Books: The Old Roman World

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But the great truths which the fathers proclaimed in reference to the
moral and social relations of society are still more remarkable in their
subsequent influence.

The great idea of Christian equality struck at the root of that great
system of slavery which was one of the main causes of the ruin of the
empire. Christianity did not break up slavery; it might never have
annihilated it under a Roman rule, but it protested against it so soon
as it was clothed with secular power. As in the sight of heaven there is
no distinction of persons, so the idea of social equality gained ground
as the relations of Christianity to practical life were understood. The
abolition of slavery, and the general amelioration of the other social
evils of life, are all a logical sequence from the doctrine of Christian
equality,--that God made of one blood all the nations of the earth, that
they are equally precious in his sight, and have equal claims to the
happiness of heaven. All theories of human rights radiate from, and
centre around, this consoling doctrine. That we are born free and equal
may not, practically, be strictly true; but that the relations of
society ought to be viewed as they are regarded in the Scriptures, which
reveal the dignity of the soul and its glorious destinies, cannot be
questioned; so that oppression of man by man, and injustice, and unequal
laws militate with one of the great fundamental revelations of God.
Impress Christian equality on the mind of man, and social equality
follows as a matter of course. The slave was recognized to be a man, a
person, and not a thing. Whenever he sat down, as he did once a week,
beside his master, in the adoration of a common Lord, the ignominy of
his hard condition was removed, even if his obligations to obedience
were not abrogated. As a future citizen of heaven, his importance on the
earth was more and more recognized, until his fetters were gradually
removed.

From the day when Christian equality was declared, the foundations of
slavery were assailed, and the progress of freedom has kept pace with
Christian civilization, although the Apostles did not directly denounce
the bondage that disgraced the ancient world. It was something to
declare the principles which, logically carried out, would ultimately
subvert the evil, for no evil can stand forever which is in opposition
to logical deductions from the truths of Christianity. Moral philosophy
is as much a series of logical deductions from the doctrine of loving
our neighbor as ourself as that great network of theological systems
which Augustine and Calvin elaborated from the majesty and sovereignty
of God. Those distinctions which Christ removed by his Gospel of
universal brotherhood can never return or coexist with the progress of
the truth. A vast social revolution began when the eternal destinies of
the slave were announced. It will not end with the mere annihilation of
slavery as an institution; it will affect the relations of the poor and
the rich, the unlucky and the prosperous, in every Christian country
until justice and love become dominant principles. What a stride from
Roman slavery to mediaeval serfdom! How benignant the attitude of the
church, in all ages, to the poor man! The son of a peasant becomes a
priest, and rises, in the Christian hierarchy, to become a ruler of the
world. There was no way for a poor peasant boy to rise in the Middle
Ages, except in the church. He attracts the notice of some beneficent
monk; he is educated in the cloister; he becomes a venerated brother, an
abbot, perhaps a bishop or a pope. Had he remained in service to a
feudal lord, he never could have risen above his original rank. The
church raises him from slavery, and puts upon his brow her seal and in
his hands the thunderbolts of spiritual power, thus giving him dignity
and consideration and independence. Rising, as the clergy did in the
Middle Ages, in all ages, from the lower and middle classes, they became
as much opposed to slavery as they were to war. It was thus in the bosom
of the church that liberty was sheltered and nourished. Nor has the
church ever forgotten her mission to the poor, or sympathized, as a
whole, with the usurpations of kings. She may have aimed at dominion,
like Hildebrand and Innocent III., but it was spiritual domination,
control of the mind of the world. But she ever sympathized with
oppressed classes, like Becket, even as he defied the temporal weapons
of Henry II. The Jesuits, even, respected the dignity of the poor. Their
errors were trust in machinery and unbounded ambition, but they labored
in their best ages for the good of the people. And in our times, the
most consistent and uncompromising foes of despotism and slavery are in
the ranks of the church. The clergy have been made, it is true,
occasionally, the tools of despotism, and have been absurdly
conservative of their own privileges, but on the whole, have ever lifted
up their voices in defense of those who are ground down.

The elevation of woman, too, has been caused by the doctrine of the
equality of the sexes which Christianity revealed; not "woman's rights"
as interpreted by infidels; not the ignoring of woman's destiny of
subservience to man, as declared in the Garden of Eden and by St. Paul,
but her glorious nature which fits her for the companionship of man.
Heathendom reduces her to slavery, dependence, and vanity. Christianity
elevates her by developing her social and moral excellences, her more
delicate nature, her elevation of soul, her sympathy with sorrow, her
tender and gracious aid. The elevation of woman did not come from the
natural traits of Germanic barbarians, but from Christianity. Chivalry
owes its bewitching graces to the influence of Christian ideas. Clemency
and magnanimity, gentleness and sympathy, did not spring from German
forests, but the teachings of the clergy. Veneration for woman was the
work of the church, not of pagan civilization or Teutonic simplicity.
The equality of the sexes was acknowledged by Jerome when he devoted
himself to the education of Roman matrons, and received from the hand of
Paula the means of support while he, labored in his cell at Bethlehem.
How much more influential was Fabiola or Marcella than Aspasia or
Phryne! It was woman who converted barbaric kings, and reigned, not by
personal charms, like Eastern beauties, but by the solid virtues of the
heart. Woman never occupied so proud a position in an ancient palace as
in a feudal castle. When Paula visited the East, she was welcomed by
Christian bishops, and the proconsul of Palestine surrendered his own
palace for her reception, not because she was high in rank, but because
her virtues had gone forth to all the world; and when she died, a great
number of the most noted people followed her body to the grave with
sighs and sobs. The sufferings of the female martyrs are the most
pathetic exhibitions of moral greatness in the history of the early
church. And in the Middle Ages, whatever is most truly glorious or
beautiful can be traced to the agency of woman. Is a town to be spared
for a revolt, or a grievous tax remitted, it is a Godiva who intercedes
and prevails. Is an imperious priest to be opposed, it is an Ethelgiva
who alone dares to confront him even in the king's palace. It is
Ethelburga, not Ina, who reigns among the Saxons--not because the king
is weak, but his wife is wiser than he. A mere peasant-girl, inspired
with the sentiment of patriotism, delivers a whole nation, dejected and
disheartened, for such was Joan of Arc. Bertha, the slighted wife of
Henry, crosses the Alps in the dead of winter, with her excommunicated
lord, to remove the curse which deprived him of the allegiance of his
subjects. Anne, Countess of Warwick, dresses herself like a cook-maid to
elude the visits of a royal duke, and Ebba, abbess of Coldingham, cuts
off her nose, to render herself unattractive to the soldiers who ravage
her lands. Philippa, the wife of the great Edward, intercedes for the
inhabitants of Calais, and the town is spared.

The feudal woman gained respect and veneration because she had the moral
qualities which Christianity developed. If she entered with eagerness
into the pleasures of the chase or the honor of the banquet, if she
listened with enthusiasm to the minstrel's lay and the crusader's tale,
her real glory was her purity of character and unsullied fame. In
ancient Rome men were driven to the circus and the theatre for amusement
and for solace, but among the Teutonic races, when converted to
Christianity, rough warriors associated with woman without seductive
pleasures to disarm her. It was not riches, nor elegance of manners, nor
luxurious habits, nor exemption from stern and laborious duties which
gave fascination to the Christian woman of the Middle Ages. It was her
sympathy, her fidelity, her courage, her simplicity, her virtues, her
noble self-respect, which made her a helpmeet and a guide. She was
always found to intercede for the unfortunate, and willing to endure
suffering. She bound up the wounds of prisoners, and never turned the
hungry from her door. And then how lofty and beautiful her religious
life. History points with pride to the religious transports and
spiritual elevation of Catharine of Sienna, of Margaret of Anjou, of
Gertrude of Saxony, of Theresa of Spain, of Elizabeth of Hungary, of
Isabel of France, of Edith of England. How consecrated were the labors
of woman amid feudal strife and violence. Whence could have arisen such
a general worship of the Virgin Mary had not her beatific loveliness
been reflected in the lives of the women whom Christianity had elevated?
In the French language she was worshiped under the feudal title of Notre
Dame, and chivalrous devotion to the female sex culminated in the
reverence which belongs to the Queen of Heaven. And hence the qualities
ascribed to her, of Virgo Fidelis, Mater Castissima, Consolatrix
Afflictorum, were those to which all lofty women were exhorted to
aspire. The elevation of woman kept pace with the extension of
Christianity. Veneration for her did not arise until she showed the
virtues of a Monica and a Nonna, but these virtues were the fruit of
Christian ideas alone.

We might mention other ideas which have entered into our modern
institutions, such as pertain to education, philanthropy, and missionary
zeal. The idea of the church itself, of an esoteric band of Christians
amid the temptations of the world, bound together by rules of discipline
as well as communion of soul, is full of grandeur and beauty. And the
unity of this church is a sublime conception, on which the whole
spiritual power of the popes rested when they attempted to rule in peace
and on the principles of eternal love. However perverted the idea of the
unity of the church became in the Middle Ages, still who can deny that
it was the mission of the church to create a spiritual power based on
the hopes and fears of a future life? The idea of a theocracy forms a
prominent part of the polity of Calvin, as of Hildebrand himself. It is
the basis of his legislation. He maintained it was long concealed in the
bosom of the primitive church, and was gradually unfolded, though in a
corrupt form, by the popes, the worthiest of whom kept the idea of a
divine government continually in view, and pursued it with a clear
knowledge of its consequences. And those familiar with the lofty schemes
of Leo and Gregory, will appreciate their efforts in raising up a power
which should be supreme in barbarous ages, and preserve what was most to
be valued of the old civilization. The autocrat of Geneva clung to the
necessity of a spiritual religion, and aimed to realize that which the
Middle Ages sought, and sought in vain, that the church must always
remain the mother of spiritual principles, while the state should be the
arm by which those principles should be enforced. Like Hildebrand, he
would, if possible, have hurled the terrible weapon of excommunication.
In cutting men off from the fold, he would also have cut them off from
the higher privileges of society. He may have carried his views too far,
but they were founded on the idea of a church against which the gates of
hell could not prevail. Who can estimate the immeasurable influence of
such an idea, which, however perverted, will ever be recognized as one
of the great agencies of the world? A church without a spiritual power,
is inconceivable; nor can it pass away, even before the material
tendencies of a proud and rationalistic civilization. It will assert its
dignity when thrones and principalities shall crumble in the dust.

Such are among the chief ideas which the fathers taught, and which have
entered even into the modern institutions of society, and form the
peculiar glory of our civilization. When we remember this, we feel that
the church has performed no mean mission, even if it did not save the
Roman empire. The glory of warriors, of statesmen, of artists, of
philosophers, of legislators, and of men of science and literature in
the ancient world, still shines, and no one would dim it, or hide it
from the admiration of mankind. But the purer effulgence of the great
lights of the church eclipses it all, and will shine brighter and
brighter, until the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head.
This is the true sun which shall dissipate the shadows of superstition
and ignorance that cover so great a portion of the earth, and this shall
bring society into a healthful glow of unity and love.

* * * * *

In another volume I shall present, more in detail, the labors of the
Christian Fathers in founding the new civilization which still reigns
among the nations. And in the creation which succeeded destruction we
shall be additionally impressed with the wisdom and beneficence of the
Great First Cause, through whose providences our fallen race is led to
the new Eden, where truth and justice and love reign in perpetual beauty
and glory.

THE END.

[Transcriber's Note: The spellings "panygeric," "beauitful," and
"sytematically" occurred as such on lines 2285, 2473, and 10763,
respectively, and were corrected.]