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Books: History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science

J >> John William Draper >> History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science




INTRODUCTION OF ROMAN RITES. Let us pause here a moment, and see,
in anticipation, to what a depth of intellectual degradation this
policy of paganization eventually led. Heathen rites were
adopted, a pompous and splendid ritual, gorgeous robes, mitres,
tiaras, wax-tapers, processional services, lustrations, gold and
silver vases, were introduced. The Roman lituus, the chief ensign
of the augurs, became the crozier. Churches were built over the
tombs of martyrs, and consecrated with rites borrowed from the
ancient laws of the Roman pontiffs. Festivals and commemorations
of martyrs multiplied with the numberless fictitious discoveries
of their remains. Fasting became the grand means of repelling the
devil and appeasing God; celibacy the greatest of the virtues.
Pilgrimages. were made to Palestine and the tombs of the martyrs.
Quantities of dust and earth were brought from the Holy Land and
sold at enormous prices, as antidotes against devils. The virtues
of consecrated water were upheld. Images and relics were
introduced into the churches, and worshiped after the fashion of
the heathen gods. It was given out that prodigies and miracles
were to be seen in certain places, as in the heathen times. The
happy souls of departed Christians were invoked; it was believed
that they were wandering about the world, or haunting their
graves. There was a multiplication of temples, altars, and
penitential garments. The festival of the purification of the
Virgin was invented to remove the uneasiness of heathen converts
on account of the loss of their Lupercalia, or feasts of Pan. The
worship of images, of fragments of the cross, or bones, nails,
and other relics, a true fetich worship, was cultivated. Two
arguments were relied on for the authenticity of these
objects--the authority of the Church, and the working of
miracles. Even the worn-out clothing of the saints and the earth
of their graves were venerated. From Palestine were brought what
were affirmed to be the skeletons of St. Mark and St. James, and
other ancient worthies. The apotheosis of the old Roman times was
replaced by canonization; tutelary saints succeed to local
mythological divinities. Then came the mystery of
transubstantiation, or the conversion of bread and wine by the
priest into the flesh and blood of Christ. As centuries passed,
the paganization became more and more complete. Festivals sacred
to the memory of the lance with which the Savior's side was
pierced, the nails that fastened him to the cross, and the crown
of thorns, were instituted. Though there were several abbeys that
possessed this last peerless relic, no one dared to say that it
was impossible they could all be authentic.

We may read with advantage the remarks made by Bishop Newton on
this paganization of Christianity. He asks: "Is not the worship
of saints and angels now in all respects the same that the
worship of demons was in former times? The name only is
different, the thing is identically the same, . . . the deified
men of the Christians are substituted for the deified men of the
heathens. The promoters of this worship were sensible that it was
the same, and that the one succeeded to the other; and, as the
worship is the same, so likewise it is performed with the same
ceremonies. The burning of incense or perfumes on several altars
at one and the same time; the sprinkling of holy water, or a
mixture of salt and common water, at going into and coming out of
places of public worship; the lighting up of a great number of
lamps and wax-candles in broad daylight before altars and statues
of these deities; the hanging up of votive offerings and rich
presents as attestations of so many miraculous cures and
deliverances from diseases and dangers; the canonization or
deification of deceased worthies; the assigning of distinct
provinces or prefectures to departed heroes and saints; the
worshiping and adoring of the dead in their sepulchres, shrines,
and relics; the consecrating and bowing down to images; the
attributing of miraculous powers and virtues to idols; the
setting up of little oratories, altars, and statues in the
streets and highways, and on the tops of mountains; the carrying
of images and relics in pompous procession, with numerous lights
and with music and singing; flagellations at solemn seasons under
the notion of penance; a great variety of religious orders and
fraternities of priests; the shaving of priests, or the tonsure
as it is called, on the crown of their heads; the imposing of
celibacy and vows of chastity on the religious of both sexes--all
these and many more rites and ceremonies are equally parts of
pagan and popish superstition. Nay, the very same temples, the
very same images, which were once consecrated to Jupiter and the
other demons, are now consecrated to the Virgin Mary and the
other saints. The very same rites and inscriptions are ascribed
to both, the very same prodigies and miracles are related of
these as of those. In short, almost the whole of paganism is
converted and applied to popery; the one is manifestly formed
upon the same plan and principles as the other; so that there is
not only a conformity, but even a uniformity, in the worship of
ancient and modern, of heathen and Christian Rome."

DEBASEMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. Thus far Bishop Newton; but to return
to the times of Constantine: though these concessions to old and
popular ideas were permitted and even encouraged, the dominant
religious party never for a moment hesitated to enforce its
decisions by the aid of the civil power-- an aid which was freely
given. Constantine thus carried into effect the acts of the
Council of Nicea. In the affair of Arius, he even ordered that
whoever should find a book of that heretic, and not burn it,
should be put to death. In like manner Nestor was by Theodosius
the Younger banished to an Egyptian oasis.

The pagan party included many of the old aristocratic families of
the empire; it counted among its adherents all the disciples of
the old philosophical schools. It looked down on its antagonist
with contempt. It asserted that knowledge is to be obtained only
by the laborious exercise of human observation and human reason.

The Christian party asserted that all knowledge is to be found in
the Scriptures and in the traditions of the Church; that, in the
written revelation, God had not only given a criterion of truth,
but had furnished us all that he intended us to know. The
Scriptures, therefore, contain the sum, the end of all knowledge.
The clergy, with the emperor at their back, would endure no
intellectual competition.

Thus came into prominence what were termed sacred and profane
knowledge; thus came into presence of each other two opposing
parties, one relying on human reason as its guide, the other on
revelation. Paganism leaned for support on the learning of its
philosophers, Christianity on the inspiration of its Fathers

The Church thus set herself forth as the depository and arbiter
of knowledge; she was ever ready to resort to the civil power to
compel obedience to her decisions. She thus took a course which
determined her whole future career: she became a stumbling-block
in the intellectual advancement of Europe for more than a
thousand years.

The reign of Constantine marks the epoch of the transformation of
Christianity from a religion into a political system; and though,
in one sense, that system was degraded into an idolatry, in
another it had risen into a development of the old Greek
mythology. The maxim holds good in the social as well as in the
mechanical world, that, when two bodies strike, the form of both
is changed. Paganism was modified by Christianity; Christianity
by Paganism.

THE TRINITARIAN DISPUTE. In the Trinitarian controversy, which
first broke out in Egypt--Egypt, the land of Trinities--the chief
point in discussion was to define the position of "the Son."
There lived in Alexandria a presbyter of the name of Arius, a
disappointed candidate for the office of bishop. He took the
ground that there was a time when, from the very nature of
sonship, the Son did not exist, and a time at which he commenced
to be, asserting that it is the necessary condition of the filial
relation that a father must be older than his son. But this
assertion evidently denied the coeternity of the three persons of
the Trinity; it suggested a subordination or inequality among
them, and indeed implied a time when the Trinity did not exist.
Hereupon, the bishop, who had been the successful competitor
against Arius, displayed his rhetorical powers in public debates
on the question, and, the strife spreading, the Jews and pagans,
who formed a very large portion of the population of Alexandria,
amused themselves with theatrical representations of the contest
on the stage--the point of their burlesques being the equality of
age of the Father and his Son.

Such was the violence the controversy at length assumed, that the
matter had to be referred to the emperor. At first he looked upon
the dispute as altogether frivolous, and perhaps in truth
inclined to the assertion of Arius, that in the very nature of
the thing a father must be older than his son. So great, however,
was the pressure laid upon him, that he was eventually compelled
to summon the Council of Nicea, which, to dispose of the
conflict, set forth a formulary or creed, and attached to it this
anathema: "The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes
those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not,
and that, before he was begotten, he was not, and that he was
made out of nothing, or out of another substance or essence, and
is created, or changeable, or alterable." Constantine at once
enforced the decision of the council by the civil power.

A few years subsequently the Emperor Theodosius prohibited
sacrifices, made the inspection of the entrails of animals a
capital offense, and forbade any one entering a temple. He
instituted Inquisitors of Faith, and ordained that all who did
not accord with the belief of Damasus, the Bishop of Rome, and
Peter, the Bishop of Alexandria, should be driven into exile, and
deprived of civil rights. Those who presumed to celebrate Easter
on the same day as the Jews, he condemned to death. The Greek
language was now ceasing to be known in the West, and true
learning was becoming extinct.

At this time the bishopric of Alexandria was held by one
Theophilus. An ancient temple of Osiris having been given to the
Christians of the city for the site of a church, it happened
that, in digging the foundation for the new edifice, the obscene
symbols of the former worship chanced to be found. These, with
more zeal than modesty, Theophilus exhibited in the market-place
to public derision. With less forbearance than the Christian
party showed when it was insulted in the theatre during the
Trinitarian dispute, the pagans resorted to violence, and a riot
ensued. They held the Serapion as their headquarters. Such were
the disorder and bloodshed that the emperor had to interfere. He
dispatched a rescript to Alexandria, enjoining the bishop,
Theophilus, to destroy the Serapion; and the great library, which
had been collected by the Ptolemies, and had escaped the fire of
Julius Caesar, was by that fanatic dispersed.

THE MURDER OF HYPATIA. The bishopric thus held by Theophilus was
in due time occupied by his nephew St. Cyril, who had commended
himself to the approval of the Alexandrian congregations as a
successful and fashionable preacher. It was he who had so much to
do with the introduction of the worship of the Virgin Mary. His
hold upon the audiences of the giddy city was, however, much
weakened by Hypatia, the daughter of Theon, the mathematician,
who not only distinguished herself by her expositions of the
doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, but also by her comments on the
writings of Apollonius and other geometers. Each day before her
academy stood a long train of chariots; her lecture-room was
crowded with the wealth and fashion of Alexandria. They came to
listen to her discourses on those questions which man in all ages
has asked, but which never yet have been answered: "What am I?
Where am I? What can I know?"

Hypatia and Cyril! Philosophy and bigotry. They cannot exist
together. So Cyril felt, and on that feeling he acted. As Hypatia
repaired to her academy, she was assaulted by Cyril's mob--a mob
of many monks. Stripped naked in the street, she was dragged into
a church, and there killed by the club of Peter the Reader. The
corpse was cut to pieces, the flesh was scraped from the bones
with shells, and the remnants cast into a fire. For this
frightful crime Cyril was never called to account. It seemed to
be admitted that the end sanctified the means.

So ended Greek philosophy in Alexandria, so came to an untimely
close the learning that the Ptolemies had done so much to
promote. The "Daughter Library," that of the Serapion, had been
dispersed. The fate of Hypatia was a warning to all who would
cultivate profane knowledge. Henceforth there was to be no
freedom for human thought. Every one must think as the
ecclesiastical authority ordered him, A.D. 414. In Athens itself
philosophy awaited its doom. Justinian at length prohibited its
teaching, and caused all its schools in that city to be closed.

PELAGIUS. While these events were transpiring in the Eastern
provinces of the Roman Empire, the spirit that had produced them
was displaying itself in the West. A British monk, who had
assumed the name of Pelagius, passed through Western Europe and
Northern Africa, teaching that death was not introduced into the
world by the sin of Adam; that on the contrary he was necessarily
and by nature mortal, and had he not sinned he would nevertheless
have died; that the consequences of his sins were confined to
himself, and did not affect his posterity. From these premises
Pelagius drew certain important theological conclusions.

At Rome, Pelagius had been received with favor; at Carthage, at
the instigation of St. Augustine, he was denounced. By a synod,
held at Diospolis, he was acquitted of heresy, but, on referring
the matter to the Bishop of Rome, Innocent I., he was, on the
contrary, condemned. It happened that at this moment Innocent
died, and his successor, Zosimus, annulled his judgment and
declared the opinions of Pelagius to be orthodox. These
contradictory decisions are still often referred to by the
opponents of papal infallibility. Things were in this state of
confusion, when the wily African bishops, through the influence
of Count Valerius, procured from the emperor an edict denouncing
Pelagins as a heretic; he and his accomplices were condemned to
exile and the forfeiture of their goods. To affirm that death was
in the world before the fall of Adam, was a state crime.

CONDEMNATION OF PELAGIUS. It is very instructive to consider the
principles on which this strange decision was founded. Since the
question was purely philosophical, one might suppose that it
would have been discussed on natural principles; instead of that,
theological considerations alone were adduced. The attentive
reader will have remarked, in Tertullian's statement of the
principles of Christianity, a complete absence of the doctrines
of original sin, total depravity, predestination, grace, and
atonement. The intention of Christianity, as set forth by him,
has nothing in common with the plan of salvation upheld two
centuries subsequently. It is to St. Augustine, a Carthaginian,
that we are indebted for the precision of our views on these
important points.

In deciding whether death had been in the world before the fall
of Adam, or whether it was the penalty inflicted on the world for
his sin, the course taken was to ascertain whether the views of
Pelagius were accordant or discordant not with Nature but with
the theological doctrines of St. Augustine. And the result has
been such as might be expected. The doctrine declared to be
orthodox by ecclesiastical authority is overthrown by the
unquestionable discoveries of modern science. Long before a human
being had appeared upon earth, millions of individuals--nay,
more, thousands of species and even genera--had died; those which
remain with us are an insignificant fraction of the vast hosts
that have passed away.

A consequence of great importance issued from the decision of the
Pelagian controversy. The book of Genesis had been made the basis
of Christianity. If, in a theological point of view, to its
account of the sin in the garden of Eden, and the transgression
and punishment of Adam, so much weight had been attached, it also
in a philosophical point of view became the grand authority of
Patristic science. Astronomy, geology, geography, anthropology,
chronology, and indeed all the various departments of human
knowledge, were made to conform to it.

ST. AUGUSTINE. As the doctrines of St. Augustine have had the
effect of thus placing theology in antagonism with science, it
may be interesting to examine briefly some of the more purely
philosophical views of that great man. For this purpose, we may
appropriately select portions of his study of the first chapter
of Genesis, as contained in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth
books of his "Confessions."

These consist of philosophical discussions, largely interspersed
with rhapsodies. He prays that God will give him to understand
the Scriptures, and will open their meaning to him; he declares
that in them there is nothing superfluous, but that the words
have a manifold meaning.

The face of creation testifies that there has been a Creator; but
at once arises the question, "How and when did he make heaven and
earth? They could not have been made IN heaven and earth, the
world could not have been made IN the world, nor could they have
been made when there was nothing to make them of." The solution
of this fundamental inquiry St. Augustine finds in saying, "Thou
spakest, and they were made."

But the difficulty does not end here. St. Augustine goes on to
remark that the syllables thus uttered by God came forth in
succession, and there must have been some created thing to
express the words. This created thing must, therefore, have
existed before heaven and earth, and yet there could have been no
corporeal thing before heaven and earth. It must have been a
creature, because the words passed away and came to an end but we
know that "the word of the Lord endureth forever."

Moreover, it is plain that the words thus spoken could not have
been spoken successively, but simultaneously, else there would
have been time and change-- succession in its nature implying
time; whereas there was then nothing but eternity and
immortality. God knows and says eternally what takes place in
time.

CRITICISM OF ST. AUGUSTINE. St. Augustine then defines, not
without much mysticism, what is meant by the opening words of
Genesis: "In the beginning." He is guided to his conclusion by
another scriptural passage: "How wonderful are thy works, O Lord!
in wisdom hast thou made them all." This "wisdom" is "the
beginning," and in that beginning the Lord created the heaven and
the earth.

"But," he adds, "some one may ask, 'What was God doing before he
made the heaven and the earth? for, if at any particular moment
he began to employ himself, that means time, not eternity. In
eternity nothing transpires--the whole is present.' " In
answering this question, he cannot forbear one of those touches
of rhetoric for which he was so celebrated: "I will not answer
this question by saying that he was preparing hell for priers
into his mysteries. I say that, before God made heaven and earth,
he did not make any thing, for no creature could be made before
any creature was made. Time itself is a creature, and hence it
could not possibly exist before creation.

"What, then, is time? The past is not, the future is not, the
present--who can tell what it is, unless it be that which has no
duration between two nonentities? There is no such thing as 'a
long time,' or 'a short time,' for there are no such things as
the past and the future. They have no existence, except in the
soul."

The style in which St. Augustine conveyed his ideas is that of a
rhapsodical conversation with God. His works are an incoherent
dream. That the reader may appreciate this remark, I might copy
almost at random any of his paragraphs. The following is from the
twelfth book:

"This then, is what I conceive, O my God, when I hear thy
Scripture saying, In the beginning God made heaven and earth: and
the earth was invisible and without form, and darkness was upon
the deep, and not mentioning what day thou createdst them; this
is what I conceive, that because of the heaven of heavens--that
intellectual heaven, whose intelligences know all at once, not in
part, not darkly, not through a glass, but as a whole, in
manifestation, face to face; not this thing now, and that thing
anon; but (as I said) know all at once, without any succession of
times; and because of the earth, invisible and without form,
without any succession of times, which succession presents 'this
thing now, that thing anon;' because, where there is no form,
there is no distinction of things; it is, then, on account of
these two, a primitive formed, and a primitive formless; the one,
heaven, but the heaven of heavens; the other, earth, but the
earth movable and without form; because of these two do I
conceive, did thy Scripture say without mention of days, In the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth. For, forthwith it
subjoined what earth it spake of; and also in that the firmament
is recorded to be created the second day, and called heaven, it
conveys to us of which heaven he before spake, without mention of
days.

"Wondrous depth of thy words! whose surface behold! is before us,
inviting to little ones; yet are they a wondrous depth, O my God,
a wondrous depth! It is awful to look therein; an awfulness of
honor, and a trembling of love. The enemies thereof I hate
vehemently; O that thou wouldst slay them with thy two-edged
sword, that they might no longer be enemies to it: for so do I
love to have them slain unto themselves, that they may live unto
thee."

As an example of the hermeneutical manner in which St. Augustine
unfolded the concealed facts of the Scriptures, I may cite the
following from the thirteenth book of the "Confessions;" his
object is to show that the doctrine of the Trinity is contained
in the Mosaic narrative of the creation:

"Lo, now the Trinity appears unto me in a glass darkly, which is
thou my God, because thou, O Father, in him who is the beginning
of our wisdom, which is thy wisdom, born of thyself, equal unto
thee and coeternal, that is, in thy Son, createdst heaven and
earth. Much now have we said of the heaven of heavens, and of the
earth invisible and without form, and of the darksome deep, in
reference to the wandering instability of its spiritual
deformity, unless it had been converted unto him, from whom it
had its then degree of life, and by his enlightening became a
beauteous life, and the heaven of that heaven, which was
afterward set between water and water. And under the name of God,
I now held the Father, who made these things; and under the name
of the beginning, the Son, in whom he made these things; and
believing, as I did, my God as the Trinity, I searched further in
his holy words, and lo! thy Spirit moved upon the waters. Behold
the Trinity, my God!--Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost Creator of
all creation."

That I might convey to my reader a just impression of the
character of St. Augustine's philosophical writings, I have, in
the two quotations here given, substituted for my own translation
that of the Rev. Dr. Pusey, as contained in Vol. I. of the
"Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church," published at
Oxford, 1840.

Considering the eminent authority which has been attributed to
the writings of St. Augustine by the religious world for nearly
fifteen centuries, it is proper to speak of them with respect.
And indeed it is not necessary to do otherwise. The paragraphs
here quoted criticise themselves. No one did more than this
Father to bring science and religion into antagonism; it was
mainly he who diverted the Bible from its true office-- a guide
to purity of life--and placed it in the perilous position of
being the arbiter of human knowledge, an audacious tyranny over
the mind of man. The example once set, there was no want of
followers; the works of the great Greek philosophers were
stigmatized as profane; the transcendently glorious achievements
of the Museum of Alexandria were hidden from sight by a cloud of
ignorance, mysticism, and unintelligible jargon, out of which
there too often flashed the destroying lightnings of
ecclesiastical vengeance.


A divine revelation of science admits of no improvement, no
change, no advance. It discourages as needless, and indeed as
presumptuous, all new discovery, considering it as an unlawful
prying into things which it was the intention of God to conceal.