilisation. In the last place, the bar- barian invasions, and the dissolution of the Western Em- pire, distorting the whole system of government and almost resolving society into its primitive elements, natu- rally threw upon the monastic corporations social, political, and intellectual functions of the deepest importance. It has been observed that the capture of Rome by Alaric, involving as it did the destruction of the grandest religious monuments of Paganism, in fact established in that city the supreme authority of Christianity.2 A similar remark may be extended to the general downfall of the Western civilisation. In that civilisation Christianity had indeed been legally enthroned; but the philosophies and traditions of Paganism, and the ingrained habits of an ancient, and at the same time an effete society, continually paralysed its energies. What Europe would have been without the barbarian invasions, we may partly divine 1 See his life by Sulpicius Severus. * Milman. 190 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. from the history of the Lower Empire, which represented, in fact, the old Roman civilisation prolonged and Chris- tianised. The barbarian conquests, breaking up the old organisation, provided the Church with a virgin soil; and made it, for a long period, the supreme and indeed sole centre of civilisation. It would be difficult to exaggerate the skill and courage displayed by the ecclesiastics in this most trying period. We have already seen the noble daring with which they interfered between the conqueror and the vanquished, and the unwearied charity with which they sought to alle- viate the unparalleled sufferings of Italy, when the colo- nial supplies of corn were cut off, and when the fairest plains were desolated by the barbarians. Still more won- derful is the rapid conversion of the barbarian tribes. Unfortunately this, which is one of the most important, is also one of the most obscure pages in the history of the Church. Of whole tribes or nations it may be truly said that we are absolutely ignorant of the cause of their change. The Goths had already been converted by Ulphilas, before the downfall of the empire, and the con- version of the Germans and of several northern na- tions was long posterior to it; but the great work of Christianising the barbarian world was accomplished almost in the hour when that world became supreme. Rude tribes, accustomed in their own lands to pay abso- lute obedience to their priests, found themselves in a foreign country, confronted by a priesthood far more civilised and imposing than that which they had left, by gorgeous ceremonies, well fitted to entice, and by threats of coming judgment, well fitted to scare their imagina- tions. Disconnected. from all their old associations, they bowed before the majesty of civilisation, and the Latin religion, like the Latin language, though with many eer A pee: : POR: A Cee — Ser Sct taal 8 kt cine Lil ai At ey oe Sa aan ee ee eet ee a ‘ ; aes CSR ANE SR Si Leaet a Satie miata Ss eet a ents Suture Ne MI ee a a ca etre a FE Oa ey ae Ot ae te a eT ee ee ee FROM CON STANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 191 adulterations, reigned over the new society. The doc- trine of exclusive salvation, and the doctrine of deemons, had an admirable missionary power. The first produced an ardour of proselytising which the polytheist could never rival, while the Pagan, who was easily led to recognise the Christian God, was menaced with eternal fire if he did not take the further step of breaking off from his old divinities. The second dispensed the con- vert from the perhaps impossible task of disbelieving his former religion, for it was only necessary for him to degrade it, attributing its prodigies to infernal beings. The priests, in addition’ to their noble devotion, carried into their missionary efforts the most masterly judgement. The barbarian tribes usually followed without enquiry the religion of their sovereign, and it was to the’ conversion of the king, and still more to the conversion of the queen, that the Christians devoted all their energies. Clotilda, the wife of Clovis, Bertha, the wife of Ethelbert, and Theodolinda, the wife of Lothaire, were the chief instru- ments in converting their husbands and their nations. Nothing that could affect the imagination was neglected. It is related of Clotilda, that she was careful to attract her husband by the rich draperies of the ecclesiastical cere- monies." In another case, the first work of proselytising was confided to an artist, who painted before the terrified Pagans the last judgment and the torments of hell. But especially the belief, which was sincerely held, and sedulously inculcated, that temporal success followed in the train of Christianity, and that every pestilence, famine, or military disaster was the penalty of idolatry, heresy, sacrilege, or vice, assisted the movement. The ? Greg. Turon. ii. 29, * This was the first step towards the conversion of the Bulgarians,— Milman’s Latin Christianity, vol. iii. p. 249, 192 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. theory was so wide, that it met every variety of fortune, and being taught with consummate skill, to barbarians who were totally destitute of all critical power, and strongly predisposed to accept it, it proved extremely efficacious, and hope, fear, gratitude, and remorse drew multitudes into the Church. The transition was softened by the substitution of Christian ceremonies and saints for the festivals and the divinities of the Pagans! Besides the professed missionaries, the Christian captives zealously diffused their faith among their Pagan masters. When the chieftain had been converted, and the army had followed his profession, an elaborate monastic and ecclesiastical organisation grew up to consolidate the conquest, and re- pressive laws soon crushed all opposition to the faith. In these ways the victory of Christianity over the barbarian world was achieved. But that victory, though very great, was less decisive than might appear. A religion which professed to be Christianity, and which contained many of the ingredients of pure Christianity, had risen into the ascendant, but it had undergone a profound modification through the struggle. Religions, as well as worshippers, had been baptised. The festivals, images, and names of saints had been substituted for those of the idols, and the habits of thought and feeling of the ancient faith reappeared in new forms and a new language. The tendency to a material, idolatrous, and | polytheistic faith, which had long been encouraged by the monks, and which the heretics Jovinian, Vigilantius, and Aerius had vainly resisted, was fatally strengthened by the infusion of a barbarian element into the Church, by _ the general depression of intellect in Europe, and by the many accommodations that were made to facilitate con- * A remarkable collection of instances of this kind is given by Ozanam, Civilisation in the Fifth Century (Eng. trans.), vol. i. pp. 124-127. — FP nt a a ee eS FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 193 version. Though apparently defeated and crushed, the old gods still retained, under a new faith, no sue part of their influence over the world. To this tendency the leaders.of the Church made in general no resistance, though in another form they were deeply persuaded of the vitality of the old gods. Many curious and picturesque legends attest the popular belief that the old Roman and the old barbarian divinities, in their capacity of demons, were still waging an unrelenting war against the triumphant faith. A great Pope of the sixth century relates how a Jew, being once benighted on his journey, and finding no other shelter for the night, lay down to rest in an abandoned temple of Apollo. Shud- dering at the loneliness of the building, and fearing the demons who were said to haunt'it, he determined, though not a Christian, to protect himself by the sign of the eross, which he had often heard possessed a mighty power against spirits. To that sign he owed his safety. For at midnight the temple was filled with dark and threatening forms. The god Apollo was holding his court at his deserted shrine, and his attendant demons were re- counting the temptations they had devised against the Christians." A newly married Roman, when one day playing ball, took off his wedding-ring, which he found an impediment in the game, and he gaily put it on the finger of a statue of Venus, which was standing near. When he returned, the marble finger had bent so that it was im- possible to withdraw the ring, and that night the goddess appeared to him in a dream, and told him that she was 1 St. Gregory, Dial. iii. 7. The particular temptation the Jew heard dis- cussed was that of the bishop of the diocese, who, under the instigation of one of the demons, was rapidly falling in love with a nun, and had proceeded so far as jocosely to stroke her on the back. The Jew, having related the vision to the bishop, the latter reformed his manners, the Jew became a Christian, and the temple was turned into a church. 194 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. now his wedded wife, and that she would abide with him for ever.1 When the Irish missionary St. Gall was fish- ing one night upon a Swiss lake, near which he had planted a monastery, he heard strange voices sweeping over the lonely deep. The Spirit of the Water and the Spirit of the Mountains were consulting together how they could expel the intruder who had disturbed their ancient reign.” The details of the rapid propagation of Western mon- achism have been amply treated by many historians, and the causes of its success are sufficiently manifest. Some of the reasons I have assigned for the first spread of asceticism continued to operate, while others of a still more powerful kind had arisen. The rapid decomposition of the entire Roman Empire by continuous invasions of barbarians rendered the existence of an inviolable asylum and centre of peaceful labour a matter of transcendent im- portance, and the monastery as organised by St. Benedict soon combined the most heterogeneous elements of at- traction. It was at once eminently aristocratic and in- tensely democratic. The power and princely position of the abbot was coveted, and usually obtained, by members of the most illustrious families, while emancipated serfs or peasants, who had lost their all in the invasions, or were harassed by savage nobles, or had fled from military service, or desired to lead a more secure and easy life, found in the monastery an unfailing refuge. The isti- tution exercised all the influence of great wealth, ex- pended for the most part with great charity, while the monk himself was invested with the aureole of a sacred poverty. To ardent and philanthropic natures, the pro- fession opened boundless vistas of missionary, charitable, 1 This is mentioned by one of the English historians—I think by Mathew of Westminster. 2 See Milman’s Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 298. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 195 and civilising activity. To the superstitious it was the plain road to heaven. To the ambitious it was the portal to bishoprics, and, after the monk St. Gregory, not un- frequently to the Popedom. To the studious it offered the only opportunity then existing in the world of seeing many books and passing a life of study. To the timid and the retiring it afforded the most secure, and probably the least laborious, life a poor peasant could hope to find. Vast as were the multitudes that thronged the monas- teries, the means for their support were never wanting. The belief that gifts or legacies to a monastery opened the doors of heaven, was in a superstitious age sufficient to secure for the community an almost boundless wealth, which was still further increased by the skill and per- severance with which the monks tilled the waste lands, by the exemption of their domains from all taxation, and by the tranquillity which in the most turbulent ages they usually enjoyed. Si France, the Low Countries, and Ger- many they were pre-eminently agriculturists. Gigantic forests were felled, inhospitable marshes reclaimed, barren plains cultivated by their hands. The monastery often became the nucleus of a city. It was the centre of civi- lisation and industry, the symbol of moral power in an age of turbulence and war. It must be observed, however, that the beneficial in- fluence of the monastic system was necessarily transitional, and the subsequent corruption the normal and inevitable result of its constitution. Vast societies living in enforced celibacy, exercising an unbounded influence, and possessing enormous wealth, must necessarily have become hotbeds of corruption when the enthusiasm that had created them expired. The services they rendered as the centres of agriculture, the refuge of travellers, the sanctuaries in war, the counterpoise of the baronial castle, were no longer 196 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. required when the convulsions of invasion had ceased, and when civil society was definitely organised. And a similar observation may be extended even to their moral type. Thus, while it is undoubtedly true that the Benedictine monks, by making labour an essential ele- ment of their discipline, did very much to efface the stigma which slavery had affixed upon it, it is also true that when industry had passed out of its initial stage, the monastic theories of the sanctity of poverty, and the evil of wealth, were its most deadly opponents. The dog- matic condemnation by theologians of loans at interest, which are the basis of industrial enterprise, was the expres- sion of a far deeper antagonism of tendencies and ideals. In one important respect, the transition from the ere- mite to the monastic life involved not only a change of circumstances, but also a change of character. The habit of obedience, and the virtue of humility, assumed a posi- tion which they had never previously occupied. The conditions of the hermit life contributed to develope to a very high degree a spirit of independence and spiritual pride, which-was still further increased by a curious habit that existed in the Church of regarding each eminent hermit as the special model or professor of some parti- cular virtue, and making pilgrimages to him, in order to study this aspect of his character.’ These pilgrimages, combined with the usually solitary and self-sufficing life of the hermit, and also with the habit of measuring progress almost entirely by the suppression of a physical appetite, which it is quite possible wholly to destroy, very naturally produced an extreme arrogance.? But in * Cassian. Cenob. Instit. y.4. See, too, some striking instances of this in the life of St. Antony. . * This spiritual pride is well noticed by Neander, Ecclesiastical History (Bohn’s ed.), vol. iii. pp. 321-323. It appears in many traits scattered through the lives of their saints. I have already cited the instances of St. a” se ee ee ee ERO es ee ee ee FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 197 the highly organised and disciplined monasteries of the West, passive obedience and humility were the very first things that were inculcated. The monastery, beyond all other institutions, was the school for their exercise; and as the monk represented the highest moral ideal of the age, obedience and humility acquired a new value in the minds ofmen. Nearly all the feudal and other organisations that arose out of the chaos that followed the destruction of the Roman Empire were intimately related to the Church, not simply because the Church supplied in itself an admirable model of an organised body, but also because it had done much to educate men in habits of obedience. The spe- cial value of this education depended upon the peculiar circumstances of the time. The ancient civilisations, and especially that of Rome, had been by no means deficient in those habits, but it was in the midst of the dissolution of an old society, and of the ascendency of barbarians, who exaggerated to the highest degree their personal in- dependence, that the Church proposed to the reverence of mankind a life of passive obedience as the highest ideal of virtue. The habit of obedience was no new thing in the world, but the disposition of humility was pre-eminently and al- most exclusively a Christian virtue; and there has probably never been any sphere in which it has been so largely ‘and so successfully inculcated as in the monastery. The Antony and St. Macarius, and the visions telling them they were not the best of living people ; and also the case of: the hermit, who was deceived by a devil in the form of a woman, because he had been exalted by pride. Another hermit, being very holy, received pure white bread every day from heaven, but, being extravagantly elated, the bread got worse and worse till it became perfectly black. (Tillemont, tome x. pp. 27-28.) A certain Isidore affirmed that he had not been conscious of sin, even in thought, for forty years. (Socrates, iv. 23.) It was a saying of St. Antony, that a solitary man in the desert 1s free from three wars—of sight, speech, and hearing ; he has to combat only fornication. (Apotheymata Patrum.) 198 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, whole penitential discipline, the entire mode or tenor of the menastic life, was designed to tame every sentiment of pride, and to give humility a foremost place in the hier- archy of virtues. We have here one great source of the mollifying influence of Catholicism. The gentler virtues —benevolence and amiability—may, and in an advanced civilisation often do, subsist in natures that are completely devoid of genuine humility ; but on the other hand, it is scarcely possible for a nature to be pervaded by a deep sentiment of humility without this sentiment exercising a softening influence over the whole character. To trans- form a fierce warlike nature into a character of a gentler type, the first essential is to awaken this feeling. In the monasteries, the extinction of social and domestic feelings, the narrow corporate spirit, and, still more, the atrocious opinions that were prevalent concerning the cult of heresy, produced in many minds an extreme and most active ferocity; but the practice of charity, and the ideal of humility, never failed to exercise some softening in- fluence upon Christendom. But, however advantageous the temporary pre-eminence of this moral type may have been, it was obviously un- suited for a later stage of civilisation. Political liberty is almost impossible where the monastic system is supreme, not merely because the monasteries divert the energies of the nation from civic to ecclesiastical channels, but also because the monastic ideal is the very apotheosis of ser- vitude. Catholicism has been admirably fitted at once to mitigate and to perpetuate despotism. When men have learnt to reverence a life of passive, unreasoning obedience as the highest type of perfection, the enthusiasm and passion of freedom necessarily decline. In this repect there is an analogy between the monastic and the mili- tary spirit, both of which promote and glorify passive FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 199 obedience, and therefore prepare the minds of men for despotic rule; but on the whole, the monastic spirit is probably more hostile to freedom than the military spirit, for the obedience of the monk is based upon humility, while the obedience of the soldier coexists with pride. Now, a considerable measure of pride, or self-asser- tion, is an invariable characteristic of free communities. The ascendency which the monastic system gave to the virtue of humility has not continued. This virtue is indeed the crowning grace and beauty of the most perfect characters of the saintly type; but experience has shown that among common men humility is more apt to degene- rate into servility than pride into arrogance ; and modern moralists have appealed more successfully to the sense of dignity than to the opposite feeling. Two of the most Important steps of later moral history have consisted of the creation of a sentiment of pride as the parent and the guardian of many virtues. The first of these encroach- ments on the monastic spirit was chivalry, which called into being a proud and jealous military honour that has never since been extinguished. The second was the creation of that feeling of self-respect which is one of the most remarkable characteristics that distinguish Protes- tant from most Catholic populations, and which has proved among the former an invaluable moral agent, forming frank and independent natures, and checking every servile habit and all mean and degrading vice! The peculiar * ‘Pride, under such training [that of modern rationalistic philosophy], instead of running to waste, is turned to account, It gets anew name; it is called self-respect. . . . It is directed into the channel of industry, ru- gality, honesty, and obedience, and it becomes the very staple of the religion and morality held in honour in a day like our own. It becomes the safo- guard of chastity, the guarantee of veracity, in high and low; it is the very household god of the Protestant, inspiring neatness and decency in the ser- vant-girl, propriety of carriage and refined manners in her mistress, upright- 47 200 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. vigour with which it has been developed in Protestant countries may be attributed to the suppression of monastic institutions and habits; to the stigma Protestantism has attached to mendicancy, which Catholicism has usually slorified and encouraged; and lastly, to the action of free political institutions, which have taken deepest root where the primciples of the Reformation have been accepted. The relation of the monasteries to the intellectual virtues, which we have next to examine, opens out a wide field of discussion; and in order to appreciate it, it will be necessary to revert briefly to a somewhat earlier stage of - ecclesiastical history. And in the first place, it may be observed, that the phrase intellectual virtue, which is often used in a metaphorical sense, is susceptible of a strictly literal interpretation. If a sincere and active desire for truth be a moral duty, the discipline and the dispositions that are plainly involved in every honest search fall rigidly within the range of ethics. To love truth sincerely means to pursue it with an earnest, conscientious, unflageing zeal. It means to be prepared to follow the light of evidence even to the most unwelcome conclusions; to labour earnestly to emancipate the mind from early prejudices ; to resist the current of the desires, and the refracting in- fluence of the passions; to proportion on all occasions conviction to evidence, and to be ready, if need be, to ness, manliness, and generosity in the head of the family... . It is the stimulating principle of providence, on the one hand, and of free expenditure on the other; of an honourable ambition’ and of elegant enjoyment.’—New- man, On University Education, Discourse ix. In the same lecture (which is, perhaps, the most beautiful of the many beautiful productions of its illus- trious author), Dr. Newman describes, with admirable eloquence, the manner in which modesty has supplanted humility in the modern type of excellence. It is scarcely necessary to say that the lecturer strongly disap- proves of the movement he describes. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 201 exchange the calm of assurance for all the suffering of a perplexed and disturbed mind. To do this is very diffi- cult and very painful; but it is clearly involved in the notion of earnest love of truth. If, then, any system stig- matises as criminal the state of doubt, denounces the ex- amination of some one class of arguments or facts, seeks to introduce the bias of the affections into the enquiries of the reason, or regards the honest conclusion of an up- right investigator as involving moral guilt, that system is subversive of intellectual honesty. Among the ancients, although the methods of enquiry were often very faulty, and generalisations very hasty, a respect for the honest search after truth was widely dif- fused.* There were, as we have already seen, instances in which certain religious practices which were recarded as attestations of loyalty, or as necessary to propitiate the gods in favour of the State, were enforced by law; there were even a few instances of philosophies, which were be- lieved to lead directly to immoral results or social convul- sions, being suppressed ; but as a general rule, speculation was untrammelled, the notion of there being any necessary guilt in erroneous opinion was unknown, and the boldest enquirers were regarded with honour and admiration. The religious theory of Paganism had in this respect some influence. Polytheism, with many faults, had three great merits. It was eminently poetical, eminently pa- triotic, and eminently tolerant. - The conception of a vast hierarchy of beings more glorious than, but not wholly unlike, men, presiding over all the developments of nature, and filling the universe with their deeds, supplied the chief nutriment of the Greek imagination. The national * Thus, ‘indagatio veri’ was reckoned among the leading virtues, and,the high place given to cogia and ‘prudentia’ in ethical writings, preserved the notion of the moral duties connected with the discipline of the intellect. 202 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. religions, interweaving religious ceremonies and associa- tions with all civic life, concentrated and intensified the sentiment of patriotism, and the notion of many distinct groups of gods led men to tolerate many forms of worship and great variety of creeds. In that colossal amalgam of nations of which Rome became the metropolis, in- tellectual liberty still further advanced; the vast variety of philosophies and beliefs expatiated unmolested; the search for truth was regarded as an important element of virtue, and the relentless and most sceptical criticism which Socrates had applied in turn to all the fundamental propositions of popular belief remained as an example to his successors. We have already seen that one leading cause of the rapid progress of the Church was, that its teachers en- forced their distinctive tenets as absolutely essential to salvation, and thus assailed at a great advantage the supporters of all other creeds oe did. not claim this exclusive authority. We have seen, too, that in an age of great and growing credulity they had been conspicuous for their assertion of the duty of absolute, unqualified, and unquestioning belief. The notion of the guilt, both of error and of doubt, grew rapidly, and, being soon re- garded as a fundamental tenet, it determined the whole course and policy of the Church. And here, I think, it will not be unadvisable to pause for a moment, and endeavour to ascertain what miscon- ceived truth lay at the root of this fatal tenet. Considered abstractedly and by the light of nature, it is as unmeaning to speak of the immorality of an intellectual mistake as it would be to talk of the colour of a sound. If a man has sincerely persuaded himself that it is possible for parallel lines to meet, or for two straight lines to enclose a space, we pronounce his judgment to be absurd ; but it is free from all tincture of immorality. And if, instead of FROM CONSTANTINE TO GHARLEMAGNE, 203 failing to appreciate a demonstrable truth, his error con- sisted in a false estimate of the conflicting arguments of an historical problem, this mistake—assuming always that the enquiry was an upright one—is still simply external to the sphere of morals. It is possible that his conclusion, by weakening some barrier against vice, may produce vicious consequences, like those which might ensue from some ill-advised modification of the police force; but it in no degree follows from this that the judgment is in itself criminal. If a student applies himself with the same dispositions to Roman and Jewish histories, the mistakes he may make in the latter are no more immoral than those which he may make in the former. There are, however, two cases in which an intellectual error may be justly said to involve, or at least to repre- sent, guilt. In the first place, error very frequently springs from the partial or complete absence of that mental disposition which is implied in a real love of truth. Hypocrites, or men who through interested motives pro- fess opinions which they do not really believe, are pro- bably rarer than is usually supposed; but it would be difficult to over-estimate the number of those whose genuine convictions are due to the unresisted bias of their interests. By the term interests, I mean not only material well-being, but also all those mental luxuries, all those grooves or channels for thought, which it is easy and pleasing to follow, and painful and difficult to abandon. Such are the love of ease, the love of certainty, the love of system, the bias of the passions, the associations of the imagination, as well as the coarser influences of social position, domestic happiness, professional interest, party feeling, or ambition. In most men, the love of truth is so languid, and their reluctance to encounter mental suffering is so great, that they yield their judgments with- out an effort to the current, withdraw their minds from 204 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, all opinions or arguments opposed to their own, and thus speedily convince themselves of the truth of what they wish to believe. He who really loves truth, is bound at least to endeavour to resist these distorting influences, and in so far, as his opinions are the result of his not having done so, in so far they represent a moral failing. In the next place, it must be observed that every moral disposition brings with it an intellectual bias which exer- cises a great and often a controlling and decisive influence even upon the most earnest enquirer. If we know the character or disposition of a man, we can usually predict with tolerable accuracy many of his opinions. We can tell to what side of politics, to what canons of taste, to what theory of morals he will naturally incline. Stern, heroic, and haughty natures tend to systems in which these qualities occupy the foremost position in the moral type, while gentle natures will as naturally lean towards systems in which the amiable virtues are supreme. Im- pelled by a species of moral gravitation, the enquirer will glide insensibly to the system which is congruous to his disposition, and intellectual difficulties will seldom arrest him. He can have observed human nature with but little fruit who has not remarked how constant is this connection, and how very rarely men change funda- mentally the principles they had deliberately adopted on religious, moral, or even political questions, without the change being preceded, accompanied, or very speedily followed, by a serious modification of character. So, too, a vicious and depraved nature, or a nature which is hard, narrow, and unsympathetic, will tend, much less by caleu- lation or indolence than by natural affinity, to low and degrading views of human nature. Those who have never felt the higher ‘emotions will scarcely appreciate them. The materials with which the intellect builds are ra eee ye ee es ye | ee 4 : ; FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 205 often derived from the heart, and a moral disease is there- fore not unfrequently at the root of an erroneous jude- ment. Of these two truths the first cannot, I think, be said to have had any influence in the formation of the theological notion of the guilt of error. An elaborate process of mental discipline, with a view to strengthening the critical powers of the mind, is utterly remote from the spirit of theology ; and this is one of the great reasons why the growth of an inductive and scientific spirit is invariably hostile to theological interests. To raise the requisite standard of proof, to inculcate hardness and slowness of belief, is the first task of the inductive rea- soner. He looks with great favour upon the condition of a suspended judgment; he encourages men rather to prolong than to abridge it; he regards the tendency of the human mind to rapid and premature generalisations as one of its most fatal vices; he desires especially that that which is believed should not be so cherished that the mind should be indisposed to admit doubt, or, on the appearance of new arguments, to revise with impartiality its-conclusions. Nearly all the greatest intellectual achieve- ments of the last three centuries have been preceded and prepared by the growth of scepticism. The historic scepticism which Vico, Beaufort, Pouilly, and Voltaire in the last century, and Niebuhr and Lewes in the present century, applied to ancient history, lies at: the root of all the great modern efforts to reconstruct the history of mankind. The splendid discoveries of physical science would have been impossible but for the scientific scep- ticism of the school of Bacon, which dissipated the old theories of the universe, and led men to demand a seve- rity of proof altogether unknown to the ancients. The philosophic scepticism of Hume and Kant has given the 206 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. greatest modern impulse to metaphysics and ethics, Ex- actly in proportion, therefore, as men are educated in the inductive school, they are alienated from those theological systems which represent a condition of doubt as sinful, seek to govern the reason by the interests and the affec- tions, and make it a main object to destroy the impar- tiality of the judgment. But although it is difficult to look upon Catholicism in any other light than as the most deadly enemy of the scientific spirit, it has always cordially recognised the most important truth, that character in a very great measure determines opinions. To cultivate the moral type that is most congenial to the opinions it desires to recommend, has always been its effort, and the conviction that a de- viation from that type has often been the predisposing cause of intellectual heresy, had doubtless a large share in the first persuasion of the guilt of error. But priestly and other influences soon conspired to enlarge this doc- trme. A crowd of speculative, historical, and adminis- trative propositions were asserted as essential to salvation, and all who rejected them were wholly external to the bond of Christian sympathy. If, indeed, we put aside the pure teaching of the Chris- tian founders, and consider the actual history of the Church since Constantine, we shall find no justification for the popular theory, that beneath its influence the narrow spirit of patriotism faded into a wide and cosmopolitan philan- thropy. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 211 too minute for the new intolerance to embitter. The question of the proper time of celebrating Easter was believed to involve the issue of salvation or damnation ;} and when, long after, in the fourteenth century, the question of the nature of the light at the transfiguration was discussed at Constantinople, those who refused to admit that that light was uncreated, were deprived of the honours of Christian burial.” Together with these legislative and _ ecclesiastical measures, a literature arose surpassing in its mendacious ferocity any other the world had known. The polemical - writers habitually painted as demons those who diverged from the orthodox belief, gloated with a vindictive piety over the sufferings of the heretic upon earth, as upon a Divine punishment, and sometimes, with an almost superhuman malice, passing in imagination beyond the threshold of the grave, exulted in no ambiguous terms on the tortures which they believed to be reserved for him for ever.. A few men, such as Synesius, Basil, or Salvian, might still find some excellence in Pagans or heretics, but their candour was altogether exceptional ; and he who will compare the beautiful pictures the Greek poets gave of their Trojan adversaries, or the Roman historians of the enemies of their country, with those which ecclesiastical writers, for many centuries, almost invariably gave of all who were opposed to their Church, 1 This appears from the whole history of the controversy ; but the prevail- ing feeling is, I think, expressed with peculiar vividness in the following passage—‘ Hadmer says (following the words of Bede) in Colman’s times there wasa sharp controversy about the observing of Easter, and other rules of life for churchmen ; therefore, this question deservedly excited the minds and feeling of many people, fearing lest, perhaps, after having received the name of Christians, they should run, or had run in vain,’—King’s Hist. of the Church of Ireland, book ii. ch. vi. 2 Gibbon, chap. 1xiil. 212 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, may easily estimate the extent to which cosmopolitan sympathy had retrograded. 7 At the period, however, when the Western monasteries began to discharge their intellectual functions, the supre- macy of Catholicism was nearly established, and polemical ardour had begun to wane. The literary zeal of the Church took other forms, but all were deeply tinged by the monastic spirit. It is difficult or impossible to conceive what would have been the intellectual future of the world had Catholicism never arisen—what princi- ples or impulses would have guided the course of the human mind, or what new institutions would have been ° created for its culture. Under the influence of Catho- licism, the monastery became the one sphere of intel- lectual labour, and it continued during many centuries to occupy that position. Without entering into anything resembling a literary history, which would be foreign to the objects of the present work, I shall endeavour briefly to estimate the manner in which it discharged its functions. The first idea that is naturally suggested by the men- tion of the intellectual services of monasteries is the con- servation of the writings of the Pagans. I have already observed, that among the early Christians there was a marked difference on the subject of their writings. The school which was represented by Tertullian regarded them with abhorrence, while the Platonists, who were represented by Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, not merely recognised with great cordiality their beauties, but even imagined that they could detect in them both the traces of an original Diyine inspiration, and plagiarisms from the Jewish writings. While avoiding, for the most part, these extremes, St. Aucustine, the great organiser of Western Christianity, treats the Pagan FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 213 writings with appreciative respect. He had himself ascribed his first conversion from a course of vice to the ‘Hortensius’ of Cicero, and his works are full of discrimi- nating, and often very beautiful applications, of the old Roman literature. The attempt of Julian to prevent the Christians from teaching the classics, and the extreme resentment which that attempt elicited, show how highly the Christian leaders of that period valued this form of education; and it was naturally the more cherished on account of the contest. The influence of Neoplatonism, the baptism of multitudes of nominal Christians after Constantine, and the decline of zeal which necessarily accompanied prosperity, had all in different ways the same tendency. In Synesius we have the curious phenomenon of a bishop who, not content with proclaiming himself the admiring friend of the Pagan Hypatia, openly declared his complete disbelief in the resurrection of the body, and his firm adhesion to the Platonic doctrine of the pre-existence of souls! Had the ecclesiastical theory prevailed which gave such latitude even to the leaders of the Church, the course of Christianity would have been very different. A reactionary spirit, however, arose at Rome. The doctrine of exclusive salvation supplied its intellectual basis; the political and organising genius of the Roman ecclesiastics impelled them to reduce belief into a rigid form ; the genius of St. Gregory guided the movement,” and a series of 1 An interesting sketch of this very interesting prelate has, lately been written by M. Druon, Etude sur la Vie et les Eiivres de Synésius (Paris, 1859). * Tradition has pronounced Gregory the Great to have been the destroyer of the Palatine library, and to have .been especially zealous in burning the writings of Livy, because they described the achievements of the Pagan gods. For these charges, however (which I am sorry to find repeated by so eminent a writer as Dr. Draper), there is no real evidence, for they are not found in any writer earlier than the twelfth century. (See Bayle, Dict. art. Greg.) The extreme contempt of Gregory for Pagan literature is, 214 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. historical events, of which the ecclesiastical and political se- paration of the Western empire from the speculative Greeks, and the invasion and conversion of the barbarians, were the most important, definitely established the ascendency of the Catholic type. In the convulsions that followed the barbarian invasions, intellectual energy of a secular kind almost absolutely ceased. A parting gleam issued, indeed, in the sixth century, from the Court of Theodorie, at Ravenna, which was adorned by the genius of Boéthius, and the talent of Cassiodorus and Symmachus; but after this time, for a long period, literature consisted almost exclusively of sermons. and lives of saints, which were composed in the monasteries.| Gregory of Tours was succeeded as an annalist by the still feebler Fredegarius, and there was then a long and absolute blank. A few outlying countries showed some faint animation. St. Leander and St. Isidore planted at Seville a school, which flourished in the seventh century, and the distant monas- teries of Ireland continued somewhat later to be the however, sufficiently manifested in his famous and very curious letter to Desiderius, Bishop of Vienne, rebuking him for having taught certain per- sons Pagan literature, and thus mingling ‘the praises of J upiter with the praises of Christ ;’ doing what would be impious even for a religious layman, ‘ polluting the mind with the blasphemous praises of the wicked’ Some curious evidence of the feelings of the Christians of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, about Pagan literature, is given in Guinguené, Hist. littéraire del Itahe, tome i. p. 29-31, and some legends of a later period are candidly related by one of the most enthusiastic English advocates of the Middle Ages. (Maitland, Dark Ages.) * Probably the best account of the intellectual history of these times is still to be found in the admirable introductory chapters with which the Benedictines prefaced each century of their Hist, littératre de la France. The Benedictines think (with Hallam) that the eighth century was, on the whole, the darkest on the continent, though England attained its lowest point somewhat later. Of the great protectors of learning Theodoric was unable to write (see Guinguené, tome i. p. 81), and Charlemagne (Eginhard) only began to learn when advanced in life, and was never quite able to master the accomplishment. Alfred, however, was distinguished in lite- rature. Vt ems Ey oe ay ea FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 216 receptacles of learning; but the rest of Europe sank into an almost absolute torpor, till the rationalism of Abelard, and the events that followed the crusade, began the revival of learning. The principal service which Catholicism ren- dered during this period to Pagan literature was probably the perpetuation of Latin asa sacred language. The com- plete absence of all curiosity about that literature is shown by the fact that Greek was suffered to become almost abso- lutely extinct, though there was no time when the Western nations had not some relations with the Greek empire, or when pilgrimages to the Holy Land altogether ceased. The study of the Latin classics was for the most part posi- tively discouraged. The writers, it was believed, were burning in hell; the monks were too inflated with their imaginary knowledge to regard with any respect a Pagan writer, and periodical panics about the approaching ter- mination of the world continually checked any desire for secular learning. There existed a custom among some monks, when they were under the discipline of silence, and desired to ask for Virgil or Horace, or any other Gentile work, to indicate their wish by scratching their ears like a dog, to which animal it was thought the Pagans might be reasonably compared.? The monasteries * The belief that the world was just about to end was, as is well known, very general among the early Christians, and greatly affected their lives. It appears in the New Testament, and very clearly in the epistle ascribed to Barnabas in the first century. The persecutions of the second and third centuries revived it, and both Tertullian and Cyprian (in Demetrianum) strongly assert it. With the triumph of Christianity the apprehension for a time subsided; but it reappeared with great force when the dissolution of the empire was manifestly impending, when it was accomplished, and in the prolonged anarchy and suffering that ensued. Gregory of Tours, writing in the latter part of the sixth century, speaks of it as very prevalent (Pro- logue to the First Book) ; and St. Gregory the Great, about the same time, constantly expresses it. The panic that filled Europe at the end of tha tenth century has been often described. * Maitland’s Dark Ages, p. 403. 48 216 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. contained, it is said, during some time, the only libraries in Europe, and were therefore the sole receptacles of the Pagan manuscripts; but we cannot infer from this, that if the monasteries had not existed, similar libraries would not have been called into being in their place. To the occasional industry of the monks, in copying the works of antiquity, we must oppose the industry they displayed, though chiefly at a somewhat later period, in scraping the ancient parchments, in order that, having obliterated the writing of the Pagans, they might cover them with their own legends. There are some aspects, however, in which the mo- nastic period of literature appears eminently beautiful. The fretfulness and impatience and extreme tension of modern literary life, the many anxieties that paralyse, and the feverish craving for applause that perverts, so many noble intellects, were then unknown. Severed from all the cares of active life, in the deep calm of the monas- tery, where the turmoil of the outer world could never come, the monkish scholar pursued his studies in a spirit which has now almost faded from the world. No doubt had ever disturbed his mind. To him the problem of the universe seemed solved. Expatiating for ever with unfaltering faith upon the unseen world, he had learnt to live for it alone. His hopes were not fixed upon human | greatness or fame, but upon the pardon of his sins, and the rewards of a happier world. A crowd of quaint and often beautiful legends illustrate the deep union that sub- sisted between literature and religion. It is related of * This passion for scraping MSS. became common, according to Mont- faucon, after the twelfth century. (Maitland, p. 40.) According to Hallam, however (Middle Ages, ch, ix. part i.), it must have begun earlier, being chiefly caused by the cessation or great diminution of the import of Egyp- tian papyrus, which was a consequence of the capture of Alexandria by the Saracens, early in the seventh century. aes Pere 1 ie FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE 217 Cxdmon, the first great poet of the Anglo-Saxons, that he found in the secular life no vent for his hidden genius. When the warriors assembled at their banquets, sang in turn the praises of war or beauty, as the instrument passed to him, he rose and went out with a sad heart, for he alone was unable to weave his thoughts in verse. Wearied and desponding he lay down to rest, when a figure appeared to him in his dream and commanded him to sing the Creation of the World. A transport of religious fervour thrilled his brain, his imprisoned intellect was unlocked, and he soon became the foremost poet of his land} A Spanish boy having long tried in vain to master his task, and driven to despair by the severity of his teacher, ran away from his father’s home. Tired with wandering, and full of anxious thoughts, he sat down to rest by the margin of a well, when his eye was caught by the deep furrow in the stone. He asked a girl who was drawing water to explain it, and she told him that it had been worn by the constant attrition of the rope. The poor boy, who was already full of remorse for what he had done, recognised in the reply a Divine intimation. < If, he thought, ‘by daily use the soft rope could thus pene- trate the hard stone, surely a long perseverance could overcome the dullness of my brain. He returned to _ his father’s house; he laboured with redoubled earnest- ness, and he lived to be the great St. Isidore of Spain.? A monk who had led a vicious life wag saved, it is said, from hell, because it was found that his sins, though very numerous, were just outnumbered by the letters of a ponderous and devout book he had written.2 The Holy 1 Bede, H. E£. iv. 24. | * Mariana De Rebus Hispania, vi. 7. Mariana says the stone was in his time preserved as a relic. * Odericus Vitalis, quoted by Maitland (Dark Ages, pp. 268-269). The monk was restored to life that he might have an opportunity of reformation. 218 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. Spirit, in the shape of a dove, had been seen to inspire St. Gregory; and the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas and of several other theologians, had been expressly ap- plauded by Christ or by his saints. When, twenty years after death, the tomb of a certain monkish writer was opened, it was found that, although the remainder of the body had crumbled into dust, the hand that had held the pen remained flexible and undecayed.! A young and nameless scholar was once buried near a convent at Bonn. The night after his funeral, a nun whose cell overlooked the cemetery was awakened by a brilliant light that filled the room. She started up, imagining that the day had dawned, but on looking out she found that it was still night, though a dazzling splendour was around. A female form of matchless loveliness was bending over the scholar’s grave. The effluence of her beauty filled the air with light, and she clasped to her heart a snow-white dove that rose to meet her from the tomb. It was the Mother of God come to receive the soul of the martyred scholar ; ‘ for scholars too,’ adds the old chronicler, ‘are martyrs if they live in purity and labour with courage.’? But legends of this kind, though not without a very real beauty, must not blind us to the fact that the period | : of Catholic ascendency was on the whole one of the most deplorable in the history of the human mind. The energies of Christendom were diverted from all useful and progressive studies, and were wholly expended on theological disquisitions. A crowd of superstitions, attri- The escape was a narrow.one, for there was only one letter against which no sin could be adduced—a remarkable instance of the advantages of a diffuse style. | 1 Digby, Mores Catholici, book x. p. 246. Mathew of Westminster tells of a certain king who was very charitable, and whose right hand (which had assuaged many sorrows) remained undecayed after death (A.D. 644). * See Hauréau, Hist, de la Philosophie scolastique, tome i. pp. 24-25. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, \\v buted to infallible wisdom, barred the path of knowledg@ and the charge of magic, or the charge of heresy, crushed every bold enquiry in the sphere of physical nature or of opinions. Above all, the conditions of true enquiry had been cursed by the Church. A blind unquestioning cre- dulity was inculcated as the first of duties, and the habit of doubt, the impartiality of a suspended judgment, the desire to hear both sides of a disputed question, and to emancipate the judgment from unreasoning prejudice, were all in consequence condemned. ‘The belief in the guilt of error and doubt became universal, and that belief may be confidently pronounced to be the most pernicious superstition that has ever been accredited among man- kind. Mistaken facts are rectified by enquiry. Mistaken methods of research, though far more inveterate, are gra- dually altered ; but the spirit that shrinks from enquiry as sinful, and deems a state of doubt a state of cuilt, is the most enduring disease that can afflict the mind of man. Not till the education of Europe passed from the monasteries to the universities, not till Mahommedan science, and classical freethought, and industrial inde- pendence broke the sceptre of the Church, did the intel- lectual revival of Europe begin. { am aware that so strong a statement of the intellec- tual darkness of the middle ages is likely to encounter opposition from many quarters. The blindness which the philosophers of the eighteenth century manifested to their better side has produced a reaction which has led many to an opposite, and, I believe, far more erroneous extreme. Some have become eulogists of the period through love of its distinctive theological doctrines, and others through archeological enthusiasm, while a very pretentious and dogmatic, but I think sometimes super- ficial, school of writers who loudly boast themselves the 220 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. regenerators of history, and treat with supreme contempt all the varieties of theological opinion, are accustomed, partly through a very shallow historical optimism which scarcely admits the possibility of retrogression, and partly through sympathy with the despotic character of Catho- licism, to extol the medizeval society in the most extra- vagant terms. Without entering into a lengthy ex- amination of this subject, I may be permitted to indicate shortly two or three fallacies which are continually dis- played in their appreciations. It is an undoubted truth that, for a considerable period, almost all the knowledge of Europe was included in the monasteries, and from this it is continually inferred that, had these institutions not existed, knowledge would have been absolutely extinguished. But such a conclusion I conceive to be altogether untrue. During the period of the Pagan empire, intellectual life had been diffused over a vast portion of the globe. Egypt and Asia Minor had become great centres of civilisation. Greece was still a land of learning. Spain, Gaul, and even Britain! were full of libraries and teachers. The schools of Narbonne, Arles, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lyons, Marseilles, Poitiers, and Tréves were already famous. The Christian em- peror Gratian, in A.D. 376, carried out in Gaul a system similar to that which had already, under the Antonines, been pursued in Italy, ordaining that teachers should be supported by the State in every leading city.? To sup- pose that Latin literature, having been so widely diffused, could have totally perished, or that all interest in it could have permanently ceased, even under the extremely unfavourable circumstances that followed the downfall of 1 On the progress of Roman civilisation in Britain, see Tacitus, Agri- cola, xxi. * See the Benedictine Hest. littér. de la France, tome i. part ii. p. 9. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 221 the Roman Empire and the Mahommedan invasions, is, I conceive, absurd. If Catholicism had never existed, the human mind would have sought other spheres for its de- velopment, and at least a part of the treasures of antiquity would have been preserved in other ways. The monas- teries, as corporations of peaceful men protected from the incursions of the barbarians, became very naturally the reservoirs to which the streams of literature flowed; but much of what they are represented as creating, they had in reality only attracted. The inviolable sanctity which they secured rendered them invaluable receptacles of an- cient learning in a period of anarchy and perpetual war, and the industry of the monks in transcribing probably more than counterbalanced their industry in effacing the classical writings. The ecclesiastical unity of Christendom was also of extreme importance in rendering possible a general interchange of ideas. Whether these services out- weighed the intellectual evils resulting from the complete diversion of the human mind from all secular learning, and from the persistent inculcation, as a matter of duty, of that habit of abject credulity which it is the first task of the intellectual reformer to eradicate, may be rea- sonably doubted. It is not unfrequent, again, to hear the preceding fal- lacy stated in a somewhat different form, We are re- minded that almost all the men of genius during several centuries were great theologians, and we are asked to conceive the more than Egyptian darkness that would have prevailed had the Catholic theology which produced them not existed. This judgment. resembles that of the prisoner in a famous passage of Cicero, who, having spent his entire life ina dark dungeon, and knowing the light of day only from a single ray which passed through a 222 HISTORY OF ‘EUROPEAN MORALS. fissure in the wall, inferred that if the wall were removed, as the fissure would no longer exist, all light would be : excluded. Medizval Catholicism discouraged and sup- pressed in every way secular studies, while it conferred a monopoly of wealth and honour and power upon the distinguished theologian. Very naturally, therefore, it attracted into the path of theology the genius that would have existed without it, but would have been displayed in other forms. It is not to be inferred, however, from this, that me- diseval Catholicism had not, in the sphere of intellect, any real creative power. A great moral or religious enthu- siasm always evokes a certain amount of genius that would not otherwise have existed, or at least been dis- played, and the monasteries were peculiarly fitted to develope certain casts of mind, which in no other sphere could have so perfectly expanded. The great writings of © St. Thomas Aquinas! and his followers, and, im more modern times, the massive and conscientious erudition of the Benedictines, will always make certain periods of the monastic history venerable to the scholar. But, when we remember that during many centuries nearly every one possessing any literary taste or talents became a monk, when we recollect that these monks were familiar with the language, and might easily have been familiar with the noble literature of ancient Rome, and when we also consider the mode of their life, which would seem, from its absence of care, and from the very monotony of its routine, peculiarly calculated to impel them to study, we can hardly fail to wonder how very little of any real * A biographer of St. Thomas Aquinas modestly observes: ‘ L’opinion généralement répandue parmi les théologiens c’est que la Somme de Théologie de St.-Thomas est non-seulement son chef-d’ceuvre mais aussi celui de esprit humain’ (!!).—Carle, Hist. de St.- Thomas d’ Aquin, p. 140. TS a ke FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 223 value they added, for so long a period, to the know- ledge of mankind. It is indeed a remarkable fact, that even in the ages when the Catholic ascendency was most perfect, the greatest achievements were either opposed to, or simply external to, ecclesiastical influence. Roger Bacon having been a monk, is frequently spoken of as acreature of Catholic teaching. But there never was a more striking instance of the force of a great genius in resisting the tendencies of his age. At a time when physical science was continually neglected, dis- couraged, or condemned, at a time when all the oreat prizes of the world were open to men who pursued avery different course, Bacon applied himself with transcendent genius to the study of nature. Fourteen years of his life were spent in prison, and when he died, his name was blasted as a magician. The medieval laboratories were chiefly due to the pursuit of alchemy, or to Mo- hammedan encouragement. The inventions of the mariner’s compass, of gunpowder, and of rag paper were all, indeed, of extreme importance; but they were ereat inventions only from their effects, and in no degree from the genius they implied. They were all unconnected with the prevailing intellectual tendencies or teachings, and might have equally appeared in any age and under any religion. The monasteries cultivated formal logic to great perfection. They produced many patient and 1a- borious, though, for the most part, wholly uncritical scholars, and many philosophers who, having assumed their premises with unfaltering faith, reasoned from them with admirable subtlety; but they taught men to regard the sacrifice of secular learning as a noble thing ; they impressed upon them a theory of the habitual govern- ment of the universe, which is absolutely untrue, and they diffused, wherever their influence extended, habits 224 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. of credulity and intolerance that are the most —_ poisons to the human mind. It is, again, very frequently observed among the more philosophic eulogists of the medieval peniaas that al- though the Catholic Church is a trammel and an obstacle to the progress of civilised nations, although it would be scarcely possible to exaggerate the misery her perse- cuting spirit caused, when the human mind had out- . stripped her teaching; yet there was a time when she was greatly in advance of the age, and the complete and absolute ascendency she then exercised was intellectually eminently beneficial. That there is much truth in this view, | have myself repeatedly maintained. But when men proceed to isolate the former period, and to make it the theme of unqualified eulogy, they fall, I think, into » a grave error. The evils that sprang from the later period of Catholic ascendency were not an accident or a perversion, but a normal and necessary consequence of the previous despotism. The principles which were imposed on the medieval world, and which were the conditions of so much of its distinctive excellence, were of such a nature that they claimed to be final, and could not possibly be discarded without a struggle and a con- vulsion. We must estimate the influence of these principles considered as a whole, and during the entire period of their operation. There are some poisons which, before they kill men, allay pain and diffuse a soothing sensation through the frame. We may recognise the hour of enjoyment they procure, but we must not sepa- rate it from the price at which it was purchased. The extremely unfavourable influence the Catholic Church long exercised upon intellectual development had important moral consequences. Although moral progress does not necessarily depend upon intellectual FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 225 progress, it 1s materially affected by it, intellectual activity being the most important element in the growth of that great and complex organism which we call civili- sation. The medixval credulity had also a more direct moral influence in producing that indifference to truth, which is the most repulsive feature of so many Catho- lic writings. The very.large part that must be assigned to deliberate forgeries in the early apologetic literature of the Church we have already seen, and no impartial reader can, I think, investigate the innumerable srotesque and lying legends that were deliberately palmed upon mankind as undoubted facts, during the whole course of the middle ages, can follow the histories of the false decretals, and the discussions that were connected with them, or can observe the complete and absolute incapacity the polemical historians of Catholicism so frequently dis- play, of conceiving any good thing in the ranks of their opponents, and their systematic suppression of whatever can tell against their cause, without acknowledging how serious and how inveterate has been the evil. There have, no doubt, been many noble individual exceptions. Yet it is, I believe, difficult to exaggerate the extent to which this moral defect exists in most of the ancient and very much of the modern literature of Catholicism. It is this which makes it so unspeakably repulsive to all inde- pendent and impartial thinkers, and has led a great German historian! to declare, with much bitterness, that the phrase Christian veracity deserves to rank with the phrase Punic faith. But this absolute indifference to truth whenever falsehood could subserve the interests of the Church, is perfectly explicable, and was found in mul- titudes, who, in other respects, exhibited the noblest virtue. An age which has ceased to value impartiality of 1 Herder. 226 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, judgment will soon cease to value accuracy of statement, and when credulity is inculeated as a virtue, falsehood will not long be stigmatised as a vice. When, too, men are firmly convinced that salvation can only be found within their Church, and that their Church can absolve from all guilt, they will speedily conclude that nothing can possibly be wrong which is beneficial to it. They ex- change the love of truth for what they call the love of the truth. They regard morals as derived from and sub- ordinate to theology, and they regulate all their state- ments, not by the standard of veracity, but by the interests of their creed. Another important moral consequence of the monastic system was the great importance that was given to the pecuniary compensations for crime. It had been at first one of the broad distinctions between Paganism and Christianity, that while the rites of the former were for the most part unconnected with moral dispositions, Chris- tianity made purity of heart an essential element of all its worship. Among the Pagans a few faint efforts had, it is true, been made in this direction. An old precept or law, which is referred to by Cicero, and which was strongly reiterated by Apollonius of Tyana, and the Pythagoreans, declared that ‘no impious man should dare to appease the anger of the divinities by his gifts’! and oracles are said to have more than once proclaimed that the hecatombs of noble oxen with gilded horns that were offered up ostentatiously by the rich, were less pleasing to the gods than the wreaths of flowers and the modest and reverential worship of the poor.? In general, how- ever, in the Pagan world, the service of the temple had ? ‘Impius ne audeto placare donis iram Deorum,’—Cicero, De Leg. ii. 9. See, too, Philost. in Apoll. Tyan. i. 11. * There are three or four instances of this related by Porphyry, Adstin. Carnis, lib. ii. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 227, little or no connection with morals, and the change which Christianity effected in this respect was one of its most important benefits to mankind. It was natural, however, and perhaps inevitable, that in the course of time, and under the action of very various causes, the old Pagan sentiment should revive, and even with an in- creased intensity. In no respect had the Christians been more nobly distinguished than by their charity. It was not surprising that the fathers, while exerting all their eloquence to stimulate this charity—especially during the calamities that accompanied the dissolution of the empire —should have dilated in extremely strong terms upon the spiritual benefits the donor would receive for his gift. It is also not surprising that this selfish calculcation should oradually, and among hard and ignorant men, have absorbed all other motives. A curious legend, which is related by a writer of the seventh century, illustrates the kind of feeling that had arisen. The Christian bishop Synesius succeeded in converting a Pagan named Eva- orius, who for a long time, however, felt doubts about the passage, ‘ He who giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.’ On his conversion, and in obedience to this verse, he gave Synesius three hundred pieces of gold to be distributed among the poor; but he exacted from the bishop, as being the representative of Christ, a promissory note, engaging that he should be repaid in the future world. When, many years later, Evagrius was on his deathbed, he com- manded his sons, when they buried him, to place the note in his hand, and to do so without informing Synesius. His dying injunction was observed, and three days afterwards he appeared to Synesius in a dream, told him that the debt had been paid, and ordered him to go to the tomb, where he would find a written receipt. Synesius did as he was commanded, and the grave being opened, the 228 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, promissory note was found in the hand of the dead man, with an endorsement declaring that the debt had been paid by Christ. The note, it is said, was long after pre- served as a relic in the church of Cyrene. The kind of feeling which this legend displays was soon turned with tenfold force into the channel of monastic life. A law of Constantine’accorded, and several later laws en- larged, the power of bequests to ecclesiastics. Ecclesiastical property was at the same time exonerated from the public burdens, and this measure not only directly assisted. its increase, but had also an important indirect influence ; for, when taxation was heavy, many laymen ceded the ownership of their estates to the monasteries, with a secret condition that they should as vassals receive the revenues unburdened by taxation, and subject only to a slight pay- ment to the monks as to their feudal lords.2, The monks were regarded as the trustees of the poor, and also as them- selves typical poor, and all the promises that applied to those who gave to the poor, applied, it was said, to the benefactors of the monasteries. The monastic chapel also contained the relics of saints or sacred images of mira- culous power, and throngs of worshippers were attracted by the miracles, and desired to place themselves under the protection, of the saint. It is no exaggeration to say, that to give money to the priests was for several centuries * Moschus, Pratum Spirituale (Rosweyde), cap. cxcy. M. Wallon quotes from the Life of St.-Jean VAuménier an even stranger event which happened to St. Peter Telonearius. ‘Pour repousser les importunités des pauvres, il leur jetait des pierres. Un jour, n’en trouvant pas sous la main, il leur jeta un pain a la téte. Il tomba malade et eut une vision. Ses mérites étaient comptés; d’un cété étaient tous ses crimes, de l’autre ce pain jeté comme une insulte aux pauvres et accepté comme une aumdne par Jésus-Christ.’— Mist, de l’ Esclavage, tome iii. p. 897. I may mention here that the ancient Gauls were said to have been accustomed to lend money on the condition of its being repaid by the lender in the next life. (Val. Maximus, lib. ii. cap. vi. § 10.) * Muratori, Antich. Italiane, diss. 1xvii. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 229 the first article of the moral code. Political minds may have felt the importance of agerandising a pacific and industrious class in the centre of a disorganised society, and family affection may have predisposed many in favour of institutions which contained at least one member of most families; but in the overwhelming majority of cases the motive was simple superstition. In seasons of sickness, of danger, of sorrow, or of remorse, when- ever the fear or the conscience of the worshipper was awakened, he hastened to purchase with money the favour of a saint. Above all, in the hour of death, when the terrors of the future world loomed darkly upon his mind, he saw in a gift or lezacy to the monks a sure means of effacing the most monstrous crimes, and securing his ulti- mate happiness. A rich man was soon scarcely deemed a Christian, if he did not leave a portion of his property to the Church, and the charters of innumerable monas- teries in every part of Europe attest the vast tracts of - land that were ceded by will, to the monks. ‘for the benefit of the soul’ of the testator. It has been observed by a great historian, that we may trace three distinct phases in the history of the Church. In the first period religion was a question of morals; in the second period, which culminated in the fifth century, it had become a question of orthodoxy; in the third period, which dates from the seventh century, it was a question of munificence to monasteries.? The despotism * See on the causes of the wealth of the monasteries, two admirable dissertations by Muratori, Antich. Italiane, Ixvii. Ixviii.; Hallam’s Middle Ages, ch. vil. part i. * ‘Lors de l’établissement du christianisme la religion avoit essentielle- ment consisté dans l’enseignement moral; elle avoit exercé les cceurs et les ames par la recherche ‘de ce qui étoit vraiment beau, vraiment honnéte. Au tinquiéme siécle on lavoit surtout attachée & l’orthodoxie, au septiéme on Yavoit réduite & la bienfaisance envers les couvens,’—Sismondi, Hist. des Frangais, tome ii. p. 50. 30 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. cf Catholicism, and the ignorance that followed the bar- barian invasions, had repressed the struggles of heresy, and in the period of almost absolute darkness that con- tinued from the sixth to the twelfth century, the theolo- gical ideal of unquestioning faith and of perfect un- animity was all but realised in the West. All the energy that in previous ages had been expended in combating heresy was now expended in acquiting wealth. The people compounded for the most atrocious crimes by gifts to shrines of those saints whose intercession was supposed to be unfailing. The monks, partly by the natural cessation of their old enthusiasm, partly by the absence of any hostile criticism of their acts, and partly too by the very wealth they had acquired, sank into gross and general immorality. The great majority of them had probably at no time been either saints actuated by a strong religious motive, nor yet diseased and desponding minds seeking a refuge from the world; they had been simply peasants, of no extraordinary devotion or sensitiveness, who preferred an ensured subsistence, with no care, little labour, a much higher social position than they could otherwise acquire, and the certainty, as they believed, of going to heaven, to the laborious and precarious existence of the serf, relieved, indeed, by the privilege of marriage, but exposed to military service, to extreme hardships, and to constant oppression. Very naturally; when they could do so with impunity, they broke their vows of chastity. Very na- turally, too, they availed themselves to the full of the condition of affairs, to draw as much wealth as possible into their community.! The belief in the approaching end ? Mr. Hallam, speaking of the legends of the miracles of saints, says :, ‘It must not be supposed that these absurdities were produced as well as nourished by ignorance. In most cases they were the work of deliberate imposture. Every cathedral or monastery had its tutelar saint, and every saint his legend, fabricated in order to enrich the churches under his pro- , FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 231 of the world, especially at the close of the tenth cen- tury, the crusades, which gave rise to a profitable traffic in the form of a pecuniary commutation of vows, and the black death, which produced a paroxysm of religious fanaticism, stimulated the movement. In the monkish chronicles, the merits of sovereigns are almost exclusively judged by their bounty to the Church, and in some cases this is the sole part of their policy which has been preserved.} There were, no doubt, a few redeeming points in this dark period. The Irish monks are said to have been honourably distinguished for their reluctance to accept the lavish donations of their admirers,2 and some mis- sionary monasteries of a high order of excellence were scattered through Europe. A few legends, too, may perhaps be cited censuring the facility with which money acquired by crime was accepted as an atonement for crime.’ But these cases were very rare, and the religious tection, by exaggerating his virtues, his miracles, and consequently his power of serving those who paid liberally for his patronage.’— Middle Ages, ch. ix. part i. Ido not think this passage makes sufficient allowance for the unconscious formation of many saintly myths, but no impartial person doubts its substantial truth. 1 Sismondi, Hest, des Frangais, tome ii. pp. 54, 62-63. * Milman’s Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 257. * Durandus, a French bishop of the thirteenth century, tells how, ‘when.a certain bishop was consecrating a church built out of the fruits of usury and pillage, he saw behind the altar the devil in a pontifical vestment, standing in the bishop’s throne, who said unto the bishop, ‘‘ Cease from consecrating the church; for it pertaineth to my jurisdiction, since it is built from the fruits of usuries and robberies.” Then the bishop and the clergy having fled thence in fear, immediately the devil destroyed that church with a great noise.’—Rationale Divinorum, i. 6 (translated for the. Camden Society). A certain St. Launomar is said to have refused a gift for his monastery from a rapacious noble, because he was sure it was derived from pillage. (Montalembert’s Moines d’Occident, tome ii. pp. 850-351.) When pro- stitutes were converted in the early Church, it was a rule that the money of which they had become possessed should never be applied to eccle- siastical purposes, but should be distributed among the poor. 49 232.” HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, history of several centuries is little more than a history of the rapacity of priests and of the credulity of laymen. In England, the perpetual demands of the Pope excited a fierce resentment ; and we may trace with remarkable clearness, in every page of Mathew Paris, the alienation of sympathy arising from this cause, which prepared and foreshadowed the final rupture of England from the Church. Ireland, on the other hand, had been given over by two Popes to the English invader, on the con- dition of the payment of Peter’s pence. The outrageous and notorious immorality of the monasteries, during the century before the Reformation, was chiefly due to their great wealth, and that immorality, as the writings of Erasmus and Ulric Von Hutten show, gave a powerful impulse to the new movement, while the abuses of the indulgences were the immediate cause of the revolt of Luther. But these things arrived only after many cen- turies of successful fraud. The religious terrorism that was unscrupulously employed had done its work, and the chief riches of Christendom had passed into the coffers of the Church. The part which was played by the Catholic doctrine of future torture was indeed probably greater in the monas- tic phase of the Church than it had been even in the great work of converting the Pagans. Although two or three amiable theologians had made faint and altogether abor- tive attempts to question the eternity of punishment ; al- though there had been some slight difference of opinion concerning the future of some Pagan philosophers who had lived before the introduction of Christianity, and also upon the question whether infants who died unbaptised were simply deprived of all joy, or were actually sub- jected to never-ending agony, there was no question as to the main features of the Catholic doctrine. According FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 283 to the patristic theologians, it was part of the gospel revelation that the misery and suffering the human race endures upon earth is but a feeble image of that which awaits it in the future world; that the entire human race beyond the Church, as well as a very large proportion of those who are within its pale, are doomed to an eternity of agony in a literal and undying fire. The monastic legends took up this doctrine, which in itself is sufficiently revolting, and they developed it with an appalling vivid- ness and minuteness. St. Macarius, it is said, when walking one day through the desert, saw a skull upon the ground. He struck it with his staff and it began to speak. It told him that it was the skull of a Pagan priest who had lived before the introduction of Christianity into the world, and who had accordingly been doomed to hell. As hich as the heaven is above the earth, so high does the fire of hell mount in waves above the souls that are plunged into it. The damned souls were pressed together back to back, and the lost priest made it his single entreaty to the saint, that he would pray that they might be turned face to face, for he believed that.the sight of a brother’s face might afford him some faint consolation in the eternity of agony that was before him.’ The story is well known of how St. Gregory, seeing on a bas-relief a representation of the goodness of Trajan to a poor widow, pitied the Pagan emperor, whom he knew to be in hell, and he prayed that he might be released. He was told that his prayer was altogether unprecedented; but at last, on his promising that he would never make such a prayer again, it was partially granted. Trajan. was not. withdrawn from hell, but he was freed from the torments which the remainder of the Pagan world endured. Verba Seniorum, Prol. § 172. * This vision is not related by St. Gregory himself, and some Catholics 234 | HISTORY OF EUROPEAN: MORALS, An entire literature of visions describing the torments of hell, was soon produced by the industry of the monks. The apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, which purported — to describe the descent of Christ into the lower world, contributed to foster it, and St. Gregory the Great has related many visions in a more famous work, which pro- fessed to be compiled with scrupulous veracity from the most authentic sources,’ and of which it may be confi- dently averred, that it scarcely contains a single page which is not tainted with grotesque and deliberate false- hood. Men, it was said, passed into a trance or tem- porary death, and were then carried for a time to hell. Among others, a certain man-named Stephen, from whose lips the saint declares that he had heard the tale, had died by mistake. When his soul was borne to the gates of hell, the Judge declared that it was another Stephen who was wanted ; the disembodied spirit, after inspecting hell, was restored to its former body, and the next day it was known that another Stephen had died.2- Voleanoes were the portals of hell, and a hermit had seen the soul of the Arian emperor Theodoric, as St. Eucherius afterwards did the soul of Charles Martel, carried down that in the - Island of Lipari? The craters in Sicily, it was remarked, were continually agitated and continually increasing, and this, as St. Gregory observes, was probably due to the’ are perplexed about it, on account of the vision of another saint, who afterwards asked whether Trajan was saved, and received for answer, ‘I wish men to rest in ignorance of this subject, that the Catholics may become stronger. For this emperor, though he had great virtues, was an un- baptised infidel.’ The whole subject of the vision of St. Gregory is dis- cussed by Champagny, Les Antonins, tome i. pp. 872-873, This deyout writer says, ‘Cette légende fut acceptée par tout le moyen-ige, wdulgent pour les paiens ilustres et tout disposé & les supposer chrétiens et sauvés.’ * See the solemn asseveration of the care which he took in going only to the most credible and authorised sources for his materials, in the Preface to the First Book of Dialogues, 2 Dial. iv. 36. 5 Dial. iv. 80, FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 235 impending ruin of the world, when the great press of lost souls would render it necessary to enlarge the ap- - proaches to their prisons.1 But the glimpses of hell that are furnished in the ‘ Dialogues’ of St. Gregory appear meagre and unimagin- ative, compared with those of some later monks. A long series of monastic visions, of which that of St. Fursey, in the seventh century, was one of the first, and which fol- lowed in rapid succession, till that of Tundale, in the twelfth century, professed to describe with the most de- tailed accuracy the condition of the lost.2 It is impos- sible to conceive more ghastly, grotesque, and material conceptions of the future world than they evince, or more hideous calumnies against that Being who was supposed to inflict upon His creatures such unspeakable misery. The devil was represented bound by red-hot chains, on a burning gridiron in the centre of hell. The screams of his never-ending agony made its rafters @ resound; but his hands were free, and with these he seized the lost souls, crushed them like grapes against his teeth, and then drew them by his breath down the fiery cavern of his throat. Daemons with hooks of red-hot iron plunged souls alternately into fire and ice. Some of the lost were hung up by their tongues, other were sawn asunder, t Dial. iv. 35. * The fullest collection of these visions with which I am acquainted, is that made for the Philobiblon Society (vol. ix.), by M. Delepierre, called LEnfer décrit par ceux qui Vont vu, of which I have largely availed myself. See, too, Wright’s Purgatory of St. Patrick, and an interesting collection of visions given by Mr. Longfellow, in his translation of Dante. In an older work, Rusca De Inferno, there is, I believe, a complete collection of these Visions, but it has not come in my way. ‘The Irish saints were, I am sorry to say, prominent in producing this branch of literature. St. F ursey, whose vision is one of the earliest, and Tondale, or Tundale, whose vision is one of the most detailed, were both Irish. The English historians contain several of these visions. Bede relates two or three—William of Malmes- bury that of Charles the Fat; Mathew Paris three visions of purgatory. 236 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. others gnawed by serpents, others beaten together on an anvil and welded into a single mass, others boiled and then strained through a cloth, others twined in the em- - braces of demons whose limbs were of flame. The fire of earth, it was said, was but a picture of that of hell. The latter was so immeasurably more intense, that it alone could be called real. Sulphur was mixed with it, partly to increase its heat, and partly, too, in order that an insufferable stench might be added to the misery of the lost, while, unlike other flames, it emitted, according to some visions, no light, that the horror of darkness might be added to the horror of pain. A narrow bridge spanned the abyss, and from it the souls of sinners were plunged into the darkness that was below.! Such catalogues of horrors, though they now awake in an educated man a sentiment of mingled disgust, weariness, and contempt, were able for many centuries to create a degree of panic and of misery we can scarcely realise. With the exception of the heretic Pelagius, whose noble genius, anticipating the discoveries of modern science, had repudiated the theological notion of death having been introduced into the world on account of the act of Adam, it was universally held among Christians, that all the forms of suffering and dissolution that are manifested on earth were penal inflictions. The destruc- tion of the world was generally believed to be at hand. The minds of men were filled with the images of the approaching catastrophe, and innumerable legends of visible demons were industriously circulated. It was the custom then, as it is the custom now, for Catholic 1 The narrow bridge over hell (in some visions covered with spikes), which is a conspicuous feature in the Mohammedan pictures of the future world, appears very often in Catholic visions. See Greg. Tur. iv. 83; St Greg. Dval. iv. 836; and the vision of Tundale, in Delepierre. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 237 priests to stain the imaginations of young children by ghastly pictures of future misery, to imprint upon the virgin mind atrocious images which they hoped, not un- reasonably, might prove indelible! In hours of weakness and of sickness their overwrought fancy seemed to see hideous beings hovering around, and hell itself yawning to receive its victim. St. Gregory describes how a monk, who though apparently a man of exemplary and even saintly piety, had been accustomed secretly to eat meat, saw on his deathbed a fearful dragon twining its tail round his body, and with open jaws sucking his breath ;? and how a little boy of five years old, who had learnt from his * Few Englishmen, I imagine, are aware of the infamous publications written with this object, that are circulated by the Catholic priests among the poor. I have before me a tract ‘for children and young persons,’ called The Sight of Hell, by the Rev. J. Furniss, C.S.S.R., published, permissu superiorum,’ by Duffy (Dublin and London). It is a detailed descrip- tion of the dungeons of hell, and a few sentences may serve as a sample. “See ! on the middle of that red-hot floor stands a girl; she looks about six- teen years old, Her feet are bare. She has neither shoes nor stockings. . . - Listen! she speaks. She says, I have been standing on this red-hot floor for years. Day and night my only standing-place has been this red-hot floor. .. . Look at my burnt and bleeding feet. Let me go off this burning floor for one moment, only for one single short moment. ... The fourth dungeon is the boiling kettle . . . in the middle of it there isa BOVee)s". His eyes are burning like two burning coals. Two long flames come out of his ears. . . . Sometimes he opens his mouth, and blazing fire rolls out. — But listen! there is a sound like a kettle boiling. .. . The blood is boiling in the scalded veins of that boy. The brain is boiling and bubbling in his head. The marrow is boiling in his bones. . . . The fifth dungeon is the red-hot oven. ... The little child is in this red-hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out. See how it turns and twists itself about in the fire. It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor. . . . God was very good to this child. Very likely God saw it would get worse and worse, and would never repent, and soit would have to be punished much more in hell. So God in his mercy called it out of the world in its early childhood.’ If the reader desires to follow this sub- ject further, he may glance over a companion tract by the same reverend gentleman, called « Terrible Judgment on a Little Child ; and also a book on Hell, translated from the Italian of Pinamonti, and with illustra- tions depicting the various tortures. * St. Greg. Dial. iv. 38, 238 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN. MORALS. father to repeat blasphemous words, saw, as he lay dying, exulting demons who were waiting to carry him to hell! To the jaundiced eye of the theologian, all nature seemed stricken and forlorn, and its brightness and beauty sug- gested no ideas but those of deception and of sin. The redbreast, according to one popular legend, was commis- sioned by the Deity to carry a drop of water to the souls of unbaptised infants in hell, and its breast was singed in piercing the flames.? In the calm, still hour of evening, when the peasant boy asked why the sinking sun, as it dipped beneath the horizon, flushed with such a glorious red, he was answered, in the words of an old Saxon catechism, because it is then looking into hell.? It is related in the vision of Tundale, that as he gazed upon the burning plains of hell, and listened to the screams of ceaseless and hopeless agony that were wrung from the sufferers, the cry broke from his lips, ‘ Alas, Lord, what truth is there in what I have so often heard —the earth is filled with the mercy of God?’4 It is indeed one of the most curious things in moral history, to observe how men who were sincerely indignant with Pagan writers for attributing to their divinities the frailties of an occasional jealousy or an occasional sensuality, for = Thid.ave 18: ” Alger’s History of the Doctrine of a Future Life (New York, 1866), p. 414. The ignis fatuus was sometimes supposed to be the soul of an un- baptised child. There is, I believe, another Catholic legend about the red- breast, of a very different kind—that its breast was stained with blood when it was trying to pull out the thorns from the crown of Christ. | ° Wright’s Purgatory of St. Patrick, p. 26. M. Delepierre quotes a curious theory of Father Hardouin (who is chiefly known for his sugges- tion that the classics were composed by the medieval monks) that the rota- tion of the earth is caused by the lost souls trying to escape from the fire that is at the centre of the globe, climbing, in consequence, on the inner crust of the earth, which is the wall of hell, and thus making the whole revolve, as the squirrel by climbing turns its cage! (L’Enfer décrit par ceua qui Vont vu, p. 151.) * Delepierre, p. 70, FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 239 representing them, in a word, like men of mingled cha- racters and passions, have nevertheless unscrupulously attributed to their own Divinity a degree of cruelty which may be confidently said to transcend the utmost bar- barity of which human nature is capable. Neither Nero nor Phalaris could have looked complacently for ever on millions enduring the torture of fire—most of them because of a crime which was committed, not by them- selves, but by their ancestors, or because they had adopted some mistaken conclusion on intricate questions of history or metaphysics.! To those who do not regard such teaching as true, it must appear without exception the most odious in the religious history of the world, subversive of the very foundations of morals, and well fitted to transform the man who at once realised it, and 1 Thus Jeremy Taylor, in two singularly unrhetorical and unimpassioned chapters, deliberately enumerates the most atrocious acts of cruelty in human history, and says that they are surpassed by the tortures inflicted by the Deity. A few instances will suffice. Certain persons ‘put rings of iron stuck fast with sharp points of needles, about their arms and feet, in such a manner as the prisoners could not move without wounding themselves ; then they compassed them about with fire, to the end that, standing still, they might be burnt alive, and if they stirred the sharp points pierced their flesh. . . . What, then, shall be the torment of the damned where they shall burn eternally without dying, and without the possibility of removing? .. Alexander, the son of Hyrcanus, caused eight hundred to be crucified, and whilst they were yet alive caused their wives and children to be murdered before their eyes, that so they might not die once, but many deaths. This rigour shall not be wanting in hell. . . . Mezentius tied a living body to the dead until the putrefied exhalations of the dead had killed the living... . What is this in respect of hell, when each body of the damned is more loathsome and unsavoury than a million of dead dogs? . . . Bonaventure says, if one of the damned were brought into this world it were sufficient ta infect the whole earth. . . . We are amazed to think of the inhumanity of Phalaris, who roasted men alive in his brazen bull. That was a joy in respect of that fire of hell. . . . The torment . . . comprises as many torments as the body of man_has joints, sinews, arteries, &c., being caused by that pene- trating and real fire, of which this temporal fire is but a painted fire... . What comparison will there be between burning for an hundred years’ space, and to be burning without interruption as long as God is God ?’— Contemplations on the State of Man, book ii. ch. 6-7. 240 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. who accepted it with pleasure, into a monster of barbarity. Of the writers of the medieval period, certainly one of the two or three most eminent was Peter Lombard, whose ‘Sentences,’ though now, I believe, but little read, were for a long time the basis of all theological literature in Europe. More than four thousand theologians are said to have written commentaries upon them !— among others, Albert the Great, St. Bonaventura, and St. Thomas Aquinas. Nor is the work unworthy of its former re- putation. Calm, clear, logical, subtle, and concise, the author professes to expound the whole system of Catholic theology and ethics, and to reveal the interdependence of their various parts. Having explained the position and the duties, he proceeds to examine the prospects, of man. He maintains that until the day of judgment the in- habitants of heaven and hell will continually see one another; but that, in the succeeding eternity, the inhabit- ants of heaven alone will see those of the opposite world ; and he concludes his great work by this most impressive passage. ‘In the last place, we must enquire whether the sight of the punishment of the condemned will impair the glory of the blest, or whether it will augment their beatitude. Concerning this, Gregory says the sight of the punishment of the lost will not obscure the beatitude of the just ; for when it is accompanied by no compassion it can be no diminution of happiness. And although their own joys might suffice to the just, yet to their greater glory they will see the pains of the evil, which by grace they have escaped. . . . The elect will go forth, not indeed locally, but by intelligence and by a clear vision, to behold the torture of the impious, and as they see them they will not grieve. Their minds will be sated | * Perrone, Historie Theologie cum Philosophia comparata Synopsis, p. 29. Peter Lombard’s work was published in a.p. 1160. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 241 with joy as they gaze on the unspeakable anguish of the impious, returning thanks for their own freedom. Thus Esaias, describing the torments of the impious, and the joy of the righteous in witnessing it, says, ‘The elect in truth will go out and will see the corpses of men who have prevaricated against Him; their worm will not die, and they will be to the satiety of vision to all flesh, that is, to the elect. The just man will rejoice when he shall see the vengeance.’! This passion for visions of heaven and hell was, in fact, a natural continuation of the passion for dogmatic definition, which had raged during the fifth century. It was natural that men, whose curiosity had left no con- ceivable question of theology undefined, should have endeavoured to describe with corresponding precision the condition of the dead. Much, however, was due to the hallucinations of solitary and ascetic life, and much more to deliberate imposture. It is impossible for men to con- tinue long in a condition of extreme panic, and supersti- tion speedily discovers remedies to allay the fears it had created. If a malicious demon was hovering around the believer, and if the jaws of hell were Opening to * ‘Postremo queeritur, An poena reproborum visa decoloret gloriam bea- torum? an eorum beatitudini proficiat? De hoc ita Gregorius ait, Apud animum justorum non obfuscat beatitudinem aspecta poena reproborum ; quia ubi jam compassio miserise non erit, minuere beatorum letitiam non valebit. Et licet justis sua gaudia sufficiant, ad majorem gloriam vident peenas malorum quas per gratiam evaserunt. . . . Egredientur ergo electi, non loco, sed intelligentia vel visione manifesta ad videndum impiorum cru- ciatus ; quos videntes non dolore afficientur sed letitia satiabuntur, agentes gratias de sua liberatione visa impiorum ineffabili calamitate. Unde Esaias impiorum tormenta describens et ex eorum visione letitiam bonorum expri- mens, ait, Egredientur electi scilicet et videbunt cadavera virorum qui prevaricati sunt in me. Vermis eorum non morietur et ignis non extin- guetur, et erunt usque ad satietatem visionis omni carni, id est electis, Letabitur justus cum viderit vindictam.’—Peter Lombard, Senten. lib. iv, finis. These amiable views have often been expressed both by Catholic and by Puritan divines. See Alger’s Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 541. 242 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. receive him, he was defended, on the other hand, by countless angels; a lavish gift to a Church or monastery could always enlist a saint in his behalf, and priestly power could protect him against the dangers which priestly sagacity had revealed. When the angels ‘were weighing the good and evil deeds of a dead man, the latter were found by far to preponderate ; but a priest of St. Lawrence came in, and turned the scale by throwing down among the former a heavy gold chalice, which the deceased had given to the altar.’ Dagobert was snatched from the very arms of demons by St. Denis, St. Maurice, and St. Martin.” Charlemagne was saved, because the monasteries he had built outweighed his evil deeds.? Others, who died in mortal sin, were raised from the dead at the desire of their patron saint, to expiate their guilt. ‘To amass relics, to acquire the patronage of — saints, to endow monasteries, to build churches, became © the chief part of religion, and the more the terrors of the unseen world were unfolded, the more men sought tranquillity by the consolations of superstition.‘ The extent to which the custom of materialising re- ligion was carried, can only be adequately realised by those who have examined the medizval literature itself. That which strikes a student in perusing this literature, is not so much the existence of these superstitions, as 1 Legenda Aurea. There is a curious fresco representing this transaction, on the portal of the church of St. Lorenzo, near Rome. 2 Aimoni, De Gestis Francorum Hist. iv. 34. ° Turpin’s Chronicle, ch. 82. In the vision of Watlin, however (A.D. 824) Charlemagne was seen tortured in purgatory on account of his excessive love of women. (Delepierre, L’Enfer décrit par ceux qut ont vu, pp. 27-28.) * As the Abbé Mably observes: ‘On croyoit en quelque sorte dans ces siécles grossiers que l’avarice étoit le premier attribut de Dieu, et que les saints faisoient un commerce de leur crédit et de leur protection. De-la les richesses immenses données aux églises par des hommes dont les mceurs déshonoroient la religion.’— Observations sur U Hist. de France, i. 4. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 245 their extraordinary multiplication, the many thousands of grotesque miracles wrought by saints, monasteries, or relics, that were deliberately asserted and universally believed. Christianity had assumed a form that was quite as polytheistic and quite as idolatrous as the ancient Paganism. ‘The low level of intellectual culti- vation, the religious feelings of half-converted barbarians, the interests of the clergy, the great social importance of the monasteries, and perhaps also the custom of com- pounding for nearly all crimes by pecuniary fines, which was so general in the penal system of the barbarian tribes, combined in their different ways, with the panic created by the fear of hell, in driving men in the same direction, and the wealth and power of the clergy rose to a point that enabled them to overshadow all other classes. They had found, as has been well said, in an- other world, the standing-point of Archimedes from which they could move this. No other system had ever ap- peared so admirably fitted to endure for ever. The Church had crushed or silenced every opponent in Christendom. It had an absolute control over education in all its branches: and in all its stages. It had absorbed ail the speculative knowledge and art of Europe. It possessed or commanded wealth, rank, and military power. It had so directed its teaching, that everything which terrified or distressed mankind drove men speedily into its arms, and it had covered Europe with a vast net- work of institutions, admirably adapted to extend and perpetuate its power. In addition to all this, it had guarded with consummate skill all the approaches to its citadel. Every doubt was branded as a sin, and a long course of doubt must necessarily have preceded the rejection of its tenets. All the avenues of enquiry were painted with images of appalling suffering, and of mali- 244 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, cious demons. No sooner did the worshipper begin to question any article of faith, or to lose his confidence in the virtue of the ceremonies of his Church, than he was threatened with a doom that no human heroism could brave, that no imagination could contemplate undismayed. Of all the suffering that was undergone by those brave men who in ages of ignorance and superstition dared to break loose from the trammels of their Church, and who laid the foundation of the liberty we now enjoy, it is this which was probably the most poignant, and which is the least realised. Our imaginations can reproduce with much vividness gigantic massacres like those of the Albi- genses or of St. Bartholomew. We can conceive, too, the tortures of the rack and of the boots, the dungeon, the scaffold, and the slow fire. We can estimate, thcugh less perfectly, the anguish which the bold enquirer must have undergone from the desertion of those he most dearly loved, from the hatred of mankind, from the malignant calumnies that were heaped upon his name. But in the chamber of his own soul, in the hours of his solitary meditation, he must have found elements of a suffering that was still more acute. Taught from his earliest childhood to regard the abandonment of his hereditary opinions as the most deadly of crimes, and to ascribe it to the instigation of deceiving demons, persuaded that if he died in a condition of doubt he must pass into a state of everlasting torture, his imagination satu- rated with images of the most hideous and appalling. anguish, he found himself alone in the world, struggling with his difficulties and-his doubts. There existed no rival sect in which he could take refuge, and where, in the professed agreement of many minds, he could forget the anathemas of the Church. Physical science, that has dis- proved the theological theories which attribute death to FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 245 human sin, and suffering to Divine vengeance, and all na- tural phenomena to isolated acts of Divine intervention— historical criticism, which has dispelled so many imposing fabrics of belief, traced so many elaborate superstitions to the normal action of the undisciplined imagination, and explained and defined the successive phases of religious progress, were both unknown. Every comet that blazed in the sky, every pestilence that swept over the land, appeared a confirmation of the dark threats of the theo- logian. A spirit of blind and abject credulity, inculcated | as the first of duties, and exhibited on all subjects and in all forms, pervaded the atmosphere he breathed. Who can estimate aright the obstacles against which a sincere en- quirer in such an age must have struggled? Who can conceive the secret anguish he must have endured in the long months or years during which rival arguments gained an alternate sway over his judgment, while all doubt was still regarded as damnable? And even when his mind was convinced, his imagination would still often revert to his old belief. Our thoughts in after years flow spontaneously, and even unconsciously, in the channels that are formed in youth. In moments when the con- trolling judgment has relaxed its grasp, old intellectual habits reassume their sway, and images painted on the Imagination will live, when the intellectual propositions on which they rested have been wholly abandoned. In hours of weakness, of sickness, and of drowsiness, in the feverish and anxious moments that are known to all, when the mind floats passively upon the stream, the phantoms which reason had exorcised must have often reappeared, and the bitterness of an ancient tyranny must have en- tered into his soul. It is one of the greatest of the many services that were rendered to mankind by the Troubadours, that they cast 246 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. é such a flood of ridicule upon the visions of hell, by which the monks had been accustomed to terrify mankind, that they completely discredited and almost suppressed them.’ Whether, however, the Catholic mind, if unassisted by the literature of Paganism and by the independent thinkers who grew up under the shelter of Mahommedanism, could have ever unwound the chains that had bound it, may well | be questioned. The growth of towns, which multiplied secular interests and feelings, the revival of learning, the depression of the ecclesiastical classes that followed the crusades, and at last, the dislocation of Christendom by the Reformation, gradually impaired the ecclesiastical doctrine, which ceased to be realised before it ceased to be believed. There was, however, another doctrine which exercised a still greater influence in augmenting the riches of the clergy, and in making donations to the Church the chief part of religion. I allude, of course, to the doctrine of purgatory. A distinguished modern apologist for the middle ages has made this doctrine the object of his special and very characteristic eulogy, because, as he says, by providing a finite punishment graduated to every variety of guilt, and adapted for those who, without being sufficiently virtuous to pass at once into heaven, did not appear sufficiently vicious to pass into hell, it formed an indispensable corrective to the extreme terrorism of the doctrine of eternal punishment.” This is one of those theories which, though exceedingly popular with a large and influential class of the writers of our day, must appear, I think, almost grotesque to those who have examined the ac- tual operation of the doctrine during the middle ages. 1 Many curious examples of the way in which the Troubadours burlesqued the monkish visions of hell are given by Delepierre, p. 144. — Wright's’ Pur- _gatory of St. Patrick, pp. 47-52. 2 Comte, Digs positive, tome v. p. 269. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 247 According to the practical teaching of the Church, the explatory powers at the disposal of its clergy were so great, that those who died believing its doctrines, and fortified in their last hours by its rites, had no cause whatever to dread the terrors of hell. On the other hand, those who died external to the Church had no prospect of entering into purgatory. This latter was designed altogether for true believers; it was chiefly preached at a time when no one was in the least disposed to question the powers of the Church to absolve any crime, however heinous, or to free the worst men from hell, and it was assuredly never regarded in the light of a consolation. Indeed, the popular pictures of purgatory were so terrific that it may be almost doubted whether the imagination could ever fully realise, though the reason could easily recognise the difference between this state and that of the lost. The fire of purgatory, according to the most eminent theologians, was like the fire of hell—a literal fire, prolonged, it was sometimes said, for ages. The declamations of the pulpit described the sufferings of the saved souls in purgatory as incalculably greater than were endured by the most wretched mortals upon earth.’ The rude artists of mediavalism exhausted their _ + “Saint-Bernard, dans son sermon De obitu fumberti, affirme que tous les tourments de cette vie sont joies si on les compare & une seconde des peines du purgatoire. “ Imaginez-vous done, délicates dames,” dit le pére Valladier (1613) dans son sermon du 3™¢ dimanche de lAvent, “d’estre au travers de vos chenets, sur vostre petit feu pour une centaine d’ans: ce n’est ‘Tien au respect d’un moment de purgatoire. Mais si vous vistes jamais tirer quelqu’un 4 quatre chevaux, quelqu’un brusler a petit feu, enrager de faim ou de soif, une heure de purgatoire est pire que tout cela.” ’—Meray, Les. libres Précheurs (Paris, 1860), pp. 130-131 (an extremely curious and sugges- tive book). I now take up the first contemporary book of popular Catholic. devotion on this subject, which is at hand, and read, ‘Compared with the. pains of purgatory, then all those wounds and dark prisons, all those wild beasts, hooks of iron, red-hot plates, &c., which the holy martyrs suffered,, are nothing.’ ‘ They (souls in purgatory) are in a real, though miraculous 50 248 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. efforts in depicting the writhings of the dead in the flames that encircled them. Innumerable visions detailed with a ghastly minuteness the various kinds of torture they underwent,! and the monk, who described what he pro- fessed to have seen, usually ended by the characteristic moral, that could men only realise those sufferings, they would shrink from no sacrifice to rescue their friends from such a state. A special place, it was said, was reserved in purgatory for those who had been slow in paying their tithes.? St. Gregory tells a curious story of a man who was, in other respects, of admirable virtue; but who, in a contested election for the popedom, sup- ported the wrong candidate, and without, as it would appear, in any degree refusing to obey the successful candidate when elected, continued secretly of opinion that the choice was an unwise one. He was accordingly placed for some time after death in boiling water? Whatever may be thought of its other aspects, it is im- possible to avoid recognising in this teaching a masterly manner, tortured by fire, which is of the same kind (says Bellarmine) as our element fire.’ ‘The Angelic Doctor affirms “that the fire which torments the dammed is like the fire which purges the elect.”’ < What agony will not those holy souls suffer when tied and bound with the most tormenting chains of a living fire like to that of hell? and we, while able to make them free and happy, shall we stand like uninterested spectators?’ ‘St. Austin is of opinion that the pains of a soul in purgatory during the time required to open and shut one’s eye, is more severe than what St. Lawrence suffered on the gridiron;’ and much more to the same effect, (Purgatory opened to the Piety of the Faithful. Richardson, London.) * See Delepierre, Wright, and Alger. * This appears from the vision of Thurcill. (Wright's Purgatory, p. 42.) Brompton (Chronicon) tells of an English landlord who had refused to pay tithes. St. Augustine, having vainly reasoned with him, at last convinced him by a miracle. Before celebrating mass he ordered all excommunicated persons to leave the church, whereupon a corpse got out of a grave and walked away. The corpse, on being questioned, said it was the body of an ancient Briton who refused to pay tithes, and had in consequence been excommunicated and damned. ° Greg. Dial. iv. 40. oa ee FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 249 skill in the adaptation of means to ends, which almost rises to artistic beauty. A system which deputed its minister to go to the unhappy widow in the first dark hour of her anguish and her desolation, to tell her that he who was dearer to her than all the world besides was now burning in a fire, and that he could only be relieved by a gift of money to the priests, was assuredly of its own kind not without an extraordinary merit. If we attempt to realise the moral condition of the’ society of Western Europe in the period that elapsed be- tween the downfall of the Roman empire and Charle- magne, during which the religious transformations I have noticed chiefly arose, we shall be met by some formidable difficulties. In the first place, our materials are very scanty. From the year a.p. 642, when the meagre chronicle of Fredigarius closes, to the biography of Charlemagne by Eeinhard, a century later, there is almost a complete blank in trustworthy history, and we are reduced to a few scanty and very doubtful notices in the chronicles of monasteries, the lives of saints, and the decrees of Councils, All secular literature had almost disappeared, and the thought of posterity seems to have vanished from the world.’ Of the first half of the seventh century, how- ever, and of the two centuries that preceded it, we have much information from Gregory of Tours, and Fredi- garius, whose tedious and repulsive pages illustrate with considerable clearness the conflict of races and the dis- location of governments that for centuries existed. In Italy, the traditions and habits of the old empire had in some degree reasserted their sway, but in Gaul the * As Sismondi says, ‘ Pendant quatre-vingts ans, tout au moins, il n’y eut pas un Franc qui songeat 4 transmettre & la postérité la mémoire des événe- ments contemporains, et pendant le méme espace de temps il n’y eut pas un personnage puissant qui ne batit des temples pour la postérité la plus reculée.’—Hist, des Francais, tome ii. p. 46. 250 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, Church subsisted in the midst of barbarians, whose native vigour had never been emasculated by civilisation and refined by knowledge. The picture which Gregory of Tours gives us is that of a society which was almost abso- lutely anarchical. The mind is fatigued by the mono- tonous account of acts of violence and of fraud springing from no fixed policy, tending to no end, leaving no lasting impress upon the world.1. The two queens Fré- dégonde and Brunehaut rise conspicuous above other figures for their fierce and undaunted ambition, for the fascination they exercised over the minds of multitudes, and for the number and atrocity of their crimes. All classes seem to have been almost equally tainted with vice. We read of a bishop named Cautinus, who had to be carried, when intoxicated, by four men from the table;? who, upon the refusal of one of his priests to surrender some private property, deliberately ordered: that priest to be buried alive, and wlio, when the victim, escaping by a happy chance from the sepulchre in which 1 Gibbon says of the period during which the Merovingian dynasty reigned, that ‘it would be difficult to find anywhere more vice or less virtue.’ Hallam reproduces this observation, and adds, ‘ The facts of these times are of little other importance than as they impress on the mind a thorough notion of the extreme wickedness of almost every person concerned in them, and consequently of the state to which society was reduced.’— Hist. of the Middle Ages, ch.i. Dean Milman is equally unfayourable and em- phatic in his judgment. ‘It is difficult to conceive a more dark and odious state of society than that of France under her Merovingian kings, the de- scendants of Clovis, as described by Gregory of Tours. In the conflict of barbarism with Roman Christianity, barbarism has introduced into Chris- tianity all its ferocity with none of its generosity and magnanimity ; its energy shows itself in atrocity of cruelty, and even of sensuality. Chris- tianity has given to barbarism hardly more than its superstition and its hatred of heretics and unbelievers. Throughout, assassinations, parricides, and fratricides intermingle with adulteries and rapes,’—History of Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 865. * Greg. Tur. iv.12. Gregory mentions (v. 41) another bishop who used to become so intoxicated as to be unable to stand, and St. Boniface, after FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 251 he had been immured, revealed the crime, received no greater punishment than a censure.!' The worst. sove- reigns found flatterers or agents in ecclesiastics. Frédé- gonde deputed two clerks to murder Childebert,? and another clerk to murder Brunehaut ;° she caused a bishop of Rouen to be assassinated at the altar—a bishop and an archdeacon being her accomplices ;* and she found in another bishop, named Aigidius, one of her most de- voted instruments and friends.® The pope, St. Gregory the Great, was an ardent flatterer of Brunehaut.6 Gun- debald having murdered his three brothers, was consoled by St. Avitus, the Bishop of Vienne, who, without inti- mating the slightest disapprobation of the act, assured him that by removing his rivals he had been a providen- tial agent in preserving the happiness of his people.” The bishoprics were filled by men of nctorious debauchery, or by grasping misers.* The priests sometimes celebrated the sacred mysteries ‘gorged with food and dull with wine.’° They had already begun to carry arms, and describing the extreme sensuality of the clergy of his time, adds, that there are some bishops ‘qui licet dicant se fornicarios vel adulteros non esse, sed sunt ebriosi et injuriosi,’ &c.— Zp. xlix. 1 Greg. Tur. iv. 12. * Id. viii. 29. She gave them Inives with hollow grooves, filled with poison, in the blades. 3 Greg. Tur. vii. 20. * Id. viii. 31-41. 5 Idav.cld; ® See his very curious correspondence with her.—Ep. vi. 5, 50, 59; ix. 1l, 117; xi. 62-63. * Avitus, Zp. v. He adds, ‘ Minuebat regni felicitas numerum regalium personarum.’ * See the emphatic testimony of St. Boniface in the eighth century. ‘Modo autem maxima ex parte per civitates episcopales sedes tradite sunt laicis cupidis ad possidendum, vel adulteratis clericis, scortatoribus et publicanis seculariter ad perfruendum.’—Epist. xlix. ‘ad Zachariam.’ The whole epistle contains an appalling picture of the clerical vices of the times. ° More than one Council made decrees about this. See the Vie de St. Léyer, by Dom Pitra, pp. 172-177. 252 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. Gregory tells of two bishops of the fifth century who had killed many enemies with their own hands.1 There was scarcely a reign that was not marked by some atro- cious domestic tragedy. There were few sovereigns who were not guilty of at least one deliberate murder. Never, perhaps, was the infliction of mutilation, and prolonged and agonising forms of death, more common. We read, among other atrocities, of a bishop being driven to a dis- tant place of exile upon a bed of thorns;? of a king burning together his rebellious son, his daughter-in-law, and their daughters ;8 of a queen condemning a daughter she had had by a former marriage to be drowned, lest her beauty should excite the passions of her husband ;4 of another queen endeavouring to strangle her daughter with her own hands ;® of an abbot, with the assistance of one of his clerks, driving a poor man by force out of his house, that he might commit adultery with his wife, and being murdered, together with his partner, in the act ;® of a prince who made it an habitual amusement to torture his slaves with fire, and who buried two of them alive, because they had married without his permission ;7 of a bishop’s wife, who besides other crimes, was accustomed to mutilate men and to torture women, by applying red- hot irons to the most sensitive parts of their bodies ;* of 1 Greg. Tur. iv. 43. St. Boniface, at a much later period (A.D. 742), talks of bishops ‘Qui pugnant in exercitu armati et effundunt prepes manu sanguinem hominum.’—J£p, xlix. . Greg. Tur. iy. 26. 3 Id. iv. 20. 4 Id. iii, 26. tog > Id. ix. 34, § Greg. Tur. viii. 19. Gregory says this story should warn clergymen not to wicdldle with the wives of other people, but ‘content themselves with those that they may possess without crime.’ ‘The abbot had previously tried to seduce the husband within the precincts of the monastery, that he might murder him. : Greg. Tur. vy. 3. ° Id. vill. 39. She was guilty of many other crimes, which the _his- torian says ‘it is better to pass in silence.’ The bishop himself had been FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 253 great numbers who were deprived of their ears and noses, tortured through several days, and at last burnt alive or broken slowly on the wheel. Brunehaut, at the close of her long and in some respects great, though guilty career, fell into the hands of Clotaire, and the old queen, having been subjected for three days to various kinds of torture, was led out on a camel for the derision of the army, and at last bound to the tail of a furious horse, and dashed to pieces in its course.} And yet this age was, in a certain sense, eminently religious. All literature had become sacred. Heresy of every kind was rapidly expiring. The priests and monks had acquired enormous power, and their wealth was inordinately increasing.? Several sovereigns voluntarily abandoned their thrones for the monastic life. The seventh century, which, together with the eighth, forms the darkest period of the dark ages, is famous in the hagiology, as having produced more saints than any other century, except that of the martyrs. guilty of outrageous and violent tyranny. The marriage of ecclesiastics appears at this time to have been common in Gaul, though the best men commonly deserted their wives when they were ordained. Mnehes bishop’s wife (iv. 86) was notorious for her tyrannies. * Fredigarius, xlii. The historian describes Clotaire as a perfect paragon of Christian graces. > ‘Au sixiéme siécle on compte 214 établissements religieux des Pyrénées ‘a la Loire et des bouches du Rhéne aux Vosges. !_Ozanam, Etudes germa- niques, tome il. p. 93. In the two following centuries the Eachinietnat wealth was enormously increased. ° Mathew of Westminster (A.D, 757) speaks of no less than eight Saxon kings having done this, * “Le septiéme siécle est celui peut-étre qui a donné le plus de saints au calendrier.’—Sismondi, Hist. de France, tome ii. p. 50.‘ Le plus beau titre du septiéme siécle & une réhabilitation c’est le nombre considérable de saints qu'il a produits... . Aucun siécle n’a été ainsi glorifié sauf lige des martyrs dont Dieu s tbe réservé de compter le nombre. Chaque année fournit sa moisson, chaque joura sa gerbe. . . . Si donc il plait 4 Dieu et au Christ de répandre 4 pleines mains sur un siécle les splendeurs des saints, qu’importe que histoire et la gloire humaine en tiennent peu compte ?’— 204 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. The manner in which events were regarded by his- torians was also exceedingly characteristic. Our principal authority, Gregory of Tours, was a bishop of great eminence, and a man of the most genuine piety, and of very strong affections: He describes his work as a record ‘of the virtues of saints, and the disasters of nations, * and the student who turns to his pages from those of the Pagan historians, is not more struck by the extreme prominence he gives to ecclesiastical events, than by the uniform manner in which he views all secular events in their religious aspect, as governed and directed by a special Providence. Yet, in questions where the difference between orthodoxy and heterodoxy are con- cerned, his ethics sometimes exhibit the most singular distortion. Of this, probably the most impressive example is the manner in which he has described the career of Clovis, the great representative of orthodoxy.? Having recounted the circumstances of his conversion, Gregory proceeds to tell us, with undisguised admiration, how that chieftain, as the first-fruits of his doctrine, professed to be grieved at seeing that part of Gaul was held by an Arian sovereign; how he accordingly resolved to invade and appropriate that territory ; how with admirable piety, he commanded his soldiers to abstain from all devastations when traversing the territory of St. Martin, and how several miracles attested the Divine approbation of the expedition. The war—which is the first of the long series of professedly religious wars that have been under- taken by Christians—was fully successful, and Clovis proceeded to direct his ambition to new fields. In his Pitra, Vie de St. Léger, Introd. p. x.-xi. This learned and very credulous writer (who is now a cardinal) afterwards says that we have the record of. more than eight hundred saints of the seventh century. (Introd. p. Ixxx.) * See, e.g. the very touching passage about the death of his children, v. 35, * Lib. ii. Prologue. ® Greg. Tur, ii, 27-48, te ae a al I AE a cad et ag chores SO Seite a alle as ~ View oe bs) 2: FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 2655 expedition against the Arians, he had found a faithful ally in his relative Sighebert, the old and infirm king of the Ripuarian Franks. He now proceeded artfully to suggest to the son of Sighebert the advantages he would obtain if his father were dead. The hint was taken. Sighebert was murdered, and Clovis sent ambassadors to the parricide, professing a warm friendship, but with ‘Secret orders on the first opportunity to kill him. This being done, and the kingdom being left entirely without a head, Clovis proceeded to Cologne, the capital of Sighe- bert; he assembled the people, professed with much solemnity his horror of the tragedies that had taken place, and his complete innocence of all connection with them ;? but suggested, that as they were now without a ruler, they should place themselves under his protection. The pro- position was received with acclamation. The warriors elected him as their king, and thus, says the episcopal historian, ‘ Clovis received the treasures and dominions of Sighebert, and added them to his own. Every day God caused his enemies to fall beneath his hand, and enlarged his kingdom, because he walked with a right heart before the Lord, and did the things that were pleasing in his sight.’* His ambition was, however, still unsated. He proceeded, in a succession of expeditions, to unite the whole of Gaul under his sceptre, invading, defeating, capturing, and slaying the lawful sovereigns, who were for the most part his own relations. Having secured himself against dangers from without, by killing all his relations, with the exception of his wife and children, he 1 He observes how impossible it was that he could be guilty of shedding the blood of a relation: ‘ Sed in his ego nequaquam conscius sum. Nec enim possum sanguinem parentum meorum effundere.’-—Greg. Tur. ii. 40. * “Prosternebat enim quotidie Deus hostes ejus sub manu ipsius, et auge- bat regnum ejus eo quod ambularet recto corde coram eo, et faceret quee placita erant in oculis ejus.—Greg. Tur. ii, 40, 256 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. is reported to have lamented before his courtiers his isolation, declaring that he had no relations remaining in the world to assist him in his adversity; but this speech, Gregory assures us, was a stratagem ; for the king desired to discover whether any possible pretender to the throne had escaped his knowledge and his sword. Soon after, he died full of years and honours, and was buried in a cathedral which he had built. Having recounted all these things with unmoved com- posure, Gregory of Tours requests his reader to permit him to pause, to draw the moral of the history. It is the admirable manner in which Providence guides all things for the benefit of those whose opinions concerning the Trinity are strictly orthodox. Having briefly re- ferred to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, and Dayid, all of whom are said to have intimated the correct doctrine on this subject, and all of whom were exceedingly pro- sperous, he passes to more modern times. ‘Arius, the impious founder of the impious sect, his entrails having fallen out, passed into the flames of hell; but Hilary, the blessed defender of the undivided Trinity, though exiled on that account, found his country in Paradise. The King Clovis, who confessed the Trinity, and by its assist- ance crushed the heretics, extended his dominions through all Gaul. Alaric, who denied the Trinity, was deprived of his kingdom and his subjects, and, what was far worse, was punished in the future world.’} It would be easy to cite other, though perhaps not quite such striking instances, of the degree in which the moral judgments of this unhappy age were distorted by Lib. 111. Prologue. St. Avitus enumerates in glowing terms the Chris- tian virtues of Clovis (Zp. xli.), but as this was in a letter addressed to the king himself, the eulogy may easily be explained. Ce Se a ST ee peacinct a FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 257 superstition." Questions of orthodoxy, or questions of fasting, appeared to the popular mind immeasurably more important than what we should now call the fundamental principles of right and wrong. A law of Charlemagne, and also a law of the Saxons, condemned to death any one who eat meat in Lent,’ unless the priest was satisfied that it was a matter of absolute necessity. The moral enthusiasm of the age chiefly drove men to abandon their civic or domestic duties, to immure themselves in monasteries, and to waste their strength by prolonged and extravagant maceration.? Yet, in the midst of all this superstition, there can be no question that in some respects the religious agencies were operating for good. The monastic bodies that everywhere arose, formed secure asylums for the multitudes who had been persecuted by their enemies, constituted an invaluable counterpoise to the rude military forces of the time, familiarised the imagination of men with religious types, that could hardly fail in some degree to soften the character, and led the 1 Thus Hallam says, ‘There are continual proofs of immorality in the monkish historians. In the history of Rumsey Abbey, one of our best documents for Anglo-Saxon times, we have an anecdote of a bishop who made a Danish nobleman drunk, that he might cheat him out of an estate, which is told with much approbation. Walter de Hemingford records, with excessive delight, the well-known story of the Jews who were persuaded by the captain of their vessel to walk on the sands at low water till the rising tide drowned them.’—Hallam’s Middle Ages (12th ed.), iii. p- 306. * Canciani, Leges Barbarorum, vol. iii. p. 64. Canciani notices, that among the Poles the teeth of the offending persons were pulled out. The follow- ing passage, from Bodin, is, I think, very remarkable :—‘ Les loix et canons veulent qu’on pardonne aux hérétiques repentis (combien que les magistrats en quelques lieux par cy-devant, y ont eu tel esgard, que celui qui avoit mangé de la chair au Vendredy estoit bruslé tout vif, comme il fut faict en la ville d’Angers l’an mil cing cens trente-neuf, s'il ne s’en repentoit: et jacoit qu'il se repentist si estoit-il pendu par compassion).’—Démonomanie des Sorciers, p. 216. ° A long list of examples of extreme maceration from lives of the saints of the seventh or eighth century is given by Pitra, Vie de St.-Léger, Introd. pp. Cv.—cVii. 258 _ HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, way in most forms of peaceful labour. When men, filled with admiration at the reports of the sanctity, and the miracles of some illustrious saint, made pilgrimages to behold him, and found him attired in the rude garb of a peasant, with thick shoes, and with a scythe on his shoulder, superintending the labours of the farmers,! or sitting in a small attic mending lamps,? whatever other benefit they might derive from the interview, they could scarcely fail to return with an increased sense of the dignity of labour. It was probably at this time as much for the benefit of the world as of the Church, that the ecclesiastical sanctuaries and estates should remain in- violate, and the numerous legends of Divine punishment having overtaken those who transgressed them,® attest the zeal with which the clergy sought to establish that inviolability. The great sanctity that was attached to holidays was also an important boon to the servile classes. The celebration of the first day of the week, in commemo- ration of the resurrection, and as a period of religious exercises, dates from the earliest age of the Church. The Christian festival was carefully distinguished from the Jewish Sabbath, with which it never appears to have been confounded till the close of the sixteenth century ; but some Jewish converts who considered the Jewish law to be still in force observed both days. In general, how- ever, the Christian festival alone was observed, and the Jewish Sabbatical obligation, as St. Paul most explicitly * This was related of St. Equitius—Greg. Dialog. i. 4. * Thid. i. 5. This saint was named Constantius. * A vast number of miracles of this kind are recorded. See, e.g., Greg. Tur. De Miraculis, i. 61-66; Hist. iv. 49. Perhaps the most singular in- stance of the violation of the sanctity of the church was that by the nuns of a convent founded by St. Radegunda. They, having broken into rebellion, four bishops, with their attendant clergy, went to compose the dispute, and having failed, they excommunicated the rebels, whereupon the nuns almost beat them to death in the church.—Greg. Tur. ix. 41. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 259 affirms, no longer rested upon the Christians. The srounds of the observance of Sunday were the mani- fest propriety and expediency of devoting a certain por- tion of time to devout exercises, the tradition which traced the sanctification of Sunday to apostolical times, and the right of the Church to appoint certain seasons to be kept holy by its members. When Christianity acquired an ascendency in the empire, its policy on this subject was manifested in one of the laws of Constantine, which, without making any direct reference to religious motives, ordered that, ‘on the day of the sun,’ no servile work should be performed except agriculture, which, being dependent on the weather, could not, it was thought, be reasonably postponed. Theodosius took a step fur- ther, and suppressed the public spectacles on that day. During the centuries that immediately followed the dissolution of the Roman empire, the clergy devoted themselves with great and praiseworthy zeal to the sup- pression of labour both on Sundays and on the other leading Church holidays. More than one law was made, forbidding all Sunday labour, and this prohibition was reiterated by Charlemagne in his Capitularies.! Several Councils made decrees on the subject,” and several legends were circulated, of men who had been struck miraculously with disease or death, for having been guilty of this sin. Although the moral side of religion was greatly degraded or forgotten, there was, as I have already intimated, one 1 See Canciani, Leges Barbarorum, vol. iii. pp. 19, 151. 2 Much information about these measures is given by Dr. Hessey, in his Bampton Lectures on Sunday. See, especially, lect. 8. See, too, Moebler, Le Christianisme et ? Esclavage, pp. 186-187. $ Gregory of Tours enumerates some instances of this in his extravagant book De Miraculis, ii. 11; iv.57; v. 7. One of these cases, however, was for having worked on the day of St. John the Baptist. Some other miracles of the same nature, taken, I believe, from English sources, are given in Hessey’s Sunday (8rd edition), p. 321. 260 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. important exception. Charity was so interwoven with the superstitious parts of ecclesiastical teaching, that it continued to grow and flourish in the darkest period. Of the acts of Queen Bathilda, it is said we know nothing except her donations to the monasteries, and the charity with which she purchased slaves and captives, and released them or converted them into monks.) St, Germanus, the Bishop of Paris, near the close of the sixth century, was especially famous for his zeal in ransoming captives.? While many of the bishops were men of gross and scan- dalous vice, there were always some who laboured assiduously in the old episcopal vocation of protecting the oppressed, interceding for the captives, and opening — their sanctuaries to the fugitives. The fame acquired by St. Germanus was so great, that prisoners are said to have called upon him to assist them, in the interval between his death and his burial; and the body of the saint becoming miraculously heavy, it was found impossible to carry it to the grave till the captives had been released.2 In the midst of the complete eclipse of all secular learn- ing, in the midst of a reign of ignorance, imposture, and credulity which cannot be paralleled in history, there grew up a vast legendary literature, clustering around the form of the ascetic, and the lives of the saints among very * Compare Pitra, Vie de St.-Léger, p. 137. Sismondi, Hist. des Francais, tome il. p. 62-63. * See a remarkable passage from his life, cited by Guizot, Hist, de la Civi- hsation en France, xvii™ lecon. The English historians contain several in- stances of the activity of charity in the darkest period. Alfredand Edward the Confessor were conspicuous forit. Ethelwolf is said to have provided ‘for the good of his soul,’ that, till the day of judgment, one poor man in ten should be provided with meat, drink, and clothing. (Asser’s Life of Alfred.) There was a popular legend of a poor man who, having in vain asked alms of some sailors, all the bread in their vessel was turned into stone. (Roger of Wendover, 4.p. 606,) See, too, another legend of charity in Mathew of Westminster, a.p. 611. > Greg. Tur. Hist. v. 8, FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 261 much that is grotesque, childish, and even immoral, contain some fragments of the purest and most touching religious poetry." But the chief title of the period we are considering, to the indulgence of posterity, was its great missionary labours. The stream of missionaries which had at first flowed from Palestine and Italy began to flow from the West. The Irish monasteries furnished the earliest, and probably the most numerous, labourers in the field. A great portion of the north of England was converted by the Irish monks of Lindisfarne. The fame of St. Colum- banus in Gaul, in Germany, and in Italy, for a time even balanced that of St. Benedict himself, and the school he founded at Luxeuil became the great seminary for medieval missionaries, while the monastery he planted at Bobbio continued to the present century. The Irish missionary, St. Gall, gave his name to a portion of Switzerland he had converted, and a crowd of other Irish missionaries penetrated to the remotest forests of Germany. The movement which began with St. Columba in the middle of the sixth century, was communicated to England and Gaul about a century later. Early in the eighth century it found a great leader in the Anglo-Saxon St. Boniface, who spread Christianity far and wide through Germany, and at once excited and disciplined an ardent enthusiasm, which appears to have attracted all that was morally best in the Church. During about three cen- turies, and while Europe had sunk into the most extreme moral, intellectual, and political degradation, a constant stream of missionaries poured forth from the monasteries, who spread the knowledge of the Cross and the seeds of 1 M. Guizot has given several specimens of this, (ist. de la Ctvilis, xviime legon.) 262 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, a future civilisation through every land, from Lombardy to Sweden.! | On the whole, however, it would be difficult to ex- aggerate the superstition and the vice of the period between the dissolution of the Empire and the reign of Charlemagne. But in the midst of the chaos the elements of a new society may be detected, and we may already observe in embryo the movement which ultimately issued in the crusades, the feudal system, and chivalry. It is exclusively with the moral aspect of this movement that the present work is concerned, and I shall endeavour, in the remainder of this chapter, to describe and explain its incipient stages. It consisted of two parts—a fusion of Christianity with the military spirit, and an increasing reverence for secular rank. It had been an ancient maxim of the Greeks, that no more acceptable gifts can be offered in the temples of the gods than the trophies won from an enemy in battle. Of this military religion Christianity had been at first the extreme negation. I have already had occasion to observe that it had been one of its earliest rules that no arms should be introduced within the church, and that soldiers returning even from the most righteous war should not be admitted to communion until after a period of penance and purification. A powerful party, which counted among its leaders Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius, and Basil, maintained that * This portion of medizval history has lately been well traced by Mr. Maclear, in his History of Christian Missions in the Middle Ages (1863). See, too, Montalembert’s Moines d' Occident; Ozanam’s Etudes germaniques. The original materials are to be found in Bede, and in the Lives of the Saints—especially that of St. Columba, by Adamnan. On the French missionaries, see the Benedictine Hist. it. de la France, tome iv. p.5; and on the English missionaries, Sharon Turner’s Hist. of England, book x. ch. ii. * Dion Chrysostom, Or. ii. (De Regno). FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 263 all warfare was unlawful for those who had been con- verted, and this opinion had its martyr in the celebrated Maximilianus, who suffered death under Diocletian solely because, having been enrolled as a soldier, he declared that he was a-Christian, and that therefore he could not fight. The extent to which this doctrine was dissemi- nated, has been suggested with much plausibility as one of the causes of the Diocletian persecution. It was the subject of one of the reproaches of Celsus, and Origen, in reply, frankly accepted the accusation that Christianity was incompatible with military service, though he main- tained that the prayers of the Christians were more efficacious than the swords of the legions.? At the same time, there can be no question that many Christians, from a very early date, did enlist in the army, and that they were not cut off from the Church. The legend of the thundering legion, under Marcus Aurelius, whatever we may think of the pretended miracle, attested the fact, which is expressly asserted by Tertullian The first fury of the Diocletian persecution fell upon Christian soldiers, and by the time of Constantine the army ap- pears to have become, in a great degree, Christian. A Council of Arles, under Constantine, condemned soldiers who, through religious motives, deserted their colours ; and St. Augustine threw his great influence into the same scale. But even where’ the calling was seldom regarded as sinful, it was strongly discouraged. The ideal or type of supreme excellence conceived by the imagination of the Pagan world, and to which all their purest moral enthusiasm naturally aspired, was the patriot and soldier, The ideal of the Catholic legends was the ascetic, whose ? Gibbon, ch. xvi. ? Origen, Cels. lib. viii. * ‘Navigamus et nos yobiscum et militamus.’—Tert, Apol. xlii. See tow Grotius De Jure, i. cap. ii, 51 264 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. first duty was to abandon all secular feelings and ties, In most family circles the conflict between the two prin- ciples appeared, and in the moral atmosphere of the fourth and fifth centuries it was almost certain that every young man who was animated by any pure or genuine enthusiasm would turn from the army to the monks. St. Martin, St. Ferreol, St. Tarrachus, and St. Victricius, were among those who through religious motives aban- doned the army.’ When Ulphilas translated the Bible into Gothic, he is said to have excepted the four books of Kings, through fear that they might encourage the martial disposition of the barbarians.? The first influence that contributed to bring the military profession into friendly connection with religion was the received doctrine concerning the Providential government of affairs. It was generally taught that all national cata- strophes were penal inflictions, resulting, for the most part, from the vices or the religious errors of the leading men, and that temporal prosperity was the reward of orthodoxy and virtue. A great battle, on the issue of which the fortunes of a people or of a monarch depended, was there- fore supposed to be the special occasion of Providen- tial interposition, and the hope of obtaining military success became one of the most frequent motives of conversion. The conversion of Constantine was profess- edly, and the conversion of Clovis was perhaps really, due to the persuasion that the Divine interposition had in a critical moment given them the victory; and I have already noticed how large a part must be assigned to this * See an admirable dissertation on the opinions of the early Christians about military service, in Le Blant,. Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, tome 1. pp. 81-87. The subject is frequently referred to by Barbeyrac, Morale des Peres, and Grotius De Jure, lib. i. cap. il. 2 Philostorgius, ii. 5. 4 FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 265 order of ideas in facilitating the progress of Christianity among the barbarians. When a cross was said to have appeared miraculously to Constantine, with an inscription announcing the victory of the Milvian bridge; when the same holy sign, adorned with the sacred monogram, was carried in the forefront of the Roman armies; when the nails of the cross, which Helena had brought from Jeru- salem, were converted by the emperor into a helmet, and into bits for his warhorse, it was evident that a ereat change was passing over the once pacific spirit of the Church.? Many circumstances conspired to accelerate it. North- ern tribes, who had been taught that the gates of the Walhalla were ever open to the warrior who pre- sented himself stained with the blood of his vanquished enemies, were converted to Christianity ; but they carried their old feelings into their new creed. The conflict of many races, and the paralysis of all government that fol- lowed the fall of the empire, made force everywhere dominant, and petty wars incessant. The military obli- gations attached to the ‘benefices’ which the sovereigns. gave to their leading chiefs, connected the idea of mi- litary service with that of rank, and rendered it doubly honourable in the eyes of men. Many bishops and abbots, partly from the turbulence of their times and characters, and partly, at a later period, from their position as oreat feudal lords, were accustomed to lead their followers in battle ; and this custom, though prohibited by Charle- magne, may be traced to so late a period as the battle of Agincourt.? * See some excellent remarks on this change, in Milman’s History of Christianity, vol. ii, pp. 287-288. * Mably, Observations sur ? Histoire de France, i, 6; Hallam’s Middle Ages, ch. il, part ii. 266 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. The stigma which Christianity had attached to war was thus gradually effaced. At the same time, the Church - remained, on the whole, a pacific influence. War was rather condoned than consecrated, and, whatever might be the case with a few isolated prelates, the Church did nothing to increase or encourage it. The transition from the almost Quaker tenets of the primitive Church to the essentially military Christianity of the Crusades was chiefly due to another cause—to the terrors and to the example of Mahommedanism. This great religion, which so long rivalled the influence of Christianity, had indeed spread the deepest and most justifiable panic through Christendom. Without any of those aids to the imagination which pictures and images can furnish, without any elaborate sacerdotal organisa- tion, preaching the purest Monotheism among ignorant and barbarous men, and inculcating, on the whole, an extremely high and noble system of morals, it spread with a rapidity and it acquired a hold over the minds of its votaries, which it is probable that no other religion has altogether equalled. It borrowed from Christianity that doctrine of salvation by belief, which is perhaps the most powerful impulse that can be applied to the cha- racters of masses of men, and it elaborated so minutely the charms of its sensual heaven, and the terrors of its material hell, as to cause the alternative to appeal with unrivalled force to the gross imaginations of the people. It possessed a book which, however inferior to that of the opposing religion, has nevertheless been the consola- tion and the support of millions in many ages. It taught a fatalism which in its first age nerved its adherents with a matchless military courage, and which, though in later days, it has often paralysed their active energies, has also rarely failed to support them under the pressure of inevi- FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 267 table calamity. But, above all, it discovered the oreat, though fatal secret of uniting indissolubly the passion of the soldier with the passion of the devotee. Making the conquest of the infidel the first of duties, and proposing heaven as the certain reward of the valiant soldier, it created a blended enthusiasm that soon overpowered the divided counsels and the voluptuous governments of the East, and within a century of the death of Mahomet, his followers had almost extirpated Christianity from its ori- ginal home, founded great monarchies in Asia and Africa, planted a noble, though transient and exotic civilisation in Spain, menaced the capital of the Eastern empire, and, but for the issue of a single battle, they would probably have extended their sceptre over the energetic and progressive races of Central Europe. The wave was broken by Charles Martel, at the battle of Poictiers, and it is now useless to speculate what might have been the consequences had Mahommedanism unfurled its triumphant banner among those Teutonic tribes who have so often changed their ereed, and on whom the course of civilisation has so largely depended. But one great change was in fact achieved. The spirit of Mahommedanism slowly passed into Christianity, and transformed it into its image. The spectacle of an essentially military religion fascinated men who were at once very warlike and very superstitious. The panic that had palsied Europe was after a long in- terval succeeded by a fierce reaction of resentment. Pride and religion conspired to urge the Christian warriors against those who had so often defeated the armies and wasted the territory of Christendom, who had shorn the empire of the Cross of many of its fairest provinces, and profaned that holy city which was venerated not only for its past associations, but also for the spiritual bless- ings it could still bestow upon the pilgrim. The papal 268 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, indulgences proved not less efficacious in stimulating the military spirit than the promises of Mahomet, and for about two centuries every pulpit in Christendom proclaimed the duty of war with the unbeliever, and represented the battle field as the sure path to heaven. ‘The religious orders which arose united the character of the priest with that of the warrior, and when, at the hour of sunset, the soldier knelt down to pray before his cross, that cross was the handle of his sword. It would be impossible to conceive any more complete transformation than Christianity had thus undergone, and it is melancholy to contrast with its aspects during the crusades the impression it had once most justly made _ upon the world, as the spirit of gentleness and of peace encountering the spirit of violence and war. Among the many curious habits of the Pagan Irish, one of the most. significant was that of perpendicular burial. With a feeling something like that which induced Vespasian to declare that a Roman emperor should die standing, the Pagan warriors shrank from the notion of being prostrate even in death, and they appear to have regarded this martial burial as a special symbol of Paganism. An old Irish manuscript tells how, when Christianity had been introduced into Ireland, a king of Ulster on his death- bed charged his son never to become a Christian, but to be buried standing upright like a man in battle, with his face for ever turned to the south, defying the men of Leinster." As late as the sixteenth century, it is said that in some parts of Ireland children were baptised by immersion; but the right arms of the males were carefully * Wakeman’s Archeologia Hibernica, p. 21, However, Giraldus Cam- brensis observes that the Irish saints were peculiarly vindictive, and St. Columba and St. Comgall are said to have been leaders in a sanguinary con- flict about a church near Coleraine. See Reeves’ edition of Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba, pp. Uxxvii. 253. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 269 held above the water, in order that, not having been dipped in the sacred stream, they might strike the more deadly blow.! It had been boldly predicted by some of the early Christians, that the conversion of the world would lead to a cessation of all war. In looking back, with our present experience, we are driven to the melancholy conclusion that not only has ecclesiastical influence had no appreciable effect in diminishing the number of wars, but that it has actually and very seriously increased it. We may look in vain for any period since Con- _ stantine, in which the clergy, as a body, exerted them- selves to repress the military spirit, or to prevent or abridge a particular war, with an energy or a success the east comparable to what they displayed during several centuries in stimulating the fanaticism of the crusaders, in producing the atrocious massacre of the Albigenses, in embittering the religious wars that followed the Re- formation. Private wars were, no doubt, in some degree repressed by their influence; for the institution of the ‘Truce of God’ was for a time of much value, and when, towards the close of the middle ages, the custom of duels arose, it was strenuously condemned by the clergy; but we shall probably not place any great value on their exertions in this field, when we remember that duels were almost or altogether unknown to the Pagan world; that, having arisen in a period of great superstition, the anathemas of the Church were almost impotent to dis- courage them; and that in our own century they are rapidly disappearing before the simple censure of an ‘industrial society. It is possible—though it would, I imagine, be difficult to prove it—that the mediatorial office, so often exercised by bishops, may sometimes have Campion’s Historie of Ireland (1571), book i. ch. vi. 270 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. prevented wars ; and it is certain that during the periods — of the religious wars, so much military spirit existed in Europe, that it must necessarily have found a vent, and under no circumstances could the period have been one of perfect peace. But when all these qualifications have been fully admitted, the broad fact will remain, that, with the exception of Mahommedanism, no other religion has done so much to produce war as was done by the religious teachers of Christendom during several centuries. The military fanaticism they evoked by the indulgences of the popes, by the ceaseless exhortations of the pulpit, by the religious importance that was attached to the relics at Jerusalem, and by the extreme antipathy they fostered towards all who differed from their theology, has scarcely ever been equalled in its intensity, and it has caused the effusion of oceans of blood, and has been pro- ductive of incalculable misery to the world. Religious fanaticism was a main cause of the earlier wars, and an important ingredient in the later ones. The peace principles, that were so common before Constantine, have found scarcely any echo ‘except from Erasmus, the Quakers, and the Anabaptists;1 and although some very important pacific agencies have arisen out of the in- dustrial progress of modern times, these have been, for the most part, wholly unconnected with, and have in some cases been directly opposed to, theological interests. But although theological influences cannot reasonably be said to have diminished the number of wars, they have had a very real and beneficial effect in diminishing their * It seems curious to find in so calm and untanaticat a writer as Justus Lipsius the following passage: ‘Jam et inyasio queedam legitima videtur etiam sine injuria, ut in barbaros et moribus aut religione prorsum a nobis abhorrentes.’—Politicorum sive Civilis Doctrine libri (Paris. 1594), lib, iy. ch. il. cap. iv. FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 271 atrocity, by improving the condition of the vanquished. On few subjects have the moral opinions of different ages exhibited so marked a variation as in their judgments of what punishment may justly be imposed on a conquered enemy, and these variations have often been cited as an argument against those who believe in the existence of natural moral perceptions. To those, however, who accept that doctrine, with the limitations that have been ‘stated in the first chapter, they can cause no perplexity. Yn the first dawning of the human intelligence (as I have said) the notion of duty, as distinguished from that of interest, appears, and the mind, in reviewing the various emotions by which it is influenced, recognises the unsel- fish and benevolent motives as essentially and generically superior to the selfish and the cruel. But it is the general condition of society alone that determines the standard of benevolence—the classes towards which every good man will exercise it. At first, the range of duty is the family, the tribe, the state, the confederation. Within these limits every man feels himself under moral obligations to those about him; but he regards the outer world as we \regard wild animals, as beings upon whom he may justifiably prey. Hence, we may explain the curious fact that the terms brigand or corsair conveyed in the early stages of society no notion of moral guilt.1_ Such * “Con I’ oceasione di queste cose Plutarco nel Teseo dice che gli eroi si recavano a grande onore é si reputavano in pregio d’armi con!’ esser chiamati ladroni ; siccome a’ tempi barbari ritornati quello di Corsale era titolo riputato di signoria ; d’ intorno a’ quali tempi venuto Solone, si dice aver permesso nelle sue leggi le societa per cagion di prede ; tanto Solone ben intese questa nostra compiuta Umanita, nella quale costoro non godono del diritto natural delle genti! Ma quel che fa pit maraviglia é che Platone ed Aristotile posero il ladroneccio fralle spezie della caccia e con tali e tanti filosofi d’ una gente umanissima convengono con la loro barbarie i Germani antichi; appo i quali al referire di Cesare i ladronecci non solo non eran infami, ma si tene- vano tra gli esercizi della virtt siccome tra quelli che per costume non appli- 272 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. — men were looked upon simply as we look upon hunts- men, and if they displayed courage and skill in their pursuit, they were deemed fit subjects for admiration. Even in the writings of the most enlightened philosophers of Greece, war with barbarians is represented as a form of chase, and the simple desire of obtaining the barbarians as slaves was considered a sufficient reason for invading them. The right of the conqueror to kill his captives was generally recognised, nor was it at first restricted by. any considerations of age or sex. Several instances are recorded of Greek and other cities being deliberately destroyed by Greeks or by Romans, and the entire populations ruthlessly massacred.!_ The whole career of the early republic of Rome, though much idealised and transfigured by later historians, was probably governed by these principles.” The normal fate of the captive, which, among barbarians, had been death, was, in civilised an- tiquity, slavery; but many thousands were condemned to the gladiatorial shows, and the vanquished general was commonly slain in the Mamertine prison, while his conqueror ascended in triumph to the Capitol. cando ad arte alcuna cosi fuggivano I’ ozio.’—Vico, Scienza Nuova, ii. 6. See too Whewell’s Elements of Morality, book vi. ch. ii. + The ancient right of war is fully discussed by Grotius De Jure, lib. iii, See, especially, the horrible catalogue of tragedies in cap. 4. The military feeling that regards capture as disgraceful, had probably some, though only a very subordinate influence, in producing cruelty to the prisoners. * Le jour ou Athénes décréta que tous les Mityléniens, sans distinction de sexe ni d’age, seraient exterminés, elle ne croyait pas dépasser son droit; quand le lendemain elle revint sur son décret et se contenta de mettre & mort mille citoyens et de confisquer toutes les terres, elle se crut humaine et indul- gente. Aprés la prise de Platée les hommes furent égorgés, les femmes vendues, et personne n’accusa les vainqueurs d’avoir violé le droit... . C’est en vertu de ce droit de la guerre que Rome a étendu la solitude autour d’elle ; du territoire ot les Volsques avaient vingt-trois cités elle a fait les marais pontins; les cinquante-trois villes du Latium ont disparu; dans le Samnium on put longtemps reconnaitre les lieux o& les armées romaines avaient passé, moins aux vestiges de leurs camps qu’A la solitude quirégnait aux environs.’—Fustel de Coulanges, La Cité antique, pp. 263-264. 3 FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 273 A few traces of a more humane spirit may, it is true, be discovered. Plato had advocated the liberation of all Greek prisoners upon payment of a fixed ransom,! and the Spartan general, Callicratidas, had nobly acted upon this principle ;* but his example never appears to have been generally followed. In Rome, the notion of inter- national obligation was very strongly felt. No war was considered just which had not been officially declared; and even in the case of wars with barbarians, the Roman historians often discuss the sufficiency or insufficiency of the motives of the wars, with a conscientious severity a modern historian could hardly surpass. The later Greek and Latin writings occasionally contain maxims which exhibit a considerable progress in this sphere. The sole legitimate object of war, both Cicero and Sallust declared to be an assured peace. That war, according to Tacitus, ends well which ends with a pardon. Pliny refused to apply the epithet great to Cesar, on account of the torrents of human blood he had shed. Two Ro- man conquerors* are credited with the saying, that it is better to save the life of one citizen than to destroy a thousand enemies. Marcus Aurelius mournfully assimi- lated the career of a conqueror to that of a simple robber. Nations or armies which voluntarily submitted to Rome were’ habitually treated with extreme leniency, and nu- merous acts of individual magnanimity are recorded. The violation of the chastity of conquered women by soldiers in a siege was denounced as a rare and atrocious 1 Plato, Republic, lib. v.; Bodin, République, liv. i. cap. 5. * Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. vill. p. 224, Agesilaus was also very hu- mane to captives.—Ibid. pp. 365-6. $ This appears continually in Livy, but most of all, I think, in the Gaulish historian, Florus. * Scipio and Trajan. 274 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. crime." The extreme atrocities of ancient war appear at last to have been practically, though not legally, restricted to two classes.” Cities where Roman ambassadors had been insulted, or where some special act of ill faith or cruelty was said to have taken place, were razed to the ground, and their populations massacred or delivered into slavery. Barbarian prisoners were regarded almost as wild beasts, and sent in thousands to fill the slave. market or to combat in the arena. The changes Christianity effected in the rights of war were very important, and they may, I think, be comprised under three heads. In the first place, it suppressed the gladiatorial shows, and thereby saved thousands of cap- tives from a bloody death. In the next place, it’steadily discouraged the practice of enslaving prisoners, ransomed immense multitudes with charitable contributions, and by slow and insensible gradations proceeded on its path of mercy till it became a recognised principle of inter- national law, that no Christian prisoners should be reduced to slavery. In the third place, it had a more indirect * See some very remarkable passages in Grotius, de Jwre Bell. lib. iii. cap. 4, § 19. ” These mitigations are fully enumerated by Ayala, De Jure et Officiis Beluicis (Antwerp, 1597), Grotius, De Jure. It is remarkable that both Ayala and Grotius base their attempts to mitigate the severity of war chiefly, Ayala almost entirely, upon the writings and examples of the Pagans. There is an interesting discussion of the limits of the right of conquerors and of the just causes of war in Cicero, De Offic. lib. i. * In England the change seems to have immediately followed conversion. ‘ The evangelical precepts of peace und love,’ says a very learned historian, ‘did not put an end to war, they did not put an end to aggressive conquests, but they distinctly humanised the way in which war was carried on. From this time forth the never-ending wars with the Welsh cease to be wars of extermination. The heathen English had been satisfied with nothing short of the destruction and expulsion of their enemies; the Christian English thought it enough to reduce them to political subjection. . . . The Christian Welsh could now sit down as subjects of the Christian Saxon. The Welshman was acknowledged as a man and a citizen, and was put under the protection of the law.’—Freeman’s Hist. of the Norman Conquest, FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE, 275 but very powerful influence, by the creation of a new warlike ideal. The ideal knight of the Crusades and of chivalry, uniting all the force and fire of the ancient warrior, with all the tenderness and humility of the Christian saint, sprang from the conjunction of the two streams of religious and of military feeling; and although this ideal, like all others, was a creation of the imagina- tion, although it was rarely or never perfectly realised in life, yet it remained the type and model of warlike excel- lence, to which many generations aspired ; and its soften- ing influence may even now be largely traced in the cha- racter of the modern gentleman. Together with the gradual fusion of the military spirit with Christianity, we may dimly descry, in the period before Charlemagne, the first stages of that consecration of secular rank which at a later period, in the forms of chivalry, the divine right of kings, and the reverence for aristocracies, played so large a part both in moral and in political history. We have already seen that the course of events in the Roman empire had been towards the continual aggrandisement of the imperial power. The representative despotism of Augustus was at last succeeded by the oriental despotism of Diocletian. The senate sank into a powerless assembly of imperial nomi- nees, and the spirit of Roman freedom wholly perished with the extinction of Stoicism. vol. i. pp. 88-34. Christians who assisted infidels in wars against Chris- tians were ipso facto excommunicated, and might therefore be enslaved, but all others were free from slavery. ‘ Et quidem inter Christianos lauda- bili et antiqua consuetudine introductum est, ut capti hine inde, utcunque justo bello, non fierent servi, sed liberi servarentur donec solvant precium redemptionis.’—Ayala, lib. i. cap. 5. ‘This rule, at least,’ says Grotius, ‘(though but a small matter) the reverence for the Christian law has en- forced, which Socrates vainly sought to have established among the Greeks.’ The Mahommedans also made it a rule not to enslave their co-religionists.—. Grotius de Jure, iii. 7. § 9. Pagan and barbarian prisoners were, however, sold as slaves (especially by the Spaniards) till very recently. 276 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. It would probably be a needless refinement to seek any deeper causes for this change than may be found in the ordinary principles of human nature. Despotism is the normal and legitimate government of an early society in which knowledge has not yet developed the powers of the people; but when it is introduced into a civilised community, it is of the nature of a disease, and a disease which, unless it be checked, has a continual tendency to spread. When free nations abdicate their political fune- tions, they gradually lose both the capacity and the desire for freedom. Political talent and ambition, having no sphere for action, steadily decay, and servile, enervating, and vicious habits proportionately increase. Nations are organic beings in a constant process of expansion or decay, and where they do not exhibit a progress of liberty they usually exhibit'a progress of servitude. It can hardly be asserted that Christianity had much in- fluence upon this change. By accelerating in some degree the withdrawal of the virtuous energies of the people from the sphere of government which had long been in pro- cess, it prevented the great improvement of morals, which it undoubtedly effected, from appearing perceptibly in public affairs. It taught a doctrine of passive obedience, which its disciples nobly observed in the worst periods of persecution. On the other hand, the Christians em- phatically repudiated the ascription of Divine honours to the sovereign, and they asserted with heroic constancy their independent worship, in defiance of the law. After the time of Constantine, however, their zeal became far less pure, and sectarian interests wholly governed their principles. Much misapplied learning has been employed in endeavouring to extract from the Fathers a consistent doctrine on the subject of the relations of subjects to their sovereigns ; but every impartial observer may discover FROM CONSTANTINE TO CHARLEMAGNE. 277 that the principle upon which they acted was exceedingly simple. When a sovereign was sufficiently orthodox in his opinions, and sufficiently zealous in patronising the Church and in persecuting the heretics, he was extolled as an angel. When his policy was opposed to the Church, he was represented as a demon. The estimate which Gregory of Tours has given of the character of Clovis, though far more frank, is not a more striking instance of moral perversion than the fulsome and indeed _blas- phemous adulation which Eusebius poured upon Con- stantine—a sovereign whose character was at all times of the most mingled description, and who, shortly after his conversion, put to a violent death his son, his nephew, and his wife. ‘If we were to estimate the attitude of ecclesiastics to sovereigns by the language of Eusebius, we should suppose that they ascribed to them a direct Divine inspiration, and exalted the Imperial dignity to an extent that was before unknown.t But when Julian mounted the throne, the whole aspect of the Church was changed. This great and virtuous, though misguided, sovereign, whose private life was a model of purity, who carried to the throne the manners, tastes, and friendships of a philosophic life, and who proclaimed, and, with very slight exceptions, acted with the largest and most gene- rous toleration, was an enemy of the Church, and all the vocabulary of invective was in consequence habitually lavished upon him. Lcclesiastics and laymen combined in insulting him, and when, after a brief but glorious reign of less than two years, he met an honourable death on the battle-field, neither the disaster that had befallen the Roman arms, nor the present dangers of the army, nor the heroic courage which the fallen emperor had * The character of Constantine, and the estimate of it in Eusebius, are well treated by Dean Stanley, Lectures on the Eastern Church (Lect. vi.). 278 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. displayed, nor the majestic tranquillity of his end, nor the. tears of his faithful friends, could shame the Christian community into the decency of silence. A peal of brutal merriment filled the land. In Antioch the Christians assembled in the theatres and in the churches, to cele- brate with rejoicing, the death which their emperor had met in fighting against the enemies of his country.’ This is noticed by Plautus. § Ammianus Marcellinus, xxviii. 4. 818 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, a nurse the duty of suckling her child.’ Sumptuary laws regulated with the most minute severity all the details of domestic economy.” The courtesan class, though proba- bly numerous and certainly uncontrolled, were regarded with much contempt. The disgrace of publicly professing themselves members of it was believed to be a sufficient punishment,’ and an old law, which was probably intended to teach in symbol the duties of married life, enjoined that no such person should touch the altar of Juno. It was related of a certain edile, that he failed to obtain redress for an assault which had been made upon him, because it had occurred in a house of ill-fame, in which it was dis- : graceful for a Roman magistrate to be found.> The sanctity of female purity was believed to be attested by all nature. The most savage animals became tame before a virgin.® When a woman walked naked round a field, caterpillars and all loathsome insects fell dead before her.? It was said that drowned men floated on their backs, and drowned women on their faces; and this, in the opinion of Roman naturalists, was due to the superior purity of the latter.3 It was a remark of Aristotle, that the superiority of the Greeks to the barbarians was shown, amongst other things, in the fact that the Greeks did not, like other nations, regard their wives as slaves, but treated. them as help- mates and companions. A Roman writer has appealed, * Tacitus, De Oratoribus, xxviii. * See Aulus Gellius, Woct, ii. 24, * ‘More inter veteres recepto, qui satis poenarum adversum impudicas in ipsa professione flagitii credebant.’—Tacitus, Annai. ii. 85. * Aul. Gell. iy. 3. Juno was the goddess of marriage. > Ibid. iv. 14. ° The well-known superstition about the lion, &c., becoming docile before a virgin is, I believe, as old as Roman times. St. Isidore mentions that rhinoceroses were believed to be captured by young girls being put in their way to fascinate them. (Legendre, Traité de 1 Opinion, tome ii. p- 35.) * Pliny, Hist. Nat, xxviii, 28, 8 Ibid. vii. 18, on THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 319 on the whole with greater justice, to the treatment of wives by his fellow countrymen, as a proof of the superi- ority of Roman to Greek civilisation. He has observed that, while the Greeks kept their wives in a special quarter in the interior of their houses, and never permitted them to sit at banquets except with their relatives, or to see any male except in the presence of a relative, no Roman ever hesitated to lead his wife with him to the feast, or to place the mother of the family at the head of his table. Whether, in the period when wives were completely sub- ject to the rule of their husbands, much domestic oppres- sion occurred, it is now impossible to say. A temple dedicated to a goddess named Viriplaca, whose mission was to appease husbands, was worshipped by Roman women on the Palatine,” and a strange and improbable, if not incredible story, is related by Livy, of the discovery, during the Republic, of a vast conspiracy by Roman wives to poison their husbands.? On the whole, however, it is probable that the Roman matron was from the earliest: period a name of honour ;* that the beautiful sentence of a jurisconsult of the empire, who defined marriage as a lifelong fellowship of all divine and human rights,’ ex- pressed most faithfully the feelings of the people, and that female virtue shone in every age conspicuously in Roman . ° ; 6 biographies. * “Quem enim Romanorum pudet uxorem ducere in convivium ? aut cujus materfamilias non primum locum tenet «dium, atque in celebritate versa- tur? quod multo fit aliter in Grecia. Nam neque in convivium adhibetur, nisi propinquorum, neque sedet nisi in interiore parte edium que gyne- contis appellatur, quo nemo accedit, nisi propinqua cognatione conjunctus,’— Corn. Nepos, preefat. + Val. Max. ii. 1. § 6. $ Liv. viii. 18. * See Val. Max. ii. 1. * ‘Nuptiz sunt conjunctio maris et femine, et consortium omnis vite divini et humani juris communicatio.’—Modestinus. ° Livy xxxiv.5. There is a fine collection of legends or histories of heroic women (but chiefly Greek) in Clem, Alexand. Strom. iv. 19. 820 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. I have already enumerated the chief causes of that complete dissolution of Roman morals which began shortly after the Punic wars, which contributed very largely to the destruction of the Republic, and which attained its climax under the Cesars. There are few examples in history of a revolution pervading so completely every sphere of religious, domestic, social, and political life. Philosophical scepticism corroded the ancient religions. An inundation of Eastern luxury and Eastern morals sub- merged all the old habits of austere simplicity. The civil wars and the empire degraded the character of the people, and the exaggerated prudery of republican man- ners only served to make the rebound into vice the more irresistible. In the fierce outburst of ungovernable and almost frantic depravity that marked this evil period, the violations of female virtue were infamously prominent. The vast’ multiplication of slaves, which is in every age peculiarly fatal to moral purity; the fact that a great proportion of those slaves were chosen from the most voluptuous provinces of the empire; the games of Flora, in which races of naked courtesans were exhibited ; the pantomimes, which derived their charms chiefly from the audacious indecencies of the actors ; the influx of the Greek and Asiatic hetseree who were attracted by the wealth of the metropolis ; the licentious paintings which began to adorn every house; the rise of Bais, which rivalled the luxury and surpassed the beauty of the chief centres of Asiatic vice, combining with the intoxication of great wealth suddenly acquired, with the disruption, through many causes, of all the ancient habits and beliefs, and with the tendency to pleasure which the closing of the paths of honourable political ambition, by the imperial despotism, naturally produced, had all their part in preparing those orgies of vice which the writers of the empire reveal. THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 821 Most scholars will, I suppose, retain a vivid recollection of the new insight into the extent and wildness of human guilt which they obtained when they first opened the pages of Suetonius or Lampridius; and the sixth Satire of Juvenal paints with a fierce energy, though probably with the natural exaggeration of a satirist, the extent to which corruption had spread among the women. It was found necessary, under Tiberius, to make a special law prohibiting members of noble houses from enrolling them- selves as prostitutes! The extreme coarseness of the Roman disposition prevented sensuality from assuming that esthetic character which had made it in Greece the parent of Art, and had very profoundly modified its Influence, while the passion for gladiatorial shows often allied it somewhat unnaturally with cruelty. There have certainly been many periods in history when virtue was more rare than under the Cxsars; but there has probably never been a period when vice was more extravagant or uncontrolled. Young emperors especially, who were sur- rounded by swarms of sycophants and pandars, and who often lived in continual dread of assassination, plunged with the most reckless and feverish excitement into every variety of abnormal lust. The reticence which has always more or less characterised modern society and modern writers was unknown, and the unblushing, un- disguised obscenity of the Epierams of Martial, of the Romances of Apuleius and Petronius, and of some of the Dialogues of Lucian, reflected but too faithfully the spirit of their time. » There had arisen, too, partly through vicious causes, and partly, I suppose, through the unfavourable influence which the attraction of the public institutions exercised on ' Tacitus, Annal. ii. 85. This decree was on account of a patrician lady named Vistilia having so enrolled herself, 322 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, domestic life, a great and general indisposition towards marriage, which Augustus attempted in vain to arrest by his laws against celibacy, and by conferring many pri- vileges on the fathers of three children! A singularly curious speech is preserved, which is said to have been delivered on this subject shortly before the close of the Republic, by Metellus Numidicus, in order, if possible, to: overcome this indisposition. ‘If, Romans,’ he said, ‘ we could live without wives, we should all keep free from that source of trouble; but since nature has ordained that men can neitherlive sufficiently agreeably with wives, nor. at all without them, let us consult the perpetual endur- ance of our race rather than our own brief enjoyment.’? In the midst of this torrent of corruption a great change was passing over the legal position of Roman women. They had at first been in a condition of absolute subjec- ion or subordination to their relations. They arrived, during the empire, at a point of freedom and dignity which they subsequently lost, and have never altogether regained. The Romans admitted three kinds of mar- riage—the ‘confarreatio,’ which was accompanied by the ost awful religious ceremonies, was practically indis- soluble, and was jealously restricted to patricians; the coemptio,’ which was purely civil, which derived its name 1 Dion Cassius, liv. 16, lvi. 10. * «Si sine uxore possemus, Quirites, esse, omnes ea molestia careremus ; sed quoniam ita natura tradidit, ut nec cum illis satis commode nec sine illis ullo modo vivi possit, saluti perpetuze potius quam brevi voluptati consulen- dum.’—Aulus Gellius, Noct. i. 6. Some of the audience, we are told, thought that, in exhorting to matrimony, the speaker should have concealed its undoubted evils. It was decided, however, that it was more honourable to tell the whole truth. Stobzeus (Sententie) has preserved a number of harsh and often heartless sayings about wives, that were popular among the Greeks, It was a saying of a Greek poet, that ‘marriage brings only two happy days—the day when the husband first clasps his wife to his breast, and the day when he lays her in the tomb ;’ and in Rome it became a pro- verbial saying, that a wife was only good ‘in thalamo vel in tumulo.’ THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 3235 from a symbolical sale, and which, like the preceding form, gave the husband complete authority over the person and property of his wife ; and the ‘usus,’ which was effected by a simple declaration of a determination to cohabit. This last form of marriage became general in the empire, and it had this very important consequence, that the woman so married remained, in the eyes of the law, in the family of-her father, and was under his guardianship, not under the guardianship of her husband. But the old patria potestas had become completely obsolete, and the prac- tical effect of the general adoption of this form of mar- riage was the absolute legal independence of the wife. With the exception of her dowry, which passed into the hands of her husband, she held her property in her own right ; she inherited her share of the wealth of her father, and she retained it altogether independently of her hus- band. A very considerable portion of Roman wealth thus passed into the uncontrolled possession of women. The private man of business of the wife was a favourite character in the comedians, and the tyranny exercised by rich wives over their husbands—to whom it is said they sometimes lent money at high interest—a continual theme of satirists.? A complete revolution had thus passed over the consti- tution of the family. Instead of being constructed on the principle of autocracy, it was constructed on the principle of coequal partnership. The legal position of the wife had become one of complete independence, while her social position was one of great dignity. The more 1 Friedlander, Hust. des Mours romaies, tome i. pp. 360-3864. On the great influence exercised by Roman ladies on political affairs some remark- able passages are collected in Denis, Hist. des Idées Morales, tome ii. pp. 98- 99. This author is particularly valuable in all that relates to the history of domestic morals. The Asinariusof Plautus, and some of the epigrams of Martial, throw much light upon this subject. 324 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, conservative spirits were naturally alarmed at the change, and two measures were taken to arrest it. The Oppian law was designed to restrain the luxury of women; but, In spite of the strenuous exertions of Cato, this law was speedily repealed. A more important measure was the Voconian law, which restricted within certain very narrow limits the property which women might inherit ; but public opinion never fully acquiesced in it, and by several legal subterfuges its operation was partially evaded.” | Another and a still more important consequence re- sulted from the changed form of marriage. Being looked upon simply as a civil contract, entered into for the hap- piness of the contracting parties, its continuance depended upon mutual consent. Either party might. dissolve it at will, and the dissolution gave both parties a right. to remarry. ‘There can be no question that under this system the obligations of marriage were treated with extreme levity. We find Cicero repudiating his wife Terentia, because he desired a new dowry ;? Augustus compelling the husband of Livia to repudiate her when she was already pregnant, that he might marry her him- self;* Cato ceding his wife, with the consent of her father, to his friend Hortensius, and resuming her after his death ;° Mzcenas continually changing his wife ;° Sem- pronius Sophus repudiating his wife, because she had * See the very remarkable discussion about this repealin Livy, lib. xxxiv. vap. 1-8. 2 Legouvé, Hist. Morale des Femmes, pp. 23-26. St. Augustine denounced this law as the most unjust that could be mentioned or even conceived. ‘Qua lege quid iniquius dici aut cogitari possit, ignoro.’—St. Aug. De Civ, Dei, iii. 21—a curious illustration of the difference between the habits of thought of his time and those of the middle ages, when daughters were habitually sacrificed without a protest, by the feudal laws. ° Plutarch, Cicero. * Tacit. Ann. i. 10, * Plutarch, Cato; Lucan, Pharsal, ii. ® Senec. Ep. exiy. THE POSITION OF WOMEN. | 526 once been to the public games without his knowledge ;! Paulus Aimilius taking the same step without assigning any reason, and defending himself by saying, ‘My shoes are new and well made, but no one knows where they pinch me.’ Nor did women show less alacrity in repu- diating their husbands. Seneca denounced this evil with especial vehemence, declaring that divorce in Rome no longer brought with it any shame, and that there were women who reckoned their years rather by their husbands than by the consuls.? Christians and Pagans echoed the same complaint. According to Tertullian, ‘divorce is the fruit of marriage.’* Martial speaks of a woman who had already arrived at her tenth husband; Juvenal, of a woman having eight husbands in five years.* But the most extraordinary recorded instance of this kind is re- lated by St. Jerome, who assures us that there existed at Rome a wife who was married to her twenty-third. husband, she herself being his twenty-first wife.’ These are, no doubt, extreme cases; but it is un- questionable that the stability of married life was very seriously impaired. It would be easy, however, to ex- aggerate the influence of legal changes in affecting it. In a purer state of public opinion a very wide latitude of divorce might probably have been allowed to both parties, without any serious consequence. The right of repudia- tion, which the husband had always possessed, was, as we have seen, in the Republic never or very rarely exercised. Of those who scandalised good men by the rapid recur- rence of their marriages, probably most, if marriage was 1 Val. Max, vi. 3. * Plutarch, Paul. A'mil. It is not quite clear whether this remark wae made by Paulus himself. ° Sen. de Benef. iii. 16. See, too, Ep, xcv. Ad Heiv, xvi. * Apol. 6. 5 Epig. vi. 7. ° Juv. Sat. vi. 230, Lip =) res 326 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. indissoluble, would have refrained from entering into it, and would have contented themselves with many informal connections, or, if they had married, would have gratified their love of change by simple adultery. A vast wave of corruption had flowed in upon Rome, and under any system of law it would have penetrated into domestic life. Laws prohibiting all divorce have never secured the purity of married life in ages of great corruption, nor did the latitude which was accorded in imperial Rome prevent the existence of a very large amount of female virtue. I have observed in a former chapter, that the moral contrasts which were shown in ancient life surpass those of modern societies, in which we very rarely find clusters of heroic or illustrious men arising in nations that are in general very ignorant or very corrupt. I have endea- voured to account for this fact by showing that the moral agencies of antiquity were in general much more fitted to develope virtue than to repress vice, and that they raised noble natures to almost the highest conceivable point of - excellence, while they entirely failed to coerce or to attenuate the corruption of the depraved. In the female life of Imperial Rome we find these contrasts vividly dis- played. There can be no question that the moral tone of the sex was extremely low—lower, probably, than in France under the Regency, or in England under the Restoration—-and it is also certain that frightful excesses of unnatural passion, of which the most corrupt of modern courts present no parallel, were perpetrated with but little concealment on the Palatine. Yet there is probably no period in which examples of conjugal heroism and fide- lity appear more frequently than in this very age, in which marriage was most free and in which corruption was so general. Much simplicity of manners continued to co- exist with the excesses of an almost unbridled luxury. THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 327 Augustus, we are told, used to make his daughters and erand-daughters weave and spin, and his wife and sister made most of the clothes he wore.!' The skill of wives in domestic economy, and especially in spinning, was fre- quently noticed in their epitaphs.? Intellectual culture was much diffused among them,’ and we meet with seve- ral noble specimens in the sex, of large and accomplished minds united with all the gracefulness of intense woman- hood, and all the fidelity of the truest love. Such were Cornelia, the brilliant and devoted wife of Pompey ;* Marcia, the friend, and Helvia, the mother of Seneca. The Northern Italian cities had in a great degree escaped the contamination of the times, and Padua was especially noted for the chastity ofits women.? In an age of extra- vagant sensuality a noble lady, named Mallonia, plunged her dagger in her heart rather than yield to the embraces ‘of Tiberius. To the period when the legal bond of | marriage was most relaxed must be assigned most of those noble examples of the constancy of Roman wives, which have been for so many generations household tales among mankind. Who has not read with emotion of the tender- ness and heroism of Porcia, claiming her right to share in the trouble which clouded her husband’s brow: how, doubting her own courage, she did not venture to ask Brutus to reveal to her his enterprise till she had secretly tried her power of endurance by piercing her thigh witha * Sueton. dug. Charlemagne, in like manner, made his daughters work: in wool, (Eginhardus, Vit. Kar. Mag. xix.) ® Friedlinder, Meeurs romaines du régne d' Auguste & la Jin des Antonins: (trad. frang.), tome i. p. 414. * Much evidence of this is collected by Friedlander, tome i, pp. 387-395. * Plutarch, Pompeius. » Martial, xi. 16, mentions the reputation of the women of Padua for: virtue. The younger Pliny also notices the austere and antique virtue of Brescia (Brixia).— Zp. i. 14. ® Suet. Tiberius, xlv. 55 328 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. knife ; how once, and but once in his presence, her noble spirit failed, when, as she was about to separate from him for the last time, her eye chanced to fall upon a picture of the parting interview of Hector and Andromache?! Paulina, the wife of Seneca, opened her own veins in order to accompany her husband to the grave; when much blood had already flowed, her slaves and freedmen bound her wounds, and thus compelled her to live; but the Romans ever after observed with reverence the sacred _ pallor of her countenance—the memorial of her act2 When Petus was condemned to die by his own hand, those who knew the love which his wife Arria bore him, and the heroic fervour of her character, predicted that she would not long survive him. Thrasea, who had married her daughter, endeavoured to dissuade her from suicide by saying, ‘ If I am ever called upon to perish, would you wish your daughter to die with me?’ She answered, ‘ Yes, if she will have then lived with you as long and as hap- piy as I with Petus.’ Her friends attempted, by care- fully watching her, to secure her safety, but she dashed her head. against the wall with such force that she fell upon the ground, and then, rising up, she said, ‘I told you I would find a hard way to death if you refuse me an easy way.’ All attempts to restrain her were then aban- doned, and her death was perhaps the most majestic in antiquity. Psetus for a moment hesitated to strike the fatal blow ; but his wife, taking the dagger, plunged it | deeply in her own breast, and then drawing it out, gave it, all reeking as it was, to her husband, exclaiming, with her dying breath, ‘ My Peetus, it does not pain.’ The form of the elder Arria towers grandly above her fellows, but many other Roman wives in the days of 1 Plutarch, Brutus, 2 Tacit. Annal. xv. 63-64, 9 ‘Pete, non dolet.’—Plin. Zp, iii. 16 ; Martial, Zp. i. 14, THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 329 the early Cxsars and Domitian exhibited a very similar fidelity. Over the dark waters of the Euxine, into those unknown and inhospitable regions from which the Roman Imagination recoiled with a peculiar horror, many noble ladies freely followed their husbands, and there were some wives who refused to survive them.! The younger Arria was the faithful companion of Thrasea during his heroic life, and when he died she was only persuaded to live that she might bring up their daughters? She spent the closing days of Domitian in exile,’ while her daughter, who was as remarkable for the gentleness as for the dig- nity of her character,* went twice into exile with her hus- band Helvidius, and was once banished, after his death, for defending his memory.’ Incidental notices in historians, and a few inscriptions which have happened to survive, show us that such instances were not uncommon, and in the Roman epitaphs that remain, no feature is more re- markable than the deep and passionate expressions of conjugal love that continually occur.6 It would be diffi- cult to find a more touching image of that love, than the medallion which is so common on the Roman sarcophagi, in which husband and wife are represented together, each with an arm thrown fondly over the shoulder of the other, united in death as they had been in life, and meeting it with an aspect of perfect calm, because they were com- panions in the tomb. * Tacit. Annal. xvi. 10-11; Hist. i. 3. See, too, Friedléinder, tome i. p. 406. * Tacit. Ann. xvi. 34, | * Pliny mentions her return after the death of the tyrant (Zp. iii. 11), * *Quod paucis datum est, non minus amabilis quam veneranda.’—Plin. Ep. vii. 19. ° See Plin. Zp. vii. 19, Dion Cassius and Tacitus relate the exiles of Helvidius, who appears to have been rather intemperate and unreasonable. * Friedlander gives many and most touching examples, tome i. pp. 410-414, 830 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. In the latter days of the Pagan Empire some measures were taken to repress the profligacy that was so prevalent. Domitian enforced the old Scantinian law against un- natural love.* Vespasian moderated the luxury of the court; Macrinus caused those who had committed adul- tery to be bound together and burnt alive.? A practice of men and women bathing together was condemned by Hadrian, and afterwards by Alexander Severus, but was only finally suppressed by Constantine. Alexander Se- verus and Philip waged an energetic war against pandars.® The extreme excesses of this, as of most forms of vice, were probably much diminished after the accession of the Antonines; but Rome continued to be a centre of very great corruption till the combined influence of Christianity, the removal of the court to Constantinople, and the im- poverishment that followed the barbarian conquests, in a measure corrected the evil. Among the moralists, however, some important steps were taken. One of the most important was a very clear assertion of the reciprocity of that obligation to fidelity in marriage which in the early stages of society had been imposed almost exclusively upon wives.4 The legends of Clytemnestra and of Medea reveal the feel- ings of fierce resentment which were sometimes pro- duced among Greek wives by the almost unlimited indulgence that was accorded to their husbands;® and 1 Suet. Dom. viii. * Capitolinus, Macrinus. 5 Lampridius, A. Severus, * In the oration against Newra, which is ascribed to Demosthenes, but is of doubtful genuineness, the license accorded to husbands is spoken of as a matter of course: ‘We keep mistresses for our pleasure, concubines for constant attendance, and wives to bear us legitimate children, and to be our faithful housekeepers.’ * There is a remarkable passage on the feelings of wives, in different nations, upon this point, in Athenzus, xiii, 8. See, too, Plutarch, Cony. Pree. THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 331 it is told of Andromache, as the supreme instance of her love of Hector, that she cared for his illegitimate children as much as for her own.! In early Rome, the obligations of husbands were never, I imagine, altogether unfelt, but they were rarely or never enforced, nor were they ever regarded as bearing any kind of equality to those imposed upon the wife. The term adultery, and all the legal penalties connected with it, were restricted to the infractions by a wife of the nuptial tie. Among the many instances of magnanimity recorded of Roman wives, few are more touching than that of Tertia Aumilia, the faithful wife of Scipio. She discovered that her husband had become enamoured of one of her slaves; but she bore her pain in silence, and when he died she gave liberty to her captive, for she could not bear that she should remain in servitude whom her dear lord had loved.? Aristotle had clearly asserted the duty of husbands to observe in marriage the same fidelity as they expected from their wives,’ and at a later period both Plutarch and Seneca enforced it in the strongest and most unequivocal manner.* The degree to which, in theory at least, it won 1 Kuripid. Andromache. ° 2 Valer. Max. vi. 7,§ 1. Some very scandalous instances of cynicism on the part of Roman husbands are recorded. Thus, Augustus had many _ mistresses, ‘Que [virgines] sibi undique etiam ab wrore conquirerentur’— Sueton. Aug. Ixxi, When the wife of Verus, the colleague of Marcus Au- relius, complained of the tastes of her husband, he answered, ‘Uxor enim dignitatis nomen est, non voluptas.’—Spartian. Verus. 3 Aristotle, Econom. i. 4-8-9, * Plutarch enforces the duty at length, in his very beautiful work on marriage. In case husbands are guilty of infidelity, he recommends their wives to preserve a prudent blindness, reflecting that it is out of respect for them that they choose another woman as the companion of their intem- perance. Seneca touches briefly, but unequivocally, on the subject: ‘ Scis improbum esse qui ab uxore pudicitiam exigit, ipse alienarum corruptor uxorum. Scis ut illi nil cum adultero, sic nihil tibi esse deberé cum pel- lice.’ —Ep. xciy. ‘Sciet in uxorem grayissim m esse genus injurie, habere pellicem.’—L£p. xcv. 332 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. its way in Roman life is shown ‘by its recognition as a legal maxim by Ulpian,' and by its appearance in a formal judgment of Antoninus Pius, who, while issuing, at the request of a husband, a condemnation for adultery against a guilty wife, appended to it this remarkable con- dition: ‘ Provided always it is established that by your life you gave her an example of fidelity. It would be unjust that a husband should exact a fidelity he does not himself keep.” Another change, which may be dimly descried in the later Pagan society, was a tendency to regard purity rather in a mystical point of view, as essentially good, than in the utilitarian point of view. This change resulted chiefly from the rise of the Neoplatonic and Pythagorean philosophies, which concurred in regarding the body, with its passions, as essentially evil, and in representing all virtue as a purification from its taint. Its most im- portant consequence was a somewhat stricter view of pre-nuptial unchastity, which in the case of men, and when it was not excessive, and did not take the form of adultery, had previously been uncensured, or was looked upon with a disapprobation so shght as scarcely to amount to censure. The elder Cato had expressly justi- fied it,’ and Cicero has left us an extremely curious judgment on the subject, which shows at a glance the feel- ings of the people, and the vast revolution that, under the influence of Christianity, has been effected in at least the professions of mankind. ‘If there be any one,’ he says, * ‘Periniquum enim videtur esse, ut pudicitiam vir ab uxore exigat, quam ipse non exhibeat.’—Cod. Just. Dig. xlviii. 5-18. : * Quoted by St. Augustine, De Conj. Adult. ii. 19, Plautus, long before, had made one of his characters complain of the injustice of the laws which punished unchaste wives but not unchaste husbands; and he asks why, since every honest woman is contented with one husband, should not every honest man be contented with one wife? (Mercator, Act iv. scene 5.) $ Horace, Sat. i. 2. chain THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 333 ‘who thinks thats young men should be altogether re- strained from the love of courtesans, he is indeed very severe. Jam not prepared to deny his position; but he differs not only from the license of our age, but also from the customs and allowances of our ancestors. When, indeed, was this not done? When was it blamed? When was it not allowed? When was that which is now law- ful not lawful?’!- Epictetus, who on most subjects was among the. most austere of the stoics, recommends his disciples to abstain, ‘as far as possible, from prenup- tial connections, and at least from those which were adulterous and unlawful, but not to blame those who were less strict.” The feeling of the Romans is curiously exem- plified in the life of Alexander Severus, who, of all the emperors, was probably the most energetic in legislating against vice. When appointing a provincial governor, he was accustomed to provide him with horses and servants, and, if he was unmarried, with a concubine, ‘because,’ as the historian very gravely observes, ‘ it was impossible that he could exist without one.’ 3 What was written among the Pagans in opposition to 1 The efforts of the saints to reclaim courtesans from the path of vice created a large class of legends. St. Mary Magdalene, St. Mary of Egypt, St. Afra, St. Pelagia, St. Thais, and St. Theodota, in the early Church, as well as St. Marguerite of Cortona, and Clara of Rimini, in the middle ages, had been cour- tesans.* St. Vitalius was said to have been accustomed every night to visit the dens of vice in his neighbourhood, to give the inmates money to remain without sin for that 1 See Ceillier, Hust. des Auteurs ecclés. tome iii. p. 523. * Thid. tome viii. pp. 204-207. 5 Among the Irish saints St. Colman is said to have had a girdle which would only meet around the chaste, and was long preserved in Ireland as a relic (Colgan, Acta Sanctorum Hibernic. (Louvain, 1645), vol. i. p. 246) ; and St. Furseus a girdle that extinguished lust. (Ibid. p. 292.) The girdle of St. Thomas Aquinas seems to have had some miraculous pro- perties of this kind. (See his life in the Bollandists, Sept. 29.) Among both the Greeks and Romans it was customary for the bride to be girt with a girdle which the bridegroom unloosed in the nuptial bed, and hence ‘zonam solvere’ became a proverbial expression for ‘ pudicitiam mulieris imminuere.’ (Nieupoort, De Ritibus Romanarum, p. 479; Alexander's History of Women, vol. ii. p. 300.) 4 Vit. St. Pachom. (Rosweyde). * See his Life, by Gregory of Nyssa. 6 A little book has been written on these legends by M. Charles de THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 339 night, and to offer up prayers for their conversion.! It js related of St. Serapion, that as he was passing through a village in Egypt a courtesan beckoned to him. He promised at a certain hour to visit her. He kept his appointment, but declared that there was a duty which his order imposed on him. He fell down on his knees and began repeating the Psalter, concluding every psalm with a prayer for his hostess. The strangeness of the scene, and the solemnity of his tone and manner, overawed and fascinated her. Gradually her tears began to flow. She knelt beside him and began to join in his prayers. He heeded her not, but hour after hour continued in the same stern and solemn voice, without rest and with- out interruption, to repeat his alternate prayers and psalms, till her repentance rose to a paroxysm of terror, and as the grey morning streaks began to illumine the horizon, she fell half dead at his feet, imploring him with broken sobs to lead her anywhere where she might expiate the sins of her past.’ But the services rendered by the ascetics in imprinting on the minds of men a profound and enduring conviction of the importance of chastity, though extremely great, were seriously counterbalanced by their noxious influence upon marriage. Two or three beautiful descriptions of this institution have been culled out of the immense mass of the patristic writings;* but in general, it would be Bussy, called Les Courtisanes saintes, There is said to be some doubt about St. Afra, for while her acts represent her as a reformed courtesan, St. Fortu- natus, in two lines he has devoted to her, calls her a virgin, (Ozanam, Etudes german. tome ii. p. 8.) ? See the Vit. Sancti Joannis Eleemosynarit (Rosweyde). * Tillemont, tome x. pp. 61-62. There is also a very picturesque legend of the manner in which St. Paphnutius converted the courtesan Thais. * See especially, Tertullian, 4d Uxorem, It was beautifully said at a later period, that woman was not taken from the head of man, for she was not intended to be his ruler, nor from his feet, for she was not intended 340 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS, difficult to conceive anything more coarse or more repul- sive than the manner in which they regarded it! The relation which nature has designed fot the noble purpose of repairing the ravages of death, and which, as Linneeus has shown, extends even through the world’ of flowers, was invariably treated as a consequence of the fall of Adam, and marriage was regarded almost exclusively in its lowest aspect. The tender love which it elicits, the holy and beautiful domestic qualities that follow in its train, were almost absolutely omitted from consideration.? The object of the ascetic was to attract men to a life of virginity, and as a necessary consequence, marriage was treated as an inferior state. It was regarded as being necessary, indeed, and therefore justifiable, for the propa- gation of the species, and to free men from greater evils; but still as a condition of degradation from which all who aspired to real sanctity could fly. To ‘ cut down by the axe of Virginity the wood of Marriage,’ was, in the energetic language of St. Jerome, the end of the saint; and if he consented to praise marriage, it was merely because it produced virgins. Even when the bond had been formed, the ascetic passion retained its sting. We to be his slave, but from his side, for she was to be his companion and his comfort. (Peter Lombard, Senten. lib. ii. dis. 18.) ? ‘ The reader may find many passages on this subject in Barbeyrac, Morale des Peres, ii. § 7; iii. § 8; iv. § 81-85; vi. § 31; xiii. § 2-8, * “It is remarkable how rarely, if ever (I cannot call to mind an instance), in the discussions of the comparative merits of marriage and celibacy the social advantages appear to have occurred to the mind. . . . It is always argued with relation to the interests and the perfection of the indi- vidual soul; and even with regard to that, the writers seem almost uncon- scious of the softening and humanising effect of the natural affections, the beauty of parental tenderness and filial love.’— Milman’s Hist, of Christianity, vol, ill. p. 196. * “Tempus breve est, et jam securis ad radices arborum posita est, quae silvam legis et nuptiarum evangelica castitate succidat.’—Ep. exxiii. ' ‘Lando nuptias, laudo conjugium, sed quia mihi yirgines generant,’— Ep. xxii, | THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 341 have already seen how it embittered other relations ot domestic life. Into this, the holiest of all, it infused a tenfold bitterness. Whenever any strong religious fervour fell upon a husband or a wife, its first effect was to make a happy union impossible. The more religious partner immediately desired to live a life of solitary asceticism, or at least, if no ostensible separation took place, an un- natural life of separation in marriage. The immense place this order of ideas occupies in the hortatory writings of the fathers, and in the legends of the saints, must be familiar to all who have any knowledge of this department of literature. Thus—to give but a very few examples—St. Nilus, when he had already two children, was seized with a longing for the prevailing asceticism, and his wife was persuaded, after many tears, to consent to their separation. St. Ammon, on the night of his marriage, proceeded to greet his bride with an harangue upon the evils of the married state, and they agreed, in consequence, at once to separate.” St. Melania laboured long and earnestly to induce her husband to allow her to tlesert his bed, before he would consent.’ St. Abraham ran away from his wife on the night of his marriage.‘ St. Alexis, according to a somewhat later legend, took the same step, but many years after returned from Jerusalem to his father’s house, in which his wife was still lamenting her desertion, begged and received a lodging as an act of charity, and lived there despised, unrecognised, and unknown till his death.’ St. Gregory 1 See Ceillier, Aetews ecclés, xiii. p. 147. 2 Socrates, iv. 23. > Palladius, Hist. Laus, cxix. * Vit. S. Abr. (Rosweyde), cap, i. * I do not know when this legend first appeared. I know it from two sources. M. Littré mentions having found it in a French MS. of the eleventh century (Littré, Les Barbares, pp. 123-124); and it also forms the subject of a very curious fresco, imagine of a somewhat earlier date, which was discovered, within the last few years, in the subterranean church 342 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. of Nyssa—who was so unfortunate as to be married— wrote a glowing eulogy of virginity, in the course of which he mournfully observed, that this privileged state could never be his. He resembled, he assures us, an ox that was ploughing a field, the fruit of which he must never enjoy ; or a thirsty man, who was gazing on a stream of which he never can drink; or a poor man, whose poverty seems the more bitter as he contemplates the wealth of his neighbours; and he proceeded to descant in feeling terms upon the troubles of matrimony. Nominal marriages, in which the partners agreed to shun the marriage bed, became not uncommon. The empe- ror Henry II., Edward the Confessor, of England, and Alphonso II. of Spain, gave examples of it. A very famous and rather picturesque history of this kind is related by Gregory of Tours. A rich young Gaul, named Injuriosus, led to his home a young bride to whom he was passionately attached. That night, she confessed to him with tears, that she had vowed to keep her virginity, and that she regretted bitterly the marriage into which her love for him had betrayed her. He told her that they should remain united, but that she should still ob- serve her vow; and he fulfilled his promise. When, after several years, she died, her husband, in laying her in the tomb, declared with great solemnity, that he restored her to God as immaculate as he had received her; and then a smile lit up the face of the dead woman, and she said, ‘Why do you tell that which no one asked you?’ The husband soon afterwards died, and a wall, which had been built to separate his tomb from that of his wife, was removed by the angels.” of St. Clement at Rome. An account of it is given by Father Mullooly, in his interesting little book about the Church. ' De Virgin. cap. iii. * Greg. Tur, i, 42, THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 343 The extreme disorders which such teaching produced in domestic life, and also the extravagancies which orew up among some heretics, naturally alarmed the more judi- cious leaders of the Church, and it was ordained that married persons should not enter into an ascetic life, except by mutual consent! The ascetic ideal, however, remained unchanged. To abstain from marriage, or in marriage to abstain from a perfect union, was regarded as a proof of sanctity, and marriage was viewed in its coarsest and most degraded form. ‘The notion of its im- purity took many forms, and exercised for some centuries an extremely wide influence over the Church. Thus, it was the custom during the middle ages to abstain from the marriage bed during the night after the ceremony, in honour of the sacrament.? It was expressly enjoined that no married persons should participate in any of the ereat Church festivals, if the night before they had lain together, and St. Gregory the Great tells of a young wife who was possessed -by a deemon, because she had taken part in a procession of St. Sebastian, without fulfilling this condi- tion.’ ‘The extent to which the feeling on the subject was carried is shown by the famous vision of Alberic in the twelfth century, in which a special place of torture, con- sisting of a lake of mingled lead, pitch, and resin is repre- sented as existing in hell for the punishment of married people who had lain together on Church festivals or fast days.4 hes Two other consequences of this way of regarding marriage were a very strong disapproval of second mar- riages, and a very strong desire to secure celibacy in the clergy. The first of these notions had existed, though in * The regulations on this point are given at length in Bingham. * Muratori, Antich. Ital. diss. xx. ° St. Greg. Dial. i. 10. * Delepierre, L’Enfer décrit par ceux qui Vont vu, pp. 44-56. 56 o44 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. a very different form, and connected with very different motives, among the early Romans, who were accustomed, we are told, to honour with the crown of modesty those who were content with one marriage, and to regard many marriages as a sign of illegitimate intemperance! This opinion appears to have chiefly grown out of a very deli- — cate and touching feeling which had taken deep root in the Roman mind, that the affection a wife owes her husband is so profound and so pure, that it must not cease even with his death; that it should guide and con- secrate all her subsequent life, and that it never can be transferred to another object. Virgil, in very beautiful lines, puts this sentiment into the mouth of Dido;? and several examples are recorded of Roman wives, sometimes in the prime of youth and beauty, upon the death of their husbands, devoting the remainder of their lives to retire- ment, and to the memory of the dead. Tacitus held up the Germans as in this eda a model to his countrymen,' and the epithet ‘univiree’ inscribed on many Roman tombs shows how this devotion was practised and valued.5 The family of Camillus was especially honoured for the absence of second marriages among its members. ‘To love a wife when living,’ said one of the latest of Roman poets, ‘is a pleasure; to love her when dead is an act of reli- gion.’“ In the case of men, the propriety of abstaining from second marriages was probably not felt as strongly as in the case of women, and what feeling on the subject existed was chiefly due to another motive--afaenee for * Val. Max. ii. 1. § 3. 2 ‘Tile meos, primus qui me sibi junxit, amores Abstulit; ille habeat secum, servetque sepulchro. '__ Ain, iv. 28, ° E.g., the wives of Lucan, Drusus, and Pompey. Tacit, German. xix. Friedlander, tome i. p. 411. 6 Hieron. Lp. liv. ‘Uxorem vivam amare voluptas ; Defunctam religio.’—Statius, Sylv. v. in procemio, THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 346 the children, whose interests it was thought might be injured by a stepmother.1 The sentiment which thus recoiled from second mar- riages passed with a vastly increased strength into ascetic Christianity, but it was based upon altogether different grounds. | The first change, we may observe, is that an affectionate remembrance of the husband has altogether vanished from the motives of the abstinence. In the next place, we may remark that these writers, in perfect con- formity with the extreme coarseness of their views about the sexes, almost invariably assumed that the motive to second or third marriages must be simply the force of the animal passions. The Montanists and the Novatians absolutely condemned second marriages.” The orthodox pronounced them lawful, on account of the weakness of human nature, but they viewed them with the most em- phatic disapproval,’ partly because they considered them manifest signs of incontinence, and partly because they regarded them as incompatible with the doctrine of mar- riage being an emblem of the union of Christ with the Church. The language of the Fathers on this subject appears to a modern mind most extraordinary, and, but for their distinct and reiterated assertion that they con- sidered these marriages permissible, would appear to * By one of the laws of Charondas it was ordained that those who cared so little for the happiness of their children as to place a stepmother over them, should be excluded from the councils of the State. (Diod. Sic. mii.3 12.) : * Tertullian expounded the Montanist view in his treatise, De Monogamia. * A full collection of the statements of the Fathers on this subject is given by Perrone, De Matrimonio, lib. iii. See. I.; and by Natalis Alexander, List. Eccles. Seec. II. dissert. 18, * Thus, to give but a single instance, St. J erome, who was one of their strongest opponents, says: ‘Quid igitur? damnamus secunda matrimonia ? Minime, sed prima laudamus. Abjicimus de ecclesia digamos? absit; sed monogamos ad continentiam provocamus. In arca Noe non solum munda sed et immunda fuerunt animalia.’—Zp, cxxiii, 346 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. amount to a peremptory condemnation. Thus—to give but a few samples—digamy, or second marriage, is de- scribed by Athanagoras as ‘ a decent adultery ;’* ‘ fornica- tion,’ according to Clement of Alexandria, ‘is a lapse from one marriage into many.’? ‘The first Adam,’ said St. Jerome, ‘had one wife; the second Adam had no wife. They who approve of digamy hold forth a third — Adam, who was twice married, whom they follow.’ ‘Consider,’ he again says, ‘ that she who has been twice married, though she be an old, and decrepit, and poor woman, is not deemed worthy to receive the charity of the Church. But if the bread of charity is taken from her, how much more that bread which descends from heaven !’ 4 Digamists, according to Origen, ‘are saved in the name of Christ, but are by no means crowned by him.’® ‘By this text, said St. Gregory Nazianzen, speaking of St. Paul’s comparison of marriage to the union of Christ with the Church, ‘second marriages seem to me to be re- proved. If there are two Christs there may be two husbands or two wives. If there is but one Christ, one Head of the Church, there is but one flesh—a second is repelled. But if he forbids a second, what is to be said of third marriages? The first is law, the second is pardon and indulgence, the third is iniquity ; but he who exceeds this number is manifestly bestial.’* The collective judg- ment of the ecclesiastical authorities on this subject is shown by the rigid exclusion of digamists from the priest- hood, and from all claim to the charity of the Church, and by the decrees of more than one Council, which ordained that a period of penance should be imposed upon all who married a second time, before they were admitted to 1 In Legat. 2 Strom. lib. iii. 3 Contra Jovin. i. 4 Ibid. See, too, Lp. exxm. 5 Hom. xvii. in Luce. © Orat, xxxi, THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 347 communion.! One of the canons of the Council of Tliberis, in the beginning of the fourth century, while in general condemning baptism by laymen, permitted it in case of extreme necessity; but provided that even then it was indispensable that the officiating layman should not have been twice married? Among the Greeks fourth mar- rages were at one time deemed absolutely unlawful, and much controversy was excited by the emperor Leo the Wise, who, having had three wives, had taken a mistress, but afterwards, in defiance of the religious feelings of his people, determined to raise her to the position of a wife? The subject of the celibacy of the clergy, in which the ecclesiastical feelings about marriage were also shown, is an extremely large one, and I shall not attempt to deal with it, except in a most cursory manner.! There are two facts connected with it, which every candid student must admit. The first is, that in the earliest period of the Church, the privilege of marriage was freely accorded to the clergy. The second is, that a notion of the impurity of marriage existed, and it was felt that the clergy, as pre-eminently the holy class, should have less license than laymen. The first form this feeling took * See on this decree, Perrone, De Matr. iii. § 1, art. 1; Natalis Alex- ander, Hist. Eccles, § ii, dissert. 18. The penances are said not to imply that the second marriage was a sin, but that the moral condition that made it necessary was a bad one. * Cone. Illib. can. xxxviii. Bingham thinks the feeling of the Council to have been, that if baptism was not administered by a priest, it should at all events be administered by one who might have been a priest. * Perrone, De Matrimonio, tome iii. p. 102. * This subject has recently been treated with very great learning and with admirable impartiality by an American author, Mr. Henry C. Lea, in hig flistory of Sacerdotal Celibacy (Philadelphia, 1867 ), which is certainly one of the most valuable works that America has produced. Since the great history of Dean Milman, I know no work in English which has thrown more light on the moral condition of the middle ages, and none which is 848 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. appears to have been the strong conviction that a second marriage of a priest, or the marriage of a priest with a widow, was unlawful and criminal.! This belief seems to have existed from the earliest period of the Church, and was retained with great tenacity and unanimity through many centuries. In the next place, we find, from an extremely early date, an opinion prevailing first of all, that it was an act of virtue, and then that it was an act of duty, for priests after ordination to abstain from cohabiting with their wives. The Council of Nice refrained, at the advice of Paphnutius, who was himself a scrupulous celi- -bate, from imposing this last rule as a matter of necessity;? but in the course of the fourth century it was a recognised principle that clerical marriages were criminal. They were celebrated, however, habitually, and usually with the greatest openness. The various attitudes assumed by the ecclesiastical authorities in dealing with this subject form an extremely curious page of the -history of morals, and supply the most crushing evidence of the evils which have been produced by the system of celibacy. I can at present, however, only refer to the vast mass of evidence which has been collected on the subject, derived from the more fitted to dispel the gross illusions concerning that period which Positive writers, and writers of a certain ecclesiastical school, have conspired to sustain. * See Lea, p. 36. The command of St. Paul, that a bishop or deacon should be the husband of one wife (1 Tim. iii. 2-12) was believed by all ancient and by many modern commentators to be prohibitory of second — marriages; and this view is somewhat confirmed by the widows who were to be honoured and supported by the Church, being only those who had but once married (1 Tim. v. 9). See Pressensé, Hist. des trois premiers Siécles (1** série), tome ii. p. 233. Among the Jews it was ordained that the high priest should not marry a widow. (Levit. xxi. 18-14.) * Socrates, H, #.i.11. The Council of Iliberis (can. xxxiii.) had or- dained this, but both the precepts and the practice of divines varied greatly. A brilliant summary of the chief facts is given in Milman’s History of Early Christianity, vol. iii. pp. 277-282. THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 349 writings of Catholic divines and from the decrees of Catho- lic Councils during the space of many centuries. It is a popular illusion, which is especially common among writers who have little direct knowledge of the middle ages, that the atrocious immorality of monasteries, in the century be- fore the Reformation, was a new fact, and that the ages when the faith of men was undisturbed, were ages of great moral purity. In fact, it appears from the uniform tes- timony of the ecclesiastical writers, that the ecclesiastical immorality of the eighth and three following centuries was little if at all less outrageous than in any other period, while the Papacy, during almost the whole of the tenth century, was held by men ae infamous lives. Simony was nearly universal.* Barbarian chieftains married at an early age, and, totally incapable of restraint, occupied the leading positions in the Church, and gross irregularities speedily became general. An Italian bishop of the tenth century epigrammatically described the morals of his time, when he declared, that if he were to enforce the canons against -unchaste people administering ecclesiastical rites, no one would be left in the Church except the boys; and if he were to observe the canons against bastards, these also must be excluded.? The evil acquired such magnitude, that a great feudal clergy, bequeathing the ecclesiastical benefices from father to son, appeared more than once likely to arise.® Marriage, how regarded by the Jews, Greeks, Romans, and Catholics,i. 106, 107. Statius’ picture of the first night of marriage, 111, ote. Reason why the ancient Jews attached a certain stigma to virginity, 112. Conflict of views of the Catholic priest and the political economist on the subject of early marriages, 118. Results in some countries of the difficulties with which legislators surround marriage, -151. Early marriages the most con- spicuous proofs of Irish improvidence, 151. Influence of asceticism on, ii. 339. Notions of its impurity, 343. Second marriages, 343 Marseilles, law of, respecting suicide, 1. 230, note, Epidemic of suicide among the women of, ii. 58 Martial, sycophancy of his epigrams, i. 204 volence to 411 MIR Martin of Tours, St., establishes mona- chism in Gaul, ii. 113 Martyrdom, glories of, to the early Christian, 1. 415. Festivals of the martyrs, 415, note. Passion for, 416, Dissipation of the people at the fes- tivals, ii. 159 Mary, St., of Egypt, 1. 118 Mary, the Virgin, veneration of the, 11, 389, 390 Massilians, wine forbidden to women by the, 1. 96, note, Maternal affection, strength of, 11. 27, note. Maurice, Mr., on the social penalties of conscience, i. 62, note. Mauricius, Junius, his refusal to allow gladiatorial shows at Vienna, i. 303 Maxentius, instance of his tyranny, il. 49, Maximilianus, his martyrdom, ii. 263 Maximinius, Emperor, his persecution of the Christians, i. 472 Maximus of Tyr, account of him and his discourses, 1.331. His defence of the ancient creeds, 343. Practical form of his philosophy, 349 Medicine, possible progress of, i. 166, 167 Melania, St., her bereavement, ii. 10. Her pilgrimage through the Syrian and Egyptian hermitages, 128 Milesians, wine forbidden by the, to women 1. 96, note ; Military honour pre-eminent among the Romans, i. 181,182. History of the de- cadence of Roman military virtue, 284 Mill, J., on association, 25, note et seq. Mill, J. S., quoted, i. 8, 30, 49, 92, 105 Minerva, meaning of, according to the Stoics, i. 171 Miracles, general incredulity on the sub- ject of, at the present time, i, 368, 370. Miracles not impossible, 368, Established by much evidence, 369. The histories of them always decline with education, 370. Illustration of this in the belief in fairies, 370. Con- ceptions of savages, 371. Legends, formation and decay of, 372-374. Common errors in reasoning about miracles, 880. Predisposition to the miraculous in some states of society, 385. Belief of the Romans in mi- racles, 386-391. Incapacity of the Christians of the third century for judging historic miracles, 899. Con- temporary miracles believed in by the early Christians, 401. Exorcism 412 INDEX. MIS 401. Neither past nor contemporary Christian miracles had much weight upon the pagans, 401 Missionary labours, ii. 261 Mithra, worship of, in Rome, i. 411 Molinos, his opinion on the love we should bear to God condemned, i. 19, note Monastic system, results of the Catho- lic monastic system, i. 111. Suicide of monks, ii. 55. Exertions of the monks in the cause of charity, 89. Causes of the monastic movement, 108. History of the rapid propaga- tion of it in the West, 194. New value placed by it on obedience and humility, 196, 285. Relation of it to the intellectual virtues, 200. The monasteries regarded as the recep- tacles of learning, 212. Fallacy of attributing to the monasteries the genius that was displayed in theology, - 221, Other fallacies concerning the services of the monks, 221-225, Value attached by monks to pecuniary compensations for crime, 226. Causes of their corruption, 230. Benefits con- ferred by the monasteries, 257. Monica, St., i. 96, note Monogamy, establishment of, ii. 294 Monophysites, the cause, to some ex- tent, of the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt, ii. 152 Montanists, their tenets, ii, 109 Moral distinctions, rival claims of intu- ition and utility to be regarded as the supreme regulators of, i. 1 Moral judgments, alleged diversities of, i, 93. Are frequently due to intel- lectual causes, 94. Instances of this in ‘usury and abortion, 94. Dis- tinction between natural duties and others resting on positive law, 95. Ancient customs canonised by time, 95. Anomalies explained by a con- fused. association of ideas, 96, ,97. Moral perceptions overridden by posi- tive religions, 98. Instances of this in transubstantiation and the Augus- tinian and Calyinistic doctrines of damnation, 98, 99. General moral principles alone revealed by intuition, 102. The moral unity of different ages is therefore a unity not of stan- dard but of tendency, 103. Applica- tion of this theory to the history of benevolence, 103. Reasons why acts regarded in one age as criminal are innocent in another, 104. Views of MUT Mill and Buckle on the comparative influence of intellectual and moral agencies in civilisation, 105, mote. Intuitive morals not. unprogressiye, 105, 106. Answers to miscellaneous objections against the theory of natural moral perceptions, 118. Effect of the condition of society on the standard, but not the essence, of virtue, 114. Occasional duty of sacrificing higher duties to lower ones, 114 e¢ Seq. Summary of the relations of virtue and public and private interest, 121. Two senses of the word natural, 123 Moral law, foundation of the, according to Ockham and his adherents, i. 17, and mote. Various views of the sanctions of morality, 20. Utilitarian theological sanctions, 54. The reality of the moral nature the one great question of natural theology, 58. Utilitarian secular sanctions, 59. The Utilitarian theory subversive of mo- rality, 68. Plausibility and danger of theories of unification in morals, 73. Our knowledge of the laws of ~ moral progress nothing more than approximate or general, 142 ‘Moral sense,’ Hutcheson’s doctrine of age Moral system, what it should be, to go- vern society, i. 204 ene Morals, each of the two schools of, re- lated to the general condition of so- ciety, 1.127. Their relations to me- taphysical schools, 128,129. And to the Baconian philosophy, 130. Con- trast between ancient and modern civilisations, 180-132. Causes that lead societies to eleyate their moral standard, and determine their pre- ference of some particular kind of virtues, 185. The order in which moral feelings are developed, 135. Danger in proposing too absolutely a single character as a model to which all men must conform, 163. Remarks on moral types, 164. Results to be expected from the study of the rela- tions between our physical and moral nature, 167. Little influence of Pagan religions on morals, 169 Moralists, business of, i. 2. Their dis- position to resent any charge against the principles they advocate, 2 More, Henry, his doctrine of the motive to virtue, i. 78 Musonius, his suicide, i. 232 Mutius, history of him and his son, ii.133 a INDEX. MYS Mysticism of the Romans, causes pro- ducing, i. 337, 338 Myths, formation of, i. 373. The age of myths closed by education, 374 APLES, mania for suicide at, il. 58 Napoleon the Emperor, his order of the day respecting suicide, i. 230, note Nations, causes of the difficulties of effecting cordial international friend- ships, 1. 164 Natural moral perceptions, objections to the theory of, 1.121. Two senses of the word natural, 123. Reid, Sedg- wick, and Leibnitz on the natural or innate powers of man, 125, note. Locke’s refutation of the doctrine of a natural moral sense, 129. Neoplatonism, account of, i. 345. Its destruction of the active duties and critical spirit, 350 Neptune, views of the Stoics of the meaning of the legends of, i. 171. His - statue solemnly degraded by Augustus, 178 Nero, his singing and acting, 1.274. His law as to slaves, 326. His persecn- tion of the Christians, 456 Newman, Dr., on venial sin, i. 115, and note on pride, ii. 199 Nicodemus, apocryphal gospel of, ii. 224 Nilus, St., deserts his family, ii. 341 Nitria, number of anchorites in the desert of, ii. 112 Nolasco, Peter, his works of mercy, ii. 77. His participators in the Albi- gensian massacres, 202 Novatians, their tenets, ii. 109 Numa, legend of his prohibition of idols, 1.175, note ATH, sanctity of an, among the Romans, i. 176 Obedience, new value placed upon it by monachism, ii. 196, 197, 285 Obligation, nature of, i. 66-68 Ockham, his opinion of the foundation of the moral law, i. 17 and note Odin, his suicide, ii. 57 O’Neale, Shane, his charity, ii. 102 Opinion, influence of character on, i. 180, 181 Oracles, refuted and ridiculed by Cicero, i, 178. Plutarch’s defence of their bad poetry, 173, note. Refusal of Cato and the Stoics to consult them, 418 PAS 174. Ridicule of the Roman wits of them, 174. Answer of the oracle of Delphi as to the best religion, 175. Theory of the oracles in the ‘ De Divinatione’ of Cicero, 391, and note. Van Dale’s denial of their super- natural character, 398. Books of oracles burnt under the republic and empire, 476, and note Origen, his desire for martyrdom, i. 415 Orphanotrophia, in the early Church, ii. 34 Otho, the Emperor, his suicide, i. 231. Opinion of his contemporaries of his act, 231, note Ovid, object of his ‘Metamorphoses,’ i. 174. His condemnation of suicide, 224, 225, note. His humanity to ani- mals, ii. 175. Oxen, laws for the protection of, ii. 172 Oxyrinchus, ascetic life in the city of, i1..112. ACHOMIUS, St., number of his monks, ii. 112 Peetus and Arria, history of, ii. 328 Pagan religions, their feeble influence on morals, i. 169 Pagan virtues, the, compared with Christian, i. 200 Paiderastia, the, of the Greeks, ii. 311 Pain, equivalent to evil, according to the Utilitarians, i. 8, note Palestine, foundation of monachism in, ii. 1138. Becomes a hot-bed of de- bauchery, 161 Paley, on the obligation of virtue, i. 14. On the difference between an act of prudence and an act of duty, 16, note. On the love we ought to bear to Ged, 18, note. Of the religious sanctions of morality, 20. On the doctrine of association, 1.25, note. On flesh diet, 1. 50, note. On the influence of health on happiness, i. 90, note. On the difference in pleasures, 92, note Pambos, St., story of, 128, note Pammachus, St., his hospital, 11. 85 Panetius, the founder of the Roman Stoics, his dishelief in the immorta- lity of the soul, i. 193 Pandars, puvishment of, ii. 835 Parents, reason why the murder of, was not regarded as criminal, i. 104 Parthenon, the, at Athens, i. 108 Pascal, his advocacy of piety as a mat- ter of prudence, 1. 17, ote. His ad- herence to the opinion of Ockham as 414 INDEX, PAT to the foundation of the moral law, 17, note. His thought on the humi- liation created by deriving pleasure from certain amusements, 1. 88 Patriotism, period when it flourished, 1. 142. Peculiar characteristic of the “virtue, 186; 187. Catises of the predominance occasionally ac- corded to civic virtues, 211. Neglect or discredit into which they have fallen among modern teachers, 211. Cicero’s remarks on the duty of every good man, 212. Unfortunate relations of Christianity to patriotism, ii. 149. Repugnance of the theological to the patriotic spirit, 154. Paul, St., his definition of conscience, 1. 85 Paul, the hermit, hig flight to the desert, i. 109. Legend of the visit of St. An- tony to him, 167 Paul, St. Vincent de, his foundling hospi- tals, 11. 86 Paula, story of her asceticism and in- humanity, ii. 141, 142 Paulina, her devotion to her husband, ll. 828 Pelagia, St., her suicide, ii. 49. Her flight to the desert, 129, and note Pelagius, ii. 236 Pelican, legend of the, ii. 171 Penances of the saints of the desert, ii. 114, et seq ’ Penitential system, the, of the early church, ii. 7, 8 Pepin, his compact with Pope Leo, ii. 283 Peregrinus the Cynic, his suicide, i. 282 Pericles, his humanity, i. 240 Perpetua, St., her martyrdom, i. 415, 472: ii: 336 Persecutions, Catholic doctrines justify- ing, 100, 101. Why Christianity was not crushed by. them, 420. Many causes of persecution, 420-422, Rea- sons why the Christians were more persecuted than the Jews, 428, 431, 433. Causes of the persecutions, 432, et seg. History of the persecutions, 456. Nero, 456. Domitian, 458. Trajan, 465. Marcus Aurelius, 467, 669. From M. Aurelius to Decius, 470, e¢ seg. Gallus, i. 482. Vale- rian, 483. Diocletian and Gale- rius, 487-492. End of the persecu- tions, 492. General considerations on their history, 492-498, Peter, St., his married life, ii. 109 Petronian law, in favour of slaves, i. 825 PLA Petronius, his scepticism, i. 171, His suicide, 226. His condemnation of the show of the arena, i. 803 Philip the Arab, his fayour to Chris- tianity, i. 473 | Philosophers, efforts of some, to restore the moral influence of religion among the Romans, i. 178. The true moral teachers, 180 Philosophical truth, characteristics of, 1.145, 146. Its growth retarded by the opposition of theologians, 146 Philosophy, causes of the practical cha- racter of most ancient, i. 212. Its fusion with religion, 382. Opinions of the early Church concerning the pagan writings, 364. Difference be- tween the moral teaching of a philo- sophy and that of a religion, it. 1. Its impotency to restrain vice, 4, Phocas, attitude of the Church towards him, ii. 279 Phocion, his gentleness, i. 240 6s, used for ‘man,’ i. 349 Phrynicus, cause of his exile, i. 241 Physical science affects the belief in miracles, 376, 377 Piety, utilitarian view of the causes of the pleasures and pains of, i. 9, and note. A matter of prudence, according to theological Utilitarianism, 17 Pilate, Pontius, story of his desire to en- rol Christ among the Roman gods, i. 456 Pilgrimages, evils of, ii. 161. Pior, St., story of, ii. 137 Pirates, destruction of, by Pompey, i. 247 Pity, a form of self-loye, according to some Utilitarians, i. 9, 10, note. Adam Smith’s theory, 10, xote. Seneca’s distinction between it and clemency, 199. Altar to Pity at Athens, 240, 241. History of Marcus Aurelius’ altar to Beneficentia at Rome, 241, note Plato, his admission of the practice of abortion, i. 94. Basis of his moral system, 109. Cause of the banish- ment of the poets from his republic, 169, 170. His theory that vice is to virtue what disease is to health, 188, and note. Reason for his advo- cacy of community of wives, 211, His condemnation of Suicide, 228, 224, note. His remarks on universal brotherhood, 255. His ineuleation of the practice of self-examination, 262 Platonic school, its ideal, i. 342. pe a ‘2 i - ee ee ae ee ee) oe ee INDEX. PLA Platonists, their more or less pantheistic conception of the Deity,i.171. Prac- tical nature of their philosophy, 349. The Platonie ethics again in the ascendant in Rome, 351. Pleasure the only good, according to the Utilitarians, 1. 8. Illustrations of the distinction between the higher and lower parts of our nature in our pleasures, 85-87. Pleasures of a civilised compared with those of a semi-civilised society, 89. Compari- son of mental and physical pleasures, 89, 90. Distinction in kind of plea- sure, and its importance in morals, 92,93. Neglected or denied by uti- litarian writers, 92, note. Pliny, the elder, on the probable happi- ness of the lower animals, i. 89, note. On the Deity, 172. On astrology 179 and note, 172, note. His dis- belief in the immortality of the soul, 192. His advocacy of suicide, 227. Never mentions Christianity, 357. His opinion of earthquakes, 392. ‘And of comets, 392. His facility of belief, 398. His denunciation of finger rings, 157. Pliny, the younger, his desire for post— humous reputation, i. 194 note. His picture of the ideal of Stoicism, 196. His letter to Trajan respecting the Christians, 464. His benevolence, 256, i. 82 Plotinus, his condemnation of suicide, i, 225. His philosophy, 351 Plutarch, his defence of the bad poetry of the oracles, 173, note. His mode of moral teaching, 183. Basis of his belief in the immortality of the soul, 215. His denunciation of the effect of the superstitious terrors of death upon the people, 217. His letter on the death of his little daughter, 256. May justly be regarded as the leader of the eclectic school, 256. His philo- sophy and works compared with those of Seneca, 256, 257. His treatise on ‘The Signs of Moral Progress, 263. Compared and contrasted with Mar- cus Aurelius, 267. How he regarded the games of the arena, 303. His defence of the ancient creeds, 342. Practical nature of his philosophy, 349. Never mentions Christianity, 357. His remarks on the domestic system of the ancients, 445. On kindness to animals, ii. 175,177. His picture of Greek married life, 306 415 PRO Pluto, meaning of, according to the Stoics, i. 171 Po, miracle of the subsidence of the waters of the, 1. 406 note Peemen, St., story of, and of his mother, 11.137. Legend of him and the lion, 179 Political economy, what it has accom- plished respecting almsgiving, ii. 96 Political judgments, moral standard of most men in, lower than in private judgments, i. 158 Political truth, or habit of ‘ fair play,’ the characteristic of free communities, i. 145. Highly civilised form of society to which it belongs, 146. Its growth retarded by the opposition of theologians, 146 Polybius, his praise of the devotion and purity of creed of the Romans, i. 175, 176 Polycarp, St., martyrdom of, i. 469 Polygamy, long continuance of, among the kings of Gaul, ii. 363 Pompeii, gladiatorial shows at, i. 292 Pompey, his destruction of the pirates, i. 247. His multiplication of gladia- torial shows, 289 Poor-law system, elaboration of the, il. 103. Its pernicious results, 103, 105 } Poppa, Empress, a Jewish proselyte, i. 410 Porcia, heroism of, ii. 327 Porphyry, his condemnation of suicides, 1. 225. His description of philosophy, 1.346. His adoption of Neoplatonism, 1. 351 3 Possevin, his exposure of the Sibylline books, i. 401 Pothinus, martyrdom of, i. 470 Power, origin of the desire of, i. 24, 26 Praise, association of ideas leading to the desire for even posthumous, i, 27 Prayer, reflex influence exercised by, upon the minds of the worshippers, i. 36, 37 Preachers, Stoic, among the Romans, i. 327, 328 Pride, contrasted with vanity, i. 205. The leading moral agent of Stoicism, 1. 205 Prometheus, cause of the admiration be- stowed upon, 1. 35 Prophecies, incapacity of the Christians of the third century for judging pro- phecies, i. 399, 400 416 INDEX, PRO Prophecy, gift of, attributed to the vestal virgins of Rome, i.110. Andin India to virgins, 110, note Prosperity, some crimes conducive to national, i.60. Cases of Rome and Prussia, 60, note Prostitution, ii. 299-303. garded by the Romans, 334. Protagoras, his scepticism, i. 170 Protasius, St., miraculous discovery of his remains, i. 403 Prudentius, on the vestal virgins at the gladiatorial shows, i. 291 Purgatory, doctrine of, ii. 246-249, Pythagoras, his saying as to truth and doing good, i. 54. Chastity the lead- ing virtue of his school, 109. On the fables of Hesiod and Homer, 169. His belief in an all-pervading soul of nature, 170. His condemnation of suicide, 223. Tradition of his jour- ney to India, 242, note. His inculea- tion of the practice of self-examina- tion, 262. His opinion of earthquakes, 392. His doctrine of kindness to animals, ii. 176. How re- Qe compared with some of the early Christians, ii. 12, and note Quintilian, his conception of the Deity, iy by ANK, secular, consecration of, ii. 275, et seq. Rape, punishment for, ii, 335 Redbreast, legend of the, ii. 238, note Regulus, the story of, i. 224 j Reid, basis of his ethics, i. 78. His distinction between innate faculties evolved by experience and innate ideas independent of experience, 125, note . Religion, theological utilitarianism sub- verts natural, i. 56-58. Answer of the oracle of Delphi as to the best, 175. Difference between the moral teaching of a philosophy and that of a religion, ii. 1. Relations between positive religion and moral enthu- silasm, 150 Religions, pagan, their small influence on morals, i. 169. Oriental, passion for, among the Romans, 337 Religious liberty totally destroyed by the Catholics, ii. 206-212 Repentance for past sin, no place for, in the writings of the ancients, i, 205 ROM Reputation, how valued among the Ro- mans, 1. 194, 195 Resurrection of. souls, belief of the Stoics in the, i. 173 Revenge, utilitarian notions as to the feeling of, 1.42, and mote. Circum- stances under which private vengeance is not regarded as criminal, i. 104 Reverence, utilitarian views of, i. 9, and note. Causes of the diminution of the spirit of, among mankind, 148, 149 Rewards and punishments in a future life, doctrine of, destroyed by theo- logical utilitarianism, i. 55 Rhetoricians, Stoical, account of the, of Rome, i. 329. Ricci, his work on Mendicaney, ii. 104 Rochefoucauld, La, on pity, quoted, i. 10, note. And on friendship, 10, 11, note Rogantinus, his passive life, i. 350 Roman law, its goldenage not Christian, but pagan, ii, 44 Romans, abortion how regarded by the, 1. 94. Their law forbidding women to taste wine, 95, 96, note. Reasons why they did not regard the gladia- torial. shows as criminal, 104. Their law of marriage and ideal of female morality, 107. Their religious reve- rence for domesticity, 109. Sanctity of, and gifts attributed to, their vestal virgins, 109,110. Character of their cruelty, 140. Compared with the modern Italian character in this re- spect, 140. Scepticism of their philo- sophers, 170-176. The religion of the Romans never a source of moral enthusiasm, 176. Its character- istics, 176, 177. Causes of the dis- appearance of the religious reye- rence of the people, 177. Efforts of some philosophers and emperors to restore the moral influence of reli- gion, 178. Consummation of Roman degradation, 178. Belief in astrolo- gical fatalism, 179, 180. The Stoical type of military and patriotic enthu- slasm pre-eminently Roman, 181-183, 187. Importance of biography in their moral teaching, 183. Epicu- reanism never became a school of virtue among them, 184. Unselfish love of country of the Romans, 187. Character of Stoicism in the worst period of the Roman Empire, 191. Main features of their philosophy, 194, e¢ seg. Difference between ee ee ate ot ase an aa ak, ee — INDEX. 417 ROM the Roman moralists and the Greek poets, 206. The doctrine of suicide the culminating point of Roman Stoicism, 234. The type of ex- cellence of the Roman people, 236, 237. Contrast between the activity of Stoicism and the luxury of Roman society, 238, 239. Growth of a gentler and more cosmopolitan spirit in Rome, 240. Causes of this change, 240, et seg. Extent of Greek influence at Rome, 240. The cosmopolitan spirit strengthened by the destruction of the power of the aristocracy, 244, 245. History of the influence of freedmen in the state, 246. Effect of the aggrandisement of the colonies, the attraction of many foreigners to Rome, and the increased facilities for travelling, on the cosmopolitan spirit, 246, et seg. Foreigners among the most prominent of Latin writers, 248. Results of the multitudes of emanci- pated slaves, 248, 249. Endeayours of Roman statesmen to consolidate the empire by admitting the conquered to the privileges of the conquerors, 251. ‘Lhe Stoical philosophy quite capable of representing the cosmopo- litan spirit, 253. Influence of eclectic philosophy on the Roman Stoics, 258. Life and character of Marcus Aurelius, 263-269. Corruption of the Roman people, 270. Causes of their depra- vity, 270. Decadence of all the con- ditions of republican virtue, 271. Effects of the Imperial system on morals, 272-276. Apotheosis of the emperors, 272. Moral consequences of slavery, 277. Increase of idleness and demoralising employment, 277. Increase also of sensuality, 278. De- struction of all public spirit, 279. The interaction of many states which in new nations sustains national life pre- vented by universal empire, 280. The decline of agricultural pursuits, 281. And of the military virtues, 284. His- tory and effects of the gladiatorial shows, 287. Other Roman amuse- ments, 292. Effects of the arena upon the theatre, 293. Nobles in the arena, 300. Effects of Stoicism on the cor- ruption of society, 309. Roman law greatly extended by it, 312. Change in the relation of Romans to proyvin- cials, 315. Changes in domestic le- gislation, 315. Roman slavery, 318- 827. The Stoics as consolers, ad- SAI visers, and preachers, 327. The Cy- nics and rhetoricians, 328, 329. De- cadence of Stoicism in the empire, 337. Causes of the passion for Oriental re- ligions, 337-339. Neoplatonism, 345. Review of the history of Roman phi- losophy, 352-356. History of the conversion of Rome to Christianity, 357. State of Roman opinion on the subject of miracles, 388. Progress of the Jewish and Oriental religions in Rome, 410, 411. The conversion of the Roman empire easily explicable, 418. Review of the religious policy of Rome, 423. Its division of reli- gion into three parts, according to Eusebius, 429. Persecutions of the Christians, 432, e¢ seg. Antipathy of the Romans to every religious system which employed religious terrorism, 447, History of the persecutions, 456. General sketch of the moral condition of the Western Empire, ii. 15. Rise and progress of the go- vernment of the Church of Rome, 15, 16. Roman practice of infanti- cide, 29. Their relief of the indi- gent, 78. Distribution of corn, 78. Exertions of the Christians on the subversion of the empire, 87. Inade- quate place given to this movement, 90. Horrors caused by the barbarian invasions prevented to some extent by Christian charity, 87-90. Influence of Christianity in hastening the fall of the Empire, 149, 150. Roman treatment of prisoners of war, 272, 273. Despotism of the pagan empire, 275. Condition of women under the Romans, 315. Their concubines, 370 Rome, an illustration of crimes con- ducive to national prosperity, i. 60, note. Conversion of, 3857. Three popular errors concerning its conver- sion, 360. Capture of the city by the barbarians, 11. 88 Rome, modern, main object and results of its paternal government, 118 note Romuald, St., his treatment of his father, i1. 144 Rope-dancing of the Romans, i. 308 ABINUS, Saint, his penances, i, 116 Sacrament, administration of the, in the early Church, i, 6 Saints, the seventh century the age li, 2 3 418 INDEX, SAL Salamis, Brutus’ treatment of the citi- zens of, i. 204 Sallust, his Stoicism and rapacity, 1. 204 Sanctuary, right of, accorded to Chris- tian churches, ii. 42 Savage, errors into which the deceptive appearances of nature doom him, i. 56. First conceptions formed of the uni- verse, 371. The ethics of savages, 125, 126 Scepticism of the Greek and Roman philosophers, i. 170-174. Influence of, on intellectual progress, ii. 205. The tendency of character to govern opinion always recognised by the Church, 206 Scholastica, St., the legend of, ii. 145, note Scifi, Clara, the first Franciscan nun, ii. 144 Scotch Puritans, their tolerance of amuse- ments compared with that of French- men, 1. 119 Sectarian animosity, chief cause of, i. 140 Sedgwick, Professor, on the expansion of the natural or innate powers of men, 1. 125, note Seducer, character of the, ii. 366, 367 Sejanus, treatment of his daughter by the senate, i. 110, note Self-denial, the utilitarian theory unfa- vourable to, i. 68 Self-examination, history of the practice of, i. 261-263 Self-sacrifice, asceticism the great school of, 11. 164 Beneca, his conception of the Deity, i. 171, note, 172. His distinction be- tween the affections and diseases, 198, note. And between clemency and pity, 199. His virtues and vices, i. 204, His view of the natural virtue of man and power of his will, 208. His remarks on the Sacred Spirit dwelling in man, 208, 209. His view of death, 216. His tranquil end, 218. Advocates suicide, 225, 232. Hig description of the self-destruction of a friend, 234. His remarks on universal brotherhood, 254. His stoical hardness tempered by new doctrines, 258. His practice of self- examination, 262. His philosophy and works compared with those of Plutarch, 256, 257. How he regarded the games of the arena, 302. His ex- hortations on the treatment of slaves, 324, Never mentions Christianity, SIS 857. Regarded in the middle ages as a Christian, 362. His remarks on religious beliefs, 430 Sensuality, why the Mahommedans peo- ple Paradise with images of, i. 112. Why some pagan nations deified it, 112. Fallacy of judging the sensual- ity of a nation by the statistics of its illegitimate births, 150. Influence of climate upon public morals, 151. Of large towns, 152. And of early marriages, 153. Absence of moral scandals among the Irish priesthood, 153, 154. Speech of Archytas of Tarentum on the evils of, 211, note. Increase of sensuality in Rome, 278. Abated by Christianity, ii. 163. The doctrine of the Fathers respecting concupiscence, 298 : Serapion, the anthropomoryhite, i. 53. Number of his monks, ii. 112. Legend of him and the courtesan, 339 Sertorius, his forgery of auspicious omens, i. 174 Severus, Alexander, refusesthe language of adulation, i. 274. ’ His efforts to restore agricultural pursuits, 283. Murder of, 472. His leniency to- wards Christianity, 472. His bene- volence, ii. 82 Severus, Cassius, exile of, i. 476, note Severus, Septimus, his treatment of the Christians, i. 471 Sextius, his practice of self-examination, i. 262 Shaftesbury, maintains the reality of the existence of benevolence in our nature, 1.20. On virtue, 78 Sibylline books, forged by the early Christians, i. 400, 401 Silius Italicus, his lines commemorating the passion of the Spanish Celts for suicide, i, 218, note. His self-de- struction, 233 Silvia, her filthiness, ii. 117 Simeon, Bishop of Jerusalem, his mar- tyrdom, i. 465 Simeon Stylites, St., his penance, ii. 119. His inhumanity to his parents, ii. 138 Sin, the theological doctrine on the sub- ject, i. 115, 116. Conception of sin of the ancients, 205. Original, taught by the Catholic church, 220, 221. Examination of the utilitarian doc- trine of the remote consequences of secret sins, 44, 45 Sisoes, the abbot, stories of, ii, 134, 135 INDEX. SIX Sixtus, Bishop of Rome, his martyr— dom, 1. 484 Sixtus V., Pope, his efforts to suppress mendicancy, i. 108 Slavery, circumstances under which it has been justified, i. 104. Origin of the word servus, according to the Jus- tinian code and St. Augustine, 104, mote. Crusade of England against, 161. Character of that of the Ro- mans, 248. Moral consequence of sla- very, 277. Three stages of slavery at Rome, 318. Review of the con- dition of slaves, 318-324. Opinion of philosophers as to slavery, 324. Laws enacted in favour of slaves, 325. Effects of Christianity upon the institution of slavery, 65. Con- secration of the servile virtues, 72. Impulse given to manumission, 74. Serfdom in Europe, 74,75, note. Ex- tinction of slavery in Europe, 76. Ransom of captives, 76 Smith, Adam, his theory of pity, quoted, i. 10, note. His recognition of the reality of benevolence in our nature, 20. His analysis of moral judgment, 77 Smyrna, persecution of the Christians at, 1. 469 Socrates, his view of death, i. 216. His closing hours, 218. His advice to a courtesan, 11. 313 Soul, belief of the Stoics in the resur- rection of the, i. 173. The immortal- ity of the soul resolutely excluded from the teaching of the Stoics, 191. Character of their first notions on the subject, 192. The belief in the re- absorption of the soul in the parent Spirit, 192. Belief of Cicero and Plutarch in the immortality of the, 215. But never adopted as a motive by the Stoics, 215. Increasing belief in the, 351. Vague belief of the Romans in the, 176 Sospitra, story of, i. 397 Spain, persecution of the Christians in, i. 491. Almost complete absence of infanticide in, ii. 27, note. The first lunatic asylums in Europe established in, 94, 95 Spaniards, among the most prominent of Latin writers, 1. 248. ‘Their suicides, ii. 57 Spartans, their intense patriotism, 1. 187. Their legislature continually extolled as a model, 211. Condition of their women, ii. 307 419 STO Spinoza, his remark on death, i. 218. Anecdote of him, 306 Speculating character, characteristics of the, i. 146, 147 Stael, Madame de, on suicide, ii. 62 Statius, on the first night of marriage, i. 111, note Stewart, Dugald, on the pleasure de- rived from the knowledge or the pur- suits of virtue, 1. 33, ote Stilpo, his scepticism and banishment, i. 170. His remark on his ruin, 201 Stoics, their definition of conscience, i. 85. Their view of the animation of the human fetus, 94. Their system of ethics favourable to the heroic qualities, 133, 134. Historical fact in favour of the system, 134. Their belief in an all-pervading soul of nature, 170. Their pantheistic con- ception of the Deity, 171. Their con- ception and explanation of the pre- vailing legends of the gods, 171. Their opinion as to the final destruc- tion of the universe by fire, and the resuscitation of souls, 173. Their refusal to consult the oracles, 174. Stoicism the expression of a type of character different to Epicurean- ism, 180, 181. Rome pre-eminently the home of Stoicism, 181. Ac- count of the philosophy of the Stoies, 186. Its two essentials—the un- selfish ideal and the subjugation of the affections to the reason, 186. The best example of the perfect severance of virtue and interest, 190. Their views concerning the immortality of the soul, 191-193. Taught men to sacrifice reputation, and do good in se- eret, 195. And distinguished the obli- gation from the attraction of virtue, 196. Taught also that the affections must be subordinate to the reason, 197-201. Their false estimate of human nature, 202. Their love of paradox, 202. Imperfect lives of many eminent Stoics, 203. Their retrospective teachings, 203. Their system unfitted for the majority of mankind, 204. Compared with the religious principle, 205. The cen- tral composition of this philosophy, the dignity of man, 205. High sense of the Stoics of the natural virtue of man, and of the power of his will, 205, 206. Their recognition of Pro- vidence, 206, 207. The two aspects 420 INDEX, STR under which they worshipped God, 208. The Stoics secured from quie- tism by their habits of public life, 210-212. Their view of humanity, 212. Their preparations for, and view of, death, 213. Their teaching as to suicide, 223, 225, et seg. Con- trast between the activity of Stoicism and the luxury of Roman luxury, 238, 239. The Sioical philosophy quite capable of representing the cos- mopolitan spirit, 252, 253. Stoicism not capable of representing the sof- tening movement of civilisation, 255. Influence of the eclectic spirit on it, 258. Stoicism becomes more es- sentially religious, 259. Increas- ingly introspective character of later Stoicism, 261. Mareus Aurelius the best example of later Stoicism, 263- 269. Effects of Stoicism on the cor- ruption of Roman society, 808, 309. It raised up many good Emperors, 309. It produced a noble opposition under the worst Emperors, 310. It greatly extended Roman law, 312. The Stoics considered as the consolers of the suffering, advisers of the young, and as popular preachers, 327. Rapid decadence of Stoicism, 336, 337. ’ Ditf- ference between the Stoical and Egyp- tian pantheism, 344. —Stoical natu- ralism superseded by the theory of de- mons, 3851. Theory that the writings of the Stoics were influenced b Christianity examined, 352. Domi- tian’s persecution of them, 459 Strozzi, Philip, his suicide, ii. 59 Suffering, a courageous endurance of, probably the first form of virtue in savage life, i. 136 Suicide, attitude adopted by Pagan philosophy and Catholicism towards, i. 223, e¢ seg. Eminent suicides, 226. Epidemic of suicides at Alex- andria, 227. And of girls at Miletus, 227, note. Grandeur of the Stoical ideal of suicide, 228. Influences con- spiring towards suicide, 228. Seneca’s touching remarks on self-destruction, 229, 230, 232. Laws respecting it, 230, note. Eminent instances of self- destruction, 231, 233. The concep- tion of, as an euthanasia, 233. Neo- platonist doctrine concerning, 351. Effect of the Christian condemna- tion of the practice of, ii, 46-65. Theological doctrine on, 48, note. The only form of, permitted in the THE early Church, 50. Slow suicides, 51. The Circumceelliones, 52. The Albigenses, 63. Jews, 53. Treatment of corpses of suicides, 53. Authorities for the history of suicides, 53, note. Reac- tion against the medisyal laws on the subject, 54. Later phases of its history, 57. Self-destruction of witches, 57. Epidemics of insane suicide, 58. Cases of legitimate sui- cide, 59. Suicide in England and France, 62 Sunday, importance of the sanctity of the, ii. 258, 259. Laws respecting it, 259 Superstition, possibility of adding to the happiness of man by the diffusion of, i. 52-54. Natural causes which impel savages to superstition, i. 56. Signification of the Greek word for, 1. 216 Swan, the, consecrated to Apollo, i. 217 Sweden, cause of the great number of illegitimate births in, i. 151 Swinburne, Mr., on annihilation, i, 192, note Symmachus, his Saxon prisoners, i. 304 Synesius, legend of him and Evagrius, * li, 227. Refuses to give up his wife, 351 Syracuse, gladiatorial shows at, i. 291 ACITUS, his doubts about the ex- istence of Providence, i. 179, note Taste, refining influence of cultivation on, i. 81 Taylor, Jeremy, on hell, ii. 239 Telemachus, the monk, his death in the arena, 11. 39 Telesphorus, martyrdom of, i. 474 Tertia Amilia, story of, ii. 331 Tertullian, his belief in deemons, i. 406. And challenge to the Pagans, 407 Testament, Old, supposed to have been the source of pagan writings, i. 366 Thalasius, his hospital for blind beg- gars, ii. 86 Theatre, scepticism of the Romans ex- tended by the, i.178.. Effects of the gladiatorial shows upon the, 293 Theft, reasons why some savages do not regard it as criminal, i. 104. And for the Spartan law legalising it, 104 Theodebert, his polygamy, ii. 363 - Theodoric, his court at Ravenna, ii. 214, and note Suicides of the INDEX. THE Theodorus, his denial of the existence of the gods, i. 170 Theodorus, St., his inhumanity to his mother, ii. 136 Theodosius the Emperor, his edict for- bidding gladiatorial shows, il. 37. Denounced by the Ascetics, 148. His law respecting Sunday, 259 Theological utilitarianism, theories of, i. 15-17 Theology, view which it takes of ‘plagues of rain and water, and of epidemics, i. 378. Sphere of induc- tive reasoning in theology, 379 Theon, St., legend of, and the wild beasts, 11. 177 Theurgy rejected by Plotinus, i. 351. All moral discipline resolved into, by Iamblichus, 351 Thrace, celibacy of societies of men in, i. 109 Thrasea,mildness of his Stoicism, i. 259 Thrasea and Arria, history of, 11. 329 Thriftiness created by the industrial spirit, i. 146 Tiberius the Emperor, his images in- vested with a sacred character, 1. 275. His superstitions, 390, and note Timagenes, exiled from the palace by Tiberius, 1. 476, note Titus, the Emperor, his tranquil end, i. 218. Instance of his amiability, 304 Tooth-powder, Apuleius’ defence of, ii. 158 Torments, future, the doctrine of, made by the monks a means of extorting money, ii. 229. Monastic legends of, 233 Tracy, M. de, his argument for the moral importance of a good system of police, i. 135, note Tragedy, effects of the gladiatorial shows upon, among the Romans, i. 293 Trajan, the Emperor, his gladiatorial shows, i. 304. Letter of Pliny to, respecting the Christians, 464. Tra- jan’s answer, 465. His benevolence to children, ii. 81. Gregory and the Emperor, 223 Transmigration of souls, doctrine of, of the ancients, 11. 176 Travelling, increased facilities for, of the Romans, i. 247 Trinitarian monks, their works of mercy, ply br Troubadours, one of their services to mankind, ii. 245 ‘Truce of God, importance of the, ii. 269 Legend of St. 421 VIC Truth, possibility of adding to the hap- piness of men by diffusing abroad, or sustaining, pleasing falsehoods, i. 54. Saying of Pythagoras, 54. ‘Growth of, with civilisation, 148. Industrial, political, and philosophi- cal, 144-146. Relation of monachism to the abstract love of truth, ii. 200. Causes of the medieval decline of the love of truth, 225 Tucker, his adoption of the doctrine of the association of ideas, i. 26, note Turks, their kindness to animals, i. 306 Types, moral, i. 164. All characters cannot be moulded in one type, 166 LPIAN on suicide, i. 230, note Unselfishness of the Stoics, i. 186 Usury, diversities of moral judgment respecting, i. 94 Utilitarian school. Vice Utility, rival claims of, and intuition to be regarded as the supreme regula- tors of moral distinctions, i, 1, 2. Various names by which the theory of utility is known, 3. Views of the moralists of the school of, 3, e¢ seq. See Morals ; Virtue; ALERIAN, his persecutions of the Christians, i. 483 Valerius Maximus, his mode of moral teaching, i. 183 Vandals, their conquest of Africa, ii. 150 Varro, his conception of the Deity, i. 171. His views of popular religious beliefs, 176 Venus, effect of the Greek worship of, on the condition of women, ii. 308 Vespasian, his dying jest, i.274. Effect of his frugality on the habits of the Romans, 310. Miracle attributed to him, 369, His treatment of philoso- phers, 476, note Vice, Mandeville’s theory of the origin of, 1. 7. And that ‘private vices were public benefits, 7. Views of the Utilitarians as to, 13. The de- erees of virtue and vice do not cor- respond to the degrees of utility, or the reverse, 41-43. The suffering caused by vice not proportioned to its criminality, 59-61. Plato’s ethical theory of virtue and vice, 188. Grote’s summary of this theory, 188, note. 422 VIR Conception of the ancients of sin, 205. Moral efficacy of the Christian sense of vice, ii. 3, 4 ; Virgil, his conception of the Deity, i. 172. His epicurean sentiment, 203, note. His denunciations of suicide, 224. His interest in animal life, ii. 175 Virginity, how regarded by the Greeks, | 1.108. A%schylus’ prayer to Athene, 108. Bees and fire emblems of vir- ginity, 111, note. Reason why the ancient Jews attached a certain stigma to virginity, 112. Views of Essenes, 112 Tene ee Virgins, Vestal, intense sanctity and gifts attributed to the, i. 109, 110, and ote. Executions of, 433, and note. Reasons for burying them alive, ii. 44. How regarded by the Romans, old Virtue, Hume’s theory of the criterion, essential element, and object of the pursuit of, i. 4. Motive to virtue from the doctrine which bases morals upon experience,6. Mandeville’s the lowest and most repulsive form of this theory, 6, 7. Views of the essence and origin of virtue adopted by the school of Utilitarians, 7-9. Views of the Utilitarians of, 13. Association of ideas in which virtue becomes the supreme object of our affections, 28. Impossibility of vir- tue bringing pleasure if practised only with that end, 36, 37. The utility of virtue not denied by intui- tive moralists, 40. The degrees of virtue and vice do not correspond to the degrees of utility, or the reverse, _ 4, The rewards and punishments of conscience, 61, 62. The self-compla- cency of virtuous men, 67, and zote. The motive to virtue, according to Shaftesbury and Henry More, 78. Analogies of beauty and virtue, 79. Their difference, 80. Diversities ex- isting in our judgments of virtue and beauty, 80, 81. Virtues to which we can and cannot apply the term beauti- ful, 84. The standard, though not the essence, of virtue, determined by the condition of society, 113. Summary of the relations of virtue and public and private interest, 121. Emphasis with which the utility of virtue was dwelt upon by Aristotle, 129. Growth of the gentler virtues which are the natural product of civilisation, 137. Forms INDEX, WAR of the virtue of truth, industrial, poli- tical, and philosophical, 144, Each stage of civilisation is specially appro- priate to some virtue, 154. National virtues, 159. Virtues naturally grouped together according to principles of affinity or congruity, 161. Distinctive beauty of a moral type, 161. Rudi- mentary virtues differing in different ages, nations, and classes, 162, 163. Four distinct motives leading men to virtue, 187-189. Plato’s fundamental proposition that vice is to virtue what disease is to health, 188. Stoicism the best example of the perfect sever- ance of virtue and self-interest, 190. Teachings of the Stoics that virtue should conceal itself from the world, 195. And that the obligation should be distinguished from the attraction of virtue, 196. The eminent charac- teristics of pagan goodness, 200. All virtues are the same, according to the Stoics, 202. Horace’s description of “a just man, 207. Interested and dis- interested motives of Christianity to virtue, ii. 8. Decline of the civic virtues caused by asceticism, 148. Influence of this change on moral philosophy, 155. The importance of the civic virtues exaggerated by historians, 156. Intellectual virtues, 200. Relation of monachism to these virtues, 200, et seg. Vitalius, St., levend of, and the courte- san, ll. 338, 339 Vivisection, ii.187. Approved by Bacon, 187, note Voleanoes, how regarded by the early monks, ii. 234 Vultures, why made an emblem of nature by the Egyptians, i. 111, note Ws its moral grandeur, i. 97. The school of the heroic virtues, 182. Difference between foreign and civil wars, 244, 245, Antipathy of the early Christians to a military life, ii. 263. Belief in battle being the special sphere of Providential interposition, 264, Effects of the military triumphs of the Mohammedans, 266. In- fluences of Christianity upon war considered, 269. Improved condition of captives taken in war, 271 Warburton, on morals, i. 16, note, 17, note INDEX. 423 WAT Waterland, on the motives to virtue and cause of our love of Gud, quoted, 1. 9, note, 16, note Wealth, origin of the desire to possess, i. 24. Associations leading to the desire for, for its own sake, 26 Western Empire, general sketch of the moral condition of the, ii. 15 Widows, care of the early church for, li. 388 Wigs, Clemens of Alexandria and Ter- tullian on, ii. 158 Will, freedom of the human, sustained and deepened by the ascetic life, ii. 131 Wine, forbidden to women, i, 95, 96, _ note Witcheraft, belief in the reality of,i. 386. Suicide common among witches, i. 57 Wollaston, his analysis of moral judg- ments, i. 78 Women, law of the Romans forbidding women to taste wine, i. 95, 96, note. _ Standards of female morality cf the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, 106, 107. ‘| Virtues and vices growing out of the relations of the sexes, 150. Female virtue, 150. Effects of climate on this virtue, 151. Of large towns, 152. And of early marriages, 153. Reason for Plato’s advocacy of com-. munity of wives, 211. Plutarch’s high sense of female excellence, 258. Female gladiators at Rome, 298, and note. Relations of female devotees with the anchorites, ii. 127, 136, 160. Their condition in savage life, 292. Cessation of the sale of wives, 292. Rise of the dowry, 293. Es- tablishment of monogamy, 294. Doc- trine of the Fathers as to concu- piscence, 298. Nature of the problem of the relations of the sexes, 299, Prostitution, 299-301. Recognition in Greece of two distinct orders of womanhood — the wife and the hetera, 303. Condition of Roman women, 315, e¢ seg Rise among them of an indisposition to mar- riage, 222. Legal emancipation of women in Rome, 322. Un- bounded liberty of divorce, 324. Amount of female virtue in Imperial 61 7" NTE ZEU Rome, 326-330. Legislative mea- sures to repress sensuality, 330. To enforce the reciprocity of obligation in marriage, 330. And to censure pros- titution, 334. Influence of Christianity on the position of women, 335, et seq. Marriages, 389. Second marriages, 343. Low opinion of women pro- duced by asceticism, 357. The canon law unfavourable to their proprietary rights, 358, 359. Barbarian heroines and laws, 861-364. Doctrine of equality of obligation in marriage, 366. The duty of man _ towards woman, 368. Condemnation of tran- sitory connections, 371. Roman con- cubines, 372. ’ The sinfulness of divorce maintained by the church, 871-373. Abolition of compulsory marriages, 874. Condemnation of mixed marriages, 374, 375. Educa- tion of women, 375. Relation of Christianity to the female virtues, 379. Comparison of male and female characteristics, 379. The Pagan and Christian ideal of woman contrasted, 383-385. Conspicuous part of woman in the early Church, 385-387. Care of widows, 388. Worship of the Virgin, 389, 390. Effect of the sup- pression of the conventual system on women, 391. Revolution going on in the employments of women, 393 ENOCRATES, his tenderness, ii. ti 173 Xenophanes, his scepticism, i. 170 Xenophon, his picture of Greek married life, 11. 805 ADOK, the founder of the sect of the Sadducees, his inference of the non- existence of a future world, i. 193, note Zeno, vast place occupied by his system in the moral history of man, i. 180. His suicide, 224. His inculcation of the practice of self-examination, .262 Zeus, universal providence attributed hy the Greeks to, i. 169