Chapter XIII (2)

When Christianity itself was in such need of reform, when Christians could scarcely be distinguished from pagans in love of display, and in egotistical ends, how could it reform the world? When it was a pageant, a ritualism, an arm of the state, a vain philosophy, a superstition, a formula, how could it save, if ever so dominant? The corruptions of the church in the fourth century are as well authenticated as the purity and moral elevation of Christians in the second century. Isaac Taylor has presented a most mournful view of the state of Christian society when the religion of the cross had become the religion of the state. And the corruptions kept pace with the outward triumphs of the faith, especially when the pagans had yielded to the supremacy of the cross. The same fact is noticeable in the history of Mohammedanism. When it was first declared by the extraordinary man who claimed to be the greatest of the prophets of God, when it was a sublime theism, immeasurably superior to the prevailing religions of Arabia, and especially when it was promulgated by moral means, its converts were few, but these were lofty. When it was extended by an appeal to the sword, and to the bad passions of men, when it gave a promise of demoralizing joys, and was embraced by powerful classes and chieftains, it had rapidly extended over Asia and Africa, and even invaded Europe. Mohammedanism doubtless prevailed in consequence of its very errors, by adapting itself to the corrupt inclinations of mankind. If it prospered by means of its truths, why was its progress so slow when it was comparatively pure and elevated? The outward triumphs of a religion are no indications of its purity, since the more corrupt it is the more popular it will be, and the purer it is the less likely it is to be embraced, except by a few, whom God designs to be witnesses of his power and truth. Buddhism and Brahminism have more adherents than Mohammedanism, and Mohammedanism more than Christianity, and Roman Catholic Christianity has more than Protestantism, and Protestantism, when it is a life, is narrowed down to a very small body of believers. Christianity which is popular and fashionable, is not necessarily elevated and ennobling, and when it is fashionable or popular is very apt to assume the forms of an imposing ritualism, or to be blended with philosophical speculations, or to sink to the degradation of superstitious rites and ceremonies. When Christianity falls to the level of prevailing fashions and customs and opinions, it has not a very powerful renovating influence on human life. The Jesuits made great conquests in Japan and China, but how barren they have proved. The Puritans planted the barren hills of New England with stern and rugged believers in a spiritual and personal God, and they have extended their principles throughout the country. What renovating influence has the nominal Christianity of South America, or Spain, or Italy? The religion embraced by the wise and great is apt to become a rationalism, and that professed by the degraded populace to become a superstition. The reception of Christianity in the heart implies sacrifices and self-denial, and will not be cordially embraced except by a few thus far, in any age. The Lollards in England, in the time of Henry VII., were a feeble body, but they did more to infuse a religious life than the whole machinery and influence of the Roman Catholic Church. And as soon as the Church of England gained over the state, and became established, it began to degenerate, and had need of successive reforms. How feeble every form of dissent as a truly renovating power when it has become triumphant! What have the fashionable court religions of Europe done towards the real regeneration of society? Protestantism in Germany, when it was protesting, had a mighty life. When universities and courts accepted it, it became a poisonous rationalism, or a dead formula. Puritanism, established in New England just previous to the Revolution, was a very different thing from what it was when its adherents were exiles and wanderers. It spread and was honored, but retained chiefly its forms, its traditions, its animosities. How rapidly the Huguenots degenerated after the battle of Ivry! Even Jesuitism could not stand before its own triumphs. Its real life was in the times of Xavier and Aquaviva, not of Escobar and La Chaise. Any dominant faith will find its supporters among those whose practical lives are false to the original principles. Its powers of renovation depend upon its exalted doctrines, not upon the numbers who profess it, because, when dominant, men are drawn to it by ambition or interest. They degrade it more than it elevates them. Hence it would almost seem that Christianity, in this dispensation, is designed to call out witnesses of its truths, in every land, the elect of God, rather than to be a universally renovative power on human institutions. But if it is destined to be all-conquering, bringing government and science and social life in harmony with its spirit, as most people believe, and perhaps with the greatest evidence on their side, still its _real_ conquests must be slow, without supernatural aid. It will spread, from its inherent life and power; it will become corrupted, and fail to exert as great a spiritual influence as was hoped; it will be reformed, after great debasements, when it is scarcely more than a nominal faith, except among the few witnesses; and the reforming party or sect will gain ascendency, and in its turn become degenerate and powerless as a renovating force. So history seems to indicate, from the times of Theodosius to our own, specially illustrated by the establishment of the different monastic orders, the great awakenings under Luther and Calvin and Knox, the successes of Jesuits and Jansenists, the triumphs of the Puritans, the Quakers, and the Methodists, the rise of Puseyism, or the Church of England. That Christianity remains vital in the world, and makes true advances from generation to generation, can scarcely be questioned. But these advances are slow and delusive. Spiritual power will pass away as the conquering party gains adherents from the world of fashion and of rank. It will not become extinct, but the difference between its true influence, when it is persecuted and when it is triumphant, is less than generally supposed. The spiritual cannot be measured by the material. Who can tell wherein true and permanent influence abides? Who can estimate the power of spiritual agencies? It is common to speak of enlarged spheres of usefulness; but a clergyman in a humble parish may set in motion ideas which will have more effect on the age in which he lives, and on succeeding times, than by any splendid position in a large and populous city. God seeth not as man seeth. To fill the sphere which Providence appoints is the true wisdom; to discharge trusts faithfully and live exalted ideas, that is the mission of good men.

[Sidenote: Reasons why Christianity did not save the empire.]

Christianity, then, in the fourth century was not more of a renovating power in consequence of its rapid extension and vast external influence. It was never more sublime than when it made martyrs and heroes of the few who dared to embrace its doctrines. There was more hope of its regenerating the world when it was a continually expanding circle of devout believers, uncompromising and aggressive, than when it numbered the wise and noble and mighty, with their old vices and follies. Its external triumphs rather diminished its spiritual power.

If Christianity failed as a gorgeous ritualism, armed with the weapons of the state, and allied with pagan philosophy, attractive as it was made to different classes, where is the hope of the renovation of this world from the effects of climate, soil, material wealth, and the other boasts of physical improvements and culture? What a poor basis for the hopes of man to rest upon is furnished by such guides as the Comtes, the Buckles, and the Mills? If a fashionable and popular religion could not save, how can a cold materialism which chains the thoughts to sense, and confines aspirations to worldly success.

Christianity, as it would seem, did not avert the ruin of the empire, because, when pure, it had but little influence outside its circle of esoteric believers, while society was rotten to the core, and was rapidly approaching a natural dissolution. When it was dominant it failed, because it was itself corrupted, and the ruin had begun. The barbarians were advancing to desolate and destroy, were routing armies and sacking cities and enslaving citizens, when the great fathers of the church were laying the foundation of a Christian state. The ruin of the empire was threatening when Christianity was a proscribed and persecuted faith; it was inevitable when it was grasping the sceptre of princes.

[Sidenote: True mission of the church.]

[Sidenote: The fall of the empire a necessity.]

[Sidenote: The creation which succeeds destruction.]

[Sidenote: What is truly valuable never perishes.]

[Sidenote: Reconstruction.]

Moreover, we take a low and material view of Christianity when we wonder why it did not save the empire. It was sent to save the world, not the institutions of an egotistical people. Why should we grieve that it failed to perpetuate such an organization or government as that wielded by the emperors? What was a central and proud despotism, with vast military machinery, and accompanying aristocracies and inequalities, and the accumulated treasure of all ages and nations on the banks of the Tiber, compared with a state more favorable for the development of a new civilization? What does humanity care for the perpetuation of Roman pride? Providence attaches but little value to human sorrows and sacrifices, to the melting away of delusions, pomps, vanities, and follies, compared with the spread of those indestructible ideas on which are based the real happiness of man. If the empire had withstood the shock of barbarians, a state would have existed unfavorable to the higher and future triumphs of the cross. Where was hope, when imperial despotism, and disproportionate fortunes, and slavery, and the reign of conventional forms and traditions, and the tyranny of foolish fashions were likely to be perpetuated? How could Christianity have subverted these monstrous evils without producing revolutions more blasting than even barbaric violence? There seem to be some evils so subtle, poisonous, and deeply-rooted that nothing but violence can remove them. How long before slavery would have been destroyed in the United States by any moral means? How could slavery be destroyed when the most eloquent of Christian teachers were its defenders, and all its kindred institutions were upheld by the church? So of slavery in the Roman Empire. There were sixty millions of slaves, not of the posterity of Ham, but of Shem and Japhet. Every prosperous person was eager to possess a slave, nor had Christianity openly and signally rebuked such a gigantic institution. Where was the hope of the abolition of such an evil when Christianity adapted itself to prevailing fashions and opinions, and only thought of alleviating some of its worst forms? Would slaves decrease when worldly men became the overseers of the church, and emperors presided at councils? Where were the hopes of its abolition when the whole world was its theatre, and every rich man its defender; where, instead of four millions, there were sixty millions, and where the general level of morality and intelligence was lower than it is at present? So of disproportionate fortunes. They were a hopeless evil. If aristocratic institutions keep their ground in the best country of Europe, what must have been the grasp of nobles in the Roman world? Abandonment to money-making was another social evil. If we in America cannot weaken its power, even in the most Christian communities; if we cannot prevent the tyranny of money in our very churches, where we are reminded every Sunday that it is the root of all evil, yea, when we have Bibles in our hands,--what could a corrupted Christianity do with it when material pleasures were more prized than they are with us, and when philanthropic institutions were unborn? If the whole power of the Gallican Church was exerted to prop up the feudal privileges of the French noblesse, and there was needed a dreadful and bloody revolution to destroy them, much more was a revolution needed at Rome to destroy the inherited powers of a still prouder and more powerful aristocracy. If the rights of women are so slowly recognized among the descendants of chivalrous nations, with all the moral forces of the Gospel, how hopeless the elevation of women among peoples where woman for thousands of years was regarded as a victim, a toy, or a slave? When we remember the inherited opinions of Orientals, Greeks, and Romans as to the condition and duties and relations of the female sex, it seems as if no ordinary instruction could have broken the fetters of woman for an indefinite period. The institutions of the pagan world were too firmly rooted to afford hope to Christian teachers, if ever so enlightened. The great cardinal principle of the common brotherhood of man could only be applied under more favorable circumstances. The unity of the empire _did_ facilitate the outward triumphs and spread of Christianity, and perhaps that was the great mission which the Roman empire was designed by God to promote. But the social and political institutions of the Romans were exceedingly adverse to a healthy development of Christian virtue. The teachers of the new religion originally aimed entirely at the salvation of the soul. It was to save men from the wrath to come, and publish tidings of great joy to the miserable populace of the ancient world, that apostles labored. They did not attack political or great organized systems of corruption openly and directly. It was enough to promise Heaven, not to change the structure of society. For four centuries neither the condition of woman nor of the slave was radically improved. Christianity could not, without miraculous power, bear its best fruit on a Roman soil. It could not do its best work on degenerate and worn-out races. How many centuries would it take for Christianity, even if embraced by all the people of Japan or China, to make as noble Christians as in Scotland or New England? There must be a material to work upon. There was not this material in the Roman empire. A dreadful revolution was necessary, in which new and uncorrupted races should obtain ascendency, and on whom Christianity could work with renewed power. In such a catastrophe, the good must suffer with the evil, the just with the unjust. A Gothic soldier would not spare a cloister any sooner than a palace, or a palace sooner than a hut, a philosopher more readily than a peasant. Christians as well as pagans must drink the bitter cup, for natural law has no tears to shed and no indulgence to give. The iniquities of the fathers were visited upon the children, even to the third and fourth generation. And what if there was suffering on the earth? Tribulation is generally a blessing in disguise. Men are not born for undisturbed happiness on earth, but for a preparation for heaven. Whatever calls the thoughts from a lower to a higher good is the greatest boon which Providence gives. The monstrous calamities of the fourth and fifth centuries had a marked influence in opening the portals of the church, even for the barbarians themselves-- for they were not converted until they became conquerors. A new life, in spite of calamities, was infused into the empire, tottering and falling. It was among the new races that the new creation began, and it is among their descendants that the loftiest triumphs of civilization have been achieved. So it was ultimately a good thing for the world that the empire and all its bad institutions were swept away. Creation followed destruction, and the death-song was succeeded by a melodious birth-song. All suffering and sorrow were over-ruled. Future ages were the better for such sad calamities. Temples were destroyed, but the sublime ideas of beauty and grace by which they were erected still survive. Armies were annihilated, but military science was not lost. Libraries were burned, but models of ancient style survived to incite to new creation. Anarchy prevailed, but new states arose on the ruins of the old provinces. Men passed away, but not the fruits of the earth, nor the relics of genius. The new races gave a new impulse, when fairly established, to agriculture, to commerce, and to art. The fall of the empire was the destruction of fortunes and of farms, the change of masters, the dissolution of the central power of emperors, the breaking up of proconsular authority, the dissipation of conventionalities and fashions; but these were not the ruin of human hopes or the bondage of human energies. Genius, poetry, faith, sentiment, and piety, remained. Nor was the earth depopulated; it was decimated. All the substantial elements of greatness were moulded into new forms. A fresh and beautiful life arose among the simple and earnest people who had descended from the Oder and the Vistula. Entirely new institutions were formed. The old fabric was shattered to pieces, but of the ruins a new edifice was constructed more calculated to shelter the distressed and miserable. The barbarians seized the old traditions of the church and invested them with poetical beauty. The Teutonic civilization, more Christian than the Roman, surpassed it in all popular forms, and became more adapted to the wants of man. Probably nothing really great in civilization has ever perished, or ever will perish. I don't believe in "lost arts." They are only buried for a time, like the glorious sculptures of Praxiteles or Lysippus, amid the debris of useless fabrics, to be dug up when wanted and valued, as models of new creations. I doubt if any thing really valuable in even the Egyptian, or Assyrian, or Indian civilization has hopelessly passed away, which can be made of real service to mankind. It is, indeed, a puzzle how the capstones of the Pyramids were elevated-- such huge blocks raised five hundred feet into the air; but I believe the mechanical forces are really known, or will be known, at the proper time, and will be again employed, if the labor is worth the cost. We could build a tower of Babel in New York, or a temple of Carnac, or a Colosseum, and would build it, if such a structure were needed or we could afford the waste of time, material, and labor. There is nothing in all antiquity so grand as a modern railroad, or the _Great Eastern_ steamship, or the Erie Canal. Nebuchadnezzar's palace would not compare with St. Peter's Church or Versailles, nor his hanging gardens with the Croton reservoirs. Gibraltar or Ehrenbreitstein is more impregnable than the walls of Babylon, which Cyrus despaired to scale or batter down. Every succeeding generation inherits the riches and learning of the past, even if Rome and Carthage are sacked, and the library of Alexandria is burned. The barbarians destroyed the monuments of former greatness--temples, palaces, statues, pictures, libraries, schools, languages, and laws. These _they_ did not restore, but they were restored by their descendants, as there was need, and new creations added. The Parthenon reappears in the Madeleine; the Golden House of Nero in the Tuileries and the Louvre; Jupiter of Phidias in the Moses of Michael Angelo; the Helen of Zeuxis in the Venus of Titian; the library of Alexandria in the Bibliotheque Imperiale; the Academy of Plato in the University of Oxford; the orations of Cicero in the eloquence of Burke; the Institutes of Justinian in the Code Napoleon. In addition, we have cathedrals whose architectural effect Vitruvius could not have conceived; pictures that Polygnotus could not have painted; books which Aristotle could not have imagined; universities before which Zeno would have stood awestruck; courts of law that would have called out the admiration of Paul and Papinian; houses which Scaurus would have envied; carriages that Nero would have given the lives of ten thousand Christians to possess; carpets that Babylon could not have woven; dyes surpassing the Tyrian purple; silks, velvets, glass mirrors, sideboards, fabrics of linen and cotton and wool, ships, railroads, watches, telescopes, compasses, charts, printing-presses, gunpowder, fire-arms, photographs, engravings, bank-notes, telegraphic wires, chemical compounds, domestic utensils, mills, steam-engines, balloons, and a thousand other wonders of a civilization which no ancient race attained. _We_ have lost nothing of the old trophies of genius, and have gained new ones for future civilization. The Romans, if left in possession of the provinces they had conquered for two thousand years longer, would never, probably, have made our modern discoveries and inventions. They would have been more like the modern inhabitants of China. A new race was required to try new experiments and achieve new triumphs. The Greeks and Romans did their share, fulfilled a great mission for humanity, but they could not monopolize forever the human race itself.

[Sidenote: Every age has a peculiar mission.]

Every great nation and age has its work to do in the field of undeveloped energies; but the field is inexhaustible in resources, for the intellect of man is boundless in its reserved powers. No limit can be assigned to the future triumphs of genius and strength. We are as ignorant of some future wonders as the last century was of steam and telegraphic wires. Nor can we tell what will next arise. The wonders of the Greeks and Romans would have astonished Egyptians and Assyrians. The Oriental civilization gave place to the Hellenic and the Roman; and the Hellenic and Roman gave place to the Teutonic. So the races and the ages move on. They have their missions, become corrupt, and pass away. But the breaking up of their institutions, even by violence, when no longer a blessing to the world, and the surrender of their lands and riches to another race, not worn out, but new, fresh, enthusiastic, and strong, have resulted in permanent good to mankind, even if we feel that the human mind never soared to loftier flights, or put forth greater and more astonishing individual energies than in that old and ruined world.

[Sidenote: How far Christianity conserved.]

How far Christianity conserved the treasures of the past we cannot tell. No one can doubt the influence of Christianity in reviving letters, in giving a stimulus to thought, in creating a noble ambition for the good of society, and producing that moral tone which fits the soul to appreciate what is truly great. It was the church which preserved the manuscripts of classical ages; which perpetuated the Latin language in chants and litanies and theological essays; which gave a new impulse to agriculture and many useful arts; which preserved the traditions of the Roman empire; which made use of the old canons of law; which gave a new glory to architecture in the Gothic vaults of mediaeval cathedrals; which encouraged the rising universities; which gave wisdom to rulers and laws to social life. The monasteries and convents, in their best ages, were receptacles of arts, beehives of industry, schools of learning, asylums for the miserable, retreats for sages, hospitals for the poor, and bulwarks of civilization which rude warriors dared not assail. What did not the Christian clergy guard and perpetuate?

[Sidenote: The real triumphs of Christianity.]

That the Teutonic nations would have arisen to as lofty a platform as the ancient Greeks or Romans, without Christianity, is probable enough. There is no limit to the intellect of a noble race until corrupted. Without Christianity, society might still have possessed our modern discoveries, since the Gothic races have shown a distinguishing genius in mechanical inventions. I apprehend that Christianity has not much to do with many of the wonders of our present day; and I find some classes of men who have made great attainments in certain channels in antagonism to Christianity. I question whether a spiritual religion has given an impulse to steam navigation, or rifled cannons, or electrical machines, or astronomical calculations, or geological deductions. It has not created scientific schools, or painters' studios, or Lowell mills, or Birmingham wares, or London docks. Material glories we share with the ancients; we have simply improved upon them. In some things they are our superiors. We do not see the superiority of modern over ancient civilization in material wonders, so much as in immaterial ideas. What is really greatest and noblest in our civilization comes from Christian truths. Certainly, what is most characteristic is the fruit of spiritual ideas, such as paganism never taught,--never could have conceived; such, for instance, as pertains to social changes, to popular education, to philanthropic enterprise, to enlightened legislation, to the elevation of the poor and miserable, to the breaking off the fetters of the slave, and to the true appreciation of the mission of woman. Nor was the Roman empire swept away until the seeds of all these great modern improvements, which raise society, were planted by the sainted fathers and doctors of the church. They worked for us, for all future ages, for all possible civilizations, as well as for their own times. They are, therefore, immortal benefactors of the human race, since they were the first to declare great renovating ideas. The early church is the real architect of European civilization. She laid the foundation of the noble edifice under which the nations still shelter themselves against the storms of life. Christianity not only rescued a part of the population of the Roman empire from degradation and ruin; it not only had glorious witnesses or its transcendent power and beauty in every land, thus triumphing over human infirmity and misery as no other religion ever did; but it has also proved itself to be a progressively conquering power by the great and beneficent ideas which were planted in the minds of barbarians, as well as oriental Christians, and which from time to time are bearing fruit in every land, so as to make it evident to any but a perverted intellect, that Christianity is the source of what we most prize in civilization itself, and that without it the nations can only reach a certain level, and will then, from the law of depravity, decline and fall like Greece, Asia Minor, and Rome. If we had no Christianity, we should be compelled, so far as history teaches us lessons, to adopt the theory of Buckle and his school, of the necessary progress and decline of nations--the moving round, like systems of philosophy, in perpetual circles. But, with the indestructible ideas which the fathers planted, there must be a perpetual renovation and an unending progress, until the world becomes an Eden.

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REFERENCES.--The reader is directed only to the ordinary histories of the church. The great facts are stated by all the historians, and few new ones have been brought to light. Historians differ merely in the mode of presenting their subject. The ecclesiastical histories are generally deficient in art, and hence are uninteresting. The ablest and the most learned of modern historians is doubtless Neander. He is also the fullest and most satisfactory; but even he is unattractive. Mosheim is dry and dull, but learned in facts. Dr. Schaff has most ably presented primitive Christianity, and his recent work is both popular and valuable. Milman is the best English writer on the church, and he is the most readable of modern historians. Tillemont and Dupin are very full and very learned. But a truly immortal history of the church, exhaustive yet artistic, brilliant as well as learned, is yet to be written. The ancient historians, like Eusebius and Socrates and Zosimus, are very meagre. The genius and spirit of the early church can only be drawn from the lives and writings of the fathers.