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-Project Gutenberg's English Conferences of Ernest Renan, by Ernest Renan
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: English Conferences of Ernest Renan
-       Rome and Christianity. Marcus Aurelius
-
-Author: Ernest Renan
-
-Translator: Clara Erskine Clement
-
-Release Date: June 3, 2013 [EBook #42865]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH CONFERENCES ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Charlene Taylor, Michael Seow and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-  ENGLISH CONFERENCES
-  OF
-  ERNEST RENAN.
-
-  ROME AND CHRISTIANITY.
-  MARCUS AURELIUS.
-
-  TRANSLATED BY
-  CLARA ERSKINE CLEMENT.
-
-  [Illustration]
-
-  BOSTON:
-  JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY.
-  1880.
-
-
-
-
-  Copyright, 1880,
-  By JAMES R. OSGOOD & COMPANY.
-
-  Franklin Press:
-  Stereotyped and Printed by
-  Rand, Avery, & Co.,
-  Boston.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS.
-
-
-                                                         PAGE.
-
-  The Hibbert Conferences.
-
-    _First Conference._ The Sense in which Christianity
-      is a Roman Work                                        9
-
-    _Second Conference._ The Legend of the Roman
-      Church.--Peter and Paul                               39
-
-    _Third Conference._ Rome, the Centre of the Formation
-      of Ecclesiastical Authority                           73
-
-    _Fourth Conference._ Rome, the Capital of Catholicism  103
-
-  The Royal Institution Conference.
-
-    Marcus Aurelius                                        139
-
-
-
-
-NOTE.
-
-
-The lectures contained in this volume were delivered by M. Ernest Renan
-in London during April of the present year. The first four, upon "Rome
-and Christianity," were given under the auspices of "The Hibbert
-Foundation," in response to an invitation under which the distinguished
-author visited England. The fifth, "Marcus Aurelius," was incidental to
-the visit, and was given before "The Royal Institution." The word
-"Conferences," though somewhat new to English usage in its present
-sense, has been retained as best expressing the author's original title,
-"_Conferences d'Angleterre_."
-
-
-
-
-  ROME AND CHRISTIANITY.
-
-  FIRST CONFERENCE,
-
-  London, April 6, 1880.
-
-  THE SENSE IN WHICH CHRISTIANITY
-  IS A ROMAN WORK.
-
-
-
-
-FIRST CONFERENCE.
-
-THE SENSE IN WHICH CHRISTIANITY IS A ROMAN WORK.
-
-
-Ladies and Gentlemen,--I was proud and happy to receive from the
-curators of this noble institution an invitation to continue here an
-instruction inaugurated by my illustrious confrère and friend, Max
-Müller, the usefulness of which will be more and more appreciated. A
-broad and sincere thought always bears fruit. It is thirty years since
-the venerable Robert Hibbert made a legacy for the purpose of aiding the
-progress of enlightened Christianity, inseparable, according to his
-idea, from the progress of science and reason. Wisely carried out, this
-foundation has become, in the hands of intelligent administrators, the
-centre of conferences upon all the great chapters of the history of
-religion and humanity: the promoters of this reform have asked, with
-reason, why the method which has proved good in all departments of
-intellectual culture should not also be good in the domain of religion?
-why the pursuit of truth, without regard to consequences, should be
-dangerous in theology, when it is approved of in the entire domain of
-social and natural science? You believed the truth, gentlemen, and you
-were right. There is but one truth; and we are wanting in respect to its
-revelation, if we allow that the critic ought to soften his severe
-processes when he treats of it. No, gentlemen, the truth is able to
-dispense with compliments. I come gladly at your call; for I understand
-the duties towards the right exactly as you do. With you, I should
-believe that I injured a faith in admitting that it required to be
-treated with a certain softness. I believe with you that the worship due
-from man to the ideal consists in independent scientific research,
-without regard to results, and that the true manner of rendering homage
-to the truth is to pursue it without ceasing, with the firm resolution
-of sacrificing all to it. You desire that these conferences shall
-present a great historic _ensemble_ of the efforts which the human race
-has made to resolve the problems which surround it, and affect its
-destiny. In the present state of the human mind, no one can hope to
-resolve these problems: we suspect all dogmatism simply because it is
-dogmatism. We grant willingly that a religious or philosophical system
-can, indeed, or that it ought to, enclose a certain portion of truth;
-but we deny to it, without examination, the possibility of enclosing the
-absolute truth. What we love is history. History well written is always
-good; for, even if it should prove that man in seeking to seize the
-infinite has pursued a chimera, the history of these attempts, more
-generous than successful, will always be useful. It proves, that, in
-reality, man goes beyond the circle of his limited life through his
-aspirations. It shows what energy he has expended for the sake of his
-love of the good and true; it teaches us to estimate him,--this poor
-disinherited one, who, in addition to the sufferings which nature
-imposes upon him, imposes still further upon himself the torture of the
-unknown, the torture of doubt, the severe resistances of virtue, the
-abstinences of austerity, the voluntary sufferings of the ascetic. Is
-all this a pure loss? Is this unceasing effort to attain the
-unattainable as vain as the course of the child who pursues the ever
-flying object of his desire? It pains me to believe it; and the faith
-which eludes me when I examine in detail each of the systems scattered
-throughout the world, I find, in a measure, when I reflect upon all
-these systems together. All religions may be defective and incomplete;
-religion in humanity is nothing less than divine, and a mark of superior
-destiny. No, they have not labored in vain--those grand founders, those
-reformers, those prophets of all ages--who have protested against the
-false evidences of gross materialism, who have beaten themselves
-against the wall of the apparent fatality that encloses us; who have
-employed their thought, given their life, for the accomplishment of a
-mission which the spirit of their age had imposed upon them. If the fact
-of the existence of the martyrs does not prove the exclusive truth of
-this or that sect (all sects can show a rich martyrology), this fact in
-general proves that religious zeal responds to something mysterious.
-All,--as many as we are,--we are sons of martyrs. Those who talk the
-most of scepticism are frequently the most satisfied and indifferent.
-Those who have founded among you religious and political liberty, those
-who have founded in all Europe liberty of thought and research, those
-who have labored for the amelioration of the fate of men, those who will
-doubtless find means for further amelioration, have suffered, or will
-suffer, for their good work; for no one is ever recompensed for what he
-does for the good of humanity. Nevertheless they will always have
-imitators. There will always be some to carry on the work of the
-incorrigibles; some, possessed of the divine spirit, who will sacrifice
-their personal interest to truth and justice. Be it so: they have chosen
-the better part. I know not what assures me that he who, without knowing
-why, through simple nobility of nature, has chosen for himself in this
-world the essentially unproductive lot of doing good, is the true sage,
-and has discovered the legitimate use of life with more sagacity than
-the selfish man.
-
-
-I.
-
-You have asked me to retrace before you one of those pages of religious
-history which places the thoughts which I come to express in their
-fullest aspect. The origins of Christianity form the most heroic episode
-in the history of humanity. Man never drew from his heart more devotion,
-more love of the ideal, than in the one hundred and fifty years which
-elapsed from the sweet Galilean vision, under Tiberius, to the death of
-Marcus Aurelius. The religious consciousness was never more eminently
-creative, and never laid down with more authority the law of the future.
-This extraordinary movement, to which no other can be compared, came
-forth from the bosom of Judaism. But it is doubtful if Judaism alone
-would have conquered the world. It was necessary that a young and bold
-school, coming out of its midst, should take the audacious part of
-renouncing the largest portion of the Mosaic ritual. It was necessary,
-above all, that the new movement should be transported into the midst of
-the Greeks and Latins, while awaiting the Barbarians, and become like
-yeast in the bosom of those European races by which humanity
-accomplishes its destinies. What a beautiful subject he will discourse
-upon who shall one day explain to you the part which Greece took in that
-great common work! You have commissioned me to show to you the part of
-Rome. The action of Rome is the first in date. It was scarcely until the
-beginning of the third century that the Greek genius, with Clement of
-Alexandria and Origen, really seized upon Christianity. I hope to show
-you, that, since the second century, Rome has exercised a decisive
-influence upon the Church of Jesus.
-
-In one sense, Rome has diffused religion through the world, as she has
-diffused civilization, as she has founded the idea of a central
-government, extending itself over a considerable part of the world. But
-even as the civilization which Rome has diffused has not been the small,
-narrow, austere culture of ancient Latium, but in fact the grand and
-large civilization which Greece created, so the religion to which she
-definitely lent her support was not the niggardly superstition which was
-sufficient to the rude and primitive inhabitants of the Palatine: it was
-Judaism, that is to say, in fact, the religion which Rome scorned and
-hated most, that which two or three times she believed herself to have
-finally vanquished to the profit of her own national worship. This
-ancient religion of Latium, which contented a race endowed with narrow
-intellectual wants and morals, among which customs and social rank
-almost held the place of a religion during some centuries, was a
-sufficiently despicable thing. As M. Boissier has perfectly proved, a
-more false conception of the divinity was never seen. In the Roman
-worship, as in most of the ancient Italiote worships, prayer was a magic
-formula, acting by its own virtue, independent of the moral dispositions
-of him who prayed. People prayed only for a selfish end. There exist
-some registers called _indigitamenta_, containing lists of the gods who
-supply all the wants of men; thus there was no need of being deceived.
-If the god was not addressed by his true name, by that under which it
-pleased him to be invoked, he was capable of misapprehension, or of
-interpreting capriciously. Now these gods, who are in some degree the
-forces of the world, are innumerable. There was a little god who made
-the infant utter his first cry (_Vaticanus_); there was another who
-presided over his first word (_Fabulinus_); another who taught the baby
-to eat (_Educa_); another who taught him to drink (_Potina_); another
-who made him keep quiet in his cradle (_Cuba_). In truth, the good wife
-of Petronius was right, when, in speaking of the Campagna, she said,
-"This country is so peopled with divinities, that it is easier to find a
-god than a man." Besides these, there were unending series of
-allegories, or deified abstractions, Fear, the Cough, Fever, Manly
-Fortune, Patrician Chastity, Plebeian Chastity, the Security of the Age,
-the Genius of the Customs (or of the _octroi_), and above all (listen,
-that one who, to say the truth, was the great god of Rome), the Safety
-of the Roman People. It was a civil religion in the full force of the
-term. It was essentially the religion of the State. There was no
-priesthood distinct from the functions of the State: the State was the
-veritable god of Rome. The father had there the right of life and death
-over his son; but if this son had the least function, and the father met
-him in his path, he descended from his horse, and bent himself before
-him.
-
-The consequence of this essentially political character was, that the
-Roman religion remained always an aristocratic religion. A man became
-pontiff as he became prætor or consul. When a man desired these
-religious functions, he submitted to no examination; he went into no
-retreat in a seminary; he did not ask himself whether he had the
-ecclesiastical vocation: he proved that he had served his country well,
-and that he had been wounded in a certain battle. There was no
-sacerdotal spirit. These civil pontiffs remained cold, practical men,
-and had not the least idea that their functions should separate them
-from the world. The religion of Rome is, in every respect, the inversion
-of theocracy. Civil law rules acts: it does not trouble itself with
-thoughts; thus did the Roman religion. Rome never had the least idea of
-dogma. The exact observation of the rites commanded by the divinity, in
-which it did not regard piety or the sentiments of the heart, if the
-request was in form, was all that was required. Even more,--devotion was
-a fault; calmness, order, regularity, only, were necessary: more than
-that was an excess (_superstitio_). Cato absolutely forbade that a slave
-should be allowed to conceive any sentiment of piety. "Know," said he,
-"that it is the master who sacrifices for all the household." It was not
-needful to neglect what was due to the gods; but it was not needful to
-give them more than was due: that was superstition, of which the true
-Roman had as much horror as of impiety.
-
-Was there ever, I ask you, a religion less capable of becoming the
-religion of the human race than that? Not only was the access to the
-priesthood for a long time forbidden to the plebeians, but they were
-also excluded from the public worship. In the great struggle for civil
-equality which fills the history of Rome, religion is the great argument
-with which the revolutionists are opposed. "How," say they, "could you
-become a prætor or consul? You have not the right to take the omens."
-Above all, the people were very little attached to religion. Each
-popular victory was followed, as one may say, by an anti-clerical
-re-action: on the contrary, the aristocracy remained always faithful to
-a worship which gave a divine sanction to its privileges.
-
-The matter became still more pressing when the Roman people, by their
-manly, patriotic virtues, had conquered all the nations upon the borders
-of the Mediterranean. What interest, think you an African, a Gaul, a
-Syrian, took in a worship which concerned only a small number of high
-and often tyrannical families? The local religions were continued
-everywhere; but Augustus, who was still more a religious organizer than
-a great politician, made the Roman idea to hover everywhere by the
-establishment of the Roman worship. The altars of Rome and of Augustus
-became the centre of a hierarchical organization of Flamens and Augustan
-_Sevirs_, who served to found, more than one imagines, the divisions of
-the dioceses and ecclesiastical provinces. Augustus admitted all the
-local gods as Lares; he allowed more than the number of Lares in each
-house; at each cross-road an additional Lare was placed,--the Genius of
-the Emperor. Thanks to this fellowship, all the local gods and all the
-special gods became "Augustan gods." It was a great advance. But this
-grand attempt of the worship of the Roman State was notoriously
-insufficient to satisfy the religious needs of the heart. There was
-elsewhere a god who could not accommodate himself in any way to this
-fraternity: it was the God of the Jews. It was impossible to make
-Jehovah pass for a Lare, and associate with the Genius of the Emperor.
-It was evident that a conflict must be established between the Roman
-State and this unchangeable and refractory God, who did not bend to the
-complaisant transformations exacted by the politics of the times.
-
-Ah, well! behold the most extraordinary historical phenomenon, the most
-intense irony of all history: it is that the worship which Rome has
-diffused through the world is not in the least the old worship of
-Jupiter Capitolinus, or Latiaris, still less the worship of Augustus and
-of the Genius of the Emperor: it is, in truth, the worship of Jehovah.
-It is Judaism in its Christian form that Rome has propagated, without
-wishing it, in so powerful a manner, that, from a certain epoch,
-Romanism and Christianity have become almost synonymous words.
-
-Truly, I repeat it, it is more than doubtful if pure Judaism--that which
-is developed under the Talmudical form, and which is still in our day so
-powerful--would have had this extraordinary fortune. Judaism propagates
-itself through Christianity. But one understands nothing of religious
-history (some one, I hope, will demonstrate it to you some day), unless
-it is fixed as a fundamental principle that Christianity had its origin
-in Judaism itself,--Judaism with its fruitful principles of alms and
-charity, with its absolute confidence in the future of humanity, with
-that joy of the heart of which it has always had the secret,--only
-Judaism freed from some observances and distinctive traits which had
-been invented to characterize the special religion of the children of
-Israel.
-
-
-II.
-
-If one studies in fact the progress of the primitive Christian missions,
-he remarks that they are all directed towards the West: in other words,
-they take the Roman Empire as their theatre and limit. If one excepts
-some small portions of the vassal territory of the Arsacidæ, lying
-between the Euphrates and the Tigris, the empire of the Parthians
-received no Christian missions during the first century. The Tigris was
-an eastern boundary which Christianity did not pass under the Sassanidæ.
-Two great causes--the Mediterranean and the Roman Empire--determined
-this capital fact.
-
-The Mediterranean had been, during a thousand years, the great route on
-which all civilizations and all ideas had passed each other. The Romans,
-having freed it from piracy, had made it an unequalled way of
-communication. It was in a sense the railroad of that time. A numerous
-marine of coasting-vessels rendered the voyages along the borders of
-this great lake very easy. The relative security which the routes of the
-empire afforded, the sure guaranties found in the public powers, the
-scattering of the Jews over all the coasts of the Mediterranean, the use
-of the Greek tongue in the eastern portion of this sea, the unity of
-civilization which the Greeks first, and then the Romans, had created,
-made the map of the empire also the map of the countries reserved to the
-Christian missions and destined to become Christian. The Roman _orbis_
-became the Christian _orbis_ in the sense in which it may be said that
-the founders of the empire were the founders of the Christian monarchy,
-or, at least, that they have drawn its outlines. Every province
-conquered by the Roman Empire became a province conquered by
-Christianity. Let the figures of the apostles be imagined in the
-presence of Asia Minor, of Greece, of Italy divided into a hundred
-little republics, of Gaul, of Spain, of Africa, of Egypt, with its old
-national institutions, and their success can no more be thought of, or
-rather it would seem that their project could never have had birth. The
-union of the empire was the necessary preliminary condition of all great
-religious propagandism, placing it above nationalities. The empire
-recognized this in the fourth century. It became Christian. It saw that
-Christianity was the religion which it had accepted without knowing
-it,--the religion limited by its frontiers, identified with it, capable
-of bringing it a second life.
-
-The Church, on its side, made itself entirely Roman, and has remained to
-this day a fragment of the empire. During the middle ages the Church was
-the old Rome, seizing again its authority over the barbarians, imposing
-on them its decretals, as formerly it had imposed its laws, governing
-them by its cardinals, as it had before governed through its imperial
-legates and proconsuls.
-
-In creating its vast empire, Rome imposed, then, the material condition
-of the propagation of Christianity. She raised up, above all, the moral
-state which served as an atmosphere and a medium for the new doctrine.
-While destroying politics everywhere, it created what may be called
-socialism and religion. At the close of the frightful wars which for
-some centuries had rent the world, the empire had an era of prosperity
-and of welfare such as it had never known: we may even be permitted to
-add (without a paradox) liberty. Liberty of thought, at least, increased
-under this new _régime_. This liberty is often more prosperous under a
-king or a prince than under the jealous and narrow-minded plebeian. The
-ancient republics did not have it. The Greeks did great things without
-it, thanks to the incomparable power of their genius; but it must not be
-forgotten that Athens had a fine and noble Inquisition. The king Archon
-was the inquisitor; the royal Portico was the holy office in which the
-accusations of impiety were adjudged. These were the cases in which the
-Attic orators were most frequently engaged. Not only philosophical
-crimes, such as the denial of God or of a Providence, but the lightest
-attaint of the municipal worship, the preaching of strange religions,
-the most puerile infractions of the scrupulous legislation of the
-mysteries, were crimes guilty of death. The gods whom Aristophanes
-mocked on the stage sometimes destroyed. They destroyed Socrates; they
-failed to kill Alcibiades. Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Diagoras of Melas,
-Prodicus of Ceos, Stilpo, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Aspasia, Euripides,
-were more or less seriously disturbed. Liberty of thought was, in truth,
-the fruit of the royalties resulting from the Macedonian conquest. It
-was the Attali, the Ptolemies, who first gave to men of thought the
-freedom which no one of the old republics had ever offered them. The
-Roman Empire held to the same traditions. There was under the empire
-more than one arbitrary law against the philosophers; but these always
-resulted from their meddling with political affairs. In the laws of the
-Romans, before the time of Constantine, no clause is found against the
-liberty of thought; in the history of the emperors, no process of
-abstract doctrine. No _savant_ was disturbed in his researches. Men
-whom the middle ages would have burned, such as Galen, Lucian, Plotinus,
-lived tranquilly, protected by law. The empire inaugurated a period of
-liberty in the sense that it destroyed the absolute sovereignty of the
-family, the city, the tribe, and replaced or modified these
-sovereignties by those of the State. Now, an absolute power is as much
-more vexatious as the circle in which it is exercised is more narrow.
-The ancient republics, the feudalities, tyrannized over the individual
-much more than did the State. Unquestionably the Roman Empire persecuted
-Christianity severely at times; but at least it did not destroy it. Now
-the republics would have rendered it impossible. Judaism, if it had not
-been under the Roman authority, would have stifled it. It was the Roman
-magistrates who hindered the Pharisees from killing Christianity. Some
-lofty ideas of universal brotherhood--results, in the main, of
-stoicism,--a sort of general sentiment of humanity, were the fruit of
-the least narrow _régime_ and of the least exclusive education to which
-the individual was submitted. The people dreamed of a new era and new
-worlds. The public riches were great; and, in spite of the imperfection
-of the economical doctrines of the time, there was general comfort.
-
-General customs were not such as are often imagined. It is true, that,
-in Rome, all the vices were publicly displayed with a revolting
-cynicism: the spectacles, above all, had introduced a frightful
-corruption. Certain countries, as Egypt, had descended to the lowest
-baseness. But there existed in most of the provinces a middle class, in
-which goodness, conjugal fidelity, the domestic virtues, and uprightness
-were commonly practised. Does there anywhere exist, in a world of honest
-people in small villages, an ideal of family life more charming than
-that which Plutarch has left us? What good fellowship! What sweetness of
-manners! What chaste and attractive simplicity! Chæronea was evidently
-not the only place where life was so pure and so innocent.
-
-The customs, even outside of Rome, were still somewhat cruel, either
-through the remaining spirit of ancient manners, everywhere sanguinary,
-or through the special influence of Roman harshness. But there was
-progress during this period. What sweet and pure sentiment, what feeling
-of melancholy tenderness, has not found expression by the pen of Virgil
-or of Tibullus? The world unbent, lost its ancient severity, and
-acquired some softness and tenderness. Some maxims for humanity were
-spread abroad. Equality and the abstract idea of the rights of man were
-boldly preached by stoicism. Woman became more and more the mistress of
-herself. The precepts for the treatment of slaves were improved. The
-slave was no longer that necessarily grotesque and wicked being which
-the Latin comedy introduced in order to provoke bursts of laughter, and
-whom Cato recommended to be treated as a beast of burden. Now, times are
-much changed. The slave is morally equal to his master: it is admitted
-that he is capable of virtue, of fidelity, of devotion, and he gives
-proofs of it. The prejudices concerning noble birth grow less. Some very
-humane and just laws are made, even under the worst emperors. Tiberius
-was a skilful financier: he founded upon an excellent basis an
-establishment of _crédit foncier_. Nero inaugurated in the system of
-taxation, until then unjust and barbarous, some improvements which shame
-even our own time. Legislation was considerably advanced, while the
-punishment of death was stupidly prodigal. Love of the poor, sympathy
-for all, and almsgiving, came to be considered virtues.
-
-
-III.
-
-Unquestionably I understand and share the indignation of sincere
-liberals against a government which diffused a frightful despotism over
-the world. But is it our fault that the wants of humanity are diverse,
-its aspirations manifold, its aims contradictory? Politics is not every
-thing here below. What the world desired, after those frightful
-butcheries of the earlier centuries, was gentleness, humanity. They had
-enough of heroism: those vigorous goddesses, eternally brandishing their
-spears on the height of the Acropolis, inspired sentiment no longer. The
-earth, as in the time of Cadmus, had swallowed her most noble sons. The
-proud Grecian races had killed each other. The Peloponessus was a
-desert. The sweet voice of Virgil gently took up the cry of humanity,
-peace, pity!
-
-The establishment of Christianity responded to this cry of all tender
-and weary souls. Christianity could only have had birth and expansion in
-a time when there were no longer free cities. If there was any thing
-totally lacking in the founders of the Church, it was patriotism. They
-were not cosmopolites, for the entire planet was to them a place of
-exile: they were idealists in the most absolute sense.
-
-A country is a composition of soul and body. The soul is the souvenirs,
-the legends, the customs, the misfortunes, the hopes, the common
-sorrows: the body is the soil, the race, the language, the mountains,
-the rivers, the characteristic productions. Now, was a people ever more
-wanting in all this than the first Christians? They did not cling to
-Judæa; after a few years they had forgotten Galilee; the glory of Greece
-and Rome was indifferent to them. The countries in which Christianity
-was first established--Syria, Cyprus, and Asia Minor--no longer
-remembered the time when they were free. Greece and Rome, it is true,
-still had a grand national sentiment. At Rome, patriotism survived in a
-few families; in Greece, Christianity flourished only at Corinth,--a
-city which, since its destruction by Mummius, and its reconstruction by
-Cæsar, was the resort of men of all races. The true Greek countries,
-then, as to-day, very jealous, very much absorbed in the memories of
-their past, gave little countenance to the new doctrines: they were
-always lukewarm Christians. On the contrary, those gay, indolent,
-voluptuous countries of Asia and Syria, countries of pleasure, of free
-manners, _de laisser aller_, accustomed to receive life and government
-from others, had nothing to resign in the way of pride and traditions.
-The most ancient capitals of Christianity--Antioch, Ephesus,
-Thessalonica, Corinth, and Rome--were common cities, so to speak, cities
-of the modern type of Alexandria, in which all races met, where that
-marriage between man and the soil, which constitutes a nation, was
-absolutely broken.
-
-The importance given to social questions is always the inverse of
-political pre-occupations. Socialism takes the lead when patriotism
-grows weak. Christianity exploded the social and religious ideas, as was
-inevitable, since Augustus had put an end to political struggles.
-Christianity, if a universal worship, would, like Islamism, in reality
-be the enemy of nationalities. Only centuries, only schisms, could form
-national churches from a religion which was from the beginning a denial
-of all terrestrial countries, which had its birth at an epoch in which
-there were no longer in the world either cities or citizens, and which
-the old and powerful republics of Italy and of Greece would surely have
-expelled as a mortal poison to the State.
-
-And here was one of the causes of the grandeur of the new religion.
-Humanity is a multiform, changeable thing, tormented by conflicting
-desires. _La patrie_ is grand, and the heroes of Marathon and Thermopylæ
-are saints. But one's country is not all here below: one is a man and a
-son of God, before he is a Frenchman, or a German. The kingdom of God,
-an eternal dream which is never destroyed in the heart of man, is a
-protestation against a too exclusive patriotism. The thought of an
-organization of humanity, in view of its greatest happiness and its
-moral amelioration, is legitimate. The State knows, and can only know,
-one thing,--to organize a collective egoism. This is not indifference,
-because egoism is the most powerful and seizable of human motives, but
-is not sufficient. The governments which have rested upon the
-supposition that man is composed of covetous instincts only, have
-deceived themselves. Devotion is as natural as egoism to a true-born
-man. The organization of devotion is religion: let no one hope, then, to
-dispense with religion, or religious associations. Each progression of
-modern society will render this want more imperious.
-
-A great exaltation of religious sentiment was, then, the consequence of
-the _Roman peace_ established by Augustus. Augustus realized it. But I
-ask, What satisfaction could the institutions which Rome dared to
-believe eternal present to the religious wants which were arising?
-Surely almost nothing. All the old worships, of very different origin,
-had one common trait. They shared equally the impossibility of reaching
-a theological teaching, a practical morality, an edifying preaching, a
-pastoral ministry truly fruitful for the people. The Pagan temple, in
-its best time, was the same thing as the synagogue and the church: I
-wish to say the common house, the school, the inn, the hospital, the
-shelter in which the poor sought an asylum, it was a cold _cella_, into
-which one seldom entered, where one learned nothing. The affectation
-which led the Roman patricians to distinguish the "religion," that is to
-say, their own worship, from the "superstition," that is to say, the
-worship of strangers, appears to us puerile. All the Pagan worships were
-essentially superstitious. The peasant who in our day places a sou in
-the box of a miraculous chapel, who invokes some saint on account of his
-oxen, or his horses, who drinks certain waters for certain maladies, is
-in these acts a Pagan. Indeed, nearly all our superstitions are the
-remains of a religion anterior to Christianity, which that has not been
-able to entirely uproot. If one would find the image of Paganism in our
-day, it must be sought in some obscure village in the depth of some
-out-of-the-way country.
-
-Having as guardians a popular, vacillating tradition, and selfish
-sacristans, the Pagan religion could but degenerate in worship.
-Augustus, although with a certain reserve, accepted the adoration of his
-subjects in the provinces. Tiberius allowed, under his own eyes, that
-ignoble concourse of the cities of Asia to dispute the honor of raising
-a temple to him. The extravagant impieties of Caligula produced no
-re-action: outside of Judaism there was not found a single priest to
-resist such follies. Coming forth, for the most part, from a primitive
-worship of natural forces ten times transformed by minglings of all
-sorts, and by the imagination of the peoples, the Pagan worships were
-limited by their past. One could never draw from them what had never
-existed in them,--Deism or instruction. The fathers of the church amuse
-us when they bring to notice the misdeeds of Saturn as the father of a
-family, and of Jupiter as a husband. But without doubt, it was still
-more ridiculous to set up Jupiter (that is to say, the atmosphere) as a
-moral god who commands, defends, rewards, and punishes. In a world which
-aspires to possess a catechism, what could one do with a worship like
-that of Venus, which arose from an old social necessity of the first
-Ph[oe]nician navigation in the Mediterranean, but became in time an
-outrage to that which one regards more and more as the essence of
-religion?
-
-Here is the explanation of that singular attraction, which, towards the
-commencement of our era, drew the populations of the Old World towards
-the worships of the East. These worships had something more profound
-than the Greek and Latin worships: they appealed, moreover, to the
-religious sentiment. Almost all were relative to the state of the soul
-in another life, and they were believed to contain some pledges of
-immortality. From this arose that favor which the Thracian and Sabasian
-mysteries enjoyed, the worshippers of Bacchus, and brotherhoods of all
-sorts. There was less of coldness in these little circles, in which one
-pressed against another, than in the great glacial world elsewhere. Some
-minor religions, like that of Psyche, destined solely to console for
-death, had immense popularity. Those noble Egyptian worships which
-concealed the emptiness within by grand splendor of ceremonies counted
-their devotees throughout the empire. Isis and Serapis had their altars
-at the extremities of the world. In visiting the ruins of Pompeii, one
-would be tempted to believe that the worship of Isis was the principal
-one practised there. Those little Egyptian temples had some assiduous
-devotees, among whom were counted a large number of persons of the class
-of the friends of Catullus and Tibullus. There was a service each
-morning,--a sort of mass, celebrated by a tonsured and beardless priest;
-there were some sprinklings of holy water, and perhaps an evening
-service: it occupied, amused, and quieted. What more is necessary?
-
-But, more than all others, the Mithraic worship enjoyed in the second
-and third centuries an extraordinary popularity. I sometimes allow
-myself to say, that, had not Christianity taken the lead, Mithraicism
-would have become the religion of the world. Mithraicism had mysterious
-re-unions, and chapels which strongly resembled little churches. It
-established a very solid bond of brotherhood between its votaries; it
-had the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, and bore such a resemblance to the
-Christian mysteries, that the good Justin the Apologist saw only one
-explanation of these resemblances: it is that Satan, in order to deceive
-the human race, sought to mimic the Christian ceremonies, and committed
-this plagiarism. The Mithraic tomb of the Catacombs of Rome is as
-edifying and deeply mysterious as the Christian tombs. There were some
-devoted Mithraists, who, even after the triumph of Christianity,
-defended the sincerity of their faith with courage. The people grouped
-themselves around these foreign gods: around the Greek and Italiote gods
-there were no gatherings. We must say a good word for it: it is only the
-small sects that lay the foundation and build up. It is so sweet to
-believe one's self a little aristocracy of truth, to imagine, that, in
-common with a very few, one owns the repository of truth! Such a foolish
-sect in our own time gives to its adherents more consolation than a more
-healthy philosophy. In his day, Abracadabra secured some joyous
-followers, and, by means of a little good-will, a sublime theology has
-been found in him.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-We shall see, however, in our next conference, that the religious reign
-of the future belonged neither to Serapis, nor to Mithra. The
-predestined religion grew imperceptibly in Judæa. This would have
-greatly astonished the most sagacious Romans, if it had been announced
-to them. It would have been shocking to them in the highest degree. But
-so often in history have improbable predictions become true, so often
-has wisdom been mistaken, that it is not best to rely too much upon the
-likes and dislikes of enlightened men, of _bons esprits_ as we say, when
-they undertake to predict the future.
-
-
-
-
-  SECOND CONFERENCE,
-
-  London, April 9, 1880.
-
-  THE LEGEND OF THE ROMAN CHURCH.--PETER
-  AND PAUL.
-
-
-
-
-SECOND CONFERENCE.
-
-PETER AND PAUL.
-
-
-Ladies and Gentlemen,--At our last meeting we attempted to show the
-situation of the Roman Empire in regard to religious questions during
-the first century. There was in the vast gathering of populations which
-composed the empire a pressing want of religion, a true moral progress,
-which called for a pure worship without superstitious practices or
-bloody sacrifices; a tendency to Monotheism, which made the old
-mythological recitals appear ridiculous; a general sentiment of sympathy
-and of charity, which inspired the desire of association, of assembling
-together for prayer, for support, for consolation, for the assurance
-that after death one would be interred by his brethren, who would also
-make a little feast in his memory. Asia Minor, Greece, Syria, and Egypt
-contained masses of the poor,--very honest men, after their manner,
-humble, and without distinction; but revolted at the spectacle which the
-Roman aristocracy made, full of horror at those hideous representations
-in the theatres, in which Rome made a diversion of suffering. The moral
-conscience of the human race sent up an immense protestation, and there
-was no priest to interpret it, no pitying God to reply to the sighs of
-poor suffering humanity. Slavery, in spite of the protestations of the
-sages, remained very cruel. Claudius thought to do a grand and humane
-act in making a law that the master who should drive from his house an
-old and sick slave should lose his right in that slave, if he were
-cured. How could gods without compassion, and born of joy and the
-primitive imagination, be expected to console for such evils? A Father
-in heaven was required, who kept a record of the efforts of man, and
-promised him a recompense. A future of justice was desired, in which the
-earth belonged to the feeble and the poor. The assurance was necessary,
-that, when a man suffered, it was not an entire loss, and that beyond
-those sad horizons, veiled by tears, there were happy fields in which
-one day he should console himself for his sorrows. Judaism indeed had
-all that. By the institution of the synagogues (do not forget,
-gentlemen, that it is from the synagogue that the church comes), it
-established association in the most powerful form in which it had ever
-been realized. In appearance, at least, the worship was pure Deism; no
-images, only scorn and sarcasm for idols. But that which above all
-characterized the Jew was his confidence in a brilliant and happy
-future for humanity. Having no idea based upon the immortality of the
-soul, nor upon the remunerations and punishments beyond the tomb, the
-Jew, disciple of the ancient prophet, was as if intoxicated with the
-sentiment of justice: he wished justice now upon earth. Having little
-confidence in the assurances of the eternity which made the Christians
-so easily resigned, the Jew grumbled at Jehovah, reproached him with his
-ignorance, and demanded how he could leave the earth so long in the
-power of the impious. As for himself, he did not doubt that the earth
-would one day be his, and that his law would make love and justice to
-reign therein.
-
-In this struggle, gentlemen, the Jew will be victorious. Hope, that
-which the Jew calls the _Tiqva_, that assurance of something which
-nothing proves, but to which one attaches himself with so much the more
-frenzy because it is not sure, is the soul of the Jew. His psalms were
-like the continuous sound of a harp, filling life with harmony and a
-melancholy faith: his prophets held the words of eternity. For example,
-that second Isaiah, the prophet of the captivity, pictured the future
-with more dazzling colors than man had ever seen in his dreams. The
-Thora, besides that, gives the recipe for being happy (for being happy
-here below, I mean), by observing the moral law, the spirit of the
-family, and the spirit of duty.
-
-
-I.
-
-The establishment of the Jews at Rome dated nearly sixty years before
-Jesus Christ. They multiplied rapidly. Cicero represented it as an act
-of courage to dare to oppose them. Cæsar favored them, and found them
-faithful. The people detested them, thought them malevolent, accused
-them of forming a secret society whose members were advanced at any
-price, to the detriment of others. But all did not approve these
-superficial judgments. The Jews had as many friends as detractors:
-something superior was noticeable in them. The poor Jewish colporter of
-the Trastevere often in the evening returned home rich with the
-charities received from a pious hand. Women, above all, were attracted
-by these missionaries in rags. Juvenal counts the weakness towards the
-Jewish religion among the vices of the ladies of his time. The word of
-Zachariah was verified to the letter: the world seized upon the garments
-of the Jews, and said, "Lead us to Jerusalem."
-
-The principal Jewish quarter of Rome was situated beyond the Tiber, that
-is to say, in the poorest and dirtiest part of the city, probably near
-the present _Porta Portese_. There, or rather opposite to the foot of
-the Aventine, the gate of Rome was formerly situated, where the
-merchandise brought from Ostia in barges was discharged. It was a
-quarter of Jews and Syrians,--"nations born for servitude," as Cicero
-said. The nucleus of the Jewish population at Rome was formed, in truth,
-of freedmen, descended, for the most part, from those prisoners whom
-Pompey had carried there. They had passed through slavery, without
-changing their religious customs in the least. That which is admirable
-in Judaism is that simplicity of faith which makes the Jew, transported
-a thousand leagues from his country, at the end of several generations,
-always a very Jew. The intercourse between the synagogues of Rome and
-Jerusalem was continual. The first colony had been re-enforced with
-numerous emigrants. These poor men disembarked by hundreds at the Ripa,
-and lived together in the adjacent quarter of the Trastevere, serving as
-street-porters, engaged in small affairs, exchanging matches for broken
-glasses, and showing to the proud Italiote populations a type which
-later became too familiar to them,--that of the beggar accomplished in
-his art. A Roman who respected himself never placed his foot in these
-abject quarters. It was as a suburb given up to despised classes and to
-infectious employments: the tanneries, the gut-works, the rotting vats
-were banished there. These unhappy people lived tranquilly enough in
-this remote corner, in the midst of bales of merchandise, low inns, and
-porters of manure (_Syri_), who had there their general headquarters.
-The police only entered there when affrays were bloody, or occurred too
-often. Few quarters of Rome were so free: politics had nothing to do
-there. Worship was not only practised there in ordinary times without
-obstacles, but its propagation was also accomplished with great
-facility.
-
-Protected by the disdain which they inspired, caring little, moreover,
-for the railleries of the men of the world, the Jews of the Trastevere
-led a very active religious and social life. They had some schools of
-_hakamin_: nowhere was the ritual and ceremonial of the law observed
-more scrupulously: the organization of the synagogue was the most
-complete ever known. The titles of "father and mother" of the synagogues
-were much prized. Some rich converts took biblical names; they brought
-their slaves into the church with them, they had the Scriptures
-explained by the doctors, built places of prayer, and manifested their
-pride of the consideration which they enjoyed in this little world. The
-poor Jew found the means, while begging with a trembling voice, to
-whisper in the ear of the great Roman lady some words of the law, and
-frequently won over the matron who opened to him her hand full of small
-coin. To observe the sabbath and the Jewish feasts was to Horace the
-trait which classed a man in the crowd of weak minds. The universal
-benevolence, the happiness of reposing with the just, the assistance of
-the poor, the purity of manners, the gentle acceptance of death
-considered as a sleep, are some of the sentiments which are found in the
-Jewish inscriptions, with that particular accent of touching unction, of
-certain hope, which characterizes the Christian inscriptions. There have
-been many rich and powerful Jews in the world, such as Tiberius
-Alexander, who arrived at the greatest honors of the empire, who
-exercised two or three times the strongest influence upon public
-affairs, and even had, to the great grief of the Romans, his statue in
-the Forum; but those were not good Jews. The Herods, though practising
-their worship at Rome with much show, were also far from being true
-Israelites, even if their only sins were their relations with the
-Pagans.
-
-A world of ideas was thus set in motion on the vulgar quay where the
-merchandise of the whole world was piled up; but all that would be lost
-in a great city like Paris. Undoubtedly the proud patricians, who, in
-their promenades on the Aventine, cast their eyes upon the other side of
-the Tiber, did not imagine the future that was forming itself in that
-little cluster of poor houses at the foot of Janiculum.
-
-Near the port was a sort of lodging-house well known to the people and
-the soldiers under the name of _Taberna Meritoria_. In order to attract
-the loungers, a pretended spring of oil coming out of a rock was shown
-there. From a very early time this spring of oil was considered by the
-Christians as symbolic: it was pretended that its appearance was
-coincident with the birth of Jesus. It seems that later the _Taberna_
-became a church. Under Alexander Severus we find the Christians and the
-inn-keepers in a contest over a place which formerly had been public:
-that good emperor gave it to the Christians. This is probably the origin
-of the Church of the Santa Maria of the Trastevere.
-
-It is natural that the capital should have fully accepted the name of
-Jesus before the intermediate countries could be evangelized, as a high
-summit is lighted up while the valleys between it and the sun are still
-obscure. Rome was the rendezvous for all the Oriental worships,--the
-point upon the coast of the Mediterranean with which the Syrians had the
-most intercourse. They arrived there in enormous bands. Like all the
-poor populations rising for the assault of the great cities to which
-they come to seek their fortunes, they were serviceable and humble. All
-the world spoke Greek. The ancient Roman plebeians, attached to the old
-customs, lost ground each day, drowned as they were in this wave of
-strangers.
-
-We admit then, that towards the year 50 of our era, some Syrian Jews,
-already Christians, entered the capital of the empire, and communicated
-the faith which rendered them happy to their companions. At this time no
-one suspected that the founder of a second empire was in Rome,--a second
-Romulus, lodging at the port in a bed of straw. A little band was
-formed. These ancestors of the Roman prelates were poor, dirty, common
-people, without distinction, without manners, clothed with fetid
-garments, having the bad breath of men who are badly fed. Their
-dwellings had that odor of misery which is exhaled from persons grossly
-clothed and nourished, and huddled together in narrow rooms. We know the
-names of two Jews who were the most prominent in these movements. They
-were Aquila, a Jew, originally from Pontus, who was like St. Paul an
-upholsterer, and Priscilla his wife,--a pious couple. Banished from Rome
-they took refuge at Corinth, where they soon became the intimate friends
-of St. Paul, and zealous workers with him. Thus Aquila and Priscilla are
-the most ancient known members of the Church of Rome. There is scarcely
-a souvenir of them there. Tradition, always unjust, because it is always
-ruled by political motives, has expelled these two obscure workmen from
-the Christian Pantheon in order to attribute the honor of the foundation
-of the Church of Rome to a name more in keeping with its proud
-pretensions. We do not see the original point of the origin of
-Occidental Christianity in the theatrical Basilica consecrated to St.
-Peter: it is at that ancient _Ghetto_, the _Porta Portese_. It is in
-tracing these poor vagabond Jews, who bore with them the religion of the
-world,--these suffering men, dreaming in their misery of the kingdom of
-God,--that we shall find it again. We do not dispute with Rome its
-essential title. Rome was probably the first point in the Western World,
-and even in Europe, where Christianity was established.
-
-But, instead of these lofty basilicas, in place of these insulting
-devices,--_Christus vincit_, _Christus regnat_, _Christus imperat_,--it
-would be better to raise a poor chapel to these good Jews who first
-pronounced on the quay of Rome the name of Jesus.
-
-A capital trait, which it is important to note in any case, is, that the
-Church of Rome was not, like the churches of Asia Minor, Macedonia, and
-Greece, a foundation of the school of Paul. It was fundamentally
-Judæan-Christian, re-attaching itself directly to the Church of
-Jerusalem. Paul here will never be on his own ground: he will find in
-this great church many weaknesses which he will treat with indulgence,
-but which will wound his exalted idealism. Attached to circumcision and
-outward observances, Ebionite through its taste for abstinences, and by
-its doctrine concerning the person and death of Jesus more Jewish than
-Christian, leaning strongly towards Millenarianism, the Roman Church
-showed, since its first days, the essential traits which will
-distinguish it through its long history. Own daughter of Jerusalem, the
-Roman Church will always have an ascetic, sacerdotal character, opposed
-to the Protestant tendencies of Paul. Peter will be its veritable head;
-then, the political and hierarchical spirit of old Rome penetrating it,
-it will indeed become the new Jerusalem, the city of the Pontificate, of
-the hieratic and solemn religion, of the material sacraments which
-justify of themselves, the city of the ascetics of the manner of Jacques
-Ohliam with his callous knees and his plate of gold upon his brow. It
-will be the authoritative church. If we can believe it, the only mark of
-the apostolic mission will be to show a letter signed by the apostles,
-to produce a certificate of orthodoxy. The good and the evil which the
-Church of Jerusalem did in giving birth to Christianity, the Church of
-Rome will do for the Universal Church. It is in vain that Paul will
-address to it his beautiful epistle to explain the mystery of the cross
-of Jesus and of salvation by faith alone. The Church of Rome will
-scarcely comprehend it; but Luther four and a half centuries later will
-comprehend it, and will open a new era in a secular series of the
-alternate triumphs of Peter and Paul.
-
-
-II.
-
-An important event in the history of the world took place in the year
-61. Paul was led a prisoner to Rome in order to follow up the appeal
-which he had made to the tribunal of the emperor. A sort of profound
-instinct had always made Paul desire this journey. His arrival at Rome
-was almost as marked an event in his life as his conversion. He believed
-that he had attained the summit of his apostolic life; and doubtless he
-recalled the dream in which, after one of his days of struggle, Christ
-had appeared to him, and said, "Be of good cheer, Paul; for as thou hast
-testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome."
-
-You will not forget the wide divisions which separated the disciples
-of Jesus during the first century from the foundation of
-Christianity,--divisions so broad, that all the differences which to-day
-separate the orthodox, the heretics, and the schismatics of the whole
-world, are nothing beside the dissensions of Peter and Paul. The Church
-of Jerusalem, obstinately attached to Judaism, refused all intercourse
-with the uncircumcised, however pious they might be. Paul, on the
-contrary, thought that to maintain the ancient law was an injury to
-Jesus, since thus it might be supposed, that, outside the merits of
-Jesus, such or such a work could serve for the justification of the
-faithful. However strange it may appear, it is certain that the
-Judæan-Christians of Jerusalem, with James at their head, organized some
-active contra-missions in order to combat the effect of the missions of
-Paul, and that the emissaries of these ardent conservatives followed in
-some sort the lead of the apostle of the Gentiles. Peter belonged to the
-party at Jerusalem, but showed in his conduct that sort of timid
-moderation which seems to have been the foundation of his character. Did
-Peter also come to Rome? Formerly, gentlemen, this question was one of
-the most exciting which could be agitated. Formerly the history of
-religion was written, not to recount it, but in order to prove it:
-religious history was an annex of theology. During the grand revolt, so
-full of courage and of ardent conviction, which, during the sixteenth
-century, placed one-half of Europe in opposition to Rome, the negation
-of the sojourn of Peter at Rome became a sort of dogma. The Bishop of
-Rome is the successor of St. Peter, said the Catholics, and as such the
-head of Christendom. How could that reasoning be more strongly refuted
-than by maintaining that Peter never placed his foot in Rome?
-
-As for us, we are permitted to regard this question with the most
-perfect disinterestedness. We do not believe, in any sense, that Jesus
-intended to give any head whatever to his church; and above all, it is
-doubtful whether the idea of such a church as developed later had
-existed in the mind of the founder of Christianity. The word _ecclesia_
-occurs only in the Gospel of St. Matthew. The idea of the _episcopos_,
-as it existed in the second century, had no place in the mind of Jesus.
-He himself was the living _episcopos_ during his brief Galilean
-appearance: from that time it is the Spirit who inspires each one until
-he may return. In any case, if it had been possible that Jesus should
-have had any idea whatever of the _ecclesia_ and _episcopos_, it is
-absolutely beyond doubt, that Jesus never thought of giving the future
-_episcopos_ of the city of Rome to be the head of his church,--that
-impious city, the centre of all the impurities of the earth, of whose
-existence he perhaps knew scarcely any thing, and of which he should
-have entertained the gloomy opinions which all the Jews professed. If
-there is any thing in the world which was not instituted by Jesus, it is
-the Papacy, that is to say, the idea that the Church is a monarchy. We
-are, then, perfectly at liberty to discuss the question of Peter's
-coming to Rome. This question is absolutely without consequence for us;
-and from our solution the only result will be to say whether Leo XIII.
-is or is not the head of the Christian conscience. Whether Peter was or
-was not in Rome, it has for us no political nor moral bearing. It is a
-curious question of history: it is useless to pursue it further.
-
-First, let us say, that the Catholics have laid themselves open to the
-peremptory objections of their adversaries by their unfortunate
-reckoning of the coming of Peter to Rome in the year 42,--a reckoning
-borrowed from Eusebius and St. Jerome, which extends the duration of the
-pontificate of Peter to twenty-three or twenty-four years. There is
-nothing more inadmissible. In order to leave no doubt in regard to this,
-it is sufficient to consider that the persecution of Peter at Jerusalem
-by Herod Agrippa occurred in the year 44. It would be superfluous to
-oppose longer a thesis which can have no one reasonable defence. It is
-possible, in fact, to go much further, and to affirm that Peter had not
-yet come to Rome when Paul was taken there, that is to say, in the year
-61. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, written about the year 58, is a
-very considerable argument here. One can scarcely imagine St. Paul
-writing to the faithful, of whom St. Peter was the head, without making
-the least mention of the latter. The last chapter of the Acts of the
-Apostles is still more demonstrative. This chapter, especially from the
-seventeenth to the twenty-ninth verse, cannot be explained, if Peter
-was at Rome when Paul arrived there. Let us, then, consider it
-absolutely certain that Peter did not come to Rome before Paul, that is
-to say, before or about the year 61.
-
-But did he not come there after Paul? This has never been positively
-proved; this late journey of Peter's to Rome was not only probable, but
-there are strong arguments in its favor. Besides the testimony of the
-Fathers of the second and third centuries, there are three reasons which
-do not appear to me unworthy:--
-
-1st, It is indisputably certain that Peter suffered a martyr's death.
-The testimony of the fourth evangelist, of Clement Romanus, of the
-fragment which is called the "_Canon de Muratori_," of Denis of Corinth,
-of Caius, of Tertullian, leave no doubt in this respect. Let the fourth
-Gospel be apocryphal, allow that chapter xxi. has been added in later
-times, it makes no difference. It is clear, that, in the verses in which
-Jesus announces to Peter that he shall die by the same suffering as his
-own, we have the expression of an opinion established in the Church
-about 120 or 130, to which allusions are made as to a fact known to all.
-Now, it is not possible to imagine that Peter died a martyr outside of
-Rome. It was only at Rome, in fact, that the persecution of Nero was
-violent. At Jerusalem, at Antioch, the martyrdom of Peter would have
-been much less probable.
-
-2d, The second reason is found in the Epistle attributed to St. Peter
-(v. 13): "The church that is at Babylon ... saluteth you." Babylon, in
-this passage, evidently indicates Rome. If the Epistle is authentic, the
-passage is decisive: if it is apocryphal, the conclusion to be drawn
-from the text is not weakened. The author, in short, whoever he may be,
-wishes it to be regarded as the work of Peter. He was consequently
-forced, in order to give an appearance of truth to his fraud, to arrange
-the circumstances which he related, according to what he knew, or
-believed was known in his time, of the life of Peter. If, in such a
-spirit, he dated the letter at Rome, it shows, that, in his day, it was
-the general opinion that Peter had resided at Rome. But, in any case,
-the First Epistle of Peter is a very ancient work, and had very early a
-high authority.
-
-3d, The theory which is founded upon the Ebionite Acts of St. Peter is
-also worthy of much consideration. This theory represents St. Peter as
-following Simon the Magician everywhere (according to St. Paul), in
-order to dispute his false doctrines. M. Lipsius has shown an admirable
-critical sagacity in his analysis of this legend. He has shown that the
-base of all the different versions of it which have come to us was
-written about the year 130. It seems improbable that an Ebionite author
-of such early date could have given so much importance to Peter's
-journey to Rome, if this journey had not taken place in reality. The
-theory of the Ebionite legend must contain some truth at the bottom, in
-spite of the fables which are mingled with it. It is quite admissible
-that St. Peter might have come to Rome, as he went to Antioch, following
-St. Paul, and in part to neutralize his influence. The missions of St.
-Paul, and the facility which the Jews had acquired in their voyages had
-made long expeditions quite the custom. The apostle Philip is even
-represented by an ancient and persistent tradition as having settled
-himself in Hierapolis, in Asia Minor.
-
-I regard, then, as probable, the tradition of the sojourn of Peter at
-Rome; but I believe that this sojourn was short, and that Peter suffered
-martyrdom soon after his arrival in the Eternal City.
-
-
-III.
-
-You know the mystery which hovers above the history of primitive
-Christianity, which we might desire to know more in detail. The death of
-the apostles Peter and Paul remains enveloped in a veil which will never
-be penetrated. That which appears the most probable is, that they both
-disappeared in the great massacre of Christians commanded by Nero.
-
-On the 19th of July, in the year 64, a violent fire burst out at Rome.
-It originated in that portion of the great Circus near to the Palatine
-and C[oe]lian Hills. In this quarter there were many little shops,
-filled with inflammable matter, in which the flames spread with
-prodigious rapidity. Thence it made the turn of the Palatine, ravaged
-the Velabra, the Forum, the Carinæ, ascended the hills, greatly injured
-the Palatine, descended again to the valleys, devouring compact
-quarters, and piercing tortuous streets, continuing six days and seven
-nights. An enormous pile of houses which were torn down near the foot of
-the Esquiline, arrested its progress for a time; then it again broke
-out, and endured three days more. A considerable number of people
-perished. Of the fourteen portions which composed the city, three were
-entirely destroyed; of seven, only blackened walls remained. Rome was an
-extremely compact city, and the population very dense. This disaster was
-frightful, and the like of it had never before been seen.
-
-When the fire broke out, Nero was at Antium. He returned to the city
-about the time when it approached his "transitory" house. It was not
-possible to arrest the flames. The imperial houses of the Palatine, the
-"transitory" house itself with its dependencies, and the whole
-surrounding quarter, were destroyed. Nero did not seem much to regret
-the loss of his house. The sublime horror of the spectacle transported
-him. Later it was said that he had watched the fire from a tower, where,
-in a theatrical costume, with a lyre in his hand, he chanted the ruin of
-Ilion to the rhythm of an ancient elegy.
-
-This was a legend, the fruit of a period of successive exaggerations;
-but one point upon which the universal opinion was decisive from the
-first was, that Nero had commanded this fire, or at least had revived it
-when it seemed about to die out.
-
-These suspicions were confirmed by the fact, that, after the fire, Nero,
-under pretext of removing the ruins at his own cost, in order to leave
-the place free to the proprietors, undertook to clear away the _débris_;
-and the people were not allowed to approach. This seemed worse when it
-was seen that he drew from the ruins what belonged to the country, when
-the new palace, that "golden house" which had been the plaything of his
-delirious imagination, was seen rising upon the site of the ancient
-provisory residence, enlarged by the spaces which the fire had cleared.
-
-It was believed that he had desired to prepare the place for his new
-palace, to justify the reconstruction which he had long contemplated, to
-procure money by appropriating the wreck of the fire, in short, to
-satisfy his mad vanity, which led him to desire to rebuild the whole of
-Rome, so that it might date from him, and be called Neropolis.
-
-All the honest men of the city were outraged. The most precious
-antiquities of Rome, the houses of the ancient leaders, decorated with
-triumphal spoils, the most holy objects, the trophies, the ancient
-_ex-votos_, the most revered temples, all the belongings of the old
-worship of the Romans, had disappeared. It was as if they mourned the
-souvenirs and the traditions of the whole country. They celebrated
-expiatory services; they consulted the books of the Sibyl: the ladies
-especially observed various _piacula_. But the secret consciousness of a
-crime and infamy still remained.
-
-Then an infernal idea took possession of the mind of Nero. He cast about
-to see if he could find anywhere some miserable wretches, still more
-detested by the Roman plebeians than himself, upon whom he could rest
-the odium of the incendiarism. He thought of the Christians. The horror
-which they testified towards the temples and the most venerated edifices
-of the Romans made the idea plausible, that they should have been the
-authors of this fire, the result of which was the destruction of these
-sanctuaries. Their air of sadness in regarding the monuments appeared
-like an injury to the nation. Rome was a very religious city, and
-whoever protested against the national worship was at once remarked. It
-should be remembered that certain rigorous Jews went so far as to refuse
-to touch money which bore an effigy: they even saw a great crime in
-bearing or looking at an image, unless engaged in the occupation of
-carving. Others refused to pass beneath a city gate surmounted by a
-statue. All this excited the ridicule and ill-will of the people.
-Perhaps the idea that the Christians were incendiaries gained force from
-their manner of talking about the final conflagration, their sinister
-prophecies, their love of reiterating that the world would soon be
-ended, and ended by fire. It is even admissible that some of the
-faithful might have committed imprudences, and that there were pretexts
-for accusing them of having wished, by anticipating the celestial
-flames, to justify their oracles, at any price. Four and a half years
-later the Apocalypse was to present a chant upon the burning of Rome,
-for which the event of 64 probably furnished more than one feature. The
-destruction of Rome by fire had been a Christian and Jewish dream; and
-it was not merely a dream: the pious sectaries were pleased to see in
-spirit the saints and angels applauding from the heights of heaven what
-they regarded as a just expiation.
-
-A certain number of persons suspected of belonging to the new sect were
-arrested, and thrown into prison, which was of itself a punishment. The
-first arrests were followed by many others. The people were surprised at
-the multitude of converts who had accepted these gloomy doctrines: it
-was only spoken of with alarm. All sensible men considered the
-accusation of having caused the fire as extremely weak. "Their true
-crime," said they, "is hatred of the human race." Although persuaded
-that the burning was the crime of Nero, many serious Romans saw in this
-work of the police a mode of delivering the city from a dreadful
-nuisance. Tacitus, in spite of his pity, was of this opinion. And
-Suetonius counted the sufferings which Nero heaped upon the partisans of
-the new and mischievous superstitions as among his laudable measures.
-
-These sufferings were something frightful. Such refinements of cruelty
-had never been seen. Almost all those arrested were of the _humiliores_
-(the poorest classes). The sentence of these unfortunates, when it
-concerned high treason or sacrilege, was to be thrown to the beasts, or
-to be burned alive in the amphitheatre. One of the most hideous traits
-of Roman manners was that of making a _fête_, a public amusement, of
-these tortures. The amphitheatres had become places of execution: the
-tribunals furnished the victims. The condemned of the entire world were
-forwarded to Rome for the provisionment of the circus and the amusement
-of the people. At this time derision was added to the barbarism of these
-tortures. The victims were kept for a feast day, to which was given,
-without doubt, an expiatory character. "The morning spectacle,"
-consecrated to the combats of animals, presented an appearance hitherto
-unknown. The condemned, covered with the tawny skins of beasts, were
-hurried into the arena, where they were torn by dogs. Some were
-crucified: others, reclothed with tunics steeped in oil, wax, or resin,
-were bound to posts, and reserved to light up the evening _fêtes_. When
-the day lowered, these living torches were ignited. For this spectacle,
-Nero offered his magnificent gardens beyond the Tiber, which occupied
-the site of the present Borgo, the Square, and the Church of St. Peter.
-Near by was a circus commenced by Caligula, in which the middle of the
-_Spina_ was marked by an obelisk brought from Heliopolis (the same one
-which in our day stands in the centre of the Square of St. Peter). This
-place had already been the scene of massacres by the light of torches.
-Caligula, in one of his walks, decapitated a certain number of consular
-personages, senators, and Roman ladies, by the light of torches. The
-idea of replacing lanterns by human bodies impregnated with inflammable
-substances had occurred to the ingenious Nero. Burning alive was not a
-new mode of suffering; it was the ordinary penance of incendiaries: but
-it had never been made a system of illumination. By the light of these
-hideous torches, Nero, who had established the custom of evening
-entertainments, showed himself in the arena, sometimes mingling with the
-people in the dress of a charioteer, sometimes conducting his chariot
-and seeking applause. Women and young girls were involved in these
-horrible games: a _fête_ was made of the nameless indignities which they
-suffered. Under Nero, the custom was established of compelling the
-condemned to play in the amphitheatre some mythological part entailing
-the death of the actor. These hideous operas, where mechanical science
-attained to prodigious effects, were very popular. The miserable wretch
-was introduced into the arena, richly costumed as god or hero devoted to
-death. He then represented by his suffering some tragic scene of the
-fables consecrated by sculptors and poets. Sometimes it was the furious
-Hercules burned on Mount [OE]ta, tearing the waxed tunic from his skin;
-sometimes Orpheus torn in pieces by a bear; Dædalus thrown from heaven,
-and devoured by beasts; Pasiphæ struggling in the embraces of the bull;
-Attys murdered. Sometimes there were horrible masquerades, in which the
-men were dressed like priests of Saturn with a red cloak, the women as
-priestesses of Ceres with fillets on the brow; finally, at other times,
-some dramatic work of the time, in which the hero was really condemned
-to death as Laureolus; or the representations were those of such tragic
-acts as that of Mucius Scævola. At the end of these hideous spectacles,
-Mercury, with a red-hot iron wand, touched each corpse to see if it
-moved. Some masked valets, dressed like Pluto or Orcus, dragged away the
-dead by the feet, killing with hammers all who still breathed. The
-Christian ladies of the highest respectability even suffered these
-monstrosities. Some played the _rôle_ of the Danaïdes, others that of
-Dirce. It is difficult to say what fable furnishes a more bloody picture
-than that of the Danaïdes. The suffering which all mythological
-tradition attributes to these guilty women was not cruel enough to
-suffice for the pleasure of Nero and the _habitués_ of his amphitheatre.
-Sometimes they were led out bearing urns, and received the fatal blow
-from an actor figuring as Lynceus. Sometimes these unhappy beings went
-through the series of the sufferings of Tartarus before the spectators,
-and only died after hours of torments. The representations of Hell were
-quite _à la mode_. Some years previous (the year 41), some Egyptians and
-Nubians came to Rome, and made a great success in giving evening
-performances, in which they displayed in order the horrors of the
-subterranean world, conforming to the paintings of the burial-places of
-Thebes, notably those of the tomb of Seti I.
-
-As for the sufferings of the Dirces, there was no doubt about them.
-People know the colossal group now in the Museum of Naples, called the
-_Toro Farnese_,--Amphion and Zethus attaching Dirce to the horns of an
-unmanageable bull, which is to drag her over the rocks and briers of
-Cithæron. This mediocre Rhodian marble, brought to Rome in the time of
-Augustus, was the object of universal admiration. How could there be a
-finer subject for the hideous art which the cruelty of the time had made
-in vogue, and which consisted in reproducing the celebrated statues in
-living tableaux? An inscription and a fresco of Pompeii seem to prove
-that this terrible scene was frequently repeated in the arenas, when a
-woman was the sufferer. Naked, attached by the hair to the horns of a
-furious bull, these poor wretches glutted the eyes of a ferocious
-people. Some of the Christians immolated in this way were feeble in
-body: their courage was superhuman. But the infamous crowd had eyes
-alone for their torn bowels and lacerated bosoms.
-
-After the day when Jesus expired in Golgotha, the _fête_ day in the
-Gardens of Nero (it may be fixed about the first of August, 64) was the
-most solemn in the history of Christianity. The solidity of any
-construction is in proportion to the sum of virtue, of sacrifices, and
-of devotion which has been laid down at its base. Only fanatics lay
-foundations. Judaism endures still on account of the intense frenzy of
-its zealots; Christianity, on account of its first witnesses. The orgy
-of Nero was the grand baptism of blood which set Rome apart as the city
-of martyrs in order to play a distinct _rôle_ in the history of
-Christianity and to be the second Holy City. It was the taking
-possession of the Vatican Hill by conquerors hitherto unknown there. The
-odious, hair-brained man who governed the world did not perceive that he
-was the founder of a new order, and that he signed a charter for the
-future, the effects of which would be claimed after eighteen hundred
-years.
-
-
-IV.
-
-As we have said, it is allowable, without improbability, to connect the
-deaths of the apostles Peter and Paul with the account which we have
-just given. The only historical incident known, by which the martyrdom
-of Peter can be explained, is the episode recounted by Tacitus. Some
-solid reasons also lead us to believe that Paul suffered the death of a
-martyr at Rome. It is then natural to suppose that he also died in the
-massacre of July and August, 64. As to the manner of death of the two
-apostles, we know with certainty that Peter was crucified. According to
-some ancient writings, his wife was executed with him, and he saw her
-led to the sacrifice. One accepted account of the third century says,
-that, too humble to equal Jesus, he suffered with his head down. The
-characteristic trait of the butchery of 64 having been the search for
-odious rarities in torture, it is possible that in truth Peter was shown
-to the crowd in this hideous attitude. Seneca mentions some cases in
-which tyrants have been known to turn the heads of the crucified towards
-the earth. Christian piety has seen a mystical refinement in that which
-was indeed an odd caprice of the executioner. Perhaps this extract from
-the Fourth Gospel--"Thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another
-shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not"--includes
-some allusion to a peculiarity in the suffering of Peter. Paul, in his
-quality of _honestior_, had his head cut off. It is also probable that
-he was judged regularly, and that he was not included in the summary
-condemnations of the victims in the _fête_ of Nero. All that, I repeat,
-is doubtful, and of little importance. True or not, the legend is
-believed. At the commencement of the third century, near Rome, there
-were already seen two monuments bearing the names of Peter and Paul. One
-was situated at the foot of the Vatican Hill, that of St. Peter: the
-other, in the way to Ostia, was that of St. Paul. They were called in
-oratorial style the trophies of the apostles. In the fourth century two
-basilicas were raised above these trophies. One of them is the present
-basilica of St. Peter: the other, St. Paul-without-the-Walls, has
-retained its essential features until our own century.
-
-Did the trophies which the Christians venerated about the year 200
-designate the spots upon which these apostles suffered? It is possible.
-It is not unlikely that Paul, toward the end of his life, dwelt in the
-suburb which extended beyond the Lavernal gate as far as the pine of the
-Salvian springs in the way to Ostia. The shade of Peter, on the other
-hand, wanders always, according to the Christian legend, towards the
-turpentine-tree of the Vatican, not far from the gardens of the Circus
-of Nero, and especially about the obelisk. It may be that the ancient
-place of the obelisk in the sacristy of St. Peter, now indicated by an
-inscription, is nearer to the place where St. Peter upon the cross of
-his frightful agony surfeited the eyes of a populace greedy to see him
-suffer. However, that is a secondary question. If the basilica of the
-Vatican does not really cover the tomb of St. Peter, it points out not
-the less for our remembrance one of the spots most truly hallowed by
-Christianity. The place which the seventeenth century surrounded with a
-theatrical colonnade was a second Calvary; and, even supposing that
-Peter was not crucified there, at least we cannot doubt the sufferings
-of the Danaïdes and the Dirces.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-We shall show in our next assembly how tradition disposes of all these
-doubts, and how the Church consummates reconciliation between Peter and
-Paul, which death perhaps began. This was the price of success. The
-Judæan-Christianity of Peter and the Hellenism of Paul, apparently
-irreconcilable, were equally necessary to the success of the future
-work. The Judæan-Christianity represented the conservative spirit
-without which nothing is solid; Hellenism, advance and progress, without
-which nothing truly exists. Life is the result of a conflict between two
-contrary forces. The absence of all revolutionary spirit is as fatal as
-the excess of revolution.
-
-
-
-
-  THIRD CONFERENCE,
-
-  London, April 13, 1880.
-
-  ROME,
-  THE CENTRE OF THE FORMATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL
-  AUTHORITY.
-
-
-
-
-THIRD CONFERENCE.
-
-ROME THE CENTRE OF THE FORMATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY.
-
-
-I.
-
-Almost always the nations created to play a part in universal
-civilization, like Judæa, Greece, and the Italy of the renaissance,
-exercise their full action upon the world, only after becoming victims
-to their own grandeur. They must first die; then the world lives on
-them, assimilates to itself that which they have created at the price of
-their fever and their sufferings. Nations ought to choose in fact
-between the long, tranquil, obscure destiny of that which lives for
-itself, and the troubled, stormy career of that which lives for
-humanity. The nation which works out social and religious problems in
-its own bosom is almost always weak politically. Every country which
-dreams of a kingdom of God, which lives for general ideas, which pursues
-a work of universal interest, sacrifices through the same its individual
-destiny, enfeebles and destroys its _rôle_ as a terrestrial country.
-One can never set himself on fire with impunity. Since Judæa made the
-religious conquest of the world, it was necessary that she should
-disappear as a nation. A revolution of extreme violence broke out in
-this country in the year 66. During four years, this strange race, which
-seemed created to defy equally that which blessed and that which cursed
-it, was in a convulsion before which the historian should pause with
-respect as he would before all mystery.
-
-The causes of this crisis were very old, and the crisis itself was
-inevitable. The Mosaic law, a work of exalted Utopians possessed of a
-powerful socialist ideal,--the least politic of men,--was, like the
-Islam, exclusive of a civil society parallel with a religious society.
-This law, which appears to have been drawn up, as we now read it, in the
-seventh century before Jesus Christ, would have been the means of
-destroying the little kingdom of the descendants of David, even without
-the Assyrian conquest. Since the preponderance assumed by the prophetic
-element, the kingdom of Judah--embroiled with all its neighbors, seized
-with a permanent rage against Tyre, hating Edom, Moab, and Ammon--could
-no longer survive. I repeat, a nation which devotes itself to social and
-religious problems neglects its politics. The day in which Israel became
-"a peculiar people of God, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation," it was
-written that she should no longer be a nation as other nations.
-Contrary destinies cannot be united: an exaltation is always expiated by
-an abasement.
-
-The Achemenidean kingdom gave Israel little repose. This grand
-feudality, tolerant towards all provincial differences, almost analogous
-to the Califat of Bagdad and to the Ottoman Empire, was the rule under
-which the Jews found themselves most at ease. The Ptolemaic rule in the
-third century before Jesus Christ seemed equally sympathetic to them:
-there were even no Seleucidæ. Antioch had become an active centre of
-Hellenic propagandism. Antiochus Epiphanus felt it necessary to set up
-everywhere the image of Jupiter Olympus as the sign of his power. Then
-broke out the first great Jewish revolt against profane civilization.
-Israel had patiently supported the disappearance of its political
-existence since Nebuchadnezzar. It retained no measure in which it saw a
-danger to its religious institutions. A race, in general not military,
-was seized with an access of heroism; without a regular army, without
-generals, without tactics, it conquered the Seleucidæ, maintained its
-revealed rights, and created a second period of autonomy. The Asmonean
-royalty, nevertheless, was always distracted by profound interior vices.
-It endured but one century. The destiny of the Jewish people was not to
-constitute a separate nationality. That people dreamed always of
-something international. Its ideal was not the city, it was the
-synagogue, the free congregation. The same is true of the Islam, which
-has created an immense empire, but has destroyed all nationality, in the
-sense in which we understand it, among the peoples which it has
-subjugated, and leaves them no other country than the mosque and the
-_Zaouia_.
-
-The name of theocracy is often applied to such a social condition, and
-rightly so, if we mean by it that the profound idea of the Semitic
-religions, and of the empires which came out from them, is the kingdom
-of God considered as the master of the world, and universal suzerain.
-But theocracy with these nations was not synonymous with the domination
-of priests. The priest, properly speaking, plays an unimportant _rôle_
-in the history of Judaism and Islamism. The power belongs to the
-representative of God,--to him whom God inspires, to the prophet, to the
-holy man, to him who has received his mission from Heaven, and who
-proves his mission by a miracle, that is to say, by success. In default
-of a prophet, the power belongs to the author of apocalypses, and of
-apocryphal books attributed to the ancient prophets, or, better, to the
-doctor who interprets the divine law, to the head of the synagogue, and,
-still more, to the head of the family who guards the depository of the
-law, and transmits it to his children. A civil power, a royalty, has
-little to do with such social organization. This organization never
-works better than among spread-out peoples, under the rights of
-tolerated foreigners, in a grand empire where uniformity does not rule.
-It is the nature of Judaism to be politically subordinate, since it
-cannot draw from its own bosom a principle of military power. Its
-_animus_ has been to form communities with their own laws and their own
-magistrates in the midst of other states, until modern liberalism
-introduced the principle of the equality of all before the law.
-
-The Roman rule, established in Judæa sixty-three years before Christ by
-the armies of Pompey, seemed at first to realize some of the conditions
-of Jewish life. Rome at this epoch did not pursue the policy of
-assimilating the countries which she annexed to her vast empire. She
-robbed them of the right of peace and war, and arrogated to herself only
-the arbitration in great political questions.
-
-Under the degenerated remains of the Asmonean dynasty and under the
-Herods, the Jewish nation preserved a half independence, in which its
-religious state was respected. But the interior feeling of the people
-was too strong. Beyond a certain degree of religious fanaticism, man is
-ungovernable. It should be said that Rome strove without ceasing to
-render her power in the East more effective. The little vassal kingdoms
-which she had at first preserved, disappeared day by day, and the
-provinces made returns to the empire pure and simple. The administrative
-customs of the Romans, even in their most reasonable aspects, were
-odious to the Jews. In general, the Romans showed the greatest
-condescension to the fastidious scruples of the nation; but that was not
-sufficient: things had come to a point where nothing could be done
-without touching upon a canonical question. These absolute religions,
-like Islamism and Judaism, allow no participation: if they do not reign,
-they call themselves persecuted. If they feel themselves protected, they
-become exacting, and seek to render life impossible to other worships
-about them.
-
-I should depart from my plan if I recounted to you that strange struggle
-of which Josephus tells us,--the terror in Jerusalem, Simon Bar-Gioras,
-commandant in the city, John of Giscala with his assassins, master of
-the temple. Fanatical movements are far from excluding hate, jealousy,
-and defiance, from those who take part in them. Very decided and
-passionate men associated together ordinarily suspect each other, and in
-this there is a force; for reciprocal suspicion establishes terror among
-them, binds them as with an iron chain, hinders defections and moments
-of weakness. Interest creates the _coterie_. Absolute principles create
-division, and inspire the temptation to decimate, to expel, to kill
-enemies. Those who judge human affairs superficially believe that a
-revolution is quelled when the revolutionists "eat one another," as it
-is expressed. It is, on the contrary, a proof that the revolution has
-all its energy, that an impersonal ardor presides over it. This is
-nowhere more clearly seen than in the terrible drama at Jerusalem. The
-actors seem to have entered into the compact of death like some infernal
-rounds, in which, according to the belief of the middle ages, Satan was
-seen forming a chain to draw into a fantastic gulf numbers of men,
-dancing, and holding each other by the hand. So revolution allows no one
-to escape from the dance which it leads. Terror is behind the lukewarm.
-Turn by turn, exalting some, and exalted by others, they rush into the
-abyss. None can recede; for behind each one is a concealed sword, which,
-at the moment that he wishes to draw back, forces him to advance.
-
-The strangest thing of all is that these madmen were not wholly wrong.
-The fanatics of Jerusalem, who affirmed that Jerusalem was eternal even
-while it was burning, were nearer the truth than those who regarded them
-as mere assassins. They deceived themselves upon the military question,
-but not upon the distant religious result. These troubled days point
-out, in fact, the moment when Jerusalem became the spiritual capital of
-the world. The Apocalypse, a burning expression of the love which she
-inspired, has taken its place among the religious writings of humanity,
-and has there consecrated the image of the beloved city. Ah, how
-important it is never to predict the future of a saint or a villain, a
-fool or a sage! Jerusalem, a city of common people, would have pursued
-indefinitely its uninteresting history. It is because it had the
-incomparable honor of being the cradle of Christianity, that it was the
-victim of the Johns of Giscala, of the Bar-Gioras,--in appearance the
-scourges of their country, in reality the instruments of its apotheosis.
-These zealots, whom Josephus treats as brigands and assassins, were
-politicians of the highest order, but unskilful soldiers: still they
-lost heroically a country which could not be saved. They lost a material
-city: they established the spiritual reign of Jerusalem, sitting in her
-desolation far more glorious than she was in the days of Herod and of
-Solomon. What did these conservatives, these Sadducees, really desire?
-They wished something mean,--the continuation of a city of priests like
-Emesa, Tyane, Comane. Assuredly they did not deceive themselves when
-they declared that the surging enthusiasm was the ruin of the nation.
-Revolution and Messianism destroyed the national existence of the Jewish
-people; but revolution and Messianism were the true vocation of this
-people,--that by which they contributed to the universal civilization.
-
-
-II.
-
-The victory of Rome was complete. A captain of our race, of our blood, a
-man like us, at the head of legions in whose roll, if we could read it,
-we should meet many of our ancestors, had come to crush the fortress of
-Semitism, to inflict upon the revealed, accepted law the greatest injury
-which it had received. It was the triumph of Roman right, or rather
-rational right, a creation utterly philosophical, presupposing no
-revelation, above the Jewish Thora, the fruit of a revelation. This
-right, whose roots were partly Greek, but in which the practical genius
-of the Latins made so fine a part, was the excellent gift which Rome
-brought to the vanquished in return for their independence. Each victory
-for Rome was a victory for right. Rome bore into the world a better
-principle in several respects than that of the Jews: I mean the profane
-state, reposing on a purely civil conception of society.
-
-The triumph of Titus was then legitimate in many ways, and still there
-never was a more useless triumph. The deplorable religious nothingness
-of Rome rendered its victory unfruitful. This victory did not retard the
-progress of Judaism a single day: it did not give the religion of the
-empire an added chance to struggle against this redoubtable rival. The
-national existence of the Jewish people was lost forever; but that was a
-blessing. The true glory of Judaism was Christianity, about to be born.
-The ruin of Jerusalem and the temple was an unequalled good for
-Christianity.
-
-If the reasoning of Titus according to Tacitus is correctly reported,
-the victorious general believed that the destruction of the temple would
-be the ruin of Christianity as well as that of Judaism. No one was ever
-more completely deceived. The Romans imagined, that, in tearing up the
-root, they should eradicate the shoot at the same time; but the shoot
-was already a shrub that lived its own life. If the temple had survived,
-Christianity would certainly have been arrested in its development. The
-surviving temple would have continued to be the centre of all Judaic
-works. It would always have been regarded as the most holy place of the
-world: pilgrims would have come there, and would there have brought
-their tributes. The Church of Jerusalem, grouped around by consecrated
-parvises, would have continued, by the strength of its primacy, to
-receive the homage of all the world, to persecute the Christians of the
-Church of Paul, to exact, that, in order to have the right to call one's
-self the disciple of Jesus, one should practise the circumcision, and
-observe the Mosaic code. All effectual propagandism would have been
-interdicted: letters of obedience signed at Jerusalem would have been
-exacted from the missionary. A centre of irrefragable authority, a
-patriarchate composed of a sort of college of cardinals under the
-presidency of men like James, pure Jews belonging to the family of
-Jesus, would have been established, and would have constituted an
-immense danger for the new-born Church. When one sees St. Paul after so
-many mishaps remaining always attached to the Church of Jerusalem, one
-understands what difficulties a rupture with these holy personages would
-have presented. Such a schism would have been considered as an enormity.
-The separation from Judaism would have been impossible; and this
-separation was the indispensable condition of the existence of the new
-religion. The mother was about to kill the child. The temple, on the
-contrary, once destroyed, the Christians thought no more of it: very
-soon, indeed, they will consider it a profane place: Jesus will be every
-thing to them. The Christian Church of Jerusalem was by the same stroke
-reduced to a secondary importance. It was re-organized around the
-element which made its force, the _desposyni_, the members of the family
-of Jesus, the sons of Clopas; but it will reign no more. This centre of
-hate and exclusion once destroyed, the reconciliation of the opposing
-parties in the Church of Jesus will become easy. Peter and Paul will be
-brought into accord, and the terrible duality of the new-born
-Christianity will cease to be a mortal sore. Lost in the depth of the
-interior of the Batanæa and the Hauran, the little group which attached
-itself to James and Clopas becomes the Ebionite sect, and slowly dies.
-
-These relatives of Jesus were pious, tranquil, mild, modest,
-hard-working men, faithful to the severest precepts of Jesus concerning
-poverty, but at the same time very exact Jews, considering the title of
-"Child of Israel" before every other advantage. From the year 70 to
-about the year 110, they really governed the churches beyond the Jordan,
-and formed a sort of Christian senate. There is no need to demonstrate
-the immense danger which these pre-occupations, with genealogies, were
-to the new-born Christianity. A sort of nobility of Christianity was
-about to be formed. In the political order the nobility is almost a
-necessity to the state. Politics having elements of gross struggles
-which render it more material than ideal, a state is very strong only
-when a certain number of families has, by tradition and privilege, the
-duty and interest of guarding its welfare, representing and defending
-it. But, in the order of the ideal government, birth is nothing: each
-one is valued in proportion to the truth he shows, and the good he does.
-The institutions which have a religious, literary, moral end, are lost,
-when considerations of family, caste, heredity, prevail in them. The
-nephews and cousins of Jesus would have ruined Christianity, if the
-churches of Paul had not already been strong enough to act as a
-counterpoise to this aristocracy, the tendency of which would have been
-to proclaim itself alone respectable, and to treat all converts as
-intruders. Some pretensions analogous to those of the Alides in Islam
-were established. Islamism would certainly have perished under the
-embarrassment caused by the family of the prophet, if the result of the
-struggles of the first century of the Hegira had not been to reject,
-upon second thought, all those who were too near the person of the
-prophet. The true heirs of a great man are those who continue his work,
-and not his relatives by blood. Considering the tradition of Jesus as
-his own possession, the little _coterie_ of the Nazarenes, as they are
-called, would certainly have stifled it. Happily this narrow circle
-disappeared in good season: the relatives of Jesus were soon forgotten
-in the interior of the Hauran. They lost all importance, and left Jesus
-to his true family, the only one which he has recognized,--those of whom
-he said, "They hear the word of God, and keep it."
-
-
-III.
-
-According as the Church of Jerusalem sank, the Church of Rome rose, or,
-rather, a phenomenon was evidently manifested in the years which
-followed the victory of Titus. It was that the Church of Rome became
-more and more the inheritor and the substitute of the Church of
-Jerusalem. The spirit of the two churches was the same: what was a
-danger at Jerusalem became an advantage at Rome. The taste for tradition
-and the hierarchy, and the respect for authority, were in some sort
-transplanted from the parvises of the temple to the Occident. James, the
-brother of the Lord, had been a sort of pope at Jerusalem. Rome is about
-to take up the part of James. We shall have the pope at Rome. Without
-Titus, we should have had the pope in Jerusalem, but with this great
-difference, that the pope at Jerusalem would have extinguished
-Christianity in about one or two hundred years, while the Pope of Rome
-has made it the religion of the universe.
-
-Here appears a very important person, who seems to have been the head of
-the Roman Church in the early years of the first century, concerning
-whom I am happy to find myself in accord with one of your most scholarly
-and enlightened critics, Mr. Lightfoot. I speak of Clement Romanus. In
-the penumbra in which he remains, enveloped and almost lost in the
-luminous dust of a beautiful far-off history, Clement is one of the
-grand figures of early Christianity: one would say that it was the head
-of an old effaced fresco of Giotto's, recognizable still from his golden
-aureola, and some dim features of striking purity and sweetness. One
-thing is beyond doubt: it is the high rank which he held in the utterly
-spiritual hierarchy of the church of his time, and the unequalled credit
-with which he sustained it. His approval made the law. All parties clung
-to him, and wished to shield themselves under his authority. It is
-probable that he was one of the most energetic agents of the grand work
-that was about to be accomplished: I mean the posthumous reconciliation
-of Peter and Paul, without which union the work of Christ could only
-have perished. His high personality, aggrandized by tradition, was,
-after that of Peter, the most holy figure of the primitive Christian
-Rome.
-
-Already the idea of a certain primacy in the Church of Rome began to
-show itself. The right of advising the other churches and of settling
-their differences was accorded to this church. It is believed that like
-privileges had been allowed to Peter among the disciples. Now a still
-closer bond was established between Peter and Rome. In the time of
-Clement, great dissensions divided the Church at Corinth. The Roman
-Church, being applied to in these troubles, replied by an epistle,
-which has been preserved to us. The epistle is anonymous; but a very
-ancient tradition teaches that Clement was the author of it. The Church
-at Corinth had changed but little since St. Paul. It had the same proud,
-disputant, feeble spirit. It is evident that the principal opposition to
-the hierarchy was found in this Greek spirit, always mobile, because it
-was always full of life, undisciplined (and for my part I like it), not
-knowing how to form a flock from a crowd. The women and the children
-were in full revolt. Some superior doctors imagined that they possessed
-a profound sense in every thing, and mystic secrets analogous to the
-gift of tongues and the discernment of spirits. Those who were honored
-with these supernatural gifts scorned the ancients, and aspired to
-replace them. Corinth had a respectable presbytery, which, however, did
-not receive the highest mysticism. The advanced pretenders cast it in
-the shade, and put themselves in its place. Some of the _presbyteri_
-were even dismissed. The struggle between the established hierarchy and
-personal revelations began, and this struggle fills the history of the
-Church; the privileged soul complaining, that, in spite of the favors
-with which it is honored, a gross clergy, wanting in spiritual life,
-dominates it officially. We see that this was the heresy of individual
-mysticism, maintaining the rights of the spirit against authority,
-pretending to rise above common mortals and the ordinary clergy by right
-of its direct intercourse with divinity.
-
-The Roman Church was always the church of order, of subordination, and
-of rule. Its fundamental principle was that humility and submission were
-of more value than the most sublime gifts. Its epistle is the first
-manifestation in the Christian Church of the principle of authority.
-
-A few years since, there was much surprise when a French archbishop,
-then a senator, said in the Tribune, "My clergy is my regiment." Clement
-had said this before him. Order and obedience were the supreme laws of
-the family and the church. "Let us consider the soldiers who serve under
-our sovereigns. With what order, what punctuality, what submission, they
-obey their commands: all are not prefects, nor tribunes, nor centurions;
-but each one in his rank executes the orders of the emperor and of his
-chiefs. The great cannot exist without the small, nor the small without
-the great. In every thing there is a mingling of diverse elements, and
-by this mingling all advances. Let us take, for example, our bodies. The
-head is nothing without the feet; the feet are nothing without the head.
-The smallest of our organs are necessary, and serve the whole body: all
-conspire, and obey the same principle of subordination for the
-preservation of the whole."
-
-The history of the ecclesiastical hierarchy is the history of a triple
-abdication; the community of the faithful first placing all its powers
-in the hands of the ancients, or _presbyteri_; the presbyteral body at
-length delegating its authority to one person who was the _episcopos_;
-then the _episcopi_ of the Latin Church recognized as their head one of
-themselves, who became the pope. This last progress, if we may call it
-so, was not accomplished until our time. The creation of the episcopate,
-on the contrary, was the work of the second century. The absorption of
-the church by the _presbyteri_ was accomplished before the year 100. In
-the Epistle of Clement Romanus it is not yet with the episcopate, but
-with the presbytery, that he deals. We find there no trace of a
-_presbyteros_ superior to the others, and entitled to dethrone them; but
-the author proclaims positively that the presbytery and the clergy are
-above the people. The apostles, in establishing churches, chose through
-the inspiration of the Spirit the "bishops and the deacons of the future
-believers." The power emanating from the apostles has been transmitted
-by regular succession. No church has then the right to dethrone its
-seniors. The privilege of the rich is nothing in the church.
-Accordingly, those who are favored with mystic gifts, instead of
-believing themselves above the hierarchy, should be the more submissive.
-This involves the great problem, "Who exists in the church? Is it the
-people? Is it the clergy? Is it inspiration?" This problem was already
-given in the time of St. Paul, who resolved it in the true manner by
-mutual charity. One epistle trenches upon the question in the sense of
-pure Catholicism. The apostolic title is every thing: the right of the
-people is reduced to nothing. We may then safely assert that Catholicism
-had its origin at Rome, since the Church of Rome laid down its first
-rules. Prescience pertains to spiritual gifts, to science and
-distinction: it belongs to the hierarchy, to the powers transmitted
-through the medium of the canonical ordination, which attaches itself to
-the apostles by an unbroken chain. The free church as Christ conceived
-it, and as St. Paul also regarded it, was a Utopia which held nothing
-for the future. Evangelical liberty had destroyed it; and it was not
-realized, that, with the hierarchy uniformity and death would come in
-time.
-
-
-IV.
-
-Clement had probably not seen either Peter or Paul. His great practical
-sense showed him that the salvation of the Christian Church demanded the
-reconciliation of the two founders. Did he influence the author of the
-Acts which represent to us this reconciliation as accomplished, and with
-whom he seems to have had some intercourse, or did these two pious souls
-spontaneously fall into accord on account of the bias which he had given
-to Christian opinion? We are ignorant for want of proofs. One thing is
-sure, the reconciliation of Peter and Paul was a Roman work. Rome had
-two churches,--one coming from Peter, the other from Paul. Those
-numerous converts who came to Jesus--some through the school of Peter,
-and some through that of Paul--were tempted to exclaim, "What! Are
-there, then, two Christs?" It was necessary to be able to reply, "No:
-Peter and Paul understand each other perfectly: the Christianity of one
-is the Christianity of the other." Perhaps (this is an ingenious
-hypothesis of M. Strauss) a light cloud was introduced for this purpose
-into the evangelical legend of the miraculous fishing. According to the
-recital of Luke, the nets of Peter would not contain the multitudes of
-fish which could easily have been taken; Peter was obliged to make a
-sign to his co-workers to come to his aid. A second bark (Paul and his
-friends) was filled as the first, and the fishing of the kingdom of God
-was superabundant.
-
-The life of the apostles begins to become obscure. All those who have
-seen them have disappeared: most of them left no writings. One had
-entire liberty to embroider on this virgin canvas still. Friends and
-enemies profited by the unknown to set up arguments in support of their
-theses, and to satisfy their hates. Towards the year 130, that is to say
-about sixty-six years after the death of the apostles, a vast Ebionite
-legend was produced at Rome, and designated by the title of the
-preaching, or the travels, of Peter. The missions of the chief of the
-apostles were recounted there, principally those along the coast of
-Ph[oe]nicia; the conversions which he had made; above all, his struggles
-against the great anti-Christ, Simon the Magician, who was at this epoch
-the spectre of the Christian conscience. But frequently under this
-abhorred name another person was concealed: it was the false apostle
-Paul, the enemy of the law, the veritable destroyer of the Church. The
-true Church was that at Jerusalem, presided over by James, the brother
-of the Lord. No apostolate was of any value, if it could not show
-letters emanating from this central college. Paul had none: therefore he
-was an intruder. He was the "man enemy," who came behind to sow the
-tares in the steps of the true sower. With what fury Peter gave the
-denial to his impostures, to his false allegations of personal
-revelations, his ascension to the third heaven, his, pretension of
-knowing about Jesus some things which the hearers of the gospel had not
-understood, the exaggerated manner in which he and his disciples
-interpreted the divinity of Jesus!
-
-These strange ideas of half ignorant sectaries would have been without
-consequences outside of Rome; but every thing which related to Peter
-assumed importance in the capital of the world. In spite of its
-heresies, "The Preachings of Peter" had much interest for the orthodox.
-The primacy of Peter was there proclaimed. St. Paul was thus injured;
-but a few retouches extenuated what was shocking in these attacks.
-Several attempts were made to diminish the peculiarities of the new
-book, and adapt it to the Catholics. This mode of re-modelling books to
-suit the sect to which one belonged was the order of the day. Little by
-little the force of things was understood: all sensible men saw that
-there was safety for the work of Jesus only in the perfect
-reconciliation of the two heads of the Christian doctrine. Paul had,
-even in the sixth century, some bitter enemies: he had always some
-enthusiastic followers like Marcion. Outside of these obstinate men of
-the right and left, there was a union of the moderate masses, who,
-before their Christianism in one of the schools, fully recognized the
-right of the other to be called Christian. James, the partisan of
-absolute Judaism, was sacrificed, although he had been the true chief of
-the circumcision. Peter, who was much less objectionable to the
-disciples of Paul, was preferred before him. James retained no devoted
-partisans outside of the Judæan-Christians.
-
-It is difficult to say who gained the most in this reconciliation. The
-concessions came principally from the side of Paul: all Paul's disciples
-received the others without difficulty, while those of Peter repulsed
-the followers of Paul. But concessions usually come from the strong. In
-truth, each day confirmed Paul's victory.
-
-Each Gentile convert weighted the balance on his side. Outside of Syria,
-the Judæan-Christians were swallowed up by the wave of new converts. The
-churches of Paul prospered: they had good judgment, solidity of mind,
-and some pecuniary resources which the others had not. The Ebionite
-churches, on the contrary, grew poorer each day. The money of the
-churches of Paul was spent in the support of some glorious poor men, who
-were unable to earn any thing, but who possessed the traditional life of
-the primitive spirit. The elevated piety and severe manners of these
-last were admired by the Christian communities of Pagan origin, who
-imitated and assimilated themselves to these customs. It soon happened
-that no distinction was manifest: the sweet and conciliatory spirit of
-St. Luke and Clement Romanus prevailed. The compact of peace was sealed.
-It was agreed that Peter had converted the first-fruits of the
-Gentiles, that he had first absolved them from the yoke of the law. It
-was admitted that Peter and Paul had been the two heads, the founders of
-the Church of Rome; Peter and Paul became the halves of an inseparable
-couple,--two luminaries, like the sun and moon. What one taught, the
-other taught also. They had always been in accord: they had opposed the
-same enemies, had been victims of Simon the Magician. At Rome they lived
-like brothers; the Church of Rome was their common work. The supremacy
-of this church was established for ages.
-
-Thus, from the reconciliation of these parties, the settlement of these
-primitive struggles, there came forth a grand unity,--the Catholic
-Church, the Church of Peter and of Paul, a stranger to the rivalries
-which had marked the first century.
-
-It was, above all, the death of the two apostles which pre-occupied the
-parties, and gave an opportunity for the most diverse combinations. The
-tissue of tradition grew in this respect, by an instinctive travail,
-almost as imperious as that which had presided at the construction of
-the legend of Jesus. The end of the life of Peter and of Paul was
-commanded _à priori_. It was maintained that Christ had predicted the
-martyrdom of Peter, as he had announced the death of the sons of
-Zebedee. The need was felt of associating in death the two persons who
-had been reconciled by force. It was hoped, and perhaps this was not far
-from right, that they died together, or at least as the consequence of
-the same event. The places which were believed to have been sanctified
-by this bloody drama were early fixed upon, and consecrated by
-_memoriæ_. In each case, whatever the people desired came in the end to
-be true. Tradition makes history, retrospectively, as it ought to have
-been, and as it never is. Not long ago the portraits of Victor Emmanuel
-and Pius IX. hung side by side in every frequented place in Italy; and
-the people desired that these two men, who represented principles whose
-reconciliation was generally considered necessary to Italy, should be in
-reality completely united. If, in our time, such views impose themselves
-on history, it will one day appear, in documents reputed to be serious,
-that Victor Emmanuel and Pius IX. (probably Garibaldi will be added) met
-each other secretly, understood and loved each other. During the middle
-ages, at different times, similar attempts were made to appease the
-hatreds of the Dominicans and Franciscans; to prove that the founders of
-these two orders were two brothers living together in the most
-affectionate intercourse; that at first their rules were the same; and
-that St. Dominic girded himself with the cord of St. Francis.
-
-Concerning Peter and Paul, the increase of the legend was rich and
-rapid. Rome and all its environs, above all the way to Ostia, were full
-of souvenirs which were pretended to be connected with the last days of
-the two apostles. A crowd of touching circumstances; the flight of
-Peter; the vision of Jesus bearing his cross, _iterum crucifigi_; the
-final adieu of Peter and Paul; the meeting of Peter with his wife; Paul
-at the Salvian waters; Plautilla sending the handkerchief which bound
-her hair to bandage the eyes of Paul,--all this presented a beautiful
-ensemble, to which was only wanting an ingenuous and skilful writer. It
-was too late; the vein of the first Christian literature was spent; the
-serenity of the narrator of the Acts was lost; his voice was raised no
-more in story or in romance. It is impossible to choose between a crowd
-of equally apocryphal writings: in vain one seeks to shield these
-recitals with the most venerable names (pseudo-Linus, pseudo-Marcellus);
-the Roman legend of Peter and Paul remains always in a sporadic state.
-It was more often recounted by the pious guides than seriously read. It
-was a local affair: no text concerning it has been consecrated and made
-authoritative for reading in the churches.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Many among you, ladies and gentlemen, will go to Rome, or will return
-there. Ah, well! if you preserve any good remembrance of these
-conferences, go, in memory of me, to the Salvian waters, _alle tre
-fontane_, to St. Paul-without-the-Walls. It is one of the most beautiful
-parts of the Roman Campagna,--deserted, damp, green, and sad. There, in
-a deep depression in the soil, crowned by those grand horizontal lines,
-disturbed by no living detail,--there are some clear and cold springs.
-The fever and mouldiness of the tomb are inhaled there. Some Trappists
-are there established, conscientiously practising their religious
-suicide. When you are there, sit down a moment, not too long (one
-quickly catches the fever there), and, while the Trappists give you to
-drink the water which gushes from the three bounds which the head of
-Paul made, think of him who came here to talk of these legends with you,
-and to whom you have listened with so much courtesy and kind attention.
-
-
-
-
-  FOURTH CONFERENCE,
-
-  London, April 14, 1880.
-
-  ROME,
-  THE CAPITAL OF CATHOLICISM.
-
-
-
-
-FOURTH CONFERENCE.
-
-ROME, THE CAPITAL OF CATHOLICISM.
-
-
-Ladies and Gentlemen,--It is plain that the importance of the churches
-in the primitive Christian community was in proportion to their
-apostolic nobility. The guaranty of orthodoxy was in the succession of
-the bishops, by which the great churches were linked to the apostles. A
-direct line appeared to afford a very strong assurance of conformity of
-doctrine, and it was jealously maintained. Now, what can be said of a
-church founded by both Peter and Paul? It is clear that such a church
-ought to endure in order to have a veritable superiority over others.
-The _chef-d'[oe]uvre_ of the competency of the Roman Church was the
-establishment of this superiority. That once assured, the ecclesiastical
-destiny of Rome was established. When this city should have cast off her
-secular character, she would have another,--a sacred capacity,
-corresponding to that of Jerusalem.
-
-She would know how to confiscate to her profit this Christianity which
-she had so cruelly combated,--so much had humanity suffered, to escape
-from those whom fate had designed for this great secular task, _regere
-imperio populos!_
-
-Under Antonine and Marcus Aurelius, Rome reached its highest grandeur;
-its rule of the whole world seemed to be undisputed; no cloud could be
-seen upon its horizon. The emigration from the provinces, above all from
-the Orient, was augmented rather than lessened. The Greek-speaking
-population was larger than it had ever been. All who desired a place in
-the world aspired to come to Rome: nothing was sanctioned until it had
-received the stamp of this universal exposition of the products of the
-entire universe.
-
-The centre of a future catholic orthodoxy was evidently there. The
-well-developed germ of the Papacy existed under Antonine. The Church of
-Rome showed itself more and more indifferent to those crude Gnostic
-speculations which occupied some minds filled with the intellectual
-activity of the Greeks, but tainted with the reveries of the Orient. The
-organization of Christian society was the principal labor at Rome. This
-extraordinary city applied to this object the energetic moral strength
-and the practical genius which she has employed in the most diverse
-causes. Careless of speculation, decidedly hostile to dogmatic
-innovations, she presided there,--a mistress already trained by all the
-changes which had been brought about in discipline and in the
-hierarchy.
-
-
-I.
-
-From the year 120 to 130 the Episcopate was elaborated in the Christian
-Church, and the creation of the Episcopate was eminently a Roman work.
-All _ecclesiæ_ imply a little hierarchy,--a bureau as it is called
-to-day,--a president, some assessors, and a small staff of men in its
-service. Democratic associations are careful that these functions shall
-be limited as far as possible as to power and duration; but from this
-arises that precarious something which has prevented any democratic
-association from outlasting the circumstances which have created it. The
-Jewish synagogues have had more continuity, although the synagogical
-body has never come to be a clergy. This is the result of the
-subordinate place which Judaism has held during several centuries: the
-pressure from without has counteracted the effects of internal
-divisions. If the Christian Church had been left with the same absence
-of directorship, it would doubtless have missed its destiny.
-
-If its ecclesiastical powers had continued to be regarded as emanating
-from the Church itself, it would have lost all its hieratic and
-theocratic character. It was written, on the contrary, that a clergy
-should monopolize the Christian Church, and substitute themselves for
-it. Acting as its spokesman, presenting itself as having the sole power
-of attorney in every thing, this clergy will be its strength, and at the
-same time its gnawing worm,--the principal cause of its future falls.
-
-I repeat, that history has no example of a more complete transformation
-than that which occurred in the government of the Christian Church about
-the time of Hadrian and Antonine. What happened in the Christian Church
-will happen in any association in which the subordinates could resign in
-favor of the bureau, and that again in favor of the president; so that
-afterwards the subordinates and the seniors would have no deliberative
-voice nor influence, nor any control in the management of the funds, and
-the president would be able to say, "I alone, I, am the association."
-The _presbyteri_ (seniors) or _episcopi_ (superintending officers)
-became very soon the only representatives of the Church; and almost
-immediately another still more important revolution took place. Among
-the _presbyteri_ or _episcopi_, there had been one, who, through the
-habit of occupying the principal seat, absorbed the power of the others,
-and became pre-eminently the _episcopos_ or the _presbyteros_. The form
-of worship contributed powerfully to the establishment of this unity.
-The eucharistic act could only be celebrated by one person, and gave to
-the celebrant an extreme importance. That _episcopos_, with a surprising
-rapidity, became the head of the presbytery, and, consequently, the
-entire Church. His _cathedra_ was placed apart, and, having the form of
-an arm-chair, became the seat of honor, the symbol of primacy. From this
-time, each church has but one chief _presbyteros_, who is thus called to
-the exclusion of the other _episcopi_. Beside this bishop, there were
-deacons, widows, and a council of _presbyteri_: but the great step has
-been taken; the bishop is the sole successor of the prophets, his
-associates have disappeared. Apostolic authority, reputed as transmitted
-by the laying-on of hands, suppressed the authority of the community.
-The bishops of the various churches soon placed themselves in
-communication with the others, and formed of the Universal Church a sort
-of oligarchy, which held assemblies, censured its members, decided
-questions of faith, and was in itself a true sovereign power. On one
-side, the shepherds; on the other, the flock. Primitive equality no
-longer existed: in fact, it had endured but a single day. The Church,
-however, was only an instrument in the hands of those who guided her;
-and these held their power, not from the community, but from the
-spiritual inheritance of a transmission claiming to date back to the
-apostles in a continuous line. It is evident that the representative
-system will never be in any degree whatever the law of the Christian
-Church.
-
-It was the Episcopate, without the intervention of civil power, with no
-support from the tribunals, which thus established order above liberty
-in a society originally founded upon individual inspiration. This is why
-the Ebionites, who had no Episcopate, had also no idea of Catholicity.
-At first sight, the work of Jesus was not made to last. Founded upon a
-belief in the destruction of the world, which, as years rolled on, was
-proved an error, it seemed that his congregation could only dissolve in
-anarchy. The prophetic book, the _charismes_, the speaking of tongues,
-individual inspiration, were no more than were necessary to bring all
-again into the proportions of a common chapel. Individual inspiration
-created, but immediately destroyed what it created. After liberty, law
-is necessary. The work of Jesus might be considered as saved the day in
-which it was admitted that the Church has a direct power, a power
-representing that of Jesus. Since then the Church dominates the
-individual, drawing him to her bosom through his need. Inspiration
-passes from the individual to the community. The clergy is the dispenser
-of all pardons, the intermediary between God and the faithful.
-Obedience, first to the Church, then to the bishop, becomes the highest
-duty. Innovation is the sign of error: schism, henceforth, will be for
-the Christian the worst of crimes.
-
-In a certain regard one may say that this was a decadence, a diminution
-of that spontaneity which had been eminently creative until now. It was
-evident that ecclesiastical forms were about to absorb, to stifle, the
-work of Jesus, that all free manifestations of Christian life would soon
-be arrested. Under the censure of the Episcopate, the speaking of
-tongues, prophecy, the creation of legends, the making of new sacred
-books, would soon become withered powers, the _charismes_ would be
-reduced to official sacraments. In another sense, however, such a
-transformation was the essential condition of the strength of humanity.
-And, moreover, the centralization of powers became necessary when
-churches were more numerous: intercourse between these little pious
-societies would be impossible, unless they had representatives appointed
-to act for them. It is undeniable, moreover, that, without the
-Episcopate, the churches, re-united for a time by the souvenirs of
-Jesus, would gradually have been dispersed. The divergences of opinion,
-the difference in the turn of imagination, and, above all, the
-rivalries, and the unsatisfied _amours-propres_, would have operated by
-their infinite effects of disunion and disintegration. Christianity
-would have expired at the end of three or four centuries, like
-Mithraicism and so many other sects which were not allowed to endure.
-Democracy is sometimes eminently creative; but it is upon the condition
-that the democracy comes forth from conservative institutions which
-prevent the revolutionary fever from prolonging itself indefinitely.
-
-Here was the greatest miracle of the new Christianity. It drew order,
-hierarchy, authority, and obedience from the free subjection of desires:
-it organized the crowd; it disciplined anarchy. What does this miracle
-accomplish other than to strike at the pretended derogations to the laws
-of physical nature? The spirit of Jesus strongly inoculated in his
-disciples that spirit of sweetness, of abnegation, of forgetfulness of
-the present; that unique pursuit of interior joys which kills ambition;
-that strong preference given to childhood; those words repeated without
-ceasing, as from Jesus, "Whoever is first among you, let him be the
-servant of all." The influence of the apostles was not less in that
-direction. The apostles lived and ruled after their death. The idea that
-the head of the Church held his command under the members of the Church
-who had elected him never once occurs in the literature of this time.
-The Church thus escaped through the supernatural origin of its power,
-that element of decay which exists in delegated authority. A legislative
-and executive authority may come from the people; but sacraments and
-dispensations of celestial pardons have nothing in common with universal
-suffrage. Such privileges come from heaven, or, according to the
-Christian formula, from Jesus Christ, the source of all pardon and of
-all good.
-
-The religion of Jesus thus became something solid and consistent. The
-great danger of Gnosticism, which was to divide Christianity into
-numberless sects, was exorcised. The word "Catholic Church" resounded
-everywhere, as the name of that great body which would thenceforth
-survive the ages unbroken. The character of this catholicity is already
-seen. The Montanists are regarded as sectarian; the Marcionites are
-convinced of the falseness of the apostolic doctrine; the different
-Gnostic schools are more and more driven from the bosom of the general
-church. Something had arisen which was neither Montanism, nor
-Marcionism, nor Gnosticism; which was Christianity, not sectarian,--the
-Christianity of the majority of bishops, resisting sects, and using them
-all, having, if you will, only negative characters, but preserved by
-these negative characters from the pietist aberrations, and from
-dissolving rationalism. Christianity, like all parties who wish to live,
-disciplines itself, and restrains its own excesses. It unites to
-mystical exaltation a fund of good sense and moderation which will kill
-Millenarism, Charisms, Glossolaly, and all the primitive phenomenal
-spirits. A handful of excited men, like the Montanists, running into
-martyrdom, discouraging penitence, condemning marriage, are not the
-Church. The _juste milieu_ triumphs. Radicals of any sort will never be
-allowed to destroy the work of Jesus. The Church is always of a medium
-opinion: it belongs to all the world, and is not the privilege of an
-aristocracy. The pietist aristocracy of the Phrygian sects and the
-speculative aristocracy of the Gnostics are equally stripped of their
-pretensions.
-
-In the midst of the enormous variety of opinions which fill the first
-Christian age, the Catholic opinion constitutes a sort of standard. It
-was not necessary to reason with the heretic in order to convince him.
-It was sufficient to show him that he was not in communion with the
-Catholic Church, with the grand churches which trace the succession of
-their bishops to the apostles. _Quod semper, quod ubique_ became the
-absolute rule of truth. The argument of prescription to which Tertullian
-gave such eloquent force reviews all the Catholic controversy. To prove
-to any one that he was an innovator, a disturber, was to prove that he
-was wrong,--an insufficient rule, since, by a singular irony of fate,
-the doctor himself who developed this method of refutation in so
-imperious a manner, Tertullian, died a heretic.
-
-Correspondence between the churches was an early custom. Circular
-letters from the heads of the great churches, read on Sunday in the
-re-unions of the faithful, were a sort of continuation of the apostolic
-literature. The ecclesiastical province, questioning the precedency of
-the great churches, appeared in germ. The Church, like the synagogue and
-the mosque, is essentially a citadel. Christianity, like Judaism and
-Islamism, is a religion of cities. The countryman, the _paganus_, will
-be the last resistance which Christianity will encounter. The few rural
-Christians came to the church of the neighboring city. The Roman
-municipality thus enclosed the church. Among the cities, the _civitas_,
-the grand city, was alone a veritable church, with an _episcopos_. The
-small city was in ecclesiastical dependence on the great city. This
-primacy of the great cities was an important fact. The great city once
-converted, the small city and the country followed the movement. The
-diocese was thus the unity of the conglomerate Christians. As for the
-ecclesiastical province, it corresponded to the Roman province: the
-divisions of worship of Rome and Augustus were the secret law which
-ruled all. Those cities which had a flamen, or _archiereus_, are those
-which later had an archbishop: the _flamen civitatis_ became the bishop.
-After the third century, the flamen held the rank in the city which was
-later that of the bishop in the diocese. Thus it happened that the
-ecclesiastical geography of a country was very nearly the geography of
-the same country in the Roman epoch. The picture of the bishops and the
-archbishops is that of the ancient _civitates_, according to their line
-of subordination. The empire was as the mould in which the new religion
-was formed. The interior framework, the outlines, the hierarchical
-divisions, were those of the empire. The ancient archives of the Roman
-administration, and the church-registers of the middle ages, and even
-those of our own day, are nearly the same thing.
-
-Thus the grand organisms which have become so essential a part of the
-moral and political life of European nations were all created by those
-_naïve_ and sincere Christians, whose faith has become inseparable from
-the moral culture of humanity. The Episcopate under Marcus Aurelius was
-fully ripe: the Papacy existed in germ. [OE]cumenical councils were
-impossible. The Christian Empire alone could authorize great assemblies;
-but the provincial synod was used in the affairs of the Montanists and
-of the Passover. The bishop of the capital of the province was allowed
-to preside without contest.
-
-
-II.
-
-Rome was the place in which the grand idea of Catholicity was conceived.
-Rome became each day more and more the capital of Christianity, and
-replaced Jerusalem as the religious centre of humanity. Its church had a
-generally recognized precedence over others. All doubtful questions
-which disturbed the Christian conscience demanded an arbitration, if not
-a solution, at Rome. This very defective reasoning was used,--that,
-since Christ had made Cephas the corner-stone of his church, this
-privilege ought to extend to his successors. By an unequalled stroke,
-the Church of Rome had succeeded in making itself at the same time the
-Church of Peter and the Church of Paul, a new mythical duality,
-replacing that of Romulus and Remus. The Bishop of Rome became the
-bishop of bishops, the one who admonished others. Rome proclaims its
-right (a dangerous right) to excommunicate those who do not entirely
-agree with her. The poor Artemonites (a sort of anticipated Arians) had
-much to complain of in the injustice of the fate which made them
-heretics; while, even until Victor, all the Church of Rome thought with
-them; but they were not heard. From this point, the Church of Rome
-placed itself above history. The spirit which in 1870 could proclaim the
-infallibility of the Pope might see itself reflected at the end of the
-second century by certain clear indications. The writing made at Rome
-about 180, of which the Roman fragment known as the "_Canon de
-Muratori_" makes a part, shows us Rome already regulating the canon of
-the churches, making the passion of Peter the basis of Catholicity, and
-repulsing equally Montanism and Gnosticism. Irenæus refutes all
-heresies by the faith of this church, "the grandest, the most ancient,
-the most illustrious, which possesses by continuous succession the true
-tradition of the apostles Peter and Paul; to which, on account of its
-primacy, all the rest of the Church should have recourse."
-
-One material cause contributed much to that pre-eminence which most of
-the churches recognized in the Church of Rome. This Church was extremely
-rich: its goods, skilfully administered, served to succor and propagate
-other churches. The heretics condemned to the mines received a subsidy
-from it: the common treasury was in a certain sense at Rome. The Sunday
-collection, practised continually in the Roman Church, was probably
-already established. A marvellous spirit of tradition animated this
-little community, in which Judæa, Greece, and Latium seemed to have
-confounded their very different gifts, in view of a prodigious future.
-While the Jewish Monotheism furnished the immovable base of the new
-formation, while Greece continued through Gnosticism its work of free
-speculation, Rome attached itself with an astonishing readiness to the
-work of the government. All its authorities and artifices served well
-for that. Politics recoils not before fraud. Now, politics had already
-taken up its home in the most secret councils of the Church of Rome.
-Some veins of apocryphal literature, constantly refilled, sometimes
-under the name of the apostles, sometimes under that of apostolic
-personages, such as Clement and Hermas, were received with confidence to
-the limits of the Christian world on account of the guaranty of Rome.
-
-This precedence of the Church of Rome continued to increase up to the
-third century. The bishops of Rome showed a rare competency, evading
-theological questions, but always in the first rank in matters of
-organization and administration. The tradition of the Roman Church
-passes for the most ancient of all. Pope Cornelius took the lead in the
-matter of substitution. This was particularly seen in the dismissal of
-the bishops of Italy, and the appointment of their successors. Rome was
-also the central authority of the churches of Africa.
-
-This authority was already excessive, and showed itself above all in the
-affair of the Passover. This question was much more important than it
-appears to us. In the early times all Christians continued to make the
-Jewish Passover their principal feast. They celebrated this feast on the
-same day as the Jews,--on the 14th of Nisan, upon whatever day of the
-week it happened to fall. Persuaded, according to the account of all the
-old gospels, that Jesus, the evening before his death, had eaten the
-Passover with his disciples, they regarded such a solemnity as a
-commemoration of the last supper, rather than as a memorial of the
-resurrection. As Christianity became more and more separated from
-Judaism, such a manner of regarding it was very much questioned. At
-first a new tradition was promulgated,--that Jesus, being about to die,
-had not eaten the Passover, but had died the very day of the Jewish
-feast, thus constituting himself the Pascal Lamb. Moreover, this purely
-Jewish feast wounded the Christian conscience, especially in the
-churches of Paul. The great feast of the Christians, the resurrection of
-Jesus, occurred in any case the Sunday after the Jewish Passover.
-According to this idea, the feast was celebrated the Sunday which
-followed the Friday after the 14th of Nisan.
-
-In Rome this custom prevailed, at least since the pontificates of Xystus
-and Telesphorus (about 120). In Asia there were great divisions. The
-conservatives, like Polycarp, Meliton, and all the ancient school,
-believed that the old Jewish custom conformed to the first Gospels and
-to the usage of the apostles John and Philip. This was the object of the
-voyage to Rome which Polycarp undertook about the year 154, under the
-Pope Anicetus. The interview between Polycarp and Anicetus was very
-cordial. The discussion of certain points appears to have been sharp,
-but they understood each other. Polycarp was not able to persuade
-Anicetus to renounce a practice which had been that of the bishops of
-Rome before his time. Anicetus, on the other hand, hesitated when
-Polycarp told him that he governed himself according to the rule of John
-and the other apostles, with whom he had lived on a familiar footing.
-The two religious leaders remained in full communion with each other;
-and Anicetus showed Polycarp an almost unprecedented honor. In fact he
-desired that Polycarp, in the Assembly of the Faithful at Rome, should
-pronounce, in his stead and in his presence, the words of the
-eucharistic consecration. These ardent men were full of too lofty a
-sentiment to rest the unity of their souls upon the uniformity of rites
-and exterior observances.
-
-Later, unhappily, Rome took the stand of insisting upon its right. About
-the year 196 the question was more exciting than ever. The churches of
-Asia persisted in their old usage. Rome, always enthusiastic for unity,
-wished to coerce them. Upon the invitation of Pope Victor, convocations
-of bishops were held: a vast correspondence was exchanged. But the
-bishops of Asia, strong in the tradition of two apostles and of so many
-illustrious men, would not submit. The old Polycrates, Bishop of
-Ephesus, wrote in their name a very sharp letter to Victor and to the
-Church of Rome. The incredible design which Victor conceived on account
-of the acrimony of this letter proves that the Papacy was already born,
-and well born. He pretended to excommunicate, to separate from the
-Universal Church, the most illustrious province, because it had not bent
-its traditions before the Roman discipline. He published a decree by
-virtue of which Asia was placed under the ban of the Christian
-community. But the other bishops opposed this violent measure, and
-recalled Victor to charity. St. Irenæus, in particular, who, through the
-necessity of the country in which he lived, had accepted for himself and
-his churches in Gaul the Occidental custom, could not support the
-thought that the mother-churches of Asia, to which he felt himself bound
-in the depths of his soul, should be separated from the body of the
-Universal Church. He energetically persuaded Victor from the
-excommunication of the churches which held to the traditions of their
-fathers, and recalled to him the examples of his more tolerant
-predecessors. This act of rare good sense prevented the schism of the
-Orient and the Occident from occurring in the second century. Irenæus
-wrote to the bishops on all sides, and the question remained open to the
-churches of Asia.
-
-In one sense, the process which brought about the debate was of more
-importance than the debate itself. By reason of this difference, the
-Church was brought to a clearer idea of its organization. And first it
-was evident that the laity were no longer any thing. The bishops alone
-handled questions, and promulgated their opinions. The bishops collected
-together in provincial synods, over which the bishop of the capital of
-the province presided (the archbishop of the future), or, at times, the
-oldest bishop. The synodal assembly came out with a letter, which was
-sent to other churches. This was then like an attempt at federative
-organization,--an attempt to resolve questions by means of provincial
-assemblies, presided over by bishops agreeing among themselves. Later,
-questions concerning the presiding over synods and the hierarchy of the
-Church sought solution in the documents of this great debate. Among all
-the churches, that of Rome appeared to have a particular initiative
-right. But that initiative was far from being synonymous with
-infallibility; for Eusebius declares that he read the letters in which
-the bishops severely blamed the conduct of Victor.
-
-
-III.
-
-Authority, gentlemen, loves authority. The authoritaires, as we say
-to-day, in the most diverse ranks, extend the hand to each other. Men as
-conservative as the leaders of the Church of Rome must be strongly
-tempted to favor public force, the effect of which is often for good,
-as they must admit. This tendency had been manifest since the first days
-of Christianity. Jesus had laid down the rule. The image of the money
-was for him the supreme criterion of its lawfulness, beyond which there
-was nothing to seek. In the height of the reign of Nero, St. Paul wrote,
-"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power
-but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever,
-therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God." Some
-years later, Peter, or the person who wrote in his name the Epistle
-known as the First of Peter, expresses himself in an identical manner.
-Clement was an equally devoted subject of the Roman Empire.
-
-In fine, one of the traits of St. Luke (according to my idea there was a
-bond between St. Luke and the spirit of the church at Rome) is his
-respect of the imperial authority, and the precautions which he took not
-to injure it. The author of the Acts evaded every thing which would
-present the Romans as the enemies of Christ. On the contrary, he seeks
-to show, that, under many circumstances, they defended St. Paul and the
-Christians against the Jews. Never a disparaging word against the civil
-magistrates. Luke loved to show how the Roman functionaries were
-favorable to the new religion, sometimes even embracing it; and how
-Roman justice was equitable, and superior to the passions of the local
-powers. He insists upon the advantages which Paul owed to his title of
-Roman citizen. If he ends his recital with the arrival of Paul at Rome,
-it is perhaps in order not to recount the monstrosities of Nero.
-
-Without doubt, there were in other parts of the empire devoted
-Christians who sympathized entirely with the anger of the Jews, and
-dreamed only of the destruction of the idolatrous city which they
-identified with Babylon. Such were the authors of apocalypses and
-sibylline writings. But the faithful of the great churches were of quite
-a different way of thinking. In 70, the Church of Jerusalem, with a
-sentiment more Christian than patriotic, left the revolutionary city,
-and sought peace beyond the Jordan. In the revolt of Barkokébas, the
-division was still more pronounced. Not a single Christian was willing
-to take part in this attempt of blind despair. St. Justin in his
-Apologies never combats the principle of empire. He desired that the
-empire should examine the Christian doctrine, approve and countersign it
-in some way, and condemn those who calumniated it. The most learned
-doctor of the time of Marcus Aurelius, Meliton, Bishop of Sardis, made
-still more decided advances, and undertook to show that there is always
-in Christianity something to recommend it to a true Roman. In his
-Treaty upon Truth, preserved in Syriac, Meliton expresses himself in the
-same way as a bishop of the fourth century, explaining to one Theodosius
-that his first duty is to establish by his authority the triumph of
-truth (without telling us, alas! by what sign one recognizes truth). Let
-the empire become Christian, and the persecuted of to-day would find
-that the interference of the state in the domain of conscience is
-perfectly legitimate.
-
-The system of the apologists, so warmly sustained by Tertullian,
-according to which the good emperors favored Christianity, and the bad
-ones persecuted it, was already full blown. "Born together," said they,
-"Christianity and the empire have grown up together, and prospered
-together." Their interests, their sufferings, their fortunes, their
-future,--all was in common. The apologists were advocates; and advocates
-in all orders resemble each other. They have arguments for every
-situation and all tastes. Nearly a hundred and fifty years rolled on
-before these sweet and half sincere invitations were understood. But the
-only impression they made in the time of Marcus Aurelius upon the mind
-of one of the most enlightened leaders of the Church was as a prognostic
-of the future. Christianity and the empire will become reconciled. They
-are made for each other. The shade of Meliton will tremble with joy
-when the empire becomes Christian, and the emperor takes in hand the
-cause of truth.
-
-Thus the Church already took more than one step toward empire. Through
-politeness, without doubt, but only as a very legitimate consequence of
-his principles, Meliton does not allow that an emperor can give an
-unjust order. It was easy to believe that certain emperors had not been
-absolutely opposed to Christianity. It is pleasant to relate that
-Tiberius had proposed to place Jesus in the rank of the gods: it was the
-senate which objected. The decided preference of Christianity for power
-where it hopes for favors is already very transparent. It is shown,
-contrary to all truth, that Hadrian and Antonine sought to repair the
-evil done by Nero and Domitian. Tertullian and his generation say the
-same thing of Marcus Aurelius. Tertullian doubted, it is true, whether
-one could be at the same time a Cæsar and a Christian; but this
-incompatibility a century later struck no one, and Constantine proved
-that Meliton of Sardis was a very sagacious man when he discerned so
-well--a century and a half in advance, seeing through the proconsular
-persecutions--the possibility of a Christian Empire.
-
-The hatred of Christianity and of the empire was that of men who must
-one day love them. Under the Severi, the language of the Church remained
-plaintive and tender, as it had been under the Antonines. The
-apologists affixed a species of legitimism, a pretension that the Church
-had always from the first saluted the emperor. "There were never among
-us," said Tertullian, "partisans of Cassius, partisans of Albinus,
-partisans of Niger." Foolish illusion! Certainly the revolt of Avidius
-Cassius against Marcus Aurelius was a political crime, and the
-Christians did well not to be involved in it. As for Severus, Albinus,
-and Niger, it was success that decided between them; and the Church had
-no other merit in attaching itself to Severus than that of seeing
-clearly who would be the strongest. This pretended worship of legitimacy
-was in truth only the worship of a fixed fact. The principle of St. Paul
-bore fruit: "All power comes from God: he who holds the sword holds it
-from God for good."
-
-This correct attitude in regard to power clung to exterior necessities
-as much as to the principles which the Church had received from its
-founders. The Church was already a powerful association. It was
-essentially conservative. It needed order and legal guaranties. This was
-admirably shown in the act of Paul of Samos, Bishop of Antioch, under
-Aurelian. The Bishop of Antioch had become a powerful personage at this
-epoch. The goods of the Church were in his keeping: a crowd of men lived
-on his favors. Paul was a brilliant man, somewhat mystical, worldly, a
-great secular lord, seeking to render Christianity acceptable to men of
-the world and authority. The Pietists, as might be expected, considered
-him heretical, and dismissed him. Paul resisted, and refused to quit the
-Episcopal house. See into what the most exalted sects are led! They were
-in possession, and who could decide a question of proprietorship and
-possession, if not the civil authority. Aurelian, about this time,
-passed on his way towards Antioch; and the question was referred to him.
-Here was seen this original spectacle of an infidel sovereign and
-persecutor deputed to decide which was the true bishop. Aurelian showed
-under these circumstances remarkably good sense for a layman. He
-examined the correspondence of the two bishops, took note as to which
-was in relation with Rome and Italy, and decided that he was the true
-Bishop of Antioch.
-
-Aurelian made some objections to the theological reasoning used on this
-occasion; but one fact was evident: it was, that Christianity could not
-live without the empire, and that the empire, on the other hand, could
-not do better than adopt Christianity as its religion. The world desired
-a religion of congregations, of churches, or of synagogues and
-chapels,--a religion in which the essence of the worship should be
-re-union, association, and fraternity. Christianity answered to all
-these conditions. Its admirable worship, its well-organized clergy,
-assured its future.
-
-Several times in the third century this historical necessity fell short
-of realization. This is seen most plainly under those Syrian emperors
-whom their quality of foreigners and base origin placed beyond
-prejudices, and who, in spite of their vices, inaugurated a largeness of
-ideas and a tolerance hitherto unknown. Those Syrian women of
-Emesa,--Julia Domna, Julia Mæsa, Julia Mammæa, Julia Soemia,--beautiful,
-intelligent, perfectly fearless, and held by no tradition or social law,
-hesitated at nothing. They did what Roman women would never have dared.
-They entered the Senate, deliberated there, and governed the empire
-effectively, dreaming of Semiramis and Nitocris. The Roman worship
-seemed cold and insignificant to them. Not being bound by any family
-reasons, and their imagination being more in harmony with Christianity
-than with Italian Paganism, these women amused themselves with the
-recitals of the deed of the gods upon earth. Philostratus enchanted them
-with his "Life of Apollonius Tyane." Perhaps they had more than one
-secret affinity with Christianity. Certainly Heliogabalus was mad; and
-yet his chimera of a central, Monotheistic worship, established at Rome,
-and absorbing all the other worships, proved that the narrow circle of
-ideas of the Antonines was broken. Alexander Severus went still farther.
-He was sympathetic with the Christians: not content with according them
-liberty, he placed Jesus in his lararium with a touching eclecticism.
-Peace seemed to be made, not, as under Constantine, by the defection of
-one of the parties, but by a large reconciliation. The same thing was
-seen again under Philip the Arab, in the East under Zenobia, and
-generally under those emperors whose foreign origin placed them beyond
-Roman patriotism.
-
-The struggle redoubled in rage when those grand reformers, Diocletian
-and Maximian, animated by the ancient spirit, believed themselves able
-to give new life for the empire by holding it to the narrow circle of
-Roman ideas. The Church triumphed through its martyrs. Roman pride was
-humbled. Constantine saw the interior strength of the Church. The
-population of Asia Minor, Syria, Thrace, and Macedonia, in a word the
-eastern part of the empire, was already more than half Christian. His
-mother, who had been a servant in an inn at Nicomedia, dazzled his eyes
-with the picture of an Eastern empire having its centre near Nicæa or
-Nicomedia, whose nerves should be the bishops and those multitudes of
-poor matriculates of the Church who controlled opinion in large cities.
-Constantine made the empire Christian. From the Occidental point of
-view, that was astonishing; for the Christians were still but a feeble
-minority in the West: in the Orient, the politics of Constantine was not
-only natural, but commanded.
-
-Wonderful thing! The city of Rome received from that politics the
-heaviest blow it had ever suffered. Christianity was successful under
-Constantine; but it was Oriental Christianity. In building a new Rome on
-the Bosphorus, Constantine made the old Rome the capital of the West
-alone. The cataclysms which followed, the invasions of the barbarians
-who spared Constantinople, and fell upon Rome with all their weight,
-reduced the ancient capital of the world to a limited and often humble
-condition. That ecclesiastical primacy of Rome which burst with so much
-effect upon the second and third centuries flourished no longer when the
-Orient had an existence and a separate capital. Constantine was the real
-author of the schism of the Latin Church and the Church of the Orient.
-
-Rome took its revenge, principally by the seriousness and depth of its
-spirit of organization. What men were St. Sylvester, St. Damasus, and
-Gregory the Great! With an admirable courage they labored for the
-conversion of the barbarians, attached them to themselves, and made them
-their friends and subjects. The master-work of its politics was its
-alliance with the Carlovingian house, and the bold stroke by which it
-re-established in that house the empire which had been dead three
-hundred years. The Church of Rome rose again more powerful than ever,
-and became again the centre of all the grand affairs of the Occident
-during eight centuries.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Here my task is ended, gentlemen. You will confide to others the care of
-recounting the prodigious history of the feudal church, its grandeurs
-and its abuses. Another still will show you the re-action against these
-abuses,--Protestantism returning to the primitive idea of Christianity,
-and dividing, in its turn, the Latin Church. Each one of these grand
-historical pages will have its charm and its instruction. What I have
-recounted to you is full of grandeur. One is impartial only to the dead.
-Since Catholicism was an inimical power, a danger to the liberty of the
-human mind, it was right to oppose it. Our age is the age of history,
-because it is the age of doubt upon dogmatic matters: it is the age in
-which, without entering into the discussion of systems, an enlightened
-mind says to itself, "If, since right exists, and so many thousand
-symbols have made the pretension of presenting the complete truth, and
-if this pretension is always found vain, is it indeed probable that I
-shall be more happy than so many others, and that the truth has awaited
-my coming here below in order to make its definite revelation?" There is
-no definite revelation. It is the touching effort of man to render his
-destiny supportable. But its reward is not disdain, it is gratitude.
-Whoever believes that he has something to teach us concerning our
-destiny and our end should be welcome. Recall the account in your old
-histories of the judicious and discreet words of the Saxon chief of
-Northumbria, in the assembly where the question was discussed concerning
-the adoption of the doctrine of the Roman missionaries.
-
-"Perhaps thou rememberest, O king! something which happens sometimes in
-the winter days, when thou art seated at table with thy captains and thy
-men-at-arms; that a good fire is lighted, that thy chamber is very warm,
-while it rains, snows, and blows without. There comes a little bird,
-which crosses the chamber on the wing, entering at one door, and going
-out by the other. The moment of this passage is full of sweetness for
-him: he no more feels the rain nor the storm. The bird is gone in an
-instant, and from the winter he passes again into the winter. Such seems
-to me the life of men on this earth, and its course of a moment,
-compared to the length of time which precedes and follows it. The time
-before birth and after death is gloomy. It torments us by its
-impossibility of comprehension: if, then, the new doctrine can teach us
-any thing a little certain, it deserves to be considered."
-
-Alas! the Roman missionaries did not bear this minimum of certainty,
-with which the old Northumbrian chief, sage as he was, declared himself
-content. Life always appears to us a short passage between two long
-nights. Happy those who can sleep in the empty noise of menaces which
-trouble at times the human conscience, and should no more than cradle
-it! One thing is certain: it is the paternal smile which at certain
-hours pierces nature, attesting that one eye regards us, and one heart
-follows us. Let us guard ourselves from all absolute formula which might
-become one day an obstacle to the free expansion of our spirits. There
-is no religious communion which does not still possess some gifts of
-life and pardon; but it is on the condition only that an humble docility
-succeeds sympathetic adhesion. The comparison of the regiment, invented
-by Clement Romanus, and since so many times repeated, ought to be
-utterly abandoned.
-
-You wished that I should recall to you the grandeurs of Catholicism in
-its finest epoch. I thank you for it. Some associations of childhood,
-the most profound of all, attach me to Catholicism; and, although I am
-separated from it, I am often tempted to say, as Job said (at least in
-our Latin version), "_Etiam si occideret me, in ipso sperabo._" This
-great Catholic family is too numerous not to have still a grand future.
-The strange excesses which it has supported during fifty years, this
-unequalled pontificate of Pius IX., the most astonishing in history,
-cannot be terminated in any ordinary way. There will be thunders and
-lightnings such as accompany all the great judgment-days of God. And
-will she have much to do in order to still remain acceptable to those
-who love her,--this old mother, who will not die so soon? Perhaps she
-will find, in order to arrest the arms of her conqueror, which is modern
-reason, some magician's arts, some words such as Balder murmured.
-
-The Catholic Church is a woman: let us distrust the charming words of
-her agony. Let us imagine that she says to us, "My children, every thing
-here below is but a symbol and a dream. In this world there is only one
-little ray of light which pierces the darkness, and seems to be the
-reflection of a benevolent will. Come into my bosom, where one finds
-forgetfulness. For those who wish fetishes, I have them; to those who
-wish works, I offer them; for those who wish intoxication of heart, I
-have the milk of my breast, which will make drunk; for those who desire
-love, I have an abundance; to those who crave irony, I pour out freely.
-Come all: the time of dogmatic sadness is past. I have music and incense
-for your funerals, flowers for your marriages, the joyous welcome of
-bells for your new-born ones." Ah, well! if she should say that, our
-embarrassment would be extreme. But she never will.
-
-Your great and glorious England has resolved, gentlemen, the practical
-part of the question. It is as easy to trace the line of conduct which
-the state and individuals should follow in the same matter, as it is
-impossible to arrive at a theoretic solution of the religious problem.
-All this may be conveyed in a single word, gentlemen,--_liberty_. What
-could be more simple? Faith does not control itself. We believe what we
-believe true. No one is bound to believe what he thinks false, whether
-it is false or not. To deny liberty of thought is a sort of
-contradiction. From liberty of thought to the right to express one's
-thought, there is but one step; for right is the same for all. I have no
-right to prevent a person from expressing his mind; but no one has the
-right to prevent me from expressing mine. Here is a theory which will
-appear very humble to the learned doctors who believe themselves to be
-in possession of absolute truth. We have a great advantage over them,
-gentlemen. They are obliged to be persecutors in order to be consistent;
-to us it is permitted to be tolerant,--tolerant for all, even for those,
-who, if they could, would not be so to us. Yes, let us even make this
-paradox: liberty is the best weapon against the enemies of liberty. Some
-fanatics say to us with sincerity, "We take your liberty, because you
-owe it to us according to your principles; but you shall not have ours,
-because we do not owe it to you." Ah, well! let us give them liberty
-all the same, and we do not imagine that in this exchange we shall be
-duped. No: liberty is the great dissolvent of all fanaticisms. In giving
-back liberty to my enemy, who would suppress me if he had the power, I
-shall really make him the worst gift. I oblige him to drink a strong
-beverage which shall turn his head, while I shall keep my own. Science
-supports the strange _régime_ of liberty: fanaticism and superstition do
-not support it. We do more harm to dogmatism by treating it with an
-implacable sweetness than by persecuting it. By this sweetness we even
-inculcate the principle which destroys all dogmatism at its root, by
-understanding that all metaphysical controversy is sterile, and that,
-for this reason, the truth for each one is as he believes it. The
-essential, then, is not to silence dangerous teaching, and hush the
-discordant voice: the essential is to place the human mind in a state in
-which the mass can see the uselessness of its rage. When this spirit
-becomes the atmosphere of society, the fanatic can no longer live. He is
-conquered by a pervading gentleness. If, instead of conducting
-Polyeuctus to punishment, the Roman magistrate had dismissed him
-smiling, and taken him amicably by the hand, Polyeuctus would not have
-continued: perhaps even in his old age he would have laughed at his
-escapade, and would have become a man of good sense.
-
-
-
-
-  CONFERENCE,
-
-  Royal Academy, London, April 16, 1880.
-
-  MARCUS AURELIUS.
-
-
-
-
-CONFERENCE AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION.
-
-MARCUS AURELIUS.
-
-
-Ladies and Gentlemen,--I have accepted with great pleasure the
-invitation to address you in this illustrious institution devoted to the
-noblest researches of science and of true philosophy. I have dreamed
-since my childhood of this island, where I have so many friends, and
-which I visit so tardily.
-
-I am a Briton of France. In our old books, England is always called the
-Island of the Saints; and, in truth, all our saints of Armorican
-Brittany, those saints of doubtful orthodoxy, who, if they were again
-alive, would be more in harmony with us than with the Jesuits, came from
-the Island of Britain. I have seen in their chapel the trough of stone
-in which they crossed the sea. Of all races, the Britain race is that
-which has ever taken religion the most seriously. Even when the progress
-of reflection has shown us that some articles among the catalogues of
-things which we have always regarded as fixed should be modified, we
-never break away from the symbol under which we have from the first
-approved the ideal.
-
-For our faith is not contained in obscure metaphysical propositions: it
-is in the affirmations of the heart. I have therefore chosen for my
-discourse to you, not one of those subtleties which divide, but one of
-those themes, dear to the soul, which bring nearer, and reconcile. I
-shall speak to you of that book resplendent with the divine spirit, that
-manual of submissive life which the most godly of men has left us,--the
-Cæsar, Marcus Aurelius Antonine. It is the glory of sovereigns that the
-most irreproachable model of virtue may be found in their ranks, and
-that the most beautiful lessons of patience and of self-control may come
-from a condition which one naturally believes to be subject to all the
-seductions of pleasure and of vanity.
-
-
-I.
-
-The inheritance of wisdom with a throne is always rare: I find in
-history but two striking examples of it,--in India, the succession of
-the three Mongol emperors, Bâber, Hoomâyoon, and Akbar; at Rome, at the
-head of the greatest empire that ever existed, the two admirable reigns
-of Antonine the Pious and Marcus Aurelius. Of the last two, I consider
-Antonine the greatest. His goodness did not lead him into faults: he was
-not tormented with that internal trouble which disturbed without
-ceasing the heart of his adopted son. This strange malady, this restless
-study of himself, this demon of scrupulousness, this fever of
-perfection, are signs of a less strong and distinguished nature. As the
-finest thoughts are those which are not written, Antonine had in this
-respect also a superiority over Marcus Aurelius. But let us add that we
-should be ignorant of Antonine, if Marcus Aurelius had not transmitted
-to us that exquisite portrait of his adopted father, in which he seems
-to have applied himself, through humility, to painting the picture of a
-better man than himself.
-
-It is he who has sketched in the first book of his "Thoughts,"--that
-admirable background where the noble and pure forms of his father,
-mother, grandfather, and tutors, move in a celestial light. Thanks to
-Marcus Aurelius, we are able to understand how these old Roman families,
-who had seen the reign of the wicked emperors, still retained honesty,
-dignity, justice, the civil, and, if I may dare to say it, the
-republican spirit. They lived there in admiration of Cato, of Brutus, of
-Thrasea, and of the great stoics whose souls had never bowed under
-tyranny. The reign of Domitian was abhorred by them. The sages who had
-endured it without submission were honored as heroes. The accession of
-the Antonines was only the coming to power of the society of sages, of
-whose just anger Tacitus has informed us,--a society of wise men formed
-by the league of all those who had revolted against the despotism of the
-first Cæsars.
-
-The salutary principle of adoption made the imperial court of the second
-century a true cradle of virtue. The noble and learned Nerva, in
-establishing this principle, assured the happiness of the human race
-during almost a hundred years, and gave to the world the best century of
-progress of which any knowledge has been preserved. The sovereignty thus
-possessed in common by a group of choice men who delegated it or shared
-it, according to the needs of the moment, lost a part of that attraction
-which renders it so dangerous.
-
-Men came to the throne without seeking it, but also without the right of
-birth, or in any sense the divine right: men came there understanding
-themselves, experienced, having been long prepared. The empire was a
-civil burden which each accepted in his turn, without dreaming of
-hastening the hour. Marcus Aurelius was made emperor so young, that the
-idea of ruling had scarcely occurred to him, and had not for a moment
-exercised its charm upon his mind.
-
-At eight years, when he was already _præsul_ of the Salian priests,
-Hadrian remarked this sad child, and loved him for his good-nature, his
-docility, and his incapability of falsehood. At eighteen years the
-empire was assured to him. He awaited it patiently for twenty-two years.
-The evening when Antonine, feeling himself about to die, after having
-given to the tribune the watchword, _Æquanimitas_, commanded the golden
-statue of Fortune, which was always in the apartment of the emperor, to
-be borne into that of his adopted son, he experienced neither surprise
-nor joy.
-
-He had long been sated with all joys, without having tasted them: he had
-seen the absolute vanity of them by the profoundness of his philosophy.
-
-The great inconvenience of practical life, and that which renders it
-insupportable to a superior man, is, that, if one carries into it the
-principles of the ideal, talents become defects; so that very often the
-accomplished man is less successful in it than one who is fitted by
-egotism or ordinary routine. Three or four times the virtue of Marcus
-Aurelius came near being his ruin. The first fault into which it led him
-was that of sharing the empire with Lucius Verus, to whom he was under
-no obligation. Verus was a frivolous and worthless man. Prodigies of
-goodness and delicacy were necessary in order to prevent his committing
-disastrous follies. The wise emperor, earnest and industrious, took with
-him in his _lectica_ (sedan) the senseless colleague whom he had given
-himself. He persisted in treating him seriously: he never once revolted
-against this sorry companionship. Like all well-bred men, Marcus
-Aurelius discommoded himself continually: his manners came from a
-general habit of firmness and dignity. Souls of this kind, either from
-respect for human nature, or in order not to wound others, resign
-themselves to the appearance of seeing no evil. Their life is a
-perpetual dissimulation.
-
-According to some, he even deceived himself, since, in his intimate
-intercourse with the gods, on the borders of the Granicus, speaking of
-his unworthy wife, he thanked them for having given him a wife "so
-amiable, so affectionate, so pure." I have shown elsewhere that the
-patience, or, if one chooses, the weakness, on this point, of Marcus
-Aurelius, has been somewhat exaggerated. Faustina had faults: the
-greatest one was that she disliked the friends of her husband; and, as
-these friends wrote history, she has paid the penalty before posterity.
-But a discriminating critic has no trouble in showing the exaggerations
-of the legend. Every thing indicates that Faustina at first found
-happiness and love in that villa at Lorium, or in that beautiful retreat
-at Lanuvium upon the highest points of the Alban mount, which Marcus
-Aurelius described to his tutor Fronto as an abode full of the purest
-joys. Then she became weary of too much wisdom. Let us tell all: the
-beautiful sentences of Marcus Aurelius, his austere virtue, his
-perpetual melancholy, might have become tiresome to a young and
-capricious woman possessed of an ardent temperament and marvellous
-beauty. He understood it, suffered it, and spoke not. Faustina remained
-always his "very good and very faithful wife." No one succeeded, even
-after her death, in persuading him to give up this pious lie. In a
-bas-relief which is still seen in the Museum of the Capitol at Rome,
-while Faustina is borne to heaven by a messenger of the gods, the
-excellent emperor regards her with a look full of love. It seems that at
-last he had deceived himself, and forgotten all. But through what a
-struggle he must have passed in order to do this! During long years, a
-sickness at heart slowly consumed him. The desperate effort which was
-the essence of his philosophy, this frenzy of renunciation, carried
-sometimes even to sophism, concealed an immense wound at the bottom. How
-necessary it must have been to bid adieu to happiness in order to reach
-such an excess! No one will ever understand all that this poor wounded
-heart suffered, the bitterness which that pale face concealed, always
-calm, always smiling. It is true that the farewell to happiness is the
-beginning of wisdom and the surest means of finding peace. There is
-nothing so sweet as the return of joy which follows the renunciation of
-joy; nothing so keen, so profound, so charming, as the enchantment of
-the disenchanted.
-
-Some historians, more or less imbued with that policy which believes
-itself to be superior, because it is not suspected of any philosophy,
-have naturally sought to prove that so accomplished a man was a bad
-administrator and a mediocre sovereign. It appears, in fact, that Marcus
-Aurelius sinned more than once by too much lenity. But never was there a
-reign more fruitful in reforms and progress. The public charity founded
-by Nerva and Trajan was admirably developed by him. New schools were
-established for poor children; the superintendents of provisions became
-functionaries of the first rank, and were chosen with extreme care;
-while the wants of poor young girls were cared for by the Institute of
-_Jeunes Faustiniennes_. The principle that the state has duties in some
-degree paternal towards its members (a principle which should be
-remembered with gratitude, even when it has been dispensed with),--this
-principle, I say, was proclaimed for the first time in the world by
-Trajan and his successors. Neither the puerile pomp of Oriental
-kingdoms, founded on the baseness and stupidity of men, nor the pedantic
-pride of the kingdoms of the middle ages, founded on an exaggerated
-sentiment for hereditary succession, and on a simple faith in the rights
-of blood, could give an idea of the utterly republican sovereignty of
-Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonine, and Marcus Aurelius.
-
-Nothing of the prince by hereditary or divine right, nothing of the
-military chieftain: it was a sort of grand civil magistracy, without
-resembling a court in any way, or depriving the emperor of his private
-character. Marcus Aurelius, in particular, was neither much nor little a
-king in the true sense of the word. His fortune was immense, but all
-employed for good: his aversion for "the Cæsars," whom he considered as
-a species of Sardanapali, magnificent, debauched, and cruel, burst out
-at each instant. The civility of his manners was extreme. He gave to the
-Senate all its ancient importance: when he was at Rome, he never missed
-a session, and left his place only when the Consul had pronounced the
-formula, "_Nihil vos moramar, patres conscripti_." Almost every year of
-his reign he made war, and he made it well, although he found in it only
-_ennui_. His listless campaigns against the Quadi and Marcomanni were
-very well conducted: the disgust which he felt for them did not prevent
-his most conscientious attention to them. It was in the course of one of
-these expeditions, that, encamped on the banks of the Granicus, in the
-midst of the monotonous plains of Hungary, he wrote the most beautiful
-pages of the exquisite book which has revealed his whole soul to us. It
-is probable, that, when very young, he kept a journal of his secret
-thoughts. He inscribed there the maxims to which he had recourse in
-order to fortify himself, the reminiscences of his favorite authors, the
-passages of the moralists which appealed most to him, the principles
-which had sustained him through the day, sometimes the reproaches which
-his scrupulous conscience addressed to him. "One seeks for himself
-solitary retreats, rustic cottages, sea-shore, or mountains: like
-others, thou lovest to dream of these good things. To what end, since it
-is permitted to thee to retire within thy soul each hour? Man has
-nowhere a more tranquil retreat, above all, if he has within himself
-those things, the contemplation of which will calm him. Learn, then, how
-to enjoy this retreat, and there renew thy strength. Let there be those
-short fundamental maxims, which above all will give again serenity to
-thy soul, and restore thee to a state in which to support with
-resignation the world to which thou shouldest return."
-
-During the sad winters of the North, this consolation became still more
-necessary to him. He was nearly sixty years old: old age was premature
-with him. One evening all the pictures of his pious youth returned to
-his remembrance, and he passed some delicious hours in calculating how
-much he owed to each one of the virtuous beings who had surrounded him.
-
-"Examples of my grandfather Verus,--sweetness of manners, unchangeable
-patience."
-
-"Qualities which one valued in my father, the souvenir which he has left
-me,--modesty, manly character."
-
-"To imitate the piety of my mother, her benevolence; to abstain, like
-her, not only from doing evil, but from conceiving the thought of it; to
-lead her frugal life, which so little resembled the habitual luxury of
-the rich."
-
-Then appeared to him, in turn, Diagnotus, who had inspired him with a
-taste for philosophy, and made agreeable to his eyes the pallet, the
-covering made of a simple skin, and all the apparel of Hellenic
-discipline; Junius Rusticus, who taught him to avoid all affectation of
-elegance in style, and loaned him the Conversations of Epictetus;
-Apollonius of Chalcis, who realized the Stoic ideal of extreme firmness
-and perfect sweetness; Sextus of Chaeroneia, so grave and so good;
-Alexander the grammarian, who censured with such refined politeness;
-Fronto, "who taught him the envy, duplicity, and hypocrisy of a tyrant,
-and the hardness which may exist in the heart of a patrician;" his
-brother Severus, "who made him understand Thrasia, Helvidius, Cato,
-Brutus, who gave him the idea of what a free government is, where the
-rule is the natural equality of the citizens and the equality of their
-rights; of a royalty which places before all else the respect for the
-liberty of the citizens;" and, rising above all others in his immaculate
-grandeur, Antonine, his father by adoption, whose picture he traces for
-us with redoubled gratitude and love. "I thank the gods," said he
-finally, "for having given me good ancestors, good parents, a good
-sister, good teachers, and in my surroundings, in my relations, in my
-friends, men almost all filled with goodness. I never allowed myself to
-be wanting in deference towards them: from my natural disposition, I
-could sometimes have shown irreverence; but the benevolence of the gods
-never permitted the occasion to present itself. I am also indebted to
-the gods, who preserved pure the flower of my youth, for having been
-reared under the rule of a prince, and a father who strove to free my
-soul from all trace of pride, to make me understand that it is possible,
-while living in a palace, to dispense with guards, with splendid
-clothes, with torches, with statues, to teach me, in short, that a
-prince can almost contract his life within the limits of that of a
-simple citizen, without, on that account, showing less nobility and
-vigor when he comes to be an emperor, and transact the affairs of state.
-They gave me a brother, whose manners were a continual exhortation to
-watch over myself, while his deference and attachment should have made
-the joy of my heart.
-
-"Thanks to the gods again, that I have made haste to raise those who
-have cared for my education, to the honors which they seemed to desire.
-They have enabled me to understand Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus, and
-have held out to me, surrounded with brilliant light, the picture of a
-life conformed to nature. I have fallen short of it in the end, it is
-true; but it is my fault. If my body has long supported the rude life
-which I lead; if, in spite of my frequent neglect of Rusticus, I have
-never overstepped the bounds, or done any thing of which I should
-repent; if my mother, who died young, was able, nevertheless, to pass
-her last years near me; if, whenever I have wished to succor the poor or
-afflicted, money has never been wanting; if I have never needed to
-accept any thing from others; if I have a wife of an amiable,
-affectionate, and pure character; if I have found many capable men for
-the education of my children; if, at the beginning of my passion for
-philosophy, I did not become the prey of a sophist,--it is to the gods
-that I owe it all. Yes, so many blessings could only be the result of
-the aid of the gods and a happy fortune."
-
-This divine candor breathes in every page. No one has ever written more
-simply than did he for the sole purpose of unburdening his heart to
-God, his only witness. There is not a shadow of system in it. Marcus
-Aurelius, to speak exactly, had no philosophy: although he owed almost
-every thing to stoicism transformed by the Roman spirit, it is of no
-school. According to our idea, he has too little curiosity; for he knows
-not all that a contemporary of Ptolemy and Galen should know: he has
-some opinions on the system of the world, which were not up to the
-highest science of his time. But his moral thought, thus detached from
-all alliance with a system, reaches a singular height. The author of the
-book, "The Imitation," himself, although free from the quarrels of the
-schools, does not rise to this, for his manner of feeling is essentially
-Christian. Take away his Christian dogmas, and his book retains only a
-portion of its charm. The book of Marcus Aurelius, having no dogmatic
-base, preserves its freshness eternally. Every one, from the atheist, or
-he who believes himself one, to the man who is the most devoted to the
-especial creeds of each worship, can find in it some fruits of
-edification. It is the most purely human book which exists. It deals
-with no question of controversy. In theology, Marcus Aurelius floats
-between pure Deism, Polytheism interpreted in a physical sense according
-to the manner of the Stoics, and a sort of cosmic Pantheism. He holds
-not much more firmly to one hypothesis than to the other, and he uses
-indiscriminately the three vocabularies of the Deist, Polytheist, and
-Pantheist. His considerations have always two sides, according as God
-and the soul have, or have not, reality. It is the reasoning which we do
-each hour; for, if the most complete Materialism is right, we who have
-believed in truth and goodness shall be no more duped than others. If
-Idealism is right, we have been the true sages, and we have been wise in
-the only manner which becomes us, that is to say, with no selfish
-waiting, without having looked for a remuneration.
-
-
-II.
-
-We here touch a great secret of moral philosophy and religion. Marcus
-Aurelius has no speculative philosophy; his theology is utterly
-contradictory; he has no idea founded upon the soul and immortality. How
-could he be so moral without the beliefs that are now regarded as the
-foundations of morality? how so profoundly religious, without having
-professed one of the dogmas of what is called natural religion? It is
-important to make this inquiry.
-
-The doubts, which, to the view of speculative reason, hover above the
-truths of natural religion, are not, as Kant has admirably shown,
-accidental doubts, capable of being removed, belonging, as is sometimes
-imagined, to certain conditions of the human mind. These doubts are
-inherent to the nature even of these truths, if one may say it without a
-paradox; and, if these doubts were removed, the truths with which they
-quarrel would disappear at the same time. Let us suppose, in short, a
-direct, positive proof, evident to all, of future sufferings and
-rewards: where will be the merit of doing good? They would be but fools
-whom gayety of heart should hasten to damnation. A crowd of base souls
-would secure their salvation without concealment: they would, in a
-sense, force the divine power. Who does not see, that, in such a system,
-there is neither morality nor religion? In the moral and religious order
-it is indispensable to believe without demonstration. It deals not with
-certainty: it acts by faith. This is what Deism forgets, with its habits
-of intemperate affirmation. It forgets that creeds too precise
-concerning human destiny would destroy all moral merit. For us, they
-would say that we should do as did St. Louis when he was told of the
-miraculous wafer,--we should refuse to see it. What need have we of
-these brutal proofs which trammel our liberty?
-
-We should fear to become assimilated to those speculators in virtue, or
-those vulgar cowards, who mingle with spiritual things the gross
-selfishness of practical life. In the days which followed the belief in
-the resurrection of Jesus, this sentiment was manifested in the most
-touching manner. The faithful in heart, the sensitive ones, preferred to
-believe without seeing. "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet
-have believed," became the word for the time. Charming words! Eternal
-symbol of tender and generous Idealism, which has a horror of touching
-with the hands that which should only be seen with the heart!
-
-Our good Marcus Aurelius, on this point as on all others, was in advance
-of the ages. He never cared to argue with himself concerning God and the
-soul. As if he had read the "Criticism of Practical Reason," he saw
-clearly, that, where the Infinite is concerned, no formula is absolute;
-and that, in such matters, one has no chance of seeing the truth during
-his life, without much self-contradiction. He distinctly separates moral
-beauty from all theoretical theology. He allows duty to depend on no
-metaphysical opinion of the First Cause. The intimate union with an
-unseen god was never carried to a more unheard-of delicacy. "To offer to
-the government of God that which is within thee,--a strong being ripened
-by age, a friend of the public good, a Roman, an emperor, a soldier at
-his post awaiting the signal of the trumpet, a man ready to quit life
-without regret." "There are many grains of incense destined to the same
-altar: one falls sooner, the other later, in the fire; but the
-difference is nothing." "Man should live according to nature during the
-few days that are given him on the earth, and, when the moment of
-leaving it comes, should submit himself sweetly, as an olive, which, in
-falling, blesses the tree which has produced it, and renders thanks to
-the branch which has borne it." "All that which thou arrangest is suited
-to me, O Cosmos! Nothing of that which comes from thee is premature or
-backward to me. I find my fruit in that which thy seasons bear, O
-Nature! From thee comes all; in thee is all; to thee all returns." "O
-man! thou hast been a citizen in the great city: what matters it to thee
-to have remained three or five years? That which is governed by laws is
-unjust for no one. What is there, then, so sorrowful in being sent from
-the city, not by a tyrant, not by an unjust judge, but by the same
-nature which allowed thee to enter there? It is as if a comedian is
-discharged from the theatre by the same prætor who engaged him. But wilt
-thou say, 'I have not played the five acts; I have played but three?'
-Thou sayest well; but in life three acts suffice to complete the entire
-piece.... Go, then, content, since he who dismisses thee is content."
-
-Is this to say that he never revolted against the strange fate which
-leaves man alone face to face with the needs of devotion, of sacrifice,
-of heroism, and nature with its transcendent immorality, its supreme
-disdain for virtue? No. Once at least the absurdity, the colossal
-iniquity, of death, strikes him. But soon his temperament, completely
-mortified, resumes its power, and he becomes calm. "How happens it that
-the gods, who have ordered all things so well, and with so much love for
-men, should have forgotten one thing only; that is, that men of tried
-virtue, who during their lives have had a sort of interchange of
-relations with divinity, who have made themselves loved by it on account
-of their pious acts and their sacrifices, live not after death, but may
-be extinguished forever?
-
-"Since it is so, be sure, that, if it should be otherwise, they (the
-gods) would not have failed; for, if it had been just, it would have
-been possible; if it had been suitable to nature, nature would have
-permitted it. Consequently, when it is not thus, strengthen thyself in
-this consideration, that it was not necessary that it should be thus.
-Thou thyself seest plainly that to make such a demand is to dispute his
-right with God. Now, we would not thus contend with the gods if they
-were not absolutely good and absolutely just: if they are so, they have
-allowed nothing to make a part of the order of the world which is
-contrary to justice and right."
-
-Ah! is it too much resignation, ladies and gentlemen? If it is veritably
-thus, we have the right to complain. To say, that, if this world has not
-its counterpart, the man who is sacrificed to truth or right ought to
-leave it content, and absolve the gods,--that is too _naïve_. No, he has
-a right to blaspheme them. For, in short, why has his credulity been
-thus abused? Why should he have been endowed with deceitful instincts,
-of which he has been the honest dupe? Wherefore is this premium given to
-the frivolous or wicked man? Is it, then, he who is not deceived who is
-the wise man? Then cursed be the gods who so adjudge their preferences!
-I desire that the future may be an enigma; but, if there is no future,
-then this world is a frightful ambuscade. Take notice that our wish is
-not that of the vulgar clown. We wish not to see the chastisement of the
-culpable, nor to meddle with the interests of our virtue. Our wish has
-no selfishness: it is simply to be, to remain in accord with light, to
-continue the thought we have begun, to know more of it, to enjoy some
-day that truth which we seek with so much labor, to see the triumph of
-the good which we have loved. Nothing is more legitimate. The worthy
-emperor, moreover, was also sensible of it: "What! the light of a lamp
-burns until the moment in which it is extinguished, and loses nothing of
-its brilliancy, and the truth, justice, temperance, which are in thee
-shall be extinguished with thee!" All his life was passed in this noble
-hesitation. If he sinned, it was through too much piety. Less resigned,
-he would have been more just; for surely to demand that there should be
-an intimate and sympathetic witness of the struggles which we endure for
-goodness and truth is not to ask too much.
-
-It is possible, also, that if his philosophy had been less exclusively
-moral, if it had implied a more curious study of history and of the
-universe, it would have escaped a certain excessive rigor. Like the
-ascetic Christians, Marcus Aurelius sometimes carried renunciation to
-dryness and subtlety. One feels that this calmness, which never belies
-itself, is obtained through an immense effort. Certainly, evil had never
-an attraction for him: he had no passion to struggle against. "Whatever
-one may do or say," writes he, "it is necessary that I should be a good
-man; as the emerald might say, 'Whatever one may say or do, I must
-remain an emerald, and retain my color.'" But, in order to hold one's
-self always upon the icy summit of stoicism, it is necessary to do cruel
-violence to nature, and to cut away from it more than one noble element.
-This perpetual repetition of the same reasoning, the thousand figures
-under which he seeks to represent to himself the vanity of all things,
-these frequently artless proofs of universal frivolity, testify to
-strifes which he has passed through in order to extinguish all desire in
-himself. At times we find in it something harsh and sad. The reading of
-Marcus Aurelius strengthens, but it does not console: it leaves a void
-in the soul which is at once cruel and delightful, which one would not
-exchange for full satisfaction. Humility, renunciation, severity towards
-self, were never carried further. Glory--that last illusion of great
-souls--is reduced to nothingness. It is needful to do right without
-disturbing one's self as to whether any one knows that we do it. He
-perceives that history will speak of him: he sometimes dreams of the men
-of the past with whom the future will associate him. "If they have only
-played the part of tragic actors," said he, "no one has condemned me to
-imitate them." The absolute mortification at which he had arrived had
-destroyed the last fibre of self-love in him.
-
-The consequences of this austere philosophy might have been hardness and
-obstinacy. It is here that the rare goodness of the nature of Marcus
-Aurelius shines out in its full brilliancy. His severity is only for
-himself. The fruit of this great tension of soul is an infinite
-benevolence. All his life was a study of how to return good for evil. At
-evening, after some sad experience of human perversity, he wrote only
-as follows: "If thou canst, correct them; on the other hand, remember
-that thou shouldest exercise benevolence towards those who have been
-given to thee. The gods themselves are benevolent to men: they aid
-them,--so great is their goodness!--to acquire health, riches, glory.
-Thou art permitted to be like the gods." Another day, some one was very
-wicked; for see what he wrote upon his tablets: "Such is the order of
-nature: men of this sort must act thus from necessity. To wish it to be
-otherwise is to wish that the fig-tree shall bear no figs. Remember,
-thou, in one word, this thing: in a very short time thou and he will
-die; soon after, your names even will be known no more." The thoughts of
-a universal pardon recur without ceasing. At times a scarcely
-perceptible smile is mingled with this charming goodness,--"The best
-method of avenging one's self upon the wicked is not to be like them;"
-or a light stroke of pride,--"It is a royal thing to hear evil said of
-one's self when one does right." One day he thus reproached himself:
-"Thou hast forgotten," said he, "what holy relationship unites each man
-to the human race,--a relationship not of blood, or of birth, but the
-participation in the same intelligence. Thou hast forgotten that the
-reasoning power of each one is a god, derived from the Supreme Being."
-
-In the business of life he was always exact, although a little
-ingenuous, as very good men usually are. The nine reasons for
-forbearance which he valued for himself (book xi. art. 18) show us his
-charming good-nature before family troubles, which perhaps came to him
-through his unworthy son. "If, upon occasion," said he to himself, "thou
-exhortest him quietly, and shalt give to him without anger some lessons
-like these,--'No, my child; we are born for each other. It is not I who
-suffer the evil, it is thou who doest it thyself, my child!'--show him
-adroitly, by a general consideration, that such is the rule; that
-neither the bees, nor the animals who live naturally in herds, resemble
-him. Say this without mockery or insult, with an air of true affection,
-with a heart which is not excited by anger; not as a pedant, not for the
-sake of being admired by those who are present; think only of him."
-
-Commodus (if it was for him that he thus acted) was, without doubt,
-little touched by this good paternal rhetoric. One of the maxims of the
-excellent emperor was, that the wicked are unhappy, that one is only
-wicked in spite of himself, and through ignorance. He pitied those who
-were not like himself: he did not believe that he had the right to
-obtrude himself upon them.
-
-He well understood the baseness of men; but he did not avow it. This
-willing blindness is the defect of choice spirits. The world not being
-all that they could wish, they lie to themselves in order not to see it
-as it is. From thence arises an expediency in their judgments. In Marcus
-Aurelius, this expediency sometimes provokes us a little. If we wished
-to believe him, his instructors, several of whom were men of mediocrity,
-were, without exception, superior men. One would say that every one near
-him had been virtuous. This is carried to such a point, that one is
-forced to ask if the brother for whom he pronounces such a grand eulogy
-in his thanks to the gods was not his adopted brother, Lucius Verus. It
-is certain that the good emperor was capable of strong illusions when he
-undertook to lend to others his own virtues.
-
-This quality, expressed as an ancient opinion, especially by the pen of
-the Emperor Julian, caused him to commit an enormous error, which was
-that of not disinheriting Commodus. This is one of those things which it
-is easy to say at a distance, when there are no obstacles present, and
-when one reasons without facts. It is forgotten at first that the
-emperors, who, after Nerva, made adoption so fruitful a political
-system, had no sons. Adoption, with the exheredation of the son or
-grandson, occurred in the first century of the empire without good
-results. Marcus Aurelius was evidently from principle in favor of
-direct inheritance, in which he saw the advantage of the prevention of
-competition.
-
-After the birth of Commodus, in 161, he presented him alone to the
-people, although he had a twin-brother: he frequently took him in his
-arms and renewed this act, which was a sort of proclamation. In 166
-Lucius Verus demanded that the two sons of Marcus, Commodus and Annius
-Verus, should be made Cæsars. In 172 Commodus shared with his father the
-title of Germanicus. In 173, after the repression of the revolt of
-Avidius, the Senate, in order to recognize in some way the family
-disinterestedness which Marcus Aurelius had shown, demanded by
-acclamation the empire and the tribunitial power for Commodus.
-
-Already the natural wickedness of the latter had betrayed itself by more
-than one symptom known to his tutors; but how shall one foresee the
-future from a few naughty acts of a child of twelve years? In 176-177
-his father made him _Imperator_, Consul, Augustus. This was certainly an
-imprudence; but he was bound by his previous acts: Commodus, moreover,
-still restrained himself. In later years, the evil completely revealed
-itself. On each page of the last books of the "Thoughts," we see the
-trace of the martyr within the excellent father, of the accomplished
-emperor, who saw a monster growing up beside him, ready to succeed him,
-and to take in every thing through antipathy, the opposite course from
-that which he had believed to be for the good of men. The thought of
-disinheriting Commodus must, without doubt, have come often to Marcus
-Aurelius. But it was too late. After having associated him in the
-empire, after having so many times proclaimed him to the legions as
-perfect and accomplished, to come before the world and declare him to be
-unworthy would be a scandal. Marcus was caught in his own phrases, by
-that style of benevolent expediency which was too habitual with him.
-And, after all, Commodus was only seventeen years old: who could be sure
-that he would not reform? Even after the death of Marcus Aurelius this
-was hoped for. Commodus at first showed the intention of following the
-counsels of meritorious persons with whom his father had surrounded him.
-
-The reproach which is made, then, against Marcus Aurelius, is not that
-of not having, but of having, a son. It was not his fault if the age
-could not support so much wisdom. In philosophy, the great emperor had
-placed the ideal of virtue so high, that no one would care to follow
-him. In politics, his benevolent optimism had enfeebled the state
-services, above all, the army. In religion, in order not to be too much
-bound by a religion of the state, of which he saw the weakness, he
-prepared the great triumph of the non-official worship, and left a
-reproach to hover above his memory,--unjust, it is true; but even its
-shadow should not be found in so pure a life. We touch here upon one of
-the most delicate points in the biography of Marcus Aurelius. It is
-unhappily certain, that, under his reign, Christians were condemned to
-death, and executed. The policy of his predecessors had been firm in
-this particular. Trajan, Antonine, Hadrian himself, saw in the
-Christians a secret sect, anti-social, dreaming of overturning the
-empire. Like all men true to the old Roman principles, they believed in
-the necessity of repressing them. There was no need of special edicts:
-the laws against the _c[oe]tus illiciti_, the _illicita collegia_, were
-numerous. The Christians fell in the most explicit sense under the force
-of these laws. Truly, it would have been worthy of the wise emperor who
-introduced so many reforms full of humanity, to suppress the edicts
-which entailed such cruel and unjust consequences. But it is necessary
-to observe primarily, that the true spirit of liberty, as we understand
-it, was not then understood by any one; and that Christianity, when it
-was master, practised it no more than the Pagan emperors. In the second
-place, the abrogation of the laws against illicit societies would have
-been the ruin of the empire, founded essentially upon the principle that
-the state ought not to admit within its bosom any society differing
-from it. The principle was bad, according to our ideas: it is very
-certain, at least, that it was the corner-stone in the Roman
-constitution. Marcus Aurelius, far from exaggerating it, extenuated it
-with all his powers; and one of the glories of his reign is the
-extension of the right of association. However, he did not go to the
-root: he did not completely abolish the laws against the _collegia
-illicita_, and in the provinces there resulted from them some processes
-infinitely to be regretted. The reproach which can be made against him
-is the same that might be made to the rulers of our day, who do not
-suppress with a stroke of the pen all the laws restrictive of the
-liberties of re-union, of association, and of the press.
-
-From the distance at which we stand, we can see that Marcus Aurelius, in
-being more completely liberal, would have been wiser. Perhaps
-Christianity left free would have developed in a manner less disastrous
-the theocratic and absolute principle which was in it; but one cannot
-reproach a man with not having stirred up a radical revolution on
-account of a prevision of what would occur several centuries after him.
-Trajan, Hadrian, Antonine, Marcus Aurelius, could not know the
-principles of general history and political economy which have been
-understood only in our time, and which only our last revolutions could
-reveal. In any case, the mansuetude of the good emperor was in this
-respect shielded from all reproach. No one has the right to be more
-exacting in this respect than was Tertullian. "Consult your annals,"
-said he to the Roman magistrates. "You will then see that the princes
-who have been severe towards us are of those who have held to the honor
-of having been our persecutors. On the contrary, all the princes who
-have respected divine and human laws include but one who persecuted the
-Christians. We can even name one of them who declared himself their
-protector,--the wise Marcus Aurelius. If he did not openly revoke the
-edicts against our brethren, he destroyed their power by the severe
-penalties which he declared against their accusers." It is necessary to
-remember that the Roman Empire was ten or twelve times as large as
-France, and that the responsibility of the emperor was very little in
-the judgments which were rendered in the provinces. It is necessary,
-moreover, to recall the fact that Christianity claimed not only the
-liberty of worship: all the creeds which tolerated each other were
-allowed much freedom in the empire. Christianity and Judaism were the
-exceptions to this rule on account of their intolerance and spirit of
-exclusion.
-
-We have, then, good reason to mourn sincerely for Marcus Aurelius. Under
-him philosophy reigned. One moment, thanks to him, the world was
-governed by the best and greatest man of his age. Frightful decadences
-followed; but the little casket which contained the "Thoughts" on the
-banks of the Granicus was saved. From it came forth that incomparable
-book in which Epictetus was surpassed, that Evangel of those who believe
-not in the supernatural, which has not been comprehended until our day.
-Veritable, eternal Evangel, the book of "Thoughts," which will never
-grow old, because it asserts no dogma. The virtue of Marcus Aurelius,
-like our own, rests upon reason, upon nature. St. Louis was a very
-virtuous man, because he was a Christian: Marcus Aurelius was the most
-godly of men, not because he was a Pagan, but because he was a gifted
-man. He was the honor of human nature, and not of an established
-religion. Science may yet destroy, in appearance, God and the immortal
-soul; but the book of the "Thoughts" will still remain young with life
-and truth.
-
-The religion of Marcus Aurelius is the absolute religion, that which
-results from the simple fact of a high moral conscience placed face to
-face with the universe. It is of no race, neither of any country. No
-revolution, no change, no discovery, will have power to affect it.
-
-
-
-
-  Transcriber's Notes:
-
-    Phrases in italics are indicated by _italics_.
-
-    Words in the text which were in small-caps were
-      converted to title-case.
-
-    The "oe" ligature is indicated by "[oe]" (e.g. Ph[oe]nician).
-
-    Missing word added:
-      pg  34  the word "it" has been added to the phrase:
-        "if (it) had been announced"
-
-    Words re-arranged:
-      pg 126  "the be strongest" --> "be the strongest"
-
-    Typos corrected:
-      pg  32  "Pysche" --> "Psyche"
-      pg  54  "apochryphal" --> "apocryphal"
-      pg  95  "Judean" --> "Judæan" (2 occurrences)
-      pg 109  "Mithracism" --> "Mithraicism"
-      pg 150  "ctizens" --> "citizens"
-
-
-
-
-
-
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