Books: The Old Roman World

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[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.

* * * * *

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.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE LEGACY OF THE EARLY CHURCH TO FUTURE GENERATIONS.

It is my object in this chapter to show the great Christian ideas which
the fathers promulgated, and which have proved of so great influence on
the Middle Ages and our own civilization. These were declared before the
Roman empire fell; and if they did not arrest ruin, still alleviated the
miseries of society, and laid the foundation of all that is most
ennobling among modern nations. The early church should be the most
glorious chapter in the history of humanity. While the work of
destruction was going on in every part of the world, both by vice and
violence, there was still the new work of creation proceeding with it, a
precious savor of life to future ages. If there is any thing sublime, it
is the power of renovating ideas amid universal degeneracy. They are
seeds of truth, which grow and ripen into grand institutions. These did
not become of sufficient importance to arrest the attention of
historians until they were cultivated by the Germanic nations in the
Middle Ages.

It could be shown that almost everything which gives glory to Christian
civilization had its origin in the early church. Few are aware what
giants and heroes were those fathers and saints whom this age has been
taught to despise. We are really reaping the results of those conflicts--
conflicts with bigoted Jewish sects; conflicts with the high priests of
paganism, with Greek philosophers, with Gnostic Manichaean illuminati;
with the symbolists, soothsayers, astrologers, magicians, which mystic
superstition conjured up among degenerate people. And not merely their
conflicts with the prince of the power of the air alone, but with
themselves, with their own fiery passions, and with tangible outward
foes. They were illustrious champions and martyrs in the midst of a
great Vanity Fair, in a Nebuchadnezzar fire of persecutions, an all-
pervading atmosphere of lies, impurities, and abominations which cried
to heaven for vengeance. They solved for us and for all future
generations the thousand of new questions which audacious paganism
proposed in its last struggles; they exposed the bubbles which charmed
that giddy generation of egotists; they eliminated the falsehoods which
vain-glorious philosophers had inwrought with revelation; and they
attested, with dying agonies, to the truth of those mysteries which gave
them consolation and hope amid the terrors of a dissolving world. They
absorbed even into the sphere of Christianity all that was really
valuable in the system they exploded, whether of philosophy or social
life, and transmitted the same to future ages. And they set examples, of
which the world will never lose sight, of patience, fortitude, courage,
generosity, which will animate all martyrs to the end of time. And if,
in view of their great perplexities, of circumstances which they could
not control, utter degeneracy and approaching barbarism, they lent their
aid to some institutions which we cannot endorse, certainly when
corrupted, like Manichaeism and ecclesiastical domination, let us
remember that these were adapted to their times, or were called out by
pressing exigencies. And further, let us bear in mind that, in giving
their endorsement, they could not predict the abuse of principles
abstractly good and wise, like poverty, and obedience, and chastity, and
devout meditation, and solitary communion with God. In all their conduct
and opinions, we see, nevertheless, a large-hearted humanity, a
toleration and charity for human infirmities, and a beautiful spirit of
brotherly love. If they advocated definite creeds with great vehemence
and earnestness, they yet soared beyond them, and gloried in the general
name they bore, until the fundamental doctrines of their religion were
assailed.

For two centuries, however, they have no history out of the records of
martyrdom. We know their sufferings better than any peculiar ideas which
they advocated. We have testimony to their blameless lives, to their
irreproachable morals, to their good citizenship, and to their Christian
graces, rather than to any doctrines which stand out as especial marks
for discussion or conflict, like those which agitated the councils of
Nice or Ephesus. But if we were asked what was the first principle which
was brought out by the history of the early church, we should say it was
that of martyrdom. Certainly the first recorded act in the history of
Christianity was that memorable scene on Calvary, when the founder of
our religion announced the fulfillment of the covenant made with Adam in
the Garden of Eden. And as the deliverance of mankind was effected by
that great sacrifice for sin, so the earliest development of Christian
life was the spirit of martyrdom. The moral grandeur with which the
martyrs met reproach, isolation, persecution, suffering, and death, not
merely robbed the grave of its victory, but implanted a principle of
inestimable power among all future heroes. Martyrdom kindled an heroic
spirit, not for the conquest of nations, but for the conquest of the
soul, and the resignation of all that earth can give in attestation of
grand and saving truths. We have a few examples of martyrs in pagan
antiquity, like Socrates and Seneca, who met death with fortitude,--but
not with faith, not with indestructible joy that this mortal was about
to put on immortality. The Christian martyrdoms were a new development
of humanity. They taught the necessity of present sacrifice for future
glory, and more, for the great interests of truth and virtue, with which
good men had been identified. They brought life and immortality to the
view of the people, who had not dared to speculate on their future
condition. Their martyrs inspired a spirit into society that nothing
could withstand; a practical belief that the life was more than meat;
that the future was greater than the present: and this surely is one of
the grand fundamental principles of Christianity. They incited to a
spirit of fortitude and courage under all the evils of life, and gave
dignity to men who would otherwise have been insignificant. The example
of men who rejoiced to part with their lives for the sake of their
religion, became to the world the most impressive voice which it yet
heard of the insignificance of this life when compared with the life to
come. "What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his
own soul?" became thus one of the most stupendous inquiries which could
be impressed on future generations, and affected all the relations of
society. Martyrdom was one solution of this mighty question which
introduced a new power upon the earth, for we cannot conceive of
Christianity as an all-conquering influence, except as it unfolds a new
and superior existence, in contrast with which the present is worthless.
The principle of martyrdom, setting at defiance the present, led to
unbounded charity and the renunciation of worldly possessions. What are
they really worth? Every martyr had the comparative worthlessness of
wealth and honor and comfort profoundly impressed upon his mind, in view
of the greatness of the Infinite and the importance of the future.

The early martyrdoms thus brought out with immeasurable force the
principle of faith, without which life can have no object,--faith in
future destinies, faith in the promises of God, faith in the power of
the Cross to subdue finally all forms of evil. The sacrifice of Christ
introduced into the world sentiments of unbounded love and gratitude,
that He, the most perfect type of humanity, and the Son of God himself,
should come into this world to bear its sins upon the cross, and thus
give a heaven which could not be bought by expiatory gifts. It was love
which prompted the crucifixion of Jesus; and love produced love, and
stimulated thousands to bear with patience the evils under which they
would have sunk. The martyrdoms of the early Christians did not indeed
kindle sentiments of gratitude; but they inspired courage, and led to
immeasurable forms of heroism. The timid and the shrinking woman, the
down-trodden slave, and the despised pauper, all at once became serene,
lofty, unconquerable, since they knew that though their earthly
tabernacle would be destroyed, they had a dwelling in the heavens free
from all future toil and sorrow and reproach. Martyrdoms made this world
nothing and heaven everything. They proved a powerful faith in the
ultimate prevalence of truth, and created an invincible moral heroism,
which excited universal admiration; and they furnished models and
examples to future generations, when Christians were subjected to bitter
trials.

We cannot but feel that martyrdom is one of the most impressive of all
human examples, since it is the mark of a practical belief in God and
heaven. And while we recognize it as among the most interesting among
spiritual triumphs, we are persuaded that the absence of its spirit, or
its decline, is usually followed by a low state of society. Epicureanism
is its antagonistic principle, and is as destructive as the other is
conservative. The moment men are unwilling to sacrifice themselves to a
great cause, they virtually say that temporal and worldly interests are
to be preferred to the spiritual and the future. The language of the
Epicurean is intensely egotistic. It is: "Soul, take thine ease; eat,
drink, and be merry;" to which God says, "Thou fool." Christianity was
sent to destroy this egotism, which undermined the strength of the
ancient world; and it created a practical belief in the future, and a
faith in truth. Without this faith, society has ever retrograded; with
it there have been continual reforms. It is an important element of
progress, and a mark of dignity and moral greatness.

Shall we seek a connection between their martyrdoms and civilization?
They bore witness to a religion which is the source of all true progress
upon earth; they attested to its divine truth amid protracted agonies;
they were illustrious examples for all ages to contemplate.

Perhaps the most powerful effect of their voluntary sacrifice was to
secure credence to the mysteries of Christianity. Socrates died for his
own opinions; but who was ever willing to die for the opinions of
Socrates? But innumerable martyrs exulted in the privilege of dying for
the doctrines of Him whose sacrifice saved the world. Nor to these had
death its customary terrors, since they were assured of a glorious
immortality. They impressed the pagan world with a profound lesson that
the future is greater than the present; that there is to be a day of
rewards and punishments. Amid all the miseries and desolations of
society, it was a great thing to bear witness to the reality of future
happiness and misery. The hope of immortality must have been an
unspeakable consolation to the miserable sufferers of the Roman Empire.
It gave to them courage and patience and fortitude. It inspired them
with hope and peace. Amid the ravages of disease, and the incursions of
barbarians, and the dissolution of society, and the approaching eclipse
of the glory of man, it was a great and holy mystery that the soul
should survive these evils, and that eternal bliss should be the reward
of the faithful. Nothing else could have reconciled the inhabitants of
the decaying empire to slavery, war, and pillage. There was needed some
powerful support to the mind under the complicated calamities of the
times. This support the death and exultation of the martyrs afforded. It
was written on the souls of the suffering millions that there was a
higher life, a glorious future, an exceeding great reward. It was
impossible to see thousands ready to die, exulting in the privilege of
martyrdom, anticipating with confidence their "crown," and not feel that
immortality was a certitude brought to light by the Gospel. And the
example of the martyrs kindled all the best emotions of the soul into a
hallowed glow. Their death, so serene and beautiful, filled the
spectators with love and admiration. Their sufferings brought to light
the greatest virtues, and diffused their spirit into the heart of all
who saw their indestructible joy. Is it nothing, in such an age, to have
given an impulse to the most exalted sentiments that men can cherish?
The welfare of nations is based on the indestructible certitudes of
love, friendship, faith, fortitude, self-sacrifice. It was not Marathon
so much as Thermopylae which imparted vitality to Grecian heroism, and
made that memorable self-sacrifice one of the eternal pillars which mark
national advancement. So the sufferings of the martyrs, for the sake of
Christ, warmed the dissolving empire with a belief in Heaven, and
prepared it to encounter the most unparalleled wretchedness which our
world has seen. They gave a finishing blow to Epicureanism and skeptical
cynicism; so that in the calamities which soon after happened, men were
buoyed with hope and trust. They may have hidden themselves in caves and
deserts, they may have sought monastic retreats, they may have lost
faith in man and all mundane glories, they may have consumed their lives
in meditation and solitude, they may have anticipated the dissolution of
all things, but they awaited in faith the coming of their Lord. Prepared
for any issue or any calamity, a class of heroes arose to show the moral
greatness of the passive virtues, and the triumphs of faith amid the
wrecks of material grandeur. Were not such needed at the close of the
fourth century? Especially were not such bright examples needed for the
ages which were to come? Polycarp and Cyprian were the precursors of the
martyrs of the Middle Ages, and were of the Reformation. Early
persecutions developed the spirit of martyrdom, which is the seed of the
church, impressed it upon the mind of the world, and prepared the way
for the moral triumphs of the Beckets and Savonarolas of remote
generations. Martyrdoms were the first impressive facts in the history
of the church, and the idea of dying for a faith one of the most signal
evidences of superiority over the ancient religions. It was a new idea,
which had utterly escaped the old guides of mankind.

Another great idea which was promulgated by the church long before the
empire fell, was that of benevolence. Charities were not one of the
fruits of paganism. Men may have sold their goods and given to the poor,
but we have no record of such deeds. Hospitals and eleemosynary
institutions were nearly unknown. When a man was unfortunate, there was
nothing left to him but to suffer and die. There was no help from
others. All were engrossed in their schemes of pleasure or ambition, and
compassion was rare. The sick and diseased died without alleviation.
"The spectator who gazed upon the magnificent buildings which covered
the seven hills, temples, arches, porticoes, theatres, baths and
palaces, could discover no hospitals and asylums, unless perchance the
temple of Aesculapius, on an island in the Tiber, where the maimed and
sick were left in solitude to struggle with the pangs of death." But the
church fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and visited the prisoner,
and lodged the stranger. Charity was one of the fundamental injunctions
of Christ and of the Apostles. The New Testament breathes unbounded
love, benevolence so extensive and universal that self was ignored.
Self-denial, in doing good to others, was one of the virtues expected of
every Christian. Hence the first followers of our Lord had all things in
common. Property was supposed to belong to the whole church, rather than
to individuals. "Go and sell all that thou hast" was literally
interpreted. It devolved on the whole church to see that strangers were
entertained, that the sick were nursed, that the poor were fed, that
orphans were protected, that those who were in prison were visited. For
these purposes contributions were taken up in all assemblies convened
for public worship. Individuals also emulated the whole church, and gave
away their possessions to the poor. Matrons, especially, devoted
themselves to these works of charity, feeding the poor, and visiting the
sick. They visited the meanest hovels and the most dismal prisons. But
"what heathen," says Tertullian, "will suffer his wife to go about from
one street to another to the houses of strangers? What heathen would
allow her to steal away into the dungeon to kiss the chain of the
martyr?" And these works of benevolence were not bestowed upon friends
alone, but upon strangers; and it was this, particularly, which struck
the pagans with wonder and admiration--that men of different countries,
ranks, and relations of life, were bound together by an invisible cord
of love. A stranger, with letters to the "brethren," was sure of a
generous and hearty welcome. There were no strangers among the
Christians; they were all brothers; they called each other brother and
sister; they gave to each other the fraternal kiss; they knew of no
distinctions; they all had an equal claim to the heritage of the church.
And this generosity and benevolence extended itself to the wants of
Christians in distant lands; the churches redeemed captives taken in
war, and even sold the consecrated vessels for that purpose on rare
occasions, as Ambrose did at Milan. A single bishop, in the third
century, supported two thousand poor people. Cyprian raised at one time
a sum equal to four thousand dollars in his church at Carthage, to be
sent to the Manichaean bishops for the purposes of charity. Especially in
times of public calamity was this spirit of benevolence manifested, and
in striking contrast with the pagans. [Footnote: Neander, vol. i.
Section 3.] When Alexandria was visited with the plague during the
reign of Gallienus, the pagans deserted their friends upon the first
symptoms of disease; they left them to die in the streets, without even
taking the trouble to bury them when dead; they only thought of escaping
from the contagion themselves. The Christians, on the contrary, took the
bodies of their brethren in their arms, waited upon them without
thinking of themselves, ministered to their wants, and buried them with
all possible care, even while the best people of the community,
presbyters and deacons, lost their own lives by their self-sacrificing
generosity. [Footnote: Eusebius, 1. vii. chap. 22.] And when Carthage
was ravaged by a similar pestilence in the reign of Gallus, the pagans
deserted the sick and the dying, and the streets were filled with dead
bodies, which greatly increased the infection. No one came near them
except for purposes of plunder; but Cyprian, calling his people together
in the church, said: "If we do good only to our own, what do we more
than publicans and heathens." Animated by his words, the members of the
church divided the work between them, the rich giving money, and the
poor labor, so that in a short time the bodies which filled the streets
were buried.