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diff --git a/old/51793-8.txt b/old/51793-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9d3d092..0000000 --- a/old/51793-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,26846 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of Freethought Ancient and -Modern, Volume 1 of 2, by John M. Robertson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 1 of 2 - Third edition, Revised and Expanded, in two volumes - -Author: John M. Robertson - -Release Date: April 19, 2016 [EBook #51793] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHORT HISTORY--FREETHOUGHT, VOL 1 *** - - - - -Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project -Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously -made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - A SHORT HISTORY - OF - FREETHOUGHT - - ANCIENT AND MODERN - - - - BY - JOHN M. ROBERTSON - - - - THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND EXPANDED - - IN TWO VOLUMES - - Vol. I - - (ISSUED FOR THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LIMITED) - - London: - WATTS & CO., - JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C. - - 1915 - - - - - - - - TO - SYDNEY ANSELL GIMSON - - - - - - - -CONTENTS - - -VOLUME I - - PAGE - - Preface xi - - Chap. I--Introductory - - § 1. Origin and Meaning of the word Freethought 1 - § 2. Previous histories 10 - § 3. The Psychology of Freethinking 15 - - Chap. II--Primitive Freethinking 22 - - Chap. III--Progress under Ancient Religions - - § 1. Early Association and Competition of Cults 44 - § 2. The Process in India 48 - § 3. Mesopotamia 61 - § 4. Ancient Persia 65 - § 5. Egypt 69 - § 6. Phoenicia 78 - § 7. Ancient China 82 - § 8. Mexico and Peru 88 - § 9. The Common Forces of Degeneration 91 - - Chap. IV--Relative Freethought in Israel - - § 1. The Early Hebrews 97 - § 2. The manipulated prophetic literature 104 - § 3. The Post-Exilic Literature 109 - - Chap. V--Freethought in Greece 120 - - § 1. Beginnings of Ionic Culture 123 - § 2. Homer, Stesichoros, Pindar, and Æschylus 126 - § 3. The Culture-Conditions 134 - § 4. From Thales to the Eleatic School 136 - § 5. Pythagoras and Magna Graecia 148 - § 6. Anaxagoras, Perikles, and Aspasia 152 - § 7. From Demokritos to Euripides 157 - § 8. Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle 168 - § 9. Post-Alexandrian Greece: Ephoros, Pyrrho, - Zeno, Epicurus, Theodorus, Diagoras, Stilpo, - Bion, Strato, Evêmeros, Carneades, Clitomachos; - The Sciences; Advance and Decline of Astronomy; - Lucian, Sextus Empiricus, Polybius, Strabo; - Summary 180 - - Chap. VI--Freethought in ancient Rome - - § 1. Culture Beginnings, to Ennius and the Greeks 194 - § 2. Lucretius, Cicero, Cæsar 201 - § 3. Decline under the Empire 207 - § 4. The higher Pagan ethics 215 - - Chap. VII--Ancient Christianity and its Opponents - - § 1. Freethought in the Gospels: contradictory - forces 218 - § 2. The Epistles: their anti-rationalism 224 - § 3. Anti-pagan rationalism. The Gnostics 224 - § 4. Rationalistic heresy. Arius. Pelagius. - Jovinian. Aerius. Vigilantius. The religious - wars 229 - § 5. Anti-Christian thought: its decline. Celsus. - Last lights of critical thought. Macrobius. - Theodore. Photinus. The expulsion of science. - The appropriation of pagan endowments 235 - § 6. The intellectual and moral decadence. Boethius 243 - - Chap. VIII--Freethought under Islam - - § 1. Mohammed and his contemporaries. - Early "Zendekism" 248 - § 2. The Influence of the Koran 252 - § 3. Saracen freethought in the East. The - Motazilites. The Spread of Culture. - Intellectual Collapse 253 - § 4. Al-Ma'arri and Omar Khayyám. Sufîism 261 - § 5. Arab Philosophy and Moorish freethought. - Avempace. Abubacer. Averroës. Ibn Khaldun 266 - § 6. Rationalism in later Islam. Sufîism. Bâbism in - contemporary Persia. Freethinking in Mohammedan - India and Africa 272 - - Chap. IX--Christendom in the Middle Ages 277 - - § 1. Heresy in Byzantium. Iconoclasm. Leo. Photius. - Michael. The early Paulicians 277 - § 2. Critical Heresy in the West. Vergilius. - Claudius. Agobard. John Scotus. The case of - Gottschalk. Berengar. Roscelin. Nominalism and - Realism. Heresy in Florence and in France 282 - § 3. Popular Anti-Clerical Heresy. The Paulicians - (Cathari) in Western Europe: their anticipation - of Protestantism. Abuses of the Church and - papacy. Vogue of anti-clerical heresy. Peter - de Brueys. Eudo. Paterini. Waldenses 291 - § 4. Heresy in Southern France. The crusade against - Albigensian heresy. Arrest of Provençal - civilization: Rise and character of the - Inquisition 299 - § 5. Freethought in the Schools. The problem set to - Anselm. Roscelin. Nominalism and Realism. - Testimony of Giraldus Cambrensis: Simon of - Tournay. William of Conches. Abailard. John of - Salisbury 307 - § 6. Saracen and Jewish Influences. Maimonides. Ibn - Ezra. Averroïsts. Amalrich. David of Dinant. - Thomas Aquinas. Unbelief at Paris University. - Suppressive action of the Church. Judicial - torture 315 - § 7. Freethought in Italy. Anti-clericalism in - Florence. Frederick II. Michael Scotus. Dante's - views. Pietro of Abano. Brunetto Latini. Cecco - Stabili. Boccaccio. Petrarch. Averroïsm 322 - § 8. Sects and Orders. Italian developments. The - Brethren of the Free Spirit. Beghards, etc. - Franciscans. Humiliati. Abbot Joachim. - Segarelli and Dolcino 331 - § 9. Thought in Spain. Arab influences. Heresy under - Alfonso X. The first Inquisition. Arnaldo of - Villanueva. Enrique IV. Pedro do Osma. The New - Inquisition. The causes of Spanish evolution 337 - § 10. Thought in England. Roger Bacon. Chaucer. - Items in Piers Ploughman. Lollardry. Wiclif 342 - § 11. Thought in France. François de Rues. Jean de - Meung. Reynard the Fox. Paris university. The - sects. The Templars. William of Occam. Marsiglio. - Pierre Aureol. Nominalism and Realism. "Double - truth." Unbelief in the Paris schools 351 - § 12. Thought in the Teutonic Countries. The - Minnesingers. Walter der Vogelweide. Master - Eckhart. Sects. The Imitatio Christi 361 - - Chap. X--Freethought in the Renaissance - - § 1. The Italian Evolution. Saracen Sources. - Anti-clericalism. Discredit of the Church. - Lorenzo Valla. Masuccio. Pulci. Executions - for blasphemy. Averroïsm. Nifo. Unbelief at - Rome. Leonardo da Vinci. Platonism. Pico della - Mirandola. Machiavelli. Guicciardini. Belief - in witchcraft. Pomponazzi. Pomponio Leto. The - survival of Averroïsm. Jewish freethought 365 - § 2. The French Evolution. Desperiers. Rabelais. - Dolet. The Vaudois massacres. Unbelieving - Churchmen. Marguerite of Navarre. Ronsard. - Bodin. Vallée. Estienne. Pleas for tolerance. - Revival of Stoicism 379 - § 3. The English Evolution. Reginald Pecock. Duke - Humphrey. Unbelief in immortality 393 - § 4. The Remaining European Countries. Nicolaus of - Cusa. Hermann van Ryswyck. Astrology and - science. Summary 398 - - Chap. XI--The Reformation Politically Considered - - § 1. The German Conditions. The New Learning. - Economic Causation 403 - § 2. The Problem in Italy, Spain, and the - Netherlands. Savonarola. Catholic reaction. - The New Inquisition. Heresy in Italy. Its - suppression. The Index Expurgatorius. Italian - and northern "character" 407 - § 3. The Hussite Failure in Bohemia. Early - anti-clericalism. Militz and his school. Huss - and Jerome. The Taborite wars. Helchitsky 415 - § 4. Anti-Papalism in Hungary. Early - anti-clericalism. Rapid success of the - Reformation. Its decline. New heresy. - Socinianism. Biandrata. Davides. Recovery - of the Church 419 - § 5. Protestantism in Poland. Early anti-clericalism. - Inroad of Protestantism. Growth of Unitarianism. - Goniondzki. Pauli. Catholic reaction 422 - § 6. The Struggle in France. Attitude of King - Francis. Economic issues. Pre-Lutheran - Protestantism. Persecution. Berquin. Protestant - violences. Fortunes of the cause in France 427 - § 7. The Political Process in Britain. England not - specially anti-papal. The causation. Henry's - divorce. Spoliation 431 - - Chap. XII--The Reformation and Freethought - - § 1. Germany and Switzerland. Mutianus. Crotus. - Bebel. Rise of Unitarianism. Luther and - Melanchthon. Their anti-democratic politics. - Their dogmatism. Zwingli. Calvin and his - victims. Gruet. The Libertini. Servetus. - Gripaldi. Calvin's polity. Ochino. Anthoine. - Moral failure of Protestantism 434 - § 2. England. Henry and Wolsey. Advanced heresy. - Persecution. Sir Thomas More 458 - § 3. The Netherlands. Calvinism and Arminianism. - Reaction towards Catholicism. Barneveldt. - Grotius 461 - § 4. Conclusion. The intellectual failure. Indirect - gains to freedom 464 - - Chap. XIII.--The Rise of Modern Freethought - - § 1. The Italian Influence. Deism. Unitarianism. - Latitudinarianism. Aconzio. Nizolio. Pereira 466 - § 2. Spain. Huarte 470 - § 3. France. Treatises against atheism: De Mornay. - New skepticism: Sanchez. Montaigne. Charron. - The Satyre-Menippée. Garasse on the Beaux - Esprits. Mersenne's attack 473 - - - - - - - -PREFACE - - -This, the third edition, represents a considerable expansion of the -second (1906), which in its turn was a considerable expansion of the -first (1899). The book now somewhat approximates, in point of fullness, -to the modest ideal aimed at. Anything much fuller would cease to be a -"Short History." - -The process of revision, carried on since the last issue, has, -I hope, meant some further advance towards correctness, and some -improvement in arrangement--a particularly difficult matter in such -a book. As before, the many critical excursus have been so printed -that they may be recognized and skipped by those readers who care -to follow only the narrative. The chapter on the nineteenth century, -though much expanded, like those on the eighteenth, remains, I fear, -open to objection on the score of scantiness. I can only plead that -the ample and excellent work of Mr. A. W. Benn has now substantially -met the need for a fuller survey of that period. - -It is fitting that I should acknowledge the generous critical -reception given by most reviewers to the previous editions of a -book which, breaking as it did new ground, lacked the gain from -previous example that accrues to most historical writing. My many -debts to historians of culture are, I trust, indicated in the notes; -but I have to repeat my former acknowledgments as to the Biographical -Dictionary of Freethinkers of my dead friend, J. M. Wheeler, inasmuch -as the aid I have had from his manifold research does not thus appear -on the surface. - -It remains to add my thanks to a number of friendly correspondents -who have assisted me by pointing out shortcomings and errors. Further -assistance of the same kind will be gratefully welcomed. It is still -my hope that the book may help some more leisured student in the -construction of a more massive record of the development of rational -thought on the side of human life with which it deals. - -An apology is perhaps due to the purchasers of the second edition, -which is now superseded by a fuller record. I can but plead that I -have been unable otherwise to serve their need; and express a hope -that the low price of the present edition will be a compensation. - - - J. M. R. - - September, 1914. - - - - - - - -A SHORT HISTORY OF FREETHOUGHT - - -CHAPTER I - -INTRODUCTORY - - -§ 1. ORIGIN AND MEANING OF THE WORD - -The words "freethinking" and "freethinker" first appear in English -literature about the end of the seventeenth century, and seem to -have originated there and then, as we do not find them earlier in -French or in Italian, [1] the only other modern literatures wherein -the phenomena for which the words stand had previously arisen. - - -The title of "atheist" had been from time immemorial applied to every -shade of serious heresy by the orthodox, as when the early Christians -were so described by the image-adoring polytheists around them; and -in Latin Christendom the term infidelis, translating the apistos -of the New Testament, which primarily applied to Jews and pagans, -[2] was easily extensible, as in the writings of Augustine, to all -who challenged or doubted articles of ordinary Christian belief, -all alike being regarded as consigned to perdition. [3] It is by -this line of descent that the term "infidelity," applied to doubt -on such doctrines as that of the future state, comes up in England -in the fifteenth century. [4] It implied no systematic or critical -thinking. The label of "deist," presumably self-applied by the bearers, -begins to come into use in French about the middle of the sixteenth -century; [5] and that of "naturalist," also presumably chosen by -those who bore it, came into currency about the same time. Lechler -traces the latter term in the Latin form as far back as the MS. of -the Heptaplomeres of Bodin, dated 1588; but it was common before that -date, as De Mornay in the preface to his De la Vérité de la religion -chrétienne (1581) declaims "against the false naturalists (that is -to say, professors of the knowledge of nature and natural things)"; -and Montaigne in one of his later essays (1588) has the phrase "nous -autres naturalistes." [6] Apart from these terms, those commonly -used in French in the seventeenth century were bel esprit (sometimes, -though not necessarily, connoting unbelief), esprit fort and libertin, -the latter being used in the sense of a religious doubter by Corneille, -Molière, and Bayle. [7] - -It seems to have first come into use as one of the hostile names -for the "Brethren of the Free Spirit," a pantheistic and generally -heretical sect which became prominent in the thirteenth century, -and flourished widely, despite destructive persecution, till the -fifteenth. Their doctrine being antinomian, and their practice -often extravagant, they were accused by Churchmen of licentiousness, -so that in their case the name Libertini had its full latitude of -application. In the sixteenth century the name of Libertines is found -borne, voluntarily or otherwise, by a similar sect, probably springing -from some remnant of the first, but calling themselves Spirituales, -who came into notice in Flanders, were favoured in France by Marguerite -of Navarre, sister of Francis I, and became to some extent associated -with sections of the Reformed Church. They were attacked by Calvin -in the treatise Contre la sects fanatique et furieuse des Libertins -(1544 and 1545). [8] The name of Libertini was not in the sixteenth -century applied by any Genevese writer to any political party; [9] -but by later historians it was in time either fastened on or adopted -by the main body of Calvin's opponents in Geneva, who probably included -some members of the sect or movement in question. They were accused by -him of general depravity, a judgment not at all to be acquiesced in, -in view of the controversial habits of the age; though they probably -included antinomian Christians and libertines in the modern sense, -as well as orthodox lovers of freedom and orderly non-Christians. As -the first Brethren of the Free Spirit, so-called, seem to have -appeared in Italy (where they are supposed to have derived, like -the Waldenses, from the immigrant Paulicians of the Eastern Church), -the name Libertini presumably originated there. But in Renaissance -Italy an unbeliever seems usually to have been called simply ateo, -or infedele, or pagano. "The standing phrase was non aver fede." [10] - -In England, before and at the Reformation, both "infidel" and -"faithless" usually had the theological force of "non-Christian." Thus -Tyndale says of the Turks that though they "knowledge one God," yet -they "have erred and been faithless these eight hundred years"; adding -the same of the Jews. [11] Throughout Elizabeth's reign, "infidel" -seems thus to have commonly signified only a "heathen" or Jew or -Mohammedan. Bishop Jewel, for instance, writes that the Anglo-Saxon -invaders of Britain "then were infidels"; [12] and the word appears to -be normally used in that sense, or with a playful force derived from -that, by the divines, poets, and dramatists, including Shakespeare, -as by Milton in his verse. [13] Ben Jonson has the phrase: - - - I did not expect - To meet an infidel, much less an atheist, - Here in Love's list. [14] - - -One or two earlier writers, [15] indeed, use "infidel" in the modern -sense; and it was at times so used by early Elizabethans. [16] -But Foxe brackets together "Jews, Turks, or infidels"; [17] and -Hooper, writing in 1547, speaks, like Jewel, of the heathen as -"the infidels." [18] Hooker (1553-1600), in his Fifth Sermon, § 9, -[19] uses the word somewhat indefinitely, but in his margin makes -"Pagans and Infidels" equivalent to "Pagans and Turks." So also, -in the Ecclesiastical Polity, [20] "infidels" means men of another -religion. On the title-page of Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft -(1574), on the other hand, we have "the infidelitie of atheists"; -but so late as 1600 we find "J. H." [John Healy], the translator of -Augustine's City of God, rendering infideles and homines infideles by -"unbelievers." [21] "Infidelity," in the modern sense, occurs in Sir -T. Browne. [22] - - -In England, as in the rest of Europe, however, the phenomenon of -freethought had existed, in specific form, long before it could express -itself in propagandist writings, or find any generic name save those of -atheism and infidelity; and the process of naming was as fortuitous -as it generally is in matters of intellectual evolution. Phrases -approximating to "free thought" occur soon after the Restoration. Thus -Glanvill repeatedly writes sympathetically of "free philosophers" -[23] and "free philosophy." [24] In 1667 we find Sprat, the historian -of the Royal Society, describing the activity of that body as having -arisen or taken its special direction through the conviction that in -science, as in warfare, better results had been obtained by a "free -way" than by methods not so describable. [25] As Sprat is careful to -insist, the members of the Royal Society, though looked at askance -by most of the clergy [26] and other pietists, were not as such to be -classed as unbelievers, the leading members being strictly orthodox; -but a certain number seem to have shown scant concern for religion; -[27] and while it was one of the Society's first rules not to debate -any theological question whatever, [28] the intellectual atmosphere of -the time was such that some among those who followed the "free way" -in matters of natural science would be extremely likely to apply it -to more familiar problems. [29] At the same period we find Spinoza -devoting his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670) to the advocacy of -libertas philosophandi; and such a work was bound to have a general -European influence. It was probably, then, a result of such express -assertion of the need and value of freedom in the mental life that -the name "freethinker" came into English use in the last quarter of -the century. - - - Before "deism" came into English vogue, the names for unbelief, - even deistic, were simply "infidelity" and "atheism"--e.g., - Bishop Fotherby's Atheomastix (1622), Baxter's Unreasonableness - of Infidelity (1655) and Reasons of the Christian Religion (1667), - passim. Bishop Stillingfleet's Letter to a Deist (1677) appears to - be the first published attack on deism by name. His Origines Sacræ - (1662) deals chiefly with deistic views, but calls unbelievers - in general "atheists." Cudworth, in his True Intellectual System - of the Universe (written 1671, published 1678), does not speak - of deism, attacking only atheism, and was himself suspected of - Socinianism. W. Sherlock, in his Practical Discourse of Religious - Assemblies (2nd ed., 1682), attacks "atheists and infidels," but - says nothing of "deists." That term, first coined, as we have - seen, in French, seems first to have found common currency in - France--e.g., on the title-pages of the apologetic works of Marin - Mersenne, 1623 and 1624. The term "atheist" was often applied at - random at this period; but atheism did exist. - - -When the orthodox Boyle pushed criticism in physical science under -such a title as The Sceptical Chemist, the principle could not well be -withheld from application to religion; and it lay in the nature of the -case that the name "freethinker," like that of "skeptic," should come -to attach itself specially to those who doubted where doubt was most -resented and most resisted. At length the former term became specific. - -In the meantime the word "rationalist," which in English has latterly -tended to become the prevailing name for freethinkers, had made its -appearance, without securing much currency. In a London news-letter -dated October 14, 1646, it is stated, concerning the Presbyterians -and Independents, that "there is a new sect sprung up among them, -and these are the rationalists; and what their reason dictates to -them in Church or State stands for good until they be convinced -with better." [30] On the Continent, the equivalent Latin term -(rationalista) had been applied about the beginning of the century to -the Aristotelian humanists of the Helmstadt school by their opponents, -[31] apparently in the same sense as that in which Bacon used the -term rationales in his Redargutio Philosophiarum--"Rationales autem, -aranearum more, telas ex se conficiunt." Under this title he contrasts -(as spiders spinning webs out of themselves) the mere Aristotelean -speculators, who framed à priori schemes of Nature, with empiricists, -who, "like ants, collect something and use it," preferring to both the -"bees" who should follow the ideal method prescribed by himself. [32] -There is here no allusion to heterodox opinion on religion. [Bishop -Hurst, who (perhaps following the Apophthegms) puts a translation -of Bacon's words, with "rationalists" for rationales, as one of the -mottoes of his History of Rationalism, is thus misleading his readers -as to Bacon's meaning.] In 1661 John Amos Comenius, in his Theologia -Naturalis, applies the name rationalista to the Socinians and deists; -without, however, leading to its general use in that sense. Later -we shall meet with the term in English discussions between 1680 and -1715, applied usually to rationalizing Christians; but as a name -for opponents of orthodox religion it was for the time superseded, -in English, by "freethinker." - -In the course of the eighteenth century the term was adopted in other -languages. The first French translation (1714) of Collins's Discourse -of Freethinking is entitled Discours sur la liberté de penser; and the -term "freethinkers" is translated on the title-page by esprit fort, -and in the text by a periphrasis of liberté de penser. Later in the -century, however, we find Voltaire in his correspondence frequently -using the substantive franc-pensant, a translation of the English term -which subsequently gave way to libre penseur. The modern German term -Freigeist, found as early as 1702 in the allusion to "Alten Quäcker -und neuen Frey-Geister" on the title-page of the folio Anabaptisticum -et Enthusiasticum Pantheon, probably derives from the old "Brethren -of the Free Spirit"; while Schöngeist arose as a translation of bel -esprit. In the middle of the eighteenth century Freidenker came into -German use as a translation of the English term. - - - In a general sense "free thoughts" was a natural expression, - and we have it in Ben Jonson: "Being free master of mine own free - thoughts." [33] But not till about the year 1700 did the phrase - begin to have a special application to religious matters. The - first certain instance thus far noted of the use of the term - "freethinker" is in a letter of Molyneux to Locke, dated April 6, - 1697, [34] where Toland is spoken of as a "candid freethinker." In - an earlier letter, dated December 24, 1695, Molyneux speaks of - a certain book on religion as somewhat lacking in "freedom of - thought"; [35] and in Burnet's Letters [36] occurs still earlier - the expression "men ... of freer thoughts." In the New English - Dictionary a citation is given from the title-page of S. Smith's - brochure, The Religious Impostor ... dedicated to Doctor S-l-m-n - and the rest of the new Religious Fraternity of Freethinkers, - near Leather-Sellers' Hall. Printed ... in the first year of - Grace and Freethinking, conjecturally dated 1692. It is thought to - refer to the sect of "Freeseekers" mentioned in Luttrell's Brief - Historical Relation (iii, 56) under date 1693. In that case it is - not unbelievers that are in question. So in Shaftesbury's Inquiry - Concerning Virtue (first ed. 1699) the expression "freethought" - has a general and not a particular sense; [37] and in Baker's - Reflections upon Learning, also published in 1699, in the remark: - "After the way of freethinking had been lai'd open by my Lord - Bacon, it was soon after greedily followed"; [38] the reference - is, of course, to scientific and not to religious thought. - - But in Shaftesbury's Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour - (1709) the phrases "free-writers" and "a freethought" [39] - have reference to "advanced" opinions, though in his letters to - Ainsworth (May 10, 1707) he had written, "I am glad to find your - love of reason and freethought. Your piety and virtue I know you - will always keep." [40] Compare the Miscellaneous Reflections - (v, 3) in the Characteristics [41] (1711), where the tendency to - force the sense from the general to the special is incidentally - illustrated. Shaftesbury, however, includes the term "free liver" - among the "naturally honest appellations" that have become - opprobrious. - - In Swift's Sentiments of a Church of England Man (1708) the - specialized word is found definitely and abusively connoting - religious unbelief: "The atheists, libertines, despisers - of religion--that is to say, all those who usually pass under - the name of freethinkers"; Steele and Addison so use it in the - Tatler in 1709; [42] and Leslie so uses the term in his Truth of - Christianity Demonstrated (1711). The anonymous essay, Réflexions - sur les grands hommes qui sont morts en plaisantant, by Deslandes - (Amsterdam, 1712), is translated in English (1713) as Reflections - on the Death of Free-thinkers, and the translator uses the term - in his prefatory Letter to the Author, beside putting it in the - text (pp. 50, 85, 97, 102, 106, etc.), where the original had - esprit fort. - - -It was not till 1713, however, that Anthony Collins's Discourse -of Freethinking, occasioned by the Rise and Growth of a Sect called -Freethinkers, gave the word a universal notoriety, and brought it into -established currency in controversy, with the normal significance of -"deist," Collins having entirely repudiated atheism. Even after this -date, and indeed in full conformity with the definition in Collins's -opening sentence, Ambrose Philips took The Freethinker as the title -of a weekly journal (begun in 1718) on the lines of the Spectator, -with no heterodox leaning, [43] the contributors including Boulter, -afterwards Archbishop of Dublin, and the son of Bishop Burnet. But -despite this attempt to keep the word "freethinking" as a name for -simple freedom from prejudice in secular affairs, the tendency to -specialize it as aforesaid was irresistible. As names go, it was on -the whole a good one; and the bitterness with which it was generally -handled on the orthodox side showed that its implicit claim was felt -to be disturbing, though some antagonists of course claimed from the -first that they were as "free" under the law of right reason as any -skeptic. [44] At this time of day the word may be allowed prescriptive -standing, as having no more drawbacks than most other names for schools -of thought or attitudes of mind, and as having been admitted into most -European languages. The question-begging element is not greater in this -than in many other terms of similar intention, such as "rationalism"; -and it incurs no such charge of absurdity as lies against the invidious -religious term, "infidelity." The term "infidel" invites "fidel." - -A plausible objection may, indeed, arise on the score that such a term -as "freethought" should not be set up by thinkers who almost invariably -reject the term "freewill"--the rationalistic succession having for two -hundred and fifty years been carried on mainly by determinists. But -the issues raised by the two terms are on wholly different planes; -and while in both cases the imperfection of the instrument of language -is apparent, it is not in the present case a cause of psychological -confusion, as it is in the discussion of the nature of will. The -freewill fallacy consists in applying universally to the process -of judgment and preference (which is a process of natural causation -like another) a conception relevant only to human or animal action, -as interfered with or unaffected by extraneous compulsion. To the -processes of nature, organic or inorganic, the concepts "free" and -"bond" are equally irrelevant: a tiger is no more "free" to crave -for grass and recoil from flesh than is water to flow uphill; while, -on the other hand, such "appetites" are not rationally to be described -as forms of bondage. Only as a mode distinguishable from its contrary -can "freedom" be predicated of any procedure, and it is so predicated -of actions; whereas the whole category of volitions is alleged and -denied by the verbal disputants to be "free." Some attempt to save the -case by distinguishing between free and alleged "unfree" volitions; -but the latter are found to be simply cases of choices dictated -by intense need, as in the case of deadly thirst. The difference, -therefore, is only one of degree of impulse, not in the fact of choice. - -The term "freewill," therefore, is irrational, as being wholly -irrelevant to the conception of volition. But "freethought," on the -other hand, points to an actual difference in degree of employment of -the faculty of criticism. The proposition is that some men think more -"freely" than others in that they are (a) not terrorized by any veto -on criticism, and (b) not hampered, or less hampered, by ignorant -pre-suppositions. In both cases there is a real discrimination. There -is no allegation that, absolutely speaking, "thought is free" in -the sense of the orthodox formula; on the contrary, it is asserted -that the rationalist's critical course is specifically determined -by his intellectual structure and his preparation, and that it is -sometimes different structure, but more often different preparation, -that determines the anti-critical or counter-critical attitude of the -believer. Change in the preparation, it is contended, will put the -latter in fuller use of his potential resources; his inculcated fear -of doubt and docility of assent being simply acquiescences in vetoes -on his attention to certain matters for reflection--that is to say, -in arbitrary limitations of his action. It is further implied that the -instructed man, other things being equal, is "freer" to think than -the uninstructed, as being less obstructed; but for the purpose of -our history it is sufficient to posit the discriminations above noted. - -The essential thing to be realized is the fact that from its earliest -stages humanity has suffered from conventional or traditionary -hindrances to the use of judgment. This holds good even as to the early -play of the simple inventive faculty, all innovations in implements -being met by the inertia of habit; and when men reached the stages -of ritual practice, social construction, and religious doctrine, -the forces of repression became powerful in proportion to the -seriousness of the problem. It is only in modern times that freedom -in these relations has come to be generally regarded as permissible; -and it has always been over questions of religion that the strife -has been keenest. - -For practical purposes, then, freethought may be defined as a conscious -reaction against some phase or phases of conventional or traditional -doctrine in religion--on the one hand, a claim to think freely, in -the sense not of disregard for logic, but of special loyalty to it, -on problems to which the past course of things has given a great -intellectual and practical importance; on the other hand, the actual -practice of such thinking. This sense, which is substantially agreed -on, will on one or other side sufficiently cover those phenomena of -early or rudimentary freethinking which wear the guise of simple -concrete opposition to given doctrines or systems, whether by way -of special demur or of the obtrusion of a new cult or doctrine. In -either case, the claim to think in a measure freely is implicit in -the criticism or the new affirmation; and such primary movements -of the mind cannot well be separated, in psychology or in history, -from the fully conscious practice of criticism in the spirit of -pure truth-seeking, or from the claim that such free examination -is profoundly important to moral and intellectual health. Modern -freethought, specially so-called, is only one of the developments of -the slight primary capacity of man to doubt, to reason, to improve on -past thinking, to assert his personality as against sacrosanct and -menacing authority. Concretely considered, it has proceeded by the -support and stimulus of successive accretions of actual knowledge; -and the modern consciousness of its own abstract importance emerged -by way of an impression or inference from certain social phenomena, as -well as in terms of self-asserting instinct. There is no break in its -evolution from primitive mental states, any more than in the evolution -of the natural sciences from primitive observation. What particularly -accrues to the state of conscious and systematic discrimination, in -the one case as in the other, is just the immense gain in security -of possession. - - - - -§ 2. PREVIOUS HISTORIES - -It is somewhat remarkable that in England this phenomenon has thus -far [45] had no general historic treatment save at the hands of -ecclesiastical writers, who, in most cases, have regarded it solely -as a form of more or less perverse hostility to their own creed. The -modern scientific study of religions, which has yielded so many -instructive surveys, almost of necessity excludes from view the -specific play of freethought, which in the religion-making periods -is to be traced rather by its religious results than by any record -of its expression. All histories of philosophy, indeed, in some -degree necessarily recognize it; and such a work as Lange's History -of Materialism may be regarded as part--whether or not sound in its -historical treatment--of a complete history of freethought, dealing -specially with general philosophic problems. But of freethought as a -reasoned revision or rejection of current religious doctrines by more -or less practical people, we have no regular history by a professed -freethinker, though there are many monographs and surveys of periods. - - - The latest and freshest sketch of the kind is Professor - J. B. Bury's brief History of Freedom of Thought (1913), notable - for the force of its championship of the law of liberty. The useful - compilation of the late Mr. Charles Watts, entitled Freethought: - Its Rise, Progress, and Triumph (n. d.), deals with freethought - in relation only to Christianity. Apart from treatises which - broadly sketch the development of knowledge and of opinion, - the nearest approaches to a general historic treatment are the - Dictionnaire des Athées of Sylvain Maréchal (1800: 3e édit., - par J. B. L. Germond, 1853) and the Biographical Dictionary - of Freethinkers by the late Joseph Mazzini Wheeler. The quaint - work of Maréchal, expanded by his friend Lalande, exhibits much - learning, but is made partly fantastic by its sardonic plan of - including a number of typical religionists (including Job, John, - and Jesus Christ!), some of whose utterances are held to lead - logically to atheism. Mr. Wheeler's book is in every respect the - more trustworthy. - - In excuse of Maréchal's method, it may be noted that the prevailing - practice of Christian apologists had been to impute atheism to - heterodox theistic thinkers of all ages. The Historia universalis - Atheismi et Atheorum falso et merito suspectorum of J. F. Reimmann - (Hildesiæ, 1725) exhibits this habit both in its criticism and - in its practice, as do the Theses de Atheismo et Superstitione - of Buddeus (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1716). These were the standard - treatises of their kind for the eighteenth century, and seem to - be the earliest systematic treatises in the nature of a history - of freethought, excepting a Historia Naturalismi by A. Tribbechov - (Jenæ, 1700) and a Historia Atheismi breviter delineata by Jenkinus - Thomasius (Altdorf, 1692; Basileæ, 1709; London, 1716). In the same - year with Reimmann's Historia appeared J. A. Fabricius's Delectus - Argumentorum et Syllabus scriptorum qui veritatem religionis - Christianæ adversus Atheos, Epicureos, Deistas, seu Naturalistas - ... asseruerunt (Hamburghi), in which it is contended (cap. viii) - that many philosophers have been falsely described as atheists; - but in the Freydenker Lexicon of J. A. Trinius (Leipzig, 1759), - planned as a supplement to the work of Fabricius, are included - such writers as Sir Thomas Browne and Dryden. - - The works of the late Rev. John Owen, Evenings with the Skeptics, - Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance, and Skeptics of the French - Renaissance, which, though not constituting a literary whole, - collectively cover a great deal of historical ground, must be - expressly excepted from the above characterization of clerical - histories of freethought, in respect of their liberality of - view. They deal largely, however, with general or philosophical - skepticism, which is a special development of freethought, often by - way of reasonings in which many freethinkers do not acquiesce. (All - strict skeptics, that is to say--as distinguished from religionists - who profess skepticism up to a certain point by way of making - a surrender to orthodox dogmatism [46]--are freethinkers; - but most freethinkers are not strictly skeptics.) The history - of philosophic skepticism, again, is properly and methodically - treated in the old work of Carl Friedrich Stäudlin, Geschichte - und Geist des Skepticismus (2 Bde., Leipzig, 1794), the historic - survey being divided into six periods: 1, Before Pyrrho; 2, from - Pyrrho to Sextus; 3, from Sextus to Montaigne; 4, from Montaigne - to La Mothe le Vayer; 5, from La Mothe le Vayer to Hume; 6, from - Hume to Kant and Platner. The posthumous work of Émile Saisset, - Le Scepticisme: Ænésidème--Pascal--Kant (1865), is a fragment of - a projected complete history of philosophic skepticism. - - Stäudlin's later work, the Geschichte des Rationalismus und - Supernaturalismus (1826), is a shorter but more general history - of the strife between general freethought and supernaturalism - in the Christian world and era. It deals cursorily with the - intellectual attitude of the early Fathers, the early heretics, - and the Scholastics; proceeding to a fuller survey of the - developments since the Reformation, and covering Unitarianism, - Latitudinarianism, English and French Deism, and German Rationalism - of different shades down to the date of writing. Stäudlin may be - described as a rationalizing supernaturalist. - - Like most works on religious and intellectual history written - from a religious standpoint, those of Stäudlin treat the - phenomena as it were in vacuo, with little regard to the - conditioning circumstances, economic and political; critical - thought being regarded purely as a force proceeding through - its own proclivities. Saisset is at very much the same point of - view. Needless to say, valuable work may be done up to a certain - point on this method, which is seen in full play in Hegel; and - high praise is due to the learned and thoughtful treatise of - R. W. Mackay, The Progress of the Intellect as Exemplified in the - Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews (2 vols. 1850), - where it is partially but ably supplemented by the method of - inductive science. That method, again, is freshly and forcibly - applied to a restricted problem in W. A. Schmidt's Geschichte - der Denk- und Glaubensfreiheit im ersten Jahrhundert der - Kaiserherrschaft und des Christenthums (1847). - - Later come the Vorgeschichte des Rationalismus (1853-62) and - Geschichte des Rationalismus (1865) of the theologian Tholuck. Of - these the latter is unfinished, coming down only to the middle - of the eighteenth century; while the former does not exactly - fulfil its title, being composed of a volume (2 Abth. 1853, 1854) - on Das akademische Leben des 17ten Jahrhunderts, and of one on - Das kirchliche Leben des 17ten Jahrhunderts (2 Abth. 1861, 1862), - both being restricted to German developments. They thus give much - matter extraneous to the subject, and are not exhaustive as to - rationalism even in Germany. Hagenbach's Die Kirchengeschichte - des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (2 Th. 1848, 1849), a series of - lectures, translated in English, abridged, under the title German - Rationalism in its Rise, Progress, and Decline (1865), conforms - fairly to the latter title, save as regards the last clause. - - Of much greater scholarly merit is the Geschichte der religiösen - Aufklärung im Mittelalter, vom Ende des achten Jahrhunderts bis - zum Anfange des vierzehnten, by Hermann Reuter (1875, 1877). This - is at once learned, judicious, and impartial. Its definition of - "Aufklärung" is substantially in agreement with the working - definition of Freethought given above. - - Among other surveys of periods of innovating thought, as - distinguished from histories of ecclesiastical heresy, or - histories of "religious" or theological thought which only - incidentally deal with heterodox opinion, should be noted the - careful Geschichte des englischen Deismus of G. F. Lechler - (1841); the slighter sketch of E. Sayous, Les déistes anglais - et le Christianisme (1882); the somewhat diffuse work of - Cesare Cantù, Gli eretici d'Italia (3 tom. 1865-67); the very - intelligent study of Felice Tocco, L'Eresia nel medio evo (1884); - Schmidt's Histoire des Cathares (2 tom. 1849); Chr. U. Hahn's - learned Geschichte der Ketzer im Mittelalter (3 Bde. 1845-50); - and the valuable research of F. T. Perrens, Les Libertins en - France au xviie siècle (1896). A similar scholarly research for - the eighteenth century in France is still lacking, and the many - monographs on the more famous freethinkers leave a good deal - of literary history in obscurity. Such a research has been very - painstakingly made for England in the late Sir Leslie Stephen's - History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (2 vols., - 2nd ed., 1881), which, however, ignores scientific thought. One - of the best monographs of the kind is La Critique des traditions - religieuses chez les Grecs, des origines au temps de Plutarque, - by Professor Paul Decharme (1904), a survey at once scholarly - and attractive. The brilliant treatise of Mr. F. M. Cornford, - From Religion to Philosophy (1912), sketches on more speculative - lines the beginnings of Greek rationalism in Ionia. The Geschichte - des Monismus im Altertum of Prof. Dr. A. Drews (1913) is a wide - survey, of great synthetic value. - - Contributions to the general history of freethought, further, - have been made in the works of J. W. Draper (A History of the - Intellectual Development of Europe, 2 vols, 1861, many reprints; - and History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, 1873, - many reprints), both full of suggestion and stimulus, but requiring - thorough revision as to detail; in the famous Introduction - to the History of Civilization in England of H. T. Buckle (2 - vols. 1857-61; new ed. in 1 vol. with annotations by the present - writer, 1904); in the History of the Rise and Influence of the - Spirit of Rationalism in Europe of W. E. H. Lecky (2 vols. 1865; - R. P. A. rep. 1910), who was of Buckle's school, but fell below - him in point of coherence; in the comprehensive History of the - Warfare of Science with Theology of Professor Andrew D. White (2 - vols. 1896--a great expansion of his earlier essay, The Warfare of - Science, 2nd ed. 1877); and in the essay of Mr. E. S. P. Haynes, - Religious Persecution: A Study in Political Psychology (1904; - R. P. A. rep. 1906), as well as in many histories of philosophy - and of sciences. - - The so-called History of Rationalism of the American Bishop - J. F. Hurst, first published in 1865, and "revised" in 1901, - is in the main a work of odium theologicum, dealing chiefly - with the evolution of theology and criticism in Germany since - the Reformation. Even to that purpose it is very inadequate. Its - preface alleges that "happily the vital body of evangelical truth - has received only comparatively weak and timorous attacks from the - more modern representatives of the rank and rabid rationalism which - reached its climax near the close of the eighteenth, and has had - a continuous decline through the nineteenth, century." It urges, - however, as a reason for defensive activity, the consideration that - "the work of Satan is never planless"; and further pronounces that - the work of rationalism "must determine its character. This work - has been most injurious to the faith and life of the Church, and - its deeds must therefore be its condemnation" (Introd. p. 3). Thus - the latest approximation to a history of theological rationalism - by a clerical writer is the most negligible. - - -In English, apart from studies of given periods and of the progress -of science and culture, the only other approaches to a history of -freethought are those of Bishop Van Mildert, the Rev. J. E. Riddle, -and the Rev. Adam Storey Farrar. Van Mildert's Historical View of the -Rise and Progress of Infidelity [47] constituted the Boyle Lectures for -1802-05; Mr. Riddle's Natural History of Infidelity and Superstition -in Contrast with Christian Faith formed part of his Bampton Lectures -for 1852; and Mr. Farrar produced his Critical History of Freethought -in reference to the Christian Religion as the Bampton Lectures for -1862. All three were men of considerable reading, and their works -give useful bibliographical clues; but the virulence of Van Mildert -deprives his treatise of rational weight; Mr. Riddle, who in any case -professes to give merely a "Natural History" or abstract argument, and -not a history proper, is only somewhat more constrainedly hostile to -"infidelity"; and even Mr. Farrar, the most judicial as well as the -most comprehensive of the three, proceeds on the old assumption that -"unbelief" (from which he charitably distinguishes "doubt") generally -arises from "antagonism of feeling, which wishes revelation untrue"--a -thesis maintained with vehemence by the others. [48] - -Writers so placed, indeed, could not well be expected to contemplate -freethought scientifically as an aspect of mental evolution common -to all civilizations, any more than to look with sympathy on the -freethought which is specifically anti-Christian. The annotations to -all three works, certainly, show some consciousness of the need for -another temper and method than that of their text, [49] which is too -obviously, perhaps inevitably, composed for the satisfaction of the -ordinary orthodox animus of their respective periods; but even the best -remains not so much a history as an indictment. In the present sketch, -framed though it be from the rationalistic standpoint, it is proposed -to draw up not a counter indictment, but a more or less dispassionate -account of the main historical phases of freethought, viewed on the -one hand as expressions of the rational or critical spirit, playing on -the subject-matter of religion, and on the other hand as sociological -phenomena conditioned by social forces, in particular the economic -and political. The lack of any previous general survey of a scientific -character will, it is hoped, be taken into account in passing judgment -on its schematic defects as well as its inevitable flaws of detail. - - - - -§ 3. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FREETHINKING - -Though it is no part of our business here to elaborate the psychology -of doubt and belief, it may be well to anticipate a possible criticism -on the lines of recent psychological speculation, and to indicate -at the outset the practical conception on which the present survey -broadly proceeds. To begin with, the conception of freethinking -implies that of hindrance, resistance, coercion, difficulty; -and as regards objective obstacles the type of all hindrance is -restraint upon freedom of speech or publication. In other words, -all such restraint is a check upon thinking. On reflection it soon -becomes clear that where men dare not say or write what they think, -the very power of thinking is at length impaired in the ablest, while -the natural stimulus to new thought is withdrawn from the rest. No -man can properly develop his mind without contact with other minds, -suggestion and criticism being alike factors in every fruitful mental -evolution; and though for some the atmosphere of personal intercourse -is but slightly necessary to the process of mental construction, even -for these the prospect of promulgation is probably essential to the -undertaking of the task; and the study of other writers is a condition -of useful ratiocination. In any case, it is certain that the exercise -of argument is a condition of intellectual growth. Not one man in -a million will or can argue closely with himself on issues on which -he knows he can say nothing and can never overtly act; and for the -average man all reasoning on great problems is a matter of prompting -from without. The simple fact that the conversation of uneducated -people runs so largely to citation of what "he says" makes clear this -dependence. Each brings something to the common store, and progress -is set up by "pooling" the mass of small intellectual variations or -originalities. Thus in the long run freedom of speech is the measure -of a generation's intellectual capacity; [50] and the promoters of -such freedom are typically the truest servants of progress. - -On the other hand, there is still a common disposition to ascribe -to a species of intellectual malice the disturbance that criticism -causes to the holders of established beliefs. Recent writers have -pressed far the theorem that "will" enters as an element into every -mental act, thus giving a momentary appearance of support to the -old formula that unbelief is the result of an arbitrary or sinister -perversity of individual choice. Needless to say, however, the new -theorem--which inverts without refuting Spinoza's denial of the entity -of volition--applies equally to acts of belief; and it is a matter of -the simplest concrete observation that, in so far as will or wilfulness -in the ordinary sense operates in the sphere of religion, it is at -least as obvious and as active on the side of belief [51] as on the -other. A moment's reflection on the historic phenomena of orthodox -resistance to criticism will satisfy any student that, whatever may -have been the stimulus on the side of heresy, the antagonism it arouses -is largely the index of primary passion--the spontaneous resentment -of the believer whose habits are disturbed. His will normally decides -his action, without any process of judicial deliberation. - -It is another way of stating the same fact to point out the fallacy -of the familiar assumption that freethinking represents a bias to -"negation." In the nature of the case, the believer has to do at least -as much negation as his opponents; and if again we scan history in -this connection, we shall see cause to conclude that the temperamental -tendency to negation--which is a form of variation like another--is -abundantly common on the side of religious conservatism. Nowhere -is there more habitual opposition to new ideas as such. At best the -believer, so-called, rejects a given proposition or suggestion because -it clashes with something he already believes. The new proposition, -however, has often been reached by way not of preliminary negation of -the belief in question, but of constructive explanation, undertaken to -bring observed facts into theoretic harmony. Thus the innovator has -only contingently put aside the old belief because it clashes with -something he believes in a more vital way; and he has done this with -circumspection, whereas his opponent too often repels him without a -second thought. The phenomena of the rise of the Copernican astronomy, -modern geology, and modern biology, all bear out this generalization. - -Nor is the charge of negativeness any more generally valid against -such freethinking as directly assails current doctrines. There may -be, of course, negative-minded people on that side as on the other; -and such may fortuitously do something to promote freethought, -or may damage it in their neighbourhood by their atmosphere. But -everything goes to show that freethinking normally proceeds by way of -intellectual construction--that is, by way of effort to harmonize one -position with another; to modify a special dogma to the general run of -one's thinking. Rationalism stands not for "skepticism" in the strict -philosophic sense, but for a critical effort to reach certainties. The -attitude of pure skepticism on a wide scale is really very rare--much -rarer even than the philosophic effort. So far from freethinkers -being given to "destroying without building up," they are, as a rule, -unable to destroy a dogma either for themselves or for others without -setting a constructive belief in its place--a form of explanation, -that is; such being much more truly a process of construction than -would be the imposition of a new scheme of dogma. In point of fact, -they are often accused, and by the same critics, of an undue tendency -to speculative construction; and the early atheists of Greece and -of the modern period did so err. But that is only a proof the more -that their freethinking was not a matter of arbitrary volition or an -undue negativeness. - -The only explanation which ostensibly countervails this is the old -one above glanced at--that the unbeliever finds the given doctrine -troublesome as a restraint, and so determines to reject it. It is -to be feared that this view has survived Mr. A. S. Farrar. Yet it -is very clear that no man need throw aside any faith, and least of -all Christianity, on the ground of its hampering his conduct. To say -nothing of the fact that in every age, under every religion, at every -stage of culture from that of the savage to that of the supersubtle -decadent or mystic, men have practised every kind of misconduct without -abandoning their supernatural credences--there is the special fact that -the whole Christian system rests on the doctrine of forgiveness of sins -to the believer. The theory of "wilful" disbelief on the part of the -reprobate is thus entirely unplausible. Such disbelief in the terms -of the case would be uneasy, as involving an element of incertitude; -and his fear of retribution could never be laid. On the other hand, -he has but inwardly to avow himself a sinner and a believer, and he -has the assurance that repentance at the last moment will outweigh -all his sins. - -It is not, of course, suggested that such is the normal or frequent -course of believing Christians; but it has been so often enough to make -the "libertine" theory of unbelief untenable. Indeed, the singular -diversity between profession and practice among Christians has in -all periods called out declarations by the more fervid believers -that their average fellow-Christians are "practical atheists." More -judicial minds may be set asking instead how far men really "believe" -who do not act on their opinions. As one high authority has put it, -in the Middle Ages the normal opposition of theory and practice -"was peculiarly abrupt. Men's impulses were more violent, and their -conduct more reckless, than is often witnessed in modern society; -while the absence of a criticizing and measuring spirit made them -surrender their minds more unreservedly than they would do now to a -complete and imposing theory.... Resistance to God's Vicar might be, -and indeed was admitted to be, a deadly sin, but it was one which -nobody hesitated to commit." [52] And so with other sins, the sinner -having somewhere in the rear of his consciousness the reflection that -his sins could be absolved. - -And, apart from such half-purposive forms of licence among Christians, -there have been countless cases of purposive licence. In all ages -there have been antinomian Christians, [53] whether of the sort that -simply rest on the "seventy times seven" of the Gospel, or of the more -articulately logical kind who dwell on the doctrine of faith versus -works. For the rest, as the considerate theologian will readily see, -insistence on the possibility of a sinister motive for the unbeliever -brings up the equal possibility of a sinister motive on the part of the -convert to Christianity, ancient or modern. At every turn, then, the -charge of perversity of the will recoils on the advocate of belief; -so that it would be the course of common prudence to abandon it, -even were it not in itself, as a rule, so plainly an expression of -irritated bias. - -On the other hand, it need not be disputed that unbelief has been -often enough associated with some species of libertinism to give -a passing colour for the pretence of causal connection. The fact, -however, leads us to a less superficial explanation, worth keeping in -view here. Freethinking being taken to be normally a "variation" of -intellectual type in the direction of a critical demand for consistency -and credibility in beliefs, its social assertion will be a matter -on the one side of force of character or degree of recklessness, -and on the other hand of force of circumstances. The intellectual -potentiality and the propagandist purpose will be variously developed -in different men and in different surroundings. If we ask ourselves -how, in general, the critical tendency is to arise or to come into -play, we are almost compelled to suppose a special stimulus as -well as a special faculty. Critical doubt is made possible, broadly -speaking, by the accumulation of ideas or habits of certain kinds -which insensibly undo a previous state of homogeneity of thought. For -instance, a community subsiding into peace and order from a state of -warfare and plunder will at length find the ethic of its daily life -at variance with the conserved ethic of its early religion of human -sacrifice and special family or tribal sanctions; or a community -which has accumulated a certain amount of accurate knowledge of -astronomy will gradually find such knowledge irreconcilable with its -primitive cosmology. A specially gifted person will anticipate the -general movement of thought; but even for him some standing-ground -must be supposed; and for the majority the advance in moral practice -or scientific knowledge is the condition of any effective freethinking. - -Between top and bottom, however, there are all grades of vivacity, -earnestness, and courage; and on the side of the normal resistance -there are all varieties of political and economic circumstance. It -follows, then, that the avowed freethinker may be so in virtue either -of special courage or of antecedent circumstances which make the -attitude on his part less courageous. And it may even be granted -to the quietist that the courage is at times that of ill-balanced -judgment or heady temperament; just as it may be conceded to the -conservative that it is at times that which goes with or follows on -disregard of wise ways of life. It is well that the full force of -this position be realized at the outset. When we find, as we shall, -some historic freethinkers displaying either extreme imprudence -or personal indiscipline, we shall be prepared, in terms of this -preliminary questioning, to realize anew that humanity has owed -a great deal to some of its "unbalanced" types; and that, though -discipline is nearly the last word of wisdom, indiscipline may at -times be the morbid accompaniment or excess of a certain openness of -view and spontaneity of action which are more favourable to moral and -intellectual advance than a cold prudence or a safe insusceptibility. - -But cold or calm prudence in turn is not a vice; and it is hardly -possible to doubt that there have been in all ages varying numbers of -unbelievers who shrugged their shoulders over the follies of faith, -and declined to tilt against the windmills of fanaticism. There is much -reason for surmising that Shakespeare was a case in point. It is not -to be supposed, then, because some freethinkers who came out into the -open were unbalanced types, that their psychology is the psychology of -freethought, any more than that of General Gordon or Francis of Assisi -is to be reckoned typical on the side of belief. There must have been -myriads of quiet unbelievers, rational all round, whose unbelief was a -strictly intellectual process, undisturbed by temperament. In our own -day such types abound, and it is rather in them than in the abnormal -types of past freethought--the Brunos and the Voltaires--that the -average psychology of freethought is to be looked for and understood. - -As for the case of the man who, already at odds with his fellows -in the matter of his conduct, may in some phases of society feel it -the easier to brave them in the matter of his avowed creed, we have -already seen that even this does not convict him of intellectual -dishonesty. And were such cases relatively as numerous as they are -scarce--were the debauched deists even commoner than the vinous Steeles -and Fieldings--the use of the fact as an argument would still be an -oblique course on the side of a religion which claims to have found -its first and readiest hearing among publicans and sinners. For the -rest, the harm done in the world's history by unbalanced freethinkers -is as dust in the balance against the immeasurable evil deliberately -wrought on serious religious motives, to say nothing of the constant -deviation of the mass of believers from their own professed code. - -It may, finally, help a religious reader to a judicial view of the -phenomenon of freethought if he is reminded that every step forward in -the alleged historic evolution of his own creed would depend, in the -case put, on the existence of persons capable of rejecting a current -and prevailing code in favour of one either denounced as impious or -marked off by circumstances as dangerous. The Israelites in Egypt, -the prophets and their supporters, the Gospel Jesus and his adherents, -all ostensibly stand in some degree for positions of "negation," -of hardy innovation, of disregard to things and persons popularly -venerated; wherefore Collins, in the Discourse above mentioned, -smilingly claimed at least the prophets as great freethinkers. On -that head it may suffice to say that some of the temperamental -qualifications would probably be very much the same for those who -of old brought about religious innovation in terms of supernatural -beliefs, and for those who in later times innovate by way of minimizing -or repudiating such beliefs, though the intellectual qualifications -might be different. Bruno and Dolet and Vanini and Voltaire, faulty -men all four, could at least be more readily conceived as prophets -in early Jewry, or reformers under Herod, than as Pharisees, or even -Sadducees, under either regimen. - -Be that as it may, however, the issues between freethought and creed -are ultimately to be settled only in respect of their argumentative -bases, as appreciable by men in society at any given time. It is with -the notion of making the process of judicial appreciation a little -easier, by historically exhibiting the varying conditions under which -it has been undertaken in the past, that these pages are written. - - - - - - - -CHAPTER II - -PRIMITIVE FREETHINKING - - -To consider the normal aspects of primitive life, as we see them -in savage communities and trace them in early literature, is to -realize the enormous hindrance offered to critical thinking in the -primary stages of culture by the mere force of habit. "The savage," -says our leading anthropologist, "by no means goes through life -with the intention of gathering more knowledge and framing better -laws than his fathers. On the contrary, his tendency is to consider -his ancestors as having handed down to him the perfection of wisdom, -which it would be impiety to make the least alteration in. Hence among -the lower races there is obstinate resistance to the most desirable -reforms, and progress can only force its way with a slowness and -difficulty which we of this century can hardly imagine." [54] Among -the Bantu of South Africa, before the spread of European rule, "any -person in advance of his fellows was specially liable to suspicion -[of sorcery], so that progress of any kind towards what we should -term higher civilization was made exceedingly difficult by this -belief." [55] The real or would-be sorcerer could thus secure the -elimination of the honest inventor; fear of sorcery being most potent -as against the supposed irregular practitioner. The relative obstinacy -of conservatism in periods and places of narrow knowledge is again -illustrated in Lane's account of the modern Egyptians in the first -half of the nineteenth century: "Some Egyptians who had studied for -a few years in France declared to me that they could not instil any -of the notions which they had there acquired even into the minds -of their most intimate friends." [56] So in modern Japan there were -many assassinations of reformers, and some civil war, before Western -ideas could gain a footing. [57] The less the knowledge, in short, -the harder to add to it. - -It is hardly possible to estimate with any confidence the relative -rates of progress; but, though all are extremely slow, it would -seem that reason could sooner play correctively on errors of secular -practice [58] than on any species of proposition in religion--taking -that word to connote at once mythology, early cosmology, and ritual -ethic. Mere disbelief in a particular medicine-man or rain-maker -who failed would not lead to any reflective disbelief in all; any -more than the beating or renunciation of his fetish by a savage or -barbarian means rejection of his fetishism, or than the renunciation -of a particular saint by a modern Catholic [59] means abandonment of -prayer to saints for intercession. - - - The question as to whether savages do beat their idols is a matter - in some dispute. Sir A. B. Ellis, a high authority, offers a - notable denial to the current belief that negroes "beat their - Gods if their prayers are unanswered." "After an experience - of the Gold Coast extending over thirteen years," he writes, - "I have never heard of, much less witnessed, anything of the - kind, although I have made inquiries in every direction" (The - Tshi-speaking Peoples, 1887, p. 194). Other anthropologists have - collected many instances in other races--e.g., Fr. Schultze, Der - Fetischismus, 1871, p. 130. In one case, a priest beats a fetish - in advance, to secure his careful attention. (Id. pp. 90-91, - citing the personal narrative of Bastian.) It seems to be a - matter of psychic stage. The more primitive negro is as it were - too religious, too much afraid of his Gods, who are not for him - "idols," but spirits residing in images or objects. Where the - state of fear is only chronic another temper may arise. Among the - Bataks of Sumatra disappointed worshippers often scold a God; - and their legends tell of men who declared war on a deity and - shot at him from a mountain. (Warneck, Die Religion des Batak, - 1909, p. 7. Cp. Gen. ii, 4-9.) A temper of defiance towards - deity has been noted in an Aryan Kafir of the Hindu-Kush. (Sir - G. S. Robertson, The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, 1899, p. 182.) Some - peoples go much further. Among the Polynesians, when a God failed - to cure a sick chief or notable, he "was regarded as inexorable, - and was usually banished from the temple and his image destroyed" - (W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, 2nd ed. 1831, i, 350). So among - the Chinese, "if the God does not give rain they will threaten - and beat him; sometimes they publicly depose him from the rank - of deity" (Frazer, Lectures on the Early History of Kingship, - 1905, pp. 98-101. Cp. Ross, Pansebeia, 4th ed., 1672, p. 80). - - There are many analogous phenomena. In old Samoa, in the ritual - of mourning for the dead, the family God was first implored to - restore the deceased, and then fiercely abused and menaced. [60] - See, too, the story of the people of Niue or Savage Island - in the South Pacific, who in the time of a great pestilence, - thinking the sickness was caused by a certain idol, broke it in - pieces and threw it away (Turner, Samoa a Hundred Years Ago, 1884, - p. 306). See further the cases cited by Constant, De la religion, - 1824, vol. i, ptie. ii, pp. 32-34; and by Peschel, The Races of - Man, Eng. tr. 1876, pp. 247-8, in particular that of Rastus, - the last pagan Lapp in Europe, who quarrelled with his fetish - stone for killing his reindeer in revenge for the withholding - of its customary offering of brandy, and "immediately embraced - Christianity." (Compare E. Rae, The White Sea Peninsula, 1881, - p. 276.) See again the testimony of Herman Melville in his Typee, - ch. xxiv; and that of T. Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, ed. 1858, - i, 236: "Sometimes the natives get angry with their deities, and - abuse and even challenge them to fight." Herodotos has similar - stories of barbarians who defy their own and other deities - (iv, 172, 183, 184). Compare the case of King Rum Bahadur of - Nepaul, who cannonaded his Gods. Spencer, Study of Sociology, - pp. 301-2. Also the anecdote cited by Spencer (Id. p. 160) - from Sir R. Burton's Goa, p. 167. Here there is no disbelief, no - reflection, but simple resentment. Compare, too, the amusing story - of a blasphemy by Rossini, told by Louis Viardot, Libre Examen, - 6e éd. pp. 166-67, note. That threats against the Gods are possible - at a semi-civilized stage is proved by various passages in medieval - literature. Thus in Caxton's Charles the Grete, a translation from - an older French original, Charles is made to say: "O lord God, - if ye suffre that Olyver be overcome and that my ryght at thys - tyme be loste and defyled, I make a vowe that al Crystyante shal be - destroyed. I shal not leve in Fraunce chirche ne monasterye, ymage - ne aulter," etc. (Early Eng. Text Soc. rep. 1881, pp. 70-71.) Such - language was probably used by not a few medieval kings in moments - of fury; and there is even record that at the battle of Dunbar - certain of the Scots Presbyterian clergy intimated to their deity - that he would not be their God if he failed them on that day. - - If such flights be reckoned possible for Christian kings - and clerics in the Christian era, there would seem to be no - unlikelihood about the many stories of God-beating and God-defying - among contemporary savages, though so good an observer as Sir - A. B. Ellis may not have witnessed them in the part of Africa best - known to him. The conclusion reached by Sir A. B. Ellis is that - the negroes of the Gold Coast are not properly to be described - as fetishists. Fetishism, on his view, is a worship of objects as - in themselves endowed with magical power; whereas the Gold Coast - negro ascribes no virtue to the object commonly called his fetish, - regarding it simply as inhabited by a supernatural power. This - writer sees "true fetishism" in the attitude of Italian peasants - and fishermen who beat and ill-treat their images when prayers - are not answered, and in that of Spaniards who cover the faces of - their images or turn them to the wall when about to do anything - which they think the saint or deity would disapprove of. On this - view, fetishism is a later yet lower stage of religious evolution - than that of the negro. On the other hand, Miss Kingsley takes - fetishism to be the proper name of the attitude of the negro - towards particular objects as divinely inhabited, and represents - it as a kind of pantheism (West African Studies, 2nd ed. 1901, - ch. v). And since, by her definition, "Gods of fetish" do not - necessarily "require a material object to manifest themselves in" - (p. 96), the term "fetish" is thus detached from all of its former - meanings. It seems expedient, as a matter of terminology, to let - fetishism mean both object- or image-worship and the belief in the - special inhabiting of objects by deities, with a recognition that - the beliefs may be different stages in an evolution, though, on the - other hand, they are obviously likely to coalesce or concur. In - the "Obeah" system of the negroes of the West Indies the former - belief in the indwelling spirit has become, or has coalesced with, - belief in the magical powers of the object (Keane, Man, Past and - Present, 1900, p. 57). - - As to defiance or contumely towards the Gods, finally, we have the - testimony of the Swiss missionary Junod that the South African - Thonga, whom he studied very closely, have in their ritual "a - regular insulting of the Gods." (Life of a South African Tribe, - ii, 1912, p. 384.) Why not? "Prayers to the ancestors ... are - ... absolutely devoid of awe" (p. 385), though "the ancestor-Gods - are certainly the most powerful spiritual agency acting on man's - life" (p. 361); and "the spirits of the ancestors are the main - objects of religious worship" (p. 344). The Thonga, again, use - "neither idolatry nor fetishism," having no "idols" (p. 388), - though they recognize "hidden virtues" in plants, animals, and - stones (p. 345). They simply regard their ancestor-Gods very - much as they do their aged people, whom they generally treat with - little consideration. But the dead can do harm, and must therefore - be propitiated--as savages propitiate, with fear or malice or - derision in their hearts, as the case may be. (Cp. p. 379.) On the - other hand, despite the denial of their "fetishism," they believe - that ancestor-Gods may come in the shape of animals; and they so - venerate a kind of palladium (made up like a medicine-man's amulet) - as to raise the question whether this kind of belief is not just - that which Miss Kingsley called "fetish." (Junod, pp. 358, 373-74.) - - -Whatever may be the essence, or the varieties, of fetishism, it -is clear that the beating of idols or threatening of Gods does not -amount to rational doubt concerning the supernatural. Some general -approach to that attitude may perhaps be inferred in the case of an -economic revolt against the burdens of a highly specialized religious -system, which may often have occurred in unwritten history. We shall -note a recorded instance of the kind in connection with the question -whether there are any savage tribes without religion. But it occurs -in the somewhat highly evolved barbarism of pre-Christian Hawaii; -and it can set up no inference as to any development of critical -unbelief at lower levels. In the long stage of lower savagery, then, -the only approach to freethinking that would seriously affect general -belief would presumably be that very credulity which gave foothold -to religious beliefs to begin with. That is to say, without anything -in the nature of general criticism of any story or doctrine, one such -might to some extent supersede another, in virtue of the relative gift -of persuasion or personal weight of the propounders. Up to a certain -point persons with a turn for myth or ritual-making would compete, -and might even call in question each other's honesty, as well as each -other's inspiration. - -Since the rise of scientific hierology there has been a disposition -among students to take for granted the good faith of all early -religion-makers, and to dismiss entirely that assumption of fraud -which was so long made by Christian writers concerning the greater -part of every non-Christian system. The assumption had been passed -on from the freethinkers of antiquity who formulated the view that -all religious doctrine had been invented by politicians in order to -control the people. [61] Christian polemists, of course, applied it to -all systems but their own. When, however, all systems are seen to be -alike natural in origin, such charges are felt to recoil on the system -which makes them; and latterly [62] Christian writers, seeing as much, -have been fain to abandon the conception of "priestcraft," adroitly -representing it as an extravagance of rationalism. It certainly -served rationalistic purposes, and the title of the supposititious -medieval work on "The Three Impostors" points to its currency among -unbelievers long ago; but when we first find it popularly current in -the seventeenth century, it is in a Christian atmosphere. [63] Some -of the early deists and others have probably in turn exaggerated the -amount of deliberate deceit involved in the formation of religious -systems; but nevertheless "priestcraft" is a demonstrable factor in -the process. What is called the psychology of religion has been much -obscured in response to the demand of religious persons to have it so -presented as to flatter them in that capacity. [64] Such a claim cannot -be permitted to overrule the fair inductions of comparative science. - -Anthropological evidence suggests that, while religion clearly -begins in primordial fear and fancy, wilful fraud must to some -extent have entered into all religious systems alike, even in the -period of primeval credulity, were it only because the credulity -was so great. One of the most judicial and sympathetic of the -Christian scholars who have written the history of Greece treats -as unquestionable the view that alike in pagan and Christian cults -"priestcraft" has been "fertile in profitable devices, in the invention -of legends, the fabrication of relics, and other modes of imposture"; -[65] and the leading hierologist of the last generation pronounces -decisively as to an element of intentional deceit in the Koran-making -of Mohammed [66]--a judgment which, if upheld, can hardly fail to be -extended to some portions of all other sacred books. However that -may be, we have positive evidence that wilful and systematic fraud -enters into the doctrine of contemporary savages, and that among some -"primitives" known myths are deliberately propounded to the boys -and women by the male adults. [67] Indeed, the majority of modern -travellers among primitives seem to have regarded their priests -and sorcerers in the mass as conscious deceivers. [68] If, then, we -can point to deliberate imposture alike in the charm-mongering and -myth-mongering of contemporary savages and in the sacred-book-making -of the higher historical systems, it seems reasonable to hold that -conscious deceit, as distinguished from childlike fabrication, would -chronically enter into the tale-making of primitive men, as into their -simpler relations with each other. It is indeed impossible to conceive -how a copious mythology could ever arise without the play of a kind -of imaginativeness that is hardly compatible with veracity; and it is -probably only the exigencies of ecclesiastical life that cause modern -critics still to treat the most deliberate fabrications and forgeries -in the Hebrew sacred books as somehow produced in a spirit of the -deepest concern for truth. An all-round concern for truth is, in fact, -a late intellectual development, the product of much criticism and much -doubt; hence, perhaps, the lenity of the verdicts under notice. Certain -wild tribes here and there, living in a state of great simplicity, are -in our own day described as remarkably truthful; [69] but they are not -remarkable for range of supernatural belief; and their truthfulness is -to be regarded as a product of their special stability and simplicity -of life. The trickery of a primitive medicine-man, of course, is a -much more childlike thing than the frauds of educated priesthoods; -and it is compatible with so much of spontaneous pietism as is implied -in the common passing of the operator into the state of convulsion -and trance--a transition which comes easily to many savages. [70] -But even at that stage of psychosis, and in a community where simple -secular lying is very rare, the professional wizard-priest becomes -an adept in playing upon credulity. [71] - -It belongs, in short, to the very nature of the priestly function, -in its earlier forms, to develop in a special degree the normal bias -of the undisciplined mind to intellectual fraud. Granting that there -are all degrees of self-consciousness in the process, we are bound to -recognize that in all of us there is "the sophist within," who stands -between us and candour in every problem either of self-criticism -or of self-defence. And, if the instructed man recognizes this -clearly and the uninstructed does not, none the less is the latter -an exemplification of the fact. His mental obliquities are not any -less real because of his indifference to them than are the acts of -the hereditary thief because he does them without shame. And if we -consider how the fetish-priest is at every turn tempted to invent -and prevaricate, simply because his pretensions are fundamentally -preposterous; and how in turn the priest of a higher grade, even -when he sincerely "believes" in his deity, is bound to put forward -as matters of knowledge or revelation the hypotheses he frames to -account for either the acts or the abstentions of the God, we shall -see that the priestly office is really as incompatible with a high -sincerity in the primitive stages as in those in which it is held -by men who consciously propound falsities, whether for their mere -gain or in the hope of doing good. It may be true that the priestly -claim of supernatural sanction for an ethical command is at times -motived by an intense conviction of the rightness of the course of -conduct prescribed; but none the less is such a habit of mind fatal -to intellectual sincerity. Either there is sheer hallucination or -there is pious fraud. - -Given, however, the tendency to deceit among primitive folk, distrust -and detection in a certain number of cases would presumably follow, -constituting a measure of simple skepticism. By force partly of this -and partly of sheer instability of thought, early belief would be apt -to subsist for ages like that of contemporary African tribes, [72] -in a state of flux. [73] Comparative fixity would presumably arise -with the approach to stability of life, of industry, and of political -institutions, whether with or without a special priesthood. The -usages of early family worship would seem to have been no less rigid -than those of the tribal and public cults. For primitive man as for -the moderns definite organization and ritual custom must have been a -great establishing force as regards every phase of religious belief; -[74] and it may well have been that there was thus less intellectual -liberty of a kind in the long ages of what we regard as primitive -civilization than in those of savagery and barbarism which preceded -them. On that view, systems which are supposed to represent in the -fullest degree the primeval spontaneity of religion may have been in -part priestly reactions against habits of freedom accompanied by a -certain amount of skepticism. A modern inquirer [75] has in some such -sense advanced the theory that in ancient India, in even the earlier -period of collection of the Rig-Veda, which itself undermined the -monarchic character of the pre-Vedic religion, there was a decay of -belief, which the final redaction served to accelerate. Such a theory -can hardly pass beyond the stage of hypothesis in view of the entire -absence of history proper in early Indian literature; but we seem -at least to have the evidence of the Veda itself that while it was -being collected there were deniers of the existence of its Gods. [76] - -The latter testimony alone may serve as ground for raising afresh -an old question which recent anthropology has somewhat inexactly -decided--that, namely, as to whether there are any savages without -religious beliefs. - - - [For old discussions on the subject see Cicero, De natura - deorum, i, 23; Cumberland, Disquisitio de legibus naturæ, 1672, - introd. (rejecting negative view as resting on inadequate - testimony); Locke, Essay on the Human Understanding, Bk. I, - ch. iii, § 9; ch. iv, § 8 (accepting negative view); protests - against it by Vico (Scienza Nuova, 1725, as cited above, p. 26); - by Shaftesbury (Letters to a Student, 1716, rep. in Letters, 1746, - pp. 32-33); by Rev. John Milne, An Account of Mr. Lock's Religion - (anon.), 1700, pp. 5-8; and by Sir W. Anstruther, Essays Moral - and Divine, Edinburgh, 1701, p. 24; further protests by Lafitau - (Moeurs des sauvages ameriquains comparées aux moeurs des premiers - temps, 1724, i, 5), following Boyle, to the effect that the very - travellers and missionaries who denied all religion to savages - avow facts which confute them; and general view by Fabricius, - Delectus argumentorum et Syllabus scriptorum, Hamburghi, 1725, - ch. viii. Cp. also Swift, Discourse Concerning the Mechanical - Operation of the Spirit, § 2. - - Büchner (Force and Matter, ch. on "The Idea of God"); Lord Avebury - = Sir John Lubbock (Prehistoric Times, 5th ed., pp. 574-80; - Origin of Civilization, 5th ed., pp. 213-17); and Mr. Spencer - (Principles of Sociology, iii, § 583) have collected modern - travellers' testimonies as to the absence of religious ideas in - certain tribes. Cp. also J. A. St. John's (Bohn) ed. of Locke, - notes on passages above cited, and on Bk. IV, ch. x, § 6. As Lord - Avebury points out, the word "religion" is by some loosely or - narrowly used to signify only a higher theology as distinct from - lower supernaturalist beliefs. He himself, however, excludes from - the field of "religion" a belief in evil spirits and in magic--here - coinciding with the later anthropologists who represented magic - and religion as fundamentally "opposed"--a view rejected even by - some religionists. Cp. Avebury, Marriage, Totemism, and Religion, - (1911), p. 116 sq.; Rev. E. Crawley, The Mystic Rose, 1902, p. 3; - Prof. T. Witten Davies, Magic, Divination, and Demonology, 1898, - pp. 18-24. The proved erroneousness of many of the negative - testimonies has been insisted on by Benjamin Constant (De la - Religion, 1824, i, 3-4); Theodore Parker (Discourse of Matters - Pertaining to Religion, 1842 and 1855, ed. 1877, p. 16); G. Roskoff - (Das Religionswesen der rohesten Naturvölker, 1880, Abschn. I - and II); Dr. Tylor (Primitive Culture, 3rd ed., i, pp. 417-25); - and Dr. Max Müller (Introd. to the Science of Religion, ed. 1882, - p. 42 sq.; Hibbert Lectures, p. 91 sq.; Natural Religion, 1889, - pp. 81-89; Anthropological Religion, 1892, pp. 428-35.) - - The Rev. H. A. Junod (Life of a South African Tribe, vol. ii, - 1913, p. 346) shows how easily misconception on the subject may - arise. Galton (Narrative of an Explorer, ch. viii, ed. 1891, - p. 138) writes: "I have no conception to this day whether or - no the Ovampo have any religion, for Click was frightened and - angry if the subject of death was alluded to." The context shows - that the native regarded all questions on religious matters with - suspicion. Schweinfurth, again, contradicts himself twice within - three pages as to the beliefs of the Bongo in a "Supreme Being" - and in a future state; and thus leaves us doubting his statement - that the neighbouring race, the Dyoor, "put no faith at all in - any witchcraft" (The Heart of Africa, 3rd ed. i, 143-45). Much - of the confusion turns on the fact that savages who practise no - worship have religious beliefs (cp. Max Müller, Hibbert Lectures, - ed. 1878, p. 17, citing Monsignor Salvado; and Carl Lumholtz, Among - Cannibals, 1889, p. 284). The dispute, as it now stands, mainly - turns on the definition of religion (cp. Chantepie de la Saussaye, - Manual of the Science of Religion, Eng. tr. 1891, pp. 16-18, - where Lubbock's position is partly misunderstood). Dr. Tylor, - while deciding that no tribes known to us are religionless, - leaves open the question of their existence in the past. - - A notable example of the prolongation of error on this subject - through orthodox assumptions is seen in Dr. A. W. Howitt's - otherwise valuable work on The Native Tribes of South Australia - (1904). Dr. Howitt produces (pp. 488-508) abundant evidence to show - that a number of tribes believe in a "supernatural anthropomorphic - being," variously named Nurrundere, Nurelli, Bunjil, Mungan-ngaua, - Daramalun, and Baiame ("the same being under different names," - writes Dr. Howitt, p. 499). This being he describes as "the - tribal All-Father," "a venerable kindly Headman of a tribe, - full of knowledge and tribal wisdom, and all-powerful in magic, - of which he is the source, with virtues, failings, and passions - such as the aborigines regard them" (pp. 500-1). But he insists - (p. 506) that "in this being, though supernatural, there is - no trace of a divine nature," and, again, that "the Australian - aborigines do not recognize any divinity, good or evil" (p. 756), - though (p. 501) "it is most difficult for one of us to divest - himself of the tendency to endow such a supernatural being [as - the All-Father] with a nature quasi-divine, if not altogether - so." Dr. Howitt does not name any European deity who satisfies - him on the point of divinity! Obviously the Australian deities - have evolved in exactly the same way as those of other peoples, - Yahweh included. Dr. Howitt, indeed, admits (p. 507) that the - Australian notions "may have been at the root of monotheistic - beliefs." They certainly were; and when he adds that, "although - it cannot be alleged that these aborigines have consciously any - form of religion, it may be said that their beliefs are such that, - under favourable conditions, they might have developed into an - actual religion," he indicates afresh the confusion possible from - unscientific definitions. The sole content of his thesis is, - finally, that a "supernatural" being is not "divine" till the - priests have somewhat trimmed him, and that a religion is not - "actual" till it has been sacerdotally formulated. Dr. Howitt's - negations are as untenable as Mr. Andrew Lang's magnification of - the Australian All-Father into a perfect Supreme Being. - - The really important part of Dr. Howitt's survey of the problem - is his conclusion that the kind of belief he has described exists - only in a specified area of Australia, and that this area is "the - habitat of tribes ... where there has been the advance from group - marriage to individual marriage, from descent in the female line - to that in the male line" (p. 500). Messrs. Spencer and Gillen's - denial of the existence of any belief in a personal deity among - the tribes of Central Australia (Northern Tribes, 1904, p. 491) - appears to stand for actual fact. - - As to the "divinity" of the ancestor-gods of the primitives, - see Pagan Christs, 2nd ed. p. 41 sq.] - - -The problem has been unduly narrowed to the question whether there are -any whole tribes so developed. It is obviously pertinent to ask whether -there may not be diversity of opinion within a given tribe. Such -testimonies as those collected by Sir John Lubbock [Lord Avebury] -and others, as to the existence of religionless savages, are held to -be disposed of by further proof that tribes of savages who had been -set down as religionless on the evidence of some of themselves had in -reality a number of religious beliefs. Travellers' questions had been -falsely answered, either on the principle that non-initiates must not -be told the mysteries, or from that sudden perception of the oddity -of their beliefs which comes even to some civilized people when they -try to state them to an unbelieving outsider. Questions, again, could -easily be misunderstood, and answers likewise. We find, for instance, -that savages who scout the idea that the dead can "rise again" do -believe in the continued disembodied existence of all their dead, -and even at times conceive of them as marrying and procreating! On -the whole, they conceive of a continuity of spirit-life on earth in -human shape. To speak of such people as having no idea of "a life -beyond the grave" would obviously be misleading, though they have no -notion of a judgment day or of future rewards or punishments. [77] - -Undoubtedly, then, the negative view of savage religion had in a number -of cases been hastily taken; but there remains the question, as a -rule surprisingly ignored, whether some of the savages who disavowed -all belief in things supernatural may not have been telling the -simple truth about themselves, or even about their families and their -comrades. As one sympathetic traveller notes of the Samoyedes: "There -can be no such thing as strict accuracy of grammar or expression among -an illiterate people; nor can there be among these simple creatures -any consistent or fixed appreciation even of their own forms of -... belief.... Having no object in arriving at a common view of such -matters, each Samoyede, if questioned separately, will give more or -less his own disconnected impression of his faith." [78] And this holds -of unfaith. A savage asked by a traveller, "Do you believe" so-and-so, -might very well give a true negative answer for himself; [79] and the -traveller's resulting misconception would be due to his own arbitrary -assumption that all members of any tribe must think alike. - - - A good witness expressly testifies: "In the tribe [of Australians] - with which I was best acquainted, while the blacks had a term - for ghost and believed that there were departed spirits who were - sometimes to be seen among the foliage, individual men would tell - you upon inquiry that they believed that death was the last of - them" (Eaglehawk and Crow: A Study of the Australian Aborigines, - by John Mathew, M.A., B.D., 1899, p. 146). As to the risk of - wrong negative inferences, on the other hand, see pp. 145, 147. - - One of the best of our missionary witnesses, H. A. Junod, in his - valuable study of the South African Thonga, testifies both to - the commonness of individual variation in the way of religious - fancy and the occurrence of sporadic unbelief, usually ended by - fear. Individuals freely indulge in concrete speculations--e.g., - as to the existence of animal souls--which do not win vogue - (Life of a South African Tribe, vol. ii, 1913, p. 342 sq.), - though the reporter seems to overlook the possibility that - such ideas may be adopted by a tribe. Freethinking ideas have, - of course, by far the least chance of currency. "The young - folks of Libombo used to blaspheme in their hearts, saying, - 'There are no Gods.' But," added the witness, "we very soon saw - that there were some, when they killed one of us," who trod on - a snake (work cited, pp. 354-55). That testimony illustrates - well the difficulties of rational progress in a primitive - community. But at times the process may be encouraged by the - environment. The early missionary Ellis gives an instance of a - community in Hawaii that had abandoned all religious practices: - "We asked them who was their God. They said they had no God; - formerly they had many: but now they had cast them all away. We - asked them if they had done well in abolishing them. They said - 'Yes,' for tabu had occasioned much labour and inconvenience, - and drained off the best of their property. We asked them if it - was a good thing to have no God.... They said perhaps it was; - for they had nothing to provide for the great sacrifices, and were - under no fear of punishment for breaking tabu; that now one fire - cooked their food, and men and women ate together the same kind - of provisions." (W. Ellis, Tour Through Hawaii or Owhyhee, 1827, - p. 100.) The community in question had in their own way reached - the Lucretian verdict, Tantum relligio potuit suadere malorum. - - -Unless, again, such witnesses as Moffat be unfaithful reporters as -well as mistaken in their inferences, some of the natives with whom -they dealt were all but devoid of the ordinary religious notions [80] -which in the case of other natives have enabled the missionaries to -plant their doctrines. Nor is there anything hard of belief in the idea -that, just as special religious movements spread credence in certain -periods, a lack of active teachers in certain tribes may for a time -have let previously common beliefs pass almost out of knowledge. If -it be true that the Black Death wrought a great decline in the -ecclesiastical life of England in the fourteenth century, [81] a long -period of life-destroying conditions might eliminate from the life of -a savage tribe all lore save that of primary self-preservation. Moffat -incidentally notes the significant fact that rain-makers in his time -were usually foreigners to the tribes in which they operated. [82] - -The explanation is partly that given by him later, that "a rain-maker -seldom dies a natural death," [83] most being executed as impostors -for their failures. To this effect there are many testimonies. [84] -Among the Bushmen, says Lichtenstein, when a magician "happens to -have predicted falsely several times in succession, he is thrust out -of the kraal, and very likely burned or put to death in some other -way." [85] "A celebrated magician," says Burton again, "rarely if -ever dies a natural death." [86] And it is told of the people of -Niue, or Savage Island, in the South Pacific, that "of old they had -kings; but as they were the high priests as well, and were supposed -to cause the food to grow, the people got angry with them in times -of scarcity, and killed them; and as one after the other was killed, -the end of it was that no one wished to be king." [87] So, in Uganda, -if a chief and his medicine-men cannot make rain, "his whole existence -is at stake in times of distress." One chief was actually driven out; -and the rain-doctors always live on sufferance. [88] In such a state -of things religion might well lose vogue. - -Among some peoples of the Slave Coast, it appears, the regular -priests, despite their power and prestige, are always under suspicion -by reason of their frequent miscarriages; and they are--or were--not -unfrequently put to death. [89] Here there is disbelief in the priest -without disbelief in the God. But a disbelief in the priest which -tended to exterminate him might well diminish religion. - -On the other hand, a relative indifference to religion in a given -tribe might result from the influence of one or more leading men who -spontaneously doubted the religious doctrine offered to them, as many -in Israel, on the face of the priestly records, disbelieved in the -whole theocratic polity. In modern times preachers are constantly -found charging "unbelief" on their own flocks, in respect not of -any criticism of religious narrative or dogma, but of simple lack -of ostensible faith in doctrines of prayer and Providence nominally -accepted. [90] Among peasants who have never seen a freethinking book -or heard a professed freethinker's arguments may be heard expressions -of spontaneous unfaith in current doctrines of Providence. - -This is but a type of variations possible in primitive -societies. Despite the social potency of primitive custom, variation -may be surmised to occur in the mental as in the physical life at all -stages; and what normally happens in savagery and low civilization -appears to be a cancelment of the skeptical variation by the total -circumstances--the strength of the general lead to supernaturalism, -the plausibility of such beliefs to the average intelligence, and -the impossibility of setting up skeptical institutions to oppose -the others. In civilized ages skeptical movements are repeatedly -seen to dwindle for simple lack of institutions; which, however, -are spontaneously set up by and serve as sustainers of religious -systems. On the simpler level of savagery, skeptical personalities -would in the long run fail to affirm themselves as against the -institutions of ordinary savage religion--the seasonal feasts, -the ceremonies attending birth and death, the use of rituals, -images, charms, sorcery, all tending to stimulate and conserve -supernatural beliefs in general. Only the abnormally courageous would -dare outspokenly to doubt or deny at all; and their daring would put -them in special jeopardy. [91] The ancient maxim, Primus in orbe deos -fecit timor, is verified by all modern study of primitive life. [92] -It is a recent traveller who gives the definition: "Fetishism is the -result of the efforts of the savage intelligence seeking after a theory -which will account for the apparent hostility of nature to man." [93] -And this incalculable force of fear is constantly exploited by the -religious bias from the earliest stages of sorcery. [94] - -The check to intellectual evolution would here be on all fours with -some of the checks inferribly at work in early moral evolution, -where the types with the higher ideals would seem often to be -positively endangered by their peculiarity, and would thus be the -less likely to multiply. And what happened as between man and man -would further tend to happen at times as between communities. Given -the possible case of a tribe so well placed as to be unusually little -affected by fear of enemies and the natural forces, the influence -of rationalistic chiefs or of respected tribesmen might set up for -a time a considerable anti-religious variation, involving at least -a minimizing of religious doctrine and practices. Such a case is -actually seen among the prosperous peoples of the Upper Congo, some of -whom, like the poorer tribes known to Moffat, have no "medicine-men" -of their own, and very vague notions of deity. [95] But when such a -tribe did chance to come into conflict with others more religious, it -would be peculiarly obnoxious to them; and, being in the terms of the -case unwarlike, its chance of survival on the old lines would be small. - - - Such a possibility is suggested with some vividness by the familiar - contrast between the modern communities of Fiji and Samoa--the - former cruel, cannibalistic, and religious, the latter much less - austerely religious and much more humane. The ferocious Fijians - "looked upon the Samoans with horror, because they had no religion, - no belief in any such deities [as the Fijians'], nor any of the - sanguinary rites which prevailed in other islands" (Spencer, - Study of Sociology, pp. 293-94, following J. Williams, Narrative - of Missionary Enterprise in the South Sea Islands, ed. 1837, - pp. 540-41; cp. the Rev. A. W. Murray, Forty Years' Mission Work, - 1876, p. 171). The "no religion" is, of course, only relatively - true. Mr. Lang has noticed the error of the phrase "the godless - Samoans" (cp. Turner, Samoa a Hundred Years Ago, 1884, pp. 16-17); - but, while suggesting that the facts are the other way, he admits - that in their creed "the religious sentiment has already become - more or less self-conscious, and has begun to reason on its own - practices" (Myth, Ritual, and Religion, ii, 34; 2nd ed., ii, 58). - - -Taking the phenomena all along the line of evolution, we are led to the -generalization that the rationalistic tendency, early or late, like -the religious tendency, is a variation which prospers at different -times in different degrees relatively to the favourableness of the -environment. This view will be set forth in some detail in the course -of our history. - -It is not, finally, a mere surmise that individual savages -and semi-savages in our own time vary towards disbelief in the -supernaturalism of their fellows. To say nothing of the rational -skepticism exhibited by the Zulu converts of Bishop Colenso, which was -the means of opening his eyes to the incredibility of the Pentateuch, -[96] or of the rationalism of the African chief who debated with -Sir Samuel Baker the possibility of a future state, [97] we have the -express missionary record that the forcible suppression of idolatry and -tabu and the priesthood by King Rihoriho in the island of Hawaii, in -1819, was accomplished not only "before the arrival of any missionary," -but on purely common-sense grounds, and with no thought of furthering -Christianity, though he had heard of the substitution of Christianity -for the native religion by Pomare in Tahiti. Rihoriho simply desired -to save his wives and other women from the cruel pressure of the tabu -system, and to divert the priests' revenues to secular purposes; -and he actually had some strong priestly support. [98] Had not the -missionary system soon followed, however, the old worship, which -had been desperately defended in battle at the instigation of the -conservative priests, would in all probability have grown up afresh, -though perhaps with modifications. The savage and semi-savage social -conditions, taken as a whole, are fatally unpropitious to rationalism. - -A parallel case to that of Rihoriho is that of King Finow of the Tonga -Islands, described by Mariner, who was his intimate. Finow was noted -for his want of religion. "He used to say that the Gods would always -favour that party in war in which there were the greatest chiefs and -warriors"--the European mot strictly adapted to Fiji conditions. "He -did not believe that the Gods paid much attention in other respects -to the affairs of mankind; nor did he think that they could have any -reason for doing so--no more than men could have any reason or interest -in attending to the affairs of the Gods." For the rest, "it is certain -that he disbelieved most of the oracles delivered by the priests," -though he carefully used them for political and military purposes; -and he acquiesced in the usage of human sacrifices--particularly on -his own account--while professing to deplore the taste of the Gods -in these matters. His own death seems to have been the result of -poisoning by a priest, whom the king had planned to strangle. The -king's daughter was sick, and the priest, instead of bringing about -her recovery by his prayers, hardily explained that the illness was -the act of the Gods in punishment of the king's frequent disrespect -to them. Daughter and father were alternately ill, till the former -died; and then it was that the king, by disclosing his resolve to -strangle the priest, brought on his own death (1810). A few warriors -were disposed to take revenge on the priest; but the majority, on -learning the facts, shuddered at the impious design of the late king, -and regarded his death as the natural vengeance of the Gods. But, -though such "impiety" as his was very rare, his son after him decided -to abolish the priestly office of "divine chieftain," on the score -that it was seen to avail for nothing, while it cost a good deal; -and the chiefs and common people were soon brought to acquiesce in -the policy. [99] - -Such cases appear to occur in many barbarous communities. It is -recorded of the Kaffir chief Go that he was perfectly aware of the -hollowness of the pretensions of the magicians and rain-makers of his -tribe, though he held it impolitic to break with them, and called them -in and followed their prescriptions, as did his subjects. [100] Of the -Galeka chief Segidi it is similarly told that, while his medicine-men -went into trances for occult knowledge preparatory to a military -expedition, he carefully obtained real information through spies, -and, while liberally rewarding his wizards, sent his sons to school -at Blythswood. [101] Yet again, in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, -we have the story of King Edwin's priest, Coifi, naïvely avowing that -he saw no virtue in his religion, [102] inasmuch as many men received -more royal favours than he, who had been most diligent in serving the -Gods. [103] Such a declaration might very well have been arranged -for by the Christian Bishop Paulinus, who was converting the king, -and would naturally provide for Coifi; but on any view a process of -skepticism had taken place in the barbarian's mind. [104] - -Other illustrations come from the history of ancient Scandinavia. Grimm -notes in several Norse sagas and songs expressions of contempt -for various Gods, which appear to be independent of Christian -influence; [105] and many warriors continued alike the Christian -and the Pagan deities. In the saga of King Olaf Tryggvason, who -enforced Christianity on Norway, it is declared by one chief that -he relied much more on his own arm than on Thor and Odin; while -another announced that he was neither Christian nor Pagan, adding: -"My companions and I have no other religion than the confidence of -our own strength and in the good success which always attends us in -war." Similar sentiments are recorded to have been uttered by Rolf -Krake, a legendary king of Denmark (circa 500); [106] and we have in -the Æneid the classic type--doubtless drawn from barbaric life--of -Mezentius, divum contemptor, who calls his right arm his God, and in -dying declares that he appeals to no deity. [107] Such utterances, -indeed, do not amount to rational freethinking; but, where some -could be thus capable of anti-theism, it is reasonable to surmise -that among the more reflective there were some capable of simple -atheism or non-belief, and of the prudence of keeping the fact to -themselves. Partial skepticism, of course, would be much more common, -as among the Aryan Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush, with whom, before their -conquest by the Ameer of Afghanistan, a British agent found among -the younger men an inclination to be skeptical about some sacred -ceremonies, while very sincere in their worship of their favourite -deity, the God of war. [108] - -It is thus seen to be inaccurate to say, as has been said by -an accomplished antagonist of apriorism, that "under the yoke of -tribal custom skepticism can hardly arise: there is no place for the -half-hearted: as all men feel alike, so all think alike: skepticism -arises when beliefs are put into formal propositions." [109] It is -broadly true that "there is no place for" the doubter as such in -the tribal society; but doubters do exist. Skepticism--in the sense -in which the term is here used, that of rational disbelief--may -even be commoner in some stages of the life of tribal customs than -in some stages of backward civilization loaded with formulated -creeds. What is true is that in the primitive life the rationalism -necessarily fails, for lack of culture and institutions, to diffuse -and establish itself, whereas superstition succeeds, being naturally -institution-making. Under such conditions skepticism is but a recurrent -variation. [110] - -It is significant, further, that in the foregoing cases of unbelief -at the lower levels of civilization it is only the high rank of the -doubter that secures publication for the fact of the doubt. In Hawaii, -or Tonga, only a king's unbelief could make itself historically -heard. So in the familiar story of the doubting Inca of Peru, who -in public religious assembly is said to have avowed his conclusion -that the deified Sun was not really a living thing, it is the -status of the speaker that gives his words a record. The doubt had -in all likelihood been long current among the wise men of Peru; -it is indeed ascribed to two or three different Incas; [111] but, -save for the Incas' promulgation of it, history would bear no trace -of Peruvian skepticism. So again in the Acolhuan State of Tezcuco, -the most civilized in the New World before the Spanish conquest, -the great King Netzahualcoyotl is found opposing the cults of human -sacrifice and worshipping an "unknown God," without an image and with -only incense for offering. [112] Only the king in such an environment -could put on record such a conception. There is, in fact, reason to -believe that all ancient ameliorations of bloody rites were the work -of humane kings or chiefs, [113] as they are known to have been among -semi-savages in our own day. [114] In bare justice we are bound to -surmise that similar developments of rationalism have been fairly -frequent in unwritten history, and that there must have been much of -it among the common folk; though, on the other hand, the very position -of a savage king, and the special energy of character which usually -goes to secure it, may count for much in giving him the courage to -think in defiance of custom. In modern as in early Christian times, -it is always to the chief or king of a savage or barbarous tribe -that the missionary looks for permission to proceed against the -force of popular conservatism. [115] Apart from kings and chiefs, -the priesthood itself would be the likeliest soil for skepticism, -though, of course, not for the open avowal of it. - -There are to be noted, finally, the facts collected as to marked -skeptical variation among children; [116] and the express evidence -that "it has not been found in a single instance that an uneducated -deaf-mute has had any conception of the existence of a Supreme -Being as the Creator and Ruler of the Universe." [117] These latter -phenomena do not, of course, entitle us to accept Professor Gruppe's -sweeping theorem that it is the religious variation that is abnormal, -and that religion can have spread only by way of the hereditary -imposition of the original insanity of one or two on the imagination -of the many. [118] Deaf-mutes are not normal organisms. But all -the facts together entitle us to decide that religion, broadly -speaking, is but the variation that has chiefly flourished, by -reason of its adaptation to the prevailing environment thus far; -and to reject as unscientific the formulas which, even in the face -of the rapidly-spreading rationalism of the more civilized nations, -still affirm supernaturalist beliefs to be a universal necessity of -the human mind. - -On the same grounds, we must reject the claim--arbitrarily set up by -one historian in the very act of showing how religion historically -oppugns science--that all sacred books as such "are true because they -have been developed in accordance with the laws governing the evolution -of truth in human history; and because in poem, chronicle, code, -legend, myth, apologue, or parable, they reflect this development -of what is best in the onward march of humanity." [119] In this -proposition the opening words, "are true because" are strictly -meaningless. All literature whatever has been developed under the -same general laws. But if it be meant that sacred books were specially -likely to garner truth as such, the claim must be negated. In terms of -the whole demonstration of the bias of theology against new truth in -modern times, the irresistible presumption is that in earlier times -also the theological and theocratic spirit was in general hostile -to every process by which truth is normally attained. And if the -thesis be limited to moral truth, it is still less credible. It is, -in fact, inconceivable that literature so near the popular level as -to suit whole priesthoods should be morally the best of which even -the age producing it is capable; and nothing is more certain than -that enlightened ethic has always had to impeach or explain away the -barbarisms of some sacred books. The true summary is that in all cases -the accepted sacred books have of necessity fallen short not only of -scientific truth and of pure ethic, but even of the best speculation -and the best ethic of the time of their acceptance, inasmuch as they -excluded the criticism of the freethinking few on the sacred books -themselves. There is sociological as well as physical science, and -the former is flouted when the whole freethinking of the human race in -the period of Bible-making is either ignored or treated as worthless. - -It is probable, for instance, that in all stages of primitive religion -there have been disbelievers in the value of sacrifice, who might or -might not dare to denounce the practice. The demurrers to it in the -Hebrew prophetic literature are probably late; but they were in all -likelihood anticipated in early times. Among the Fijians, for whom -cannibalism was an essentially religious act, and the privilege of -the males of the aristocracy, there were a number of the latter who, -before and apart from the entrance of Christianity, abominated and -denounced the practice, reasoning against it also on utilitarian -grounds, while the orthodox made it out to be a social duty. There -were even whole towns which revolted against it and made it tabu; -and it was by force mainly of this rationalistic reaction that the -missionaries succeeded so readily in putting down the usage. [120] -It is impossible to estimate how often in the past such a revolt of -reason against religious insanity has been overborne by the forces -of pious habit. - - - - - - - -CHAPTER III - -PROGRESS UNDER ANCIENT RELIGIONS - - -§ 1. EARLY ASSOCIATION AND COMPETITION OF CULTS - -When religion has entered on the stage of quasi-civilized organization, -with fixed legends or documents, temples, and the rudiments of -hierarchies, the increased forces of terrorism and conservatism -are in nearly all cases seen to be in part countervailed by the -simple interaction of the systems of different communities. There -is no more ubiquitous force in the whole history of the subject, -operating as it does in ancient Assyria, in the life of Vedic India -and Confucian China, and in the diverse histories of progressive -Greece and relatively stationary Egypt, down through the Christian -Middle Ages to our own period of comparative studies. - -In ages when any dispassionate comparative study was impossible, -religious systems appear to have been considerably modified by the -influence of those of conquered peoples on those of their conquerors, -and vice versâ. Peoples who while at arm's length would insult and -affect to despise each other's Gods, and would deride each other's -myths, [121] appear frequently to have altered their attitude when -one had conquered the other; and this not because of any special -growth of sympathy, but by force of the old motive of fear. In the -stage of natural polytheism no nation really doubted the existence -of the Gods of another; at most, like the Hebrews of the early -historic period, it would set its own God above the others, calling -him "Lord of Lords." But, every community having its own God, he -remained a local power even when his own worshippers were conquered, -and his cult and lore were respected accordingly. This procedure, -which has been sometimes attributed to the Romans in particular as -a stroke of political sagacity, was the normal and natural course -of polytheism. Thus in the Hebrew books the Assyrian conqueror is -represented as admitting that it is necessary to leave a priest who -knows "the manner of the God of the land" among the new inhabitants -he has planted there. - - - See 2 Kings xvii, 26. Cp. Ruth i, 16, and Judges xvii, 13. The - account by Herodotos (ii, 171) of the preservation of the - Pelasgic rites of Dêmêtêr by the women of Arcadia points to the - same principle. See also hereinafter, ch. vi, § 1; K. O. Müller, - Introd. to a Sci. Study of Mythol., Eng. trans., p. 193; Adolf - Bastian, Der Mensch in der Geschichte, 1860, i, 189; Rhys, - Celtic Britain, 2nd ed., p. 69; Max Müller, Anthropological - Religion, p. 164; Gibbon, ch. xxxiv--Bohn ed., iii, 554, note; - Tylor, Primitive Culture, i, 113-15; and Dr. F. B. Jevons's - Introd. to the Hist. of Relig., 1896, pp. 36-40, where the fear - felt by conquering races for the occult powers of the conquered is - limited to the sphere of "magic." But when Dr. Jevons so defines - magic as to admit of his proposition (p. 38) that "the hostility - from the beginning between religion and magic is universally - admitted," he throws into confusion the whole phenomena of the - early official-religious practice of magic, of which sacrifice - and prayer are the type-forms that have best survived. And in - the end he upsets his definition by noting (p. 40) how magic, - "even where its relation to religion is one of avowed hostility," - will imitate religion. Obviously magic is a function or aspect or - element of primitive religion (cp. Roskoff, Das Religionswesen der - rohesten Naturvölker, 1880, p. 144; Sayce, pp. 315, 319, 327, and - passim; and Tiele, Egyptian Rel., pp. 22, 32); and any "hostility," - far from being universal, is either a social or a philosophical - differentiation. On the whole question compare the author's Pagan - Christs, 2nd ed., pp. 11-38. In the opinion of Weber (Hist. of - Ind. Lit., p. 264) the magic arts "found a more and more fruitful - soil as the religious development of the Hindus progressed"; - "so that they now, in fact, reign almost supreme." See again - Dr. Jevons's own later admission, p. 395, where the exception of - Christianity is somewhat arbitrary. On this compare Kant, Religion - innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, B. iv, Th. ii, § 3. - - -Similar cases have been noted in primitive cults still surviving. Fear -of the magic powers of "lower" or conquered races is in fact normal -wherever belief in wizardry survives; and to the general tendency may -be conjecturally ascribed such phenomena as that of the Saturnalia, -in which masters and slaves changed places, and the institution of the -Levites among the Hebrews, otherwise only mythically explained. But if -conquerors and conquered thus tended to amalgamate or associate their -cults, equally would allied tribes tend to do so; and, when particular -Gods of different groups were seen to correspond in respect of special -attributes, a further analysis would be encouraged. Hence, with every -extension of every State, every advance in intercourse made in peace -or through war, there would be a further comparison of credences, -a further challenge to the reasoning powers of thoughtful men. - - - On the normal tendency to defer to local deities, compare Tylor, - Primitive Culture, as last cited; B. Thomson, The Fijians, - 1908, p. 112; A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-Speaking Peoples of the Gold - Coast, 1887, p. 147, and The Ewe-Speaking Peoples, 1890, p. 55; - P. Wurm, Handbuch der Religionsgeschichte, 2te Aufl., p. 43 (as to - Madagascar); Sir H. Johnston, The Uganda Protectorate, 1902, ii, - 589; Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, iii, 186; P. Kropotkin, - Memoirs of a Revolutionist, ed. 1908, p. 191; W. W. Skeat, Malay - Magic, 1900, pp. 56, 84; Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern - India, 1909, i, 86-87, 94, 100; iii, 188; iv, 170; v, 467-68; - W. H. R. Rivers, The Todas, 1906, p. 263; Rae, The White Sea - Peninsula, 1881, p. 262; Élie Reclus, Primitive Folk, pp. 254-56; - Grant Allen, Evolution of the Idea of God, 1897, pp. 289, 301-302; - Castrén, Vorlesungen über die Finnische Mythologie, 1853, p. 281; - Gummere, Germanic Origins, 1892, p. 140, citing Weinhold, Deutsche - Frauen, i, 105; Gobineau, Les religions et les philosophies dans - l'Asie centrale, 2e éd. p. 67; E. Higgins, Hebrew Idolatry and - Superstition, 1893, pp. 20, 24; Robertson Smith, Religion of - the Semites, 1889, p. 77; Wellhausen, Heidenthum, pp. 129, 183, - cited by Smith, p. 79; Lang, Making of Religion, p. 65; Frazer, - Golden Bough, 2nd ed. ii, 72. Above all, see the record in Old New - Zealand, "by a Pakeha Maori" (2nd ed. Auckland, 1863, p. 154), - of the believing resort of some white men to native wizards in - New Zealand. - - Stevenson, again, is evidently proceeding upon observation - when he makes his trader in The Beach of Falesà say: "We - laugh at the natives and their superstitions; but see how many - traders take them up, splendidly educated white men that have - been bookkeepers (some of them) and clerks in the old country" - (Island Nights' Entertainments, 1893, pp. 104-105). In Abyssinia, - "Galla sorceresses are frequently called in by the Christians of - Shoa to transfer sickness or to rid the house of evil spirits" - (Major W. Cornwallis Harris, The Highlands of Aethiopia, 1844, - iii, 50). On the other hand, some Sudanese tribes "believe in the - virtue both of Christian and Moslem amulets, but have hitherto lent - a deaf ear to the preachers of both these religions" (A. H. Keane, - Man, Past and Present, 1900, p. 50). - - This tendency did not exclude, but would in certain cases - conflict with, the strong primitive tendency to associate every - God permanently with his supposed original locality. Tiele writes - (Hist. of the Egypt. Relig., Eng. trans. introd. p. xvii) that in - no case was a place given to the Gods of one nation in another's - pantheon "if they did not wholly alter their form, character, - appearance, and not seldom their very name." This seems an - over-statement, and is inconsistent with Tiele's own statement - (Hist. comparée des anc. relig. égyptiennes et sémitiques, - French trans., 1882, pp. 174-80) as to the adoption of Sumerian - and Akkadian Gods and creeds by the Semites. What is clear is - that local cults resisted the removal of their Gods' images; - and the attempt to deport such images to Babylon, thus affecting - the monopoly of the God of Babylon himself, was a main cause of - the fall of Nabonidos, who was driven out by Cyrus. (E. Meyer, - Geschichte des Alterthums, i (1884), 599.) But the Assyrians - invoked Bel Merodach of Babylon, after they had conquered Babylon, - in terms of his own ritual; even as Israelites often invoked - the Gods of Canaan (cp. Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, Relig. of the - Anc. Babylonians, p. 123). And King Mardouk-nadinakhe of Babylon, - in the twelfth century B.C., carried off statues of the Assyrian - Gods from the town of Hekali to Babylon, where they were kept - captive for 418 years (Maspero, Hist. anc. des peuples de l'orient, - 4e éd. p. 300). A God could migrate with his worshippers from city - to city (Meyer, iii, 169; Sayce, p. 124); and the Assyrian scribe - class maintained the worship of their special God Nebo wherever - they went, though he was a local God to start with (Sayce, pp. 117, - 119, 121). And as to the recognition of the Gods of different - Egyptian cities by politic kings, see Tiele's own statement, - p. 36. Cp. his Outlines, pp. 73, 84, 207. - - -A concrete knowledge of the multiplicity of cults, then, was -obtruded on the leisured and travelled men of the early empires and -of such a civilization as that of Hellas; [122] and when to such -knowledge there was added a scientific astronomy (the earliest to be -constituted of the concrete sciences), a revision of beliefs by such -men was inevitable. [123] It might take the form either of a guarded -skepticism or of a monarchic theology, answering to the organization -of the actual earthly empire; and the latter view, in the nature of -the case, would much the more easily gain ground. The freethought of -early civilization, then, would be practically limited for a long time -to movements in the direction of co-ordinating polytheism, to the end -of setting up a supreme though not a sole deity; the chief God in any -given case being apt to be the God specially affected by the reigning -monarch. Allocation of spheres of influence to the principal deities -would be the working minimum of plausible adjustment, since only -in some such way could the established principle of the regularity -of the heavens be formally accommodated to the current worship; and -wherever there was monarchy, even if the monarch were polytheistic, -there was a lead to gradation among the Gods. [124] A pantheistic -conception would be the highest stretch of rationalism that could -have any vogue even among the educated class. All the while every -advance was liable to the ill-fortune of overthrow or arrest at the -hands of an invading barbarism, which even in adopting the system of an -established priesthood would be more likely to stiffen than to develop -it. Early rationalism, in short, would share in the fluctuations of -early civilization; and achievements of thought would repeatedly be -swept away, even as were the achievements of the constructive arts. - - - - -§ 2. THE PROCESS IN INDIA - -The process thus deducible from the main conditions is found actually -happening in more than one of the ancient cultures, as their history -is now sketched. In the Rig-Veda, which if not the oldest is the least -altered of the Eastern Sacred Books, the main line of change is obvious -enough. It remains so far matter of conjecture to what extent the early -Vedic cults contain matter adopted from non-Aryan Asiatic peoples; but -no other hypothesis seems to account for the special development of the -cult of Agni in India as compared with the content and development of -the other early Aryan systems, in which, though there are developments -of fire worship, the God Agni does not appear. [125] The specially -priestly character of the Agni worship, and the precedence it takes -in the Vedas over the solar cult of Mitra, which among the kindred -Aryans of Iran receives in turn a special development, suggest some -such grafting, though the relations between Aryans and the Hindu -aborigines, as indicated in the Veda, seem to exclude the possibility -of their adopting the fire-cult from the conquered inhabitants, [126] -who, besides, are often spoken of in the Vedas as "non-sacrificers," -[127] and at times as "without Gods." [128] But this is sometimes -asserted even of hostile Aryans. [129] In any case the carrying -on of the two main cults of Agni and Indra side by side points to -an original and marked heterogeneity of racial elements; while the -varying combination with them of the worship of other deities, the -old Aryan Varuna, the three forms of the Sun-God Aditya, the Goddess -Aditi and the eight Adityas, the solar Mitra, Vishnu, Rudra, and -the Maruts, imply the adaptation of further varieties of hereditary -creed. The outcome is a sufficiently chaotic medley, in which the -attributes and status of the various Gods are reducible to no code, -[130] the same feats being assigned to several, and the attributes -of all claimed for almost any one. Here, then, were the conditions -provocative of doubt among the critical; and while it is only in the -later books of the Rig-Veda that such doubt finds priestly expression, -it must be inferred that it was current in some degree among laymen -before the hymn-makers avowed that they shared it. The God Soma, -the personification of wine, identified with the Moon-God Chandra, -[131] "hurls the irreligious into the abyss." [132] This may mean that -his cult, like that of his congener Dionysos in Greece, was at first -forcibly resisted, and forcibly triumphed. At an earlier period doubt -is directed against the most popular God, Indra, perhaps on behalf of a -rival cult. [133] Later it seems to take the shape of a half-skeptical, -half-mystical questioning as to which, if any, God is real. - - - From the Catholic standpoint, Dr. E. L. Fischer has argued that - "Varuna is in the ontological, physical, and ethical relation - the highest, indeed the unique, God of ancient India"; and that - the Nature-Gods of the Veda can belong only to a later period in - the religious consciousness (Heidenthum und Offenbarung, 1878, - pp. 36-37). Such a development, had it really occurred, might - be said to represent a movement of primitive freethought from - an unsatisfying monotheism to a polytheism that seemed better - to explain natural facts. A more plausible view of the process, - however, is that of von Bradke, to the effect that "the old - Indo-Germanic polytheism, with its pronounced monarchic apex, which - ... constituted the religion of the pre-Vedic [Aryan] Hindus, lost - its monarchic apex shortly before and during the Rig-Veda period, - and set up for itself the so-called Henotheism [worship of deities - severally as if each were the only one], which thus represented - in India a time of religious decline; a decline that, at the end - of the period to which the Rig-Veda hymns belong, led to an almost - complete dissolution of the old beliefs. The earlier collection of - the hymns must have promoted the decline; and the final redaction - must have completed it. The collected hymns show only too plainly - how the very deity before whom in one song all the remaining - Gods bow themselves, in the next sinks almost in the dust before - another. Then there sounds from the Rig-Veda (x, 121) the wistful - question: Who is the God whom we should worship?" (Dyâus Asura, - Ahuramazda, und die Asuras, Halle, 1885, p. 115; cp. note, supra, - p. 30). On this view the growth of monotheism went on alongside - of a growth of critical unbelief, but, instead of expressing that, - provoked it by way of reaction. Dr. Muir more specifically argues - (Sanskrit Texts, v, 116) that in the Vedic hymns Varuna is a God - in a state of decadence; and, despite the dissent of M. Barth - (Religions of India, p. 18), this seems true. But the recession - of Varuna is only in the normal way of the eclipse of the old - Supreme God by a nearer deity, and does not suffice to prove a - growth of agnosticism. M. Fontane (Inde Védique, 1881, p. 305) - asserts on other grounds a popular movement of negation in the - Vedic period, but offers rather slender evidence. There is better - ground for his account of the system as one in which different - cults had the upper hand at different times, the devotees of - Indra rejecting Agni, and so on (pp. 310-11). - - -To meet such a doubt, a pantheistic view of things would naturally -arise, and in the Vedas it often emerges. [134] Thus "Agni is all -the Gods"; and "the Gods are only a single being under different -names." [135] For ancient as for more civilized peoples such a doctrine -had the attraction of nominally reconciling the popular cult with the -skepticism it had aroused. Rising thus as freethought, the pantheistic -doctrine in itself ultimately became in India a dogmatic system, the -monopoly of a priestly caste, whose training in mystical dialectic -made them able to repel or baffle amateur criticism. Such fortifying -of a sophisticated creed by institutions--of which the Brahmanic caste -system is perhaps the strongest type--is one of the main conditions -of relative permanence for any set of opinions; yet even within -the Brahmanic system, by reason, presumably, of the principle that -the higher truth was for the adept and need not interfere with the -popular cult, there were again successive critical revisions of the -pantheistic idea. - - - Prof. Garbe (Philosophy of Anc. India, sect. on Hindu Monism) - argues that all monistic, and indeed all progressive, thinking in - ancient India arose not among the Brahmans, who were conscienceless - oppressors, but among the warrior caste; citing stories in the - Upanishads in which Brahmans are represented as receiving such - ideas from warriors. The thesis is much weakened by the Professor's - acceptance of Krishna as primarily a historic character, of the - warrior class. But there is ground for his general thesis, which - recognizes (p. 78) that the Brahmans at length assimilated the - higher thought of laymen. Max Müller puts it that "No nation was - ever so completely priestridden as the Hindus were under the sway - of the Brahmanic law. Yet, on the other side, the same people were - allowed to indulge in the most unrestrained freedom of thought, - and in the schools of their philosophy the very names of their - Gods were never mentioned. Their existence was neither denied - nor asserted...." (Selected Essays, 1881, ii, 244). "Sankhya - philosophy" [on which Buddhism is supposed to be based], "in - its original form, claims the name of an-îsvara, 'lordless' or - 'atheistic,' as its distinctive title" (ibid. p. 283). - - Of the nature of a freethinking departure, among the early - Brahmanists as in other societies, was the substitution of - non-human for human sacrifices--a development of peaceful - life-conditions which, though not primitive, must have ante-dated - Buddhism. See Tiele, Outlines, pp. 126-27 and refs.; Barth, - Religions of India, pp. 57-59; and Müller, Physical Religion, - p. 101. Prof. Robertson Smith (Religion of the Semites, p. 346) - appears to hold that animal sacrifice was never a substitute - for human; but his ingenious argument, on analysis, is found to - prove only that in certain cases the idea of such a substitution - having taken place may have been unhistorical. If it be granted - that human sacrifices ever occurred--and all the evidence goes - to show that they were once universal--substitution would be an - obvious way of abolishing them. Historical analogy is in favour - of the view that the change was forced on the priesthood from the - outside, and only after a time accepted by the Brahmans. Thus - we find the Khârvâkas, a school of freethinkers, rising in the - Alexandrian period, making it part of their business to denounce - the Brahmanic doctrine and practice of sacrifice, and to argue - against all blood sacrifices; but they had no practical success - (Tiele, p. 126) until Buddhism triumphed (Mitchell, Hinduism, 1885, - p. 106; Rhys Davids, tr. of Dialogues of the Buddha, 1899, p. 165). - - -In the earliest Upanishads the World-Being seems to have been figured -as the totality of matter, [136] an atheistic view associated in -particular with the teaching of Kapila, [137] who himself, however, was -at length raised to divine status, [138] though his system continues -to pass as substantially atheistic. [139] This view being open to all -manner of anti-religious criticism, which it incurred even within the -Brahmanic pale, [140] there was evolved an ideal formula in which -the source of all things is "the invisible, intangible, unrelated, -colourless one, who has neither eyes nor ears, neither hands nor feet, -eternal, all-pervading, subtile, and undecaying." [141] At the same -time, the Upanishads exhibit a stringent reaction against the whole -content of the Vedas. Their ostensible object is "to show the utter -uselessness--nay, the mischievousness--of all ritual performances; -to condemn every sacrificial act which has for its motive a desire or -hope of reward; to deny, if not the existence, at least the exceptional -and exalted character of the Devas; and to teach that there is no hope -of salvation and deliverance except by the individual self recognizing -the true and universal self and finding rest there, where alone rest -can be found." [142] - -And the critical development does not end there. "In the old -Upanishads, in which the hymns and sacrifices of the Veda are looked -upon as useless, and as superseded by the higher knowledge taught by -the forest-sages, they are not yet attacked as mere impositions. That -opposition, however, sets in very decidedly in the Sutra period. In -the Nirukta (i, 15) Yâska quotes the opinion of Kautsa, that the hymns -of the Veda have no meaning at all." [143] In short, every form of -critical revolt against incredible doctrine that has arisen in later -Europe had taken place in ancient India long before the Alexandrian -conquest. [144] And the same attitude continued to be common within the -post-Alexandrian period; for Panini, who must apparently be dated then, -[145] "was acquainted with infidels and nihilists"; [146] and the -teaching of Brihaspati, [147] on which was founded the system of the -Khârvâkas--apparently one of several sections of a freethinking school -called the Lokâyatas [148] or Lokâyatikas--is extremely destructive of -Vedic pretensions. "The Veda is tainted by the three faults of untruth, -self-contradiction, and tautology.... The impostors who call themselves -Vedic pandits are mutually destructive.... The three authors of the -Vedas were buffoons, knaves, and demons: All the well-known formulas -of the pandits, and all the horrid rites for the queen commanded -in the Asvamedha--these were invented by buffoons, and so all the -various kinds of presents to the priests; while the eating of flesh -was similarly commanded by night-prowling demons." [149] - -To what extent such aggressive rationalism ever spread it is now -quite impossible to ascertain. It seems probable that the word -Lokâyata, defined by Sanskrit scholars as signifying "directed -to the world of sense," [150] originally, or about 500 B.C., -signified "Nature-lore," and that this passed as a branch of Brahman -learning. [151] Significantly enough, while the lore was not extensive, -it came to be regarded as disposing men to unbelief, though it does -not seem to have suggested any thorough training. At length, in the -eighth century of our era, it is found applied as a term of abuse, -in the sense of "infidel," by Kumârila in controversy with opponents -as orthodox as himself; and about the same period Sankara connects -with it a denial of the existence of a separate and immortal soul; -[152] though that opinion had been debated, and not called Lokâyata, -long before, when the word was current in the broader sense. [153] -Latterly, in the fourteenth century, on the strength of some doggerel -verses which cannot have belonged to the early Brahmanic Lokâyata, -it stands for extreme atheism and a materialism not professed by any -known school speaking for itself. [154] The evidence, such as it is, -is preserved only in Sarva-darsana-samgraha, a compendium of all -philosophical systems, compiled in the fourteenth century by the -Vedantic teacher Mâdhavâchâra. [155] One source speaks of an early -text-book of materialism, the Sutras of Brihaspati; [156] but this has -not been preserved. Thus in Hindu as in later European freethought for -a long period we have had to rely for our knowledge of freethinkers' -ideas upon the replies made by their opponents. It is reasonable to -conclude that, save insofar as the arguments of Brihaspati were common -to the Khârvâkas and the Buddhists, [157] such doctrine as his or that -of the later Lokâyatikas cannot conceivably have been more than the -revolt of a thoughtful minority against official as well as popular -religion; and to speak of a time when "the Aryan settlers in India -had arrived at the conviction that all their Devas or Gods were mere -names" [158] is to suggest a general evolution of rational thought -which can no more have taken place in ancient India than it has done -to-day in Europe. The old creeds would always have defenders; and -every revolt was sure to incur a reaction. In the Hitopadesa or "Book -of Good Counsel" (an undated recension of the earlier Panchatantra, -"The Five Books," which in its first form may be placed about the fifth -century of our era) there occur both passages disparaging mere study -of the Sacred Books [159] and passages insisting upon it as a virtue -in itself [160] and otherwise insisting on ritual observances. [161] -They seem to come from different hands. - - - The phenomenon of the schism represented by the two divisions - of the Yazur Veda, the "White" and the "Black," is plausibly - accounted for as the outcome of the tendencies of a new and an - old school, who selected from their Brahmanas, or treatises of - ritual and theology, the portions which respectively suited - them. The implied critical movement would tend to affect - official thought in general. This schism is held by Weber to - have arisen only in the period of ferment set up by Buddhism; - but other disputes seem to have taken place in abundance in the - Brahmanical schools before that time. (Cp. Tiele, Outlines, - p. 123; Weber, Hist. Ind. Lit., pp. 10, 27, 232; Max Müller, - Anthropol. Relig., 1892, pp. 36-37; and Rhys Davids, Buddhism, - p. 34.) Again, the ascetic and penance-bearing hermits, who were - encouraged by the veneration paid them to exalt themselves above - all save the highest Gods, would by their utterances of necessity - affect the course of doctrine. Compare the same tendency as seen - in Buddhism and Jainism (Tiele, pp. 135, 140). - - -But in the later form of the Vedânta, "the end of the Veda," a monistic -and pantheistic teaching holds its ground in our own day, after all -the ups and downs of Brahmanism, alongside of the aboriginal cults -which Brahmanism adopted in its battle with Buddhism; alongside, -too, of the worship of the Veda itself as an eternal and miraculous -document. "The leading tenets [of the Vedânta] are known to some -extent in every village." [162] Yet the Vedântists, again, treat -the Upanishads in turn as a miraculous and inspired system, [163] -and repeat in their case the process of the Vedas: so sure is the law -of fixation in religious thought, while the habit of worship subsists. - -The highest activity of rationalistic speculation within the Brahmanic -fold is seen to have followed intelligibly on the most powerful -reaction against the Brahmans' authority. This took place when their -sphere had been extended from the region of the Punjaub, of which alone -the Rig-Veda shows knowledge, to the great kingdoms of Southern India, -pointed to in the Sutras, [164] or short digests of ritual and law -designed for general official use. In the new environment "there was a -well-marked lay-feeling, a widespread antagonism to the priests, a real -sense of humour, a strong fund of common sense. Above all there was -the most complete and unquestioned freedom of thought and expression -in religious matters that the world had yet witnessed." [165] - -The most popular basis for rejection of a given system--belief in -another--made ultimately possible there the rise of a practically -atheistic system capable, wherever embraced, of annulling the -burdensome and exclusive system of the Brahmans, which had been -obtruded in its worst form, [166] though not dominantly, in the new -environment. Buddhism, though it cannot have arisen on one man's -initiative in the manner claimed in the legends, even as stripped of -their supernaturalist element, [167] was in its origin essentially -a movement of freethought, such as could have arisen only in the -atmosphere of a much mixed society [168] where the extreme Brahmanical -claims were on various grounds discredited, perhaps even within their -own newly-adjusted body. It was stigmatized as "the science of reason," -a term equivalent to "heresy" in the Christian sphere; [169] and its -definite rejection of the Vedas made it anti-sacerdotal even while -it retained the modes of speech of polytheism. The tradition which -makes the Buddha [170] a prince suggests an upper-class origin for -the reaction; and there are traces of a chronic resistance to the -Brahmans' rule among their fellow-Aryans before the Buddhist period. - - - "The royal families, the warriors, who, it may be supposed, - strenuously supported the priesthood so long as it was a question - of robbing the people of their rights, now that this was effected - turned against their former allies, and sought to throw off the - yoke that was likewise laid upon them. These efforts were, however, - unavailing: the colossus was too firmly established. Obscure - legends and isolated allusions are the only records left to us - in the later writings of the sacrilegious hands which ventured - to attack the sacred and divinely consecrated majesty of the - Brahmans; and these are careful to note at the same time the - terrible punishments which befel those impious offenders" (Weber, - Hist. Ind. Lit., p. 19). - - -The circumstances, however, that the Buddhist writings were from the -first in vernacular dialects, not in Sanskrit, [171] and that the -mythical matter which accumulated round the story of the Buddha is -in the main aboriginal, and largely common to the myth of Krishna, -[172] go to prove that Buddhism spread specially in the non-Aryan -sphere. [173] Its practical (not theoretic) [174] atheism seems to -have rested fundamentally on the conception of Karma, the transition -of the soul, or rather of the personality, through many stages up to -that in which, by self-discipline, it attains the impersonal peace -of Nirvana; and of this conception there is no trace in the Vedas, -[175] though it became a leading tenet of Brahmanism. - - - To the dissolvent influence of Greek culture may possibly be - due some part of the success of Buddhism before our era, and - even later. Hindu astronomy in the Vedic period was but slightly - developed (Weber, Hist. Ind. Lit., pp. 246, 249, 250); and "it - was Greek influence that first infused a real life into Indian - astronomy" (Id. p. 251; cp. Letronne, Mélanges d'Érudition, 1860 - (?), p. 40; Narrien, Histor. Acc. of Orig. and Prog. of Astron., - p. 33, and Lib. Use. Kn. Hist. of Astron., c. ii). This implies - other interactions. It is presumably to Greek stimulus that we must - trace the knowledge by Aryabhata (Colebrooke's Essays, ed. 1873, - ii, 404; cp. Weber, p. 257) of the doctrine of the earth's - diurnal revolution on its axis; and the fact that in India as in - the Mediterranean world the truth was later lost from men's hands - may be taken as one of the proofs that the two civilizations alike - retrograded owing to evil political conditions. In the progressive - period (from about 320 B.C. onwards for perhaps some centuries) - Greek ideas might well help to discredit traditionalism; and their - acceptance at royal courts would be favourable to toleration - of the new teaching. At the same time, Buddhism must have been - favoured by the native mental climate in which it arose. - - -The main differentiation of Buddhism from Brahmanism, again, is its -ethical spirit, which sets aside formalism and seeks salvation in an -inward reverie and discipline; and this element in turn can hardly -be conceived as arising save in an old society, far removed from the -warlike stage represented by the Vedas. Whatever may have been its -early association with Brahmanism [176] then, it must be regarded -as essentially a reaction against Brahmanical doctrine and ideals; -a circumstance which would account for its early acceptance in the -Punjaub, where Brahmanism had never attained absolute power and was -jealously resisted by the free population. [177] And the fact that -Jainism, so closely akin to Buddhism, has its sacred books in a dialect -belonging to the region in which Buddhism arose, further supports the -view that the reaction grew out of the thought of a type of society -differing widely from that in which Brahmanism arose. Jainism, like -Buddhism, is substantially atheistic, [178] and like it has an ancient -monkish organization to which women were early admitted. The original -crypto-atheism or agnosticism of the Buddhist movement thus appears as -a product of a relatively high, because complex, moral and intellectual -evolution. It certainly never impugned the belief in the Gods; on -the contrary, the Buddha is often represented as speaking of their -existence, [179] and at times as approving of their customary worship; -[180] but he is never said to counsel his own order to pray to them; -he makes light of sacrifice; and above all he is made quite negative -as to a future life, preaching the doctrine of Karma in a sense which -excludes individual immortality. [181] "It cannot be denied that -if we call the old Gods of the Veda--Indra and Agni and Yama--Gods, -Buddha was an atheist. He does not believe in the divinity of these -deities. What is noteworthy is that he does not by any means deny -their bare existence.... The founder of Buddhism treats the old Gods -as superhuman beings." [182] Thus it is permissible to say both that -Buddhism recognizes Gods and that it is practically atheistic. - - - "The fact cannot be disputed away that the religion of Buddha - was from the beginning purely atheistic. The idea of the Godhead - ... was for a time at least expelled from the sanctuary of the - human mind, [183] and the highest morality that was ever taught - before the rise of Christianity was taught by men with whom the - Gods had become mere phantoms, without any altars, not even an - altar to the unknown God" (Max Müller, Introd. to the Science of - Religion, ed. 1882, p. 81. Cp. the same author's Selected Essays, - 1881, ii, 300.) - - "He [Buddha] ignores God in so complete a way that he does not even - seek to deny him; he does not suppress him, but he does not speak - of him either to explain the origin and anterior existence of man - or to explain the present life, or to conjecture his future life - and definitive deliverance. The Buddha knows God in no fashion - whatever" (Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, Le Bouddha et sa Religion, - 1866, p. v). - - "Buddhism and Christianity are indeed the two opposite poles with - regard to the most essential points of religion: Buddhism ignoring - all feeling of dependence on a higher power, and therefore denying - the very existence of a supreme deity" (Müller, Introd. to Sc. of - Rel., p. 171). - - "Lastly, the Buddha declared that he had arrived at [his] - conclusions, not by study of the Vedas, nor from the teachings - of others, but by the light of reason and intuition alone" - (Rhys Davids, Buddhism, p. 48). "The most ancient Buddhism - despises dreams and visions" (Id., p. 177). "Agnostic atheism - ... is the characteristic of his [Buddha's] system of philosophy" - (Id., p. 207). - - "Belief in a Supreme Being, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe, - is unquestionably a modern graft upon the unqualified atheism of - Sákya Muni: it is still of very limited recognition. In none of - the standard authorities ... is there the slightest allusion to - such a First Cause, the existence of which is incompatible with - the fundamental Buddhist dogma of the eternity of all existence" - (H. H. Wilson, Buddha and Buddhism, in Essays and Lectures, - ed. by Dr. R. Rost, 1862, ii, 361. Cp. p. 363). - - -On the other hand, the gradual colouring of Buddhism with popular -mythology, the reversion (if, indeed, this were not early) to -adoration and worship of the Buddha himself, and the final collapse -of the system in India before the pressure of Brahmanized Hinduism, -all prove the potency of the sociological conditions of success and -failure for creeds and criticisms. Buddhism took the monastic form -for its institutions, thus incurring ultimate petrifaction alike -morally and intellectually; and in any case the normal Indian social -conditions of abundant population, cheap food, and general ignorance -involved an overwhelming vitality for the popular cults. These the -orthodox Brahmans naturally took under their protection as a means -of maintaining their hold over the multitude; [184] and though their -own highest philosophy has been poetically grafted on that basis, -as in the epic of the Mahâbhârata and in the Bhagavat Gita, [185] -the ordinary worship of the deities of these poems is perforce -utterly unphilosophical, varying between a primitive sensualism -and an emotionalism closely akin to that of popular forms of -Christianity. Buddhism itself, where it still prevails, exhibits -similar tendencies. [186] - - - It is disputed whether the Brahman influence drove Buddhism - out of India by physical force, or whether the latter decayed - because of maladaptation to its environment. Its vogue for some - seven hundred years, from about 300 B.C. to about 400 A.C., - seems to have been largely due to its protection and final - acceptance as a State religion by the dynasty of Chandragupta - (the Sandracottos of the Greek historians), whose grandson - Asoka showed it special favour. His rock-inscribed edicts (for - which see Max Müller, Introd. to Science of Rel., pp. 5-6, 23; - Anthrop. Relig., pp. 40-43; Rhys Davids, Buddhism, pp. 220-28; - Wheeler's Hist. of India, vol. iii, app. 1; Asiatic Society's - Journals, vols. viii and xii; Indian Antiquary, 1877, vol. vi) - show a general concern for natural ethics, and especially for - tolerance; but his mention of "The Terrors of the Future" among - the religious works he specially honours shows (if genuine) that - normal superstition, if ever widely repudiated (which is doubtful), - had interpenetrated the system. The king, too, called himself - "the delight of the Gods," as did his contemporary the Buddhist - king of Ceylon (Davids, Buddhism, p. 84). Under Asoka, however, - Buddhism was powerful enough to react somewhat on the West, then - in contact with India as a result of the Alexandrian conquest - (cp. Mahaffy, Greek World under Roman Sway, ch. ii; Weber's - lecture on Ancient India, Eng. tr., pp. 25-26; Indische Skizzen, - p. 28 [cited in the present writer's Christianity and Mythology, - p. 165]; and Weber's Hist of Ind. Lit., p. 255 and p. 309, note); - and the fact that after his time it entered on a long conflict - with Brahmanism proves that it remained practically dangerous to - that system. In the fifth and sixth centuries of our era Buddhism - in India "rapidly declined"--a circumstance hardly intelligible - save as a result of violence. Tiele, after expressly asserting the - "rapid decline" (Outlines, p. 139), in the next breath asserts that - there are no satisfactory proofs of such violence, and that, "on - the contrary, Buddhism appears to have pined away slowly" (p. 140: - contrast his Egypt. Rel., p. xxi). Rhys Davids, in his Buddhism, - p. 246 (so also Max Müller, Anthrop. Rel., p. 43), argues for a - process of violent extinction; but in his later work, Buddhist - India, he retracts this view and decides for a gradual decline - in the face of a Brahmanic revival. The evidences for violence - and persecution are, however, pretty strong. (See H. H. Wilson, - Essays, as cited, ii, 365-67.) Internal decay certainly appears - to have occurred. Already in Gautama's own life, according to the - legends, there were doctrinal disputes within his party (Müller, - Anthrop. Rel., p. 38); and soon heresies and censures abounded - (Introd. to Sc. of Rel., p. 23), till schisms arose and no fewer - than eighteen sects took shape (Davids, Buddhism, pp. 213-18). - - -Thus early in our inquiry we may gather, from a fairly complete -historical case, the primary laws of causation as regards alike the -progress and the decadence of movements of rationalistic thought. The -fundamental economic dilemma, seen already in the life of the savage, -presses at all stages of civilization. The credent multitude, save -in the very lowest stages of savage destitution, always feeds and -houses those who furnish it with its appropriate mental food; and -so long as there remains the individual struggle for existence, -there will always be teachers ready. If the higher minds in any -priesthood, awaking to the character of their traditional teaching, -withdraw from it, lower minds, howbeit "sincere," will always take -their place. The innovating teacher, in turn, is only at the beginning -of his troubles when he contrives, on whatever bases, to set up a new -organized movement. The very process of organization, on the one hand, -sets up the call for special economic sustenance--a constant motive -to compromise with popular ignorance--and, on the other hand, tends to -establish merely a new traditionalism, devoid of the critical impulse -in which it arose. [187] And without organization the innovating -thought cannot communicate itself, cannot hold its own against the -huge social pressures of tradition. - -In ancient society, in short, there could be no continuous progress -in freethinking: at best, there could but be periods or lines of -relative progress, the result of special conjunctures of social and -political circumstance. So much will appear, further, from the varying -instances of still more ancient civilizations, the evolution of which -may be the better understood from our survey of that of India. - - - - -§ 3. MESOPOTAMIA - -The nature of the remains we possess of the ancient Babylonian and -Assyrian religions is not such as to yield a direct record of their -development; but they suffice to show that there, as elsewhere, -a measure of rationalistic evolution occurred. Were there no other -ground for the inference, it might not unreasonably be drawn from -the post-exilic monotheism of the Hebrews, who, drawing so much of -their cosmology and temple ritual from Babylon, may be presumed to -have been influenced by the higher Semitic civilizations in other -ways also. [188] But there is concrete evidence. What appears to -have happened in Babylonia and Assyria, whose religious systems were -grafted on that of the more ancient Sumer-Akkadian civilization, -is a gradual subordination of the numerous local Gods (at least in -the thought of the more philosophic, including some of the priests) -to the conception of one all-pervading power. This process would be -assisted by that of imperialism; and in the recently-recovered code of -Hammurabi we actually find references to Ilu "God" (as in the European -legal phrase, "the act of God") without any further God-name. [189] -On the other hand, the unifying tendency would be resisted by the -strength of the traditions of the Babylonian cities, all of which -had ancient cults before the later empires were built up. [190] -Yet, again, peoples who failed in war would be in some measure led -to renounce their God as weak; while those who clung to their faith -would be led, as in Jewry, to recast its ethic. The result was a -set of compromises in which the provincial and foreign deities were -either treated genealogically or grouped in family or other relations -with the chief God or Gods of the time being. [191] Certain cults, -again, were either kept always at a higher ethical level than the -popular one, or were treated by the more refined and more critical -worshippers in an elevated spirit; [192] and this tendency seems to -have led to conceptions of purified deities who underlay or transcended -the popular types, the names of the latter being held to point to one -who was misconceived under their grosser aspects. [193] Astronomical -knowledge, again, gave rise to cosmological theories which pointed to -a ruling and creating God, [194] who as such would have a specially -ethical character. In some such way was reached a conception of a -Creator-God as the unity represented by the fifty names of the Great -Gods, who lost their personality when their names were liturgically -given to him [195]--a conception which in some statements even had -a pantheistic aspect [196] among a "group of priestly thinkers," and -in others took the form of an ideal theocracy. [197] There is record -that the Babylonian schools were divided into different sects, [198] -and their science was likely to make some of these rationalistic. [199] -Professor Sayce even goes so far as to say that in the later cosmogony, -"under a thin disguise of theological nomenclature, the Babylonian -theory of the universe has become a philosophical materialism." [200] - - - It might be taken for granted, further, that disbelief would - be set up by such a primitive fraud as the alleged pretence of - the priests of Bel Merodach that the God cohabited nightly with - the concubine set apart for him (Herodotos, i, 181-82), as was - similarly pretended by the priests of Amun at Thebes. Herodotos - could not believe the story, which, indeed, is probably a late - Greek fable; but there must have been some skeptics within the - sphere of the Semitic cult of sacred prostitution. - - As regards freethinking in general, much would depend on the - development of the Chaldæan astronomy. That science, growing out of - primitive astrology (cp. Whewell, Hist. of the Induct. Sciences, - 3rd ed. i, 108), would tend to discredit, among its experts, - much of the prevailing religious thought; and they seem to have - carried it so far as to frame a scientific theory of comets - (Seneca, citing Apollonius Myndius, Quaest. Nat., vii, 3; - cp. Lib. Use. Kn. Hist. of Astron., c. 3; E. Meyer, Gesch. des - Alterthums, i, 186; and Weber, Ind. Lit., p. 248). Such knowledge - would greatly favour skepticism, as well as monotheism and - pantheism. It was sought to be astrologically applied; but, as - the horoscopes varied, this was again a source of unbelief (Meyer, - p. 179). Medicine, again, made little progress (Herod., i, 197). - - It can hardly be doubted, finally, that in Babylonia and Assyria - there were idealists who, like the Hebrew prophets, repudiated - alike image-worship and the religion of sacrifices. The latter - repudiation occurs frequently in later Greece and Rome. There, - as in Jerusalem, it could make itself heard in virtue of the - restrictedness of the power of the priests, who in imperial - Babylonia and Assyria, on the other hand, might be trusted to - suppress or override any such propaganda, as we have seen was - done in Brahmanical India. - - Concerning image-worship, apart from the proved fact of pantheistic - doctrine, and the parallels in Egypt and India, it is to be noted - that Isaiah actually puts in the mouth of the Assyrian king - a tirade against the "kingdoms of the idols" or "false gods," - including in these Jerusalem and Samaria (Isa. x, 10, 11). The - passage is dramatic, but it points to the possibility that in - Assyria just as in Israel a disbelief in idols could arise from - reflection on the spectacle of their multitude. - - -The chequered political history of Babylon and Assyria, however, made -impossible any long-continued development of critical and philosophical -thought. Their amalgamations of creeds and races had in a measure -favoured such development; [201] and it was probably the setting up -of a single rule over large populations formerly at chronic war that -reduced to a minimum, if it did not wholly abolish, human sacrifice -in the later pre-Persian empires; [202] but the inevitably subject -state of the mass of the people, and the chronic military upset -of the government, were conditions fatally favourable to ordinary -superstition. The new universalist conceptions, instead of dissolving -the special cults in pantheism, led only to a fresh competition of -cults on cosmopolitan lines, all making the same pretensions, and -stressing their most artificial peculiarities as all-important. Thus, -when old tribal or local religions went proselytizing in the enlarged -imperial field, they made their most worthless stipulations--as Jewish -circumcision and abstinence from pork, and the self-mutilation of -the followers of Cybelê--the very grounds of salvation. [203] Culture -remained wholly in the hands of the priestly and official class, [204] -who, like the priesthoods of Egypt, were held to conservatism by their -vast wealth. [205] Accordingly we find the early religion of sorcery -maintaining itself in the literature of the advanced empires. [206] -The attitude of the Semitic priests and scribes towards the old Akkadic -as a sacred language was in itself, like the use of sacred books in -general, long a check upon new thought; [207] and though the Assyrian -life seems to have set this check aside, by reason of the lack of a -culture class in Assyria, the later Babylonian kingdom which rose on -the fall of Assyria was too short-lived to profit much by the gain, -being in turn overthrown in the second generation by Cyrus. It is -significant that the conqueror was welcomed by the Babylonian priests -as against their last king, the inquiring and innovating Nabonidos -[208] (Nabu-nahid), who had aimed at a monarchic polytheism or -quasi-monotheism. He is described as having turned away from Mardouk -(Merodach), the great Babylonian God, who accordingly accepted Cyrus -in his stead. It is thus clear that Cyrus, who restored the old -state of things, was no strict monotheist of the later Persian type, -but a schemer who relied everywhere on popular religious interests, -and conciliated the polytheists and henotheists of Babylon as he did -the Yahweh-worshipping Jews. [209] The Persian quasi-monotheism and -anti-idolatry, however, already existed, and it is conceivable that -they may have been intensified among the more cultured through the -peculiar juxtaposition of cults set up by the Persian conquest. - - - Mr. Sayce's dictum (Hib. Lect., p. 314), that the later ethical - element in the Akkado-Babylonian system is "necessarily" due - to Semitic race elements, is seen to be fallacious in the light - of his own subsequent admission (p. 353) as to the lateness of - the development among the Semites. The difference between early - Akkadian and later Babylonian was simply one of culture-stage. See - Mr. Sayce's own remarks on p. 300; and compare E. Meyer (Gesch. des - Alt., i, 178, 182, 183), who entirely rejects the claim made for - Semitic ethics. See, again, Tiele, Outlines, p. 78, and Mr. Sayce's - own account (Anc. Em. of the East, p. 202) of the Phoenician - religion as "impure and cruel." Other writers take the line of - arguing that the Phoenicians were "not Semites," and that they - differed in all things from the true Semites (cp. Dr. Marcus - Dods, Israel's Iron Age, 1874, p. 10, and Farrar, as there - cited). The explanation of such arbitrary judgments seems to be - that the Semites are assumed to have had a primordial religious - gift as compared with "Turanians," and that the Hebrews in turn - are assumed to have been so gifted above other Semites. We shall - best guard against à priori injustice to the Semites themselves, - in the conjunctures in which they really advanced civilization, - by entirely discarding the unscientific method of explaining the - history of races in terms of hereditary character (see below, § - 6, end). - - - - -§ 4. ANCIENT PERSIA - -The Mazdean system, or worship of Ahura Mazda (Ormazd), of which we -find in Herodotos positive historical record as an anti-idolatrous -and nominally monotheistic creed [210] in the fifth century B.C., is -the first to which these aspects can be ascribed with certainty. As -the Jews are found represented in the Book of Jeremiah [211] (assumed -to have been written in the sixth century B.C.) worshipping numerous -Gods with images: and as polytheistic and idolatrous practices are -still described in the Book of Ezekiel [212] (assumed to have been -written during or after the Babylonian Captivity), it is inadmissible -to accept the unauthenticated writings of ostensibly earlier prophets -as proving even a propaganda of monotheism on their part, the so-called -Mosaic law being known to be in large part of late invention and of -Babylonian derivation. [213] In any case, the mass of the people were -clearly image-worshippers. The Persians, on the other hand, can be -taken with certainty to have had in the sixth century an imageless -worship (though images existed for other purposes), with a supreme -God set above all others. The Magian or Mazdean creed, as we have -seen, was not very devoutly held by Cyrus; but Dareios a generation -later is found holding it with zeal; and it cannot have grown in a -generation to the form it then bore. It must therefore be regarded as -a development of the religion of some section of the "Iranian" race, -centering as it does round some deities common to the Vedic Aryans. - -The Mazdean system, as we first trace it in history, was the religion -of the Medes, a people joined with the Persians proper under Cyrus; -and the Magi or priests were one of the seven tribes of the Medes, -[214] as the Levites were one of the tribes of Israel. It may then be -conjectured that the Magi were the priests of a people who previously -conquered or were conquered by the Medes, who had then adopted their -religion, as did the Persians after their conquest by or union with -the Medes. Cyrus, a semi-Persian, may well have regarded the Medes -with some racial distrust, and, while using them as the national -priests, would naturally not be devout in his adherence at a time -when the two peoples were still mutually jealous. When, later, -after the assassination of his son Smerdis (Bardes or Bardija) by -the elder son, King Cambyses, and the death of the latter, the Median -and Magian interest set up the "false Smerdis," Persian conspirators -overthrew the pretender and crowned the Persian Dareios Hystaspis, -marking their sense of hostility to the Median and Magian element -by a general massacre of Magi. [215] Those Magi who survived would -naturally cultivate the more their priestly influence, the political -being thus for the time destroyed; though they seem to have stirred up -a Median insurrection in the next century against Dareios II. [216] -However that may be, Dareios I became a zealous devotee of their -creed, [217] doubtless finding that a useful means of conciliating -the Medes in general, who at the outset of his reign seem to have -given him much trouble. [218] The richest part of his dominions [219] -was East-Iran, which appears to have been the original home of the -worship of Ahura-Mazda. [220] - - - Such is the view of the case derivable from Herodotos, who - remains the main authority; but recent critics have raised some - difficulties. That the Magians were originally a non-Median tribe - seems clear; Dr. Tiele (Outlines, pp. 163, 165) even decides that - they were certainly non-Aryan. Compare Ed. Meyer (Gesch. des Alt., - i, 530, note, 531, §§ 439, 440), who holds that the Mazdean system - was in its nature not national but abstract, and could therefore - take in any race. Several modern writers, however (Canon Rawlinson, - ed. of Herodotos, i, 426-31; Five Great Monarchies, 2nd ed. ii, - 345-55, iii, 402-404; Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, Eng. tr. pp. 197, - 218-39; Sayce, Anc. Emp. of the East, p. 248), represent the - Magians as not only anti-Aryan (= anti-Persian), but opposed to the - very worship of Ormazd, which is specially associated with their - name. It seems difficult to reconcile this view with the facts; at - least it involves the assumption of two opposed sets of Magi. The - main basis for the theory seems to be the allusion in the Behistun - inscription of Dareios to some acts of temple-destruction by the - usurping Magian Gomates, brother and controller of the pretender - Smerdis. (See the inscription translated in Records of the Past, - i, 111-15.) This Meyer sets aside as an unsettled problem, without - inferring that the Magians were anti-Mazdean (cp. § 449 and § - 511, note). As to the massacre, however, Meyer decides (i, 613) - that Herodotos blundered, magnifying the killing of "the Magus" - into a slaughter of "the Magi." But this is one of the few points - at which Herodotos is corroborated by Ktesias (cp. Grote, iii, 440, - note). A clue to a solution may perhaps be found in the facts that, - while the priestly system remained opposed to all image-worship, - Dareios made emblematic images of the Supreme God (Meyer, i, - 213, 617) and of Mithra; and that Artaxerxes Mnemon later put an - image of Mithra in the royal temple of Susa, besides erecting many - images to Anaitis. (Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies, iii, 320-21, - 360-61.) There may have been opposing tendencies; the conquest of - Babylon being likely to have introduced new elements. The Persian - art now arising shows the most marked Assyrian influences. - - -The religion thus imposed on the Persians seems to have been imageless -by reason of the simple defect of art among its cultivators; [221] -and to have been monotheistic only in the sense that its chief deity -was supreme over all others, including even the great Evil Power, -Ahriman (Angra Mainyu). Its God-group included Mithra, once the -equal of Ahura-Mazda, [222] and later more prominent than he; [223] -as well as a Goddess, Anahita, apparently of Akkadian origin. Before -the period of Cyrus, the eastern part of Persia seems to have been but -little civilized; [224] and it was probably there that its original -lack of images became an essential element in the doctrine of its -priests. As we find it in history, and still more in its sacred book, -the Zendavesta, which as we have it represents a late liturgical -compilation, [225] Mazdeism is a priest-made religion rather than -the work of one Zarathustra or any one reformer; and its rejection -of images, however originated, is to be counted to the credit of its -priests, like the pantheism or nominal monotheism of the Mesopotamian, -Brahmanic, and Egyptian religions. The original popular faith had -clearly been a normal polytheism. [226] For the rest, the Mazdean ethic -has the usual priestly character as regards the virtue it assigns to -sacrifice; [227] but otherwise compares favourably with Brahmanism. - - - As to this cult being priest-made, see Meyer, i, 523, 540, - 541. Tiele (Outlines, pp. 167, 178) assumes a special reformation - such as is traditionally associated with Zarathustra, holding - that either a remarkable man or a sect must have established - the monotheistic idea. Meyer (i, 537) holds with M. Darmesteter - that Zarathustra is a purely mythical personage, made out of a - Storm-God. Dr. Menzies (Hist. of Relig. p. 384) holds strongly - by his historic actuality. The problem is analogous to those - concerning Moses and Buddha; but though the historic case of - Mohammed bars a confident decision in the negative, the balance - of presumption is strongly against the traditional view. See the - author's Pagan Christs, pp. 286-88. - - -There is no reason to believe, however, that among the Persian peoples -the higher view of things fared any better than elsewhere. [228] The -priesthood, however enlightened it may have been in its inner culture, -never slackened the practice of sacrifice and ceremonial; and the -worship of subordinate spirits and the propitiation of demons figured -as largely in their beliefs as in any other. In time the cult of the -Saviour-God Mithra came to the front very much as did that of Jesus -later; and in the one case as in the other, despite ethical elements, -superstition was furthered. When, still later, the recognition of -Ahriman was found to endanger the monotheistic principle, an attempt -seems to have been made under the Sassanian dynasty, in our own era, -to save it by positing a deity who was father of both Ahura-Mazda -and Angra-mainyu; [229] but this last slight effort of freethinking -speculation came to nothing. Social and political obstacles determined -the fate of Magian as of other ancient rationalism. - - - According to Rawlinson, Zoroastrianism under the Parthian - (Arsacide) empire was gradually converted into a complex system - of idolatry, involving a worship of ancestors and dead kings - (Sixth Orient. Mon. p. 399; Seventh Mon. pp. 8-9, 56). Gutschmid, - however, following Justin (xli, 3, 5-6), pronounces the Parthians - zealous followers of Zoroastrianism, dutifully obeying it in - the treatment of their dead (Geschichte Irans von Alexander bis - zum Untergang der Arsakiden, 1888, pp. 57-58)--a law not fully - obeyed even by Dareios and his dynasty (Heeren, Asiatic Nations, - Eng. tr. i, 127). Rawlinson, on the contrary, says the Parthians - burned their dead--an abomination to Zoroastrians. Certainly - the name of the Parthian King Mithradates implies acceptance of - Mazdeism. At the same time Rawlinson admits that in Persia itself, - under the Parthian dynasty, Zoroastrianism remained pure (Seventh - Mon. pp. 9-10), and that, even when ultimately it became mixed - up with normal polytheism, the dualistic faith and the supremacy - of Ormazd were maintained (Five Monarchies, 2nd ed. iii, 362-63; - cp. Darmesteter, Zendavesta, i, lxvi, 2nd ed.). - - - - -§ 5. EGYPT - -The relatively rich store of memorials left by the Egyptian religions -yields us hardly any more direct light on the growth of religious -rationalism than do those of Mesopotamia, though it supplies much -fuller proof that such a growth took place. All that is clear is that -the comparison and competition of henotheistic cults there as elsewhere -led to a measure of relative skepticism, which took doctrinal shape in -a loose monism or pantheism. The language is often monotheistic, but -never, in the early period, is polytheism excluded; on the contrary, -it is affirmed in the same breath. [230] The alternate ascendancy -of different dynasties, with different Gods, forced on the process, -which included, as in Babylon, a priestly grouping of deities in -families and triads [231]--the latter arrangement, indeed, being only -a return to a primitive African conception. [232] It involved further -a syncretism or a combining of various Gods into one, [233] and also -an esoteric explanation of the God-myths as symbolical of natural -processes, or else of mystical ideas. [234] There are even evidences -of quasi-atheism in the shape of materialistic hymns on Lucretian -lines. [235] At the beginning of the New Kingdom (1500 B.C.) it had -been fully established for all the priesthoods that the Sun-God was -the one real God, and that it was he who was worshipped in all the -others. [236] He in turn was conceived as a pervading spiritual force, -of anthropomorphic character and strong moral bias. [237] This seems to -have been by way of a purification of one pre-eminent compound deity, -Amen-Ra, to begin with, whose model was followed in other cults. [238] -"Theocracies of this kind could not have been formed unconsciously. Men -knew perfectly well that they were taking a great step in advance of -their fathers." [239] There had occurred, in short, among the educated -and priestly class a considerable development, going on through -many centuries, alike in philosophical and in ethical thought; the -ethics of the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" being quite as altruistic -as those of any portion of the much later Christian Gospels. [240] -Such a development could arise only in long periods of peace and -law-abiding life; though it is found to be accelerated after the -Persian conquest, which would force upon the Egyptian priesthood -new comparisons and accommodations. [241] And yet all this was done -"without ever sacrificing the least particle of the beliefs of the -past." [242] The popular polytheism, resting on absolute ignorance, -was indestructible; and the most philosophic priests seem never to have -dreamt of unsettling it, though, as we shall see, a masterful king did. - -An eminent Egyptologist has written that, "whatever literary treasures -may be brought to light in the future as the result of excavations -in Egypt, it is most improbable that we shall ever receive from -that country any ancient Egyptian work which can properly be classed -among the literature of atheism or freethought; the Egyptian might be -more or less religious according to his nature and temperament, but, -judging from the writings of his priests and teachers which are now -in our hands, the man who was without religion and God in some form -or other was most rare, if not unknown." [243] It is not clear what -significance the writer attaches to this statement. Unquestionably the -mass of the Egyptians were always naïf believers in all that was given -them as religion; and among the common people even the minds which, -as elsewhere, varied from the norm of credulity would be too much -cowed by the universal parade of religion to impugn it; while their -ignorance and general crudity of life would preclude coherent critical -thought on the subject. But to conclude that among the priesthood and -the upper classes there was never any "freethinking" in the sense -of disbelief in the popular and official religion, even up to the -point of pantheism or atheism, is to ignore the general lesson of -culture history elsewhere. Necessarily there was no "literature of -atheism or freethought." Such literature could have no public, and, -as a menace to the wealth and status of the priesthood, would have -brought death on the writer. But in such a multitudinous priesthood -there must have been, at some stages, many who realized the mummery -of the routine religion, and some who transcended the commonplaces -of theistic thought. From the former, if not from the latter, would -come esoteric explanations for the benefit of the more intelligent -of the laity of the official class, who could read; and it is idle -to decide that deeper unbelief was privately "unknown." - -It is contended, as against the notion of an esoteric and an exoteric -doctrine, that the scribes "did not, as is generally supposed, keep -their new ideas carefully concealed, so as to leave to the multitude -nothing but coarse superstitions. The contrary is evident from a -number of inscriptions which can be read by anybody, and from books -which anyone can buy." [244] But the assumption that "anyone" could -read or buy books in ancient Egypt is a serious misconception. Even in -our own civilization, where "anyone" can presumably buy freethought -journals or works on anthropology and the history of religions, -the mass of the people are so placed that only by chance does such -knowledge reach them; and multitudes are so little cultured that they -would pass it by with uncomprehending indifference were it put before -them. In ancient Egypt, however, the great mass of the people could -not even read; and no man thought of teaching them. - - - This fact alone goes far to harmonize the ancient Greek testimonies - as to the existence of an esoteric teaching in Egypt with Tiele's - contention to the contrary. See the pros and cons set forth and - confusedly pronounced upon by Professor Chantepie de la Saussaye, - Manual of the Science of Religion, Eng. tr. pp. 400-401. We - know from Diodorus (i, 81), what we could deduce from our other - knowledge of Egyptian conditions, that, apart from the priests - and the official class, no one received any literary culture save - in some degree the higher grades of artificers, who needed some - little knowledge of letters for their work in connection with - monuments, sepulchres, mummy-cases, and so forth. Cp. Maspero, - Hist. anc. des peuples de l'orient, p. 285. Even the images of - the higher Gods were shown to the people only on festival-days - (Meyer Gesch. des Alterthums, i, 82). - - -The Egyptian civilization was thus, through all its stages, obviously -conditioned by its material basis, which in turn ultimately determined -its polity, there being no higher contemporary civilization to -lead it otherwise. An abundant, cheap, and regular food supply -maintained in perpetuity a dense and easily-exploited population, -whose lot through thousands of years was toil, ignorance, political -subjection, and a primitive mental life. [245] For such a population -general ideas had no light and no comfort; for them was the simple -human worship of the local natural Gods or the presiding Gods of the -kingdom, alike confusedly conceived as great powers, figured often -as some animal, which for the primeval mind signified indefinite -capacity and unknown possibility of power and knowledge. [246] Myths -and not theories, magic and not ethics, were their spiritual food, -albeit their peaceful animal lives conformed sufficiently to their -code. And the life-conditions of the mass determined the policy of -priest and king. The enormous priestly revenue came from the people, -and the king's power rested on both orders. - - - As to this revenue see Diodorus Siculus, i, 73; and Erman, Handbook - of Egyptian Religion, Eng. tr. 1907, p. 71. According to Diodorus, - a third of the whole land of the kingdom was allotted to the - priesthoods. About a sixth of the whole land seems to have been - given to the Gods by Ramessu III alone, besides 113,000 slaves, - 490,000 cattle, and immense wealth of other kinds (Flinders - Petrie, Hist. of Egypt, iii (1905), 154-55). The bulk of the - possessions here enumerated seems to have gone to the temple - of Amen at Thebes and that of the Sun-God at Heliopolis (Erman, - as cited). It is to be noted, however, that the priestly order - included all the physicians, lawyers, clerks, schoolmasters, - sculptors, painters, land measurers, drug sellers, conjurers, - diviners, and undertakers. Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, - ed. Birch, 1878, i, 157-58; Sharpe, Egypt. Mythol. p. 26; - Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. i, § 68. "The sacred domains included - herds of cattle, birds, fishermen, serfs, and temple servants" - (Flinders Petrie, as cited, iii, 42). When the revenues assigned - for a temple of Seti I were found to be misappropriated, and the - building stopped, his son, Ramessu II, assigned a double revenue - for the completion of the work and the worship (id.). Like the - later priesthood of Christendom, that of Egypt forged documents - to establish claims to revenue (id. p. 69). Captured cattle in - great quantities were bestowed on temples of Amen (id. p. 149), - whose priests were especially grasping (id. p. 153). Thus in the - one reign of Ramessu III they received fifty-six towns of Egypt - and nine of Syria and 62,000 serfs (id. p. 155). - - -This was fully seen when King Akhunaton (otherwise Echnaton, or -Icheniton, or Akhunaton, or Akhunaten, or Chuenaten, or Khu-en-aten, or -Kku-n-aten, or Khouniatonou, or Khounaton!) = Amen-hetep or Amun-hotep -(or Amenophis) IV, moved by monotheistic zeal, departed so far from the -customary royal policy as to put under the ban all deities save that he -had chosen for himself, repudiating the God-name Amen in his own name, -and making one from that of his chosen Sun-God, Aten ("the sun's disk") -or Aton or Atonou [247] or Iton [248] (latterly held to be = the Syrian -Adon, "the Lord," symbolized by the sun's disk). There is reason to -think that his was not a mere Sun-worship, but the cult of a deity, -"Lord of the Disk," who looked through the sun's disk as through a -window. [249] In any interpretation, however, the doctrine was wholly -inacceptable to a priesthood whose multitudinous shrines its success -would have emptied. Of all the host of God-names, by one account only -that of the old Sun-God Ra-Harmachis was spared, [250] as being held -identical with that of Aten; and by one account [251] the disaffection -of priests and people rose to the point of open rebellion. At length -Akhunaton, "Glory of the Disk," as he elected to name himself, built -for himself and his God a new capital city in Middle Egypt, Akhet-Aten -(or Khut-Aten), the modern Tell-el-Amarna, where he assembled around -him a society after his own heart, and carried on his Aten-worship, -while his foreign empire was crumbling. The "Tell-el-Amarna tablets" -were found in the ruins of his city, which was deserted a generation -after his death. Though the king enforced his will while he lived, -his movement "bore no fruit whatever," his policy being reversed -after his family had died out, and his own monuments and capital city -razed to the ground by orthodox successors. [252] In the same way the -earlier attempt of the alien Hyksos to suppress the native polytheism -and image-worship had come to nothing. [253] - - - The history of Akhunaton is established by the later - Egyptology. Sharpe makes no mention of it, though the point had - been discussed from 1839 onwards. Cp. Lepsius, Letters from Egypt, - etc., Bohn trans. 1853, p. 27; and Nott and Gliddon's Types - of Mankind, 1854, p. 147, and Indigenous Races of the Earth, - 1857, pp. 116-17, in both of which places will be found the - king's portrait. See last reference for the idle theory that he - had been emasculated, as to which the confutation by Wiedemann - (Aegyptische Geschichte, p. 397, cited by Budge, Hist. of Egypt, - 1902, iv, 128) is sufficient. In point of fact, he figures in - the monuments as father of three or seven children (Wiedemann, - Rel. of Anc. Eg. p. 37; Erman, p. 69; Budge, iv, 123, 127). - - Dispute still reigns as to the origin of the cult to which - he devoted himself. A theory of its nature and derivation, - based on that of Mr. J. H. Breasted (History of Egypt, 1906, - p. 396), is set forth in an article by Mr. A. E. P. Weigall - on "Religion and Empire in Ancient Egypt" in the Quarterly - Review, Jan. 1909. On this view Aten or Aton is simply Adon = - "the Lord"--a name ultimately identified with Adonis, the Syrian - Sun-God and Vegetation-God. The king's grandfather was apparently - a Syrian, presumably of royal lineage; and Queen Tii or Thiy, the - king's mother, who with her following had wrought a revolution - against the priesthood of Amen, brought him up as a devotee of - her own faith. On her death he became more and more fanatical, - getting out of touch with people and priesthood, so that "his - empire fell to pieces rapidly." Letters still exist (among the - Tell-el-Amarna tablets) which were sent by his generals in Asia, - vainly imploring help. He died at the age of twenty-eight; and - if the body lately found, and supposed to be his, is really so, - his malady was water on the brain. - - Mr. Breasted, finding that Akhunaton's God is described by him in - inscriptions as "the father and the mother of all that he made," - ranks the cult very high in the scale of theism. Mr. Weigall - (art. cited, p. 60; so also Budge, Hist. iv, 125) compares a hymn - of the king's with Ps. civ, 24 sq., and praises it accordingly. The - parallel is certainly close, but the document is not thereby - certificated as philosophic. On the strength of the fact that - Akhunaton "had dreamed that the Aton religion would bind the - nations together," Mr. Weigall credits him with harbouring "an - illusive ideal towards which, thirty-two centuries later, mankind - is still struggling in vain" (p. 66). The ideal of subjugating - the nations to one God, cherished later by Jews, and still later - by Moslems, is hardly to be thus identified with the modern ideal - of international peace. Brugsch, in turn, credits the king with - having "willingly received the teaching about the one God of - Light," while admitting that Aten simply meant the sun's disk - (Hist. of Egypt, 1-vol. ed. p. 216). - - Maspero, again, declares Tii to have been an Egyptian of old - stock, and the God "Atonou" to have been the deity of her - tribe (Hist. anc., as cited, p. 249); and he pronounces the - cult probably the most ancient variant of the religions of Ra - (p. 250). Messrs. King and Hall, who also do not accept the theory - of a Syrian derivation, coincide with Messrs. Breasted and Weigall - in extolling Akhunaton's creed. In a somewhat summary fashion - they pronounce (work cited, p. 383) that, "given an ignorance of - the true astronomical character of the sun, we see how eminently - rational a religion" was this. The conception of a moving window - in the heavens, which appears to be the core of it, seems rather - a darkening than a development of the "philosophical speculations - of the priests of the Sun at Heliopolis," from which it is held by - Messrs. King and Hall to have been derived. Similarly ill-warranted - is the decision (id. p. 384) that in Akhunaton's heresy "we see - ... the highest attitude [? altitude] to which religious ideas had - attained before the days of the Hebrew prophets." Alike in India - and in Egypt, pantheistic ideas of a larger scope than his or those - of the Hebrew prophets had been attained before Akhunaton's time. - - Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge, on the other hand, points out that the cult - of the Aten is really an ancient one in Egypt, and was carried - on by Thothmes III, father of Amen-hetep II, a century before - Akhunaton (Amen-hetep IV), its "original home" being Heliopolis - (History of Egypt, 1902, iv, 48, 119). So also von Bissing, - Gesch. Aeg. in Umriss, p. 52 (reading "Iton"). Rejecting the view - that "Aten" is only a form of "Adon," Dr. Budge pronounces that - "as far as can be seen now the worship of Aten was something - like a glorified materialism"--whatever that may be--"which had - to be expounded by priests who performed ceremonies similar - to those which belonged to the old Heliopolitan sun-worship, - without any connection whatsoever with the worship of Yahweh; - and a being of the character of the Semitic God Adôn had no place - in it anywhere." Further, he considers that it "contained no - doctrines on the unity or oneness of Aten similar to those which - are found in the hymns to Ra, and none of the beautiful ideas - on the future life with which we are familiar from the hymns and - other compositions in the Book of the Dead" (Ib. pp. 120-21). - - By Prof. Flinders Petrie Queen Tii or Thiy is surmised to have - been of Armenian origin (see Budge, iv, 96-98, as to her being - "Mesopotamian"); and Prof. Petrie, like Mr. Breasted, has - inferred that she brought with her the cult of which her son - became the devotee. (So also Brugsch, p. 214.) Messrs. King and - Hall recognize that the cult had made some headway before Akhunaton - took it up; but deny that there is any reason for supposing Queen - Tii to have been of foreign origin; adding: "It seems undoubted - that the Aten cult was a development of pure Egyptian religious - thought." Certainty on such an issue seems hardly possible; but - it may be said, as against the theory of a foreign importation, - that there is no evidence whatever of any high theistic cult of - Adonis in Syria at the period in question. Adonis was primarily - a Vegetation-God; and the older view that Aten simply means - "the sun's disk" is hardly disposed of. It is noteworthy that - under Akhunaton's patronage Egyptian sculpture enjoyed a term - of freedom from the paralyzing convention which reigned before - and after (King and Hall, as cited, pp. 383-84). This seems to - have been the result of the innovating taste of the king (Budge, - Hist. iv, 124-26). - - -As the centuries lapsed the course of popular religion was rather -downward than upward, if it can be measured by the multiplication of -superstitions. [254] When under the Ramesside dynasty the high-priests -of Amen became by marriage with the royal family the virtual rulers, -sacerdotalism went from bad to worse. [255] The priests, who held the -allegorical key to mythology, seem to have been the main multipliers of -magic and fable, mummery, ceremonial, and symbol; and they jealously -guarded their specialty against lay competition. [256] Esoteric and -exoteric doctrine flourished in their degrees side by side, [257] the -instructed few apparently often accepting or acting upon both; and -primitive rites all the while flourished on the level of the lowest -savagery, [258] though the higher ethical teaching even improves, -as in India. - -Conflicts, conquests, and changes of dynasties seem to have made -little difference in the life of the common people. [259] Religion was -the thread by which any ruler could lead them; and after the brief -destructive outbreak of Cambyses, [260] himself at first tolerant, -the Persian conquerors allowed the old faiths to subsist, caring only, -like their predecessors, to prevent strife between the cults which -would not tolerate each other. [261] The Ptolemies are found adopting -and using the native cults as the native kings had done ages before -them; [262] and in the learned Greek-speaking society created by their -dynasty at Alexandria there can have been at least as little concrete -belief as prevailed in the priesthood of the older civilization. It -developed a pantheistic philosophy which ultimately, in the hands -of Plotinus, compares very well with that of the Upanishads and of -later European systems. But this was a hot-house flower; and in the -open world outside, where Roman rule had broken the power of the -ancient priesthood and Greek immigration had overlaid the native -element, Christianity found an easy entrance, and in a declining -society flourished at its lowest level. [263] The ancient ferment, -indeed, produced many stirrings of relative freethought in the -form of Christian heresies to be noted hereafter; one of the most -notable being that of Arius, who, like his antagonist Athanasius, -was an Alexandrian. But the cast of mind which elaborated the dogma -of the Trinity is as directly an outcome of Egyptian culture-history -as that which sought to rationalize the dogma by making the popular -deity a created person; [264] and the long and manifold internecine -struggles of the sects were the due duplication of the older strifes -between the worshippers of the various sacred animals in the several -cities. [265] In the end the entire population was but so much clay -to take the impress of the Arab conquerors, with their new fanatic -monotheism standing for the minimum of rational thought. - -For the rest, the higher forms of the ancient religion had been -able to hold their own till they were absolutely suppressed, with -the philosophic schools, by the Byzantine government, which at the -same time marked the end of the ancient civilization by destroying -or scattering the vast collection of books in the Serapeion, -annihilating at once the last pagan cult and the stored treasure -of pagan culture. With that culture too, however, there had been -associated to the last the boundless credulity which had so long kept -it company. In the second century of our era, under the Antonines, -we have Apuleius telling of Isis worshipped as "Nature, parent of -things, mistress of all elements, the primordial birth of the ages, -highest of divinities, queen of departed spirits, first of the heavenly -ones, the single manifestation of all Gods and Goddesses," who rules -all things in earth and heaven, and who stands for the sole deity -worshipped throughout the world under many names; [266] the while -her worshipper cherishes all manner of the wildest superstitions, -which even the subtle philosophy of the Alexandrian Neo-Platonic -school did not discard. All alike, with the machinery of exorcism, -were passed on to the worship of the Christian Queen of Heaven, leaving -out only the pantheism; and when that worship in turn was overthrown, -the One God of Islam enrolled in his train the same host of ancient -hallucinations. [267] The fatality of circumstance was supreme. - - - - -§ 6. PHOENICIA - -Of the inner workings of thought in the Phoenician religion we know -even less, directly, than can be gathered as to any other ancient -system of similar notoriety, [268] so completely did the Roman conquest -of Carthage, and the Macedonian conquest of Tyre and Sidon, blot out -the literary remains of their peoples. Yet there are some indirect -clues of a remarkable sort. - -It is hardly to be doubted, in the first place, that Punic speculation -took the same main lines as the early thought of Egypt and Mesopotamia, -whose cultures, mixing in Syria as early as the fifteenth century -B.C., had laid the basis of the later Phoenician civilization. [269] -The simple fact that among the Syro-Phoenicians was elaborated the -alphabet adopted by all the later civilizations of the West almost -implies a special measure of intellectual progress. We can indeed -trace the normal movement of syncretism in the cults, and the normal -tendency to improve their ethics. The theory of an original pure -monotheism [270] is no more tenable here than anywhere else; we -can see that the general designation of the chief God of any city, -usually recognizable as a Sun-God, by a title rather than a name, -[271] though it pointed to a general worship of a pre-eminent power, -in no sense excluded a belief in minor powers, ranking even as -deities. It did not do so in the admittedly polytheistic period; -and it cannot therefore be supposed to have done so previously. - - - The chief Phoenician Gods, it is admitted, were everywhere called - by one or several of the titles Baal (Lord), Ram or Rimmon - (High), Melech or Molech (King), Melkarth (King of the City), - Eliun (Supreme), Adonai (Lord), Bel-Samin (Lord of Heaven), - etc. (Cp. Rawlinson, History of Phoenicia, p. 231; Tiele, - Hist. comp. des anc. relig., etc., Fr. tr. 1882, ch. iii, - pp. 281-87; Outlines, p. 82; Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. i, 246, - and art. "Phoenicia" in Encyc. Biblica, iii, 3742-5; Sayce, - Ancient Empires, p. 200.) The just inference is that the Sun-God - was generally worshipped, the sun being for the Semitic peoples - the pre-eminent Nature-power. "He alone of all the Gods is by - Philo explained not as a deified man, but as the sun, who had - been invoked from the earliest times" (Meyer, last cit.). (All - Gods were not Baals: the division between them and lesser powers - corresponded somewhat, as Tiele notes, to that between Theoi - and Daimones with the Greeks, and Ases and Vanes with the old - Scandinavians. So in Babylonia and India the Bels and Asuras - were marked off from lesser deities.) The fact that the Western - Semites thus carried with them the worship of their chief deities - in all their colonies would seem to make an end of the assumption - (Gomme, Ethnology of Folklore, p. 68; Menzies, History of Religion, - pp. 284, 250) that there is something specially "Aryan" in the - "conception of Gods who could and did accompany the tribes - wheresoever they travelled." Cp. Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. iii, 169. - - The worship of the Baal, however, being that of a special - Nature-power, cannot in early any more than in later times have - been monotheistic. What happened was a preponderance of the - double cult of the God and Goddess, Baal and Ashtoreth, as in - the unquestionably polytheistic period (Rawlinson, p. 323; Tiele, - Hist. Comp., as cited, p. 319). - - -Apart from this normal tendency to identify Gods called by the same -title (a state of things which, however, in ancient as in modern -Catholic countries, tended at the same time to set up special adoration -of a given image), there is seen in the later religion of Phoenicia -a spirit of syncretism which operated in a manner the reverse of that -seen in later Jewry. In the latter case the national God was ultimately -conceived, however fanatically, as universal, all others being negated: -in commercial Phoenicia, many foreign Gods were adopted, [272] the -tendency being finally to conceive them as all manifestations of one -Power. [273] And there is reason to suppose that in the cosmopolitan -world of the Phoenician cities the higher intelligence reached a yet -more subversive, though still fallacious, theory of religion. The -pretended ancient Phoenician cosmogony of Sanchoniathon, preserved -by Eusebius, [274] while worthless as a record of the most ancient -beliefs, [275] may be taken as representing views current not only in -the time and society of Philo of Byblos (100 C.E.), who had pretended -to translate it, but in a period considerably earlier. This cosmogony -is, as Eusebius complains, deliberately atheistic; and it further -systematically explains away all God stories as being originally true -of remarkable men. - -Where this primitive form of atheistic rationalism originated we -cannot now tell. But it was in some form current before the time of -the Greek Evêmeros, who systematically developed it about 300 B.C.; -for in a monotheistic application it more or less clearly underlies -the redaction of much of the Hebrew Bible, where both patriarchal and -regal names of the early period are found to be old God-names; and -where the Sun-God Samson is made a "judge" [276]--having originally -been the Judge-God. In the Byblian writer, however, the purpose -is not monotheistic, but atheistic; and the problem is whether -this or that was the earlier development of the method. The natural -presumption seems to be that the Hebrew adaptors of the old mythology -used an already applied method, as the Christian Fathers later used -the work of Evêmeros; and the citation from Thallos by Lactantius -[277] suggests that the method had been applied in Chaldea, as it -was spontaneously applied by the Greek epic poets who made memorable -mortals out of the ancient deities Odysseus and Æneas, [278] Helen, -Castor and Pollux, Achilles, and many more. [279] It is in any case -credible enough that among the much-travelling Phoenicians, with their -open pantheon, an atheistic Evêmerism was thought out by the skeptical -types before Evêmeros; and that the latter really drew his principles -from Phoenicia. [280] At any rate, they were there received, doubtless -by a select few, as a means of answering the customary demand for -"something in place of" the rejected Gods. Concerning the tradition -that an ancient Phoenician, Moschus, had sketched an atomic theory, -we may again say that, though there is no valid evidence for the -statement, it counts for something as proof that the Phoenicians had -an old repute for rationalism. - - - The Byblian cosmogony may be conceived as an atheistic refinement - on those of Babylon, adopted by the Jews. It connects with - the theogony ascribed to Hesiod (which has Asiatic aspects), - in that both begin with Chaos, and the Gods of Hesiod are born - later. But whereas in Hesiod Chaos brings forth Erebos and - Night (Eros being causal force), and Night bears Æther and Day - to Erebos, while Earth virginally brings forth Heaven (Uranos) - and the Sea, and then bears the first Gods in union with Heaven, - the Phoenician fragment proceeds from black chaos and wind, after - long ages, through Eros or Desire, to a kind of primeval slime, - from which arise first animals without intelligence, who in - turn produce some with intelligence. The effort to expel Deity - must have been considerable, for sun and moon and stars seem - to arise uncreated, and the sun's action spontaneously produces - further developments. The first man and his wife are created by - male and female principles of wind, and their offspring proceed - to worship the Sun, calling him Beel Samin. The other Gods are - explained as eminent mortals deified after their death. See the - details in Cory's Ancient Fragments, Hodges' ed. pp. 1-22. As to - Moschus, cp. Renouvier, Manuel de philos. ancienne, 1844, i, 238; - and Mosheim's ed. of Cudworth's Intellectual System, Harrison's - tr. i, 20; also Cudworth's Eternal and Immutable Morality, same - ed. iii, 548. On the general question of Phoenician rationalism, - compare Pausanias's account (vii, 23) of his discussion with a - Sidonian, who explained that Apollo was simply the sun, and his - son Æsculapius simply the healing art. - - -At the same time there are signs even in Phoenician worship of an -effort after an ethical as well as an intellectual purification of the -common religion. To call "the" Phoenician religion "impure and cruel" -[281] is to obscure the fact that in all civilizations certain types -and cults vary from the norm. In Phoenicia as in Israel there were -humane anti-sensualists who either avoided or impugned the sensual -and the cruel cults around them; as well as ascetics who stood by -human sacrifice while resisting sexual licence. That the better types -remained the minority is to be understood in terms of the balance -of the social and cultural forces of their civilization, not of any -racial bias or defect, intellectual or moral. - - - The remark of E. Meyer (Gesch. des Alt. i, 211, § 175), that - an ethical or mystical conception of the God was "entirely - alien" to "the Semite," reproduces the old fallacy of definite - race-characters; and Mr. Sayce, in remarking that "the immorality - performed in the name of religion was the invention of the Semitic - race itself" (Anc. Emp. p. 203; contrast Tiele, Outlines, p. 83), - after crediting the Semitic race with an ethical faculty alien to - the Akkadian (above, p. 66), suggests another phase of the same - error. There is nothing special to the Semites in the case save - degree of development, similar phenomena being found in many savage - religions, in Mexico, and in India. (Meyer in later passages and - in his article on Ba'al in Boscher's Lexikon modifies his position - as to Semitic versus other religions.) On the other hand, there - was a chaste as well as an unchaste worship of the Phoenician - Ashtoreth. Ashtoreth Karnaim, or Tanit, the Virgin, as opposed to - Atergates and Annit, the Mother-Goddesses, had the characteristics - of Artemis. Cp. Tiele, Religion comparée, as cited, pp. 318-19; - Menzies, History of Religion, pp. 159, 168-71; Kuenen, Religion of - Israel, i, 91; Smith, Religion of the Semites, pp. 292, 458. [In - Rome, Venus Cloacina, sometimes ignorantly described as a Goddess - of Vice, was anciently "the Goddess of chaste and holy matrimony" - (Ettore Pais, Ancient Legends of Roman History, Eng. tr. 1906, - p. 199)]. For the rest, the cruelty of the Phoenician cults, - in the matter of human sacrifice, was fully paralleled among - the early Teutons. See Tiele, Outlines, p. 199; and the author's - Pagan Christs, Pt. ii, ch. i, § 4. - - - - -§ 7. ANCIENT CHINA - -Of all the ancient Asiatic systems that of China yields us the -first clear biographical trace of a practical rationalist, albeit -a rationalist stamped somewhat by Chinese conservatism. Confucius -(Kung-fu-tse = Kung the Master) is a tangible person, despite some -mythic accretions, whereas Zarathustra and Buddha are at best but -doubtful possibilities, and even Lao-Tsze (said to have been born -604 B.C.) is somewhat elusive. - -Before Confucius (551-478 B.C.), it is evident, there had been a -slackening in religious belief among the governing classes. It is -claimed for the Chinese, as for so many other races, that they had -anciently a "pure" monotheism; [282] but the ascription, as usual, -is misleading. They saw in the expanse of heaven the "Supreme" -Power, not as a result of reflection on the claims of other deities -among other races, but simply as expressing their primordial tribal -recognition of that special God, before contact with the God-ideas -of other peoples. Monotheistic in the modern sense they could not -be. Concerning them as concerning the Semites we may say that the -claim of a primary monotheism for them "is also true of all primitive -totemistic or clannish communities. A man is born into a community -with such a divine head, and the worship of that God is the only one -possible to him." [283] Beside the belief in the Heaven-God, there -stood beliefs in heavenly and earthly spirits, and in ancestors, -who were worshipped with altars. [284] - - - The remark of Professor Legge (Religions of China, p. 11), that - the relation of the names Shang-Ti = Supreme Ruler, and T'ien = - the sky, "has kept the monotheistic element prominent in the - religion proper of China down to the present time," may serve - to avert disputation. It may be agreed that the Chinese were - anciently "monotheists" in the way in which they are at present, - when they worship spirits innumerable. When, however, Professor - Legge further says (p. 16) that the ancient monotheism five - thousand years ago was "in danger of being corrupted" by nature - worship and divination, he puts in doubt the meaning of the other - expression above cited. He states several times (pp. 46, 51, 52) - that the old monotheism remains; but speaks (p. 84) of the mass of - the people as "cut off from the worship of God for themselves." And - see p. 91 as to ancestor-worship by the Emperor. Tiele (Outlines, - p. 27) in comparison somewhat overstresses the polytheistic aspect - of the Chinese religion in his opening definition; but he adds the - essential facts. Dr. Legge's remark that "the idea of revelation - did not shock" the ancient Chinese (p. 13) is obscure. He is - dealing with the ordinary Akkado-Babylonian astrology. Pauthier, - on the contrary (Chine Moderne, 1853, p. 250), asserts that in - China "no doctrine has ever been put forth as revealed." - - -As regards ancestral worship, we have record of a display of disregard -for it by the lords of Lû in Confucius's time; [285] and the general -attitude of Confucius himself, religious only in his adherence to -old ceremonies, is incompatible with a devout environment. It has -been disputed whether he makes a "skeptic denial of any relation -between man and a living God"; [286] but an authority who disputes -this complains that his "avoiding the personal name of Tî, or God, -and only using the more indefinite term Heaven," suggests "a coldness -of temperament and intellect in the matter of religion." [287] He was, -indeed, above all things a moralist; and concerning the spirits in -general he taught that "To give one's self to the duties due to men, -and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be -called wisdom." [288] He would never express an opinion concerning the -fate of souls, [289] or encourage prayer; [290] and in his redaction of -the old records he seems deliberately to have eliminated mythological -expressions. [291] "I would say," writes Dr. Legge (who never forgets -to be a missionary), "that he was unreligious rather than irreligious; -yet, by the coldness of his temperament and intellect in this matter, -his influence is unfavourable to the development of true religious -feeling among the Chinese people generally, and he prepared the way -for the speculations of the literati of medieval and modern times, -which have exposed them to the charge of atheism." [292] - - - The view that there was a very early "arrest of growth" in - the Chinese religion (Menzies, History of Religion, p. 108), - "before the ordinary developments of mythology and doctrine, - priesthood," etc., had "time to take place," is untenable as to - the mythology. The same writer had previously spoken (p. 107) of - the Chinese system before Confucius as having "already parted with - all savage and irrational elements." That Confucius would seek - to eliminate these seems likely enough, though the documentary - fact is disputed. - - -In the elder contemporary of Confucius, Lao-Tsze ("Old Philosopher"), -the founder of Taouism, may be recognized another and more remarkable -early freethinker of a different stamp, in some essential respects -much less conservative, and in intellectual cast markedly more -original. Where Confucius was an admirer and student of antiquity, -Lao-Tsze expressly put such concern aside, [293] seeking a law of -life within himself, in a manner suggestive of much Indian and other -Oriental thought. So far as our records go, he is the first known -philosopher who denied that men could form an idea of deity, that -being the infinite; and he avowedly evolved, by way of makeshift, -the idea of a primordial and governing Reason (Tau), closely analogous -to the Logos of later Platonism. Since the same idea is traceable in -more primitive forms alike in the Babylonian and Brahmanic systems, -[294] it is arguable that he may have derived it from one of these -sources; but the problem is very obscure. In any case, his system is -one of rationalistic pantheism. [295] - -His personal relation to Confucius was that of a self-poised sage, -impatient of the other's formalism and regard to prescription and -precedent. Where they compare is in their avoidance of supernaturalism, -and in the sometimes singular rationality of their views of social -science; in which latter respect, however, they were the recipients -and transmitters of an already classic tradition. [296] Thus both had -a strong bias to conservatism; and in Lao-Tsze it went the length of -prescribing that the people should not be instructed. [297] Despite -this, it is not going too far to say that no ancient people appears -to have produced sane thinkers and scientific moralists earlier than -the Chinese. The Golden Rule, repeatedly formulated by Confucius, -seems to be but a condensation on his part of doctrine he found in the -older classics; [298] and as against Lao-Tsze he is seen maintaining -the practical form of the principle of reciprocity. The older man, -like some later teachers, preached the rule of returning kindness for -evil, [299] without leaving any biographical trace of such practice on -his own part. Confucius, dealing with human nature as it actually is, -argued that evil should be met by justice, and kindness with kindness, -else the evil were as much fostered as the good. [300] - - - It is to be regretted that Christian writers should keep up the - form of condemning Confucius (so Legge, Religions of China, - p. 144; Life and Teachings of Confucius, 4th ed. p. 111 sq.; - Douglas, p. 144) for a teaching the practice of which is normally - possible, and is never transcended in their own Church, where the - profession of returning good for evil merely constitutes one of - the great hypocrisies of civilization. Dr. Legge does not scruple - to resort to a bad sophism in this connection. "If," he says, - "we only do good to them that do good to us, what reward have - we?" He thus insinuates that Confucius vetoed any spontaneous act - of benevolence. The question is not of such acts, but of kind acts - to those who seek to injure us. On the other hand, Mr. Chalmers, - who dedicates his translation of Lao-Tsze to Dr. Legge, - actually taunts Lao-Tsze (p. 38) with absurdity in respect of - his doctrine. Such is the sincerity of orthodox polemic. How - little effect the self-abnegating teaching of Lao-Tsze, in turn, - has had on his followers may be gathered from their very legends - concerning him (Douglas, p. 182). There is a fallacy, further, - in the Christian claim that Confucius (Analects, v, 11; xv, 23) - put the Golden Rule in a lower form than that of the Gospels, in - that he gave it the negative form, "Do not that which ye would not - have done unto you." This is really the rational and valid form of - the Rule. The positive form, unless construed in the restrictive - sense, would merely prescribe a non-moral doing of favours in - the hope of receiving favours in return. It appears, further, - from the passage in the Analects, v, 11, that the doctrine in - this form was familiar before Confucius. - - -Lao-Tsze, on his part, had reduced religion to a minimum. "There is -not a word in the Tâo Têh King [by Lao-Tsze] of the sixth century -B.C. that savours either of superstition or religion." [301] But the -quietist and mystical philosophy of Lao-Tsze and the practicality -of Confucius alike failed to check the growth of superstition among -the ever-increasing ignorant Chinese population. Says our Christian -authority: "In the works of Lieh-Tsze and Chwang-Tsze, followers of -Lao-Tsze, two or three centuries later, we find abundance of grotesque -superstition, though we are never sure how far those writers really -believed the things they relate." In point of fact, Lieh-Tsze is now -commonly held by scholars to be an imaginary personage, whose name is -given to a miscellaneous collection of teachings and moral tales, much -interpolated and added to long after the date assigned to him--circa -400 B.C. [302] It contains a purely pantheistic statement of the cosmic -problem, [303] and among the apologues is one in which a boy of twelve -years is made tersely and cogently to rebut the teleological view of -things. [304] The writers of such sections are not likely to have held -the superstitions set forth in others. But that superstition should -supervene upon light where the means of light were dwindling was a -matter of course. It was but the old fatality, seen in Brahmanism, -in Buddhism, in Egypt, in Islam, and in Christianity. - -Confucius himself was soon worshipped. [305] A reaction against him -set in after a century or two, doctrines of pessimism on the one hand, -and of universal love on the other, finding a hearing; [306] but the -influence of the great Confucian teacher Mencius (Meng-Tse) carried -his school through the struggle. "In his teaching, the religious -element retires still further into the background" [307] than in that -of Confucius; and he is memorable for his insistence on the remarkable -principle of Confucius, that "the people are born good"; that they are -the main part of the State; and that it is the ruler's fault if they -go astray. [308] Some rulers seem to have fully risen to this view -of things, for we have an account of a rationalistic duke, who lived -earlier than 250 B.C., refusing to permit the sacrifice of a man as -a scapegoat on his behalf; and in the year 166 B.C. such sacrifices -were permanently abolished by the Han Emperor Wen. [309] But Mencius, -who, as a sociologist, excels not only Lao-Tsze but Confucius, put his -finger on the central force in Chinese history when he taught that "it -is only men of education who, without a certain livelihood, are able to -maintain a fixed heart. As to the people, if they have not a certain -livelihood, it follows that they will not have a fixed heart." [310] -So clearly was the truth seen in China over two thousand years ago. But -whether under feudalism or under imperialism, under anarchy or under -peace--and the teachings of Lao-Tsze and Mencius combined to discredit -militarism [311]--the Chinese mass always pullulated on cheap food, -at a low standard of comfort, and in a state of utter ignorance. Hence -the cult of Confucius was maintained among them only by recognizing -their normal superstition; but on that basis it has remained secure, -despite competition, and even a term of early persecution. One -iconoclastic emperor, the founder of the Ch'in or Ts'in dynasty -(221 or 212 B.C.), sought to extirpate Confucianism as a means to a -revolution in the government; but the effort came to nothing. [312] - -In the same way Lao-Tsze came to be worshipped as a God [313] under -the religion called Taouism, a title sometimes mistranslated as -rationalism, "a name admirably calculated to lead the mind astray as -to what the religion is." [314] It would seem as if the older notion -of the Tau, philosophically purified by Lao-Tsze, remained a popular -basis for his school, and so wrought its degradation. The Taoists or -Tao-sse "do their utmost to be as unreasonable as possible." [315] -They soon reverted from the philosophic mysticism of Lao-Tsze, -after a stage of indifferentism, [316] to a popular supernaturalism, -[317] which "the cultivated Chinese now regard with unmixed contempt"; -[318] the crystallized common-sense of Confucius, on the other hand, -allied as it is with official ceremonialism, retaining its hold as -an esoteric code for the learned. The evolution has thus closely -resembled that which took place in India. - -Nowhere, perhaps, is our sociological lesson more clearly to be -read than in China. Centuries before our era it had a rationalistic -literature, an ethic no less earnest and far more sane that that of -the Hebrews, and a line of known teachers as remarkable in their way -as those of ancient Greece who flourished about the same period. But -where even Greece, wrought upon by all the other cultures of antiquity, -ultimately retrograded, till under Christianity it stayed at a Chinese -level of unprogressiveness for a thousand years, isolated China, -helped by no neighbouring culture adequate to the need, has stagnated -as regards the main mass of its life, despite some political and other -fluctuations, till our own day. Its social problem, like that of India, -is now more or less dependent, unfortunately, on the solutions that -may be reached in Europe, where the problem is only relatively more -mature, not fundamentally different. - - - - -§ 8. MEXICO AND PERU - -In the religions of pre-Christian Mexico and Peru we have peculiarly -interesting examples of "early" religious systems, flourishing at -some such culture-level as the ancient Akkadian, in full play at -the time of the European Renaissance. In Mexico a partly "high" -ethical code, as the phrase goes, went concurrently with the most -frightful indulgence in human sacrifice, sustained by the continuous -practice of indecisive war for the securing of captives, and by the -interest of a vast priesthood. In this system had been developed all -the leading features of those of the Old World--the identification -of all the Gods with the Sun; the worship of fire, and the annual -renewal of it by special means; the conception of God-sacrifice and of -communion with the God by the act of eating his slain representative; -the belief in a Virgin-Mother-Goddess; the connection of humanitarian -ethic with the divine command; the opinion that celibacy, as a state -of superior virtue, is incumbent on most priests and on all would-be -saints; the substitution of a sacramental bread for the "body and -blood" of the God-Man; the idea of an interceding Mother-Goddess; -the hope of a coming Saviour; the regular practice of prayer; -exorcism, special indulgences, confession, absolution, fasting, and -so on. [319] In Peru, also, many of those conceptions were in force; -but the limitation of the power and numbers of the priesthood by the -imperial system of the Incas, and the state of peace normal in their -dominions, prevented the Mexican development of human sacrifice. - -It seems probable that the Toltecs, who either fled before or were -for the most part subdued or destroyed by the barbarian Chichimecs -(in turn subdued by the Aztecs) a few centuries before Cortes, were -on the whole a less warlike and more civilized people, with a less -bloody worship. [320] Their God, Quetzalcoatl, retained through fear -by the Aztecs, [321] was a comparatively benign deity opposed to -human sacrifice, apparently rather a late purification or partial -rationalization of an earlier God-type than a primitively harmless -conception. [322] Insofar as they were sundered by quarrels between -the sectaries of the God Quetzalcoatl and the God Votan, though -their religious wars seem to have been as cruel as those of the -early Christians of North Africa, there appears to have been at work -among them a movement towards unbloody religion. In any case their -overthrow seems to stand for the military inferiority of the higher -and more rational civilization [323] to the lower and more religious, -which in turn, however, was latterly being destroyed by its enormously -burdensome military and priestly system, and may even be held to have -been ruined by its own superstitious fears. [324] - -Among the recognizable signs of normal progress in the ordinary Aztec -religion were (1) the general recognition of the Sun as the God really -worshipped in all the temples of the deities with special names; -[325] (2) the substitution in some cults of baked bread-images for a -crucified human victim. The question arises whether the Aztecs, but -for their overwhelming priesthood, might conceivably have risen above -their system of human sacrifices, as the Aryan Hindus had done in an -earlier age. Their material civilization, which carried on that of -the kindred Toltecs, was at several points superior to that which the -Spaniards put in its place; and their priesthood, being a leisured -and wealthy class, might have developed intellectually as did the -Brahmans, [326] if its economic basis had been changed. But only a -conquest or other great political convulsion could conceivably have -overturned the vast cultus of human sacrifice, which overran all life, -and cherished war as a means of procuring victims. - -In the kindred State of Tezcuco, civilization seems to have gone -further than in Aztec Anahuac; and about the middle of the fifteenth -century one Tezcucan king, the conqueror Netzahualcoyotl, who has -left writings in both prose and verse, is seen attaining to something -like a philosophic creed, of a monotheistic stamp. [327] He is said -to have rejected all idol-worship, and erected, as aforesaid, an -altar "to the Unknown God," [328] forbidding all sacrifices of blood -in that worship. But among the Tezcucans these never ceased; three -hundred slaves were sacrificed at the obsequies of the conqueror's son, -Netzahualpilli; and the Aztec influence over the superior civilization -was finally complete. - -In Peru, again, we find civilization advancing in respect of the -innovation of substituting statuettes for wives and slaves in the -tombs of the rich; and we have already noted [329] the remarkable -records of the avowed unbelief of several Incas in the divinity of -the nationally worshipped Sun. For the rest, there was the dubious -quasi-monotheistic cult of the Creator-God, Pachacamac, concerning -whom every fresh discussion raises fresh doubt. [330] - - - Mr. Lang, as usual, leans to the view that Pachacamac - stands for a primordial and "elevated" monotheism (Making of - Religion, pp. 263-70), while admitting the slightness of the - evidence. Garcilasso, the most eminent authority, who, however, - is contradicted by others, represents that the conception - of Pachacamac as Creator, needing no temple or sacrifice, was - "philosophically" reached by the Incas and their wise men (Lang, - p. 262). The historical fact seems to be that a race subdued - by the Incas, the Yuncas, had one temple to this deity; and - that the Incas adopted the cult. Garcilasso says the Yuncas had - human sacrifices and idols, which the Incas abolished, setting up - their monotheistic cult in that one temple. This is sufficiently - unlikely; and it may very well have been the fact that the Yuncas - had offered no sacrifices. But if they did not, it was because - their material conditions, like those of the Australians and - Fuegians, had not facilitated the practice; and in that case - their "monotheism" likewise would merely represent the ignorant - simplicity of a clan-cult. (Compare Tylor, Primitive Culture, - ii, 335 sq.; Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 52.) On the - other hand, if the Incas had set up a cult without sacrifices - to a so-called One God, their idea would be philosophical, as - taking into account the multitude of clan-cults as well as their - own national worships, and transcending these. - - -But the outstanding sociological fact in Incarial Peru was the -absolute subjection of the mass of the people; and though its material -development and political organization were comparable to those of -ancient Persia under the Akhamenidæ, so that the Spanish Conquest -stood here for mere destruction, there is no reason to think that at -the best its intellectual life could have risen higher than that of -pre-Alexandrian Egypt, to which it offers so many resemblances. The -Incas' schools were for the nobility only. [331] Rationalistic Incas -and high priests might have ruled over a docile, unlettered multitude, -gradually softening their moral code, in connection with their rather -highly-developed doctrine (resembling the Egyptian) of a future -state. But these seem the natural limits, in the absence of contact -with another civilization not too disparate for a fruitful union. - -In Mexico, on the other hand, an interaction of native cultures had -already occurred to some purpose; and the strange humanitarianism of -the man-slaying priests, who made free public hospitals of part of -their blood-stained temples, [332] suggests a possibility of esoteric -mental culture among them. They had certainly gone relatively far in -their moral code, as apart from their atrocious creed of sacrifice, -even if we discount the testimony of the benevolent priest Sahagun; -[333] and they had the beginnings of a system of education for the -middle classes. [334] But unless one of the States which habitually -warred for captives should have conquered the others--in which case -a strong ruler might have put an end to the wholesale religious -slaughter of his own subjects, as appears to have been done anciently -in Mesopotamia--the priests in all likelihood would never have -transcended their hideous hallucination of sacrifice. Their murdered -civilization is thus the "great perhaps" of sociology; organized -religion being the most sinister factor in the problem. - - - - -§ 9. THE COMMON FORCES OF DEGENERATION - -It is implied more or less in all the foregoing summaries that there -is an inherent tendency in all systematized and instituted religion to -degenerate intellectually and morally, save for the constant corrective -activity of freethought. It may be well, however, to note specifically -the forms or phases of the tendency. - -1. Dogmatic and ritual religion being, to begin with, a more or -less general veto on fresh thinking, it lies in its nature that the -religious person is as such less intelligently alive to all problems of -thought and conduct than he otherwise might be--a fact which at least -outweighs, in a whole society, the gain from imposing a terrorized -conformity on the less well-biassed types. Wherever conduct is a matter -of sheer obedience to a superhuman code, it is ipso facto uncritical -and unprogressive. Thus the history of most religions is a record of -declines and reformations, each new affirmation of moral freethought -ad hoc being in turn erected into a set of sheer commands. To set -up the necessary ferment of corrective thought even for a time, -there seems to be needed (a) a provocation to the intelligence, as -in the spectacle of conflict of cults; and (b) a provocation to the -moral sense and to self-interest through a burdensome pressure of -rites or priestly exactions. An exceptional personality, of course, -may count for much in the making of a movement; though the accident -of the possession of kingly power by a reformer seems to count for -much more than does genius. - -2. The fortunes of such reactions are determined by socio-economic or -political conditions. They are seen to be at a minimum, as to energy -and social effect, in the conditions of greatest social invariability, -as in ancient Egypt, where progress in thought, slow at best, was -confined to the priestly and official class, and never affected -popular culture. - -3. In the absence of social conditions fitted to raise popular -levels of life and thought, every religious system tends to -worsen intellectually in the sense of adding to its range of -superstition--that is, of ignorant and unreasoning belief. Credulity -has its own momentum. Even the possession of limitary sacred books -cannot check this tendency--e.g., Hinduism, Judaism, Mohammedanism, -Mazdeism, Christianity up till the age of doubt and science, and the -systems of ancient Egypt, Babylon, and post-Confucian China. This -worsening can take place alongside of a theoretic purification of -belief within the sphere of the educated theological class. - - - Christian writers have undertaken to show that such deterioration - went on continuously in India from the beginning of the Vedic - period, popular religion sinking from Varuna to Indra, from Indra - to the deities of the Atharva Veda, and from these to the Puranas - (cp. Dr. J. Murray Mitchell, Hinduism Past and Present, 1885, - pp. 22, 25, 26, 54). The argument, being hostile in bias from the - beginning, ignores or denies the element of intellectual advance in - the Upanishads and other later literature; but it holds good of the - general phenomena. It holds good equally, however, of the history - of Christianity in the period of the supremacy of ignorant faith - and absence of doubt and science; and is relatively applicable - to the religion of the uneducated mass at any time and place. - - On the other hand, it is not at all true that religious - history is from the beginning, in any case, a process of - mere degeneration from a pure ideal. Simple statements as to - primitive ideas are found to be misleading because of their - simplicity. They can connote only the ethic of the life conditions - of the worshipper. Now, we have seen (p. 28) that small primitive - peoples living at peace and in communism, or in some respects well - placed, may be on that account in certain moral respects superior - to the average or mass of more civilized and more intelligent - peoples. [As to the kindliness and unselfishness of some savages, - living an almost communal life, and as to the scrupulous honesty - of others, there is plenty of evidence--e.g., as to Andaman - islanders, Max Müller, Anthrop. Relig., citing Colonel Cadell, - p. 177; as to Malays and Papuans, Dr. Russel Wallace, Malay - Archipelago, p. 595 (but cp. pp. 585, 587, 589); as to Esquimaux, - Keane, Man, p. 374; Reclus, Primitive Folk, pp. 15, 37, 115 (but - cp. pp. 41-42). In these and other cases unselfishness within the - tribe is the concomitant of the communal life, and represents no - conscious ethical volition, being concurrent with phases of the - grossest tribal egoism, in some cases with cannibalism, and with - the perpetual oppression of women. In the case of the preaching - of unselfishness to the young by the old among the Australians, - where Lubbock and his authorities see "the tyranny of the old" - (Origin of Civilization, 5th ed. pp. 451-52) Mr. Lang sees a pure - primeval ethic. Obviously the other is the true explanation. The - closest and best qualified observers testify, as regards a number - of tribes: "So far as anything like moral precepts are concerned - in these tribes ... it appears to us to be most probable that - they have originated in the first instance in association with - the purely selfish ideas of the older men to keep all the best - things for themselves, and in no case whatever are they supposed - to have the sanction of a superior being" (Spencer and Gillen, - North. Tribes of Cent. Australia, 1904, p. 504).] - - The transition from that state to one of war and individualism - would be in a sense degeneration; but on the other hand - the entirely communistic societies are unprogressive. Broadly - speaking, it is by the path of social individuation that progress - in civilization has been made, the early city States and the later - large military States ultimately securing within themselves some - of the conditions for special development of thought, arts, and - knowledge. The residual truth is that the simple religion of the - harmless tribe is pro tanto superior to the instituted religion - of the more civilized nation with greater heights and lower depths - of life, the popular religion in the latter case standing for the - worse conditions. But the simple religion did not spring from any - higher stage of knowledge. The old theorem revived by Mr. Lang - (Making of Religion), as to religion having originally been a - pure and highly ethical monotheism, from which it degenerated - into animism and non-moral polytheism, is at best a misreading of - the facts just stated. Mr. Lang never asks what "Supreme Being" - and "monotheism" mean for savages who know nothing of other men's - religions: he virtually takes all the connotations for granted. And - as regards the most closely studied of contemporary savages - our authorities come to an emphatic conclusion that they have - no notion whatever of anything like a Supreme Being (Spencer and - Gillen, North. Tribes of Cent. Austr. pp. 491-92. Cp. A. H. Keane, - Man, p. 395, as to the "Great Spirit" of the Redskins). For the - rest, Mr. Lang's theory is demonstrably wrong in its ethical - interpretation of many anthropological facts, and as it stands - is quite irreconcilable with the law of evolution, since it - assumes an abstract monotheism as primordial. In general it - approximates scientifically to the eighteenth-century doctrine of - the superiority of savagery to civilization. (See it criticized - in the author's Studies in Religious Fallacy, and Christianity - and Mythology, 2nd ed. pp. 37-43, 46 sq.) - - -4. Even primary conditions of material well-being, if not reacted upon -by social science or a movement of freethought, may in a comparatively -advanced civilization promote religious degeneration. Thus abundance -of food is favourable to multiplication of sacrifice, and so to -priestly predominance. [335] The possession of domesticated animals, -so important to civilization, lends itself to sacrifice in a specially -demoralizing degree. But abundant cereal food-supply, making abundant -population, may greatly promote human sacrifice--e.g., Mexico. - - - The error of Mr. Lang's method is seen in the use he makes - (work cited, pp. 286-289, 292) of the fact that certain "low" - races--as the Australians, Andamanese, Bushmen, and Fuegians--offer - no animal sacrifice. He misses the obvious significance of the - facts that these unwarlike races have as a rule no domesticated - animals and no agriculture, and that their food supply is thus - in general precarious. The Andamanese, sometimes described - (Malthus, Essay on Population, ch. iii, and refs.; G. W. Earl, - Papuans, 1853, pp. 150-51) as very ill-fed, are sometimes said - to be well supplied with fish and game (Peschel, Races of Man, - Eng. tr. 1876, p. 147; Max Müller, Anthrop. Rel. citing Cadell, - p. 177); but in any case they have had no agriculture, and seem - to have only occasional animal food in the shape of a wild hog - (Colebrooke in Asiatic Researches, iv, 390). The Australians and - Fuegians, again, have often great difficulty in feeding themselves - (Peschel, pp. 148, 159, 334; Darwin, Voyage, ch. 10). It is argued - concerning the Australian aborigines that "as a rule they have an - abundance" (A. F. Calvert, The Aborigines of Western Australia, - 1894, p. 24); but this abundance is made out by cataloguing the - whole edible fauna and flora of the coasts and the interior, - and ignores the fact that for all hunting peoples food supply - is precarious. For the Australian, "the difficulty of capturing - game with his primitive methods compels him to give his whole - time to the quest of food" (Keane, Man, p. 148). In the contrary - case of the primitive Vedic Aryans, well supplied with animals, - sacrifices were abundant, and tended to become more so (Müller, - Nat. Relig. pp. 136, 185; Physical Relig. p. 105; but cp. pp. 98, - 101; Mitchell, Hinduism, p. 43; Lefmann, Geschichte des alten - Indiens, in Oncken's series, 1890, pp. 49, 430-31). Of these - sacrifices that of the horse seems to have been in Aryan use - in a most remote period (cp. M. Müller, Nat. Rel. pp. 524-25; - H. Böttger, Sonnencult der Indogermanen, Breslau, 1891, pp. 41-44; - Preller, Römische Mythologie, ed. Köhler, pp. 102, 299, 323; - Griechische Mythologie, 2te Aufg. i, 462; Frazer, Golden Bough, - ii, 315). Max Müller's remark (Physical Religion, p. 106), that - "the idea of sacrifice did not exist at a very early period," - because there is no common Aryan term for it, counts for nothing, - as he admits (p. 107) that the Sanskrit word cannot be traced - back to any more general root; and he concedes the antiquity - of the practice. On this cp. Mitchell, Hinduism, pp. 37-38; and - the author's Pagan Christs, 2nd ed. p. 122. The reform in Hindu - sacrifice, consummated by Buddhism, has been noted above. - - -5. Even scientific knowledge, while enabling the thoughtful to correct -their religious conceptions, in some forms lends itself easily to -the promotion of popular superstition. Thus the astronomy of the -Babylonians, while developing some skepticism, served in general to -encourage divination and fortune-telling; and seems to have had the -same effect when communicated to the Chinese, the Hindus, and the -Hebrews, all of whom, however, practised divination previously on -other bases. - -6. Finally, the development of the arts of sculpture and painting, -unaccompanied by due intellectual culture, tends to keep religion at -a low anthropomorphic level, and worsens its psychology by inviting -image-worship. [336] It is not that the earlier and non-artistic -religions are not anthropomorphic, but that they give more play -for intellectual imagination than does a cult of images. But where -the arts have been developed, idolatry has always arisen save when -resisted by a special activity or revival of freethought to that end; -and even in Protestant Christendom, where image-worship is tabooed, -religious pictures now promote popular credulity and ritualism as they -did in the Italian Renaissance. [337] So manifold are the forces of -intellectual degeneration--degeneration, that is, from an attained -ideal or stage of development, not from any primordial knowledge. - - - - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -RELATIVE FREETHOUGHT IN ISRAEL - - -The modern critical analysis of the Hebrew Sacred Books has made it -sufficiently clear that in Jewish as in all other ancient history -progress in religion was by way of evolving an ethical and sole deity -out of normal primitive polytheism. [338] What was special to the -Hebrews was the set of social conditions under which the evolution took -place. Through these conditions it was that the relative freethought -which rejected normal polytheism was so far favoured as to lead to a -pronounced monotheistic cultus, though not to a philosophic monotheism. - - - - -§ 1 - -As seen in their earliest historical documents (especially portions -of the Book of Judges), the Hebrews are a group of agricultural and -pastoral but warlike tribes of Semitic speech, with household Gods -and local deities, [339] living among communities at the same or a -higher culture stage. Their ancestral legends show similar religious -practice. [340] Of the Hebrew tribes some may have sojourned for -a time in Egypt; but this is uncertain, the written record being a -late and in large part deliberately fictitious construction. [341] -At one time twelve such tribes may have confederated, in conformity -with a common ancient superstition, seen in Arab and Greek history -as well as in the Jewish, as to the number twelve. As they advanced -in civilization, on a basis of city life existing among a population -settled in Canaan before them, parts of which they conquered, one -of their public cults, that of Yahu or Yahweh, finally fixed at -Jerusalem, became politically important. The special worshippers of -this God (supposed to have been at first a Thunder-God or Nature-God) -[342] were in that sense monotheists; but not otherwise than kindred -neighbouring communities such as the Ammonites and Moabites and -Edomites, each of which had its special God, like the cities of -Babylonia and Egypt. But that the earlier conceptions of the people -had assumed a multiplicity of Gods is clear from the fact that even -in the later literary efforts to impose the sole cult of Yahweh on the -people, the plural name Elohim, "Powers" or "Gods" (in general, things -to be feared), [343] is retained, either alone or with that of Yahweh -prefixed, though cosmology had previously been written in Yahweh's -name. The Yahwists did not scruple to combine an Elohistic narrative, -varying from theirs in cosmology and otherwise, with their own. [344] - - - As to the original similarity of Hebraic and other Canaanite - religions cp. E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. §§ 309-11 (i, 372-76); - Kuenen, i, 223; Wellhausen, Israel, p. 440; Winckler, - Gesch. Israels, passim; Réville, Prolég. de l'hist. des - relig. 1881, p. 85. "Before being monotheistic, Israel was - simply monolatrous, and even that only in its religious élite" - (Réville). "Their [the Canaanites'] worship was the same in - principle as that of Israel, but it had a higher organization" - (Menzies, Hist. of Rel. p. 179; cp. Tiele, Outlines, pp. 85-89). On - the side of the traditional view, Mr. Lang, while sharply - challenging most of the propositions of the higher critics, - affirms that "we know that Israel had, in an early age, the - conception of the moral Eternal; we know that, at an early age, - the conception was contaminated and anthropomorphized; and we - know that it was rescued, in a great degree, from this corruption, - while always retaining its original ethical aspect and sanction" - (Making of Religion, p. 295). If "we know" this, the discussion - is at an end. But Mr. Lang's sole documentary basis for the - assertion is just the fabricated record, reluctantly abandoned - by theological scholars as such. When this is challenged, - Mr. Lang falls back on the position that such low races as - the Australians and Fuegians have a "moral Supreme Being," - and that therefore Israel "must" have had one (p. 309). It will - be found, however, that the ethic of these races is perfectly - primitive, on Mr. Lang's own showing, and that his estimate is a - misinterpretation. As to their Supreme Beings, it might suffice - to compare Mr. Lang's Making of Religion, chs. ix, xii, with his - earlier Myth, Ritual, and Religion, i, 168, 335; ii, 6, etc.; - but, as we have seen (above, p. 93), the Supreme Being of the - Australians eludes the closest search in a number of tribes; and - the "moral" factor is equally intangible. Mr. Lang in his later - reasoning has merely added the ambiguous and misleading epithet - "Supreme," stressing it indefinitely, to the ordinary God-idea - of the lower races. (Cp. Cox, Mythol. of Aryan Races, ed. 1882, - p. 155; and K. O. Müller, Introd. to Sci. Mythol. Eng. tr. p. 184.) - - There being thus no highly imagined "moral Eternal" in the - religion of primitive man, the Hebrews were originally in the - ordinary position. Their early practice of human sacrifice is - implied in the legend of Abraham and Isaac, and in the story of - Jephthah. (Cp. Micah vi, 7, and Kuenen on the passage, i, 237.) In - their reputed earliest prophetic books we find them addicted to - divination (Hosea iv, 12; Micah v, 12. Cp. the prohibition in - Lev. xx, 6; also 2 Kings xxiii, 24, and Isa. iii, 2; as to the - use of the ephod, teraphim, and urim and thummim, see Kuenen, - Relig. of Israel, Eng. tr. i, 97-100) and to polytheism. (Amos v, - 26, viii, 14; Hosea i, 13, 17, etc. Cp. Jud. viii, 27; 1 Sam. vii, - 3.) These things Mr. Lang seems to admit (p. 309, note), despite - his previous claim; but he builds (p. 332) on the fact that - the Hebrews showed little concern about a future state--that - "early Israel, having, so far as we know, a singular lack of - interest in the future of the soul, was born to give himself up - to developing, undisturbed, the theistic conception, the belief - in a righteous Eternal"--whereas later Greeks and Romans, like - Egyptians, were much concerned about life after death. Mr. Lang's - own general theory would really require that all peoples at a - certain stage should act like the Israelites; but he suspends it - in the interest of the orthodox view as to the early Hebrews. At - the same time he omits to explain why the Hebrews failed to - adopt the future-state creed when they were "contaminated"--a - proposition hardly reconcilable, on any view, with the sentence - just quoted. The solution, however, is simple. Israel was not - at all "singular" in the matter. The early (Homeric) Greeks - and Romans (cp. as to Hades the Iliad, passim; Odyssey, bk. xi, - passim; Tiele, Outlines, p. 209, as to the myth of Persephone; - and Preller, Römische Mythologie, ed. Köhler, 1865, pp. 452-55, - as to the early Romans), like the early Vedic Aryans (Tiele, - Outlines, p. 117; Müller, Anthropol. Relig. p. 269), and the - early Babylonians and Assyrians (Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. i, 181-82; - Sayce, Hib. Lect. p. 364) took little thought of a future state. - - "Homer knows no influence of the Psyche on the realm of the - visible, and also no cult implying it.... A later poet, who made - the last addition to the Odyssey, first introduced Hermes the - 'leader of souls' [perhaps taken from a popular belief in some part - of Hellas].... Underneath, in the gloomy shades, the souls waver, - unconscious or at the best in a glimmering half-consciousness, - endowed with faint voices, feeble, indifferent.... To speak, - as do many old and recent scholars, of the 'immortal life' of - such souls, is erroneous. They live rather as the spectre of the - living in a mirror.... If the Psyche outlives her visible mate (the - body), she is powerless without him.... Thus is the Homeric world - free from ghosts (for after the burning of the body the Psyche - appears no more even in dream).... The living has peace from the - dead.... No dæmonic power is at work apart from or against the - Gods; and the night gives to the disembodied spirits no freedom" - (Rohde, Psyche, 4te Aufl. 1907, pp. 9-11). - - This minimization of the normal primitive belief in spirits is - one of the reasons for seeing in the Homeric poems the outcome - of a period of loosened belief. It is not to be supposed that the - pre-Homeric Greeks, like the easterns with whom the Greeks met in - Ionia, had not the usual ghost-lore of savages and barbarians; - and it may be that for all the early civilizations under notice - the explanation is that primitive ghost-cults were abandoned by - migrating and conquering races, who rejected the ghost-cults of - the races whom they conquered, though they ostensibly accepted - their Gods. In any case they made little religious account of a - future state for themselves. - - This attitude has again been erroneously regarded (e.g., - Dickinson, The Greek View of Life, p. 35) as peculiar to the - Greeks. Mr. Lang's assumption may, in fact, be overthrown by the - single case of the Phoenicians, who showed no more concern about - a future life than did the Hebrews (see Canon Rawlinson's History - of Phoenicia, 1889, pp. 351-52), but who are not pretended to have - given themselves up much to "developing, undisturbed, the belief - in a righteous Eternal." The truth seems to be that in all the - early progressive and combative civilizations the main concern - was as to the continuance of this life. On that head the Hebrews - were as solicitous as any (cp. Kuenen, i, 65); and they habitually - practised divination on that score. Further, they attached the - very highest importance to the continuance of the individual in - his offspring. The idea of a future state is first found highly - developed in the long-lived cults of the long-civilized but - unprogressive Egyptians; and the Babylonians were developing in - the same direction. Yet the Hebrews took it up (see the evidence - in Schürer, Jewish People in the Time of Jesus, Eng. tr. Div. II, - vol. ii, p. 179) just when, according to Mr. Lang, their cult was - "rescued, in a great degree, from corruption"; and, generally - speaking, it was in the stage of maximum monotheism that they - reached the maximum of irrationality. For the rest, belief in - "immortality" is found highly developed in a sociologically - "degenerate" and unprogressive people such as the Tasmanians - (Müller, Anthrop. Rel. p. 433), who are yet primitively pure on - Mr. Lang's hypothesis; and is normal among negroes and Australian - blackfellows. - - -This primary polytheism is seen to the full in that constant resort -of Israelites to neighbouring cults, against which so much of the -Hebrew doctrine is directed. To understand their practice the modern -reader has to get rid of the hallucination imposed on Christendom by -its idea of revelation. The cult of Yahweh was no primordial Hebrew -creed, deserted by backsliding idolaters, but a finally successful -tyranny of one local cult over others. It is probable that it was -originally not Palestinian, but Sinaitic, and that Yahweh became the -God of Caleb-Judah only under David. [345] Therefore, without begging -the question as to the moral sincerity of the prophets and others -who identified Yahwism with morality, we must always remember that -they were on their own showing devotees of a special local worship, -and so far fighting for their own influence. Similar prophesying may -conceivably have been carried on in connection with the same or other -God-names in other localities, and the extant prophets freely testify -that they had Yahwistic opponents; but the circumstance that Yahweh -was worshipped at Jerusalem without any image might be an important -cause of differentiation in the case of that cult. In any case it must -have been through simple "exclusivism" that they reached any form of -"monotheism." [346] - -The inveterate usage, in the Bible-making period, of forging and -interpolating ancient or pretended writings, makes it impossible -to construct any detailed history of the rise of Yahwism. We can -but proceed upon data which do not appear to lend themselves to the -purposes of the later adaptors. In that way we see cause to believe -that at one early centre the so-called ark of Yahweh contained -various objects held to have supernatural virtue. [347] In the older -historic documents it has, however, no such sacredness as accrues -to it later, [348] and no great traditional prestige. This ark, -previously moved from place to place as a fetish, [349] is said to -have been transferred to Jerusalem by the early king David, [350] -whose story, like that of his predecessors Saul and his son Solomon, -is in part blended with myth. - - - As to David, compare 1 Sam. xvi, 18, with xvii, 33, 42. Daoud - (= Dodo = Dumzi = Tammuz = Adonis) was a Semitic deity (Sayce, - Hib. Lec. pp. 52-57, and art. "The Names of the First Three Kings - of Israel," in Modern Review, Jan. 1884), whom David resembles as - an inventor of the lyre (Amos, vi, 5; cp. Hitzig, Die Psalmen, - 2 Theil, 1836, p. 3). But Saul and Solomon also were God-names - (Sayce, as cited), as was Samuel (id. pp. 54, 181; cp. Lenormant, - Chaldean Magic, Eng. tr. p. 120); and when we note these data, - and further the plain fact that Samson is a solar myth, being a - personage Evemerized from Samas, the Sun-God, we are prepared - to find further traces of Evemeristic redaction in the Hebrew - books. To say nothing of other figures in the Book of Judges, - we find that Jacob and Joseph were old Canaanitish deities - (Sayce, Lectures, p. 51; Records of the Past, New Series, v, - 48; Hugo Winckler, Geschichte Israels, ii, 57-77); and that - Moses, as might be expected, was a name for more than one - Semitic God (Sayce, pp. 46-47), and in particular stood for a - Sun-God. Abraham and Isaac in turn appear to be ancient deities - (Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. i, 374, § 309; Winckler, Gesch. Israels, - ii, 20-49). Miriam was probably in similar case (cp. Pagan Christs, - 2nd ed. pp. 165-66). On an analysis of the Joshua myth as redacted, - further, we may surmise another reduction of an ancient cult to - the form of history, perhaps obscuring the true original of the - worship of Mary and Jesus. - - It seems probable, finally, that such figures as Elijah, who - ascends to heaven in a fiery chariot, and Elisha, the "bald head" - and miracle-worker, are similar constructions of personages out - of Sun-God lore. In such material lies part of the refutation of - the thesis of Renan (Hist, des langues sémit. 2e édit. pp. 7, - 485) that the Semites were natural monotheists, devoid of - mythology. [Renan is followed in whole or in part by Nöldeke, - Sketches from Eastern Hist. Eng. tr. p. 6; Soury, Relig. of - Israel, Eng. tr. pp. 2, 10; Spiegel, Erânische Alterthumskunde, i, - 389; also Roscher, Draper, Peschel, and Bluntschli, as cited by - Goldziher, Mythology Among the Hebrews, Eng. tr. p. 4, note. On - the other side compare Goldziher, ch. i; Steinthal's Prometheus - and Samson, Eng. tr. (with Goldziher), pp. 391, 428, etc., and his - Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft bei den Griechen und den Römern, - 1863, pp. 15-17; Kuenen, Rel. of Israel, i, 225; Smith, Rel. of the - Semites, p. 49; Ewald, Hist. of Israel, Eng. tr. 4th ed. i, 38-40; - Müller, Chips, i, 345 sq.; Selected Essays, 1881, ii, 402 sq.; - Nat. Rel. p. 314.] Renan's view seems to be generally connected - with the assumption that life in a "desert" makes a race for ever - unimaginative or unitary in its thought. The Arabian Nights might - be supposed a sufficient proof to the contrary. The historic truth - seems to be that, stage for stage, the ancient Semites were as - mythological as any other race; but that (to say nothing of the - Babylonians and Assyrians) the mythologies of the Hebrews and - of the Arabs were alike suppressed as far as possible in their - monotheistic stage. Compare Renan's own admissions, pp. 27, 110, - 475, and Hist. du peuple d'Israël, i, 49-50. - - -At other places, however, Yahweh was symbolized and worshipped in the -image of a young bull, [351] a usage associated with the neighbouring -Semitic cult of Molech, but probably indigenous, or at least early, -in the case of Yahweh also. A God, for such worshippers, needed to be -represented by something, if he were to be individualized as against -others; and where there was not an ark or a sacred stone or special -temple or idol there could be no cult at all. "The practices of ancient -religion require a fixed meeting-place between the worshippers and -their God." [352] The pre-Exilic history of Yahweh-worship seems -to be in large part that of a struggle between the devotees of the -imageless worship fixed to the temple at Jerusalem, and other worships, -with or without images, at other and less influential shrines. - -So far as can be gathered from the documents, it was long before -monotheistic pretensions were made in connection with Yahwism. They -must in the first instance have seemed not only tyrannical but -blasphemous to the devotees of the old local shrines, who in -the earlier Hebrew writings figure as perfectly good Yahwists; -and they clearly had no durable success before the period of the -Exile. Some three hundred years after the supposed period of David, -[353] and again eighty years later, we meet with ostensible traces -[354] of a movement for the special aggrandizement of the Yahweh -cult and the suppression of the others which competed with it, as -well as of certain licentious and vicious practices carried on in -connection with Yahweh worship. Concerning these, it could be claimed -by those who had adhered to the simpler tradition of one of the early -worships that they were foreign importations. They were, in fact, -specialties of a rich ancient society, and were either native to -Canaanite cities which the Hebrews had captured, or copied by them -from such cities. But the fact that they were thus, on the showing of -the later Yahwistic records, long associated with Yahwist practice, -proves that there was no special elevation about Yahwism originally. - - - Even the epithet translated "Holy" (Kadosh) had originally no high - moral significance. It simply meant "set apart," "not common" - (cp. Kuenen, Religion of Israel, i, 43; Wellhausen, Israel, in - Prolegomena vol. p. 499); and the special substantive (Kadesh and - Kedeshah) was actually the name for the most degraded ministrants - of both sexes in the licentious worship (see Deut. xxiii, 17, - 18, and marg. Rev. Vers. Cp. 1 Kings xiv, 25; xv, 12; 2 Kings - xxiii, 7). On the question of early Hebrew ethics it is somewhat - misleading to cite Wellhausen (so Lang, Making of Religion, - p. 304) as saying (Israel, p. 437) that religion inspired law - and morals in Israel with exceptional purity. In the context - Wellhausen has said that the starting-point of Israel was normal; - and he writes in the Prolegomena (p. 302) that "good and evil - in Hebrew mean primarily nothing more than salutary and hurtful: - the application of the words to virtue and sin is a secondary one, - these being regarded as serviceable or hurtful in their effects." - - - - -§ 2 - -Given the co-existence of a multitude of local cults, and of -various local Yahweh-worships, it is conceivable that the Yahwists -of Jerusalem, backed by a priest-ridden king, should seek to limit -all worship to their own temple, whose revenues would thereby be -much increased. But insoluble perplexities are set up as to the -alleged movement by the incongruities in the documents. Passing over -for the moment the prophets Amos and Hosea and others who ostensibly -belong to the eighth century B.C., we find the second priestly reform, -[355] consequent on a finding or framing of "the law," represented as -occurring early in the reign of Josiah (641-610 B.C.). But later in -the same reign are placed the writings of Jeremiah, who constantly -contemns the scribes, prophets, and priests in mass, and makes -light of the ark, [356] besides declaring that in Judah [357] there -are as many Gods as towns, and in Jerusalem as many Baal-altars as -streets. The difficulty is reduced by recognizing the quasi-historical -narrative as a later fabrication; but other difficulties remain as to -the prophetic writings; and for our present purpose it is necessary -briefly to consider these. - -1. The "higher criticism," seeking solid standing-ground at the -beginning of the tangible historic period, the eighth century, -singles out [358] the books of Amos and Hosea, setting aside, -as dubious in date, Nahum and Joel; and recognizing in Isaiah a -composite of different periods. If Amos, the "herdsman of Tekoa," -could be thus regarded as an indubitable historical person, he would -be a remarkable figure in the history of freethought, as would his -nominal contemporary Hosea. Amos is a monotheist, worshipping not a -God of Israel but a Yahweh or Elohim of Hosts, called also by the name -Adon or Adonai, "the Lord," who rules all the nations and created the -universe. Further, the prophet makes Yahweh "hate and despise" the -feasts and burnt-offerings and solemn assemblies of his worshippers; -[359] and he meddles impartially with the affairs of the kingdoms -of Judah and Israel. In the same spirit Hosea menaces the solemn -assemblies, and makes Yahweh desire "mercy and not sacrifice." [360] -Similar doctrine occurs in the reputedly genuine or ancient parts of -Isaiah, [361] and in Micah. [362] Isaiah, too, disparages the Sabbath -and solemn meetings, staking all upon righteousness. - -2. These utterances, so subversive of the priestly system, are yet held -to have been preserved through the ages--through the Assyrian conquest, -through the Babylonian Captivity, through the later period of priestly -reconstruction--by the priestly system itself. In the state of things -pictured under Ezra and Nehemiah, only the zealous adherents of the -priestly law can at the outset have had any letters, any literature; -it must have been they, then, who treasured the anti-priestly and -anti-ritual writings of the prophets--unless, indeed, the latter were -preserved by the Jews remaining at Babylon. - -3. The perplexity thus set up is greatly deepened when we remember -that the period assigned to the earlier prophets is near the beginning -of the known age of alphabetic writing, [363] and before the known -age of writing on scrolls. A herdsman of Judea, with a classic and -flowing style, is held to have written out his hortatory addresses at -a time when such writing is not certainly known to have been practised -anywhere else; [364] and the pre-eminent style of Isaiah is held to -belong to the same period. - - - "His [Amos's] language, with three or four insignificant - exceptions, is pure, his style classical and refined. His - literary power is shown in the regularity of structure which often - characterizes his periods ... as well as in the ease with which - he evidently writes.... Anything of the nature of roughness or - rusticity is wholly absent from his writings" (Driver, Introd. to - Lit. of Old Test. ch. vi, § 3, p. 297, ed. 1891). Isaiah, again, - is in his own narrow field one of the most gifted and skilful - writers of all antiquity. The difficulty is thus nearly as great - as that of the proposition that the Hebrew of the Pentateuch is a - thousand years older than that of the latest prophetical books, - whose language is substantially the same. (Cp. Andrews Norton, - The Pentateuch, ed. 1863, pp. 47-48; Renan, Hist. des langues - sémit. 2e édit. p. 118.) - - -4. The specialist critics, all trained as clergymen, and mostly -loth to yield more than is absolutely necessary to skepticism, -have surrendered the antiquity claimed for Joel, recognizing that -the arguments for that are "equally consistent with a date after -the Captivity." [365] One of the conclusions here involved is that -"Egypt is probably mentioned only as the typical instance of a Power -hostile to Judah." Thus, when we remember the later Jewish practice of -speaking of Rome as "Babylon," or "Edom," allusions by Amos and Hosea -to "Assyria" have no evidential force. The same reasoning applies to -the supposed ancient portions of Isaiah. - -5. Even on the clerical side, among the less conservative critics, it -is already conceded that there are late "insertions" in Amos. Some of -these insertions are among, or analogous to, the very passages relied -on by Kuenen to prove the lofty monotheism of Amos. If these passages, -however, suggest a late date, no less do the others disparaging -sacrifices. The same critics find interpolations and additions in -Hosea. But they offer no proof of the antiquity of what they retain. - - - The principal passages in Amos given up as insertions by - Dr. Cheyne, the most perspicacious of the English Hebraists, are: - iv, 13; v, 8-9; ix, 5-6; and ix, 8-15. See his introduction to 1895 - ed. of Prof. Robertson Smith's Prophets of Israel, p. xv; and his - art. on Amos in the Encyclopædia Biblica. Compare Kuenen, i, 46, - 48. Dr. Cheyne regards as insertions in Hosea the following: i, - 10-ii, 1; "and David their King" in iii, 5; viii, 14; and xiv, - 1-9 (as cited, pp. xviii-xix). Obviously these admissions entail - others. - - -6. The same school of criticism, while adhering to the traditional -dating of Amos and Hosea, has surrendered the claim for the Psalms, -placing most of these in the same age with the books of Job, -Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Ecclesiasticus. [366] Now, the sentiment -of opposition to burnt-offerings is found in some of the Psalms in -language identical with that of the supposed early prophets. [367] -Instead of taking the former for late echoes of the latter, we may -reasonably suspect that they belong to the same culture-stage. - - - The principle is in effect recognized by Dr. Cheyne when he writes: - "Just as we infer from the reference to Cyrus in xliv, 28; xlv, - 1, that the prophecy containing it proceeds from the age of the - conqueror, so we may infer from the fraternal feeling towards - Egypt and Assyria (Syria) in xix, 23-25, that the epilogue was - written when hopes of the union and fusion of Israelitish and - non-Israelitish elements first became natural for the Jews--i.e., - in the early Jewish period" (Introd. to the Book of Isaiah, 1895, - pp. 109-10). - - -7. From the scientific point of view, finally, the element of -historical prediction in the prophets is one of the strongest grounds -for presuming that they are in reality late documents. In regard -to similar predictions in the gospels (Mt. xxiv, 15; Mk. xiii, 2; -Lk. xxi, 20), rational criticism decides that they were written after -the event. No other course can consistently be taken as to early -Hebrew predictions of captivity and restoration; and the adherence -of many Biblical scholars at this point to the traditional view -is psychologically on a par with their former refusal to accept a -rational estimate of the Pentateuchal narrative. - - - On some points, such as the flagrant pseudo-prediction in - Isaiah xix, 18, all reasonable critics surrender. Thus "König - sees rightly that xix, 18, can refer only to Jewish colonies in - Egypt, and refrains from the arbitrary supposition that Isaiah - was supernaturally informed of the future establishment of - such colonies" (Cheyne, Introd. to Smith's Prophets of Israel, - p. xxxiii). But in other cases Dr. Cheyne's own earlier positions - appear to involve such an "arbitrary supposition," as do Kuenen's; - and Smith explicitly posited it as to the prophets in general. And - even as to Isaiah xix, 18, whereas Hitzig, as Havet later, - rightly brings the date down to the actual historic time of the - establishment of the temple at Heliopolis by Onias (Josephus, - Ant. xiii, 3, 1; Wars, vii, 10, 2), about 160 B.C., Dr. Cheyne - (Introd. to Isaiah, p. 108) compromises by dating it about 275 B.C. - - The lateness of the bulk of the prophetical writings has been - ably argued by Ernest Havet (Le Christianisme et ses Origines, - vol. iv, 1878, ch. vi; and in the posthumous vol., La Modernité - des Prophètes, 1891), who supports his case by many cogent - reasonings. For instance, besides the argument as to Isaiah xix, - 18, above noted: (1) The frequent prediction of the ruin of Tyre - by Nebuchadnezzar (Isa. ch. xxiii; Jer. xxv, 22; Ezek. xxvi, 7; - ch. xxvii), false as to him (a fact which might be construed as - a proof of the fallibility of the prophets and the candour of - their transcribers), is to be understood in the light of other - post-predictions as referring to the actual capture of the city - by Alexander. (2) Hosea's prediction of the fall of Judah as well - as of Israel, and of their being united, places the passage after - the Exile, and may even be held to bring it down to the period - of the Asmoneans. So with many other details: the whole argument - deserves careful study. M. Havet's views were, of course, scouted - by the conservative specialists, as their predecessors scouted the - entire hypothesis of Graf, now taken in its essentials as the basis - of sound Biblical criticism. M. Scherer somewhat unintelligently - objected to him (Études sur la litt. contemp. vii, 268) that he was - not a Hebraist. There is no question of philology involved. It was - non-Hebraists who first pointed out the practical incredibility - of the central Pentateuchal narrative, on the truth of which - Kuenen himself long stood with other Hebraists. (Cp. Wellhausen, - Proleg. pp. 39, 347; also his (4th) ed. of Bleek's Einleit. in das - alte Test. 1878, p. 154; and Kuenen, Hexateuch, Eng. tr. pp. xv, - 43.) Colenso's argument, in the gist of which he was long preceded - by lay freethinkers, was one of simple common sense. The weak side - of M. Havet's case is his undertaking to bring the prophets bodily - down to the Maccabean period. This is claiming too much. But his - negative argument is not affected by the reply (Darmesteter, Les - Prophètes d'Israël, 1895, pp. 128-31) to his constructive theory. - - [Since the above was written, two French critics, MM. Dujardin - and Maurice Vernes, have sought vigorously to reconstruct the - history of the prophetic books upon new lines. I have been unable - to acquiesce in their views at essential points, but would refer - the reader to the lucid and interesting survey of the problem in - Mr. T. Whittaker's Priests, Philosophers, and Prophets (Black, - 1911), ch. vi.] - - -It is true that where hardly any documentary datum is intrinsically -sure, it is difficult to prove a negative for one more than for -another. The historical narratives being systematically tampered with -by one writer after another, and even presumptively late writings being -interpolated by still later scribes, we can never have demonstrative -proof as to the original date of any one prophet. Thus it is arguable -that fragments of utterance from eighth-century prophets may have -survived orally and been made the nucleus of later documents. This -view would be reconcilable with the fact that the prophets Isaiah, -Hosea, Amos, and Micah are all introduced with some modification of -the formula that they prophesied "in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, -and Hezekiah, kings of Judah," Jeroboam's name being added in the cases -of Hosea and Amos. But that detail is also reconcilable with absolute -fabrication. To say nothing of sheer bad faith in a community whose -moral code said nothing against fraud save in the form of judicial -perjury, the Hebrew literature is profoundly compromised by the simple -fact that the religious development of the people made the prestige -of antiquity more essential there for the purposes of propaganda -than in almost any other society known to us. Hence an all-pervading -principle of literary dissimulation; and what freethinking there was -had in general to wear the guise of the very force of unreasoning -traditionalism to which it was inwardly most opposed. Only thus could -new thought find a hearing and secure its preservation at the hands -of the tribe of formalists. Even the pessimist Koheleth, wearied with -groping science, yet believing nothing of the doctrine of immortality, -must needs follow precedent and pose as the fabulous King Solomon, -son of the half-mythic David. - - - - -§ 3 - -We are forced, then, to regard with distrust all passages in the -"early" prophets which express either a disregard of sacrifice -and ritual, or a universalism incongruous with all that we know -of the native culture of their period. The strongest ground for -surmising a really "high" development of monotheism in Judah before -the Captivity is the stability of the life there as compared with -northern Israel. [368] In this respect the conditions might indeed be -considered favourable to priestly or other culture; but, on the other -hand, the records themselves exhibit a predominant polytheism. The -presumption, then, is strong that the "advanced" passages in the -prophets concerning sacrifice belong to an age when such ideas had -been reached in more civilized nations, with whose thought travelled -Jews could come in contact. - - - It is true that some such ideas were current in Egypt many - centuries before the period under notice--a fact which alone - discounts the ethical originality claimed for the Hebrew - prophets. E.g., the following passage from the papyrus of Ani, - belonging to the Nineteenth Dynasty, not later than 1288 B.C.: - "That which is detestable in the sanctuary of God is noisy feasts; - if thou implore him with a loving heart of which all the words - are mysterious, he will do thy matters, he hears thy words, he - accepts thine offerings" (Religion and Conscience in Ancient Egypt, - by Flinders Petrie, 1898, p. 160). The word rendered "mysterious" - here may mean "magical" or "liturgical," or may merely prescribe - privacy or silence; and this last is the construction put - upon it by Renouf (Hibbert Lectures, 2nd ed. p. 102) and Erman - (Handbook of Eg. Relig. Eng. tr. p. 84). The same doctrine is put - in a hymn to Thoth (id.). But in any case we must look for later - culture-contacts as the source of the later Hebrew radicalism under - notice, though Egyptian sources are not to be wholly set aside. See - Kuenen, i, 395; and Brugsch, as there cited; but cp. Wellhausen, - Israel, p. 440. - - -It is clear that not only did they accept a cosmogony from the -Babylonians, but they were influenced by the lore of the Zoroastrian -Persians, with whom, as with the monotheists or pantheists of Babylon, -they would have grounds of sympathy. It is an open question whether -their special hostility to images does not date from the time of -Persian contact. [369] Concerning the restoration, it has been argued -that only a few Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem "both under Cyrus -and under Dareios"; and that, though the temple was rebuilt under -Dareios Hystaspis, the builders were not the Gola or returned exiles, -but that part of the Judahite population which had not been deported -to Babylon. [370] The problem is obscure; [371] but, at least, the -separatist spirit of the redacted narratives of Ezra and Nehemiah -(which in any case tell of an opposite spirit) is not to be taken as -a decisive clue to the character of the new religion. For the rest, -the many Jews who remained in Babylon or spread elsewhere in the -Persian Empire, and who developed their creed on a non-local basis, -were bound to be in some way affected by the surrounding theology. And -it is tolerably certain that not only was the notion of angels derived -by the Jews from either the Babylonians or the Persians, but their -rigid Sabbath and their weekly synagogue meetings came from one or -both of these sources. - - - That the Sabbath was an Akkado-Babylonian and Assyrian institution - is now well established (G. Smith, Assyrian Eponym Canon, 1875, - p. 20; Jastrow, Relig. of Bab. and Assyria, p. 377; Sayce, - Hib. Lect. p. 76, and in Variorum Teacher's Bible, ed. 1885, - Aids, p. 71). It was before the fact was ascertained that Kuenen - wrote of the Sabbath (i, 245) as peculiar to Israel. The Hebrews - may have had it before the Exile; but it was clearly not then a - great institution; and the mention of Sabbaths in Amos (viii, - 5) and Isaiah (i, 13) is one of the reasons for doubting the - antiquity of those books. The custom of synagogue meetings on - the Sabbath is post-exilic, and may have arisen either in Babylon - itself (so Wellhausen, Israel, p. 492) or in imitation of Parsee - practice (so Tiele, cited by Kuenen, iii, 35). Compare E. Meyer, - Gesch. des Alt. iii (1901), § 131. The same alternative arises - with regard to the belief in angels, usually regarded as certainly - Persian in origin (cp. Kuenen, iii, 37; Tiele, Outlines, p. 90; - and Sack, Die altjüdische Religion, 1889, p. 133). This also could - have been Babylonian (Sayce, in Var. Bible, as cited, p. 71); even - the demon Asmodeus in the Book of Tobit, usually taken as Persian, - being of Babylonian derivation (id.). Cp. Darmesteter's introd. to - Zendavesta, 2nd ed. ch. v. On the other hand, the conception of - Satan, the Adversary, as seen in 1 Chr. xxi, 1; Zech. iii, 1, - 2, seems to come from the Persian Ahriman, though the Satan of - Job has not Ahriman's status. Such a modification would come of - the wish to insist on the supremacy of the good God. And this - quasi-monotheistic view, again, we are led to regard, in the - case of the prophets, as a possible Babylonian derivation, or - at least as a result of the contact of Yahwists with Babylonian - culture. To a foreign influence, finally, must be definitely - attributed the later Priestly Code, over-ruling Deuteronomy, - lowering the Levites, setting up a high priest, calling the - dues into the sanctuary, resting on the Torah the cultus which - before was rested on the patriarchs, and providing cities and - land for the Aaronidae and the Levites (Wellhausen, Prolegomena, - pp. 123, 127, 147, 149, 347; Israel, pp. 495, 497)--the latter - an arrangement impossible in mountainous Palestine, as regards - the land-measurements (id. Proleg. p. 159, following Gramberg and - Graf), and clearly deriving from some such country as Babylonia - or Persia. As to the high-priest principle in Babylon and Assyria, - see Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 59-61; Jastrow, as cited, p. 658. - - -Of the general effect of such contacts we have clear traces in two -of the most remarkable of the later books of the Old Testament, Job -and Ecclesiastes, both of which clearly belong to a late period in -religious development. The majority of the critics still confidently -describe Job as an original Hebrew work, mainly on the ground, -apparently, that it shows no clear marks of translation, though -its names and its local colour are all non-Jewish. In any case it -represents, for its time, a cosmopolitan culture, and contains the -work of more than one hand, the prologue and epilogue being probably -older than the rest; while much of the dialogue is obviously late -interpolation. - - - Compare Cheyne, Job and Solomon, 1887, p. 72; Bradley, - Lectures on Job, p. 171; Bleek-Wellhausen, Einleitung, § 268 - (291), ed. 1878, p. 542; Driver, Introd. pp. 405-8; Cornill, - Einleit. in das alte Test. 2te. Aufl. 1892, §§ 38, 42; Sharpe, - Hist. of the Hebrew Nation, 4th ed. p. 282 sq.; Dillon, Skeptics - of the Old Test. 1895, pp. 36-39. Renan's dating of the book six - or seven centuries before Ecclesiastes (L'Ecclésiaste, p. 26; - Job, pp. xv-xliii) is oddly uncritical. It must clearly be dated - after Jeremiah and Ezekiel (Dillon, as cited); and Cornill even - ascribes it to the fourth or third century B.C. Dr. Cheyne notes - that in the skeptical passages the name Yahweh is very seldom used - (only once or twice, as in xii, 9; xxviii, 28); and Dr. Driver - admits that the whole book not only abounds in Aramaic words, - but has a good many "explicable only from the Arabic." Other - details in the book suggest the possible culture-influence of - the Himyarite Arabs, who had reached a high civilization before - 500 B.C. Dr. Driver's remark that "the thoughts are thoroughly - Hebraic" burkes the entire problem as to the manifest innovation - the book makes in Hebrew thought and literary method alike. Sharpe - (p. 287) is equally arbitrary. Cp. Renan, Job, 1859, pp. xxv, - where the newness of the whole treatment is admitted. - - Dr. Dillon (pp. 43-59), following Bickell, has pointed out more or - less convincingly the many interpolations made in the book after, - and even before, the making of the Septuagint translation, which - originally lacked 400 lines of the matter in the present Hebrew - version. The discovery of the Saidic version of the LXX text of - Job decides the main fact. (See Professor Bickell's Das Buch Job, - 1894.) "It is quite possible even now to point out, by the help - of a few disjointed fragments still preserved, the position, and - to divine the sense, of certain spiteful and defiant passages, - which, in the interest of 'religion and morals,' were remorselessly - suppressed; to indicate others which were split up and transposed; - and to distinguish many prolix discourses, feeble or powerful - word-pictures, and trite commonplaces, which were deliberately - inserted later on, for the sole purpose of toning down the most - audacious piece of rationalistic philosophy which has ever yet - been clothed in the music of sublime verse" (Dillon, pp. 45-46). - - "Besides the four hundred verses which must be excluded on the - ground that they are wanting in the Septuagint version, and were - therefore added to the text at a comparatively recent period, the - long-winded discourse of Elihu must be struck out, most [? much] - of which was composed before the book was first translated into - Greek.... In the prologue in prose ... Elihu is not once alluded - to; and in the epilogue, where all the [other] debaters are named - and censured, he ... is absolutely ignored.... Elihu's style is - toto coelo different from that of the other parts of the poem; - ... while his doctrinal peculiarities, particularly his mention - of interceding angels, while they coincide with those of the New - Testament, are absolutely unknown to Job and his friends.... The - confusion introduced into the text by this insertion is bewildering - in the extreme; and yet the result is but a typical specimen of - the ... tangle which was produced by the systematic endeavour of - later and pious editors to reduce the poem to the proper level - of orthodoxy" (id. pp. 55-57). Again: "Ch. xxiv, 5-8, 10-24, - and ch. xxx, 3-7, take the place of Job's blasphemous complaint - about the unjust government of the world." - - It need hardly be added here that not only the Authorized but - the Revised Version is false in the text "I know that my redeemer - liveth," etc. (xix, 25-27), that being a perversion dating from - Jerome. The probable meaning is given in Dr. Dillon's version:-- - - - But I know that my avenger liveth; - Though it be at the end upon my dust, - My witness will avenge these things, - And a curse alight upon mine enemies. - - - The original expressed a complete disbelief in a future life - (ch. xiv). Compare Dr. Dillon's rhythmic version of the restored - text. - - -What marks off the book of Job from all other Hebrew literature -is its dramatic and reflective handling of the ethical problem of -theism, which the prophets either evade or dismiss by declamation -against Jewish sins. Not that it is solved in Job, where the rôle of -Satan is an inconclusive resort to the Persian dualistic solution, -and where the deity is finally made to answer Job's freethinking -by sheer literary thunder, much less ratiocinative though far more -artistic than the theistic speeches of the friends. But at least the -writer or writers of Job's speeches consciously grasped the issue; -and the writer of the epilogue evidently felt that the least Yahweh -could do was to compensate a man whom he had allowed to be wantonly -persecuted. The various efforts of ancient thought to solve the same -problem will be found to constitute the motive power in many later -heterodox systems, theistic and atheistic. - -Broadly speaking, it is solved in practice in terms of the fortunes -of priests and worshippers. At all stages of religious evolution -extreme ill-fortune tends to detach men from the cults that have -failed to bring them succour. Be it in the case of African indigenes -slaying their unsuccessful rain-doctor, Anglo-Saxon priests welcoming -Christianity as a surer source of income than their old worship, -pagans turning Christian at the fall of Julian, or Christians going -over to Islam at the sight of its triumph--the simple primary motive -of self-interest is always potent on this as on other sides; and at -all stages of Jewish history, it is evident, there were many who held -by Yahweh because they thought he prospered them, or renounced him -because he did not. And the very vicissitude of things would breed -a general skepticism. [372] In Zephaniah (i, 12) there is a specific -allusion to those "that say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, -neither will he do evil." - -Judaism is thus historically a series of socio-political selections -rather than a sequence of hereditary transmission. The first definite -and exclusive Yahwistic cult was an outcome of special political -conditions; and its priests would adhere to it in adversity insofar -as they had no other economic resort. Every return of sunshine, on the -other hand, would minister to faith; and while many Jews in the time of -Assyro-Babylonian ascendancy decided that Yahweh could not save, those -Yahwists who in the actual Captivity prospered commercially in the new -life would see in such prosperity a fresh proof of Yahweh's support, -[373] and would magnify his name and endow his priests accordingly. For -similar reasons, the most intense development of Judaism occurs after -the Maccabean revolt, when the military triumph of the racial remnant -over its oppressors inspired a new and enduring enthusiasm. - -On the other hand, foreign influences would chronically tend to promote -doubt, especially where the foreigner was not a mere successful -votary exalting his own God, but a sympathetic thinker questioning -all the Godisms alike. This consideration is a reason the more for -surmising a partly foreign source for the book of Job, where, as in -the passage cited from Zephaniah, there is no thought of one deity -being less potent than another, but rather an impeachment of divine -rule in terms of a conceptual monotheism. In any case, the book stands -for more than Jewish reverie; and where it is finally turned to an -irrelevant and commonplace reaffirmation of the goodness of deity, a -certain number of sincerer thinkers in all likelihood fell back on an -"agnostic" solution of the eternal problem. - -In certain aspects the book of Job speaks for a further reach of -early freethinking than is seen in Ecclesiastes (Koheleth), which, -however, at its lower level of conviction, tells of an unbelief that -could not be overborne by any rhetoric. It unquestionably derives -from late foreign influences. It is true that even in the book of -Malachi, which is commonly dated about 400 B.C., there is angry -mention of some who ask, "Where is the God of judgment?" and say, -"It is vain to serve God"; [374] even as others had said it in the -days of Assyrian oppression; [375] but in Malachi these sentiments -are actually associated with foreign influences, and in Koheleth such -influences are implicit. By an increasing number of students, though -not yet by common critical consent, the book is dated about 200 B.C., -when Greek influence was stronger in Jewry than at any previous time. - - - Grätz even puts it as late as the time of Herod the Great. But - compare Dillon, p. 129; Tyler, Ecclesiastes, 1874, p. 31; - Plumptre's Ecclesiastes, 1881, introd. p. 34; Renan, L'Ecclésiaste, - 1882, pp. 54-59; Kuenen, Religion of Israel, iii, 82; Driver, - Introduction, pp. 446-47; Bleek-Wellhausen, Einleitung, - p. 527. Dr. Cheyne and some others still put the date before - 332 B.C. Here again we are dealing with a confused and corrupted - text. The German Prof. Bickell has framed an ingenious and highly - plausible theory to the effect that the present incoherence of - the text is mainly due to a misplacing of the leaves of the copy - from which the current transcript was made. See it set forth by - Dillon, pp. 92-97; cp. Cheyne, Job and Solomon, p. 273 sq. There - has, further, been some tampering. The epilogue, in particular, - is clearly the addition of a later hand--"one of the most timid - and shuffling apologies ever penned" (Dillon, p. 118, note). - - -But the thought of the book is, as Renan says, profoundly fatigued; -and the sombre avowals of the absence of divine moral government -are ill-balanced by sayings, probably interpolated by other hands, -averring an ultimate rectification even on earth. What remains -unqualified is the deliberate rejection of the belief in a future -life, couched in terms that imply the currency of the doctrine; [376] -and the deliberate caution against enthusiasm in religion. Belief -in a powerful but remote deity, with a minimum of worship and vows, -is the outstanding lesson. [377] - - - "To me, Koheleth is not a theist in any vital sense in - his philosophic meditations" (Cheyne, Job and Solomon, - p. 250). "Koheleth's pessimistic theory, which has its roots - in secularism, is utterly incompatible with the spirit of - Judaism.... It is grounded upon the rejection of the Messianic - expectations, and absolute disbelief in the solemn promises of - Jahveh himself.... It would be idle to deny that he had far more - in common with the 'impious' than with the orthodox" (Dillon, - pp. 119-20). - - -That there was a good deal of this species of tired or stoical -semi-rationalism among the Jews of the Hellenistic period may be -inferred from various traces. The opening verses of the thirtieth -chapter of the book of Proverbs, attributed to Agur, son of Jakeh, -are admittedly the expression of a skeptic's conviction that God -cannot be known, [378] the countervailing passages being plainly the -additions of a believer. Agur's utterances probably belong to the close -of the third century B.C. Here, as in Job, there are signs of Arab -influence; [379] but at a later period the main source of skepticism -for Israel was probably the Hellenistic civilization. It is told in the -Talmud that in the Maccabean period there came into use the formula, -"Cursed be the man that cherisheth swine; and cursed be the man that -teacheth his son the wisdom of the Greeks"; and there is preserved -the saying of Rabbi Simeon, son of Gamaliel, that in his father's -school five hundred learnt the law, and five hundred the wisdom of -the Greeks. [380] Before Gamaliel, the Greek influence had affected -Jewish philosophic thought; and it is very probable that among the -Sadducees who resisted the doctrine of resurrection there were some -thinkers of the Epicurean school. To that school may have belonged -the unbelievers who are struck at in several Rabbinical passages -which account for the sin of Adam as beginning in a denial of the -omnipresence of God, and describe Cain as having said: "There is -no judgment; there is no world to come, and there is no reward for -the just, and no punishment for the wicked." [381] But of Greek or -other atheism there is no direct trace in the Hebrew literature; -[382] and the rationalism of the Sadducees, who were substantially -the priestly party, [383] was like the rationalism of the Brahmans -and the Egyptian priests--something esoteric and withheld from the -multitude. In the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon, which belongs to -the first century A.C., the denial of immortality, so explicit in -Ecclesiastes, is treated as a proof of utter immorality, though the -deniers are not represented as atheists. [384] They thus seem to have -been still numerous, and the imputation of wholesale immorality to -them is of course not to be credited; [385] but there is no trace of -any constructive teaching on their part. - -So far as the literature shows, save for the confused Judaic-Platonism -of Philo of Alexandria, there is practically no rational progress in -Jewish thought after Koheleth till the time of contact with revived -Greek thought in Saracen Spain. The mass of the people, in the usual -way, are found gravitating to the fanatical and the superstitious -levels of the current creed. The book of Ruth, written to resist -the separatism of the post-Exilic theocracy, [386] never altered -the Jewish practice, though allowed into the canon. The remarkable -Levitical legislation providing for the periodical restoration of -the land to the poor never came into operation, [387] any more than -the very different provision giving land and cities to the children -of Aaron and the Levites. None of the more rationalistic writings -in the canon seems ever to have counted for much in the national -life. To conceive of "Israel," in the fashion still prevalent, as -being typified in the monotheistic prophets, whatever their date, -is as complete a misconception as it would be to see in Mr. Ruskin -the expression of the everyday ethic of commercial England. The -anti-sacrificial and universalist teachings in the prophets and in the -Psalms never affected, for the people at large, the sacrificial and -localized worship at Jerusalem; though they may have been esoterically -received by some of the priestly or learned class there, and though -they may have promoted a continual exodus of the less fanatical -types, who turned to other civilizations. Despite the resistance of -the Sadducees and the teaching of Job and Ecclesiastes, the belief -in a resurrection rapidly gained ground [388] in the two or three -centuries before the rise of Jesuism, and furnished a basis for -the new creed; as did the Messianic hope and the belief in a speedy -ending of the world, with both of which Jewish fanaticism sustained -itself under the long frustration of nationalistic faith before the -Maccabean interlude and after the Roman conquest. It was in vain that -the great teacher Hillel declared, "There is no Messiah for Israel"; -the rest of the race persisted in cherishing the dream. [389] With the -major hallucination thus in full possession, the subordinate species of -superstition flourished as in Egypt and India; so that at the beginning -of our era the Jews were among the most superstitious peoples in the -world. [390] When their monotheism was fully established, and placed -on an abstract footing by the destruction of the temple, it seems -to have had no bettering influence on the practical ethics of the -Gentiles, though it may have furthered the theistic tendency of the -Stoic philosophy. Juvenal exhibits to us the Jew proselyte at Rome as -refusing to show an unbeliever the way, or guide him to a spring. [391] -Sectarian monotheism was thus in part on a rather lower ethical and -intellectual [392] plane than the polytheism, to say nothing of the -Epicureanism or the Stoicism, of the society of the Roman Empire. - -It cannot even be said that the learned Rabbinical class carried on a -philosophic tradition, while the indigent multitude thus discredited -their creed. In the period after the fall of Jerusalem, the narrow -nationalism which had always ruled there seems to have been even -intensified. In the Talmud "the most general representation of the -Divine Being is as the chief Rabbi of Heaven; the angelic host being -his assessors. The heavenly Sanhedrim takes the opinion of living -sages in cases of dispute. Of the twelve hours of the day three are -spent by God in study, three in the government of the world (or rather -in the exercise of mercy), three in providing food for the world, -and three in playing with Leviathan. But since the destruction of -Jerusalem all amusements were banished from the courts of heaven, -and three hours were employed in the instruction of those who had -died in infancy." [393] So little can a nominal monotheism avail, -on the basis of a completed Sacred Book, to keep thought sane when -freethought is lacking. - -Finally, Judaism played in the world's thought the great reactionary -and obscurantist part by erecting into a dogma the irrational -conception that its deity made the universe "out of nothing." At -the time of the redaction of the book of Genesis this dogma had not -been glimpsed: the Hebrew conception was the Babylonian--that of a -pre-existent Chaos put into shape. But gradually, in the interests of -monotheism, the anti-scientific doctrine was evolved [394] by way of -negative to that of the Gentiles; and where the great line of Ionian -thinkers passed on to the modern world the developed conception of -an eternal universe, [395] Judaism passed on through Christianity, -as well as in its own "philosophy," the contrary dogma, to bar the -way of later science. - - - - - - - -CHAPTER V - -FREETHOUGHT IN GREECE - - -The highest of all the ancient civilizations, that of Greece, -was naturally the product of the greatest possible complex of -culture-forces; [396] and its rise to pre-eminence begins after -the contact of the Greek settlers in Æolia and Ionia with the higher -civilizations of Asia Minor. [397] The great Homeric epos itself stands -for the special conditions of Æolic and Ionic life in those colonies; -[398] even Greek religion, spontaneous as were its earlier growths, was -soon influenced by those of the East; [399] and Greek philosophy and -art alike draw their first inspirations from Eastern contact. [400] -Whatever reactions we may make against the tradition of Oriental -origins, [401] it is clear that the higher civilization of antiquity -had Oriental (including in that term Egyptian) roots. [402] At no point -do we find a "pure" Greek civilization. Alike the "Mycenæan" and the -"Minoan" civilizations, as recovered for us by modern excavators, -show a composite basis, in which the East is implicated. [403] And -in the historic period the connection remains obvious. It matters -not whether we hold the Phrygians and Karians of history to have -been originally an Aryan stock, related to the Hellenes, and thus -to have acted as intermediaries between Aryans and Semites, or to -have been originally Semites, with whom Greeks intermingled. [404] -On either view, the intermediaries represented Semitic influences, -which they passed on to the Greek-speaking races, though they in turn -developed their deities in large part on psychological lines common -to them and the Semites. [405] - - - As to the obvious Asiatic influences on historic Greek - civilization, compare Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom of Man, 1872, - p. 64; Von Ihering, Vorgeschichte der Indo-Europäer, Eng. tr. ("The - Evolution of the Aryan"), p. 73; Schömann, Griech. Alterthümer, - 2te Aufl. 1861, i, 10; E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alterth. ii, 155; - A. Bertrand, Études de mythol. et d'archéol. grecques, 1858, - pp. 40-41; Bury, introd. p. 3. It seems clear that the Egyptian - influence is greatly overstated by Herodotos (ii. 49-52, etc.), - who indeed avows that he is but repeating what the Egyptians - affirm. The Egyptian priests made their claim in the spirit - in which the Jews later made theirs. Herodotos, besides, would - prefer an Egyptian to an Asiatic derivation, and so would his - audience. But it must not be overlooked that there was an Egyptian - influence in the "Minoan" period. - - -A Hellenistic enthusiasm has led a series of eminent scholars to carry -so far their resistance to the tradition of Oriental beginnings [406] -as to take up the position that Greek thought is "autochthonous." [407] -If it were, it could not conceivably have progressed as it did. Only -the tenacious psychological prejudice as to race-characters and racial -"genius" could thus long detain so many students at a point of view so -much more nearly related to supernaturalism than to science. It is safe -to say that if any people is ever seen to progress in thought, art, and -life, with measurable rapidity, its progress is due to the reactions of -foreign intercourse. The primary civilizations, or what pass for such, -as those of Akkad and Egypt, are immeasurably slow in accumulating -culture-material; the relatively rapid developments always involve -the stimulus of old cultures upon a new and vigorous civilization, -well-placed for social evolution for the time being. There is no -point in early Greek evolution, so far as we have documentary trace -of it, at which foreign impact or stimulus is not either patent or -inferrible. [408] In the very dawn of history the Greeks are found -to be a composite stock, [409] growing still more composite; and the -very beginnings of its higher culture are traced to the non-Grecian -people of Thrace, [410] who worshipped the Muses. As seen by Herodotos -and Thucydides, "the original Hellenes were a particular conquering -tribe of great prestige, which attracted the surrounding tribes to -follow it, imitate it, and call themselves by its name. The Spartans -were, to Herodotos, Hellenic; the Athenians, on the other hand, -were not. They were Pelasgian, but by a certain time 'changed into -Hellenes and learnt their language.' In historical times we cannot -really find any tribe of pure Hellenes in existence." [411] The later -supremacy of the Greek culture is thus to be explained in terms not -of an abnormal "Greek genius," [412] but of the special evolution of -intelligence in the Greek-speaking stock, firstly through constant -crossing with others, and secondarily through its furtherance by the -special social conditions of the more progressive Greek city-states, -of which conditions the most important were their geographical -dividedness and their own consequent competition and interaction. [413] - - - The whole problem of Oriental "influence" has been obscured, and - the solution retarded, by the old academic habit of discussing - questions of mental evolution in vacuo. Even the reaction against - idolatrous Hellenism proceeded without due regard to historical - sequence; and the return reaction against that is still somewhat - lacking in breadth of inference. There has been too much on - one side of assumption as to early Oriental achievement; and - too much tendency on the other to assume that the positing of - an "influence" on the Greeks is a disparagement of the "Greek - mind." The superiority of that in its later evolution seems too - obvious to need affirming. But that hardly justifies so able a - writer as Professor Burnet in concluding (Early Greek Philosophy, - 2nd ed. introd. pp. 22-23) that "the" Egyptians knew no more - arithmetic than was learned by their children in the schools; - or in saying (id. p. 26) that "the" Babylonians "studied and - recorded celestial phenomena for what we call astrological - purposes, not from any scientific interest." How can we have - the right to say that no Babylonians had a scientific interest - in the data? Such interest would in the nature of the case miss - the popular reproduction given to astrological lore. But it might - very well subsist. - - Professor Burnet, albeit a really original investigator, has - not here had due regard to the early usage of collegiate or - corporate culture, in which arcane knowledge was reserved for the - few. Thus he writes (p. 26) concerning the Greeks that "it was not - till the time of Plato that even the names of the planets were - known." Surely they must have been "known" to some adepts long - before: how else came they to be accepted? As Professor Burnet - himself notes (p. 34), "in almost every department of life we find - that the corporation at first is everything and the individual - nothing. The peoples of the East hardly got beyond this stage at - all: their science, such as it is, is anonymous, the inherited - property of a caste or guild, and we still see clearly in some - cases that it was once the same among the Hellenes." Is it not then - probable that astronomical knowledge was so ordered by Easterns, - and passed on to Hellenes? - - There still attaches to the investigation of early Greek philosophy - the drawback that the philosophical scholars do not properly posit - the question: What was the early Ionic Greek society like? How did - the Hellenes relate to the older polities and cultures which they - found there? Professor Burnet makes justifiable fun (p. 21, note) - of Dr. Gomperz's theory of the influence of "native brides"; but he - himself seems to argue that the Greeks could learn nothing from the - men they conquered, though he admits (p. 20) their derivation of - "their art and many of their religious ideas from the East." If - religion, why not religious speculation, leading to philosophy - and science? This would be a more fruitful line of inquiry than - one based on the assumption that "the" Babylonians went one way - and "the" Greeks another. After all, only a few in each race - carried on the work of thought and discovery. We do not say that - "the English" wrote Shakespeare. Why affirm always that "the" - Greeks did whatever great Greeks achieved? - - On the immediate issue Professor Burnet incidentally concedes what - is required. After arguing that the East perhaps borrowed more - from the West than did the West from the East, he admits (p. 21): - "It would, however, be quite another thing to say that Greek - philosophy originated quite independently of Oriental influence." - - - - -§ 1 - -By the tacit admission of one of the ablest opponents of the theory -of foreign influence, Hellenic religion as fixed by Homer for the -Hellenic world was partly determined by Asiatic influences. Ottfried -Müller decided not only that Homer the man (in whose personality he -believed) was probably a Smyrnean, whether of Æolic or Ionic stock, -[414] but that Homer's religion must have represented a special -selection from the manifold Greek mythology, necessarily representing -his local bias. [415] Now, the Greek cults at Smyrna, as in the other -Æolic and Ionic cities of Asia Minor, would be very likely to reflect -in some degree the influence of the Karian or other Asiatic cults -around them. [416] The early Attic conquerors of Miletos allowed -the worship of the Karian Sun-God there to be carried on by the old -priests; and the Attic settlers of Ephesos in the same way adopted the -neighbouring worship of the Lydian Goddess (who became the Artemis -or "Great Diana" of the Ephesians), and retained the ministry of -the attendant priests and eunuchs. [417] Smyrna was apparently not -like these a mixed community, but one founded by Achaians from the -Peloponnesos; but the genera] Ionic and Æolic religious atmosphere, -set up by common sacrifices, [418] must have been represented in an -epic brought forth in that region. The Karian civilization had at -one time spread over a great part of the Ægean, including Delos and -Cyprus. [419] Such a civilization must have affected that of the Greek -conquerors, who only on that basis became civilized traders. [420] - -It is not necessary to ask how far exactly the influence may have -gone in the Iliad: the main point is that even at that stage of -comparatively simple Hellenism the Asiatic environment, Karian -or Phoenician, counted for something, whether in cosmogony or in -furthering the process of God-grouping, or in conveying the cult of -Cyprian Aphrodite, [421] or haply in lending some characteristics to -Zeus and Apollo and Athênê, [422] an influence none the less real -because the genius of the poet or poets of the Iliad has given to -the whole Olympian group the artistic stamp of individuality which -thenceforth distinguishes the Gods of Greece from all others. Indeed, -the very creation of a graded hierarchy out of the independent local -deities of Greece, the marrying of the once isolated Pelasgic Hêrê -to Zeus, the subordination to him of the once isolated Athênê and -Apollo--all this tells of the influence of a Semitic world in which -each Baal had his wife, and in which the monarchic system developed on -earth had been set up in heaven. [423] But soon the Asiatic influence -becomes still more clearly recognizable. There is reason to hold -with Schrader that the belief in a mildly blissful future state, -as seen even in the Odyssey [424] and in the Theogony ascribed to -Hesiod, [425] is "a new belief which is only to be understood in -view of oriental tales and teaching." [426] In the Theogony, again, -the Semitic element increases, [427] Kronos being a Semitic figure; -[428] while Semelê, if not Dionysos, appears to be no less so. [429] -But we may further surmise that in Homer, to begin with, the conception -of Okeanos, the earth-surrounding Ocean-stream, as the origin of all -things, [430] comes from some Semitic source; and that Hesiod's more -complicated scheme of origins from Chaos is a further borrowing of -oriental thought--both notions being found in ancient Babylonian lore, -whence the Hebrews derived their combination of Chaos and Ocean in -the first verses of Genesis. [431] It thus appears that the earlier -oriental [432] influence upon Greek thought was in the direction -of developing religion, [433] with only the germ of rationalism -conveyed in the idea of an existence of matter before the Gods, [434] -which we shall later find scientifically developed. But the case is -obscure. Insofar as the Theogony, for instance, partly moralizes the -more primitively savage myths, [435] it may be that it represents -the spontaneous need of the more highly evolved race to give an -acceptable meaning to divine tales which, coming from another race, -have not a quite sacrosanct prescription, though the tendency is to -accept them. On the other hand, it may have been a further foreign -influence that gave the critical impulse. - - - "It is plain enough that Homer and Hesiod represent, both - theologically and socially, the close of a long epoch, and - not the youth of the Greek world, as some have supposed. The - real signification of many myths is lost to them, and so is - the import of most of the names and titles of the elder Gods, - which are archaic and strange, while the subordinate personages - generally have purely Greek names" (Professor Mahaffy, History - of Classical Greek Literature, 1880, i, 17). - - - - -§ 2 - -Whatever be the determining conditions, it is clear that the Homeric -epos stands for a new growth of secular song, distinct from the earlier -poetry, which by tradition was "either lyrical or oracular." The -poems ascribed to the pre-Homeric bards "were all short, and they -were all strictly religious. In these features they contrasted -broadly with the epic school of Homer. Even the hexameter metre -seems not to have been used in these old hymns, and was called a new -invention of the Delphic priests. [436] Still further, the majority -of these hymns are connected with mysteries apparently ignored by -Homer, or with the worship of Dionysos, which he hardly knew." [437] -Intermediate between the earlier religious poetry and the Homeric -epic, then, was a hexametric verse, used by the Delphic priesthood; -and to this order of poetry belongs the Theogony which goes under -the name of Hesiod, and which is a sample of other and older works, -[438] probably composed by priests. And the distinctive mark of the -Homeric epos is that, framed as it was to entertain feudal chiefs and -their courts, it turned completely away from the sacerdotal norm and -purpose. "Thus epic poetry, from having been purely religious, became -purely secular. After having treated men and heroes in subordination -to the Gods, it came to treat the Gods in relation to men. Indeed, -it may be said of Homer that in the image of man created he God." [439] - - - As to the non-religiousness of the Homeric epics, there is a - division of critical opinion. Meyer insists (Gesch. des Alt. ii, - 395) that, as contrasted with the earlier religious poetry, "the - epic poetry is throughout secular (profan); it aims at charming - its hearers, not at propitiating the Gods"; and he further sees in - the whole Ionian mood a certain cynical disillusionment (id. ii, - 723). Cp. Benn, Philos. of Greece, p. 40, citing Hegel. E. Curtius - (G. G. i, 126) goes so far as to ascribe a certain irony to the - portraiture of the Gods (Ionian Apollo excepted) in Homer, and to - trace this to Ionian levity. To the same cause he assigns the lack - of any expression of a sense of stigma attaching to murder. This - sense he holds the Greek people had, though Homer does not - hint it. (Cp. Grote, i, 24, whose inference Curtius implicitly - impugns.) Girard (Le Sentiment religieux en Grèce, 1869), on the - contrary, appears to have no suspicion of any problem to solve, - treating Homer as unaffectedly religious. The same view is taken - by Prof. Paul Decharme. "On chercherait vainement dans l'Iliade et - dans l'Odyssée les premières traces du scepticisme grec à l'égard - des fables des dieux. C'est avec une foi entière en la réalité - des événements mythiques que les poètes chantent les légendes ...; - c'est en toute simplicité d'âme aussi que les auditeurs de l'épopée - écoutent...." (La critique des traditions religieuses chez les - grecs, 1904, p. 1.) Thus we have a kind of balance of contrary - opinions, German against French. Any verdict on the problem must - recognize on the one hand the possibilities of naïve credulity in - an unlettered age, and on the other the probability of critical - perception on the part of a great poet. I have seen both among - Boers in South Africa. On the general question of the mood of - the Homeric poems compare Gilbert Murray, Four Stages of Greek - Religion, 1912, p. 77, and Hist. of Anc. Greek Lit. pp. 34, 35; - and A. Benn, The Philosophy of Greece in Relation to the Character - of its People, 1898, pp. 29-30. - - -Still, it cannot be said that in the Iliad there is any clear hint of -religious skepticism, though the Gods are so wholly in the likeness of -men that the lower deities fight with heroes and are worsted, while -Zeus and Hêrê quarrel like any earthly couple. In the Odyssey there -is a bare hint of possible speculation in the use of the word atheos; -but it is applied only in the phrase ouk atheei, "not without a -God," [440] in the sense of similar expressions in other passages -and in the Iliad. [441] The idea was that sometimes the Gods directly -meddled. When Odysseus accuses the suitors of not dreading the Gods, -[442] he has no thought of accusing them of unbelief. [443] Homer -has indeed been supposed to have exercised a measure of relative -freethought in excluding from his song the more offensive myths about -the Gods, [444] but such exclusion may be sufficiently explained on -the score that the epopees were chanted in aristocratic dwellings, -in the presence of womenkind, without surmising any process of doubt -on the poet's part. - -On the other hand, it was inevitable that such a free treatment of -things hitherto sacred should not only affect the attitude of the -lay listener towards the current religion, but should react on the -religious consciousness. God-legends so fully thrust on secular -attention were bound to be discussed; and in the adaptations of -myth for liturgical purposes by Stesichoros (fl. circa 600 B.C.) we -appear to have the first open trace of a critical revolt in the -Greek world against immoral or undignified myths. [445] In his -work, it is fair to say, we see "the beginning of rationalism": -"the decisive step is taken: once the understanding criticizes the -sanctified tradition, it raises itself to be the judge thereof; -no longer the common tradition but the individual conviction is the -ground of religious belief." [446] Religious, indeed, the process -still substantially is. It is to preserve the credit of Helena as -a Goddess that Stesichoros repudiates the Homeric account of her, -[447] somewhat in the spirit in which the framers of the Hesiodic -theogony manipulated the myths without rejecting them, or the Hebrew -redactors tampered with their text. But in Stesichoros there is a new -tendency to reject the myth altogether; [448] so that at this stage -freethought is still part of a process in which religious feeling, -pressed by an advancing ethical consciousness, instinctively clears -its standing ground. - -It is in Pindar, however (518-442 B.C.), that we first find such a -mental process plainly avowed by a believer. In his first Olympic -Ode he expressly declares the need for bringing afterthought to bear -on poetic lore, that so men may speak nought unfitting of the Gods; -and he protests that he will never tell the tale of the blessed ones -banqueting on human flesh. [449] In the ninth Ode he again protests -that his lips must not speak blasphemously of such a thing as strife -among the immortals. [450] Here the critical motive is ethical, though, -while repudiating one kind of scandal about the Gods, Pindar placidly -accepts others no less startling to the modern sense. His critical -revolt, in fact, is far from thoroughgoing, and suggests rather a -religious man's partial response to pressure from others than any -independent process of reflection. [451] - - - "He [Pindar] was honestly attached to the national religion and to - its varieties in old local cults. He lived a somewhat sacerdotal - life, labouring in honour of the Gods, and seeking to spread a - reverence for old traditional beliefs. He, moreover, shows an - acquaintance with Orphic rites and Pythagorean mysteries, which - led him to preach the doctrine of immortality, and of rewards - and punishments in the life hereafter. [Note.--The most explicit - fragment (thrênoi, 3), is, however, not considered genuine by - recent critics.]... He is indeed more affected by the advance of - freethinking than he imagines; he borrows from the neologians the - habit of rationalizing myths, and explaining away immoral acts - and motives in the Gods; but these things are isolated attempts - with him, and have no deep effect upon his general thinking" - (Mahaffy, Hist. of Greek Lit. i, 213-14). - - -For such a development we are not, of course, forced to assume a -foreign influence: mere progress in refinement and in mental activity -could bring it about; yet none the less it is probable that foreign -influence did quicken the process. It is true that from the beginnings -of the literary period Greek thought played with a certain freedom on -myth, partly perhaps because the traditions visibly came from various -races, and there was no strong priesthood to ossify them. After Homer -and Hesiod, men looked back to those poets as shaping theology to -their own minds. [452] But all custom is conservative, and Pindar's -mind had that general cast. On the other hand, external influence was -forthcoming. The period of Pindar and Æschylus [525-455 B.C.] follows -on one in which Greek thought, stimulated on all sides, had taken -the first great stride in its advance beyond all antiquity. Egypt -had been fully thrown open to the Greeks in the reign of Psammetichos -[453] (650 B.C.); and a great historian, who contends that the "sheer -inherent and expansive force" of "the" Greek intellect, "aided but -by no means either impressed or provoked from without," was the true -cause, yet concedes that intercourse with Egypt "enlarged the range -of their thoughts and observations, while it also imparted to them -that vein of mysticism which overgrew the primitive simplicity of the -Homeric religion," and that from Asia Minor in turn they had derived -"musical instruments and new laws of rhythm and melody," as well as -"violent and maddening religious rites." [454] And others making -similar à priori claims for the Greek intelligence are forced likewise -to admit that the mental transition between Homer and Herodotos cannot -be explained save in terms of "the influence of other creeds, and the -necessary operation of altered circumstances and relations." [455] -In the Persae of Æschylus we even catch a glimpse of direct contact -with foreign skepticism; [456] and again in the Agamemnon there is -a reference to some impious one who denied that the Gods deigned -to have care of mortals. [457] It seems unwarrantable to read as -"ridicule of popular polytheism" the passage in the same tragedy: -[458] "Zeus, whosoever he be; if this name be well-pleasing to -himself in invocation, by this do I name him." It may more fitly be -read [459] as an echo of the saying of Herakleitos that "the Wise -[= the Logos?] is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of -Zeus." [460] But in the poet's thought, as revealed in the Prometheus, -and in the Agamemnon on the theme of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, there -has occurred an ethical judgment of the older creeds, an approach to -pantheism, a rejection of anthropomorphism, and a growth of pessimism -that tells of their final insufficiency. - - - The leaning to pantheism is established by the discovery that - the disputed lines, "Zeus is sky, earth, and heaven: Zeus is all - things, yea, greater than all things" (Frag. 443), belonged to the - lost tragedy of the Heliades (Haigh, Tragic Drama of the Greeks, - 1896, p. 88). For the pessimism see the Prometheus, 247-51. The - anti-anthropomorphism is further to be made out from the lines - ascribed to Æschylus by Justin Martyr (De Monarchia, c. 2) - and Clemens Alexandrinus (Stromata, v, 14). They are expressly - pantheistic; but their genuineness is doubtful. The story that - Æschylus was nearly killed by a theatre audience on the score - that he had divulged part of the mysteries in a tragedy (Haigh, - The Attic Theatre, 1889, p. 316; Tragic Drama, pp. 49-50) - does not seem to have suggested to Aristotle, who tells it - (Nicomachean Ethics, iii, 2), any heterodox intention on the - tragedian's part; but it is hard to see an orthodox believer - in the author either of the Prometheus, wherein Zeus is posed - as brutal might crucifying innocence and beneficence, or of - the Agamemnon, where the father, perplexed in the extreme, can - but fall back helplessly on formulas about the all-sufficiency - of Zeus when called upon to sacrifice his daughter. Cp. Haigh, - Tragic Drama, p. 86 sq. "Some critics," says Mr. Haigh (p. 88), - "have been led to imagine that there is in Æschylus a double - Zeus--the ordinary God of the polytheistic religion and the one - omnipotent deity in whom he really believed. They suppose that he - had no genuine faith in the credibility of the popular legends, - but merely used them as a setting for his tragedies; and that his - own convictions were of a more philosophical type," as seen in - the pantheistic lines concerning Zeus. To this Mr. Haigh replies - that it is "most improbable that there was any clear distinction - in the mind of Æschylus" between the two conceptions of Zeus; - going on, however, to admit that "much, no doubt, he regarded - as uncertain, much as false. Even the name 'Zeus' was to him a - mere convention." Mr. Haigh in this discussion does not attempt - to deal with the problem of the Prometheus. - - The hesitations of the critics on this head are noteworthy. Karl - Ottfried Müller, who is least himself in dealing with fundamental - issues of creed, evades the problem (Lit. of Anc. Greece, 1847, - p. 329) with the bald suggestion that "Æschylus, in his own - mind, must have felt how this severity [of Zeus], a necessary - accompaniment of the transition from the Titanic period to the - government of the Gods of Olympus, was to be reconciled with the - mild wisdom which he makes an attribute of Zeus in the subsequent - ages of the world. Consequently, the deviation from right ... would - all lie on the side of Prometheus." This nugatory plea--which is - rightly rejected by Burckhardt (Griech. Culturgesch. ii, 25)--is - ineffectually backed by the argument that the friendly Oceanides - recur to the thought, "Those only are wise who humbly reverence - Adrasteia (Fate)"--as if the positing of a supreme Fate were not - a further belittlement of Zeus. - - Other critics are similarly evasive. Patin (Eschyle, éd. 1877, - p. 250 sq.), noting the vagaries of past criticism, hostile and - other, avowedly leaves the play an unsolved enigma, affirming only - the commonly asserted "piety" of Æschylus. Girard (Le sentiment - religieux en Grèce, pp. 425-29) does no better, while dogmatically - asserting that the poet is "the Greek faithful to the faith of his - fathers, which he interprets with an intelligent and emotional - (émue) veneration." Meyer (iii, §§ 257-58) draws an elaborate - parallel between Æschylus and Pindar, affirming in turn the "tiefe - Frömmigkeit" of the former--and in turn leaves the enigma of the - Prometheus unsolved. Professor Decharme, rightly rejecting the - fanciful interpretations of Quinet and others who allegorize - Prometheus into humanity revolting against superstition, - offers a very unsatisfying explanation of his own (p. 107), - which practically denies that there is any problem to solve. - - Prof. Mahaffy, with his more vivacious habit of thought, comes - to the evaded issue. "How," he asks, "did the Athenian audience, - who vehemently attacked the poet for divulging the mysteries, - tolerate such a drama? And still more, how did Æschylus, a pious - and serious thinker, venture to bring such a subject on the - stage with a moral purpose?" The answers suggested are: (1) that - in all old religions there are tolerated anomalous survivals; - (2) that "a very extreme distortion of their Gods will not - offend many who would feel outraged at any open denial of them"; - (3) that all Greeks longed for despotic power for themselves, - and that "no Athenian, however he sympathized with Prometheus, - would think of blaming Zeus for ... crushing all resistance to his - will." But even if these answers--of which the last is the most - questionable--be accepted, "the question of the poet's intention - is far more difficult, and will probably never be satisfactorily - answered." Finally, we have this summing-up: "Æschylus was, indeed, - essentially a theologian ... but, what is more honourable and - exceptional, he was so candid and honest a theologian that he did - not approach men's difficulties for the purpose of refuting them - or showing them weak and groundless. On the contrary, though an - orthodox and pious man, though clearly convinced of the goodness - of Providence, and of the profound truth of the religion of - his fathers, he was ever stating boldly the contradictions and - anomalies in morals and in myths, and thus naturally incurring - the odium and suspicion of the professional advocates of religion - and their followers. He felt, perhaps instinctively, that a vivid - dramatic statement of these problems in his tragedies was better - moral education than vapid platitudes about our ignorance, and - about our difficulties being only caused by the shortness of our - sight" (Hist. of Greek Lit. i, 260-61, 273-74). - - Here, despite the intelligent handling, the enigma is merely - transferred from the great tragedian's work to his character: it is - not solved. No solution is offered of the problem of the pantheism - of the fragment above cited, which is quite irreconcilable with - any orthodox belief in Greek religion, though such sayings are - at times repeated by unthinking believers, without recognition - of their bearing. That the pantheism is a philosophical element - imported into the Greek world from the Babylonian through the early - Ionian thinkers seems to be the historical fact (cp. Whittaker, - as last cited): that the importation meant the dissolution of - the national faith for many thinking men seems to be no less - true. It seems finally permissible, then, to suggest that the - "piety" of Æschylus was either discontinuous or a matter of - artistic rhetoric and public spirit, and that the Prometheus is - a work of profound and terrible irony, unburdening his mind of - reveries that religion could not conjure away. The discussion - on the play has unduly ignored the question of its date. It is, - in all probability, one of the latest of the works of Æschylus - (K. O. Müller, Lit. of Anc. Greece, p. 327; Haigh, Tragic Drama, - p. 109). Müller points to the employment of the third actor--a - late development--and Haigh to the overshadowing of the choruses - by the dialogue; also to the mention (ll. 366-72) of the eruption - of Etna, which occurred in 475 B.C. This one circumstance goes - far to solve the dispute. Written near the end of the poet's life - the play belongs to the latest stages of his thinking; and if it - departs widely in its tone from the earlier plays, the reasonable - inference is that his ideas had undergone a change. The Agamemnon, - with its desolating problem, seems to be also one of his later - works. Rationalism, indeed, does not usually emerge in old age, - though Voltaire was deeply shaken in his theism by the earthquake - of Lisbon; but Æschylus is unique even among men of genius; and - the highest flight of Greek drama may well stand for an abnormal - intellectual experience. - - -In this primary entrance of critical doubt into drama we have one of -the sociological clues to the whole evolution of Greek thought. It -has been truly said that the constant action of the tragic stage, the -dramatic putting of arguments and rejoinders, pros and cons--which -in turn was a fruit of the actual daily pleadings in the Athenian -dikastery--was a manifold stimulus alike to ethical feeling and -to intellectual effort, such as no other ancient civilization ever -knew. "The appropriate subject-matter of tragedy is pregnant not only -with ethical sympathy, but also with ethical debate and speculation," -to an extent unapproached in the earlier lyric and gnomic poetry -and the literature of aphorism and precept. "In place of unexpanded -results, or the mere communication of single-minded sentiment, we -have even in Æschylus, the earliest of the great tragedians, a large -latitude of dissent and debate--a shifting point of view--a case -better or worse--and a divination of the future advent of sovereign -and instructed reason. It was through the intermediate stage of -tragedy that Grecian literature passed into the Rhetoric, Dialectics, -and Ethical speculation which marked the fifth century B.C." [461] - -This development was indeed autochthonous, save insofar as the -germ of the tragic drama may have come from the East in the cult -of Dionysos, with its vinous dithyramb: the "Greek intellect" -assuredly did wonderful things at Athens, being placed, for a time, -in civic conditions peculiarly fitted for the economic evocation of -certain forms of genius. But the above-noted developments in Pindar -and in Æschylus had been preceded by the great florescence of early -Ionian philosophy in the sixth century, a growth which constrains -us to look once more to Asia Minor for a vital fructification of the -Greek inner life, of a kind that Athenian institutions could not in -themselves evoke. For while drama flourished supremely at Athens, -science and philosophy grew up elsewhere, centuries before Athens -had a philosopher of note; and all the notable beginnings of Hellenic -freethought occurred outside of Hellas proper. - - - - -§ 3 - -The Greeks varied from the general type of culture-evolution seen -in India, Persia, Egypt, and Babylon, and approximated somewhat to -that of ancient China, in that their higher thinking was done not by -an order of priests pledged to cults, but by independent laymen. In -Greece, as in China, this line of development is to be understood as a -result of early political conditions--in China, those of a multiplicity -of independent feudal States; in Greece, those of a multiplicity of -City States, set up first by the geographical structure of Hellas, -and reproduced in the colonies of Asia Minor and Magna Graecia by -reason of the acquired ideal and the normal state of commercial -competition. To the last, many Greek cults exhibited their original -character as the sacra of private families. Such conditions prevented -the growth of a priestly caste or organization. [462] Neither China -nor Pagan Greece was imperialized till there had arisen enough of -rationalism to prevent the rise of a powerful priesthood; and the -later growth of a priestly system in Greece in the Christian period -is to be explained in terms first of a positive social degeneration, -accompanying a complete transmutation of political life, and secondly -of the imposition of a new cult, on the popular plane, specially -organized on the model of the political system that adopted it. Under -imperialism, however, the two civilizations ultimately presented a -singular parallel of unprogressiveness. - -In the great progressive period, the possible gains from the absence of -a priesthood are seen in course of realization. For the Greek-speaking -world in general there was no dogmatic body of teaching, no written -code of theology and moral law, no Sacred Book. [463] Each local -cult had its own ancient ritual, often ministered by priestesses, -with myths, often of late invention, to explain it; [464] only -Homer and Hesiod, with perhaps some of the now lost epics, serving -as a general treasury of myth-lore. The two great epopees ascribed -to Homer, indeed, had a certain Biblical status; and the Homerids -or other bards who recited them did what in them lay to make the -old poetry the standard of theological opinion; but they too lacked -organized influence, and could not hinder higher thinking. [465] The -special priesthood of Delphi, wielding the oracle, could maintain -their political influence only by holding their function above all -apparent self-seeking or effort at domination. [466] It only needed, -then, such civic conditions as should evolve a leisured class, with -a bent towards study, to make possible a growth of lay philosophy. - -Those conditions first arose in the Ionian cities; because there first -did Greek citizens attain commercial wealth, [467] as a result of -adopting the older commercial civilization whose independent cities -they conquered, and of the greater rapidity of development which -belongs to colonies in general. [468] There it was that, in matters -of religion and philosophy, the comparison of their own cults with -those of their foreign neighbours first provoked their critical -reflection, as the age of primitive warfare passed away. And there -it was, accordingly, that on a basis of primitive Babylonian science -there originated with Thales of Miletos (fl. 586 B.C.), a Phoenician by -descent, [469] the higher science and philosophy of the Greek-speaking -race. [470] - - - It is historically certain that Lydia had an ancient and close - historical connection with Babylonian and Assyrian civilization, - whether through the "Hittites" or otherwise (Sayce, Anc. Emp. of - the East, 1884, pp. 217-19; Curtius, Griech. Gesch. i, 63, 207; - Meyer, Gesch. des Alterth. i, 166, 277, 299, 305-10; Soury, - Bréviaire de l'hist. du matérialisme, 1881, pp. 30, 37 sq. Cp. as - to Armenia, Edwards, The Witness of Assyria, 1893, p. 144); and in - the seventh century the commercial connection between Lydia and - Ionia, long close, was presumably friendly up to the time of the - first attacks of the Lydian Kings, and even afterwards (Herodotos - i, 20-23), Alyattes having made a treaty of peace with Miletos, - which thereafter had peace during his long reign. This brings us - to the time of Thales (640-548 B.C.). At the same time, the Ionian - settlers of Miletos had from the first a close connection with the - Karians (Herod. i, 146, and above pp. 120-21), whose near affinity - with the Semites, at least in religion, is seen in their practice - of cutting their foreheads at festivals (id. ii, 61; cp. Grote, - ed. 1888, i, 27, note; E. Curtius, i, 36, 42; Busolt, i, 33; - and Spiegel, Eranische Alterthumskunde, i, 228). Thales was thus - in the direct sphere of Babylonian culture before the conquest - of Cyrus; and his Milesian pupils or successors, Anaximandros - and Anaximenes, stand for the same influences. Herakleitos in - turn was of Ephesus, an Ionian city in the same culture-sphere; - Anaxagoras was of Klazomenai, another Ionian city, as had been - Hermotimos, of the same philosophic school; the Eleatic school, - founded by Xenophanes and carried on by Parmenides and the elder - Zeno, come from the same matrix, Elea having been founded by - exiles from Ionian Phokaia on its conquest by the Persians; and - Pythagoras, in turn, was of the Ionian city of Samos, in the same - sixth century. Finally, Protagoras and Demokritos were of Abdera, - an Ionian colony in Thrace; Leukippos, the teacher of Demokritos, - was either an Abderite, a Milesian, or an Elean; and Archelaos, - the pupil of Anaxagoras and a teacher of Sokrates, is said to - have been a Milesian. Wellhausen (Israel, p. 473 of vol. of - Prolegomena, Eng. tr.) has spoken of the rise of philosophy - on the "threatened and actual political annihilation of Ionia" - as corresponding to the rise of Hebrew prophecy on the menace - and the consummation of the Assyrian conquest. As regards Ionia, - this may hold in the sense that the stoppage of political freedom - threw men back on philosophy, as happened later at Athens. But - Thales philosophized before the Persian conquest. - - - - -§ 4 - -Thales, like Homer, starts from the Babylonian conception of a -beginning of all things in water; but in Thales the immediate motive -and the sequel are strictly cosmological and neither theological -nor poetical, though we cannot tell whether the worship of a God -of the Waters may not have been the origin of a water-theory of the -cosmos. The phrase attributed to him, "that all things are full of -Gods," [471] clearly meant that in his opinion the forces of things -inhered in the cosmos, and not in personal powers who spasmodically -interfered with it. [472] It is probable that, as was surmised by -Plutarch, a pantheistic conception of Zeus existed for the Ionian -Greeks before Thales. [473] To the later doxographists he "seems to -have lost belief in the Gods." [474] From the mere second-hand and -often unintelligent statements which are all we have in his case, -it is hard to make sure of his system; but that it was pantheistic -[475] and physicist seems clear. He conceived that matter not only -came from but was resolvable into water; that all phenomena were -ruled by law or "necessity"; and that the sun and planets (commonly -regarded as deities) were bodies analogous to the earth, which he -held to be spherical but "resting on water." [476] For the rest, he -speculated in meteorology and in astronomy, and is credited with having -predicted a solar eclipse [477]--a fairly good proof of his knowledge -of Chaldean science [478]--and with having introduced geometry into -Greece from Egypt. [479] To him, too, is ascribed a wise counsel to -the Ionians in the matter of political federation, [480] which, had -it been followed, might have saved them from the Persian conquest; -and he is one of the many early moralists who laid down the Golden -Rule as the essence of the moral law. [481] With his maxim, "Know -thyself," he seems to mark a broadly new departure in ancient thought: -the balance of energy is shifted from myth and theosophy, prophecy -and poesy, to analysis of consciousness and the cosmic process. - -From this point Greek rationalism is continuous, despite reactions, -till the Roman conquest, Miletos figuring long as a general source -of skepticism. Anaximandros (610-547 B.C.), pupil and companion -of Thales, was like him an astronomer, geographer, and physicist, -seeking for a first principle (for which he may or may not have -invented the name [482]); rejecting the idea of a single primordial -element such as water; affirming an infinite material cause, without -beginning and indestructible, [483] with an infinite number of worlds; -and--still showing the Chaldean impulse--speculating remarkably on -the descent of man from something aquatic, as well as on the form and -motion of the earth (figured by him as a cylinder [484]), the nature -and motions of the solar system, and thunder and lightning. [485] -It seems doubtful whether, as affirmed by Eudemus, he taught the -doctrine of the earth's motion; but that this doctrine was derived -from the Babylonian schools of astronomy is so probable that it may -have been accepted in Miletos in his day. Only by inferring a prior -scientific development of remarkable energy can we explain the striking -force of the sayings of Anaximandros which have come down to us. His -doctrine of evolution stands out for us to-day like the fragment of a -great ruin, hinting obscurely of a line of active thinkers. The thesis -that man must have descended from a different species because, "while -other animals quickly found food for themselves, man alone requires -a long period of suckling: had he been originally such as he is now, -he could never have survived," is a quite masterly anticipation of -modern evolutionary science. We are left asking, how came an early -Ionian Greek to think thus, outgoing the assimilative power of the -later age of Aristotle? Only a long scientific evolution can readily -account for it; and only in the Mesopotamian world could such an -evolution have taken place. [486] - -Anaximenes (fl. 548 B.C.), yet another Milesian, pupil or at least -follower in turn of Anaximandros, speculates similarly, making his -infinite and first principle the air, in which he conceives the earth -to be suspended; theorizes on the rainbow, earthquakes, the nature -and the revolution of the heavenly bodies (which, with the earth, he -supposed to be broad and flat); and affirms the eternity of motion and -the perishableness of the earth. [487] The Ionian thought of the time -seems thus to have been thoroughly absorbed in problems of natural -origins, and only in that connection to have been concerned with the -problems of religion. No dogma of divine creation blocked the way: -the trouble was levity of hypothesis or assent. Thales, following a -Semitic lead, places the source of all things in water. Anaximandros, -perhaps following another, but seeking a more abstract idea, posited -an infinite, the source of all things; and Anaximenes in turn reduces -that infinite to the air, as being the least material of things. He -cannot have anticipated the chemical conception of the reduction -of all solids to gases: the thesis was framed either à priori or in -adaptation of priestly claims for the deities of the elements; and -others were to follow with the guesses of earth and fire and heat and -cold. Still, the speculation is that of bold and far-grasping thinkers, -and for these there can have been no validity in the ordinary God-ideas -of polytheism. - -There is reason to think that these early "schools" of thought -were really constituted by men in some way banded together, [488] -thus supporting each other against the conservatism of religious -ignorance. The physicians were so organized; the disciples of -Pythagoras followed the same course; and in later Greece we shall -find the different philosophic sects formed into societies or -corporations. The first model was probably that of the priestly -corporation; and in a world in which many cults were chronically -disendowed it may well have been that the leisured old priesthoods, -philosophizing as we have seen those of India and Egypt and Mesopotamia -doing, played a primary part in initiating the work of rational -secular thought. - - - The recent work of Mr. F. M. Cornford, From Philosophy to Religion - (1912), puts forth an interesting and ingenious theory to the - effect that early Greek philosophy is a reduction to abstract - terms of the practice of totemistic tribes. On this view, when - the Gods are figured in Homer as subject to Moira (Destiny), - there has taken place an impersonation of Nomos, or Law; and just - as the divine cosmos or polity is a reflection of the earthly, - so the established conception of the absolute compulsoriness of - tribal law is translated into one of a Fate which overrules the - Gods (p. 40 sq.). So, when Anaximandros posits the doctrine of - four elements [he did not use the word, by the way; that comes - later; see Burnet, ch. i, p. 56, citing Diels], "we observe that - this type of cosmic structure corresponds to that of a totemic - tribe containing four clans" (p. 62). On the other hand, the - totemistic stage had long before been broken down. The "notion - of the group-soul" had given rise to the notion of God (p. 90); - and the primitive "magical group" had dissolved into a system of - families (p. 93), with individual souls. On this prior accumulation - of religious material early philosophy works (p. 138). - - It does not appear why, thus recognizing that totemism was at - least a long way behind in Thales's day, Mr. Cornford should - trace the Ionian four elements straight back to the problematic - four clans of the totemistic tribe. Dr. Frazer gives him no data - whatever for Aryan totemism; and the Ionian cities, like those - of Mesopotamia and Egypt, belong to the age of commerce and of - monarchies. It would seem more plausible, on Mr. Cornford's own - premises, to trace the rival theories of the four elements to - religious philosophies set up by the priests of four Gods of water, - earth, air, and fire. If the early philosophers "had nothing but - theology behind them" (p. 138), why not infer theologies for the - old-established deities of Mesopotamia? Mr. Cornford adds to the - traditional factors that of "the temperaments of the individual - philosophers, which made one or other of those schemes the more - congenial to them." Following Dr. F. H. Bradley, he pronounces - that "almost all philosophic arguments are invented afterwards, to - recommend, or defend from attack, conclusions which the philosopher - was from the outset bent on believing before he could think of - any arguments at all. That is why philosophical reasonings are - so bad, so artificial, so unconvincing." - - Upon this very principle it is much more likely that the - philosophic cults of water, earth, air, and fire originated in - the worships of Gods of those elements, whose priests would tend - to magnify their office. It is hard to see how "temperament" - could determine a man's bias to an air-theory in preference to a - water-theory. But if the priests of Ea the Water-God and those - of Bel the God of Air had framed theories of the kind, it is - conceivable that family or tribal ties and traditions might set - men upon developing the theory quasi-philosophically when the - alien Gods came to be recognized by thinking men as mere names - for the elements. [489] (Compare Flaubert's Salammbô as to the - probable rivalry of priests of the Sun and Moon.) A pantheistic - view, again, arose as we saw among various priesthoods in the - monarchies where syncretism arose out of political aggregations. - - -What is clear is that the religious or theistic basis had ceased to -exist for many educated Greeks in that environment. The old God-ideas -have disappeared, and a quasi-scientific attitude has been taken -up. It is apparently conditioned, perhaps fatally, by prior modes of -thought; but it operates in disregard of so-called religious needs, -and negates the normal religious conception of earthly government -or providence. Nevertheless, it was not destined to lead to the -rationalization of popular thought; and only in a small number of -cases did the scientific thinkers deeply concern themselves with the -enlightenment of the mass. - -In another Ionian thinker of that age, indeed, we find alongside of -physical and philosophical speculation on the universe the most direct -and explicit assault upon popular religion that ancient history -preserves. Xenophanes of Kolophon (? 570-470), a contemporary -of Anaximandros, was forced by a Persian invasion or by some -revolution to leave his native city at the age of twenty-five; and -by his own account his doctrines, and inferribly his life, had gone -"up and down Greece"--in which we are to include Magna Graecia--for -sixty-seven years at the date of writing of one of his poems. [490] -This was presumably composed at Elea (Hyela or Velia), founded -about 536 B.C., on the western Italian coast, south of Paestum, by -unsubduable Phokaians seeking a new home after the Persian conquest, -and after they had been further defeated in the attempt to live as -pirates in Corsica. [491] Thither came the aged Xenophanes, perhaps -also seeking freedom. He seems to have lived hitherto as a rhapsode, -chanting his poems at the courts of tyrants as the Homerids did the -Iliad. It is hard indeed to conceive that his recitations included the -anti-religious passages which have come down to us; but his resort in -old age to the new community of Elea is itself a proof of a craving -and a need for free conditions of life. [492] - -Setting out on his travels, doubtless, with the Ionian predilection for -a unitary philosophy, he had somewhere and somehow attained a pantheism -which transcended the concern for a "first principle"--if, indeed, -it was essentially distinct from the doctrine of Anaximandros. [493] -"Looking wistfully upon the whole heavens," says Aristotle, [494] -"he affirms that unity is God." From the scattered quotations which -are all that remain of his lost poem, On Nature (or Natural Things), -[495] it is hard to deduce any full conception of his philosophy; -but it is clear that it was monistic; and though most of his later -interpreters have acclaimed him as the herald of monotheism, it is only -in terms of pantheism that his various utterances can be reconciled. It -is clearly in that sense that Aristotle and Plato [496] commemorate -him as the first of the Eleatic monists. Repeatedly he speaks of -"the Gods" as well as of "God"; and he even inculcates the respectful -worship of them. [497] The solution seems to be that he thinks of the -forces and phenomena of Nature in the early way as Gods or Powers, but -resolves them in turn into a whole which includes all forms of power -and intelligence, but is not to be conceived as either physically or -mentally anthropomorphic. "His contemporaries would have been more -likely to call Xenophanes an atheist than anything else." [498] - - - The common verdict of the historians of philosophy, who find - in Xenophanes an early and elevated doctrine of "Monotheism," - is closely tested by J. Freudenthal, Ueber die Theologie des - Xenophanes, 1886. As he shows, the bulk of them (cited by him, - pp. 2-7) do violence to Xenophanes's language in making him - out the proclaimer of a monotheistic doctrine to a polytheistic - world. That he was essentially a pantheist is now recognized by - a number of writers. Cp. Windelband, as cited, p. 48; Decharme, - as cited, p. 46 sq. Bréton, Poésie philos. en Grèce, pp. 47, - 64 sq., had maintained the point, against Cousin, in 1882, - before Freudenthal. But Freudenthal in turn glosses part of the - problem in ascribing to Xenophanes an acceptance of polytheism - (cp. Burnet, p. 142), which kept him from molestation throughout - his life; whereas Anaxagoras, who had never attacked popular - belief with the directness of Xenophanes, was prosecuted for - atheism. Anaxagoras was of a later age, dwelling in an Athens in - which popular prejudice took readily to persecution, and political - malice resorted readily to religious pretences. Xenophanes - could hardly have published with impunity in Periklean Athens - his stinging impeachments of current God-ideas; and it remains - problematic whether he ever proclaimed them in face of the - multitude. It is only from long subsequent students that we get - them as quotations from his poetry; there is no record of their - effect on his contemporaries. That his God-idea was pantheistic - is sufficiently established by his attacks on anthropomorphism, - taken in connection with his doctrine of the All. - - -Whether as teaching meant for public currency or as a philosophic -message for the few, the pantheism of Xenophanes expressed itself in -an attack on anthropomorphic religion, no less direct and much more -ratiocinative than that of any Hebrew prophet upon idolatry. "Mortals," -he wrote, in a famous passage, "suppose that the Gods are born, and -wear man's clothing, [499] and have voice and body. But if cattle -or lions had hands, so as to paint with their hands and make works -of art as men do, they would paint their Gods and give them bodies -like their own--horses like horses, cattle like cattle." And again: -"Ethiopians make their Gods black and snub-nosed; the Thracians say -theirs have reddish hair and blue eyes; so also they conceive the -spirits of the Gods to be like themselves." [500] On Homer and Hesiod, -the myth-singers, his attack is no less stringent: "They attributed -to the Gods all things that with men are of ill-fame and blame; -they told of them countless nefarious things--thefts, adulteries, -and deception of each other." [501] It is recorded of him further -that, like Epicurus, he absolutely rejected all divination. [502] -And when the Eleans, perhaps somewhat shaken by such criticism, asked -him whether they should sacrifice and sing a dirge to Leukothea, -the child-bereft Sea-Goddess, he bade them not to sing a dirge if -they thought her divine, and not to sacrifice if she were human. [503] - -Beside this ringing radicalism, not yet out of date, the physics of -the Eleatic freethinker is less noticeable. His resort to earth as a -material first principle was but another guess or disguised theosophy -added to those of his predecessors, and has no philosophic congruity -with his pantheism. It is interesting to find him reasoning from -fossil-marks that what was now land had once been sea-covered, and -been left mud; and that the moon is probably inhabited. [504] Yet, -with all this alertness of speculation, Xenophanes sounds the note -of merely negative skepticism which, for lack of fruitful scientific -research, was to become more and more common in Greek thought: [505] -"no man," he avows in one verse, "knows truly anything, and no man -ever will." [506] More fruitful was his pantheism or pankosmism. "The -All (oulos)" he declared, "sees, thinks, and hears." [507] -"It was thus from Xenophanes that the doctrine of Pankosmism first -obtained introduction into Greek philosophy, recognizing nothing real -except the universe as an indivisible and unchangeable whole." [508] -His negative skepticism might have guarded later Hellenes against -baseless cosmogony-making if they had been capable of a systematic -intellectual development. His sagacity, too, appears in his protest -[509] against that extravagant worship of the athlete which from -first to last kept popular Greek life-philosophy unprogressive. But -here least of all was he listened to. - -It is after a generation of such persistent questioning of Nature -and custom by pioneer Greeks that we find in Herakleitos of Ephesus -(fl. 500 B.C.)--still in the Ionian culture-sphere--a positive and -unsparing criticism of the prevailing beliefs. No sage among the -Ionians (who had already produced a series of powerful thinkers) left -a deeper impression than he of massive force and piercing intensity: -above all of the gnomic utterances of his age, his have the ring of -character and the edge of personality; and the gossiping Diogenes, -after setting out by calling him the most arrogant of men, concedes -that the brevity and weight of his expression are not to be matched. It -was due rather to this, probably, than to his metaphysic--though that -has an arresting quality--that there grew up a school of Herakliteans -calling themselves by his name. And though doubt attaches to some of -his sayings, and even to his date, there can be small question that -he was mordantly freethinking, though a man of royal descent. He has -stern sayings about "bringing forth untrustworthy witnesses to confirm -disputed points," and about eyes and ears being "bad witnesses for -men, when their souls lack understanding." [510] "What can be seen, -heard, and learned, this I prize," is one of his declarations; and -he is credited with contemning book-learning as having failed to -give wisdom to Hesiod, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Hekataios. [511] -The belief in progress, he roundly insists, stops progress. [512] From -his cryptic utterances it maybe gathered that he too was a pantheist; -[513] and from his insistence on the immanence of strife in all things, -[514] as from others of his sayings, that he was of the Stoic mood. It -was doubtless in resentment of immoral religion that he said [515] -Homer and Archilochos deserved flogging; as he is severe on the -phallic worship of Dionysos, [516] on the absurdity of prayer to -images, and on popular pietism in general. [517] One of his sayings, -êthos anthrôpô daimôn, [518] "character is a man's dæmon," seems -to be the definite assertion of rationalism in affairs as against -the creed of special providences. - - - A confusion of tradition has arisen between the early Herakleitos, - "the Obscure," and the similarly-named writer of the first century - of our era, who was either one Herakleides or one using the - name of Herakleitos. As the later writer certainly allegorized - Homer--reducing Apollo to the Sun, Athenê to Thought, and so - on--and claimed thus to free him from the charge of impiety, - it seems highly probable that it is from him that the scholiast - on the Iliad, xv, 18, cites the passage scolding the atheists - who attacked the Homeric myths. The theme and the tone do not - belong to 500 B.C., when only the boldest--as Herakleitos--would - be likely to attack Homer, and when there is no other literary - trace of atheism. Grote, however (i, 374, note), cites the - passages without comment as referring to the early philosopher, - who is much more probably credited, as above, with denouncing - Homer himself. Concerning the later Herakleitos or Herakleides, - see Dr. Hatch's Hibbert Lectures on The Influence of Greek Ideas - and Usages upon the Christian Church, 1890, pp. 61, 62. - - But even apart from the confusion with the late Herakleides, - there is difficulty in settling the period of the Ephesian - thinker. Diogenes Laërtius states that he flourished about - the 69th Olympiad (504-500 B.C.). Another account, preserved by - Eusebius, places him in the 80th or 81st Olympiad, in the infancy - of Sokrates, and for this date there are other grounds (Ueberweg, - i, 40); but yet other evidences carry us back to the earlier. As - Diogenes notes five writers of the name--two being poets, one a - historian, and one a "serio-comic" personage--and there is record - of many other men named Herakleitos and several Herakleides, - there is considerable room for false attributions. The statement - of Diogenes that the Ephesian was "wont to call opinion the - sacred disease" (i, 6, § 7) is commonly relegated to the spurious - sayings of Herakleitos, and it suggests the last mentioned of his - namesakes. But see Max Müller, Hibbert Lectures on Indian Religion, - p. 6, for the opinion that it is genuine, and that by "opinion" - was meant "religion." The saying, says Dr. Müller, "seems to me - to have the massive, full, and noble ring of Herakleitos." It is - hardly for rationalists to demur. - - -Much discussion has been set up by the common attribution -to Herakleitos in antiquity of the doctrine of the ultimate -conflagration of all things. But for this there is no ground in any -actual passage preserved from his works; and it appears to have -been a mere misconception of his doctrine in regard to Fire. His -monistic doctrine was, in brief, that all the opposing and contrasted -things in the universe, heat and cold, day and night, evil and good, -imply each other, and exist only in the relation of contrast; and he -conceived fire as something in which opposites were solved. [519] -Upon this stroke of mysticism was concentrated the discussion -which might usefully have been turned on his criticism of popular -religion; his negative wisdom was substantially ignored, and his -obscure speculation, treated as his main contribution to thought, -was misunderstood and perverted. - -A limit was doubtless soon set to free speech even in Elea; and the -Eleatic school after Xenophanes, in the hands of his pupil Parmenides -(fl. 500 B.C.), Zeno (fl. 464), Melissos of Samos (fl. 444), and -their successors, is found turning first to deep metaphysic and -then to verbal dialectic, to discussion on being and not being, -the impossibility of motion, and the trick-problem of Achilles and -the tortoise. It is conceivable that thought took these lines because -others were socially closed. Parmenides, a notably philosophic spirit -(whom Plato, meeting him in youth, felt to have "an exceptionally -wonderful depth of mind," but regarded as a man to be feared as well -as reverenced), [520] made short work of the counter-sense of not -being, but does not seem to have dealt at close quarters with popular -creeds. Melissos, a man of action, who led a successful sally to -capture the Athenian fleet, [521] was apparently the most pronounced -freethinker of the three named, [522] in that he said of the Gods -"there was no need to define them, since there was no knowledge of -them." [523] Such utterance could not be carried far in any Greek -community; and there lacked the spirit of patient research which -might have fruitfully developed the notable hypothesis of Parmenides -that the earth is spherical in form. [524] But he too was a loose -guesser, adding categories of fire and earth and heat and cold to the -formative and material "principles" of his predecessors; and where he -divagated weaker minds could not but lose themselves. From Melissos -and Parmenides there is accordingly a rapid descent in philosophy -to professional verbalism, popular life the while proceeding on the -old levels. - -It was in this epoch of declining energy and declining freedom that -there grew up the nugatory doctrine, associated with the Eleatic -school, [525] that the only realities are mental, [526] a formula -which eluded at once the problems of Nature and the crudities -of religion, and so made its fortune with the idle educated -class. Meant to support the cause of reason, it was soon turned, -as every slackly-held doctrine must be, to a different account. In -the hands of Plato it developed into the doctrine of ideas, which in -the later Christian world was to play so large a part, as "Realism," -in checking scientific thought; and in Greece it fatally fostered -the indolent evasion of research in physics. [527] Ultimately this -made for supernaturalism, which had never been discarded by the main -body even of rationalizing thinkers. [528] Thus the geographer and -historian Hekataios of Miletos (fl. 500 B.C.), living at the great -centre of rationalism, while rejecting the mass of Greek fables as -"ridiculous," and proceeding in a fashion long popular to translate -them into historical facts, yet affected, in the poetic Greek fashion, -to be of divine descent. [529] At the same time he held by such fables -as that of the floating island in the Nile and that of the supernormal -Hyperboreans. This blending of old and new habits of mind is indeed -perhaps the strongest ground for affirming the genuineness of his -fragments, which has been disputed. [530] But from his time forward -there are many signs of a broad movement of criticism, doubt, inquiry, -and reconstruction, involving an extensive discussion of historical -as well as religious tradition. [531] There had begun, in short, -for the rapidly-developing Greeks, a "discovery of man" such as is -ascribed in later times to the age of the Italian Renaissance. In the -next generation came the father of humanists, Herodotos, who implicitly -carries the process of discrimination still further than did Hekataios; -while Sophocles [496-405 B.C.], without ever challenging popular faith, -whether implicitly as did Æschylus, or explicitly as did Euripides, -"brought down the drama from the skies to the earth; and the drama -still follows the course which Sophocles first marked out for it. It -was on the Gods, the struggles of the Gods, and on destiny that -Æschylus dwelt; it is with man that Sophocles is concerned." [532] - -Still, there was only to be a partial enlightenment of the race, -such as we have seen occurring, perhaps about the same period, in -India. Sophocles, even while dramatizing the cruel consequences of -Greek religion, never made any sign of being delivered from the -ordinary Greek conceptions of deity, or gave any help to wiser -thought. The social difference between Greece and the monarchic -civilizations was after all only one of degree: there, as elsewhere, -the social problem was finally unsolved; and the limits to Greek -progress were soon approached. But the evolution went far in many -places, and it is profoundly interesting to trace it. - - - - -§ 5 - -Compared with the early Milesians and with Xenophanes, the elusive -Pythagoras (fl. 540-510 B.C.) is not so much a rationalistic as a -theosophic freethinker; but to freethought his name belongs insofar -as the system connected with it did rationalize, and discarded -mythology. If the biographic data be in any degree trustworthy, -it starts like Milesian speculation from oriental precedents. [533] -Pythagoras was of Samos in the Ægean; and the traditions have it that -he was a pupil of Pherekydes the Syrian, and that before settling at -Krôton, in Italy, he travelled in Egypt, and had intercourse with the -Chaldean Magi. Some parts of the Pythagorean code of life, at least, -point to an eastern derivation. - - - The striking resemblance between the doctrine and practice of the - Pythagoreans and those of the Jewish Essenes has led Zeller to - argue (Philos. der Griechen, Th. iii, Abth. 2) that the latter were - a branch of the former. Bishop Lightfoot, on the other hand, noting - that the Essenes did not hold the specially prominent Pythagorean - doctrines of numbers and of the transmigration of souls, traces - Essenism to Zoroastrian influence (Ed. of Colossians, App. on - the Essenes, pp. 150-51; rep. in Dissertations on the Apostolic - Age, 1892, pp. 369-72). This raises the issue whether both - Pythagoreanism and Essenism were not of Persian derivation; and - Dr. Schürer (Jewish People in the Time of Jesus, Eng. tr. Div. II, - vol. ii, p. 218) pronounces in favour of an oriental origin for - both. The new connection between Persia and Ionia just at or before - the time of Pythagoras (fl. 530 B.C.) squares with this view; - but it is further to be noted that the phenomenon of monasticism, - common to Pythagoreans and Essenes, arises in Buddhism about the - Pythagorean period; and as it is hardly likely that Buddhism - in the sixth century B.C. reached Asia Minor, there remains - the possibility of some special diffusion of the new ideal - from the Babylonian sphere after the conquest by Cyrus, there - being no trace of a Persian monastic system. The resemblances - to Orphicism likewise suggest a Babylonian source, as does the - doctrine of numbers, which is not Zoroastrian. As to Buddhism, - the argument for a Buddhist origin of Essenism shortly before our - era (cp. A. Lillie, Buddhism in Christendom and The Influence of - Buddhism on Primitive Christianity; E. Bunsen, The Angel-Messiah; - or, Buddhists, Essenes, and Christians--all three to be read - with much caution) does not meet the case of the Pythagorean - precedents for Essenism. Prof. Burnet (Early Greek Philos. 2nd - ed. p. 102) notes close Indian parallels to Pythagoreanism, - but overlooks the intermediate Persian parallels, and falls back - very unnecessarily on the bald notion that "the two systems were - independently evolved from the same primitive systems." - - -As regards the mystic doctrine that numbers are, as it were, the moving -principle in the cosmos--another thesis not unlikely to arise in that -Babylonian world whence came the whole system of numbers for the later -ancients [534]--we can but pronounce it a development of thought in -vacuo, and look further for the source of Pythagorean influence in -the moral and social code of the movement, in its science, in its -pantheism, [535] its contradictory dualism, [536] and perhaps in its -doctrine of transmigration of souls. On the side of natural science, -its absurdities [537] point to the fatal lack of observation which -so soon stopped progress in Greek physics and biology. [538] Yet in -the fields of astronomy, mathematics, and the science of sound the -school seems to have done good scientific work; being indeed praised -by the critical Aristotle for doing special service in that way. [539] -It is recorded that Philolaos, the successor of Pythagoras, was the -first to teach openly (about 460 B.C.) the doctrine of the motion -of the earth [540]--which, however, as above noted, was also said -to have been previously taught by Anaximandros [541] (from whom some -incline to derive the Pythagorean theory of numbers in general [542]) -and by Hiketas or Iketas (or Niketas) of Syracuse. [543] Ekphantos, -of that city, is also credited with asserting the revolution of -the earth on its axis; and he too is grouped with the Pythagoreans, -though he seems to have had a pantheism of his own. [544] Philolaos -in particular is said to have been prosecuted for his teaching, [545] -which for many was a blasphemy; and it may be that this was the reason -of its being specially ascribed to him, though current in the East -long before his day. In the fragments ascribed to him is affirmed, -in divergence from other Pythagoreans, the eternity of the earth; and -in other ways he seems to have been an innovator. [546] In any case, -the Pythagorean conception of the earth's motion was a speculative -one, wide of the facts, and not identical with the modern doctrine, -save insofar as Pythagoras--or Philolaos--had rightly conceived the -earth as a sphere. [547] - - - It is noteworthy, however, that in conjecturing that the whole - solar system moves round a "central fire," Pythagoras carried his - thought nearly as far as the moderns. The fanciful side of his - system is seen in his hypothesis of a counter-earth (Anti-chthon) - invented to bring up the number of celestial bodies in our system - to ten, the "complete" number. (Berry, as cited.) Narrien (p. 163) - misses this simple explanation of the idea. - - -As to politics, finally, it seems hard to solve the anomaly that -Pythagoras is pronounced the first teacher of the principle of -community of goods, [548] and that his adherents at Krôton formed an -aristocratic league, so detested by the people for its anti-democratism -that its members were finally massacred in their meeting-place, -their leader, according to one tradition, being slain with them, -while according to a better grounded account he had withdrawn -and died at Metapontion. The solution seems to be that the early -movement was in no way monastic or communistic; that it was, however, -a secret society; that it set up a kind of puritanism or "methodism" -which repelled conservative people; and that, whatever its doctrines, -its members were mostly of the upper class. [549] If they held by the -general rejection of popular religion attributed to Pythagoras, they -would so much the more exasperate the demos; for though at Krôton, -as in the other Grecian colonial cities, there was considerable -freedom of thought and speech, the populace can nowhere have been -freethinking. [550] In any case, it was after its political overthrow, -and still more in the Italian revival of the second century B.C., -that the mystic and superstitious features of Pythagoreanism were -most multiplied; and doubtless the master's teachings were often much -perverted by his devotees. It was only too easy. He had laid down, as -so many another moralist, that justice consisted in reciprocity; but -he taught of virtue in terms of his theory of numbers [551]--a sure way -of putting conduct out of touch with reality. Thus we find some of the -later Pythagoreans laying it down as a canon that no story once fully -current concerning the Gods was to be disbelieved [552]--the complete -negation of philosophical freethought and a sharp contradiction of the -other view which represented the shade of Pythagoras as saying that he -had seen in Tartaros the shade of Homer hanged to a tree, and that of -Hesiod chained to a pillar of brass, for the monstrous things they had -ascribed to the Gods. [553] It must have taken a good deal of decadence -to bring an innovating sect to that pass; and even about 200 B.C. we -find the freethinking Ennius at Rome calling himself a Pythagorean; -[554] but the course of things in Magna Graecia was mostly downward -after the sixth century; the ferocious destruction of Sybaris by the -Krotoniates helping to promote the decline. [555] Intellectual life, -in Magna Graecia as in Ionia, obeyed the general tendency. - - - An opposite view of the Pythagorean evolution is taken by - Professor Burnet. He is satisfied that the long list of the - Pythagorean taboos, which he rightly pronounces to be "of a - thoroughly primitive type" (p. 105), and not at all the subtle - "symbols" which they were latterly represented to be, were - really the lore of Pythagoras. It is not easy thus to conceive a - thinker of the great Ionian age as holding by thoroughly primitive - superstitions. Perhaps the solution lies in Aristotle's statement - that Pythagoras was first a mathematician, and only in later - life a Pherekydean miracle-monger (Burnet, p. 107, note 3). He - may actually have started the symbolic view of the taboos which - he imposed. - - -Before the decadence comes, however, the phenomenon of rationalism -occurs on all sides in the colonial cities, older and younger alike; -and direct criticism of creed kept pace with the indirect. About -520 B.C. Theagenes of Rhegion, in Southern Italy, had begun for -the Greeks the process of reducing the unacceptable God-stories in -Homer and Hesiod--notably the battle of the Gods in the Iliad--to -mere allegories of the cosmic elements [556]--a device natural to -and practised by liberal conservatives in all religious systems -under stress of skeptical attack, and afterwards much employed in -the Hellenic world. [557] Soon the attack became more stringent. At -Syracuse we find the great comic dramatist Epicharmos, about 470 -B.C., treating the deities on the stage in a spirit of such audacious -burlesque [558] as must be held to imply unbelief. Aristophanes, at -Athens, indeed, shows a measure of the same spirit while posing as -a conservative in religion; but Epicharmos was professedly something -of a Pythagorean and philosopher, [559] and was doubtless protected by -Hiero, at whose court he lived, against any religious resentment he may -have aroused. The story of Simonides's answer to Hiero's question as -to the nature of the Gods--first asking a day to think, then two days, -then four, then avowing that meditation only made the problem harder -[560]--points to the prevalent tone among the cultured. - - - - -§ 6 - -At last the critical spirit finds utterance, in the great Periklean -period, at Athens, but first by way of importation from Ionia, -where Miletos had fallen in the year 494. Anaxagoras of Klazomenai -(fl. 480-450 B.C.; d. 428) is the first freethinker historically -known to have been legally prosecuted and condemned [561] for his -freethought; and it was in the Athens of Perikles, despite Perikles's -protection, that the attack was made. Coming of the Ionian line -of thinkers, and himself a pupil of Anaximenes of Miletos, he held -firmly by the scientific view of the cosmos, and taught that the sun, -instead of being animated and a deity as the Athenians believed, was -"a red-hot mass many times larger than the Peloponnesos" [562]--and -the moon a fiery (or earthy) solid body having in it plains and -mountains and valleys--this while asserting that infinite mind was -the source and introducer of all the motion in the infinite universe; -[563] infinite in extent and infinitely divisible. This "materialistic" -doctrine as to the heavenly bodies was propounded, as Sokrates tells in -his defence, in books that in his day anyone could buy for a drachma; -and Anaxagoras further taught, like Theagenes, that the mythical -personages of the poets were mere abstractions invested with name -and gender. [564] Withal he was no brawler; and even in pious Athens, -where he taught in peace for many years, he might have died in peace -but for his intimacy with the most renowned of his pupils, Perikles. - - - The question of the deity of the sun raised an interesting - sociological question. Athenians saw no blasphemy in saying that - Gê (Gaia) or Dêmêter was the earth: they had always understood as - much; and the earth was simply for them a Goddess; a vast living - thing containing the principle of life. They might similarly have - tolerated the description of the sun as a kind of red-hot earth, - provided that its divinity were not challenged. The trouble lay - rather in the negative than in the positive assertion, though - the latter must for many have been shocking, inasmuch as they had - never been wont to think about the sun as they did about the earth. - - -It is told of Perikles (499-429 B.C.) by the pious Plutarch, -himself something of a believer in portents, that he greatly admired -Anaxagoras, from whom he "seems to have learned to despise those -superstitious fears which the common phenomena of the heavens produce -in those who, ignorant of their cause, and knowing nothing about -them, refer them all to the immediate action of the Gods." [565] -And even the stately eloquence and imperturbable bearing of the great -statesman are said to have been learned from the Ionian master, whom he -followed in "adorning his oratory with apt illustrations from physical -science." [566] The old philosopher, however, whom men called "Nous" -or Intelligence because of the part the name played in his teaching, -left his property to go to ruin in his devotion to ideas; and it is -told, with small probability, that at one time, old and indigent, -he covered his head with his robe and decided to starve to death; -till Perikles, hearing of it, hastened to beseech him to live to give -his pupil counsel. [567] - -At length it occurred to the statesman's enemies to strike at him -through his guide, philosopher, and friend. They had already procured -the banishment of another of his teachers, Damon, as "an intriguer and -a friend of despotism"; [568] and one of their fanatics, Diopeithes, -a priest and a violent demagogue, [569] laid the way for an attack -on Anaxagoras by obtaining the enactment of a law that "prosecutions -should be laid against all who disbelieved in religion and held -theories of their own about things on high." [570] Anaxagoras was -thus open to indictment on the score alike of his physics and of his -mythology; though, seeing that his contemporary Diogenes of Apollonia -(who before Demokritos taught "nothing out of nothing: nothing -into nothing," and affirmed the sphericity of the earth) was also -in some danger of his life at Athens, [571] it is probable that the -prosecution was grounded on his physicist teaching. Saved by Perikles -from the death punishment, but by one account fined five talents, -[572] he either was exiled or chose to leave the intolerant city; -and he made his home at Lampsakos, where, as the story runs, he won -from the municipality the favour that every year the children should -have a holiday in the month in which he died. [573] It is significant -of his general originality that he was reputed the first Greek who -wrote a book in prose. [574] - -Philosophically, however, he counted for less than he did as an -innovating rationalist. His doctrine of Nous amounted in effect to a -reaffirmation of deity; and he has been not unjustly described [575] -as the philosophic father of the dualistic deism or theism which, -whether from within or from without the Christian system, has been the -prevailing form of religious philosophy in the modern world. It was, in -fact, the only form of theistic philosophy capable of winning any wide -assent among religiously biassed minds; and it is the more remarkable -that such a theist should have been prosecuted because his notion of -deity was mental, and excluded the divinization of the heavenly bodies. - -In the memorable episode of his expulsion from Athens we have a -finger-post to the road travelled later by Greek civilization. At -Athens itself the bulk of the free population was ignorant and bigoted -enough to allow of the law being used by any fanatic or malignant -partisan against any professed rationalist; and there is no sign -that Perikles dreamt of applying the one cure for the evil--the -systematic bestowal of rationalistic instruction on all. The fatal -maxim of ancient skepticism, that religion is a necessary restraint -upon the multitude, brought it about that everywhere, in the last -resort, the unenlightened multitude became a restraint upon reason and -freethought. [576] In the more aristocratically ruled colonial cities, -as we have seen, philosophic speech was comparatively free: it was -the ignorant Athenian democracy that brought religious intolerance -into Greek life, playing towards science, in form of law, the part -that the fanatics of Egypt and Palestine had played towards the -worshippers of other Gods than their own. - -With a baseness of which the motive may be divided between the -instincts of faction and of faith, the anti-Periklean party carried -their attack yet further; and on their behalf a comic playwright, -Hermippos, brought a charge of impiety against the statesman's unwedded -wife, Aspasia. [577] There can be no doubt that that famous woman -cordially shared the opinions and ideals of her husband, joining as -she habitually did in the philosophic talk of his home circle. As a -Milesian she was likely enough to be a freethinker; and all that was -most rational in Athens acknowledged her culture and her charm. [578] -Perikles, who had not taken the risk of letting Anaxagoras come to -trial, himself defended Aspasia before the dikastery, his indignation -breaking through his habitual restraint in a passion of tears, which, -according to the jealous Æschines, [579] won an acquittal. - -Placed as he was, Perikles could but guard his own head and heart, -leaving the evil instrument of a religious inquisition to subsist. How -far he held with Anaxagoras we can but divine. [580] There is probably -no truth in Plutarch's tale that "whenever he ascended the tribune -to speak he used first to pray to the Gods that nothing unfitted for -the occasion might fall from his lips." [581] But as a party leader -he, as a matter of course, observed the conventions; and he may have -reasoned that the prosecutions of Anaxagoras and Aspasia, like that -directed against Pheidias, stood merely for contemporary political -malice, and not for any lasting danger to mental freedom. However -that might be, Athens continued to remain the most aggressively -intolerant and tradition-mongering of Hellenic cities. So marked -is this tendency among the Athenians that for modern students -Herodotos, whose history was published in 445 B.C., is relatively -a rationalist in his treatment of fable, [582] bringing as he did -the spirit of Ionia into things traditional and religious. But even -Herodotos remains wedded to the belief in oracles or prophecies, -claiming fulfilment for those said to have been uttered by Bakis; -[583] and his small measure of spontaneous skepticism could avail -little for critical thought. To no man, apparently, did it occur to -resist the religious spirit by systematic propaganda: that, like the -principle of representative government, was to be hit upon only in a -later age. [584] Not by a purely literary culture, relating life merely -to poetry and myth, tradition and superstition, were men to be made -fit to conduct a stable society. And the spirit of pious persecution, -once generated, went from bad to worse, crowning itself with crime, -till at length the overthrow of Athenian self-government wrought a -forlorn liberty of scientific speech at the cost of the liberty of -political action which is the basis of all sound life. - -Whatever may have been the private vogue of freethinking at Athens -in the Periklean period, it was always a popular thing to attack -it. Some years before or after the death of Perikles there came -to Athens the alien Hippo, the first specifically named atheist -[585] of Greek antiquity. The dubious tradition runs that his tomb -bore the epitaph: "This is the grave of Hippo, whom destiny, in -destroying him, has made the equal of the immortal Gods." [586] If, -as seems likely, he was the Hippo of Rhegion mentioned by Hippolytos, -[587] he speculated as to physical origins in the manner of Thales, -making water generate fire, and that in turn produce the world. [588] -But this is uncertain. Upon him the comic muse of Athens turned its -attacks very much as it did upon Socrates. The old comic poet Kratinos, -a notorious wine-bibber, produced a comedy called The Panoptai (the -"all-seers" or "all eyes"), in which it would appear that the chorus -were made to represent the disciples of Hippo, and to wear a mask -covered with eyes. [589] Drunkenness was a venial fault in comparison -with the presumption to speculate on physics and to doubt the sacred -lore of the populace. The end of the rule of ignorance was that a -theistic philosopher who himself discouraged scientific inquiry was -to pay a heavier penalty than did the atheist Hippo. - - - - -§ 7 - -While Athens was gaining power and glory and beauty without popular -wisdom, the colonial city of Abdera, in Thrace, founded by Ionians, -had like others carried on the great impulse of Ionian philosophy, -and had produced in the fifth century some of the great thinkers of -the race. Concerning the greatest of these, Demokritos, and the next -in importance, Protagoras, we have no sure dates; [590] but it is -probable that the second, whether older or younger, was influenced -by the first, who indeed has influenced all scientific philosophy -down to our own day. How much he learned from his master Leukippos -cannot now be ascertained. [591] The writings which went under -his name appear to have been the productions of the whole Abderite -school; [592] and Epicurus declared that Leukippos was an imaginary -person. [593] What passes for his teaching was constructive science -of cardinal importance; for it is the first clear statement of the -atomic theory; the substitution of a real for an abstract foundation of -things. Whoever were the originator of the theory, there is no doubt as -to the assimilation of the principle by Demokritos, who thus logically -continued the non-theistic line of thought, and developed one of the -most fruitful of all scientific principles. That this idea again is a -direct development from Babylonian science is not impossible; at least -there seems to be no doubt that Demokritos had travelled far and wide, -[594] whether or not he had been brought up, as the tradition goes, -by Persian magi; [595] and that he told how the cosmic views of -Anaxagoras, which scandalized the Athenians, were current in the -East. [596] But he stands out as one of the most original minds in -the whole history of thought. No Greek thinker, not Aristotle himself, -has struck so deep as he into fundamental problems; though the absurd -label of "the laughing philosopher," bestowed on him by some peculiarly -unphilosophic mind, has delayed the later recognition of his greatness, -clear as it was to Bacon. [597] The vital maxim, "Nothing from nothing: -nothing into nothing," derives substantially from him. [598] - -His atomic theory, held in conjunction with a conception of -"mind-stuff" similar to that of Anaxagoras, may be termed the -high-water mark of ancient scientific thought; and it is noteworthy -that somewhat earlier in the same age Empedokles of Agrigentum, -another product of the freer colonial life, threw out a certain -glimmer of the Darwinian conception--perhaps more clearly attained -by Anaximandros--that adaptations prevail in nature just because the -adaptations fit organisms to survive, and the non-adapted perish. [599] -In his teaching, too, the doctrine of the indestructibility of -matter is clear and firm; [600] and the denial of anthropomorphic -deity is explicit. [601] But Empedokles wrought out no solid system: -"half-mystic and half-rationalist, he made no attempt to reconcile the -two inconsistent sides of his intellectual character"; [602] and his -explicit teaching of metempsychosis [603] and other Pythagoreanisms -gave foothold for more delusion than he ever dispelled. [604] On the -whole, he is one of the most remarkable personalities of antiquity, -moving among men with a pomp and gravity which made them think of -him as a God, denouncing their sacrifices, and no less their eating -of flesh; and checking his notable self-exaltation by recalling the -general littleness of men. But he did little to enlighten them; and -Aristotle passed on to the world a fatal misconception of his thought -by ascribing to him the notion of automatism where he was asserting a -"necessity" in terms of laws which he avowedly could not explain. [605] -Against such misconception he should have provided. Demokritos, -however, shunned dialectic and discussion, and founded no school; -[606] and although his atomism was later adopted by Epicurus, it was -no more developed on a basis of investigation and experiment than was -the biology of Empedokles. His ethic, though wholly rationalistic, -leant rather to quietism and resignation than to reconstruction, -[607] and found its application only in the later static message of -Epicurus. Greek society failed to set up the conditions needed for -progress beyond the point gained by its unguided forces. - -Thus when Protagoras ventured to read, at the house of the freethinking -Euripides, a treatise of his own, beginning with the avowal that he -offered no opinion as to the existence of the Gods, life being too -short for the inquiry, [608] the remark got wind, and he had to fly -for his life, though Euripides and perhaps most of the guests were -very much of the same way of thinking. [609] In the course of his -flight, the tradition goes, the philosopher was drowned; [610] and -his book was publicly burned, all who possessed copies being ordered -by public proclamation to give them up--the earliest known instance -of "censorship of the press." [611] Partisan malice was doubtless -at work in his case as in that of Anaxagoras; for the philosophic -doctrine of Protagoras became common enough. It is not impossible, -though the date is doubtful, that the attack on him was one of the -results of the great excitement in Athens in the year 415 B.C. over -the sacrilegious mutilation of the figures of Hermes, the familial or -boundary-God, in the streets by night. It was about that time that the -poet Diagoras of Melos was proscribed for atheism, he having declared -that the non-punishment of a certain act of iniquity proved that -there were no Gods. [612] It has been surmised, with some reason, -that the iniquity in question was the slaughter of the Melians by -the Athenians in 416 B.C., [613] and the Athenian resentment in -that case was personal and political rather than religious. [614] -For some time after 415 the Athenian courts made strenuous efforts -to punish every discoverable case of impiety; and parodies of the -Eleusinian mysteries (resembling the mock Masses of Catholic Europe) -were alleged against Alkibiades and others. [615] Diagoras, who was -further charged with divulging the Eleusinian and other mysteries, -and with making firewood of an image of Herakles, telling the God thus -to perform his thirteenth labour by cooking turnips, [616] became -thenceforth one of the proverbial atheists of the ancient world, -[617] and a reward of a silver talent was offered for killing him, -and of two talents for his capture alive; [618] despite which he seems -to have escaped. But no antidote to the bane of fanaticism was found -or sought; and the most famous publicist in Athens was the next victim. - -The fatality of the Athenian development is seen not only in -the direct hostility of the people to rational thought, but in -their loss of their hold even on their public polity. For lack -of political judgment, moved always by the passions which their -literary culture cherished, they so mishandled their affairs in the -long and demoralizing Peloponnesian war that they were at one time -cowed by their own aristocracy, on essentially absurd pretexts, -into abandoning the democratic constitution. Its restoration was -followed at the final crisis by another tyranny, also short-lived, -but abnormally bloody and iniquitous; and though the people at its -overthrow showed a moderation in remarkable contrast to the cruelty and -rapacity of the aristocrats, the effect of such extreme vicissitude -was to increase the total disposition towards civic violence and -coercion. And while the people menaced freethinking in religion, -the aristocracies opposed freethinking in politics. Thus under the -Thirty Tyrants all intellectual teaching was forbidden; and Kritias, -himself accused of having helped Alkibiades to parody the mysteries, -sharply interdicted the political rationalism of Sokrates, [619] -who according to tradition had been one of his own instructors. - -It was a result of the general movement of mind throughout the -rest of the Hellenic world that freethinkers of culture were still -numerous. Archelaos of Miletos, the most important disciple of -Anaxagoras; according to a late tradition, the master of Sokrates; -and the first systematic teacher of Ionic physical science in Athens, -taught the infinity of the universe, grasped the explanation of -the nature of sound, and set forth on purely rationalistic lines -the social origin and basis of morals, thus giving Sokrates his -practical lead. [620] Another disciple of Anaxagoras, Metrodoros of -Lampsakos (not to be confounded with Metrodoros of Chios, and the -other Metrodoros of Lampsakos who was the friend of Epicurus, both -also freethinkers), carried out zealously his master's teaching as to -the deities and heroes of Homer, resolving them into mere elemental -combinations and physical agencies, and making Zeus stand for mind, -and Athenê for art. [621] And in the belles lettres of Athens itself, -in the dramas of Euripides [480-406 B.C.], who is said to have been -the ardent disciple of Anaxagoras, [622] to have studied Herakleitos, -[623] and to have been the friend of Sokrates and Protagoras, there -emerge traces enough of a rationalism not to be reconciled with the -old belief in the Gods. If Euripides has nowhere ventured on such -a terrific paradox as the Prometheus, he has in a score of passages -revealed a stress of skepticism which, inasmuch as he too uses all the -forms of Hellenic faith, [624] deepens our doubt as to the beliefs of -Æschylus. Euripides even gave overt proof of his unbelief, beginning -his Melanippe with the line: "Zeus, whoever Zeus be, for I know not, -save by report," an audacity which evoked a great uproar. In a later -production the passage was prudently altered; [625] but he never put -much check on his native tendency to analyse and criticize on all -issues--a tendency fostered, as we have seen, [626] by the constant -example of real and poignant dialectic in the Athenian dikastery, and -the whole drift of the Athenian stage. In his case the tendency even -overbalances the artistic process; [627] but it has the advantage of -involving a very bold handling of vital problems. Not satisfied with -a merely dramatic presentment of lawless Gods, Euripides makes his -characters impeach them as such, [628] or, again, declare that there -can be no truth in the "miserable tales of poets" which so represent -them. [629] Not content with putting aside as idle such a fable as -that of the sun's swerving from his course in horror at the crime of -Atreus, [630] and that of the Judgment of Paris, [631] he attacks -with a stringent scorn the whole apparatus of oracles, divination, -and soothsaying. [632] And if the Athenian populace cried out at -the hardy opening of the Melanippe, he nonetheless gave them again -and again his opinion that no man knew anything of the Gods. [633] -Of orthodox protests against freethinking inquiry he gives a plainly -ironical handling. [634] As regards his constructive opinions, we -have from him many expressions of the pantheism which had by his time -permeated the thought of perhaps most of the educated Greeks. [635] - -Here again, as in the case of Æschylus, there arises the problem of -contradiction; for Euripides, too, puts often in the mouths of his -characters emphatic expressions of customary piety. The conclusion in -the two cases must be broadly the same--that whereas an unbelieving -dramatist may well make his characters talk in the ordinary way of -deity and of religion, it is unintelligible that a believing one should -either go beyond the artistic bounds of his task to make them utter an -unbelief which must have struck the average listener as strange and -noxious, or construct a drama of which the whole effect is to insist -on the odiousness of the action of the Supreme God. And the real -drift of Euripides is so plain that one modern and Christian scholar -has denounced him as an obnoxious and unbelieving sophist who abused -his opportunity as a producer of dramas under religious auspices to -"shake the ground-works of religion" [636] and at the same time of -morals; [637] while another and a greater scholar, less vehement in his -orthodoxy, more restrainedly condemns the dramatist for employing myths -in which he did not believe, instead of inventing fresh plots. [638] -Christian scholars are thus duly unready to give him credit for his -many-sided humanity, nobly illustrated in his pleas for the slave and -his sympathy with suffering barbarians. [639] Latterly the recognition -of Euripides's freethinking has led to the description of him as -"Euripides the Rationalist," in a treatise which represents him as a -systematic assailant of the religion of his day. Abating somewhat of -that thesis, which imputes more of system to the Euripidean drama than -it possesses, we may sum up that the last of the great tragedians of -Athens, and the most human and lovable of the three, was assuredly -a rationalist in matters of religion. It is noteworthy that he used -more frequently than any other ancient dramatist the device of a -deus ex machina to end a play. [640] It was probably because for him -the conception had no serious significance. [641] In the Alkestis its -[non-mechanical] use is one of the most striking instances of dramatic -irony in all literature. The dead Alkestis, who has died to save the -life of her husband, is brought back from the Shades by Herakles, -who figures as a brawling bully. Only the thinkers of the time could -realize the thought that underlay such a tragi-comedy. - - - Dr. Verrall's Euripides the Rationalist, 1897, is fairly summed up - by Mr. Haigh (Tragic Drama of the Greeks, pp. 262, 265, notes): - "He considers that Euripides was a skeptic of the aggressive - type, whose principal object in writing tragedy was to attack the - State religion, but who, perceiving that it would be dangerous - to pose as an open enemy, endeavoured to accomplish his ends by - covert ridicule.... His plays ... contain in reality two separate - plots--the ostensible and superficial plot, which was intended - to satisfy the orthodox, and the rationalized modification which - lay half concealed beneath it, and which the intelligent skeptic - would easily detect." For objections to this thesis see Haigh, as - cited; Jevons, Hist. of Greek Lit. p. 222, note; and Dr. Mozley's - article in the Classical Review, Nov. 1895, pp. 407-13. As to the - rationalism of Euripides in general see many of the passages cited - by Bishop Westcott in his Essays in the Hist. of Relig. Thought - in the West, 1891, pp. 102-27. And cp. Dickinson, The Greek View - of Life, pp. 46-49; Grote, Hist. i, 346-48; Zeller, Socrates and - the Socratic Schools, Eng. tr. 3rd ed. p. 231; Murray, Anc. Greek - Lit. pp. 256, 264-66. - - Over the latest play of Euripides, the Bacchæ, as over one - of the last plays of Æschylus, the Prometheus, there has been - special debate. It was probably written in Macedonia (cp. ll., - 408, 565), whither the poet had gone on the invitation of King - Archelaos, when, according to the ancient sketch of his life, - "he had to leave Athens because of the malicious exultation over - him of nearly all the city." The trouble, it is conjectured, "may - have been something connected with his prosecution for impiety, - the charge on which Socrates was put to death a few years after" - (Murray, Euripides translated into English Rhyming Verse, 1902, - introd. essay, p. lii). Inasmuch as the play glorifies Dionysos, - and the "atheist" Pentheus (l. 995) who resists him is slain by the - maddened Bacchantes, led by his own mother, it is seriously argued - that the drama "may be regarded as in some sort an apologia and - an eirenicon, or as a confession on the part of the poet that - he was fully conscious that in some of the simple legends of - the popular faith there was an element of sound sense (!) which - thoughtful men must treat with forbearance, resolved on using it, - if possible, as an instrument for inculcating a truer morality, - instead of assailing it with a presumptuous denial" (J. E. Sandys, - The Bacchæ of Euripides, 1880, introd. pp. lxxv-vi). Here we have - the conformist ethic of the average English academic brought to - bear on, and ascribed to, the personality of the Greek dramatist. - - An academic of the same order, Prof. Mahaffy, similarly - suggests that "among the half-educated Macedonian youth, with - whom literature was coming into fashion, the poet may have - met with a good deal of that insolent second-hand skepticism - which is so offensive to a deep and serious thinker, and he - may have wished to show them that he was not, as they doubtless - hailed him, the apostle of this random speculative arrogance" - (Euripides in Class. Writ. Ser. 1879, p. 85). As against the - eminently "random" and "speculative arrogance" of this particular - passage--a characteristic product of the obscurantist functions - of some British university professors in matters of religion, - and one which may fitly be pronounced offensive to honest men--it - may be suggested on the other hand that, if Euripides got into - trouble in Athens by his skepticism, he would be likely in - Macedonia to encounter rather a greater stress of bigotry than - a freethinking welcome, and that a non-critical presentment of - the savage religious legend was forced on him by his environment. - - Much of the academic discussion on the subject betrays a singular - slowness to accept the dramatic standpoint. Even Prof. Murray, - the finest interpreter of Euripides, dogmatically pronounces - (introd. cited p. lvii) that "there is in the Bacchæ real - and heartfelt glorification of Dionysus," simply because of - the lyrical exaltation of the Bacchic choruses. But lyrical - exaltation was in character here above all other cases; and it - was the dramatist's business to present it. To say that "again - and again in the lyrics you feel that the Mænads are no longer - merely observed and analysed: the poet has entered into them - and they into him," is nothing to the purpose. That the words - which fall from the Chorus or its Leader are at times "not the - words of a raving Bacchante, but of a gentle and deeply musing - philosopher," is still nothing to the purpose. The same could - be said of Shakespeare's handling of Macbeth. What, in sooth, - would the real words of a raving Bacchante be like? If Milton lent - dignity to Satan in Puritan England, was Euripides to do less for - Dionysos in Macedonia? That he should make Pentheus unsympathetic - belongs to the plot. If he had made a noble martyr of the victim - as well as an impassive destroyer of the God, he might have had - to leave Macedonia more precipitately than he left Athens. - - Prof. Murray recognizes all the while that "Euripides never - palliates things. He leaves this savage story as savage as he - found it"; that he presents a "triumphant and hateful Dionysus," - who gives "a helpless fatalistic answer, abandoning the moral - standpoint," when challenged by the stricken Agavê, whom the - God has moved to dismember her own son; and that, in short, - "Euripides is, as usual, critical or even hostile to the myth that - he celebrates" (as cited, pp. liv-lvi). To set against these solid - facts, as does Mr. Sandys (as cited, pp. lxxiii-iv), some passages - in the choruses (ll. 395, 388, 427, 1002), and in a speech of - Dionysos (1002), enouncing normal platitudes about the wisdom of - thinking like other people and living a quiet life, is to strain - very uncritically the elastic dramatic material. So far from being - "not entirely in keeping" with the likely sentiments of a chorus of - Asiatic women, the first-cited passages--telling that cleverness - is not wisdom, and that true wisdom acquiesces in the opinions - of ordinary people--are just the kind of mock-modest ineptitudes - always current among the complacent ignorant; and the sage language - ascribed to the heartless God is simply a presentment of deity - in the fashion in which all Greeks expected to have it presented. - - The fact remains that the story of the Bacchæ, in which the - frenzied mother helps to tear to pieces her own son, and the God - can but say it is all fated, is as revolting to the rational moral - sense as the story of the Prometheus. If this be an eirenicon, - it is surely the most ironical in literary history. To see - in the impassive delineation of such a myth an acceptance - by the poet of popular "sound sense," and "a desire to put - himself right with the public in matters on which he had been - misunderstood," seems possible only to academics trained to a - particular handling of the popular creed of their own day. This - view, first put forward by Tyrwhitt (Conjecturæ in Æschylum, - etc. 1822), was adopted by Schoone (p. 20 of his ed. cited - by Sandys). Lobeck, greatly daring wherever rationalism was - concerned, suggested that Euripides actually wrote against the - rationalists of his time, in commendation of the Bacchic cult, - and to justify the popular view in religious matters as against - that of the cultured (Aglaophamus--passages quoted by Sandys, - p. lxxvi). Musgrave, following Tyrwhitt, makes the play out - to be an attack on Kritias, Alkibiades, and other freethinkers, - including even Sokrates! K. O. Müller, always ineptly conventional - in such matters, finds Euripides in this play "converted into a - positive believer, or, in other words, convinced that religion - should not be exposed to the subtilties of reasoning; that the - understanding of man cannot subvert ancestral traditions which - are as old as time," and so on; and in the Polonius-platitudes - of Tiresias and the worldly-wise counsels of Cadmus he finds - "great impressiveness" (Hist. Lit. Anc. Greece, p. 379). - - The bulk of the literature of the subject, in short, suggests - sombre reflections on the moral value of much academic - thinking. There are, however, academic suffrages on the side of - common sense. Mr. Haigh (Tragic Drama of the Greeks, pp. 313-14) - gently dismisses the "recantation" theory; Hartung points out - (Euripides restitutus, 1844, ii, 542, cited by Sandys) that - Euripides really treats the legend of Pentheus very much as - he treats the myth of Hippolytos thirty years earlier, showing - no change of moral attitude. E. Pfander (cited by Sandys) took - a similar view; as did Mr. Tyrrell in his edition of the play - (1871), though the latter persisted in taking the commonplaces - of the chorus about true wisdom (395) for the judgments of - the dramatist. Euripides could hardly have been called "the - philosopher of the stage" (Athenæus, iv, 48) on the strength - of sentiments which are common to the village wiseacres of all - ages. The critical method which ascribes to Euripides a final - hostility to rationalism would impute to Shakespeare the religion - of Isabella in Measure for Measure, when the talk of the Duke as a - friar counselling a condemned man is wholly "pagan" or unbelieving. - - In his admirable little book, Euripides and his Age (1913), - Prof. Murray repeats his account of the Bacchæ with some additions - and modifications. He adheres to the "heartfelt glorification - of Dionysus," but adds (p. 188): "No doubt it is Dionysus - in some private sense of the poet's own ... some spirit of - ... inspiration and untrammelled life. The presentation is not - consistent, however magical the poetry." As to the theory that - "the veteran free-lance of thought ... now saw the error of his - ways and was returning to orthodoxy," he pronounces that "Such - a view strikes us now as almost childish in its incompetence" - (p. 190). He also reminds us that "the whole scheme of the play - is given by the ancient ritual.... All kinds of small details - which seemed like ... rather fantastic invention on the part - of Euripides are taken straight from Æschylus or the ritual, - or both.... The Bacchæ is not free invention; it is tradition" - (pp. 182-84). And in sum: "It is well to remember that, for all - his lucidity of language, Euripides is not lucid about religion" - (p. 190). - - In conclusion we may ask, How could he be? He wrote plays for the - Greek stage, which had its very roots in religious tradition, and - was run for the edification of a crudely believing populace. It is - much that in so doing Euripides could a hundred times challenge - the evil religious ethic given him for his subject-matter; and - his lasting vogue in antiquity showed that he had a hold on the - higher Greek conscience which no other dramatist ever possessed. - - -But while Euripides must thus have made a special appeal to the -reflecting minority even in his own day, it is clear that he was not -at first popular with the many; and his efforts, whatever he may have -hoped to achieve, could not suffice to enlighten the democracy. The -ribald blasphemies of his enemy, the believing Aristophanes, -[642] could avail more to keep vulgar religion in credit than the -tragedian's serious indictment could effect against it; and they served -at the same time to belittle Euripides for the multitude in his own -day. Aristophanes is the typical Tory in religion; non-religious -himself, like Swift, he hates the honestly anti-religious man; and -he has the crowd with him. The Athenian faith, as a Catholic scholar -remarks, [643] "was more disposed to suffer the buffooneries of a -comedian than the serious negation of a philosopher." The average -Greek seemed to think that the grossest comic impiety did no harm, -where serious negation might cause divine wrath. [644] And so there -came no intellectual salvation for Athens from the drama which was -her unique achievement. The balance of ignorance and culture was -not changed. Evidently there was much rationalism among the studious -few. Plato in the Laws [645] speaks both of the man-about-town type of -freethinker and of those who, while they believe in no Gods, live well -and wisely and are in good repute. But with Plato playing the superior -mind and encouraging his fellow-townsmen to believe in the personality -of the sun, moon, and planets, credulity could easily keep the upper -hand. [646] The people remained politically unwise and religiously -superstitious, the social struggle perpetuating the division between -leisure and toil, even apart from the life of the mass of slaves; -while the eternal pre-occupation of militarism left even the majority -of the upper class at the intellectual level natural to military life -in all ages. There came, however, a generation of great intellectual -splendour following on that of the supreme development of drama just -before the fall of Greek freedom. Athens had at last come into the -heritage of Greek philosophic thought; and to the utterance of that -crowning generation the human retrospect has turned ever since. This -much of renown remains inalienable from the most renowned democracy -of the ancient world. - - - - -§ 8 - -The wide subject of the teaching of Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle must -here be noticed briefly, with a view only to our special inquiry. All -three must be inscribed in any list of ancient freethinkers; and -yet all three furthered freethought only indirectly, the two former -being in different degrees supernaturalists, while the last touched -on religious questions only as a philosopher, avoiding all question -of practical innovation. - - - The same account holds good of the best of the so-called Sophists, - as Gorgias the Sicilian (? 485-380), who was a nihilistic skeptic; - Hippias of Elis, who, setting up an emphatic distinction between - Nature and Convention, impugned the political laws and prejudices - which estranged men of thought and culture; and Prodikos of Kos - (fl. 435), author of the fable of Herakles at the Parting of - the Ways, who seems to have privately criticized the current - Gods as mere deifications of useful things and forces, and - was later misconceived as teaching that the things and forces - were Gods. Cp. Cicero, De nat. Deorum, i, 42; Sextus Empiricus, - Adv. Mathematicos, ix, 52; Ueberweg, vol. i, p. 78; Renouvier, i, - 291-93. Cicero saw very well that if men came to see in Dêmêtêr - merely a deification of corn or bread, in Dionysos wine, in - Hephaistos fire, and in Poseidon only water, there was not much - left in religion. On the score of their systematic skepticism, - that is, their insistence on the subjectivity of all opinion, - Prof. Drews pronounces the Sophists at once the "Aufklärer" - and the Pragmatists of ancient Greece (Gesch. des Monismus, - p. 209). But their thought was scarcely homogeneous. - - -1. Sokrates [468-399] was fundamentally and practically a freethinker, -insofar as in most things he thought for himself, definitely turning -away from the old ideal of mere transmitted authority in morals. [647] -Starting in all inquiries from a position of professed ignorance, he -at least repudiated all dogmatics. [648] Being, however, preoccupied -with public life and conduct, he did not carry his critical thinking -far beyond that sphere. In regard to the extension of solid science, -one of the prime necessities of Greek intellectual life, he was quite -reactionary, drawing a line between the phenomena which he thought -intelligible and traceable and those which he thought past finding -out. "Physics and astronomy, in his opinion, belonged to the divine -class of phenomena in which human research was insane, fruitless, -and impious." [649] Yet at the same time he formulated, apparently -of his own motion, the ordinary design argument. [650] The sound -scientific view led up to by so many previous thinkers was set forth, -even in religious phraseology, by his great contemporary Hippokrates, -[651] and he opposed it. While partially separating himself in practice -from the popular worships, he held by the belief in omens, though not -in all the ordinary ones; and in one of the Platonic dialogues he is -made to say he holds by the ordinary versions of all the myths, on -the ground that it is a hopeless task to find rational explanations -for them. [652] He hoped, in short, to rationalize conduct without -seeking to rationalize creed--the dream of Plato and of a thousand -religionists since. - -He had indeed the excuse that the myth-rationalizers of the time -after Hekataios, following the line of least psychic resistance, like -those of England and Germany in the eighteenth century, explained -away myths by reducing them to hypothetical history, thus asking -credence for something no better verified than the myth itself. But -the rationalizers were on a path by which men might conceivably have -journeyed to a truer science; and Sokrates, by refusing to undertake -any such exploration, [653] left his countrymen to that darkening -belief in tradition which made possible his own execution. There -was in his cast of mind, indeed--if we can at all accept Plato's -presentment of him--something unfavourable to steady conviction. He -cannot have had any real faith in the current religion; yet he never -explicitly dissented. In the Republic he accepts the new festival -to the Thracian Goddess Bendis; and there he is made by Plato to -inculcate a quite orthodox acceptance of the Delphic oracle as the -source of all religious practice. But it is impossible to say how much -of the teaching of the Platonic Sokrates is Sokratic. And as to Plato -there remains the problem of how far his conformities were prudential, -after the execution of Sokrates for blasphemy. - - - The long-debated issue as to the real personality of Sokrates - is still open. It is energetically and systematically handled - by Prof. August Döring in Die Lehre des Sokrates als sociales - Reformsystem (1895), and by Dr. Hubert Röck in Der unverfälschte - Sokrates (1903). See, in particular, Döring, pp. 51-79, and - Röck, pp. 357-96. From all attempts to arrive at a conception - of a consistent Sokrates there emerges the impression that the - real Sokrates, despite a strong critical bent of mind, had no - clearly established body of opinions, but was swayed in different - directions by the itch for contradiction which was the driving - power of his dialectic. For the so-called Sokratic "method" is - much less a method for attaining truth than one for disturbing - prejudice. And if in Plato's hands Sokrates seldom reaches a - conclusion that his own method might not overthrow, we are not - entitled to refuse to believe that this was characteristic of - the man. - - -Concerning Sokrates we have Xenophon's circumstantial account [654] -of how he reasoned with Aristodemos, "surnamed the Little," who -"neither prayed nor sacrificed to the Gods, nor consulted any oracle, -and ridiculed those who did." Aristodemos was a theist, believing in -a "Great Architect" or "Artist," or a number of such powers--on this -he is as vague as the ancient theists in general--but does not think -the heavenly powers need his devotions. Sokrates, equally vague as -to the unity or plurality of the divine, puts the design argument in -the manner familiar throughout the ages, [655] and follows it up with -the plea, among others, that the States most renowned for wisdom and -antiquity have always been the most given to pious practices, and that -probably the Gods will be kind to those who show them respect. The -whole philosopheme is pure empiricism, on the ordinary plane of -polytheistic thought, and may almost be said to exhibit incapacity -for the handling of philosophic questions, evading as it does even -the elementary challenge of Aristodemos, against whom Sokrates parades -pious platitudes without a hint of "Sokratic" analysis. Unless such a -performance were regarded as make-believe, it is difficult to conceive -how Athenian pietists could honestly arraign Sokrates for irreligion -while Aristodemos and others of his way of thinking went unmolested. - -Taken as illustrating the state of thought in the Athenian community, -the trial and execution of Sokrates for "blasphemy" and "corrupting -the minds of the young" go far to prove that there prevailed among the -upper class in Athens nearly as much hypocrisy in religious matters -as exists in the England of to-day. Doubtless he was liable to death -from the traditionally orthodox Greek point of view, [656] having -practically turned aside from the old civic creed and ideals; but -then most educated Athenians had in some degree done the same. [657] -Euripides, as we have seen, is so frequently critical of the old -theology and mythology in his plays that he too could easily have been -indicted; and Aristophanes, who attacked Euripides in his comedies -as scurrilously as he did Sokrates, would no doubt have been glad to -see him prosecuted. [658] The psychology of Aristophanes, who freely -ridiculed and blasphemed the Gods in his own comedies while reviling -all men who did not believe in them, is hardly intelligible save -in the light of parts of the English history of our own time, when -unbelieving indifferentists on the Conservative side have been seen -ready to join in turning the law against a freethinking publicist -for purely party ends. In the case of Sokrates the hostility was -ostensibly democratic, for, according to Æschines, Sokrates was -condemned because he had once given lessons to Kritias, [659] one -of the most savage and unscrupulous of the Thirty Tyrants. Inasmuch -as Kritias had become entirely alienated from Sokrates, and had even -put him to silence, such a ground of hostility would only be a fresh -illustration of that collective predilection of men to a gregarious -iniquity which is no less noteworthy in the psychology of groups -than their profession of high moral standards. And such proclivities -are always to be reckoned with in such episodes. Anytos, the leading -prosecutor, seems to have been a typical bigot, brainless, spiteful, -and thoroughly self-satisfied. Not only party malice, however, but -the individual dislikes which Sokrates so industriously set up, -[660] must have counted for much in securing the small majority -of the dikastery that pronounced him guilty--281 to 276; and his -own clear preference for death over any sort of compromise did the -rest. [661] He was old, and little hopeful of social betterment; -and the temperamental obstinacy which underlay his perpetual and -pertinacious debating helped him to choose a death that he could easily -have avoided. But the fact remains that he was not popular; that the -mass of the voters as well as of the upper class disliked his constant -cross-examination of popular opinion, [662] which must often have led -logical listeners to carry on criticism where he left off; and that -after all his ratiocination he left Athens substantially irrational, as -well as incapable of justice, on some essential issues. His dialectic -method has done more to educate the later world than it did for Greece. - - - Upon the debate as to the legal punishability of Sokrates turns - another as to the moral character of the Athenians who forced - him to drink the hemlock. Professor Mahaffy, bent on proving - the superiority of Athenian culture and civilization to those - of Christendom, effectively contrasts the calm scene in the - prison-chamber of Sokrates with the hideous atrocities of the - death penalty for treason in the modern world and the "gauntness - and horror of our modern executions" (Social Life in Greece, - 3rd. ed. pp. 262-69); and Mr. Bleeckly (Socrates and the Athenians, - 1884, pp. 55-63) similarly sets against the pagan case that of the - burning of heretics by the Christian Church, and in particular the - auto da fé at Valladolid in 1559, when fifteen men and women--the - former including the conscientious priests who had proposed to - meet the hostility of Protestant dissent in the Netherlands by - reforms in the Church: the latter including delicately-nurtured - ladies of high family--were burned to death before the eyes of - the Princess Regent of Spain and the aristocracy of Castile. It - is certainly true that this transaction has no parallel in the - criminal proceedings of pagan Athens. Christian cruelty has been as - much viler than pagan, culture for culture, as the modern Christian - environment is uglier than the Athenian. Before such a test the - special pleaders for the civilizing power of Christianity can - but fall back upon alternative theses which are the negation of - their main case. First we are told that "Christianity humanizes - men"; next that where it does not do so it is because they are - too inhuman to be made Christians. - - But while the orthodoxy of pagan Athens thus comes very well off - as against the frightful crime-roll of organized Christianity, - the dispassionate historian must nonetheless note the dehumanizing - power of religion in Athens as in Christendom. The pietists of - Athens, in their less brutish way, were as hopelessly denaturalized - as those of Christian Europe by the dominion of a traditional - creed, held as above reason. It matters not whether or not we - say with Bishop Thirlwall (Hist. of Greece, 2nd ed. iv, 556) that - "there never was a case in which murder was more clearly committed - under the forms of legal procedure than in the trial of Socrates," - or press on the other side the same writer's admission that in - religious matters in Athens "there was no canon, no book by which - a doctrine could be tried; no living authority to which appeal - could be made for the decision of religious controversies." The - fact that Christendom had "authorities" who ruled which of two - sets of insane dogmas brought death upon its propounder, does - not make less abominable the slaying of Bruno and Servetus, - or the immeasurable massacre of less eminent heretics. But the - less formalized homicides sanctioned by the piety of Periklean - Athens remain part of the proof that unreasoning faith worsens - men past calculation. If we slur over such deeds by generalities - about human frailty, we are but asserting the impossibility - of rationally respecting human nature. If, putting aside all - moral censure, we are simply concerned to trace and comprehend - causation in human affairs, we have no choice but to note how - upon occasion religion on one hand, like strong drink on another, - can turn commonplace men into murderers. - - -In view of the limitations of Sokrates, and the mental measure of -those who voted for putting him to death, it is not surprising that -through all Greek history educated men (including Aristotle) continued -to believe firmly in the deluge of Deukalion [663] and the invasion of -the Amazons [664] as solid historical facts. Such beliefs, of course, -are on all fours with those current in the modern religious world -down till the present century: we shall, in fact, best appraise the -rationality of Greece by making such comparisons. The residual lesson -is that where Greek reason ended, modern social science had better -be regarded as only beginning. Thukydides, the greatest of all the -ancient historians, and one of the great of all time, treated human -affairs in a spirit so strictly rationalistic that he might reasonably -be termed an atheist on that score even if he had not earned the name -as a pupil of Anaxagoras. [665] But his task was to chronicle a war -which proved that the Greeks were to the last children of instinct for -the main purposes of life, and that the rule of reason which they are -credited with establishing [666] was only an intermittent pastime. In -the days of Demosthenes we still find them politically consulting the -Pythian oracle, despite the consciousness among educated men that the -oracle is a piece of political machinery. We can best realize the stage -of their evolution by first comparing their public religious practice -with that of contemporary England. No one now regards the daily prayers -of the House of Commons as more than a reverent formality. But Nikias -at Syracuse staked the fortunes of war on the creed of omens. We can -perhaps finally conceive with fair accuracy the subordination of Greek -culture and politics to superstition by likening the thought-levels -of pre-Alexandrian Athens to those of England under Cromwell. - -2. The decisive measure of Greek accomplishment is found in the career -of Plato [429-347]. One of the great prose writers of the world, he -has won by his literary genius--that is, by his power of continuous -presentation as well as by his style--no less than by his service to -supernaturalist philosophy in general, a repute above his deserts as a -thinker. In Christian history he is the typical philosopher of Dualism, -[667] his prevailing conception of the universe being that of an -inert Matter acted on or even created by a craftsman-God, the "Divine -Artificer," sometimes conceived as a Logos or divine Reason, separately -personalized. Thus he came to be par excellence the philosopher of -theism, as against Aristotle and those of the Pythagoreans who affirmed -the eternity of the universe. [668] In the history of freethought -he figures as a man of genius formed by Sokrates and reflecting -his limitations, developing the Sokratic dialectic on the one hand -and finally emphasizing the Sokratic dogmatism to the point of utter -bigotry. If the Athenians are to be condemned for putting Sokrates to -death, it must not be forgotten that the spirit, if not the letter, of -the Laws drawn up by Plato in his old age fully justified them. [669] -That code, could it ever have been put in force, would have wrought -the death of every honest freethinker as well as most of the ignorant -believers within its sphere. Alone among the great serious writers of -Greece does he implicate Greek thought in the gospel of intolerance -passed on to modern Europe from antiquity. It is recorded of him [670] -that he wished to burn all the writings of Demokritos that he could -collect, and was dissuaded only on the score of the number of copies. - -What was best in Plato, considered as a freethinker, was his early love -of ratiocination, of "the rendering and receiving of reasons." Even -in his earlier dialogues, however, there are signs enough of an -arbitrary temper, as well as of an inability to put science in place -of religious prejudice. The obscurantist doctrine which he put in -the mouth of Sokrates in the Phædrus was also his own, as we gather -from the exposition in the Republic. In that brilliant performance he -objects, as so many believers and freethinkers had done before him, -to the scandalous tales in the poets concerning the Gods and the sons -of Gods; but he does not object to them as being untrue. His position -is that they are unedifying. [671] For his own part he proposes that -his ideal rulers frame new myths which shall edify the young: in his -Utopia it is part of the business of the legislator to choose the right -fictions; [672] and the systematic imposition of an edifying body of -pious fable on the general intelligence is part of his scheme for the -regeneration of society. [673] Honesty is to be built up by fraud, -and reason by delusion. What the Hebrew Bible-makers actually did, -Plato proposed to do. The one thing to be said in his favour is that -by thus telling how the net is to be spread in the sight of the bird -he put the decisive obstacle--if any were needed--in the way of his -plan. It is, indeed, inconceivable that the author of the Republic -and the Laws dreamt that either polity as a whole would ever come -into existence. His plans of suppressing all undesirable poetry, -arranging community of women, and enabling children to see battles, -are the fancy-sketches of a dilettant. He had failed completely as a -statesman in practice; as a schemer he does not even posit the first -conditions of success. - - - As to his practical failure see the story of his and his pupils' - attempts at Syracuse (Grote, History, ix, 37-123). The younger - Dionysios, whom they had vainly attempted to make a model ruler, - seems to have been an audacious unbeliever to the extent of - plundering the temple of Persephone at Lokris, one of Jupiter in - the Peloponnesos, and one of Æsculapius at Epidaurus. Clement of - Alexandria (Protrept. c. 4) states that he plundered "the statue - of Jupiter in Sicily." Cicero (De nat. Deorum, iii, 33, 34) and - Valerius Maximus (i, 1) tell the story of the elder Dionysios; - but of him it cannot be true. In his day the plunder of the - temples of Dêmêtêr and Persephone in Sicily by the Carthaginians - was counted a deadly sin. See Freeman, History of Sicily, iv, - 125-47, and Story of Sicily, pp. 176-80. In Cicero's dialogue it - is noted that after all his impieties Dionysios [the elder, of - whom the stories are mistakenly told] died in his bed. Athenæus, - however, citing the biographer Klearchos, tells that the younger - Dionysios, after being reduced to the rôle of a begging priest - of Kybelê, ended his life very miserably (xii, 60). - - -Nonetheless, the prescription of intolerance in the Laws [674] classes -Plato finally on the side of fanaticism, and, indeed, ranks him with -the most sinister figures on that side, since his earlier writing -shows that he would be willing to punish men alike for repeating -stories which they believed, and for rejecting what he knew to be -untruths. [675] By his own late doctrine he vindicated the slayers of -his own friend. His psychology is as strange as that of Aristophanes, -but strange with a difference. He seems to have practised "the will -to believe" till he grew to be a fanatic on the plane of the most -ignorant of orthodox Athenians; and after all that science had done -to enlighten men on that natural order the misconceiving of which had -been the foundation of their creeds, he inveighs furiously in his old -age against the impiety of those who dared to doubt that the sun and -moon and stars were deities, as every nurse taught her charges. [676] -And when all is said, his Gods satisfy no need of the intelligence; -for he insists that they only partially rule the world, sending the few -good things, but not the many evil [677]--save insofar as evil may be -a beneficent penalty and discipline. At the same time, while advising -the imprisonment or execution of heretics who did not believe in the -Gods, Plato regarded with even greater detestation the man who taught -that they could be persuaded or propitiated by individual prayer and -sacrifice. [678] Thus he would have struck alike at the freethinking -few and at the multitude who held by the general religious beliefs of -Greece, dealing damnation on all save his own clique, in a way that -would have made Torquemada blench. [679] In the face of such teaching -as this, it may well be said that "Greek philosophy made incomparably -greater advances in the earlier polemic period [of the Ionians] -than after its friendly return to the poetry of Homer and Hesiod" -[680]--that is, to their polytheistic basis. It is to be said for -Plato, finally, that his embitterment at the downward course of things -in Athens is a quite intelligible source for his own intellectual -decadence: a very similar spectacle being seen in the case of our own -great modern Utopist, Sir Thomas More. But Plato's own writing bears -witness that among the unbelievers against whom he declaimed there -were wise and blameless citizens; [681] while in the act of seeking to -lay a religious basis for a good society he admitted the fundamental -immorality of the religious basis of the whole of past Greek life. - -3. Aristotle [384-322], like Sokrates, albeit in a very different way, -rendered rather an indirect than a direct service to Freethought. Where -Sokrates gave the critical or dialectic method or habit, "a process of -eternal value and of universal application," [682] Aristotle supplied -the great inspiration of system, partly correcting the Sokratic -dogmatism on the possibilities of science by endless observation and -speculation, though himself falling into scientific dogmatism only too -often. That he was an unbeliever in the popular and Platonic religion -is clear. Apart from the general rationalistic tenor of his works, -[683] there was a current understanding that the Peripatetic school -denied the utility of prayer and sacrifice; [684] and though the -essentially partisan attempt of the anti-Macedonian party to impeach -him for impiety may have turned largely on his hyperbolic hymn to his -dead friend Hermeias (who was a eunuch, and as such held peculiarly -unworthy of being addressed as on a level with semi-divine heroes), -[685] it could hardly have been undertaken at all unless he had given -solider pretexts. The threatened prosecution he avoided by leaving the -city, dying shortly afterwards. Siding as he did with the Macedonian -faction, he had put himself out of touch with the democratic instincts -of the Athenians, and so doubly failed to affect their thinking. But -nonetheless the attack upon him by the democrats was a political -stratagem. The prosecution for blasphemy had now become a recognized -weapon in politics for all who had more piety than principle, and -perhaps for some who had neither. And Aristotle, well aware of the -temper of the population around him, had on the whole been so guarded -in his utterance that a fantastic pretext had to be fastened on for -his undoing. - - - Prof. Bain (Practical Essays, p. 273), citing Grote's remark on the - "cautious prose compositions of Aristotle," comments thus: "That is - to say, the execution of Sokrates was always before his eyes; he - had to pare his expressions so as not to give offence to Athenian - orthodoxy. We can never know the full bearings of such a disturbing - force. The editors of Aristotle complain of the corruption of - his text: a far worse corruption lies behind. In Greece Sokrates - alone had the courage of his opinions. While his views as to a - future life, for example, are plain and frank, the real opinion - of Aristotle on the question is an insoluble problem." (See, - however, the passage in the Metaphysics cited below.) - - The opinion of Grote and Bain as to Aristotle's caution is fully - coincided in by Lange, who writes (Gesch. des Mater. i, 63): - "More conservative than Plato and Sokrates, Aristotle everywhere - seeks to attach himself as closely as possible to tradition, to - popular notions, to the ideas embodied in common speech, and his - ethical postulates diverge as little as may be from the customary - morals and laws of Greek States. He has therefore been at all times - the favourite philosopher of conservative schools and movements." - - -It is clear, nevertheless, if we can be sure of his writings, -that he was a monotheist, but a monotheist with no practical -religion. "Excluding such a thing as divine interference with Nature, -his theology, of course, excludes the possibility of revelation, -inspiration, miracles, and grace." [686] In a passage in the -Metaphysics, after elaborating his monistic conception of Nature, -he dismisses in one or two terse sentences the whole current religion -as a mass of myth framed to persuade the multitude, in the interest of -law and order. [687] His influence must thus have been to some extent, -at least, favourable to rational science, though unhappily his own -science is too often a blundering reaction against the surmises of -earlier thinkers with a greater gift of intuition than he, who was -rather a methodizer than a discoverer. [688] What was worst in his -thinking was its tendency to apriorism, which made it in a later age -so adaptable to the purposes of the Roman Catholic Church. Thus his -doctrines of the absolute levity of fire and of nature's abhorrence -of a vacuum set up a hypnotizing verbalism, and his dictum that the -earth is the centre of the universe was fatally helpful to Christian -obscurantism. For the rest, while guiltless of Plato's fanaticism, -he had no scheme of reform whatever, and was as far as any other -Greek from the thought of raising the mass by instruction. His own -science, indeed, was not progressive, save as regards his collation of -facts in biology; and his political ideals were rather reactionary; -his clear perception of the nature of the population problem leaving -him in the earlier attitude of Malthus, and his lack of sympathetic -energy making him a defender of slavery when other men had condemned -it. [689] He was in some aspects the greatest brain of the ancient -world; and he left it, at the close of the great Grecian period, -without much faith in man, while positing for the modern world its -vaguest conception of Deity. Plato and Aristotle between them had -reduced the ancient God-idea to a thin abstraction. Plato would not -have it that God was the author of evil, thus leaving evil unaccounted -for save by sorcery. Aristotle's God does nothing at all, existing -merely as a potentiality of thought. And yet upon those positions were -to be founded the theisms of the later world. Plato had not striven, -and Aristotle had failed, to create an adequate basis for thought in -real science; and the world gravitated back to religion. - - - [In previous editions I remarked that "the lack of fresh science, - which was the proximate cause of the stagnation of Greek thought, - has been explained like other things as a result of race qualities: - 'the Athenians,' says Mr. Benn (The Greek Philosophers, i, 42), - 'had no genius for natural science: none of them were ever - distinguished as savans.... It was, they thought, a miserable - trifling [and] waste of time.... Pericles, indeed, thought - differently....' On the other hand, Lange decides (i, 6) "that - with the freedom and boldness of the Hellenic spirit was combined - ... the talent for scientific deduction. These contrary views," - I observed, "seem alike arbitrary. If Mr. Benn means that other - Hellenes had what the Athenians lacked, the answer is that only - special social conditions could have set up such a difference, - and that it could not be innate, but must be a mere matter of - usage." Mr. Benn has explained to me that he does not dissent from - this view, and that I had not rightly gathered his from the passage - I quoted. In his later work, The Philosophy of Greece considered - in relation to the character and history of its people (1898), - he has pointed out how, in the period of Hippias and Prodikos, - "at Athens in particular young men threw themselves with ardour - into the investigation of" problems of cosmography, astronomy, - meteorology, and comparative anatomy (p. 138). The hindering - forces were Athenian bigotry (pp. 113-14, 171) and the mischievous - influence of Sokrates (pp. 165, 173). - - Speaking broadly, we may say that the Chaldeans were forward in - astronomy because their climate favoured it to begin with, and - religion and their superstitions did so later. Hippokrates of Kos - became a great physician because, with natural capacity, he had - the opportunity to compare many practices. The Athenians failed - to carry on the sciences, not because the faculty or the taste - was lacking among them, but because their political and artistic - interests, for one thing, preoccupied them--e.g., Sokrates and - Plato; and because, for another, their popular religion, popularly - supported, menaced the students of physics. But the Ionians, - who had savans, failed equally to progress after the Alexandrian - period; the explanation being again not stoppage of faculty, but - the advent of conditions unfavourable to the old intellectual - life, which in any case, as we saw, had been first set up by - Babylonian contacts. (Compare, on the ethnological theorem of - Cousin, G. Bréton, Essai sur la poésie philos. en Grèce, p. 10.) On - the other hand, Lange's theory of gifts "innate" in the Hellenic - mind in general is the old racial fallacy. Potentialities are - "innate" in all populations, according to their culture stage, - and it was their total environment that specialized the Greeks - as a community.] - - - - -§ 9 - -The overthrow of the "free" political life of Athens was followed by -a certain increase in intellectual activity, the result of throwing -back the remaining store of energy on the life of the mind. By this -time an almost open unbelief as to the current tales concerning the -Gods would seem to have become general among educated people, the -withdrawal of the old risk of impeachment by political factions being -so far favourable to outspokenness. It is on record that the historian -Ephoros (of Cumæ in Æolia: fl. 350 B.C.), who was a pupil of Isocrates, -openly hinted in his work at his disbelief in the oracle of Apollo, and -in fabulous traditions generally. [690] In other directions there were -similar signs of freethought. The new schools of philosophy founded -by Zeno the Stoic (fl. 280: d. 263 or 259) and Epicurus (341-270), -whatever their defects, compare not ill with those of Plato and -Aristotle, exhibiting greater ethical sanity and sincerity if less -metaphysical subtlety. Of metaphysics there had been enough for the -age: what it needed was a rational philosophy of life. But the loss -of political freedom, although thus for a time turned to account, -was fatal to continuous progress. The first great thinkers had all -been free men in a politically free environment: the atmosphere of -cowed subjection, especially after the advent of the Romans, could -not breed their like; and originative energy of the higher order -soon disappeared. Sane as was the moral philosophy of Epicurus, and -austere as was that of Zeno, they are alike static or quietist, [691] -the codes of a society seeking a regulating and sustaining principle -rather than hopeful of new achievement or new truth. And the universal -skepticism of Pyrrho has the same effect of suggesting that what is -wanted is not progress, but balance. It is significant that he, who -carried the Sokratic profession of Nescience to the typical extreme of -doctrinal Nihilism, was made high-priest of his native town of Elis, -and had statues erected in his honour. [692] - -Considered as freethinkers, all three men tell at once of the critical -and of the reactionary work done by the previous age. Pyrrho, the -universal doubter, appears to have taken for granted, with the whole -of his followers, such propositions as that some animals (not insects) -are produced by parthenogenesis, that some live in the fire, and that -the legend of the Phoenix is true. [693] Such credences stood for -the arrest of biological science in the Sokratic age, with Aristotle, -so often mistakenly, at work; while, on the other hand, the Sokratic -skepticism visibly motives the play of systematic doubt on the -dogmas men had learned to question. Zeno, again, was substantially a -monotheist; Epicurus, adopting but not greatly developing the science -of Demokritos, [694] turned the Gods into a far-off band of glorious -spectres, untroubled by human needs, dwelling for ever in immortal -calm, neither ruling nor caring to rule the world of men. [695] In -coming to this surprising compromise, Epicurus, indeed, probably did -not carry with him the whole intelligence even of his own school. His -friend, the second Metrodoros of Lampsakos, seems to have been the most -stringent of all the censors of Homer, wholly ignoring his namesake's -attempts to clear the bard of impiety. "He even advised men not to be -ashamed to confess their utter ignorance of Homer, to the extent of not -knowing whether Hector was a Greek or a Trojan." [696] Such austerity -towards myths can hardly have been compatible with the acceptance of -the residuum of Epicurus. That, however, became the standing creed of -the sect, and a fruitful theme of derision to its opponents. Doubtless -the comfort of avoiding direct conflict with the popular beliefs had -a good deal to do with the acceptance of the doctrine. - -This strange retention of the theorem of the existence of -anthropomorphic Gods, with a flat denial that they did anything in the -universe, might be termed the great peculiarity of average ancient -rationalism, were it not that what makes it at all intelligible for -us is just the similar practice of modern non-Christian theists. The -Gods of antiquity were non-creative, but strivers and meddlers and -answerers of prayer; and ancient rationalism relieved them of their -striving and meddling, leaving them no active or governing function -whatever, but for the most part cherishing their phantasms. The God of -modern Christendom had been at once a creator and a governor, ruling, -meddling, punishing, rewarding, and hearing prayer; and modern theism, -unable to take the atheistic or agnostic plunge, relieves him of all -interference in things human or cosmic, but retains him as a creative -abstraction who somehow set up "law," whether or not he made all things -out of nothing. The psychological process in the two cases seems to -be the same--an erection of æsthetic habit into a philosophic dogma, -and an accommodation of phrase to popular prejudice. - -Whatever may have been the logical and psychological crudities -of Epicureanism, however, it counted for much as a deliverance of -men from superstitious fears; and nothing is more remarkable in the -history of ancient philosophy than the affectionate reverence paid to -the founder's memory [697] on this score through whole centuries. The -powerful Lucretius sounds his highest note of praise in telling how -this Greek had first of all men freed human life from the crashing -load of religion, daring to pass the flaming ramparts of the world, -and by his victory putting men on an equality with heaven. [698] -The laughter-loving Lucian two hundred years later grows gravely -eloquent on the same theme. [699] And for generations the effect of the -Epicurean check on orthodoxy is seen in the whole intellectual life of -the Greek world, already predisposed in that direction. [700] The new -schools of the Cynics and the Cyrenaics had alike shown the influence -in their perfect freedom from all religious preoccupation, when they -were not flatly dissenting from the popular beliefs. Antisthenes, -the founder of the former school (fl. 400 B.C.), though a pupil of -Sokrates, had been explicitly anti-polytheistic, and an opponent of -anthropomorphism. [701] Aristippos of Cyrene, also a pupil of Socrates, -who a little later founded the Hedonic or Cyrenaic sect, seems to have -put theology entirely aside. One of the later adherents of the school, -Theodoros, was like Diagoras labelled "the Atheist" [702] by reason -of the directness of his opposition to religion; and in the Rome of -Cicero he and Diagoras are the notorious atheists of history. [703] -To Theodoros, who had a large following, is attributed an influence -over the thought of Epicurus, [704] who, however, took the safer -position of a verbal theism. The atheist is said to have been menaced -by Athenian law in the time of Demetrius Phalereus, who protected him; -and there is even a story that he was condemned to drink hemlock; [705] -but he was not of the type that meets martyrdom, though he might go -far to provoke it. [706] Roaming from court to court, he seems never -to have stooped to flatter any of his entertainers. "You seem to me," -said the steward of Lysimachos of Thrace to him on one occasion, -"to be the only man who ignores both Gods and kings." [707] - -In the same age the same freethinking temper is seen in Stilpo of -Megara (fl. 307), of the school of Euclides, who is said to have -been brought before the Areopagus for the offence of saying that -the Pheidian statue of Athênê was "not a God," and to have met -the charge with the jest that she was in reality not a God but a -Goddess; whereupon he was exiled. [708] The stories told of him make -it clear that he was an unbeliever, usually careful not to betray -himself. Euclides, too, with his optimistic pantheism, was clearly a -heretic; though his doctrine that evil is non-ens [709] later became -the creed of some Christians. Yet another professed atheist was the -witty Bion of Borysthenes, pupil of Theodoros, of whom it is told, -in a fashion familiar to our own time, that in sickness he grew pious -through fear. [710] Among his positions was a protest or rather satire -against the doctrine that the Gods punished children for the crimes of -their fathers. [711] In the other schools, Speusippos (fl. 343), the -nephew of Plato, leant to monotheism; [712] Strato of Lampsakos, the -Peripatetic (fl. 290), called "the Naturalist," taught sheer pantheism, -anticipating Laplace in declaring that he had no need of the action -of the Gods to account for the making of the world; [713] Dikaiarchos -(fl. 326-287), another disciple of Aristotle, denied the existence -of separate souls, and the possibility of foretelling the future; -[714] and Aristo and Cleanthes, disciples of Zeno, varied likewise in -the direction of pantheism; the latter's monotheism, as expressed in -his famous hymn, being one of several doctrines ascribed to him. [715] - -Contemporary with Epicurus and Zeno and Pyrrho, too, was Evêmeros -(Euhemerus), whose peculiar propaganda against Godism seems to imply -theoretic atheism. As an atheist he was vilified in a manner familiar -to modern ears, the Alexandrian poet Callimachus labelling him an -"arrogant old man vomiting impious books." [716] His lost work, of -which only a few extracts remain, undertook to prove that all the -Gods had been simply famous men, deified after death; the proof, -however, being by way of a fiction about old inscriptions found in -an imaginary island. [717] As above noted, [718] the idea may have -been borrowed from skeptical Phoenicians, the principle having already -been monotheistically applied by the Bible-making Jews, [719] though, -on the other hand, it had been artistically and to all appearance -uncritically acted on in the Homeric epopees. It may or may not then -have been by way of deliberate or reasoning Evêmerism that certain -early Greek and Roman deities were transformed, as we have seen, into -heroes or hetairai. [720] In any case, the principle seems to have had -considerable vogue in the later Hellenistic world; but with the effect -rather of paving the way for new cults than of setting up scientific -rationalism in place of the old ones. Quite a number of writers like -Palaiphatos, without going so far as Evêmeros, sought to reduce myths -to natural possibilities and events, by way of mediating between the -credulous and the incredulous. [721] Their method is mostly the naïf -one revived by the Abbé Banier in the eighteenth century of reducing -marvels to verbal misconceptions. Thus for Palaiphatos the myth of -Kerberos came from the facts that the city Trikarenos was commonly -spoken of as a beautiful and great dog; and that Geryon, who lived -there, had great dogs called Kerberoi; Actæon was "devoured by his -dogs" in the sense that he neglected his affairs and wasted his time -in hunting; the Amazons were shaved men, clad as were the women in -Thrace, and so on. [722] Palaiphatos and the Herakleitos who also -wrote De Incredibilibus agree that Pasiphae's bull was a man named -Tauros; and the latter writer similarly explains that Scylla was a -beautiful hetaira with avaricious hangers-on, and that the harpies -were ladies of the same profession. If the method seems childish, it -is to be remembered that as regards the explanation of supernatural -events it was adhered to by German theologians of a century ago; -and that its credulity in incredulity is still to be seen in the -current view that every narrative in the sacred books is to be taken -as necessarily standing for a fact of some kind. - -One of the inferrible effects of the Evêmerist method was to facilitate -for the time the adoption of the Egyptian and eastern usage of deifying -kings. It has been plausibly argued that this practice stands not -so much for superstition as for skepticism, its opponents being -precisely the orthodox believers, and its promoters those who had -learned to doubt the actuality of the traditional Gods. Evêmerism -would clinch such a tendency; and it is noteworthy that Evêmeros -lived at the court of Kassander (319-296 B.C.) in a period in which -every remaining member of the family of the deified Alexander had -perished, mostly by violence; while the contemporary Ptolemy I of -Egypt received the title of Sotêr, "Saviour," from the people of -Rhodes. [723] It is to be observed, however, that while in the next -generation Antiochus I of Syria received the same title, and his -successor Antiochus II that of Theos, "God," the usage passes away; -Ptolemy III being named merely Evergetês, "the Benefactor" (of the -priests), and even Antiochus III only "the Great." Superstition was -not to be ousted by a political exploitation of its machinery. [724] - -In Athens the democracy, restored in a subordinate form by Kassander's -opponent, Demetrius Poliorkêtes (307 B.C.), actually tried to put -down the philosophic schools, all of which, but the Aristotelian in -particular, were anti-democratic, and doubtless also comparatively -irreligious. Epicurus and some of his antagonists were exiled within a -year of his opening his school (306 B.C.); but the law was repealed in -the following year. [725] Theophrastos, the head of the Aristotelian -school, was indicted in the old fashion for impiety, which seems to -have consisted in denouncing animal sacrifice. [726] These repressive -attempts, however, failed; and no others followed at Athens in that -era; though in the next century the Epicureans seem to have been -expelled from Lythos in Crete and from Messenê in the Peloponnesos, -nominally for their atheism, in reality probably on political -grounds. [727] Thus Zeno was free to publish a treatise in which, -besides far out-going Plato in schemes for dragooning the citizens into -an ideal life, he proposed a State without temples or statues of the -Gods or law courts or gymnasia. [728] In the same age there is trace of -"an interesting case of rationalism even in the Delphic oracle." [729] -The people of the island of Astypalaia, plagued by hares or rabbits, -solemnly consulted the oracle, which briefly advised them to keep -dogs and take to hunting. About the same time we find Lachares, -temporarily despot at Athens, plundering the shrine of Pallas of its -gold. [730] Even in the general public there must have been a strain of -surviving rationalism; for among the fragments of Menander (fl. 300), -who, in general, seems to have leant to a well-bred orthodoxy, [731] -there are some speeches savouring of skepticism and pantheism. [732] - -It was in keeping with this general but mostly placid and non-polemic -latitudinarianism that the New Academy, the second birth, or rather -transformation, of the Platonic school, in the hands of Arkesilaos -and the great Carneades (213-129), and later of the Carthaginian -Clitomachos, should be marked by that species of skepticism thence -called Academic--a skepticism which exposed the doubtfulness of current -religious beliefs without going the Pyrrhonian length of denying that -any beliefs could be proved, or even denying the existence of the Gods. - - - For the arguments of Carneades against the Stoic doctrine of - immortality see Cicero, De natura Deorum, iii, 12, 17; and for - his argument against theism see Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math. ix, - 172, 183. Mr. Benn pronounces this criticism of theology "the most - destructive that has ever appeared, the armoury whence religious - skepticism ever since has been supplied" (The Philosophy of - Greece, etc., p. 258). This seems an over-statement. But it is - just to say, as does Mr. Whittaker (Priests, Philosophers, and - Prophets, 1911, p. 60; cp. p. 86), that "there has never been - a more drastic attack than that of Carneades, which furnished - Cicero with the materials for his second book, On Divination"; - and, as does Prof. Martha (Études Morales sur l'antiquité, 1889, - p. 77), that no philosophic or religious school has been able to - ignore the problems which Carneades raised. - - -As against the essentially uncritical Stoics, the criticism of -Carneades is sane and sound; and he has been termed by judicious -moderns "the greatest skeptical mind of antiquity" [733] and "the Bayle -of Antiquity"; [734] though he seems to have written nothing. [735] -There is such a concurrence of testimony as to the victorious power -of his oratory and the invincible skill of his dialectic [736] that -he must be reckoned one of the great intellectual and rationalizing -forces of his day, triumphing as he did in the two diverse arenas -of Greece and Rome. His disciple and successor Clitomachos said of -him, with Cicero's assent, that he had achieved a labour of Hercules -"in liberating our souls as it were of a fierce monster, credulity, -conjecture, rash belief." [737] He was, in short, a mighty antagonist -of thoughtless beliefs, clearing the ground for a rational life; -and the fact that he was chosen with Diogenes the Peripatetic and -Critolaos the Stoic to go to Rome to plead the cause of ruined -Athens, mulcted in an enormous fine, proved that he was held -in high honour at home. Athens, in short, was not at this stage -"too superstitious." Unreasoning faith was largely discredited by -philosophy. - -On this basis, in a healthy environment, science and energy might -have reared a constructive rationalism; and for a time astronomy, in -the hands of Aristarchos of Samos (third century B.C.), Eratosthenes -of Cyrene, the second keeper of the great Alexandrian library (2nd -cent. B.C.), and above all of Hipparchos of Nikaia, who did most of -his work in the island of Rhodes, was carried to a height of mastery -which could not be maintained, and was re-attained only in modern -times. [738] Thus much could be accomplished by "endowment of research" -as practised by the Ptolemies at Alexandria; and after science had -declined with the decline of their polity, and still further under -Roman rule, the new cosmopolitanism of the second century of the -empire reverted to the principle of intelligent evocation, producing -under the Antonines the "Second" School of Alexandria. - -But the social conditions remained fundamentally bad; and the earlier -greatness was never recovered. "History records not one astronomer -of note in the three centuries between Hipparchos and Ptolemy"; and -Ptolemy (fl. 140 C.E.) not only retrograded into astronomical error, -but elaborated on oriental lines a baseless fabric of astrology. [739] -Other science mostly decayed likewise. The Greek world, already led -to lower intellectual levels by the sudden ease and wealth opened -up to it through the conquests of Alexander and the rule of his -successors, was cast still lower by the Roman conquest. Pliny, -extolling Hipparchos with little comprehension of his work, must -needs pronounce him to have "dared a thing displeasing to God" in -numbering the stars for posterity. [740] In the air of imperialism, -stirred by no other, original thought could not arise; and the mass -of the Greek-speaking populations, rich and poor, gravitated to the -level of the intellectual [741] and emotional life of more or less -well-fed slaves. In this society there rapidly multiplied private -religious associations--thiasoi, eranoi, orgeones--in which men and -women, denied political life, found new bonds of union and grounds of -division in cultivating worships, mostly oriental, which stimulated -the religious sense and sentiment. [742] - -Such was the soil in which Christianity took root and flourished; -while philosophy, after the freethinking epoch following on the -fall of Athenian power, gradually reverted to one or other form -of mystical theism or theosophy, of which the most successful was -the Neo-Platonism of Alexandria. [743] When the theosophic Julian -rejoiced that Epicureanism had disappeared, [744] he was exulting in -a symptom of the intellectual decline that made possible the triumph -of the faith he most opposed. Christianity furthered a decadence -thus begun under the auspices of pagan imperialism; and "the fifth -century of the Christian era witnessed an almost total extinction of -the sciences in Alexandria" [745]--an admission which disposes of the -dispute as to the guilt of the Arabs in destroying the great library. - -Here and there, through the centuries, the old intellectual flame burns -whitely enough: the noble figure of Epictetus in the first century of -the new era, and that of the brilliant Lucian in the second, in their -widely different ways remind us that the evolved faculty was still -there if the circumstances had been such as to evoke it. Menippos in -the first century B.C. had played a similar part to that of Lucian, -in whose freethinking dialogues he so often figures; but with less -of subtlety and intellectuality. Lucian's was indeed a mind of the -rarest lucidity; and the argumentation of his dialogue Zeus Tragædos -covers every one of the main aspects of the theistic problem. There -is no dubiety as to his atheistic conclusion, which is smilingly -implicit in the reminder he puts in the mouth of Hermes, that, -though a few men may adopt the atheistic view, "there will always be -plenty of others who think the contrary--the majority of the Greeks, -the ignorant many, the populace, and all the barbarians." But the -moral doctrine of Epictetus is one of endurance and resignation; -and the almost unvarying raillery of Lucian, making mere perpetual -sport of the now moribund Olympian Gods, was hardly better fitted -than the all-round skepticism of the school of Sextus Empiricus to -inspire positive and progressive thinking. - -This latter school, described by Cicero as dispersed and extinct -in his day, [746] appears to have been revived in the first century -by Ænesidemos, who taught at Alexandria. [747] It seems to have been -through him in particular that the Pyrrhonic system took the clear-cut -form in which it is presented at the close of the second century by -the accomplished Sextus "Empiricus"--that is, the empirical (i.e., -experiential) physician, [748] who lived at Alexandria and Athens -(fl. 175-205 C.E.). As a whole, the school continued to discredit -dogmatism without promoting knowledge. Sextus, it is true, strikes -acutely and systematically at ill-founded beliefs, and so makes for -reason; [749] but, like the whole Pyrrhonian school, he has no idea -of a method which shall reach sounder conclusions. As the Stoics -had inculcated the control of the passions as such, so the skeptics -undertook to make men rise above the prejudices and presuppositions -which swayed them no less blindly than ever did their passions. But -Sextus follows a purely skeptical method, never rising from the -destruction of false beliefs to the establishment of true. His aim is -ataraxia, a philosophic calm of non-belief in any dogmatic affirmation -beyond the positing of phenomena as such; and while such an attitude -is beneficently exclusive of all fanaticism, it unfortunately never -makes any impression on the more intolerant fanatic, who is shaken only -by giving him a measure of critical truth in place of his error. And -as Sextus addressed himself to the students of philosophy, not to -the simple believers in the Gods, he had no wide influence. [750] -Avowedly accepting the normal view of moral obligations while rejecting -dogmatic theories of their basis, the doctrine of the strict skeptics -had the effect, from Pyrrho onwards, of giving the same acceptance -to the common religion, merely rejecting the philosophic pretence -of justifying it. Taken by themselves, the arguments against current -theism in the third book of the Hypotyposes [751] are unanswerable; -but, when bracketed with other arguments against the ordinary belief -in causation, they had the effect of leaving theism on a par with -that belief. Against religious beliefs in particular, therefore, -they had no wide destructive effect. - -Lucian, again, thought soundly and sincerely on life; his praise -of the men whose memories he respected, as Epicurus and Demonax (if -the Life of Demonax attributed to him be really his), is grave and -heartfelt; and his ridicule of the discredited Gods was perfectly -right so far as it went. It is certain that the unbelievers and the -skeptics alike held their own with the believers in the matter of -right living. [752] In the period of declining pagan belief, the maxim -that superstition was a good thing for the people must have wrought -a quantity and a kind of corruption that no amount of ridicule of -religion could ever approach. Polybius (fl. 150 B.C.) agrees with -his complacent Roman masters that their greatness is largely due -to the carefully cultivated superstition of their populace, and -charges with rashness and folly those who would uproot the growth; -[753] and Strabo, writing under Tiberius--unless it be a later -interpolator of his work--confidently lays down the same principle -of governmental deceit, [754] though in an apparently quite genuine -passage he vehemently protests the incredibility of the traditional -tales about Apollo. [755] So far had the doctrine evolved since Plato -preached it. But to countervail it there needed more than a ridicule -which after all reached only the class who had already cast off the -beliefs derided, leaving the multitude unenlightened. The lack of the -needed machinery of enlightenment was, of course, part of the general -failure of the Græco-Roman civilization; and no one man's efforts could -have availed, even if any man of the age could have grasped the whole -situation. Rather the principle of esoteric enlightenment, the ideal -of secret knowledge, took stronger hold as the mass grew more and more -comprehensively superstitious. Even at the beginning of the Christian -era the view that Homer's deities were allegorical beings was freshly -propounded in the writings of Herakleides and Cornutus (Phornutus); -but it served only as a kind of mystical Gnosis, on all fours with -Christian Gnosticism, and was finally taken up by Neo-Platonists, -who were no nearer rationalism for adopting it. [756] - -So with the rationalism to which we have so many uneasy or hostile -allusions in Plutarch. We find him resenting the scoffs of Epicureans -at the doctrine of Providence, and recoiling from the "abyss of -impiety" [757] opened up by those who say that "Aphrodite is simply -desire, and Hermes eloquence, and the Muses the arts and sciences, -and Athênê wisdom, and Dionysos merely wine, Hephaistos fire, and -Dêmêtêr corn"; [758] and in his essay On Superstition he regretfully -recognizes the existence of many rational atheists, confessing that -their state of mind is better than that of the superstitious who abound -around him, with their "impure purifications and unclean cleansings," -their barbaric rites, and their evil Gods. But the unbelievers, with -their keen contempt for popular folly, availed as little against it as -Plutarch himself, with his doctrine of a just mean. The one effectual -cure would have been widened knowledge; and of such an evolution the -social conditions did not permit. - -To return to a state of admiration for the total outcome of Greek -thought, then, it is necessary to pass from the standpoint of -simple analysis to that of comparison. It is in contrast with the -relatively slight achievement of the other ancient civilizations -that the Greek, at its height, still stands out for posterity as a -wonderful growth. That which, tried by the test of ideals, is as a -whole only one more tragic chapter in the record of human frustration, -yet contains within it light and leading as well as warning; and -for long ages it was as a lost Paradise to a darkened world. It has -been not untruly said that "the Greek spirit is immortal, because -it was free": [759] free not as science can now conceive freedom, -but in contrast with the spiritual bondage of Jewry and Egypt, the -half-barbaric tradition of imperial Babylon, and the short flight -of mental life in Rome. Above all, it was ever in virtue of the -freedom that the high things were accomplished; and it was ever the -falling away from freedom, the tyranny either of common ignorance -or of mindless power, that wrought decadence. There is a danger, -too, of injustice in comparing Athens with later States. When a high -authority pronounces that "the religious views of the Demos were of -the narrowest kind," [760] he is not to be gainsaid; but the further -verdict that "hardly any people has sinned more heavily against the -liberty of science" is unduly lenient to Christian civilization. The -heaviest sins of that against science, indeed, lie at the door of -the Catholic Church; but to make that an exoneration of the modern -"peoples" as against the ancient would be to load the scales. And -even apart from the Catholic Church, which practically suppressed -all science for a thousand years, the attitude of Protestant leaders -and Protestant peoples, from Luther down to the second half of the -nineteenth century, has been one of hatred and persecution towards -all science that clashed with the sacred books. [761] In the Greek -world there was more scientific discussion in the three hundred -years down to Epicurus than took place in the whole of Christian -Europe in thirteen hundred; and the amount of actual violence used -towards innovators in the pagan period, though lamentable enough, -was trifling in comparison with that recorded in Christian history, -to say nothing of the frightful annals of witch-burning, to which -there is no parallel in civilized heathen history. The critic, too, -goes on to admit that, while "Sokrates, Anaxagoras, and Aristotle -fell victims in different degrees to the bigotry of the populace," -"of course their offence was political rather than religious. They -were condemned not as heretics, but as innovators in the state -religion." And, as we have seen, all three of the men named taught in -freedom for many years till political faction turned popular bigotry -against them. The true measure of Athenian narrowness is not to be -reached, therefore, without keeping in view the long series of modern -outrages and maledictions against the makers and introducers of new -machinery, and the multitude of such episodes as the treatment of -Priestley in Christian Birmingham, little more than a century ago. On -a full comparison the Greeks come out not ill. - -It was, in fact, impossible that the Greeks should either stifle -or persecute science or freethought as it was either stifled or -persecuted by ancient Jews (who had almost no science by reason of -their theology) or by modern Christians, simply because the Greeks -had no anti-scientific hieratic literature. It remains profoundly -significant for science that the ancient civilization which on the -smallest area evolved the most admirable life, which most completely -transcended all the sources from which it originally drew, and left a -record by which men are still charmed and taught, was a civilization -as nearly as might be without Sacred Books, without an organized -priesthood, and with the largest measure of democratic freedom that -the ancient world ever saw. - - - - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -FREETHOUGHT IN ANCIENT ROME - - -§ 1 - -The Romans, so much later than the Greeks in their intellectual -development, were in some respects peculiarly apt--in the case of -their upper class--to accept freethinking ideas when Greek rationalism -at length reached them. After receiving from their Greek neighbours -in Southern Italy, in the pre-historic period, the germs of higher -culture, in particular the alphabet, they rather retrograded than -progressed for centuries, the very alphabet degenerating for lack -of literary activity [762] in the absence of any culture class, and -under the one-idea'd rule of the landowning aristocracy, whose bent -to military aggression was correlative to the smallness of the Roman -facilities for commerce. In the earlier ages nearly everything in -the nature of written lore was a specialty of a few priests, and was -limited to their purposes, which included some keeping of annals. [763] -The use of writing for purposes of family records seems to have been -the first literary development among the patrician laity. [764] -In the early republican period, however, the same conditions of -relative poverty, militarism, and aristocratic emulation prevented -any development even of the priesthood beyond the rudimentary stage -of a primitive civic function; and the whole of these conditions in -combination kept the Roman Pantheon peculiarly shadowy, and the Roman -mythology abnormally undeveloped. - - - The character of the religion of the Romans has been usually - explained in the old manner, in terms of their particular "genius" - and lack of genius. On this view the Romans primordially tended - to do whatever they did--to be slightly religious in one period, - and highly so in another. Teuffel quite unconsciously reduces - the theorem to absurdity in two phrases: "As long as the peculiar - character of the Roman nation remained unaltered" ... (Hist. of - Roman Lit. ed. Schwabe, Eng. tr. 1900, i, 2): "the peculiar Roman - character had now come to an end, and for ever" (id. p. 123). By - no writer has the subject been more unphilosophically treated than - by Mommsen, whose chapter on Roman religion (vol. i, ch. xii) is - an insoluble series of contradictions. (See the present writer's - Christianity and Mythology, pp. 115-17.) M. Boissier contradicts - himself hardly less strangely, alternately pronouncing the Latin - religion timid and confident, prostrate and dignified (La religion - romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins, 4e édit. i, 7, 8, 26, 28). Both - writers ascribe every characteristic of Roman religion to the - character of "the Romans" in the lump--a method which excludes - any orderly conception. It must be abandoned if there is to be - any true comprehension of the subject. - - Other verdicts of this kind by Ihne, Jevons, and others, will no - better bear examination. (See Christianity and Mythology, pt. i, - ch. iii, § 3.) Dr. Warde Fowler, the latest English specialist - to handle the question, confidently supports the strange thesis - (dating from Schwartz) that the multitude of deities and daimons - of the early Latins were never thought of as personal, or as - possessing sex, until Greek mythology and sculpture set the - fashion of such conceptions, whereupon "this later and foreign - notion of divinity so completely took possession of the minds of - the Romans of the cosmopolitan city that Varro is the only writer - who has preserved the tradition of the older way of thinking" - (The Religious Experience of the Roman People, 1911, p. 147). That - is to say, the conception of the Gods in the imageless period was - an "older way of thinking," in which deities called by male and - female names, and often addressed as Pater and Mater, were not - really thought of as anthropomorphic at all! How the early Romans - conceived their non-imaged deities Dr. Fowler naturally does not - attempt to suggest. We get merely the unreasoned and unexplained - negative formula that "we may take it as certain that even the - greater deities of the calendar, Janus, Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus, - and Vesta, were not thought of as existing in any sense in human - form, nor as personal beings having any human characteristics. The - early Romans were destitute of mythological fancy...." - - Either, then, the early Romans were psychologically alien to - every other primitive or barbaric people, as known to modern - anthropology, or, by parity of reasoning, all anthropomorphism - is the spontaneous creation of sculptors, who had no ground - whatever in previous psychosis for making images of Gods. The - Greeks, on this view, had no anthropomorphic notion of their - deities until suddenly sculptors began to make images of them, - whereupon everybody promptly and obediently anthropomorphized! - - The way out of this hopeless theorem is indicated for Dr. Fowler - by his own repeated observation that the Roman jus divinum, in - which he finds so little sign of normal "mythological fancy," - represented the deliberately restrictive action of an official - priesthood for whom all religio was a kind of State magic or - "medicine." He expressly insists (p. 24) on "the wonderful work - done by the early authorities from the State in eliminating from - their rule of worship (jus divinum) almost all that was magical, - barbarous, or, as later Romans would have called it, superstitious" - (Lect. ii, p. 24; cp. Lect. iii.). He even inclines to the view - that the patrician religion "was really the religion of an - invading race, like that of the Achæans in Greece, engrafted - on the religion of a primitive and less civilized population" - (pp. viii, 23). This thesis is not necessary to the rebuttal of - his previous negation; but it obviously resists it, unless we are - to make the word "Roman" apply only to patricians. An invading - tribe might, in the case of Rome as in that of the Homeric Greeks, - abandon ordinary and localized primitive beliefs which it had held - in its previous home, and thereafter be officially reluctant to - recognize the local superstitions of its conquered plebs. - - But the Roman case can be understood without assuming any - continuity of racial divergence. Livy shows us that the Latin - peasantry were, if possible, more given to superstitious fears and - panics than any other, constantly reporting portents and prodigia - which called for State ritual, and embarrassing military policy by - their apprehensions. A patrician priesthood, concerned above all - things for public polity, would in such circumstances naturally - seek to minimize the personal side of the popular mythology, - treating all orders of divinity as mere classes of powers to be - appeased. The fact (id. p. 29) that among the early Romans, as - among other primitives, women were rigidly excluded from certain - sacra points to a further ground for keeping out of official - sight the sex life of the Gods. But the very ritual formula of - the Fratres Arvales, Sive deus sive dea (p. 149), proves that the - deities were habitually thought of as personal, and male or female. - - Dr. Fowler alternately and inconsistently argues that the - "vulgar mind was ready to think of God-couples" (p. 152), and - that the conjunctions of masculine and feminine names in the - Roman Pantheon "do not represent popular ideas of the deities, - but ritualistic forms of invocation" (p. 153). The answer is that - the popular mind is the matrix of mythology, and that if a State - ritual given to minimizing mythology recognized a given habit - of myth-making it was presumably abundant outside. In short, - the whole academic process of reducing early Roman religion to - something unparalleled in anthropology is as ill-founded in the - data as it is repugnant to scientific thought. - - The differentiation of Greek and Roman religion is to be explained - by the culture-history of the two peoples; and that, in turn, - was determined by their geographical situation and their special - contacts. Roman life was made systematically agricultural and - militarist by its initial circumstances, where Greek life in - civilized Asia Minor became industrial, artistic, and literary. The - special "genius" of Homer, or of various members of an order of - bards developed by early colonial-feudal Grecian conditions, would - indeed count for much by giving permanent artistic definiteness - of form to the Greek Gods, where the early Romans, leaving all - the vocal arts mainly to the conservative care of their women - and children as something beneath adult male notice, missed the - utilization of poetic genius among them till they were long past - the period of romantic simplicity (cp. Mommsen, bk. i, ch. 15; - Eng. tr. 1894, vol. i, pp. 285-300). Hence the comparative - abstractness of their unsung Gods (cp. Schwegler, Römische - Geschichte, i, 225-28, and refs.; Boissier, La religion romaine, - as cited, i, 8), and the absence of such a literary mythology as - was evolved and preserved in Greece by local patriotisms under - the stimulus of the great epopees and tragedies. The doctrine that - "the Italian is deficient in the passion of the heart," and that - therefore "Italian" literature has "never produced a true epos - or a genuine drama" (Mommsen, ch. 15, vol. i, p. 284), is one of - a thousand samples of the fallacy of explaining a phenomenon in - terms of itself. Teuffel with equal futility affirms the contrary: - "Of the various kinds of poetry, dramatic poetry seems after all - to be most in conformity with the character of the Roman people" - (as cited, p. 3; cp. p. 28 as to the epos). On the same verbalist - method, Mommsen decides as to the Etruscan religion that "the - mysticism and barbarism of their worship had their foundation - in the essential character of the Etruscan people" (ch. 12, - p. 232). Schwegler gives a more objective view of the facts, but, - like other German writers whom he cites, errs in speaking of early - deities like Picus as "only aspects of Mars," not realizing that - Mars is merely the surviving or developed deity of that type. He - also commits the conventional error of supposing that the early - Roman religion is fundamentally monotheistic or pantheistic, - because the multitudinous "abstract" deities are "only" aspects - of the general force of Nature. The notion that the Romans did - not anthropomorphize their deities like all other peoples is a - surprising fallacy. - - -Thus when Rome, advancing in the career of conquest, had developed -a large aristocratic class, living a city life, with leisure for -intellectual interests, and had come in continuous contact with -the conquered Grecian cities of Southern Italy, its educated men -underwent a literary and a rationalistic influence at the same time, -and were the more ready to give up all practical belief in their -own slightly-defined Gods when they found Greeks explaining away -theirs. Here we see once more the primary historic process by which -men are led to realize the ill-founded character of their hereditary -creeds: the perception is indirectly set up by the reflective -recognition of the creeds of others, and all the more readily when the -others give a critical lead. Indeed, Greek rationalism was already old -when the Romans began to develop a written and artistic literature: it -had even taken on the popular form given to it by Evêmeros a century -before the Romans took it up. Doubtless there was skepticism among -the latter before Ennius: such a piece of religious procedure as the -invention of a God of Silver (Argentinus), son of the God of Copper -(Æsculanus), on the introduction of a silver currency, 269 B.C., -must have been smiled at by the more intelligent. [765] - - - Mommsen states (ii, 70) that at this epoch the Romans kept - "equally aloof from superstition and unbelief," but this is - inaccurate on both sides. The narrative of Livy exhibits among - the people a boundless and habitual superstition. The records - of absurd prodigies of every sort so throng his pages that he - himself repeatedly ventures to make light of them. Talking oxen, - skies on fire, showers of flesh, crows and mice eating gold, rivers - flowing blood, showers of milk--such were the reports chronically - made to the Roman government by its pious subjects, and followed - by anxious religious ceremonies at Rome (cp. Livy, iii, 5, 10; x, - 27; xi, 28-35; xxiv, 44; xxvii, 4, 11, 23, etc., etc. In the index - to Drakenborch's Livy there are over five columns of references - to prodigia). On the other hand, though superstition was certainly - the rule, there are traces of rationalism. On the next page after - that cited, Mommsen himself admits that the faith of the people had - already been shaken by the interference allowed to the priestly - colleges in political matters; and in another chapter (bk. ii, - ch. 13; vol. ii, 112) he recalls that a consul of the Claudian - gens had jested openly at the auspices in the first Punic war, - 249 B.C. The story is told by Cicero, De natura Deorum, ii, 3, - and Suetonius, Tiberius, c. 2. The sacred poultry, on being let - out of their coop on board ship, would not feed, so that the - auspices could not be taken; whereupon the consul caused them to - be thrown into the water, etiam per jocum Deos inridens, saying - they might drink if they would not eat. His colleague Junius in - the same war also disregarded the auspices; and in both cases, - according to Balbus the Stoic in Cicero's treatise, the Roman - fleets were duly defeated; whereupon Claudius was condemned by - the people, and Junius committed suicide. Cp. Valerius Maximus, - l. i, c. iv, § 3. - - Such stories would fortify the age-long superstition as to auspices - and omens, which was in full force among Greek commanders as late - as Xenophon, when many cultured Greeks were rationalists. But it - was mainly a matter of routine, in a sphere where freethought - is slow to penetrate. There was probably no thought of jesting - when, in the year 193 B.C., after men had grown weary alike of - earthquakes and of the religious services prescribed on account - of them; and after the consuls had been worn out by sacrifices and - expiations, it was decreed that "if on any day a service had been - arranged for a reported earthquake, no one should report another - on that day" (Livy, xxxiv, 55). Cato, who would never have dreamt - of departing from a Roman custom, was the author of the saying - (Cicero, De Div. ii, 24) that haruspices might well laugh in each - other's faces. He had in view the Etruscan practice, being able to - see the folly of that, though not of his own. Cp. Mommsen, iii, - 116. As to the Etruscan origin of the haruspices, in distinction - from the augurs, see Schwegler, i, 276, 277; Ihne, Eng. ed. i, - 82-83, note; and O. Müller as there cited. - - -But it is with the translation of the Sacred History of Evêmeros -by Ennius, about 200 B.C., that the literary history of Roman -freethought begins. In view of the position of Ennius as a teacher -of Greek and belles lettres (he being of Greek descent, and born -in Calabria), it cannot be supposed that he would openly translate -an anti-religious treatise without the general acquiescence of his -aristocratic patrons. Cicero says of him that he "followed" as well -as translated Evêmeros; [766] and his favourite Greek dramatists -were the freethinking Euripides and Epicharmos, from both of whom -he translated. [767] The popular superstitions, in particular those -of soothsaying and divination, he sharply attacked. [768] If his -patrons all the while stood obstinately to the traditional usages -of official augury and ritual, it was in the spirit of political -conservatism that belonged to their class and their civic ideal, -and on the principle that religion was necessary for the control of -the multitude. In Etruria, where the old culture had run largely -to mysticism and soothsaying on quasi-oriental lines, the Roman -government took care to encourage it, by securing the theological -monopoly of the upper-class families, [769] and thus set up a standing -hot-bed of superstition. In the same spirit they adopted from time -to time popular cults from Greece, that of the Phrygian Mother of the -Gods being introduced in the year 204 B.C. The attempt (186 B.C.) to -suppress the Bacchic mysteries, of which a distorted and extravagant -account [770] is given by Livy, was made on grounds of policy and -not of religion; and even if the majority of the senate had not been -disposed to encourage the popular appetite for emotional foreign -worships, the multitude of their own accord would have introduced -the latter, in resentment of the exclusiveness of the patricians in -keeping the old domestic and national cults in their own hands. [771] -As now eastern conquests multiplied the number of foreign slaves -and residents in Rome, the foreign worships multiplied with them; -and with the worships came such forms of freethought as then existed -in Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt. In resistance to these, as to the -orgiastic worships, political and religious conservatism for a time -combined. In 173 B.C. the Greek Epicurean philosophers Alkaios and -Philiskos were banished from the city, [772] a step which was sure to -increase the interest in Epicureanism. Twelve years later the Catonic -party carried a curt decree in the Senate against the Greek rhetors, -[773] uti Romae ne essent; and in 155 the interest aroused by Carneades -and the other Athenian ambassadors led to their being suddenly -sent home, on Cato's urging. [774] It seems certain that Carneades -made converts to skepticism, among them being the illustrious Scipio -Æmilianus. [775] In the sequel the Greeks multiplied, especially after -the fall of Macedonia, [776] and in the year 92 we find the censors -vetoing the practices of the Latin rhetors as an unpleasing novelty, -[777] thus leaving the Greeks in possession of the field. [778] But, -the general social tendency being downwards, it was only a question of -time when the rationalism should be overgrown by the superstition. In -137 there had been another vain edict against the foreign soothsayers -and the worshippers of Sabazius; [779] but it was such cults that -were to persist, while the old Roman religion passed away, [780] -save insofar as it had a non-literary survival among the peasantry. - - - - -§ 2 - -While self-government lasted, rationalism among the cultured classes -was fairly common. The great poem of Lucretius, On the Nature of -Things, with its enthusiastic exposition of the doctrine of Epicurus, -remains to show to what a height of sincerity and ardour a Roman -freethinker could rise. No Greek utterance that has come down to us -makes so direct and forceful an attack as his on religion as a social -institution. He is practically the first systematic freethinking -propagandist; so full is he of his purpose that after his stately -prologue to alma Venus, who is for him but a personification of the -genetic forces of Nature, he plunges straight into his impeachment of -religion as a foul tyranny from which thinking men were first freed -by Epicurus. The sonorous verse vibrates with an indignation such as -Shelley's in Queen Mab: religion is figured as horribili super aspectu -mortalibus instans; a little further on its deeds are denounced as -scelerosa atque impia, "wicked and impious," the religious term being -thus turned against itself; and a moving picture of the sacrifice of -Iphigeneia justifies the whole. "To so much of evil could religion -persuade." It is with a bitter consciousness of the fatal hold of the -hated thing on most men's ignorant imagination that he goes on to speak -of the fears [781] so assiduously wrought upon by the vates, and to -set up with strenuous speed the vividly-imagined system of Epicurean -science by which he seeks to fortify his friend against them. That -no thing comes from nothing, or lapses into nothing; that matter is -eternal; that all things proceed "without the Gods" by unchanging law, -are his insistent themes; and for nigh two thousand years a religious -world has listened with a reluctant respect. His influence is admitted -to have been higher and nobler than that of the religion he assailed. - - - "Lucretius was the first not only to reveal a new power, beauty, - and mystery in the world, but also to communicate to poetry a - speculative impulse, opening up, with a more impassioned appeal - than philosophy can do, the great questions underlying human - life--such as the truth of all religious tradition, the position - of man in the universe, and the attitude of mind and course of - conduct demanded by that position." (Sellar, Roman Poets of the - Republic: Virgil, 1877, p. 199.) - - "In the eyes of Lucretius all worship seemed prompted by fear - and based on ignorance of natural law.... But it is nevertheless - true that Lucretius was a great religious poet. He was a prophet, - in deadly earnest, calling men to renounce their errors both of - thought and conduct.... We may be certain that he was absolutely - convinced of the truth of all that he wrote." (W. Warde Fowler, - Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero, 1909, pp. 327-28.) - - -And yet throughout the whole powerful poem we have testimony to the -pupillary character of Roman thought in relation to Grecian. However -much the earnest student may outgo his masters in emphasis and zeal of -utterance, he never transcends the original irrationality of asserting -that "the Gods" exist; albeit it is their glory to do nothing. It is -in picturing their ineffable peace that he reaches some of his finest -strains of song, [782] though in the next breath he repudiates every -idea of their control of things cosmic or human. He swears by their -sacred breasts, proh sancta deum pectora, and their life of tranquil -joy, when he would express most vehemently his scorn of the thought -that it can be they who hurl the lightnings which haply destroy their -own temples and strike down alike the just and the unjust. It is a -survival of a quite primitive conception of deity, [783] alongside -of an advanced anti-religious criticism. - -The explanation of the anomaly seems to be twofold. In the first -place, Roman thought had not lived long enough--it never did live -long enough--to stand confidently on its own feet and criticize -its Greek teachers. In Cicero's treatise On the Nature of the Gods, -the Epicurean and the Stoic in turn retail their doctrine as they -had it from their school, the Epicurean affirming the existence -and the inaction of the Gods with equal confidence, and repeating -without a misgiving the formula about the Gods having not bodies -but quasi-bodies, with not blood but quasi-blood; the Stoic, who -stands by most of the old superstitions, professing to have his -philosophical reasons for them. Each sectarian derides the beliefs -of the other; neither can criticize his own creed. It would seem -as if in the habitually militarist society, even when it turns to -philosophy, there must prevail a militarist ethic and psychosis in the -intellectual life, each man choosing a flag or a leader and fighting -through thick and thin on that side henceforth. On the other hand, -the argumentation of the high-priest Cotta in the dialogue turns to -similar purpose the kindred principle of civic tradition. He argues -in turn against the Epicurean's science and the Stoic's superstition, -contesting alike the claim that the Gods are indifferent and the -claim that they govern; and in the end he brazenly affirms that, -while he sees no sound philosophic argument for religious beliefs and -practices, he thinks it is justifiable to maintain them on the score -of prescription or ancestral example. Here we have the senatorial -or conservative principle, [784] availing itself of the skeptical -dialectic of Carneades. In terms of that ideal, which prevailed alike -with believers and indifferentists, [785] and mediated between such -rival schools as the Epicurean and Stoic, we may partly explain the -Epicurean theorem itself. For the rest, it is to be understood as an -outcome partly of surviving sentiment and partly of forced compromise -in the case of its Greek framers, and of the habit of partizan loyalty -in the case of its Roman adherents. - -In the arguments of Cotta, the unbelieving high-priest, we presumably -have the doctrine of Cicero himself, [786] who in the Academica avows -his admiration of Carneades's reasoning, and in the De Divinatione -follows it, but was anchored by officialism to State usage. With -his vacillating character, his forensic habit, and his genius for -mere speech, he could not but betray his own lack of intellectual -conviction; and such weakness as his found its natural support in -the principle of use and wont, the practice and tradition of the -commonwealth. On that footing he had it in him to boast like any -pedigreed patrician of the historic religiousness of Rome, he himself -the while being devoid of all confident religious belief. His rhetoric -on the subject can hardly be otherwise estimated than as sheer hustings -hypocrisy. Doubtless he gave philosophic colour to his practice by -noting the hopeless conflict of the creeds of the positive sects, -very much as in our own day conservative dialectic finds a ground for -religious conformity in the miscarriages of the men of science. [787] -But Cicero does not seem even to have had a religious sentiment to -cover the nakedness of his political opportunism. Not only does he in -the Tusculan Disputations put aside in the Platonic fashion all the -Homeric tales which anthropomorphize and discredit the Gods; [788] -but in his treatise On Divination he shows an absolute disbelief in -all the recognized practices, including the augury which he himself -officially practised; and his sole excuse is that they are to be -retained "on account of popular opinion and of their great public -utility." [789] As to prodigies, he puts in germ the argument later -made famous by Hume: either the thing could happen (in the course of -nature) or it could not; if it could not, the story is false; if it -could, non esse mirandum--there is no miracle. [790] In his countless -private letters, again, he shows not a trace of religious feeling, -[791] or even of interest in the questions which in his treatises -he declares to be of the first importance. [792] Even the doctrine -of immortality, to which he repeatedly returns, seems to have been -for him, as for so many Christians since, only a forensic theme, -never a source of the private consolation he ascribed to it. [793] -In Cicero's case, in fine, we reach the conclusion that either the -noted inconstancy of his character pervaded all his thinking, or -that his gift for mere utterance, and his demoralizing career as an -advocate, overbore in him all sincere reflection. But, indeed, the -practical subversion of all rational ethic in the public life of late -republican Rome, wherein men claimed to be free and self-governing, -yet lived by oppressing the rest of the world, was on all hands fatal -to the moral rectitude which inspires a critical philosophy. - - - Modern scholarship still clings to the long-established view that - Cicero was practically right, and that Lucretius was practically - wrong. Augustus, says Dr. Warde Fowler, was fortunate in finding - in Virgil "one who was in some sense a prophet as well as a poet, - who could urge the Roman by an imaginative example to return - to a living pietas--not merely to the old religious forms, - but to the intelligent sense of duty to God and man which - had built up his character and his empire. In Cicero's day - there was also a great poet, he too in some sense a prophet; - but Lucretius could only appeal to the Roman to shake off the - slough of his old religion, and such an appeal was at the time - both futile and dangerous. Looking at the matter historically, - and not theologically, we ought to sympathize with the attitude - of Cicero and Scaevola towards the religion of the State. It was - based on a statesmanlike instinct; and had it been possible for - that instinct to express itself practically in a positive policy - like that of Augustus, it is quite possible that much mischief - might have been averted" (Social Life at Rome, pp. 325-26). - - It is necessary to point out (1) that the early Roman's "sense of - duty to God and man" was never of a kind that could fitly be termed - "intelligent"; and (2) that it was his character that made his - creed, and not his creed his character, though creed once formed - reacts on conduct. Further, it may be permitted to suggest that - we might consider historical problems morally, and to deprecate - the academic view that "statesmanship" is something necessarily - divorced from veracity. The imperfect appeal of Lucretius to the - spirit of truth in an ignorant and piratical community, living - an increasingly parasitic life, was certainly "futile"; but it is - a strange sociology that sees in it something "dangerous," while - regarding the life of perpetual conquest and plunder as a matter - of course, and the practice of systematic deceit as wholesome. - - The summary of the situation is that Cicero's policy of religious - make-believe could no more have "saved" Rome than Plato's could - have saved Athens, or than that of Augustus did save the empire. It - went downhill about as steadily after as before him; and it - continued to do so under Christianity as under paganism. The - decline was absolutely involved in the policy of universal - conquest; and neither creeds nor criticism of creeds could have - "averted" the result while the cause subsisted. But there is - something gratuitously anti-rational in the thesis that such - a decay might have been prevented by a politic manipulation - of beliefs known to be false, and that some regeneration - was really worked in Rome by the tale of pious Æneas. In his - Religious Experience of the Roman People (1911) Dr. Fowler is - more circumspect. - - -In the upper-class Rome of Cicero's day his type seems to have been -predominant, [794] the women alone being in the mass orthodox, [795] -and in their case the tendency was to add new superstitions to the -old. Among public men there subsisted a clear understanding that public -religion should continue for reasons of State. When we find an eminent -politician like the elder M. Æmilius Scaurus prosecuted in the year 103 -B.C. on a charge of neglecting certain religious ceremonies connected -with his offices, we know that there had been neither conscientious -abstention on his part nor sincere religious resentment on the other -side, but merely a resort by political enemies, after Greek precedent, -to a popular means of blackening an antagonist; for the same Scaurus, -who was a member of the college of augurs, had actually rebuilt or -restored the temple of Fides, said to have been founded by Numa, and -that of Mens (Prudence), which had been set up after the great defeat -of the Romans at the Trasimene lake; [796] the early and the late -procedure alike illustrating the political and pragmatic character -of the State religion. [797] In the supreme figure of Julius Cæsar -we see the Roman brain at its strongest; and neither his avowed -unbelief in the already popular doctrine of immortality, [798] nor -his repeatedly expressed contempt for the auspices, [799] withheld -him from holding and fulfilling the function of high pontiff. The -process of skepticism had been rapid among the men of action. The -illiterate Marius carried about with him a Syrian prophetess; of -Sulla, who unhesitatingly plundered the temple of Delphi, it was -said that he carried a small figure of Apollo as an amulet; [800] -of Cæsar, unless insofar as it may be true that in his last years, -like Napoleon, he grew to believe in omens as his powers failed, -under the stress of perpetual conflict, [801] it cannot be pretended -that he was aught but a convinced freethinker. [802] The greatest and -most intellectual man of action in the ancient world had no part in -the faith which was supposed to have determined the success of the -most powerful of all the ancient nations. - - - Dean Merivale, noting that Cæsar "professed without reserve - the principles of the unbelievers," observes that, "freethinker - as he was, he could not escape from the universal thraldom of - superstition in which his contemporaries were held" (Hist. of - the Romans under the Empire, ed. 1865, ii, 424). The reproach, - from a priest, is piquant, but misleading. All the stories - on which it is founded apply to the last two or three years - of Cæsar's life; and supposing them to be all true, which is - very doubtful, they would but prove what has been suggested - above--that the overstrained soldier, rising to the dizzy height - of a tremendous career, partly lost his mental balance, like so - many another. (Cp. Mackail, Latin Literature, 1895, p. 80.) Such - is the bearing of the doubtful story (Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxviii, - 2) that after the breaking down of a chariot (presumably the - casualty which took place in his fourfold triumph; see Dio - Cassius, xlviii, 21) he never mounted another without muttering - a charm. M. Boissier (i, 70) makes the statement of Pliny apply - to Cæsar's whole life; but although Pliny gives no particulars, - even Dean Merivale (p. 372) connects it with the accident in the - triumph. To the same time belongs the less challengeable record - (Dio Cassius, lx, 23) of his climbing on his knees up the steps of - the Capitol to propitiate Nemesis. The very questionable legend, - applied so often to other captains, of his saying, I have thee, - Africa, when he stumbled on landing (Sueton. Jul. 59), is a - proof not of superstition but of presence of mind in checking - the superstitious fears of the troops, and was so understood by - Suetonius; as was the rather flimsy story of his taking with him - in Africa a man nicknamed Salutio (Sueton. ibid.) to neutralize the - luck of the opposing Cornelii. The whole turn given to the details - by the clerical historian is arbitrary and unjudicial. Nor is he - accurate in saying that Cæsar "denied the Gods" in the Senate. He - actually swore by them, per Deos immortales, in the next sentence - to that in which he denied a future state. The assertion of - the historian (p. 423), that in denying the immortality of the - soul Cæsar denied "the recognized foundation of all religion," - is a no less surprising error. The doctrine never had been so - recognized in ancient Rome. A Christian ecclesiastic might have - been expected to remember that the Jewish religion, believed by - him to be divine, was devoid of the "recognized foundation" in - question, and that the canonical book of Ecclesiastes expressly - discards it. Of course Cæsar offered sacrifices to Gods in whom - he did not believe. That was the habitual procedure of his age. - - - - -§ 3 - -It is significant that the decay of rationalism in Rome begins and -proceeds with the Empire. Augustus, whose chosen name was sacerdotal -in its character, [803] made it part of his policy to restore as far -as possible the ancient cults, many of which had fallen into extreme -neglect, between the indifference of the aristocratic class [804] -and the devotion of the populace, itself so largely alien, to the -more attractive worships introduced from Egypt and the East. That -he was himself a habitually superstitious man seems certain; [805] -but even had he not been, his policy would have been natural from the -Roman point of view. A historian of two centuries later puts in the -mouth of Mæcenas an imagined counsel to the young emperor to venerate -and enforce the national religion, to exclude and persecute foreign -cults, to put down alike atheism and magic, to control divination -officially, and to keep an eye on the philosophers. [806] What -the empire sought above all things was stability; and a regimen of -religion, under imperial control, seemed one of the likeliest ways -to keep the people docile. Julius himself had seemed to plan such a -policy, [807] though he also planned to establish public libraries, -[808] which would hardly have promoted faith among the educated. - -Augustus, however, aimed at encouraging public religion of every -description, repairing or rebuilding eighty-two temples at Rome -alone, giving them rich gifts, restoring old festivals and ceremonies, -reinstituting priestly colleges, encouraging special foreign worships, -and setting up new civic cults; himself playing high pontiff and -joining each new priesthood, to the end of making his power and -prestige so far identical with theirs; [809] in brief, anticipating -the later ruling principle of the Church of Rome. The natural upshot -of the whole process was the imperial apotheosis, or raising of each -emperor to Godhead at death. The usage of deifying living rulers was -long before common in Egypt and the east, [810] and had been adopted -by the conquering Spartan Lysander in Asia Minor as readily as by the -conquering Alexander. Julius Cæsar seems to have put it aside as a -nauseous flattery; [811] but Augustus wrought it into his policy. It -was the consummation at once of the old political conception of -religion and of the new autocracy. - -In a society so managed, all hope of return to self-government having -ceased, the level of thought sank accordingly. There was practically -no more active freethought. Livy, indeed, speaks so often of the -contempt shown in his own day for tales of prodigies, and of what -he calls contempt for the Gods, [812] that there can be no question -of the lack of religion among the upper classes at the beginning -of the empire. But even in Livy's day unbelief had ceased to go -beyond a shrugging of the shoulders. Horace, with his credat Judæus -Apella, and his frank rejection of the fear of the Deos tristes, -[813] was no believer, but he was not one to cross the emperor, -[814] and he was ready to lend himself to the official policy of -religion. [815] Ovid could satirize [816] the dishonest merchant who -prayed to the Gods to absolve his frauds; but he hailed Augustus as -the sacred founder and restorer of temples, [817] prayed for him as -such, busied himself with the archæology of the cults, and made it, -not quite without irony, a maxim to "spare an accepted belief." [818] -Virgil, at heart a pantheist with rationalistic leanings, [819] but -sadly divided between Lucretius and Augustus, his poetical and his -political masters, [820] tells all the transition from the would-be -scientific to the newly-credulous age in the two wistful lines:-- - - - Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas ... - Fortunatus et ille, Deos qui novit agrestes [821] - - ---"happy he who has been able to learn the causes of things; -fortunate also he who has known the rural Gods." The Gods, rural -and other, entered on their due heritage in a world of decadence; -Virgil's epic is a religious celebration of antiquity; and Livy's -history is written in the credulous spirit, or at least in the tone, -of an older time, with a few concessions to recent common sense. [822] -In the next generation Seneca's monotheistic aversion to the popular -superstitions is the high-water mark of the period, and represents -the elevating power of the higher Greek Stoicism. On this score he -belongs to the freethinking age, while his theistic apriorism belongs -to the next. [823] All the while his principle of conformity to all -legal observances [824] leaves him powerless to modify the environment. - -As the empire proceeds, the echoes of the old freethought become -fewer and fewer. It is an entire misconception to suppose that -Christianity came into the Roman world as a saving counter-force to -licentious unbelief. Unbelief had in large part disappeared before -Christianity made any headway; and that creed came as one of many -popular cults, succeeding in terms of its various adaptations to -the special conditions, moral and economic. It was easy for the -populace of the empire to deify a ruler: as easy as for those of -the East to deify Jesus; or for the early Romans to deify Romulus; -at Rome it was the people, now so largely of alien stock, who had -most insisted on deifying Cæsar. [825] But the upper class soon kept -pace with them in the zest for religion. In the first century, the -elder Pliny recalls the spirit of Lucretius by the indignant eloquence -with which he protests against the burdensome belief in immortality; -[826] and the emphasis with which he scouts alike the polytheism of -the multitude, the universal worship of Fortune, and the idea that -man can know the infinite divinity which is the universe; [827] -but, though Seneca and others reject the fear of future torment, -Pliny is the last writer to repudiate with energy the idea of a -future state. [828] A number of epitaphs still chime with his view; -but already the majority are on the other side; [829] and the fear of -hell was normally as active as the hope of heaven; while the belief -in an approaching end of the world was proportionally as common as it -was later under Christianity. [830] And though Pliny, discussing the -bases of magic, of which he recognized the fraudulence, ranks among -them the influences of religion, as to which he declared mankind -to be still in extreme darkness, [831] we have seen how he in turn, -on theistic grounds, frowned upon Hipparchos for daring to number the -stars. [832] Thus, whatever may be the truth as to the persecutions of -the Christians in the first two centuries of the empire, the motive -was in all cases certainly political or moral, as in the earlier -case of the Bacchic mysteries, not rationalistic hostility to its -doctrines as apart from Christian attacks on the established worships. - -Some unbelievers there doubtless were after Petronius, whose perdurable -maxim that "Fear first made Gods in the world," [833] adopted in -the next generation by Statius, [834] was too pregnant with truth -to miss all acceptance among thinking men. The fact that Statius in -his verse ranked Domitian with the Gods made its truth none the less -pointed. The Alexandrian rationalist Chaeremon, who had been appointed -one of the tutors of Nero, had explained the Egyptian religion as -a mere allegorizing of the physical order of the universe. [835] -It has been remarked too that in the next century the appointment of -the freethinking Greek Lucian by Marcus Aurelius to a post of high -authority in Egypt showed that his writings gave no great offence -at court, [836] where, indeed, save under the two great Antonines, -religious seriousness was rare. These, however, were the exceptions: -the whole cast of mind developed under the autocracy, whether in the -good or in the bad, made for belief and acquiescence or superstition -rather than for searching doubt and sustained reasoning. - - - The statement of Mosheim or of his commentators (Eccles. Hist. 1 - Cent. Pt. I, ch. i, § 21, note; Murdock's trans. Reid's ed.) that - Juvenal (Sat. xiii, 86) "complains of the many atheists at Rome" is - a perversion of the passage cited. Juvenal's allusion to those who - put all things down to fortune and deny a moral government of the - world begins with the phrase "sunt qui," "there are (those) who"; - he makes far more account of the many superstitious, and never - suggests that the atheists are numerous in his day. Neither does he - "complain"; on the contrary, his allusion to the atheists as such - is non-condemnatory as compared with his attacks on pious rogues, - and is thus part of the ground for holding that he was himself - something of a freethinker--one of the last among the literary - men. In the tenth Satire (346 sqq.) he puts the slightly theistic - doctrine, sometimes highly praised (ed. Ruperti, 1817, in loc.), - that men should not pray for anything, but leave the decision to - the Gods, to whom man is dearer than to himself. There too occurs - the famous doctrine (356) that if anything is to be prayed for it - should be the mens sana in corpore sano, and the strong soul void - of the fear of death. The accompanying phrase about offering "the - intestines and the sacred sausages of a whitish pig" is flatly - contemptuous of religious ceremonial; and the closing lines, - placing the source of virtue and happiness within, are strictly - naturalistic. In the two last:-- - - - Nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia; nos [or sed] te - Nos facimus, Fortuna, Deam, coeloque locamus, - - - the frequent reading abest for habes seems to make the better - sense: "No divinity is wanting, if there be prudence; but it - is we, O fortune, who make thee a Goddess, and throne thee in - heaven." In any case, the insistence is on man's lordship of - himself. (The phrase occurs again in Sat. xiv, 315.) But the - worship of Fortune--which Pliny declares to be the prevailing - faith of his day (Hist. Nat. II, v (vii), 7)--was itself a cult - like another, with temples and ritual; and the astrology which, he - adds, is beginning to supersede Fortune-worship among the learned - and the ignorant alike, was but a reversion to an older Eastern - religion. His own preference is for sun-worship, if any; but he - falls back on the conviction that the power of God is limited, - and that God is thus seen to be simply Nature (id. 8). - - The erroneous notion that the Roman aristocracy ran mainly to - atheism was widely propagated by Voltaire, who made it part - of his argument against the atheism of his own day (Jenni; - art. Athéisme, in the Dict. Philos., etc.). It will not bear - examination. As regards the general tone of Roman literature - from the first century onwards, the summing-up of Renan is - substantially just: "The freethinkers ... diminish little by - little, and disappear.... Juvenal alone continues in Roman - society, down to the time of Hadrian, the expression of a frank - incredulity.... Science dies out from day to day. From the death - of Seneca, it may be said that there is no longer a thoroughly - rationalistic scholar. Pliny the Elder is inquisitive, but - uncritical. Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, avoid commenting - on the inanity of the most ridiculous inventions. Pliny the Younger - (Ep. vii, 27) believes in puerile stories of ghosts; Epictetus - (xxxi, 5) would have all practise the established worship. Even - a writer so frivolous as Apuleius feels himself bound to take - the tone of a rigid conservative about the Gods (Florida, i, - 1; De Magia, 41, 55, 56, 63). A single man, about the middle of - this century, seems entirely exempt from supernatural beliefs; - that is Lucian. The scientific spirit, which is the negation of - the supernatural, exists only in a few; superstition invades all, - enfeebling all reason" (Les Évangiles, ed. 1877, pp. 406-407). - - -That the mental paralysis connects causally with the political -conditions will perhaps not now be denied. A censorship of -the written word belongs congenitally to autocracy; and only the -personal magnanimity of Cæsar and the prudence of Augustus delayed its -development in Rome. Soon it became an irresistible terrorism. Even -Cæsar, indeed, so far forgot one of the great rules of his life as -to impeach before the Senate the tribunes who had quite justifiably -prosecuted some of the people who had hailed him as king; [837] -and the fact that the Senate was already slavish enough to eject -them gives the forecast of the future. Augustus long showed a notable -forbearance to all manner of verbal opposition, and even disparagement; -but at length he also began to prosecute for private aspersions, -[838] and even to suppress histories of a too critical stamp. Tiberius -began his reign with the high-pitched sentiment that "in a free State -tongue and mind should be free"; [839] and for a time he bore himself -with an exemplary restraint; but he too, in turn, took the colour -of his place, and became murderously resentful of any semblance of -aspersion on himself. [840] The famous sentiment ascribed to him in -the Annals of Tacitus, Deorum injuriae diis curae [841]--"the Gods' -wrongs are the Gods' business"--is not noted by Suetonius, and has -an un-Roman sound. What Suetonius tells is [842] that he was "very -negligent concerning the Gods and religions," yet addicted to the -astrologers, and a believer in fate. The fact remains that while, -as aforesaid, there must have been still a number of unbelievers, -there is no sign after Lucretius of any Roman propaganda against -religion; and the presumption is that the Augustan policy of promoting -the old cults was extended to the maintenance of the ordinary Roman -view that disrespect to the Gods was a danger to the State. In the -reign of Nero we find trace of a treatise De religionis erroribus -by Fabricius Vejento, [843] wherein was ridiculed the zeal of the -priests to proclaim mysteries which they did not understand; but, -whether or not its author was exiled and the book burnt on their -protest, such literature was not further produced. [844] - -There was, in fact, no spirit left for a Lucretian polemic against -false beliefs. Everything in the nature of a searching criticism -of life was menaced by the autocracy; Nero decreeing that no man -should philosophize at Rome, [845] after slaying or banishing -a series of philosophers; [846] Domitian crucifying the very -scribes who copied the work of Hermogenes of Tarsus, in which he was -obliquely criticized. [847] When men in the mass crouched before such -tyranny, helplessly beholding emperor after emperor overtaken by the -madness that accrues to absolute power, they were disabled for any -disinterested warfare on behalf of truth. All serious impeachment of -religion proceeds upon an ethical motive; and in imperial Rome there -was no room for any nobility of ethic save such as upbore the Stoics -in their austere pursuit of self-control, in a world too full of evil -to be delighted in. - -Thus it came about that the Cæsars, who would doubtless have protected -their co-operating priesthoods from any serious attack on the official -religion, [848] had practically no occasion to do so. Lucian's jests -were cast at the Gods of Greece, not at those of the Roman official -cults; hence his immunity. What the Cæsars were concerned to do was -rather to menace any alien religion that seemed to undermine the -solidarity of the State; and of such religions, first the Jewish, -and later the Christian, were obvious examples. Thus we have it -that Tiberius "put down foreign religions" (externas ceremonias), -in particular the Egyptian and Judaic rites; pulling down the temple -of Isis, crucifying her priests, expelling from Rome all Jews and -proselytes, and forcing the Jewish youth to undergo military service -in unhealthy climates. [849] Even the astrologers, in whose lore he -believed, he expelled until they promised to renounce their art--a -precedent partly set up by Augustus, [850] and followed with varying -severity by all the emperors, pagan and Christian alike. - -And still the old Italian religion waned, as it must. On the one -hand, the Italic population was almost wholly replaced or diluted by -alien stocks, slave or free, with alien cults and customs; on the -other, the utter insincerity of the official cults, punctiliously -conserved by well-paid, unbelieving priests, invited indifference. In -the nature of things, an unchanging creed is moribund; life means -adaptation to change; and it was only the alien cults that in Rome -adapted themselves to the psychic mutation. Among the educated, -who had read their Lucretius, the spectacle of the innumerable cults -of the empire conduced either to entire but tacit unbelief, or to a -species of vaguely rationalistic [851] yet sentimental monotheism, -in which Reason sometimes figured as universal Deity. [852] Among the -uneducated the progression was constant towards one or other of the -emotional and ritualistic oriental faiths, so much better adapted to -their down-trodden life. - - - - -§ 4 - -One element of betterment there was in the life of declining Rome, -until the Roman ideals were superseded by oriental. Even the Augustan -poets, Horace and Ovid, had protested like the Hebrew prophets, and -like Plato and like Cicero, against the idea that rich sacrifices -availed with the Gods above a pure heart; and such doctrine, while -paganism lasted, prevailed more and more. [853] At the same time, -Horace rejects the Judæo-Stoic doctrine, adopted in the gospels, -that all sins are equal, and lays down the rational moral test of -utility--Utilitas justi propè mater et aequi. [854] The better and -more thoughtful men who grew up under the autocracy, though inevitably -feebler and more credulous in their thinking than those of the later -commonwealth, developed at length a concern for conduct, public and -private, which lends dignity to the later philosophic literature, -and lustre to the imperial rule of the Antonines. This concern it -was that, linking Greek theory to Roman practice, produced a code -of rational law which could serve Europe for a thousand years. This -concern too it was, joined with the relatively high moral quality of -their theism, that ennobled the writing of Seneca [855] and Epictetus -and Maximus of Tyre; and irradiates the words as well as the rule -of Marcus Aurelius. In them was anticipated all that was good [856] -in the later Christian ethic, even as the popular faiths anticipated -the Christian dogmas; and they cherished a temper of serenity that -the Fathers fell far short of. To compare their pages with those -of the subsequent Christian Fathers--Seneca with Lactantius, "the -Christian Cicero"; Maximus with Arnobius; Epictetus with Tertullian; -the admirable Marcus, and his ideal of the "dear city of Zeus," -with the shrill polemic of Augustine's City of God and the hysteria -of the Confessions--is to prove a rapid descent in magnanimity, -sanity, self-command, sweetness of spirit, and tolerance. What -figures as religious intolerance in the Cæsars was, as we have seen, -always a political, never a religious, animosity. Any prosecution of -Christians under the Antonines was certainly on the score of breach -of law, turbulence, or real or supposed malpractices, not on that of -heresy--a crime created only by the Christians themselves, in their -own conflicts. - -The scientific account of the repellent characteristics of the Fathers, -of course, is not that their faith made them what they were, but that -the ever-worsening social and intellectual conditions assorted such -types into their ecclesiastical places, and secured for them their -influence over the types now prevailing among the people. They too -stand for the intellectual dissolution wrought by imperialism. When -all the higher forms of intellectual efficiency were at an end, it -was impossible that on any religious impulse whatever there should -be generated either a higher code of life or a saner body of thought -than those of the higher paganism of the past. Their very arguments -against paganism are largely drawn from old "pagan" sources. Those -who still speak of the rise of Christianity in the ancient world as -a process of "regeneration" are merely turning historical science -out of doors. The Christian Fathers had all the opportunity that -a life of quasi-intellectual specialism could supply; and their -liberty of criticism as regarded the moribund pagan creeds was a -further gymnastic; but nothing could countervail the insanity of -their intellectual presuppositions, which they could not transcend. - -Inheriting the Judaic hypnotism of the Sacred Book, they could reason -only as do railers; and the moral readjustment which put them in revolt -against the erotic element in pagan mythology was a mere substitution -of an ascetic neurosis for the old disease of imagination. Strictly -speaking, their asceticism, being never rationalized, never rose -to the level of ethic as distinguished from mere taboo or sacrosanct -custom. As we shall see, they could not wholly escape the insurgence of -the spirit of reason; but they collectively scouted it with a success -attained by no other ostensibly educated priesthood of antiquity. They -intellectually represent, in fact, the consummation of the general -Mediterranean decadence. - -For the rest, the "triumph" of the new faith was simply the -survival of the forms of thought, and, above all, of the form of -religious community, best fitted to the political and intellectual -environment. The new Church organization was above all things a -great economic endowment for a class of preachers, polemists, and -propagandists; and between the closing of the old spheres of public -life and the opening of the new, [857] the new faith was established -as much by political and economic conditions as by its intellectual -adaptation to an age of mental twilight. - -Of the religion of the educated pagans in its last forms, then, -it is finally to be said that it was markedly rationalistic as -compared with the Christianity which followed, and has been on that -ground stigmatized by Christian orthodoxy down till our own day. The -religion of Marcus Aurelius is self-reverence, self-study, self-rule, -plus faith in Deity; and it is not to be gainsaid that, next to his -adoptive father Antoninus Pius, he remains the noblest monarch in -ancient history; the nearest parallel being the more superstitious but -still noble Julian, the last of the great pagan rulers. In such rulers -the antique philosophy was in a measure justified of its children; -and if it never taught them to grapple with the vast sociological -problem set up by the Empire, and so failed to preserve the antique -civilization, it at least did as much for them in that regard as the -new faith did for its followers. - - - - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -ANCIENT CHRISTIANITY AND ITS OPPONENTS - - -§ 1 - -The Christian gospels, broadly considered, stand for a certain -measure of freethinking reaction against the Jewish religion, and are -accordingly to be reckoned with in the present inquiry; albeit their -practical outcome was only an addition to the world's supernaturalism -and traditional dogma. To estimate aright their share of freethought, -we have but to consider the kind and degree of demand they made on the -reason of the ancient listener, as apart, that is, from the demand made -on their basis for the recognition of a new Deity. When this is done it -will be found that they express in parts a process of reflection which -outwent even critical common sense in a kind of ecstatic Stoicism, -an oriental repudiation of the tyranny of passions and appetites; in -other parts a mysticism that proceeds as far beyond the credulity of -ordinary faith. Socially considered, they embody a similar opposition -between an anarchistic and a partly orthodox or regulative ideal. The -plain inference is that they stand for many independent movements -of thought in the Græco-Roman world. It is actually on record that -the reduction of the whole law to love of one's neighbour [858] was -taught before the Christian era by the famous Rabbi Hillel; [859] -and the gospel itself [860] shows that this view was current. In -another passage [861] the reduction of the ten commandments to five -again indicates a not uncommon disregard for the ecclesiastical side -of the law. But the difference between the two passages points of -itself to various forces of relative freethought. - -Any attentive study of the gospels discloses not merely much glossing -and piecing and interpolating of documents, but a plain medley -of doctrines, of ideals, of principles; and to accept the mass of -disconnected utterances ascribed to "the Lord," many of them associated -with miracles, as the oral teaching of any one man, is a proceeding -so uncritical that in no other study could it now be followed. The -simple fact that the Pauline Epistles (by whomsoever written) show -no knowledge of any Jesuine miracles or teachings whatever, except -as regards the Last Supper (1 Cor. xi, 24-25--a passage obviously -interpolated), admits of only three possible interpretations: (1) -the Jesus then believed in had not figured as a teacher at all; or -(2) the writer or writers gave no credit or attached no importance to -reports of his teachings. Either of these views (of which the first is -plainly the more plausible) admits of (3) the further conclusion that -the Pauline Jesus was not the Gospel Jesus, but an earlier one--a fair -enough hypothesis; but on that view the mass of Dominical utterances in -the gospels is only so much the less certificated. When, then, it is -admitted by all open-minded students that the events in the narrative -are in many cases fictitious, even when they are not miraculous, -it is wholly inadmissible that the sayings should be trustworthy, -as one man's teachings. - -Analysing them in collation, we find even in the Synoptics, and without -taking into account the Fourth Gospel, such wide discrepancies as -the following:-- - - - 1. The doctrine: "the Kingdom of God is among you" (Lk. xvii, - 21), side by side with promises of the speedy arrival of the Son - of Man, whose coming = the Kingdom of God (cp. Mt. iii, 2, 3; - iv, 17; Mk. i, 15). - - 2. The frequent profession to supersede the Law (Mt. v, 21, 33, - 38, 43, etc.); and the express declaration that not one jot or - tittle thereof is to be superseded (Mt. v, 17-20). - - 3. Proclamation of a gospel for the poor and the enslaved (Lk. iv, - 18); with the tacit acceptance of slavery (Lk. xvii, 7, 9, 10; - where the word translated "servant" in the A.V., and let pass - by McClellan, Blackader, and other reforming English critics, - certainly means "slave"). - - 4. Stipulation for the simple fulfilment of the Law as a passport - to eternal life, with or without further self-denial (Mt. xix, - 16-21; Lk. x, 28; xviii, 22); on the other hand a stipulation - for simple benevolence, as in the Egyptian ritual (Mt. xxv; - cp. Lk. ix, 48); and yet again stipulations for blind faith - (Mt. x, 15) and for blood redemption (Mt. xxvi, 28). - - 5. Alternate promise (Mt. vi, 33; xix, 29) and denial (Mt. x, - 34-39) of temporal blessings. - - 6. Alternate commands to secrecy (Mt. xii, 16; viii, 4; ix, 30; - Mk. iii, 12; v, 43; vii, 36) and to publicity (Mt. vii, 7-8; - Mk. v, 19) concerning miracles, with a frequent record of their - public performance. - - 7. Specific restriction of salvation to Israelites (Mt. x, 5, 6; - xv, 24; xix, 28); equally specific declaration that the Kingdom of - God shall be to another nation (Mt. xxii, 43); no less specific - assurance that the Son of Man (not the Twelve as in Mt. xix, - 28) shall judge all nations, not merely Israel (Mt. xxv, 32; - cp. viii, 11). - - 8. Profession to teach all, especially the simple and the childlike - (Mt. xviii, 3; xi, 25, 28-30; Mk. x, 15); on the contrary, a flat - declaration (Mt. xiii, 10-16; Mk. iv, 11; Lk. viii, 10; cp. Mk. iv, - 34) that the saving teaching is only for the special disciples; - yet again (Mt. xv, 16; Mk. vi, 52; viii, 17, 18) imputations of - lack of understanding to them. - - 9. Companionship of the Teacher with "publicans and sinners" - (Mt. ix, 10); and, on the other hand, a reference to the publicans - as falling far short of the needed measure of loving-kindness - (Mt. v, 46). - - 10. Explicit contrarieties of phrase, not in context (Mt. xii, - 30; Lk. xi, 50). - - 11. Flat contradictions of narrative as to the Teacher's local - success (Mt. xiii, 54-58; Lk. iv, 23). - - 12. Insistence that the Messiah is of the Davidic line (Mt. i; - xxi, 15; Lk. i, 27; ii, 4), and that he is not (Mt. xxii, 43-45; - Mk. xii, 35-37; Lk. xx). - - 13. Contradictory precepts as to limitation and non-limitation - of forgiveness (Mt. xviii, 17, 22). - - -Such variously serious discrepancies count for more than even the -chronological and other divergences of the records concerning the -Birth, the Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection, as proofs -of diversity of source; and they may be multiplied indefinitely. The -only course for criticism is to admit that they stand for the ideas of -a variety of sects or movements, or else for an unlimited manipulation -of the documents by individual hands. Many of them may very well have -come from various so-called "Lords" and "Messiahs"; but they cannot -be from a single teacher. - -There remains open the fascinating problem as to whether some if -not all of the more notable teachings may not be the utterances of -one teacher of commanding originality, whose sectaries were either -unable to appreciate or unable to keep separate his doctrine. [862] -Undoubtedly some of the better teachings came first from men of -superior capacity and relatively deep ethical experience. The veto -on revenge, and the inculcation of love to enemies, could not come -from commonplace minds; and the saying preserved from the Gospel -According to the Hebrews, "Unless ye cease from sacrificing the -wrath shall not cease from you," has a remarkable ring. [863] But -when we compare the precept of forgiveness with similar teachings in -the Hebrew books and the Talmud, [864] we realize that the capacity -for such thought had been shown by a number of Jewish teachers, -and that it was a specific result of the long sequence of wrong -and oppression undergone by the Jewish people at the hands of their -conquerors. The unbearable, consuming pain of an impotent hate, and -the spectacle of it in others--this experience among thoughtful men, -and not an unconditioned genius for ethic in one, is the source of a -teaching which, categorically put as it is in the gospels, misses its -meaning with most who profess to admire it; the proof being the entire -failure of most Christians in all ages to act on it. To say nothing of -similar teaching in Old Testament books and in the Talmud, we have it -in the most emphatic form in the pre-Christian "Slavonic Enoch." [865] - -A superior ethic, then, stands not for one man's supernormal insight, -but for the acquired wisdom of a number of wise men. And it is now -utterly impossible to name the individual framers of the gospel -teachings, good or bad. The central biography dissolves at every -point before critical tests; it is a mythical construction. [866] -Of the ideas in the Sermon on the Mount, many are ancient; of the -parabolic and other teachings, some of the most striking occur only -in the third gospel, and are unquestionably late. And when we are -asked to recognize a unique personality behind any one doctrine, such -as the condemnation of sacrifice in the uncanonical Hebrew Gospel, -we can but answer (1) that on the face of the case this doctrine -appears to come from a separate circle; (2) that the renunciation -of sacrifice was made by many Greek and Roman writers, [867] and by -earlier teachers among the Hebrews; [868] and (3) that in the Talmud, -and in such a pre-Christian document as the "Slavonic Enoch," there -are teachings which, had they occurred in the gospels, would have been -confidently cited as unparalleled in ancient literature. The Talmudic -teachings, so vitally necessary in Jewry, that "it is better to be -persecuted than persecutor," and that, "were the persecutor a just -man and the persecuted an impious, God would still be on the side of -the persecuted," [869] are not equalled for practical purposes by any -in the Christian sacred books; and the Enochic beatitude, "Blessed -is he who looks to raise his own hand for labour," [870] is no less -remarkable. But it is impossible to associate these teachings with -any outstanding personality, or any specific movements; and to posit -a movement-making personality in the sole case of certain scattered -sayings in the gospels is critically inadmissible. - -There is positively no ground for supposing that any selected set -of teachings constituted the basis or the original propaganda of -any single Christian sect, primary or secondary; and the whole known -history of the cult tells against the hypothesis that it ever centred -round those teachings which to-day specially appeal to the ethical -rationalist. Such teachings are more likely to be adventitious than -fundamental, in a cult of sacrificial salvation. When an essentially -rationalistic note is struck in the gospels, as in the insistence -[871] that a notable public catastrophe is not to be regarded in the -old Jewish manner as a punishment for sin, it is cancelled in the -next sentence by an interpolation which unintelligently reaffirms -the very doctrine denied. [872] So with the teaching [873] that the -coming worship is to be neither Judaic nor Samaritan: the next sentence -reaffirms Jewish particularism in the crudest way. The main movement, -then, was clearly superstitious. - -It remains to note the so-far rationalistic character of such -teachings as the protests against ceremonialism and sabbatarianism, -the favouring of the poor and the outcast, the extension of the -future life to non-Israelites, and the express limitation of prayer -(Mt. vi, 9; Lk. xi, 2) to a simple expression of religious feeling--a -prescription which has been absolutely ignored through the whole -history of the Church, despite the constant use of the one prayer -prescribed--itself a compilation of current Jewish phrases. - - - The expression in the Dominical prayer translated "Give us this - day [or day by day] our daily bread" (Mt. vi, 11; Lk. xi, 3) is - pointless and tautological as it stands in the English and other - Protestant versions. In verse 8 is the assurance that the Father - knows beforehand what is needed; the prayer is, therefore, to be a - simple process of communion or advocation, free of all verbiage; - then, to make it specially ask for the necessary subsistence, - without which life would cease, and further to make the demand - each day, when in the majority of cases there would be no need - to offer such a request, is to stultify the whole. If the most - obvious necessity is to be urged, why not all the less obvious? The - Vulgate translation, "Give us to-day our super-substantial bread," - though it has the air of providing for the Mass, is presumptively - the original sense; and is virtually supported by McClellan - (N. T. 1875, ii, 645-47), who notes that the repeated use of the - article, ton arton hêmôn ton epiousion, implies a special meaning, - and remarks that of all the suggested translations "daily" is "the - very one which is mostly manifestly and utterly condemned." Compare - the bearing of the verses Mt. vi, 25-26, 31-34, which expressly - exclude the idea of prayer for bread, and Lk. xi, 13. The idea of - a super-substantial bread seems already established in Philo, De - Legum Allegor. iii, 55-57, 59-61. Naturally the average theologian - (e.g., Bishop Lightfoot, cited by McClellan) clings to the - conception of a daily appeal to the God for physical sustenance; - but in so doing he is utterly obscuring the original doctrine. - - Properly interpreted, the prayer forms a curious parallel to - the close of the tenth satire of Juvenal, above cited, where all - praying for concrete boons is condemned, on the ground that the - Gods know best, and that man is dearer to them than to himself; - but where there is permitted (of course, illogically) an appeal - for soundness of mind and spiritual serenity. The documents would - be nearly contemporary, and, though independent, would represent - kindred processes of ethical and rational improvement on current - religious practice. On the other hand, the prayer, "lead us not - into temptation, but deliver us from evil"--which again rings alien - to the context--would have been scouted by Juvenal as representing - a bad survival of the religion of fear. Several early citations - and early MSS., it should be noted, give a briefer version of the - prayer, beginning, "Father, hallowed be thy name," and dropping the - "Thy will be done" clause, as well as the "deliver us from evil," - though including the "lead us not into temptation." - - -It may or may not have been that this rationalization of religion -was originally preached by the same sect or school as gave the -exalted counsel to resist not evil and to love enemies--a line of -thought found alike in India and in China, and, in the moderate -form of a veto on retaliation, in Greece and Rome. [874] But it is -inconceivable that the same sect originally laid down the doctrines -of the blood sacrifice and the final damnation of those who did -not accept the Messiah (Mt. x). The latter dogmas, with the myths, -naturally became the practical creed of the later Church, for which -the counsel of non-solicitous prayer and the love of enemies were -unimaginable ideals. [875] Equally incapable of realization by a -State Church was the anti-Pharisaical and "Bohemian" attitude ascribed -to the founder, and the spirit of independence towards the reigning -powers. For the rest, the occult doctrine that a little faith might -suffice to move mountains--a development from the mysticisms of the -Hebrew prophets--could count for nothing save as an incitement to -prayer in general. The freethinking elements in the gospels, in short, -were precisely those which historic Christianity inevitably cast aside. - - - - -§ 2 - -Already in the Epistles the incompatibility of the original critical -spirit with sectarian policy has become clear. Paul--if the first -epistle to the Thessalonians be his--exhorts his converts to "prove -all things, hold fast what is good"; [876] and by way of making out -the Christist case against unpliable Jews he argues copiously in his -own way; but as soon as there is a question of "another Jesus" [877] -being set up, he is the sectarian fanatic pure and simple, and he no -more thinks of applying the counsel of criticism to his dogma [878] -than of acting on his prescription of love in controversy. "Reasonings" -(logismous) are specially stigmatized: they must be "cast down." [879] -The attitude towards slavery now becomes a positive fiat in its -support; [880] and all political freethinking is superseded by a -counsel of conformity. [881] The slight touch of rationalism in the -Judaic epistle of James, where the principle of works is opposed -to that of faith, is itself quashed by an anti-rational conception -of works. [882] From a sect so taught, freethinking would tend -to disappear. It certainly obtruded itself early, for we have the -Pauline complaint [883] that "some among you say there is no rising -from the dead"; but men of that way of thinking had no clear ground -for belonging to the community, and would soon be preached out of it, -leaving only so much of the spirit of criticism as produced heresies -within the sphere of supernaturalism. - - - - -§ 3 - -When the new creed, spreading through the Empire, comes actively in -contact with paganism, the rationalistic principle of anti-idolatry, -still preserved by the Jewish impulse, comes into prominence; and -insofar as they criticized pagan myths and pagan image-worship, -the early Christians may be said to have rationalized. [884] -Polytheists applied the term "atheistical" alike to them [885] -and the Jews. [886] As soon as the cult was joined by lettered men, -the primitive rationalism of Evêmeros was turned by them to account; -and a series of Fathers, including Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, -Lactantius, and Augustine, pressed the case against the pagan creeds -with an unflagging malice which, if exhibited by later rationalists -towards their own creed, Christians would characterize in strong -terms. But the practice of criticism towards other creeds was, -with the religious as with the philosophical sects, no help to -self-criticism. The attitude of the Christian mass towards pagan -idols and the worship of the Emperor was rather one of frenzy [887] -than of intellectual superiority; [888] and the Fathers never seem -to have found a rationalistic discipline in their polemic against -pagan beliefs. Where the unbelieving Lucian brightly banters, they -taunt and asperse, in the temper of barbarians deriding the Gods -of the enemy. None of them seems to realize the bearing against his -own creed of the pagan argument that to die and to suffer is to give -proof of non-deity. [889] In the end, the very image-worship which -had been the main ground of their rational attack on paganism became -the universal usage of their own Church; and its worship of saints -and angels, of Father, Son, and Virgin Mother, made it more truly -a polytheism than the creed of the later pagans had been. [890] -It is therefore rather to the heresies within the Church than to -its attacks on the old polytheism that we are to look for early -Christian survivals of ancient rationalism; and for the most part, -after the practically rationalistic refusal of the early Ebionites -to accept the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, [891] these heresies were -but combinations of other theosophies with the Christian. - -Already in the spurious Epistles to Timothy we have allusion to the -"antitheses of the gnosis" [892] or pretended occult knowledge; and -to early Gnostic influences may be attributed those passages in the -gospel, above cited, which affirm that the Messiah's teaching is not -for the multitude but for the adepts. [893] All along, Gnosticism -[894] stood for the influence of older systems on the new faith; -an influence which among Gentiles, untrained to the cult of sacred -books, must have seemed absolutely natural. In the third century -Ammonios Saccas, of Alexandria, said to have been born of Christian -parents, set up a school which sought to blend the Christian and the -pagan systems of religion and philosophy into a pantheistic whole, -in which the old Gods figured as subordinate dæmons or as allegorical -figures, and Christ as a reformer. [895] The special leaning of the -school to Plato, whose system, already in vogue among the scholars -of Alexandria, had more affinity than any of its rivals [896] to -Christianity, secured for it adherents of many religious shades, -[897] and enabled it to develop an influence which permanently -affected Christian theology; this being the channel through which the -doctrine of the Trinity entered. According to Mosheim, almost no other -philosophy was taught at Alexandria down to the sixth century. [898] -Only when the regulative zeal of the Church had begun to draw the -lines of creed definitely [899] on anti-philosophic lines did the -syncretic school, as represented by Plotinus, Porphyry, and Hierocles, -[900] declare itself against Christianity. - -Among the Church sects, as distinguished from the philosophic, the -syncretic tendency was hardly less the vogue. Some of the leading -Fathers of the second century, in particular Clement of Alexandria -and Origen, show the Platonic influence strongly, [901] and are -given, the latter in particular, to a remarkably free treatment of -the sacred books, seeing allegory wherever credence had been made -difficult by previous science, [902] or inconvenient by accepted -dogma. But in the multiplicity of Gnostic sects is to be seen the -main proof of the effort of Christians, before the complete collapse -of the ancient civilization, to think with some freedom on their -religious problems. [903] In the terms of the case--apart from the -Judaizing of the Elcesaites and Clemens Romanus--the thought is an -adaptation of pagan speculation, chiefly oriental and Egyptian; and -the commonest characteristics are: (1) in theology, an explanation of -the moral confusion of the world by assuming two opposed Powers, [904] -or by setting a variety of good and bad subordinate powers between the -world and the Supreme Being; and (2) in ethics, an insistence either -on the inherent corruptness of matter or on the incompatibility of -holiness with physical pleasure. [905] The sects influenced chiefly -from Asia teach, as a rule, a doctrine of two great opposing Powers; -those influenced from Egypt seek rather the solution of gradation -of power under one chief God. All alike showed some hostility to the -pretensions of the Jews. Thus:-- - - - 1. Saturninus of Antioch (second century) taught of a Good and - an Evil Power, and that the world and man were made by the seven - planetary spirits, without the knowledge or consent of either - Power; both of whom, however, sought to take control, the Good God - giving men rational souls, and subjecting them to seven Creators, - one of whom was the God of the Jews. Christ was a spirit sent to - bring men back to the Good God; but only their asceticism could - avail to consummate the scheme. (Irenæus, Against Heresies, i, - 24; Epiphanius, Hæreses, xxiii.) - - 2. Similarly, Marcion (son of a bishop of Pontus) placed between - the good and bad Powers the Creator of the lower world, who was the - God and Lawgiver of the Jews, a mixed nature, but just: the other - nations being subjects of the Evil Power. Jesus, a divine spirit - sent by the Supreme God to save men, was opposed by both the God of - the Jews and the Evil Power; and asceticism is the way to carry out - his saving purpose. Of the same cast were the sects of Bardesanes - and Tatian. (Irenæus, Against Heresies, i, 27, 28; Epiphanius, - Hæreses, c. 56; Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. iv, 30. Mosheim, E. H. 2 - Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, §§ 7-9. As to Marcion, see Harnack, Outlines, - ch. v; Mackay, Rise and Progress of Christianity, pt. iii, §§ 7, - 12, 13; Irenæus, iv, 29, 30; Tertullian, Against Marcion.) - - 3. The Manichean creed (attributed to the Persian Mani or - Manichæus, third century) proceeded on the same dualistic - lines. In this the human race had been created by the Power - of Evil or Darkness, who is the God of the Jews, and hence the - body and its appetites are primordially evil, the good element - being the rational soul, which is part of the Power of Light. By - way of combining Christism and Mithraism, Christ is virtually - identified with Mithra, and Manichæus claims to be the promised - Paraclete. Ultimately the Evil Power is to be overcome, and - kept in eternal darkness, with the few lost human souls. Here - again the ethic is extremely ascetic, and there is a doctrine of - purgatory. (Milman, Hist. of Christianity, bk. iii, ch. i; Mosheim, - E. H. 3 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, §§ 2-11; Beausobre, Hist. Critique de - Manichée et du Manichéisme, 1734; Lardner, Cred. of the Gospels, - pt. ii, ch. lxiii.) - - 4. Among the Egyptian Gnostics, again, Basilides taught that - the one Supreme God produced seven perfect secondary Powers, - called Æons (Ages), two of whom, Dynamis and Sophia (Power and - Wisdom), procreated superior angels, who built a heaven, and in - turn produced lower grades of angels, which produced others, till - there were 365 grades, all ruled by a Prince named Abraxas (whose - name yields the number 365). The lowest grades of angels, being - close to eternal matter (which was evil by nature), made thereof - the world and men. The Supreme God then intervened, like the Good - Power in the oriental system, to give men rational souls, but left - them to be ruled by the lower angels, of whom the Prince became God - of the Jews. All deteriorated, the God of the Jews becoming the - worst. Then the Supreme God sent the Prince of the Æons, Christ, - to save men's souls. Taking the form of the man Jesus, he was - slain by the God of the Jews. Despite charges to the contrary, - this system too was ascetic, though lenient to paganism. Similar - tenets were held by the sects of Carpocrates and Valentinus, all - rising in the second century; Valentinus setting up Thirty Æons, - male and female, in pairs, with four unmarried males, guardians - of the Pleroma or Heaven--namely, Horus, Christ, the Holy Spirit, - and Jesus. The youngest Æon, Sophia, brought forth a daughter, - Achamoth (Scientia), who made the world out of rude matter, - and produced Demiourgos, the Artificer, who further manipulated - matter. (Irenæus, bk. i, chs. 24, 25; bk. ii.) - - These sects in turn split into others, with endless peculiarities. - - -Such was the relative freethought of credulous theosophic fantasy, -[906] turning fictitious data to fresh purpose by way of solving -the riddle of the painful earth. The problem was to account for evil -consistently with a Good God; and the orientals, inheriting a dualistic -religion, adapted that; while the Egyptians, inheriting a syncretic -monotheism, set up grades of Powers between the All-Ruler and men, -on the model of the grades between the Autocrat, ancient or modern, -and his subjects. The Manichæans, the most thoroughly organized of -all the outside sects, appear to have absorbed many of the adherents -of the great Mithraic religion, and held together for centuries, -despite fierce persecution and hostile propaganda, their influence -subsisting till the Middle Ages. [907] The other Gnosticisms fared -much worse. Lacking sacred books, often setting up a severe ethic -as against the frequently loose practice of the churches, [908] and -offering a creed unsuited to the general populace, all alike passed -away before the competition of the organized Church, which founded -on the Canon [909] and the concrete dogmas, with many pagan rites -and beliefs [910] and a few great pagan abracadabras added. - - - - -§ 4 - -More persistently dangerous to the ancient Church were the successive -efforts of the struggling spirit of reason within to rectify in some -small measure its most arbitrary dogmas. Of these efforts the most -prominent were the quasi-Unitarian doctrine of Arius (fourth century), -and the opposition by Pelagius and his pupil Cælestius (early in fifth -century) to the doctrine of hereditary sin and predestinate salvation -or damnation--a Judaic conception dating in the Church from Tertullian, -and unknown to the Greeks. [911] - -The former was the central and one of the most intelligible conflicts -in the vast medley of early discussion over the nature of the Person -of the Founder--a theme susceptible of any conceivable formula, when -once the principle of deification was adopted. Between the Gnosticism -of Athenagoras, which made the Logos the direct manifestation of -Deity, and the Judaic view that Jesus was "a mere man," for stating -which the Byzantine currier Theodotos was excommunicated at Rome -by Bishop Victor [912] in the third century, there were a hundred -possible fantasies of discrimination; [913] and the record of them -is a standing revelation of the intellectual delirium in the ancient -Church. Theodotos the currier is said to have made disciples [914] -who induced one Natalius to become "a bishop of this heresy"; and -his doctrine was repeatedly revived, notably by Artemon. According -to a trinitarian opponent, they were much given to science, in -particular to geometry and medicine. [915] But such an approach to -rationalism could not prosper in the atmosphere in which Christianity -arose. Arianism itself, when put on its defence, pronounced Jesus to -be God, after beginning by declaring him to be merely the noblest of -created beings, and thus became merely a modified mysticism, fighting -for the conception homoiousios (of similar nature) as against that of -homoousios (of the same nature). [916] Even at that, the sect split up, -its chief dissenters ranking as semi-Arians, and many of the latter -at length drifting back to Nicene orthodoxy. [917] At first strong in -the east, where it persecuted when it could, it was finally suppressed, -after endless strifes, by Theodosius at the end of the fourth century; -only to reappear in the west as the creed of the invading Goths and -Lombards. In the east it had stood for ancient monotheism; in the -west it prospered by early missionary and military chance till the -Papal organization triumphed. [918] Its suppression meant the final -repudiation of rationalism; though it had for the most part subsisted -as a fanaticism, no less than did the Nicene creed. - -More philosophical, and therefore less widespread, was the doctrine -associated in the second century with the name of Praxeas, in -the third with those of Sabellius and Paul of Samosata, and in the -fourth with that of Photinus. Of this the essence was the conception -of the triune deity as being not three persons but three modes or -aspects of one person--a theorem welcomed in the later world by such -different types of believer as Servetus, Hegel, and Coleridge. Far -too reasonable for the average believer, and far too unpropitious to -ritual and sacraments for the average priest, it was always condemned -by the majority, though it had many adherents in the east, until the -establishment of the Church made Christian persecution a far more -effective process than pagan persecution had ever been. - -Pelagianism, which unlike Arianism was not an ecclesiastical but a -purely theological division, [919] fared better, the problem at issue -involving the permanent crux of religious ethics. Augustine, whose -supreme talent was for the getting up of a play of dialectic against -every troublesome movement in turn, without regard to his previous -positions, [920] undertook to confute Pelagius and Cælestius as he -did every other innovator; and his influence was such that, after -they had been acquitted of heresy by a church council in Palestine -and by the Roman pontiff, the latter was induced to change his ground -and condemn them, whereupon many councils followed suit, eighteen -Pelagian bishops being deposed in Italy. At that period Christendom, -faced by the portent of the barbarian conquest of the Empire, was -well adjusted to a fatalistic theology, and too uncritical in its -mood to realize the bearing of such doctrine either on conduct or on -sacerdotal pretensions. But though the movement in its first form was -thus crushed, and though in later forms it fell considerably short of -the measure of ethical rationalism seen in the first, it soon took -fresh shape in the form of so-called semi-Pelagianism, and so held -its ground while any culture subsisted; [921] while Pelagianism on the -theme of the needlessness of "prevenient grace," and the power of man -to secure salvation of his own will, has been chronic in the Church. - - - For a concise view of the Pelagian tenets see Murdock's note - on Mosheim, following Walch and Schlegel (Reid's edition, - pp. 208-209). They included (1) denial that Adam's sin was - inherited; (2) assertion that death is strictly natural, and not - a mere punishment for Adam's sin; (3) denial that children and - virtuous adults dying unbaptized are damned, a middle state being - provided for them; (4) assertion that good acts come of a good - will, and that the will is free; grace being an enlightenment of - the understanding, and not indispensable to all men. The relative - rationalism of these views is presumptively to be traced to - the facts that Pelagius was a Briton and Cælestius an Irishman, - and that both were Greek scholars. (When tried in Palestine they - spoke Greek, like the council, but the accuser could speak only - Latin.) They were thus bred in an atmosphere not yet laden with - Latin dogma. In "confuting" them Augustine developed the doctrine - (intelligible as that of an elderly polemist in a decadent society) - that all men are predestined to salvation or damnation by God's - "mere good pleasure"--a demoralizing formula which he at times - hedged with illogical qualifications. (Cp. Murdock's note on - Mosheim, as cited, p. 210; Gieseler, § 87.) But an orthodox - champion of Augustine describes him as putting the doctrine without - limitations (Rev. W. R. Clarke, St. Augustine, in "The Fathers - for English Readers" series, p. 132). It was never adopted in the - east (Gieseler, p. 387), but became part of Christian theology, - especially under Protestantism. On the other hand, the Council of - Trent erected several Pelagian doctrines into articles of faith; - and the Protestant churches have in part since followed. See Sir - W. Hamilton's Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, 1852, - pp. 493-94, note; and Milman, Hist. of Latin Christianity, i, - 142, 149. - - -The Latin Church thus finally maintained in religion the tradition -of sworn adherence to sectarian formulas which has been already noted -in the Roman philosophic sects, and in so doing reduced to a minimum -the exercise of the reason, alike in ethics and in philosophy. Its -dogmatic code was shaped under the influence of (1) Irenæus and -Tertullian, who set scripture above reason and, when pressed by -heretics, tradition above even scripture, [922] and (2) Augustine, -who had the same tendencies, and whose incessant energy secured him -a large influence. That influence was used not only to dogmatize -every possible item of the faith, but to enforce in religion another -Roman tradition, formerly confined to politics--that of systematic -coercion of heretics. Before and around Augustine there had indeed been -abundant mutual persecution of the bitterest kind between the parties -of the Church as well as against pagans; the Donatists, in particular, -with their organization of armed fanatics, the Circumcelliones, had -inflicted and suffered at intervals all the worst horrors of civil -war in Africa during a hundred years; Arians and Athanasians came -again and again to mutual bloodshed; and the slaying of the pagan -girl-philosopher, Hypatia, [923] by the Christian monks of Alexandria -is one of the vilest episodes in the whole history of religion. On -the whole, it is past question that the amount of homicide wrought by -all the pagan persecution of the earlier Christians was not a tithe of -that wrought by their successors in their own quarrels. But the spirit -which had so operated, and which had been repudiated even by the bitter -Tertullian, was raised by Augustine to the status of a Christian dogma, -[924] which, of course, had sufficient support in the sacred books, -Judaic and Jesuist, and which henceforth inspired such an amount of -murderous persecution in Christendom as the ancient world had never -seen. When, the temple revenues having been already confiscated, the -pagan worships were finally overthrown and the temples appropriated -by the edict of Honorius in the year 408, Augustine, "though not -entirely consistent, disapproved of the forcible demolition of -the temples." [925] But he had nothing to say against the forcible -suppression of their worship, and of the festivals. Ambrose went -as far; [926] and such men as Firmicus Maternus would have had the -emperors go much further. [927] - -Economic interest had now visibly become at least as potent in the -shaping of the Christian course as it had ever been in building up a -pagan cult. For the humble conditions in which the earlier priests -and preachers had gained a livelihood by ministering to scattered -groups of poor proselytes, there had been substituted those of a State -Church, adopted as such because its acquired range of organization -had made it a force fit for the autocrat's purposes when others had -failed. The sequent situation was more and more unfavourable to both -sincerity of thought and freedom of speech. Not only did thousands -of wealth-seekers promptly enter the priesthood to profit by the -new endowments allotted by Constantine to the great metropolitan -churches. Almost as promptly the ideal of toleration was renounced; -and the Christians began against the pagans a species of persecution -that proceeded on no higher motive than greed of gain. Not only were -the revenues of the temples confiscated as we have seen, but a number -of Christians took to the business of plundering pagans in the name -of the laws of Constantius forbidding sacrifice, and confiscating the -property of the temples. Libanius, in his Oration for the Temples [928] -(390), addressed to Theodosius, circumstantially avers that the bands -of monks and others who went about demolishing and plundering temples -were also wont to rob the peasants, adding:-- - - - They also seize the lands of some, saying "it is sacred"; and - many are deprived of their paternal inheritance upon a false - pretence. Thus those men thrive upon other people's ruin who say - "they worship God with fasting." And if they who are wronged - come to the pastor in the city ... he commends (the robbers) - and rejects the others.... Moreover, if they hear of any land - which has anything that can be plundered, they cry presently, - "Such an one sacrificeth, and does abominable things, and - a troop ought to be sent against him." And presently the - self-styled reformers (sôphronistai) are there.... Some of these - ... deny their proceedings.... Others glory and boast and tell - their exploits.... But they say, "We have only punished those - who sacrifice and thereby transgress the law which forbids - sacrifice." O emperor, when they say this, they lie.... Can - it be thought that they who are not able to bear the sight of a - collector's cloak should despise the power of your government?... I - appeal to the guardians of the law [to confirm the denial]. [929] - - -The whole testimony is explicit and weighty, [930] and, being -corroborated by Ammianus Marcellinus, is accepted by clerical -historians. [931] Ammianus declares that some of the courtiers of -the Christian emperors before Julian were "glutted with the spoils -of the temples." [932] - -The official creed, with its principle of rigid uniformity and -compulsion, is now recognizable as the only expedient by which -the Church could be held together for its economic ends. Under the -Eastern Empire, accordingly, when once a balance of creed was attained -in the Church, the same coercive ideal was enforced, with whatever -differences in the creed insisted on. Whichever phase of dogma was in -power, persecution of opponents went on as a matter of course. [933] -Athanasians and Arians, Nestorians and Monophysites, used the same -weapons to the utmost of their scope; Cyril of Alexandria led his -fanatics to the pillage and expulsion of the Jews, as his underling -Peter led them to the murder of Hypatia; other bishops wrought the -destruction of temples throughout Egypt; [934] Theodosius, Marcian, -St. Leo, Zeno, Justinian, all used coercion against every heresy -without a scruple, affirming every verbal fantasy of dogma at the -point of the sword. It was due to no survival of the love of reason -that some of the more stubborn heresies, driven into communion with -the new civilization of the Arabs, were the means of carrying some -of the seeds of ancient thought down the ages, to fructify ultimately -in the mental soil of modern Europe. - - - - -§ 5 - -Against the orthodox creed, apart from social and official hostility, -there had early arisen critics who reasoned in terms of Jewish and -pagan beliefs, and in terms of such rationalism as survived. Of the two -former sorts some remains have been preserved, despite the tendency of -the Church to destroy their works. Of the latter, apart from Lucian, -we have traces in the Fathers and in the Neo-Platonists. - -Thus Tertullian and Lactantius tell of the many who believe in a -non-active and passionless God, [935] and disdain those who turn -Christian out of fear of a hereafter; and again [936] of Stoics -who deride the belief in demons. A third-century author quoted by -Eusebius [937] speaks of apistoi who deny the divine authorship -of the holy scriptures, in such a fashion as to imply that this was -done by some who were not merely pagan non-Christians but deniers of -inspiration. Jamblichos, too, [938] speaks of opponents of the worship -of the Gods in his day (early in the fourth century). [939] In the -fifth century, again, Augustine complains bitterly of those impious -and reckless persons who dare to say that the evangelists differ among -themselves. [940] He argues no less bitterly against the increduli and -infideles who would not believe in immortality and the possibility of -eternal torment; [941] and he meets them in a fashion which constantly -recurs in Christian apologetics, pointing to natural anomalies, real -or alleged, and concluding that since we cannot understand all we see -we should believe all we hear--from the Church. Those who derided the -story of Jonah and the whale he meets by accusing them of believing -the story of Arion and the dolphin. [942] In the same way he meets -[943] their protest against the iniquity of eternal punishment by a -juggle over the ostensible anomaly of long punishments by human law -for short misdeeds. Whatever may have been his indirect value of his -habit of dialectic, he again and again declares for prone faith and -against the resort to reason; and to this effect may be cited a long -series of Fathers and ecclesiastics, all eager to show that only in -a blind faith could there be any moral merit. [944] - -Such arguments were doubtless potent to stupefy what remained of -critical faculty in the Roman world. In the same period Salvian makes -a polemic against those who in Christian Gaul denied that God exercised -any government on earth. [945] They seem, however, to have been normal -Christians, driven to this view by the barbarian invasions. Fronto, -the tutor of Marcus Aurelius, again, seems to have attacked the -Christians partly as rationalist, partly as conservative. [946] - -In general, the orthodox polemic is interesting only insofar as -it preserves that of the opposition. The Dialogue with Trypho by -Justin Martyr (about 150) is a mere documental discussion between a -Christian and a Jew, each founding on the Hebrew Scriptures, and the -Christian doing nearly all of the argument. There is not a scintilla -of independent rationalism in the whole tedious work. [947] Justin -was a type of the would-be "philosopher" who confessedly would take -no trouble to study science or philosophize, but who found his sphere -in an endless manipulation of the texts of sacred books. But the work -of the learned Origen Against Celsus preserves for us a large part of -the True Discourse of Celsus, a critical and extremely well-informed -argument against Christianity by a pagan of the Platonic [948] school -in the time of Marcus Aurelius, [949] on grounds to a considerable -extent rationalistic. [950] The line of rejoinder followed by Origen, -one of the most cultured of the Christian Fathers, is for the most -part otherwise. When Celsus argues that it makes no difference by what -name the Deity is called, Origen answers [951] that on the contrary -certain God-names have a miraculous or magical virtue for the casting -out of evil spirits; that this mystery is known and practised by -the Egyptians and Persians; and that the mere name of Jesus has been -proved potent to cast out many such demons. When, on the other hand, -Celsus makes a Jew argue against the Christist creed on the basis -of the Jewish story that the founder's birth was illegitimate, [952] -the Father's answer begins in sheer amiable ineptitude, [953] which -soon passes into shocked outcry. [954] In other passages he is more -successful, as when he convicts Celsus's Jew of arguing alternately -that the disciples were deceived, and that they were deceivers. [955] -This part of the discussion is interesting chiefly as showing how -educated Jews combated the gospels in detail, at a level of criticism -not always above that of the believers. Sometimes the Jew's case is -shrewdly put, as when he asks, [956] "Did Jesus come into the world -for this purpose, that we should not believe him?"--a challenge not to -be met by Origen's theology. One of the acutest of Celsus's thrusts -is the remark that Jesus himself declared that miracles would be -wrought after him by followers of Satan, and that the argument from -miracles is thus worthless. [957] To this the rejoinder of Origen -is suicidal; but at times the assailant, himself a believer in all -manner of miracles, gives away his advantage completely enough. - -Of a deeper interest are the sections in which Celsus (himself a -believer in a Supreme Deity and a future state, and in a multitude of -lower Powers, open to invocation) rests his case on grounds of general -reason, arguing that the true Son of God must needs have brought home -his mission to all mankind; [958] and sweeps aside as foolish the -whole dispute between Jews and Christians, [959] of which he had given -a sample. Most interesting of all are the chapters [960] in which -the Christian cites the pagan's argument against the homo-centric -theory of things. Celsus insists on the large impartiality of Nature, -and repudiates the fantasy that the whole scheme is adjusted to the -well-being and the salvation of man. Here the Christian, standing for -his faith, may be said to carry on, though in the spirit of a new -fanaticism, the anti-scientific humanism first set up by Sokrates; -while the pagan, though touched by religious apriorism, and prone to -lapse from logic to mysticism in his turn, approaches the scientific -standpoint of the elder thinkers who had set religion aside. [961] -Not for thirteen hundred years was his standpoint to be regained among -men. His protest against the Christian cultivation of blind faith, -[962] which Origen tries to meet on rationalistic lines, would in -a later age be regarded as conveying no imputation. Even the simple -defensive subtleties of Origen are too rationalistic for the succeeding -generations of the orthodox. The least embittered of the Fathers, -he is in his way the most reasonable; and in his unhesitating resort -to the principle of allegory, wherever his documents are too hard -for belief, we see the last traces of the spirit of reason as it -had been in Plato, not yet paralysed by faith. Henceforth, till a -new intellectual life is set up from without, Christian thought is -more and more a mere disputation over the unintelligible, in terms -of documents open always to opposing constructions. - -Against such minds the strictest reason would be powerless; and it -was fitting enough that Lucian, the last of the great freethinkers of -the Hellenistic world, should merely turn on popular Christianity -some of his serene satire [963]--more, perhaps, than has come -down to us; though, on the other hand, his authorship of the De -Morte Peregrini, which speaks of the "crucified sophist," has been -called in question. [964] The forcible-feeble dialogue Philopatris, -falsely attributed to Lucian, and clearly belonging to the reign of -Julian, is the last expression of general skepticism in the ancient -literature. The writer, a bad imitator of Lucian, avows disbelief -alike in the old Gods and in the new, and professes to respect, -if any, the "Unknown God" of the Athenians; but he makes no great -impression of intellectual sincerity. Apart from this, and the lost -anti-Christian work [965] of Hierocles, Governor of Bithynia under -Diocletian, the last direct literary opponents of ancient Christianity -were Porphyry and Julian. As both were believers in many Gods, and -opposed Christianity because it opposed these, neither can well -rank on that score as a freethinker, even in the sense in which -the speculative Gnostics were so. The bias of both, like that of -Plutarch, seems to have been to the utmost latitude of religious -belief; and, apart from personal provocations and the ordinary temper -of religious conservatism, it was the exiguity of the Christian creed -that repelled them. Porphyry's treatise, indeed, was answered by four -Fathers, [966] all of whose replies have disappeared, doubtless in -fulfilment of the imperial edict for the destruction of Porphyry's -book--a dramatic testimony to the state of mental freedom under -Theodosius II. [967] What is known of his argument is preserved in the -incidental replies of Jerome, Augustine, Eusebius, and others. [968] -The answer of Cyril to Julian has survived, probably in virtue of -Julian's status. His argumentations against the unworthy elements, the -exclusiveness, and the absurdities of the Jewish and Christian faith -are often reasonable enough, as doubtless were those of Porphyry; -[969] but his own theosophic positions are hardly less vulnerable; -and Porphyry's were probably no better, to judge from his preserved -works. Yet it is to be said that the habitual tone and temper of the -two men compares favourably with that of the polemists on the other -side. They had inherited something of the elder philosophic spirit, -which is so far to seek in patristic literature, outside of Origen. - -The latest expressions of rationalism among churchmen were to the -full as angrily met by the champions of orthodoxy as the attacks of -enemies; and, indeed, there was naturally something of bitterness -in the resistance of the last few critical spirits in the Church to -the fast-multiplying insanities of faith. Thus, at the end of the -fourth century, the Italian monk Jovinian fought against the creed -of celibacy and asceticism, and was duly denounced, vituperated, -ecclesiastically condemned, and banished, penal laws being at the -same time passed against those who adhered to him. [970] Contemporary -with him was the Eastern Aerius, who advocated priestly equality as -against episcopacy, and objected to prayers for the dead, to fasts, -and to the too significant practice of slaying a lamb at the Easter -festival. [971] In this case matters went the length of schism. With -less of practical effect, in the next century, Vigilantius of Aquitaine -made a more general resistance to a more manifold superstition, -condemning and ridiculing the veneration of tombs and bones of martyrs, -pilgrimages to shrines, the miracle stories therewith connected, and -the practices of fasting, celibacy, and the monastic life. He too -was promptly put down, largely by the efforts of his former friend -Jerome, the most voluble and the most scurrilous pietist of his age, -who had also denounced the doctrine of Jovinian. [972] For centuries -no such appeal was heard in the western Church. - -The spirit of reason, however, is well marked at the beginning of -the fifth century in a pagan writer who belongs more truly to the -history of freethought than either Julian or Porphyry. Macrobius, a -Roman patrician of the days of Honorius, works out in his Saturnalia, -with an amount of knowledge and intelligence which for the time is -remarkable, the principle that all the Gods are but personifications -of aspects or functions of the Sun. But such doctrine must have been -confined, among pagans, to the cultured few; and the monotheism of -the same writer's treatise On the Dream of Scipio was probably not -general even among the remaining pagans of the upper class. [973] - -After Julian, open rationalism being already extinct, anti-Christian -thought was simply tabooed; and though the leading historians for -centuries were pagans, they only incidentally venture to betray the -fact. It is told, indeed, that in the days of Valens and Valentinian -an eminent physician named Posidonius, son of a great physician and -brother of another, was wont to say, "that men do not grow fanatic by -the agency of evil spirits, but merely by the superfluity of certain -evil humours; and that there is no power in evil spirits to assail the -human race"; [974] but though that opinion may be presumed to have -been held by some other physicians, the special ascription of it to -Posidonius is a proof that it was rarely avowed. With public lecturing -forbidden, with the philosophic schools at Athens closed and plundered -by imperial force, [975] with heresy ostracized, with pagan worship, -including the strong rival cult of Mithraism, outwardly suppressed by -the same power, [976] unbelief was naturally little heard of after the -fifth century. About its beginning we find Chrysostom boasting [977] -that the works of the anti-Christian writers had persuaded nobody, -and had almost disappeared. As regarded open teaching, it was only too -true, though the statement clashes with Chrysostom's own complaint that -Porphyry had led many away from the faith. [978] Proclus was still to -come (410-485), with his eighteen Arguments against the Christians, -proceeding on the principle, still cherished from the old science, -that the world was eternal. But such teaching could not reach even -the majority of the more educated; and the Jewish dogma of creation -ex nihilo became sacrosanct truth for the darkening world. In the -east Eusebius, [979] and in the west Lactantius, [980] expressed for -the whole Church a boundless contempt of everything in the nature of -scientific research or discussion; and it was in fact at an end for -the Christian world for well-nigh a thousand years. For Lactantius, -the doctrine of a round earth and an antipodes was mere nonsense; -he discusses the thesis with the horse-laughter of a self-satisfied -savage. [981] Under the feet of arrogant and blatant ignorance we -see trampled the first form of the doctrine of gravitation, not to be -recovered for an æon. Proclus himself cherished some of the grossest -pagan superstitions; and the few Christians who had in them something -of the spirit of reason, as Cosmas "Indicopleustes," "the Indian -navigator," who belongs to the sixth century, were turned away from -what light they had by their sacred books. Cosmas was a Nestorian, -denying the divinity of Mary, and a rational critic as regards the -orthodox fashion of applying Old Testament prophecies to Jesus. [982] -But whereas pagan science had inferred that the earth is a sphere, -his Bible taught him that it is an oblong plain; and the great aim -of his Topographia Christiana, sive Christianorum opinio de mundo, -was to prove this against those who still cultivated science. - -Such pleadings were not necessary for the general Christian public, -who knew nothing save what their priests taught them. In Chrysostom's -day this was already the case. There remained but a few rational -heresies. One of the most notable was that of Theodore of Mopsuestia, -the head of the school of Antioch and the teacher of Nestorius, who -taught that many of the Old Testament prophecies commonly applied -to Jesus had reference to pre-Christian events, and discriminated -critically among the sacred books. That of Job he pronounced to be -merely a poem derived from a pagan source, and the Song of Songs he -held to be a mere epithalamium of no religious significance. In his -opinion Solomon had the logos gnôseôs the love of knowledge, but not -the logos sophias the love of wisdom. [983] No less remarkable was -the heresy of Photinus, who taught that the Trinity was a matter not of -persons, but of modes of deity. [984] Such thinking must be pronounced -the high-water mark of rational criticism in the ancient Church; and -its occurrence in an age of rapid decay is memorable enough. But in -the nature of things it could meet with only the scantiest support; -and the only critical heresy which bulked at all largely was that of -the Unitarian Anomoeans or Eunomians, [985] who condemned the worship -of relics, [986] and made light of scriptural inspiration when texts, -especially from the Old Testament, were quoted against them. [987] -Naturally Chrysostom himself denounced them as unbelievers. Save -for these manifestations, the spirit of sane criticism had gone from -the Christian world, with science, with art, with philosophy, with -culture. But the verdict of time is given in the persistent recoil -of the modern spirit from the literature of the age of faith to that -of the elder age of nascent reason; and the historical outcome of the -state of things in which Chrysostom rejoiced was the re-establishment -of universal idolatry and practical polytheism in the name of the -creed he had preached. Every species of superstition known to paganism -subsisted, slightly transformed. While the emperors savagely punished -the pagan soothsayers, the Christians held by the same fundamental -delusion; and against the devices of pagan magic, in the reality -of which they unquestioningly believed, they professed triumphantly -to practise their own sorceries of holy water, relics, prayer, and -exorcism, no man daring to impugn the insanities of faith. [988] -On the face of religious life, critical reason was extinct. - - - - -§ 6 - -It might safely have been inferred, but it is a matter of proved fact, -that while the higher intellectual life was thus being paralysed, -the primary intellectual virtues were attained. As formerly in Jewry, -so now in Christendom, the practice of pious fraud became normal: all -early Christian literature, and most of the ecclesiastical history of -many succeeding centuries, is profoundly compromised by the habitual -resort to fiction, forgery, and interpolation. The mystical poetry -of the pagans, the Jewish history of Josephus, the gospels, the -Epistles, all were interpolated in the same spirit as had inspired -the production of new Gospels, new Epistles, new books of Acts, new -Sibylline verses. And even where to this tendency there was opposed -the growing demand of the organized Church for a faithful text, when -the documents had become comparatively ancient, the disposition to -invent and suppress, to reason crookedly, to delude and mislead, was -normal among churchmen. This is the verdict of orthodox ecclesiastical -history, a dozen times repeated. [989] It of course carries no surprise -for those who have noted the religious doctrine of Plato, of Polybius, -of Cicero, of Varro, of Strabo, of Dio Cassius. - -While intelligence thus retrograded under the reign of faith, it -is impossible to maintain, in the name of historical science, the -conventional claim that the faith wrought a countervailing good. What -moral betterment there was in the decaying Roman world was a matter -of the transformed social conditions, and belongs at least as much -to paganism as to Christianity: even the asceticism of the latter, -which in reality had no reformative virtue for society at large, -was a pre-Christian as well as an anti-Christian phenomenon. It -is indeed probable that in the times of persecution the Christian -community would be limited to the more serious and devoted types -[990]--that is to say, to those who would tend to live worthily under -any creed. But that the normal Christian community was superior in -point of morals is a poetic hallucination, set up by the legends -concerning the martyrs and by the vauntings of the Fathers, which -are demonstrably untrustworthy. The assertion, still at times made -by professed Positivists, that the discredit of the marriage tie in -Roman life necessitated a new religion, and that the new religion -was regenerative, is only a quasi-scientific variation of the legend. - - - The evidence as to the failure of the faith to reform its adherents - is continuous from the first generation onwards. "Paul" complains - bitterly of the sexual licence among his first Corinthian converts - (1 Cor. v, 1, 2), and seeks to check it by vehement commands, some - mystical (id. v. 5), some prescribing ostracism (vv. 9-13)--a - plain confession of failure, and a complete reversal of the - prescription in the gospel (Mt. xviii, 22). If that could be - set aside, the command as to divorce could be likewise. Justin - Martyr (Dial. with Trypho, ch. 141) describes the orthodox Jews - of his day as of all men the most given to polygamy and arbitrary - divorce. (Cp. Deut. xxiv, 1; Edersheim, History, p. 294.) Then - the Christian assumption as to Roman degeneration and Eastern - virtue cannot be sustained. - - At the beginning of the third century we have the decisive - evidence of Tertullian that many of the charges of immorality - made by serious pagans against Christians were in large part - true. First he affirms (Ad Nationes, l. i, c. 5) that the pagan - charges are not true of all, "not even of the greatest part - of us." In regard to the charge of incest (c. 16), instead of - denying it as the earlier apologist Minucius Felix had done in - the age of persecution, he merely argues that the same offence - occurs through ignorance among the pagans. The chapter concludes - by virtually admitting the charge with regard to misconduct in - "the mysteries." Still later, when he has turned Montanist, - Tertullian explicitly charges his former associates with sexual - licence (De Jejuniis, cc. 1, 17: De Virginibus Velandis, c. 14), - pointing now to the heathen as showing more regard for monogamy - than do the Christians (De Exhort. Castitatis, c. 13). - - From the fourth century onward the history of the Church reveals - at every step a conformity on the part of its members to average - pagan practice. The third canon of the Nicene Council forbids - clerics of all ranks from keeping as companions or housekeepers - women who are not their close blood relations. In the fifth - century Salvian denounces the Christians alike of Gaul and Africa - as being boundlessly licentious in comparison with the Arian - barbarians (De Gubernatione Dei, lib. 5, 6, 7). They do not even, - he declares, deny the charge, contenting themselves with claiming - superior orthodoxy. (Cp. Bury, Hist. of the Later Roman Empire, - i, 198-99, and Finlay, ii, 219, for another point of view.) On - all hands heresy was reckoned the one deadly sin (Gieseler, § 74, - p. 295, and refs.), and all real misdeeds came to seem venial by - comparison. As to sexual vice and crime among the Christianized - Germans, see Gieseler, § 125, vol. ii, 158-60. - - In the East the conditions were the same. The story of the - indecent performances of Theodora on the stage (Gibbon, ch. xl), - probably untrue of her, implies that such practices openly - occurred. Milman (Hist. of Chr. bk. iv, ch. ii. ed. cited, ii, - 327) recognizes general indecency, and notes that Zosimus charged - it on Christian rule. Salvian speaks of unlimited obscenity in the - theatres of Christian Gaul (De Gub. Dei, l. 6). Cp. Gibbon as to - the character of the devout Justinian's minister Trebonian; who, - however, was called an atheist. (Suidas, s.v.) On the collapse - of the iconoclastic movement, licence became general (Finlay, - Hist. of Greece, ed. Tozer, ii, 162). But even in the fourth - century Chrysostom's writings testify to the normality of all the - vices, as well as the superstitions, that Christianity is supposed - to have banished; the churches figuring, like the ancient temples, - as places of assignation. (Cp. the extracts of Lavollée, Les - Moeurs Byzantines, in Essais de littérature et d'histoire, 1891, - pp. 48-62, 89; the S.P.C.K.'s St. Chrysostom's Picture of his Age, - 1875, pp. 6, 94, 96, 98, 100, 102-104, 108, 194; Chrysostom's - Homilies, Eng. tr. 1839, Hom. xii on 1st Cor. pp. 159-64; - Jerome, Adv. Vigilantium, cited by Gieseler, ii, 66, note 19, - and in Gilly's Vigilantius and his Times, 1844, pp. 406-407.) The - clergy were among the most licentious of all, and Chrysostom had - repeatedly to preach against them (Lavollée, ch. iv; Mosheim, as - last cited; Gibbon, ch. xlvii, Bohn ed. iv, 232). The position of - women was practically what it had been in post-Alexandrian Greece - and Asia-Minor (Lavollée, ch. v; cp. St. Chrysostom's Picture of - his Age, pp. 180-82); and the practice corresponded. In short, - the supposition that the population of Constantinople as we see - it under Justinian, or that of Alexandria in the same age, could - have been morally austere, is fantastic. - - -It would indeed be unintelligible that intellectual decline without -change of social system should put morals on a sound footing. The -very asceticism which seeks to mortify the body is an avowal of the -vice from which it recoils, and insofar as this has prevailed under -Christianity it has specifically hindered general temperance, [991] -inasmuch as the types capable of self-rule thus leave no offspring. - -On the other hand, with the single exception of the case of the -gladiatorial combats (which had been denounced in the first century -by the pagan Seneca, [992] and in the fourth by the pagan Libanius, -but lasted in Rome long after Christianity had become the State -religion; [993] while the no less cruel combats of men with wild -beasts were suppressed only when the finances of the falling Empire -could no longer maintain them), [994] the vice of cruelty seems to -have been in no serious degree cast out. [995] Cruelty to slaves was -certainly not less than in the Rome of the Antonines; and Chrysostom -[996] denounces just such atrocities by cruel mistresses as had been -described by Horace and Juvenal. The story of the slaying of Hypatia, -indeed, is decisive as to Christian ferocity. [997] - -In fine, the entire history of Christian Egypt, Asia, and Africa, -progressively decadent till their easy conquest by the Saracens, -and the entire history of the Christian Byzantine empire, at best -stagnant in mental and material life during the thousand years of its -existence, serve conclusively to establish the principle that in the -absence of freethought no civilization can progress. More completely -than any of the ancient civilizations to which they succeeded, they -cast out or were denuded of the spirit of free reason. The result was -strictly congruous. The process, of course, was one of socio-political -causation throughout; and the rule of dogma was a symptom or effect of -the process, not the extraneous cause. But that is only the clinching -of the sociological lesson. - -Of a deep significance, in view of the total historical movement, -is the philosophical teaching of the last member of the ancient Roman -world who exhibited philosophical capacity--the long famous Boethius, -minister of the conqueror Theodoric, who put him to death in the -year 525. Ostensibly from the same hand we have the De Consolatione -Philosophiae, which is substantially non-Christian, and a number -of treatises expounding orthodox Christian dogma. In the former -"we find him in strenuous opposition ... to the Christian theory of -creation; and his Dualism is at least as apparent as Plato's. We find -him coquetting with the anti-Christian doctrine of the immortality -of the world, and assuming a position with regard to sin which is -ultra-Pelagian and utterly untenable by a Christian theologian. We -find him, with death before his eyes, deriving consolation not from -any hopes of a resurrection ... but from the present contempt of all -earthly pain and ill which his divine mistress, 'the perfect solace -of wearied souls,' has taught him." [998] Seeing that Theodoric, -though a professed admirer of the ancient life, had absolutely put -down, on pain of death, [999] every remaining religious practice of -paganism, it is certain that Boethius must have officially professed -Christianity; but his book seems to make it certain that he was -not a believer. The only theory on which the expounder of such an -essentially pagan philosophy can be conceived as really the author -of the Christian tractates ascribed to Boethius is that, under the -stroke of undeserved ruin and unjust doom, the thinker turned away -from the creed of his official life and sought healing in the wisdom -of the older world. [1000] Whether we accept this solution or, in -despite of the specific testimony, reject the theological tractates as -falsely ascribed--either by their writer or by others--to Boethius, -[1001] the significant fact remains that it was not the Christian -tracts but the pagan Consolation that passed down to the western -nations of the Middle Ages as the last great intellectual legacy from -the ancient world. It had its virtue for an age of mental bondage, -because it preserved some pulse of the spirit of free thought. - - - - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -FREETHOUGHT UNDER ISLAM [1002] - - -§ 1 - -The freethinking of Mohammed may be justly said to begin and end with -his rejection of popular polytheism and his acceptance of the idea of -a single God. That idea he ostensibly held as a kind of revelation, -not as a result of any traceable process of reasoning; and he affirmed -it from first to last as a fanatic. One of the noblest of fanatics -he may be, but hardly more. Denouncing all idolatry, he anchored -his creed to the Ka'aba, the sacred black stone of the remote past, -which is to this day its most revered object. - -That the monotheistic idea, in its most vivid form, reached him in -middle age by way of a vision is part of the creed of his followers; -and that it derived in some way from Jews, or Persians, or Christians, -as the early unbelievers declared, [1003] is probable enough. But -there is evidence that among his fellow-Arabs the idea had taken some -slight root before his time, even in a rationalistic form, and it is -clear that there were before his day many believers, though also many -unbelievers, in a future state. [1004] There is no good ground for the -oft-repeated formula about the special monotheistic and other religious -proclivities of "the Semite"; [1005] Semites being subject to religious -influences like other peoples, in terms of culture and environment. The -Moslems themselves preserved a tradition that one Zaid, who died -five years before the Prophet received his first inspiration, had -of his own accord renounced idolatry without becoming either Jew or -Christian; but on being told by a Jew to become a Hanyf, [1006] that -is to say, of the religion of Abraham, who worshipped nothing but God, -he at once agreed. [1007] In the oldest extant biography of Mohammed -an address of Zaid's has been preserved, of which six passages are -reproduced in the Koran; [1008] and there are other proofs [1009] -that the way had been partly made for Mohammedanism before Mohammed, -especially at Medina, to which he withdrew (the Hej'ra) with his -early followers when his fellow-tribesmen would not accept his -message. He uses the term Hanyf repeatedly as standing for his own -doctrine. [1010] In some of the Arab poetry of the generation before -Mohammed, again, there is "a deep conviction of the unity of God, -and of his elevation over all other beings," as well as a clearly -developed sense of moral responsibility. [1011] The doctrine of a -Supreme God was indeed general; [1012] and Mohammed's insistence on -the rejection of the lesser deities or "companions of God" was but -a preaching of unitarianism to half-professed monotheists who yet -practised polytheism and idolatry. The Arabs at his time, in short, -were on the same religious plane as the Christians, but with a good -deal of unbelief; "Zendekism" or rationalistic deism (or atheism) -being charged in particular on Mohammed's tribe, the Koreish; -[1013] and the Prophet used traditional ideas to bring them to -his unitary creed. In one case he even temporarily accepted their -polytheism. [1014] The several tribes were further to some extent -monolatrous, [1015] somewhat as were the Semitic tribes of Palestine; -and before Mohammed's time a special worshipper of the star Sirius -sought to persuade the Koreish to give up their idols and adore -that star alone. Thus between their partially developed monotheism, -their partial familiarity with Hanyf monotheism, and their common -intercourse with the nominally monotheistic Jews and Christians, many -Arabs were in a measure prepared for the Prophet's doctrine; which, -for the rest, embodied many of their own traditions and superstitions -as well as many orally received from Christians and Jews. - - - "The Koran itself," says Palmer, "is, indeed, less the invention - or conception of Mohammed than a collection of legends and moral - axioms borrowed from desert lore and couched in the language - and rhythm of desert eloquence, but adorned with the additional - charm of enthusiasm. Had it been merely Mohammed's own invented - discourses, bearing only the impress of his personal style, the - Koran could never have appealed with so much success to every - Arab-speaking race as a miracle of eloquence." [1016] - - Kuenen challenges Sprenger's conclusions and sums up: "We need - not deny that Mohammed had predecessors; but we must deny that - tradition gives us a faithful representation of them, or is correct - in calling them hanyfs. [1017] On the other hand, he concedes that - "Mohammed made Islam out of elements which were supplied to him - very largely from outside, and which had a whole history behind - them already, so that he could take them up as they were without - further elaboration." [1018] - - "During the first century of Islam the forging of Traditions - became a recognized political and religious weapon, of which - all parties availed themselves. Even men of the strictest piety - practised this species of fraud, and maintained that the end - justified the means." [1019] - - -The final triumph of the religion, however, was due neither to the -elements of its Sacred Book nor to the moral or magnetic power of -the Prophet. This power it was that won his first adherents, who were -mostly his friends and relatives, or slaves to whom his religion was a -species of enfranchisement. [1020] From that point forward his success -was military--thanks, that is, to the valour of his followers--his -fellow citizens never having been won in mass to his teaching. [1021] -Such success as his might conceivably be gained by a mere military -chief. Nor could the spread of Islam after his death have taken place -save in virtue of the special opportunities for conquest lying before -its adherents--opportunities already seen by Mohammed, either with the -eye of statesmanship or with that of his great general, Omar. [1022] -It is an error to assume, as is still commonly done, that it was the -unifying and inspiring power of the religion that wrought the Saracen -conquests. Warlike northern barbarians had overrun the Western Empire -without any such stimulus; the prospect of booty and racial kinship -sufficed them for the conquest of a decadent community; and the same -conditions existed for the equally warlike Saracens, [1023] who also, -before Mohammed, had learned something of the military art from the -Græco-Romans. [1024] Their religious ardour would have availed them -little against the pagan legions of the unbelieving Cæsar; and as -a matter of fact they could never conquer, though they curtailed, -the comparatively weak Byzantine Empire; its moderate economic -resources and traditional organization sufficing to sustain it, despite -intellectual decadence, till the age of Saracen greatness was over. Nor -did their faith ever unify them save ostensibly for purposes of common -warfare against the racial foe--a kind of union attained in all ages -and with all varieties of religion. Fierce domestic strifes broke out -as soon as the Prophet was dead. It would be as true to say that the -common racial and military interest against the Græco-Roman and Persian -States unified the Moslem parties, as that Islam unified the Arab -tribes and factions. Apart from the inner circle of converts, indeed, -the first conquerors were in mass not at all deeply devout, and many of -them maintained to the end of their generation, and after his death, -the unbelief which from the first met the Prophet at Mecca. [1025] -Against the creed of Mohammed "the conservative and material instincts -of the people of the desert rose in revolt; and although they became -Moslems en masse, the majority of them neither believed in Islam nor -knew what it meant. Often their motives were frankly utilitarian: -they expected that Islam would bring them luck.... If things went ill, -they blamed Islam and turned their backs on it." [1026] It is told of -a Moslem chief of the early days that he said: "If there were a God, -I would swear by his name that I did not believe in him." [1027] -A general fanaticism grew up later. But had there been no Islam, -enterprising Arabs would probably have overrun Syria and Persia and -Africa and Spain all the same. [1028] Attila went further, and he is -not known to have been a monotheist or a believer in Paradise. Nor -were Jenghiz Khan and Tamerlane indebted to religious faith for -their conquests. - -On the other hand, when a Khalifate was anywhere established -by military force, the faith would indeed serve as a nucleus of -administration, and further as a means of resisting the insidious -propaganda of the rival faith, which might have been a source of -political danger. It was their Sacred Book and Prophet that saved -the Arabs from accepting the religion of the states they conquered -as did the Goths and Franks. The faith thus so far preserved their -military polity when that was once set up; but it was not the faith -that made the polity possible, or gave the power of conquest, as is -conventionally held. At most, it partly facilitated their conquests -by detaching a certain amount of purely superstitious support from -the other side. And it never availed to unify the race, or the Islamic -peoples. On the fall of Othman "the ensuing civil wars rent the unity -of Islam from top to bottom, and the wound has never healed." [1029] -The feud between Northern and Southern Arabs "rapidly developed and -extended into a permanent racial enmity." [1030] And when, after -the Ommayade dynasty had totally failed to unify Semite and Aryan in -Persia, the task was partially accomplished by the Abassides, it was -not through any greater stress of piety, but by way of accepting the -inevitable, after generations of division and revolt. [1031] - - - - -§ 2 - -It may perhaps be more truly claimed for the Koran that it was the -basis of Arab scholarship; since it was in order to elucidate its -text that the first Arab grammars and dictionaries and literary -collections were made. [1032] Here again, however, the reflection -arises that some such development would have occurred in any case, on -the basis of the abundant pre-Islamic poetry, given but the material -conquests. The first conquerors were illiterate, and had to resort -to the services and the organization of the conquered [1033] for -all purposes of administrative writings, using for a time even the -Greek and Persian languages. There was nothing in the Koran itself -to encourage literature; and the first conquerors either despised or -feared that of the conquered. [1034] - -When the facts are inductively considered, it appears that the Koran -was from the first rather a force of intellectual fixation than one -of stimulus. As we have seen, there was a measure of rationalism as -well as of monotheism among the Arabs before Mohammed; and the Prophet -set his face violently against all unbelief. The word "unbeliever" -or "infidel" in the Koran normally signifies merely "rejector of -Mohammed"; but a number of passages [1035] show that there were -specific unbelievers in the doctrine of a future state as well as in -miracles; and his opponents put to him challenges which showed that -they rationally disbelieved his claim to inspiration. [1036] Hence, -clearly, the scarcity of miracles in his early legend, on the Arab -side. On a people thus partly "refined, skeptical, incredulous," -[1037] much of whose poetry showed no trace of religion, [1038] -the triumph of Islam gradually imposed a tyrannous dogma, entailing -abundance of primitive superstition under the ægis of monotheistic -doctrine. Some moral service it did compass, and for this the credit -seems to be substantially due to Mohammed; though here again he -was not an innovator. Like previous reformers, [1039] he vehemently -denounced the horrible practice of burying alive girl children; and -when the Koran became law his command took effect. His limitation of -polygamy too may have counted for something, despite the unlimited -practice of his latter years. For the rest, he prescribes, in the -traditional eastern fashion, liberal almsgiving; this, with normal -integrity and patience, and belief in "God and the Last Day, and the -Angels, and the Scriptures, and the Prophets," [1040] is the gist -of his ethical and religious code, with much stress on hell-fire -and the joys of Paradise, and at the same time on predestination, -and with no reasoning on any issue. - - - - -§ 3 - -The history of Saracen culture is the history of the attainment -of saner ideas and a higher plane of thought. Within a century of -the Hej'ra [1041] there had arisen some rational skepticism in the -Moslem schools, as apart from the chronic schisms and strifes of the -faithful. A school of theology had been founded by Hasan-al-Basri at -Bassorah; and one of his disciples, Wasil ibn Attâ, following some -previous heretics--Mabad al Jhoni, Ghailan of Damascus, and Jonas al -Aswari [1042]--rejected the predestination doctrine of the Koran as -inconsistent with the future judgment; arguing for freewill and at the -same time for the humane provision of a purgatory. From this beginning -dates the Motazileh or class of Motazilites (or Mu`tazilites), [1043] -the philosophic reformers and moderate freethinkers of Islam. Other -sects of a semi-political character had arisen even during the last -illness of the Prophet, and others soon after his death. [1044] One -party sought to impose on the faithful the "Sunna" or "traditions," -which really represented the old Arabian ideas of law, but were -pretended to be unwritten sayings of Mohammed. [1045] To this the -party of Ali (the Prophet's cousin) objected; whence began the long -dispute between the Shiah or Shîites (the anti-traditionists), and -the Sunnites; the conquered and oppressed Persians tending to stand -with the former, and generally, in virtue of their own thought, -to supply the heterodox element under the later Khalifates. [1046] -Thus Shîites were apt to be Motazilites. [1047] On Ali's side, again, -there broke away a great body of Kharejites or Separatists, who claimed -that the Imaum or head of the Faith should be chosen by election, -while the Shîites stood for succession by divine right. [1048] All -this had occurred before any schools of theology existed. - -The Motazilites, once started, divided gradually into a score of -sects, [1049] all more or less given to rationalizing within the -limits of monotheism. [1050] The first stock were named Kadarites, -because insisting on man's power (kadar) over his acts. [1051] -Against them were promptly ranged the Jabarites, who affirmed that -man's will was wholly under divine constraint (jabar). [1052] Yet -another sect, the Sifatites, opposed both of the others, some of them -[1053] standing for a literal interpretation of the Koran, which is -in part predestinationist, and in parts assumes freewill; while the -main body of orthodox, following the text, professed to respect as -insoluble mystery the contradictions they found in it. [1054] The -history of Islam in this matter is strikingly analogous to that of -Christianity from the rise of the Pelagian heresy. - -It is to be noted that, while the heretics in time came under Greek -and other foreign influences, their criticism of the Koran was -at the outset their own. [1055] The Shîites, becoming broadly the -party of the Persians, admitted in time Persian, Jewish, Gnostic, -Manichæan, and other dualistic doctrines, and generally tended -to interpret the Koran allegorically. [1056] A particular school -of allegorists, the Bathenians, even tended to purify the idea of -deity in an agnostic direction. [1057] All of these would appear -to have ranked genetically as Motazilites; and the manifold play -of heretical thought gradually forced a certain habit of reasoning -on the orthodox, [1058] who as usual found their advantage in the -dissidences of the dissenters. On the other hand, the Motazilites -found new resources in the study and translation of Greek works, -scientific and philosophical. [1059] They were thus the prime factors, -on the Arab side, in the culture-evolution which went on under the -earlier of the Abasside Khalifs (750-1258). Greek literature reached -them mainly through the Syrian Christians, in whose hands it had been -put by the Nestorians, driven out of their scientific school at Edessa -and exiled by Leo the Isaurian (716-741); [1060] possibly also in part -through the philosophers who, on being exiled from Athens by Justinian, -settled for a time in Persia. [1061] The total result was that already -in the ninth century, within two hundred years of the beginning of -Mohammed's preaching, the Saracens in Persia had reached not only a -remarkable height of material civilization, their wealth exceeding -that of Byzantium, but a considerable though quasi-secret measure of -scientific knowledge and rational thought, [1062] including even some -measure of pure atheism. All forms of rationalism alike were called -zendekism by the orthodox, the name having the epithetic force of -the Christian terms "infidelity" and "atheism". [1063] - -Secrecy was long imposed on the Motazilites by the orthodoxy -of the Khalifs, [1064] who as a rule atoned for many crimes and -abundant breaches of the law of the Koran by a devout profession -of faith. Freethinking, however, had its periods of political -prosperity. Even under the Ommayade dynasty, the Khalif Al Walid Ibn -Yazid (the eleventh of the race) was reputed to be of no religion, -but seems to have been rather a ruffian than a rationalist. [1065] -Under the Abassides culture made much more progress. The Khalif -Al Mansour, though he played a very orthodox part, [1066] favoured -the Motazilites (754-775), being generally a patron of the sciences; -and under him were made the first translations from the Greek. [1067] -Despite his orthodoxy he encouraged science; and it was as insurgents -and not as unbelievers that he destroyed the sect of Rewandites (a -branch of the anti-Moslem Ismailites), who are said to have believed -in metempsychosis. [1068] Partly on political but partly also on -religious grounds his successor Al Mahdi made war on the Ismailites, -whom he regarded as atheists, and who appear to have been connected -with the Motazilite "Brethren of Purity," [1069] destroying their -books and causing others to be written against them. [1070] They were -anti-Koranites; hardly atheists; but a kind of informal rationalism -approaching to atheism, and involving unbelief in the Koran and the -Prophet, seems to have spread considerably, despite the slaughter -of many unbelievers by Al Mahdi. Its source seems to have been -Persian aversion to the alien creed. [1071] The great philosophic -influence, again, was that of Aristotle; and though his abstract -God-idea was nominally adhered to, the scientific movement promoted -above all things the conception of a reign of law. [1072] Al Hadi, -the successor of Al Mahdi, persecuted much and killed many heretics; -and Haroun Al Raschid (Aaron the Orthodox) menaced with death those -who held the moderately rational tenet that "the Koran was created," -[1073] as against the orthodox dogma (on all fours with the Brahmanic -doctrine concerning the Veda) that it was eternal in the heavens and -uncreated. One of the rationalists, Al Mozdar, accused the orthodox -party of infidelity, as asserting two eternal things; and there was -current among the Motazilites of his day the saying that, "had God -left men to their natural liberty, the Arabians could have composed -something not only equal but superior to the Koran in eloquence, -method, and purity of language." [1074] - -Haroun's crimes, however, consisted little in acts of persecution. The -Persian Barmekides (the family of his first Vizier, surnamed Barmek) -were regarded as protectors of Motazilites; [1075] and one of the -sons, Jaafer, was even suspected of atheism, all three indeed being -charged with it. [1076] Their destruction, on other grounds, does not -seem to have altered the conditions for the thinkers; but Haroun's -incompetent son Emin was a devotee and persecutor. His abler brother -and conqueror Al Mamoun (813-833), on the other hand, directly favoured -the Motazilites, partly on political grounds, to strengthen himself -with the Persian party, but also on the ground of conviction. [1077] -He even imprisoned some of the orthodox theologians who maintained that -the Koran was not a created thing, though, like certain persecutors of -other faiths, he had expressly declared himself in favour of persuasion -as against coercion. [1078] In one case, following usage, he inflicted -a cruel torture. "His fatal error," says a recent scholar, "was that -he invoked the authority of the State in matters of the intellectual -and religious life." [1079] Compared with others, certainly, he did -not carry his coercion far, though, on being once publicly addressed -as "Ameer of the Unbelievers," he caused the fanatic who said it to -be put to death. [1080] In private he was wont to conduct meetings -for discussion, attended by believers and unbelievers of every shade, -at which the only restriction was that the appeal must be to reason, -and never to the Koran. [1081] Concerning his personal bias, it -is related that he had received from Kabul a book in old Persian, -The Eternal Reason, which taught that reason is the only basis for -religion, and that revelation cannot serve as a standing ground. [1082] -The story is interesting, but enigmatic, the origin of the book being -untraceable. Whatever were his views, his coercive policy against the -orthodox extremists had the usual effect of stimulating reaction on -that side, and preparing the ultimate triumph of orthodoxy. [1083] -The fact remains, however, that Mamoun was of all the Khalifs the -greatest promoter of science [1084] and culture; the chief encourager -of the study and translation of Greek literature; [1085] and, despite -his coercion of the theologians on the dogma of the eternity of the -Koran, tolerant enough to put a Christian at the head of a college -at Damascus, declaring that he chose him not for his religion but for -his science. In the same spirit he permitted the free circulation of -the apologetic treatise of the Armenian Christian Al Kindy, in which -Islam and the Koran are freely criticized. As a ruler, too, he ranks -among the best of his race for clemency, justice, and decency of life, -although orthodox imputations were cast on his subordinates. His -successors Motasim and Wathek were of the same cast of opinion, the -latter being, however, fanatical on behalf of his rationalistic view -of the Koran as a created thing. [1086] - -A violent orthodox reaction set in under the worthless and Turk-ruled -Khalif Motawakkel [1087] (847-861), by whose time the Khalifate -was in a state of political decadence, partly from the economic -exhaustion following on its tyrannous and extortionate rule; partly -from the divisive tendencies of its heterogeneous sections; partly -from the corrupting tendency of all despotic power. [1088] Despite -the official restoration of orthodoxy, the private cultivation -of science and philosophy proceeded for a time; the study and -translation of Greek books continued; [1089] and rationalism of a -kind seems to have subsisted more or less secretly to the end. In -the tenth century it is said to have reached even the unlearned; and -though the Motazilites gradually drifted into a scholastic orthodoxy, -downright unbelief came up alongside, [1090] albeit secretly. Faith -in Mohammed's mission and law began again to shake; and the learned -disregarded its prescriptions. Mystics professed to find the way -to God without the Koran. Many decided that religion was useful for -regulating the people, but was not for the wise. On the other side, -however, the orthodox condemned all science as leading to unbelief, -[1091] and developed an elaborate and quasi-systematic theology. It -was while the scientific encyclopedists of Bassorah were amassing the -knowledge which, through the Moors, renewed thought in the West, that -Al Ashari built up the Kalâm or scholastic theology which thenceforth -reigned in the Mohammedan East; [1092] and the philosopher Al Gazzali -(or Gazel), on his part, employed the ancient and modern device of -turning a profession of philosophical scepticism to the account of -orthodoxy. [1093] - -In the struggle between science and religion, in a politically -decadent State, the latter inevitably secured the administrative -power. [1094] Under the Khalifs Motamid (d. 892) and Motadhed (d. 902) -all science and philosophy were proscribed, and booksellers were put -upon their oath not to sell any but orthodox books. [1095] Thus, though -philosophy and science had secretly survived, when the political end -came the popular faith was in much the same state as it had been under -Haroun Al Raschid. Under Islam as under all the faiths of the world, -in the east as in the west, the mass of the people remained ignorant -as well as poor; and the learning and skill of the scholars served -only to pass on the saved treasure of Greek thought and science to -the new civilization of Europe. The fact that the age of military and -political decadence was that of the widest diffusion of rationalism -is naturally fastened on as giving the explanation of the decline; -but the inference is pure fallacy. The Bagdad Khalifate declined as -the Christianized Roman Empire declined, from political and external -causes; and the Turks who overthrew it proceeded to overthrow Christian -Byzantium, where rationalism never reared its head. - - - The conventional view is thus set forth in a popular work (The - Saracens, by Arthur Gilman, 1887, p. 385): "Unconsciously Mamun - began a process by which that implicit faith which had been - at once the foundation and the inspiration of Islam, which had - nerved its warriors in their terrible warfare, and had brought - the nation out of its former obscurity to the foremost position - among the peoples of the world, was to be taken from them." We - have seen that this view is entirely erroneous as regards the - rise of the Saracen power; and it is no less so as regards - the decline. At the outset there had been no "implicit faith" - among the conquerors. The Eastern Saracens, further, had been - decisively defeated by the Byzantines in the very first flush of - their fanaticism and success; and the Western had been routed by - Charles Martel long before they had any philosophy. There was - no overthrow of faith among the warriors of the Khalifate. The - enlistment of Turkish mercenaries by Mamoun and Motasim, by way of - being independent of the Persian and Arab factions in the army and - the State, introduced an element which, at first purely barbaric, - became as orthodox as the men of Haroun's day had been. Yet the - decadence, instead of being checked, was furthered. - - Nor were the strifes set up by the rationalistic view of the Koran - nearly so destructive as the mere faction-fights and sectarian - insurrections which began with Motawakkel. The falling-away - of cities and provinces under the feeble Moktader (908-932) - had nothing whatever to do with opinions, but was strictly - analogous to the dissolution of the kingdom of Charlemagne under - his successors, through the rise of new provincial energies; - and the tyranny of the Turkish mercenaries was on all fours with - that of the Pretorians of the Roman Empire, and with that of the - Janissaries in later Turkey. The writer under notice has actually - recorded (p. 408) that the warlike sect of Ismailitic Karmathians, - who did more than any other enemy to dismember the Khalifate, were - unbelievers in the Koran, deniers of revelation, and disregarders - of prayer. The later Khalifs, puppets in the hands of the Turks, - were one and all devout believers. - - On the other hand, fresh Moslem and non-Moslem dynasties arose - alternately as the conditions and opportunities determined. Jenghiz - Khan, who overran Asia, was no Moslem; neither was Tamerlane; - but new Moslem conquerors did overrun India, as pagan Alexander - had done in his day. Theological ideas counted for as little in - one case as in the other. Sultan Mahmoud of Ghazni (997-1030), who - reared a new empire on the basis of the province of Khorassan and - the kingdom of Bokhara, and who twelve times successfully invaded - India, happened to be of Turkish stock; but he is also recorded - to have been in his youth a doubter of a future state, as well as - of his personal legitimacy. His later parade of piety (as to which - see Baron De Slane's tr. of Ibn Khallikan's Biog. Dict. iii, 334) - is thus a trifle suspect (British India, in Edin. Cab. Lib. 3rd - ed. i, 189, following Ferishta); and his avarice seems to have - animated him to the full as much as his faith, which was certainly - not more devout than that of the Brahmans of Somnauth, whose - hold he captured. (Cp. Prof. E. G. Browne, A Literary History - of Persia, ii (1906), 119.) During his reign, besides, unbelief - was rife in his despite (Weil, Geschichte der Chalifen, iii, 72), - though he burned the books of the Motazilites, besides crucifying - many Ismaïlian heretics (Browne, p. 160). The conventional theorem - as to the political importance of faith, in short, will not bear - investigation. Even Freeman here sets it aside (Hist. and Conq. of - the Saracens, p. 124). - - - - -§ 4 - -It is in the later and nominally decadent ages of the Bagdad Khalifate, -when science and culture and even industry relatively prospered by -reason of the personal impotence of the Khalifs, that we meet with -the most pronounced and the most perspicacious of the Freethinkers of -Islam. In the years 973-1057 there dwelt in the little Syrian town -of Marratun-Numan the blind poet Abu'l-ala-al-Ma'arri, who wrote a -parody of the Koran, [1096] and in his verse derided all religions as -alike absurd, and yet was for some reason never persecuted. He has -been pronounced "incomparably greater" than Omar Khayyám "both as -a poet and as an agnostic." [1097] One of his sayings was that "The -world holds two classes of men--intelligent men without religion, and -religious men without intelligence." [1098] He may have escaped on the -strength of a character for general eccentricity, for he was an ardent -vegetarian and an opponent of all parentage, declaring that to bring -a child into the world was to add to the sum of suffering. [1099] -The fact that he was latterly a man of wealth, yet in person an -ascetic and a generous giver, may be the true explanation. Whatever -be the explanation of his immunity, the frankness of his heterodoxy -is memorable. Nourished perhaps by a temper of protest set up in him -by the blindness which fell upon him in childhood after smallpox, the -spirit of reason seems to have been effectually developed in him by a -stay of a year and a-half at Bagdad, where, in the days of Al Mansour, -"Christians and Jews, Buddhists and Zoroastrians, Sabians and Sufis, -materialists and rationalists," met and communed. [1100] Before his -visit, his poems are substantially orthodox; later, their burden -changes. He denies a resurrection, and is "wholly incredulous of any -divine revelation. Religion, as he conceives it, is a product of the -human mind, in which men believe through force of habit and education, -never stopping to consider whether it is true." "His belief in God -amounted, as it would seem, to little beyond a conviction that all -things are governed by inexorable Fate." Concerning creeds he sings -in one stave:-- - - - Now this religion happens to prevail - Until by that one it is overthrown; - Because men will not live with men alone, - But always with another fairy-tale [1101]-- - - -a summing-up not to be improved upon here. - -A century later still, and in another region, we come upon the (now) -most famous of all Eastern freethinkers, Omar Khayyám. He belonged to -Naishápúr in Khorassan, a province which had long been known for its -rationalism, [1102] and which had been part of the nucleus of the great -Asiatic kingdom created by Sultan Mahmoud of Ghazni at the beginning -of the eleventh century, soon after the rise of the Fatimite dynasty -in Egypt. Under that Sultan flourished Ferdusi (Firdausi), one of -the chief glories of Persian verse. After Mahmoud's death, his realm -and parts of the Khalifate in turn were overrun by the Seljuk Turks -under Togrul Beg; under whose grandson Malik it was that Omar Khayyám, -astronomer and poet, studied and sang in Khorassan. The Turk-descended -Shah favoured science as strongly as any of the Abassides; and when he -decided to reform the calendar, Omar was one of the eight experts he -employed to do it. Thus was set up for the East the Jaláli calendar, -which, as Gibbon has noted, [1103] "surpasses the Julian and approaches -the accuracy of the Gregorian style." Omar was, in fact, one of the -ablest mathematicians of his age. [1104] - -His name, Omar ibn Ibrahim al-Khayyámi, seems to point to Arab -descent. "Al-Khayyámmi" means "the tent-maker"; but in no biographic -account of him is there the slightest proof that he or his father ever -belonged to that or any other handicraft. [1105] Always he figures -as a scholar and a man of science. Since, therefore, the patronymic -al-Khayyámi is fairly common now among Arabs, and also among the still -nomadic tribes of Khuzistan and Luristan, the reasonable presumption -is that it was in his case a patronymic also. [1106] His father being -a man of some substance, he had a good schooling, and is even described -in literary tradition as having become an expert Koran scholar, by the -admission of the orthodox Al Gazzali, who, however, is represented -in another record as looking with aversion on Omar's scientific -lore. [1107] The poet may have had his lead to freethought during his -travels after graduating at Naishapur, when he visited Samarkhand, -Bokhara, Ispahan, and Balk. [1108] He seems to have practised astrology -for a living, even as did Kepler in Europe five hundred years later; -and he perhaps dabbled somewhat in medicine. [1109] A hostile orthodox -account of him, written in the thirteenth century, represents him as -"versed in all the wisdom of the Greeks," and as wont to insist on -the necessity of studying science on Greek lines. [1110] Of his prose -works, two, which were of standard authority, dealt respectively with -precious stones and climatology. [1111] - -Beyond question the poet-astronomer was undevout; and his astronomy -doubtless helped to make him so. One contemporary writes: "I did not -observe that he had any great belief in astrological predictions; -nor have I seen or heard of any of the great (scientists) who had such -belief." [1112] The biographical sketch by Ibn al Kifti, before cited, -declares that he "performed pilgrimages not from piety but from fear," -having reason to dread the hostility of contemporaries who knew or -divined his unbelief; and there is a story of a treacherous pupil -who sought to bring him into public odium. [1113] In point of fact he -was not, any more than Abu' l-Ala, a convinced atheist, but he had no -sympathy with popular religion. "He gave his adherence to no religious -sect. Agnosticism, not faith, is the keynote of his works." [1114] -Among the sects he saw everywhere strife and hatred in which he could -have no part. His earlier English translators, reflecting the tone -of the first half of the last century, have thought fit to moralize -censoriously over his attitude to life; and the first, Prof. Cowell, -has austerely decided that Omar's gaiety is "but a risus sardonicus -of despair." [1115] Even the subtler Fitzgerald, who has so admirably -rendered some of the audacities which Cowell thought "better left in -the original Persian," has the air of apologizing for them when he -partly concurs in the same estimate. But despair is not the name for -the humorous melancholy which Omar, like Abu' l-Ala, weaves around -his thoughts on the riddle of the universe. Like Abu' l-Ala, again, -he talks at times of God, but with small signs of faith. In epigrams -which have seldom been surpassed for their echoing depth, he disposes -of the theistic solution and the lure of immortality; whereafter, -instead of offering another shibboleth, he sings of wine and roses, -of the joys of life and of their speedy passage; not forgetting -to add a stipulation for beneficence. [1116] It was his way of -turning into music the undertone of all mortality; and that it is -now preferable, for any refined intelligence, to the affectation of -zest for a "hereafter" on which no one wants to enter, would seem to -be proved by the remarkable vogue he has secured in modern England, -chiefly through the incomparable version of Fitzgerald. Much of the -attraction, certainly, is due to the canorous cadence and felicitous -phrasing of those singularly fortunate stanzas; and a similar handling -might have won as high a repute among us for Abu' l-Ala, whom, as we -have seen, some of our Orientalists set higher, and whose verse as -recently rendered into English has an indubitable charm. Fitzgerald, -on the other hand, has added much to Omar. But the thoughts of Omar -remain the kernels of Fitzgerald's verses; and whereas the counsel, -"Gather ye roses while ye may," is common enough, it must be the -weightier bearing of his deeper and more daring ideas that gives -the quatrains their main hold to-day. In the more exact rendering of -those translators who closely reproduce the original he remains beyond -question a freethinker, [1117] placing ethic above creed, though much -given to the praise of wine. Never popular in the Moslem world, [1118] -he has had in ours an unparalleled welcome; and it must be because -from his scientific vantage ground in the East, in the period of the -Norman Conquest, he had attained in some degree the vision and chimed -with the mood of a later and larger age. - -That Omar in his day and place was not alone in his mood lies on -the face of his verse. Many quatrains ascribed to him, indeed, -are admittedly assignable to other Persian poets; and one of his -English editors notes that "the poetry of rebellion and revolt from -orthodox opinion, which is supposed to be peculiar to him, may be -traced in the works of his predecessor Avicenna, as well as in those -of Afdal-i-Káshí, and others of his successors." [1119] The allusions -to the tavern, a thing suspect and illicit for Islam, show that he -was in a society more Persian than Arab, one in which was to be found -nearly all of the free intellectual life possible in the Moslem East; -[1120] and doubtless Persian thought, always leaning to heresy, and -charged with germs of scientific speculation from immemorial antiquity, -prepared his rationalism; though his monism excludes alike dualism -and theism. "One for two I never did misread" is his summing up of -his philosophy. [1121] - -But the same formula might serve for the philosophy of the sect of -Sufis, [1122] who in all ages seem to have included unbelievers as -well as devoutly mystical pantheists. Founded, it is said, by a woman, -Rabia, in the first century of the Hej'ra, [1123] the sect really -carries on a pre-Mohammedan mysticism, and may as well derive from -Greece [1124] as from Asia. Its original doctrine of divine love, as a -reaction against Moslem austerity, gave it a fixed hold in Persia, and -became the starting point of innumerable heterodox doctrines. [1125] -Under the Khalif Moktader, a Persian Sufi is recorded to have been -tortured and executed for teaching that every man is God. [1126] In -later ages, Sufiism became loosely associated with every species of -independent thinking; and there is reason to suspect that the later -poets Sadi (fl. thirteenth century) and Hafiz [1127] (fl. fourteenth -century), as well as hundreds of lesser status, held under the name of -Sufiism views of life not far removed from those of Omar Khayyám; who, -however, had bantered the Sufis so unmercifully that they are said to -have dreaded and hated him. [1128] In any case, Sufiism has included -such divergent types as Al Gazzali, [1129] the skeptical defender of -the faith; devout pantheistic poets such as Jâmi; [1130] and singers -of love and wine such as Hafiz, whose extremely concrete imagery is -certainly not as often allegorical as serious Sufis assert, though no -doubt it is sometimes so. [1131] It even became nominally associated -with the destructive Ismaïlitism of the sect of the Assassins, whose -founder, Hassan, had been the schoolfellow of Omar Khayyám. [1132] - -Of Sufiism as a whole it may be said that whether as inculcating -quietism, or as widening the narrow theism of Islam into pantheism, -or as sheltering an unaggressive rationalism, it has made for freedom -and humanity in the Mohammedan world, lessening the evils of ignorance -where it could not inspire progress. [1133] It long anticipated -the semi-rationalism of those Christians who declare heaven and -hell to be names for bodily or mental states in this life. [1134] -On its more philosophic side too it connects with the long movement -of speculation which, passing into European life through the Western -Saracens, revived Greek philosophic thought in Christendom after the -night of the Middle Ages, at the same time that Saracen science passed -on the more precious seeds of real knowledge to the new civilization. - - - - -§ 5 - -There is the less need to deal at any length in these pages with the -professed philosophy of the eastern Arabs, seeing that it was from -first to last but little associated with any direct or practical -repudiation of dogma and superstition. [1135] What freethought there -was had only an unwritten currency, and is to be traced, as so often -happens in later European history, through the protests of orthodox -apologists. Thus the Persian Al Gazzali, in the preface to his work, -The Destruction of the Philosophers, declares of the subjects of -his attack that "the source of all their errors is the trust they -have in the names of Sokrates, Hippokrates, Plato, and Aristotle; the -admiration they profess for their genius and subtlety; and the belief, -finally, that those great masters have been led by the profundity of -their faculty to reject all religion, and to regard its precepts as -the product of artifice and imposture." [1136] This implies an abundant -rationalism, [1137] but, as always, the unwritten unbelief lost ground, -its non-publication being the proof that orthodoxy prevailed against -it. Movements which were originally liberal, such as that of the -Motecallemîn, ran at length to mere dialectic defence of the faith -against the philosophers. Fighting the Aristotelian doctrine of the -eternity of matter, they sought to found a new theistic creationism -on the atoms of Demokritos, making God the creator of the atoms, and -negating the idea of natural law. [1138] Eastern Moslem philosophy -in general followed some such line of reaction and petrifaction. The -rationalistic Al Kindi (fl. 850) seems to have been led to philosophize -by the Motazilite problems; but his successors mostly set them -aside, developing an abstract logic and philosophy on Greek bases, -or studying science for its own sake, though as a rule professing a -devout acceptance of the Koran. [1139] Such was Avicenna (Ibn Sina: -d. 1037), who taught that men should revere the faith in which they -were educated; though in comparison with his predecessor Al Farabi, -who leant to Platonic mysticism, he is a rationalistic Aristotelian, -[1140] with a strong leaning to pantheism. Of him an Arabic historian -writes that in his old age he attached himself to the court of the -heretical Ala-ud-Dawla at Ispahan, in order that he might freely -write his own heretical works. [1141] After Al Gazzali (d. 1111), -who attacked both Avicenna [1142] and Al Farabi somewhat in the spirit -of Cicero's skeptical Cotta attacking the Stoics and the Epicureans, -[1143] there seems to have been a further development of skepticism, -the skeptical defence of the faith having the same unsettling tendency -in his as in later hands. Ibn Khaldun seems to denounce in the name -of faith his mixture of pietism and philosophy; and Makrisi speaks -of his doctrines as working great harm to religion [1144] among the -Moslems. But the socio-political conditions were too unpropitious -to permit of any continuous advance on rational lines. Ere long an -uncritical orthodoxy prevailed in the Eastern schools, and it is -in Moorish Spain that we are to look for the last efforts of Arab -philosophy. - -The course of culture-evolution there broadly corresponds with that -of the Saracen civilization in the East. In Spain the Moors came into -contact with the Roman imperial polity, and at the same time with the -different culture elements of Judaism and Christianity. To both of -these faiths they gave complete toleration, thus strengthening their -own in a way that no other policy could have availed to do. Whatever -was left of Græco-Roman art, handicraft, and science, saving the -arts of portraiture, they encouraged; and whatever of agricultural -science remained from Carthaginian times they zealously adopted and -improved. Like their fellow-Moslems in the East, they further learned -all the science that the preserved literature of Greece could give -them. The result was that under energetic and enlightened khalifs -the Moorish civilization became the centre of light and knowledge -as well as of material prosperity for medieval Europe. Whatever of -science the world possessed was to be found in their schools; and -thither in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries flocked students -from the Christian States of western and northern Europe. It was in -whole or in part from Saracen hands that the modern world received -astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, botany, jurisprudence, -and philosophy. They were, in fact, the revivers of civilization after -the age of barbarian Christianity. [1145] And while the preservation -of Greek science, lost from the hands of Christendom, would have been -a notable service enough, the Arabs did much more. Alhazen (d. 1038) -is said to have done the most original work in optics before Newton, -[1146] and in the same century Arab medicine and chemistry made -original advances. [1147] - -While the progressive period lasted, there was of course an abundance -of practical freethought. But after a marvellously rapid rise, the -Moorish civilization was arrested and paralysed by the internal and the -external forces of anti-civilization--religious fanaticism within and -Christian hostility without. Everywhere we have seen culture-progress -depending more or less clearly on the failure to find solutions for -political problems. The most fatal defect of all Arab civilization--a -defect involved in its first departure by way of conquest, and in -its fixedly hostile relation to the Christian States, which kept it -constantly on a military basis--was the total failure to substitute any -measure of constitutional rule for despotism. It was thus politically -unprogressive, even while advancing in other respects. But in other -respects also it soon reached the limits set by the conditions. - -Whereas in Persia the Arabs overran an ancient civilization, -containing many elements of rationalism which acted upon their own -creed, the Moors in Spain found a population only slightly civilized, -and predisposed by its recent culture, as well as by its natural -conditions, [1148] to fanatical piety. Thus when, under their tolerant -rule, Jews and Christians in large numbers embraced Islam, the new -converts became the most fanatical of all. [1149] All rationalism -existed in their despite, and, abounding as they did, they tended to -gain power whenever the Khalif was weak, and to rebel furiously when -he was hostile. When, accordingly, the growing pressure of the feudal -Christian power in Northern Spain at length became a menacing danger -to the Moorish States, weakened by endless intestine strife, the one -resource was to call in a new force of Moslem fanaticism in the shape -of the Almoravide [1150] Berbers, who, to the utmost of their power, -put down everything scientific and rationalistic, and established -a rigid Koranolatry. After a time they in turn, growing degenerate -while remaining orthodox, were overrun by a new influx of conquering -fanatics from Africa, the Almohades, who, failing to add political -science to their faith, went down in the thirteenth century before -the Christians in Spain, in a great battle in which their prince sat -in their sight with the Koran in his hand. [1151] Here there could -be no pretence that "unbelief" wrought the downfall. The Jonah of -freethought, so to speak, had been thrown overboard; and the ship -went down with the flag of faith flying at every masthead. [1152] - -It was in the last centuries of Moorish rule that there lived the -philosophers whose names connect it with the history of European -thought, retaining thus a somewhat factitious distinction as compared -with the men of science, many of them nameless, who developed and -transmitted the sciences. The pantheistic Avempace (Ibn Badja: -d. 1138), who defended the reason against the theistic skepticism -of Al Gazzali, [1153] was physician, astronomer, and mathematician, -as well as metaphysician; as was Abubacer (Abu Bekr, also known as -Ibn Tophail: d. 1185), who regarded religious systems as "only a -necessary means of discipline for the multitude," [1154] and as being -merely symbols of the higher truth reached by the philosopher. Both -men, however, tended rather to mysticism than to exact thought; -and Abubacer's treatise, The Self-taught Philosopher, which has -been translated into Latin (by Pococke in 1671), English, Dutch, -and German, has had the singular fortune of being adopted by the -Quakers as a work of edification. [1155] - -Very different was the part played by Averroës (Ibn Roshd), the -most famous of all Moslem thinkers, because the most far-reaching -in his influence on European thought. For the Middle Ages he was -pre-eminently the expounder of Aristotle, and it is as setting forth, -in that capacity, the pantheistic doctrine which affirms the eternity -of the material universe and makes the individual soul emanate from -and return to the soul of all, that he becomes important alike in -Moslem and Christian thought. Diverging from the asceticism and -mysticism of Avempace and Abubacer, and strenuously opposing the -anti-rationalism of Al Gazzali, against whose chief treatise he penned -his own Destruction of the Destruction of the Philosophers, Averroës is -the least mystical and the most rational of the Arab thinkers. [1156] -At nearly all vital points he oppugns the religious view of things, -denying bodily resurrection, which he treats (here following all his -predecessors in heretical Arab philosophy) as a vulgar fable; [1157] -and making some approach to a scientific treatment of the problem of -"Freewill" as against, on the one hand, the ethic-destroying doctrine -of the Motecallemîn, who made God's will the sole standard of right, -and affirmed predestination (Jabarism); and against, on the other hand, -the anti-determinism of the Kadarites. [1158] Even in his politics -he was original; and in his paraphrase of Plato's Republic he has -said a notable word for women, pointing out how small an opening is -offered for their faculties in Moslem society. [1159] Of all tyrannies, -he boldly declared, the worst is that of priests. - -In time, however, a consciousness of the vital hostility of his -doctrine to current creeds, and of the danger he consequently ran, -made him, like so many of his later disciples, anxious to preserve -priestly favour. As regards religion he was more complaisant than -Abubacer, pronouncing Mohammedanism the most perfect of all popular -systems, [1160] and preaching a patriotic conformity on that score -to philosophic students. - -From him derives the formula of a two-fold truth--one truth for -science or philosophy, and another for religion--which played so -large a part in the academic life of Christendom for centuries. [1161] -In two of his treatises, On the harmony of religion with philosophy -and On the demonstration of religious dogmas, he even takes up a -conservative attitude, proclaiming that the wise man never utters a -word against the established creed, and going so far as to say that -the freethinker who attacks it, inasmuch as he undermines popular -virtue, deserves death. [1162] Even in rebutting, as entirely absurd, -the doctrine of the creation of the world, and ascribing its currency -to the stupefying power of habit, he takes occasion to remark piously -that those whose religion has no better basis than faith are frequently -seen, on taking up scientific studies, to become utter zendeks. [1163] -But he lived in an age of declining culture and reviving fanaticism; -and all his conformities could not save him from proscription, at -the hands of a Khalif who had long favoured him, for the offence -of cultivating Greek antiquity to the prejudice of Islam. All study -of Greek philosophy was proscribed at the same time, and all books -found on the subject were destroyed. [1164] Disgraced and banished -from court, Averroës died at Morocco in 1198; other philosophers were -similarly persecuted; [1165] and soon afterwards the Moorish rule in -Spain came to an end in the odour of sanctity. [1166] - -So complete was now the defeat of the intellectual life in Western -Islam that the ablest writer produced by the Arab race in the period -of the Renaissance, Ibn Khaldun of Tunis (1332-1406), writes as a -bigoted believer in revelation, though his writings on the science of -history were the most philosophic since the classic period, being out -of all comparison superior to those of the Christian chroniclers of -his age. [1167] So rationalistic, indeed, is his method, relatively -to his time, that it is permissible to suspect him of seeking to -propitiate the bigots. [1168] But neither they nor his race in general -could learn the sociological lessons he had it in him to teach. Their -development was arrested for that period. - - - - -§ 6 - -Of later freethought under Islam there is little to record as regards -literary output, but the phenomenon has never disappeared. Buckle, -in his haste, declared that he could write the history of Turkish -civilization on the back of his hand; [1169] but even in Turkey, -at a time of minimum friendly contact with other European life, -there have been traces of a spirit of freethinking nearly as active -as that astir in Christendom at the same period. Thus at the end of -the seventeenth century we have circumstantial testimony to the vogue -of a doctrine of atheistic Naturalism at Constantinople. The holders -of this doctrine were called Muserin, a term said to mean "The true -secret is with us." They affirmed a creative and all-sustaining -Nature, in which Man has his place like the plants and like the -planets; and they were said to form a very large number, including -Cadis and other learned as well as some renegade persons. [1170] But -Turkish culture-conditions in the eighteenth century were not such as -to permit of intellectual progress on native lines; and to this day -rationalism in that as in other Moslem countries is mainly a matter of -reflex action set up by the impact of European scientific knowledge, -or social contact. There is no modern rationalistic literature. - -Motazilism, so-called, is still heard of in Arabia itself. [1171] -In the Ottoman Empire, indeed, it is little in evidence, standing -now as it does for a species of broad-church liberalism, analogous -to Christian Unitarianism; [1172] but in Persia the ancient leaning -to rationalism is still common. The old-world pantheism which we -have seen conserved in Omar Khayyám gave rise in later centuries to -similar developments among the Parsees both in Persia and in India; -and from the sixteenth century onwards there are clear traces among -them of a number of rationalizing heresies, varying from pantheism -and simple deism to atheism and materialism. [1173] In Persia to-day -there are many thinkers of these casts of thought. [1174] About 1830 a -British traveller estimated that, assuming there were between 200,000 -and 300,000 Sufis in the country, those figures probably fell greatly -short of the number "secretly inclined to infidelity." [1175] Whatever -be the value of the figures, the statement is substantially confirmed -by later observers; [1176] missionaries reporting independently that -in Persia "most of the higher class, of the nobility, and of the -learned professions ... are at heart infidels or sceptics." [1177] -Persian freethought is of course, in large part, the freethought of -ignorance, and seems to co-exist with astrological superstition; -[1178] but there is obviously needed only science, culture, and -material development to produce, on such a basis, a renascence as -remarkable as that of modern Japan. - -The verdict of Vambéry is noteworthy: "In all Asia, with the exception -of China, there is no land and no people wherein there is so little -of religious enthusiasm as in Persia; where freethinkers are so -little persecuted, and can express their opinions with so little -disturbance; and where, finally, as a natural consequence, the old -religious structure can be so easily shattered by the outbreak of new -enthusiasts. Whoever has read Khayyám's blasphemies against God and -the prophet, his jesting verses against the holiest ceremonies and -commandments of Islam; and whoever knows the vogue of this book and -other works directed against the current religion, will not wonder -that Bâb with the weapon of the Word won so many hearts in so short -a time." [1179] - -The view that Bâbism affiliates to rationalism is to be understood in -the sense that the atmosphere of the latter made possible the growth of -the former, its adherents being apparently drawn rather from the former -orthodox. [1180] The young founder of the sect, Mirza-Ali-Mohammed, -declared himself "The Bâb," i.e. "the Gate" (to the knowledge of God), -as against the orthodox Moslem teachers who taught that "since the -twelve Imâms, the Gate of Knowledge is closed." Hence the name of -the sect. Mirza-Ali, who showed a strong tendency to intolerance, -quickly created an aggressive movement, which was for a time put down -by the killing of himself and many of his followers. - -Since his execution the sect has greatly multiplied and its doctrines -have much widened. For a time the founder's intolerant teachings -were upheld by Ezél, the founder of one of the two divisions into -which the party speedily fell; while his rival Béha, who gave himself -out as the true Prophet, of whom the Bâb was merely the precursor, -developed a notably cosmopolitan and equalitarian doctrine, including a -vague belief in immortality, without heaven, hell, or purgatory. Ezél -eventually abandoned his claims, and his followers now number less -than two thousand; while the Béhaïtes number nearly three millions -out of the seven millions of the Persian population, and some two -millions in the adjacent countries. The son of Béha, Abbas Effendi, -who bears the title of "The Great Branch," now rules the cult, which -promises to be the future religion of Persia. [1181] One of the most -notable phenomena of the earlier movement was the entrance of a young -woman, daughter of a leading ulema, who for the first time in Moslem -history threw off the regulation veil and preached the equality of -the sexes. [1182] She was one of those first executed. Persecution, -however, has long ceased, and as a result of her lead the position -of woman in the cult is exceptionally good. Thus the last century -has witnessed within the sphere of Islam, so commonly supposed to -be impervious to change, one of the most rapid and radical religious -changes recorded in history. There is therefore no ground for holding -that in other Moslem countries progress is at an end. - -Everything depends, broadly speaking, on the possibilities of -culture-contact. The changes in Persia are traceable to the element -of heretical habit which has persisted from pre-Moslem times; future -and more scientific development will depend upon the assimilation -of European knowledge. In Egypt, before the period of European -intervention, freethinking was at a minimum; and though toleration -was well developed as regarded Christians and Jews, freethinking -Moslems dared not avow themselves. [1183] Latterly rationalism tends to -spread in Egypt as in other Moslem countries; even under Mohammed Ali -the ruling Turks had begun to exhibit a "remarkable indifference to -religion," and had "begun to undermine the foundations of El-Islam"; -and so shrewd and dispassionate an observer as Lane expected that -the common people would "soon assist in the work," and that "the -overthrow of the whole fabric may reasonably be expected to ensue at -a period not very remote." [1184] To evolve such a change there will -be required a diffusion of culture which is not at all likely to be -rapid under any Government; but in any case the ground that is being -lost by Islam in Egypt is not being retaken by Christianity. - -In the other British dominions, Mohammedans, though less ready than -educated Hindus to accept new ideas, cannot escape the rationalizing -influence of European culture. Nor was it left to the British to -introduce the rationalistic spirit in Moslem India. At the end of -the sixteenth century the eclectic Emperor Akbar, [1185] himself a -devout worshipper of the Sun, [1186] is found tolerantly comparing -all religions, [1187] depreciating Islam, [1188] and arriving at -such general views on the equivalence of all creeds, and on the -improbability of eternal punishment, [1189] as pass for liberal -among Christians in our own day. If such views could be generated -by a comparison of the creeds of pre-British India they must needs -be encouraged now. The Mohammedan mass is of course still deeply -fanatical, and habitually superstitious; but not any more immovably so -than the early Saracens. In the eighteenth century arose the fanatical -Wahabi sect, which aims at a puritanic restoration of primeval Islam, -freed from the accretions of later belief, such as saint-worship; but -the movement, though variously estimated, has had small success, and -seems destined to extinction. [1190] Of the traditional seventy-three -sects in Islam only four to-day count as orthodox. [1191] - -It may be worth while, in conclusion, to note that the comparative -prosperity or progressiveness of Islam as a proselytizing and -civilizing force in Africa--a phenomenon regarded even by some -Christians with satisfaction, and by some with alarm [1192]--is not -strictly or purely a religious phenomenon. Moslem civilization suits -with negro life in Africa in virtue not of the teaching of the Koran, -but of the comparative nearness of the Arab to the barbaric life. He -interbreeds with the natives, fraternizes with them (when not engaged -in kidnapping them), and so stimulates their civilization; where -the European colonist, looking down on them as an inferior species, -isolates, depresses, and degrades them. It is thus conceivable that -there is a future for Islam at the level of a low culture-stage; but -the Arab and Turkish races out of Africa are rather the more likely -to concur in the rationalistic movement of the higher civilization. - -Even in Africa, however, a systematic observer notes, and predicts the -extension of, "a strong tendency on the part of the Mohammedans towards -an easy-going rationalism, such as is fast making way in Algeria, where -the townspeople and the cultivators in the more settled districts, -constantly coming in contact with Europeans, are becoming indifferent -to the more inconvenient among their Mohammedan observances, and -are content to live with little more religion than an observance of -the laws, and a desire to get on well with their neighbours." [1193] -Thus at every culture-level we see the persistence of that force of -intellectual variation which is the subject of our inquiry. - - - - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -CHRISTENDOM IN THE MIDDLE AGES - - -It would be an error, in view of the biological generalization -proceeded on and the facts noted in this inquiry, to suppose that -even in the Dark Ages, so called, [1194] the spirit of critical -reason was wholly absent from the life of Christendom. It had simply -grown very rare, and was the more discountenanced where it strove -to speak. But the most systematic suppression of heresies could -not secure that no private heresy should remain. As Voltaire has -remarked, there was "nearly always a small flock separated from the -great." [1195] Apart too from such quasi-rationalism as was involved -in semi-Pelagianism, [1196] critical heresy chronically arose even -in the Byzantine provinces, which by the curtailment of the Empire -had been left the most homogeneous and therefore the most manageable -of the Christian States. It is necessary to note those survivals of -partial freethinking, when we would trace the rise of modern thought. - - - - -§ 1. HERESY IN BYZANTIUM - -It was probably from some indirect influence of the new anti-idolatrous -religion of Islam that in the eighth century the soldier-emperor, -Leo the Isaurian, known as the Iconoclast, derived his aversion -to the image-worship [1197] which had long been as general in -the Christian world as ever under polytheism. So gross had the -superstition become that particular images were frequently selected -as god-parents; of others the paint was partly scratched off to be -mixed with the sacramental wine; and the bread was solemnly put in -contact with them. [1198] Leo began (726) by an edict simply causing -the images to be placed so high that they could not be kissed, but -on being met with resistance and rebellion he ordered their total -removal (730). One view is that he saw image-worship to be the -main hindrance to the spread of the faith among Jews and Moslems, -and took his measures accordingly. [1199] Save on this one point he -was an orthodox Christian and Trinitarian, and his long effort to -put down images and pictures was in itself rather fanatical [1200] -than rationalistic, though a measure of freethinking was developed -among the religious party he created. [1201] Of this spirit, as -well as of the aversion to image-worship, [1202] something must -have survived the official restoration of idolatry; but the traces -are few. The most zealous iconoclasts seem never to have risen above -the flat inconsistency of treating the cross and the written gospels -with exactly the same adoration that their opponents paid to images; -[1203] and their appeal to the scriptures--which was their first and -last argument--was accordingly met by the retort that they themselves -accepted the authority of tradition, as did the image-worshippers. The -remarkable hostility of the army to the latter is to be explained, -apparently, by the local bias of the eastern regions from which the -soldiers were mainly recruited. - -In the ninth century, when Saracen rivalry had stung the Byzantines -into some partial revival of culture and science, [1204] the -all-learned Patriarch Photius (c. 820-891), who reluctantly accepted -ecclesiastical office, earned a dangerous repute for freethinking -by declaring from the pulpit that earthquakes were produced by -earthly causes and not by divine wrath. [1205] But this was an -almost solitary gleam of reason in a generation wholly given up to -furious strife over the worship of images, and Photius was one of -the image-worshippers. The battle swung from extreme to extreme. The -emperor Michael II, "the Stammerer" (820-828), held a medium position, -and accordingly acquired the repute of a freethinker. A general under -Leo V, "the Armenian," he had conspired against him, and when on the -verge of execution had been raised to the throne in place of Leo, who -was assassinated at the altar. The new emperor aimed above all things -at peace and quietness; but his methods were thoroughly Byzantine, -and included the castration of the four sons of Leo. Michael himself -is said to have doubted the future resurrection of men, to have -maintained that Judas was saved, and to have doubted the existence -of Satan because he is not named in the Pentateuch [1206]--a species -of freethinking not far removed from that of the Iconoclasts, whose -grounds were merely Biblical. A generation later came Michael IV, "the -Sot," bred a wastrel under the guardianship of his mother, Theodora -(who in 842 restored image-worship and persecuted the Paulicians), -and her brother Bardas, who ultimately put her in a convent. Michael, -repeatedly defeated by the Saracens, long held his own at home. Taking -into favour Basil, who married his (Michael's) mistress, he murdered -Bardas, and a year later (867) was about to murder Basil in turn, -when the latter anticipated him, murdered the emperor, and assumed the -purple. It was under Basil, who put down the Iconoclasts, that Photius, -after formally deposing and being deposed by the Pope of Rome (864-66) -was really deposed and banished (868), to be restored to favour and -office ten years later. In 886, on the death of Basil, he was again -deposed, dying about 891. In that kaleidoscope of plot and faction, -fanaticism and crime, there is small trace of sane thinking. Michael -IV, in his disreputable way, was something of a freethinker, and -could even with impunity burlesque the religious processions of -the clergy, [1207] the orthodox populace joining in the laugh; -but there was no such culture at Constantinople as could develop -a sober rationalism, or sustain it against the clergy if it showed -its head. Intelligence in general could not rise above the plane of -the wrangle over images. While the struggle lasted, it was marked by -all the ferocity that belonged from the outset to Christian strifes; -and in the end, as usual, the more irrational bias triumphed. - -It was in a sect whose doctrine at one point coincided with iconoclasm -that there were preserved such rude seeds of oriental rationalism -as could survive the rule of the Byzantine emperors, and carry the -stimulus of heresy to the west. The rise of the Paulicians in Armenia -dates from the seventh century, and was nominally by way of setting -up a creed on the lines of Paul as against the paganized system of the -Church. Rising as they did on the borders of Persia, they were probably -affected from the first by Mazdean influences, as the dualistic -principle was always affirmed by their virtual founder, Constantine, -afterwards known as Sylvanus. [1208] Their original tenets seem to have -been anti-Manichean, anti-Gnostic (though partly Marcionite), opposed -to the worship of images and relics, to sacraments, to the adoration -of the Virgin, of saints, and of angels, and to the acceptance of the -Old Testament; and in an age in which the reading of the Sacred Books -had already come to be regarded as a privilege of monks and priests, -they insisted on reading the New Testament for themselves. [1209] -In this they were virtually founding on the old pagan conception -of religion, under which all heads of families could offer worship -and sacrifice without the intervention of a priest, as against the -Judæo-Christian sacerdotalism, which vetoed anything like a private -cultus. In the teaching of Sylvanus, further, there were distinct -Manichean and Gnostic characteristics--notably, hostility to Judaism; -the denial that Christ had a real human body, capable of suffering; and -the doctrine that baptism and the communion were properly spiritual and -not physical rites. [1210] In the ninth century, when they had become -a powerful and militant sect, often at war with the empire, they were -still marked by their refusal to make any difference between priests -and laymen. Anti-ecclesiasticism was thus a main feature of the whole -movement; and the Byzantine Government, recognizing in its doctrine -a particularly dangerous heresy, had at once bloodily attacked it, -causing Sylvanus to be stoned to death. [1211] Still it grew, even -to the length of exhibiting the usual phenomena of schism within -itself. One section obtained the protection of the first iconoclastic -emperor, who agreed with them on the subject of images; and a later -leader, Sergius or Tychicus, won similar favour from Nicephorus I; -but Leo the Armenian (suc. 813), fearing the stigma of their other -heresies, and having already trouble enough from his iconoclasm, -set up against them, as against the image-worshippers, a new and -cruel persecution. [1212] They were thus driven over to the Saracens, -whose advance-guard they became as against the Christian State; but the -iconoclast Constantine Copronymus sympathetically [1213] transplanted -many of them to Constantinople and Thrace, thus introducing their -doctrine into Europe. The Empress Theodora (841-855), who restored -image-worship, [1214] sought to exterminate those left in Armenia, -slaying, it is said, a hundred thousand. [1215] Many of the remnant -were thus forced into the arms of the Saracens; and the sect did the -empire desperate mischief during many generations. [1216] - -Meantime those planted in Thrace, in concert with the main body, -carried propaganda into Bulgaria, and these again were further -reinforced by refugees from Armenia in the ninth century, and in the -tenth by a fresh colony transplanted from Armenia by the emperor -John Zimisces, who valued them as a bulwark against the barbarous -Slavs. [1217] Fresh persecution under Alexius I at the end of the -eleventh century failed to suppress them; and imperial extortion -constantly drove to their side numbers of fresh adherents, [1218] -while the Bulgarians for similar reasons tended in mass to adopt -their creed as against that of Constantinople. So greatly did the -cult flourish that at its height it had a regular hierarchy, notably -recalling that of the early Manicheans--with a pope, twelve magistri, -and seventy-two bishops, each of whom had a filius major and filius -minor as his assistants. Withal the democratic element remained strong, -the laying on of the hands of communicants on the heads of newcomers -being part of the rite of reception into full membership. Thus it -came about that from Bulgaria there passed into western Europe, [1219] -partly through the Slavonic sect called Bogomiles or Bogomilians [1220] -(= Theophiloi, "lovers of God"), who were akin to the Paulicians, -partly by more general influences, [1221] a contagion of democratic -and anti-ecclesiastical heresy; so that the very name Bulgar became -the French bougre = heretic--and worse. [1222] It specified the most -obvious source of the new anti-Romanist heresies of the Albigenses, -if not of the Vaudois (Waldenses). - - - - -§ 2. CRITICAL HERESY IN THE WEST - -In the west, meanwhile, where the variety of social elements was -favourable to new life, heresy of a rationalistic kind was not wholly -lacking. About the middle of the eighth century we find one Feargal -or Vergilius, an Irish priest in Bavaria, accused by St. Boniface, -his enemy, of affirming, "in defiance of God and his own soul," -the doctrine of the antipodes, [1223] which must have reached him -through the ancient Greek lore carried to Ireland in the primary -period of Christianization of that province. Of that influence we -have already seen a trace in Pelagius and Coelestius; and we shall -see more later in John the Scot. After being deposed by the Pope, -Vergilius was reinstated; was made Bishop of Salzburg, and held the -post till his death; and was even sainted afterwards; but the doctrine -disappeared for centuries from the Christian world. - -Other heresies, however, asserted themselves. Though image-worship -finally triumphed there as in the east, it had strong opponents, -notably Claudius, bishop of Turin (fl. 830) under the emperor Louis -the Pious, son of Charlemagne, and his contemporary Agobard, bishop -of Lyons. [1224] It is a significant fact that both men were born -in Spain; and either to Saracen or to Jewish influence--the latter -being then strong in the Moorish and even in the Christian [1225] -world--may fairly be in part attributed their marked bias against -image-worship. Claudius was slightly and Agobard well educated in -Latin letters, so that an early impression [1226] would seem to have -been at work in both cases. However that may be, they stood out as -singularly rationalistic theologians in an age of general ignorance -and superstition. Claudius vehemently resisted alike image-worship, -saint-worship, and the Papal claims, and is recorded to have termed a -council of bishops which condemned him "an assembly of asses." [1227] -Agobard, in turn, is quite extraordinary in the thoroughness of his -rejection of popular superstition, being not only an iconoclast but an -enemy to prayer for change in the weather, to belief in incantations -and the power of evil spirits, to the ordeal by fire, to the wager -of battle, [1228] and to the belief in the verbal inspiration of the -Sacred Books. In an age of enormous superstition and deep ignorance, -he maintained within the Church that Reason was the noble gift of -God. [1229] He was a rationalist born out of due time. [1230] - -A grain of rationalism, as apart from professional self-interest, -may also have entered into the outcry made at this period by the -clergy against the rigidly predestinarian doctrine of the monk -Gottschalk. [1231] His enemy, Rabanus or Hrabanus (called "the -Moor"), seems again to represent some Saracen influence, inasmuch -as he reproduced the scientific lore of Isidore of Seville. [1232] -But the philosophic semi-rationalism of John Scotus (d. 875), later -known as Erigena (John the Scot = of Ireland--the original "Scots" -being Irish), seems to be traceable to the Greek studies which had -been cherished in Christianized Ireland while the rest of western -Europe lost them, and represents at once the imperfect beginning -of the relatively rationalistic philosophy of Nominalism [1233] and -the first western revival of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, -howbeit by way of accommodation to the doctrine of the Church. [1234] - - - That John the Scot was an Irishman remains practically certain, - even if we give up the term "Erigena," which, as has been shown by - Floss, the most careful editor of his works, is not found in the - oldest MSS. The reading there is Ierugena, which later shades into - Erugena and Eriugena. (Cp. Ueberweg, i, 359; Poole, pp. 55-56, - note; Dr. Th. Christlieb, Leben und Lehre des Johannes Scotus - Erigena, 1860, p. 14 sq.; and Huber, Johannes Scotus Erigena: - ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie im - Mittelalter, 1861, pp. 38-40.) From this elusive cognomen no - certain inference can be drawn, too many being open; though the - fact that John had himself coined the term Graiugena for a late - Greek writer makes it likely that he called himself Ierugena in - the sense of "born in the holy (island)" = Ireland. But the name - Scotus, occurring without the Ierugena, is common in old MSS.; - and it is almost impossible that any save a Scot of Ireland should - have possessed the scholarship of John in the ninth century. In - the west, Greek scholarship and philosophy had been special to - Ireland from the time of Pelagius; and it is from Greek sources - that John draws his inspiration and cast of thought. M. Taillandier - not unjustly calls the Ireland of that era "l'île des saints, - mais aussi l'île des libres penseurs." (Scot Érigène et la - philosophie scolastique, 1843, p. 64.) To the same effect Huber, - pp. 40-41. In writing that Johannes "was of Scottish nationality, - but was probably born and brought up in Ireland," Ueberweg (i, - 358) obscures the fact that the people of Ireland were the Scoti - of that period. All the testimony goes to show "that Ireland - was called Scotia, and its ruling people Scoti, from the first - appearance of these names down to the eleventh century. But that - [the] present Scotland was called Scotia, or its people Scoti, - before the eleventh century, not so much as one single authority - can be produced" (Pinkerton, Enquiry into the History of Scotland, - 1789, ii, 237). Irish Scots gave their name to Scotland, and it - was adopted by the Teutonic settlers. - - While the land of John the Scot's birth is thus fairly certain, the - place of his death remains a mystery. Out of a statement by Asser - that King Alfred made one John, a priest, Abbot of Athelney, and - that the said Abbot was murdered at the altar by hired assassins, - there grew a later story that Alfred made John the Scot Abbot of - Malmesbury, and that he was slain with the styli of two of his - pupils. It is clear that the John of Asser was an "Old Saxon," - and not the philosopher; and it is difficult to doubt that the - second story, which arises in the twelfth century, is a hearsay - distortion of the first. Cp. Christlieb, who argues (p. 42 sq.) for - two Johns, one of them Scotus, and both assassinated, with Huber, - who sets forth (p. 108 sq.) the view here followed. There is really - no adequate ground for believing that John the Scot was ever a - priest. We know not where or when he died; but the presumption - is that it was in France, and not long after the death of his - patron Charles--877. (Huber, p. 121.) - - -Called in by Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims, himself a normally -superstitious believer, [1235] to answer Gottschalk, John Scotus in -turn was accused of heresy, as he well might be on many points of his -treatise, De Praedestinatione [1236] (851). He fiercely and not very -fairly condemned Gottschalk as a heretic, charging him with denying -both divine grace and freewill, but without disposing of Gottschalk's -positive grounds; and arguing that God could not be the cause of sin, -as if Gottschalk had not said the same thing. His superior speculative -power comes out in his undertaking to show that for the Divine Being -sin is non-ens; and that therefore that Being cannot properly be said -either to foreknow or to predestinate, or to punish. But the argument -becomes inconsistent inasmuch as it further affirms Deity to have -so constituted the order of things that sin punishes itself. [1237] -It is evident that in assimilating his pantheistic conceptions he -had failed to think out their incompatibility with any theistic -dogma whatever; his reasoning, on the whole, being no more coherent -than Gottschalk's. He had in fact set out from an arbitrary theistic -position that was at once Judaic, Christian, and Platonic, and went -back on one line to the Gnostics; while on another his argument -that sin has no real existence is a variant from an old thesis--made -current, as we saw, by Euclides of Megara--with which orthodoxy had -met the Manicheans. [1238] But to the abstract doctrine he gave a new -practical point by declaring that the doctrine of hell-fire was a mere -allegory; that heaven and hell alike were states of consciousness, -not places. [1239] And if such concrete freethinking were not enough -to infuriate the orthodox, they had from him the most explicit -declarations that authority is derivable solely from reason. [1240] - -In philosophy proper he must be credited, despite his inconsistency, -with deep and original thought. [1241] Like every theologian of -philosophic capacity before and since, he passes into pantheism -as soon as he grapples closely with the difficulties of theism, -and "the expressions which he uses are identical with those which -were afterwards employed by Spinoza.... It was a tradition of the -fourth or fifth century transferred to the ninth, an echo from -Alexandria." [1242] Condemned by Pope Nicholas I and by two Church -Councils, [1243] his writings none the less availed to keep that echo -audible to later centuries. - -The range and vigour of his practical rationalism may be gathered from -his attitude in the controversy begun by the abbot Paschasius Radbert -(831) on the nature of the Eucharist. Paschasius taught that there was -a real transformation of the bread and wine into the divine body and -blood; and the doctrine, thus nakedly put, startled the freer scholars -of the time, who were not yet habituated to Latin orthodoxy. Another -learned monk, Ratramnus, who had written a treatise on predestination -at the request of the rationalizing emperor, Charles the Bald -(discussing the problem in Gottschalk's sense [1244] without naming -him), produced on the same monarch's invitation a treatise in which -transubstantiation was denied, and the "real presence" was declared -to be spiritual [1245]--a view already known to Paschasius as being -held by some. [1246] John Scotus, also asked by the emperor to write -on the subject, went so far as to argue that the bread and wine were -merely symbols and memorials. [1247] As usual, the irrational doctrine -became that of the Church; [1248] but the other must have wrought for -reason in secret. For the rest, he set forth the old "modal" view of -the Trinity, resolving it into the different conceptual aspects of -the universe, and thus propounding one more vital heresy. [1249] - -Nothing but a succession of rationalizing emperors could have secured -continuance for such teaching as that of Ratramnus and John the -Scot. For a time, the cruelty meted out to Gottschalk kept up feeling -in favour of his views; Bishop Remigius of Lyons condemned Hincmar's -treatment of him; and others sought to maintain his positions, with -modifications, though Hincmar carried resolutions condemning them at -the second Synod of Chiersy. On the other hand, Archbishop Wenilo of -Sens, Bishop Prudentius of Troyes, and Florus, a deacon of Lyons, -all wrote against the doctrines of John the Scot; and the second -Synod of Valence (855), while opposing Hincmar and affirming duplex -predestination, denounced with fury the reasonings of John the Scot, -ascribing them to his nation as a whole. [1250] The pope taking the -same line, the fortunes of the rationalistic view of the eucharist and -of hell-fire were soon determined for the Middle Ages, though in the -year 950 we find the Archbishop of Canterbury confronted by English -ecclesiastics who asserted that there was no transubstantiation, the -elements being merely a figure of the body and blood of Christ. [1251] - -The economic explanation clearly holds alike as regards the attack -on John and the condemnation of Gottschalk for a doctrine which had -actually been established for centuries, on the authority of Augustine, -as strict orthodoxy. In Augustine's time, the determining pressures -were not economic: a bankrupt world was seeking to explain its fate; -and Augustine had merely carried a majority with him against Pelagius, -partly by his personal influence, partly by force of the fatalist -mood of the time. But in the renascent world of Gottschalk's day the -economic exploitation of fear had been carried several stages forward -by the Church; and the question of predestination had a very direct -financial bearing. The northern peoples, accustomed to compound for -crimes by money payments, had so readily played into the hands of -the priesthood by their eagerness to buy surcease of purgatorial -pain that masses for the dead and "penitential certificates" were -main sources of ecclesiastical revenue. Therefore the condemnations -of such abuses passed by the Councils, on the urging of the more -thoughtful clergy, were constantly frustrated by the plain pecuniary -interest of the priests. [1252] It even appears that the eucharist -was popularly regarded not as a process of religious "communion," -but as a magical rite objectively efficacious for bodily preservation -in this life and the next. Thus it came about that often "priests -presented the offering of the mass alone and by themselves, without -any participation of the congregation." [1253] - -If then it were to be seriously understood that the future lot of -all was foreordained, all expenditure on masses for the dead, or to -secure in advance a lightening of purgatorial penance, or even to buy -off penance on earth, was so much waste; and the Teutons were still -as ready as other barbarians to make their transactions with Church, -God, and the saints a matter of explicit bargain. [1254] Gottschalk, -accordingly, had to be put down, in the general interests of the -Church. It could not truthfully be pretended that he deviated from -Augustine, for he actually held by the "semi-Pelagian" inconsistency -that God predestinates good, but merely foreknows evil. [1255] -There was in fact no clear opposition between his affirmations and -those of Rabanus Maurus, who also professed to be an Augustinian; -but the latter laid forensic stress on the "desire" of God that all -men should be saved, and on the formula that Christ died for all; -while Gottschalk, more honestly, insisted that predestination is -predestination, and applied the principle not merely, as had been -customary, to the future state of the good, but to that of the bad, -[1256] insisting on a prædestinatio duplex. His own fate was thus -economically predestinate; and he was actually tortured by the scourge -till he cast into the fire his written defence, "a document which -contained nothing but a compilation of testimonies from Scripture, -and from the older church-teachers." [1257] - - - Gottschalk later challenged a fourfold ordeal of "boiling water, - oil, and pitch." His primary doctrine had been the immutability - of the divine will; but he brought himself to the belief that - God would work a miracle in his favour. His conception of - "foreordination" was thus framed solely with regard to the - conception of a future state. The ordeal was not granted, the - orthodox party fearing to try conclusions, and he died without - the sacraments, rather than recant. Then began the second reaction - of feeling against his chief persecutor, Hincmar. Neander, vi, 190. - - A recent writer, who handles very intelligently and temperately - the problem of persecution, urges that in that connection "one - ought not to lay great stress on the old argument of the Hallam - and Macaulay school as to the strength of vested interests, though - it has a certain historical importance, because the priest must - subsist somehow" (Religious Persecution: a Study in Psychology, - by E. S. P. Haynes, 1904, p. 4). If the "certain importance" be in - the ratio of the certainty of the last adduced fact, the legitimate - "stress" on the argument in question would seem sufficient for most - purposes. The writer adds the note: "It is not unfair, however, - to quote the case of Dr. Middleton, who, writing to Lord Radnor - in 1750 in respect of his famous work on Miracles, admits frankly - enough that he would never have given the clergy any trouble, had - he received some good appointment in the church." If the essayist - has met with no other historic fact illustrative of the play of - vested interests in ecclesiastical history, it is extremely candid - of him to mention that one. Later on, however, he commits himself - to the proposition that "the history of medieval persecution leads - one to infer that the clergy as a whole were roused to much greater - activity by menaces to their material comforts in this world than - by an altruistic anxiety for the fate of lay souls in the next" - (id. p. 60. Cp. p. 63). This amount of "stress" on vested interests - will probably satisfy most members of the Hallam and Macaulay - school; and is ample for the purposes of the present contention. - - -From this point onward, the slow movement of new ideas may for -a time be conveniently traced on two general lines--one that of -the philosophic discussion in the schools, reinforced by Saracen -influences, the other that of partially rationalistic and democratic -heresy among the common people, by way first of contagion from -the East. The latter was on the whole as influential for sane -thought as the former, apart from such ecclesiastical freethinking -as that of Berengar of Tours and Roscelin (Rousselin), Canon of -Compiègne. Berengar (c. 1050) was led by moral reflection [1258] -to doubt the priestly miracle of the Eucharist, and thenceforth he -entered into a stormy controversy on the subject, in the course of -which he twice recanted under bodily fear, but passionately returned -to his original positions. Fundamentally sincere, and indignantly -resentful of the gross superstition prevailing in the Church, he -struck fiercely in his writings at Popes Leo IX and Nicholas II and -Archbishop Lanfranc, [1259] all of whom had opposed him. At length, -after much strife, he threw up the contest, spending the latter part -of his long life in seclusion; Pope Gregory VII, who was personally -friendly to him, having finally shielded him from persecution. It -seems clear that, though accused, with others of his school, of -rejecting certain of the gospel miracles, [1260] he never became a -disbeliever; his very polemic testifying to the warmth of his belief -on his own lines. His teaching, however, which went far by reason of -the vividness of his style, doubtless had the effect of promoting not -only the rationalistic-Christian view of the Eucharist, [1261] but a -criticism which went further, inasmuch as his opponents forced on the -bystanders the question as to what reality there was in the Christian -creed if his view were true. [1262] All such influences, however, were -but slight in total mass compared with the overwhelming weight of the -economic interest of the priesthood; and not till the Reformation was -Berengar's doctrine accepted by a single organized sect. The orthodox -doctrine, in fact, was all-essential to the Catholic Church. Given the -daily miracle of the "real presence," the Church had a vital hold on -the Christian world, and the priest was above all lay rivalry. Seeing -as much, the Council of the Lateran (1059) met the new criticism by -establishing the technical doctrine of the real presence for the -first time as an article of faith; and as such it will doubtless -stand while there is a Catholic priesthood. Berengar's original view -must have been shared by thousands; but no Catholic carried on his -propaganda. The question had become one of life and death. - - - Berengar's forced prevarications, which are unsympathetically - set forth by Mosheim (11 Cent., pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ 13-18), are - made much more intelligible in the sympathetic survey of Neander - (vi, 225-60). See also the careful inquiry of Reuter, Gesch. der - religiösen Aufklärung im Mittelalter, i, 91 sq. As to Berengar's - writings, see further Murdock's note to Mosheim, last cit., - § 18. The formal compromise forced on him by Pope Hildebrand, - who was personally friendly to him, consisted in adding to his - denial of the change of the bread and wine into "body and blood" - the doctrine that the body and blood were "superadded to the bread - and wine in and by their consecration." This formula, of course, - did not represent the spirit of Berengar's polemic. As to the - disputes on the subject, which ran to the most unseemly length - of physiological detail, see Voltaire, Essai sur les Moeurs, - ch. xlv. It is noteworthy that Augustine had very expressly - set forth a metaphorical interpretation of the Eucharist--De - doctrina christiana, l. iii, c. 16. But just as the Church later - set aside the verdict of Thomas Aquinas that the Virgin Mary was - "born in sin," so did it reverse Augustine's judgment on the - Eucharist. Always the more irrational view carried the day, - as being more propitious to sacerdotal claims. - - -So far as the Church by her keenly self-regarding organization -could attain it, all opinion was kept within the strict bounds of her -official dogma, in which life in the Middle Ages so long stagnated. For -centuries, despite the turmoil of many wars--which, indeed, helped -to arrest thought--the life of the mind presented a uniformity hardly -now conceivable. The common expectation of the ending of the world, in -the year 1000, in particular had an immense prepotency of paralysing -men's spirits; and the grooves of habit thus fixed were hard to -alter. For most men, the notion of possible innovation in thought did -not exist: the usual was the sacred: the very ideal of an improvement -or reformation, when it arose, was one of reaching back to a far-away -perfection of the past, never of remoulding things on lines laid -down by reason. Yet even into this half-stifled world there entered, -by eastern ways, and first in the guise of rude demotic departures -from priestly prescription, the indestructible spirit of change. - - - - -§ 3. POPULAR ANTI-CLERICAL HERESY - -The first Western traces of the imported Paulician heresy are about the -year 1000, [1263] when a rustic of Châlons is heard of as destroying a -cross and a religious picture, and asserting that the prophets are not -wholly to be believed. [1264] From this time forward, the world having -begun to breathe again after the passing of the year 1000 without any -sign of the Day of Judgment, heresy begins to multiply, the chief -movers being "distinguished by a tendency to rationalism." [1265] -In 1010 there is a trace of it in Aquitaine. [1266] In the year -1022 (or, as the date is sometimes put, in 1017) we hear of the -unveiling of a secret society of rationalizing mystics at Orleans, -ten canons of one church being members. [1267] An Italian woman -was said to be the founder, and thirteen were burned alive on their -refusal to recant. According to the records, they denied all miracles, -including the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection; rejected baptism and -the miracle of the Eucharist; took the old "Docetic" view of Jesus, -denying his actual humanity; and affirmed the eternity of matter and -the non-creation of the world. They were also accused, like the first -Christians, of promiscuous nocturnal orgies and of eating sacrificed -infants; but unless such charges are to be held valid in the other -case, they cannot be here. [1268] The stories told of the Manichean -community who lived in the castle of Monforte, near Asti in Lombardy, -in the years 1025-1040, and who at length were likewise burned alive, -are similarly mixed with fable. [1269] On this case it is recorded -that, while the Archbishop of Milan investigated the heresy, the -burning of the victims was the work of the fanatical populace of Milan, -and was done against his will. - -A less savage treatment may have made possible the alleged success -of Gerhard, bishop of Cambray and Arras, in reconciling to the -Church at Arras, in 1025 or 1030, a number of laymen--also said to -have been taught by an Italian--who as a body rejected all external -worship, setting aside priestly baptism and the sacraments, penance -and images, funeral rites, holy oil, church bells, cross-worship, -altars, and even churches, and denied the necessity of an order -of priests. [1270] Few of the Protestants of a later age were so -thorough-going; but the fact that many of the sect stood to the old -Marcionite veto on marriage and the sexual instinct gives to their -propaganda its own cast of fanaticism. This last tenet it seemingly -was that gave the Paulicians their common Greek name of cathari, -[1271] "the pure," corrupted or assimilated in Italian to gazzari, -whence presumably the German word for heretic, Ketzer. [1272] Such -a doctrine had the double misfortune that if acted on it left the -sect without the normal recruitment of members' children, while if -departed from it brought on them the stigma of wanton hypocrisy; and -as a matter of fact every movement of the kind, ancient and modern, -seems to have contained within it the two extremes of asceticism and -licence, the former generating the latter. - -It could hardly, however, have been the ascetic doctrine that won for -the new heresy its vogue in medieval Europe; nor is it likely that the -majority of the heretics even professed it. If, on the other hand, we -ask how it was that in an age of dense superstition so many uneducated -people were found to reject so promptly the most sacrosanct doctrines -of the Church, it seems hardly less difficult to account for the -phenomenon on the bare ground of their common sense. Critical common -sense there must have been, to allow of it at all; but it is reasonable -to suppose that then, as clearly happened later at the Reformation, -common sense had a powerful stimulus in pecuniary interest. - -With the evidence as to Christian practice in the fourth century -on the one hand, and the later evidence as to clerical life on the -other, we are certain of a common play of financial motive throughout -the Middle Ages. And whereas it is intelligible that such rapacity -as we have seen described by Libanius should evoke a heresy which -rejected alike religious ceremonial and the claims of the priest, -it is further reasonable to surmise that resentment of priestly -rapacity and luxury helped men to similar heresy in Western Europe -when the doctrine reached them. If any centuries are to be singled -out as those of maximum profligacy and extortion among the clergy, -they are the ninth and the three following. [1273] It had been part of -the policy of Charlemagne everywhere to strengthen the hands of the -clergy by way of checking the power of the nobles; [1274] and in the -disorder after his death the conflicting forces were in semi-anarchic -competition. The feudal habit of appointing younger sons and underlings -to livings wherever possible; the disorders and strifes of the papacy; -and the frequent practice of dispossessing priests to reward retainers, -thereby driving the dispossessed to plunder on their own account, must -together have created a state of things almost past exaggeration. It -was a matter of course that the clergy on their part should make the -utmost possible use of their influence over men's superstitious fears -in order to acquire bequests of lands; [1275] and such bequests in -turn exasperated the heirs thus disinherited. - -Thus orthodoxy and heterodoxy alike had strong economic motives; -and in these may be placed a main part of the explanation of the -gross savagery of persecution now normal in the Church. Such a heresy -as that of Gottschalk, we saw, by denying to the priest all power -of affecting the predestined course of things here or hereafter, -logically imperilled the very existence of the whole hierarchy, and -was by many resented accordingly. The same principle entered into -the controversies over the Eucharist. Still more would the clergy -resent the new Manichean heresy, of which every element, from the -Euchite tenet of the necessity of personal prayer and mortification, -as against the innate demon, to the rejection of all the rites of -normal worship and all the pretensions of priests, was radically -hostile to the entire organization of the Church. When the heretics -in due course developed a priestly system of their own, [1276] the -hostility was only the more embittered. - -The crisis was the more acute, finally, because in the latter part of -the tenth century the common expectation that the world would end with -the year 1000 had inspired enormous donations to the Church, [1277] -with a proportionally oppressive effect on the general population, -moving them to economic self-defence. It is in fact clear that -an anti-clerical element entered largely into the beginnings of -the communal movement in France in the eleventh century. In 1024 -we find the citizens of Cambrai forming a league to drive out the -canons; [1278] and though that beginning of revolt was crushed out -by massacre, the same spirit expressed itself in heresy. The result -was that religious persecution ere long eclipsed political. Bishop -Wazon of Lüttich (d. 1048) in vain protested against the universal -practice of putting the heretics to death. [1279] Manicheans who -were detected in 1052 at Goslar, in Germany, were hanged, [1280] -a precedent being thus established in the day of small things. - -All this went on while the course of the papacy was so scandalous -to the least exacting moral sense that only the ignorance of the -era could sustain any measure of reverence for the Church as an -institution. In the year 963 the ablest of the emperors of that -age, Otto the Great, had the consent of the people of Rome to his -deposition of Pope John XII, a disorderly youth of twenty-five, -"the most profligate if not the most guilty of all who have worn -the tiara," [1281] and to his appointing the Pope in future; but -Teutonic administration soon drove the populace to repeated revolt, -quenched by massacre, till at length John returned, speedily to -be slain by a wronged husband. Economic interest entered largely -into the subsequent attempts of the Romans to choose their own -Pope and rule their own city, and into the contrary claim of the -emperors to do both; and in the nature of things the usually absent -emperors could only spasmodically carry their point. The result was -an epoch of riotous disorder in the papacy. Between John and Leo IX -(955-1048) six popes were deposed, two murdered, and one mutilated; -[1282] and the Church was a mere battle-ground of the factions of the -Roman and Italian nobility. [1283] At last, in 1047, "a disgraceful -contest between three claimants of the papal chair shocked even the -reckless apathy of Italy"; [1284] and the emperor Henry III deposed -them all and appointed a pope of his own choosing, the clergy again -consenting. Soon, however, as before, the local claim was revived; -and in the papacy of the powerful Gregory VII, known as Hildebrand, -the head of the Church determinedly asserted its autonomy and his own -autocracy. Then came the long "war of the investitures" between the -popes and the emperors, in which the former were substantially the -gainers. The result was, in addition to the endless miseries set up -by war, a systematic development of that financial corruption which -already had been scandalous enough. The cathedral chapters and the -nobles traded in bishoprics; the popes sold their ratifications for -great sums; the money was normally borrowed by the bishops from the -papal usurers; and there was witnessed throughout Europe the spectacle -of the Church denouncing all usury as sin, while its own usurers were -scrupulously protected, the bishops paying to them their interest -from the revenues they were able to extort. [1285] Satirical comment -naturally abounded wherever men had any knowledge of the facts; and -what current literature there was reflected the feeling on all sides. - -The occurrence of the first and second crusades, the work -respectively of Peter the Hermit and St. Bernard, created a period -of new fanaticism, somewhat unfavourable to heresy; but even in that -period the new sects were at work, [1286] and in the twelfth century, -when crusading had become a mere feudal conspiracy of conquest and -plunder, [1287] heresy reappeared, to be duly met by slaughter. A -perfect ferment of anti-clerical heresy had arisen in Italy, France, -and Flanders. [1288] At Orvieto, in Italy, the heretics for a time -actually had the mastery, and were put down only after a bloody -struggle. [1289] In France, for a period of twenty years from 1106, -Peter de Brueys opposed infant baptism, the use of churches, holy -crosses, prayers for the dead (the great source of clerical income), -and the doctrine of the Real Presence in the eucharist (the main -source of their power), and so set up the highly heretical sect of -Petrobrussians. [1290] Driven from his native district of Vallonise, -he long maintained himself in Gascony, till at length he was seized -and burned (1126 or 1130). The monk Henry (died in prison 1148) -took a similar line, directly denouncing the clergy in Switzerland -and France; as did Tanquelin in Flanders (killed by a priest, 1125); -though in his case there seems to have been as much of religious -hallucination as of the contrary. [1291] A peasant, Eudo of Stella -(who died in prison), is said to have half-revolutionized Brittany -with his anti-ecclesiastical preaching. [1292] The more famous monk -Arnold of Brescia (strangled and burned in 1155), a pupil of Abailard, -but orthodox in his theology and austere in his life, simplified his -plan of reform (about 1139) into a proposal that the whole wealth of -the clergy, from the pope to the monks, should be transferred to the -civil power, leaving churchmen to lead a spiritual life on voluntary -offerings. [1293] For fifteen years the stir of his movement lasted -in Lombardy, till at length his formation of a republic at Rome forced -the papacy to combine with the Emperor Frederick II, who gave Arnold up -to death. But though his movement perished, anti-clericalism did not; -and heretical sects of some kind persisted here and there, in despite -of the Church, till the age of the Reformation. In Italy, during -the age of the Renaissance, all alike were commonly called paterini -or patarini--a nickname which seems to come from pataria, a Milanese -word meaning "popular faction" or "rowdies." [1294] Thus in the whole -movement of fresh popular thought there is a manifest connection with -the democratic movement in politics, though in the schools the spirit -of discussion and dialectic had no similar relationship. - -During the first half of the century its warfare with the emperors, -and the frequent appointment of anti-popes, prevented any systematic -policy on the part of the Holy See, [1295] repression being mostly -left to the local ecclesiastical authorities. It was in 1139 that -Innocent II issued the first papal decree against Cathari, expelling -them from the Church and calling on the temporal power to give full -effect to their excommunication. [1296] In 1163 Pope Alexander III, -being exiled from Rome by Frederick I and the anti-pope Victor, called -a great council at Tours, where again a policy of excommunication was -decided on, the secular authorities being commanded to imprison the -excommunicated and confiscate their property, but not to slay them. In -the same year some Cathari arrested at Cologne had been sentenced to -be burned; but the Council did not go so far. As a result the decree -had little or no effect. [1297] - -So powerless was the Church at this stage that in 1167 the Cathari held -a council of their own near Toulouse; a bishop of their order, Nicetas, -coming from Constantinople to preside; and a whole system of French -sees was set on foot. [1298] So numerous had the Cathari now become -that their highest grade, the perfecti, alone was reckoned to number -4,000; [1299] and from this time it is of Cathari that we read in the -rolls of persecution. About 1170 four more of them, from Flanders, were -burned at Cologne; and others, of the higher grade called bos homes -(= boni homines, "good men"), at Toulouse. In 1179, the heresy still -gaining ground, an oecumenical council (the Third Lateran) was held at -Rome under Pope Alexander III, decreeing afresh their excommunication, -and setting up a new machinery of extirpation by proclaiming a -crusade at once against the orderly heretics of southern France and -the companies of openly irreligious freebooters who had arisen as a -result of many wars and much misgovernment. To all who joined in the -crusade was offered an indulgence of two years. In the following year -Henry of Clairvaux, Cardinal of Albano, took the matter in hand as -papal plenipotentiary; and in 1181 he raised a force of horse and foot -and fell upon the ill-defended territory of the Viscount of Beziers, -where many heretics, including the daughter of Raymond of Toulouse, -had taken refuge. The chief stronghold was captured, with two Catharist -bishops, who renounced their heresy, and were promptly given prebends -in Toulouse. Many others submitted; but as soon as the terms for which -the crusaders had enlisted were over and the army disbanded, they -returned to their heretical practices. [1300] Two years later an army -collected in central France made a campaign against the freebooters, -slaying thousands in one battle, hanging fifteen hundred after another, -and blinding eighty more. But freebooting also continued. [1301] - -The first crusade against heresy having failed, it was left by the -papacy for a number of years to itself; though anti-pope Lucius III in -1184 sought to set up an Inquisition; and in 1195 a papal legate held a -council at Montpellier, seeking to create another crusade. The zeal of -the faithful was mainly absorbed in Palestine; while the nobles at home -were generally at war with each other. Heresy accordingly continued to -flourish, though there was never any suspension of local persecution -outside of Provence, where the heretics were now in a majority, -having more theological schools and scholars than the Church. [1302] -In France in particular, in the early years of the reign of Philip -Augustus (suc. 1180), many paterini were put to death by burning; -[1303] and the clergy at length persuaded the king to expel the Jews, -the work being done almost as cruelly as it was two centuries later -in Spain. In England, where there was thus far little heresy, it -was repressed by Henry II. Some thirty rustics came from Flanders -in 1166, fleeing persecution, and vainly sought to propagate their -creed. Zealous to prove his orthodoxy in the period of his quarrel -with Becket, Henry presided over a council of bishops called by him -at Oxford to discuss the case; and the heretics were condemned to -be scourged, branded in the face, and driven forth--to perish in the -winter wilds. "England was not hospitable to heresy;" and practically -her orthodoxy was "unsullied until the rise of Wiclif." [1304] - -In southern Europe and northern Italy in the last quarter of -the century a foremost place began to be taken by the sect of the -Waldenses, or Vaudois (otherwise the Poor Men of Lyons), which--whether -deriving from ancient dissent surviving in the Vaux or Valleys of -Piedmont, [1305] or taking its name and character from the teaching -of the Lyons merchant, Peter Waldus, or an earlier Peter of Vaux -or Valdis [1306]--conforms substantially to the general heretical -tendencies of that age, in that it rejected the papal authority, -contended for the reading of the Bible by the laity, condemned tithes, -disparaged fasting, stipulated for poverty on the part of priests -and denied their special status, opposed prayers for the dead, -and preached peace and non-resistance. In 1199, at Metz, they were -found in possession of a French translation of the New Testament, -the Psalms, and the book of Job--a new and startling invasion of the -priestly power in the west. Above all, their men and women alike went -about preaching in the towns, in the houses, and in the churches, -and administered the eucharist without priests. [1307] Thus Cathari, -Paterini, Manicheans, and non-Manichean Albigenses and Waldenses were -on all fours for the Church, as opponents of its economic claims; -and when at length, under Celestine III and Innocent III, the Holy -See began to be consolidated after a long period of incessant change, -[1308] desperate measures began to be contemplated. Organized heresy -was seen to be indestructible save by general extirpation; and on -economic grounds it was not to be tolerated. At Orvieto the heresy -stamped out with blood in 1125 was found alive again in 1150; was -again put down in 1163 by burning, hanging, and expulsion; and yet -was again found active at the close of the century. [1309] In 1198 -Innocent III is found beginning a new Inquisition among the Albigenses; -and in 1199, while threatening them with exile and confiscation, [1310] -he made a last diplomatic attempt to force the obstinately heretical -people of Orvieto to take an oath of fidelity in the year 1199. It -ended in the killing of his representative by the people. [1311] -The papacy accordingly laid plans to destroy the enemy at its centre -of propagation. - - - - -§ 4. HERESY IN SOUTHERN FRANCE - -In Provence and Languedoc, the scene of the first great papal crusade -against anti-clerical heresy, there were represented all the then -existing forces of popular freethought; and the motives of the crusade -were equally typical of the cause of authority. - -1. In addition to the Paulician and other movements of religious -rationalism above noted, the Languedoc region was a centre of -semi-popular literary culture, which was to no small extent -anti-clerical, and by consequence somewhat anti-religious. The -Latin-speaking jongleurs or minstrels, known as Goliards, [1312] -possessing as they did a clerical culture, were by their way of -life committed to a joyous rather than an ascetic philosophy; -and though given to blending the language of devotion with that of -the drinking-table, very much after the fashion of Hafiz, they were -capable of burlesquing the mass, the creed, hymns to the Virgin, the -Lord's Prayer, confessions, and parts of the gospels, as well as of -keenly satirizing the endless abuses of the Church. [1313] "One is -astonished to meet, in the Middle Ages, in a time always represented -as crushed under the yoke of authority, such incredible audacities on -the papacy, the episcopacy, chivalry, on the most revered dogmas of -religion, such as paradise, hell, etc." [1314] The rhymers escaped -simply because there was no police that could catch them. Denounced -by some of the stricter clergy, they were protected by others. They -were, in fact, the minstrels of the free-living churchmen. [1315] - -Of this type is Guiot of Provence, a Black Friar, the author of La -Bible Guiot, written between 1187 and 1206. He is a lover of good -living, a champion of aristocrats, a foe of popular movements, [1316] -and withal a little of a buffoon. But it is to be counted to him for -righteousness that he thought the wealth devoured by the clergy might -be more usefully spent on roads, bridges, and hospitals. [1317] He has -also a good word for the old pagans who lived "according to reason"; -and as to his own time, he is sharply censorious alike of princes, -pope, and prelates. The princes are rascals who "do not believe in -God," and depress their nobility; and the breed of the latter has sadly -degenerated. The pope is to be prayed for; but he is ill counselled -by his cardinals, who conform to the ancient tendency of Rome to -everything evil; many of the archbishops and bishops are no better; -and the clergy in general are eaten up by greed and simony. [1318] -This is in fact the common note. [1319] - -A kindred spirit is seen in much of the verse alike of the northern -Trouvères and the southern Troubadours. A modern Catholic historian -of medieval literature complains that their compositions "abound with -the severest ridicule of such persons and of such things as, in the -temper of the age, were highly estimated and most generally revered," -and notes that in consequence they were ranked by the devout as -"lewd and impious libertines." [1320] In particular they satirized -the practice of excommunication and the use made by the Church of -hell and purgatory as sources of revenue. [1321] Their anti-clerical -poetry having been as far as possible destroyed by the Inquisition, its -character has to be partly inferred from the remains of the northern -trouvères--e.g., Ruteboeuf and Raoul de Houdan, of whom the former -wrote a Voya de Paradis, in which Sloth is a canon and Pride a bishop, -both on their way to heaven; while Raoul has a Songe d'enfer in which -hell is treated in a spirit of the most audacious burlesque. [1322] -In a striking passage of the old tale Aucassin et Nicolette there is -naïvely revealed the spontaneous revolt against pietism which underlay -all these flings of irreverence. "Into paradise," cries Aucassin, -"go none but ... those aged priests, and those old cripples, and -the maimed, who all day long and all night cough before the altars, -and in the crypts beneath the churches; those ... who are naked and -barefoot and full of sores.... Such as these enter in paradise, and -with them have I nought to do. But in hell will I go. For to hell -go the fair clerks and the fair knights who are slain in the tourney -and the great wars, and the stout archer and the loyal man. With them -will I go. And there go the fair and courteous ladies [of many loves]; -and there pass the gold and the silver, the ermine and all rich furs, -harpers and minstrels, and the happy of the world. With these will I -go...." [1323] It was such a temper, rather than reasoned unbelief, -that inspired the blasphemous parodies in Reynard the Fox and other -popular works of the Middle Ages. - -The Provençal literature, further, was from the first influenced by -the culture of the Saracens, [1324] who held Sicily and Calabria in -the ninth and tenth centuries, and had held part of Languedoc itself -for a few years in the eighth. On the passing of the duchy of Provence -to Raymond Berenger, Count of Barcelona, at the end of the eleventh -century, not only were the half-Saracenized Catalans mixed with the -Provençals, but Raymond and his successors freely introduced the arts -and science of the Saracens into their dominion. [1325] In the Norman -kingdom of Sicily too the Saracen influence was great even before -the time of Frederick II; and thence it reached afresh through Italy -to Provence, [1326] carrying with it everywhere, by way of poetry, an -element of anti-clerical and even of anti-Christian rationalism. [1327] -Though this spirit was not that of the Cathari and Waldenses, yet the -fact that the latter strongly condemned the Crusades [1328] was a point -in common between them and the sympathizers with Saracen culture. And -as the tolerant Saracen schools of Spain or the Christian schools -of the same region, which copied their curriculum, [1329] were in -that age resorted to by youth from each of the countries of western -Europe for scientific teaching [1330]--all the latest medical and -most other scientific knowledge being in their hands--the influence -of such culture must have been peculiarly strong in Provence. [1331] - -The medieval mystery-plays and moralities, already common in Provence, -mixed at times with the normal irreverence of illiterate faith [1332] -a vein of surprisingly pronounced skeptical criticism, [1333] which -at the least was a stimulus to critical thought among the auditors, -even if they were supposed to take it as merely dramatic. Inasmuch as -the drama was hereditarily pagan, and had been continually denounced -and ostracized by Fathers and Councils, [1334] it would be natural -that its practitioners, even when in the service of the Church, -should be unbelievers. - -The philosophy and science of both the Arabs and the Spanish Jews -were specially cultivated in the Provence territory. The college of -Montpellier practised on Arab lines medicine, botany, and mathematics; -and the Jews, who had been driven from Spain by the Almohades, had -flourishing schools at Narbonne, Beziers, Nîmes, and Carcassonne, -as well as Montpellier, and spread alike the philosophy of Averroës -and the semi-rational theology of the Jewish thinker Maimonides, -[1335] whose school held broadly by Averroïsm. - -For the rest, every one of the new literary influences that were -assailing the Church would tend to flourish in such a civilization as -that of Languedoc, which had been peaceful and prosperous for over two -hundred years. Unable to lay hold of the popular poets and minstrels -who propagated anti-clericalism, the papacy could hope to put down -by brute force the social system in which they flourished, crushing -the pious and more hated heretic with the scoffer. And Languedoc -was a peculiarly tempting field for such operations. Its relative -lack of military strength, as well as its pre-eminence in heresy, -led Innocent III, a peculiarly zealous assertor of the papal power, -[1336] to attack it in preference to other and remoter centres of -enmity. In the first year of his pontificate, 1198, he commenced a new -and zealous Inquisition [1337] in the doomed region; and in the year -1207, when as much persecution had been accomplished as the lax faith -of the nobility and many of the bishops would consent to--an appeal -to the King of France to interfere being disregarded--the scheme -of a crusade against the dominions of Raymond Count of Toulouse was -conceived and gradually matured. The alternate weakness and obstinacy -of Raymond, and the fresh provocation given by the murder, in 1208, -of the arrogant papal legate, Pierre de Castelnau, [1338] permitted -the success of the scheme in such hands. The crusade was planned -exactly on the conditions of those against the Saracens--the heretics -at home being declared far worse than they. [1339] The crusaders -were freed from payment of interest on their debts, exempted from -the jurisdiction of all law courts, and absolved from all their -sins past or future. [1340] To earn this reward they were to give -only forty days' service [1341]--a trifle in comparison with the -hardships of the crusades to Palestine. "Never therefore had the -cross been taken up with a more unanimous consent." [1342] Bishops -and nobles in Burgundy and France, the English Simon de Montfort, -the Abbot of Citeaux, and the Bernardine monks throughout Europe, -combined in the cause; and recruits came from Austria and Saxony, from -Bremen, even from Slavonia, as well as from northern France. [1343] -The result was such a campaign of crime and massacre as European -history cannot match. [1344] Despite the abject submission of the -Count of Toulouse, who was publicly stripped and scourged, and -despite the efforts of his nephew the Count of Albi to make terms, -village after village was fired, all heretics caught were burned, and -on the capture of the city and castle of Beziers (1209), every man, -woman, and child within the walls was slaughtered, many of them in the -churches, whither they had run for refuge. The legate, Arnold abbot -of Citeaux, being asked at an early stage how the heretics were to be -distinguished from the faithful, gave the never-to-be-forgotten answer, -"Kill all; God will know his own." [1345] Seven thousand dead bodies -were counted in the great church of St. Mary Magdalene. The legate -in writing estimated the total quarry at 15,000; others put the -number at sixty thousand. [1346] When all in the place were slain, -and all the plunder removed, the town was burned to the ground, -not one house being left standing. Warned by the fate of Beziers, -the people of Carcassonne, after defending themselves for many days, -secretly evacuated their town; but the legate contrived to capture -a number of the fugitives, of whom he burned alive four hundred, and -hanged fifty. [1347] Systematic treachery, authorized and prescribed -by the Pope, [1348] completed the success of the undertaking. The -Church had succeeded, in the name of religion, in bringing half of -Europe to the attainment of the ideal height of wickedness, in that -it had learned to make evil its good; and the papacy had on the whole -come nearer to destroying the moral sense of all Christendom [1349] -than any conceivable combination of other causes could ever have done -in any age. - - - According to a long current fiction, it was the Pope who first - faltered when "the whole of Christendom demanded the renewal of - those scenes of massacre" (Sismondi, Crusades, p. 95); but this is - disproved by the discovery of two letters in which, shortly before - his death, he excitedly takes on himself the responsibility for - all the bloodshed (Michelet, Hist. de France, vii, introd. note - to § iv). Michelet had previously accepted the legend which - he here rejects. The bishops assembled in council at Lavaur, - in 1213, demanded the extermination of the entire population of - Toulouse. Finally, the papal policy is expressly decreed in the - third canon of the Fourth General Council of Lateran, 1215. On that - canon see The Statutes of the Fourth General Council of Lateran, - by the Rev. John Evans, 1843. On the crusade in general, cp. Lea, - History of the Inquisition, bk. i, ch. iv; Gieseler, Per. III, - Div. iii, § 89. - - -The first crusade was followed by others, in which Simon de Montfort -reached the maximum of massacre, varying his procedure by tearing -out eyes and cutting off noses when he was not hanging victims -by dozens or burning them by scores or putting them to the sword -by hundreds [1350] (all being done "with the utmost joy") [1351]; -though the "White Company" organized by the Bishop of Toulouse [1352] -maintained a close rivalry. The Church's great difficulty was that -as soon as an army had bought its plenary indulgence for all possible -sin by forty days' service, it disbanded. Nevertheless, "the greater -part of the population of the countries where heresy had prevailed -was exterminated." [1353] Organized Christianity had contrived to -murder the civilization of Provence and Languedoc [1354] while the -fanatics of Islam in their comparatively bloodless manner were doing -as much for that of Moorish Spain. Heresy indeed was not rooted out: -throughout the whole of the thirteenth century the Inquisition met with -resistance in Languedoc [1355]; but the preponderance of numbers which -alone could sustain freethinking had been destroyed, and in course -of time it was eliminated by the sleepless engines of the Church. - -It was owing to no lack of the principle of evil in the Christian -system, but simply to the much greater and more uncontrollable -diversity of the political elements of Christendom, that the whole -culture and intelligence of Europe did not undergo the same fate. The -dissensions and mutual injuries of the crusaders ultimately defeated -their ideal [1356]; after Simon de Montfort had died in the odour of -sanctity [1357] the crusade of Louis VIII of France in 1226 seems to -have been essentially one of conquest, there being practically no -heretics left; and the disasters of the expedition, crowned by the -king's death, took away the old prestige of the movement. Meanwhile, -the heresy of the Albigenses, and kindred ideas, had been effectually -driven into other parts of Europe [1358]; and about 1231 we find -Gregory IX burning a multitude of them at the gates of the church of -Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome [1359] and compassing their slaughter -in France and Germany. [1360] In Italy the murderous pertinacity of -the Dominicans gradually destroyed organized heresy despite frequent -and desperate resistance. About 1230 we hear of one eloquent zealot, -chosen podestà by the people of Verona, using his power to burn in one -day sixty heretics, male and female. [1361] The political heterogeneity -of Europe, happily, made variation inevitable; though the papacy, -by making the detection and persecution of heresy a means of gain to -a whole order of its servants, had set on foot a machinery for the -destruction of rational thought such as had never before existed. - - - It is still common to speak of the personnel of the Inquisition as - disinterested, and to class its crimes as "conscientious." Buckle - set up such a thesis, without due circumspection, as a support - to one of his generalizations. (See the present writer's ed. of - his Introduction to the History of Civilization in England, - pp. 105-108, notes, and the passages in McCrie and Llorente - there cited.) Dr. Lea, whose History of the Inquisition is - the greatest storehouse of learning on the subject, takes up a - similar position, arguing (i, 239): "That the men who conducted - the Inquisition, and who toiled sedulously in its arduous, - repulsive, and often dangerous labour, were thoroughly convinced - that they were furthering the kingdom of God, is shown by the - habitual practice of encouraging them with the remission of sins, - similar to that offered for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land"--a - somewhat surprising theorem. Parallel reasoning would prove that - soldiers never plunder and are always Godly; that the crusaders - were all conscientious men; and that policemen never take bribes - or commit perjury. The interpretation of history calls for a - less simple-minded psychology. That there were devoted fanatics - in the Inquisition as in the Church is not to be disputed; that - both organizations had economic bases is certain; and that the - majority of office-bearers in both, in the ages of faith, had - regard to gain, is demonstrated by all ecclesiastical history. - - Dr. Lea's own History shows clearly enough (i, 471-533) that the - Inquisition, from the first generation of its existence, lived - upon its fines and confiscations. "Persecution, as a steady and - continuous policy, rested, after all, upon confiscation.... When - it was lacking, the business of defending the faith lagged - lamentably" (i, 529). "But for the gains to be made out of fines - and confiscations its [the Inquisition's] work would have been - much less thorough, and it would have sunk into comparative - insignificance as soon as the first frantic zeal of bigotry - had exhausted itself" (pp. 532-33). Why, in the face of these - avowals, "it would be unjust to say that greed and thirst for - plunder were the impelling motives of the Inquisition" (p. 532) - is not very clear. See below, ch. x, § 3, as to the causation - in Spain. Cp. Mocatta, The Jews and the Inquisition, pp. 37, - 44, 52. On the Inquisition in Portugal, in turn, Professor - W. E. Collins sums up that "it was founded for reasons ostensibly - religious but actually fiscal" (in the "Cambridge Modern History," - vol. ii, The Reformation, ch. xii, p. 415). Every charge of - economic motive that Catholicism can bring against Protestantism is - thus balanced by the equivalent charge against its own Inquisition. - - - - -§ 5. FREETHOUGHT IN THE SCHOOLS - -The indestructibility of freethought, meanwhile, was being proved -even in the philosophic schools, under all their conformities to -faith. Already in the ninth century we have seen Scotus Erigena putting -the faith in jeopardy by his philosophic defence of it. Another -thinker, Roscelin (or Roussellin: fl. 1090), is interesting as -having made a critical approach to freethought in religion by way -of abstract philosophy. With him definitely begins the long academic -debate between the Nominalists and Realists so called. In an undefined -way, it had existed as early as the ninth century, [1362] the ground -being the Christian adoption of Plato's doctrine of ideas--that -individual objects are instances or images of an ideal universal, -which is a real existence, and prior to the individual thing: -"universalia ante rem." To that proposition Aristotle had opposed the -doctrine that the universal is immanent in the thing--"universalia -in re"--the latter alone being matter of knowledge; [1363] and in the -Middle Ages those who called Aristotle master carried his negation of -Plato to the extent of insisting that the "universal" or "abstract," -or the "form" or "species," is a mere subjective creation, a name, -having no real existence. This, the Nominalist position--mistakenly -ascribed to Aristotle [1364]--was ultimately expressed in the formula, -"universalia post rem." - -Such reasonings obviously tend to implicate theology; and Roscelin -was either led or helped by his Nominalist training to deny either -explicitly or implicitly the unity of the Trinity, arguing in effect -that, as only individuals are real existences, the actuality of the -persons of the Trinity involves their disunity. [1365] The thesis, -of course, evoked a storm, the English Archbishop Anselm and others -producing indignant answers. Of Roscelin's writing only one letter -is extant; and even Anselm, in criticizing his alleged doctrine, -admits having gathered it only from his opponents, whose language -suggests perversion. [1366] But if the testimony of his pupil Abailard -be truthful, [1367] he was at best a confused reasoner; and in his -theology he got no further than tritheism, then called ditheism. [1368] -Thus, though "Nominalism, by denying any objective reality to general -notions, led the way directly to the testimony of the senses and -the conclusions of experience," [1369] it did so on lines fatally -subordinate to the theology it sought to correct. Roscelin's thesis -logically led to the denial not only of trinity-in-unity but of the -Incarnation and transubstantiation; yet neither he nor his opponents -seem to have thought even of the last consequence, he having in fact -no consciously heretical intention. Commanded to recant by the Council -of Soissons in 1092, he did so, and resumed his teaching as before; -whereafter he was ordered to leave France. Coming to England, he showed -himself so little of a rebel to the papacy as to contend strongly for -priestly celibacy, arguing that all sons of priests and all born out of -wedlock should alike be excluded from clerical office. Expelled from -England in turn for these views, by a clergy still anti-celibate, -he returned to Paris, to revive the old philosophic issue, until -general hostility drove him to Aquitaine, where he spent his closing -years in peace. [1370] - -Such handling of the cause of Nominalism gave an obvious advantage -to Realism. That has been justly described by one clerical scholar -as "Philosophy held in subordination to Church-Authority"; [1371] -and another has avowed that "the spirit of Realism was essentially -the spirit of dogmatism, the disposition to pronounce that truth -was already known," while "Nominalism was essentially the spirit -of progress, of inquiry, of criticism." [1372] But even a critical -philosophy may be made to capitulate to authority, as even à priori -metaphysic may be to a certain extent turned against it. Realism had -been markedly heretical in the hands of John Scotus; and in a later -age the Realist John Huss was condemned to death--perhaps on political -grounds, but not without signs of sectarian hate--by a majority of -Nominalists at the Council of Constance. Everything depended on the -force of the individual thinker and the degree of restraint put -upon him by the authoritarian environment. [1373] The world has -even seen the spectacle of a professed indifferentist justifying -the massacre of St. Bartholomew; and the Platonist Marsilio Ficino -vilified Savonarola, basely enough, after his execution, adjusting -a pantheistic Christianity to the needs of the political situation -in Medicean Florence. Valid freethinking is a matter of thoroughness -and rectitude, not of mere theoretic assents. - -Tried by that test, the Nominalism of the medieval schools was no -very potent emancipator of the human spirit, no very clear herald of -freedom or new concrete truth. A doctrine which was so far adjusted -to authority as to affirm the unquestionable existence of three -deities, Father, Son, and Spirit, and merely disputed the not more -supra-rational theorem of their unity, yielded to the rival philosophy -a superiority in the kind of credit it sought for itself. Nominalism -was thus "driven to the shade of the schools," where it was "regarded -entirely in a logical point of view, and by no means in its actual -philosophic importance as a speculation concerning the grounds of -human knowledge." [1374] For Roscelin himself the question was one of -dialectics, not of faith, and he made no practical rationalists. The -popular heresies bit rather deeper into life. [1375] - - - It is doubtless true of the Paulicians that "there was no principle - of development in their creed: it reflected no genuine freedom - of thought" (Poole, Illustrations, p. 95); but the same thing, - as we have seen, is clearly true of scholasticism itself. It may - indeed be urged that "the contest between Ratramn and Paschase on - the doctrine of the Eucharist; of Lanfranc with Berengar on the - same subject; of Anselm with Roscelin on the nature of Universals; - the complaints of Bernard against the dialectical theology of - Abelard; are all illustrations of the collision between Reason - and Authority ... varied forms of rationalism--the pure exertions - of the mind within itself ... against the constringent force - of the Spiritual government" (Hampden, Bampton Lectures on The - Scholastic Philosophy, 3rd ed. p. 37; cp. Hardwick, Church History: - Middle Age, p. 203); but none of the scholastics ever professed - to set Authority aside. None dared. John Scotus indeed affirmed - the identity of true religion with true philosophy, without - professing to subordinate the latter; but the most eminent of the - later scholastics affirmed such a subordination. "The vassalage of - philosophy consisted in the fact that an impassable limit was fixed - for the freedom of philosophizing in the dogmas of the Church" - (Ueberweg, i, 357); and some of the chief dogmas were not allowed - to be philosophically discussed; though, "with its territory thus - limited, philosophy was indeed allowed by theology a freedom which - was rarely and only by exception infringed upon" (ib. Cp. Milman, - Latin Christianity, 4th ed. ix, 151). "The suspicion of originality - was fatal to the reputation of the scholastic divine" (Hampden, - pp. 46-47). The popular heresy, indeed, lacked the intellectual - stimulus that came to the schools from the philosophy of Averroës; - but it was the hardier movement of the two. - - -Already in the eleventh century, however, the simple fact of the -production of a new argument for the existence of God by Anselm, -Archbishop of Canterbury, is a proof that, apart from the published -disputes, a measure of doubt on the fundamental issue had arisen in -the schools. It is urged [1376] that, though the argumentation of -Anselm seems alien to the thought of his time, there is no proof that -the idea of proving the existence of God was in any way pressed on him -from the outside. It is, however, inconceivable that such an argument -should be framed if no one had raised a doubt. And as a matter of fact -the question was discussed in the schools, Anselm's treatise being -a reproduction of his teaching. The monks of Bec, where he taught, -urged him to write a treatise wherein nothing should be proved by mere -authority, but all by necessity of reason or evidence of truth, and -with an eye to objections of all sorts. [1377] In the preface to his -Cur Deus Homo, again, he says that his first book is an answer to the -objections of infidels who reject Christianity as irrational. [1378] -Further, the nature of part of Anselm's theistic argument and the -very able but friendly reply of Gaunilo (a Count of Montigni, who -entered a convent near Tours, 1044-1083) show that the subject was -within the range of private discussion. Anselm substantially follows -St. Augustine; [1379] and men cannot have read the ancient books -which so often spoke of atheism without confronting the atheistic -idea. It is not to be supposed that Gaunilo was an unbeliever; but -his argumentation is that of a man who had pondered the problem. [1380] - -Despite the ostensibly rationalistic nature of his argument, however, -Anselm stipulated for absolute submission of the intellect to the -creed of the Church; [1381] so that the original subtitle of his -Proslogium, Fides quaerens intellectum, in no way admits rational -tests. In the next century we meet with new evidence of sporadic -unbelief, and new attempts to deal with it on the philosophic -side. John of Salisbury (1120-1180) tells of having heard many -discourse on physics "otherwise than faith may hold"; [1382] and the -same vivacious scholar put in his list of "things about which a wise -man may doubt, so ... that the doubt extend not to the multitude," some -"things which are reverently to be inquired about God himself." [1383] -Giraldus Cambrensis (1147-1223), whose abundant and credulous gossip -throws so much light on the inner life of the Church and the laity in -his age, tells that the learned Simon of Tournay "thought not soundly -on the articles of the faith," saying privately, to his intimates, -things that he dared not utter publicly, till one day, in a passion, -he cried out, "Almighty God! how long shall this superstitious sect -of Christians and this upstart invention endure?"; whereupon during -the night he lost the power of speech, and remained helpless till -his death. [1384] Other ecclesiastical chroniclers represent Simon -as deriding alike Jesus, Moses, and Mahomet--an ascription to him -of the "three impostors" formula. [1385] Again, Giraldus tells how -an unnamed priest, reproved by another for careless celebration -of the mass, angrily asked whether his rebuker really believed in -transubstantiation, in the incarnation, in the Virgin Birth, and -in resurrection; adding that it was all carried on by hypocrites, -and assuredly invented by cunning ancients to hold men in terror and -restraint. And Giraldus comments that inter nos there are many who -so think in secret. [1386] As his own picture of the Church exhibits -a gross and almost universal rapacity pervading it from the highest -clergy to the lowest, the statement is entirely credible. [1387] -Yet again, in the Romance of the Holy Grail, mention is twice made -of clerical doubters on the doctrine of the Trinity; [1388] and on -that side, in the crusading period, both the monotheistic doctrine -of Islam and the Arab philosophy of Averroës were likely to set up a -certain amount of skepticism. In the twelfth century, accordingly, -we have Nicolas of Amiens producing his tractate De articulis (or -arte) catholicæ fidei in the hope of convincing by his arguments men -"who disdain to believe the prophecies and the gospel." [1389] - -To meet such skepticism too was one of the undertakings of the -renowned Abailard (1079-1142), himself persecuted as a heretic for -the arguments with which he sought to guard against unbelief. Of the -details of his early life it concerns us here to note only that he -studied under Roscelin, and swerved somewhat in philosophy from his -master's theoretic Nominalism, which he partly modified on Aristotelian -lines, though knowing little of Aristotle. [1390] After his retirement -from the world to the cloister, he was induced to resume philosophic -teaching; and his pupils, like those of Anselm, begged their master to -give them rational arguments on the main points of the faith. [1391] -He accordingly rashly prepared a treatise, De Unitate et Trinitate -divina, in which he proceeded "by analogies of human reason," avowing -that the difficulties were great. [1392] Thereupon envious rivals, -of whom he had made many by his arrogance as well as by his fame, set -up against him a heresy hunt; and for the rest of his life he figured -as a dangerous person. While, however, he took up the relatively -advanced position that reason must prepare the way for faith, since -otherwise faith has no certitude, [1393] he was in the main dependent -on the authority either of second-hand Aristotle [1394] or of the -Scriptures, though he partly set aside that of the Fathers. [1395] -When St. Bernard accused him of Arianism and of heathenism he was -expressing personal ill-will rather than criticizing. Abailard himself -complained that many heresies were current in his time [1396]; and -as a matter of fact "more intrepid views than his were promulgated -without risk by a multitude of less conspicuous masters." [1397] -For instance, Bernard Sylvester (of Chartres), in his cosmology, -treated theological considerations with open disrespect [1398]; -and William of Conches, who held a similar tone on physics, [1399] -taught, until threatened with punishment, that the Holy Ghost and -the Universal Soul were convertible terms. [1400] This remarkably -rational theologian further rejected the literal interpretation of -the creation of Eve; in science he adopted the Demokritean doctrine of -atoms; and in New Testament matters he revived the old rationalistic -heresy that the three Persons of the Trinity are simply three aspects -of the divine personality--power, wisdom, and will--which doctrine he -was duly forced to retract. It is clear from his works that he lived -in an atmosphere of controversy, and had to fight all along with the -pious irrationalists who, "because they know not the forces of nature, -in order that they may have all men comrades in their ignorance, -suffer not that others should search out anything, and would have us -believe like rustics and ask no reason." "If they perceive any man -to be making search, they at once cry out that he is a heretic." The -history of a thousand years of struggle between reason and religion -is told in those sentences. - - - As to William's doctrines and writings see Poole, pp. 124-30, - 346-59. His authorship of one treatise is only latterly cleared - up. In the work which under the title of Elementa Philosophiae - is falsely ascribed to Bede, and under the title De Philosophia - Mundi to Honorius of Autun (see Poole, pp. 340-42, 347 sq.), but - which is really the production of William of Conches, there occurs - the passage: "What is more pitiable than to say that a thing is, - because God is able to do it, and not to show any reason why it - is so; just as if God did everything that he is able to do! You - talk like one who says that God is able to make a calf out of - a log. But did he ever do it? Either, then, show a reason why a - thing is so, or a purpose wherefore it is so, or else cease to - declare it so." Migne, Patrolog. Latin. xc, 1139. It is thus an - exaggeration to say of Abailard, as does Cousin, that "il mit - de côté la vieille école d'Anselme de Laon, qui exposait sans - expliquer, et fonda ce qu'on appelle aujourd'hui le rationalisme" - (Ouvr. inédits d'Abélard, 1836, intr. p. ii). - - -Abailard was not more explicit on concrete issues than this -contemporary--who survived him, and studied his writings. If, indeed, -as is said, he wrote that "a doctrine is believed not because God has -said it, but because we are convinced by reason that it is so," [1401] -he went as far on one line as any theologian of his time; but his -main service to freethought seems to have lain in the great stimulus -he gave to the practice of reasoning on all topics. [1402] His enemy, -St. Bernard, on the contrary, gave an "immense impulse to the growth -of a genuinely superstitious spirit among the Latin clergy." [1403] - - - Dr. Rashdall pronounces Abailard "incomparably the greatest - intellect of the Middle Ages; one of the great minds which mark - a period in the world's intellectual history"; and adds that - "Abailard (a Christian thinker to the very heart's core, however - irredeemable (sic) the selfishness and overweening vanity of his - youth) was at the same time the representative of the principle of - free though reverent inquiry in matters of religion and individual - loyalty to truth." (The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, - 1895, i, 56-57.) If the praise given be intended to exalt Abailard - above John Scotus, it seems excessive. - - -On a survey of Abailard's theological teachings, a modern reader is -apt to see the spirit of moral reason most clearly in one set forth -in his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, to the effect that -Jesus was not incarnate to redeem men from damnation, but solely to -instruct them by precept and example, and that he suffered and died -only to show his charity towards men. The thesis was implicit if not -explicit in the teaching of Pelagius; and for both men it meant the -effort to purify their creed from the barbaric taint of the principle -of sacrifice. In our own day, revived by such theologians as the -English Maurice, it seems likely to gain ground, as an accommodation -to the embarrassed moral sense of educated believers. But it is heresy -if heresy ever was, besides being a blow at the heart of Catholic -sacerdotalism; and Abailard on condemnation retracted it as he did -his other Pelagian errors. Retractation, however, is publication; -and to have been sentenced to retract such teaching in the twelfth -century is to leave on posterity an impression of moral originality -perhaps as important as the fame of a metaphysician. In any case, -it is a careful judge who thus finally estimates him: "When he is -often designated as the rationalist among the schoolmen, he deserves -the title not only on account of the doctrine of the Trinity, which -approaches Sabellianism in spite of all his polemics against it, and -not only on account of his critical attempts, but also on account of -his ethics, in which he actually completely agrees in the principal -point with many modern rationalists." [1404] And it is latterly his -singular fate to be valued at once by many sympathetic Catholics, -who hold him finally vindicated alike in life and doctrine, and by -many freethinkers. - -How far the stir set up in Europe by his personal magnetism and his -personal record may have made for rational culture, it is impossible -to estimate; but some consequence there must have been. John of -Salisbury was one of Abailard's disciples and admirers; and, as -we saw, he not only noted skepticism in others but indicated an -infusion of it in his own mind--enough to earn for him from a modern -historian the praise of being a sincere skeptic, as against those -false skeptics who put forward universal doubt as a stalking horse for -their mysticism. [1405] But he was certainly not a universal skeptic -[1406]; and his denunciation of doubt as to the goodness and power -of God [1407] sounds orthodox enough. What he gained from Abailard -was a concern for earnest dialectic. - -The worst side of scholasticism at all times was that it was more -often than not a mere logical expatiation in vacuo; this partly -for sheer lack of real knowledge. John of Salisbury probably did -not do injustice to the habit of verbiage it developed [1408]; and -the pupils of Abailard seem to have expressed themselves strongly to -him concerning the wordy emptiness of most of what passed current as -philosophic discourse; speaking of the teachers as blind leaders of -the blind. [1409] One version of the legend against Simon of Tournay is -to the effect that, after demonstrating by the most skilful arguments -the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity, he went on to say, when -enraptured listeners besought him to dictate his address so that -it might be preserved, that if he had been evilly minded he could -refute the doctrine by yet better arguments. [1410] Heresy apart, -this species of dialectical insincerity infected the whole life of -the schools, even the higher spirits going about their work with a -certain amount of mere logical ceremony. - - - - -§ 6. SARACEN AND JEWISH INFLUENCES - -Even in the schools, however, over and above the influence of the more -original teachers, there rises at the close of the twelfth century and -the beginning of the thirteenth some measure of a new life, introduced -into philosophy through the communication of Aristotle to the western -world by the Saracens, largely by the mediation of the Jews. [1411] -The latter, in their free life under the earlier Moorish toleration, -had developed something in the nature of a school of philosophy, -in which the Judaic Platonism set up by Philo of Alexandria in the -first century was blended with the Aristotelianism of the Arabs. As -early as the eighth and ninth centuries, anti-Talmudic (the Karaïtes) -and pro-Talmudic parties professed alike to appeal to reason [1412]; -and in the twelfth century the mere production of the Guide of the -Perplexed by the celebrated Moses Maimonides (1130-1205) [1413] -tells of a good deal of practical rationalism (of the kind that -reduced miracle stories to allegories), of which, however, there -is little direct literary result save of a theosophic kind. [1414] -Levi ben Gershom (1286-1344), commonly regarded as the greatest -successor of Maimonides, is like him guardedly rationalistic in his -commentaries on the Scriptures. [1415] But the doctrine which makes -Aristotle a practical support to rationalism, and which was adopted -not only by Averroës but by the Motazilites of Islam--the eternity -of matter--was rejected by Maimonides (as by nearly all other Jewish -teachers, with the partial exception of Levi ben Gershom), [1416] -on Biblical grounds; though his attempts to rationalize Biblical -doctrine and minimize miracles made him odious to the orthodox Jews, -some of whom, in France, did not scruple to call in the aid of the -Christian inquisition against his partisans. [1417] The long struggle -between the Maimonists and the orthodox is described as ending in the -"triumph of peripatetism" or Averroïsm in the synagogue [1418]; but -Averroïsm as modified by Maimonides is only a partial accommodation -of scripture to common sense. It would appear, in fact, that Jewish -thought in the Saracen world retrograded as did that of the Saracens -themselves; for we find Maimonides exclaiming over the apparent -disbelief in creatio ex nihilo in the "Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer the -Great," believed by him to be ancient, but now known to be a product -of the eighth century. [1419] The pantheistic teaching of Solomon -ben Gebirol or Ibn Gebirol, better known as Avicebron, [1420] who -in point of time preceded the Arab Avempace, and who later acquired -much Christian authority, was orthodox on the side of the creation -dogma even when many Jews were on that head rationalistic. [1421] -The high-water mark, among the Jews, of the critical rationalism of -the time, is the perception by Aben or Ibn Ezra (1119-1174) that the -Pentateuch was not written by Moses--a discovery which gave Spinoza -his cue five hundred years later; but Ibn Ezra, liberioris ingenii vir, -as Spinoza pronounced him, had to express himself darkly. [1422] - -Thus the Jewish influence on Christian thought in the Middle Ages was -chiefly metaphysical, carrying on Greek and Arab impulses; and to call -the Jewish people, as does Renan, "the principal representative of -rationalism during the second half of the Middle Age" is to make too -much of the academic aspects of freethinking. On the side of popular -theology it is difficult to believe that they had much Unitarian -influence; though Joinville in his Life of Saint Louis tells how, -in a debate between Churchmen and Jews at the monastery of Cluny, -a certain knight saw fit to break the head of one of the Jews with -his staff for denying the divinity of Jesus, giving as his reason -that many good Christians, listening to the Jewish arguments, were -in a fair way to go home unbelievers. It was in this case that the -sainted king laid down the principle that when a layman heard anyone -blaspheme the Christian creed his proper course was not to argue, -but to run the blasphemer through with his sword. [1423] Such admitted -inability on the part of the laity to reason on their faith, however, -was more likely to accompany a double degree of orthodoxy than to -make for doubt; and the clerical debating at the Abbey of Cluny, -despite the honourable attitude of the Abbot, who condemned the -knight's outrage, was probably a muster of foregone conclusions. - -For a time, indeed, in the energetic intellectual life of northern -France the spirit of freethought went far and deep. After the great -stimulus given in Abailard's day to all discussion, we find another -Breton teacher, Amaury or Amalrich of Bène or Bena (end of twelfth -century) and his pupil David of Dinant, partly under the earlier -Arab influence, [1424] partly under that of John the Scot, [1425] -teaching a pronounced pantheism, akin to that noted as flourishing -later among the Brethren of the Free Spirit [1426] and some of the -Franciscan Fraticelli. Such a movement, involving disregard for -the sacraments and ceremonies of the Church, was soon recognized as -a dangerous heresy, and dealt with accordingly. The Church caused -Amaury to abjure his teachings; and after his death, finding his party -still growing, dug up and burned his bones. At the same time (1209) -a number of his followers were burned alive; David of Dinant had to -fly for his life; [1427] and inasmuch as the new heresy had begun -to make much of Aristotle, presumably as interpreted by Averroës, -a Council held at Paris vetoed for the university the study alike of -the pagan master and his commentators, interdicting first the Physics -and soon after the Metaphysics. [1428] This veto held until 1237, -when the school which adapted the lore of Aristotle to Christian -purposes began to carry the day. - -The heretical Aristotelianism and the orthodox system which was -to overpower it were alike radiated from the south, where the Arab -influence spread early and widely. There, as we shall see, the long -duel between the Emperor Frederick II and the papacy made a special -opportunity for speculative freethought; and though this was far -from meaning at all times practical enmity to Christian doctrine, -[1429] that was not absent. It is clear that before Thomas Aquinas -(1225-1274) a Naturalist and Averroïst view of the universe had -been much discussed, since he makes the remark that "God is by some -called Natura naturans" [1430]--Nature at work--an idea fundamental -alike to pantheism and to scientific naturalism. And throughout his -great work--a marvel of mental gymnastic which better than almost -any other writing redeems medieval orthodoxy from the charge of -mere ineptitude--Thomas indicates his acquaintance with unorthodox -thought. In particular he seems to owe the form of his work as well -as the subject-matter of much of his argument to Averroës. [1431] -Born within the sphere of the Saracen-Sicilian influence, and of -high rank, he must have met with what rationalism there was, and he -always presupposes it. [1432] "He is nearly as consummate a skeptic, -almost atheist, as he is a divine and theologian," says one modern -ecclesiastical dignitary; [1433] and an orthodox apologist [1434] -more severely complains that "Aquinas presented ... so many doubts -on the deepest points ... so many plausible reasons for unbelief -... that his works have probably suggested most of the skeptical -opinions which were adopted by others who were trained in the study -of them.... He has done more than most men to put the faith of his -fellow-Christians in peril." Of course he rejects Averroïsm. Yet he, -like his antagonist Duns Scotus, inevitably gravitates to pantheism -when he would rigorously philosophize. [1435] - -What he did for his church was to combine so ingeniously the semblance -of Aristotelian method with constant recurrence to the sacred books -as to impose their authority on the life of the schools no less -completely than it dominated the minds of the unlearned. Meeting -method with method, and showing himself well aware of the lore he -circumvented, he built up a system quite as well fitted to be a -mere gymnastic of the mind; and he thereby effected the arrest for -some three centuries of the method of experimental science which -Aristotle had inculcated. He came just in time. Roger Bacon, trained -at Paris, was eagerly preaching the scientific gospel; and while he -was suffering imprisonment at the hands of his Franciscan superiors -for his eminently secular devotion to science, the freer scholars of -the university were developing a heresy that outwent his. - -Now, however, began to be seen once for all the impossibility -of rational freedom in or under a church which depended for its -revenue on the dogmatic exploitation of popular credulity. For a -time the Aristotelian influence, as had been seen by the churchmen -who had first sought to destroy it, [1436] tended to be Averroïst -and rationalist. [1437] In 1269, however, there begins a determined -campaign, led by the bishop of Paris, against the current Averroïst -doctrines, notably the propositions "that the world is eternal"; -"that there never was a first man"; "that the intellect of man -is one"; "that the mind, which is the form of man, constituting -him such, perishes with the body"; "that the acts of men are not -governed by divine providence"; "that God cannot give immortality or -incorruptibility to a corruptible or mortal thing." [1438] On such -doctrines the bishop and his coadjutors naturally passed an anathema -(1270); and at this period it was that Albertus Magnus and Thomas -Aquinas wrote their treatises against Averroïsm. [1439] - -Still the freethinkers held out, and though in 1271 official commands -were given that the discussion of such matters in the university should -cease, another process of condemnation was carried out in 1277. This -time the list of propositions denounced includes the following: -"that the natural philosopher as such must deny the creation of -the world, because he proceeds upon natural causes and reasons; -while the believer (fidelis) may deny the eternity of the world, -because he argues from supernatural causes"; "that creation is not -possible, although the contrary is to be held according to faith"; -"that a future resurrection is not to be believed by the philosopher, -because it cannot be investigated by reason"; "that the teachings of -the theologians are founded on fables"; "that there are fables and -falsities in the Christian religion as in others"; "that nothing more -can be known, on account of theology"; "that the Christian law prevents -from learning"; [1440] "that God is not triune and one, for trinity -is incompatible with perfect simplicity"; "that ecstatic states and -visions take place naturally, and only so." Such vital unbelief could -have only one fate; it was reduced to silence by a papal Bull, [1441] -administered by the orthodox majority; and the memory of the massacres -of the year 1209, and of the awful crusade against the Albigenses, -served to cow the thinkers of the schools into an outward conformity. - -Henceforward orthodox Aristotelianism, placed on a canonical footing -in the theological system of Thomas Aquinas, ruled the universities; -and scholasticism counts for little in the liberation of European -life from either dogma or superstition. [1442] The practically -progressive forces are to be looked for outside. In the thirteenth -century in England we find the Franciscan friars in the school of -Robert Grosstête at Oxford discussing the question "Whether there -be a God?" [1443] but such a dispute was an academic exercise like -another; and in any case the authorities could be trusted to see -that it came to nothing. The work of Thomas himself serves to show -how a really great power of comprehensive and orderly thought can be -turned to the subversion of judgment by accepting the prior dominion -of a fixed body of dogma and an arbitrary rule over opinion. And yet, -so strong is the principle of ratiocination in his large performance, -and so much does it embody of the critical forces of antiquity and of -its own day, that while it served the Church as a code of orthodoxy -its influence can be seen in the skeptical philosophy of Europe -as late as Spinoza and Kant. It appears to have been as a result -of his argumentation that there became established in the later -procedure of the Church the doctrine that, while heretics who have -once received the faith and lapsed are to be coerced and punished, -other unbelievers (as Moslems and Jews) are not. This principle also, -it would appear, he derived from the Moslems, as he did their rule -that those of the true faith must avoid intimacy with the unbelievers, -though believers firm in the faith may dispute with them "when there -is greater expectation of the conversion of the infidels than of the -subversion of the fidels." And to the rule of non-inquisition into -the faith of Jews and Moslems the Church professed to adhere while the -Inquisition lasted, after having trampled it under foot in spirit by -causing the expulsion of the Jews and the Moriscoes from Spain. [1444] - -We shall perhaps best understand the inner life of the schools in -the Middle Ages by likening it to that of the universities of our own -time, where there is unquestionably much unbelief among teachers and -taught, but where the economic and other pressures of the institution -suffice to preserve an outward acquiescence. In the Middle Ages it -was immeasurably less possible than in our day for the unbeliever to -strike out a free course of life and doctrine for himself. If, then, -to-day the scholarly class is in large measure tied to institutions -and conformities, much more so was it then. The cloister was almost -the sole haven of refuge for studious spirits, and to attain the haven -they had to accept the discipline and the profession of faith. We -may conclude, accordingly, that such works as Abailard's Sic et Non, -setting forth opposed views of so many doctrines and problems, -stood for and made for a great deal of quiet skepticism; [1445] -that the remarkable request of the monks of Bec for a ratiocinative -teaching which should meet even extravagant objections, covered a -good deal of resigned unfaith; and that in the Franciscan schools at -Oxford the disputants were not all at heart believers. Indeed, the -very existence of the doctrine of a "twofold truth"--one truth for -religion and another for philosophy--was from the outset a witness -for unbelief. But the unwritten word died, the litera scripta being -solely those of faith, and liberation had to come, ages later, from -without. Even when a bold saying won general currency--as that latterly -ascribed, no doubt falsely, to King Alfonso the Wise of Castile, that -"if he had been of God's council when he made the world he could have -advised him better"--it did but crystallize skepticism in a jest, -and supply the enemy with a text against impiety. - -All the while, the Church was forging new and more murderous weapons -against reason. It is one of her infamies to have revived the use -in Christendom of the ancient practice of judicial torture, and this -expressly for the suppression of heresy. The later European practice -dates from the Bull of Innocent IV, Ad extirpanda, dated 1252. At -first a veto was put on its administration by clerical hands; but in -1256 Alexander IV authorized the inquisitors and their associates to -absolve one another for such acts. By the beginning of the fourteenth -century torture was in use not only in the tribunals of the Inquisition -but in the ordinary ecclesiastical courts, whence it gradually entered -into the courts of lay justice. [1446] It is impossible to estimate -the injury thus wrought at once to culture and to civilization, at -the hands of the power which claimed specially to promote both. [1447] - - - - -§ 7. FREETHOUGHT IN ITALY - -Apart from the schools, there was a notable amount of hardy -freethinking among the imperialist nobles of northern Italy, in -the time of the emperors Henry IV and V, the attitude of enmity to -the Holy See having the effect of encouraging a rude rationalism. In -1115, while Henry V was vigorously carrying on the war of investitures -begun by his father, and formerly condemned by himself, the Countess -Matilda of Tuscany bequeathed her extensive fiefs to the papacy; -and in the following year Henry took forcible possession of them. At -this period the strife between the papal and the imperial factions in -the Tuscan cities was at its fiercest; and the Florentine chronicler -Giovanni Villani alleges that among many other heretics in 1115 and -1117 were some "of the sect of the Epicureans," who "with armed -hand defended the said heresy" against the orthodox. [1448] But -it is doubtful whether the heresy involved was anything more than -imperialist anti-papalism. Another chronicler speaks of the heretics -as Paterini; and even this is dubious. The title of Epicurean in the -time of Villani and Dante stood for an unbeliever in a future state; -[1449] but there was an avowed tendency to call all Ghibellines -Paterini; and other heretical aspersions were likely to be applied in -the same way. [1450] As the Averroïst philosophy had not yet risen, -and rationalistic opinions were not yet current among the western -Saracens, any bold heresy among the anti-papalists of Florence must -be assigned either to a spontaneous growth of unbelief or to the -obscure influence of the great poem of Lucretius, never wholly lost -from Italian hands. But the Lucretian view of things among men of -the world naturally remained a matter of private discussion, not of -propaganda; and it was on the less rationalistic but more organized -anti-clericalism that there came the doom of martyrdom. So with the -simple deism of which we find traces in the polemic of Guibert de -Nogent (d. 1124), who avowedly wrote his tract De Incarnatione adversus -Judæos rather as an apology against unbelievers among the Christians; -[1451] and again among the pilgrim community founded later in France -in commemoration of Thomas à Becket. [1452] Such doubters said little, -leaving it to more zealous reformers to challenge creed with creed. - -Freethought in south-western Europe, however, had a measure of -countenance in very high places. In the thirteenth century the Emperor -Frederick II had the repute of being an infidel in the double sense of -being semi-Moslem [1453] and semi-atheist. By Pope Gregory IX he was -openly charged, in a furious afterthought, [1454] with saying that -the world had been deceived by three impostors (baratores)--Moses, -Jesus, and Mohammed; also with putting Jesus much below the other two, -and with delighting to call himself the forerunner of Antichrist. - - - The Pope's letter, dated July 1, 1239, is given by Matthew Paris - (extracts in Gieseler, vol. iii, § 55), and in Labbe's Concilia, - t. xiii, col. 1157. Cp. the other references given by Renan, - Averroès, 3e édit. pp. 296-97. As Voltaire remarks (Essai sur - les Moeurs, ch. lii), the Pope's statement is the basis for the - old belief that Frederick had written a treatise dealing with - Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed as The Three Impostors. The story - is certainly a myth; and probably no such book existed in his - century. Cp. Maclaine's note to Mosheim, 13 Cent. pt. i, end; - Renan, Averroès, pp. 280-81, 295. The authorship of such a book - has nevertheless been ascribed by Catholic writers successively - to Averroës, Simon of Tournay, Frederick, his Minister, Pierre - des Vignes, Arnaldo de Villanueva, Boccaccio, Poggio, Pietro - Aretino, Machiavelli, Symphorien, Champier, Pomponazzi, Cardan, - Erasmus, Rabelais, Ochinus, Servetus, Postel, Campanella, Muret, - Geoffroi Vallée, Giordano Bruno, Dolet, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Vanini - (cp. Sentimens sur le traité des trois imposteurs in the French - ed. of 1793; and Lea, Hist. of the Inquis. iii, 560); and the - seventeenth-century apologist Mersenne professed to have seen it - in Arabic (Lea, iii, 297). These references may be dismissed as - worthless. In 1654 the French physician and mathematician Morin - wrote an Epistola de tribus impostoribus under the name of Panurge, - but this attacked the three contemporary writers Gassendi, Neure, - and Bernier; and in 1680 Kortholt of Kiel published under the title - De tribus impostoribus magnis an attack on Herbert, Hobbes, and - Spinoza. The Three Impostors current later, dealing with Moses, - Jesus, and Mohammed, may have been written about the same time, - but, as we shall see later, is identical with L'Esprit de Spinoza, - first published in 1719. A Latin treatise purporting to be written - de tribus famosissimis deceptoribus, and addressed to an Otho - illustrissimus (conceivably Otho Duke of Bavaria, 13th c.), came - to light in MS. in 1706, and was described in 1716, but was not - printed. The treatise current later in French cannot have been - the same. On the whole subject see the note of R. C. Christie - (reprinted from Notes and Queries) in his Selected Essays and - Papers, 1902, pp. 309, 315; and the full discussion in Reuter's - Geschichte der religiösen Aufklärung, ii, 251-96. The book De - tribus impostoribus, bearing the date 1598, of which several copies - exist, seems to have been really published, with its false date, - at Vienna in 1753. - - -Frederick was in reality superstitious enough; he worshipped relics; -and he was nearly as merciless as the popes to rebellious heretics and -Manicheans; [1455] his cruelty proceeding, seemingly, on the belief -that insubordination to the emperor was sure to follow intellectual -as distinguished from political revolt against the Church. He was -absolutely tolerant to Jews and Moslems, [1456] and had trusted Moslem -counsellors, thereby specially evoking the wrath of the Church. Greatly -concerned to acquire the lore of the Arabs, [1457] he gave his favour -and protection to Michael Scotus, the first translator of portions -of Averroës into Latin, [1458] and presumptively himself a heretic -of the Averroïst stamp; whence the legend of his wizardry, adopted -by Dante. [1459] Thus the doubting and persecuting emperor assisted -at the birth of the philosophic movement which for centuries was -most closely associated with unbelief in Christendom. For the rest, -he is recorded to have ridiculed the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, -the viaticum, and other dogmas, "as being repugnant to reason and to -nature"; [1460] and his general hostility to the Pope would tend to -make him a bad Churchman. Indeed the testimonies, both Christian and -Moslem, as to his freethinking are too clear to be set aside. [1461] -Certainly no monarch of that or any age was more eagerly interested -in every form of culture, or did more, on tyrannous lines, to promote -it; [1462] and to him rather than to Simon de Montfort Europe owes -the admission of representatives of cities to Parliaments. [1463] -Of his son Manfred it is recorded that he was a thorough Epicurean, -believing neither in God nor in the saints. [1464] But positive -unbelief in a future state, mockery of the Christian religion, and -even denial of deity--usually in private, and never in writing--are -frequently complained of by the clerical writers of the time in France -and Italy; [1465] while in Spain Alfonso the Wise, about 1260, speaks -of a common unbelief in immortality, alike as to heaven and hell; -and the Council of Tarragona in 1291 decrees punishments against such -unbelievers. [1466] In Italy, not unnaturally, they were most commonly -found among the Ghibelline or imperial party, the opponents of the -papacy, despite imperial orthodoxy. "Incredulity, affected or real, -was for the oppressed Ghibellines a way among others of distinguishing -themselves from the Guelph oppressors." [1467] - -The commonest form of rationalistic heresy seems to have been unbelief -in immortality. Thus Dante in the Inferno estimates that among -the heretics there are more than a thousand followers of Epicurus, -"who make the soul die with the body," [1468] specifying among them -the Emperor Frederick II, a cardinal, [1469] the Ghibelline noble -Farinata degli Uberti, and the Guelph Cavalcante Cavalcanti. [1470] -He was thinking, as usual, of the men of his own age; but, as we -have seen, this particular heresy had existed in previous centuries, -having indeed probably never disappeared from Italy. Other passages in -Dante's works [1471] show, in any case, that it was much discussed in -his time; [1472] and it is noteworthy that, so far as open avowal went, -Italian freethought had got no further two hundred years later. In the -period before the papacy had thoroughly established the Inquisition, -and diplomacy supervened on the tempestuous strifes of the great -factions, there was a certain hardihood of speech on all subjects, -which tended to disappear alongside of even a more searching unbelief. - - - "Le 16e siècle n'a eu aucune mauvaise pensée que le 13e n'ait - eue avant lui" (Renan, Averroès, p. 231). Renan, however, - seems astray in stating that "Le Poème de la Descente de Saint - Paul aux enfers parle avec terreur d'une société secrète qui - avait juré la destruction de Christianisme" (id. p. 284). The - poem simply describes the various tortures of sinners in hell, - and mentions in their turn those who "en terre, à sainte Iglise - firent guerre," and in death "Verbe Deu refusouent"; also those - "Ki ne croient que Deu fust nez (né), ne que Sainte Marie l'eust - portez, ne que por le peuple vousist (voulait) mourir, ne que - peine deignast soffrir." See the text as given by Ozanam, Dante, - ed. 6ième, Ptie. iv--the version cited by Renan. - - -So, with regard to the belief in magic, there was no general advance -in the later Renaissance on the skepticism of Pietro of Abano, a -famous Paduan physician and Averroïst, who died, at the age of 80, -in 1305. He appears to have denied alike magic and miracles, though -he held fast by astrology, and ascribed the rise and progress of all -religions to the influence of the stars. Himself accused of magic, he -escaped violent death by dying naturally before his trial was ended; -and the Inquisition burned either his body or his image. [1473] After -him, superstition seems to have gone step for step with skepticism. - -Dante's own poetic genius, indeed, did much to arrest intellectual -evolution in Italy. Before his time, as we have seen, the trouvères -of northern France and the Goliards of the south had handled hell -in a spirit of burlesque; and his own teacher, Brunetto Latini, had -framed a poetic allegory, Il Tesoretto, in which Nature figures as -the universal power, behind which the God-idea disappeared. [1474] But -Dante's tremendous vision ultimately effaced all others of the kind; -and his intellectual predominance in virtue of mere imaginative art is -at once the great characteristic and the great anomaly of the early -Renaissance. Happily the inseparable malignity of his pietism was in -large part superseded by a sunnier spirit; [1475] but his personality -and his poetry helped to hold the balance of authority on the side -of faith. [1476] Within a few years of his death there was burned at -Florence (1327) one of the most daring heretics of the later Middle -Ages, Cecco Stabili d'Ascoli, a professor of philosophy and astrology -at Bologna, who is recorded to have had some intimacy with Dante, and -to have been one of his detractors. [1477] Cecco has been described as -"representing natural science, against the Christian science of Dante"; -[1478] and though his science was primitive, the summing-up is not -unwarranted. Combining strong anti-Christian feeling with the universal -belief in astrology, he had declared that Jesus lived as a sluggard -(come un poltrone) with his disciples, and died on the cross, under -the compulsion of his star. [1479] In view of the blasphemer's fate, -such audacity was not often repeated. - -As against Dante, the great literary influence for tolerance and -liberalism if not rationalism of thought was Boccaccio (1313-1375), -whose Decameron [1480] anticipates every lighter aspect of the -Renaissance--its levity, its licence, its humour, its anti-clericalism, -its incipient tolerance, its irreverence, its partial freethinking, -as well as its exuberance in the joy of living. On the side of -anti-clericalism, the key-note is struck so strongly and so defiantly -in some of the opening tales that the toleration of the book by the -papal authorities can be accounted for only by their appreciation of -the humour of the stories therein told against them, as that [1481] of -the Jew who, after seeing the utter corruption of the clergy at Rome, -turned Christian on the score that only by divine support could such -a system survive. No Protestant ever passed a more scathing aspersion -on the whole body of the curia than is thus set in the forefront of -the Decameron. Still more deeply significant of innovating thought, -however, is the famous story of The Three Rings, [1482] embodied later -by Lessing in his Nathan the Wise as an apologue of tolerance. Such a -story, introduced with whatever parade of orthodox faith, could not but -make for rational skepticism, summarizing as it does the whole effect -of the inevitable comparison of the rival creeds made by the men of -Italy and those of the east in their intercourse. The story itself, -centring on Saladin, is of eastern origin, [1483] and so tells of even -more freethinking than meets the eye in the history of Islam. [1484] -It is noteworthy that the Rabbi Simeon Duran (1360-1444), who follows -on this period, appears to be the first Jewish teacher to plead for -mutual toleration among the conflicting schools of his race. [1485] - -Current in Italy before Boccaccio, the tale had been improved from -one Italian hand to another; [1486] and the main credit for its full -development is Boccaccio's. [1487] Though the Church never officially -attempted to suppress the book--leaving it to Savonarola to destroy as -far as possible the first edition--the more serious clergy naturally -resented its hostility, first denouncing it, then seeking to expurgate -all the anti-clerical passages; [1488] and the personal pressure -brought to bear upon Boccaccio had the effect of dispiriting and -puritanizing him; so that the Decameron finally wrought its effect -in its author's despite. [1489] So far as we can divine the deeper -influence of such a work on medieval thought, it may reasonably be -supposed to have tended, like that of Averroïsm, towards Unitarianism -or deism, inasmuch as a simple belief in deity is all that is normally -implied in its language on religious matters. On that view it bore -its full intellectual fruit only in the two succeeding centuries, -when deism and Unitarianism alike grew up in Italy, apparently from -non-scholastic roots. - -It is an interesting problem how far the vast calamity of the Black -Death (1348-49) told either for skepticism or for superstition in this -age. In Boccaccio's immortal book we see a few refined Florentines who -flee the pest giving themselves up to literary amusement; but there -is also mention of many who had taken to wild debauchery, and there -are many evidences as to wild outbreaks of desperate licence all over -Europe. [1490] On the other hand, many were driven by fear to religious -practices; [1491] and in the immense destruction of life the Church -acquired much new wealth. At the same time the multitudes of priests -who died [1492] had as a rule to be replaced by ill-trained persons, -where the problem was not solved by creating pluralities, the result -being a general falling-off in the culture and the authority of the -clergy. [1493] But there seems to have been little or no growth of -such questioning as came later from the previously optimistic Voltaire -after the earthquake of Lisbon; and the total effect of the immense -reduction of population all over Europe seems to have been a lowering -of the whole of the activities of life. Certainly the students of -Paris in 1376 were surprisingly freethinking on scriptural points; -[1494] but there is nothing to show that the great pestilence had set -up any new movement of ethical thought. In some ways it grievously -deepened bigotry, as in regard to the Jews, who were in many regions -madly impeached as having caused the plague by poisoning the wells, -and were then massacred in large numbers. - -Side by side with Boccaccio, his friend Petrarch (1304-1374), who -with him completes the great literary trio of the late Middle Ages, -belongs to freethought in that he too, with less aggressiveness but -also without recoil, stood for independent culture and a rational habit -of mind as against the dogmatics and tyrannies of the Church. [1495] -He was in the main a practical humanist, not in accord with the -verbalizing scholastic philosophy of his time, and disposed to -find his intellectual guide in the skeptical yet conservative -Cicero. The scholastics had become as fanatical for Aristotle or -Averroës as the churchmen were for their dogmas; [1496] and Petrarch -made for mental freedom by resisting all dogmatisms alike. [1497] -The general liberality of his attitude has earned him the titles of -"the first modern man" [1498] and "the founder of modern criticism" -[1499]--both somewhat high-pitched. [1500] He represented in reality -the sobering and clarifying influence of the revived classic culture -on the fanaticisms developed in the Middle Ages; and when he argued -for the rule of reason in all things [1501] it was not that he -was a deeply searching rationalist, but that he was spontaneously -averse to all the extremes of thought around him, and was concerned -to discredit them. For himself, having little speculative power, he -was disposed to fall back on a simple and tolerant Christianity. Thus -he is quite unsympathetic in his references to those scholars of his -day who privately indicated their unbelief. Knowing nothing of the -teaching of Averroës, he speaks of him, on the strength of Christian -fictions, as "that mad dog who, moved by an execrable rage, barks -against his Lord Christ and the Catholic faith." [1502] Apart from -such conventional odium theologicum, his judgment, like his literary -art, was clear and restrained; opening no new vistas, but bringing -a steady and placid light to bear on its chosen sphere. - -Between such humanistic influences and that of more systematic and -scholastic thought, Italy in that age was the chief source of practical -criticism of Christian dogmas; and the extent to which a unitarian -theism was now connected with the acceptance of the philosophy of -Averroës brought it about, despite the respectful attitude of Dante, -who gave him a tranquil place in hell, [1503] that he came to figure -as Antichrist for the faithful. [1504] Petrarch in his letters speaks -of much downright hostility to the Christian system on the part of -Averroïsts; [1505] and the association of Averroïsm with the great -medical school of Padua [1506] must have promoted practical skepticism -among physicians. Being formally restricted to the schools, however, -it tended there to undergo the usual scholastic petrifaction; and -the common-sense deism it encouraged outside had to subsist without -literary discipline. In this form it probably reached many lands, -without openly affecting culture or life; since Averroïsm itself -was professed generally in the Carmelite order, who claimed for it -orthodoxy. [1507] - -Alongside, however, of intellectual solvents, there were at work others -of a more widely effective kind, set up by the long and sinister -historic episode of the Great Papal Schism. The Church, already -profoundly discredited in the eleventh century by the gross disorders -of the papacy, continued frequently throughout the twelfth to exhibit -the old spectacle of rival popes; and late in the fourteenth (1378) -there broke out the greatest schism of all. Ostensibly beginning in -a riotous coercion of the electing cardinals by the Roman populace, -it was maintained on the one side by the standing interest of the -clergy in Italy, which called for an Italian head of the Church, -and on the other hand by the French interest, which had already -enforced the residence of the popes at Avignon from 1305 to 1376. It -was natural that, just after the papal chair had been replaced in -Italy by Gregory IX, the Romans should threaten violence to the -cardinals if they chose any but an Italian; and no less natural that -the French court should determine to restore a state of things in -which it controlled the papacy in all save its corruption. During -the seventy years of "the Captivity," Rome had sunk to the condition -of a poor country town; and to the Italian clergy the struggle for a -restoration was a matter of economic life and death. For thirty-nine -years did the schism last, being ended only by the prolonged action -of the great Council of Constance in deposing the rivals of the moment -and appointing Martin V (1417); and this was achieved only after there -had slipped into the chair of Peter "the most worthless and infamous -man to be found." [1508] During the schism every species of scandal had -flourished. Indulgences had been sold and distributed at random; [1509] -simony and venality abounded more than ever; [1510] the courts of Rome -and Avignon were mere rivals in avarice, indecorum, and reciprocal -execration; and in addition to the moral occasion for skepticism there -was the intellectual, since no one could show conclusively that the -administration of sacraments was valid under either pope. [1511] - - - - -§ 8. SECTS AND ORDERS - -Despite, therefore, the premium put by the Church on devotion -to its cause and doctrine, and despite its success in strangling -specific forms of heresy, hostility to its own pretensions germinated -everywhere, [1512] especially in the countries most alien to Italy -in language and civilization. An accomplished Catholic scholar [1513] -sums up that "from about the middle of the twelfth century the whole -secular and religious literature of Europe grew more and more hostile -to the papacy and the curia." The Church's own economic conditions, -constantly turning its priesthood, despite all precautions, into a -money-making and shamelessly avaricious class, ensured it a perpetuity -of ill-will and denunciation. The popular literature which now began -to grow throughout Christendom with the spread of political order was -everywhere turned to the account of anti-clerical satire; [1514] and -only the defect of real knowledge secured by the Church's own policy -prevented such hostility from developing into rational unbelief. As -it was, a tendency to criticize at once the socio-economic code and -practice and the details of creed and worship is seen in a series -of movements from the thirteenth century onwards; and some of the -most popular literature of that age is deeply tinged with the new -spirit. After the overthrow of the well-organized anti-clericalism -of the Cathari and other heretics in Languedoc, however, no movement -equally systematic and equally heretical flourished on any large scale; -and as even those heresies on their popular side were essentially -supernaturalist, and tended to set up one hierarchy in place of -another, it would be vain to look for anything like a consistent or -searching rationalism among the people in the period broadly termed -medieval, including the Renaissance. - -It would be a bad misconception to infer from the abundant signs of -popular disrespect for the clergy that the mass of the laity even -in Italy, for instance, were unbelievers. [1515] They never were -anything of the kind. At all times they were deeply superstitious, -easily swayed by religious emotion, credulous as to relics, miracles, -visions, prophecies, responsive to pulpit eloquence, readily passing -from derision of worldly priests to worship of austere ones. [1516] -When Machiavelli said that religion was gone from Italy, he was -thinking of the upper classes, among whom theism was normal, [1517] and -the upper clergy, who were often at once superstitious and corrupt. As -for the common people, it was impossible that they should be grounded -rationalists as regarded the great problems of life. They were merely -the raw material on which knowledge might work if it could reach them, -which it never did. And the common people everywhere else stood at -or below the culture level of those of Italy. - -For lack of other culture than Biblical, then, even the popular heresy -tended to run into mysticisms which were only so far more rational than -the dogmas and rites of the Church that they stood for some actual -reflection. A partial exception, indeed, may be made in the case of -the Brethren of the Free Spirit, a sect set up in Germany in the early -years of the thirteenth century, by one Ortlieb, on the basis of the -pantheistic teachings of Amaury of Bène and David of Dinant. [1518] -Their doctrines were set forth in a special treatise or sacred book, -called The Nine Rocks. The Fratres liberi spiritus seem to have been -identical with the sect of the "Holy Spirit"; [1519] but their tenets -were heretical in a high degree, including as they did a denial of -personal immortality, and consequently of the notions of heaven, -hell, and purgatory. Even the sect's doctrine of the Holy Spirit was -heretical in another way, inasmuch as it ran, if its opponents can be -believed, to the old antinomian assertion that anyone filled with the -Spirit was sinless, whatever deeds he might do. [1520] As always, such -antinomianism strengthened the hands of the clergy against the heresy, -though the Brethren seem to have been originally very ascetic; and -inasmuch as their pantheism involved the idea that Satan also had in -him the divine essence, they were duly accused of devil-worship. [1521] -On general principles they were furiously persecuted; but all through -the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and even in the fifteenth, -they are found in various parts of central and western Europe, [1522] -often in close alliance with the originally orthodox communities -known in France and Holland by the names of Turlupins and Beguins or -Beguines, and in Germany and Belgium as Beguttæ or Beghards, [1523] -akin to the Lollards. - -These in turn are to be understood in connection with developments -which took place in the thirteenth century within the Church--notably -the rise of the great orders of Mendicant Friars, of which the -two chief were founded about 1216 by Francis of Assisi and the -Spanish Dominic, the latter a fierce persecutor in the Albigensian -crusade. Nothing availed more to preserve or restore for a time the -Church's prestige. The old criticism of priestly and monastic avarice -and worldliness was disarmed by the sudden appearance and rapid spread -of a priesthood and brotherhood of poverty; and the obvious devotion of -thousands of the earlier adherents went to the general credit of the -Church. Yet the descent of the new orders to the moral and economic -levels of the old was only a question of time; and no process could -more clearly illustrate the futility of all schemes of regenerating the -world on non-rational principles. Apart from the vast encouragement -given to sheer mendicancy among the poor, the orders themselves -substantially apostatized from their own rules within a generation. - -The history of the Franciscans in particular is like that of the -Church in general--one of rapid lapse into furious schism, with a -general reversion to gross self-seeking on the part of the majority, -originally vowed to utter poverty. Elias, the first successor of -Francis, appointed by the Saint himself, proved an intolerable tyrant; -and in his day began the ferocious strife between the "Spirituals," -who insisted on the founder's ideal of poverty, and the majority, who -insisted on accepting the wealth which the world either bestowed or -could be cajoled into bestowing on the order. The majority, of course, -ultimately overbore the Spirituals, the papacy supporting them. [1524] -They followed the practically universal law of monastic life. The -Humiliati, founded before the thirteenth century, had to be suppressed -by the Pope in the sixteenth, for sheer corruption of morals; and the -Franciscans and Dominicans, who speedily became bitterly hostile to -each other, were in large measure little better. Even in the middle -of the thirteenth century they were attacked by the Sorbonne doctor, -William of St. Amour, in a book on The Perils of the Latter Times; -[1525] and in England in the fourteenth century we find Wiclif -assailing the begging friars as the earlier satirists had assailed -the abbots and monks. That all this reciprocal invective was not -mere partizan calumny, but broadly true as against both sides, is -the conclusion forced upon a reader of the Philobiblon ascribed to -Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham and Treasurer and Chancellor under -Edward III. In that book, written either by the bishop or by one -of his chaplains, Robert Holkot, [1526] the demerits of all orders -of the clergy from the points of view of letters and morals are set -forth with impartial emphasis; [1527] and the character of the bishop -in turn is no less effectively disposed of after his death by Adam -Murimuth, a distinguished lawyer and canon of St. Paul's. [1528] - -The worst of the trouble for the Church was that the mendicants were -detested by bishops and the beneficed priests, whose credit they -undermined, and whose revenues they intercepted. That the Franciscans -and Dominicans remained socially powerful till the Reformation was -due to the energy developed by their corporate organization and the -measure of education they soon secured on their own behalf; not -to any general superiority on their part to the "secular" clergy -so-called. [1529] Indeed it was to the latter, within the Church, -that most pre-Reformation reformers looked for sympathy. At the outset, -however, the movement of the Mendicant Friars gave a great impulsion to -the lay communities of the type of the Beguines and Beghards who had -originated in the Netherlands, and who practised at once mendicancy -and charity very much on the early Franciscan lines; [1530] and the -spirit of innovation led in both cases to forms of heresy. That of the -Beguines and Beghards arose mainly through their association with the -Brethren of the Free Spirit; and they suffered persecution as did the -latter; while among the "Spiritual" Franciscans, who were despisers of -learning, there arose a species of new religion. At the beginning of -the century, Abbot Joachim, of Flora or Flores in Calabria (d. 1202), -who "may be regarded as the founder of modern mysticism," [1531] -had earned a great reputation by devout austerities, and a greater by -his vaticinations, [1532] which he declared to be divine. One of his -writings was condemned as heretical, thirteen years after his death, -by the Council of Lateran; but his apocalyptic writings, and others put -out in his name, had a great vogue among the rebellious Franciscans. - -At length, in 1254, there was produced in Paris a book called The -Everlasting Gospel, consisting of three of his genuine works, with a -long and audacious Introduction by an anonymous hand, which expressed -a spirit of innovation and revolt, mystical rather than rational, that -seemed to promise the utter disruption of the Church. It declared -that, as the dispensation of the Son had followed on that of the -Father, so Christ's evangel in turn was to be superseded by that of -the "Holy Spirit." [1533] Adopted by the "Spiritual" section of the -Franciscans, it brought heresy within the organization itself, the -Introduction being by many ascribed--probably in error--to the head -of the order, John of Parma, a devotee of Joachim. On other grounds, -he was ultimately deposed; [1534] but the ferment of heresy was -great. And while the Franciscans are commonly reputed to have been led -by small-minded generals, [1535] their order, as Renan notes, [1536] -not only never lost the stamp of its popular and irregular origin, -but was always less orthodox in general than the Dominican. But its -deviations were rather ultra-religious than rational; and some of its -heresies have become orthodoxy. Thus it was the Franciscans, notably -Duns Scotus, who carried the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception -of the Virgin against the Dominicans, who held by the teaching of -Thomas Aquinas that she was conceived "in sin." [1537] Mary was thus -deified on a popular impulse, dating from paganism, at the expense -of Christism; and, considering that both Thomas and St. Bernard had -flatly rejected the Immaculate Conception, its ultimate adoption as -dogma is highly significant. [1538] - -In the year 1260, when, according to the "Eternal Gospel," the new -dispensation of the Holy Spirit was to begin, there was an immense -excitement in northern Italy, marked by the outbreak of the order -of Flagellants, self-scourgers, whose hysteria spread to other -lands. Gherardo Segarelli, a youth of Parma, came forward as a new -Christ, had himself circumcised, swaddled, cradled, and suckled; -[1539] and proceeded to found a new order of "Apostolicals," after -the manner of a sect of the previous century, known by the same name, -who professed to return to primitive simplicity and to chastity, and -reproduced what they supposed to be the morals of the early Church, -including the profession of ascetic cohabitation. [1540] Some of -their missionaries got as far as Germany; but Segarelli was caught, -imprisoned, reduced to the status of a bishop's jester, and at length, -after saving his life for a time by abjuration, burned at Parma, -in the year 1300. - -Despite much persecution of the order, one of its adherents, -Fra Dolcino, immediately began to exploit Segarelli's martyrdom, -and renewed the movement by an adaptation of the "Eternal Gospel," -announcing that Segarelli had begun a new era, to last till the Day -of Judgment. Predicting the formation of native states, as well as -the forcible purification of the papacy, he ultimately set up an -armed movement, which held out in the southern Alps for two years, -till the Apostolicals were reduced to cannibalism. At length (1307) -they were overpowered and massacred, and Dolcino was captured, with -his beautiful and devoted companion, Margherita di Trank. She was -slowly burned to death before his eyes, refusing to abjure; and he -in turn was gradually tortured to death, uttering no cry. [1541] - -The order subsisted for a time in secret, numbers cherishing Dolcino's -memory, and practising a priestless and riteless religion, prohibiting -oaths, and wholly repudiating every claim of the Church. [1542] Yet -another sect, called by the name of "The Spirit of Liberty"--probably -the origin of the name libertini, later applied to freethinkers in -France--was linked on the one hand to the Apostolicals and on the -other to the German Brethren of the Free Spirit, as well as to the -Franciscan Fraticelli. This sect is heard of as late as 1344, when -one of its members was burned. [1543] And there were yet others; -till it seemed as if the Latin Church were to be resolved into an -endless series of schisms. But organization, as of old, prevailed; -the cohesive and aggressive force of the central system, with the -natural strifes of the new movements, whether within or without -[1544] the Church, sufficed to bring about their absorption or their -destruction. It needed a special concurrence of economic, political, -and culture forces to disrupt the fabric of the papacy. - - - - -§ 9. THOUGHT IN SPAIN - -Of all the chapters in the history of the Inquisition, the most -tragical is the record of its work in Spain, for there a whole -nation's faculty of freethought was by its ministry strangled for a -whole era. There is a prevalent notion that in Spain fanaticism had -mastered the national life from the period of the overthrow of Arianism -under the later Visigothic kings; and that there the extirpation of -heresy was the spontaneous and congenial work of the bulk of the -nation, giving vent to the spirit of intolerance ingrained in it -in the long war with the Moors. "Spain," says Michelet, "has always -felt herself more Catholic than Rome." [1545] But this is a serious -misconception. Wars associated with a religious cause are usually -followed rather by indifference than by increased faith; and the long -wars of the Moors and the Christians in Spain had some such sequel, -[1546] as had the Crusades, and the later wars of religion in France -and Germany. It is true that for a century after the (political) -conversion of the Visigothic king Recared (587) from Arianism to -Catholicism--an age of complete decadence--the policy of the Spanish -Church was extremely intolerant, as might have been expected. The -Jews, in particular, were repeatedly and murderously persecuted; -[1547] but after the fall of the Visigoths before the invading -Moors, the treatment of all forms of heresy in the Christian parts -of the Peninsula, down to the establishment of the second or New -Inquisition under Torquemada, was in general rather less severe than -elsewhere. [1548] - -An exception is to be noted in the case of the edicts of 1194 and 1197, -by Alfonso II and Pedro II ("the Catholic") of Aragon, against the -Waldenses. [1549] The policy in the first case was that of wholesale -expulsion of the heretics anathematized by the Church; and, as this -laid the victims open to plunder all round, there is a presumption -that cupidity was a main part of the motive. Peter the Catholic, in -turn, who decreed the stake for the heretics that remained, made a -signally complete capitulation to the Holy See; but the nation did not -support him; and the tribute he promised to pay to the Pope was never -paid. [1550] In the thirteenth century, when the Moors had been driven -out of Castile, rationalistic heresy seems to have been as common -in Spain as in Italy. Already Arab culture had spread, Archbishop -Raymond of Toledo (1130-50) having caused many books to be translated -from Arabic into Latin; [1551] and inasmuch as racial warfare had -always involved some intercourse between Christians and Moors, [1552] -the Averroïst influence which so speedily reached Sicily from Toledo -through Michael Scot must have counted for something in Spain. About -1260 Alfonso X, "the Wise" king of Castile, describes the heresies of -his kingdom under two main divisions, of which the worse is the denial -of a future state of rewards and punishments. [1553] This heresy, -further, is proceeded against by the Council of Tarragona in 1291. And -though Alfonso was orthodox, and in his legislation a persecutor, -[1554] his own astronomic and mathematical science, so famous in the -after times, came to him from the Arabs and the Jews whom he actually -called in to assist him in preparing his astronomic tables. [1555] -Such science was itself a species of heresy in that age; and to it -the orthodox king owes his Catholic reputation as a blasphemer, -as Antichrist, [1556] and as one of the countless authors of the -fabulous treatise on the "Three Impostors." He would further rank -as a bad Churchman, inasmuch as his very laws against heresy took no -account of the Roman Inquisition (though it was nominally established -by a papal rescript in 1235), [1557] but provided independently for -the treatment of offenders. Needless to say, they had due regard to -finance, non-believers who listened to heresy being fined ten pounds -weight of gold, with the alternative of fifty lashes in public; while -the property of lay heretics without kin went to the fisc. [1558] -The law condemning to the stake those Christians who apostatized to -Islam or Judaism [1559] had also a financial motive. - -Such laws, however, left to unsystematic application, were but slightly -operative; and the people fiercely resisted what attempts were made -to enforce them. [1560] At the end of the thirteenth century the -heresies of the French Beguines and the Franciscan "Spirituals" spread -in Aragon, both by way of books and of preaching, and even entered -Portugal. Against these, in the years 1314-1335, the Inquisitors -maintained a persecution. [1561] But it has been put on record by -the famous Arnaldo of Villanueva--astronomer, scholar, alchemist, -reformer, and occultist [1562] (d. 1314)--whose books were at that -period condemned by a council of friars because of his championship of -the Spirituals, that King Frederick II of Aragon had confessed to him -his doubts as to the truth of the Christian religion--doubts set up by -the misconduct of priests, abbots, and bishops; the malignities of the -heads of the friar orders; and the worldliness and political intrigues -of the Holy See. [1563] Such a king was not likely to be a zealous -inquisitor; and the famous Joachite Franciscan Juan de Pera-Tallada -(Jean de la Rochetaillade), imprisoned at Avignon for his apocalyptic -teachings about 1349, seems to have died in peace in Spain long -afterwards. [1564] It cannot even be said that the ordinary motive of -rapacity worked strongly against heresy in Spain in the Middle Ages, -since there the Templars, condemned and plundered everywhere else, -were acquitted; and their final spoliation was the work of the papacy, -the Spanish authorities resisting. [1565] We shall find, further, the -orthodox Spanish king of Naples in the fifteenth century protecting -anti-papal scholarship. And though Dominic, the primary type of the -Inquisitor, had been a Castilian, no Spaniard was Pope from the fourth -to the fourteenth century, and very few were cardinals. [1566] - -As late as the latter half of the fifteenth century, within a -generation of the setting-up of the murderous New Inquisition, -Spain seems to have been on the whole as much given to freethinking -as France, and much more so than England. On the one hand, Averroïsm -tinged somewhat the intellectual life through the Moorish environment, -so that in 1464 we find revolted nobles complaining that King Enrique -IV is suspected of being unsound in the faith because he has about -him both enemies of Catholicism and nominal Christians who avow their -disbelief in a future state. [1567] On the other hand, it had been -noted that many were beginning to deny the need or efficacy of priestly -confession; and about 1478 a Professor at Salamanca, Pedro de Osma, -actually printed an argument to that effect, further challenging the -power of the Pope. So slight was then the machinery of inquisition -that he had to be publicly tried by a council, which merely ordered -him to recant in public; and he died peacefully in 1480. [1568] - -It was immediately after this, in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, -that the Inquisition was newly and effectively established in Spain; -and the determining motive was the avarice of the king and queen, -not the Catholic zeal of the people. The Inquisitor-General of -Messina came to Madrid in 1477 in order to obtain confirmation of a -forged privilege, pretended to have been granted to the Dominicans -in Sicily by Frederick II in 1233--that of receiving one-third of -the property of every heretic they condemned. To such a ruler as -Ferdinand, such a system readily appealed; and as soon as possible a -new Inquisition was established in Spain, Isabella consenting. [1569] -From the first it was a system of plunder. "Men long dead, if they -were represented by rich descendants, were cited before the tribunal, -judged, and condemned; and the lands and goods that had descended to -their heirs passed into the coffers of the Catholic kings." [1570] -The solemn assertion by Queen Isabella, that she had never applied -such money to the purposes of the crown, has been proved from State -papers to be "a most deliberate and daring falsehood." [1571] The -revenue thus iniquitously obtained was enormous; and it is inferrible -that the pecuniary motive underlay the later expulsion of the Jews -and the Moriscoes as well as the average practice of the Inquisition. - - - The error as to the original or anciently ingrained fanaticism of - the Spanish people, first made current by Ticknor (Hist. Spanish - Lit., 6th ed. i, 505), has been to some extent diffused by Buckle, - who at this point of his inquiry reasoned à priori instead of - inductively as his own principles prescribed. See the notes to the - present writer's edition of his Introduction (Routledge, 1904), - pp. 107, 534-50. The special atrocity of the Inquisition in Spain - was not even due directly to the papacy (cp. Burke, ii, 78): it was - the result first of the rapacity of Ferdinand, utilizing a papal - institution; and later of the political fanaticisms of Charles V - and Philip II, both of Teutonic as well as Spanish descent. Philip - alleged that the Inquisition in the Netherlands was more severe - than in Spain (ed. of Buckle cited, p. 107, note). In the words - of Bishop Stubbs: "To a German race of sovereigns Spain finally - owed the subversion of her national system and ancient freedom" - (id. p. 550, note). - - -Such a process, however, would not have been possible in any country, -at any stage of the world's history, without the initiative and the -support of some such sacrosanct organization as the Catholic Church, -wielding a spell over the minds even of those who, in terror and -despair, fought against it. As in the thirteenth century, so at the end -of the fifteenth, [1572] the Inquisition in Spain was spasmodically -resisted in Aragon and Castile, in Catalonia, and in Valencia; -the first Inquisitor-General in Aragon being actually slain in the -cathedral of Saragossa in 1487, despite his precaution of wearing a -steel cap and coat of mail. [1573] Vigorous protests from the Cortès -even forced some restraint upon the entire machine; but such occasional -resistance could not long countervail the steady pressure of regal and -official avarice and the systematic fanaticism of the Dominican order. - -It was thus the fate of Spain to illustrate once for all the power of -a dogmatic religious system to extirpate the spirit of reason from an -entire nation for a whole era. There and there only, save for a time -in Italy, did the Inquisition become all-powerful; and it wrought for -the evisceration of the intellectual and material life of Spain with -a demented zeal to which there is no parallel in later history. In -the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, after several random massacres -and much persecution of the "New Christians" or doubtful converts from -Judaism, [1574] the unconverted Jews of Spain were in 1489 penned into -Ghettos, and were in 1492 expelled bodily from the country, with every -circumstance of cruelty, so far as Church and State could compass their -plans. By this measure at least 160,000 subjects [1575] of more than -average value were lost to the State. Portugal and other Christian -countries took the same cruel step a few years later; but Spain -carried the policy much further. From the year of its establishment, -the Inquisition was hotly at work destroying heresy of every kind; -and the renowned Torquemada, the confessor of Isabella, is credited -with having burned over ten thousand persons in his eighteen years of -office as Grand Inquisitor, besides torturing many thousands. Close -upon a hundred thousand more were terrified into submission; and -a further six thousand burned in effigy in their absence or after -death. [1576] The destruction of books was proportionally thorough; -[1577] and when Lutheran Protestantism arose it was persistently killed -out; thousands leaving the country in view of the hopelessness of -the cause. [1578] At this rate, every vestige of independent thought -must soon have disappeared from any nation in the world. If she is -to be judged by the number of her slain and exiled heretics, Spain -must once have been nearly as fecund in reformative and innovating -thought as any State in northern Europe; but the fatal conjunction -of the royal and the clerical authority sufficed for a whole era to -denude her of every variety of the freethinking species. [1579] - - - - -§ 10. THOUGHT IN ENGLAND - -Lying on the outskirts of the world of culture, England in the -later Middle Ages and the period of the Italian Renaissance lived -intellectually, even where ministered to by the genius of Chaucer, for -the most part in dependence on Continental impulses; yet not without -notable outcrops of native energy. There is indeed no more remarkable -figure in the Middle Ages than Roger Bacon (? 1214-1294), the English -Franciscan friar, schooled at Paris. His career remains still in parts -obscure. Born at or near Ilchester, in Somersetshire, he studied at -Oxford under Edmund Rich, Richard Fitzacre, Robert Grosstête, and Adam -de Marisco; and later, for a number of years, at Paris, where he is -supposed to have held a chair. On his return he was lionized; but a few -years afterwards, in 1257, we find him again in Paris, banished thither -by his Order. [1580] He was not absolutely imprisoned, but ordered to -live under official surveillance in a dwelling where he was forbidden -to write, to speak to novices, or observe the stars--rules which, it -is pretty clear, he broke, one and all. [1581] After some eight years -of this durance, Cardinal Guido Falcodi (otherwise Guy Foucaud or De -Foulques), who while acting as papal legate in England at the time -of the rising of Simon de Montfort may have known or heard of Bacon, -became interested in him through his chaplain, Raymond of Laon, who -spoke (in error) of the imprisoned friar as having written much on -science. The cardinal accordingly wrote asking to see the writings in -question. Bacon sent by a friend an explanation to the effect that he -had written little, and that he could not devote himself to composition -without a written mandate and a papal dispensation. About this time -the Cardinal was elevated to the papacy as Clement IV; and in that -capacity, a year later (1266), he wrote to Bacon authorizing him to -disobey his superior, but exhorting him to do it secretly. Bacon, -by his own account, had already spent in forty years of study 2,000 -libri [1582] in addition to purchases of books and instruments and -teacher's fees; and it is not known whether the Pope furnished the -supplies he declared he needed. [1583] To work, however, he went with -an astonishing industry, and in the course of less than eighteen months -[1584] he had produced his chief treatise, the Opus Majus; the Opus -Minus, designed as a summary or sample of the former; and the later -Opus Tertium, planned to serve as a preamble to the two others. [1585] - -Through all three documents there runs the same inspiration, the Opus -Tertium and the Majus constituting a complete treatise, which gives -at once the most vivid idea of the state of culture at the time, -and the most intimate presentment of a student's mind, that survive -from the thirteenth century. It was nothing less than a demand, such -as was made by Francis Bacon three hundred and fifty years later, -and by Auguste Comte in the nineteenth century, for a reconstruction -of all studies and all tuition. Neither pope nor emperor could have -met it; but Clement gave Roger his freedom, and he returned to Oxford, -papally protected, at the end of 1267. Four years later Clement died, -and was succeeded by Gregory X, a Franciscan. - -At this stage of his life Bacon revealed that, whatever were his -wrongs, he was inclined to go halfway to meet them. In a new writing of -similar purport with the others, the Compendium Philosophiæ, written -in 1271, [1586] he not only attacked in detail the ecclesiastical -system, [1587] but argued that the Christians were incomparably -inferior to pagans in morals, and therefore in science; [1588] that -there was more truth in Aristotle's few chapters on laws than in the -whole corpus juris; [1589] that the Christian religion, as commonly -taught, was not free of errors; and that philosophy truly taught, -and not as in the schools, was perhaps the surer way to attain both -truth and salvation. [1590] - -Again he was prosecuted; and this time, after much delay, it was -decided that the entire Order should deal with the case. Not till -1277 did the trial come off, under the presidency of the chief of the -Order, Jerome of Ascoli. Bacon was bracketed with another insubordinate -brother, Jean d'Olive; and both were condemned. In Bacon's case his -doctrine was specified as continentem aliquas novitates suspectas, -propter quas fuit idem Rogerius carceri condempnatus. [1591] This -time Bacon seems to have undergone a real imprisonment, which lasted -fourteen years. During that time four more popes held office, the -last of them being the said Jerome, elevated to the papal chair as -Nicholas IV. Not till his death in 1292 was Bacon released--to die -two years later. - -He was in fact, with all his dogmatic orthodoxy, too essentially -in advance of his age to be otherwise than suspect to the typical -ecclesiastics of any time. The marvel is that with his radical -skepticism as to all forms of human knowledge; his intense perception -of the fatality of alternate credulity and indifference which kept -most men in a state of positive or negative error on every theme; -his insatiable thirst for knowledge; his invincible repugnance to all -acknowledgment of authority, [1592] and his insistence on an ethical -end, he should have been able to rest as he did in the assumption of -a divine infallibility vested in what he knew to be a corruptible -text. It was doubtless defect of strictly philosophic thought, as -distinguished from practical critical faculty, that enabled him to -remain orthodox in theology while anti-authoritarian in everything -else. As it was, his recalcitrance to authority in such an age sufficed -to make his life a warfare upon earth. And it is not surprising that, -even as his Franciscan predecessor Robert Grosstête, bishop of Lincoln, -came to be reputed a sorcerer on the strength of having written many -treatises on scientific questions--as well as on witchcraft--Roger -Bacon became a wizard in popular legend, and a scandal in the eyes -of his immediate superiors, for a zest of secular curiosity no less -uncommon and unpriestlike. [1593] "It is sometimes impossible to -avoid smiling," says one philosophic historian of him, "when one -sees how artfully this personified thirst for knowledge seeks to -persuade himself, or his readers, that knowledge interests him only for -ecclesiastical ends. No one has believed it: neither posterity ... nor -his contemporaries, who distrusted him as worldly-minded." [1594] - -Worldly-minded he was in a noble sense, as seeking to know the -world of Nature; and perhaps the most remarkable proof of his -originality on this side is his acceptance of the theory of the -earth's sphericity. Peter de Alliaco, whose Imago Mundi was compiled -in 1410, transcribed from Roger Bacon's Opus Majus almost literally, -but without acknowledgment, a passage containing quotations from -Aristotle, Pliny, and Seneca, all arguing for the possibility of -reaching India by sailing westward. Columbus, it is known, was familiar -with the Imago Mundi; and this passage seems greatly to have inspired -him in his task. [1595] This alone was sufficient practical heresy -to put Bacon in danger; and yet his real orthodoxy can hardly be -doubted. [1596] He always protested against the scholastic doctrine -of a "twofold truth," insisting that revelation and philosophy were -at one, but that the latter also was divine. [1597] It probably -mattered little to his superiors, however, what view he took of the -abstract question: it was his zeal for concrete knowledge that they -detested. His works remain to show the scientific reach of which his -age was capable, when helped by the lore of the Arabs; for he seems -to have drawn from Averroës some of his inspiration to research; -[1598] but in the England of that day his ideals of research were as -unattainable as his wrath against clerical obstruction was powerless; -[1599] and Averroïsm in England made little for innovation. [1600] -The English Renaissance properly sets-in in the latter half of the -sixteenth century, when the glory of that of Italy is passing away. - -In the fourteenth century, indeed, a remarkable new life is seen -arising in England in the poetry and prose of Chaucer, from contact -with the literature of Italy and France; but while Chaucer reflects -the spontaneous medieval hostility to the self-seeking and fraudulent -clergy, and writes of deity with quite medieval irreverence, [1601] he -tells little of the Renaissance spirit of critical unbelief, save when -he notes the proverbial irreligion of the physicians, [1602] or smiles -significantly over the problem of the potency of clerical cursing -and absolution, [1603] or shrugs his shoulders over the question of -a future state. [1604] In such matters he is noticeably undevout; -and though it is impossible to found on such passages a confident -assertion that Chaucer had no belief in immortality, it is equally -impossible in view of them to claim that he was a warm believer. - - - Prof. Lounsbury, who has gone closely and critically into the - whole question of Chaucer's religious opinions, asks concerning - the lines in the Knight's Tale on the passing of Arcite: - "Can modern agnosticism point to a denial more emphatic than - that made in the fourteenth century of the belief that there - exists for us any assurance of the life that is lived beyond - the grave?" (Studies in Chaucer, 1892, ii, 514-15). Prof. Skeat, - again, affirms (Notes to the Tales, Clar. Press Compl. Chaucer, - v, 92) that "the real reason why Chaucer could not here describe - the passage of Arcite's soul to heaven is because he had already - copied Boccaccio's description, and had used it with respect - to the death of Troilus" (see Troil. v, 1807-27; stanzas 7, - 8, 9 from the end). This evades the question as to the poet's - faith. In point of fact, the passage in Troilus and Criseyde is - purely pagan, and tells of no Christian belief, though that poem, - written before the Tales, seems to parade a Christian contempt - for pagan lore. (Cp. Lounsbury, as cited, p. 512.) - - The ascription of unbelief seems a straining of the evidence; - but it would be difficult to gainsay the critic's summing-up: - "The general view of all his [Chaucer's] production leaves upon - the mind the impression that his personal religious history was - marked by the dwindling devoutness which makes up the experience - of so many lives--the fallings from us, the vanishings, we know - not how or when, of beliefs in which we have been bred. One - characteristic which not unusually accompanies the decline of - faith in the individual is in him very conspicuous. This is - the prominence given to the falsity and fraud of those who have - professedly devoted themselves to the advancement of the cause of - Christianity.... Much of Chaucer's late work, so far as we know - it to be late, is distinctly hostile to the Church.... It is, - moreover, hostile in a way that implies an utter disbelief in - certain of its tenets, and even a disposition to regard them - as full of menace to the future of civilization" (Lounsbury, - vol. cited, pp. 519-20). - - Against this general view is to be set that which proceeds on - an unquestioning acceptance of the "Retractation" or confession - at the close of the Canterbury Tales, as to the vexed question - of the genuineness of which see the same critic, work cited, i, - 412-15; iii, 40. The fact that the document is appended to the - concluding "Parson's Tale" (also challenged as to authenticity), - which is not a tale at all, and to which the confession refers - as "this little treatise or rede," suggests strongly a clerical - influence brought to bear upon the aging poet. - - -To infer real devotion on his part from his sympathetic account of the -good parson, or from the dubious Retractation appended to the Tales, -is as unwarrantable as is the notion, dating from the Reformation -period, that he was a Wicliffite. [1605] Even if the Retractation be -of his writing, under pressure in old age, it points to a previous -indifferentism; and from the great mass of his work there can be -drawn only the inference that he is essentially non-religious in -temper and habit of mind. But he is no disputant, no propagandist, -whether on ecclesiastical or on intellectual grounds; and after his -day there is social retrogression and literary relapse in England -for two centuries. That there was some practical rationalism in his -day, however, we gather from the Vision of Piers Ploughman, by the -contemporary poet Langland (fl. 1360-90), where there is a vivid -account of the habit among anti-clerical laymen of arguing against -the doctrine of original sin and the entailment of Adam's offence -on the whole human race. [1606] To this way of thinking Chaucer -probably gave a stimulus by his translation of the De Consolatione -Philosophiae of Boethius, where is cited the "not unskilful" dilemma: -"If God is, whence come wicked things? And if God is not, whence come -good things?" [1607] The stress of the problem is hard upon theism; -and to ponder it was to resent the doctrine of inherited guilt. The -Church had, in fact, visibly turned this dogma to its own ends, -insisting on the universal need of ghostly help even as it repelled -the doctrine of unalterable predestination. In both cases, of course, -the matter was settled by Scripture and authority; and Langland's -reply to the heretics is mere angry dogmatism. - -There flourished, further, a remarkable amount of heresy of the -species seen in Provence and Northern Italy in the eleventh and twelfth -centuries, such sectaries being known in England under the generic name -of "Lollards," derived from the Flemish, in which it seems to have -signified singers of hymns. [1608] Lollards or "Beghards," starting -from the southern point of propagation, spread all over civilized -Northern Europe, meeting everywhere persecution alike from the parish -priests and the mendicant monks; and in England as elsewhere their -anti-clericalism and their heresy were correlative. In the formal -Lollard petition to Parliament in 1395, however, there is evident an -amount of innovating opinion which implies more than the mere stimulus -of financial pressure. Not only the papal authority, monasteries, -clerical celibacy, nuns' vows, transubstantiation, exorcisms, bought -blessings, pilgrimages, prayers for the dead, offerings to images, -confessions and absolutions, but war and capital punishment and -"unnecessary trades," such as those of goldsmiths and armourers, -are condemned by those early Utopists. [1609] In what proportion they -really thought out the issues they dealt with we can hardly ascertain; -but a chronicler of Wiclif's time, living at Leicester, testifies that -you could not meet two men in the street but one was a Lollard. [1610] -The movement substantially came to nothing, suffering murderous -persecution in the person of Oldcastle (Lord Cobham) and others, -and disappearing in the fifteenth century in the demoralization of -conquest and the ruin of the civil wars; but apart from Chaucer's -poetry it is more significant of foreign influences in England than -almost any other phenomenon down to the reign of Henry VIII. - -It is still doubtful, indeed, whence the powerful Wiclif derived his -marked Protestantism as to some Catholic dogmas; but it would seem -that he too may have been reached by the older Paulician or other -southern heresy. [1611] As early as 1286 a form of heresy approaching -the Albigensian and the Waldensian is found in the province of -Canterbury, certain persons there maintaining that Christians -were not bound by the authority of the Pope and the Fathers, but -solely by that of the Bible and "necessary reason." [1612] It is -true that Wiclif never refers to the Waldenses or Albigenses, or -any of the continental reformers of his day, though he often cites -his English predecessor, Bishop Grosstête; [1613] but this may have -been on grounds of policy. To cite heretics could do no good; to -cite a bishop was helpful. The main reason for doubting a foreign -influence in his case is that to the last he held by purgatory and -absolute predestination. [1614] In any case, Wiclif's practical and -moral resentment of ecclesiastical abuses was the mainspring of his -doctrine; and his heresies as to transubstantiation and other articles -of faith can be seen to connect with his anti-priestly attitude. He, -however, was morally disinterested as compared with the would-be -plunderers who formed the bulk of the anti-Church party of John of -Gaunt; and his failure to effect any reformation was due to the fact -that on one hand there was not intelligence enough in the nation to -respond to his doctrinal common sense, while on the other he could -not so separate ecclesiastical from feudal tyranny and extortion as -to set up a political movement which should strike at clerical evils -without inciting some to impeach the nobility who held the balance of -political power. Charged with setting vassals against tyrant lords, -he was forced to plead that he taught the reverse, though he justified -the withholding of tithes from bad curates. [1615] The revolt led by -John Ball in 1381, which was in no way promoted by Wiclif, [1616] -showed that the country people suffered as much from lay as from -clerical oppression. - -The time, in short, was one of common ferment, and not only were -there other reformers who went much farther than Wiclif in the matter -of social reconstruction, [1617] but we know from his writings -that there were heretics who carried their criticism as far as to -challenge the authority and credibility of the Scriptures. Against -these accusatores and inimici Scripturae he repeatedly speaks in -his treatise De veritate Scripturae Sacrae, [1618] which is thus one -of the very earliest works in defence of Christianity against modern -criticism. [1619] His position, however, is almost wholly medieval. One -qualification should perhaps be made, in respect of his occasional -resort to reason where it was least to be expected, as on the question -of restrictions on marriage. [1620] But on such points he wavered; -and otherwise he is merely scripturalist. The infinite superiority -of Christ to all other men, and Christ's virtual authorship of the -entire Scriptures, are his premisses--a way of begging the question so -simple-minded that it is clear the other side was not heard in reply, -though these arguments had formed part of his theological lectures, -[1621] and so pre-supposed a real opposition. Wiclif was in short a -typical Protestant in his unquestioning acceptance of the Bible as a -supernatural authority; and when his demand for the publication of -the Bible in English was met by "worldly clerks" with the cry that -it would "set Christians in debate, and subjects to rebel against -their sovereigns," he could only protest that they "openly slander -God, the author of peace, and his holy law." Later English history -proved that the worldly clerks were perfectly right, and Wiclif the -erring optimist of faith. For the rest, his essentially dogmatic -view of religion did nothing to counteract the spirit of persecution; -and the passing of the Statute for the Burning of Heretics in 1401, -with the ready consent of both Houses of Parliament, constituted the -due dogmatic answer to dogmatic criticism. Yet within a few years the -Commons were proposing to confiscate the revenues of the higher clergy: -[1622] so far was anti-clericalism from implying heterodoxy. - - - - -§ 11. THOUGHT IN FRANCE - -As regards France, the record of intellectual history between the -thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries is hardly less scanty than -as regards England. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the -intellectual life of the French philosophic schools, as we saw, -was more vigorous and expansive than that of any other country; -so that, looking further to the Provençal literature and to the -French beginnings of Gothic architecture, France might even be said -to prepare the Renaissance. [1623] Outside of the schools, too, there -was in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries a notable dissemination -of partially philosophical thought among the middle-class laity. At -that period the anti-clerical tendency was strongest in France, where -in the thirteenth century lay scholarship stood highest. In the reign -of Philippe le Bel (end of thirteenth century) was composed the poem -Fauvel, by François de Rues, which is a direct attack on pope and -clergy; [1624] and in the famous Roman de la Rose, as developed by -Jean le Clopinel (= the Limper) of Meung-sur-Loire, there enters, -without any criticism of the Christian creed, an element of all-round -Naturalism which indirectly must have made for reason. Begun by -Guillaume de Lorris in the time of St. Louis in a key of sentiment and -lyricism, the poem is carried on by Jean de Meung under Philippe le Bel -in a spirit of criticism, cynicism, science, and satire, which tells -of many developments in forty years. The continuation can hardly have -been written, as some literary historians assume, about its author's -twenty-fifth year; but it may be dated with some certainty between -1270 and 1285. To the work of his predecessor, amounting to less than -5,000 lines, he added 18,000, pouring forth a medley of scholarship, -pedantry, philosophic reflection, speculation on the process of nature -and the structure and ills of society, on property, morals, marriage, -witchcraft, the characters of women, monks, friars, aristocrats--the -whole pageant of medieval knowledge and fancy. - -The literary power of the whole is great, and may be recommended to the -general reader as comparing often with that shown in the satirical and -social-didactic poems of Burns, though without much of the breath of -poetry. Particularly noteworthy, in the historic retrospect, is the -assimilization of the ancient Stoic philosophy of "living according -to Nature," set forth in the name of a "Reason" who is notably free -from theological prepossessions. It is from this standpoint that -Jean de Meung assails the mendicant friars and the monks in general: -he would have men recognize the natural laws of life; and he carries -the principle to the length of insisting on the artificial nature of -aristocracy and monarchy, which are justifiable only as far as they -subserve the common good. Thus he rises above the medieval literary -prejudice against the common people, whose merit he recognizes as -Montaigne did later. On the side of science, he expressly denies -[1625] that comets carry any such message as was commonly ascribed -to them alike by popular superstition and by theology--a stretch of -freethinking perhaps traceable to Seneca, but nonetheless centuries in -advance of the Christendom of the time. [1626] On the side of religion, -again, he is one of the first to vindicate the lay conception of -Christian excellence as against the ecclesiastical. His Naturalism, -so far, worked consistently in making him at once anti-ascetic and -anti-supernaturalist. - -It is not to be inferred, however, that Jean de Meung had learned -to doubt the validity of the Christian creed. His long poem, one of -the most popular books in Europe for two hundred years, could never -have had its vogue if its readers could have suspected it to be even -indirectly anti-Christian. He can hardly have held, as some historians -believe, [1627] the status of a preaching friar; but he claims that he -neither blames nor defames religion, [1628] respecting it in all forms, -provided it be "humble and loyal." He was in fact a man of some wealth, -much culture, and orderly in life, thus standing out from the earlier -"Goliard" type. When, then, he pronounces Nature "the minister of -this earthly state," "vicar and constable of the eternal emperor," -he has no thought of dethroning Deity, or even of setting aside the -Christian faith. In his rhymed Testament he expresses himself quite -piously, and lectures monks and women in an edifying fashion. - - - To say therefore that Jean de Meung's part of the Roman de la Rose - is a "popular satire on the beliefs of Romanism" (Owen, Skeptics - of Ital. Renais. p. 44) is to misstate the case. His doctrine is - rather an intellectual expression of the literary reaction against - asceticism (cp. Bartoli, Storia della letteratura italiana, i, 319, - quoting Lenient) which had been spontaneously begun by the Goliards - and Troubadours. At the same time the poem does stand for the new - secular spirit alike in "its ingrained religion and its nascent - freethought" (Saintsbury, p. 87); and with the Reynard epic it - may be taken as representing the beginning of "a whole revolution, - the resurgence and affirmation of the laity, the new force which is - to transform the world, against the Church" (Bartoli, Storia, i, - 308; cp. Demogeot, Hist. de la litt. fr. 5e éd. pp. 130-31, 157; - Lanson, pp. 132-36). The frequent flings at the clergy (cp. the - partly Chaucerian English version, Skeat's ed. of Chaucer's Works, - i, 234; Bell's ed. iv, 230) were sufficient to draw upon this - as upon other medieval poems of much secular vogue the anger of - "the Church" (Sismondi, Lit. of South. Europe, i, 216); but they - were none the less relished by believing readers. "The Church" - was in fact not an entity of one mind; and some of its sections - enjoyed satire directed against the others. - - When, then, we speak of the anti-clerical character of much - medieval poetry, we must guard against exaggerated implications. It - is somewhat of a straining of the facts, for instance, to say of - the humorous tale of Reynard the Fox, so widely popular in the - thirteenth century, that it is essentially anti-clerical to the - extent that "Reynard is laic: Isengrim [the wolf] is clerical" - (Bartoli, Storia della letteratura italiana, i, 307; cp. Owen, - Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance, p. 44). The Reynard epic, - in origin a simple humorous animal-story, had various later - forms. Some of these, as the Latin poem, and especially the version - attributed to Peter of St. Cloud, were markedly anti-clerical, the - latter exhibiting a spirit of all-round profanity hardly compatible - with belief (cp. Gervinus, Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung, 5te - Ausg. i, 227-28; Gebhart, Les Origines de la Renais. en Italie, - 1874, p. 39); but the version current in the Netherlands, which - was later rendered into English prose by Caxton, is of a very - different character (Gervinus, p. 229 sq.). In Caxton's version it - is impossible to regard Reynard as laic and Isengrim as clerical; - though in the Latin and other versions the wolf figures as monk or - abbot. (See also the various shorter satires published by Grimm - in his Reinhart Fuchs, 1834.) Often the authorship is itself - clerical, one party or order satirizing another; sometimes the - spirit is religious, sometimes markedly irreverent. (Gervinus, - pp. 214-21). "La plupart de ces satires sont l'oeuvre des moines - et des abbés" (Lenient, La Satire en France au moyen âge, 1859, - préf. p. 4); and to say that these men were often irreligious is - not to say that they were rationalists. It is to be remembered - that nascent Protestantism in England under Henry VIII resorted - to the weapons of obscene parody (Blunt, Ref. of Ch. of England, - ed. 1892, i, 273, note). - - -"In fine," we may say with a judicious French historian, "one -cannot get out of his time, and the time was not come to be -non-Christian. Jean de Meung did not perceive that his thought put -him outside the Church, and upset her foundations. He is believing -and pious, like Rutebeuf.... The Gospel is his rule: he holds it; he -defends it; he disputes with those who seem to him to depart from it; -he makes himself the champion of the old faith against the novelties -of the Eternal Gospel.... His situation is that of the first reformers -of the sixteenth century, who believed themselves to serve Jesus Christ -in using their reason, and who very sincerely, very piously, hoped for -the reform of the Church through the progress of philosophy." [1629] -"Nevertheless," adds the same historian, "one cannot exaggerate the -real weight of the work. By his philosophy, which consists essentially -in the identity, the sovereignty, of Nature and Reason, he is the -first link in the chain which connects Rabelais, Montaigne, Molière; -to which Voltaire also links himself, and even in certain regards -Boileau." [1630] - -Men could not then see whither the principle of "Nature" and Reason -was to lead, yet even in the age of Jean de Meung the philosophic -heads went far, and he can hardly have missed knowing as much, if, -as is supposed, he studied at Paris, as he certainly lived and died -there. In the latter part of the thirteenth century, as before noted, -rationalism at the Paris university was frequently carried in private -to a rejection of all the dogmas peculiar to Christianity. At that -great school Roger Bacon seems to have acquired his encyclopædic -learning and his critical habit; and there it was that in the -first half of the fourteenth century William of Occam nourished his -remarkable philosophic faculty. From about the middle of the fourteenth -century, however, there is a relative arrest of French progress for -some two centuries. [1631] Three main conditions served to check -intellectual advance: the civil wars which involved the loss of the -communal liberties which had been established in France between the -eleventh and thirteenth centuries; [1632] the exhaustion of the nation -by the English invasion under Edward III; the repressive power of the -Church; and the general devotion of the national energies to war. After -the partial recovery from the ruinous English invasion under Edward -III, civil strifes and feudal tyranny wrought new impoverishment, -making possible the still more destructive invasion under Henry V; -so that in the first half of the fifteenth century France was hardly -more civilized than England. [1633] It is from the French invasion -of Italy under Charles VIII that the enduring renascence in France -broadly dates. Earlier impulses had likewise come from Italy: Lanfranc, -Anselm, Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, and others of lesser note, -[1634] had gone from Italy to teach in France or England; but it -needed the full contact of Italian civilization to raise monarchic -France to the stage of general and independent intellectual life. - - - During the period in question, there had been established - the following universities: Paris, 1200; Toulouse, 1220; - Montpellier, 1289; Avignon, 1303; Orléans, 1312; Cahors, 1332; - Angers, 1337; Orange, 1367; Dôle, 1422; Poitiers, 1431; Caen, - 1436; Valence, 1454; Nantes, 1460; Bourges, 1463; Bordeaux, 1472 - (Desmaze, L'Université de Paris, 1876, p. 2. Other dates for - some of these are given on p. 31). But the militarist conditions - prevented any sufficient development of such opportunities. In - the fourteenth century, says Littré (Études sur les barbares, - p. 419), "the university of Paris ... was more powerful than - at any other epoch.... Never did she exercise such a power over - men's minds." But he also decides that in that epoch the first - florescence of French literature withered away (p. 387). The - long location of the anti-papacy at Avignon (1305-1376) - doubtless counted for something in French culture (V. Le - Clerc, Hist. Litt. de la France au XIVe siècle, i, 37; Gebhart, - pp. 221-26); but the devastation wrought by the English invasion - was sufficient to countervail that and more. See the account of - it by Petrarch (letter of the year 1360) cited by Littré, Études, - pp. 416-17; and by Hallam, Middle Ages, i, 59, note. Cp. Michelet, - Hist. de France, vi, ch. iii; Dunton, England in the Fifteenth - Century, 1888, pp. 79-84. As to the consequences of the English - invasion of the fifteenth century see Martin, Hist. de France, - 4e édit. vi, 132-33; Sismondi, Hist. des Français, 1831, xii, - 582; Hallam, Middle Ages, i, 83-87. - - -In northern France of the fourteenth century, as in Provence and Italy -and England, there was a manifold stir of innovation and heresy: there -as elsewhere the insubordinate Franciscans, with their Eternal Gospel, -the Paterini, the Beghards, fought their way against the Dominican -Inquisition. But the Inquisitors burned books as well as men; and much -anti-ecclesiastical poetry, some dating even from the Carlovingian -era, shared the fate of many copies of the Talmud, translations of -the Bible, and, à fortiori, every species of heretical writing. In -effect, the Inquisition for the time "extinguished freethought" -[1635] in France. As in England, the ferment of heresy was mixed -with one of democracy; and in the French popular poetry of the time -there are direct parallels to the contemporary English couplet, -"When Adam delved and Eve span, Where was then the gentleman?" [1636] -Such a spirit could no more prosper in feudal France than in feudal -England; and when France emerged from her mortal struggle with the -English, to be effectively solidified by Louis XI, there was left in -her life little of the spirit of free inquiry. It has been noted that -whereas the chronicler Joinville, in the thirteenth century, is full -of religious feeling, Froissart, in the fourteenth, priest as he is, -exhibits hardly any; and again Comines, in the fifteenth, reverts to -the orthodoxy of the twelfth and thirteenth. [1637] The middle period -was one of indifference, following on the killing out of heresy: -[1638] the fifteenth century is a resumption of the Middle Ages, and -Comines has the medieval cast of mind, [1639] although of a superior -order. There seems to be no community of thought between him and his -younger Italian contemporaries, Machiavelli and Guicciardini; though, -"even while Comines was writing, there were unequivocal symptoms of -a great and decisive change." [1640] - -The special development in France of the spirit of "chivalry" had -joined the normal uncivilizing influence of militarism with that -of clericalism; the various knightly orders, as well as knighthood -pure and simple, being all under ecclesiastical sanctions, and -more or less strictly vowed to "defend the church," [1641] while -supremely incompetent to form an intelligent opinion. It is the more -remarkable that in the case of one of the crusading orders heresy -of the most blasphemous kind was finally charged against the entire -organization, and that it was on that ground annihilated (1311). It -remains incredible, however, that the order of the Templars can have -systematically practised the extravagances or held the tenets laid to -their charge. They had of course abused their power and departed from -their principles like every other religious order enabled to amass -wealth; and the hostility theirs aroused is perfectly intelligible -from what is known of the arrogance of its members and the general -ruffianism of the Crusaders. Their wealth alone goes far to explain -the success of their enemies against them; for, though the numbers of -the order were much smaller than tradition gives out, its possessions -were considerable. These were the true ground of the French king's -attack. [1642] But that its members were as a rule either Cathari -or anti-Christians, either disguised Moslems or deists, or that they -practised obscenity by rule, there is no reason to believe. What seems -to have happened was a resort by some unbelieving members to more or -less gross burlesque of the mysteries of initiation--a phenomenon -paralleled in ancient Greece and in the modern Catholic world, and -implying rather hardy irreligion than any reasoned heresy whatever. - - - The long-continued dispute as to the guilt of the Knights Templars - is still chronically re-opened. Hallam, after long hesitation, - came finally to believe them guilty, partly on the strength of - the admissions made by Michelet in defending them (Europe in - the Middle Ages, 11th ed. i, 138-42--note of 1848). He attaches, - however, a surprising weight to the obviously weak "architectural - evidence" cited by Hammer-Purgstall. Heeren (Essai sur l'influence - des croisades, 1808, pp. 221-22) takes a more judicial view. The - excellent summing-up of Lea (Hist. of the Inquis. bk. iii, - ch. v, pp. 263-76) perhaps gives too little weight to the mass - of curious confirmatory evidence cited by writers on the other - side (e.g., F. Nicolai, Versuch über die Beschuldigungen welche - dem Tempelherrenorden gemacht worden, 1782); but his conclusion - as to the falsity of the charges against the order as a whole - seems irresistible. - - The solution that offensive practices occurred irregularly (Lea, - pp. 276-77) is pointed to even by the earlier hostile writers - (Nicolai, p. 17). It seems to be certain that the initiatory rites - included the act of spitting on the crucifix--presumptively a - symbolic display of absolute obedience to the orders of those in - command (Jolly, Philippe le Bel, pp. 264-68). That there was no - Catharism in the order seems certain (Lea, p. 249). The suggestion - that the offensive and burlesque practices were due to the lower - grade of "serving brethren," who were contemned by the higher, - seems, however, without firm foundation. The courage for such - freaks, and the disposition to commit them, were rather more likely - to arise among the crusaders of the upper class, who could come - in contact with Moslem-Christian unbelief through those of Sicily. - - For the further theory that the "Freemasons" (at that period really - cosmopolitan guilds of masons) were already given to freethinking, - there is again no evidence. That they at times deliberately - introduced obscene symbols into church architecture is no proof - that they were collectively unbelievers in the Church's doctrines; - though it is likely enough that some of them were. Obscenity - is the expression not of an intellectual but of a physical and - unreasoning bias, and can perfectly well concur with religious - feeling. The fact that the medieval masons did not confine - obscene symbols to the churches they built for the Templars - (Hallam, as cited, pp. 140-41) should serve to discredit alike - the theory that the Templars were systematically anti-Christian, - and the theory that the Freemasons were so. That for centuries - the builders of the Christian churches throughout Europe formed - an anti-Christian organization is a grotesque hypothesis. At - most they indulged in freaks of artistic satire on the lines of - contemporary satirical literature, expressing an anti-clerical - bias, with perhaps occasional elements of blasphemy. (See Menzel, - Gesch. der Deutschen, Cap. 252, note.) It could well be that - there survived among the Freemasons various Gnostic ideas; - since the architectural art itself came in a direct line from - antiquity. Such heresy, too, might conceivably be winked at by the - Church, which depended so much on the heretics' services. But their - obscenities were the mere expression of the animal imagination and - normal salacity of all ages. Only in modern times, and that only in - Catholic countries, has the derivative organization of Freemasonry - been identified with freethought propaganda. In England in the - seventeenth century the Freemasonic clubs--no longer connected - with any trade--were thoroughly royalist and orthodox (Nicolai, - pp. 196-98), as they have always remained. - - -Some remarkable intellectual phenomena, however, do connect with -the French university life of the first half of the fourteenth -century. William of Occam (d. 1347), the English Franciscan, who -taught at Paris, is on the whole the most rationalistic of medieval -philosophers. Though a pupil of the Realist Duns Scotus, he became -the renewer of Nominalism, which is the specifically rationalistic -as opposed to the religious mode of metaphysic; and his anti-clerical -bias was such that he had to fly from France to Bavaria for protection -from the priesthood. His Disputatio super potestate ecclesiastica, -and his Defensorium directed against Pope John XXII (or XXI), were -so uncompromising that in 1323 the Pope gave directions for his -prosecution. What came of the step is not known; but in 1328 we find -him actually imprisoned with two Italian comrades in the papal palace -at Avignon. Thence they made their escape to Bavaria. [1643] To the -same refuge fled Marsiglio of Padua, author (with John of Jandun) of -the Defensor Pacis (1324), "the greatest and most original political -treatise of the Middle Ages," [1644] in which it is taught that, -though monarchy may be expedient, the sovereignty of the State rests -with the people, and the hereditary principle is flatly rejected; while -it is insisted that the Church properly consists of all Christians, -and that the clergy's authority is restricted to spiritual affairs -and moral suasion. [1645] Of all medieval writers on politics before -Machiavelli he is the most modern. - -Only less original is Occam, who at Paris came much under Marsiglio's -influence. His philosophic doctrines apparently derive from Pierre -Aureol (Petrus Aureolus, d. 1321), who with remarkable clearness and -emphasis rejected both Realism and the doctrine that what the mind -perceives are not realities, but formæ speculares. Pierre it was who -first enounced the Law of Parsimony in philosophy and science--that -causes are not to be multiplied beyond mental necessity--which is -specially associated with the name of Occam. [1646] Both anticipated -modern criticism [1647] alike of the Platonic and the Aristotelian -philosophy; and Occam in particular drew so decided a line between -the province of reason and that of faith that there can be little -doubt on which side his allegiance lay. [1648] His dialectic is for -its time as remarkable as is that of Hume, four centuries later. The -most eminent orthodox thinker of the preceding century had been the -Franciscan John Duns Scotus (1265 or 1274-1308), who, after teaching -great crowds of students at Oxford, was transferred in 1304 to Paris, -and in 1308 to Cologne, where he died. A Realist in his philosophy, -Duns Scotus opposed the Aristotelian scholasticism, and in particular -criticized Thomas Aquinas as having unduly subordinated faith and -practice to speculation and theory. The number of matters of faith -which Thomas had held to be demonstrable by reason, accordingly, was by -Duns Scotus much reduced; and, applying his anti-rationalism to current -belief, he fought zealously for the dogma that Mary, like Jesus, was -immaculately conceived. [1649] But Occam, turning his predecessor's -tactic to a contrary purpose, denied that any matter of faith was -demonstrable by reason at all. He granted that on rational grounds -the existence of a God was probable, but denied that it was strictly -demonstrable, and rejected the ontological argument of Anselm. As to -matters of faith, he significantly observed that the will to believe -the indemonstrable is meritorious. [1650] - -It is difficult now to recover a living sense of the issues at stake -in the battle between Nominalism and Realism, and of the social -atmosphere in which the battle was carried on. Broadly speaking, the -Nominalists were the more enlightened school, the Realists standing -for tradition and authority; and it has been alleged that "the books -of the Nominalists, though the art of printing tended strongly to -preserve them, were suppressed and destroyed to such a degree that -it is now exceedingly difficult to collect them, and not easy to -obtain copies even of the most remarkable." [1651] On the other hand, -while we have seen Occam a fugitive before clerical enmity, we shall -see Nominalists agreeing to persecute a Realist to the death in the -person of Huss in the following century. So little was there to choose -between the camps in the matter of sound civics; and so easily could -the hierarchy wear the colours of any philosophical system. - -Contemporary with Occam was Durand de St. Pourçain, who became a bishop -(d. 1332), and, after ranking as of the school of Thomas Aquinas, -rejected and opposed its doctrine. With all this heresy in the air, -the principle of "double truth," originally put in currency by -Averroïsm, came to be held in France as in Italy, in a sense which -implied the consciousness that theological truth is not truth at -all. [1652] Occam's pupil, Buridan, rector of the University of -Paris (fl. 1340), substantially avoided theology, and dealt with -moral and intellectual problems on their own merits. [1653] It is -recorded by Albert of Saxony, who studied at Paris in the first half -of the century, that one of his teachers held by the theory of the -motion of the earth. [1654] Even a defender of Church doctrines, -Pierre d'Ailly, accepted Occam's view of theism, [1655] and it -appears to be broadly true that Occam had at Paris an unbroken line -of successors down to the Reformation. [1656] In a world in which the -doctrine of a two-fold truth provided a safety-valve for heresy, such -a philosophical doctrine as his could not greatly affect lay thought; -but at Paris University in the year 1376 there was a startling display -of freethinking by the philosophical students, not a little suggestive -of a parody of the Averroïst propositions denounced by the Bishop -of Paris exactly a century before. Under cover of the doctrine of -two-fold truth they propounded a list of 219 theses, in which they (1) -denied the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, the resurrection, and the -immortality of the soul; (2) affirmed the eternity of matter and the -uselessness of prayer, but also posited the principles of astrology; -(3) argued that the higher powers of the soul are incapable of sin, -and that voluntary sexual intercourse between the unmarried is not -sinful; and (4) suggested that there are fables and falsehoods in the -gospels as in other books. [1657] The element of youthful gasconnade -in the performance is obvious, and the Archbishop sharply scolded the -students; but there must have been much free discussion before such a -manifesto could have been produced. Nevertheless, untoward political -conditions prevented any dissemination of the freethinking spirit -in France; and not for some two centuries was there such another -growth of it. The remarkable case of Nicolaus of Autricuria, who in -1348 was forced to recant his teaching of the atomistic doctrine, -[1658] illustrates at once the persistence of the spirit of reason -in times of darkness, and the impossibility of its triumphing in the -wrong conditions. - - - - -§ 12. THOUGHT IN THE TEUTONIC COUNTRIES - -The life of the rest of Europe in the later medieval period has little -special significance in the history of freethought. France and Italy, -by German admission, were the lands of the medieval Aufklärung. [1659] -The poetry of the German Minnesingers, a growth from that of the -Troubadours, presented the same anti-clerical features; [1660] and the -story of Reynard the Fox was turned to anti-ecclesiastical purpose -in Germany as in France. The relative freethinking set up by the -crusaders' contact with the Saracens seems to be the source of doubt of -the Minnesinger Freidank concerning the doom of hell-fire on heretics -and heathens, the opinion of Walter der Vogelweide that Christians, -Jews, and Moslems all serve the same God, [1661] and still more -mordant heresy. But such bold freethinking did not spread. Material -prosperity rather than culture was the main feature of German -progress in the Middle Ages; architecture being the only art greatly -developed. Heresy of the anti-ecclesiastical order indeed abounded, -and was duly persecuted; but the higher freethinking developments were -in the theosophic rather than the rationalistic direction. Albert the -Great (fl. 1260), "the universal Doctor," the chief German teacher -of the Middle Ages, was of unimpeached orthodoxy. [1662] - -The principal German figure of the period is Master Eckhart (d. 1329), -who, finding religious beliefs excluded from the sphere of reason by -the freer philosophy of his day, undertook to show that they were all -matters of reason. He was, in fact, a mystically reasoning preacher, -and he taught in the interests of popular religion. Naturally, -as he philosophized on old bases, he did not really subject his -beliefs to any skeptical scrutiny, but took them for granted and -proceeded speculatively upon them. This sufficed to bring him before -the Inquisition at Cologne, where he recanted conditionally on an -appeal to the Pope. Dying soon after, he escaped the papal bull -condemning twenty-eight of his doctrines. His school later divided -into a heretical and a Church party, of which the former, called the -"false free spirits," seems to have either joined or resembled the -antinomian Brethren of the Free Spirit, then numerous in Germany. The -other section became known as the "Friends of God," a species -of mystics who were "faithful to the whole medieval imaginative -creed, Transubstantiation, worship of the Virgin and Saints, -Purgatory." [1663] Through Tauler and others, Eckhart's pietistic -doctrine gave a lead to later Protestant evangelicalism; but the -system as a whole can never have been held by any popular body. [1664] - - - Dr. Lasson pronounces (Ueberweg, i, 483) that the type of Eckhart's - character and teaching "was derived from the innermost essence - of the German national character." At the same time he admits - that all the offshoots of the school departed more or less widely - from Eckhart's type--that is, from the innermost essence of their - own national character. It would be as plausible to say that the - later mysticism of Fénelon derived from the innermost essence - of the French character. The Imitatio Christi has been similarly - described as expressing the German character, on the assumption - that it was written by Thomas à Kempis. Many have held that the - author was the Frenchman Gerson (Hallam, Lit. of Europe, ed. 1872, - i, 139-40). It was in all probability, as was held by Suarez, - the work of several hands, one a monk of the twelfth century, - another a monk of the thirteenth, and the third a theologian of - the fifteenth; neither Gerson nor Thomas à Kempis being concerned - (Le Clerc, Hist. Litt. du XIVe Siècle, 2e édit. pp. 384-85; - cp. Neale's Hist. of the so-called Jansenist Church of Holland, - 1858, pp. 97-98). - - -The Imitatio Christi (1471), the most popular Christian work -of devotion ever published, [1665] tells all the while of the -obscure persistence of the search for knowledge and for rational -satisfactions. Whatever be the truth as to its authorship, it belongs -to all Christendom in respect of its querulous strain of protest -against all manner of intellectual curiosity. After the first note of -world-renunciation, the call to absorption in the inner religious life, -there comes the sharp protest against the "desire to know." "Surely an -humble husbandman that serveth God is better than a proud philosopher -who, neglecting himself, laboureth to understand the course of the -heavens.... Cease from an inordinate desire of knowing." [1666] -No sooner is the reader warned to consider himself the frailest of -all men than he is encouraged to look down on all reasoners. "What -availeth it to cavil and dispute much about dark and hidden things, -when for being ignorant of them we shall not be so much as reproved -at the day of judgment? It is a great folly to neglect the things -that are profitable and necessary, and give our minds to that which -is curious and hurtful.... And what have we to do with genus and -species, the dry notions of logicians?" [1667] The homily swings -to and fro between occasional admissions that "learning is not to -be blamed," perhaps interpolated by one who feared to have religion -figure as opposed to knowledge, and recurrent flings--perhaps also -interpolated--at all who seek book-lore or physical science; but the -note of distrust of reason prevails. "Where are all those Doctors and -Masters whom thou didst well know whilst they lived and flourished -in learning? Now others have their livings, and perchance scarce ever -think of them. While they lived they seemed something, but now they are -not spoken of." [1668] It belongs to the whole conception of retreat -and aloofness that the devout man should "meddle not with curiosities, -but read such things as may rather yield compunction to his heart than -occupation to his head"; and the last chapter of the last book closes -on the note of the abnegation of reason. "Human reason is feeble and -may be deceived, but true faith cannot be deceived. All reason and -natural search ought to follow faith, not to go before it, nor to -break in upon it.... If the works of God were such that they might be -easily comprehended by human reason, they could not be justly called -marvellous or unspeakable." Thus the very inculcation of humility, -by its constant direction against all intellectual exercise, becomes -an incitement to a spiritual arrogance; and all manner of science -finds in the current ideal of piety its pre-ordained antagonist. - - - - - - - -CHAPTER X - -FREETHOUGHT IN THE RENAISSANCE - - -§ 1. THE ITALIAN EVOLUTION - -What is called the Renaissance was, broadly speaking, an evolution -of the culture forces seen at work in the later "Middle Ages," -newly fertilized by the recovery of classic literature; and we shall -have to revert at several points of our survey to what we have been -considering as "medieval" in order to perceive the "new birth." The -term is inconveniently vague, and is made to cover different periods, -sometimes extending from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, -sometimes signifying only the fifteenth. It seems reasonable to apply -it, as regards Italy, to the period in which southern culture began to -outgo that of France, and kept its lead--that is, from the end of the -fourteenth century [1669] to the time of the Counter-Reformation. That -is a comparatively distinct sociological era. - -Renascent Italy is, after ancient Greece, the great historical -illustration of the sociological law that the higher civilizations -arise through the passing-on of seeds of culture from older to newer -societies, under conditions that specially foster them and give them -freer growth. The straitened and archaic pictorial art of Byzantium, -unprogressive in the hidebound life of the Eastern Empire, developed -in the free and striving Italian communities till it paralleled the -sculpture of ancient Greece; and it is to be said for the Church -that, however she might stifle rational thought, she economically -elicited the arts of painting and architecture (statuary being -tabooed as too much associated with pagan worships), even as Greek -religion had promoted architecture and sculpture. By force, however, -of the tendency of the arts to keep religion anthropomorphic where -deeper culture is lacking, popular belief in Renaissance Italy was -substantially on a par with that of polytheistic Greece. - -Before the general recovery of ancient literature, the main motives to -rationalism, apart from the tendency of the Aristotelian philosophy -to set up doubts about creation and Providence and a future state, -were (1) the spectacle of the competing creed of Islam, [1670] -made known to the Italians first by intercourse with the Moors, -later by the Crusades; and further and more fully by the Saracenized -culture of Sicily and commercial intercourse with the east; (2) the -spectacle of the strife of creeds within Christendom; [1671] and (3) -the spectacle of the worldliness and moral insincerity of the bulk -of the clergy. It is in that atmosphere that the Renaissance begins; -and it may be said that freethought stood veiled beside its cradle. - -In such an atmosphere, even on the ecclesiastical side, demand for -"reforms" naturally made headway; and the Council of Constance -(1414-1418) was convened to enact many besides the ending of the -schism. [1672] But the Council itself was followed by seven hundred -prostitutes; [1673] and its relation to the intellectual life was -defined by its bringing about, on a charge of heresy, the burning -of John Huss, who had come under a letter of safe-conduct from the -emperor. The baseness of the act was an enduring blot on the Church; -and a hundred years later, in a Germany with small goodwill to Bohemia, -Luther made it one of his foremost indictments of the hierarchy. But -in the interim the spirit of reform had come to nothing. Cut off from -much of the force that was needed to effect any great moral revolution -in the Church, the reforming movement soon fell away, [1674] and the -Church was left to ripen for later and more drastic treatment. - -How far, nevertheless, anti-clericalism could go among the scholarly -class even in Italy is seen in the career of one of the leading -humanists of the Renaissance, Lorenzo Valla (1406-1457). In the -work of his youth, De Voluptate et Vero Bono, a hardy vindication -of aggressive Epicureanism--at a time when the title of Epicurean -stood for freethinker [1675]--he plainly sets up a rationalist -standard, affirming that science is founded on reason and Nature, -and that Nature is God. Not content with a theoretic defiance of -the faith, he violently attacked the Church. It was probably to the -protection of Alfonso of Aragon, king of Naples, who though pious -was not pro-clerical, [1676] that Valla was able to do what he did, -above all to write his famous treatise, De falso credita et ementita -Constantini donatione, wherein he definitely proved once for all that -the "donation" in question was a fiction. [1677] Such an opinion had -been earlier maintained at the Council of Basle by Æneas Sylvius, -afterwards Pope Pius II, and before him by the remarkable Nicolaus of -Cusa; [1678] but when the existence of Valla's work was known he had -to fly from Rome afresh (1443) to Naples, where he had previously been -protected for seven years. Applying the same critical spirit to more -sacrosanct literature, he impugned the authenticity of the Apostles' -Creed, and of the letter of Abgarus to Jesus Christ, given by Eusebius; -proceeding further to challenge many of the mistranslations in the -Vulgate. [1679] For his untiring propaganda he was summoned before -the Inquisition at Naples, but as usual was protected by the king, -whom he satisfied by professing faith in the dogmas of the Church, -as distinguished from ecclesiastical history and philology. - -It was characteristic of the life of Italy, hopelessly committed on -economic grounds to the Church, that Valla finally sought and found -reconciliation with the papacy. He knew that his safety at Naples -depended on the continued anti-papalism of the throne; he yearned for -the society of Rome; and his heart was all the while with the cause of -Latin scholarship rather than with that of a visionary reformation. In -his as in so many cases, accordingly, intellectual rectitude gave -way to lower interests; and he made unblushing offers of retractation -to cardinals and pope. In view of the extreme violence of his former -attacks, [1680] it is not surprising that the reigning Pope, Eugenius -IV, refused to be appeased; but on the election of Nicholas V (1447) -he was sent for; and he died secretary to the Curia and Canon of -St. John Lateran. [1681] - -Where so much of anti-clericalism could find harbourage within the -Church, there was naturally no lack of it without; and from the period -of Boccaccio till the Catholic reaction after the Reformation a large -measure of anti-clerical feeling is a constant feature in Italian -life. It was so ingrained that the Church had on the whole to leave -it alone. From pope to monk the mass of the clergy had forfeited -respect; and gibes at their expense were household words, [1682] -and the basis of popular songs. Tommaso Guardati of Salerno, better -known as Masuccio, attacks all orders of clergy in his collection of -tales with such fury that only the protection of the court of Naples -could well have saved him; and yet he was a good Catholic. [1683] -The popular poetic literature, with certain precautions, carried -the anti-clerical spirit as far as to parade a humorous non-literary -skepticism, putting in the mouths of the questionable characters in -its romances all manner of anti-religious opinions which it would -be unsafe to print as one's own, but which in this way reached -appreciative readers who were more or less in sympathy with the -author's sentiments and stratagems. The Morgante Maggiore of Pulci -(1488) is the great type of such early Voltairean humour: [1684] -it revives the spirit of the Goliards, and passes unscathed in the -new Renaissance world, where the earlier Provençal impiety had gone -the way of the Inquisition bonfire, books and men alike. Beneath -its mockery there is a constant play of rational thought, and every -phase of contemporary culture is glanced at in the spirit of always -unembittered humour which makes Pulci "the most lovable among the -great poets of the Renaissance." [1685] It is noteworthy that Pulci is -found affirming the doctrine of an Antipodes with absolute openness, -and with impunity, over a hundred years before Galileo. This survival -of ancient pagan science seems to have been obscurely preserved all -through the Middle Ages. In the eighth century, as we have seen, -the priest Feargal or Vergilius, of Bavaria, was deposed from his -office by the Pope, on the urging of St. Boniface, for maintaining it; -but he was reinstated, died a bishop, and became a saint; and not -only that doctrine, but that of the two-fold motion of the earth, -was affirmed with impunity before Pulci by Nicolaus of Cusa [1686] -(d. 1464); though in the fourteenth century Nicolaus of Autricuria -had to recant his teaching of the atomistic theory. [1687] As Pulci -had specially satirized the clergy and ecclesiastical miracles, -his body was refused burial in consecrated ground; but the general -temper was such as to save him from clerical enmity up to that point. - -The Inquisition too was now greatly enfeebled throughout central -and northern as well as southern Italy. In 1440 the materialist, -mathematician, and astrologer Amadeo de' Landi, of Milan, was -accused of heresy by the orthodox Franciscans. Not only was he -acquitted, but his chief accuser was condemned in turn to make public -retractation, which he however declined to do. [1688] Fifty years -later the Inquisition was still nearly powerless. In 1497 we find -a freethinking physician at Bologna, Gabriele de Salò, protected -by his patrons against its wrath, although he "was in the habit of -maintaining that Christ was not God, but the son of Joseph and Mary -...; that by his cunning he had deceived the world; that he may have -died on the cross on account of crimes which he had committed," [1689] -and so forth. Nineteen years before, Galeotto Marcio had come near -being burned for writing that any man who lived uprightly according -to his own conscience would go to heaven, whatever his faith; and it -needed the Pope, Sixtus IV, his former pupil, to save him from the -Inquisition. [1690] Others, who went further, ran similar risks; and -in 1500 Giorgio da Novara was burned at Bologna, presumptively for -denying the divinity of Jesus. [1691] A bishop of Aranda, however, -is said to have done the same with impunity, in the same year, [1692] -besides rejecting hell and purgatory, and denouncing indulgences as -a device of the popes to fill their pockets. - -During this period too the philosophy of Averroës, as set forth in his -"Great Commentary" on Aristotle, was taught in North Italy with an -outspokenness not before known. Gaetano of Siena began to lecture on -the Commentary at Padua in 1436; it was in part printed there in 1472; -and from 1471 to 1499 Nicoletto Vernias seems to have taught, in the -Paduan chair of philosophy, the Averroïst doctrine of the world-soul, -thus virtually denying the Christian doctrine of immortality. Violent -opposition was raised when his pupil Niphus (Nifo) printed similar -doctrine in a treatise De Intellectu et Dæmonibus (1492); but the -professors when necessary disclaimed the more dangerous tenets of -Averroïsm. [1693] Nifo it was who put into print the maxim of his -tribe: Loquendum est ut plures, sententiendum ut pauci--"think with -the few; speak with the majority." [1694] - -As in ancient Greece, humorous blasphemy seems to have fared better -than serious unbelief. [1695] As is remarked by Hallam, the number of -vindications of Christianity produced in Italy in the fifteenth century -proves the existence of much unbelief; [1696] and it is clear that, -apart from academic doubt, there was abundant freethinking among men -of the world. [1697] Erasmus was astonished at the unbelief he found -in high quarters in Rome. One ecclesiastic undertook to prove to him -from Pliny that there is no future state; others openly derided Christ -and the apostles; and many avowed to him that they had heard eminent -papal functionaries blaspheming the Mass. [1698] The biographer of Pope -Paul II has recorded how that pontiff found in his own court, among -certain young men, the opinion that faith rested rather on trickeries -of the saints (sanctorum astutiis) than on evidence; which opinion the -Pope eradicated. [1699] But in the career of Perugino (1446-1524), -who from being a sincerely religious painter became a skeptic in -his wrath against the Church which slew Savonarola, [1700] we have -evidence of a movement of things which no papal fiat could arrest. - -As to the beliefs of the great artists in general we have little -information. Employed as they so often were in painting religious -subjects for the churches, they must as a rule have conformed -outwardly; and the artistic temper is more commonly credent than -skeptical. But in the case of one of the greatest, Leonardo da Vinci -(1452-1519), we have evidence of a continual play of critical scrutiny -on the world, and a continual revolt against mere authority, which -seem incompatible with any acceptance of Christian dogma. In his many -notes, unpublished till modern times, his universal genius plays -so freely upon so many problems that he cannot be supposed to have -ignored those of religion. His stern appraisement of the mass of men -[1701] carries with it no evangelical qualifications; his passion for -knowledge is not Christian; [1702] and his reiterated rejection of -the principle of authority in science [1703] and in literature [1704] -tells of a spirit which, howsoever it might practise reticence, cannot -have been inwardly docile to either priesthood or tradition. In all -his reflections upon philosophic and scientific themes he is, in -the scientific sense, materialistic--that is, inductive, studious -of experiment, insistent upon tangible data. [1705] "Wisdom is -daughter of experience"; [1706] "truth is the daughter of time"; -[1707] "there is no effect in Nature without a reason"; [1708] "all -our knowledge originates in sensations" [1709]--such are the dicta he -accumulates in an age of superstition heightened by the mutability -of life, of ecclesiastical tyranny tempered only by indifferentism, -of faith in astrology and amulets, of benumbing tradition in science -and philosophy. On the problem of the phenomena of fossil shells -he pronounces with a searching sagacity of inference [1710] that -seems to reveal at once the extent to which the advance of science -has been blocked by pious obscurantism. [1711] In all directions we -see the great artist, a century before Bacon, anticipating Bacon's -protests and questionings, and this with no such primary bias to -religion as Bacon had acquired at his mother's knee. When he turns -to the problems of body and spirit he is as dispassionate, as keenly -speculative, as over those of external nature. [1712] Of magic he is -entirely contemptuous, not in the least on religious grounds, though -he glances at these, but simply for the folly of it. [1713] All that -tells of religious feeling in him is summed up in a few utterances -expressive of a vague theism; [1714] while he has straight thrusts at -religious fraud and absurdity. [1715] It is indeed improbable that a -mind so necessitated to discourse of its thought, however gifted for -prudent silence, can have subsisted without private sympathy from -kindred souls. Skepticism was admittedly abundant; and Leonardo of -all men can least have failed to reckon with its motives. - -Perhaps the most fashionable form of quasi-freethinking in the Italy of -the fifteenth century was that which prevailed in the Platonic Academy -of Florence in the period, though the chief founder of the Academy, -Marsilio Ficino, wrote a defence of Christianity, and his most famous -adherent, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, planned another. Renaissance -Platonism began with the Greek Georgios Gemistos, surnamed Plethon -because of his devotion to Plato, which was such as to scandalize -common Christians and exasperate Aristotelians. The former had the -real grievance that his system ostensibly embodied polytheism and -logically involved pantheism; [1716] and one of his antagonists, -Gennadios Georgios Scolarios, who became patriarch of Constantinople, -caused his book On Laws to be burned; [1717] but the allegation of -his Aristotelian enemy and countryman, Georgios Trapezuntios, that -he prayed to the sun as creator of the world, [1718] is only one of -the polemical amenities of the period. Ostensibly he was a believing -Christian, stretching Christian love to accommodate the beliefs of -Plato; but it was not zeal for orthodoxy that moved Cosimo dei Medici, -at Florence, to embrace the new Platonism, and train up Marsilio -Ficino to be its prophet. The furor allegoricus which inspired the -whole school [1719] was much more akin to ancient Gnosticism than to -orthodox Christianity, and constantly points to pantheism [1720] as -the one philosophic solution of its ostensible polytheism. When, too, -Ficino undertakes to vindicate Christianity against the unbelievers in -his Della Religione Cristiana, "the most solid arguments that he can -find in its favour are the answers of the Sibyls, and the prophecies -of the coming of Jesus Christ to be found in Virgil, Plato, Plotinus, -and Porphyry." [1721] - -How far such a spirit of expatiation and speculation, however visionary -and confused, tended to foster heresy is seen in the brief career -of the once famous young Pico della Mirandola, Ficino's wealthy -pupil. Parading a portentous knowledge of tongues [1722] and topics -at the age of twenty-four, he undertook (1486) to maintain a list of -nine hundred Conclusiones or propositions at Rome against all comers, -and to pay their expenses. Though he had obtained the permission of -the Pope, Innocent VIII, the challenge speedily elicited angry charges -of heresy against certain of the theses, and the Pope had to stop the -proceedings and issue an ecclesiastical commission of inquiry. Some -of the propositions were certainly ill adjusted to Catholic ideas, -in particular the sayings that "neither the cross of Christ nor -any image is to be adored adoratione latriæ"--with worship; that no -one believes what he believes merely because he wishes to; and that -Jesus did not physically descend into hell. [1723] Pico, retiring -to Florence, defended himself in an Apologia, which provoked fresh -outcry; whereupon he was summoned to proceed to Rome; and though the -powerful friendship of Lorenzo dei Medici procured a countermand of -the order, it was not till 1496 that he received, from Alexander VI, -a full papal remission. - -Among the unachieved projects of his later life, which ended at the -age of thirty-one, was that of a treatise Adversus Hostes Ecclesiæ, -to be divided into seven sections, the first dealing with "The avowed -and open enemies of Christianity," and the second with "Atheists and -those who reject every religious system upon their own reasoning"; and -the others with Jews, Moslems, idolaters, heretics, and unrighteous -believers. [1724] The vogue of unbelief thus signified was probably -increased by the whole speculative habit of Pico's own school, [1725] -which tended only less than Averroïsm to a pantheism subversive of -the Christian creed. It is noteworthy that, while Ficino believed -devoutly in astrology, [1726] Pico rejected it, and left among his -confused papers a treatise against it which his nephew contrived to -transcribe and publish; [1727] but it does not appear that this served -either the cause of religion or that of science. The educated Italian -world, while political independence lasted, remained in various degrees -freethinking, pantheistic, and given to astrology, no school or teacher -combining rationalism in philosophy with sound scientific methods. - -One of the great literary figures of the later Renaissance, Niccolò -Machiavelli (1469-1527), is the standing proof of the divorce of -the higher intelligence of Italy from the faith as well as the cause -of the Church before the Reformation. With this divorce he expressly -charges the Church itself, giving as the first proof of its malfeasance -that the peoples nearest Rome were the least religious. [1728] To -him the Church was the supreme evil in Italian politics, [1729] the -"stone in the wound." In a famous passage he gives his opinion that -"our religion, having shown us the truth and the true way, makes us -esteem less political honour (l'onore del mondo)"; and that whereas -the pagan religion canonized only men crowned with public honour, -as generals and statesmen, "our religion has glorified rather the -humble and contemplative men than the active," placing the highest -good in humility and abjection, teaching rather to suffer than -to do, and so making the world debile and ready to be a prey to -scoundrels. [1730] The passage which follows, putting the blame on -men for thus misreading their religion, is a fair sample of the grave -mockery with which the men of that age veiled their unfaith. [1731] -Machiavelli was reputed in his own world an atheist; [1732] and -he certainly was no religionist. He indeed never avows atheism, but -neither did any other writer of the epoch; [1733] and the whole tenour -of his writings is that of a man who had at least put aside the belief -in a prayer-answering deity; [1734] though, with the intellectual -arbitrariness which still affected all the thought of his age, he avows -a belief that all great political changes are heralded by prodigies, -celestial signs, prophecies, or revelations [1735]--here conforming -to the ordinary superstition of his troublous time. - -It belongs, further, to the manifold self-contradiction of the -Renaissance that, holding none of the orthodox religious beliefs, -he argues insistently and at length for the value and importance of -religion, however untrue, as a means to political strength. Through -five successive chapters of his Discourses on Livy he presses and -illustrates his thesis, praising Numa as a sagacious framer of useful -fictions, and as setting up new and false beliefs which made for the -unification and control of the Roman people. The argument evolved -with such strange candour is, of course, of the nature of so much -Renaissance science, an à priori error: there was no lack of religious -faith and fear in primitive Rome before the age of Numa; and the legend -concerning him is a product of the very primordial mythopoiesis which -Machiavelli supposes him to have set on foot. It is in the spirit of -that fallacious theory of a special superinduced religiosity in Romans -[1736] that the great Florentine proceeds to charge the Church with -having made the Italians religionless and vicious (senza religione -e cattivi). Had he lived a century or two later he might have seen -in the case of zealously believing Spain a completer political and -social prostration than had fallen in his day on Italy, and this -alongside of regeneration in an unbelieving France. But indeed it -was the bitterness of spirit of a suffering patriot looking back -yearningly to an idealized Rome, rather than the insight of the author -of The Prince, [1737] that inspired his reasoning on the political -uses of religion; for at the height of his exposition he notes, -with his keen eye for fact, how the most strenuous use of religious -motive had failed to support the Samnites against the cool courage -of Romans led by a rationalizing general; [1738] and he notes, too, -with a sardonic touch of hopefulness, how Savonarola had contrived to -persuade the people of contemporary Florence that he had intercourse -with deity. [1739] Italy then had faith enough and to spare. - -Such argument, in any case, even if untouched by the irony which tinges -Machiavelli's, could never avail to restore faith; men cannot become -believers on the motive of mere belief in the value of belief; and the -total effect of Machiavelli's manifold reasoning on human affairs, -with its startling lucidity, its constant insistence on causation, -its tacit negation of every notion of Providence, must have been, in -Italy as elsewhere, rather to prepare the way for inductive science -than to rehabilitate supernaturalism, even among those who assented to -his theory of Roman development. In his hands the method of science -begins to emerge, turned to the most difficult of its tasks, before -Copernicus had applied it to the simpler problem of the motion of the -solar system. After centuries in which the name of Aristotle had been -constantly invoked to small scientific purpose, this man of the world, -who knew little or nothing of Aristotle's Politics, [1740] exhibits -the spirit of the true Aristotle for the first time in the history of -Christendom; and it is in his land after two centuries of his influence -that modern sociology begins its next great stride in the work of Vico. - -He is to be understood, of course, as the product of the moral -and intellectual experience of the Renaissance, which prepared his -audience for him. Guicciardini, his contemporary, who in comparison was -unblamed for irreligion, though an even warmer hater of the papacy, -has left in writing the most explicit avowals of incredulity as to -the current conceptions of the supernatural, and declares concerning -miracles that as they occur in every religion they prove none. [1741] -At the same time he professes firm faith in Christianity; [1742] and -others who would not have joined him there were often as inconsistent -in the ready belief they gave to magic and astrology. The time was, -after all, one of artistic splendour and scientific and critical -ignorance; [1743] and its freethought had the inevitable defects that -ignorance entails. Thus the belief in the reality of witchcraft, -sometimes discarded by churchmen, [1744] is sometimes maintained -by heretics. Rejected by John of Salisbury in the twelfth century, -and by the freethinking Pietro of Abano in 1303, it was affirmed -and established by Thomas Aquinas, asserted by Gregory IX, and -made a motive for uncounted slaughters by the Inquisition. In 1460 -a theologian had been forced to retract, and still punished, for -expressing doubt on the subject; and in 1471 Pope Sixtus VI reserved -to the papacy the privilege of making and selling the waxen models -of limbs used as preservatives against enchantments. In the sixteenth -century a whole series of books directed against the belief were put -on the Index, and a Jesuit handbook codified the creed. Yet a Minorite -friar, Alfonso Spina, pronounced it a heretical delusion, and taught -that those burned suffered not for witchcraft but for heresy, [1745] -and on the other hand some men of a freethinking turn held it. Thus -the progress of rational thought was utterly precarious. - -Of the literary freethinking of the later Renaissance the most famous -representative is Pomponazzi, or Pomponatius (1462-1525), for whom -it has been claimed that he "really initiated the philosophy of -the Italian Renaissance." [1746] The Italian Renaissance, however, -was in reality near its turning-point when Pomponazzi's treatise on -the Immortality of the Soul appeared (1516); and that topic was the -commonest in the schools and controversies of that day. [1747] He has -been at times spoken of as an Averroïst, on the ground that he denied -immortality; but he did so in reality as a disciple of Alexander of -Aphrodisias, a rival commentator to Averroës. What is remarkable in -his case is not the denial of immortality, which we have seen to be -frequent in Dante's time, and more or less implicit in Averroïsm, -but his contention that ethics could do very well without the belief -[1748]--a thing that it still took some courage to affirm, though -the spectacle of the life of the faithful might have been supposed -sufficient to win it a ready hearing. Presumably his rationalism, which -made him challenge the then canonical authority of the scholasticized -Aristotle, went further than his avowed doubts as to a future state; -since his profession of obedience to the Church's teaching, and his -reiteration of the old academic doctrine of two-fold truth--one truth -for science and philosophy, and another for theology [1749]--are as -dubious as any in philosophic history. [1750] Of him, or of Lorenzo -Valla, more justly than of Petrarch, might it be said that he is the -father of modern criticism, since Valla sets on foot at once historical -and textual analysis, while Pomponazzi anticipates the treatment given -to Biblical miracles by the rationalizing German theologians of the -end of the eighteenth century. [1751] He too was a fixed enemy of the -clergy; and it was not for lack of will that they failed to destroy -him. He happened to be a personal favourite of Leo X, who saw to -it that the storm of opposition to Pomponazzi--a storm as much of -anger on behalf of Aristotle, who had been shown by him to doubt -the immortality of the soul, as on behalf of Christianity--should -end in an official farce of reconciliation. [1752] He was however -not free to publish his treatises, De Incantationibus and De Fato, -Libero Arbitrio, et Prædestinatione. These, completed in 1520, were -not printed till after his death, in 1556 and 1557; [1753] and by -reason of their greater simplicity, as well as of their less dangerous -form of heresy, were much more widely read than the earlier treatise, -thus contributing much to the spread of sane thought on the subjects -of witchcraft, miracles, and special providences. - -Whether his metaphysic on the subject of the immortality of the -soul had much effect on popular thought may be doubted. What the -Renaissance most needed in both its philosophic and its practical -thought was a scientific foundation; and science, from first to last, -was more hindered than helped by the environment. In the thirteenth -and fourteenth centuries, charges of necromancy against physicians and -experimenters were frequently joined with imputations of heresy, and -on such charges not a few were burned. [1754] The economic conditions -too were all unfavourable to solid research. - - - When Galileo in 1589 was made Professor of Mathematics at Pisa, - his salary was only 60 scudi (= dollars), while the Professor - of Medicine got 2,000. (Karl von Gebler, Galileo Galilei, - Eng. tr. 1879, p. 9.) At Padua, later, Galileo had 520 florins, - with a prospect of rising to as many scudi. (Letter given - in The Private Life of Galileo, Boston, 1870, p. 61.) The - Grand Duke finally gave him a pension of 1,000 scudi at - Florence. (Id. p. 64.) This squares with Bacon's complaint - (Advancement of Learning, bk. ii; De Augmentis, bk. ii, - ch. i--Works, Routledge ed. pp. 76, 422-23) that, especially - in England, the salaries of lecturers in arts and professions - were injuriously small, and that, further, "among so many noble - foundations of colleges in Europe ... they are all dedicated - to professions, and none left free to the study of arts and - sciences at large." In Italy, however, philosophy was fairly well - endowed. Pomponazzi received a salary of 900 Bolognese lire when - he obtained the chair of Philosophy at Bologna in 1509. (Christie, - essay cited, p. 138.) - - -Medicine was nearly as dogmatic as theology. Even philosophy was in -large part shouldered aside by the financial motives which led men -to study law in preference; [1755] and when the revival of ancient -literature gained ground it absorbed energy to the detriment of -scientific study, [1756] the wealthy amateurs being ready to pay -high prices for manuscripts of classics, and for classical teaching; -but not for patient investigation of natural fact. The humanists, -so-called, were often forces of enlightenment and reform; witness -such a type as the high-minded Pomponio Leto (Pomponius Laetus), -pupil and successor of Lorenzo Valla, and one of the many "pagan" -scholars of the later Renaissance; [1757] but the discipline of mere -classical culture was insufficient to make them, as a body, qualified -leaders either of thought or action, [1758] in such a society as -that of decaying Italy. Only after the fall of Italian liberties, -the decay of the Church's wealth and power, the loss of commerce, and -the consequent decline of the arts, did men turn to truly scientific -pursuits. From Italy, indeed, long after the Reformation, came a new -stimulus to freethought which affected all the higher civilization -of northern Europe. But the failure to solve the political problem, -a failure which led to the Spanish tyranny, meant the establishment -of bad conditions for the intellectual as for the social life; and -an arrest of freethought in Italy was a necessary accompaniment of -the arrest of the higher literature. What remained was the afterglow -of a great and energetic period rather than a spirit of inquiry; and -we find the old Averroïst scholasticism, in its most pedantic form, -lasting at the university of Padua till far into the seventeenth -century. "A philosophy," remarks in this connection an esteemed -historian, "a mode of thought, a habit of mind, may live on in the -lecture-rooms of Professors for a century after it has been abandoned -by the thinkers, the men of letters, and the men of the world." [1759] -The avowal has its bearings nearer home than Padua. - -While it lasted, the light of Italy had shone upon all the thought of -Europe. Not only the other nations but the scholars of the Jewish race -reflected it; for to the first half of the sixteenth century belongs -the Jew Menahem Asariah de Rossi, whose work, Meor Enayim, "Light of -the Eyes," is "the first attempt by a Jew to submit the statements -of the Talmud to a critical examination, and to question the value -of tradition in its historical records." And he did not stand alone -among the Jews of Italy; for, while Elijah Delmedigo, at the end of -the fifteenth century, was in a didactic Maimonist fashion doubtful of -literary tradition, his grandson, Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, flourishing -early in the seventeenth century, "wrote various pamphlets of a deeply -skeptical character." [1760] That this movement of Jewish rationalism -should be mainly limited to the south was inevitable, since there only -were Jewish scholars in an intellectual environment. There could be -no better testimony to the higher influence of the Italian Renaissance. - - - - -§ 2. THE FRENCH EVOLUTION - -In the other countries influenced by Italian culture in the sixteenth -century the rationalist spirit had various fortune. France, as we saw, -had substantially retrograded at the time of the Italian new-birth, her -revived militarism no less than her depression by the English conquests -having deeply impaired her intellectual life in the fourteenth and -fifteenth centuries. Thus the true renascence of letters in France -began late, and went on during the Reformation period; and all along -it showed a tincture of freethought. From the midst of the group who -laid the foundations of French Protestantism by translations of the -Bible there comes forth the most articulate freethinker of that age, -Bonaventure Desperiers, author of the Cymbalum Mundi (1537). Early -associated with Calvin and Olivetan in revising the translation of the -Bible by Lefèvre d'Etaples (rev. 1535), Desperiers turned away from -the Protestant movement, as did Rabelais and Étienne Dolet, caring as -little for the new presbyter as for the old priest; and all three were -duly accused by the Protestants of atheism and libertinage. [1761] In -the same year Desperiers aided Dolet, scholar and printer, to produce -his much-praised Commentarii linguæ latinæ; and within two years he -had printed his own satire, Cymbalum Mundi, [1762] wherein, by way of -pagan dialogues, are allegorically ridiculed the Christian scheme, -its miracles, Bible contradictions, and the spirit of persecution, -then in full fire in France against the Protestants. In the first -dialogue Mercury is sent to Athens by Zeus the Father to have the -"Book of the Destinies" rebound--an adaptation of an ancient sarcasm -against the Christians by Celsus. [1763] He, robbing others, is -robbed of the book, and another (= the New Testament) is put in -its place. In the second dialogue figure Rhetulus (= Lutherus) and -Cubercus (= Bucerus?), who suppose they have found the main pieces -of the philosopher's stone, which Mercury had broken and scattered -in the sand of the theatre arena. Protestants and Catholics are thus -alike ridiculed. The allegory is not always clear to modern eyes; but -there was no question then about its general bearing; and Desperiers, -though groom of the chamber (after Clement Marot) to Marguerite of -France (later of Navarre), had to fly for his life, as Marot did -before him. The first edition of his book, secretly printed at Paris, -was seized and destroyed; and the second (1538), printed for him at -Lyons, whither he had taken his flight, seems to have had a similar -fate. From that time he disappears, probably dying, whether or not -by suicide is doubtful, [1764] before 1544, when his miscellaneous -works were published. They include his OEuvres Diverses--many of them -graceful poems addressed to his royal mistress, Marguerite--which, -with his verse translation of the Andria of Terence and his Discours -non plus Melancoliques que Divers, make up his small body of work. In -the Discours may be seen applied to matters of history and scholarship -the same critical spirit that utters itself in the Cymbalum, and the -same literary gift; but for orthodoxy his name became a hissing and -a byword, and it is only in modern times that French scholarship has -recognized in Desperiers the true literary comrade and potential equal -of Rabelais and Marot. [1765] The age of Francis was too inclement -for such literature as his Cymbalum; and it was much that it spared -Gringoire (d. 1544), who, without touching doctrine, satirized in -his verse both priests and Protestants. - -It is something of a marvel, further, that it spared Rabelais -(? 1493-1553), whose enormous raillery so nearly fills up the -literary vista of the age for modern retrospect. It has been said -by a careful student that "the free and universal inquiry, the -philosophic doubt, which were later to work the glory of Descartes, -proceed from Rabelais"; [1766] and it is indeed an impression of -boundless intellectual curiosity and wholly unfettered thinking that -is set up by his entire career. Sent first to the convent school of -La Baumette, near Angers, he had there as a schoolfellow Geoffroy -d'Estissac, afterwards his patron as Bishop of Maillezais. Sent later -to the convent school of Fontenay-le-Comte, he had the luck to have for -schoolfellows there the four famous brothers Du Bellay, so well able -to protect him in later life; and, forced to spend fifteen years of -his young life (1509-24) at Fontenay as a Franciscan monk, he turned -the time to account by acquiring an immense erudition, including a -knowledge of Greek, then rare. [1767] Naturally the book-lover was -not popular among his fellow-monks; and his Greek books were actually -confiscated by the chapter, who found in his cell certain writings -of Erasmus, [1768] to whom as a scholar he afterwards expressed the -deepest intellectual obligations. Thereafter, by the help of his -friend d'Estissac, now bishop of the diocese, Rabelais received papal -permission to join the order of the Benedictines and to enter the Abbey -of Maillezais as a canon regular (1524); but soon after, though he was -thus a fully-ordained priest, we find him broken loose, and living -for some six years a life of wandering freedom as a secular priest, -sometimes with his friend the bishop, winning friends in high places by -his learning and his gaiety, everywhere studying and observing. At the -bishop's priory of Ligugé he seems to have studied hard and widely. In -1530 he is found at Montpellier, extending his studies in medicine, -in which he speedily won distinction, becoming B.M. on December 1, -and a lecturer in the following year. He was later esteemed one of -the chief anatomists of his day, being one of the first to dissect the -human body and to insist on the need of such training for physicians; -[1769] and in 1532 [1770] we find him characterized as the "true great -universal spirit of this time." [1771] In the same year he published -at Lyons, where he was appointed physician to the chief hospital, -an edition of the Latin letters of the Ferrarese physician Manardi; -and his own commentaries on Galen and Hippocrates, which had a very -poor sale. [1772] At Lyons he made the acquaintance of Dolet, Marot, -and Desperiers; and his letter (of the same year) to Erasmus (printed -as addressed to Bernard de Salignac [1773]) showed afresh how his -intellectual sympathies went. - -About 1532 he produced his Gargantua and Pantagruel, the first -two books of his great humoristic romance; and in 1533 began his -series of almanacks, continued till 1550, presumably as printer's -hack-work. From the fragments which have been preserved, they appear -to have been entirely serious in tone, one containing a grave theistic -protest against all astrological prediction. Along with the almanack of -1533, however, he produced a Pantagruelian Prognostication; and this, -which alone has been preserved entire, [1774] passes hardy ridicule on -astrology, [1775] one of the most popular superstitions of the day, -among high and low alike. Almost immediately the Sorbonne was on -his track, condemning his Pantagruel in 1533. [1776] A journey soon -afterwards to Rome, in the company of his friend Bishop Jean du Bellay, -the French ambassador, may have saved him some personal experience -of persecution. Two years later, when the Bishop went to Rome to -be made cardinal, Rabelais again accompanied him; and he appears to -have been a favourite alike with Pope Clement VII and Paul III. At -the end of 1535 we find him, in a letter to his patron, the bishop -of Maillezais, scoffing at the astrological leanings of the new Pope, -Paul III. [1777] Nonetheless, upon a formal Supplicatio pro apostasia, -he obtained from the Pope in 1536 an absolution for his breach of his -monastic vows, with permission to practise medicine in a Benedictine -monastery. Shortly before, his little son Théodule had died; [1778] -and it may have been grief that inspired such a desire: in any case, -the papal permission to turn monk again was never used, [1779] though -the pardon was doubtless serviceable. Taking his degree as doctor -at Montpellier in May, 1537, he there lectured for about a year on -anatomy; and in the middle of 1538 he recommenced a wandering life, -[1780] practising in turn at Narbonne, Castres, and Lyons. Then, -after becoming a Benedictine canon of St. Maur in 1540, we find him -in Piedmont from 1540 to 1543, under the protection of the viceroy, -Guillaume de Bellay. [1781] - -During this period the frequent reprints of the first two books of -his main work, though never bearing his name, brought upon him the -denunciations alike of priests and Protestants. Ramus, perhaps in -revenge for being caricatured as Raminagrobis, pronounced him an -atheist. [1782] Calvin, who had once been his friend, had in his -book De Scandalis angrily accused him of libertinage, profanity, and -atheism; and henceforth, like Desperiers, he was about as little in -sympathy with Protestantism as with the zealots of Rome. - -Thus assailed, Rabelais had seen cause, in an edition of 1542, to -modify a number of the hardier utterances in the original issues of the -first two books of his Pantagruel, notably his many epithets aimed at -the Sorbonne. [1783] In the reprints there are substituted for Biblical -names some drawn from heathen mythology; expressions too strongly -savouring of Calvinism are withdrawn; and disrespectful allusions -to the kings of France are elided. In his concern to keep himself -safe with the Sorbonne he even made a rather unworthy attack [1784] -(1542) on his former friend Étienne Dolet for the mere oversight of -reprinting one of his books without deleting passages which Rabelais -had expunged; [1785] but no expurgation could make his évangile, -as he called it, [1786] a Christian treatise, or keep for him an -orthodox reputation; and it was with much elation that he obtained in -1545 from King Francis--whose private reader was his friend Duchâtel, -Bishop of Tulle--a privilege to print the third book of Pantagruel, -which he issued in 1546, signed for the first time with his name, and -prefaced by a cry of jovial defiance to the "petticoated devils" of the -Sorbonne. They at once sought to convict him of fresh blasphemies; but -even the thrice-repeated substitution of an n for an m in âme, making -"ass" out of "soul," was carried off, by help of Bishop Duchâtel, as -a printer's error; and the king, having laughed like other readers, -maintained the imprimatur. But although it gave Rabelais formal leave -to reprint the first and second books, he was careful for the time -not to do so, leaving the increasing risk to be run by whoso would. - -It was on the death of Francis in 1547 that Rabelais ran his greatest -danger, having to fly to Metz, where for a time he acted as salaried -physician of the city. About this time he seems to have written -the fourth and fifth books of Pantagruel; and to the treatment he -had suffered at Catholic hands has been ascribed the reversion -to Calvinistic ideas noted in the fifth book. [1787] In 1549, -however, on the birth of a son to Henri II, his friend Cardinal -Bellay returned to power, and Rabelais to court favour with him. The -derider of astrology did not scruple to cast a prosperous horoscope -for the infant prince--justifying by strictly false predictions his -own estimate of the art, since the child died in the cradle. There -was now effected the dramatic scandal of the appointment of Rabelais -in 1550 to two parish cures, one of which, Meudon, has given him his -most familiar sobriquet. He seems to have left both to be served by -vicars; [1788] but the wrath of the Church was so great that early -in 1552 he resigned them; [1789] proceeding immediately afterwards to -publish the fourth book of Pantagruel, for which he had duly obtained -official privilege. As usual, the Sorbonne rushed to the pursuit; -and the Parlement of Paris forbade the sale of the book despite -the royal permission. That permission, however, was reaffirmed; and -this, the most audacious of all the writings of Rabelais, went forth -freely throughout France, carrying the war into the enemies' camp, -and assailing alike Protestants and churchmen. In the following year, -his work done, he died. - -It is difficult to estimate the intellectual effect of his performance, -which was probably much greater at the end of the century than -during his life. Patericke, the English translator of Gentillet's -famous Discours against Machiavelli (1576), points to Rabelais among -the French and Agrippa (an odd parallel) among the Germans as the -standard-bearers of the whole train of atheists and scoffers. "Little -by little, that which was taken in the beginning for jests turned to -earnest, and words into deeds." [1790] Rabelais's vast innuendoes by -way of jests about the people of Ruach (the Spirit) who lived solely on -wind; [1791] his quips about the "reverend fathers in devil," of the -"diabological faculty"; [1792] his narratives about the Papefigues -and Papimanes; [1793] and his gibes at the Decretals, [1794] were -doubtless enjoyed by many good Catholics otherwise placated by his -attacks on the "demoniacal Calvins, impostors of Geneva"; [1795] and -so careful was he on matters of dogma that it remains impossible to -say with confidence whether or not he finally believed in a future -state. [1796] That he was a deist or Unitarian seems the reasonable -inference as to his general creed; [1797] but there also he throws -out no negations--even indicates a genial contempt for the philosophe -ephectique et pyrrhonien [1798] who opposes a halting doubt to two -contrary doctrines. In any case, he was anathema to the heresy-hunters -of the Sorbonne, and only powerful protection could have saved him. - -Dolet (1508-1546) was certainly much less of an unbeliever [1799] -than Rabelais; [1800] but where Rabelais could with ultimate impunity -ridicule the whole machinery of the Church, [1801] Dolet, after -several iniquitous prosecutions, in which his jealous rivals in the -printing business took part, was finally done to death in priestly -revenge [1802] for his youthful attack on the religion of inquisitorial -Toulouse, where gross pagan superstition and gross orthodoxy went hand -in hand. [1803] He certainly "lived a life of sturt and strife." Born -at Orléans, he studied in his boyhood at Paris; later at Padua, under -Simon Villanovanus, whom he heard converse with Sir Thomas More; then, -at 21, for a year at Venice, where he was secretary to Langeac, the -French Bishop of Limoges. It was at Toulouse, where he went in 1532 to -study law, that he began his quarrels and his troubles. In that year, -and in that town, the young Jean de Caturce, a lecturer in the school -of law, was burned alive on a trivial charge of heresy; and Dolet -witnessed the tragedy. [1804] Previously there had been a wholesale -arrest of suspected Lutherans--"advocates, procureurs, ecclesiastics -of all sorts, monks, friars, and curés." [1805] Thirty-two saved -themselves by flight; but among those arrested was Jean de Boysonne, -the most learned and the ablest professor in the university, much -admired by Rabelais, [1806] and afterwards the most intimate friend -of Dolet. It was his sheer love of letters that brought upon him the -charge of heresy; [1807] but he was forced publicly to abjure ten -Lutheran heresies charged upon him. The students of the time were -divided in the old fashion into "nations," and formed societies as -such; and Dolet, chosen in 1534 as "orator" of the "French" group, -as distinct from the Gascons and the Tolosans, in the course of -a quarrel of the societies delivered two Latin orations, in one -of which he vilipended alike the cruelty and the superstitions of -Toulouse. A number of the leading bigots of the place were attacked; -and Dolet was after an interval of some months thrown into prison, -charged with exciting a riot and with contempt of the Parlement of -Toulouse. His incarceration did not last long; but never thereafter -was he safe; and in the remaining thirteen years of his life he was -five more times in prison, for nearly five years in all. [1808] - -After he had settled at Lyons, and produced his Commentaries, he had -the bad fortune to kill an enemy who drew sword upon him; and the -pardon he obtained from the king through the influence of Marguerite -of Navarre remained technically unratified for six years, during which -time he was only provisionally at liberty, being actually in prison -for a short time in 1537. Apart from this episode he showed himself -both quarrelsome and vainglorious, alienating friends who had done -much for him; but his enemies were worse spirits than he. The power -of the man drove him to perpetual production no less than to strife; -and his mere activity as a printer went far to destroy him. - - - "No calling was more hateful to the friends of bigotry and - superstition than that of a printer" (Christie, as cited, - p. 387). Nearly all the leading printers of France and Germany - were either avowedly in sympathy with Protestant heresy or - suspected of being so (id. p. 388); and the issue of an edict - by King Francis in 1535 for the suppression of printing was at - the instance of the Sorbonne. We shall see that in Germany the - support of the printers, and their hostility to the priests and - monks, contributed greatly to the success of Lutheranism. - - -In 1542 he was indicted as a heretic, but really for publishing -Protestant books of devotion and French translations of the -Bible. Among the formal offences charged were: (1) his having in his -Cato Christianus cited as the second commandment the condemnation -of all images; (2) his use of the term "fate" in the sense of -predestination; (3) his substitution of habeo fidem for credo; (4) the -eating of flesh in Lent; and (5) the act of taking a walk during the -performance of mass. [1809] On this indictment the two inquisitors Orry -and Faye delivered him over to the secular arm for execution. Again -he secured the King's pardon (1543), through the mediation of Pierre -Duchâtel, the good Bishop of Tulle; but the ecclesiastical resistance -was such that, despite Dolet's formal recantation, it required a more -plenary pardon, the express orders of the King, and three official -letters to secure his release after a year's detention. [1810] - -That was, however, swiftly followed by a final and successful -prosecution. By a base device two parcels were made of prohibited -books printed by Dolet and of Protestant books issued at Geneva; -and these, bearing his name in large, were forwarded to Paris. The -parcels were seized, and he was again arrested, early in January, -1544. He contrived to escape to Piedmont; but, returning secretly -after six months to print documents of defence, he was discovered -and sent to prison in Paris. The last pardon having covered all -previous writings, the prosecutors sought in his translation of the -pseudo-Platonic dialogues Axiochus and Hipparchus, printed with his -last vindication; and, finding a slight over-emphasis of Sokrates's -phrase describing the death of the body ("thou shalt no longer be," -rendered by "thou shalt no longer be anything at all"), pronounced -this a wilful propounding of a heresy, though in fact there had -been no denial of the doctrine of immortality. [1811] This time the -prey was held. After Dolet had been in prison for twenty months the -Parlement of Paris ratified the sentence of death; and he was burned -alive on August 3, 1546. The utter wickedness of the whole process -[1812] at least serves to relieve by neighbourhood the darkness of -the stains cast on Protestantism by the crimes of Calvin. - -The whole of the clerical opposition to the new learning at this -period is not unjustly to be characterized as a malignant cabal of -ignorance against knowledge. In Germany as in France real learning was -substantially on the side of the persecuted writers. When, in March -of 1537, Dolet was entertained at a banquet to celebrate the pardon -granted to him by the king for his homicide at Lyons on the last -day of the previous year, there came to it, by Dolet's own account, -the chief lights of learning in France--Budé, the chief Greek scholar -of his time; Berauld, his nearest compeer; Danès and Toussain, both -pupils of Budé and the first royal professors of Greek at Paris; Marot, -"the French Maro"; Rabelais, then regarded as a great new light in -medicine; Voulté, [1813] and others. The men of enlightenment at first -instinctively drew together, recognizing that on all hands they were -surrounded by rabid enemies, who were the enemies of knowledge. But -soon the stresses of the time drove them asunder. Voulté, who in this -year was praising Rabelais in Latin epigrams, was attacking him in -the next as an impious disciple of Lucian; [1814] and, after having -warmly befriended Dolet, was impeaching him, not without cause, as -an ingrate. It was an age of passion and violence; and Voulté was -himself assassinated in 1542 "by a man who had been unsuccessful in -a law-suit against him." [1815] - -Infamous as was the cruelty with which Dolet was persecuted to -the death, his execution was but a drop in the sea of blood then -being shed in France by the Church. The king, sinking under his -maladies, had become the creature of the priests, who in defiance -of the Chancellor obtained his signature (1545) to a decree for a -renewed persecution of the heretics of the Vaudois; and an army, -followed by a Catholic mob and accompanied by the papal vice-legate -of Avignon, burst upon the doomed territory and commenced to burn and -slay. Women captured were violated and then thrown over precipices; -and twice over, when a multitude of fugitives in a fortified place -surrendered on the assurance that their lives and property would be -spared, the commander ordered that all should be put to death. When -old soldiers refused to enact such an infamy, others joyfully obeyed, -the mob aiding; and among the women were committed, as usual, "all -the crimes of which hell could dream." Three towns were destroyed, -3,000 persons massacred, 256 executed, six or seven hundred more -sent to the galleys, and many children sold as slaves. [1816] Thus -was the faith vindicated and safeguarded. - -Of the freethought of such an age there could be no adequate -record. Its tempestuous energy, however, implies not a little of -private unbelief; and at a time when in England, two generations behind -France in point of literary evolution, there was, as we shall see, -a measure of rationalism among religionists, there must have been -at least as much in the land of Rabelais and Desperiers. The work -of Guillaume Postell, De causis seu principiis et originibus Naturæ -contra Atheos, published in 1552, testifies to kinds of unbelief that -outwent the doubt of Rabelais; though Postell's general extravagance -discounts all of his utterances. It is said of Guillaume Pellicier -(1527-1568), Bishop of Montpellier, who first turned Protestant and -afterwards, according to Gui Patin, atheist, that he would have been -burned but for the fact of his consecration. [1817] And the English -chroniclers preserve a scandal concerning an anonymous atheist, worded -as follows: "1539. This yeare, in October, died in the Universitie -of Parris, in France, a great doctor, which said their was no God, -and had bene of that opinion synce he was twentie yeares old, and was -above fouerscore yeares olde when he died. And all that tyme had kept -his error secrett, and was esteamed for one of the greatest clarkes -in all the Universitie of Parris, and his sentence was taken and -holden among the said studentes as firme as scripture, which shewed, -when he was asked why he had not shewed his opinion till his death, -he answered that for feare of death he durst not, but when he knew -that he should die he said their was no lief to come after this lief, -and so died miserably to his great damnation." [1818] - -Among the eminent ones then surmised to lean somewhat to unbelief -was the sister of King Francis, Marguerite of Navarre, whom we have -noted as a protectress of the pantheistic Libertini, denounced by -Calvin. She is held to have been substantially skeptical until her -forty-fifth year; [1819] though her final religiousness seems also -beyond doubt. [1820] In her youth she bravely protected the Protestants -from the first persecution of 1523 onwards; and the strongly Protestant -drift of her Miroir de l'âme pécheresse exasperated the Catholic -theologians; but after the Protestant violences of 1546 she seems to -have sided with her brother against the Reform. [1821] The strange -taste of the Heptaméron, of which again her part-authorship seems -certain, [1822] constitutes a moral paradox not to be solved save by -recognizing in her a woman of genius, whose alternate mysticism and -bohemianism expressed a very ancient duality in human nature. - -A similar mixture will explain the intellectual life of the poet -Ronsard. A persecutor of the Huguenots, [1823] he was denounced as an -atheist by two of their ministers; [1824] and the pagan fashion in -which he handled Christian things scandalized his own side, albeit -he was hostile to Rabelais. But though the spirit of the French -Renaissance, so eagerly expressed in the Défense et Illustration de -la langue françoise of Joachim du Bellay (1549), is at its outset -as emancipated as that of the Italian, we find Ronsard in his latter -years edifying the pious. [1825] Any ripe and consistent rationalism, -indeed, was then impossible. One of the most powerful minds of the age -was Bodin (1530-1596), whose République is one of the most scientific -treatises on government between Aristotle and our own age, and whose -Colloquium Heptaplomeres [1826] is no less original an outline of a -naturalist [1827] philosophy. It consists of six dialogues, in which -seven men take part, setting forth the different religious standpoints -of Jew, Christian, pagan, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Catholic, the whole -leading up to a doctrine of tolerance and universalism. Bodin was -repeatedly and emphatically accused of unbelief by friends and foes; -[1828] and his rationalism on some heads is beyond doubt; yet he not -only held by the belief in witchcraft, but wrote a furious treatise -in support of it; [1829] and he dismissed the system of Copernicus -as too absurd for discussion. [1830] He also formally vetoes all -discussion on faith, declaring it to be dangerous to religion; -[1831] and by these conformities he probably saved himself from -ecclesiastical attack. [1832] Nonetheless, he essentially stood for -religious toleration: the new principle that was to change the face -of intellectual life. A few liberal Catholics shared it with him to -some extent [1833] long before St. Bartholomew's Day; eminent among -them being L'Hopital, [1834] whose humanity, tolerance, and concern -for practical morality and the reform of the Church brought upon him -the charge of atheism. He was, however, a believing Catholic. [1835] -Deprived of power, his edict of tolerance repealed, he saw the long -and ferocious struggle of Catholics and Huguenots renewed, and crowned -by the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day (1572). Broken-hearted, -and haunted by that monstrous memory, he died within six months. - -Two years later there was put to death at Paris, by hanging -and burning, on the charge of atheism, Geoffroi Vallée, a man of -good family in Orléans. Long before, at the age of sixteen, he had -written a freethinking treatise entitled La Béatitude des Chrétiens, -ou le fléau de la foy--a discussion between a Huguenot, a Catholic, -a libertin, an Anabaptist and an atheist. He had been the associate -of Ronsard, who renounced him, and helped, it is said, to bring him -to execution. [1836] It is not unlikely that a similar fate would -have overtaken the famous Protestant scholar and lexicographer, Henri -Estienne (1532-1598), had he not died unexpectedly. His false repute of -being "the prince of atheists" [1837] and the "Pantagruel of Geneva" -was probably due in large part to his sufficiently audacious Apologie -pour Hérodote [1838] (1566) and to his having translated into Latin -(1562) the Hypotyposes of Sextus Empiricus, a work which must have made -for freethinking. But he was rather a Protestant than a rationalist. In -the former book he had spoken, either sincerely or ironically, of the -"detestable book" of Bonaventure Desperiers, calling him a mocker of -God; and impeached Rabelais as a modern Lucian, believing neither in -God nor immortality; [1839] yet his own performance was fully as well -fitted as theirs to cause scandal. It is in fact one of the richest -repertories ever formed of scandalous stories against priests, monks, -nuns, and popes. [1840] - -One literary movement towards better things had begun before the -crowning infamy of the Massacre appalled men into questioning the -creed of intolerance. Castalio, whom we shall see driven from Geneva -by Calvin in 1544 for repugning to the doctrine of predestination, -published pseudonymously, in 1554, in reply to Calvin's vindication -of the slaying of Servetus, a tract, De Haereticis quomodo cum iis -agendum sit variorum Sententiæ, in which he contrived to collect -some passage from the Fathers and from modern writers in favour of -toleration. To these he prefaced, by way of a letter to the Duke -of Wirtemberg, an argument of his own, the starting-point of much -subsequent propaganda. [1841] Aconzio, another Italian, followed -in his steps; and later came Mino Celso of Siena, with his "long -and elaborate argument against persecution," De Haereticis capitali -supplicio non afficiendis (1584). [1842] Withal, Castalio died in -beggary, ostracized alike by Protestants and Catholics, and befriended -only by the Sozzini, whose sect was the first to earn collectively the -praise of condemning persecution. [1843] But in the next generation -there came to reinforce the cause of humanity a more puissant pen -than any of these; while at the same time the recoil from religious -cruelty was setting many men secretly at utter variance with faith. - -In France in particular a generation of insane civil war for religion's -sake must have gone far to build up unbelief. Even among many who did -not renounce the faith, there went on an open evolution of stoicism, -generated through resort to the teaching of Epictetus. The atrocities -of Christian civil war and Christian savagery were such that Christian -faith could give small sustenance to the more thoughtful and sensitive -men who had to face them and carry on the tasks of public life the -while. The needed strength was given by the masculine discipline which -pagan thought had provided for an age of oppression and decadence, -and which had carried so much of healing even for the Christians -who saw decadence carried yet further, that in the fifth century -the Enchiridion of Epictetus had been turned by St. Nilus into a -monastic manual, even as Ambrose manipulated the borrowed Stoicism -of Cicero. [1844] With its devout theism, the book had appealed to -those northern scholars who had mastered Greek in the early years of -the sixteenth century, when the refugees of Constantinople had set -up Platonic studies in Italy. After 1520, Italian Hellenism rapidly -decayed; [1845] but in the north it never passed away; and from the -stronger men of the new learning in Germany the taste for Epictetus -passed into France. In 1558 the semi-Protestant legist Coras--later -slain in the massacre of St. Bartholomew--published at Toulouse a -translation of the apocryphal dialogue of Epictetus and Hadrian; -in 1566 the Protestant poet Rivaudeau translated the Enchiridion, -which thenceforth became a culture force in France. [1846] - -The influence appears in Montaigne, in whose essays it is pervasive; -but more directly and formally in the book of Justus Lipsius, -De Constantia (1584), and the same scholar's posthumous dialogues -entitled Manducatio ad philosophiam stoïcam and Physiologia stoïcorum -(1604), which influenced all scholarly Europe. Thus far the Stoic -ethic had been handled with Christian bias and application; and -Guillaume Du Vair, who embodied it in his work La Sainte Philosophie -(1588), was not known as a heretic; but in his hands it receives no -Christian colouring, and might pass for the work of a deist. [1847] -And its popularity is to be inferred from his further production of a -fresh translation of the Enchiridion and a Traité de la philosophie -morale des stoïques. Under Henri IV he rose to high power; and his -public credit recommended his doctrine. - -Such were the more visible fruits of the late spread of the Renaissance -ferment in France while, torn by the frantic passions of her pious -Catholics, she passed from the plane of the Renaissance to that of -the new Europe, in which the intellectual centre of gravity was to -be shifted from the south to the north, albeit Italy was still to -lead the way, in Galileo, for the science of the modern world. - - - - -§ 3. THE ENGLISH EVOLUTION - -In England as in France the intellectual life undergoes visible -retrogression in the fifteenth century, while in Italy, with -the political problem rapidly developing towards catastrophe, -it flourished almost riotously. From the age of Chaucer, considered -on its intellectual side and as represented mainly by him, there is -a steep fall to almost the time of Sir Thomas More, around whom we -see as it were the sudden inrush of the Renaissance upon England. The -conquest of France by Henry V and the Wars of the Roses, between them, -brought England to the nadir of mental and moral life. But in the long -and ruinous storm the Middle Ages, of which Wiclif is the last powerful -representative, were left behind, and a new age begins to be prepared. - -Of a very different type from Wiclif is the remarkable personality of -the Welshman Reginald (or Reynold) Pecock (1395?-1460?), who seems -divided from Wiclif by a whole era of intellectual development, -though born within about ten years of his death. It is a singular -fact that one of the most rationalistic minds among the serious -writers of the fifteenth century should be an English bishop, -[1848] and an Ultramontane at that. Pecock was an opponent at once -of popular Bibliolatry and of priestly persecution, declaring that -"the clergy would be condemned at the last day if they did not -draw men into consent to the true faith otherwise than by fire and -sword and hanging." [1849] It was as the rational and temperate -defender of the Church against the attacks of the Lollards in -general that he formulated the principle of natural reason as -against scripturalism. This attitude it is that makes his treatise, -the Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy, the most modern of -theoretic books before More and Hooker and Bacon. That he was led to -this measure of rationalism rather by the exigencies of his papalism -than by a spontaneous skepticism is suggested by the fact that he -stands for the acceptance of miraculous images, shrines, and relics, -when the Lollards are attacking them. [1850] On the other hand, it -is hard to be certain that his belief in the shrines was genuine, -so ill does it consist with his attitude to Bibliolatry. In a series -of serenely argued points he urges his thesis that the Bible is not -the basis of the moral law, but merely an illustration thereof, -and that the natural reason is obviously presupposed in the bulk -of its teaching. He starts from the formulas of Thomas Aquinas, but -reaches a higher ground. It is the position of Hooker, anticipated by -a hundred years; and this in an age of such intellectual backwardness -and literary decadence that the earlier man must be pronounced by -far the more remarkable figure. In such a case the full influence of -the Renaissance seems to be at work; though in the obscurity of the -records we can do no more than conjecture that the new contacts with -French culture between the invasion of France by Henry V in 1415 and -the expulsion of the English in 1451 may have introduced forces of -thought unknown or little known before. If indeed there were English -opponents of scripture in Wiclif's day, the idea must have ripened -somewhat in Pecock's. Whether, however, the victories of Jeanne D'Arc -made some unbelievers as well as many dastards among the English is -a problem that does not seem to have been investigated. - -Pecock's reply to the Lollards creates the curious situation of a -churchman rebutting heretics by being more profoundly heretical than -they. In his system, the Scriptures "reveal" only supernatural truths -not otherwise attainable, a way of safeguarding dogma not likely to -reassure believers. There is reason, indeed, to suspect that Pecock -held no dogma with much zeal; and when in his well-named treatise -(now lost), The Provoker, he denied the authenticity of the Apostles' -Creed, "he alienated every section of theological opinion in England." - - - See Miss A. M. Cooke's art. Reginald Pecock in Dict. of - Nat. Biog. This valuable notice is the best short account of - Pecock; though the nature of his case is most fully made out by - Hook, as cited below. It is characteristic of the restricted - fashion in which history is still treated that neither in - the Student's History of Professor Gardiner nor in the Short - History of Green is Pecock mentioned. Earlier ideas concerning - him were far astray. The notion of Foxe, the martyrologist, - that Pecock was an early Protestant, is a gross error. He held - not a single Protestant tenet, being a rationalizing papist. A - German ecclesiastical historian of the eighteenth century (Werner, - Kirchengeschichte des 18ten Jahrhunderts, 1756, cited by Lechler) - calls Pecock the first English deist. See a general view of - his opinions in Lewis's Life of Dr. Reynold Pecock (rep. 1820), - ch. v. The heresies charged on him are given on p. 160; also in - the R. T. S. Writings and Examinations, 1831, pp. 200-201. While - rejecting Bibliolatry, he yet argued that Popes and Councils - could make no change in the current creed; and he thus offended - the High Churchmen. Cp. Massingberd, The English Reformation, - 4th ed. pp. 206-209. - - -The main causes of the hostility he met from the English hierarchy -and Government appear to have been, on the one hand, his change of -political party, which put him in opposition to Archbishop Bourchier, -and on the other his zealous championship of the authority of the -papacy as against that of the Councils of the Church. It was expressly -on the score of his denunciation of the Councils that he was tried -and condemned. [1851] Thus the reward of his effort to reason down the -menacing Lollards and rebut Wiclif [1852] was his formal disgrace and -virtual imprisonment. Had he not recanted, he would have been burned: -as it was, his books were; and it is on record that they consisted -of eleven quartos and three folios of manuscript. Either because of -his papalism or as a result of official intrigue, Church and lords -and commons were of one mind against him; and the mob would fain have -burned him with his books. [1853] In that age of brutal strife, when -"neither the Church nor the opponents of the Church had any longer a -sway over men's hearts," [1854] he figures beside the mindless prelates -and their lay peers somewhat as does More later beside Henry VIII, -as Reason versus the Beast; and it was illustrative of his entire -lack of fanaticism that he made the demanded retractations--avowing -his sin in "trusting to natural reason" rather than to Scripture and -the authority of the Church--and went his way in silence to solitude -and death. The ruling powers disposed of Lollardism in their own way; -and in the Wars of the Roses every species of heretical thought seems -to disappear. The bribe held out to the nation by the invasion of -France had been fatally effectual to corrupt the spirit of moral -criticism which inspired the Lollard movement at its best; and the -subsequent period of rapine and strife reduced thought and culture -to the levels of the Middle Ages. - -A hint of what was possible in the direction of freethought in -the England of Henry V and Henry VI emerges in some of the records -concerning Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, the youngest son of Henry -IV. Gifted but ill-balanced, Humphrey was the chief patron of learning -in England in his day; and he drank deeply of the spirit of Renaissance -scholarship. [1855] Sir Thomas More preserves the story--reproduced -also in the old play, The First Part of the Contention of the two -Famous Houses of York and Lancaster--of how he exposed the fraud of -a begging impostor who pretended to have recovered his sight through -the virtue of a saint's relics; and a modern pietistic historian -decides that the Duke "had long ceased to believe in miracles and -relics." [1856] But if this be true, it is the whole truth as to -Humphrey's freethinking. It was the highest flight of rationalism -permissible in his day and sphere. - - - On the view that Humphrey was a freethinker, the pious Pauli, - who says (as cited, p. 337) of the Renaissance of letters, "The - weak and evil side of this revived form of literature is that - its disciples should have elevated the morality, or rather the - immorality, of classical antiquity above Christian discipline and - virtue," sees fit further to pronounce that the bad account of - Gloucester's condition of body drawn up eleven years before his - death by the physician Kymer is a proof of the "wild unbridled - passions by which the duke was swayed," and throws a lurid light - upon "the tendencies and disposition of his mind." Humphrey lived - till 55, and died suddenly, under circumstances highly suggestive - of poisoning by his enemies. His brothers Henry and John died - much younger than he; but in their case the religious historian - sees no ground for imputation. But the historian's inference is - overstrained. In reality Humphrey never indicated any lack of - theological faith. The poet Lydgate, no unbeliever, described - him as "Chose of God to be his owne knyghte," and so rigorous - "that heretike dar not comen in his sihte" (verses transcribed in - Furnivall's Early English Meals and Manners, 1868, pp. lxxxv-vi). - - His most comprehensive biographer decides that he was "essentially - orthodox," despite his uncanonical marriage with his second wife - and his general reputation for sexual laxity. "He was punctilious - in the performance of his religious duties" and "a stern opponent - of the Lollards"; he "countenanced the extinction of heresy - by being present at the burning at Smithfield of an old priest - who denied the validity of the sacraments of the Church"; and an - Archbishop of Milan pronounced him to be "known everywhere as the - chiefest friend and preserver of Holy Church" (K. H. Vickers, - Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester: A Biography, 1907, pp. 223, - 321-23). Of such a personage no exegesis can make a rationalist. - - -Of other traces of critical thinking in England in that age there is -little to be said, so little literature is there to convey them. But -there are signs of the influence of the "pagan" thought of the -Renaissance in religious books. The old Revelation of the Monk of -Evesham, ostensibly dating from 1196, was first printed about 1482, -[1857] with a "prologe" explaining that it "was not shewed to hym only -for hym butte also for the confort and profetyng of all cristyn pepulle -that none man shuld dowte or mystruste of anothir life and world"; -"and as for the trowthe of this reuelacyon no man nother woman ought -to dowte in any wise," seeing it is thus miraculously provided that -"alle resons and mocyons of infydelite the which risith often tymes of -man's sensualite shall utwardly be excluded and quenched." Evidently -the old problem of immortality had been agitated. - - - - -§ 4. THE REMAINING EUROPEAN COUNTRIES - -Not till late in the fifteenth century is the intellectual side of -the Renaissance influence to be seen bearing fruit in Germany, of -which the turbulent and semi-barbaric life in the medieval period -was little favourable to mental progress. Of political hostility -to the Church there was indeed an abundance, long before Luther; -[1858] but amid the many traces of "irreligion" there is practically -none of rational freethinking. What reasoned thought there was, as -we have seen, turned to Christian mysticism of a pantheistic cast, -as in the teaching of Tauler and Eckhart. [1859] - -Another and a deeper current of thought is seen in the remarkable -philosophic work of Bishop Nicolaus of Kues or Cusa (1401-1464), who, -professedly by an independent movement of reflection, but really as -a result of study of Greek philosophy, reached a larger pantheism -than had been formulated by any Churchman since the time of John the -Scot. [1860] There is little or no trace, however, of any influence -attained by his teaching, which indeed could appeal only to a very few -minds of that day. Less remarkable than the metaphysic of Nicolaus, -though also noteworthy in its way, is his Dialogue "On Peace, or -Concordance of Faith," in which, somewhat in the spirit of Boccaccio's -tale of the Three Kings, he aims at a reconciliation of all religions, -albeit by way of proving the Christian creed to be the true one. - -In the Netherlands and other parts of western Europe the popular -anti-ecclesiastical heresy of the thirteenth century spread in various -degrees; but there is only exceptional trace of literate or properly -rationalistic freethinking. Among the most notable developments -was the movement in Holland early in the fourteenth century, which -compares closely with that of the higher Paulicians and mystics -of the two previous centuries, its chief traits being a general -pantheism, a denial of the efficacy of the sacrament of the altar, an -insistence that all men are sons of God, and a general declaration for -"natural light." [1861] But this did not progressively develop. Lack -of leisured culture in the Low Countries, and the terrorism of the -Inquisition, would sufficiently account for the absence of avowed -unbelief, though everywhere, probably, some was set up by the contact -of travellers with the culture of Italy. It is fairly to be inferred -that in a number of cases the murderous crusade against witchcraft -which was carried on in the fifteenth century served as a means of -suppressing heresy, rationalistic or other. At Arras, for instance, -in 1460, the execution of a number of leading citizens on a charge of -sorcery seems to have been a blow at free discussion in the "chambers -of rhetoric." [1862] And that rationalism, despite such frightful -catastrophes, obscurely persisted, is to be gathered from the long -vogue of the work of the Spanish physician Raymund of Sebonde, [1863] -who, having taught philosophy at Toulouse, undertook (about 1435) -to establish Christianity on a rational foundation [1864] in his -Theologia Naturalis, made famous later by Montaigne. - -To what length the suppressed rationalism of the age could on occasion -go is dramatically revealed in the case of Hermann van Ryswyck, a -Dutch priest, burned for heresy at the Hague in 1512. He was not only -a priest in holy orders, but one of the order of Inquisitors; and he -put forth the most impassioned denial and defiance of the Christian -creed of which there is any record down to modern times. Tried before -the inquisitors in 1502, he declared "with his own mouth and with -sane mind" that the world is eternal, and was not created as was -alleged by "the fool Moses" that there is no hell, and no future -life; that Christ, whose whole career was flatly contrary to human -welfare and reason, was not the son of Omnipotent God, but a fool, -a dreamer, and a seducer of ignorant men, of whom untold numbers had -been slain on account of him and his absurd evangel; that Moses had -not physically received the law from God; and that "our" faith was -shown to be fabulous by its fatuous Scripture, fictitious Bible, -and crazy Gospel. And to this exasperated testimony he added: -"I was born a Christian, but am no longer one: they are the chief -fools." Sentenced in 1502 to perpetual imprisonment, he was again -brought forward ten years later, and, being found unbroken by that -long durance, was as an unrepentant heretic sentenced to be burned on -December 14, 1512, the doom being carried out on the same day. The -source of his conviction can be gathered from his declaration that -"the most learned Aristotle and his commentator Averroës were nearest -the truth"; but his wild sincerity and unyielding courage were all -his own. "Nimis infelix quidam" is the estimate of an inquisitor of -that day. [1865] Not so, unless they are most unhappy who die in -battle, fighting for the truth they prize. But it has always been -the Christian way to contemn all save Christian martyrs. - - - There is a tolerably full account of Ryswyck's case in a nearly - contemporary document, which evidently copies the official - record. Ryswyck is described as "sacre theologie professorem - ordinis predicatorum et inquisitorum"; and his declaration runs: - "Quod mundum fuit ab eterna et non incipit per creationem - fabricatum a stulto Mose, ut dicit Biblia indistincta.... Nec - est infernus, ut nostri estimant. Item post hanc vitam nulla - erit vita particularis.... Item doctissimus Aristoteles et - ejus commentator Auerrois fuerunt veritati propinquissimi. Item - Christum fuit stultus et simplex fantasticus et seductor simplicium - hominum.... Quot enim homines interfecti sunt propter ipsum et suum - Euangelium fatuum! Item quod omnia que Christus gessit, humano - generi et rationi recte sunt contraria. Item Christum filium Dei - omnipotentem aperte nego. Et Mosen legem a Deo visibiliter et - facialiter suscepisse recuso. Item fides nostra fabulosa est, - ut probat nostra fatua Scriptura et ficta Biblia et Euangelium - delirum.... Omnes istos articulos et consimilos confessus est - proprio ore et sana mente coram inquisitore et notario et testibus, - addens: Ego Christianus natus, sed iam non sum Christianus, - quoniam illi stultissimi sunt." Paul Frédéricq, Corpus documentorum - Inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, Gent, 1889, i, - 494, 501-502. - - -Thus the Renaissance passed on to the age of the Reformation the -seeds of a rationalism which struck far deeper than the doctrine -of Luther, but at the same time left a social soil in which such -seeds could ill grow. Its own defeat, social and intellectual, may -be best realized in terms of its failure to reach either political or -physical science. Lack of the former meant political retrogression and -bondage; and lack of the latter a renewed dominion of superstition -and Bibliolatry--two sets of conditions of which each facilitated -the other. - -Nothing is more significant of the intellectual climate of the -Renaissance than the persistence at all its stages of the belief -in astrology, of which we find some dregs even in Bacon. That -pseudo-science indeed stands, after all, for the spirit of science, -and is not to be diagnosed as mere superstition; being really -an à priori fallacy fallen into in the deliberate search for some -principle of coördination in human affairs. Though adhered to by many -prominent Catholics, including Charles V, and by many Protestants, -including Melanchthon, it is logically anti-Christian, inasmuch as it -presupposes in the moral world a reign of natural law, independent of -the will or caprice of any personal power. Herein it differs deeply -from magic; [1866] though in the Renaissance the return to the lore -of antiquity often involved an indiscriminate acceptance and blending -of both sorts of occult pagan lore. [1867] Magic subordinates Nature -to Will: astrology, as apart from angelology, subordinates Will -to Cosmic Law. For many perplexed and thoughtful men, accordingly, -it was a substitute, more or less satisfying, for the theory, grown -to them untenable, of a moral government of the universe. It was in -fact a primary form of sociology proper, as it had been the primary -form of astronomy; to which latter science, even in the Renaissance, -it was still for many the introduction. - -It flourished, above all things, on the insecurity inseparable -from the turbulent Italian life of the Renaissance, even as it had -flourished on the appalling vicissitude of the drama of imperial -Rome; and it is conceivable that the inclination to true science -which is seen in such men as Galileo, after the period of Italian -independence, was nourished by the greater stability attained for a -time under absolutist rule. And though Protestantism, on the other -hand, adhered in the main unreasoningly to the theory of a moral -control, that dogma at least served to countervail the dominion of -astrology, which was only a dogmatism with a difference, and as such -inevitably hindered true science. [1868] On the whole, Protestantism -tended to make more effectual that veto on pagan occultism which had -been ineffectually passed from time to time by the Catholic Church; -albeit the motive was stress of Christian superstition, and the -veto was aimed almost as readily at inductive and true science as -at the deductive and false. We shall find the craze of witchcraft, -in turn, dominating Protestant countries at a time when freethinkers -and liberal Catholics elsewhere were setting it at naught. - -There can be little doubt that, broadly speaking, the new interest -in Scripture study and ecclesiastical history told against the free -play of thought on scientific and scholarly problems; we shall find -Bacon realizing the fact a hundred years after Luther's start; and -the influence has operated down to our own day. In this resistance -Catholics played their part. The famous Cornelius Agrippa [1869] -(1486-1535) never ceased to profess himself a Catholic, and had small -sympathy with the Reformers, though always at odds with the monks; -and his long popular treatise De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum -et artium, atque excellentia verbi Dei declamatio (1531) is a mere -polemic for scripturalism against alike false science and true, -monkish superstition and reason. Vilified as a magician by the monks, -and as an atheist and a scoffer by angry humanists, [1870] he did -but set error against error, being himself a believer in witchcraft, -a hater of anatomy, and as confident in his contempt of astronomy as -of astrology. And his was a common frame of mind for centuries. - -Still, the new order contained certain elements of help for a new life, -as against its own inclement principles of authority and dogma; and -the political heterogeneity of Europe, seconded by economic pressures -and by new geographic discovery, sufficed further to prevent any -far-reaching organization of tyranny. Under these conditions, -new knowledge could incubate new criticism. But it would be an -error-breeding oversight to forget that in the many-coloured world -before the Reformation there was not only a certain artistic and -imaginative sunlight which the Reformation long darkened, but even, -athwart the mortal rigours of papal rule, a certain fitful play of -intellectual insight to which the peoples of the Reformation became -for a time estranged. - - - - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -THE REFORMATION, POLITICALLY CONSIDERED - - -§ 1. THE GERMAN CONDITIONS - -In a vague and general sense the ecclesiastical revolution known as -the Reformation was a phenomenon of freethought. To be so understood, -indeed, it must be regarded in contrast to the dominion of the Catholic -Church, not to the movement which we call the Renaissance. That -movement it was that made the Reformation possible; and if we have -regard to the reign of Bibliolatry which Protestantism set up, we seem -to be contemplating rather a superimposing of Semitic darkness upon -Hellenic light than an intellectual emancipation. Emancipation of -another kind the Reformation doubtless brought about. In particular -it involved, to an extent not generally realized, a secularization -of life, through the sheer curtailment, in most Protestant countries, -of the personnel and apparatus of clericalism, and the new disrepute -into which, for a time, these fell. Alike in Germany and in England -there was a breaking-up of habits of reverence and of self-prostration -before creed and dogma and ritual. But this liberation was rather -social than intellectual, and the product was rather licence and -irreverence than ordered freethought. On the other hand, when the -first unsettlement was over, the new growth of Bibliolatry tended -rather to deepen the religious way of feeling and make more definite -the religious attitude. Tolerance did not emerge until after a whole -era of embittered strife. The Reformation, in fact, was much more -akin to a revolt against a hereditary king than to the process of -self-examination and logical scrutiny by which men pass from belief -to disbelief in a theory of things, a dogma, or a document. - -The beginning of such a process had indeed taken place in Germany -before Luther, insofar as the New Learning represented by such -humanists as Erasmus, such scholars as Reuchlin, [1871] and such -satirists as Ulrich von Hutten, set up a current of educated hostility -to the ignorance and the grosser superstitions of the churchmen. For -Germany, as for England, this movement was a contagion from the new -scholarship and Platonism of Italy; [1872] and the better minds in the -four universities founded in the pre-Lutheran generation (Tübingen, -1477; Mayence, 1482; Frankfort-on-the-Oder, 1506; Wittemberg, 1502) -necessarily owed much to Italian impulses, which they carried on, -though the universities as a whole were bitterly hostile to the -new learning. [1873] The Dutch freethinker Ryswyck, as we saw, was -fundamentally an Averroïst; and Italy was the stronghold of Averroïsm, -of which the monistic bias probably fostered the Unitarianism of -the sixteenth century. But it was not this literary and scholarly -movement that effected the Reformation so-called, which was rather -an economic and political than a mental revolution. - - - The persistence of Protestant writers in discussing the early - history of the Reformation without a glance at the economic - causation is one of the great hindrances to historic science. From - such popular works as those of D'Aubigné and Häusser it is - practically impossible to learn what socially took place in - Germany; and the general Protestant reader can learn it only--and - imperfectly--from the works on the Catholic side, as Audin's - Histoire de la vie de Luther (Eng. tr. 1853) and Döllinger's Die - Reformation, and the more scientific Protestant studies, such as - those of Ranke and Bezold (even there not at any great length), - to neither of which classes of history will he resort. In England - the facts are partially realized, in the light of an ecclesiastical - predilection, through High Church histories such as that of Blunt, - which proceed upon a Catholic leaning. Cobbett's intemperate - exposure of the economic causation has found an audience chiefly - among Catholics. - - Bezold admits that "with perfect justice have recent historians - commented on the former underrating of an economic force which - certainly played its part in the spread and establishment of the - Reformation" (Gesch. der deutschen Reformation, 1890, p. 563). The - broad fact is that in not a single country could the Reformation - have been accomplished without enlisting the powerful classes - or corporations, or alternatively the de facto governments, by - proffering the plunder of the Church. Only in a few Swiss cantons, - and in Holland, does the confiscation seem to have been made to - the common good (cp. the present writer's Evolution of States, - pp. 311, 343). But even in Holland needy nobles had finally turned - Protestant in the hope of getting Church lands. (See Motley, Rise - of the Dutch Republic, ed. 1863, p. 131.) Elsewhere appropriation - of Church lands by princes and nobles was the general rule. - - Even as to Germany, it is impossible to accept Michelet's - indulgent statement that most of the confiscated Church property - "returned to its true destination, to the schools, the hospitals, - the communes; to its true proprietors, the aged, the child, the - toiling family" (Hist. de France, x, 333; see the same assertion - in Henderson, Short History of Germany, 1902, i, 344). Plans - to that effect were drawn up; but, as the princes were left to - carry out the arrangement, they took the lion's share. Ranke - (Hist. of the Ref. bk. iv, ch. v; Eng. tr. 1-vol. ed. 1905, - pp. 466-67) admits much grabbing of Church lands as early as 1526; - merely contending, with Luther, that papist nobles had begun the - spoliation. (Cp. Bezold, pp. 564-65; Menzel, Gesch. der Deutschen, - cap. 393.) In Saxony, when monks broke away from their monasteries, - the nobles at once appropriated the lands and buildings (Ranke, - p. 467). Luther made a warm appeal to the Elector against the - nobles in general (Ranke, p. 467; Luther's letter, Nov. 22, 1526, - in Werke, ed. De Wette, iii, 137; letter to Spalatin, Jan. 1, 1527, - id. p. 147; also p. 153). See too his indignant protests against - the rapine of the princes and nobles and the starvation of the - ministers in the Table Talk, chs. 22, 60. Even Philip of Hesse did - not adhere to his early and disinterested plans of appropriation - (Ranke, pp. 468-69, 711-12). All that Ranke can claim is that "some - great institutions were really founded"--to wit, two homes for - "young ladies of noble birth," four hospitals, and the theological - school of Marburg. And this was in the most hopeful region. - - There is positive evidence, further, that not only ecclesiastical - but purely charitable foundations were plundered by the Protestants - (Witzel, cited by Döllinger, Die Reformation, ihre innere - Entwickelung und ihre Wirkungen, 1846, i, 46, 47, 51, 62); and, - as school foundations were confiscated equally with ecclesiastical - in England, there is no reason to doubt the statement. Practically - the same process took place in Scotland, where the share of Church - property proposed to be allotted to the Protestant ministers - was never given, and their protests were treated with contempt - (Burton, History of Scotland, iv, 37-41). Knox's comments were - similar to Luther's (Works, Laing's ed. ii, 310-12). - - Dr. Gardiner, a fairly impartial historian, sums up that, after - the German settlement of 1552, "The princes claimed the right of - continuing to secularize Church lands within their territories as - inseparable from their general right of providing for the religion - of their subjects.... About a hundred monasteries are said to have - fallen victims in the Palatinate alone; and an almost equal number, - the gleanings of a richer harvest which had been reaped before the - Convention of Passau, were taken possession of in Northern Germany" - (The Thirty Years' War, 8th ed. p. 11). - - -The credit of bringing the various forces to a head, doubtless, -remains with Luther, though ground was further prepared by literary -predecessors such as John of Wesel and John Wessel, Erasmus, Reuchlin, -and Ulrich von Hutten. But even the signal courage of Luther could -not have availed to fire an effectual train of action unless a -certain number of nobles had been ready to support him for economic -reasons. Even the shameless sale of indulgences by Tetzel was resented -most keenly on the score that it was draining Germany of money; [1874] -and nothing is more certain than that Luther began his battle not as -a heretic but as an orthodox Catholic Reformer, desiring to propitiate -and not to defy the papacy. Economic forces were the determinants. This -becomes the more clear when we note that the Reformation was only the -culmination or explosion of certain intellectual, social, and political -forces seen at work throughout Christendom for centuries before. In -point of mere doctrine, the Protestants of the sixteenth century -had been preceded and even distanced by heretics of the eleventh, -and by teachers of the ninth. The absurdity of relic-worship, the -folly of pilgrimages and fastings, the falsehood of the doctrine -of transubstantiation, the heresy of prayers to the saints, the -unscripturalness of the hierarchy--these and a dozen other points of -protest had been raised by Paulicians, by Paterini, by Beghards, by -Apostolicals, by Lollards, long before the time of Luther. As regards -his nearer predecessors, indeed, this is now a matter of accepted -Protestant history. [1875] What is not properly realized is that the -conditions which wrought political success where before there had -been political failure were special political conditions; and that -to these, and not to supposed differences in national character, -is due the geographical course of the Reformation. - - - - -§ 2. THE PROBLEM IN ITALY, SPAIN, AND THE NETHERLANDS - -We have seen that the spirit of reform was strong in Italy -three hundred years before Luther; and that some of the strongest -movements within the Church were strictly reformatory, and originally -disinterested in a high degree. In less religious forms the same -spirit abounded throughout the Renaissance; and at the end of -the fifteenth century Savonarola was preaching reform religiously -enough at Florence. His death, however, was substantially due to -the perception that ecclesiastical reform, as conducted by him, -was a socio-political process, [1876] whence the reformer was a -socio-political disturber. Intellectually he was no innovator; on -the contrary, he was a hater of literary enlightenment, and he was -as ready to burn astrologers as were his enemies to burn him. [1877] -His claim, in his Triumph of the Cross, to combat unbelievers by -means of sheer natural reason, indicates only his inability to -realize any rationalist position--a failure to be expected in his -age, when rationalism was denied argumentative utterance, and when -the problems of Christian evidences were only being broached. The -very form of the book is declamatory rather than ratiocinative, -and every question raised is begged. [1878] That he failed in his -crusade of Church reform, and that Luther succeeded in his, was due -to no difference between Italian and German character, but to the vast -difference in the political potentialities of the two cases. The fall -of public liberty in Florence, which must have been preceded as it -was accompanied by a relative decline in popular culture, [1879] and -which led to the failure of Savonarola, may be in a sense attributed -to Italian character; but that character was itself the product of -peculiar social and political conditions, and was not inferior to -that of any northern population. [1880] - - - The Savonarolan movement had all the main features of the - Puritanism of the northern "Reform." Savonarola sent organized - bodies of boys, latterly accompanied by bodies of adults, to - force their way into private houses and confiscate things thought - suitable for the reformatory bonfire. Burckhardt, p. 477; Perrens, - Jérome Savonarole, 2e édit. pp. 140-41. The things burned included - pictures and busts of inestimable artistic value, and manuscripts - of exquisite beauty. Perrens, p. 229. Compare Villari, as cited; - George Eliot's Romola, bk. iii, ch. xlix; and Merejkowski's The - Forerunner (Eng. tr.), bk. vii. Previous reformers had set up - "bonfires of false hair and books against the faith" (Armstrong, as - cited, p. 167); and Savonarola's bands of urchins were developments - from previous organizations, bent chiefly on blackmail. (Id.) But - he carried the tyranny furthest, and actually proposed to put - obstinate gamblers to the torture. Perrens, p. 132. Villari in - his sentimental commemoration lecture on Savonarola (Studies - Historical and Critical, Eng. tr. 1907) ignores these facts. - - -When, a generation later, the propaganda of the Lutheran movement -reached Italy, it was more eagerly welcomed than in any of the -Teutonic countries outside of the first Lutheran circle, though -a vigilant system was at once set on foot for the destruction of -the imported books. [1881] It had made much headway at Milan and -Florence in 1525; [1882] and we have the testimony of Pope Clement -VII himself that before 1530 the Lutheran heresy was widely spread -not only among the laity but among priests and friars, both mendicant -and non-mendicant, many of whom propagated it by their sermons. [1883] -The ruffianism and buffoonery of the German Lutheran soldiers in the -army of Charles V at the sack of Rome in 1529 was hardly likely to -win adherents to their sect; [1884] yet the number increased all over -Italy. In 1541-45 they were numerous and audacious at Bologna, [1885] -where in 1537 a commission of cardinals and prelates, appointed by -Pope Paul III, had reported strongly on the need for reformation in -the Church. In 1542 they were so strong at Venice as to contemplate -holding public assemblies; in the neighbouring towns of Vicentino, -Vicenza, and Trevisano they seem to have been still more numerous; -[1886] and Cardinal Caraffa reported to the Pope that all Italy was -infected with the heresy. [1887] - -Now began the check. Among the Protestants themselves there had -gone on the inevitable strifes over the questions of the Trinity -and the Eucharist; the more rational views of Zwingli and Servetus -were in notable favour; [1888] and the Catholic reaction, fanned -by Caraffa, was the more facile. Measures were first taken against -heretical priests and monks; Ochino and Peter Martyr had to fly; -and many monks in the monastery of the latter were imprisoned. At -Rome was founded, in 1543, the Congregation of the Holy Office, a new -Inquisition, on the deadly model of that of Spain; and thenceforth -the history of Protestantism in Italy is but one of suppression. The -hostile force was all-pervading, organized, and usually armed with -the whole secular power; and though in Naples the old detestation -of the Inquisition broke out anew so strongly that even the Spanish -tyranny could not establish it, [1889] the papacy elsewhere carried -its point by explaining how much more lenient was the Italian than -the Spanish Inquisition. Such a pressure, kept up by the strongest -economic interest in Italy, no movement could resist; and it would -have suppressed the Reformation in any country or any race, as a -similar pressure did in Spain. - - - Prof. Gebhart (Orig. de la Renais. en Italie, p. 68) writes that - "Italy has known no great national heresies: one sees there no - uprising of minds which resembles the profound popular movements - provoked by Waldo, Wiclif, John Huss, or Luther." The decisive - answer to this is soon given by the author himself (p. 74): "If - the Order of Franciscans has had in the peninsula an astonishing - popularity; if it has, so to speak, formed a Church within the - Church, it is that it responded to the profound aspirations of - an entire people." (Cp. p. 77.) Yet again, after telling how - the Franciscan heresy of the Eternal Gospel so long prevailed, - M. Gebhart speaks (p. 78) of the Italians as a people whom - "formal heresy has never seduced." These inconsistencies derive - from the old fallacy of attributing the course of the Reformation - to national character. (See it discussed in the present writer's - Evolution of States, pp. 237-38, 302-307, 341-44.) Burckhardt, - while recognizing--as against the theory of "something lacking in - the Italian mind"--that the Italian movements of Church reformation - "failed to achieve success only because circumstances were - against them," goes on to object that the course of "mighty - events like the Reformation ... eludes the deductions of the - philosophers," and falls back on "mystery." (Renaissance in - Italy, Eng. tr. p. 457.) There is really much less "mystery" - about such movements than about small ones; and the causes of the - Reformation are in large part obvious and simple. Baur, even in - the act of claiming special credit for the personality of Luther - as the great factor in the Reformation, admits that only in the - peculiar political conditions in which he found himself could he - have succeeded. (Kirchengeschichte der neueren Zeit, 1863, p. 23.) - - The broad explanation of the Italian failure is that in Italy - reform could not for a moment be dreamt of save as within the - Church, where there was no economic leverage such as effected the - Reformation from the outside elsewhere. It was a relatively easy - matter in Germany and England to renounce the Pope's control - and make the Churches national or autonomous. To attempt - that in Italy would have meant creating a state of universal - and insoluble strife. (Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, vol. i, - ed. 1897, p. 369. Symonds, however, omits to note the financial - dependence of Italian society on the papal system; and his verdict - that Luther and the nations of the north saw clearly "what the - Italians could not see" is simply the racial fallacy over again.) - - Apart from that, the Italians, as we have seen, were as much - bent on reformation as any other people in mass; and the earlier - Franciscan movement was obviously more disinterested than either - the later German or the English, in both of which plunder was - the inducement to the leading adherents, as it was also in - Switzerland. There the wholesale bestowal of Church livings on - Italians was the strongest motive to ecclesiastical revolution; - and in Zürich, the first canton which adopted the Reformation, - the process was made easy by the State guaranteeing posts - and pensions for life to the whole twenty-four canons of the - chapter. (Vieusseux, History of Switzerland, 1840, pp. 120, - 128; cp. Zschokke, Schweizerland's Geschichte, 9te Ausg. ch. 32, - and Jackson, Huldreich Zwingli, 1901, pp. 222-25, 295-96.) The - Protestants had further the support of the unbelieving soldiery, - made anti-religious in the Italian wars, who rejoiced in the - process of priest-baiting and plunder (Vieusseux, p. 130). - - -The process of suppression in Italy was prolonged through sixty -years. In 1543 numbers of Protestants began to fly; hundreds more -were cast into prison; and, save in a few places, public profession of -the heresy was suppressed. In 1546 the papacy persuaded the Venetian -senate to put down the Protestant communities in their dominions, and -in 1548 there began in Venice a persecution in which many were sent to -the galleys. To reach secret Protestantism, the papacy dispersed spies -throughout Italy, Ferrara being particularly attended to, as a known -hotbed. [1890] After the death of the comparatively merciful Paul III -(1550), Julius III authorized new severities. A Ferrarese preacher was -put to death; and the Duchess Renée, the daughter of Louis XII, who -had notoriously favoured the heretics, was made virtually a prisoner -in her own palace, secluded from her children. At Faenza, a nobleman -died under torture at the hands of the inquisitors, and a mob in turn -killed some of these; [1891] but the main process went on throughout -the country. An old Waldensian community in Calabria having reverted -to its former opinions under the new stimulus, it was warred upon by -the inquisitors, who employed for the purpose outlaws; and multitudes -of victims, including sixty women, were put to the torture. [1892] At -Montalto, in 1560, another Waldensian community were taken captive; -eighty-eight men were slaughtered, their throats being cut one by -one; many more were tortured; the majority of the men were sent -to the Spanish galleys; and the women and children were sold into -slavery. [1893] In Venice many were put to death by drowning. [1894] - -Of individual executions there were many. In a documented list of -seventy-eight persons burned alive or hanged and burned at Rome from -1553 to 1600, [1895] only a minority are known to have been Lutherans, -the official records being kept on such varying principles that it is -impossible to tell how many of the victims were Catholic criminals; -[1896] while some heretics are represented--it would seem falsely--as -having died in the communion of the Church. But probably more than half -were Lutherans or Calvinists. The first in the list (1553) are Giovanni -Mollio, [1897] a Minorite friar of Montalcino, who had been a professor -at Brescia and Bologna, and Giovanni Teodori [1898] of Perugia; and -the former is stated in the official record to have recommended his -soul to God, the Virgin Mary, St. Francis, and St. Anthony of Padua, -though he had been condemned as an obstinate Lutheran. The next victims -(1556) are the Milanese friar Ambrogio de Cavoli, who dies "firm in his -false opinion," and Pomponio Angerio or Algieri of Nola, a student aged -twenty-four, who, "as being obstinate, was burned alive." [1899] These -were the first victims of Caraffa after his elevation to the papal -chair as Paul IV. Under Pius IV three were burned in 1560; under Pius -V two in 1566, six in 1567, six in 1568, and so on. Francesco Cellario, -an ex-Franciscan friar, living as a refugee and Protestant preacher in -the Grisons, was kidnapped, taken to Rome, and burned [1900] (1569). A -Neapolitan nobleman, Pompeo de Monti, caught in Rome, was officially -declared to have "renounced head by head all the errors he had held," -and accordingly was benignantly beheaded. [1901] Quite a number, -including the learned protonotary Carnesecchi (1567), are alleged -to have died "in the bosom of the Church." [1902] On the other hand, -some of the inquisitors themselves came under the charge of heresy, -two cardinals and a bishop being actually prosecuted [1903]--whether -for Lutheranism or for other forms of private judgment does not appear. - -Simple Lutheranism, however, seems to have been the usual limit of -heresy among those burned. Aonio Paleario (originally Antonio della -Paglia or de' Pagliaricci) of Veroli [1904]--poet and professor of -rhetoric at Milan, hanged in 1570 (in his seventieth year) either for -denouncing the Inquisition or for Lutheranism--was an extreme heretic -from the Catholic point of view. His Actio in Romanos Pontificos et -eorum asseclas is still denounced by the Church. [1905] If, however, -he was the author of the Trattato utilissimo del beneficio di Giesu -Crocifisso verso I Christiani, he was simply an evangelical of the -school of Luther, exalting faith and making light of works; and its -"remedies against the temptation of doubt" deal solely with theological -difficulties, not with critical unbelief. [1906] This treatise, -immensely popular in the sixteenth century, was so zealously destroyed -by the Church that when Ranke wrote no copy was known to exist. [1907] -The Trattato was placed on the first papal Index Expurgatorius in -1549; and the nearly complete extinction of the book is an important -illustration of the Church's faculty of suppressing literature. - -The Index, anticipated by Charles V in the Netherlands several years -earlier, was established especially to resist the Reformation; and its -third class contained a prohibition of all anonymous books published -since 1519. The destruction of books in Italy in the first twenty years -of the work of the Congregation of the Index was enormous, nearly -every library being decimated, and many annihilated. All editions -of the classics, and even of the Fathers, annotated by Protestants, -or by Erasmus, were destroyed; the library of the Medicean College at -Florence, despite the appeals of Duke Cosmo, was denuded of many works -of past generations, now pronounced heretical; and many dead writers -who had passed for good Catholics were put on the Index. Booksellers, -plundered of their stocks, were fain to seek another calling; and -printers, seeing that any one of them who printed a condemned work -had every book printed by him put on the Index, were driven to refuse -all save works officially accredited. It was considered a merciful -relaxation of the procedure when, after the death of Paul IV (1555), -certain books, such as Erasmus's editions of the Fathers, were allowed -to be merely mutilated. [1908] The effect of the whole machinery -in making Italy in the seventeenth century relatively unlearned and -illiterate cannot easily be overstated. - -In fine, the Reformation failed in Italy because of the economic and -political conditions, as it failed in Spain; as it failed in a large -part of Germany; as it would have failed in Holland had Philip II made -his capital there (in which case Spain might very well have become -Protestant); and as it would have failed in England had Elizabeth been -a Catholic, like her sister. During the sixty years from 1520 to 1580, -thousands of Italian Protestants left Italy, as thousands of Spanish -Protestants fled from Spain, and thousands of English Protestants from -England in the reign of Mary. [1909] To make the outcome in Italy and -Spain a basis for a theory of racial tendency in religion, or racial -defect of "public spirit," is to explain history in a fashion which, in -physical science, has long been discredited as an argument in a circle. - - - McCrie, at the old standpoint, says of the Inquisition that "this - iniquitous and bloody tribunal could never obtain a footing either - in France or in Germany"; that "the attempt to introduce it in - the Netherlands was resisted by the adherents of the old as well - as the disciples of the new religion; and it kindled a civil war - which ... issued in establishing civil and religious liberty"; - and that "the ease with which it was introduced into Italy showed - that, whatever illumination there was among the Italians ... they - were destitute of that public spirit and energy of principle which - were requisite to shake off the degrading yoke by which they were - oppressed." The ethical attitude of the Christian historian is - noteworthy; but we are here concerned with his historiography. A - little reflection will make it clear that the non-establishment - of the Inquisition in France and Germany was due precisely to the - fact that the papacy was not in these countries as it was in Italy, - and that the native Governments resented external influence. - - As to the Netherlands, the statement is misleading in the - extreme. The Inquisition set up by Charles V was long and fully - established in the Low Countries; and Motley recognizes that it - was there more severe even than in Spain. It was Charles V who, - in 1546, gave orders for the establishment of the Inquisition - in Naples, when the people so effectually resisted. The view, - finally, that the attempt to suppress heresy caused the Dutch - revolt is merely part of the mythology of the Reformation. Charles - V, at the outset of his reign, stood to Spain in the relation - of a foreign king who, with his Flemish courtiers, exploited - Spanish revenues. Only by making Madrid his capital and turning - semi-Spanish did he at all reverse that relation between the two - parts of his dominions. So late as 1550 he set up an exceptionally - merciless form of the Inquisition in the Low Countries, and this - without losing any of the loyalty of the middle and upper classes, - Protestantism having made its converts only among the poor. In - 1546 too he had set up an Index Expurgatorius with the assistance - of the theological faculty at Louvain; and there was actually - a Flemish Index in print before the papal one (McCrie, Ref. in - Italy, p. 184; Ticknor, Hist. of Spanish Lit. 6th ed. i, 493). - - What set up the breach between the Netherlands and Spain was - the failure of Philip II to adjust himself to Dutch interests - as his father had adjusted himself to Spanish. The sunderance - was on lines of economic interest and racial jealousy; and - Dutch Protestantism was not the cause but the effect. In the - war, indeed, multitudes of Dutch Catholics held persistently - with their Protestant fellow-countrymen against Spain, as many - English Catholics fought against the Armada. As late as 1600 - the majority of the people of Groningen were still Catholics, - as the great majority are now in North Brabant and Limburg; and - in 1900 the Catholics in the Netherlands were nearly a third of - the whole. From first to last too the Dutch Protestant creed and - polity were those set up by Calvin, a Frenchman. - - -To those accustomed to the conventional view, the case may become -clearer on a survey of the course of anti-papalism in other countries -than those mentioned. The political determination of the process in -the sixteenth century, indeed, cannot be properly realized save in -the light of kindred movements of earlier date, when the "Teutonic -conscience" made, not for reform, but for fixation. - - - - -§ 3. THE HUSSITE FAILURE IN BOHEMIA - -That the causal forces in the Reformation were neither racial religious -bias nor special gift on the part of any religious teachers is made -tolerably clear by the pre-Lutheran episode of the Hussites in Bohemia -a century before the German movement. In Bohemia as elsewhere clerical -avarice, worldliness, and misconduct had long kept up anti-clerical -feeling; and the adoption of Wiclif's teaching by Huss [1910] at -the end of the fourteenth century was the result, and not the cause, -of Bohemian anti-papalism. [1911] The Waldensians, whose doctrines -were closely akin to those of Huss, were represented in Bohemia as -early as the twelfth century; and so late as 1330 their community -was a teaching centre, able to send money help to the Waldensians of -Italy. So apparent was the heredity that Æneas Sylvius, afterwards -Pope Pius II, maintained that the Hussites were a branch of the -Waldenses. [1912] - -Before Huss too a whole series of native reformers, beginning -with the Moravian Militz, Archdeacon of Prague, had set up a partly -anti-clerical propaganda. Militz, who gave up his emoluments (1363) to -become a wandering preacher, actually wrote a Libellus de Anti-christo, -affirming that the Church was already in Anti-christ's power, or nearly -so. [1913] It was written while he was imprisoned by the Inquisition -at Rome at the instance of the mendicant orders, whom he censured. As, -however, the later hostility he incurred, up to his death, was on the -score of his influence with the people, the treatise cannot well have -been current in his lifetime. A contemporary, Conrad of Waldhausen, -holding similar views, joined Militz in opposing the mendicant friars -as Wiclif was doing at the same period; and the King of Bohemia (the -emperor Charles IV) gave zealous countenance to both. A follower of -Militz, Matthias of Janow, a prebendary of Prague, holding the same -views as to Anti-christ, wrote a book on The Abomination of Desolation -of Priests and Monks, and yet another to similar effect. - -There was thus a considerable movement in the direction of Church -reform before either Huss or Wiclif was heard in Bohemia; and a -Bohemian king had shown a reforming zeal, apparently not on financial -motives, before any other European potentate. And whereas racial -jealousy of the dominant Italians was a main factor in the movement of -Luther, the much more strongly motived jealousy of the Czechs against -the Germans who exploited Bohemia was a main element in the salient -movement of the Hussites. [1914] Called in to work the silver mines, -and led further by the increasing field for commerce and industry, -[1915] the more civilized Germans secured control of the Czech church -and monasteries, appropriating most of the best livings. As they -greatly predominated also at the University of Prague, Huss, whose -inspiration was largely racial patriotism, wrought with his colleague -Jerome to have the university made strictly national. [1916] When, -accordingly, the German heads of the university still (1403 and 1408) -condemned the doctrines of Wiclif as preached by Huss, the motives -of the censors were as much racial and economic as theological; that -is to say, the "Teutonic conscience" operated in its own interest to -the exaltation of papal rule against the Czech conscience. - -The first crisis in the racial struggle ended in Huss's obtaining a -royal decree (1409) giving three votes in university affairs (wherein, -according to medieval custom, the voting was by nations) to the -Bohemians, and only one to the Germans, though the latter were the -majority. Thereupon a multitude of the German students marched back to -Germany, where there was founded for them the university of Leipzig; -[1917] and the racial quarrel was more envenomed than ever. - -At the same time the ecclesiastical authorities, closely allied -with the German interest, took up the cause of the Church against -heresy; and Archbishop Sbinko of Prague, having procured a papal bull, -caused a number of Wiclifian and other manuscripts to be burned [1918] -(1410), soon after excommunicating Huss. The now nationalist university -protested, and the king sequestrated the estates of the archbishop -on his refusal to indemnify the owners of the manuscripts. In 1411, -further, Huss denounced the proposed papal crusade against Naples, -and in 1412 the sale of indulgences by permission of Pope John XXIII, -exactly as Luther denounced those of Leo X a century later, calling the -Pope Antichrist in the Lutheran manner, while his partizans burned the -papal bulls. [1919] For the rest, he preached against image-worship, -auricular confession, ceremonialism, and clerical endowments. [1920] -At the Council of Constance (1415), accordingly, there was arrayed -against him a solid mass of German churchmen, including the ex-rector -of Prague University, now bishop of Misnia. Further, the Germans -were scholastically, as a rule, Nominalists, and Huss a Realist; -and as Gerson, the most powerful of the French prelates, was zealous -for the former school, he threw his influence on the German side, -[1921] as did the Bishop of London on the part of England. [1922] The -forty-five Wiclifian heresies, therefore, were re-condemned; Huss was -sentenced to imprisonment, though he had gone to the Council under a -letter of safe-conduct from the emperor; [1923] and on his refusal to -retract he was burned alive (July 6, 1415). Jerome, taking flight, -was caught, and, being imprisoned, recanted; but later revoked the -recantation and was burned likewise (May 30, 1416). - -The subsequent fortunes of the Hussite party were determined as usual -by the political and economic forces. The King of Bohemia had joyfully -accepted Huss's doctrine that the tithes were not the property of the -churchmen; and had locally protected him as his "fowl with the golden -eggs," proceeding to plunder the Church as did the German princes -in the next age. [1924] When, later, the revolutionary Hussites -began plundering churches and monasteries, the Bohemian nobles in -their turn profited, [1925] and became good Hussites accordingly; -while yet another aristocracy was formed in Prague by the citizens -who managed the confiscations there. [1926] As happened earlier in -Hungary and later in Germany, again, there followed a revolt of the -peasants against their extortionate masters; [1927] and there resulted -a period of ferocious civil war and exacerbated fanaticism. Ziska, -the Hussite leader, had been a strong anti-German; [1928] and when -the emperor entered into the struggle the racial hatred grew more -intense than ever. On the Hussite side the claim for "the cup" (that -is, the administration of the eucharist with wine as well as bread, -in the original manner, departed from by the Church in the eleventh -century) indicated the nature of the religious feeling involved. More -memorable was the communistic zeal of the advanced section of the -Taborites (so called from the town of Tabor, their headquarters), -who anticipated the German movement of the Anabaptists, [1929] a small -minority of them seeking to set up community of women. For the rest, -all the other main features of later Protestantism came up at the -same time--the zealous establishment of schools for the young; [1930] -the insistence on the Bible as the sole standard of knowledge and -practice; inflexible courage in warfare and good military organization, -with determined denial of sacerdotal claims. [1931] - -The ideal collapsed as similar ideals did before and afterwards. First -the main body of the Hussites, led by Ziska, though at war with the -Catholics in general and the Germans in particular, warred murderously -also on the extremer communists, called the Adamites, and destroyed -them (1421). Then, as the country became more and more exhausted -by the civil war, the common people gradually fell away from the -Taborites, who were the prime fanatics of the period. The zeal of -the communist section, too, itself fell away; and at length, in 1434, -the Taborites, betrayed by one of their generals, were defeated with -great slaughter by the nobles in the battle of Lipan. Meanwhile, the -upper aristocracy had reaped the economic fruits of the revolution at -the expense of townsmen, small proprietors, and peasants; [1932] and, -just as the lot of the German peasants in Luther's day was worse after -their vain revolt than before, so the Bohemian peasantry at the close -of the fifteenth century had sunk back to the condition of serfdom -from which they had almost completely emerged at the beginning. It is -doubtful, indeed, whether the material lot of the poor was bettered -in any degree at any stage of the Protestant revolution, in any -country. So little efficacy for social betterment has a movement -guided by a light set above reason. - -That there was in the period some Christian freethinking of a finer -sort than the general Taborite doctrine is proved by the recovery -of the unprinted work of the Czech Peter Helchitsky (Chelcicky), -The Net of Faith, which impeached the current orthodoxy and the -ecclesiastico-political system on the lines of the more exalted -of the Paulicians and the Lollards, very much to the same effect -as the modern gospel of Tolstoy. In the midst of a party of warlike -fanatics Helchitsky denounced war as mere wholesale murder, taught the -sinfulness of wealth, declaimed against cities as the great corrupters -of life, and preached a peaceful and non-resistant anarchism, ignoring -the State. But his party in turn developed into that of the Bohemian -Brethren, an intensely Puritan sect, opposed to learning, and ashamed -of the memory of the communism in which their order began. [1933] -Of permanent gain to culture there is hardly a trace in the entire -evolution. - - - - -§ 4. ANTI-PAPALISM IN HUNGARY - -As in Bohemia, so in Hungary, there was a ready popular inclination -to religious independence of Rome before the Lutheran period. The -limited sway of the Hungarian monarchy left the nobles abnormally -powerful, and their normal jealousy of the wealth of the Church -made them in the thirteenth century favourable to the Waldenses and -recalcitrant to the Inquisition. [1934] In the period of the Hussite -wars a similar protection was long given to the thousands of refugees -led by Ziska from Bohemia into Hungary in 1424. [1935] The famous -king Matthias Corvinus, who put severe checks on clerical revenue, -had as his favourite court poet the anti-papal bishop of Wardein, -John, surnamed Pannonicus, who openly derided the Papal Jubilee as a -financial contrivance. [1936] Under Matthias's successor, the ill-fated -Uladislaus II, began a persecution, pushed on by his priest-ruled queen -(1440), which drove many Hussites into Wallachia; and at the date -of Luther's movement the superior clergy of Hungary were a powerful -body of feudal nobles, living mainly as such, wielding secular power, -and impoverishing the State. [1937] As the crusade got up by the -papacy against the Turks (1514) drew away many serfs, and ended in a -peasant war against the nobility, put down with immense slaughter, and -followed by oppression both of peasants and small landholders, there -was a ready hearing for the Lutheran doctrines in Hungary. Nowhere, -probably, did so many join the Reformation movement in so short -a time. [1938] As elsewhere, a number of the clergy came forward; -and the resistance of the rest was proportionally severe, though -Queen Mary, the wife of King Louis II, was pro-Lutheran. [1939] Books -were burned by cartloads; and the diet was induced to pass a general -decree for the burning of all Lutherans. [1940] The great Turkish -invasion under Soliman (1526) could not draw the priests from their -heresy-hunt; but the subsequent division of sovereignty between John -Zapoyla and Ferdinand I, and above all the disdainful tolerance of the -Turkish Sultan in the parts under his authority, [1941] permitted of a -continuous spread of the anti-papal doctrine. About 1546 four bishops -joined the Lutheran side, one getting married; and in Transylvania -in particular the whole Church property was ere long confiscated to -"the State"; so that in 1556, when only two monasteries remained, -the Bishop withdrew. Of the tithes, it is said, the Protestant clergy -held three-fourths, and retained them till 1848. [1942] In 1559, -according to the same authority, only three families of magnates still -adhered to the pope; the lesser nobility were nearly all Protestant; -and the Lutherans among the common people were as thirty to one. [1943] - -As a matter of course, Church property had been confiscated on -all hands by the nobles, Ferdinand having been unable to hinder -them. Soon after the battle of Mohäcs (1526) the nobles in diet -decided not to fill up the places of deceased prelates, but to make -over the emoluments of the bishoprics to "such men as deserved well -of their country." Within a short time seven great territories were -so accorded to as many magnates and generals, "nearly all of whom -separated from the Church of Rome, and became steady supporters -of the Reformation." [1944] The Hungarian "Reformation" was thus -remarkably complete. - -Its subsequent decadence is one of the proofs that, even as the -Reformation movement had succeeded by secular force, so it was only to -be maintained on the same footing by excluding Catholic propaganda. In -Hungary, as elsewhere, strife speedily arose among Reformers on -the two issues on which reason could play within the limits of -Scripturalism--the doctrine of the eucharist and the divinity of -Jesus. On the former question the majority took the semi-rationalist -view of Zwingli, making the eucharist a simple commemoration; -and a strong minority in Transylvania became Socinian. The Italian -Unitarian Giorgio Biandrata (or Blandrata [1945]), driven to Poland -from Switzerland for his anti-trinitarianism, and called from Poland to -be the physician of the Prince of Transylvania, organized a ten days' -debate between Trinitarians and Unitarians at Weissenberg in 1568; -and at the close the latter obtained from the nobles present all the -privileges enjoyed by the Lutherans, even securing control of the -cathedral and schools of Clausenburg. [1946] It is remarkable that -this, the most advanced movement of Protestantism, has practically -held its ground in Transylvania to modern times. [1947] - -The advance, however, meant desperate schism, and disaster to the -main Protestant cause. The professors of Wittemberg appealed to the -orthodox authorities to suppress the heresy, with no better result -than a public repudiation of the doctrine of the Trinity at the Synod -of Wardein, [1948] and an organization of the Unitarian Churches. In -due course these in turn divided. In 1578 Biandrata's colleague, -Ferencz Davides, contended for a cessation of prayers to Christ, -whereupon Biandrata invited Fausto Sozzini from Basel to confute him; -and the confutation finally took the shape of a sentence of perpetual -imprisonment on Davides in 1579 by the Prince of Transylvania, to -whom Biandrata and Sozzini referred the dispute. The victim died -in a few days--by one account, in a state of frenzy. [1949] Between -the Helvetic and Augsburg confessionalists, meanwhile, the strife was -equally bitter; and it needed only free scope for the new organization -of the Jesuits to secure the reconquest of the greater part of Hungary -for the Catholic Church. - -The course of events had shown that the Protestant principle of private -judgment led those who would loyally act on it further and further from -the historic faith; and there was no such general spirit of freethought -in existence as could support such an advance. In contrast with the -ever-dividing and mutually anathematizing parties of the dissenters, -the ostensible solidity of the Catholic Church had an attraction which -obscured all former perception of her corruptions; and the fixity of -her dogma reassured those who recoiled in horror from Zwinglianism and -Socinianism, as the adherents of these systems recoiled in turn from -that of Davides. Only the absolute suppression of the Jesuits, as in -Elizabethan England, could have saved the situation; and the political -circumstances which had facilitated the spread of Protestantism were -equally favourable to the advent of the reaction. As the Huguenot -nobles in France gradually withdrew from their sect in the seventeenth -century, so the Protestant nobles in Hungary began to withdraw from -theirs towards the end of the sixteenth. What the Jesuits could not -achieve by propaganda was compassed by imperial dragonnades; and -in 1601 only a few Protestant congregations remained in all Styria -and Carinthia. [1950] Admittedly, however, the Jesuits wrought much -by sheer polemic, the pungent writings of their Cardinal Pazmány -having the effect of converting a number of nobles; [1951] while the -Protestants, instead of answering the most effective of Pazmány's -attacks, The Guide to Truth, spent their energies in fighting each -other. [1952] - -In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there ensued enough of -persecution by the Catholic rulers to have roused a new growth of -Protestantism, if that could longer avail; but the balance of forces -remained broadly unchanged. Orthodox Protestantism and orthodox -Unitarianism, having no new principle of criticism as against those -turned upon themselves by the Jesuits, and no new means of obtaining an -economic leverage, have made latterly no headway against Catholicism, -which is to-day professed by more than half the people of Hungary, -while among the remainder the Greek Catholics and Greek Orientals -respectively outnumber the Helvetic and Lutheran Churches. The future -is to some more searching principle of thought. - - - - -§ 5. PROTESTANTISM IN POLAND - -The chief triumph of the Jesuit reaction was won in Poland; and -there, perhaps, is to be found the best illustration of the failure -of mere Protestantism, on the one hand, to develop a self-maintaining -intellectual principle, and the worse failure, on the other hand, -of an organized and unresisted Catholicism to secure either political -or intellectual vitality. - -Opposition to the papacy on nationalist as well as on general grounds -is nearly as well marked in Polish history as in Bohemian, from the -pagan period onwards, the first Christian priesthood being chiefly -foreign, [1953] while, as in Bohemia, the people clung to vernacular -worship. In 1078 we find King Boleslav the Dauntless (otherwise -the Cruel) executing the Bishop of Cracow, taxing the lands of the -Church, and vetoing the bestowal of posts on foreigners. [1954] He in -turn was driven into exile by a combination of clergy and nobles. A -century later a Polish diet vetoes the confiscation of the property -of deceased bishops by the sovereign princes of the various provinces; -and a generation later still the veto is seen to be disregarded. [1955] -In the middle of the thirteenth century there are further violent -quarrels between dukes and clergy over tithes, the former successfully -ordering and the latter vainly resisting a money commutation; till in -1279 Duke Boleslav of Cracow is induced to grant the bishops almost -unlimited immunities and powers. [1956] Under Casimir the Great -(1333-1370) further strifes occur on similar grounds between the -equestrian order and the clergy, the king sometimes supporting the -latter against the former, as in the freeing of serfs, and sometimes -enforcing taxation of Church lands with violence. [1957] In the next -reign the immunities granted by Boleslav in 1279 are cancelled by the -equestrian order, acting in concert. And while these strifes had all -been on economic grounds, we meet in 1341 with a heretical movement, -set up by John Pirnensis, who denounced the pope as Antichrist in -the fashion of the Bohemian reformers of the next generation. The -people of Breslau seem to have gone over bodily to the heresy; and -when the Inquisition of Cracow attempted forcible repression the -Chief Inquisitor was murdered in a riot. [1958] - -It was thus natural that in the fourteenth century the Hussite movement -should spread greatly in Poland, and the papacy be defied in matters -of nomination by the king. [1959] The Poles had long frequented -the university of Prague; and Huss's colleague Jerome was called -in to organize the university of Cracow in 1413. Against the Hussite -doctrines the Catholic clergy had to resort largely to written polemic, -[1960] their power being small; though the king confirmed their -synodical decree making heresy high treason. In 1450 Poland obtained -its law of Habeas Corpus, [1961] over two centuries before England; -and under that safeguard numbers of the nobility declared themselves -Hussites. In 1435 some of the chief of these formed a confederation -against Church and crown; and in 1439 they proclaimed an abolition of -tithes, and demanded, on the lines of the earlier English Lollards, -that the enormous estates of the clergy should be appropriated to -public purposes. In the diet of 1459, again, a learned noble, John -Ostrorog, who had studied at Padua, delivered an address, afterwards -expanded into a Latin book, denouncing the revenue exactions of the -papacy, and proposing to confiscate the annates, or first fruits of -ecclesiastical offices so exacted; proceeding further to bring against -the Polish clergy in general all the usual charges of simony, avarice, -and fraud, and indicting the mendicant orders as having demoralized -the common people. [1962] - -The Poles having no such nationalist motive in their Hussitism as had -the Bohemians, who were fighting German domination, there took place -in Poland no such convulsions as followed the Bohemian movement; but, -when the Lutheran impulse came in the next century, the German element -which had been added to Poland by the incorporation of the order -and territory of the Teutonic knights in 1466 made an easy way for -the German heresy. In Dantzic the Lutheran inhabitants in 1524 took -the churches from the Catholics, and, terrorizing the town council, -shut up and secularized the monasteries and convents. [1963] In 1526, -with due bloodshed, the king effected a counter-revolution in the -Catholic interest; but still the heresy spread, the law of Habeas -Corpus thwarting all clerical attempts at persecution, and the king -being at heart something of an indifferentist in religion. [1964] In -the province of Great Poland was formed (1530-40) a Lutheran church, -protected by a powerful family; and in Cracow a group of scholars -formed a non-sectarian organization to evangelize the country. Among -them, about 1546, occurred the first expression of Polish Unitarianism, -the innovator being Adam Pastoris, a Dutch or Belgian priest, who -seems to have used at times the name of Spiritus. [1965] - -On lines of simple Protestantism the movement was rapid, many -aristocrats and clergy declaring for it; [1966] and in the Diets of -1550 and 1552 was shown an increasingly strong anti-Catholic feeling, -which the Church was virtually powerless to punish. In 1549 a parish -priest publicly married a wife, and the bishop of Cracow abandoned the -attempt to displace him. The next bishop, Zebrzydowski, a favourite -pupil of Erasmus, was said by a Socinian writer of the period to have -openly expressed disbelief in immortality and other dogmas; [1967] -but when in 1552 a noble refused to pay tithes, he ecclesiastically -condemned him to death, and declared his property confiscated. The -sentence, however, could not be put in force; and when the other -heads of the Church, seeing their revenues menaced and their clergy in -large part tending to heresy, [1968] attempted a general and severe -prosecution of backsliding priests, the resistance of the magistracy -brought the effort to nothing. [1969] The Diet of 1552 practically -abrogated the ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and despite much intrigue -the economic interest of the landowners continued to maintain the -Protestant movement, which was rapidly organized on German and Swiss -models. It was by the play of its own elements of strife that its -ascendancy was undermined. - -On the one hand, an influential cleric, Orzechowski, who had married -and turned Protestant, reconciled himself to Rome on the death of his -wife, having already begun a fierce polemic against the Unitarian -tendencies appearing on the Protestant side in the teaching of the -Italian Stancari (1550); on the other hand, those tendencies gained -head till they ruptured the party, of which the Trinitarian majority -further quarrelled violently among themselves till, as in Hungary, -many were driven back to the arms of Catholicism. In a Synod held in -1556, one Peter Goniondzki [1970] (Gonesius)--who as a Catholic had -violently opposed Stancari in 1550, but in the interim had studied in -Switzerland and turned Protestant--took up a more anti-Trinitarian -position than Stancari's, affirming three Gods, of whom the Son -and the Spirit were subordinate to the Father. A few years later -he declared against infant baptism--here giving forth opinions he -had met with in Moravia; and he rapidly drew to him a considerable -following alike of ministers and of wealthy laymen. [1971] - -It was thus not the primary influence of Lelio Sozzini, who had visited -Poland in 1551 and did not return till 1558, that set up the remarkable -growth of Unitarianism in that country. It would seem rather that in -the country of Copernicus the relative weakness of the Church had -admitted of a more common approach to freedom of thought than was -seen elsewhere; [1972] and the impunity of the new movements brought -many heterodox fugitives (as it did Jews) from other lands. One of the -newcomers, the learned Italian, George Biandrata, whose Unitarianism -had been cautiously veiled, was made one of the superintendents of -the "Helvetic" Church of Little Poland, and aimed at avoidance of -dogmatic strifes; but after his withdrawal to Transylvania Gregorius -Pauli, a minister of Cracow, of Italian descent, went further than -Gonesius had done, and declared Jesus to be a mere man. [1973] He -further preached community of goods, promised a speedy millennium, -and condemned the bearing of arms. [1974] After various attempts -at suppression and compromise by the orthodox majority, a group of -Unitarian ministers and nobles formally renounced the doctrine of -the Trinity at the Conference of Petrikov in 1562; and, on a formal -condemnation being passed by an orthodox majority at Cracow in 1563, -there was formed a Unitarian Church, with forty-two subscribing -ministers, Zwinglian as to the eucharist, and opposed to infant -baptism. [1975] Ethically, its doctrine was humane and pacificatory, -its members being forbidden to go to law or to take oaths; and for -a time the community made great progress, the national Diet being, -by one account, "filled with Arians" for a time. [1976] - -Meantime the Calvinist, Zwinglian, and Lutheran Protestant Churches -quarrelled as fiercely in Poland as elsewhere, every compromise -breaking down, till the abundant relapses of nobles and common people -to Catholicism began to rebuild the power of the old Church, which -found in "the Great Cardinal," Hosius, a statesman and controversialist -unequalled on the Protestant side. Backed by the Jesuits, he gained -by every Protestant dispute, the Jesuit order building itself up with -its usual skill. And the course of politics told conclusively in the -same direction. King Stephen Battory favoured the Jesuits; and King -Sigismund III, who had been educated as a Catholic by his mother, -systematically gave effect to his personal leanings by the use of his -peculiar feudal powers. Under the ancient constitution the king had -the bestowal of a number of life-tenures of great estates, called -starosties; and the granting of these Sigismund made conditional -on the acceptance of Catholicism. [1977] Thus the Protestantism of -the nobles, which had been in large part originally determined by -economic interests, was dissolved by a reversal of the same force, -very much in the fashion in which it was disintegrated in France by the -policy of Richelieu at the same period. At the close of Sigismund's -reign Protestantism was definitively broken up; and the Jesuit -ascendancy permitted even of frequent persecutions of heresy. From -these Unitarians could not escape; and at length, in 1658, they were -expelled from the country, now completely subject to Jesuitism. In -the country in which Protestantism and Unitarianism in turn had spread -most rapidly under favouring political and social conditions, the rise -of contrary conditions had most rapidly and decisively overthrown them. - -The record of the heresy of Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary, in fine, -is very much a reduplication of that of early Christianity. Men -presented with an obscure and self-contradictory "revelation" set -themselves zealously to extract from it a body of certain truth, -and in that hopeless undertaking did but multiply strife, till the -majority, wearied with the fruitless quest, resigned themselves like -their ancient prototypes to a rule of dogma under which the reasoning -faculty became inert. Sane rationalism had to find another path, -in a more enlightened day. - - - - -§ 6. THE STRUGGLE IN FRANCE - -The political and economic conditioning of the Reformation may perhaps -best be understood by following the fortunes of Protestantism in -France. When Luther began his schism, France might reasonably have been -held a much more likely field for its extension than England. While -King Henry was still to earn from the papacy the title of "Defender -of the Faith" as against Luther, King Francis had exacted from the -Pope (1516) a Concordat by which the appointment of all abbots and -bishops in France was vested in the crown, the papacy receiving only -the annates, or first year's revenue. For centuries too the French -throne and the papacy had been chronically at strife; for seventy -years a French pope, subservient to the king, had sat at Avignon; -and before the Concordat the "Pragmatic Sanction," first enacted in -1268 by the devout St. Louis, had since the reign of Charles VII, who -reinforced it (1438), kept the Gallican Church on a semi-independent -footing towards Rome. By the account of the chancellor Du Prat in -1517, the "Pragmatic," then superseded by the Concordat, had isolated -France among the Catholic peoples, causing her to be regarded as -inclined to heresy. [1978] In 1512 the Council of Pisa, convoked by -Louis XII, had denounced Pope Julius II as a dangerous schismatic, -and he had retaliated by placing France under interdict. In the -previous year the French king had given his protection to a famous -farce by Pierre Gringoire, in which, on Shrove Tuesday, the Pope was -openly ridiculed. [1979] Nowhere, in short, was the papacy as such -less respected. - -The whole strife, however, between the French kings and the popes had -been for revenue, not on any question of doctrine. In the three years -(1461-64) during which Louis XI had for his own purposes suspended -the Pragmatic Sanction, it was found that 2,500,000 crowns had -gone from France to Rome for "expetatives" and "dispensations," -besides 340,000 crowns for bulls for archbishoprics, bishoprics, -abbeys, priories, and deaneries. [1980] This drain was naturally -resisted by Church and Crown alike. Louis XI restored the Pragmatic -Sanction. Louis XII re-enacted it in 1499 with new severity; and the -effect of the Concordat of Francis I was merely to win over the Pope -by dividing between the king and him the power of plunder by the sale -of ecclesiastical offices. [1981] It was accordingly much resented by -the Parlement, the University, the clergy, and the people of Paris; -but the king overbore all opposition. Though, therefore, he had at -times some disposition to make a "reform" on the Lutheran lines, he -had no such motive thereto as had the kings and nobles of the other -northern countries; and he had further no such personal motive as had -Henry VIII of England. Under the existing arrangement he was as well -provided for as might be, since "the patronage of some six hundred -bishoprics and abbeys furnished him with a convenient and inexpensive -method of providing for his diplomatic service, and of rewarding -literary merit." [1982] The troubles in Germany, besides, were a -warning against letting loose a movement of popular fanaticism. [1983] - -When, therefore, Protestantism and Lutheranism began to show head -in France, they had no friends at once powerful and zealous. Before -Luther, in 1512, Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples laid down in the commentary -on his Latin translation of the Pauline Epistles the Lutheran -doctrine of grace, and in effect denied the received doctrine of -transubstantiation. [1984] In 1520 his former pupil, Guillaume -Briçonnet, Bishop of Meaux, invited him and some younger reformers, -among them Guillaume Farel, to join him in teaching in his diocese; -and in 1523 appeared Lefèvre's translation of and commentary on -the gospels, which effectually began the Protestant movement in -France. [1985] - -Persecution soon began. The king's adoring sister, Margaret, Duchess -of Alençon (afterwards Queen of Navarre), was the friend of Briçonnet, -but was powerless to help at home even her own intimates. [1986] At -first the king and his mother encouraged the movement at Meaux while -sending out a dozen preachers through France to combat the Lutheran -teaching; [1987] but in 1524, setting out on his Italian campaign, -the king saw fit to conciliate his clergy, and his clerical chancellor -Du Prat began measures of repression, the queen-mother assenting, and -Briçonnet's own brother assisting. Already, in 1521, the Sorbonne had -condemned Luther's writings, and the Parlement of Paris had ordered -the surrender of all copies. In 1523 the works of Louis de Berquin, -the anti-clerical friend of Erasmus, were condemned, and himself -imprisoned; and Briçonnet consented to issue synodal decrees against -Luther's books and against certain Lutheran doctrines preached in -his own diocese. Only by the king's intervention was Berquin at this -time released. - -The first man slain was Jean Chastellain, a shoemaker of Tournay, -burned at Vic in Lorraine on January 12, 1525. The next was a -wool-carder of Meaux, [1988] who was first whipped and branded -for a fanatical outrage, then burned to death, with slow tortures, -for a further outrage against an image of the Virgin at Metz (July, -1525). Later, an ecclesiastic of the Meaux group, Jacques Banvan -of Picardy, was prosecuted at Paris for anti-Lutheran heresy, and -publicly recanted; but repented, retracted his abjuration, and was -burned on the Place de Grève, in August, 1526; a nameless "hermit -of Livry" suffering the same death about the same time beside the -cathedral of Notre Dame. [1989] Meantime Lefèvre had taken refuge -in Strasburg, and, despite a letter of veto from the king, now in -captivity at Madrid, his works were condemned by the Sorbonne. When -released, the king not only recalled him but made him tutor to his -children. Ecclesiastical pressures, however, forced him finally to -take refuge under the Queen of Navarre at Nérac, in Gascony, where -he mourned his avoidance of martyrdom. [1990] - -So determined had been the persecution that in 1526 Berquin was -a second time imprisoned, and with difficulty saved from death -by the written command of the captive king, sent on his sister's -appeal. [1991] And when the released king, to secure the deliverance -of his hostage sons, felt bound to conciliate the Pope, and to secure -funds had to conciliate the clergy, Marguerite, compelled to marry the -king of Navarre, could do nothing more for Protestantism, [1992] being -herself openly and furiously denounced by the Catholic clergy. [1993] -Bought by a clerical subsidy, the king, on the occasion of a new -outrage on a statue of the Virgin (1528), [1994] associated himself -with the popular indignation; and when the audacious Berquin, despite -the dissuasions of Erasmus, resumed his anti-Catholic polemic, and in -particular undertook to prove that Béda, the chief of the Sorbonne, -was not a Christian, [1995] he was re-arrested, tried, and condemned -to be publicly branded and imprisoned for life. On his announcing an -appeal to the absent king, and to the pope, a fresh sentence, this -time of death, was hurriedly passed; and he was strangled and burned -(1529) within two hours of the sentence, [1996] to the intense joy -of the ecclesiastical multitude. - -After various vacillations, the king in 1534 had the fresh pretext -of Protestant outrage--the affixing of an anti-Catholic placard in -all of the principal thoroughfares of Paris, and to the door of the -king's own room [1997]--for permitting a fresh persecution after -he had refused the Pope's request that he should join in a general -extermination of heresy, [1998] and there began at Paris a series of -human sacrifices. It will have been observed that Protestant outrages -had provoked previous executions; and there is some ground for the view -that, but for the new and exasperating outrage of 1534, the efforts -which were being officially made for a modus vivendi might have met -with success. [1999] This hope was now frustrated. In November, 1534, -seven men were condemned to be burned alive, one of them for printing -Lutheran books. In December others followed; and in January, 1535, -on the occasion of a royal procession "to appease the wrath of God," -six Lutherans (by one account, three by another) were burned alive -by slow fires, one of the victims being a school-mistress. [2000] -It was on this occasion that the king, in a public speech, declared: -"Were one of my arms infected with this poison, I would cut it -off. Were my own children tainted, I should immolate them." [2001] - -Under such circumstances religious zeal naturally went far. In six -months there were passed 102 sentences of death, of which twenty-seven -were executed, the majority of the condemned having escaped by -flight. Thereafter the individual burnings are past counting. On an -old demand of the Sorbonne, the king actually sent to the Parlement -an edict abolishing the art of printing; [2002] which he duly recalled -when the Parlement declined to register it. But the French Government -was now committed to persecution. The Sorbonne's declaration against -Luther in 1521 had proclaimed as to the heretics that "their impious -and shameless arrogance must be restrained by chains, by censures--nay, -by fire and flame, rather than confuted by argument"; [2003] and in -that spirit the ruling clergy proceeded, the king abetting them. In -1543 he ordained that heresy should be punished as sedition; [2004] and -in 1545 occurred the massacres of the Vaudois, before described. The -result of this and further savageries was simply the wider diffusion of -heresy, and a whole era of civil war, devastation, and demoralization. - -Meantime Calvin had been driven abroad, to found a Protestant polity at -Geneva and give a lead to those of England and Scotland. The balance -of political forces prevented a Protestant polity in France; but -nowhere else in the sixteenth century did Protestantism fight so long -and hard a battle. That the Reformation was a product of "Teutonic -conscience" is an inveterate fallacy. [2005] The country in which -Protestantism was intellectually most disinterested and morally most -active was France. "The main battle of erudition and doctrine against -the Catholic Church," justly contends Guizot, "was sustained by the -French reformers; it was in France and Holland, and always in French, -that most of the philosophic, historical, and polemic works on that -side were written; neither Germany nor England, certainly, employed -in the cause at that epoch more intelligence and science." [2006] Nor -was there in France--apart from the provocative insults to Catholics -above mentioned--any such licence on the Protestant side as arose in -Germany, though the French Protestants were as violently intolerant -as any. Their ultimate decline, after long and desperate wars ending -in a political compromise, was due to the play of socio-economic -causes under the wise and tolerant administration of Richelieu, who -opened the royal services to the Protestant nobles. [2007] The French -character had proved as unsubduable in Protestantism as any other; and -the generation which in large part gradually reverted to Catholicism -did but show that it had learned the lesson of the strifes which had -followed on the Reformation--that Protestantism was no solution of -either the moral or the intellectual problems of religion and politics. - - - - -§ 7. THE POLITICAL PROCESS IN BRITAIN - -It was thus by no predilection or faculty of "race" that the -Reformation so-called came to be associated historically with the -northern or "Teutonic" nations. They simply succeeded in making -permanent, by reason of more propitious political circumstances, -a species of ecclesiastical revolution in which other races led the -way. As Hussitism failed in Bohemia, Lollardism came to nothing -in England in the same age, after a period of great vogue and -activity. [2008] The designs of Parliament on the revenues of the -Church at the beginning of the fifteenth century [2009] had failed by -reason of the alliance knit between Church and Crown in the times when -the latter needed backing; and at the accession of Henry VIII England -was more orthodox than any of the other leading States of Northern -Europe. [2010] Henry was himself passionately orthodox, and was much -less of a reformer in his mental attitude than was Wolsey, who had -far-reaching schemes for de-Romanizing the Church alike in England and -France, and who actually gave the king a handle against him by his -plans for turning Church endowments to educational purposes. [2011] -The personal need of the despotic king for a divorce which the pope -dared not give him was the first adequate lead to the rejection of the -papal authority. On this the plunder of the monasteries followed, as -a forced measure of royal finance, [2012] of precaution against papal -influence, and for the creation of a body of new interests vitally -hostile to a papal restoration. The king and the mass of the people -were alike Catholics in doctrine; the Protestant nobles who ruled -under Edward VI were for the most part mere cynical plunderers, -appropriating alike Church goods, lands, and school endowments -more shamelessly than even did the potentates of Germany; and on -the accession of Queen Mary the nation gladly reverted to Romish -usages, though the spoil-holders would not surrender a yard of Church -lands. [2013] Had there been a succession of Catholic sovereigns, -Catholicism would certainly have been restored. Protestantism was -only slowly built up by the new clerical and heretical propaganda, -and by the state of hostility set up between England and the Catholic -Powers. It was the episode of the Spanish Armada that, by identifying -Catholicism with the cause of the great national enemy, made the -people grow definitely anti-Catholic. Even in Shakespeare's dramas -the old state of things is seen not yet vitally changed. - -In Scotland, though there the priesthood had fewer friends than almost -anywhere else, the act of Reformation was mainly one of pure and -simple plunder of Church property by the needy nobility, in conscious -imitation of the policy of Henry VIII, at a time when the throne -was vacant; and there too Protestant doctrine was only gradually -established by the new race of preachers, trained in the school of -Calvin. In Ireland, on the other hand, Protestantism became identified -with the cause of the oppressor, just as for England Romanism was -the cause of the enemy-in-chief. "Race" and "national character," -whatever they may be understood to mean, had nothing whatever to do -with the course of events, and doctrinal enlightenment had just as -little. [2014] In the words of a distinguished clerical historian: -"No truth is more certain than this, that the real motives of -religious action do not work on men in masses; and that the enthusiasm -which creates Crusaders, Inquisitors, Hussites, Puritans, is not -the result of conviction, but of passion provoked by oppression or -resistance, maintained by self-will, or stimulated by the mere desire -of victory." [2015] To this it need only be added that the desire of -gain is also a factor, and that accordingly the anti-papal movement -succeeded where the balance of political forces could be turned against -the clerical interest, and failed where the latter predominated. - - - - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -THE REFORMATION AND FREETHOUGHT - - -§ 1. GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND - -In the circumstances set forth in the last chapter, the Reformation -could stand for only the minimum of freethought needed to secure -political action. Some decided unbelief there was within its -original sphere; [2016] the best known instance being the private -latitudinarianism of such humanist teachers as Mutianus (Mudt) and -Crotus (Jäger), of the Erfurt University, in the closing years of the -fifteenth century. Trained in Italy, Mutianus, after his withdrawal -to private life at Gotha, in his private correspondence [2017] -avowed the opinion that the sacred books contained many designed -fables; that the books of Job and Jonah were such; and that there -was a secret wisdom in the Moslem opinion that Christ himself was -not crucified, his place being taken by someone resembling him. To -his young friend Spalatin he propounded the question: "If Christ -alone be the way, the truth, and the life, how went it with the men -who lived so many centuries before his birth? Had they had no part -in truth and salvation?" And he hints the answer that "the religion -of Christ did not begin with his incarnation, but is as old as the -world, as his birth from the Father. For what is the real Christ, -the only Son of God, save, as Paul says, the Wisdom of God, with -which he endowed not only the Jews in their narrow Syrian land, but -also the Greeks, the Romans, and the Germans, however different might -be their religious usages." Though some such doctrine could be found -in Eusebius, [2018] it was remarkable enough in the Germany of four -hundred years ago. But Mutianus went still further. To his friend -Heinrich Urban he wrote that "there is but one God and one Goddess" -under the many forms and names of Jupiter, Sol, Apollo, Moses, Christ, -Luna, Ceres, Proserpina, Tellus, Maria. "But," he prudently added, -"heed that you do not spread it abroad. One must hide it in silence, -like Eleusinian mysteries. In religious matters we must avail ourselves -of the cloak of fable and enigma. Thou, with the grace of Jupiter--that -is, the best and greatest God--shouldst silently despise the little -Gods. When I say Jupiter, I mean Christ and the true God. But enough -of these all too high things." Such language hints of much current -rationalism that can now only be guessed at, since it was unsafe even -to write to friends as Mutianus did. On concrete matters of religion he -is even more pronounced, laughing at the worship of the coat and beard -and foreskin of Jesus, calling Lenten food fool's food, contemning -the begging monks, rejecting confession and masses for the dead, -and pronouncing the hours spent in altar-service lost time. In his -house at Gotha, behind the Cathedral, his friend Crotus burlesqued -the Mass, called the relics of saints bones from the gallows, and -otherwise blasphemed with his host. [2019] - -But such esoteric doctrine and indoors unbelief can have had no part -in the main movement; and though at the same period we see among -the common people the satirist Heinrich Bebel, a Swabian peasant's -son, jesting for them over the doctrines of trinity in unity, the -resurrection, doomsday, and the sacraments, [2020] it is certain that -that influence counted for little in the way of serious thinking. It -was only as separate and serious heresies that such doctrines could -long propagate themselves; and Luther in his letter to the people -of Antwerp [2021] speaks of one sect or group as rejecting baptism, -another the eucharist, another the divinity of Jesus, and yet another -affirming a middle state between the present life and the day of -judgment. One teacher in Antwerp he describes as saying that every -man has the Holy Ghost, that being simply reason and understanding, -that there is no hell, and that doing as we would be done by is -faith; but this heretic does not seem to have founded a sect. The -most extensive wave of really innovating thought was that set up by -the social and anti-sacerdotal revolt of the Anabaptists, among whom -occurred also the first popular avowals of Unitarianism. - -In the way of literature, Unitarian doctrine came from John Campanus, -of Jülich; Ludwig Hetzer, a priest of Zürich; and (in a minor degree) -Johann Denk, school-rector in Nüremberg in 1524, [2022] and afterwards -one of the earlier leaders of the Anabaptist movement. All three -were men of academic training; and Hetzer, who wrote explicitly -against the divinity of Christ, had previously made with the aid of -Denk a German translation, which was used by Luther, of the Hebrew -prophets (1527). He was beheaded at Constance in 1529, nominally on -the charge of practising free-love. [2023] Campanus, who published a -book attacking the doctrine of the Trinity and the teaching of Luther, -had to leave Wittemberg in consequence, and finally died after a long -imprisonment in Cleve. Denk--an amiable and estimable man [2024]--is -said, on very scant grounds, to have recanted before he died. - -Not only from such thoroughgoing heresy, but from the whole Anabaptist -secession, and no less from the rising of the peasants, the main -Lutheran movement kept itself utterly aloof; and, though the Catholics -naturally identified the extremer parties with the Reformation, its -official or "Centre" polity made little for intellectual or political -as distinct from ecclesiastical innovation. Towards the Peasants' -Revolt, which at first he favoured, inasmuch as the peasants, whom -he had courted, came to him for counsel, Luther's final attitude was -so brutal that it has to-day almost no apologist; and in this as in -some of his other evil departures the "mild" Melanchthon went with -him. [2025] Their doctrine was the very negation of all democracy, -and must be interpreted as an absolute capitulation to the nobles, -without whose backing they knew themselves to be ecclesiastically -helpless. In the massacres to which Luther gave his eager approval a -hundred thousand men were destroyed. [2026] "From this time onwards," -pronounces Baur, "Luther ceases to be the representative of the -spirit of his time; he represents only one side of it.... Thenceforth -his writings have no more the universal bearing they once had, -but only a particular.... In the political connection we must date -from Luther's attitude to the Peasants' War the Lutheran theory of -unconditional obedience. Christianity, as Luther preached it, has -given to princes unlimited power of despotism and tyranny; while the -poor man, who, without right of protest, must submit to everything, -will be compensated for his earthly sufferings in heaven." [2027] -Naturally the princes henceforth grew more and more Lutheran. - -As naturally the crushed peasantry turned away from the Reformation in -despair. Luther had in the first instance approached them, not they -him. Before the revolt the reformers had made the peasant a kind of -hero in their propaganda; [2028] and when in the first and moderate -stage of the rising its motives were set forth in sixty-two articles, -these were purely agrarian. "There is no trace of a religious element -in them, no indication that their authors had ever heard of Luther -or of the Gospel." [2029] Then it was that Luther commended them; -and thereafter "a religious element began to obtrude." [2030] When -the overthrow began, doubtless sincerely reprobating the violences of -the insurgents, he hounded on the princes in their work of massacre, -Melanchthon chiming in. Thereafter, as Melanchthon admitted, the -people showed a detestation of the Lutheran clergy; [2031] and among -many there was even developed a kind of "materialistic atheism." [2032] - -The political outcome, as aforesaid, was a thoroughly undemocratic -organization of Protestantism in Germany; and, though the -ecclesiastical tyranny which resulted from the more democratic system -of Calvin was not more favourable to progress or happiness, the final -German system of cujus regio, ejus religio--every district taking -the religion of its ruler--must be summed up as a mere negation of -the right of private judgment. Save for the attempt of a Frenchman, -François Lambert of Avignon, to organize a self-governing church, -German Protestantism showed almost no democratic feeling. [2033] The -one poor excuse for Luther was that the peasants had never recognized -the need or duty of maintaining their clergy. [2034] And seeing how -the wealth of the Church went to the nobles and the well-to-do, and -how downtrodden were the peasants all along, it would be surprising -indeed if they had. They were not the workers of the ecclesiastical -Reformation, and it wrought little or nothing for them. - -The side on which the whole movement made for new light was its -promotion of common schools, which enabled many of the people for -the first time to read. [2035] This tendency had been seen among -the Waldenses, the Lollards, and the Hussites, and for the same -reasons. Such movements depended for their existence on the reading -of the sacred books by the people for themselves; and to make readers -was their first concern. In this connection, of course, note must -be taken of the higher educational revival before the Reformation, -[2036] without which the ecclesiastical revolution could not have -taken place even in Germany. As we saw, a literary expansion preceded -the Hussite movement in Bohemia; and the stir of concern for written -knowledge, delightedly acclaimed by Ulrich von Hutten, is recognized by -all thoughtful historians in Germany before the rise of Luther. Such -enlightenment as that of Mutianus was far in advance of Luther's own; -and enlightenment of a lower degree cannot have been lacking. The -ability to read, indeed, must have been fairly general in the middle -class in Germany, for it appears that the partisan favour shown -everywhere to Luther's writings by the printers and booksellers gave -him an immense propagandist advantage over his Catholic opponents, -who could secure for their replies only careless or bad workmanship, -and were thus made to seem actually illiterate in the eyes of the -reading public. [2037] - -As regards Switzerland, again, it is the admitted fact that "the -educational movement began before the religious revival, and was a -cause of the Reformation rather than a result." [2038] So in Holland, -the Brethren of the Common Lot (Fratres Vitæ Communis), a partially -communistic but orthodox order of learned and unlearned laymen which -lasted from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, did much for -the schooling of the common people, and passed on their impulse to -Germany. [2039] Similarly in Scotland the schools seem to have been -fairly numerous even in the later Catholic period. [2040] There, and -in some other countries, it was the main merit of the Reformation to -carry on zealously the work so begun, setting up common schools in -every parish. In Lutheran Germany this work was for a long period much -more poorly done, as regarded the peasantry. These had been trodden -down after their revolt into a state of virtual slavery. "The broad -midlands and the entire eastern part of Germany were filled with -slaves, who had neither status nor property nor education"; [2041] -and it was long before any large number of the people were taught to -read and write, [2042] the schooling given at the best being a scanty -theological drill. [2043] - -But indeed for two-thirds of its adherents everywhere the Reformation -meant no other reading than that of the Bible and catechisms and -theological treatises. Coming as it did within one or two generations -of the invention of printing, it stood not for new ideas, but for -the spread of old. That invention had for a time positively checked -the production of new books, the multiplication of the old having -in a measure turned attention to the past; [2044] and the diffusion -of the Bible in particular determined the mental attitude of the -movement in mass. The thinking of its more disinterested promoters -began and ended in Bibliolatry: Luther and Calvin alike did but -set up an infallible book and a local tyranny against an infallible -pope and a tyranny centring at Rome. Neither dreamt of toleration; -and Calvin, the more competent mind of the two, did but weld the -detached irrationalities of the current theology into a system which -crushed reason and stultified the morality in the name of which he -ruled Geneva with a rod of iron. [2045] It is remarkable that both -men reverted to the narrowest orthodoxies of the earlier Church, in -defiance of whatever spirit of reasonable inquiry had been on the -side of their movement. "It is a quality of faith," wrote Luther, -"that it wrings the neck of reason and strangles the beast"; [2046] -and he repeatedly avowed that it was only by submitting his mind -absolutely to the Scriptures that he could retain his faith. [2047] -"He despised reason as heartily as any papal dogmatist could despise -it. He hated the very thought of toleration or comprehension." [2048] -And when Calvin was combated by the Catholic Pighius on the question of -predestination and freewill, his defence was that he followed Christ -and the Apostles, while his opponents resorted to human thoughts and -reasonings. [2049] On the same principle he dealt with the Copernican -theory. After once breaking away from Rome both leaders became typical -anti-freethinkers, never even making Savonarola's pretence to resort -to rationalist methods, though of course not more anti-rationalist -than he. The more reasonable Zwingli, who tried to put an intelligible -aspect on one or two of the mysteries of the faith, was scouted by -both, as they scouted each other. - -It is noteworthy that Zwingli, the most open-minded of the Reformers, -owed his relative enlightenment to his general humanist culture, -[2050] and in particular to the influence of Pico della Mirandola -and of Erasmus. It has even been argued that his whole theological -system is derived from Pico, [2051] but it appears to have been from -Erasmus that he drew his semi-rationalistic view of the eucharist, -[2052] a development of that of Berengar, representing it as -a simple commemoration. Such thinking was far from the "spirit -of the Reformation"; and Luther, after the Colloquy of Marburg -(1529), in which he and Melanchthon debated against Zwingli and -Oecolampadius, spoke of those "Sacramentarians" as "not only liars, -but the very incarnation of lying, deceit, and hypocrisy." [2053] -Zwingli's language is less ferocious; but it is confessed of him -that he too practised coercion against minorities in the case alike -of the Anabaptists and of the monasteries and nunneries, and even -in the establishment of his reformed eucharist. [2054] The expulsion -of the nuns of St. Katherinenthal in particular was an act of sheer -tyranny; and the outcome of the methods enforced by him at Zürich -was the bitter hostility of the five Forest Cantons, which remained -Catholic. In war with them he lost his life; and after his death -(1531) his sacramental doctrine rapidly disappeared from Swiss and -Continental Protestantism, [2055] even as it failed to make headway -in England. [2056] At his fall "the words of triumph and cursing used -by Lutherans and others were shameful and almost inhuman." [2057] -In the sequel, for sheer lack of a rational foundation, the other -Protestant sects in turn fell to furious dissension and persecution, -some apparently finding their sole bond of union in hatred of the rest. - - - See Menzel, Geschichte der Deutschen, 3te Aufl. Cap. 431, for a - sample of Lutheran popery; and as to the strifes cp. C. Beard, The - Reformation, as cited, pp. 182-83; Dunham, History of the Germanic - Empire, 1835, iii, 115-20, 153, 169; Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, - ed. 1848, iii, 155-62; A. F. Pollard, in "The Cambridge Modern - History," vol. ii, The Reformation, ch. viii, pp. 277-79. In the - last-cited compilation, however, the strifes of the Protestant - sects are barely indicated. - - As to Luther's attitude towards new science, see his derision of - Copernicus, on scriptural grounds, in the Table Talk, ch. lxix, - Of Astronomy and Astrology. (The passage is omitted from - the English translation in the Bohn Library, p. 341; and the - whole chapter is dropped from the German abridgment published - by Reclam.) Melanchthon was equally unteachable, and actually - proposed to suppress the new teachings by punitive methods. (Initia - Doctrinæ Physicæ, cited by White, Warfare of Science and Theology, - 1896, i, 127.) It has been loosely claimed for Luther that he was - "an enemy to religious persecution" (Lieber, Manual of Political - Ethics, 1839, pt. i, p. 329), when the only evidence offered is - (id. p. 205) that he declared against killing for heresy, because - innocent men were likely to be slain--"Quare nullo modo possum - admittere, falsos doctores occidi." As early as 1524, renouncing - his previous doctrine of non-coercion, he invoked the intervention - of the State to punish blasphemy, declaring that the power of the - sword was given by God for such ends (Bezold, p. 563). Melanchthon - too declared that "Our commands are mere Platonic laws when the - civil power does not give its support" (id. p. 565). - - A certain intellectual illusion is set up even by Bezold when he - writes that in Luther's resort to physical force "the hierarchical - principle had triumphed over one of the noblest principles of the - Reformation." "The Reformation" had no specific principles. Among - its promoters were professed all manner of principles. The - Reformation was the outcome of all their activities, and to make - of it an entity or even a distinct set of theories is to obscure - the phenomena. - - Such flaws of formulation, however, are trifling in comparison - with the mis-statement of the historic fact which is still normal - in academic as in popular accounts of the Reformation. It would - be difficult, for instance, to give seriously a more misleading - account of the Lutheran reformation than the proposition of - Dr. Edward Caird that, "in thrusting aside the claim of the - Church to place itself between the individual and God, Luther - had proclaimed the emancipation of men not only from the leading - strings of the Church, but, in effect, from all external authority - whatever, and even, in a sense, from all merely external teaching - or revelation of the truth" (Hegel, 1883, p. 18). Luther thrust - his own Church precisely where the Catholic Church had been; - bitterly denounced new heresies; and put the Bible determinedly - "between the individual and God." In Luther's own day Sebastian - Franck unanswerably accused him of setting up a paper pope in place - of the human pope he had rejected. Luther's declaration was that - "the ungodly papists prefer the authority of the Church far above - God's Word, a blasphemy abominable and not to be endured, wherewith - ... they spit in God's face. Truly God's patience is exceeding - great, in that they be not destroyed" (Table Talk, ch. i). - - Another misconception is set up by Pattison, who seems to have been - much concerned to shield Calvin from the criticism of the civilized - conscience (see below, p. 452). He pronounces that Calvin's "great - merit lies in his comparative neglect of dogma. He seized the idea - of reformation as a real renovation of human character" (Essays, - ii, 23). If so, the reformer can have had little satisfaction, - for he never admitted having regenerated Geneva. But the claim - that he "comparatively" neglected dogma is true only in the sense - that he was more inquisitorially zealous about certain forms of - private conduct than was Luther. Gruet, indeed, he helped to - slay upon political charges, taking a savage vengeance upon a - personal opponent. But even in Gruet's case he sought later to - add a religious justification to his crime. And it was in the - name of dogma that he put Servetus to death, exiled Castalio, - imprisoned Bolsec, broke with old friends, and imperilled the - entire Genevan polity. Pattison's praise would be much more - appropriate to Zwingli. - - -Luther, though he would probably have been ready enough to punish -Copernicus as a heretic, was saved the evil chance which befel -Calvin of being put in a place of authority where he could in God's -name commit judicial murder. It is by acts so describable that -the name of Calvin is most directly connected with the history of -freethought. In nowise entitled to rank with its furtherers, he is -to be enrolled in the evil catalogue of its persecutors. In the case -of Jacques Gruet on a mixture of political and religious charges, -in that of Michael Servetus on grounds of dogma pure and simple, he -cast upon the record of Genevan Protestantism and upon his own memory -an ineffaceable stain of blood. Gruet, an adherent of the Perrinist -faction of Geneva, a party opposed to Calvin, on being arrested for -issuing a placard against the clerical junto in power, was found, -by the accounts of the Calvinist historians, to have among his papers -some revealing his disbelief in the Christian religion. [2058] This, -however, proves to be a partisan account of the matter, and is hardly -even in intention truthful. In the first place, it was admitted by -Calvin that the placard, affixed by night to the chair of St. Peter -in Geneva, was not in Gruet's handwriting; yet he was arrested, -imprisoned, and put to the torture with the avowed object of making -him confess "that he had acted at the instigation of François Favre, -of the wife of Perrin, and of other accomplices of the same party whom -he must have had." Perrin was the former Captain-General of Geneva, -a popular personage, opposed to Calvin and detested by him. No match -for the vigilant Reformer, Perrin had been through Calvin's intrigues -deprived of his post; and there was a standing feud between his -friends and the Calvinistic party in power. - -The main part of the charges against Gruet was political; and the -most circumstantial was based upon a draft, found among his papers, -of a speech which he had ostensibly proposed to make in the General -Council calling for reform of abuses. The speech contained nothing -seditious, but the intention to deliver it without official permission -was described as lèse-majesté--a term now newly introduced into -Genevan procedure. The other documentary proofs were trivial. In -one fragment of a letter there was an ironical mention of "notre -galant Calvin"; and in a note on a margin of Calvin's book against -the Anabaptists he had written in Latin "All trifles." For the rest, -he was accused of writing two pages in Latin "in which are comprised -several errors," and of being "inclined (plutôt enclin) to say, -recite and write false opinions and errors as to the true words of -Our Saviour." [2059] Concerning his errors the only documentary proof -preserved is from an alleged scrap of his writing in corrupt Latin, -cited by Calvin as a sample of his inability to write Latin correctly: -Omnes tam humane quam divine que dicantur leges factae sunt ad placitum -hominum, which may be rendered, "All so-called laws, divine as well -as human, are made at the will of men." In the act of sentence, he is -declared further to have written obscene verses justifying free love; -to have striven to ruin the authority of the consistory, menaced the -ministers, and abused Calvin; and to have "conspired with the king -of France against the safety of Calvin and the State." - -To make out these charges, for the last of which there seems to be -no evidence whatever, Gruet was put to the torture many times during -many days "according to the manner of the time," says one of Calvin's -biographers. [2060] In reality such unmeasured use of torture was -in Geneva a Calvinistic innovation. Gruet, refusing under the worst -stress of torture to incriminate anyone else, at length, in order to -end it, pleaded guilty to the charges against him, praying in his -last extremity for a speedy death. On July 26, 1547, his half-dead -body was beheaded on the scaffold, the torso being tied and the -feet nailed thereto. Such were the judicial methods and mercies of -a reformed Christianity, guided by a chief reformer. - - - The biographer Henry "cannot repress a sigh" over the thirty - days of double torture of Gruet (ii, 66), but goes on to make a - most disingenuous defence of Calvin, first asserting that he was - not responsible, and then arguing that it would be as unjust to - try Calvin by modern standards as to blame him for not wearing a - perruque à la Louis XIV, or proceeding by the Code Napoléon! The - same moralist declares (p. 68) that "it is really inspiriting to - hear how Calvin stormed in his sermons against the opposite party": - and is profoundly impressed by the "deep religious earnestness" - with which Calvin in 1550 claimed that "The council ought again - to declare aloud that this blasphemer has been justly condemned, - that the wrath of God may be averted from the city." Finally - (p. 69), recording how Gruet's "book" was burned in 1550, the - biographer pronounces that "The Gospel thus gained a victory over - its enemies; in the same manner as in Germany freedom triumphed - when Luther burnt the pope's bull." - - -As to the alleged anti-religious writings of Gruet, they were not -produced or even specified till 1550, three years after his execution, -when they were said to have been found partly in the roof of what -had been his house (now occupied by the secretary of the consistory), -partly behind a chimney, and partly in a dustbin. Put together, they -amounted to thirteen leaves, in a handwriting which was declared by -Calvin to be "juridically, by good examination of trustworthy men, -recognized to be that of Gruet." The time and the singular manner of -their discovery raises the question whether the papers had not been -placed by the finders. The execution of Gruet, the first bloodshed -under Calvin's régime, had roused new hatred against him; the slain -man figured as a martyr in the eyes of the party to which he belonged; -and it had become necessary to discredit him and them if the ascendancy -of Calvin was to be secure. It is solely upon Calvin's account that -we have to depend for our knowledge of Gruet's alleged anti-Christian -doctrine; for the document, after being described and condemned, was -duly burned by the common hangman. If genuine, it was a remarkable -performance. According to the act of condemnation, which is in the -handwriting of Calvin, it derided all religions alike, blasphemed -God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost, the Virgin Mary, Moses, the Patriarchs, -the Prophets, the Apostles, the disciples, the gospels, the Old and -New Testaments, the gospel miracles, and the resurrection. [2061] -Not a single phrase is quoted; we have mere general description, -execration, and sentence. - -Whether the document was a planned forgery, or part of a copy by -Gruet of an anti-Christian treatise theretofore secretly circulated, -will never be known. The story of Gruet soon swelled into a -legend. According to one narrative, he had copied with his own hand and -circulated in Geneva the mysterious treatise, De Tribus Impostoribus, -the existence of which, at that period, is very doubtful. [2062] -On the strength of this and other cases [2063] the Libertines have -been sometimes supposed to be generally unbelievers; but there is -no more evidence for this than for the general ascription to them -of licentious conduct. It appears certain indeed that at that time -the name Libertine was not recognized as a label for all of Calvin's -political opponents, but was properly reserved for the sect so-called; -[2064] but even a vindicator of Calvin admits that "it is undeniable -that the Libertines [i.e. the political opponents of Calvin, so-called -by modern writers] of 1555 were the true political representatives of -the patriots of 1530." [2065] The presumption is that the political -opposition included the more honest and courageous men of liberal and -tolerant tendencies, as Calvin's own following included men of "free" -life. [2066] The really antinomian Libertini of the period were to -be found among the pantheistic-Christian sect or school so-called, -otherwise known as Spirituals, who seem to have been a branch of -the Brethren of the Free Spirit, or fraternity of the "Spirit of -Liberty." These Calvin denounced in his manner; but in 1544 he had also -forced into exile his former friend, Sebastian Castalio (or Castalion; -properly Chatillon), master of the public school at Geneva, for simply -rejecting his doctrine of absolute predestination, striving to have him -driven in turn from Basel; and in 1551 he had caused to be imprisoned -and banished a physician and ex-Carmelite, Jerome Bolsec, for publicly -denying the same dogma. Bolsec, being prevented by Calvin's means -from settling in any neighbouring Protestant community, returned to -Catholicism, [2067] as did many others. After Calvin's death Bolsec -took his revenge in an attack on the reformer in his public and -private character, [2068] which has been treated as untrustworthy -by the more moderate Catholic scholars who deal with the period; -[2069] and which, as regards its account of his private morals, is -probably on all fours with Calvin's own unscrupulous charges against -the "Libertines" and others who opposed him. - - - The tenets of the Libertini are somewhat mystifying, as handled - by Calvin and his biographer Henry, both alike animated by - the odium theologicum in the highest degree. By Calvin's own - account they were mystical Christians, speaking of Christ as "the - spirit which is in the world and in us all," and of the devil - and his angels as having no proper existence, being identical - with the world and sin. Further, they denied the eternity of - the human soul and the freedom of the will; and Calvin charges - them with subverting alike belief in God and morality (Henry, - Life of Calvin, Eng. tr. ii, 45-46). The last charge could - just as validly be brought against his own predestinarianism; - and as regards ethics we find Calvin alternately denouncing the - Libertines for treating all sin as unpardonable, and for stating - that in Christ none could sin. Apparently he gives his inferences - as their doctrines; and the antinomianism which, in the case of - the trial of Madame Ameaux, Henry identifies with pantheism, was - by his own showing of a Christian cast. Little credit, accordingly, - can be given to his summing up that among the Libertines of Geneva - there exhibited itself "a perfectly-formed anti-Christianity," - which he calls "a true offspring of hell" (ii, 49). The residuum - of truth appears to be that in the pantheism of this sect, - as Neander says concerning the Brethren of the Free Spirit - among the Beghards, there were "the foretokens of a thoroughly - anti-Christian tendency, hostile to everything supernatural, every - sentiment of a God above the world; a tendency which contained - ... the germ of absolute rationalism" (Hist. of the Chr. Church, - Torrey's tr. ix, 536). Pantheism, logically extended, obviously - reduces the supernatural and the natural to unity, and is thus - atheistic. But that the pantheists of Geneva in Calvin's day - reached logical consistency is incredible. The Libertine sect, - in all likelihood, was only partially antinomian, and only in - very small part consciously anti-Christian. - - -At this period (1552), on the same issue of predestination, Calvin -broke utterly with one of his closest friends, Jacques de Bourgogne, -Sieur de Falais. [2070] It seemed as if the Protestant polity -were disrupting in a continuous convulsion of dogmatic strife; and -Melanchthon wrote to Bucer in despair over the madness and misery of -a time in which Geneva was returning to the fatalism of the Stoics, -and imprisoning whosoever would not agree with Zeno. [2071] By this -time it must have been clear to some that behind the strifes of -raging theologians there lay a philosophic problem which they could -not sound. It is therefore not surprising to learn that already Basel -University, as fifty years before at Erfurt, there was a latitudinarian -group of professors who aimed at a universal religion, and came near -"naturalism" in the attempt; [2072] while elsewhere in Switzerland, -as we shall see later, there grew up the still freer way of thought -which came to be known as Deism. - -A great impulse to that development, as well as to simple Unitarianism, -must have been given by the execution of Michael Servetus. [2073] -That ill-starred heretic, born of Spanish stock in France, brought -to the propaganda of Unitarianism, of which he may be reckoned the -inaugurator, a determination as strong as Calvin's own. Sent by his -father to study civil law at Toulouse, he began there to study the -Bible, doubtless under the stimulus of the early Protestant discussions -of the time. The result was a prompt advance beyond the Protestant -standpoint. Leaving Toulouse after two or three years' residence, he -visited Bologna and Augsburg in the train of the confessor of Charles -V. Thereafter he visited Lyons and Geneva, and had some intercourse -with Oecolampadius at Basel, where he put in the hands of a bookseller -the signed manuscript of his first book, De Trinitatis erroribus libri -septem. The bookseller sent it on to Hagenau, in Alsace, which as an -"imperial city" seems to have had special freedom in the matter of -book-publishing; and thither, after visiting Bucer and Capito at -Strasburg, Servetus went to have it printed in 1531. [2074] In this -treatise, produced in his twenty-first year, he definitely rejects -Trinitarianism, while putting somewhat obscurely his own idea of -the nature of Jesus Christ--whom, it should be noted, he held in -high reverence. In the following year he produced at the same place -another small treatise, Dialogorum de Trinitate libri duo, wherein -he recasts his first work, "retracting" it and apologizing for its -crudity, but standing substantially to its positions. It was not -till 1553 that he printed at Vienne in Dauphiné, without his name, -his Christianismi Restitutio. [2075] In the interval he had been -doing scientific work as an editor of Ptolemy (1535, Lyons), and as a -student of and lecturer on anatomy and medicine at Paris, where (1536) -he met Calvin on his last visit to France. In 1538 he is found studying -at Louvain; and, after practising medicine at Avignon and Charlieu, -he again studies medicine at Montpellier. The Archbishop of Vienne, -who had heard him lecture at Paris, established him at Vienne as his -confidential physician (1541-53), and there it was that he produced -the book for which he died. About 1545-46 he had rashly written to -Calvin, sending him the MS. of the much-expanded recast of his books -which later appeared as the Restitutio. Calvin sent a hostile reply, -and on the same day wrote to Farel: "If he come, and my influence can -avail, I shall not suffer him to depart alive." Servetus had denounced -the papacy as fiercely as any Protestant could wish, yet his heresy on -the question of the Trinity [2076] was enough to doom him to instant -death at Calvin's hands. Servetus could not get back his MS., and -wrote to a friend about 1547 that he felt sure the affair would bring -him to his death. [2077] When in 1552-53 he had the book privately -printed at Vienne, and the bulk of the edition was sent to Lyons and -Frankfort, the toils closed around him, the ecclesiastical authorities -at Lyons being apprised of the facts by de Trie, a Genevan Protestant, -formerly of Lyons. The whole Protestant world, in fact, was of one -opinion in desiring to suppress Servetus's anti-Trinitarian books, -and the wonder is that he had so long escaped both Protestant and -Catholic fury. Luther had called his first book horribly wicked; and -Melanchthon, who in 1533 foresaw from the second much dangerous debate, -wrote in 1539 to the Venetian Senate to warn them against letting -either be sold. [2078] It is significant of the random character of -Protestant as of Catholic thought that Servetus, like Melanchthon, -was a convinced believer in astrology, [2079] while Luther on Biblical -grounds rejected astrology and the Copernican astronomy alike, and -held devoutly by the belief in witchcraft. The superiority of Servetus -consists in his real scientific work--he having in part given out the -true doctrine of the circulation of the blood [2080]--and his objection -to all persecution of heresy. [2081] Philosophically, he was more than -a mere Scripturist. Though pantheism was not charged upon him, we have -Calvin's testimony that he propounded it in the strongest form. [2082] - -Calvin's guilt in the matter begins with his devices to have -Servetus seized by the Catholic authorities of Lyons [2083]--to set -misbelievers, as he regarded them, to slay the misbeliever--and his -use of Servetus's confidential letters against him. [2084] He was -not repelling a heresy from his own city, but heretic-hunting far -away in sheer malignity. The Catholics were the less cruel gaolers, -and let their prisoner escape, condemning him to death at Vienne -in absence. After some months of wandering he had the temerity to -seek to pass into Italy by way of Geneva, and was there at length -recognized, and arrested. After a long trial he was sentenced to be -burned alive (Oct. 27, 1553). The trial at Geneva is a classic document -in the records of the cruelties committed in honour of chimeras; and -Calvin's part is the sufficient proof that the Protestant could hold -his own with the Catholic Inquisitor in the spirit of hate. [2085] -It has been urged, in his excuse, that the doctrines of Servetus were -blasphemously put; but in point of fact Calvin passed some of his -bitterest denunciation on the statement, cited (from Lorenz Friese) -in a note in Servetus's edition of Ptolemy's Geography, that Judea is -actually a barren and meagre country, and not "flowing with milk and -honey." Despite the citation of ample proof, and the plea that the -passage was drawn from a previous edition, it was by Calvin adjudged -blasphemous in that it "necessarily inculpated Moses and grievously -outraged the Holy Spirit." [2086] The language of Calvin against -Servetus at this point is utterly furious. Had Servetus chanced to -maintain the doctrine of the earth's motion, he would certainly have -been adjudged a blasphemer on that score also; for in the Argument -to his Commentary on Genesis (1563) Calvin doggedly maintains the -Ptolemaic theory. His language tells of much private freethinking -around him on the Mosaic doctrine, and his tone leaves no doubt as -to how he would treat published heresy on that theme. The audacity of -Servetus in suggesting that the 53rd chapter of Isaiah had historical -reference to Cyrus is for him anathema. [2087] - -Even before this hideous episode, Calvin's passion of malevolence -against his theological opponents in his own sect is such as to -shock some of his adoring biographers. [2088] All the Protestant -leaders, broadly speaking, grew more intolerant as they grew in -years--a fair test as between the spirit of dogma and the spirit of -freethought. Calvin had begun by pleading for tolerance and clemency; -Luther, beginning as a humanitarian, soon came to be capable -of hounding on the German nobility against the unhappy peasants; -Melanchthon, tolerant in his earlier days, applauded the burning of -Servetus; [2089] Beza laboriously defended the act. Erasmus stood -for tolerance; and Luther accordingly called him godless, an enemy -of true religion, a slanderer of Christ, a Lucian, an Epicurean, and -(by implication) the greatest knave alive. [2090] - -The burning of Servetus in 1553, however, marked a turning point in -Protestant theological practice on the Continent. There were still -to come the desperate religious wars in France, in which more than -300,000 houses were destroyed, abominable savageries were committed, -and all civilization was thrown back, both materially and morally; -and there was yet to come the still more appalling calamity of the -Thirty Years' War in Germany--a result of the unstable political -conditions set up at the Reformation; but theological human sacrifices -were rapidly discredited. Servetus was not the first victim, but he -was nearly the last. - -The jurist Matthieu Gripaldi (or Gribaldo) lectured on law at -Toulouse, Cahors, Valence, and Padua successively, and, finding his -anti-Trinitarian leanings everywhere a source of danger to him, had -sought a retreat at Fargias near Geneva, then in the jurisdiction -of Berne. Venturing to remonstrate with Calvin against the sentence -on Servetus, he brought upon himself the angry scrutiny of the -heretic-hunter, and was banished from the neighbourhood. For a time -he found refuge in a new professorship at Tübingen; but there too the -alarm was raised, and he was expelled. Coming back to Fargias, he gave -refuge to the heretic Valentinus Gentilis on his escape from Geneva; -and again Calvin attacked him, delivering him to the authorities of -Berne. An abjuration saved him for the time; but he would probably -have met the martyr's fate in time had not his death by the plague, -in 1564, guaranteed him, as Bayle remarks, against any further trial -for heresy. [2091] - - - The effect of theological bias on moral judgment is - interestingly exemplified in the comment of Mosheim on the case - of Servetus. Unable to refer to the beliefs of deists or atheists - without vituperation, Mosheim finds it necessary to add to his - account of Servetus as a highly-gifted and very learned man the - qualification: "Yet he laboured under no small moral defects, - for he was beyond all measure arrogant, and at the same time - ill-tempered, contentious, unyielding, and a semi-fanatic." Every - one of these characterizations is applicable in the highest - degree to Calvin, and in a large degree to Luther; yet for them - the historian has not a word of blame. - - Even among rationalists it has not been uncommon to make light - of Calvin's crimes on the score that his energy maintained a - polity which alone sustained Protestantism against the Catholic - Reaction. This is the verdict of Michelet: "The Renaissance, - betrayed by the accident of the mobilities of France, turning - to the wind of light volitions, would assuredly have perished, - and the world would have fallen into the great net of the fishers - of men, but for that supreme concentration of the Reformation on - the rock of Geneva by the bitter genius of Calvin." And again: - "Against the immense and darksome net into which Europe fell by the - abandonment of France nothing less than this heroic seminary could - avail" (Hist. de France, vol. x, La Réforme: end of pref. and end - of vol.). Though this verdict has been accepted by such critical - thinkers as Pattison (Essays, ii, 30-32) and Lord Morley (Romanes - Lecture on Machiavelli, 1877, p. 47), it is difficult to find - for it any justification in history. - - The nature of the proposition is indeed far from clear. Michelet - appears to mean that Geneva saved Europe as constituting a - political rallying-point, a nucleus for Protestantism. Pattison, - pronouncing that "Calvinism saved Europe" (Essays, ii, 32), - explains that it was by "a positive education of the individual - soul"; and that "this, and this alone, enabled the Reformation to - make head against the terrible repressive forces brought to bear - by Spain--the Inquisition and the Jesuits" (p. 32). The thesis - thus vanishes in rhetoric, for it is quite impossible to give - such a formula any significance in the light of the history of - Protestantism in Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, and Holland. It - implies that where Protestantism finally failed--as in Italy, - France, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, Belgium, parts of Germany, - and parts of Switzerland--it was because the individual spirit - had not been educated enough, which is a mere omission to note - the real economic and political causation. Neither Michelet nor - Pattison had any scientific notion of the nature of the process. - - If we revert to Michelet's claim, we get no more satisfaction. The - very fact that Calvin's polity could subsist without any special - military protection is the proof that it could have subsisted - without the gross cruelty and systematic persecution which marked - it out from the rest of the world, making Geneva "a kind of frozen - hell of austerity and retribution and secret sin." To say otherwise - is to say that freedom and toleration are less attractive to men - than ferocity, tyranny, and gloom. Calvin drove many men back to - Catholicism, and had his full share in the mortal schism which - set Calvinists and Lutherans at daggers drawn for a century, - while Catholicism re-conquered Poland and Bohemia and Hungary, - held France, and nearly re-conquered Lutheran Germany. There - is no reason to suppose that the Reformation would have gone - otherwise in Britain, Scandinavia, and Holland had Geneva gone as - far in tolerance as it actually did in intolerance. To call it, - as Michelet does, an "asylum," in view of Calvin's expulsion or - execution of every man who dared to differ from him, is courageous. - - At the close of his argument (p. 41) Pattison sums up that, - "Greatly as the Calvinistic Churches have served the cause of - political liberty, they have contributed nothing to the cause of - knowledge." The admission is in the main valid; but the claim will - not stand, unless "political liberty" is to be newly defined. The - Calvinistic rule at Geneva was from the first a class tyranny, - which became more and more narrow in its social basis. The - Calvinist clergy and populace of Holland turned their backs on - republican institutions, and became violent monarchists. The - Calvinists of England and Scotland were as determined persecutors - as ever lived. And, indeed, how should liberty anywhere flourish - when knowledge is trodden under foot? - - -The treatment of Bernardino Ochino, who had turned Protestant after -being vicar-general of the Capuchin order, shows the slackening of -ferocity after the end of Servetus. Ochino in a late writing ventured -guardedly to suggest certain relaxations of the law of monogamy--a -point on which some Lutherans went much further than he--and -was besides mildly heretical about the Trinity. [2092] He was in -consequence expelled with his family from the canton of Zürich (1563), -at the age of seventy-six. Finding Switzerland wholly inhospitable, -and being driven by the Catholics from Poland, where he had sought -to join the Socinians, he went to die in Moravia. [2093] This was no -worse treatment than Lutherans and Calvinists normally meted out to -each other; [2094] and several of the Italian Protestants settled at -Geneva who leant to Unitarian views--among them Gribaldo, Biandrata, -and Alciati--found it prudent to leave that fortress of orthodoxy, -where they were open to official challenge. [2095] Finally, when -the Italian Valentinus Gentilis, or Gentile, the anti-Trinitarian, -variously described as Tritheist, Deist, and Arian, uttered his -heresies at Geneva, he contrived, after an imprisonment, a forced -recantation, and a public degradation (1558), to escape thence with -his life, but was duly beheaded at Berne in 1566, refusing this time -to recant. [2096] - -This ends the main Swiss era of theological murder; but a century -was to pass before sectarian hatreds subsided, or the spirit of -persecution was brought under control of civilization. In 1632, indeed, -a Protestant minister, Nicholas Anthoine, was burned at Geneva on -the charge of apostasy to Judaism. As he had been admittedly insane -for a time, and had repeatedly shown much mental excitement, [2097] -his execution tells of a spirit of cruelty worthy of the generation -of Calvin. The Protestant Bibliolatry, in short, was as truly the -practical negation of freethought and tolerance as was Catholicism -itself; and it was only their general remoteness from each other -that kept the different reformed communities from absolute war where -they were not, as in Switzerland, held in check by the dangers around -them. [2098] As it was, they had their full share in the responsibility -for the furious civil wars which so long convulsed France, and for -those which ultimately reduced Germany to the verge of destruction, -arresting her civilization for over a hundred years. - -To sum up. In Germany Protestantism failed alike as a moral and -as an intellectual reform. The lack of any general moral motive in -the ecclesiastical revolution is sufficiently proved by the general -dissolution of conduct which, on the express admission of Luther, -followed upon it. [2099] This was quite apart from the special -disorders of the Anabaptist movement, which, on the other hand, -contained elements of moral and religious rationalism, as against -Bibliolatry, that have been little recognized. [2100] Of that movement -the summing-up is that, like the Lutheran, it turned to evil because -of sheer lack of rationalism. Among its earlier leaders were men -such as Denk, morally and temperamentally on a higher plane than any -of the Lutherans. But Anabaptism too was fundamentally scriptural -and revelationist, not rational; and it miscarried in its own way -even more hopelessly than the theological "reform." Lutheranism, -renouncing the rational and ethical hope of social betterment, ran -to insane dissension over irrational dogma; Anabaptism, ignorantly -attaching the hope of social betterment to religious delusion, -ran to irrational social schemes, ending in anarchy, massacre, and -extinction. But the Lutheran failure was intellectually and morally -no less complete. Luther was with good reason ill at ease about his -cause when he died in 1546; and Melanchthon, dying in 1560, declared -himself glad to be set free from the rabies theologorum. [2101] - -The test of the new regimen lay, if anywhere, in the University of -Wittemberg; and there matters were no better than anywhere else. [2102] -German university life in general went from bad to worse till a -new culture began slowly to germinate after the Thirty Years' War; -[2103] and the germs came mainly from the neighbouring nations. German -Switzerland exhibited similar symptoms, the Reformation being followed -by no free intellectual life, but by a tyranny identical in spirit -and method with that of Rome. [2104] It rests, finally, on the express -testimony of leading Reformers that the main effect of the Reformation -in the intellectual life of Germany was to discredit all disinterested -learning and literature. Melanchthon in particular, writing at dates -as far apart as 1522 and 1557, repeatedly and emphatically testifies -to the utter disregard of erudition and science in the interests -of pietism, corroborating everything said to the same effect by -Erasmus. [2105] - -On the social and political side the rule of the Protestant princes -was not only as tyrannous but as indecorous as that of their -Catholic days, each playing pope in his own dominions; [2106] and -their clergy were not in a position to correct them. Menzel notes -that the normal drunkenness of the Protestant aristocracy at this -period made current in Europe the expression "a German swine." And -whereas Germany before the Reformation was at various points a culture -force for Europe--whence the readiness in other nations at first to -follow the Lutheran lead--it progressively became more and more of an -object-lesson of the evils of heresy, thus fatally weakening the cause -of Protestantism in France, where its fortunes hung in the balance. - -Even in the matter of theology, Protestantism did not hold its own -against Catholic criticism. Both began by discriminating in the -scriptural canon, rejecting some books and depreciating others, -all the while professing to make the Word of God their sole or -final standard. When the Catholics pressed the demand as to how -they could settle what was the true Word of God, their followers -and successors could make no answer, and had to fall back on an -indiscriminate acceptance of the Canon. Again, Luther and Calvin -alike maintained the doctrine of "Assurance," and this was one -of the points in Calvinism accepted by Arminius. The Catholics, -naturally making the most of the admitted increase of sexual and -other licence in Germany and elsewhere under Lutheranism, dwelt upon -Luther's predestinarianism in general, and the doctrine of Assurance -in particular, as the source of the demoralization; and at the Council -of Trent it was expressly condemned. Thereafter, though it was "part -and parcel of the Confessions of all the Churches of the Reformation -down to the Westminster Assembly," it was in the last-named conclave -(1643) declared not to be of the essence of faith; and the Scottish -General Assembly subsequently deposed and condemned holders of this, -the original Protestant doctrine. Similar modifications took place -elsewhere. Thus the Protestant world drifted back to a Catholic -position, affirmed at the Council of Trent against Protestantism; -[2107] and in Holland we shall see, in the rise of Arminianism, -a similar surrender on the Protestant side to the general pressure -of Catholicism upon the ethical weaknesses of Predestinarianism. On -that point, however, the original Catholic doctrine of predestination -was revived by the Spanish Jesuit Luis Molina (1535-1600; not to be -confused with the later Quietist, Miguel de Molinos), who in his -treatise Liberi Arbitrii concordia cum gratiæ donis (1588) set it -forth as consequent upon God's foreknowledge of man's free use of his -will. As a result of the dispute between the Thomists and Molina's -followers, known as the Molinists, the Pope in 1607 pronounced that -the views of both sides were permissible--a course which had already -been taken twenty years before with the controversy on predestination -aroused by the doctrines of Michael Baius at the University of -Louvain. [2108] Thus the dissensions of Catholics in a manner kept -in countenance the divided Protestants; but the old confidence of -affirmation and formulation was inevitably sapped by the constant play -of controversy; and from this Protestantism necessarily suffered most. - -Intellectually, there was visible retrogression in the Protestant -world. It is significant that throughout the sixteenth century most of -the great scientific thinkers and the freethinkers with the strongest -bent to new science lived in the Catholic world. Rabelais and Bruno -were priests; Copernicus a lay canon; Galileo had never withdrawn -from the Church which humiliated him; even Kepler returned to the -Catholic environment after professing Protestantism. He was in fact -excommunicated by the Tübingen Protestant authorities in 1612 [2109] -for condemning the Lutheran doctrine that the body of Christ could be -in several places at once. The immunity of such original spirits as -Gilbert and Harriott from active molestation is to be explained only -by the fact that they lived in the as yet un-Puritanized atmosphere -of Elizabethan England, before the age of Bibliolatry. It would -seem as if the spirit of Scripturalism, invading the very centres -of thought, were more fatal to original intellectual life than the -more external interferences of Catholic sacerdotalism. [2110] In -the phrase of Arnold, Protestantism turned the key on the spirit, -where Catholicism was normally content with an outward submission to -its ceremonies, and only in the most backward countries, as Spain, -destroyed entirely the atmosphere of free mental intercourse. It was -after a long reaction that Bruno and Galileo were arraigned at Rome. - -The clerical resistance to new science, broadly speaking, was more -bitter in the Protestant world than in the Catholic; and it was merely -the relative lack of restraining power in the former that made possible -the later scientific progress. The history of Lutheranism upon this -side is an intellectual infamy. At Wittemberg, during Luther's life, -Reinhold did not dare to teach the Copernican astronomy; Rheticus -had to leave the place in order to be free to speak; and in 1571 -the subject was put in the hands of Peucer, who taught that the -Copernican theory was absurd. Finally, the rector of the university, -Hensel, wrote a text-book for schools, entitled The Restored Mosaic -System of the World, showing with entire success that the new doctrine -was unscriptural. [2111] A little later the Lutheran superintendent, -Pfeiffer, of Lübeck, published his Pansophia Mosaica, insisting on the -literal truth of the entire Genesaic myth. [2112] In the next century -Calovius (1612-1686), who taught successively at Königsberg, Dantzic, -and Wittemberg, maintained the same position, contending that the -story of Joshua's staying the sun and moon refuted Copernicus. [2113] -When Pope Gregory XIII, following an impulse abnormal in his world, -took the bold step of rectifying the Calendar (1584), the Protestants -in Germany and Switzerland vehemently resisted the reform, and in some -cities would not tolerate it, [2114] thus refusing, on theological -grounds, the one species of co-operation with Catholicism that lay -open to them. And the anti-scientific attitude persisted for over -a century in Switzerland as in Scotland. At Geneva, J.-A. Turretin -(1671-1737), writing after Kepler and Newton had done their work, -laboriously repeated the demonstration of Calovius, and reaffirmed -the positions of Calvin. So far as its ministers could avail, the -Sacred Book was working the old effect. - - - - -§ 2. ENGLAND - -Freethought gained permanently as little in England as elsewhere -in the process of substituting local tyranny for that of Rome. The -secularizing effect of the Reformation, indeed, was even more -marked there than elsewhere. What Wolsey had aimed at doing with -moderation and without revolution was done after him with violence -on motives of sheer plunder, and a multitude not only of monasteries -but of churches were disendowed and destroyed. The monastic churches -were often magnificent, and "when the monasteries were dissolved, -divine service altogether ceased in ninety out of every hundred of -these great churches, and the remaining ten were left ... without any -provision whatever" for public worship. [2115] All this must have had -a secularizing effect, which was accentuated by the changes in ritual; -and by the middle of the century it was common to treat both churches -and clergy with utter irreverence, which indeed the latter often -earned by their mode of life. [2116] Riots in churches, especially in -London, were common; there was in fact a habit of driving mules and -horses through them; [2117] and buying and selling and even gaming -were often carried on. But with all this there was no intellectual -enlightenment, and in high places there was no toleration. Under Henry -VIII anti-Romanist heretics were put to death on the old Romanist -principles. In 1532, again, was burned James Bainham, who not only -rejected the specially Catholic dogmas, but affirmed the possible -salvation of unbelievers. - -Under the Protectorate which followed there was indeed much religious -semi-rationalism, evidently of continental derivation, which is -discussed in the theological literature of the time. Roger Hutchinson, -writing about 1550, repeatedly speaks of contemporary "Sadducees and -Libertines" who say (1) "that all spirits and angels are no substances, -but inspirations, affections, and qualities"; (2) "that the devil -is nothing but nolitum, or a filthy affection coming of the flesh"; -(3) "that there is neither place of rest nor pain after this life; -that hell is nothing else but a tormenting and desperate conscience; -and that a joyful, quiet, and merry conscience is heaven." - - - See The Image of God, or Layman's Book, 1550, ch. xxiv: Parker - Society's rep. 1842, pp. 134, 138, 140. Cp. p. 79 and Sermon - II, on The Lord's Supper (id. p. 247), as to "Julianites" who - "do think mortal corpo, mortal anima." To the period 1550-60 - is also assigned the undated work of John Veron, A Frutefull - Treatise of Predestination and of the Divine Providence of God, - with an Apology of the same against the swynishe gruntinge of - the Epicures and Atheystes of oure time. There was evidently a - good deal of new rationalism, which has been generally ignored - in English historiography. Its foreign source is suggested by - the use of the term "Libertines," which derives from France and - Geneva. See below, p. 473. The above-cited tenets are, in fact, - partly identical with those of the libertins denounced at Geneva - by Calvin. - - -Such doctrine, which we shall find in vogue fifty years later, cannot -have been printed, and probably can have been uttered only by men -of good status, as well as culture; and even by them only because of -the weakness of the State Church in its transition stage. Yet heresy -went still further among some of the sects set up by the Anabaptist -movement, which in England as in Germany involved some measure -of Unitarianism. A letter of Hooper to Bullinger in 1549 tells of -"libertines and wretches who are daring enough in their conventicles -not only to deny that Christ is the Messiah and Saviour of the world, -but also to call that blessed Seed a mischievous fellow and deceiver -of the world." [2118] This must have been said with locked doors, for -much milder heresy was heavily punished, the worst penalties falling -upon that which stood equally with orthodoxy on Biblical grounds. - - - In 1541, under Henry VIII, were burned three persons "because they - denied transubstantiation, and had not received the sacrament at - Easter." See the letter of Hilles to Bullinger, Original Letters, - as cited, i, 200. The case of Jean Bouchier or Bocher, burned in - 1550, is well known. It is worth noting that the common charge - against Cranmer, of persuading the young king to sign her death - warrant, is false, being one of the myths of Foxe. The warrant - was passed by the whole Privy Council, Cranmer not being even - present. See the Parker Society's reprint of Roger Hutchinson, - 1812, introd. pp. ii-5. Hutchinson apparently approved; and it - is significant of the clerical attitude of the time that he calls - (Image of God, ch. xxx, p. 201) for the punishment of Anabaptists - by death if necessary, but does not suggest it for "Sadducees - and Libertines." - - -The Elizabethan archbishops and the Puritans were equally intolerant; -and the idea of free inquiry was undreamt of. That there had been much -private discussion in clerical circles, however, is plain from the 13th -and 18th of the Thirty-nine Articles (1562), which repudiate natural -morality and hold "accursed" those who say that men can be saved -under any creed. [2119] This fulmination would not have occurred had -the heresy not been pressing; but the "curse" would thenceforth set -the key of clerical and public utterance. The Reformation, in fact, -speedily over-clouded with fanaticism what new light of freethought -had been glimmering before; turning into Bibliolaters those who had -rationally doubted some of the Catholic mysteries, and forcing back, -either into silence or, by reaction, into Catholic bigotry, those more -refined spirits who, like Sir Thomas More, had before been really -in advance of their age intellectually and morally, and desired a -transmutation of the old system rather than its overthrow. Nothing -so nearly rational as the Utopia (1515-16) appeared again in English -literature for a century; it is indeed, in some respects, a lead -to social science in our own day. More, with all his spontaneous -turn for pietism, had evidently drunk in his youth or prime [2120] -at some freethinking source, for his book recognizes the existence -of unbelievers in deity and immortality; and though he pronounces -them unfit for political power, as did Milton, Locke, and Voltaire -long after him, he stipulates that they be tolerated. [2121] Broadly -speaking, the book is simply deistic. "From a world," says a popular -historian, clerically trained--"from a world where fifteen hundred -years of Christian teaching had produced social injustice, religious -intolerance, and political tyranny, the humorist philosopher turns to a -'Nowhere' in which the efforts of mere natural human virtue realized -those ends of security, equality, brotherhood, and freedom, for which -the very institution of society seems to have been framed." [2122] -In his own case, however, we see the Nemesis of the sway of feeling -over judgment, for, beginning by keeping his prejudice above the -reason of whose teaching he is conscious, he ends by becoming a blind -religious polemist and a bitter persecutor. - - - Cp. Isaac Disraeli's essay, "The Psychological Character of Sir - Thomas More," in the Amenities of Literature, and the present - writer's essay, "Culture and Reaction," in Essays in Sociology, - vol. i. Lord Acton, vindicating More as against Wolsey, pleads - (Histor. Essays and Studies, 1907, p. 64) that More before his - death protested that no Protestant perished by his act. This seems - to be true in the bare sense that he did not exceed his ostensible - legal duties, and several times restrained the execution of the - law (Archdeacon Hutton, Sir Thomas More, 1895, pp. 215-22). But - the fact remains that More expressly justified and advocated the - burning of heretics as "lawful, necessary, and well done." Title of - ch. xiii of Dialogue, The Supper of the Lord. Cp. title of ch. xv. - - -It is in the wake, then, of the overthrow of Catholicism in the -second generation that a far-reaching freethought begins to be heard -of in England; and this clearly comes by way of new continental and -literary contact, which would have occurred in at least as great a -degree under Catholicism, save insofar as unbelief was facilitated by -the irreverence developed by the ecclesiastical revolution, or by the -state of indifference which among the upper classes was the natural -sequel of the shameless policy of plunder and the oscillation between -Protestant and Catholic forms. And it was finally in such negative -ways only that Protestantism furthered freethought anywhere. - - - - -§ 3. THE NETHERLANDS - -Hardly more fortunate was the earlier course of things intellectual -after the Reformation in the Netherlands, where by the fifteenth -century remarkable progress had been made alike in science and the -arts, and where Erasmus acquired his culture and did his service to -culture's cause. The fact that Protestantism had to fight for its -life against Philip was of course not the fault of the Protestants; -and to that ruinous struggle is to be attributed the arrest of the -civilization of Flanders. But it lay in the nature of the Protestant -impulse that, apart from the classical culture which in Holland was -virtually a successful industry, providing editions for all Europe, -it should turn all intellectual life for generations into vain -controversy. The struggle between reform and popery was followed by -the struggle between Calvinism and Arminianism; and the second was -no less bitter if less bloody than the first, [2123] the religious -strife passing into civil feud. - -The secret of the special bitterness of Calvinist resentment -towards the school of Arminius lay in the fact that the latter -endorsed some of the most galling of the Catholic criticisms of -Calvinism. Arminius [Latinized name of Jacob Harmensen or van Harmin, -1560-1609, professor of theology at Leyden] was personally a man of -great amiability, averse to controversy, but unable to reconcile the -Calvinist view of predestination with his own quasi-rational ethic, -and concerned to secure that the dogma should not be fastened upon -all Dutch Protestants. In his opinion, no effective answer could be -made on Calvinist lines to the argument of Cardinal Bellarmin [2124] -that from much Calvinist doctrine there flowed the consequences: "God -is the author of sin; God really sins; God is the only sinner; sin -is no sin at all." [2125] This was substantially true; and Arminius, -like Bellarmin, unable to see that the Calvinist position was simply -a logical reduction to moral absurdity of all theistic ethic, sought -safety in fresh dogmatic modifications. Of these the Calvinists, in -turn, could easily demonstrate the logical incoherence; and in a ring -of dilemmas from which there was no logical exit save into Naturalism -there arose an exacerbated strife, as of men jostling each other in a -prison where some saw their nominal friends in partial sympathy with -their deadly enemies, who jeered at their divisions. - -The wonder is that the chaos of dispute and dogmatic tinkering which -followed did not more rapidly disintegrate faith. Calvinists sought -modifications under stress of dialectic, like their predecessors; -and the high "Supralapsarian" doctrine--the theory of the certain -regeneration or "perseverance" of "the saints"--shaded into -"the Creabilitarian opinion" [2126] and yet another; while the -"Sublapsarian" view claimed also to safeguard predestination. So long -as men remained in the primary Protestant temper, convinced that they -possessed in their Bibles an infallible revelation, such strife could -but generate new passion, even as it had done on the other irrational -problem of the eucharist. For men of sane and peaceful disposition, -the only modes of peace were resignation and doubt; and in the case -of the doubters the first intellectual movements would be either -back towards Rome [2127] or further on towards deism. The former -course would be taken by some who had winced under the jeers of the -Catholics; the latter by the hardier spirits who judged Catholicism for -themselves. As most of the fighting had been primed by and transacted -over texts, the surrender of the belief in an inspired scripture -greatly reduced the friction; and in Holland as elsewhere deism would -be thus spontaneously generated in the Protestant atmosphere. A few -went even further. "I have no doubt that many persons have secretly -revolted from the Reformed Church to the Papists," wrote Uitenbogaert -to Vorstius in 1613. "I firmly believe," he added, "that Atheism is -creeping by degrees into the minds of some." [2128] - -Where mere Arminianism could bring Barneveldt to the block, even deism -could not be avowed; and generations had to pass before it could have -the semblance of a party; but the proof of the new vogue of unbelief -lies in the labour spent by Grotius (Hugo or Huig van Groot, 1583-1645) -on his treatise De Veritate Religionis Christianæ (1627)--a learned and -strenuous defence of the faith which had so lacerated his fatherland, -first through the long struggle with Spain, and again in the feud of -Arminians and Calvinists. When Barneveldt was put to death, Grotius had -been sentenced to imprisonment for life; and it was only after three -years of the dungeon that, by the famous stratagem of his wife, he -escaped in 1621. The fact that he devoted his freedom in France first -to his great treatise On the Law of War and Peace (1625), seeking to -humanize the civil life of the world, and next to his defence of the -Christian religion, is the proof of his magnanimity; but the spectacle -of his life must have done as much to set thinkers against the whole -creed as his apologetic did to reconcile them to it. He, the most -distinguished Dutch scholar and the chief apologist of Christianity in -his day, had to seek refuge, on his escape from prison, in Catholic -France, whose king granted him a pension. The circumstance which in -Holland chiefly favoured freethought, the freedom of the press, was, -like the great florescence of the arts in the seventeenth century, -a result of the whole social and political conditions, not of any -Protestant belief in free discussion. That there were freethinkers -in Holland in and before Grotius's time is implied in the pains he -took to defend Christianity; but that they existed in despite and not -by grace of the ruling Protestantism is proved by the fact that they -did not venture to publish their opinions. In France, doubtless, he -found as much unbelief as he had left behind. In the end, Grotius and -Casaubon alike recoiled from the narrow Protestantism around them, -which had so sadly failed to realize their hopes. [2129] "In 1642 -Grotius had become wholly averse to the Reformation. He thought it -had done more harm than good"; and had he lived a few years longer -he would probably have become a Catholic. [2130] - - - - -§ 4. CONCLUSION - -Thus concerning the Reformation generally "we are obliged to confess -that, especially in Germany, it soon parted company with free learning; -that it turned its back upon culture; that it lost itself in a maze -of arid theological controversy; that it held out no hand of welcome -to awakening science. Presently we shall see that the impulse to an -enlightened study and criticism of the Scriptures came chiefly from -heretical quarters; that the unbelieving Spinoza and the Arminian Le -Clerc pointed the way to investigations which the great Protestant -systematizers thought neither necessary nor useful. Even at a later -time it has been the divines who have most loudly declared their -allegiance to the theology of the Reformation who have also looked -most askance at science, and claimed for their statements an entire -independence of modern knowledge." [2131] In fine, "to look at -the Reformation by itself, to judge it only by its theological and -ecclesiastical development, is to pronounce it a failure"; and the -claim that "to consider it as part of a general movement of European -thought ... is at once to vindicate its past and to promise it the -future"--this amounts merely to avowing the same thing. Only as an -eddy in the movement of freethought is the Reformation intellectually -significant. Politically it is a great illustration of the potency -of economic forces. - -While, however, the Reformation in itself thus did little for the -spirit of freethought, substituting as it did the arbitrary standard of -"revelation" for the not more arbitrary standard of papal authority, -it set up outside its own sphere some new movements of rational -doubt which must have counted for much in the succeeding period. It -was not merely that, as we shall see, the bloody strifes of the two -Churches, and the quarrels of the Protestant sects among themselves, -sickened many thoughtful men of the whole subject of theology; but that -the disputes between Romanists and anti-Romanists raised difficult -questions as to the bases of all kinds of belief. As always happens -when established beliefs are long attacked, the subtler spirits in the -conservative interest after a time begin putting in doubt beliefs of -every species; a method often successful with those who cannot carry -an argument to its logical conclusions, and who are thus led to seek -harbour in whatever credence is on the whole most convenient; but -one which puts stronger spirits on the reconsideration of all their -opinions. Thus we shall find, not only in the skepticism of Montaigne, -which is historically a product of the wars of religion in France, -but in the more systematic and more cautious argumentation of the -abler Protestants of the seventeenth century, a measure of general -rationalism much more favourable alike to natural science and to -Biblical and ethical criticism than had been the older environment -of authority and tradition, brutal sacerdotalism, and idolatrous -faith. Men continued to hate each other religiously for trifles, -to quarrel over gestures and vestures, and to wrangle endlessly over -worn-out dogmas; but withal new and vital heresies were set on foot; -new science generated new doubt; and under the shadow of the aging -tree of theology there began to appear the growths of a new era. As -Protestantism had come outside the "universal" Church, rearing its -own tabernacles, so freethought came outside both, scanning with a -deepened intentness the universe of things. And thus began a more vital -innovation than that dividing the Reformation from the Renaissance, -or even that dividing the Renaissance from the Middle Ages. - - - - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -THE RISE OF MODERN FREETHOUGHT - - -§ 1. THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE - -The negative bearing of the Reformation on freethought is made clear by -the historic fact that the new currents of thought which broadly mark -the beginning of the "modern spirit" arose in its despite, and derive -originally from outside its sphere. It is to Italy, where the political -and social conditions thus far tended to frustrate the Inquisition, -that we trace the rise alike of modern deism, modern Unitarianism, -modern pantheism, modern physics, and the tendency to rational -atheism. The deistic way of thinking, of course, prevailed long -before it got that name; and besides the vogue of Averroïsm we have -noted the virtual deism of More's Utopia (1516). The first explicit -mention of deism noted by Bayle, however, is in the epistle dedicatory -to the second and expanded edition of the Instruction Chrétienne of -the Swiss Protestant Viret (1563), where professed deists are spoken -of as a new species bearing a new name. On the admission of Viret, -who was the friend and bitter disciple of Calvin, they rejected all -revealed religion, but called themselves deists by way of repudiating -atheism; some keeping a belief in immortality, some rejecting it. In -the theological manner he goes on to call them all execrable atheists, -and to say that he has added to his treatise on their account an -exposition of natural religion grounded on the "Book of Nature"; -stultifying himself by going on to say that he has also dealt with -the professed atheists. [2132] Of the deists he admits that among -them were men of the highest repute for science and learning. Thus -within ten years of the burning of Servetus we find privately avowed -deism and atheism in the area of French-speaking Protestantism. - -Doubtless the spectacle of Protestant feuds and methods would go -far to foster such unbelief; but though, as we have seen, there were -aggressive Unitarians in Germany before 1530, who, being scholars, -may or may not have drawn on Italian thought, thereafter there is -reason to look to Italy as the source of the propaganda. Thence came -the two Sozzini, the founders of Socinianism, of whom Lelio, the uncle -of Fausto, travelled much in northern Europe (including England) -between 1546 and 1552. [2133] As the earlier doctrine of Servetus -shows clear affinities to that of the Sozzini, and his earlier books -were much read in Italy between 1532 and 1540, he may well have given -them their impulse. [2134] It is evidently to Servetus that Zanchi -referred when he wrote to Bullinger in 1565 that "Spain bore the hens, -Italy hatched the eggs, and we now hear the chickens piping." [2135] -Before Socinianism had taken form it was led up to, as we have seen, in -the later writings of the ex-monk Bernardino Ochino (1487-1564), who, -in the closing years of a much chequered career, combined mystical -and Unitarian tendencies with a leaning to polygamy and freedom -of divorce. [2136] His influence was considerable among the Swiss -Protestants, though they finally expelled him for his heresies. From -Geneva or from France, in turn, apparently came some of the English -freethought of the middle period of the sixteenth century; [2137] -for in 1562 Speaker Williams in the House of Commons, in a list of -misbelievers, speaks of "Pelagians, Libertines, Papists, and such -others, leaving God's commandments to follow their own traditions, -affections, and minds" [2138]--using theologically the foreign term, -which never became naturalized in English in its foreign sense. It was -about the year 1563, again, that Roger Ascham wrote his Scholemaster, -wherein are angrily described, as a species new in England, men who, -"where they dare," scorn both Protestant and Papist, "rejecting -scripture, and counting the Christian mysteries as fables." [2139] -He describes them as "atheoi in doctrine"; adding, "this last word is -no more unknowne now to plane Englishe men than the Person was unknown -somtyme in England, untill some Englishe man took peines to fetch that -develish opinion out of Italie." [2140] The whole tendency he connects -in a general way with the issue of many new translations from the -Italian, mentioning in particular Petrarch and Boccaccio. Among good -Protestants his view was general; and so Lord Burghley in his Advice to -his Son writes: "Suffer not thy sons to pass the Alps, for they shall -learn nothing there but pride, blasphemy, and atheism." As it happened, -his grandson the second Earl of Exeter, and his great-grandson Lord -Roos, went to Rome, and became not atheists but Roman Catholics. - -Such episodes should remind us that in that age of ignorance and -superstition the Church had always an immense advantage. Those -who, like Gentillet in his raging Discours, commonly known as the -Contre-Machiavel (1576), ascribed to "atheism" and the teaching of -Machiavelli all the crimes and oppressions wrought by Catholics, -[2141] were ludicrously perverting the facts. Massacres in churches, -which are cited by Gentillet as impossible to believing Catholics, -were wrought, as we have seen, on the largest scale by the Church -in the thirteenth century. So, when Scaliger calls the Italians -of his day "a set of atheists," we are to understand it rather of -"the hypocrisy than of the professed skepticism of the time." [2142] -But rationalism and semi-rationalism did prevail in Italy more than -in any other country. [2143] - -Like the old Averroïsm, the new pietistic Unitarianism persisted -in Italy and radiated thence afresh when it had flagged in other -lands. The exploded Unitarian tradition [2144] runs that the doctrine -arose in the year 1546 among a group of more than forty learned men who -were wont to assemble in secret at Vicenza, near Venice. Claudius of -Savoy, however, emphatically gave out his anti-Trinitarian doctrine at -Berne in 1534, after having been imprisoned at Strasburg and banished -thence; [2145] and Ochino and Lelio Sozzini left Italy in 1543. But -there seems to have been a continuous evolution of Unitarian heresy -in the south after the German movement had ceased. Giorgio Biandrata, -whom we have seen flying to Poland from Geneva, had been seized by the -Inquisition at Pavia for such opinion. Still it persisted. In 1562 -Giulio Guirlando of Treviso, and in 1566 Francesco Saga of Rovigo, -were burned at Venice for anti-Trinitarianism. Giacomo Aconzio too, -who dedicated his Stratagems of Satan (Basel, 1565) to Queen Elizabeth, -and who pleaded notably for the toleration of heresy, [2146] was a -decided latitudinarian. [2147] - -It is remarkable that the whole ferment occurs in the period of the -Catholic Reaction, the Council of Trent, and the subjection of Italy, -when the papacy was making its great effort to recover its ground. It -would seem that in the compulsory peace which had now fallen on -Italian life men's thoughts turned more than ever to mental problems, -as had happened in Greece after the rise of Alexander's empire. The -authority of the Church was outwardly supreme; the Jesuits had -already begun to do great things for education; [2148] the revived -Inquisition was everywhere in Italy; its prisons, as we have seen, -were crowded with victims of all grades during a whole generation; -Pius V and the hierarchy everywhere sought to enforce decorum in life; -the "pagan" academies formed on the Florentine model were dissolved; -and classic culture rapidly decayed with the arts, while clerical -learning flourished, [2149] and a new religious music began with -Palestrina. Yet on the death of Paul IV the Roman populace burned the -Office of the Inquisition to the ground and cast the pope's statue -into the Tiber; [2150] and in that age (1548) was born Giordano Bruno, -one of the types of modern freethought. - -The great service of Italy to modern freethought, however, was to come -later, in respect of the impulse given to the scientific spirit by -Bruno, Vanini, and Galileo. On the philosophical or critical side, the -Italy of the middle of the sixteenth century left no enduring mark on -European thought, though her serious writers were numerous. Aconzio had -published, before his De Stratagematibus Satanæ, a treatise De Methodo, -sive recta investigandarum tradendarumque scientiarum ratione (Basel, -1558), wherein he pleads strenuously for a true logical method as the -one way to real knowledge of things. In this he anticipates Bacon, as -did, still earlier, Mario Nizolio in his Antibarbarus sive de veris -principiis et vera ratione philosophandi contra pseudo-philosophos -(Parma, 1553). Nizolio's main effort is towards the discrediting of -Aristotle, whom, like so many in the generation following, he regarded -as the great bulwark of scholastic obscurantism. He insists that -all knowledge must proceed from sensation, which alone has immediate -certainty; and thus stands for direct scientific observation as against -tradition and verbalism. But Ludovicus Vives had before him (in his -De causis corruptarum artium, Antwerp, 1531) claimed that the true -Aristotelian went direct to nature, as Aristotle himself had done; -and Nizolio did nothing in practical science to substantiate his -polemic against the logic-choppers. - -He and Aconzio in effect cancel each other. Each had glimpsed a -truth, one seeing the need for a right method in inference, the -other protesting against the idea that abstract reasoning could lead -to knowledge; but neither made good his argument by any treasure -trove of fact. Another writer of the same decade, Gomez Pereira, -joined in the revolt against Aristotelianism, publishing in 1554 his -Margarita Antoniana, wherein, in advance of Descartes, he maintained -the absence of sensation in brutes. [2151] For the rest, he championed -freedom in speculation, denying that authority should avail save in -matters of faith. But he too failed to bring forth fruits meet for -freedom. Neither by abstract exposition of right methods of reasoning, -nor by abstract attacks on wrong methods, could any vital impulse -yet be given to thought. What was lacking was the use of reason -upon actual problems, whether of human or of natural science. All -the while Europe was anchored to ancient delusion, historical and -scientific. Even as the horrors of age-long religious war could alone -drive men to something like toleration in the religious life, there -was needed the impact of actual discovery to win them to science as -against scholasticism. And rational thinking on the religion which -resisted all new science was to be still later of attainment, save -for the nameless men who throughout the ages of faith rejected the -creeds without publishing their unbelief. Of these Italy had always -a large sprinkling. - - - - -§ 2. SPAIN - -The fact that sixteenth-century Spain could be charged, on the -score of Servetus, with producing the "hen" of Socinianism, is an -important reminder of the perpetuity of variation and of the fatality -of environment. The Portuguese Sanchez, whom we shall find laying new -potential foundations of skepticism in France alongside of Montaigne, -could neither have acquired nor propounded his philosophy in his -native land. But it is to be noted that an elder contemporary of -Sanchez, living and dying in Spain, was able, in the generation after -Servetus, to make a real contribution to the revival of freethought, -albeit under shelter of a firm profession of orthodoxy. - -No book of the kind, perhaps, had a wider European popularity than -the Examen de Ingenios para las ciencias of Huarte de San Juan, -otherwise Juan Huarte y Navarro (c. 1530-1592). Like Servetus and -Sanchez and many another, Huarte had his bias to reason fostered by a -medical training; and it is as a "natural philosopher" that he stands -for a rational study of causation. As a pioneer of exact science, -indeed, he counts for next to nothing. Taking as his special theme -the divergences of human faculty, he does but found himself on the à -priori system of "humours" and "temperatures" passed on by Aristotle -to Galen and Hippocrates, inconsistently affirming on the one hand -that the "characters" not only of whole nations but of the inhabitants -of provinces are determined by their special climates and aliments, -and on the other hand that individual faculty is determined by the -proportions of hot and cold, moist and dry "temperatures" in the -parents. Apart from his insistence on the functions of the brain, -and from broadly rational deliverances as to the kinds of faculty -which determine success in theology and law, arms and arts, his -"science" is naught. Dealing with an obscure problem, he brought -to it none of the exact inductiveness which alone had yielded true -knowledge in the simpler field of astronomy. In virtue, however, -either of his confidence in affirmation or of his stand for rational -inquiry, or of both, Huarte's book, published in 1575, went the -round of Europe. Translated into Italian in 1582 (or earlier; new -rendering 1600), it was thence rendered into English by Richard Carew -in 1594. [2152] A French version appeared in 1598, and two others -in 1661 and 1671. A later English translation, from the original, -was produced in 1698; and Lessing thought the book worth putting into -German in 1785. - -The rationalistic importance of Huarte lies in his insistence on the -study of "second causes" and his protest against the burking of all -inquiry by a reference to deity. On this head he anticipates much of -the polemic of Bacon. The explanation of all processes and phenomena -by the will of God, he observes, "is so ancient a manner of talk, and -the natural philosophers have so often refuted it, that the seeking to -take the same away were superfluous, neither is it convenient.... But -I have often gone about to consider the reason and the cause whence -it may grow that the vulgar sort is so great friend to impute all -things to God, and to reave them from Nature, and do so abhor the -natural means." [2153] His solution is the impatience of men over the -complexity of Nature, their spiritual arrogance, their indolence, -and their piety. For himself, he pronounces, as Middleton did in -England nearly two centuries later, that "God doth no longer those -unwonted things of the New Testament; and the reason is, for that on -his behalf he hath performed all necessary diligence that men might -not pretend ignorance. And to think that he will begin anew to do -the like miracles ... is an error very great.... God speaks once -(saith Job) and turns not to a second replial." [2154] - -Only thus could the principle of natural causation be affirmed in the -Spain of Philip II. Huarte is careful to affirm miracles while denying -their recurrence; and throughout he writes as a good Scripturist and -Catholic. But he sticks to his naturalist thesis that "Nature makes -able," and avows that "natural philosophers laugh at such as say, -This is God's doing, without assigning the order and discourse of -the particular causes whence they may spring." [2155] The fact that -the book was dedicated to Philip tells of royal protection, without -which the author could hardly have escaped the Inquisition. Years -after, we shall find Lilly in England protesting on the stage against -the conception of Natura naturans; and Bacon powerfully reaffirming -Huarte's doctrine, with the same reservations. The Spaniard must have -counted for something as a pleader for elementary reason, if Bacon did. - -But this is practically the only important contribution from Spain to -the intellectual renascence then going on in Europe. As we have seen, -it was not that Spaniards had any primordial bias to dogmatism and -persecution: it was simply that their whole socio-political evolution, -largely determined by Spanish discovery and dominion in the New World, -set up institutions and forces which became specially powerful to stamp -out freethought. The work of progress was done in lands where lack -of external dominion left on the one hand a greater fund of variant -energy, and on the other made for a lesser power of repression on -the part of Church and State. - - - - -§ 3. FRANCE - -While Italy continues to be reputed throughout the sixteenth century -a hotbed of freethinking, styled "atheism," it appears to have been -in France, alongside of the wars of religion, that positive unbelief, -as distinct from scripturalist Unitarianism, made most new headway -among laymen. It was in France that the forces of change had greatest -play. The mere contact with Italy which began with the invasion of -Charles VII in 1494 meant a manifold moral and mental influence, -affecting French literature and life alike; and the age of strife and -destruction which set in with the first Huguenot wars could not but -be one of disillusionment for multitudes of serious men. We have seen -as much in the work of Bonaventure des Periers and Rabelais; but the -spread of radical unbelief is to be traced, as is usual in the ages -of faith, by the books written against it. Already in 1552 we have -seen Guillaume Postell publishing his book, Contra Atheos. [2156] -Unbelief increasing, there is published in 1564 an Atheomachie by -one De Bourgeville; but the Massacre must have gone far to frustrate -him. In 1581 appears another Atheomachie, ou réfutation des erreurs -et impiétés des Athéistes, Libertins, etc., issued at Geneva, but -bearing much on French life; and in the same year is issued the -long-time popular work of the Huguenot Philippe de Mornay, De la -vérité de la religion Chrestienne, Contre les Athées, Epicuriens, -Payens, Juifs, Mahumedistes, et autres Infidèles. [2157] In both the -Epistle Dedicatory (to Henry of Navarre) and the Preface the author -speaks of the great multiplication of unbelief, the refutation of -which he declares to be more needful among Christians than it ever -had been among the heathen. But, like most of the writers against -atheism in that age, he declares [2158] that there are no atheists -save a few young fools and utterly bad men, who turn to God as soon as -they fall sick. The reputed atheists of antiquity are vindicated as -having denied not the principle of deity but the false Gods of their -age--this after the universality of a belief in Gods in all ages had -been cited as one of the primary proofs of God's existence. In this -fashion is compiled a book of nine hundred pages, ostensibly for -the confutation of a few fools and knaves, described as unworthy of -serious consideration. Evidently the unbelief of de Mornay's day was -a more vigorous growth than he affected to think; and his voluminous -performance was followed by others. In 1586, Christophe Cheffontaines -published his Epitome novæ illustrationis Christianae Fidei adversus -Impios, Libertinos et Atheos; and still skepticism gained ground, -having found new abettors. - -First came the Portuguese Francisco Sanchez (1552-1623?), born in -Portugal, but brought as a child to Bordeaux, which seems to have -been a place of refuge for many fugitive heretics from both sides of -the Peninsula. Sanchez has recorded that in his early youth he had no -bias to incredulity of any kind; but at some stage of his adolescence -he travelled in Italy and spent some time at Rome. The result was not -that special disbelief in Christianity which was proverbially apt -to follow, but a development on his part of philosophic skepticism -properly so-called, which found expression in a Latin treatise entitled -Quod Nihil Scitur--"That Nothing is Known." Composed as early as 1576, -in the author's twenty-fourth year, the book was not published till -1581, a year after the first issue of the Essais of Montaigne. It is -natural to surmise that while Sanchez was at Bordeaux he may have known -something of his famous contemporary; but though Montaigne is likely -to have read the Quod Nihil Scitur in due course, he nowhere speaks of -it; and in 1576 Sanchez was a Professor of Medicine at Montpellier, -then a town of Huguenot leanings. Soon he left it for Toulouse, the -hotbed of Catholic fanaticism, where he contrived to live out his -long life in peace, despite his production of a Pyrrhonist treatise -and of a remarkable Latin poem (1578) on the comet of 1577. The Quod -Nihil Scitur is a skeptical flank attack on current science, in no -way animadverting on religion, as to which he professed orthodoxy: -the poem is a frontal attack on the whole creed of astrology, then -commonly held by Averroïsts and Aristotelians, as well as by orthodox -Catholics. Yet he seems never to have been molested. It would seem as -if a skepticism which ostensibly disallowed all claims to "natural" -knowledge, while avowedly recognizing "spiritual," was then as later -thought to make rather for faith than against it. That such virtual -Pyrrhonism as that of Sanchez can ever have ministered to religious -zeal is not indeed to be supposed: it is rather as a weapon against -the confidence of the "Naturalist" that the skeptical method has -always recommended itself to the calculating priest. And inasmuch as -astrology could be, and was, held by a non-religious theory, though -many Christians added it to their creed, a polemic against that was -the least dangerous form of rationalizing then possible. At all times -there had been priests who so reasoned, though, as we have seen in -dealing with the men of the Protestant Reformation, the belief in -astral influences is too closely akin to the main line of religious -tradition to be capable of ejection on religious grounds. - -With his hostility to credulous hopes and fears in the sphere of -Nature, Sanchez is naturally regarded as a forerunner and helper -of freethought. But there is nothing to show that his work had -any effect in undermining the most formidable of all the false -beliefs of Christendom. [2159] Like so many others of his age, -he flouted Aristotelean scholasticism, but was perforce silent as -to the verbalisms and sophistries of simple theology. It may fairly -be inferred that his poem on the comet of 1577 helped to create that -current of reasoned disbelief [2160] which we find throwing up almost -identical expressions in Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Molière, [2161] -concerning the folly of connecting the stars with human affairs. But -a skepticism which left untouched the main matter of the creeds could -not affect conduct in general; and while Sanchez passed unchecked the -watchdogs of the Inquisition, the fiery Bruno and Vanini were in his -day to meet their fiery death at its hands--the latter in Toulouse, -perhaps under the eyes of Sanchez. Having resigned his professorship -of medicine, he seems to have lived to a ripe age, dying in 1623. - -Probably those very deaths availed more for the rousing of critical -thought than did the dialectic of the Pyrrhonist. To the life of -the reason may with perfect accuracy be applied the claim so often -made for that of religion--that it feeds on feeling and is rooted in -experience. Revolt from the cruelties and follies of faith plays a -great part in the history of freethought. In the greatest French writer -of that age, a professed Catholic, but in mature life averse alike -to Catholic and to Protestant bigotry, the shock of the Massacre of -Saint Bartholomew can be seen disintegrating once for all the spirit -of faith. Montaigne typifies the kind of skepticism produced in an -unscientific age by the practical demonstration that religion can -avail immeasurably more for evil than for good. [2162] A few years -before the Massacre he had translated for his dying father [2163] the -old Theologia Naturalis of Raymond of Sebonde; and we know from the -later Apology in the Essays that freethinking contemporaries declared -the argument of Raymond to be wholly insufficient. [2164] It is clear -from the same essay that Montaigne felt as much; though the gist of -his polemic is a vehement attack upon all forms of confident opinion, -religious and anti-religious alike. "In replying to arguments of so -opposite a tenour, Montaigne leaves Christianity, as well as Raimond -Sebonde, without a leg to stand upon. He demolishes the arguments of -Sebonde with the rest of human presumption, and allows Christianity, -neither held by faith nor provable by reason, to fall between -the two stools." [2165] The truth is that Montaigne's skepticism -was the product of a mental evolution spread over at least twenty -years. In his youth his vivid temperament kept him both credulous -and fanatical, so much so that in 1562 he took the reckless oath -prescribed by the Catholic Parlement of Paris. As he avows with -his incomparable candour, he had been in many things peculiarly -susceptible to outside influences, being always ready to respond to -the latest pressure; [2166] and the knowledge of his susceptibility -made him self-distrustful. But gradually he found himself. Beginning -to recoil from the ferocities and iniquities of the League, he yet -remained for a time hotly anti-Protestant; and it seems to have -been his dislike of Protestant criticism that led him to run amuck -against reason, at the cost of overthrowing the treatise he had set -out to defend. The common end of such petulant skepticism is a plunge -into uneasy yet unreasoning faith; but, though Montaigne professed -Catholicism to the end, the sheer wickedness of the Catholic policy -made it impossible for him to hold sincerely to the creed any more -than to the cause. [2167] Above all things he hated cruelty. [2168] -It was the Massacre that finally made Montaigne renounce public life; -[2169] it must have affected likewise his working philosophy. - -That philosophy was not, indeed, an original construction: he found -it to his hand partly in the deism of his favourite Seneca; partly in -the stoical ethic of Epictetus, then so much appreciated in France; -and partly in the Hypotyposes of Sextus Empiricus, of which the Latin -translation is known to have been among his books; from which he took -several of the mottoes inscribed on his library ceiling, [2170] and -from which he frequently quotes towards the end of his Apology. The -body of ideas compacted on these bases cannot be called a system: it -was not in Montaigne's nature to frame a logical scheme of thought; -and he was far from being the philosophic skeptic he set out to be -[2171] by way of confounding at once the bigots and the atheists. He -was essentially ondoyant et divers, as he freely admitted. As he put -it in a passage added to the later editions of the Essais, [2172] -he was a kind of métis, belonging neither to the camp of ignorant -faith nor to that of philosophic conviction, whether believing or -unbelieving. He early avows that, had he written what he thought and -knew of the affairs of his times, he would have published judgments "à -mon gré mesme et selon raison," in his opinion true and reasonable, but -"illégitimes et punissables." [2173] Again, "whatsoever is beyond the -compass of custom, we deem likewise to be beyond the compass of reason, -God knows how unreasonably, for the most part." [2174] Yet in the next -breath he will exclaim at those who demand changes. Often he comments -keenly on the incredible readiness of men to go to war over trifles; -but in another mood he accuses the nobility of his day of unwillingness -to take up arms "except upon some urgent and extreme necessity." [2175] -In the same page he will tell us that he is "easily carried away by -the throng," and that he is yet "not very easy to change, forsomuch -as I perceive a like weakness in contrary opinions." [2176] "I am -very easily to be directed by the world's public order," [2177] is -the upshot of his easy meditations. And a conformist he remained in -practice to the last, always bearing himself dutifully towards Mother -Church, and generally observing the proprieties, though he confesses -that he "made it a conscience to eat flesh upon a fish day." [2178] - - - His conformities, verbal and practical, have set certain - Catholics upon proving his orthodoxy, though his Essays are - actually prohibited by the Church. A Benedictine, Dom Devienne, - published in 1773 a Dissertation sur la Religion de Montaigne, - of which the main pleas are that the Essais often affirm the - divinity of the Christian faith; that the essayist received - the freedom of the city of Rome under the eyes of the pope; and - that his epitaph declared his orthodoxy! A generation later, one - Labouderie undertook to set forth Le Christianisme de Montaigne - in a volume of 600 pages (1819). This apologist has the courage - to face the protest of Pascal: "Montaigne puts everything in a - doubt so universal and so general that, doubting even whether - he doubts, his uncertainty turns upon itself in a perpetual and - unresting circle.... It is in this doubt which doubts of itself, - and in this ignorance which is ignorant of itself, that the essence - of his opinion consists.... In a word, he is a pure Pyrrhonist" - (Pensées, supp. to Pt. i, art. 11). The reply of the apologist - is that Montaigne never extends his skepticism to "revelation," - but on the contrary declares that revelation alone gives man - certainties (work cited, p. 127). - - That is of course merely the device of a hundred skeptics of the - Middle Ages; the old shibboleth of a "twofold truth" modified - by a special disparagement of reason, with no attempt to meet - the rejoinder that, if reason has no certainties, there can be - no certainty that revelation is what it claims to be. When the - apologist concludes that Montaigne's aim en froissant la raison - humaine is to "oblige men to recognize the need of a revelation - to fix his incertitudes," it suffices to answer that Montaigne in - so many words declares at the outset of the Apologie de Raimond - Sebonde that he knows nothing of theology, which is equivalent - to saying that he is not a student of the Bible. As a matter of - fact he never quotes it! - - -In the last and most characteristic essay of all, discoursing at large -Of Experience, he makes the most daring attack on laws in general, -as being always arbitrary and often irrational, and not seldom more -criminal than the offences they punish. After a planless discourse -of diseases and diets, follies of habit and follies of caprice, the -wisdom of self-rule and the wisdom of irregularity, he contrives to -conclude at once that we should make the best of everything and that -"only authority is of force with men of common reach and understanding, -and is of more weight in a strange language"--a plea for Catholic -ritual. Yet in the same page he pronounces that "Supercelestial -opinions and under-terrestrial manners are things that amongst us I -have ever seen to be of singular accord." - -There is no final recognition here of religion as even a useful -factor in life. In point of fact Montaigne's whole habit of mind -is perfectly fatal to orthodox religion; and it is clear that, -despite his professions of conformity, he did not hold the Christian -beliefs. [2179] He was simply a deist. Again and again he points to -Sokrates as the noblest and wisest of men; there is no reference to -Jesus or any of the saints. Whatever he might say in the Apology, in -the other essays he repeatedly reveals a radical unbelief. The essay -on Custom strikes at the root of all orthodoxy, with its thrusts -at "the gross imposture of religions, wherewith so many worthy and -sufficient men have been besotted and drunken," and its terse avowal -that "miracles are according to the ignorance wherein we are by -nature, and not according to nature's essence." [2180] Above all, he -rejected the great superstition of the age, the belief in witchcraft; -and, following the lead of Wier, [2181] suggested a medical view of -the cases of those who professed wizardry. [2182] This is the more -remarkable because his rubber-ball fashion of following impulsions -and rebounding from certainty made him often disparage other men's -certainties of disbelief just because they were certainties. Declaring -that he prefers above all things qualified and doubtful propositions, -[2183] he makes as many confident assertions of his own as any man -ever did. But the effect of the whole is a perpetual stimulus to -questioning. His function in literature was thus to set up a certain -mental atmosphere, [2184] and this the extraordinary vitality of -his utterance enabled him to do to an incalculable extent. He had -the gift to disarm or at least to baffle hostility, to charm kings, -[2185] to stand free between warring factions. No book ever written -conveys more fully the sensation of a living voice; and after three -hundred years he has as friendly an audience as ever. - - - Owen notes (French Skeptics, p. 446; cp. Champion, pp. 168-69) - that, though the papal curia requested Montaigne to alter certain - passages in the Essays, "it cannot be shown that he erased or - modified a single one of the points." Sainte-Beuve, indeed, has - noted many safeguarding clauses added to the later versions of - the essay on Prayers (i, 56): but they really carry further the - process of doubt. M. Champion has well shown how the profession of - personal indecision and mere self-portraiture served as a passport - for utterances which would have brought instant punishment on an - author who showed any clear purpose. As it was, nearly a century - passed before the Essais were placed upon the Roman Index Librorum - Prohibitorum (1676). - - To the orthodox of his own day Montaigne seems to have given entire - satisfaction. Thus Florimond de Boemond, in his Antichrist (2e - éd. 1599, p. 4), begins his apologetic with a skeptical argument, - which he winds up by referring the reader with eulogy to the - Apologie of Montaigne. The modern resort to the skeptical method - in defence of traditional faith seems to date from this time. See - Prof. Fortunat Strowski, Histoire du sentiment religieux en France - au xviie siècle; 1907, i, 55, note. (De Montaigne à Pascal.) - - -The momentum of such an influence is seen in the work of Charron -(1541-1603), Montaigne's friend and disciple. The Essais had -first appeared in 1580; the expanded and revised issue in 1588; -and in 1601 there appeared Charron's De la Sagesse, which gives -methodic form and as far as was permissible a direct application to -Montaigne's naturalistic principles. Charron's is a curious case of -mental evolution. First a lawyer, then a priest, he became a highly -successful popular preacher and champion of the Catholic League; -and as such was favoured by the notorious Marguerite (the Second -[2186]) of Navarre. On the assassination of the Duke of Guise by -order of Henri III he delivered an indignant protest from the pulpit, -of which, however, he rapidly repented. [2187] Becoming the friend -of Montaigne in 1586, he shows already in 1593, in his Three Truths, -the influence of the essayist's skepticism, [2188] though Charron's -book was expressly framed to refute, first, the atheists; second, -the pagans, Jews, Mohammedans; and, third, the Christian heretics -and schismatics. The Wisdom, published only eight years later, is a -work of a very different cast, proving a mental change. Even in the -first work "the growing teeth of the skeptic are discernible beneath -the well-worn stumps of the believer"; [2189] but the second almost -testifies to a new birth. Professedly orthodox, it was yet recognized -at once by the devout as a "seminary of impiety," [2190] and brought -on its author a persecution that lasted till his sudden death from -apoplexy, which his critics pronounced to be a divine dispensation. In -the second and rearranged edition, published a year after his death, -there are some modifications; but they are so far from essential [2191] -that Buckle found the book as it stands a kind of pioneer manual of -rationalism. [2192] Its way of putting all religions on one level, -as being alike grounded on bad evidence and held on prejudice, is -only the formal statement of an old idea, found, like so many others -of Charron's, in Montaigne; but the didactic purpose and method -turn the skeptic's shrug into a resolute propaganda. So with the -formal and earnest insistence that true morality cannot be built on -religious hopes and fears--a principle which Charron was the first to -bring directly home to the modern intelligence, [2193] as he did the -principle of development in religious systems. [2194] Attempting as it -does to construct a systematic practical philosophy of life, the book -puts aside so positively the claims of the theologians, [2195] and -so emphatically subordinates religion to the rule of natural reason, -[2196] that it constitutes a virtual revolution in public doctrine -for Christendom. As Montaigne is the effective beginner of modern -literature, so is Charron the beginner of modern secular teaching. He -is a Naturalist, professing theism; and it is not surprising to find -that for a time his book was even more markedly than Montaigne's the -French "freethinker's breviary." - - - Strowski, as cited, pp. 164-65, 183 sq., founding on Garasse and - Mersenne. Strowski at first pronounces Charron "in reality only a - collector of commonplaces" (p. 166); but afterwards obliviously - confesses (p. 191) that "his audacities are astonishing," - and explains that "he formulates, perhaps without knowing - it, a whole doctrine of irreligion which outgoes the man and - the time--a thought stronger than the thinker!" And again he - forgetfully speaks of "cette critique hardie et méthodique, - j'allais écrire scientifique" (p. 240). All this would be a new - form of commonplace. - - -It was only powerful protection that could save such a book from -proscription; but Charron and his book had the support at once of Henri -IV and the President Jeannin--the former a proved indifferentist to -religious forms; the latter the author of the remark that a peace with -two religions was better than a war which had none. Such a temper had -become predominant even among professed Catholics, as may be gathered -from the immense popularity of the Satyre Menippée (1594). Ridiculing -as it did the insensate fanaticism of the Catholic League, that -composition was naturally described as the work of atheists; but there -seems to have been no such element in the case, the authors being -all Catholics of good standing, and some of them even having a record -for zeal. [2197] The Satyre was in fact the triumphant revolt of the -humorous common sense of France against the tyranny of fanaticism, -which it may be said to have overthrown at one stroke, [2198] inasmuch -as it made possible the entry of Henri into Paris. By a sudden appeal -to secular sanity and the sense of humour it made the bulk of the -Catholic mass ashamed of its past course. [2199] On the other hand, -it is expressly testified by the Catholic historian De Thou that all -the rich and the aristocracy held the League in abomination. [2200] -In such an atmosphere rationalism must needs germinate, especially -when the king's acceptance of Catholicism dramatized the unreality -of the grounds of strife. - -After the assassination of the king in 1610, the last of the bloody -deeds which had kept France on the rack of uncertainty in religion's -name for three generations, the spirit of rationalism naturally did -not wane. In the Paris of the early seventeenth century, doubtless, the -new emancipation came to be associated, as "libertinism," with licence -as well as with freethinking. In the nature of the case there could be -no serious and free literary discussion of the new problems either of -life or belief, save insofar as they had been handled by Montaigne and -Charron; and, inasmuch as the accounts preserved of the freethought -of the age are almost invariably those of its worst enemies, it is -chiefly their side of the case that has been presented. Thus in 1623 -the Jesuit Father François Garasse published a thick quarto of over -a thousand pages, entitled La Doctrine Curieuse des Beaux Esprits -de ce temps, ou prétendus tels, in which he assails the "libertins" -of the day with an infuriated industry. The eight books into which -he divides his treatise proceed upon eight alleged maxims of the -freethinkers, which run as follows:-- - - - I. There are very few good wits [bons Esprits] in the world; - and the fools, that is to say, the common run of men, are not - capable of our doctrine; therefore it will not do to speak freely, - but in secret, and among trusting and cabalistic souls. - - II. Good wits [beaux Esprits] believe in God only by way of form, - and as a matter of public policy (par Maxime d'Etat). - - III. A bel Esprit is free in his belief, and is not readily to - be taken in by the quantity of nonsense that is propounded to - the simple populace. - - IV. All things are conducted and governed by Destiny, which - is irrevocable, infallible, immovable, necessary, eternal, and - inevitable to all men whomsoever. - - V. It is true that the book called the Bible, or the Holy - Scripture, is a good book (un gentil livre), and contains a lot of - good things; but that a bon esprit should be obliged to believe - under pain of damnation all that is therein, down to the tail of - Tobit's dog, does not follow. - - VI. There is no other divinity or sovereign power in the world but - Nature, which must be satisfied in all things, without refusing - anything to our body or senses that they desire of us in the - exercise of their natural powers and faculties. - - VII. Supposing there be a God, as it is decorous to admit, so - as not to be always at odds with the superstitious, it does not - follow that there are creatures which are purely intellectual - and separated from matter. All that is in Nature is composite, - and therefore there are neither angels nor devils in the world, - and it is not certain that the soul of man is immortal. - - VIII. It is true that to live happily it is necessary to extinguish - and drown all scruples; but all the same it does not do to appear - impious and abandoned, for fear of offending the simple or losing - the support of the superstitious. - - -This is obviously neither candid [2201] nor competent writing; and as -it happens there remains proof, in the case of the life of La Mothe le -Vayer, that "earnest freethought in the beginning of the seventeenth -century afforded a point d'appui for serious-minded men, which neither -the corrupt Romanism nor the narrow Protestantism of the period could -furnish." [2202] Garasse's own doctrine was that "the true liberty -of the mind consists in a simple and docile (sage) belief in all that -the Church propounds, indifferently and without distinction." [2203] -The later social history of Catholic France is the sufficient comment -on the efficacy of such teaching to regulate life. In any case the -new ideas steadily gained ground; and on the heels of the treatise of -Garasse appeared that of Marin Mersenne, L'impieté des Déistes, Athées -et Libertins de ce temps combattue, avec la refutation des opinions -de Charron, de Cardan, de Jordan Brun, et des quatraines du Déiste -(1624). In a previous treatise, Quæstiones celeberrimæ in Genesim -... in quo volumine Athei et Deisti impugnantur et expugnantur (1623), -Mersenne set agoing the often-quoted assertion that, while atheists -abounded throughout Europe, they were so specially abundant in France -that in Paris alone there were some fifty thousand. Even taking the -term "atheist" in the loosest sense in which such writers used it, -the statement was never credited by any contemporary, or by its author; -but neither did anyone doubt that there was an unprecedented amount of -unbelief. The Quatraines du Déiste, otherwise L'Antibigot, was a poem -of one hundred and six stanzas, never printed, but widely circulated -in manuscript in its day. It is poor poetry enough, but its doctrine -of a Lucretian God who left the world to itself sufficed to create -a sensation, and inspired Mersenne to write a poem in reply. [2204] -Such were the signs of the times when Pascal was in his cradle. - - - Mersenne's statistical assertion was made in two sheets of the - Quæstiones Celeberrimæ, "qui ont été supprimé dans la plupart - des exemplaires, à cause, sans doute, de leur exagération" - (Bouillier, Hist. de la philos. cartésienne, 1854, i, 28, where - the passage is cited). The suppressed sheets included a list of - the "atheists" of the time, occupying five folio columns. (Julian - Hibbert, Plutarchus and Theophrastus on Superstition, etc., 1828; - App. Catal. of Works written against Atheism, p. 3; Prosper - Marchand, Lettre sur le Cymbalum Mundi, in éd. Bibliophile - Jacob, 1841, p. 17, note; Prof. Strowski, De Montaigne à Pascal, - 1907, p. 138 sq.) Mersenne himself, in the preface to his book, - stultifies his suppressed assertion by declaring that the impious - in Paris boast falsely of their number, which is really small, - unless heretics be reckoned as atheists. Garasse, writing against - them, all the while professed to know only five atheists, three - of them Italians (Strowski, as cited). - - - - END OF VOL. I. - - - - - - - -NOTES - - -[1] Cp. Lechler, Geschichte des englischen Deismus, 1841, p. 458; -A. S. Farrar, Critical History of Freethought, 1862, p. 588; Larousse's -Dictionnaire, art. Libre Pensée; Sayous, Les déistes anglais et le -Christianisme, 1882, p. 203. - -[2] Jesus is made to apply it either to his disciples or to willing -followers in Matt. xvii, 17, where the implication seems to be that -lack of faith alone prevents miraculous cures. So with apistia in -Matt. xiii, 58. In the Epistles, a pagan as such is apistos--e.g., -1 Cor. vi, 6. Here the Vulgate has infideles: in Matt. xiii, 58, -the word is incredulitatem. - -[3] Cp. Luke xii, 46; Tit. i, 15; Rev. xxi, 8. - -[4] In the prologue to the first print of the old (1196) Revelation -of the Monk of Evesham, 1482. - -[5] Bayle, Dictionnaire, art. Viret, Note D. - -[6] Essais, liv. iii. ch. 12. Édit. Firmin-Didot, 1882, ii, 518. - -[7] See F. T. Perrens, Les Libertins en France au xviie Siècle, 1896, -Introd. § 11, for a good general view of the bearings of the word. It -stood at times for simple independence of spirit, apart from religious -freethinking. Thus Madame de Sevigné (Lettre à Mme. de Grignan, -28 juin, 1671) writes: "Je suis libertine, plus que vous." - -[8] Stähelin, Johannes Calvin, 1863, i, 383 sq.; Perrens as cited, -pp. 5-6; Mosheim, Eccles. Hist., 13 Cent., part ii, ch. v, §§ 9-12, -and notes; 14 Cent., part ii, ch. v, §§ 3-5; 16 Cent., § 3, part ii, -ch. ii. §§ 38-42. - -[9] A. Bossert, Calvin, 1906. p. 151. - -[10] Burckhardt, Renaissance in Italy, Eng. tr. ed. 1892, p. 542, note. - -[11] Answer to Sir T. More, Parker Soc. rep. 1850, pp. 53-54. - -[12] Controversy with Harding, Parker Soc. rep. of Works, 1845, i, 305. - -[13] Paradise Lost, i, 582; Samson Agonistes, 221. - -[14] The New Inn, 1628-9, Act iii. Sc. 2. - -[15] The New English Dictionary gives instances in 1526 and 1552. - -[16] If Mr. Froude's transcript of a manuscript can here be relied -on. History, ed. 1870, x, 545. (Ed. 1872, xi, 199.) - -[17] Four Questions Propounded (pref. to Acts and Monuments). - -[18] Answer to the Bishop of Winchester, Parker Soc. rep., p. 129. - -[19] Works, ed. 1850, ii, 752. - -[20] B. V, ch. i, § 3. Works, i, 429. - -[21] De civitate Dei, xx, 30, end; xxi, 5, beginn., etc. - -[22] Religio Medici, 1642, pt. i. §§ 19, 20. - -[23] Essay II, Of Scepticism and Certainty (rep. of reply to Thomas -White, app. to Scepsis Scientifica in 1665) in Glanvill's collected -Essays on Several Important Subjects in Philosophy and Religion, -1676, pp. 38, 44. - -[24] Plus Ultra: or, The Progress and Advancement of Knowledge since -the Days of Aristotle, 1668, p. 146. - -[25] History of the Royal Society, 1667, p. 73. Describing the -beginnings of the Society, Sprat remarks that Oxford had at that time -many members "who had begun a free way of reasoning" (p. 53). - -[26] Buckle, Introd. to Hist. of Civ. in Eng., 1-vol. ed. p. 211. - -[27] Sprat, p. 375 (printed as 367). - -[28] Id., p. 83. The French Academy had the same rule. - -[29] Some of Sprat's uses of the term have a very general sense, as -when he writes (p. 87) that "Amsterdam is a place of Trade without the -mixture of men of freer thoughts." The latter is an old application, -as in "the free sciences" or "the liberal arts." - -[30] Cited by Archbishop Trench, The Study of Words, 19th ed., p. 230, -from the Clarendon State Papers, App. Vol. III, p. 40. - -[31] Art. Rationalismus and Supernaturalismus in Herzog and Plitt's -Real-Encyk. für prot. Theol. und Kirche, 1883. xii, 509. - -[32] Philosophical Works of Bacon, ed. Ellis and Spedding, iii, -583. See the same saying quoted among the Apophthegms given in -Tenison's Baconiana (Routledge's ed. of Works, p. 895). - -[33] Every Man in his Humour (1598), Act iii, sc. 3. - -[34] Some Familiar Letters between Mr. Locke and Several of his -Friends, 1708, p. 190. - -[35] Id. p. 133. - -[36] Ed. Rotterdam, 1686. p. 195. - -[37] B. II, pt. ii, § 1. - -[38] Ch. on Logic, cited by Professor Fowler in his ed. of the Novum -Organum, 1878, introd. p. 118. - -[39] §§ 3 and 4. - -[40] Letters, 1746, p. 5. - -[41] Orig. ed. iii, 305, 306, 311; ed. J. M. R., 1900, ii, 349, 353. - -[42] Nos. 12, 111, 135. - -[43] Cp. Johnson on A. Philips in Lives of the Poets. Swift, too, -issued his Free Thoughts upon the Present State of Affairs in 1714. - -[44] Thus Bentley, writing as Phileleutherus Lipsiensis against -Collins, claims to have been "train'd up and exercis'd in Free Thought -from my youth." Dr. Samuel Clarke somewhere makes a similar statement; -and the point is raised by Berkeley in his Minute Philosopher, -Dial. i, § 10. One of the first replies to Collins, A Letter to the -Free-thinkers, By a Layman, dated February 24, 1712-13, likewise -insists on the right of believers to the title, declaring that -"a free-thinker may be the best or worst of men." Shaftesbury on -the other side protests that the passion of orthodoxy "holds up the -intended chains and fetters and declares its resolution to enslave" -(Characteristics, iii. 305; ed. 1900, ii, 345). Later, the claim of -Bentley and Clarke became common; and one tract on Christian evidences, -A Layman's Faith, 1732, whose author shows not a grain of the critical -spirit, professes to be written "by a Freethinker and a Christian." - -[45] Written in 1898. - -[46] Cp. Hauréau, Histoire de la philosophie scolastique, -ed. 1870-1872, i, 543-46. - -[47] Second ed. with enlarged Appendix (of authorities and references), -1808, 2 vols. - -[48] Farrar, pref., p. x; Riddle, p. 99; Van Mildert, i, 105, etc. - -[49] Van Mildert even recast his first manuscript. See the Memoir of -Joshua Watson, 1863, p. 35. - -[50] Cp. W. A. Schmidt, Geschichte der Denk- und Glaubensfreiheit im -ersten Jahrhundert der Kaiserherrschaft und des Christenthums, 1847, -pp. 12-13. - -[51] Its legitimacy on that side is expressly contended for by -Professor William James in his volume The Will to Believe (1897), -the positions of which were criticized by the present writer in the -University Magazine, April and June, 1897. - -[52] Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, 8th ed., p. 135. - -[53] A religious basis for sexual licence is of course a common feature -in non-Christian religions also. Classic instances are well known. As -to sexual promiscuity in an "intensely religious" savage community, -see Turner, Samoa a Hundred Years Ago, 1884, p. 290. - -[54] E. B. Tylor, Anthropology, 1881, p. 439. Cp. Lang, Custom and -Myth, ed. 1893, p. 72; J. G. Frazer, Lectures on the Early History -of the Kingship, 1905, pp. 85-87. - -[55] Theal, The Beginning of South African History, 1902, p. 57. See -also the Rev. J. Macdonald, Light in Africa, 1890, p. 192. - -[56] Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, -5th ed. 1871, i, 280, note. - -[57] Life of Mr. Yukichi Fukuzawa, Tokyo, 1902, pp. 48-53, 56-69. - -[58] See Tylor, Primitive Culture, 3rd ed. i, 71, as to savage -conservatism in handicraft; but compare his Researches into the Early -History of Mankind, 1865, p. 160, as to countervailing forces. - -[59] E.g., in the first chapter of Saint-Simon's Mémoires, the account -of the French soldiers who at the siege of Namur burned and broke -the images of Saint Médard for sending so much rain. Cp. Irvine, -Letters on Sicily, 1813, p. 72; and Ramage, Wanderings through Italy, -ed. 1868, p. 113. Constant, De la religion, 1824, vol. i, ptie. ii, -p. 34, gives a number of Christian instances. - -[60] Rev. J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, 1897, pp. 181-82. - -[61] Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Mathematicos, ix, 14, 29; Pseudo-Plutarch, -De placitis philosophorum, i, 7; Lactantius, De ira Dei, x, 47; -Cicero, De natura Deorum, i, 42; Augustine, De civitate Dei, iv, -32. It is noteworthy that the skeptic Sextus rejects the opinion as -absurd, even as does the high-priest Cotta in Cicero. - -[62] Vico was one of the first, after Sextus Empiricus and his modern -commentator Fabricius, to insist (following the saying of Petronius, -Primus in orbe deos fecit timor) that "False religions were founded -not by the imposture of some, but by the credulity of all" (Scienza -Nuova [1725], lib. i, prop. 40). Yet when denying (id., De' Principii, -ed. 1852, p. 114) the assertions of travellers as to tribes without -religion, he insisted that they were mere fictions planned to sell -the authors' books--here imputing fraud as lightly as others had done -in the case of the supposed founders of religions. - -[63] E.g., the Elizabethan play Selimus (Huth Lib. ed. of Greene, -vol. xiv, ed. Grosart), dated 1594, vv. 258-262. (In "Temple -Dramatists" ed., vv. 330-334.) See also below, vol. ii, ch. xiii. - -[64] On the principle of self-expression in religion, cp. Feuerbach, -Das Wesen der Religion, in Werke, ed. 1846-1849, i, 413, 445, 498, etc. - -[65] Bishop Thirlwall, History of Greece, ed. 1839, i, 186, -204. Cp. Curtius, Griechische Geschichte, 1858, i, 389. - -[66] Tiele, Outlines of the Hist. of Religions, Eng. tr., -p. 96. Cp. Robertson Smith, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, -2nd ed., p. 141, note. - -[67] Spencer and Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, -1904, pp. 258, 347, 366, 373, 492. - -[68] See the article by E. J. Glave, of Stanley's force, on -"Fetishism in Congoland," in the Century Magazine, April, 1891, -p. 836. Compare F. Schultze, Der Fetischismus, 1871, pp. 137, 141, -142, 144, etc.; Theal, The Beginning of South African History, 1902, -pp. 49, 52; Kranz, Natur- und Kulturleben der Zulus, 1880, pp. 110, -113-14; Moffat, Missionary Labours, 35th thous., pp. 69, 81-84; -A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-Speaking Peoples, 1887, pp. 125-29, 137-39, 142; -Sir G. S. Robertson, The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, ed. 1899, pp. 405, -417; E. Rae, The White Sea Peninsula, 1881, p. 149; Turner, Samoa, -1884, p. 272. It is certain that the wizards of contemporary savage -races are frequently killed as impostors by their own people. See -below, p. 35. - -[69] Tylor, Anthropology, p. 406; Primitive Culture, 3rd ed., i, 38. - -[70] The fact that this phenomenon occurs everywhere among primitives, -from the South Seas to Lapland, should be noted in connection with -the latterly revived claims of so-called "Mysticism." - -[71] Cp. E. Rae, The White Sea Peninsula, 1881, pp. 149, 263. - -[72] Glave, article cited, pp. 835-36. - -[73] Cp. Max Müller, Natural Religion, 1889, p. 133; Anthropological -Religion, 1892, p. 150; Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 2nd ed. ii, -358 sq. - -[74] Compare Bishop Butler's Charge to the Clergy of Durham, and Bishop -Wordsworth On Religious Restoration in England, 1854, p. 75, etc. - -[75] P. von Bradke, Dyâus Asura, Ahura Mazda, und die Asuras, -Halle. 1885, p. 115. - -[76] Rig-Veda, x, 121 (as translated by Muir, Müller, Dutt, and von -Bradke); and x, 82 (Dutt's rendering). It is to be noted that the -refrain "Who is the God whom we should worship?" is entirely different -in Ludwig's rendering of x, 121. [Bertholet's Religionsgeschichtliches -Lesebuch (1908) compiled on the principle that "the best translations -are good enough for us," follows the rendering of Muir, Müller, Dutt, -and von Bradke (p. 165).] Cp. Max Müller, Hibbert Lectures, p. 302, -and Natural Religion, pp. 227-229, citing R. V., viii, 100, 3, etc., -for an apparently undisputed case of skepticism. See again Langlois's -version of vi, 7, iii, 3 (p. 459). He cannot diverge much more from -the German and English translators than they do from each other. - -[77] Junod, as above cited, pp. 341, 343, 350, 388. Cp. Dalton, -as cited, p. 115. - -[78] E. Rae, The White Sea Peninsula, 1881, pp. 146-7. - -[79] On the other hand, there might be genuine defect of knowledge of -the religion of others of the tribe. This is said to occur in thousands -of cases in Christian countries: why not also among savages? See the -express testimony of Sir G. S. Robertson, The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, -ed. 1899, pp. 377, 409. - -[80] E.g., Moffat, Missionary Labours, end of ch. xvi and beginning -of ch. xix. - -[81] See Dr. Gasquet, The Great Pestilence, 1893. - -[82] Missionary Labours, ch. xix: stereo. ed. pp. 81, 82. It is -noteworthy that the women were the first to avow unbelief in an -unsuccessful rainmaker (Id. p. 84). - -[83] Missionary Labours, as cited, p. 85. - -[84] Cp. Schultze, Der Fetischismus, 1871, pp. 155-56; A. H. Keane, -Man, Past and Present, 1900, p. 49; Thurston, Castes and Tribes of -Southern India, 1909, i, 86. - -[85] Travels in Southern Africa in the Years 1803-1806, 1815, ii, -61. Cp. Rev. J. Macdonald, Light in Africa, 1890, p. 192, as to -the compulsion on men of superior intelligence to play the wizard, -by reason of the common connection of wizardry with any display of -mental power. There is no more tragical aspect in the life-conditions -of primitive peoples. - -[86] The Lake Regions of Central Africa, 1860, ii, 351. - -[87] Turner, Samoa a Hundred Years Ago, 1884, -pp. 304-305. Cp. Herodotos, iv, 68, as to the slaying of "false -prophets" among the Scythians; and i, 128, as to the impaling of the -Magi by Astyages. - -[88] Paul Kollmann, The Victoria Nyanza, 1899, p. 168. - -[89] Sir A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-Speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, -1887, p. 127. - -[90] E.g., an aged female relative of the writer, quite orthodox -in all her habits, and devout to the extent of calling the Book of -Esther "Godless" because the word "God" does not occur in it, yet -at a pinch declared that she had "never heard of Providence putting -a boll of meal inside anybody's door." Her daughter-in-law, also of -quite religious habits, quoted the saying with a certain sense of its -audacity, but endorsed it, as she had cause to do. Yet both regularly -practised prayer and asserted divine beneficence. - -[91] See B. Seeman, "Fiji and the Fijians," in Galton's Vacation -Tourists, 1862, pp. 275-76, as to the terrorism resorted to by Fijian -priests against unbelievers. "Punishment was sure to overtake the -skeptic, let his station in life be what it might"--i.e., supernatural -punishment was threatened, and the priests were not likely to let it -fail. Cp. Basil Thomson, The Fijians: A Study of the Decay of Custom, -1909, introd., p. xi: "The reformers of primitive races never lived -long: if they were low-born they were clubbed, and that was the end of -them and their reforms; if they were chiefs, and something happened -to them, either by disease or accident, men saw therein the figure -of an offended deity; and obedience to the existing order of things -became stronger than before." Cp. Pagan Christs, 2nd ed., pp. 60-62, -as to kings who wished to put down human sacrifices. - -[92] See Pagan Christs, 2nd ed., pp. 1-2. - -[93] E. J. Glave, art. cited, p. 825. Cp. Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, -pp. 582, 594. - -[94] Cp. the Rev. J. Macdonald, Light in Africa, 1890, pp. 222-23, -as to the "universal suspicion" which falls upon tribesmen of -rationalistic and anti-superstitious tendencies, making them "almost -doubt their own sanity." - -[95] Sir H. H. Johnston, The River Congo, ed. 1805, p. 289. Cp. Moffat, -as cited above. - -[96] Colenso, The Pentateuch, vol. i, pref. p. vii; introd. p. 9. - -[97] Spencer, Principles of Sociology, iii, § 583. - -[98] W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, 1831, iv, 30-31, 126-28. - -[99] Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands, compiled from the -communications of W. Mariner, by John Martin, M.D., 3rd ed. 1827, -i, 289-300, 306-307, 338-39; ii, 27-28, 83-86, 134. Mariner, who saw -much of the priests, found no reason to suspect them of any systematic -deception. See ii, 129. But his narrative leaves small room for doubt -as to the procedure of the priest of Toobo Totai. - -[100] Dr. A. Kropf, Das Volk der Xosa-Kaffern in östlichen Südafrika, -Berlin, 1899, pp. 203-204. Dr. Kropf, a missionary of forty years' -experience, states that many of the Kaffirs latterly disbelieve -in their sorcerers; but this may be partly a result of missionary -teaching--not so much the religious as the scientific. See the -testimony of the Rev. J. Macdonald, Life in Africa, 1890, pp. 47-48. - -[101] Rev. J. Macdonald, Life in Africa, pp. 225-26. - -[102] It is clear that in the Christianization of Europe much use -was made of the argument that the best lands had fallen to the -Christian peoples. See the epistle of Bishop Daniel of Winchester -to St. Boniface (Ep. lxvii) cited in Schlegel's note to Mosheim, -Reid's ed. of Murdock's translation, p. 262. - -[103] Bede, Eccles. Hist., ii, 13. - -[104] Cp. A. H. Mann in Social England, illustr. ed., i, 217. - -[105] Teutonic Mythology, Eng. trans. 1882, i, 7. - -[106] Crichton and Wheaton, Scandinavia, 1837, i, 198, note. Compare -Dr. Ph. Schweitzer, Geschichte der Skandinavischen Litteratur, i, 25: -"In the higher circles [in the pagan period] from an early date (schon -lange) unbelief and even contempt of religion flourished ... probably -never reaching the lower grades of the people." See also C. F. Allen, -Histoire de Danemark, French trans., Copenhagen, 1878, i, 55. - -[107] Æneid, vii, 648; x, 773, 880. Mezentius does not deny that Gods -exist: see x, 743. - -[108] Sir G. S. Robertson, The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, ed. 1899, -p. 379. - -[109] Professor T. Clifford Allbutt, Harveian Oration on Science and -Medieval Thought, 1901, p. 82. - -[110] Mr. Basil Thomson, in the able introduction to his excellent work -on The Fijians, speaks of primitive reformers (p. xi) as "rare souls -born before their time." But there is no special "time" for reformers, -who, as such, must be in advance of their average contemporaries. - -[111] Garcilasso, 1. viii, c. 8; 1. ix, c. 10; Herrera, Dec. v, 1. iv, -c. 4. See the passages in Réville's Hibbert Lectures, pp. 162-65. - -[112] Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, Kirk's ed., pp. 81 sq., 91-93, -97; H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, v, 427-29; -Clavigero, History of Mexico, Eng. tr. ed. 1807, B. iv, §§ 4, 15; -vii. § 42. - -[113] See the author's Pagan Christs, 2nd ed. pp. 60-62, -361. Cp. Lafcadio Hearn, Japan, 1904, pp. 313-14. - -[114] Cp. T. Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, ed. 1870, i, 231; Turner, -Samoa a Hundred Years Ago, 1884, p. 202. - -[115] "A long time elapses between each step that their [missionaries'] -stations advance: and when they do it invariably is under the influence -of some chief that they are even then led on." Dalton, Narrative of -an Explorer in Tropical South Africa, ed. 1891, p. 102. - -[116] See Professor Sully's Studies of Childhood, 1895. - -[117] Rev. S. Smith, Church Work among the Deaf and Dumb, 1875, cited -by Spencer, Principles of Sociology, iii, § 583. Cp. the testimony -cited there from Dr. Kitto, Lost Senses, p. 200. - -[118] Die griechischen Culte und Mythen, 1887, pp. 263, 276, 277, -etc. What is true as regards the thesis is that some of the central -insanities of religion, such as the cult of human sacrifice, seem to -have been propagated in all directions from an Asiatic centre. See -the author's Pagan Christs, 2nd ed. pp. 273, 292, 343, 354, 362, -etc. Cp. the Rev. D. Macdonald's Asiatic Origin of the Oceanic -Languages, Luzac & Co., 1894; the Nubische Grammatik of Lepsius, -1880; and Terrien de Lacouperie, Western Origin of the Early Chinese -Civilization, 1894, pp. 134, 362-63. - -[119] Dr. Andrew White, A History of the Warfare of Science with -Theology in Christendom, 1896, i, 23. - -[120] Dr. B. Seeman, Viti, 1862, pp. 179-82. - -[121] Cp. Lang (Myth, Ritual, and Religion, i, 91) as to the -contemptuous disbelief of savages in Christian myths. Mr. Lang -observes that this shows savages and civilized men to have "different -standards of credulity." That, however, does not seem to be the true -inference. Each order of believer accepts the myths of his own creed, -and derides others. - -[122] Cp. Decharme, La Critique des trad. relig. chez les Grecs, -1904, p. 121. - -[123] The same process will be recorded later in the case of the -intercourse of Crusaders and Saracens; and in the seventeenth century -it is noted by La Bruyère (Caractères, ch. xvi, Des esprits forts, -par. 3) as occurring in his day. The anonymous English author of an -essay on The Agreement of the Customs of the East Indians with those of -the Jews (1705, pp. 152-53) naïvely endorses La Bruyère. Macaulay's -remark to the Edinburgh electors, on the view taken of sectarian -strifes by a man who in India had seen the worship of the cow, is -well known. - -[124] Cp. Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 96, 121-22; Robertson Smith, -Religion of the Semites, p. 74; Tiele, Egyptian Religion, p. 36; -and Outlines, p. 52. - -[125] Cp. Tiele, Outlines, pp. 109-110, and Fischer, Heidenthum und -Offenbarung, p. 59. Professor Max Müller's insistence that the lines of -Vedic religion could not have been "crossed by trains of thought which -started from China, from Babylon, or from Egypt" (Physical Religion, -p. 251), does not affect the hypothesis put above. The Professor -admits (p. 250) the exact likeness of the Babylonian fire-cult to -that of Agni. - -[126] But cp. Müller, Anthropolog. Relig., p. 164, as to possible -later developments; and see above, pp. 45-47, as to the many cases in -which conquering races have actually adopted the Gods of the conquered. - -[127] Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, ii (2nd ed.), 372, 379, 384. - -[128] Id. p. 395. - -[129] Max Müller, Selected Essays, 1881, ii, 207-208. - -[130] Cp. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, 1894, pp. 94, 98-99; -Ghosha, Hist. of Hindu Civ. as illust. in the Vedas, Calcutta, 1889, -pp. 190-91; Max Müller, Phys. Relig., 1891, pp. 197-98. - -[131] Max Müller, Selected Essays, ii, 237. - -[132] Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, v, 268. - -[133] Max Müller, Hibbert Lectures, p. 302, citing R. V., viii, 100, -3; and ii, 12, 5. The first passage runs: "If you wish for strength, -offer to Indra a hymn of praise: a true hymn, if Indra truly exist; -for some one says, Indra does not exist! Who has seen him? Whom shall -we praise?" The hymn of course asseverates his existence. - -[134] Cp. Rig-Veda, i, 164, 46; x, 90 (cited by Ghosa, pp. 191, -198); viii, 10 (cited by Müller, Natural Religion, pp. 227-29); -and x, 82, 121, 129 (cited by Romesh Chunder Dutt, Hist. of Civ. in -Anc. India, ed. 1893, i, 95-97); Muir, Sanskrit Texts, v, 353 sq.; -Tiele, Outlines, p. 125; Weber, Hist. of Ind. Lit., Eng. trans., -p. 5; Max Müller, Hibbert Lectures, ed. 1880, pp. 298-304, 310, 315; -Phys. Relig., p. 187; Barth, Religions of India, Eng. trans., p. 8; -Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii, 354. - -[135] Barth, Religions of India, pp. 26, 31, citing Rig-Veda, v, 3, -1; i, 164, 46; viii, 68, 2. The phrase as to Agni is common in the -Brâhmanas, but is not yet so in the Vedas. The second text cited is -rendered by Müller: "That which is one the sages speak of in many -ways--they call it Agni, Yama, Mâtarisvan" (Selected Essays, 1881, -ii, 240). - -[136] Colebrooke's Miscellaneous Essays, ed. 1873, i, 375-76. Weber -(Ind. Lit., pp. 27, 137, 236, 284-85) has advanced the view that -the adherents of this doctrine, who gradually became stigmatized as -heretics, were the founders or beginners of Buddhism. But the view -that the universe is a self-existent totality appears to enter into the -Brahmans' Sankhya teaching, which is midway between the popular Nyaya -system and the esoteric Vedânta (Ballantyne, Christianity Contrasted -with Hindu Philosophy, 1859, pp. xviii, 59, 61). As to the connection -between the Sankhya system and Buddhism, see Oldenberg, Der Buddha, -sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde, 3te Aufl., Excurs, pp. 443. - -[137] H. H. Wilson, Works, 1862-71, ii, 346. - -[138] Weber, Hist. Ind. Lit., p. 236. - -[139] Ballantyne, pp. 58, 61; Major Jacob, Manual of Hindu Pantheism, -1881, p. 13. - -[140] Cp. Max Müller, Chips from a German Workshop, ed. 1880, i, -228-232, and Banerjea's Dialogues on the Hindu Philosophy, p. 73, -cited by Major Jacob, Hindu Pantheism, p. 13. - -[141] Jacob, as cited, p. 3. - -[142] Max Müller, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 340-41. Cp. Barth, Religions -of India, p. 81. - -[143] Müller, Hibbert Lectures, p. 139. - -[144] Cp. Weber, Hist. Ind. Lit., p. 28. - -[145] Id. pp. 28, 220-22. - -[146] Max Müller, Hibbert Lectures, p. 139, note, citing Panini, iv, -4, 60. - -[147] Apparently belonging to the later or middle Buddhist -period. Müller, Hibbert Lectures, p. 141. - -[148] On these cp. Müller, p. 139, note; Garbe, Philos. of Anc. India, -Eng. tr. 2nd ed. Chicago, 1899, p. 25; and Weber, Ind. Lit. p. 246, -note, with the very full research of Professor Rhys Davids, Dialogues -of the Buddha, 1899, pp. 166-72. - -[149] Müller, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 140-41. Cp. Garbe. p. 28. - -[150] Garbe, as cited. - -[151] Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, p. 171. - -[152] Id. pp. 169-71. - -[153] Id. p. 172. - -[154] Id. ib. - -[155] Trans. in English by Cowell and Gough, 1882. - -[156] Garbe, as cited, p. 25. - -[157] See Müller, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 141-42, citing Burnouf. - -[158] Müller, Hibbert Lectures, p. 310. - -[159] Bk. I, Stories ii, 7, 8, 16; vii. 180. - -[160] Bk. I, 11, 40; St. ii, 32. - -[161] St. vi. 162. - -[162] Major Jacob, as cited, preface. - -[163] Müller, Psychol. Relig., pp. 95, 97, 126; Lect. on the Vedânta -Philos., 1894, p. 32. - -[164] Chunder Dutt, Hist. of Civ. in Anc. India, as cited, i, 112-13. - -[165] Rhys Davids, trans. of Dialogues of the Buddha, p. 166. Cp. his -Buddhism, p. 143, as to Buddhist censures of an extravagant skepticism -which denied every religious theory. In one of the Dialogues (ii, -25, p. 74) a contemporary sophist is cited as flatly denying a future -state. Mr. Lillie, however (Buddhism in Christendom, 1887, p. 187), -contends as against Professor Rhys Davids that the Upanishads were only -"whispered to pupils who had gone through a severe probation." - -[166] Prof. Weber (Hist. Ind. Lit., p. 4) says the peoples of the -Punjaub never at all submitted to the Brahmanical rule and caste -system. But the subject natives there must at the outset have been -treated as an inferior order. Cp. Tiele, Outlines, p. 120 and refs.; -and Rhys Davids, Buddhism, p. 23. - -[167] Cp. Weber, Hist. Ind. Lit., pp. 236, 284-85; Max Müller, -Chips, i, 228-32; Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 258-64; and the -general discussion of the problem in the author's Pagan Christs, -2nd ed. pp. 239-63. - -[168] Brahmanism had itself been by this time influenced by aboriginal -elements, even to the extent of affecting its language. Weber, as -cited, p. 177. Cp. Müller, Anthrop. Relig., p. 164. - -[169] Major Jacob, as cited, p. 12. - -[170] I.e., "the enlightened," a title given to sages in -general. Weber, p. 284. - -[171] Weber, Hist. Ind. Lit., pp. 179, 299; Müller, Natural Religion, -p. 299. - -[172] See Senart, Essai sur la légende de Buddha, 2e édit., p. 297 ff. - -[173] Cp. Weber, pp. 286-87, 303. - -[174] See Weber, pp. 301, 307; also Rhys Davids, Buddhism, pp. 43, -83, etc. - -[175] Tiele, Outlines, p. 117. - -[176] Cp. Weber, Hist. Ind. Lit., pp. 27, 284-87; Max Müller, Natural -Religion, p. 555; Jacobi, as there cited; Tiele, Outlines, pp. 135-36; -Rhys Davids, American Lectures on Buddhism, pp. 115-16; Buddhism, -p. 84; and the author's Pagan Christs, pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ 8-13. - -[177] Weber, Hist. Ind. Lit., pp. 4, 39. - -[178] Barth, Religions of India, p. 146. - -[179] Rhys Davids, Buddhism, pp. 35, 79, 99. - -[180] Cp. Pagan Christs, pp. 248-50. - -[181] Rhys Davids, trans. of Dialogues, pp. 188-89; Amer. Lec. on -Buddhism, 1896, pp. 127-34; Hibbert Lectures, 1881, p. 109; Buddhism, -pp. 95, 98-99. - -[182] Max Müller, Selected Essays, 1881, ii, 295. - -[183] As the context in Professor Müller's work shows, these phrases -are inaccurate. - -[184] Cp. Weber, Ind. Lit., p. 289, note; and Banerjea, Dialogues on -the Hindu Philosophy, p. 520, cited by Major Jacob, pp. 29-30. - -[185] See Muir, Sanskrit Texts, iv, 50 (cited by Jacob, pp. 30-31), -as to the Brahman view of the licence ascribed to Krishna. And see -iii, 32 (cited by Jacob, p. 14), as to a remarkable disparagement of -Vedism in the Bhagavat Gita. - -[186] Müller, Selected Essays, ii, 363: H. H. Wilson, as last cited, -ii, 368 sq. - -[187] See this brought out in a strikingly dramatic way in Mr. Dennis -Hird's novel, The Believing Bishop. - -[188] Cp. Dr. A. Jeremias, Monotheistische Strömungen innerhalb der -Babylonischen Religion, 1904, p. 44--a very candid research. - -[189] The Hammurabi Code, by Chilperic Edwards, 1904, pp. 67, 68, 70 -(§§ 240, 249, 266). The invocations of named Gods by Hammurabi at the -close of the code, however, suggest that the force of the word was -"a God." Cp. p. 76 with what follows; and see note on p. 93. On this -question compare Jeremias, as cited, pp. 39, 43. - -[190] Maspero, Hist. anc. des peup. de l'orient, 4e éd. p. 139; Sayce, -Hib. Lect., pp. 121, 213, 215; E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alt., i (1884), -161 (§ 133); iii (1901), 167 sq. (§ 103). - -[191] Sayce, pp. 219, 344; Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, Eng. ed. p. 127. - -[192] Jastrow, Religions of Babylonia and Assyria, 1898, p. 318. - -[193] Jastrow, p. 187; Sayce, pp. 128, 267-68. Cp. Kuenen, Religion of -Israel, Eng. tr., i, 91; Menzies, History of Religion, 1895, p. 171; -Gunkel, Israel und Babylonien, 1903, p. 30; Jeremias, as cited, -pp. 5-6. - -[194] Meyer, iii, 168; Jastrow, p. 79; Sayce, p. 331 sq., 367 sq.; -Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, p. 112; Jeremias, pp. 7-23. - -[195] Sayce, p. 305. Cp. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, -p. 452. - -[196] Jastrow, p. 190, note, p. 319; Sayce, pp. 191-92, 367; Lenormant, -pp. 112, 113, 119, 133; Jeremias, p. 26. - -[197] Tiele, Outlines, p. 78; Sayce, Ancient Empires of the East, -pp. 152-53; Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies, 2nd ed. iii, 13; Maspero, -p. 139. - -[198] Strabo, xvi, c. 1, § 6. - -[199] Cp. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies, i, 110; iii, 12-13. - -[200] Hibbert Lectures, p. 385. - -[201] Meyer, iii, § 103; Sayce, pp. 192, 345. - -[202] Cp. Jastrow, p. 662; Sayce, p. 78; and Tiele, Hist. Comparée, -p. 209. It seems probable that human sacrifice was latterly restricted -to the case of criminals. - -[203] Cp. Meyer, iii, 173. - -[204] Meyer, i, 187, and note. - -[205] Cp. T. G. Pinches, The Old Testament in the Light of the -Hist. Records of Assyria and Babylonia, 1902, pp. 161-63. - -[206] Jastrow, pp. 187, 256; Sayce, pp. 316, 320, 322, 327; Meyer, -i, 183; Lenormant, p. 110; Jeremias, p. 5. - -[207] Sayce, pp. 326, 341; cp. Jastrow, p. 317. - -[208] Meyer, i, 599; Sayce, Hib. Lect., pp. 85-91; Anc. Emp. of the -East, p. 245. - -[209] Meyer, iii, § 57. - -[210] Herod. i, 131. - -[211] Jer. xi, 13, etc. - -[212] Ezek. chs. vi, viii. - -[213] Cp. the recent literature on the recovered Code of Hammurabi. - -[214] Herod. i, 101. - -[215] Id. iii, 79. - -[216] Cp. Grote, History of Greece, pt. ii, ch. 33 (ed. 1888, iii, -442), note. - -[217] Meyer, Gesch. des Alt., i, 505 (§ 417), 542 (§ 451), 617 (§ -515); Tiele, Outlines, p. 164. - -[218] Herod. i, 130. - -[219] Cp. Herod. iii, 94, 98; Grote, vol. iii, p. 448. - -[220] Meyer, as cited, i, 505, 530 (§ 439); Tiele, Outlines, pp. 163, -165. - -[221] Meyer, i, 528 (§ 438). - -[222] Darmesteter, The Zendavesta (S. B. E. ser.), vol. i, introd., -p. lx (1st ed.). - -[223] Rawlinson, Religions of the Anc. World, p. 105; Meyer, §§ -417, 450-51. - -[224] Meyer, i, 507 (§ 418). - -[225] Cp. Meyer, i, 506-508; Renan, as cited by him, p. 508; -Darmesteter, as cited, cc. iv-ix, 2nd ed.; Tiele, Outlines, p. 165. - -[226] Meyer, i, 520 (§ 428). - -[227] Meyer, i, 524 (§ 433); Tiele, Outlines, p. 178; Darmesteter, -Ormazd et Ahriman, 1877, pp. 7-18. - -[228] Meyer, i, § 450 (p. 541). - -[229] Tiele, Outlines, p. 167. Cp. Lenormant (Chaldean Magic, p. 229), -who attributes the heresy to immoral Median Magi; and Spiegel (Avesta, -1852, i, 271), who considers it a derivation from Babylon. - -[230] Le Page Renouf, Hibbert Lectures on Relig. of Anc. Egypt, -2nd ed. p. 92; Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, -Eng. tr. 1897, p. 109. Cp. p. 260. Renouf (pp. 93-103) supplies an -interesting analysis. - -[231] Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. i, 83; Wiedemann, as cited, p. 103 sq. - -[232] Cp. Major Glyn Leonard, The Lower Niger and its Tribes, 1906, -pp. 354, 417, 433. - -[233] Wiedemann, as cited, p. 136. - -[234] Meyer, p. 81 (§ 66); Tiele, Hist. of the Egypt. Relig. Eng. tr., -pp. 119, 154. - -[235] Le Page Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, 2nd ed. p. 240. - -[236] Meyer, Geschichte des Alten Egyptens, in Oncken's series, -1877, B. iii, Kap. 3, p. 249; Gesch. des Alt. i. 109; Tiele, -Egypt. Relig. pp. 149, 151, 157; Maspero, Hist. anc. des peuples de -l'orient, 4é ed., pp. 278-80; Le Page Renouf, as cited, pp. 215-30; -Wiedemann, pp. 12, 13, 301; Erman, Handbook of Egyptian Religion, -Eng. tr. 1907, p. 57. - -[237] Erman, pp. 59, 60. - -[238] Tiele, Egypt. Rel. pp. 153, 155, 156. - -[239] Tiele, p. 157. - -[240] Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter, 1884; -1 Hälfte, pp. 90-91; Kuenen, Religion of Israel, Eng. trans. i, -395-97; Tiele, pp. 226-30; Erman, pp. 71, 103-105. - -[241] Cp. Wiedemann, p. 302. - -[242] Tiele, pp. 114, 118, 154. Cp. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, -i, 101-102 (§ 85). Wiedemann, p. 260. - -[243] Dr. Wallis Budge, Egyptian Magic, 1899, end. - -[244] Tiele, p. 157. Cp. p. 217. - -[245] Cp. Maspero, as cited, pp. 274-76. - -[246] Meyer, i, 72. - -[247] Maspero's spelling. - -[248] Von Bissing's spelling. - -[249] De Garis Davies, The Tombs of Amarna. - -[250] Maspero (Hist. anc. des peuples de l'orient, ed. 1905, p. 251) -says he respected also Osiris and Horus. - -[251] Brugsch, Egypt under the Pharaohs, ed. 1891, p. 216. Maspero -(as cited, p. 250) recognizes no such revolt. - -[252] Maspero, Hist. anc. de l'orient, 7e éd. pp. 248-54; Brugsch, -Hist. of Egypt under the Pharaohs, Eng. trans. ed. 1891, ch. x; -Meyer, Geschichte des alten Aegyptens, B. iii, Kap. 4, 5; Gesch. des -Alterthums, i, 271-74; Tiele, pp. 161-65; Flinders Petrie, History -of Egypt, iii (1905), 10; Wiedemann, pp. 35-39; Erman, pp. 61-70; -L. W. King and H. H. Hall, Egypt and Western Asia in the Light of -Recent Discoveries, 1907, pp. 383-87; F. W. von Bissing, Geschichte -Aegyptens in Umriss, 1904, pp. 52-53. - -[253] Tiele, p. 144; Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. i, 135. - -[254] "We do not find magic predominant [in the tales] until the -Ptolemaic age. At that time the physical magic of the early times -reappears in full force" (Petrie, Religion and Conscience in Ancient -Egypt, 1898, p. 29. Cp. Maspero, p. 286; Budge, Egyptian Magic, -pp. 64, 233). - -[255] Petrie, Hist. iii, 174-75, 180. - -[256] Tiele, pp. 180-82; Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. i, 140-43. - -[257] Tiele, pp. 184-85, 196, 217. - -[258] Herodotos, ii, 48, 60-64, etc. Cp. Maspero, p. 286. - -[259] "The Osiride and Cosmic Gods rose in importance as time went -on, while the Abstract Gods continually sank on the whole. This -agrees with the general idea that the imported Gods have to yield -their position gradually to the older and more deeply-rooted faiths" -(Petrie, as last cited, p. 95). - -[260] The familiar narrative of Herodotos is put in doubt by the -monuments. Sayce, Ancient Empires, p. 246. But cp. Meyer, i, 611 -(§ 508). - -[261] Tiele, p. 158. - -[262] See figures 209, 212, 221, 235, 242, 249, 250, in Sharpe's -Hist. of Egypt, 7th ed. - -[263] Cp. Sharpe, ii, 287-95; Budge, Egyptian Magic, p. 64. - -[264] Compare the orthodox view of Bishop Westcott, Essays in the -History of Religious Thought in the West, 1891, pp. 197-200. - -[265] These fights had not ceased even in the time of Julian (Sharpe, -ii, 280). Cp. Juvenal, Sat. xv, 33 sq. - -[266] Metamorphoses, B., xi. - -[267] Cp. Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, passim. - -[268] Cp. Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. i, 232-33. - -[269] Meyer, i, 237. - -[270] Put by Canon Rawlinson, History of Phoenicia, 1889, p. 321. - -[271] As to the universality of this tendency, see Meyer, ii, 97. - -[272] Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, i, 251, § 209; Tiele, Outlines, -p. 84; Histoire comparée des anciennes religions, Fr. tr. pp. 320-21. - -[273] Rawlinson, Phoenicia, p. 340; Sayce, Anc. Emp. p. 204; Menzies, -Hist. of Relig. p. 168. - -[274] Præparatio Evangelica, B. i, c. 9-10. - -[275] Meyer, i, 249. - -[276] Cp. Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 159, as to Persian methods of -the same kind. - -[277] Div. Inst. i, 23. - -[278] E. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, ii, 104, 105. - -[279] As to Greek instances, cp. Bury, Hist. of Greece, ed. 1906, -pp. 53, 55, 65, 92, 104; and as to Roman, see Ettore Pais, Ancient -Legends of Roman History, Eng. trans. 1906, ch. x, where it is shown -that Virginia and Lucretia are primarily ancient Latin divinities; and -(ch. vii) that both Numa and Servius Tullius are probably in the same -case, Servius Rex being in all likelihood the servus rex Nemorensis of -the Arician grove, round whom turns the research of Dr. J. G. Frazer's -Golden Bough; while tullius is an old Latin word for a spring. See also -ch. iv as to Acca Larentia, another Goddess reduced by the historians -to the status of a hetaira, as was Flora. Horatius Cocles (id. p. 157) -is also a God reduced to a hero. - -[280] So Sayce, Ancient Empires, p. 204. - -[281] Sayce, Ancient Empires, p. 202. - -[282] Legge, Religions of China, 1880, pp. 11, 16; Douglas, -Confucianism and Taouism, 1879, pp. 12, 82. - -[283] Menzies, History of Religion, p. 158. - -[284] Legge, pp. 12, 19, 23, 25, 26; Tiele, Outlines, p. 27; Douglas, -p. 79. - -[285] Legge, Religions of China, p. 142. - -[286] See the citations made by Legge, p. 5. - -[287] Id. p. 139; cp. Menzies, p. 109. - -[288] Legge, p. 140; cp. p. 117; Douglas, p. 81. - -[289] Legge, Religions, p. 117; Life and Teachings of Confucius, -4th ed. p. 101; Douglas, p. 68; Tiele, Outlines, p. 29. - -[290] Tiele, p. 31; Legge, Religions, p. 143. - -[291] Tiele, pp. 31-32; Douglas, pp. 68, 84. But cp. Legge, Religions, -pp. 123, 127. - -[292] Legge, Life and Teachings, pp. 100-101. - -[293] Douglas, pp. 179, 184. - -[294] See the author's Pagan Christs, pp. 214-22. - -[295] Pauthier, Chine Moderne, p. 351. There is a tradition that -Lao-Tsze took his doctrine from an ancient sage who flourished -before 1120 B.C.; and he himself (Tau Teh King, trans. by Chalmers, -The Speculations of Lao-Tsze, 1868, ch. 41) cites doctrine as to Tau -from "those who have spoken (before me)." Cp. cc. 22, 41, 62, 65, 70. - -[296] Cp. E. J. Simcox, Primitive Civilizations, 1894, ii, 18. - -[297] Pauthier, p. 358; Chalmers, pp. 14, 37. - -[298] Legge, Religions, p. 137. - -[299] Tau Teh King, as cited, pp. 38. 49, ch. 49, 63; Pauthier, -p. 358; Legge, p. 223. - -[300] Analects, xxv, 36; Legge, Religions, p. 143; Life and Teachings, -p. 113; Douglas, p. 144. - -[301] Legge, Religions, p. 164. We do find, however, an occasional -allusion to deity, as in the phrase "the Great Architect" (Chalmers' -trans. 1868. ch. lxxiv, p. 57), and "Heaven" is spoken of in a somewhat -personalized sense. Still, Mr. Chalmers complains (p. xv) that Lao-Tsze -did not recognize a personal God, but put "an indefinite, impersonal, -and unconscious Tau" above all things (ch. iv). - -[302] F. H. Balfour, Art. "A Philosopher who Never Lived," in Leaves -from my Chinese Scrap-book, 1887, p. 83 sq. - -[303] Id. pp. 86-90. - -[304] Id. p. 134. - -[305] Legge, Religions of China, p. 147; Tiele, Outlines, p. 33. - -[306] Legge, Life and Works of Mencius, 1875, pp. 29, 50, 77, etc. - -[307] Tiele, p. 33. - -[308] Legge, Life and Works of Mencius, pp. 44, 47, 56, 57, etc. - -[309] Miss Simcox, Primitive Civilizations, ii, 36-37, following -Chavannes. - -[310] Legge's Mencius, p. 49; cp. p. 48. - -[311] Cp. Legge's Mencius, pp. 47, 131; Chalmers' Lao-Tsze, pp. 23, -28, 53, 58 (chs. xxx, xxxi, xxxvi, lxvii, lxxiv); Douglas, Taouism, -chs. ii, iii. - -[312] Legge, Religions of China, p. 147. The ruler in question seems -to have been of non-Chinese descent. E. H. Parker, China, 1901, p. 18. - -[313] Legge, Religions of China, p. 159. - -[314] Id. p. 60. - -[315] Tiele, p. 37. - -[316] Douglas, p. 222. - -[317] Id. p. 239. - -[318] Tiele, p. 35; Douglas, p. 287. Taouism, however, has a rather -noteworthy ethical code. See Douglas, ch. vi. It has to be noted that -the translations of the Tâo Têh King have varied to a disquieting -degree. Cp. Drews, Gesch. des Monismus, p. 121. - -[319] Details are given in the author's Pagan Christs, pt. iv. - -[320] Nadaillac (L'Amérique préhistorique, 1883, pp. 273-84) gives -them little of this credit, pronouncing them at once cruel and -degenerate. He credits them, however, with being the first makers of -roads and aqueducts in Central America, and cites the record of their -free public hospitals, maintained by the sacerdotal kings. Prescott, -on the other hand, overstated the bloodlessness of their religion -(Conquest of Mexico, Kirk's ed. 1890, p. 41 and ed. note). - -[321] Réville, Hibbert Lectures, On the Native Religions of Mexico -and Peru, 1884, pp. 62-67. - -[322] J. G. Müller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, -ed. 1867, pp. 577-90; H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific -States, iii, 279. (Passage cited in author's Pagan Christs, -pp. 402-403; where is also noted Dr. Tylor's early view, discarded -later, that Quetzalcoatl was a real personage.) - -[323] Cp. Prescott, as cited. - -[324] Réville, p. 66. - -[325] J. G. Müller, as cited, pp. 473-74; Réville, p. 46. Dr. Réville -speaks of the worship of the unifying deity as pretty much "effaced" -by that of the lower Gods. It seems rather to have been a priestly -effort to syncretize these. Still, such an effacement did take place, -as we have seen, in Central Asia in ancient times, after a syncretic -idea had been reached (above, p. 45). As to the alleged monotheism of -King Netzahuatl (or Netzahualcoyotl), of Tezcuco, mentioned above, -p. 39, see Lang, Making of Religion, p. 270, note, and p. 282; -Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, as cited, p. 92; and J. G. Müller, -as cited, pp. 473-74, 480. - -[326] As to the capabilities of the Aztec language, see Bancroft, -Native Races, ii, 727-28 (quoted in Pagan Christs, p. 416, note). - -[327] Refs. above, p. 41. Cp. Lang, Making of Religion, p. 270, -note, and p. 282; J. G. Müller, as cited, pp. 473-74; and Nadaillac, -as cited, p. 289. - -[328] The Christianized descendant of the Tezcucan kings, Ixtilxochitl, -who wrote their history, adds the words, "Cause of Causes"--a very -unlikely formula in the place and circumstances. - -[329] Above, p. 41. Cp. Lang, as last cited, pp. 263, 282. - -[330] Cp. Kirk's ed. of Prescott's Conquest of Peru, 1889, p. 44; -Réville, p. 189-90; Lang, as cited below. - -[331] Réville, p. 152, citing Garcilasso. See same page for a story -of resistance to the invention of an alphabet. - -[332] Réville, p. 50. citing Torquemada, 1. viii, c. 20. end. - -[333] History of the Affairs of New Spain, French trans. 1880, -1. vi, ch. 7, pp. 342-43. Cp. Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, Kirk's -ed. pp. 31, 33. - -[334] Prescott, p. 34. - -[335] "The priest says, 'the spirit is hungry.' the fact being that he -himself is hungry. He advises the killing of an animal" (Max Müller, -Anthropological Religion, p. 307). - -[336] On the general tendency cp. Chantepie de la Saussaye, Manual -of the Science of Religion, pp. 77-84. - -[337] In the windows of the shop of the S. P. C. K., in London, -may be often seen large displays of reproduced Madonna-pictures, -by Catholic artists, at popular prices. - -[338] Compare the author's Pagan Christs, pp. 66-95. - -[339] Jud. xvii, xviii. - -[340] Gen. xxxi, 19, 34, 35. - -[341] Compare Hugo Winckler, Geschichte Israels, i, 56-58. - -[342] Compare Tiele, Outlines, p. 87; Hist. comp. des -anc. relig. p. 342 sq.; Kuenen, Relig. of Israel, iii, 35, 44, -398. Winckler (Gesch. Israels, i, 34-38) pronounces the original -Semitic Yahu, and the Yahweh evolved from him, to have been each a -"Wetter-Gott." - -[343] The word is applied to the apparition of Samuel in the story -of the Witch of Endor (1 Sam. xxviii, 13). - -[344] The unlearned reader may here be reminded that in Gen. i the -Hebrew word translated "God" is "Elohim" and that the phrase in -Gen. ii rendered "the Lord God" in our versions is in the original -"Yah-weh-Elohim." The first chapter, with its plural deity, is, -however, probably the later as well as the more dignified narrative, -and represents the influence of Babylonian quasi-science. See, -for a good general account of the case, The Witness of Assyria, by -C. Edwards, 1893, ch. ii. Cp. Wellhausen, Proleg. to Hist. of Israel, -Eng. tr. pp. 196-308; E. J. Fripp, Composition of the Book of Genesis, -1892, passim; Driver, Introd. to the Lit. of the Old Test. 1891, -pp. 18-19. - -[345] Winckler, Gesch. Isr. i, 29-30. - -[346] Cp. Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. i, 398. - -[347] See the myth of the offerings put in it by the Philistines -(1 Sam. vi). - -[348] 1 Sam. iii, 3. Cp. ch. ii, 12-22. Contrast Lev. xvi, 2, ff. - -[349] 1 Sam. iv, 3-11. Cp. v. vii, 2. - -[350] 2 Sam. vi. - -[351] 1 Kings xii, 28; Hosea viii, 4-6. Cp. Jud. viii. 27; Hosea -viii, 5. - -[352] Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 196. But see above, p. 79. - -[353] 11th cent. B.C. - -[354] 2 Kings xviii, 4, 22; xxiii, 48. - -[355] 2 Kings xxiii. - -[356] Jer. i, 18; iii, 16; vi, 13; vii, 4-22; viii, 8; xviii, 18; -xx, 1, 2; xxiii, 11. - -[357] Jer. ii, 28; xi, 13. - -[358] So Kuenen, vol. i. App. i to Ch. 1. - -[359] Amos v, 21, 22. - -[360] Hosea ii, 11; vi, 6. - -[361] Isa. i, 11-14. - -[362] Mic. vi, 6-8. - -[363] Cp. M. Müller, Nat. Rel. pp. 560-61; Psychol. Rel. pp. 30-32; -Wellhausen, Israel, p. 465. If the Moabite Stone be genuine--and it -is accepted by Stade (Gesch. des Volkes Israel, in Oncken's Series, -1881, i, 86) and by most contemporary scholars--the Hebrew alphabetic -writing is carried back to the ninth century B.C. An account of the -Stone is given in The Witness of Assyria, by C. Edwards, ch. xi. See -again Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, bk. i, ch. 14, Eng. tr. 1894, i, 280, -for a theory of the extreme antiquity of the alphabet. - -[364] Dr. Cheyne (Art. Amos in Encyc. Biblica) gives some good reasons -for attaching little weight to such objections, but finally joins in -calling Amos "a surprising phenomenon." - -[365] Driver, Introd. to Lit. of Old Test. ch. vi, § 2 (p. 290, -ed. 1891). Cp. Kuenen, Relig. of Israel, i, 86; and Robertson Smith, -art. Joel, in Encyc. Brit. - -[366] Cp. Wellhausen, Israel, p. 501; Driver, ch. vii (1st ed. pp. 352 -sq., esp. pp. 355, 361, 362, 365); Stade, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, -i, 85. - -[367] E.g. Ps. l, 8-15; li, 16-17, where v. 19 is obviously a priestly -addition, meant to countervail vv. 16, 17. - -[368] Cp. Kuenen, i, 156; Wellhausen, Prolegomena, p. 139; Israel, -p. 478. - -[369] As to a possible prehistoric connection of Hebrews and -Perso-Aryans, see Kuenen, i, 254, discussing Tiele and Spiegel, and -iii, 35, 44, treating of Tiele's view, set forth in his Godsdienst -van Zarathustra, that fire-worship was the original basis of -Yahwism. Cp. Land's views, discussed by Kuenen, p. 398; and Renan, -Hist. des langues sémit. p. 473. - -[370] Cheyne, Introd. to Isaiah, Prol. pp. xxx, xxxviii, following -Kosters. - -[371] There is a cognate dispute as to the condition of the Samaritans -at the time of the Return. Stade (Gesch. den Volkes Israel, -i, 602) holds that they were numerous and well-placed. Winckler -(Alttestamentliche Untersuchungen, 1892, p. 107) argues that, on the -contrary, they were poor and unorganized, and looked to the Jews for -help. So also E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. iii (1901), 214. - -[372] Cp. Rowland Williams, The Hebrew Prophets, ii (1871), 38. This -translator's rendering of the phrase cited by Zephaniah runs: -"Neither good does the eternal nor evil." - -[373] Cp. E. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, iii, 216. - -[374] Mal. ii, 17; iii, 13. Cp. ii, 8, 11. - -[375] Cp. Jer. xxxiii, 24; xxxviii, 19. - -[376] Eccles. iii, 19-21. - -[377] Ch. v. Renan's translation lends lucidity. - -[378] Driver, Introduction, p. 378. Prof. Dillon (Skeptics of the -Old Testament, p. 155) goes so far as to pronounce Agur a "Hebrew -Voltaire," which is somewhat of a straining of the few words he has -left. Cp. Dr. Moncure Conway, Solomon and Solomonic Literature, 1899, -p. 55. In any case, Agur belongs to an age of "advanced religious -reflection" (Cheyne, Job and Solomon, p. 152). - -[379] Driver, Introduction, p. 378. - -[380] Biscoe, Hist. of the Acts of the Apostles, ed. 1829, p. 80, -following Selden and Lightfoot. - -[381] S. Schechter, Studies in Judaism, 1896, p. 189, citing Sanhedrin, -386, and Pseudo-Jonathan to Gen. iv, 8. Cp. pp. 191-92, citing a -mention of Epicurus in the Mishna. - -[382] The familiar phrase in the Psalms (xiv, i; liii, 1), "The fool -hath said in his heart, there is no God," supposing it to be evidence -for anything, clearly does not refer to any reasoned unbelief. Atheism -could not well be quite so general as the phrase, taken literally, -would imply. - -[383] Cp. W. R. Sorley, Jewish Christians and Judaism, 1881, -p. 9; Robertson Smith, Old Test. in the Jewish Ch. ed. 1892, -pp. 48-49. These writers somewhat exaggerate the novelty of the view -they accept. Cp. Biscoe, History of the Acts, ed. 1829, p. 101. - -[384] Wisdom, c. 2. - -[385] Cp. the implications in Ecclesiasticus, vi, 4-6; xvi, 11-12, -as to the ethics of many believers. - -[386] Kuenen, ii, 242-43. - -[387] Kalisch, Comm. on Leviticus, xxv, 8, pt. ii, p. 548. - -[388] In the Wisdom of Solomon, iii, 13; iv, 1, the old desire for -offspring is seen to be in part superseded by the newer belief in -personal immortality. - -[389] Schechter, Studies in Judaism, 1896, p. 216. Compare pp. 193-94. - -[390] See Supernatural Religion, 6th ed. i, 97-100, 103-21; Mosheim, -Comm. on Christ. Affairs before Constantine, Vidal's tr. i, 70; -Schürer, Jewish People in the Time of Jesus, Eng. tr. Div. II, -vol. iii, p. 152. - -[391] Sat. xiv, 96-106. - -[392] Cp. Horace, 1 Sat. v, 100. - -[393] Rev. A. Edersheim, History of the Jewish Nation after the -Destruction of Jerusalem, 1856, p. 462, citing the Avoda Sara, a -treatise directed against idolatry! Other Rabbinical views cited by -Dr. Edersheim as being in comparison "sublime" are no great improvement -on the above--e.g., the conception of deity as "the prototype of -the high priest, and the king of kings,"--"who created everything -for his own glory." With all this in view, Dr. Edersheim thought -it showed "spiritual decadence" in Philo Judæus to speak of Persian -magi and Indian gymnosophists in the same laudatory tone as he used -of the Essenes, and to attend "heathenish theatrical representations" -(p. 372). - -[394] See Ps. xc, 2; Prov. viii, 22, 26. - -[395] This is seen persisting in the lore of the Neo-Platonist writer -Sallustius Philosophus (4th c.), De Diis et Mundo, c. 7, though quite -unscientifically held. - -[396] Cp. Tiele, Outlines, pp. 205, 207, 212. - -[397] Cp. E. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, ii, 533. - -[398] Cp. K. O. Müller, Literature of Ancient Greece, ed. 1847, p. 77. - -[399] Duncker, Gesch. des Alterth. 2 Aufl. iii, 209-10, 252-54, -319 sq.; E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alterth. ii, 181, 365, 369, 377, 380, -535 (see also ii, 100, 102, 105, 106, 115 note, etc.); W. Christ, -Gesch. der griech. Lit. 3te Aufl. p. 12; Gruppe, Die griech. Culte -und Mythen, 1887, p. 165 sq. - -[400] E. Curtius, Griech. Gesch. i, 28, 29, 35, 40, 41, 101, 203, -etc.; Meyer, ii, 369. - -[401] See the able and learned essay of S. Reinach, Le Mirage -Orientate, reprinted from L'Anthropologie, 1893. I do not find that -its arguments affect any of the positions here taken up. See pp. 40-41. - -[402] Meyer, ii. 369; Benn, The Philosophy of Greece, 1898, p. 42. - -[403] Cp. Bury, History of Greece, ed. 1906, pp. vi, 10, 27, 32-34, -40, etc.; Burrows, The Discoveries in Crete, 1907, ch. ix; Maisch, -Manual of Greek Antiquities, Eng. tr. §§ 8, 9, 10, 60; H. R. Hall, -The Oldest Civilization of Greece, 1901, pp. 31, 32. - -[404] Cp. K. O. Müller, Hist. of the Doric Race, Eng. tr. 1830, i, -8-10; Busolt, Griech. Gesch. 1885, i, 33; Grote, Hist. of Greece, -10-vol. ed. 1888, iii, 3-5, 35-44; Duncker, iii, 136, n.; E. Meyer, -Gesch. des Alterthums, i, 299-310 (§§ 250-58); E. Curtius, i, 29; -Schömann, Griech. Alterthümer, as cited, i, 2-3, 89; Burrows, ch. ix. - -[405] Cp. Meyer, ii, 97; and his art. "Baal" in Roscher's -Ausführl. Lex. Mythol. i, 2867. - -[406] The fallacy of this tradition, as commonly put, was well shown -by Renouvier long ago--Manuel de philosophie ancienne, 1844, i, -3-13. Cp. Ritter, as cited below. - -[407] Cp. on one side, Ritter, Hist. of Anc. Philos. Eng. tr. i, -151; Renan, Études d'hist. religieuse, pp. 47-48; Zeller, Hist. of -Greek Philos. Eng. tr. 1881, i, 43-49; and on the other, Ueberweg, -Hist. of Philos. Eng. tr. i, 31, and the weighty criticism of Lange, -Gesch. des Materialismus, i, 126-27 (Eng. tr. i, 9, note 5). - -[408] Cp. Curtius, i, 125; Bury, introd. and ch. i. - -[409] Cp. Bury, as cited. - -[410] As to the primary mixture of "Pelasgians" and Hellenes, -cp. Busolt, i, 27-32; Curtius, i, 27; Schömann, i, 3-4; Thirlwall, -Hist. of Greece, ed. 1839, i, 51-52, 116. K. O. Müller (Doric Race, -Eng. tr. i, 10) and Thirlwall, who follows him (i, 45-47), decide -that the Thracians cannot have been very different from the Hellenes -in dialect, else they could not have influenced the latter as they -did. This position is clearly untenable, whatever may have been -the ethnological facts. It would entirely negate the possibility of -reaction between Greeks, Kelts, Egyptians, Semites, Romans, Persians, -and Hindus. - -[411] Murray, Four Stages of Greek Religion, 1912, p. 59. - -[412] Cp. Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. ii, 583. - -[413] The question is discussed at some length in the author's -Evolution of States, 1912. - -[414] Lit. of Anc. Greece, pp. 41-47. The discussion of the Homeric -problem is, of course, alien to the present inquiry. - -[415] Introd. to Scientif. Mythol. Eng. tr. pp. 180, 181, -291. Cp. Curtius, i, 126. - -[416] Cp. Curtius, i, 107, as to the absence in Homer of any -distinction between Greeks and barbarians; and Grote, 10-vol. ed. 1888, -iii, 37-38, as to the same feature in Archilochos. - -[417] Duncker, Gesch. des Alt., as cited, iii. 209-10; pp. 257, -319 sq. Cp. K. O. Müller, as last cited, pp. 181, 193; Curtius, i, -43-49, 53, 54, 107, 365, 373, 377, etc.; Grote, iii, 39-41; and Meyer, -ii, 104. - -[418] Duncker, iii, 214; Curtius, i, 155, 121; Grote, iii, 279-80. - -[419] Busolt, Griech. Gesch. 1885, i, 171-72. Cp. pp. 32-34; and -Curtius, i, 42. - -[420] On the general question cp. Gruppe, Die griechischen Culte und -Mythen, pp. 151 ff., 157, 158 ff., 656 ff., 672 ff. - -[421] Preller, Griech. Mythol. 2 Aufl. i, 260; Tiele, Outlines, p. 211; -R. Brown, Jr., Semit. Influ. in Hellenic Mythol. 1898, p. 130; Murray, -Hist. of Anc. Greek Lit. p. 35; H. R. Hall, Oldest Civilization of -Greece, 1901, p. 290. - -[422] See Tiele, Outlines, pp. 210, 212. Cp., again, Curtius, -Griech. Gesch. i, 95, as to the probability that the "twelve Gods" -were adjusted to the confederations of twelve cities; and again p. 126. - -[423] "Even the title 'king' (Anax) seems to have been borrowed by the -Greek from Phrygian.... It is expressly recorded that tyrannos is a -Lydian word. Basileus ('king') resists all attempts to explain it as a -purely Greek formation, and the termination assimilates it to certain -Phrygian words." (Prof. Ramsay, in Encyc. Brit. art. Phrygia). In -this connection note the number of names containing Anax (Anaximenes, -Anaximandros, Anaxagoras, etc.) among the Ionian Greeks. - -[424] iv, 561 sq. - -[425] It is now agreed that this is merely a guess. The document, -further, has been redacted and interpolated. - -[426] Prehist. Antiq. of the Aryan Peoples, Eng. tr. p. 423. Wilamowitz -holds that the verses Od. xi, 566-631, are interpolations made later -than 600 B.C. - -[427] Tiele, Outlines, p. 209; Preller, p. 263. - -[428] Meyer says on the contrary (Gesch. des Alt. ii, 103, Anm.) that -"Kronos is certainly a Greek figure"; but he cannot be supposed to -dispute that the Greek Kronos cult is grafted on a Semitic one. - -[429] Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 54, 181. Cp. Cox, Mythol. of the -Aryan Nations, p. 260, note. It has not, however, been noted in the -discussions on Semelê that Semlje is the Slavic name for the Earth -as Goddess. Ranke, History of Servia, Eng. tr. p. 43. - -[430] Iliad, xiv, 201, 302. - -[431] Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 367 sq.; Ancient Empires, -p. 158. Note p. 387 in the Lectures as to the Assyrian influence, -and p. 391 as to the Homeric notion in particular. Cp. W. Christ, -Gesch. der griech. Literatur, § 68. - -[432] It is unnecessary to examine here the view of Herodotos that -many of the Greek cults were borrowed from Egypt. Herodotos reasoned -from analogies, with no exact historical knowledge. But cp. Renouvier, -Manuel, i, 67, as to probable Egyptian influence. - -[433] Cp. Meyer, ii, §§ 453-60, as to the eastern initiative of -Orphic theology. - -[434] It is noteworthy that the traditional doctrine associated with -the name of Orpheus included a similar materialistic theory of the -beginning of things. Athenagoras, Apol. c. 19. Cp. Renouvier, Manuel -de philos. anc. i, 69-72; and Meyer, ii, 743. - -[435] Cp. Meyer, ii, 726. As to the oriental elements in Hesiod see -further Gruppe, Die griechischen Culte und Mythen, 1887, pp. 577, -587, 589, 593. - -[436] Cp. however, Bury (Hist. of Greece, pp. 6, 65), who assumes that -the Greeks brought the hexameter with them to Hellas. Contrast Murray, -Four Stages, p. 61. - -[437] Mahaffy, History of Classical Greek Literature, 1880, i, 15. - -[438] Id. p. 16. Cp. W. Christ, as cited, p. 79. - -[439] Mahaffy, pp. 16-17. - -[440] Od. xviii, 352. - -[441] Od. vi, 240; Il. v, 185. - -[442] Od. xxii, 39. - -[443] In Od. xiv, 18, antitheoi means not "opposed to the Gods," -but "God-like," in the ordinary Homeric sense of noble-looking -or richly attired, as men in the presence of the Gods. Cp. vi, -241. Yet a Scholiast on a former passage took it in the sense -of God-opposing. Clarke's ed. in loc. Liddell and Scott give no -use of atheos, in the sense of denying the Gods, before Plato -(Apol. 26 C. etc.), or in the sense of ungodly before Pindar -(P. iv, 288) and Æschylus (Eumen. 151). For Sophocles it has the -force of "God-forsaken"--Oedip. Tyr. 254 (245), 661 (640), 1360 -(1326). Cp. Electra, 1181 (1162). But already before Plato we find the -terms apistos and atheos, "faithless" or "infidel" and "atheist," -used as terms of moral aspersion, quite in the Christian manner -(Euripides, Helena, 1147), where there is no question of incredulity. - -[444] Cp. Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 2nd ed. i, 14-15. and -cit. there from Professor Jebb. - -[445] Cp. Meyer, Gesch. des Alterthums, ii, 724-27; Grote, as cited, -i, 279-81. - -[446] Meyer, ii, 724, 727. - -[447] The tradition is confused. Stesichoros is said first to have -aspersed Helen, whereupon she, as Goddess, struck him with blindness: -thereafter he published a retractation, in which he declared that she -had never been at Troy, an eidolon or phantasm taking her name; and -on this his sight was restored. We can but divine through the legend -the probable reality, the documents being lost. See Grote, as cited, -for the details. For the eulogies of Stesichoros by ancient writers, -see Girard, Sentiment religieux en Grèce, 1869, pp. 175-79. - -[448] Cp. Meyer (1901), iii. § 244. - -[449] Ol. i, 42-57, 80-85. - -[450] Ol. ix, 54-61. - -[451] He dedicated statues to Zeus, Apollo, and Hermes. Pausanias, -ix, 16, 17. - -[452] Herodot. ii. 53. - -[453] A ruler of Libyan stock, and so led by old Libyan connections to -make friends with Greeks. He reigned over fifty years, and the Greek -connection grew very close. Curtius, i, 344-45. Cp. Grote, i, 144-55. - -[454] Grote, 10-vol. ed. 1888, i, 307, 326, 329, 413. Cp. i, 27-30; -ii, 52; iii, 39-41, etc. - -[455] K. O. Müller, Introd. to Mythology, p. 192. - -[456] "Then one [of the Persians] who before had in nowise believed -in [or, recognized the existence of] the Gods, offered prayer and -supplication, doing obeisance to Earth and Heaven" (Persae, 497-99). - -[457] Agamemnon, 370-372. This is commonly supposed to be a reference -to Diagoras the Melian (below, p. 159). - -[458] Agam. 170-72 (160-62). - -[459] So Whittaker, Priests, Philosophers, and Prophets, 1911, -pp. 42-43. - -[460] So Buckley, in Bohn trans. of Æschylus, p. 100. He characterizes -as a "skeptical formula" the phrase "Zeus, whoever he may be"; but -goes on to show that such formulas were grounded on the Semitic notion -that the true name of God was concealed from man. - -[461] Grote, ed. 1888, vii, 8-21. See the whole exposition of the -exceptionally interesting 67th chapter. - -[462] Cp. Meyer, ii, 431; K. O. Müller, Introd. to Mythol. pp. 189-92; -Duncker, p. 340; Curtius, i, 384; Thirlwall, i, 200-203; Burckhardt, -Griech. Culturgesch. 1898, ii. 19. As to the ancient beginnings of a -priestly organization, see Curtius, i, 92-94, 97. As to the effects of -its absence, see Heeren, Polit. Hist. of Anc. Greece, Eng. tr. 1829, -pp. 59-63; Burckhardt, as cited, ii, 31-32; Meyer, as last cited; -Zeller, Philos. der Griechen, 3te Aufl. i, 44 sq. Lange's criticism -of Zeller's statement (Gesch. des Materialismus, 3te Aufl. i, 124-26, -note 2) practically concedes the proposition. The influence of a -few powerful priestly families is not denied. The point is that they -remained isolated. - -[463] Cp. K. O. MÜller, Introd. to Mythol. p. 195; Curtius, i, 387, -389, 392; Duncker, iii, 519-21, 563; Thirlwall, i, 204; Barthélemy -St. Hilaire, préf. to tr. of Metaphys. of Aristotle, p. 14. Professor -Gilbert Murray, noting that Homer and Hesiod treated the Gods as -elements of romance, or as facts to be catalogued, asks: "Where is -the literature of religion: the literature which treated the Gods as -Gods? It must," he adds, "have existed"; and he holds that we "can -see that the religious writings were both early and multitudinous" -(Hist. of Anc. Greek Lit. p. 62; cp. Meyer and Mahaffy as cited -above, pp. 125-26. "Writings" is not here to be taken literally; -the early hymns were unwritten). The priestly hymns and oracles -and mystery-rituals in question were never collected; but perhaps -we may form some idea of their nature from the "Homeridian" and -Orphic hymns to the Gods, and those of the Alexandrian antiquary -Callimachus. It is further to be inferred that they enter into the -Hesiodic Theogony. (Decharme, p. 3, citing Bergk.) - -[464] Meyer, ii, 426; Curtius, i, 390-91, 417; Thirlwall, i, 204; -Grote, i, 48-49. - -[465] Meyer, ii, 410-14. - -[466] Cp. Curtius, i, 392-400, 416; Duncker, iii, 529. - -[467] Curtius, i, 112; Meyer, ii, 366. - -[468] Curtius, i, 201, 204, 205, 381; Grote, iii, 5; Lange, Gesch. des -Materialismus, 3te Aufl. i, 23 (Eng. tr. i, 23). - -[469] Herodotos, i, 170; Diogenes Laërtius, Thales, ch. i. - -[470] On the essentially anti-religious rationalism of the whole -Ionian movement, cp. Meyer, ii, 753-57. - -[471] The First Philosophers of Greece, by A. Fairbanks, 1898, pp. 2, -3, 6. This compilation usefully supplies a revised text of the ancient -philosophic fragments, with a translation of these and of the passages -on the early thinkers by the later, and by the epitomists. A good -conspectus of the remains of the early Greek thinkers is supplied -also in Grote's Plato and the other Companions of Sokrates, ch. i; -and a valuable critical analysis of the sources in Prof. J. Burnet's -Early Greek Philosophy. - -[472] Cp. Lange, Gesch. des Mat. i, 126 (Eng. tr. i, 8, n.). Mr. Benn -(The Greek Philosophers, i, 8) and Prof. Decharme (p. 39) seem to read -this as a profession of belief in deities in the ordinary sense. But -cp. R. W. Mackay, The Progress of the Intellect, 1850, i, 338. Burnet -(ch. i, § 11) doubts the authenticity of this saying, but thinks it -"extremely probable that Thales did say that the magnet and amber -had souls." - -[473] Mackay, as cited, p. 331. - -[474] Fairbanks, p. 4. - -[475] Diogenes Laërtius, Thales, ch. 9. - -[476] Fairbanks, pp. 3, 7. - -[477] Herodotos, i, 74. - -[478] Cp. Burnet, Early Greek Philos. 2nd. ed. introd. § 3. To Thales -is ascribed by the Greeks the "discovery" of the constellation Ursus -Major. Diog. ch. 2. As it was called "Phoenike" by the Greeks, his -knowledge would be of Phoenician derivation. Cp. Humboldt, Kosmos, -Bohn tr. iii, 160. - -[479] Diog. Laërt. ch. 3. On this cp. Burnet, introd. § 6. - -[480] Herod. i, 170. Cp. Diog. Laërt. ch. 3. - -[481] Diog. Laërt. ch. 9. - -[482] Cp. Burnet, p. 57. - -[483] Fairbanks, pp. 9-10. Mr. Benn (Greek Philosophers, i, 9) -decides that the early philosophers, while realizing that ex nihilo -nihil fit, had not grasped the complementary truth that nothing can be -annihilated. But even if the teaching ascribed to Anaximandros be set -aside as contradictory (since he spoke of generation and destruction -within the infinite), we have the statement of Diogenes Laërtius -(bk. ix, ch. 9, § 57) that Diogenes of Apollonia, pupil of Anaximenes, -gave the full Lucretian formula. - -[484] Diogenes Laërtius, however (ii, 2), makes him agree with Thales. - -[485] Fairbanks, pp. 9-16. Diogenes makes him the inventor of -the gnomon and of the first map and globe, as well as a maker of -clocks. Cp. Grote, i, 330, note. - -[486] See below, p. 158, as to Demokritos' statement concerning the -Eastern currency of scientific views which, when put by Anaxagoras, -scandalized the Greeks. - -[487] Fairbanks, pp. 17-22. - -[488] See Windelband, Hist. of Anc. Philos. Eng. tr. 1900, p. 25, -citing Diels and Wilamowitz-Möllendorf. Cp. Burnet, introd. § 14. - -[489] It will be observed that Mr. Cornford's book, though somewhat -loosely speculative is very freshly suggestive. It is well worth -study, alongside of the work of Prof. Burnet, by those interested in -the scientific presentation of the evolution of thought. - -[490] Diog. Laërt. ix, 19; Fairbanks, p. 76. - -[491] Herodotos, i, 163-67; Grote, iii, 421; Meyer, ii, § 438. - -[492] Cp. Guillaume Bréton, Essai sur la poésie philosophique -en Grèce, 1882, pp. 23-25. The life period of Xenophanes is -still uncertain. Meyer (ii, § 466) and Windelband (Hist. of -Anc. Philos. Eng. tr. p. 47) still adhere to the chronology which puts -him in the century 570-470, making him a young man at the foundation -of Elea. - -[493] Cousin, developed by G. Bréton, work cited, p. 31 sq., traces -Xenophanes's doctrine of the unity of things to the school of -Pythagoras. It clearly had antecedents. But Xenophanes is recorded -to have argued against Pythagoras as well as Thales and Epimenides -(Diog. Laërt. ix, 2, §§ 18, 20). - -[494] Metaphysics, i, 5; cp. Fairbanks, pp. 79-80. - -[495] One of several so entitled in that age. Cp. Burnet, introd. § 7. - -[496] Metaph., as cited; Plato, Soph. 242 D. - -[497] Long fragment in Athenæus, xi, 7; Burnet, p. 130. - -[498] Burnet, p. 141. - -[499] Cp. Burnet, p. 131. - -[500] Fairbanks, p. 67, Fr. 5, 6; Clem. Alex. Stromata, bk. v, -Wilson's tr. ii, 285-86. Cp. bk. vii, c. 4. - -[501] Fairbanks, Fr. 7. - -[502] Cicero, De divinatione, i, 3, 5; Aetius, De placitis reliquiæ, -in Fairbanks, p. 85. - -[503] Aristotle, Rhetoric, ii, 23, § 27. A similar saying is attributed -to Herakleitos, on slight authority (Fairbanks, p. 54). - -[504] Cicero, Academica, ii, 39; Lactantius, Div. Inst. iii, -23. Anaxagoras and Demokritos held the same view. Diog. Laërt, bk. ii, -ch. iii, iv (§ 8); Pseudo-Plutarch, De placitis philosoph. ii, 25. - -[505] Cp. Mackay, Progress of the Intellect, i, 340. - -[506] Diog. Laërt. in life of Pyrrho, bk. ix, ch. xi, 8 (§ 72). The -passage, however, is uncertain. See Fairbanks, p. 70. - -[507] Fairbanks. Fr. 1. Fairbanks translates with Zeller: "The whole -[of God]." Grote: "The whole Kosmos, or the whole God." It should -be noted that the original in Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Math. ix, 144) -is given without the name of Xenophanes, and the ascription is modern. - -[508] Grote, as last cited, p. 18. - -[509] Fairbanks, Fr. 19. In Athenæus, x, 413. - -[510] Polybius, iv, 40; Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, -viii, 126; Fairbanks, pp. 25, 27; Frag. 4, 14. Cp. 92, 111, 113. - -[511] Diog. Laërt. ix, i, 2. - -[512] Fairbanks, Fr. 134. - -[513] Id. Frag. 36, 67. - -[514] Id. Frag. 43, 44, 46, 62. - -[515] Diog. Laërt. last cited. This saying is by some ascribed to the -later Herakleides (see Fairbanks, Fr. 119 and note); but it does not -seem to be in his vein, which is wholly pro-Homeric. - -[516] Clem. Alex. Protrept. ch. 2, Wilson's tr. p. 41. The passage is -obscure, but Mr. Fairbanks's translation (Fr. 127) is excessively so. - -[517] Clemens, as cited, p.32; Fairbanks, Fr. 124, 125, -130. Cp. Burnet, p. 139. - -[518] Fairbanks, Fr. 21. - -[519] Cp. Burnet, pp. 175-90. - -[520] Theaetetus, 180 D. See good estimates of Parmenides in Benn's -Greek Philosophers, i, 17-19, and Philosophy of Greece in Relation to -the Character of its People, pp. 83-95; in J. A. Symonds's Studies of -the Greek Poets, 3rd ed. 1893, vol. i, ch. 6; and in Zeller, i, 580 sq. - -[521] Plutarch, Perikles, ch. 26. - -[522] Mr. Benn finally gives very high praise to Melissos -(Philos. of Greece, pp. 91-92); as does Prof. Burnet (Early -Gr. Philos. p. 378). He held strongly by the Ionian conception of -the eternity of matter. Fairbanks, p. 125. - -[523] Diog. Laërt. bk. ix, ch. iv, 3 (§ 24). - -[524] Diog. Laërt. ix, 3 (§ 21). - -[525] As to this see Windelband, Hist. Anc. Philos. pp. 91-92. - -[526] Cp. Mackay, Progress of the Intellect, i. 340. - -[527] "The difference between the Ionians and Eleatæ was this: -the former endeavoured to trace an idea among phenomena by aid -of observation; the latter evaded the difficulty by dogmatically -asserting the objective existence of an idea" (Mackay, as last cited). - -[528] Cp. Mackay, i, 352-53, as to the survival of veneration of the -heavenly bodies in the various schools. - -[529] Grote, i, 350. - -[530] Meyer, ii, 9, 759 (§§ 5, 465). - -[531] Id. §§ 6, 466. - -[532] Jevons, Hist. of Greek Lit. 1886, p. 210. - -[533] Compare Meyer, ii, § 502, as to the close resemblances between -Pythagoreanism and Orphicism. - -[534] Meyer, i, 186; ii, 635. - -[535] Fairbanks, pp. 145, 151, 155, etc. - -[536] Id. p. 143. - -[537] Id. p. 154. - -[538] Prof. Burnet insists (introd. p. 30) that "the" Greeks must -be reckoned good observers because their later sculptors were so. As -well say that artists make the best men of science. - -[539] Metaph. i, 5; Fairbanks, p. 136. "It is quite safe to attribute -the substance of the First Book of Euclid to Pythagoras." Burnet, -Early Greek Philos. 2nd ed. p. 117. - -[540] Diog. Laërt. Philolaos (bk. viii, ch. 7). - -[541] L. U. K. Hist. of Astron. p. 20; A. Berry's Short Hist. of -Astron. 1898, p. 25; Narrien's Histor. Acc. of the Orig. and Prog. of -Astron. 1850, p. 163. - -[542] See Benn, Greek Philosophers, i, 11. - -[543] Diog. Laërt. in life of Philolaos; Cicero, Academica, ii, -39. Cicero, following Theophrastus, is explicit as to the teaching -of Hiketas. - -[544] Hippolytos, Ref. of all Heresies, i, 13. Cp. Renouvier, Manuel -de la philos. anc. i, 201, 205, 238-39. - -[545] Pseudo-Plutarch, De Placitis Philosoph. iii, 13, 14. - -[546] Ueberweg, i, 49. Cp. Tertullian (Apol. ch. 11), who says -Pythagoras taught that the world was uncreated; and the contrary -statement of Aetius (in Fairbanks, pp. 146-47). - -[547] Berry, Short Hist. of Astron. pp. 22, 25. The question is ably -handled by Renouvier, Manuel, i, 199-205. - -[548] Diog. Laërt., viii, i, 8. - -[549] The whole question is carefully sifted by Grote, iv, -76-94. Prof. Burnet (Early Greek Philos. 2nd ed. pp. 96-98) sums up -that the Pythagorean Order was an attempt to overrule or supersede -the State. - -[550] Cp. Burnet, p. 97, note 3. Prof. Burnet speaks of the Pythagorean -Order as a "new religion" appealing to the people rather than the -aristocrats, who were apt to be "freethinking." But on the next page he -pictures the "plain man" as resenting precisely the religious neology -of the movement. The evidence for the adhesion of aristocrats seems -pretty strong. - -[551] Fairbanks, p. 143. - -[552] Grote, Plato and the Other Companions of Socrates, ed. 1885, -iv, 163. - -[553] Diog. Laërt. bk. viii, ch. i, 19 (§ 21). - -[554] Ennius, Fragmenta, ed. Hesselius, 1707, pp. 1, 4-7; Horace, -Epist. ii, 1, 52; Persius, Sat. vi. - -[555] Grote, History, iv, 97. - -[556] Scholiast on Iliad, xx, 67; Tatian, Adv. Græcos, c. 48 (31); -W. Christ, Gesch. der griech. Literatur, 3te Aufl. p. 63; Grote, -ch. xvi (i, 374). - -[557] See above, p. 145. - -[558] K. O. Müller, Dorians, Eng. tr. ii, 365-68; Mommsen, Hist. of -Rome, Eng. tr. ed. 1894, iii, 113. - -[559] Grote. i, 338, note. - -[560] Cicero, De natura Deorum, i, 22. - -[561] Philolaos, as we saw, is said to have been prosecuted, but is -not said to have been condemned. - -[562] Fairbanks, pp. 245, 255, 261; Diog. Laërt. bk. ii, ch. iii, 4 -(§ 8). - -[563] Fairbanks, pp. 230-45. Cp. Grote, Plato, i, 54, and Ueberweg, -i, 66, as to nature of the Nous of Anaxagoras. - -[564] Grote, i, 374; Hesychius, s.v. Agamemnona; -cp. Diog. Laërt. bk. ii, ch. iii, 7 (§ 11); Tatian, Adv. Græcos, -c. 37 (21). - -[565] Plutarch, Perikles, ch. 6. - -[566] Id. chs. 5, 8. - -[567] Id. c. 16. The old man is said to have uttered the reproach: -"Perikles, those who want to use a lamp supply it with oil." - -[568] Plutarch, Perikles, ch. 4. - -[569] Cp. Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. iv, 277. - -[570] Plutarch, Perikles, ch. 32. - -[571] Diog. Laërt. bk. ix, ch. ix (§ 57), citing the Defence of -Sokrates by Demetrius Phalereus. - -[572] Id. bk. ii, ch. iii, 9 (§ 12), citing Sotion. Another writer of -philosophers' lives, Hermippus (same cit.), said he had been thrown -into prison; and yet a third, Hieronymus, said he was released out -of pity because of his emaciated appearance when produced in court -by Perikles. - -[573] Diog. Laërt. last cit. 10 (§ 14). - -[574] Id. 8 (§ 11). - -[575] Drews, Gesch. des Monismus im Altertum, p. 205. - -[576] Even in the early progressive period "the same time which -set up rationalism developed a deep religious influence in the -masses." (Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. ii, 728. Cp. iii, 425; also Grote, -vii, 30; and Benn, Philosophy of Greece, 1898, pp. 69-70.) - -[577] Plutarch, Perikles, ch. 32. - -[578] Cp. Grote, v, 24; Curtius, ii, 208-209. - -[579] Plutarch, as cited. Plutarch also states, however, that the -only occasion on which Perikles gave way to emotion in public was -that of the death of his favourite son. - -[580] Holm (Griechische Geschichte, ii, 335) decides that Perikles -sought to Ionise his fellow Athenians; and Dr. Burnet, coinciding -(Early Greek Philosophy, 1892, p. 277), suggests that he and Aspasia -brought Anaxagoras to Athens with that aim. - -[581] Perikles, ch. 8. - -[582] "Der Kleinasiatische Rationalist Herodot" is the exaggerated -estimate of A. Bauer, in Ilberg's Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische -Altertum, ix (1902), 235, following Eduard Meyer (iv, § 448), who, -however (§ 447), points to the lack of scientific thought or training -in Herodotos as in Thukydides. Ignorance of Nature remained a Greek -characteristic. - -[583] Bk. viii, ch. 77. Cp. viii, 20, 96; ix, 43. - -[584] Cp. Meyer, iv, § 446, as to the inadequacy of Athenian culture, -and the unchanging ignorance of the populace on matters of physical -science. - -[585] Plutarch, Against the Stoics, ch. 31; Simplicius, Physica, i, 6. - -[586] Clem. Alex. Protrept. c. 4. - -[587] Refutation of all Heresies, i, 14. - -[588] Cp. Aristotle, Metaphysics, i, 3; De anima, i, 2. - -[589] Decharme, Critique des trad. relig. p. 137, citing scholiast -on Aristoph., Clouds, 96. - -[590] See the point discussed by Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus, -3te Aufl. i, 128-29, 131-32, notes 10 and 31 (Eng. tr. i, 15, -39). Ritter and Preller say "Protagoras floret circa a. 450-430"; -"Democritus natus circa a. 460 floret a. 430-410, obit. circa a. 357." - -[591] Cp. Ueberweg, i, 68-69; Renouvier, Manuel de la philos. anc. i, -238. - -[592] Burnet, p. 381. - -[593] Diog. Laërt. x, 13. - -[594] Lange, i, 10-11 (tr. p. 17); Clem. Alex. Stromata, i, 15; -Diog. Laërt. bk. ix, § 35. - -[595] On this also see Lange, i, 128 (tr. p. 15, note). - -[596] Diog. Laërt. bk. ix, ch. vii, 2 (§ 34). Cp. Renouvier, i, 239-41. - -[597] See in particular the De principiis atque originibus (Works, -Routledge's 1-vol. ed. 1905, pp. 649-50). - -[598] Meyer, who dwells on his scientific shortcomings (Gesch. des -Alt. v. § 910), makes no account of this, his vital doctrine. - -[599] Fairbanks, pp. 189-91. The idea is not put by Empedokles with any -such definiteness as is suggested by Lange, i, 23-25 (tr. pp. 33-35), -and Ueberweg, Hist. of Philos. Eng. tr. i, 62, n. But Ueberweg's -exposition is illuminating. - -[600] Fairbanks, pp. 136, 169. - -[601] Id. p. 201. - -[602] Benn, i, 28. - -[603] Fairbanks, p. 205. - -[604] See a good study of Empedokles in J. A. Symonds' Studies of the -Greek Poets, 3rd ed. 1893, vol. i, ch. 7; and another in Renouvier, -Manuel, i, 163-82. - -[605] Cp. Grote, Plato, i, 73, and note. - -[606] Cp. Renouvier, i, 239-62; Lange, p. 11 (tr. p. 17). - -[607] Cp. Meyer, § 911. - -[608] Diogenes Laërtius, bk. ix, ch. viii, § 3 (51); cp. Grote, vii, -49, note. - -[609] For a defence of Protagoras against Plato, see Grote, vii, 43-54. - -[610] Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, ix, 56. - -[611] Beckmann, History of Inventions, Eng. tr. 1846, ii, 513. - -[612] Diod. Sic. xiii, 6; Hesychius, cit. in Cudworth, ed. Harrison, -i, 131. - -[613] Ueberweg, i, 80; Thukydides, v, 116. The bias of Sextus -Empiricus is further shown in his account of Diagoras as moved in -his denunciation by an injury to himself. - -[614] It is told by Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Math. ix, 53) that Diagoras -is said to have invented the dithyramb (in praise of Iacchos), and -to have begun a poem with the words, "All things come by the daimon -and fortune." But Sextus writes with a fixed skeptical bias. - -[615] Grote, vi, 13, 32, 33, 42-45. - -[616] Athenagoras, Apol., ch. 4; Clem. Alex., Protrept. ch. 2. See -the documentary details in Meyer, iv, 105. - -[617] Cicero, De natura Deorum, i, 1, 23, 42; iii, 37 (the last -reference gives proof of his general rationalism); Lactantius, De irâ -Dei, c. 9. In calling Sokrates "the Melian," Aristophanes (Clouds, -830) was held to have virtually called him "the atheist." - -[618] Diod. xiii, 6; Suidas, s.v. Diagoras; Aristophanes, Birds, -1073. It is noteworthy that in their fury against Diagoras the -Athenians put him on a level of common odium with the "tyrants" -of past history. Cp. Burckhardt, Griechische Culturgeschichte, i, 355. - -[619] Grote, vi, 476-77. As to the freethinking of Kritias, see Sextus -Empiricus, Adv. Math. ix, 54. According to Xenophon (Memorabilia, i, -2), Kritias made his decree in revenge for Sokrates's condemnation -of one of his illicit passions. Prof. Decharme (pp. 122-24) gives a -good account of him. - -[620] Diog. Laërt. bk. ii, ch. iv; Hippolytos, Refutation of all -Heresies, i, 8; Renouvier, Manuel, i, 233-37. - -[621] Cp. Cudworth, Intellectual System, ed. Harrison, i, 32; -Renouvier, Manuel, i, 233, 289; ii, 268, 292; Tatian, Adv. Græcos, -c. 48 (31); Diog. Laërt. bk. ii, ch. iii, 7 (§ 11); Grote, i, 374, -395, note; Hatch, Infl. of Greek Ideas, p. 60. - -[622] Haigh, Tragic Drama of the Greeks, p. 206. Cp. Burnett, p. 278. - -[623] Diog. Laërt. bk. ii (§ 22). - -[624] "He never so utterly abandoned the religion of his country as to -find it impossible to acquiesce in at least some part of traditional -religion." Jevons, Hist. of Greek Lit. 1886. p. 222. - -[625] Haigh, The Attic Theatre, 1889, p. 316. - -[626] Above, p. 133. - -[627] "He had also acquired in no small degree that love of dexterous -argumentation and verbal sophistry which was becoming fashionable in -the Athens of the fifth century. Not unfrequently he exhibits this -dexterity when it is clearly out of place." Haigh, Tragic Drama of -the Greeks, p. 235. Cp. Jevons, Hist. of Greek Lit. p. 223. Schlegel -is much more censorious. - -[628] Ion., 436-51, 885-922; Andromache, 1161-65; Electra, 1245-46; -Hercules Furens, 339-47; Iphigenia in Tauris, 35, 711-15. - -[629] Hercules Furens, 344, 1341-46; Iphigenia in Tauris, 380-91. - -[630] Electra, 737-45. - -[631] Troades, 969-90. - -[632] Ion, 374-78, 685; Helena, 744-57; Iphigenia in Tauris, 570-75; -Electra, 400; Phoenissæ, 772; Fragm. 793; Bacchæ, 255-57; Hippolytus, -1059. It is noteworthy that even Sophocles (OEd. Tyr., 387) makes a -character taunt Tiresias the soothsayer with venality. - -[633] Philoctetes, fr. 793; Helena, 1137-43; Bellerophon, fr. 288. - -[634] Bacchæ, 200-203. - -[635] Helena, 1013; Fragm. 890, 905, 935; Troades, 848-88. - -[636] A. Schlegel, Lectures on Dramatic Literature, Bohn tr. p. 117. - -[637] This charge is on a par with that of Hygiainon, who accused -Euripides of impiety on the score that one of his characters makes -light of oaths. Aristotle, Rhetoric, iii, 15. - -[638] K. O. Müller, Hist. of the Lit. of Anc. Greece, 1847, p. 359. The -complaint is somewhat surprising from such a source. The only play -with an entirely invented plot mentioned by Aristotle is Agathon's -Flower (Aristotle, Poetic, ix); and such plays would not have been -eligible for representation at the great festivals. - -[639] Cp. Jevons, Hist. of Greek Lit. pp. 223-24. - -[640] Haigh. The Attic Theatre, p. 191. Cp. Müller, pp. 362-64. - -[641] See, however, the æsthetic theorem of Prof. Murray, Euripides -and his Age, pp. 221-27. - -[642] It seems arguable that the aversion of Aristophanes to Euripides -was primarily artistic, arising in dislike of some of the features of -his style. On this head his must be reckoned an expert judgment. The -old criticism found in Euripides literary vices; the new seems to -ignore the issue. But a clerical scholar pronounces that "Aristophanes -was the most unreasoning laudator temporis acti. Genius and poet as he -was, he was the sworn foe to intellectual progress." Hence his hatred -of Euripides and his championship of Æschylus. (Rev. Dr. W. W. Merry, -introd. to Clar. Press ed. of The Frogs, 1892.) - -[643] Girard, Essai sur Thucydide, 1884, pp. 258-59. - -[644] Cp. Haigh, The Attic Theatre, p. 315. In the same way -Ktesilochos, the pupil of Apelles, could with impunity make Zeus -ridiculous by exhibiting him pictorially in child-bed, bringing forth -Dionysos (Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxv, 40. § 15). - -[645] Bk. x, ad init. - -[646] Cp. Benn, Philos. of Greece, p. 171. - -[647] Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic Schools, Eng. tr. 3rd -ed. p. 227: Hegel, as there cited Grote, Plato, ed. 1885, i, 423. - -[648] Cp. Owen, Evenings with the Skeptics, i, 181 sq., 291, 293, -299, etc. - -[649] Grote, History, i, 334; Xenophon, Memorabilia, i, 1, §§ 6-9. - -[650] Cp. Benn. The Philosophy of the Greeks, 1898, p. 160. - -[651] Grote, i, 334-35; Hippocrates, De Aeribus, Aquis, Locis, c. 22 -(49). - -[652] Plato, Phædrus, Jowett's tr. 3rd ed. i. 434; Grote, History, -i, 393. - -[653] Compare, however, the claim made for him, as promoting -"objectivity," by Prof. Drews, Gesch. des Monismus im Altertum, -1913. P. 213. - -[654] Memorabilia, i, 4. - -[655] "The predominatingly theistic character of philosophy ever since -has been stamped on it by Socrates, as it was stamped on Socrates by -Athens" (Benn, Philos. of Greece, p. 168). - -[656] Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic Schools, as cited, p. 231. The -case against Sokrates is bitterly urged by Forchhammer, Die Athenen und -Sokrates, 1837; see in particular pp. 8-11. Cp. Grote, Hist. vii, 81. - -[657] "Had not all the cultivated men of the time passed through -a school of rationalism which had entirely pulled to pieces the -beliefs and the morals of their ancestors?" Zeller, as last cited, -pp. 231-33. Cp. Haigh, Tragic Drama, p. 261. - -[658] See Aristophanes's Frogs, 888-94. - -[659] Æschines, Timarchos, cited by Thirlwall, iv, 277. Cp. Xenophon, -Mem. i, 2. - -[660] "Nothing could well be more unpopular and obnoxious than -the task which he undertook of cross-examining and convicting of -ignorance every distinguished man whom he could approach." Grote, -vii. 95. Cp. pp. 141-44. Cp. also Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay, -ed. 1881, p. 316: and Renouvier, Manuel de la philos. anc. 1, iv, -§ iii. See also, however, Benn, Phil. of Greece, pp. 162-63. For a -view of Sokrates's relations to his chief accuser, which partially -vindicates or whitewashes the latter, see Prof. G. Murray's Anc. Greek -Lit. pp. 176-77. There is a good monograph by H. Bleeckly, Socrates -and the Athenians: An Apology, 1884, which holds the balances fairly. - -[661] On the desire of Sokrates to die see Grote, vii, 152-64. - -[662] The assertion of Plutarch that after his death the prosecutors of -Sokrates were socially excommunicated, and so driven to hang themselves -(Moralia: Of Envy and Hatred), is an interesting instance of moral -myth-making. It has no historic basis; though Diogenes (ii, 23 § -43) and Diodorus Siculus (xiv, 37), late authorities both, allege -an Athenian reaction in Sokrates' favour. Probably the story of the -suicide of Judas was framed in imitation of Plutarch's. - -[663] Grote, History, i, 94. - -[664] Id. i, 194. Not till Strabo do we find this myth disbelieved; -and Strabo was surprised to find most men holding by the old story -while admitting that the race of Amazons had died out. Id. p. 197. - -[665] Life of Thukydides, by Marcellinus, ch. 22, citing -Antyllas. Cp. Girard, Essai sur Thucydide, p. 239; and the prefaces -of Hobbes and Smith to their translations. - -[666] Girard, p. 3. - -[667] "His writings," remarks Dr. Hatch, "contain the seeds of nearly -all that afterwards grew up on Christian soil" (Influence of Greek -Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, 1890, p. 182). - -[668] Clem. Alex. Stromata, v, 14; Fairbanks, pp. 146-47; Grote, -Plato, ch. 38. - -[669] Cp. Grote, Plato, iv, 162, 381. Professor Bain, however -(Practical Essays, 1884, p. 273), raises an interesting question by -his remark, as to the death of Sokrates: "The first person to feel -the shock was Plato. That he was affected by it to the extent of -suppressing his views on the higher questions we can infer with the -greatest probability. Aristotle was equally cowed." - -[670] Diog. Laër. bk. ix, ch. vii, § 8 (40). - -[671] Republic, bk. ii, 377, to iii, 393; Jowett's tr. 3rd ed. iii, -60 sq., 68 sq. In bk. x, it is true, he does speak of the poets as -unqualified by knowledge and training to teach truth (Jowett's tr. iii, -311 sq.); but Plato's "truth" is not objective, but idealistic, -or rather fictitious-didactic. - -[672] Id. Jowett. pp. 59, 69, etc. - -[673] Id. bk. iii; Jowett, pp. 103-105. - -[674] Laws, x; Jowett, v, 295-98. - -[675] Received myths are forbidden; and the preferred fictions are -to be city law. Cp. the Laws, ii, iii; Jowett, v, 42, 79. - -[676] Laws, Jowett's tr. 3rd ed. v, 271-72. Cp. the comment of Benn, -i, 271-72. - -[677] Republic, bk. ii, 379; Jowett, iii, 62. - -[678] Laws, x, 906-907, 910; Jowett, v, 293-94, 297-98. - -[679] On the inconsistency of the whole doctrine see see Grote's Plato, -iv, 379-97. - -[680] Ueberweg, Hist. of Philos. Eng. tr. i, 25. Cp. Lange, Geschichte -des Materialismus, i, 38-39 (tr. i, 52-54), and the remarkable verdict -of Bacon (De Augmentis, bk. iii, ch. 4; Works, 1-vol. ed. 1905, p. 471; -cp. Advancement of Learning, bk. ii, p. 96) as to the superiority -of the natural philosophy of Demokritos over those of Plato and -Aristotle. Bacon immediately qualifies his verdict; but he repeats -it, as regards both Aristotle and Plato, in the Novum Organum, bk. i, -aph. 96. See, however, Mr. Benn's final eulogy of Plato as a thinker, -i, 273, and Murray's Anc. Greek Lit. pp. 311-13. - -[681] Laws, x, 908; Jowett, v, 295. - -[682] Grote, History, vii, 168. - -[683] Cp. Grote, Aristotle, 2nd ed. p. 10. - -[684] Origen, Against Celsus, ii, 13; cp. i, 65; iii, 75; vii, 3. - -[685] Grote, Aristotle, p. 13. - -[686] Benn, Greek Philosophers, i, 352. Mr. Benn refutes Sir A. Grant's -view that Aristotle's creed was a "vague pantheism"; but that phrase -loosely conveys the idea of its non-religiousness. It might be called a -Lucretian monotheism. Cp. Benn, i, 294; and Drews, Gesch. des Monismus, -p. 257. - -[687] Metaphysics, xi (xii), 8, 13 (p. 1074, b). The passage is so -stringent as to raise the question how he came to run the risk in this -one case. It was probably a late writing, and he may have taken it -for granted that the Metaphysics would never be read by the orthodox. - -[688] Cp. the severe criticisms of Benn, vol. i, ch. vi; Berry, -Short Hist. of Astron. p. 33; and Lange, Ges. des Mater. i, 61-68, -and notes, citing Eucken and Cuvier. Aristotle's science is very -much on a par with that of Bacon, who saw his imperfections, but fell -into the same kinds of error. Both insisted on an inductive method; -and both transgressed from it. See, however, Lange's summary, p. 69, -also p. 7, as to the unfairness of Whewell; and ch. v of Soury's -Bréviaire de l'histoire du Matérialisme, 1881, especially end. - -[689] Politics, i, 2. - -[690] Strabo, bk. ix, ch. iii, § 11. Strabo reproaches Ephoros with -repeating the current legends all the same; but it seems clear that -he anticipated the critical tactic of Gibbon. - -[691] As to the Stoics, cp. Zeller, § 34, 4; Benn, The Philosophy of -Greece, pp. 255-56. As to Epicurus, cp. Benn, p. 261. - -[692] Diog. Laërt. bk. ix, ch. xi, 5, § 64. The lengthy notice given -by Diogenes shows the impression Pyrrho's teaching made. See a full -account of it, so far as known, in the Rev. J. Owen's Evenings with -the Skeptics, 1881, i, 287 sq., and the monograph of Zimmerman, -there cited. - -[693] These propositions occur in the first of the ten Pyrrhonian -tropoi or modes (Diog. Laërt. bk. ix, ch. xi, 9), of which the -authorship is commonly assigned to Ænesidemos (fl. 80-50). Cp. Owen, -Evenings with the Skeptics, i, 290, 322-23. But as given by Diogenes -they seem to derive from the early Pyrrhonian school. - -[694] Thus, where Democritos pronounced the sun to be of vast size, -Epicurus held it to be no larger than it seemed (Cicero, De Finibus, i, -6)--a view also loosely ascribed to Herakleitos (Diog. Laërt. bk. ix, -ch. i, 6, § 7). See, however, Wallace's Epicureanism ("Ancient -Philosophies" series), 1889, pp. 176 sq., 186 sq., 266, as to the -scientific merits of the system. - -[695] The Epicurean doctrine on this and other heads is chiefly to be -gathered from the great poem of Lucretius. Prof. Wallace's excellent -treatise gives all the clues. See p. 202 as to the Epicurean God-idea. - -[696] Grote, History, i, 395, note; Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi -sec. Epicur. - -[697] Compare Wallace, Epicureanism, pp. 64-71, and ch. xi; and -Mackintosh, On the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, 4th ed. p. 29. - -[698] De rerum natura, i, 62-79. - -[699] Alexander seu Pseudomantis, cc. 25, 38, 47, 61, cited by Wallace, -pp. 249-50. - -[700] The repute of the Epicureans for irreligion appears in the -fact that when Romanized Athens had consented to admit foreigners -to the once strictly Athenian mysteries of Eleusis, the Epicureans -were excluded. - -[701] Cicero, De natura Deorum, i, 13; Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata, -v, 14; Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Mathematicos, ix, 51, 55. - -[702] Diog. Laërt. bk ii, ch. viii, §§ 7, 11-14 (86, 97-100). He was -also nicknamed "the God." Id. and ch. xii, 5 (§ 116). - -[703] Cicero, De natura Deorum, i, 1, 23, 42. - -[704] Diogenes, as last cited, § 12 (97). - -[705] Id. §§ 15, 16 (101-102). - -[706] Professor Wallace's account of the court of Lysimachos of Thrace -as a "favourite resort of emancipated freethinkers" (Epicureanism, -p. 42) is hardly borne out by his authority, Diogenes Laërtius, who -represents Lysimachos as unfriendly towards Theodoros. Hipparchia -the Cynic, too, opposed rather than agreed with the atheist. - -[707] Diog., last cit. Cp. Cicero, Tusculans, ii, 43. Philo Judæus -(Quod Omnis Probus Liber, c. 18; cp. Plutarch, De Exilio, c. 16) has -a story of his repelling taunts about his banishment by comparing -himself to Hercules, who was put ashore by the alarmed Argonauts -because of his weight. But he is further made to boast extravagantly, -and in doing so to speak as a believer in myths and deities. The -testimony has thus little value. - -[708] Diog. bk. ii, ch. xii, § 5 (116). - -[709] Id. ch. x, § 2 (106). - -[710] Id. ch. xii, § 5 (117) and bk. iv, ch. vii, §§ 4, 9, 10 (52, -54, 55). - -[711] Plutarch, De defectu orac. ch. 19. Bion seems to have made an -impression on Plutarch, who often quotes him, though it be but to -contradict him. - -[712] Cicero, De natura Deorum, i, 13. - -[713] Id. ib.; Academics, iv, 38. - -[714] Cicero, Tusculans, i, 10, 31; Academics, ii, 39; and refs. in -ed. Davis. - -[715] Sir A. Grant's tr. of the hymn is given in Capes's Stoicism -("Chief Ancient Philosophies" series), 1880, p. 41; and the Greek -text by Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought, p. 262. Cp. Cicero, De -nat. Deor. i, 14. - -[716] Pseudo-Plutarch, De placitis philosoph. i, 7. - -[717] Eusebius, Præp. Evang. bk. ii, ch. 2; Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, -ch. 23. - -[718] P. 80. - -[719] It may be noted that Diogenes of Babylon, a follower of -Chrysippos, applied the principle to Greek mythology. Cicero, De -nat. Deor. i, 15. - -[720] Above, p. 80, note 4. - -[721] See Grote, i, 371-74 and notes. - -[722] Palaiphatos, De Incredibilibus: De Actæone, De Geryone, De -Cerbero, De Amazonibus, etc. - -[723] E. R. Bevan (art. "The Deification of Kings in the Greek Cities" -in Eng. Histor. Rev. Oct. 1901, p. 631) argues that the practice was -not primarily eastern, but Greek. See, however, Herodotos, vii, 136; -Arrian, Anabas. Alexand. iv, 11; Q. Curtius, viii, 5-8; and Plutarch, -Artaxerxes, ch. 22, as to the normal attitude of the Greeks, even as -late as Alexander. - -[724] See Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, chs. 22, 23, for the later -Hellenistic tone on the subject of apotheosis apart from the official -practice of the empire. - -[725] Gibbon, ch. xl. Bohn ed. iv, 353, and note. - -[726] Mahaffy, Greek Life, pp. 133-35; Diog. Laërt. bk. ii, ch. v, -5 (§ 38). - -[727] Wallace, Epicureanism (pp. 245-46), citing Suidas, s.v. Epicurus. - -[728] Diogenes Laërtius, bk. vii, ch. i, 28 (§ 33); cp. Origen, -Against Celsus, bk. i, ch. 5; Clemens Alex, Stromata, bk. v, ch. ii. - -[729] Mahaffy, as cited, p. 135, n.; Athenæus, ix, 63 (p. 400). - -[730] (297 B.C.) Burckhardt, Griechische Culturgeschichte, i, 213; -Pausanias, i, 29. - -[731] Cp. G. Guizot, Ménandre, 1855, pp. 324-27, and App. - -[732] Cp. Guizot, pp. 327-31, and the fragments cited by Justin Martyr, -De Monarchia, ch. 5. - -[733] Whittaker, as cited, p. 85. - -[734] Martha, as cited, p. 78. - -[735] Diog. Laërt. bk. iv, ch. ix, 8 (§ 65). - -[736] Diog. Laërt. bk. iv, ch. ix, 4, 5 (§ 63); Noumenios in -Euseb. Præp. Evang. xiv, 8; Cicero, De Oratore, ii, 38; Lucilius, -cited by Lactantius, Div. Inst. - -[737] Cicero, Academics, ii, 34. - -[738] Berry, Short Hist. of Astron. pp. 34-62; Narrien, -Histor. Account, as cited, ch. xi; L. U. K. Hist. of Astron. ch. vi. It -is noteworthy that Hipparchos, like so many of his predecessors, -had some of his ideas from Babylonia. Strabo, prooem., § 9. - -[739] Ptolemy normally lumps unbelief in religion with all the vices -of character. Cp. the Tetrabiblos, iii, 18 (paraphrase of Proclus). - -[740] Hist. Nat. ii, 26. - -[741] Lucian's dialogue Philopseudes gives a view of the superstitions -of average Greeks in the second century of our era. Cp. Mr. Williams's -note to the first Dialogue of the Dead, in his tr. p. 87. - -[742] See M. Foucart's treatise, Des assoc. relig. chez les Grecs, -1873, 2e ptie. - -[743] On the early tendency to orthodox conformity among the -unbelieving Alexandrian scholars, see Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought, -pp. 260-61. - -[744] Frag. cited by Wallace, p. 258. - -[745] Rev. Baden Powell, Hist. of Nat. Philos. 1834, p. 79. - -[746] De Oratore, iii, 17; De Finibus, ii, 12, 13. - -[747] See Saisset, Le Scepticisme, 1865, pp. 22-27, for a careful -discussion of dates. - -[748] His own claim was to be of the "methodical" school. Hypotyp. i, -34. - -[749] See his doctrine expounded by Owen, Evenings with the Skeptics, -i, 332 sq. - -[750] Cp. Owen, p. 349. - -[751] These seem to be derived from Carneades. Cp. Ueberweg, i, 217. - -[752] "The general character of the Greek Skeptics from Sokrates to -Sextos is quite unexceptionable" (Owen, Evenings, i, 352). - -[753] Polybius, bk. vi, ch. lvi. Cp. bk. xvi, Frag. 5 (12), where -he speaks impatiently of the miracle-stories told of certain cults, -and, repeating his opinion that some such stories are useful for -preserving piety among the people, protests that they should be kept -within bounds. - -[754] Bk. i, ch. ii, § 8. Plutarch (Isis and Osiris, ch. 8) puts the -more decent principle that all the apparent absurdities have good -occult reasons. - -[755] Bk. ix, ch. iii, § 12. Cp. bk. x, ch. iii, § 23. The hand of -an interpolator frequently appears in Strabo (e.g., bk. ix, ch. ii, -§ 40; ch. iii, § 5); and the passage cited in bk. i is more in the -style of the former than of the latter. - -[756] See Dr. Hatch, Influence of Greek Ideas upon the Christian -Church, 1890, pp. 60-64, notes; also above, pp. 143 and 161, note. - -[757] De defect. orac. c. 19; Isis and Osiris, ch. 67. - -[758] De Amore, c. 13; Isis and Osiris, chs. 66, 67; and De -defect. orac. c. 13. - -[759] Schmidt, Gesch. der Denk- und Glaubensfreiheit im erst. Jahr., -1847, p. 22. - -[760] Burnet, Early Greek Philos. 1892, p. 276. Cp. 2nd ed. p. 294. - -[761] It is to be presumed that Dr. Burnet, when penning his estimate, -had not in memory such a record as Dr. A. D. White's History of the -Warfare between Science and Theology. - -[762] Mommsen, History of Rome, bk. i, ch. 14 (Eng. tr. 1894, -vol. i, pp. 282-83). Mommsen's view of the antiquity of writing -among the Latins (p. 280) is highly speculative. He places its -introduction about or before 1000 B.C.; yet he admits that they got -their alphabet from the Greeks, and he can show no Greek contacts -for that period. Cp. pp. 167-68 (ch. x). Schwegler (Römische -Geschichte, 1853, i, 36) more reasonably places the period after -that of the Etruscan domination, while recognizing the Greek origin -of the script. Cp. Ettore Pais, Ancient Legends of Roman History, -Eng. tr. 1906, pp. 26-28; Pelham, Outlines of Roman History, 1893, -p. 32. - -[763] Schwegler, i, ch. i, § 12; Teuffel, Hist. of Roman -Lit. ed. Schwabe, Eng. tr. 1900, i, 100-101, 104-10. - -[764] Teuffel, i, 110-11. - -[765] Mommsen, bk. ii, ch. 8. Eng. tr. ii, 70. Such creation of deities -by mere abstraction of things and functions had been the rule in the -popular as distinguished from the civic religion. Cp. Augustine, De -civitate Dei, iv, 16, 23; vi, 9, etc. It was the concomitant of the -tendency noted by Livy: adeo minimis etiam rebus prava religio inserit -deos (xxvii, 23). But the practice was not peculiar to the Romans, -for among the Greeks were Gods or Goddesses of Wealth, Peace, Mercy, -Shame, Fortune, Rumour, Energy, Action, Persuasion, Consolation, -Desire, Yearning, Necessity, Force, etc. See Pausanias passim. The -inference is that the more specific deities in all religions, with -personal names, are the product of sacerdotal institutions or of -poetic or other art. M. Boissier (i, 5), like Ihne, takes it for -granted that the multitude of deified abstractions had no legends; -but this is unwarranted. They may have had many; but there were no -poets to sing, or priests to preserve and ritualize them. - -[766] De natura Deorum, i, 42. - -[767] Mr. Schuckburgh (History of Rome, 1894, p. 401, note) cites -a translated passage in his fragments (Cicero, De Div. ii, 50; De -nat. Deorum, iii, 32), putting the Epicurean view that the Gods clearly -did not govern human affairs, "which he probably would have softened -if he had not agreed with it." Cp. Mommsen, iii, 113 (bk. ii, ch. 13). - -[768] Fragmenta, ed. Hesselius, p. 226; Cicero, De Divinatione, i, 58. - -[769] Mommsen, i, 301; ii, 71; iii, 117 (bk. i, ch. 15; bk. ii, ch. 8; -bk. iii, ch. 13). Cicero, De Div. i, 41. - -[770] Livy, xxix, 18. Dr. Warde Fowler (Religious Experience of the -Roman People, p. 346) censures Mr. Heitland for calling Livy's story -"an interesting romance" (Hist. of Rom. Rep. ii, 229 note); remarking -that "it is the fashion now to reject as false whatever is surprising," -and adding (p. 347): "It is certain, from the steps taken by the -government ... that it is in the main a true account." It may suffice -to ask whether Dr. Fowler believes in all or any of the prodigia -mentioned by Livy because the government "took steps" about them. - -[771] Cp. Boissier, La religion romaine, i, 39, 346. - -[772] Teuffel, i, 122. - -[773] Aulus Gellius (xv, 11) says the edict was de philosophis et de -rhetoribus Latinis, but the senatus-consultum, as given by him, does -not contain the adjective; and he goes on to tell that aliquot deinde -annis post--really sixty-nine years later--the censors fulminated -against homines qui NOVUM genus disciplinæ instituerunt ... eos sibi -nomen imposuisse Latinas rhetoras. The former victims, then, were -presumably Greek. Cp. Shuckburgh, p. 520; and Long, Decline of the -Roman Republic, 1866, ii, 146. Professor Pelham (Outlines of Roman -History, 1893, p. 179, note) mistakenly cites the senatus-consultum -as containing the word "Latini." The reading Latinis in Gellius's -own phrase has long been suspected. See ed. Frederic and Gronov, 1706. - -[774] Plutarch, Cato, c. 22. - -[775] Cicero, De. Repub., passim, ed. Halm. - -[776] Polybius, xxxii, 10. - -[777] Suetonius, De claris rhetoribus. - -[778] See in Cicero, De Oratore, iii, 24, the account by the censor -Crassus of his reasons for preferring the Greek rhetors. - -[779] Valerius Maximus, i, 3, 1. - -[780] The culture history of the republican period, as partially -recovered by recent archæology, shows a process of dissolution and -replacement from a remote period. Cp. Ettore Pais, Ancient Legends -of Roman History, Eng. tr. 1906, ch. ii, notably p. 18. - -[781] De rerum natura, i, 50-135; cp. v, 1166. - -[782] ii, 646-50 (the passage cited by Mr. Gladstone in the House -of Commons in one of the Bradlaugh debates, with a confession of its -noble beauty); and again ii, 1090-1105, and iii, 18-22. - -[783] See Christianity and Mythology, pp. 52-57. - -[784] See the account of the doctrine of the high-priest Scaevola, -preserved by Augustine, De civ. Dei, iv, 27. He and Varro (id. iv, -31; vi, 5-7) agreed in rejecting the current myths, but insisted on -the continued civic acceptance of them. On the whole question compare -Boissier, La religion romaine, i, 47-63. - -[785] Thus the satirist Lucilius, who ridiculed the popular beliefs, -was capable, in his capacity of patriot, of crying out against the lack -of respect shown to religion and the Gods (Boissier, pp. 51-52). The -purposive insincerity set up in their thinking by such men must, -of course, have been injurious to character. - -[786] Cp. the De Divinatione, i, 2. - -[787] E.g., Mr. A. J. Balfour's Foundations of Belief. - -[788] Tusc. Disp. i, 26. - -[789] De Divinatione, ii, 33, 34, cp. ii, 12; and De nat. Deorum, -i, 22. It is not surprising that in a later age, when the remaining -pagans had no dialectic faculty left, the Christian Fathers, by using -Cicero as a weapon against the cults, could provoke them into calling -him impious (Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, iii, 6, 7). - -[790] De Divinatione, ii, 22. - -[791] Boissier, i, 58. - -[792] De nat. Deorum, ii, 1. - -[793] Boissier, p. 59. - -[794] "It seems to me that, on the whole, among the educated and -the rich, the indifferent must have been in the majority" (Boissier, -p. 61). - -[795] Id. p. 59. - -[796] Cp. Long, Decline of Roman Republic, i, 438; ii, 38-40. Long -remarks that Domitius, the accuser of Scaurus (who had prevented his -election to the college of augurs), "used the name of religion for the -purpose of damaging a political enemy; and the trick has been repeated, -and is repeated, up to the present day. The Romans must have kept -records of many of these trials. They were the great events of the -times ...; and so we learn that three tribes voted against Scaurus, -and thirty-two voted for him; but in each of these thirty-two tribes -there was only a small majority of votes (pauca puncta) in favour -of Scaurus." - -[797] See Long, i, 56, for a cynical estimate of the mode of -manipulation of the Sibylline and other sacred books. - -[798] Sallust, Bellum Catilin. c. 51. - -[799] Suetonius, Julius, cc. 59, 77; Cicero, De Divinatione, ii, -24. Cp. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, ed. 1865, -ii, 424. - -[800] Plutarch, Sulla, c. 29; Marius, c. 16. Long (Decline of Roman -Republic, ii, 369) says of Sulla that, "though he could rob a temple -when he wanted money, he believed in the religion of his time. We -should call him superstitious; and a man who is superstitious is -capable of any crime, for he believes that the Gods can be conciliated -by prayers and presents." - -[801] Compare the fears which grew upon Cromwell in his last days. - -[802] Pompeius, on the other hand, had many seers in his camp; but -after his overthrow expressed natural doubts about Providence. Cicero, -De Div. ii, 24, 47; Plutarch, Pompeius, c. 75. - -[803] Boissier, i, 73. - -[804] See Augustine's citation from Varro, De civ. Dei, vi, -2. Cp. Sueton. Aug. 29. - -[805] The only record to the contrary is the worthless scandal as -to his "suppers of the Twelve Gods" (Sueton. Aug. 70). The statement -of W. A. Schmidt that "none of the Julians was orthodox" (Geschichte -der Denk- und Glaubensfreiheit im ersten Jahrhundert, 1847, p. 175) -is somewhat overstrained. - -[806] Dio Cassius, lii, 36. - -[807] E.g., his encouragement of a new college of priests founded in -his honour. Dio, xliv, 6. - -[808] Sueton. Julius, 44, 56. The first public library actually -opened in Rome was founded by Asinius Pollio under Augustus, and was -placed in the forecourt of the temple of Liberty: Augustus founded -two others; Tiberius a fourth, in his palace; Vespasian a fifth, in -the temple of Peace; Domitian a sixth, on the Capitol. W. A. Schmidt, -Gesch. der Denk- und Glaubensfreiheit, pp. 151-52, and refs. - -[809] Boissier, pp. 67-108; Suetonius, Aug. xxix-xxxi. - -[810] L'Abbé Beurlier, Le Culte Impérial, 1891, introd. and ch. 1; -Boissier, ch. 2. Cp. p. 185, note, above. - -[811] It would seem that the occasion on which he enraged the Senate -by not rising to receive them (Sueton. Jul. 78) was that on which -they came to announce that they had made him a God, Jupiter Julius, -with a special temple and a special priest. See Long, Decline of the -Roman Republic, v, 418. He might very well have intended to rebuke -their baseness. But cp. Boissier, i, 122, citing Dio, xlvi, 6. - -[812] iii, 46; x, 40; xliii, 13. - -[813] 1 Sat. v, 98-103. - -[814] As to the conflict between Horace's bias and his policy, -cp. Boissier, i. 193-201. - -[815] E.g., Carm. iii, 6. - -[816] Fasti, v, 673-92. - -[817] Fasti, ii, 61-66. - -[818] Fasti, iv, 204. The preceding phrase, pro magno teste vetustas -creditur, certainly has an ironic ring. - -[819] Æneid, vi, 724-27. - -[820] Cp. Boissier, i, 228-29. - -[821] Georgics, ii, 490, 493. Diderot originated the idea that -the first of these lines and the two which follow it in Virgil had -reference to Lucretius. Grimm, Correspondance Littéraire, ed. 1829-30, -vi, 21-25. It is acquiesced in by W. Warde Fowler, Social Life at -Rome in the Age of Cicero, 1909, p. 327. Sellar (Roman Poets of the -Augustan Age: Virgil, 1877. p. 201) is doubtful on the point. - -[822] Cp. Boissier, i, 193. - -[823] Boissier, ii, 84-92. - -[824] Ep. xcv. - -[825] Suetonius, Jul. 88. - -[826] The same note occurs in Virgil, Æneid, vi, 719-21. - -[827] Hist. Nat. ii, 1, 5 (7). Pliny identifies nature and deity: -"Per quæ declaratur haud dubie naturæ potentia, idque esse quod Deum -vocamus" (last cit., end). - -[828] Hist. nat. vii, 55 (56). Cp. Boissier, i, 300. - -[829] Id. pp. 301-303. - -[830] See the praiseworthy treatise of Mr. J. A. Farrer, Paganism -and Christianity, 1891, chs. 5, 6, and 7. - -[831] "... vires religionis, ad quas maxime etiamnum caligat humanum -genus." Hist. nat. xxx, 1. - -[832] Above, p. 188. - -[833] Primus in orbe deos fecit timor. Frag. 22, ed. Burmanni. The -whole passage is noteworthy. See also his Satyricon, c. 137, as to -his estimate of sacerdotal sincerity. - -[834] Thebaid, iii, 661. - -[835] Porphyry, Epistle to Anebo (with Jamblichus). Chaeremon, however, -is said to have regarded comets as divine portents. Origen, Ag. Celsus, -bk. i, ch. 59. - -[836] Prof. C. Martha, Les moralistes sous l'empire romain, ed. 1881, -p. 341. - -[837] W. A. Schmidt, who cites this act (Geschichte der Denk- und -Glaubensfreiheit, pp. 31-33) as the beginning of the end of free -speech in Rome, does not mention the detail given by Dio (xliv, -10), that Cæsar suspected the tribunes of having set on some of -the people to hail him as king. But the unproved suspicion does not -justify his course, which was a bad lapse of judgment, even if the -suspicion were just. From this point a conspiracy against his life -was natural. Cp. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, v, 432-33. as -to the facts. - -[838] See W. A. Schmidt, pp. 34-108, for a careful analysis of the -evolution. As to the book-censure, see pp. 101-104. - -[839] Suetonius, Tiberius, c. 28. - -[840] Id. c. 61. - -[841] Annals, i, 73. That such a phrase should have been written by an -emperor in an official letter, and yet pass unnoticed through antiquity -save in one historical work, recovered only in the Renaissance, is -one of the minor improbabilities that give colour to the denial of -the genuineness of the Annals. - -[842] Tiberius, c. 69. - -[843] Petronius, Satyricon, ad init. - -[844] In the Annals (xiv, 50) it is stated that the book attacked -senators and pontiffs; that it was condemned to be burned, and -Vejento to be exiled; and that the book was much sought and read -while forbidden; but that it fell into oblivion when all were free -to read it. Here, again, there is no other ancient testimony. Vejento -is heard of, however, in Juvenal, iv, 113, 123-29. - -[845] Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, iv. 47. - -[846] Cp. Schmidt, pp. 346-47. - -[847] Suetonius, Domitian, c. 10. - -[848] Cp. Schmidt, p. 157. - -[849] Suetonius, Tiberius, c. 36; Josephus, Antiquities, xviii, 3, -§§ 4, 5. Josephus specifies isolated pretexts, which Suetonius does -not mention. They are not very probable. - -[850] Who destroyed 2,000 copies of prophetical books. Suetonius, -Aug. c. 31. - -[851] See, in the next chapter, as to the rationalistic mythology -of Macrobius. - -[852] Cp. Propertius, ii, 14, 27 sqq.; iii, 23, 19-20; iv, 3, 38; -Tibullus, iv, 1, 18-23; Juvenal, as before cited, and xv, 133, 142-46. - -[853] Plato, 2 Alcib.; Cicero, Pro Cluentio, c. 68; Horace, Carm. iii, -23, 17; Ovid, Heroides, Acont. Cydipp. 191-92; Persius, Sat. ii, -69; Seneca, De Beneficiis, i, 6. Cp. Diod. Sic. xii, 20; Varro, -in Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, vii, 1. - -[854] 1 Sat. iii, 96-98. Cp. Cicero, De Finibus, iv, 19, 27, 28; -Matt. v. 19-28; James, ii, 10. Lactantius, again (Div. Inst. iii, -23). denounces the doctrine of the equality of offences as laid down -by Zeno, giving no sign of knowing that it is also set forth in his -own sacred books. - -[855] On Seneca's moral teaching, cp. Martha, Les Moralistes sous -l'empire romain, pp. 57-66; Boissier, La religion romaine, ii, -80-82. M. Boissier further examines fully the exploded theory that -Seneca received Christian teaching. On this compare Bishop Lightfoot, -Dissertations on the Apostolic Age, pp. 237-92. - -[856] Seneca was so advanced in his theoretic ethic as to consider -all war on a level with homicide. Epist. xcv, 30. - -[857] It is to be noted that preaching had begun among the moralists -of Rome in the first century, and was carried on by the priests -of Isis in the second; and that in Egypt monasticism had long been -established. Martha, as cited, p. 67; Boissier, i, 356-59. Cp. Mosheim, -2 Cent. pt. ii, c. iii, §§ 13, 14, as to monasticism. - -[858] Mt. xxii, 39; Mk. xii, 31. - -[859] Talmud, tract. Sabbath, 306. - -[860] Mk. xii, 32. - -[861] Lk. xviii, 20. - -[862] See the impressive argument of Dr. Moncure Conway in his Solomon -and Solomonic Literature, 1899, ch. xviii. - -[863] See Dr. Nicholson's The Gospel According to the Hebrews, 1879, -p. 77. Cp. Conway, p. 222. Dr. Nicholson insists that at least the word -"sacrificing" must be spurious, because "it is surely impossible that -Jesus ever uttered this threat"! - -[864] Cp. the author's Christianity and Mythology, pt. iii. div. ii, -§ 6. - -[865] The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, known as the "Slavonic Enoch," -ch. xliv, 1 (Eng. tr. 1896, pp. 60, 67). - -[866] See the author's Pagan Christs, pt. ii. - -[867] Above, p. 215. - -[868] Hosea, vi, 6; Psalms, xl, 6, 7; Ecclesiastes, v, 1. - -[869] Talmud, Yoma-Derech Eretz; Midrash, Vayikra-Rabba, xxvii, -11 and 12. - -[870] Ch. lii (p. 69). - -[871] Luke xiii, 4. - -[872] Cp. Conway, Solomon and Solomonic Literature, 1899, pp. 57, -201, 219. - -[873] John iv, 21. - -[874] E.g., Plato, Crito, Jowett's tr. 3rd ed. ii, 150; Seneca, De -Ira, ii, 32. Valerius Maximus (iv, 2, 4) even urges the returning of -benefits for injuries. - -[875] It is impossible to find in the whole patristic literature a -single display of the "love" in question. In all early Christian -history there is nothing to represent it save the attitude of -martyrs towards their executioners--an attitude seen often in pagan -literature. (E.g., Ælian, Var. Hist. xii, 49.) - -[876] 1 Thess. v, 21. - -[877] 2 Cor. xi, 4; Gal. i, 6. - -[878] Cp. Rom. ix, 14-21. - -[879] 2 Cor. x, 5. Needless to say, such an expression savours strongly -of late invention; but in any case it tells of the attitude of the -Christian teachers of the second century. - -[880] 1 Cor. vii, 20-24 (where the phrase translated in English -"use it rather" unquestionably means "rather continue" = remain a -slave. Cp. Eph. vi, 5, and Variorum Teacher's Bible in loc.). - -[881] Rom. xiii, 1. Cp. 1 Peter ii, 13-14; Tit. iii, 1. The anti-Roman -spirit in the Apocalypse is Judaic, not Gentile-Christian; the book -being of Jewish origin. - -[882] James ii, 21. - -[883] 1 Cor. xv, 12. - -[884] The Apology of Athenagoras (2nd c.) is rather a defence of -monotheism than a Christian document; hence, no doubt, its speedy -neglect by the Church. - -[885] Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. c. 5; Min. Felix, Octavius, c. 10. - -[886] "The inhabitants of Coelesyria, Idumea, and Judea are principally -influenced by Aries and Ares, and are generally audacious, atheistical, -and treacherous" (Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, ii, 3--Paraphrase of Proclus). - -[887] Cp. Tertullian, De Idolatria, passim, and Ad Scapulam, c. 5. - -[888] For the refusal to worship men as Gods they had, of course, -abundant pagan precedent. See above, p. 186, note. - -[889] E.g., Tertullian, De Testimonio Animæ, c. 1; Arnobius, -Adversus Gentes, i, 41, etc.; Lactantius, Divine Institutes, c. xv; -Epit. c. vii. - -[890] Cp. J. A. Farrer, Paganism and Christianity, ch. vii. - -[891] Irenæus, Against Heresies, i, 26. Cp. Hagenbach, Lehrbuch der -Dogmengeschichte, 3te Aufl. § 23, 4 (p. 37), as to Cerinthus. - -[892] 1 Tim. vi, 20. The word persistently translated "oppositions" -is a specific term in Gnostic lore. Cp. R. W. Mackay, Rise and Progress -of Christianity, 1854, p. 115, note. - -[893] Cp. Harnack, Outlines of the History of Dogma, Mitchell's -trans. p. 77 (ch. vi), p. 149 (bk. ii, ch. vi); Gieseler, Comp. of -Eccles. Hist. i, § 63, Eng. tr. i, 234, as to the attitude of Origen. - -[894] The term "Gnostic," often treated as if applicable only to -heretical sects, was adopted by Clemens of Alexandria as an honourable -title. Cp. Gieseler, p. 241, as cited. - -[895] Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. 2 Cent. pt. ii, ch. i, §§ 4-12. Cp., -however, Abbé Cognat, Clément d'Alexandrie, 1859, pp. 421-23, and -Ueberweg, i, 239, as to the obscurity resting on the original teaching -of Ammonios. - -[896] Cp. Gieseler, Compendium, i, § 52 (tr. vol. i, p. 162). - -[897] Id. §§ 54, 55, pp. 186-90. - -[898] E. H. 3 Cent. pt. ii, ch. i, §§ 2-4. - -[899] As to the earlier latitudinarianism, cp. Gieseler, as cited, -p. 166. - -[900] Gieseler, § 55. - -[901] Mosheim, E. H. 3 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ 1-7; Gieseler, -as cited, § 53, pp. 162-65; Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. vi, 19; -B. Saint-Hilaire, De l'école d'Alexandrie, 1845, p. 7; Baur, -Ch. Hist. Eng. tr. ii, 3-8. But cp. Cognat, Clément d'Alexandrie, -l. v, ch. v. - -[902] Cp. Mosheim on Origen, Comm. de rebus Christ. ante Const. §§ 27, -28, summarized in Schlegel's note to Ec. Hist. Reid's ed. pp. 100-101; -Gieseler, § 63; Renan, Marc-Aurèle, pp. 114, 140. Dr. Hatch (Influence -of Greek Ideas on the Christian Church, pp. 82-83) notes that the -allegorical method, which began in a tendency towards rationalism, -came later to be typically orthodox. - -[903] "Gnosis was an attempt to convert Christianity into philosophy; -to place it in its widest relation to the universe, and to incorporate -with it the ideas and feelings approved by the best intelligence of -the times." Mackay, Rise and Progress of Christianity, p. 109. But -cp. the per contra on p. 110: "it was but a philosophy in fetters, -an effort of the mind to form for itself a more systematic belief in -its own prejudices." Again (p. 115): "a reaction towards freethought -was the essence of Gnosis." So also Robins, A Defence of the Faith, -1862, pt. i, pp. 4-5, 153. - -[904] This view could be supported by the Platonists from Plato, Laws, -bk. x. Cp. Chaignet, La vie et les écrits de Platon, 1871, p. 422; -and Milman, Hist. of Christianity, bk. ii, ch. v, ed. Paris, 1840, -i, 288. It is explicitly set forth by Plutarch, I. and O., cc. 45-49. - -[905] On the subject in general cp. Mosheim, E. H. 2 Cent. pt. ii, -ch. v; also his Commentaries on the Affairs of the Christians before -Constantine, Eng. tr. vol. ii; Harnack, Outlines of the Hist. of Dogma, -ch. iv; King, The Gnostics and their Remains; Mackay, Rise and Progress -of Christianity, pt. iii, §§ 10, 11, 12; Renan, L'Église Chrétienne, -chs. ix, x; Milman, Hist. of Christianity, bk. ii, ch. v; Lardner, -Hist. of Heretics, in Works, ed. 1835, vol. viii; Baur, Church History, -pt. iii; Jeremie, Hist. of the Chr. Church in 2nd and 3rd Cent., -ch. v (in Encyc. Metropolitana). - -[906] "Mysticism itself is but an insane rationalism" (Hampden, -Bampton Lect. on Scholastic Philosophy, 3rd ed. intr. p. liii). It may -be described as freethought without regard to evidence--that "lawless -thought" which Christian polemists are wont to ascribe to rationalists. - -[907] Gieseler, §§ 61, 86 (pp. 228, 368, 370). - -[908] In the fourth century and later, however, the gospel of -asceticism won great orthodox vogue through the writings of the -so-called Dionysius the Areopagite. Cp. Mosheim, 4 Cent. pt. ii, -c. iii, § 12; Westcott, Religious Thought in the West, 1891, -pp. 190-91. - -[909] Compare the process by which the Talmudic system unified -Judaism. Wellhausen, Israel, as cited, pp. 541-42; Milman, History -of Christianity, bk. ii, ch. 4, ed. Paris, 1840, i, 276. - -[910] "There is good reason to suppose that the Christian bishops -multiplied sacred rites for the sake of rendering the Jews and the -pagans more friendly to them" (Mosheim, E. H. 2 Cent. pt. ii, -ch. iv. Cp. ch. iii, § 17; ch. iv, §§ 3-7; 4 Cent. pt. ii, -ch. iii, §§ 1-3; ch. iv, §§ 1-2; 5 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § -2). This generalization is borne out by nearly every other Church -historian. Cp. Harnack, Outlines, pt. ii, bk. i, ch. i; Milman, bk. iv, -ch. 5, pp. 367-74; Gieseler. §§ 98, 99, 101, 104; Renan, Marc-Aurèle, -3e edit. p. 630. Baur, Church History, Eng. tr. ii, 285-89. - -[911] Gieseler, § 87, p. 373; Hagenbach, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, -3te Aufl. § 108. - -[912] Eusebius, v, 28; Gieseler, § 60, p. 218. - -[913] Cp. Gieseler, §§ 80-83, pp. 328-53; Harnack, Outlines, pt. ii, -bk. i, esp. pp. 201-202. - -[914] One being another Theodotos, a money-changer. - -[915] Eusebius, as last cited. The sect was accused of altering the -gospels to suit its purposes. The charge could probably be made with -truth against every sect in turn, as against the Church in general. - -[916] In the end the doctrine declared orthodox was the opposite -of what had been declared orthodox in the Sabellian and other -controversies (Mosheim, 4 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § 9); and all the while -"the Arians and the orthodox embraced the same theology in substance" -(Murdock, note on Mosheim, Reid's ed. p. 161). An eminent modern -Catholic, however, has described Arianism as "a deistic doctrine which -had not the courage to bury itself in the fecund obscurities of dogma" -(Ozanam, La Civilisation chrétienne chez les Francs, 1849, p. 35). - -[917] Gieseler, § 83. p. 345. - -[918] Cp. the author's Short History of Christianity, 2nd -ed. pp. 176-81. - -[919] "Pelagianism is Christian rationalism" (Harnack, Outlines, -pt. ii, bk. ii, ch. iv, § 3, p.364). - -[920] He was first a Manichean; later an anti-Manichean, denying -predestination; later, as an opponent of the Pelagians, an assertor -of predestination. Cp. Mackay, Rise and Progress of Christianity, -pt. v, § 15. As to his final Manicheanism, see Milman, Hist. of Latin -Christianity, 3rd ed. i, 152. - -[921] Cp. Harnack, Outlines, pt. ii, bk. ii, ch. v, § 1 (p. 386). - -[922] Cp. Hampden, Bampton Lectures on The Scholastic Philosophy, -1848, pp. xxxv-xxxvi, and refs. - -[923] Sokrates, Eccles. Hist. bk. vii, ch. 15. - -[924] Epist. 93. Cp. Schlegel's notes on Mosheim, in Reid's -ed. pp. 159, 198; Rev. W. R. Clarke, Saint Augustine, pp. 86-87 -(a defence); Milman, History of Latin Christianity, bk. ii, -ch. ii, 3rd. ed. i, 163; Boissier, La fin du paganisme, 2e édit. i, -69-79. Harnack's confused and contradictory estimate of Augustine -(Outlines, pt. ii, bk ii, chs. iii, iv) ignores this issue. He -notes, however (pp. 362-63), some of Augustine's countless -self-contradictions. - -[925] Milman, Hist. of Christianity, bk. iii, ch. viii; ed. cited, -ii, 182, 188, and note. For the views of Ambrose see p. 184. In Gaul, -St. Martin put down the old shrines by brute force. Id. p. 179. - -[926] Cp. Beugnot, Histoire de la destruction du paganisme en Occident, -1835, i, 430. - -[927] De errore profanarum religionum, end. - -[928] See it translated in full by Lardner in his Testimonies of -Ancient Heathens, ch. xlix. Works, ed. 1835, vol. viii. - -[929] Lardner, as cited, pp. 25-27. - -[930] As to the high character of Libanius, who used his influence -to succour his Christian friends in the reign of Julian, see Lardner, -pp. 15-17. - -[931] Milman, Hist. of Christianity, bk. iii, ch. vi; vol. ii, -p. 131. See the passage there cited from the Funeral Oration of -Libanius On Julian, as to Christians building houses with temple -stones; also the further passages, pp. 129, 161, 212, of Mr. King's -tr. of the Oration in his Julian the Emperor (Bohn Lib.). - -[932] Ammianus, xxii, 4. - -[933] Gibbon, ch. xlvii. Bohn ed. v, 211-52, 264, 268, 272. Mosheim, -passim. - -[934] Milman, as cited, p. 178. - -[935] De Testimonio Animæ, c. 2; De Ira Dei. - -[936] Tertullian, as cited, c. 3. - -[937] B. vi, ch. 28. - -[938] On the Mysteries, bk. x, ch. 2. - -[939] Cp. Minucius Felix (2nd c.), Octavius, c. 5. - -[940] De consensu evangelistarum, i, 10. - -[941] De civ. Dei, xxi, 2, 5-7. - -[942] Id. i, 14. - -[943] Id. xxi, 11. - -[944] See the citations in Abailard's Sic et non, § 1. Quod fides -humanis rationibus sit adstruenda, et contra. - -[945] De Gubernatione Dei, l. 4. - -[946] See Renan, L'Église Chrétienne, p. 493. As to Crescens, the -enemy of Justin Martyr (2 Apol. c. 3), see id. p. 492. Cp. Arnobius, -Adversus Gentes, passim, as to pagan objections. What remains of -Porphyry will be found in Lardner's Testimonies of the Heathen, -ch. xxxvii. Cp. Baur, Church History, Eng. tr. ii, 179-87. - -[947] The Controversy between Jason and Papiscus regarding Christ, -mentioned by Origen (Ag. Celsus, bk. iv, ch. 4), seems to have been -of the same nature. - -[948] Origen repeatedly calls him an Epicurean; but this is obviously -false. The Platonizing Christian would not admit that a Platonist -was anti-Christian. - -[949] Origen places him in the reign of Hadrian; but the internal -evidence is all against that opinion. Kain dates the treatise 177-78. - -[950] Cp. Renan, Marc-Aurèle, 3e édit. pp. 346-71. - -[951] B. i, cc. 24, 25. - -[952] B. i, cc. 28, 32. - -[953] c. 32. - -[954] cc. 37, 39. - -[955] B. ii, c. 26. - -[956] B. ii, c. 78. - -[957] B. ii, c. 49. - -[958] B. ii, c. 30. - -[959] B. iii, c. 1. - -[960] B. iv, cc. 23-30, 54-60, 74. - -[961] Cp. A. Kind, Teleologie und Naturalismus in der altchristlichen -Zeit, 1875; Soury, Bréviaire de l'histoire du Matérialisme, pp. 331-40. - -[962] B. i, chs. 9-11; iii, 44. - -[963] Cp. Renan, Marc-Aurèle, pp. 373-77. - -[964] Christian excisions have been suspected in the Peregrinus, -§ 11 (Bernays, Lucian und die Kyniker, 1879, p. 107). But see -Mr. J. M. Cotterill's Peregrinus Proteus, Edinburgh, 1879, for a -theory of the spuriousness of the treatise, which is surmised to be -a fabrication of Henri Etienne. - -[965] Logoi Philaletheis, known only from the reply of Eusebius, Contra -Hiroclem. Hierocles made much of Apollonius of Tyana, as having greatly -outdone Jesus in miracles, while ranking simply as a God-beloved man. - -[966] Methodius, Eusebius, Apollinaris, and Philostorgius. - -[967] Cod. Justin. De Summa Trinitate. l. I, tit. i, c. 3. - -[968] Citations are given by Baur, Ch. Hist. ii, 180 sq. - -[969] Cp. Mackay, Rise and Progress of Christianity, p. 160. Chrysostom -(De Mundi Creatione, vi, 3) testifies that Porphyry "led many away -from the faith." He ably anticipated the "higher criticism" of the -Book of Daniel. See Baur, as cited. Porphyry, like Celsus, powerfully -retorted on the Old Testament the attacks made by Christians on the -immorality of pagan myths, and contemned the allegorical explanations -of the Christian writers as mere evasions. The pagan explanations of -pagan myths, however, were of the same order. - -[970] Gieseler, § 106, ii, 75. Cp. Mosheim, 4 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, -§ 22. - -[971] Gieseler, § 106, vol. ii, p. 74; Mosheim, 4 Cent. pt. ii, -ch. iii, § 2; and Schlegel's note in Reid's ed. p. 152. - -[972] Milman, Hist. of Chr. bk. iii, ch. xi (ii, 268-70); Mosheim, -5 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § 14; Gilly, Vigilantius and his Times, -1844, pp. 8, 389 sq., 470 sq. As to Jerome's persecuting ferocity -see also Gieseler, ii, 65 note. For a Catholic polemic on Jerome's -side see Amedée Thierry, Saint Jérome, 2e édit. pp. 141, 363-66. - -[973] See a good account of the works of Macrobius in Prof. Dill's -Roman Society in the last Century of the Western Empire, bk. i, ch. iv. - -[974] Philostorgius, Eccles. Hist. Epit. bk. viii, ch. x. - -[975] By Justinian in 529. The banished thinkers were protected by -Chosroes in Persia, who secured them permission to return (Gibbon, -Bohn ed. iv. 355-56; Finlay, Hist. of Greece, ed. Tozer, i, 277, -287). Theodosius II had already forbidden all public lectures by -independent teachers (id. pp. 282-83). - -[976] Theodosius I, Arcadius, and Theodosius II (379-450) successively -passed laws forbidding and persecuting paganism (Finlay. i, -286; Beugnot. Hist. de la destr. du paganisme en occident, i, 350 -sq.). Mithraism was suppressed in the same period (Jerome, Epist. cvii, -ad Laetam, Sokrates, Eccles. Hist. bk. v, ch. xvi). It is to be -remembered that Constans and Constantius, the sons of Constantine, -had commenced, at least on paper, to persecute paganism as soon as -their father's new creed was sufficiently established (Cod. Theod. xvi, -10, 2, 4), and this with the entire approval of the whole Church. It -was not their fault that it subsisted till the time of Theodosius II -(cp. Gieseler, § 75, pp. 306-308; and Beugnot, i, 138-48). On the -edict of Theodosius I see Milman, bk. iii, ch. viii; ed. cited, p. 186. - -[977] In S. Babylam, contra Julianum, c. ii. Cp. his Hom. iv on 1st -Cor. Eng. tr. 1839, p. 42. - -[978] There is also a suggestion in one passage of Chrysostom (Hom. in -1 Cor. vi, 2, 3) that some Christians tended to doubt the actuality -of apostolic miracles, seeing that no miracles took place in their -own day. - -[979] Præparatio Evangelica, xv, 61. - -[980] Div. Inst. iii, 3. - -[981] Id. iii, 24. - -[982] Topographia, lib. v, cited by Murdock in note on Mosheim. 5 -Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § 5, Reid's ed. p. 192. Cp. same ed. p. 219, -note; and Gibbon, Bohn ed. iv, 259; v, 319. - -[983] , ii, 65, 71. - -[984] See Schlegel's note on Mosheim. 4 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § 19. - -[985] The first name came from Anomoios, "unlike-natured (to -the Father)," that being their primary doctrinal heresy concerning -Jesus. The second seems to have been a euphemism of their own making, -with the sense of "holding the good law." - -[986] Jerome, Adv. Vigilantium, cc. 9, 11. - -[987] Epiphanius, Adv. Hæres. lxx, § 6. - -[988] Cp. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, viii, 15-19; xxi, 6; De -Trinitate, iii, 12, 13 (7, 8); Epist. cxxxviii, 18-20; Sermo cc, -in Epiph. Dom. ii; Jerome, Vita S. Hilarion, cc. 6, 37. - -[989] Mosheim, E. H. 2 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ 8, 15; 3 Cent. pt. i, -ch. i, § 5; pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ 10, 11; 4 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, -§§ 3, 16; Gieseler, § 63, p. 235; Waddington, Hist. of the Church, -1833, pp. 38-39; Milman, Hist. of Chr. bk. iv, ch. iii, ed. cited, -ii, 337. Cp. Mackay, Rise and Progress of Christianity, pp. 11-12. - -[990] Cp. the explicit admissions of Mosheim, E. H. 2 Cent. pt. ii, -ch. iii, § 16; 3 Cont. pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ 4, 6; 4 Cent. pt. ii, -ch. ii, § 8; ch. iii, § 17; Gieseler, § 103, vol. ii, p. 56. It is to -be noted, however, that even the martyrs were at times bad characters -who sought in martyrdom remission for their sins (Gieseler, § 74, -p. 206; De Wette, as there cited). - -[991] Cp. Gieseler, ii, 67-68. - -[992] Epist. vii, 5; xcv, 33. Cp. Cicero, Tusculans, ii, 17. - -[993] Cp. the Bohn ed. of Gibbon, note by clerical editor, iii, 359. - -[994] The express declaration of Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei, -l. 6. On the general question compare Mr. Farrer's Paganism and -Christianity, ch. x; Milman, as last cited, p. 331; and Gieseler, -ii, 71, note 6. The traditional view that the games were suppressed -by Honorius, though accepted by Gibbon and by Professor Dill (Roman -Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, 2nd ed. p. 56), -appears to be an error. Cp. Beugnot, Destr. du Paganisme, ii, 25; -Finlay, Hist. of Greece, i, 236. - -[995] As to the specially cruel use of judicial torture by the later -Inquisition, see H. C. Lea, Superstition and Force, 3rd ed. p. 452. - -[996] Lavollée, as cited, p. 92. Cp. St. Chrysostom's Picture of his -Age, p. 112, and the admissions of Milman, bk. iv, ch. i. - -[997] As to the spirit of hatred roused by controversy among believers, -see Gieseler, § 104, vol. ii, pp. 64-67; and Ullmann's Gregory of -Nazianzum, Eng. tr. 1851, pp. 177-80. - -[998] H. Fraser Stewart, Boethius: An Essay, 1891, pp. 100-101. - -[999] Cp. Beugnot, Destruction du Paganisme, ii, 282-83. - -[1000] Id. p. 159. Mr. Stewart in another passage (p. 106) argues that -"The Consolation is intensely artificial"--this by way of explaining -that it was a deliberate exercise, not representing the real or normal -state of its author's mind. Yet he has finally to avow (p. 107) that -"it remains a very noble book"--a character surely incompatible with -intense artificiality. - -[1001] This is the view of Maurice (Medieval Philosophy, 2nd ed. 1859, -pp. 14-16), who decides that Boethius was neither a Christian nor a -"pagan"--i.e., a believer in the pagan Gods. This is simply to say that -he was a rationalist--a "pagan philosopher," like Aristotle. But, as -is noted by Prof. Bury (ed. of Gibbon, iv. 199), Boethius's authorship -of a book, De sancta trinitate, et capita quædam dogmatica, et librum -contra Nestorium, is positively asserted in the Anecdoton Holderi -(ed. by Usener, Leipzig, 1877, p. 4), a fragment found in a 10th -century MS. - -[1002] The strict meaning of this term, given by Mohammed ("the true -religion with God is Islam"; Sura, iii, 17), is "submission"--such -being the attitude demanded by the Prophet. "Moslem" or "Muslim" -means one who accepts Islam. Koran means strictly, not "book," but -"reading" or recitation. - -[1003] Rodwell's tr. of the Koran, ed. 1861, pref. p. xv. - -[1004] Sale, Preliminary Discourse to tr. of the Koran, ed. 1833, i, -42; Muir's Life of Mohammad, ed. Weir, 1912, p. 78. Cp. Freeman, -History and Conquests of the Saracens, 1856, p. 35. The late -Prof. Palmer, in introd. to his tr. of the Koran (Sacred Books of -the East series), i, p. xv, says that "By far the greater number had -ceased to believe in anything at all"; but this is an extravagance, -confuted by himself in other passages--e.g. p. xi. - -[1005] These generalizations are always matched, and cancelled, by -others from the same sources. Thus Prof. D. B. Macdonald writes of -"the always flighty and skeptical Arabs," and, a few pages later, of -the God-fearing fatalism "of all Muslim thought, the faith to which -the Semite ever returns in the end." Development of Muslim Theology, -etc. (in "Semitic Series"), New York, 1903, pp. 122, 126. - -[1006] The word means either convert or pervert; in Heb. and -Syr. "heretic"; in Arabic, "orthodox." It must not be confounded with -Hanyfite, the name of an orthodox sect, founded by one Hanyfa. - -[1007] See Rodwell's tr. of the Koran, ed. 1861, pref. pp. xvi, -xvii; and Sura, xvi (lxxiii in Rodwell's chron. arrangement), v. 121, -p. 252, note 2. - -[1008] Sprenger, Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammad, 1861-65, i, -83 sq. Cp. p. 60 sq. - -[1009] Rodwell, p. 497, note to Sura iii (xcvii) 19; and pref. p. xvi; -Caussin de Perceval, Essai sur l'histoire des Arabes avant l'Islamisme, -1847, i, 321-26; Nicholson, Lit. Hist. of the Arabs, pp. 69, 149. "To -the great mass of the citizens of Mecca the new doctrine was simply -the Hanyfism to which they had become accustomed; and they did not at -first trouble themselves at all about the matter." Palmer, introd. to -tr. of Koran, i, p. xxiv. Cp. Sprenger, as cited, i, 46-60, 65. - -[1010] The word Hanyf or Hanif recurs in Sura ii, 129; iii, -60, 89; iv, 124; vi, 79, 162; x, 105, xvi, 121; xxii, 32; xxx, -29. Cp. H. Derenbourg, La science des religions et l'Islamisme, 1886, -pp. 42-43. Palmer's translation, marred as it unfortunately is by -slanginess, is on such points specially trustworthy. Rodwell's does -not always indicate the use of the word Hanyf; but the German version -of Ullmann, the French of Kanimirski, and Sale's, do not indicate -it at all. Sprenger (p. 43) derives the Hanyfs from Essenes who had -almost lost all knowledge of the Bible. Cp. p. 67. Prof. Macdonald -writes that the word "is of very doubtful derivation. But we have -evidence from heathen Arab poetry that these Hanifs were regarded as -much the same as Christian monks, and that the term hanif was used -as a synonym for rahib, monk." Work cited, p. 125. - -[1011] Sprenger, as cited, p. 13. - -[1012] Cp. Sale's Prelim. Discourse, as cited, i, 38; and Palmer, -introd. p. xv; and Nicholson, pp. 139-40. - -[1013] Al Mostaraf, cited by Pococke, Specimen Histor. Arab. p. 136; -Sale, Prelim. Disc. as cited, p. 45. - -[1014] Cp. Nicholson, pp. 155-56 and refs. - -[1015] Sale, as cited, pp. 39-41. - -[1016] Palmer, introd. to his Haroun Alraschid, 1882, -p. 14. Cp. Derenbourg, La science des religions et l'Islamisme, p. 44, -controverting Kuenen. - -[1017] Hibbert Lectures, On National and Universal Religions, ed. 1901, -p. 21 and Note II. - -[1018] Id. p. 31. - -[1019] Nicholson, Lit. Hist. of the Arabs, p. 145. - -[1020] Rodwell, note to Sura xcvi (R. i), 10. - -[1021] Sprenger estimates that at his death the number really converted -to his doctrine did not exceed a thousand. Cp. Nicholson, pp. 153-58. - -[1022] Renan ascribes the idea wholly to Omar. Études d'histoire -et de critique, ed. 1862, p. 250. The faithful have preserved a sly -saying that "Omar was many a time of a certain opinion, and the Koran -was then revealed accordingly." Nöldeko, Enc. Brit. art. on Koran, -in Sketches from Eastern History, 1892, p. 28. On the other hand, -Sedillot decides (Histoire des Arabes, 1854. p. 60) that "in Mohammed -it is the political idea that dominates." So Nicholson (p. 169): "At -Medina the days of pure religious enthusiasm have passed away for ever, -and the prophet is overshadowed by the statesman." Cp. pp. 173, 175. - -[1023] On the measure of racial unity set up by Abyssinian attacks -as well as by the pretensions of the Byzantine and Persian empires, -see Sedillot, pp. 30, 38. Cp. Van Vloten, Recherches sur la domination -arabe, Amsterdam, 1894. pp. 1-4. 7. - -[1024] Professor Stanilas Guyard, La Civilisation Musulmane, 1884, -p. 22. - -[1025] Cp. Renan, Études, pp. 257-66; Hauri, Der Islam in seinem -Einfluss auf das Leben seiner Bekenner, 1882, pp. 64-65; Nicholson, -p. 235. It was at Medina that a strict Mohammedanism first arose. - -[1026] Nicholson, pp. 178-79, and ref. - -[1027] Hauri, Der Islam, p. 64. - -[1028] Cp. Montesquieu, Grandeur et décadence des Romains, ch. 22. - -[1029] Nicholson, p 190. - -[1030] Id. p. 199. - -[1031] Van Vloten, p. 70 and passim. - -[1032] Prof. Guyard, as cited, pp. 16, 51; C. E. Oelsner, Des effets -de la religion de Mohammed, etc., 1810, p. 130. - -[1033] Guyard, p. 21; Palmer, Haroun Alraschid, introd. p. 19. - -[1034] The alleged destruction of the library of Alexandria by Omar -is probably a myth, arising out of a story of Omar's causing some -Persian books to be thrown into the water. See Prof. Bury's notes in -his ed. of Gibbon, v, 452-54. Cp. Oelsner, as cited, pp. 142-43. - -[1035] Sura, vi, 25, 29; xix, 67; xxvii, 68-70; liv, 2; lxxxiii, -10-13. According to lviii, 28, however, some polytheists denied the -future state. - -[1036] Cp. Renan, Études d'histoire et de critique, pp. 232-34. - -[1037] Renan, as cited, p. 232. - -[1038] Id. p. 235. Renan and Sprenger conflict on this point, the -former having regard, apparently, to the bulk of the poetry, the -latter to parts of it. - -[1039] Sedillot, p. 39. One of these was Zaid. Nicholson, p. 149. - -[1040] See the passage (Sura ii) cited with praise by the sympathetic -Mr. Bosworth Smith in his Mohammed and Mohammedanism, 2nd ed. p. 181; -where also delighted praise is given to the "description of -Infidelity" in Sura xxiv, 39-40. The "infidels" in question were -simply non-Moslems. - -[1041] The Flight (of the Prophet to Medina from Mecca, in 622), -from which begins the Mohammedan era. - -[1042] Sale, as cited, p. 160. - -[1043] Weil, Geschichte der Chalifen, ii, 261-64; Dugat, Histoire des -philosophes et des théologiens Mussulmans, 1878, pp. 48-55; H. Steiner, -Die Mu`taziliten, oder die Freidenker im Islam, 1865, pp. 49-50; -Guyard, p. 36; Sale, p. 161 (sec. viii); Nicholson, p. 222 sq. The -term Motazila broadly means "dissenter," or "belonging to a sect." - -[1044] Steiner, p. 1. - -[1045] Palmer, Introd. to Haroun Alraschid, p. 14. - -[1046] As to the Persian influence on Arab thought, cp. A. Müller, -Der Islam, i, 469; Palmer, as last cited; Weil, Geschichte der -Chalifen, ii, 114 ff.; Nicholson, p. 220; Van Vloten, Recherches sur -la domination arabe, p. 43. Van Vloten's treatise is a lucid sketch of -the socio-political conditions set up in Persia by the Arab conquest. - -[1047] Weil, ii, 261. - -[1048] G. Dugat, Histoire des philosophes et des théologiens -Mussulmans, p. 44; Sale, pp. 161, 174-78. - -[1049] Dugat, p. 55; Steiner, p. 4; Sale, p. 162. - -[1050] "Motazilism represents in Islam a Protestantism of the -shade of Schleiermacher" (Renan, Averroès et l'Averroïsme, 3e -ed. p. 104). Cp. Syed Ameer Ali, Crit. Exam. of Life of Mohammed, -pp. 300-308; Sale, p. 161. - -[1051] Dugat, pp. 28, 44; Guyard, p. 36; Steiner, pp. 24-25; Renan, -Averroès, p. 101. The Kadarites, as Sale notes (pp. 164-65), are really -an older group than the Motazilites, so-called, their founder having -rejected predestination before Wasil did. Kuenen (Hibbert Lect. p. 47) -writes as if all the Motazilites were maintained of freewill, but -they varied. See Prof. Macdonald, as cited, p. 135 sq. - -[1052] Sale, pp. 165, 172-73. - -[1053] For a view of the various schools of Sifatites see Sale, -pp. 166-74. - -[1054] Guyard, pp. 37-38; G. D. Osborn, The Khalifs of Baghdad, 1878, -p. 134. - -[1055] Steiner, p. 16. Major Osborn (work cited, p. 136) attributes -their rise to the influence of Eastern Christianity, but gives -no proof. - -[1056] Guyard, p. 40. Cp. Sale, p. 176; Van Vloten, p. 43. - -[1057] Dugat, p. 34. Thus the orthodox sect of Hanyfites were called -by one writer followers of reason, since they relied rather on their -judgment than on tradition. - -[1058] Steiner, p. 5; Nicholson, p. 370. - -[1059] Steiner, pp. 5, 9, 88-89; Sale, p. 161; Macdonald, p. 140. - -[1060] Sedillot, Hist. des Arabes, p. 335; Prof. A. Müller, Der Islam -(in Oncken's series), i, 470; Ueberweg, i, 402. - -[1061] Ueberweg, p. 403; Weil, Gesch. der Chalifen, ii, 281. - -[1062] For an orthodox account of the beginnings of freethinking -(called zendekism) see Weil, ii, 214. Cp. p. 261; also Tabari's -Chronicle, pt. v, ch. xcvii; and Renan, Averroès, p. 103. Already, -among the Ommayade Khalifs, Yezid III held the Motazilite tenet of -freewill. Weil, p. 260. - -[1063] Nicholson, pp. 372, 375. The name zendek (otherwise spelt -zindiq) seems to have originally meant a Manichæan. Browne, -Literary History of Persia, ii (1906), 295; Nicholson, p. 375 and -ref. Macdonald, p. 134, thinks it literally meant "initiate." - -[1064] Steiner, p. 8. An association called "Brethren of Purity" -or "Sincere Brethren" seem to have carried Motazilism far, though -they aimed at reconciling philosophy with orthodoxy. They were -in effect the encyclopedists of Arab science. Ueberweg, i, 411; -Nicholson, p. 370 sq. See Dr. F. Dieterici, Die Naturanschauung und -Naturphilosophie der Araber im 10ten Jahrhundert, aus den schriften -der lautern Brüder, 1861, Vorrede, p. viii, and Flügel, as there -cited. Flügel dates the writings of the Brethren about 970; but the -association presumably existed earlier. Cp. Renan, Averroès, p. 104; -and S. Lane-Poole's Studies in a Mosque, 1893, ch. vi, as to their -performance. Prof. Macdonald is disposed to regard them as "part of -the great Fatimid propaganda which honeycombed the ground everywhere -under the Sunnite Abassids," but admits that the Fatimid movement is -"the great mystery of Muslim history" (pp. 165-70). - -[1065] Sale, pp. 82-83, note. - -[1066] He made five pilgrimages to Mecca, and died on the last, -thus attaining to sainthood. - -[1067] Weil, Gesch. der Chalifen, ii, 81; Dugat, pp. 59-61; A. Müller, -Der Islam, i. 470; Macdonald, p. 134. In Mansour's reign was born Al -Allaf, "Sheikh of the Motazilites." - -[1068] Dugat, p. 62. The Hâyetians, who had Unitarian Christian -leanings, also held by metempsychosis. Sale, p. 163. - -[1069] Nicholson, p. 371 and refs. - -[1070] Dugat, p. 71. He persecuted Zendeks in general. Nicholson, -pp. 373-74. - -[1071] Id. p. 72; Sale, pp. 184-85; Tabari's Chronicle, pt. v, -ch. xcvii, Zotenberg's tr. 1874, iv, 447-53. Tabari notes (p. 448) -that all the Moslem theologians agree in thinking zendekism much worse -than any of the false religions, since it rejects all and denies God -as well as the Prophet. - -[1072] Cp. Steiner, pp. 55 sq., 66 sq.; Ueberweg, Hist. of Philos., -i, 405. - -[1073] Dugat, p. 76. See Sale, pp. 82-83, 162-63, as to the champions -of this principle. - -[1074] Sale, p. 83; Macdonald, p. 150. - -[1075] Dugat, p. 79; Osborn, The Khalifs of Baghdad, p. 195. - -[1076] Palmer, Haroun Alraschid, p. 82. They were really theists. - -[1077] Weil, Geschichte der Chalifen, ii, 215, 261, 280; A. Müller, -Der Islam, pp. 514-15. "It was believed that he was at heart a -zindiq." Nicholson, p. 368. - -[1078] Dugat, pp. 85-96. - -[1079] Prof. Macdonald, as cited, p. 154. - -[1080] Dugat, p. 83. - -[1081] See extract by Major Osborn, Khalifs, p. 250. - -[1082] Osborn, Khalifs, p. 249. - -[1083] Macdonald, pp. 154-58, 167. - -[1084] Nicholson, pp. 358-59. He it was who first caused to be measured -a degree of the earth's surface. The attempt was duly denounced as -atheistic by a leading theologian, Takyuddin. Montucla, Hist. des -Mathématiques, éd. Lalande, i, 355 sq.; Draper, Conflict of Religion -and Science, p. 109. - -[1085] A. Müller, Der Islam, i, 509 sq.; Weil, Gesch. der Chalifen, -ii, 280 ff. - -[1086] Dugat, pp. 105-11; Sale, p. 82. Apart from this one issue, -general tolerance seems to have prevailed. Osborn, Khalifs, p. 265. - -[1087] Dugat, p. 112; Steiner, p. 79. According to Abulfaragius, -Motawakkel had the merit of leaving men free to believe what they -would as to the creation of the Koran. Sale, p. 82. - -[1088] A good analysis is given by Dugat, pp. 337-48. - -[1089] The whole of Aristotle, except, apparently, the Politics, -had been translated in the time of the philosopher Avicenna (fl. 1000). - -[1090] Macdonald, pp. 200, 205-206. - -[1091] Steiner, Die Mu'taziliten, pp. 10-11, following Gazzali (Al -Gazel); Weil, Gesch. der Chalifen, iii, 72. - -[1092] Guyard, pp. 41-42; Renan, Averroès, pp. 104-5; Macdonald, -p. 186 sq. The cultivators of Kalâm were called Motecallemîn. - -[1093] Ueberweg, i, 405, 414; Steiner, p. 11; Whewell, Hist. of the -Inductive Sciences, 3rd ed. i, 193-94. Compare the laudatory account -of Al Gazzali by Prof. Macdonald (pt. iii, ch. iv), who pronounces -him "certainly the most sympathetic figure in the history of Islam" -(p. 215). - -[1094] Hence, among other things, a check on the practice of -anatomy, religious feeling being opposed to it under Islam as under -Christianity. Dugat, pp. 62-63. - -[1095] Dugat, pp. 123-28. - -[1096] Browne, Literary History of Persia, ii (1906), 290, 293; -R. A. Nicholson, Literary History of the Arabs, 1907, p. 318. - -[1097] Browne, as cited, p. 292. Cp. Von Kremer, Culturgeschichte -des Orients, 1875-77, ii, 386-95; Macdonald, p. 199. - -[1098] Dugat, p. 167; Weil, iii, 72. - -[1099] Dugat, pp. 164-68. - -[1100] Nicholson, pp. 314-15. - -[1101] The Diwan of Abu'l-Ala, by Henry Baerlein, 1908, st. 36. Cp. 1, -37, 41, 42, 53, 81, 86, 94, and the extracts given by Nicholson, -pp. 316-23. - -[1102] Weil, ii, 215. - -[1103] Decline and Fall, ch. lvii. Bohn ed. vi, 382, and -note. Cp. E. H. Whinfield, The Quatrains of Omar Khayyám, 1882, p. 4. - -[1104] See the preface to Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubáiyát. - -[1105] In one quatrain, of doubtful authenticity, is the line "Khayyám, -who longtime stitched the tents of learning" (Whinfield, xxxviii), -which excludes the idea of literal handicraft. - -[1106] J. K. M. Shirazi, Life of Omar Al-Khayyámi, ed. 1895, pp. 30-41. - -[1107] Id. pp. 51, 58. - -[1108] Id. p. 54. - -[1109] Id. p. 56. - -[1110] Id. p. 59. - -[1111] Id. pp. 62-63. - -[1112] Id. p. 93. - -[1113] Id. pp. 59-61. - -[1114] Id. pp. 69-76, 86-88. - -[1115] Cited in introd. to Dole's variorum ed. of the Rubáiyát, 1896, -i, p. xix. Cp. Macdonald, p. 199. - -[1116] "Dost thou desire to taste eternal bliss? - Vex thine own heart, but never vex another." (Whinfield, vi.) - - "Seek not the Kaaba, rather seek a heart." (Id. vii.) - -This note is often repeated. E.g. xxxii, li. - -[1117] See in the very competent translation of Mrs. H. M. Cadell -(who remarked that "Fitzgerald has rather written a poem upon Omar -than translated him"), quatrains 12, 14, 15, 20, 28, 29, 42, 45, 48, -51d, 85, 88b, 133, 141, 143. etc.; in the artistically turned version -of Mr. A. H. Talbot, which follows very faithfully the literal prose -translation of Mr. Heron-Allen, Nos. 1, 3, 15, 18, 19, 24, 33, 41, -45, 59, 72, 91, 115, 123, 148; and in Whinfield's version, Nos. 10, -25, 32, 41, 45, 46, 62, 68, 77, 84, 87, 104, 105, 111, 113, 118, 142, -144, 148, 151, 157, 161, 179, 195, 200, 201, 203, 216. - -[1118] Shirazi, pp. 102-108. Early in the thirteenth century he -was denounced by a Sufi mystic as an "unhappy philosopher, atheist, -and materialist." Browne, Lit. Hist. of Persia, ii, 250. Abu'l-Ala, -of course, was similarly denounced. - -[1119] Whinfield, cited by Browne, pp. 109-110. - -[1120] Cp. Mrs. Cadell, The Rub'yat of Omar Khayam, 1899. Garnett's -introd. pp. xvii, xviii-xxi, xxiv, and Shirazi, as cited, pp. 79-80. - -[1121] Fitzgerald's pref. 4th ed. p. xiii; Whinfield, -No. 147. Cp. quatrains cited in art. Sufiism, in Relig. Systems of -the World, 2nd ed. pp. 325-26. - -[1122] Cp. Whinfield, p. 86, note on No. 147. - -[1123] Guyard, as cited, p. 42. But cp. Ueberweg, i, 411; Nicholson, -pp. 233-34. - -[1124] It is not impossible, Max Müller notwithstanding, that the -name may have come originally from the Greek sophoi, "the wise," -though it is usually connected with sufi = the woollen robe worn -by the Sufite. There are other etymologies. Cp. Fraser, Histor. and -Descrip. Account of Persia, 1834, p. 323, note; Dugat, p. 326; and -art. Sufiism in Relig. Systems of the World, 2nd ed. p. 315. On the -Sufi system in general see also Max Müller, Psychol. Relig. Lect. vi. - -[1125] Cp. Renan, Averroès, p. 293, as to Sufi latitudinarianism. - -[1126] Guyard, p. 44; Relig. Systems, p. 319. - -[1127] Hafiz in his own day was reckoned impious by many. Cp. Malcolm, -Sketches of Persia, 1827, ii, 100. - -[1128] Fitzgerald's pref. p. x. - -[1129] Yet he was disposed to put to death those who claimed mystic -intercourse with Deity. Sale, pp. 177-78. - -[1130] Whose Salaman and Absal, tr. by Fitzgerald, is so little -noticed in comparison with the Rubáiyát of Omar. - -[1131] E. C. Browne, in Religious Systems, as cited, p. 321; Dugat, -p. 331. - -[1132] Shirazi, pp. 22-28; Fitzgerald's pref. following Mirkhond; -Fraser, Persia, p. 329. - -[1133] Cp. Dugat, p. 336; Syed Ameer Ali, pp. 311-15; Gobineau, -Les religions et les philosophies dans l'Asie centrale, 2e édit. p. 68. - -[1134] Sale, p. 176. The same doctrine is fairly ancient in -India. (Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, v, 313, note.) A belief that -hell-fire will not be eternal was held among the Motazilite sect of -Jâhedhians. Sale, p. 164. The Thamamians, again, held that at the -resurrection all infidels, idolaters, atheists, Jews, Christians, -Magians, and heretics, shall be reduced to dust. Id. ib. - -[1135] Cp. Renan, Averroès, p. 101. Cp. p. 172. - -[1136] Renan's tr. in Averroès, p. 166. The wording of the last phrase -suggests a misconstruction. - -[1137] Cp. p. 172. - -[1138] Renan, Averroès, pp. 104-107. - -[1139] Steiner, Die Mu'taziliten, p. 6. - -[1140] Ueberweg, i, 412; Renan, Averroès, pp. 44, 96. - -[1141] E. G. Browne, Lit. Hist. of Persia, ii, 107. - -[1142] Whom he pronounced a pagan and an infidel. Hauréau, II, i, 29. - -[1143] Cp. Renan, Averroès, pp. 57, 96-98; Whewell, Hist. of the -Inductive Sciences, 3rd. ed. I, 193. Renan, following Degenerando -(cp. Whewell, as cited), credits Gazzali with anticipating Hume's -criticism of the idea of causation; but Gazzali's position is that -of dogmatic theism, not of naturalism. See Lewes, Hist. of Philos., -4th ed. ii, 57. - -[1144] Hauréau, Hist. de la philos. scolastique, Ptie II, i, 35. - -[1145] Cp. Seignobos, Hist. de la Civ. ii, 58; Stanley Lane-Poole, The -Moors in Spain, pref.; Milman, Latin Christianity, 4th ed. ix. 108-18; -U. R. Burke, History of Spain, i, ch. 16; Baden Powell, as cited, -pp. 94-104; Gebhart, Origines de la Renaissance en Italie, 1879, -pp. 185-89; and post, ch. x. - -[1146] Baden Powell, Hist. of Nat. Philos. 1834, p. 97; Whewell, -Hist. of the Induct. Sciences, 3rd ed. ii. 273-74. - -[1147] Dr. L. Leclerc, Hist. de la Médecine Arabe, 1876, i, 462; -Dr. E. von Meyer, Hist. of Chemistry, Eng. tr. 2nd ed. p. 28. - -[1148] Cp. Buckle, Introd. to Hist. of Civ. in England, -1-vol. ed. p. 70. - -[1149] Lane-Poole, The Moors in Spain, p. 73. - -[1150] Properly Morabethin--men of God or of religion; otherwise -known as "Marabouts." - -[1151] Sedillot, p. 298. - -[1152] Cp. Dozy, Hist. des Musulmans d'Espagne, iii, 248-86; Ueberweg, -i, 415. - -[1153] Renan, Averroès, pp. 98-99. - -[1154] Ueberweg. i. 415; Renan, Averroès, pp. 32, 99. - -[1155] Renan, Averroès, p. 99. - -[1156] Renan, Averroès, p. 145. - -[1157] Id. pp. 156-58. - -[1158] Id. pp. 159-60. - -[1159] Renan, Averroès, pp. 160-62. - -[1160] Ueberweg, i, 416; Steiner, p. 6; Renan, Averroès, p. 162 sq. - -[1161] Ueberweg, i, 460; Renan, pp. 258, 275. - -[1162] Renan, Averroès, p. 169, and references. - -[1163] Id. pp. 165-66. - -[1164] Id. p. 5. Cp. the Avertissement, p. iii. - -[1165] Renan, Averroès, pp. 31-36. Renan surmises that the popular -hostility to the philosophers, which was very marked, was largely -due to the element of the conquered Christians, who were noted for -their neglect of astronomy and natural science. - -[1166] Cp. Ueberweg. i. 415-17. - -[1167] Cp. Flint, History of the Philosophy of History, ed. 1893, -vol. i, p. 169. - -[1168] Cp. Flint, p. 129, as to their hostility to him. - -[1169] Huth, Life and Writings of Buckle, ii, 171. - -[1170] Ricaut, Present State of the Ottoman Empire, 1686, p. 245. - -[1171] Dugat, p. 59. The Ameer Ali Syed, Moulvi, M.A., LL.B., whose -Critical Examination of the Life and Teachings of Mohammed appeared -in 1873, writes as a Motazilite of a moderate type. - -[1172] Macdonald, pp. 120, 196, 286. - -[1173] A. Franck, Études Orientales, 1861, pp. 241-48, citing the -Dabistan. - -[1174] Gobineau, Les religions et les philosophies dans l'Asie -centrale, 2e édit. ch. v; J. K. M. Shirazi, Life of Omar Khayyámi, -ed. 1905, p. 102. The latter writer notes, however, that "the cultured -classes, who ought to know better, are at no pains to dissipate the -existing religious prejudice against one [Omar] of whose reputation -every Persian may well feel proud." "At the present time ... the -name of Omar is no less execrated by the Shi-ite mob in Persia than -it was in his own day." Id. p. 108. - -[1175] Fraser, Persia, p. 330. This writer (p. 239) describes Sufiism -as "the superstition of the freethinker," and as "often assumed as -a cloak to cover entire infidelity." - -[1176] E.g., Dr. Wills, The Land of the Lion and the Sun, ed. 1891, -p. 339. - -[1177] Smith and Dwight, Missionary Researches in Armenia, 1834, -p. 340. Cp. Rev. H. Southgate, Tour through Armenia, etc. 1840, ii, -153; and Morier's Hadji Baba of Ispahan (1824), ch. xlvii, near end. - -[1178] Fraser, Persia, p. 331; Malcolm, Sketches of Persia, ii, 108; -Gobineau, as cited, ch. v. - -[1179] H. Vambéry, Der Islam im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, -1875, pp. 32-33. Vambéry further remarks: "The half-fanatical, -half-freethinking tone of Persians has often surprised me in my -controversies with the most zealous Schiites." - -[1180] As to the rise of this sect see Gobineau, as cited, pp. 141-358; -E. G. Browne's The Episode of the Bâb; and his lecture on Bâbism in -Religious Systems of the World. Cp. Renan, Les Apôtres, pp. 378-81. - -[1181] H. Arakélian, Mémoire sur Le Bâbisme en Perse, in the Actes -du Premier Congrès International d'Histoire des Religions, Paris, -1902, 2 Ptie. Fasc. i. - -[1182] Gobineau, pp. 167 sq.; 180 sq.; Arakélian, p. 94. - -[1183] Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, 5th ed. 1871, -i, 349, 356. "There are, I believe," says Lane (writing originally -in 1836), "very few professed Muslims who are really unbelievers; -and these dare not openly avow their unbelief through fear of losing -their heads for their apostacy. I have heard of two or three such who -have been rendered so by long and intimate intercourse with Europeans; -and have met with one materialist, who has often had long discussions -with me." - -[1184] Id. ii, 309. (Suppl. III, "Of Late Innovations in Egypt.") - -[1185] See the documents reproduced by Max Müller, Introd. to the -Science of Religion, ed. 1882, App. 1. - -[1186] Id. pp. 214, 216. - -[1187] Id. pp. 210, 217, 224, 225. - -[1188] Id. pp. 224, 226. - -[1189] Id. pp. 226, 229. - -[1190] Guyard, p. 45; Steiner, p. 5, note; Lane, The Modern Egyptians, -ed. 1871, i. 137-38. Cp. Spencer, Study of Sociology, ch. xii, p. 292; -Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism, 2nd ed. pp. 315-19. - -[1191] Derenbourg, p. 72; Steiner, p. 1; Lane, i, 79. - -[1192] Cp. Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism, Lectures I and -IV; Canon Isaac Taylor, address to Church Congress at Wolverhampton, -1887, and letters to Times, Oct. and Nov. 1887. On the other or -anti-Mohammedan side see Canon Robinson, Hausaland, 3rd ed. 1900, -p. 186 sq.--a somewhat obviously prejudiced argument. See pp. 190-91. - -[1193] Sir Harry H. Johnston, History of the Colonization of Africa -by Alien Races, 1899, p. 283. - -[1194] This label has been applied by scholars to the seventh, -eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. One writer, who supposes it to -cover the period from 500 to 1400, and protests, is attacking only -a misconception. (M. A. Lane, The Level of Social Motion, New York, -1902., p. 232.) The Renaissance is commonly reckoned to begin about -the end of the fourteenth century (cp. Symonds, Age of the Despots, -ch. i). But the whole period from the fall of the Roman Empire to the -fall of Constantinople, or to the Reformation, is broadly included -in the "Middle Ages." - -[1195] Essai sur les Moeurs, ch. xlv. - -[1196] According to which God predestinated good, but merely foreknew -evil. - -[1197] For Leo's contacts with the Saracens see Finlay, Hist. of -Greece, ed. Tozer, ii, 14-20, 24, 31-32, 34-35, 37, etc., and compare -p. 218. See also Hardwick, Church History: Middle Age, 1833, p. 78, -note 2; and Waddington, History of the Church, 1833, p. 187, note. - -[1198] Kurtz, Hist. of the Chr. Church, Eng. tr. i, 252. - -[1199] Kurtz, p. 253. - -[1200] As to his hostility to letters see Gibbon, ch. liii--Bohn -ed. vi, 228. Of course the other side were not any more -liberal. Cp. Finlay, ii, 222. - -[1201] Gieseler, ii, 202. Per. III, Div. I, pt. i, § 1. In the next -century this was said to have gone in some churches to the point of -rejection of Christ. Id. p. 207, note 28. - -[1202] Id. pp. 205, 207; Finlay, ii, 195. - -[1203] Neander, Hist. of Chr. Church, Bohn tr. v, 289; vi, 266. - -[1204] On their connection at this time with the culture-movement of -the Khalifate of Mamoun, see Finlay, ii, 224-25; Gibbon, ch. liii--Bohn -ed. vi, 228-29. - -[1205] Finlay, ii, 181, note. The enemies of Photius accused him -of lending himself to the emperor's buffooneries. Neander, vi, -303-304. Cp. Mosheim, 9 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § 7; and Gibbon, -ch. xxxiii--ed. cited, vi, 229. Finlay declares (p. 222) that no -Greek of the intellectual calibre of Photius, John the Grammarian, -and Leo the Mathematician, has since appeared. - -[1206] Neander, vi, 280. - -[1207] Finlay, ii, 174-75, 180. - -[1208] Hardwick, Church History: Middle Age, 1853, p. 85. It is -noteworthy that the "heathen" Magyars held the Mazdean dualistic -principle, and that their evil power was named Armanyos (= -Ahrimanes). Mailáth, Geschichte der Magyaren, 1828, i, 25-26. - -[1209] Gibbon, ch. liv; Mosheim, 9 Cent. pt. ii, ch. 5; Gieseler, -Per. III, Div. I, pt. i, § 3; G. S. Faber, The Ancient Vallenses -and Waldenses, 1838, pp. 32-60. Some fresh light is thrown on the -Paulician doctrines by the discovery of the old Armenian book, -The Key of Truth, edited and translated by F. C. Conybeare, Oxford, -1898. It belonged to the Armenian sect of Thonraki, or Thonrakians, -or Thondrakians--people of the village of Thondrac (Neander, vi, -347)--founded by one Sembat, originally a Paulician, in the ninth -century (Hardwick, Church History: Middle Age, p. 201; Neander, last -cit.). For a criticism of Mr. Conybeare's theories see the Church -Quarterly Review, Jan. 1899, Art. V. - -[1210] Gieseler, Per. III, §§ 45, 46, vol. ii, pp. 489, 492; Hardwick, -p. 86. The sect of Euchites, also anti-priestly, seem to have joined -them. Faber denies any Manichean element. - -[1211] Gibbon, as cited, vi, 241. - -[1212] Gibbon, vi, 242; Hardwick, pp. 88-90. - -[1213] Gibbon, vi, 245, and note; Finlay, ii, 60. - -[1214] Despite the express decision, the use of statues proper -(agalmata) gradually disappeared from the Greek Church, the disuse -finally creating a strong antipathy, while pictures and ikons remained -in reverence (Tozer's note to Finlay, ii, 165; cp. Waddington, History -of the Church, 1833, p. 190, note). It is probable that the sheer loss -of artistic skill counted for much in the change. Cp. Milman, Latin -Christianity, bk. xiv, ch. ix; 4th ed. ix, 308-12. It is noteworthy -that, whereas in the struggle over images their use was for two long -periods legally abolished, it was in both cases restored by empresses -Irene and Theodora. - -[1215] Hardwick, p. 80, note; Neander, vi, 340. - -[1216] Cp. Kurtz, His. of the Chr. Church, Eng. tr. i, 271. - -[1217] Gibbon, vi, 246; Finlay, iii, 64; Mosheim, 10 Cent. pt. ii, -ch. v. - -[1218] Finlay, iii, 66. - -[1219] Gibbon, as cited; R. Lane Poole, Illustrations of the History -of Medieval Thought, 1884, pp. 91-96; Mosheim, 11 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v. - -[1220] Finlay, iii, 67-68; Mosheim, 12 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § -2. Hardwick, pp. 302-305; Kurtz, i, 270-73. - -[1221] Gieseler, Per. III, Div. II, pt. iii, § 46. - -[1222] Gibbon, vi, 249, note; Poole, p. 91, note; De Potter, L'Esprit -de L'Église, 1821, vi, 16, note. - -[1223] Boniface, Ep. lxvi, cited by Poole, p. 23; Reid's Mosheim, -p. 263, note 3; Neander, Hist. of the Christian Church, Bohn tr. v, -86-67; Hardwick, p. 23. - -[1224] For excellent accounts of both see Mr. Poole's Illustrations, -pp. 28-50. As to Claudius cp. Monastier, Hist. of the Vaudois Church, -Eng. tr. 1848, pp. 13-42, and Faber, The Ancient Vallenses, bk. iii, -ch. iv. - -[1225] See Mr. Poole's Illustrations, pp. 46-48, for an account of -the privileges then accorded to Jews. - -[1226] This is not incompatible with their having opposed both Saracens -(Claudius in actual war) and Jews, as Christian bishops. - -[1227] Poole, Illustrations, p. 37. - -[1228] This when the Church found its account in adopting all such -usages. Lea, Superstition and Force, pp. 242, 280, etc. It is to be -noted, however, that one Council, that of Valence, 855, perhaps under -the influence of Agobard's teaching, published a canon prohibiting all -duels, and praying the emperor to abolish them. Cited by Waddington, -History of the Church, 1833, p. 242, note, from Fleury. - -[1229] De Grandine et tonitruis, c. 3; and De imaginibus, c. 13, -cited by Reuter. - -[1230] "He had the clearest head in the whole ninth century; and as an -influence (Mann der Tendenz) is above comparison" (Reuter, Gesch. der -religiösen Aufklärung im Mittelalter, i, 24). As to his acute handling -of the thorny question of reason and authority see Reuter, i, 40-41. - -[1231] Poole, pp. 50-52. - -[1232] Noack, Philosophie-Geschichtliches Lexikon, s. v. Rabanus. As -to the doubtful works in which Rabanus coincides with Scotus Erigena, -cp. Poole, p. 336; Noack, as cited; Ueberweg, i, 367-68. - -[1233] Ueberweg, pp. 366, 371; Poole, pp. 99, 101, 336. - -[1234] Ueberweg, pp. 356-65. That there was, however, an Irish -scholasticism as early as the eighth century is shown by Mosheim, -8 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § 6, note 3. Cp. Huber, Johannes Scotus -Erigena, 1861, p. 428 sq.; Taillandier, Scot Erigène et la philosophie -scolastique, 1843, p. 198. - -[1235] Lea, as cited, p. 280. - -[1236] "The learned and freethinking guest of Charles le Chauve," -Hardwick calls him, p. 176. It needed the protection of Charles to -save him from the orthodox, Hincmar included. See Ampère, Histoire -littéraire de la France, 1840, iii, 94-95, as to the anger against him. - -[1237] See the whole argument summarized by Huber, p. 59 sq. - -[1238] Cp. Poole, Illustrations, pp. 61, 63, 65; Neander, Bohn -tr. vi, 198 sq.; and the present writer's introd. to Shaftesbury's -Characteristics, ed. 1900, p. xxxiv. And see above, p. 184. - -[1239] De divisione Naturæ, l. v; De Prædestinatione, c. 17; Poole, -pp. 71-72; Neander, vi, 198-99; Huber, as cited, p. 405. - -[1240] In the treatise On the Division of Nature. See the extracts -given in the Cabinet Cyclopædia survey of Europe in the Middle Ages, -ii, 266-68. They prove, says the author of the survey, "that John -Erigena had none of the spirit of Christianity." - -[1241] Poole, pp. 64, 76. - -[1242] S. Robins, A Defence of the Faith, 1862, pp. 25-26. - -[1243] Huber, pp. 435-40. - -[1244] Cp. Neander, Hist. of the Chr. Church, Bohn tr. vi, 192. - -[1245] De Corpore et Sanguine Domini, rep. Oxford, 1838, cc. 8-16, -29, 56, 72-76, etc. - -[1246] C. 19: "Non sicut quidam volunt, anima sola hoc mysterio -pascitur." Neander, vi, 210. - -[1247] Hardwick, pp. 178, 181; Neander, vi, 217. - -[1248] Cp. Neander, vi, 219. - -[1249] Poole, p. 69. - -[1250] C. 6: "Ineptas quæstiunculas et aniles pæne fabulas Scotorumque -pultes." Neander, vi, 207. - -[1251] Neander, vi, 219, citing Mabillon, Analecta, i, 207. - -[1252] Compare the Gemma Ecclesiastica of Giraldus Cambrensis for an -inside view of the avarice of the clergy in his day. - -[1253] Neander, Hist. of the Chr. Church, v, 187. See the whole section -for a good account of the general economic and moral evolution. Neander -repeatedly (pp. 186-87) insists on the "magical" element in the -doctrine of the mass, as established by Gregory the Great. - -[1254] See Neander, as cited, v, 183. The point was well put some -centuries later by the Italian story-teller Masuccio, an orthodox -Catholic but a vehement anti-clericalist, in a generalization -concerning the monks: "The best punishment for them would be for -God to abolish Purgatory; they would then receive no more alms, and -would be forced to go back to their spades." Cited by Burckhardt, -The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Eng. tr. 1892, p. 461. - -[1255] Neander, vi, 182. Rabanus Maurus distinctly belied him on this -score. (Id. p. 183.) - -[1256] Formerly, only the saved had been spoken of as prædestinati, -the reprobate being called præsciti. Neander, vi, 181. - -[1257] Neander, vi, 187. Cp. Hampden, Bampton Lectures on The -Scholastic Philosophy, 3rd ed. p. 418; and Ampère, Histoire littéraire -de France, 1840, iii, 92. - -[1258] Poole, p. 103. Cp. Neander, vi, 225. - -[1259] Neander, vi, 237-38. - -[1260] Id. pp. 255-56. - -[1261] Id. p. 257. - -[1262] Id. p. 258. As to the wide extent of the discussion see Reuter, -Geschichte der religiösen Aufklärung im Mittelalter, i, 112. - -[1263] In 945, however, Atto, Bishop of Verceil, is found complaining -that some people from the Italian border had introduced heresies. - -[1264] Mosheim, 10 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § 3; Poole, Illustrations, -p. 91. - -[1265] Hardwick, p. 203. - -[1266] Kurtz, History of the Christian Church, Eng. tr. 1868, i, 435. - -[1267] Hénault, Abrégé chronologique, ann. 1022; Neander, Hist. of -the Chr. Relig. and Church, Eng. tr. Bohn ed. vi, 349 sq.; Mosheim, 10 -Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § 3; De Potter, L'Esprit de l'Église, vi, 18-19; -Poole, pp. 96-98; Lea, History of the Inquisition, i, 104, 108-109, -218; Gieseler, Per. III, Div. ii, § 46. The contemporary accounts -say nothing as to the heretics being Manicheans. Neander, p. 350, note. - -[1268] Cp. Murdock's note on Mosheim, Reid's ed. p. 386; Monastier, -Hist. of the Vaudois Church, p. 33; Waddington, p. 356; Hardwick, -p. 203, note, and p. 207. - -[1269] De Potter, pp. 20-21; Gieseler, as cited, p. 497; Lea, i, -104, 109. - -[1270] Mosheim, as last cited, § 4; Gieseler, ii, 496 (§ 46); Hardwick, -pp. 203, 204. - -[1271] Mosheim. 11 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § 2, and Murdock's notes; -12 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, §§ 4, 5. - -[1272] Hardwick, p. 306; Kurtz, i, 433. The derivation through -the Italian is however disputed. Cp. Murdock's note to Mosheim, -Reid's ed. p. 385, and Gieseler, ii, 486. The Chazari, a Turkish -(Crimean) people, partly Christian and partly Moslem in the ninth -century (Gieseler, as cited), may have given the name of Gazzari, as -Bulgar gave Bougre; and the German Ketzer may have come directly from -Chazar. The Christianity of the Chazars, influenced by neighbourhood -with Islam, seems to have been a very free syncretism. - -[1273] Cp. Gieseler, Per. III, §§ 24, 34; Abbé Queant, Gerbert, ou -Sylvestre II, 1868, pp. 3-5, citing Chevé, Histoire des papes, t. ii, -and Baronius, Annales, ad ann. 900, n. 1; Mosheim, 9 Cent. pt. ii, -ch. ii, §§ 1-4; with his and Murdock's refs.; 10 Cent. pt. ii, -ch. ii, §§ 1, 2; 11 Cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § 1; ch. iii, §§ 1-3; -12 Cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § 1; 13 Cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ 1-7. The -authorities are often eminent Churchmen, as Agobard, Ratherius, -Bernard, and Gregory VIII. - -[1274] See Mosheim, 8 Cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § 5, note z. Cp. Duruy, -Hist. de France, ii, 170. - -[1275] Cp. Prof. Abdy, Lectures on Feudalism, 1890, p. 72. - -[1276] Mosheim, 12 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § 6. - -[1277] Cp. Morin, Origines de la démocratie, 3e éd. pp. 164-65; -Mosheim, 10 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § 3. - -[1278] Morin, p. 168. Compare, on the whole communal movement, Duruy, -Hist. de France, ch. xxi, and Michelet. - -[1279] Gieseler, Per. III, § 46, end; Lea, i, 109, 218. - -[1280] Monastier, Hist. of the Vaudois Ch., p. 32; Lea, i, 110. - -[1281] Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, 8th ed. p. 134. See p. 135 for a -list of John's offences; and cp. p. 85 as to other papal records. For -a contemporary account of Pope Honorius II (d. 1130) see Milman, -Latin Christianity, iii, 448-49. - -[1282] Hallam, Middle Ages, 11th ed. ii, 174. - -[1283] Cp. Müller, Allgemeine Geschichte, B. xiv, Cap. 17. - -[1284] Bryce, p. 152. - -[1285] "Janus," The Pope and the Councils, Eng. tr. pp. 178-79. - -[1286] Cp. Heeren, Essai sur l'influence des Croisades, 1808, p. 172. - -[1287] Sir G. Cox, The Crusades, p. 111. - -[1288] Cp. Lea, i, 111. - -[1289] Id. p. 115. - -[1290] Hardwick, p. 310; Lea, i, 68; Reuter, Gesch. der religiösen -Aufklärung im Mittelalter, i, 148-49; Mosheim, as last cited, § 7. - -[1291] Cp. Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, ed. 1863, p. 36. - -[1292] Mosheim, 12 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, §§ 7-9, and varior. notes; -Monastier, pp. 38-41, 43-47; Milman, Latin Christianity, v, 384-90. - -[1293] Hardwick, p. 267; Mosheim, as last cited, § 10; Monastier, -p. 49. - -[1294] Hardwick, p. 204, note; Kurtz, i, 433. Cp. the Transactions -of the New Shakespeare Society, 1875-76, pt. ii, p. 313; Mosheim, 11 -Cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § 13, and note; Milman, Latin Christianity, v, -401. On the sects in general see De Potter, vi, 217-310; and Cantù, -Gli Eretici d'Italia, 1865, i, 149-53. - -[1295] Lea, i, 115. - -[1296] Id. pp. 117-18. - -[1297] Id. p. 119. - -[1298] Kurtz, i, 435; Lea, i, 119. - -[1299] Hardwick, p. 308, note; Murdock's note to Mosheim, p. 426; -Monastier, pp. 106-107. - -[1300] Lea, i, 124. - -[1301] Id. p. 126. - -[1302] Id. pp. 127-28. - -[1303] Kitchin, History of France, 4th ed. 1889, i, 286; citing -Chron. de St. Denis, p. 350. The Annales Victoriani at Philip's death -(1223) pronounce him ecclesiarum et religionarum personarum amator -et fautor (Hénault's Abrégé Chronologique). Among the many Cathari -put to death in his reign was Nicholas, the most famous painter in -France--burned at Braine in 1204. Lea, i, 131. - -[1304] Lea, i, 113-14. Cp. Ranke, Hist. of the Popes, -Eng. tr. 1-vol. ed. p. 13. - -[1305] Cp. Hardwick, p. 312; Mosheim, 12 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § -11, and notes in Reid's ed.; Monastier, Hist. of the Vaudois Church, -Eng. tr. 1848, pp. 12-29; Faber, The Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses, -pp. 28, 284, etc. As Vigilantius took refuge in the Cottian Alps, -his doctrine may have survived there, as argued by Monastier (p. 10) -and Faber (p. 290). The influence of Claudius of Turin, as they further -contend, might also come into play. On the whole subject see Gieseler, -Per. III, Div. iii, § 88. - -[1306] Cp. Mosheim with Faber, bk. iii, chs. iii, viii; Hardwick, -as cited; and Monastier, pp. 53-82. Waddington, p. 353, holds Mosheim -to be in error; and there are some grounds for dating the Waldensian -heresy before Waldus, who flourished 1170-1180 (id. p. 354). Waldus had -to flee from France, and finally died in Bohemia, 1197 (Kurtz, i, 439). - -[1307] Cp. Lea, Hist. of the Inquisition, i, 73-88. Waldensian theology -varied from time to time. - -[1308] Between 1153 and 1191 there were ten popes, three of them -anti-popes. Celestine III held the chair from 1191 to 1198; and -Innocent III from the latter year to 1216. - -[1309] De Potter, vi, 26; Lea, i, 115. - -[1310] Lea, i, 290. - -[1311] De Potter, vi, 28. - -[1312] See Bartoli, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, 1878, i, -262, note, also his I Precursori del Renascimento, 1877, p. 37. In -this section and in the next chapter I am indebted for various clues -to the Rev. John Owen's Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance. As to -the Goliards generally, see that work, pp. 38-45; Bartoli, Storia, -cap. viii; Milman, Latin Christianity, bk. xiv, ch. iv; and Gebhart, -Les Origines de la Renaissance en Italie, 1879, pp. 125-26. The name -Goliard came from the type-name Golias, used by many satirists. - -[1313] Bartoli, Storia, i, 271-79. Cp. Schlegel's note to Mosheim, -Reid's ed. p. 332, following Ratherius; and Gebhart, as cited. Milman -(4th ed. ix, 189) credits the Goliards with "a profound respect for -sacred things, and freedom of invective against sacred persons." This -shows an imperfect knowledge of much of their work. - -[1314] C. Lenient, La Satire en France au moyen âge, 1859, pp. 38-39. - -[1315] Owen, as cited, pp. 43, 45; Bartoli, Storia, i, 293. - -[1316] Disparagement of the serf is a commonplace of medieval -literature. Langlois, La Vie en France au moyen âge, 1908, p. 169, -and note; Lanson, Hist. de la litt. française, p. 96. At this point -the semi-aristocratic jongleurs and the writers of bourgeois bias, such -as some of the contributors to Reynard the Fox, coincided. The Renart -stories are at once anti-aristocratic, anti-clerical, and anti-demotic. - -[1317] C. Lenient, La Satire en France, p. 115. Lenient cites from -Erasmus's letters (Sept. 1, 1528) a story of a German burned alive -in his time for venting the same idea. - -[1318] Langlois, as cited, pp. 30-68. - -[1319] Cp. Langlois, pp. 107, 129, 263, etc. C. Lenient, as cited, -p. 115. - -[1320] Rev. Joseph Berington, Literary History of the Middle Ages, -ed. 1846, p. 229. Cp. Owen, p. 43. - -[1321] Owen, p. 43; Bartoli, Storia, i, 295, as to the French fabliaux. - -[1322] Labitte, La divine comédie avant Dante, in Charpentier ed. of -Dante, pp. 133-34. - -[1323] Aucassin and Nicolette, tr. by Eugene Mason, p. 6. - -[1324] Sismondi, Literature of Southern Europe, Eng. tr. i, 74-95. - -[1325] Id. p. 76. - -[1326] Zeller, Histoire d'Italie, 1853, p. 152; Renan, Averroès, -p. 184. - -[1327] "The Troubadours in truth were freethinkers" (Owen, Italian -Skeptics, p. 48). Cp. Lea, Hist. of the Inquisition, ii, 2; and -Hardwick, p. 274, note 4, as to the common animus against the papacy. - -[1328] Heeren, Essai sur l'influence des Croisades, French tr. 1808, -p. 174, note; Owen, Italian Skeptics, p. 44, note. - -[1329] Abbé Queant, Gerbert, ou Sylvestre II, 1868, pp. 30-31. - -[1330] Sismondi, as cited, p. 82; Owen, pp. 66, 68; Mosheim, 11 -Cent. pt. ii, ch. i, § 4; 12 Cent. pt. ii, ch. i, § 9, and Reid's -note to § 8; Hampden, Bampton Lectures, p. 446. The familiar record -that Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II, studied in Spain among -the Arabs (Ueberweg, i, 369) has of late years been discredited -(Olleris, Vie de Gerbert, 1867, chs. ii and xxv; Ueberweg, p. 430; -Poole, Illustrations, p. 88); but its very currency depended on -the commonness of some such proceeding in his age. In any case, -the teaching he would receive at the Spanish monastery of Borel -would owe all its value to Saracen culture. Cp. Abbé Queant, Gerbert, -pp. 26-32. The greatness of the service he rendered to northern Europe -in introducing the Arabic numerals is expressed in the legend of his -magical powers. Compare the legends as to Roger Bacon. - -[1331] Sismondi, p. 83. - -[1332] Cp. G. H. Lewes, The Spanish Drama, 1846, pp. 11-14; Littré, -Études sur les barbares et le moyen âge, 3e édit. p. 356. - -[1333] See the passages cited by Owen, p. 58. - -[1334] Cp. Bartoli, Storia, pp. 200-202. - -[1335] Gebhart, Les Origines de la Renaissance, pp. 4, 17; Renan, -Averroès et l'Averroïsme, pp. 145, 183, 185; Libri, Hist. des -sciences mathématiques en Italie, i, 153; Michelet, Hist. de France, -t. vii, Renaissance, introd. note du § vii; Hauréau, Hist. de la -philos. scolastique, i, 382. Cp. Franck, Études Orientales, 1861, -p. 357. - -[1336] As to the Pope's character compare Sismondi, Hist. of the -Crusades against the Albigenses (Eng. tr. from vols. vi and vii of his -Histoire des Français), p. 10; Hallam, Europe during the Middle Ages, -11th ed. ii, 198; Mosheim, 13 Cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ 6-8. - -[1337] As to previous acts of inquisition and persecution by -Pope Alexander III (noted above) see Llorente, Hist. Crit. de -l'Inquisition en Espagne, French tr. 2e édit. i, 27-30, and Lea, -History of the Inquisition, i, 118. Cp. Gieseler, Per. III, Div. iii, -§ 89 (Amer. ed. ii, 564). - -[1338] Hardwick, p. 309; Lea, i, 145. - -[1339] Sismondi, Crusades against the Albigenses, p. 21. - -[1340] On the previous history of indulgences see Lea, History of the -Inquisition, i, 41-47; De Potter, Esprit de l'Église, vii, 22-39. For -the later developments cp. Lea's Studies in Church History, 1869, -p. 450; Vieusseux, History of Switzerland, 1840, pp. 121, 125. - -[1341] Sismondi, Crusades, pp. 28-29. - -[1342] Id. p. 23. - -[1343] Lea, i, 149. - -[1344] For a modern Catholic defence of the whole proceedings see -the Comte de Montalembert's Histoire de Sainte Elisabeth de Hongrie, -13e édit. intr. pp. 35-40. - -[1345] Sismondi, Crusades, p. 35, and refs.; Lea, i, 154. - -[1346] Sismondi, pp. 36-37, and refs. - -[1347] Id. pp. 37-43. - -[1348] Id. pp. 21, 41. Cp. p. 85 as to later treachery towards -Saracens; and p. 123 as to the deeds of the Bishop of Toulouse. See -again pp. 140-42 as to the massacre of Marmande. - -[1349] As to the international character of the crusade see Sismondi, -Crusades, p. 53. - -[1350] Sismondi, p. 62 sq. - -[1351] Pp. 77, 78. - -[1352] Pp. 74, 75. - -[1353] P. 87. "The worship of the reformed Albigenses had everywhere -ceased" (p. 115). Cp. p. 116 as to the completeness of the final -massacres. It is estimated (Monastier, p. 115, following De la -Mothe-Langon) that a million Albigenses were slain in the first half -of the thirteenth century. The figures are of course speculative. - -[1354] Cp. Lea, ii, 159; Lenient, La Satire en France an moyen âge, -1859, p. 43. - -[1355] Lea, vol. ii, ch. i. - -[1356] Sismondi, pp. 115, 117. - -[1357] Id. p. 133. - -[1358] Id. pp. 235-39; Lea, ii, 247, 259, 319, 347, 429, etc. - -[1359] Sismondi, p. 236; Llorente, as cited, i, 60-64; Lea, ii, 200. - -[1360] Matthew Paris records that in 1249 four hundred and forty-three -heretics were burned in Saxony and Pomerania. Previously multitudes -had been burned by the Inquisitor Conrad, who was himself finally -murdered in revenge. He was the confessor of Saint Elizabeth of -Hungary, and he taught her among other things, "Be merciful to your -neighbour," and "Do to others whatsoever you would that they should do -to you." See his praises recorded by Montalembert, as cited, vol. i, -ch. x. Cp. Gieseler, Per. III, Div. iii, § 89 (ii, 567). - -[1361] Lea, ii, 204. This was the "peace-maker" described by Dr. Lea -as--in that capacity--"so worthy a disciple of the Great Teacher of -divine love" (i, 240). - -[1362] Ueberweg, i, 366; Poole, pp. 99, 100. - -[1363] As to the verbal confusion of Aristotle's theory see Ueberweg. - -[1364] Id. i, 160. - -[1365] Id. i, 375. - -[1366] Cp. Mosheim's note, Reid's ed. p. 388. - -[1367] Ueberweg, i, 374. - -[1368] Poole, p. 104, note; Milman, Latin Christianity, 4th ed. i, 54. - -[1369] Hampden, Bampton Lectures, On the Scholastic Philosophy, 1848, -p. 71. - -[1370] Mosheim, as cited, and refs. - -[1371] Hampden, p. 70. - -[1372] A. S. Farrar, Crit. Hist. of Freethought, 1862, p. 111. Farrar -adds: "'Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, set credo ut -intelligam' are the words of the Realist Anselm (Prolog. i, 43, -ed. Gerberon): 'Dubitando ad inquisitionem venimus; inquirendo -veritatem percipimus' are those of the Nominalist Abailard (Sic et Non, -p. 16, ed. Cousin)." - -[1373] Cp. Hauréau, Hist. de la philos. scolastique, i, ch. 19, -as to orthodoxy among both Nominalists and Realists. - -[1374] Hampden, pp. 70, 449. - -[1375] Cp. Lea, Hist. of the Inquisition, iii, 550. - -[1376] Poole, Illustr. of the Hist. of Medieval Thought, pp. 104-105. - -[1377] Præfatio in Monologium. - -[1378] As to the various classes of doubters known to Anselm see -Reuter, Gesch. der religiösen Aufklärung im Mittelalter, i, 129-31, -and refs. Anselm writes: Fides enim nostra contra impios ratione -defenda est. Epist. ii, 41. - -[1379] Ueberweg, i, 381. - -[1380] See it in Ueberweg, i, 384-85; cp. Ch. de Rémusat, Saint -Anselme, 1853, pp. 61-62; Dean Church, Saint Anselm, ed. 1888, -pp. 86-87. As to previous instances of Anselm's argument cp. Poole, -Illustrations, p. 338 sq. - -[1381] Cp. Ueberweg, i, 379-80. - -[1382] Cited by Hampden, Bampton Lect. p. 443. - -[1383] Metalogicus, vii, 2; Poole, p. 223. - -[1384] Gemma Ecclesiastica, Distinctio i, c. 51; Works, ed. Brewer, -Rolls Series, ii, 148-49; pref. p. xxxv. - -[1385] Cp. Hauréau, Hist. de la philos. scolastique, Ptie. II (1880), -i, 61. Hauréau points out that Simon's writings are strictly orthodox, -whatever his utterances may have been. - -[1386] Distinctio, ii, c. 24; pp. liv, 285. - -[1387] Cp. Pearson, Hist. of England during the Early and Middle Ages, -ii, 504. - -[1388] The Saynt Graal, ed. Furnivall, 1861, pp. 7, 84; History of -the Holy Grail, ed. Furnivall, 1874, pp. 5-7; Pearson, as cited, -i, 606-607. - -[1389] Hauréau, Hist. de la philos. scolastique, i, 1870, p. 502. - -[1390] Poole, pp. 141-42. - -[1391] "Humanas ac philosophicas rationes requirebant; et plus quæ -intelligi quam quæ dici possent efflagitabant" (Historia calamitatum -mearum, ed. Gréard, p. 36). - -[1392] Id. ib. - -[1393] Ueberweg, i, 387. - -[1394] Ueberweg, i, 391. Cp. Milman, Latin Christianity, ix, 111. - -[1395] Ueberweg, i, 394-95. - -[1396] Hampden, Bampton Lect. pp. 420-21. - -[1397] Poole, p. 175. It is not impossible that, as Sismondi suggests -(Histoire des Français, ed. 1823, v, 294-96), Abailard was persecuted -mainly because of the dangerous anti-papal movement maintained in Italy -for fifteen years (1139-1155) by his doctrinally orthodox pupil, Arnold -of Brescia. But Hampden (p. 40), agreeing with Guizot (Hist. de Civ. en -Europe; Hist. mod. Leçon 6), pronounces that "there was no sympathy -between the efforts of the Italian Republics to obtain social liberty, -and those within the Church to recover personal freedom of thought." - -[1398] Poole, pp. 117-23, 169. - -[1399] Ueberweg, i, 398. - -[1400] Poole, p. 173. - -[1401] Cp. Poole, p. 153. It is difficult to doubt that the series -of patristic deliverances against reason in the first section of Sic -et Non was compiled by Abailard in a spirit of dissent. - -[1402] Cp. Hardwick, p. 279; and see p. 275, note, for Bernard's -dislike of his demand for clearness: "Nihil videt per speculum et in -aenigmate, sed facie ad faciem omnia intuetur." - -[1403] Poole, p. 161. Cp. Dr. Hastings Rashdall on the "pious -scurrility" of Bernard. The Universities of Europe in the Middle -Ages, 1895, i, 57, note. Contrast the singularly laudatory account -of St. Bernard given by two contemporary Positivists, Mr. Cotter -Morison in his Life and Times of St. Bernard, and Mr. F. Harrison -in his essay on that work in his Choice of Books. The subject is -discussed in the present writer's paper on "The Ethics of Propaganda" -in Essays in Ethics. - -[1404] Erdmann, History of Philosophy, Eng. tr. 3rd ed. i, 325. - -[1405] Hauréau, Hist. de la philos. scolastique, i (1872), 534-46. - -[1406] Id. citing the Polycraticus, l. vii, c. 2. - -[1407] Polycraticus, l. vii, c. 7. - -[1408] Cp. Poole, pp. 220-22; the extracts of Hampden, pp. 438-43; -and the summing-up of Hauréau. Hist. de la philos. scolastique, i -(1870), 357. - -[1409] Historia calamitatum, as cited. Cp. p. 10 for Abailard's own -opinion of Anselm of Laon, whom he compares to a leafy but fruitless -tree. - -[1410] Matthew Paris, sub. ann. 1201. There is a somewhat -circumstantial air about this story, Simon's reply being made to begin -humorously with a Jesule. Jesule! Matthew, however, tells on this -item the story of Simon's miraculous punishment which Giraldus tells -on a quite different text. Matthew is indignant with the scholastic -arrogance which has led many to "suppress" the miracle. - -[1411] Ueberweg, i, 419, 430; Hampden, p. 443 sq. Cp. Renan, Averroès, -p. 173 sq. - -[1412] Ueberweg, i, 418. The Karaïtes may be described as Jewish -Protestants or Puritans. Cp. Schechter, Studies in Judaism, 1896, -pp. 252-54. - -[1413] Schechter (as cited, pp. 197, 417) gives two sets of dates, -the second being 1135-1204. - -[1414] For a good survey of the medieval Hebrew thought in general -see Joel, Beiträge zur Gesch. der Philos. 1876; and as to Maimonides -see A. Franck's Études Orientales, 1861; Hauréau, Hist. de la -philos. scolastique, Ptie II, i, 41-46; and Renan, Averroès, -pp. 177-82. - -[1415] Schechter, Studies in Judaism, pp. 422-23. - -[1416] Id. p. 208. - -[1417] Ueberweg, i, 428; Schechter, p. 424. - -[1418] Renan, Averroès, p. 183. - -[1419] Schechter, pp. 83-85. - -[1420] Hauréau pronounces (II, i, 29-34) that Avicebron should be -ranked among the most sincere and resolute of pantheists. His chief -work was the Fons vitæ. - -[1421] Renan, Averroès, pp. 100, 175. - -[1422] Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, c. 8, ad init. - -[1423] Mémoires de Joinville, ed. 1871, ii, 16. - -[1424] Renan, Averroès, pp. 222-24. - -[1425] Huber, Johannes Scotus Erigena, p. 435; Christlieb, Leben und -Lehre des Johannes Scotus Erigena, 1860, p. 438. Copies of John's -writings were found in the hands of the sectaries of Amalrich and -David; and in 1226 the writings in question were condemned and burnt -accordingly. Hauréau, Hist. de la philos. scolastique, i, 175. - -[1426] Ueberweg, i, 388, 431; Milman, Latin Christianity, ix, 112-14; -Renan, p. 223; Hahn, Geschichte der Ketzer im Mittelalter, 1845-50, -iii, 176-92. - -[1427] Mosheim, 13 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § 12. - -[1428] Poole, p. 225; Ueberweg, i, 431. - -[1429] Lecky's description (Rationalism in Europe, ed. 1887, i, 48) -of Averroïsm as a "stern and uncompromising infidelity" is hopelessly -astray. - -[1430] Summa Theologica, Prima Secundae, Quæst. LXXXV, Art. 6. Compare -Hauréau, Hist. de la philos. scolastique, i, 189, for a trace of -the idea of natura naturans in John Scotus and Heiric, in the ninth -century. - -[1431] Renan, p. 236 sq. - -[1432] Cp. Reuter, Gesch. der religiösen Aufklärung im Mittelalter, -ii, 130. - -[1433] Milman, Latin Christianity, 4th ed. ix, 133. - -[1434] Robins. A Defence of the Faith, 1862, pt. i, pp. 38-39. Compare -Rashdall, Universities in the Middle Ages, i, 264; and Maurice, -Medieval Philosophy, 2nd ed. pp. 188-90. It is noteworthy that the -Summa of Thomas was a favourite study of Descartes, who read hardly -any other theologian. - -[1435] Cp. Milman, ix, 143. - -[1436] See the comments of Giraldus Cambrensis in the proem to -his Speculum Ecclesiæ Brewer's ed. in Rolls Series, i. 9; and -pref. pp. xii-xiii. - -[1437] Cp. Renan. Averroès, p. 267, as to the polemic of William -of Auvergne. - -[1438] Renan, pp. 567-68. - -[1439] Id. pp. 269-71, and refs. - -[1440] Renan, pp. 273-75, and refs.; Ueberweg, i, 460, and refs.; -Maywald, Die Lehre von der zweifachen Wahrheit, 1871, p. 11; Lange, -i, 182 (tr. i, 218). - -[1441] Of John XXI, who had in 1276 condemned the doctrine of a -twofold truth. - -[1442] Cp. Gebhart, Origines de la Renaissance, pp. 29-44. And see -above, p. 308. - -[1443] Berington, Lit. Hist. of the Middle Ages, p. 245. See above, -p. 310. - -[1444] See the Summa of the Inquisitor Bartholomæus Fumus, Venet. 1554, -s.v. Infidelitas, fol. 261, § 5; and the Summa of Thomas, Secunda -Secundæ, Quæst. X, Art. 2. - -[1445] It is sometimes described as a formidable product of doubt; -and again by M. de Rémusat as "consecrated to controversy rather than -to skepticism." Cp. Pearson, Hist. of England in the Early and Middle -Ages, 1867, i. 609. The view in the text seems the just mean. Cp. Lea, -Hist. of the Inquisition, i. 57. In itself the book is for a modern -reader a mere collection of the edifying contradictions of theologians; -but such a collection must in any age have been a perplexity to faith; -and it is not surprising that it remained unpublished until edited -by Cousin (see the Ouvrages inédits, intr. pp. clxxxv-ix). That -writer justly sums up that such antinomies "condamnent l'esprit à un -doute salutaire." The Rev. A. S. Farrar pronounces that "the critical -independence of Nominalism, in a mind like that of Abailard, represents -the destructive action of freethought, partly as early Protestantism, -partly as skepticism" (Crit. Hist. of Freethought, p. 12). - -[1446] Lea, Hist. of the Inquisition, i, 421-22, 556-58, 575; U. Burke, -Hist. of Spain, Hume's ed. 1900, ii, 351-52. For a detailed description -of the methods of ecclesiastical torture, Burke refers to the treatise, -De Catholicis Institutionibus, by Simancas, Bishop of Beja, Rome, -1575, tit. lxv, De Tormentis, p. 491 sq. - -[1447] Torture was inflicted on witnesses in England in 1311, by -special inquisitors, under the mandate of Clement V, in defiance of -English law; and under Edward II it was used in England as elsewhere -against the Templars. - -[1448] Istorie fiorentine, iv, 29. - -[1449] See below, p. 325. - -[1450] Villari, Two First Centuries of Florentine History, -Eng. tr. 1901, pp. 110-12. - -[1451] Reuter, Gesch. der religiösen Aufklärung im Mittelalter, i, 167. - -[1452] Id. i, 164-66. - -[1453] The Moslems were inclined to regard him as of their creed -"because educated in Sicily." Cantù, Gli Eretici d'Italia, 1865, i, 66. - -[1454] See Gieseler, as cited below; and Reid's Mosheim, p. 437, note. - -[1455] Milman, Latin Christianity, vi, 150; Lea, Hist. of the -Inquisition, i, 221. - -[1456] Milman, vi, 150, 158. - -[1457] Renan, Averroès, p. 289. - -[1458] Renan, Averroès, pp. 205-10. Michael Scotus may have been, like -John Scotus, an Irishman, but his refusal to accept the archbishopric -of Cashel, on the ground that he did not know the native language, -makes this doubtful. The identification of him with a Scottish knight, -Sir Michael Scott, still persisted in by some scholars on the strength -of Sir Walter Scott's hasty note to The Lay of the Last Minstrel, -is destitute of probability. See the Rev. J. Wood Brown's Inquiry -into the Life and Legend of Michael Scot, 1897, pp. 160-61, 175-76. - -[1459] Inferno, xx, 515-17. - -[1460] Cantù, Gli Eretici d'Italia, i, 65-66; the Pope's letter, -as cited; Renan, Averroès, pp. 287-91, 296. - -[1461] See the verdict of Gieseler, Eng. tr. iii (1853), p. 103, note. - -[1462] Milman, vi, 158-59. - -[1463] Id. p. 154. Cp. the author's Evolution of States, 1912, p. 382. - -[1464] G. Villani, Istorie fiorentine, vi, 46. - -[1465] Mosheim, 13 Cent. pt. i, ch. ii, § 2, citing in particular -Moneta's Summa contra Catharos et Valdenses, lib. V, cc. 4, 11, 15; -Tempier (bishop of Paris), Indiculum Errorum (1272) in the Bibliotheca -Patrum Maxima, t. xxv; Bulæus, Hist. Acad. Paris, iii, 433--as to the -Averroïsts at Paris, described above, p. 319. Cp. Renan, Averroès, -pp. 230-31, citing William of Auvergne, and pp. 283, 285; Ozanam, -Dante, 6e édit. pp. 86, 101, 111-12; Gebhart, Origines de la Renais, -pp. 79-81; Lange, i, 182 (tr. i, 218); Sharon Turner, Hist. of England -during the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. v, 136-38. - -[1466] Lea, Hist. of the Inquisition, iii, 560-61. - -[1467] Perrens, La civilisation florentine du 13e au 16e siècle, -1892, p. 101. Above, p. 322. - -[1468] Inferno, Canto x, 14-15, 118. - -[1469] Ottavio Ubaldini, d. 1273, of whom the commentators tell that -he said that if there were such a thing as a soul he had lost his -for the cause of the Ghibellines. - -[1470] As to whom see Renan, Averroès, p. 285, note; Gebhart, -Renaissance, p. 81. His son Guido, "the first friend and the companion -of all the youth of Dante," was reputed an atheist (Decameron, vi, -9). Cp. Cesare Balbo, Vita di Dante, ed. 1853, pp. 48-49. But see Owen, -Skeptics of the Ital. Renais., p. 138, note. - -[1471] In the Convito, ii, 9, he writes that, "among all the -bestialities, that is the most foolish, the most vile, the most -damnable, which believes no other life to be after this life." Another -passage (iv, 5) heaps curses on the "most foolish and vile beasts -... who presume to speak against our Faith." - -[1472] Cp. Ozanam, Dante, 6e édit. pp. 111-12, as to anti-Christian -movements. - -[1473] Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, i, 83, note; Renan, Averroès, -pp. 326-27; Cantù, Gli Eretici d'Italia, i, 177. and note 13 on p. 196. - -[1474] Cp. Labitte, La Divine Comédie avant Dante, as cited, p. 139. - -[1475] Michelet argues that Italy was "anti-Dantesque" in the -Renaissance (Hist. de France, vii, Intr. § 9 and App.), but he -exaggerates the common disregard of the Commedia. - -[1476] As to an element of doubt, even in Dante, concerning Divine -government, see Burckhardt, p. 497. But the attempt made by some -critics to show that the "sins" to which Dante confessed had been -intellectual--i.e., heresies--falls to the ground. See Döllinger, -Studies in European History, Eng. tr. 1890, pp. 87-90; and cp. Cantù, -Gli Eretici d'Italia, i, 144 sq. on the whole question. - -[1477] Cesare Balbo, Vita di Dante, ed. 1853, pp. 416-17, 433. - -[1478] Cantù. Eretici d' Italia, i, 153. Cantù gives an account of -the trial process. - -[1479] G. Villani, x, 39. It is to be noted that the horoscope of Jesus -was cast by several professed believers, as Albertus Magnus and Pierre -d'Ailli, Cardinal and Bishop of Cambrai, as well as by Cardan. See -Bayle, art. Cardan, note Q; and cp. Renan, Averroès, p. 326. - -[1480] Cp. Owen, pp. 128, 135-42; Hallam, Lit. Hist., i, 141-42; -Milman, bk. xiv, ch. v, end. - -[1481] Decam., Gior. i, nov. 2. - -[1482] Gior. i, nov. 3. - -[1483] Dr. Marcus Landau, Die Quellen des Dekameron, 2te Aufl. 1884, -p. 182. - -[1484] The story is recorded to have been current among the -Motecallemîn--a party kindred to the Motazilites--in Bagdad. Renan, -Averroès, p. 293, citing Dozy. Renan thinks it may have been of Jewish -origin. Id. p. 294, note. - -[1485] Schechter, Studies in Judaism, 1896, pp. 207-208. - -[1486] It is found some time before Boccaccio in the Cento Novelle -antiche (No. 72 or 73) in a simpler form; but Landau (p. 183) thinks -Boccaccio's immediate source was the version of Busone da Gubbio -(b. 1280), who had improved on the version in the Cento Novelle, -while Boccaccio in turn improved on him by treating the Jew more -tolerantly. Bartoli (I Precursori del Boccaccio, 1876, pp. 26-28) -disputes any immediate debt to Busone; as does Owen, Skeptics of the -Ital. Renais., p. 29, note. - -[1487] Burckhardt (Renaissance in Italy, p. 493, note) points out that -Boccaccio is the first to name the Christian religion, his Italian -predecessors avoiding the idea; and that in one eastern version the -story is used polemically against the Christians. - -[1488] Owen, p. 142, and refs. - -[1489] Id. pp. 143-45. He was even so far terrorized by the menaces -of a monk (who appeared to him to have occult knowledge of some of -his secrets) as to propose to give up his classical studies; and -would have done so but for Petrarch's dissuasion. Petrarch's letter -(Epist. Senil., i, 5) is translated (Lett. xii) by M. Develay, -Lettres de Péttrarque à Boccace. - -[1490] Gasquet, The Great Pestilence, 1893, pp. 28, 32, 37, and refs. - -[1491] Id. pp. 11, 41. - -[1492] Probably 25,000 in England alone, including monks. Id. p. 204. - -[1493] Id. pp. 205-208, 213, 216. - -[1494] Below, § 11. - -[1495] As to his anti-clericalism, cp. Gebhart, Orig. de la Renais., -p. 71, and ref.; Owen, p. 113. - -[1496] Cp. Rashdall, Universities in the Middle Ages, i, 264. - -[1497] See the exposition of Owen, pp. 109-28. and refs. on p. 113. - -[1498] Renan, Averroès, p. 328. - -[1499] Méziéres, Pétrarque, 1868, p. 362. - -[1500] It is to be noted that in his opposition to the scholastics -he had predecessors. Cp. Gebhart, Orig. de la Renais., p. 65. - -[1501] Owen, p. 113. It is to be remembered that Dante also (Convito, -ii, 8, 9; iii, 14; iv, 7) exalts Reason; but he uses the word in the -old sense of mere mentality--the thinking as distinguished from the -sensuous element in man; and he was fierce against all resort to reason -as against faith. Petrarch was of course more of a rationalist. As to -his philosophic skepticism, see Owen, p. 120. He drew the line only -at doubting those things "in which doubt is sacrilege." Nevertheless -he grounded his belief in immortality not on the Christian creed, -but on the arguments of the pagans (Burckhardt, p. 546). - -[1502] Epist. sine titulo, cited by Renan, Averroès, p. 299. For the -phrases put in Averroës' mouth by Christians, see pp. 294-98. - -[1503] Inferno, iv, 144. - -[1504] Renan, Averroès, pp. 301-15. - -[1505] Id. pp. 333-37; Cantù, Gli Eretici d'ltalia, i, 176 and refs. - -[1506] Renan, pp. 326-27. - -[1507] Id. pp. 318-20. - -[1508] Justinger, cited in The Pope and the Council, Eng. tr. p. 298. - -[1509] Hardwick, p. 357, note. - -[1510] Cp. Bonnechose, Reformers before the the Reformation, -Eng. tr. 1844, i, 40-43. - -[1511] "Janus" (i.e. Döllinger), The Pope and the Council, Eng. tr. 2nd -ed. 1869, pp. 292-95. This weighty work, sometimes mistakenly ascribed -to Huber, who collaborated in it, was recast by commission and -posthumously published as Das Papstthum, by J. Friedrich, München, -1892. - -[1512] Hallam, Middle Ages, 11th ed. ii, 218; Lea, Hist. of the -Inquis., i, 5-34; Gieseler, § 90 (ii, 572); Freytag, Bilder aus der -deutschen Vergangenheit, 4te aufl. ii, 318-19. - -[1513] The Pope and the Council, p. 220. For proofs see same work, -pp. 220-34. - -[1514] "La satire est la plus complète manifestation de la pensée -libre au moyen âge. Dans ce monde ou le dogmatisme impitoyable au -sein de l'Église et de l'école frappe comme hérétique tout dissident, -l'esprit critique n'a pas trouvé de voie plus sûre, plus rapide et plus -populaire, que la parodie" (Lenient, La Satire en France au moyen âge, -1859, p. 14). - -[1515] Cp. Lenient, as cited, p. 21. - -[1516] See in Symonds's Renaissance in Italy, vol. i (Age of the -Despots), ed. 1897, pp. 361-69, and Appendix IV, on "Religious -Revivals in Medieval Italy." Those revivals occurred from time to -time after Savonarola. - -[1517] Cp. Villari, Machiavelli, i, 138. - -[1518] Gieseler, Per. III. Div. iii, § 90; Lea, Hist. of Inquis., -ii, 319-20. - -[1519] Kurtz, i, 435-36. - -[1520] Lea, i, 320-21. Cp. Ullmann, Reformers before the Reformation, -Eng. tr. ii, 15-22; and Mosheim, 13 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § 11, and -notes. The doctrine of the treatise De Novem Rupibus is that of an -educated thinker, and is in parts strongly antinomian, but always on -pantheistic grounds. - -[1521] Lea, i, 323-24. - -[1522] Cp. Reuter, Gesch. der religiösen Aufklärung, ii, 240-49. - -[1523] Mosheim, 13 Cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ 40-43, and notes; ch. v, -§ 9. The names Beguin and Beghard seem to have been derived from the -old German verb beggan, to beg. In the Netherlands, Beguine was a -name for women; and Beghard for men. - -[1524] See the record in Lea, Hist. of the Inquisition, bk. iii, -chs. i-iii. - -[1525] Praised in the Roman de la Rose, Eng. vers. in Skeat's Chaucer, -i, 244; Bell's ed. iv, 228. William was answered by the Dominican -Thomas Aquinas. - -[1526] See Biog. Introd. to ed. of the Philobiblon by E. C. Thomas, -1888, pp. xliii-xlvii. - -[1527] C. 4, Querimonia librorum contra clericos jam promotos; C. 5, -... contra religiosos possessionatos; C. 6, ... contra religiosos -mendicantes. - -[1528] Ed. Thomas, as cited, pp. xlvi-vii. - -[1529] Cp. Mosheim, 13 C. pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ 18-40; Hallam, Middle -Ages, ch. vii, pt. 2; Gebhart, Origines de la Renais., p. 42; -Berington, Lit. Hist. of the Middle Ages, p. 244; Lea, Hist. of -Inq., bk. iii, ch. i. The special work of the Dominicans was the -establishment everywhere of the Inquisition. Mosheim, as last cited, -ch. v, §§ 3-6, and notes; Lea, ii, 200-201; Milman, Latin Christianity, -ix, 155-56; Llorente, Hist. Crit. de l'Inquis. en Espagne, as cited, -i, 49-55, 68, etc. - -[1530] As to the development of the Beguines from an original basis of -charitable co-operation see Ullmann, Reformers before the Reformation, -ii, 13; Lea, ii, 351. - -[1531] Lea, iii, 10. - -[1532] See the thirteenth-century memoirs of Fra Salimbene, Eng. tr. in -T. K. L. Oliphant's The Duke and the Scholar, 1875, pp. 98, 103-104, -108-10, 116, 130. - -[1533] The Introduction to the book, probably written by the Franciscan -Gerhard, made St. Francis the angel of Rev. xiv, 6; and the ministers -of the new order were to be his friars. Mosheim, 13 Cent. pt. ii, -ch. ii, §§ 33-36, and notes. Cp. Lea, as cited; and Hahn, Gesch. der -Ketzer im Mittelalter, 1845-50, iii, 72-175--a very full account of -Joachim's teaching. - -[1534] Lea, iii, 20-25. - -[1535] Le Clerc, Hist. Litt. de la France, xx, 230; Milman, Latin -Christianity, ix, 155. - -[1536] Averroès, pp. 259-60. - -[1537] Cp. Mosheim, 14 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § 5; and Burnet's -Letters, ed. Rotterdam, 1686, p. 31. - -[1538] Cp. Milman, Latin Christianity, ix, 75-76. - -[1539] Lea, iii, 104. - -[1540] Hardwick, p. 316; Lea, iii, 109; Mosheim, 12 Cent. pt. ii, -ch. v, §§ 14-16. A sect of Apostolici had existed in Asia Minor in -the fourth century. Kurtz, i, 242. Cp. Lea, i, 109, note. Those of -the twelfth century were vehemently opposed by St. Bernard. - -[1541] Lea, iii, 109-19. - -[1542] Lea, p. 121; Kurtz, i, 437; Hardwick, p. 315, note; Mosheim, -13 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § 14, and note. See Dante, Inferno, xxviii, -55-60, as to Dolcino. - -[1543] Lea, p. 125. - -[1544] As to the external movements connected with Joachim's Gospel -see Mosheim, 13 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, §§ 13-15. They were put down by -sheer bloodshed. Cp. Ueberweg, i, 431; Lea, pp. 25-26, 86. - -[1545] Hist. de France, vol. x; La Réforme, ed. 1884, p. 333. - -[1546] See the author's notes to his ed. of Buckle (Routledge), 1904, -pp. 539, 547. - -[1547] U. R. Burke, History of Spain, Hume's ed. i, 109-10. - -[1548] McCrie, Reformation in Spain, ed. 1856, p. 41; Burke, as cited, -ii, 55-56. - -[1549] Lea, Hist. of the Inquisition, i, 81. - -[1550] Burke, i, 218. - -[1551] Hauréau, Hist. de la philos. scolastique, ii, 54-55. - -[1552] Id. ii, 58. - -[1553] Lea, iii, 560. - -[1554] Personally he discouraged heresy-hunting. Burke, ii, 66. - -[1555] Burke, i, 268-73; Dunham, Hist. of Spain and Portugal, 1832, -iv, 260. - -[1556] Lea, iii, 24. - -[1557] Burke, ii, 65. - -[1558] Lea, ii, 183. - -[1559] Id. i, 221. - -[1560] Burke, ii, 66-67. - -[1561] Lea, iii, 85-86. - -[1562] Id. pp. 52-53; McCrie, Reformation in Spain, p. 20. - -[1563] Bonet-Maury, Les Précurseurs de la Réforme, 1904, pp. 114-19. - -[1564] Lea, iii, 86. - -[1565] Burke, ii, 57. - -[1566] Id. ii, 62-63. - -[1567] Lea, iii, 564. - -[1568] Id. ii, 187-88. - -[1569] Lea, ii, 287; Burke, ii, 67-69. - -[1570] Burke, ii, 77, citing Lafuente, ix, 233. - -[1571] Id. citing Bergenroth, Calendar, etc. i, 37. - -[1572] Even as late as 1591, in Aragon, when in a riot against the -Inquisition the Inquisitors barely escaped with their lives. Burke, -ii, 80, note. - -[1573] Id. pp. 81-82. - -[1574] There had previously been sharp social persecution by the -Cortès, in 1480, on "anti-Semitic" grounds, the Jews being then -debarred from all the professions, and even from commerce. They were -thus driven to usury by Christians, who latterly denounce the race for -usuriousness. Cp. Michelet, Hist. de France, x, ed. 1884, p. 15, note. - -[1575] The number has been put as high as 800,000. Cp. F. D. Mocatta, -The Jews and the Inquisition, 1877, p. 54; E. La Rigaudière, -Hist. des Perséc. Relig. en Espagne, 1860, pp. 112-14; Prescott, -Hist. of Ferdinand and Isabella, Kirk's ed. 1889, p. 323; and refs. in -ed. of Buckle cited, p. 541. - -[1576] Llorente, Hist. Crit. de l'Inquis. en Espagne, ed. 1818, i, -280. As to Llorente's other estimates, which are of doubtful value, -cp. Prescott's note, ed. cited, p. 746. But as to Llorente's general -credit, see the vindication of U. R. Burke, ii, 85-87. - -[1577] Llorente, i, 281. - -[1578] McCrie, Reformation in Spain, ch. viii. - -[1579] Cp. La Rigaudière, pp. 309-14; Buckle, as cited, pp. 514, 570; -U. R. Burke, i, 59, 85. - -[1580] Cp. Émile Charles, Roger Bacon, Paris, 1861, p. 23. - -[1581] Cp. Hauréau, Hist. de la philos. scolastique, Ptie. ii, 1880, -vol. ii, p. 79. - -[1582] This sum of libri has been taken by English writers to stand -for English "pounds." It may however have represented Parisian livres. - -[1583] Prof. Brewer, Introd. to Opera Inedita of Roger Bacon, 1859, -pp. xiv-xxiii. - -[1584] Id. p. xlvi. - -[1585] Id. p. xxx, sq. - -[1586] Id. pp. liv-lv. - -[1587] Compendium Philosophiæ, cap. i, in Op. Ined., pp. 398-401. - -[1588] Id. p. 401. Cp. p. 412 as to the multitude of theologians at -Paris banished for sodomy. - -[1589] Id. p. 422. - -[1590] Id. cc. ii-v, pp. 404-32. - -[1591] Brewer, p. xciii, note, cites this in an extract from -the Chronicle of Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, a late -writer of the fifteenth century, who "gives no authority for his -statement." Dr. Bridges, however, was enabled by M. Sabatier to -trace the passage back to the MS. Chronica xxiv Generalium Ordinis -Minorum, which belongs to the first half of the fourteenth century; -and the passage, as M. Sabatier remarks, has all the appearance of -being an extract from the official journal of this Order. (Bridges, -The "Opus Majus" of Roger Bacon, Suppl. vol. 1900, p. 158.) - -[1592] "Il etait né rebelle." "Le mépris systématique de l'autorité, -voilà vraiment ce qu'il professe." (Hauréau, Ptie. II, ii, 76, 85.) - -[1593] See the sympathetic accounts of Baden Powell, Hist. of -Nat. Philos. 1834, pp. 100-12; White, Warfare of Science with Theology, -i, 379-91. - -[1594] Erdmann, History of Philosophy, Eng. tr. 3rd ed. i, 476. - -[1595] Humboldt, Examen Crit. de l'hist. de la Géographie, 1836-39, -i, 64-70, gives the passages in the Opus Majus and the Imago Mundi, -and paraphrase of the latter in Columbus's letter to Ferdinand -and Isabella from Jamaica (given also in P. L. Ford's Writings of -Christopher Columbus, 1892, p. 199 sq.). Cp. Ellis's note to Francis -Bacon's Temporis Partus Masculus, in Ellis and Spedding's ed. of -Bacon's Works, iii, 534. It should be remembered in this connection -that Columbus found believers, in the early stage of his undertaking, -only in two friars, one a Franciscan and one a Dominican. See Ford's -ed. of the Writings, p. 107. - -[1596] Cp. Hauréau, Ptie. II, ii, 95. - -[1597] Opus Majus, Pars ii, cap. 5. - -[1598] Renan, Averroès, p. 263. Bacon mentions Averroës in the Opus -Majus, P. i, cc. 6, 15; P. ii, c. 13; ed. Bridges, iii (1900), 14, 33, -67. In the passage last cited he calls him "homo solidae sapientiae, -corrigens multa priorum et addens multa, quamvis corrigendus sit in -aliquibus, et in multis complendus." - -[1599] See the careful notice by Prof. Adamson in Dict. of -Nat. Biog. Cp. Milman, Latin Christianity, ix, 152-60; Lewes, Hist. of -Philos. ii, 77-87. - -[1600] Two Englishmen, the Carmelite John of Baconthorpe (d. 1346) -and Walter Burleigh, were among the orthodox Averroïsts; the latter -figuring as a Realist against William of Occam. - -[1601] Legend of Good Women, ll. 1039-43; Parliament of Fowls, -ll. 199-200. - -[1602] Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, 438 (440). - -[1603] Id. 653-61 (655-63). Cp. Tale of the Wife of Bath; 1-25. - -[1604] Legend of Good Women, prol. ll. 1-9; Knight's Tale, ll. 1951-56 -(2809-14 of MS. group A). - -[1605] The notion connects with the spurious Ploughman's Tale and -Pilgrim's Tale, as to which see Lounsbury, as cited, i, 460-73; -ii, 460-69. - -[1606] Vision of Piers Ploughman, ll. 5809 sq. Wright's ed. i, 179-80. - -[1607] Chaucer's Boece, B. I. Prose iv. ll. 223-26, in Skeat's -Student's Chaucer. - -[1608] Mosheim, 14 Cent. Pt. ii, ch. ii, § 36, and note. Cp. Green, -Short History of the English People, ch. v, § 3, ed. 1881, p. 235. - -[1609] Cp. Green, Short Hist. ch. v, § 5; Massingberd, The English -Reformation, p. 171. - -[1610] Cited by Lechler, Wycliffe and his English Precursors, -Eng. tr. 1-vol. ed. p. 440. - -[1611] Cp. Prof. Montagu Burrows, Wiclif's Place in History, 1884, -p. 49. Maitland (Eight Essays, 1852) suggested derivation from the -movement of Abbot Joachim and others of that period. - -[1612] Wilkins' Concilia, ii, 124. - -[1613] Cp. Vaughan, as cited by Hardwick, Church History: Middle Age, -p. 402. - -[1614] Hardwick, pp. 417, 418. The doctrine of purgatory was, however, -soon renounced by the Lollards (id. p. 420). - -[1615] See the passages cited in Lewis's Life of Wiclif, ed. 1820, -pp. 224-25. Cp. Burrows, as cited, p. 19; Le Bas, Life of Wiclif, -1832, pp. 357-59. - -[1616] Lechler, Wycliffe and his Eng. Precursors, pp. 371-76; Hardwick, -p. 412. - -[1617] Cp. Green, Short History, ch. v, § 4. - -[1618] Lechler, p. 236. It forms bk. vi of Wiclif's theological Summa. - -[1619] Baxter, in his address "To the doubting and unbelieving -readers" prefixed to his Reasons of the Christian Religion, 1667, -names Savonarola, Campanella, Ficinus, Vives, Mornay, Grotius, -Cameron, and Micraelius as defenders of the faith, but no writer of -the fourteenth century. - -[1620] Cp. Le Bas, pp. 342-43; and Hardwick, Church Hist.: Middle Age, -p. 415. - -[1621] Lechler, p. 236. - -[1622] Blunt, Reformation of the Church of England, 1892, i, 284, -and refs. - -[1623] It is noteworthy that French culture affected the very -vocabulary of Dante, as it did that of his teacher, Brunetto -Latini. Cp. Littré, Etudes sur les barbares et le moyen âge, 3e -édit. pp. 399-400. The influence of French literature is further seen -in Boccaccio, and in Italian literature in general from the thirteenth -to the fifteenth century. Gebhart, pp. 209-21. - -[1624] Saintsbury, Short Hist. of French Lit. 1882, p. 57. - -[1625] Passage not translated in the old Eng. version. - -[1626] Cp. Lenient, pp. 159-60. - -[1627] Lenient, p. 169. - -[1628] This declaration, as it happens, is put in the mouth of -"False-Seeming," but apparently with no ironical intention. - -[1629] Lanson, Hist. de la litt. française, p. 132. - -[1630] Id. p. 135. - -[1631] Duruy, Hist. de France, ed. 1880, i, 440-41; Gebhart, Orig. de -la Renais. pp. 2, 19, 24-29, 32-35, 41-50; Le Clerc and Renan, -Hist. Litt. de la France au XIVe Siècle, i, 4; ii, 123; Littré, -Études, as cited, pp. 424-29. - -[1632] Duruy, i, 409 sq., 449; Gebhart, pp. 35-41; Morin, Origines -de la Démocratie: La France au moyen âge, 3e édit. 1865, p. 304 sq. - -[1633] Cp. Michelet, Hist. de France, vii, Renaissance, Introd. § -ii. Between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries, he insists, -"le jour baisse horriblement." - -[1634] Ozanam, Dante, 6e édit. pp. 47, 78, 108-10. - -[1635] Littré, Études, as cited, pp. 411-13. - -[1636] Le Clerc, as cited, p. 259; Gebhart, pp. 48-49. - -[1637] Sir James F. Stephen, Horæ Sabbaticæ, 1892, i, 42. - -[1638] The Italians said of the French Pope Clement VI (1342-52) -that he had small religion. M. Villani, Cronica, iii, 43 (ed. 1554). - -[1639] Cp. Dr. T. Arnold, Lect. on Mod. Hist. 4th ed. pp. 111-18; -Buckle, 3 vol. ed. i, 326-27 (1-vol. ed. p. 185); Stephen, as cited, -i, 121. "It is hardly too much to say that Comines's whole mind was -haunted at all times and at every point by a belief in an invisible -and immensely powerful and artful man whom he called God" (last cited). - -[1640] Buckle, i, 329 (1-vol. ed. p. 186). - -[1641] Buckle, ii, 133 (1-vol. ed. p. 361); Hallam, Middle Ages, iii, -395-96. Religious ceremonies were attached to the initiation of knights -in the 13th century. Seignobos, Hist. de la Civilisation, ii, 15. - -[1642] Duruy, i, 368, 373-74. Cp. J. Jolly, Philippe le Bel, 1869, -l. iii, ch. iv, p. 249. It is to be remembered that Philippe had -for years been sorely pressed for money to retrieve his military -disasters. See H. Hervieu, Recherches sur les premiers états généraux, -1879, pp. 89 sq., 99 sq. He used his ill-gotten gains to restore the -currency, which he had debased. Id. pp. 101-102. - -[1643] Hauréau, Hist. de la philos. scolastique, Ptie II, vol. ii, -359-60. - -[1644] Poole, Illustrations, p. 265. Cp. Villari, Life and Times -of Machiavelli, ii, 64-67; Tullo Massarani, Studii di politica e di -storia, 2a ed. 1899, pp. 112-13; Neander, Ch. Hist. Eng. tr. 1855, -ix, 33. - -[1645] Poole, pp. 266-76. Cp. Hardwick, Church History, Middle Age, -1853, pp. 346-47. - -[1646] Ueberweg, i, 461-62. - -[1647] "His (Occam's) philosophy is that of centuries later." (Milman, -Latin Christianity, ix, 148. Cp. pp. 150-51.) - -[1648] Cp. Hardwick, p. 377, and Rettberg, as there cited. - -[1649] Milman, Latin Christianity, ix, 75-76; Mosheim, 14 C. pt. ii, -ch. iii, § 5. As to his religious bigotry, see Milman, p. 142, notes. - -[1650] Ueberweg, i, 460-64; cp. Poole, Illustrations, pp. 275-81. - -[1651] James Mill, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, -ed. 1869, i, 250-51. - -[1652] Cp. Ueberweg, p. 464. Mr. Poole's judgment (p. 280) that -Occam "starts from the point of view of a theologian" hardly does -justice to his attitude towards theology. Occam had indeed to profess -acceptance of theology; but he could not well have made less account -of its claims. - -[1653] Ueberweg, pp. 465-66. - -[1654] Id. p. 466. - -[1655] Id. ib. - -[1656] Poole, p. 281. - -[1657] Ullmann, Reformers before the Reformation, i, 37, citing John -of Goch, De libertate Christiana, lib. i, cc. 17, 18. Compare the -Averroïst propositions of 1269-1277, given above, pp. 319-20. - -[1658] Lange, Gesch. des Materialismus, i, 187-88 (Eng. tr. i, 225-26). - -[1659] Reuter, Gesch. der religiösen Aufklärung im Mittelalter, i, 164. - -[1660] Gervinus, Gesch. der deutschen Dichtung, 5te Ausg. i, -489-99. Even in the period before the Minnesingers the clerical -poetry had its anti-clerical side. Id. p. 194. Towards the end of the -12th century Nigellus Wireker satirized the monks in his Brunellus, -seu speculum stultorum. Menzel, Gesch. der Deutschen, Cap. 252. See -Menzel's note, before cited, for a remarkable outbreak of anti-clerical -if not anti-Christian satire, in the form of sculpture in an ancient -carving in the Strasburg Cathedral. - -[1661] Reuter, Gesch. der relig. Aufklärung, ii, 62-63; Gervinus, i, -523; ii, 69; Kurtz, Gesch. der deutschen Litteratur, 1853, i, 428, -col. 2. - -[1662] Milman, Latin Chr., ix, 125. Albert was an Aristotelian--a -circumstance which makes sad havoc of Menzel's proposition (Geschichte, -Cap. 251) that the "German spirit" did not take naturally to -Aristotle. Menzel puts the fact and the theory on opposite pages. - -[1663] Milman, Latin Christianity, ix, 258. Cp. p. 261. - -[1664] For a full account of Eckhart's teaching see Dr. A. Lasson's -monograph (§ 106) in Ueberweg's Hist. of Philos., i, 467-84; also -Ullmann, Reformers before the Ref., ii, 23-31. Cp. Lea, Hist. of -Inquis., ii, 354-59, 362-69, as to the sects. As to Tauler, see -Milman, ix, 255-56. He opposed the more advanced pantheism of the -Beghards. Id. p. 262. - -[1665] In the 400 years following its publication there were published -over 6,000 separate editions. - -[1666] Bk. i, ch. ii, 1, 2. - -[1667] Bk. i, ch. iii. 1, 2. - -[1668] Id. § 5. - -[1669] J. A. Symonds writes that in the age of Dante, Petrarch, -and Boccaccio "what we call the Renaissance had not yet arrived" -(Renaissance in Italy: Age of the Despots, ed. 1897, p. 9). - -[1670] Cp. Renan, Averroès, 3e édit. pp. 280-82, 295; Lewes, Hist. of -Philos., 4th ed. ii, 67; Reuter, Gesch. der relig. Aufklärung im -Mittelalter, i, 139-41. It is noteworthy that the troubadour, Austore -d'Orlac, in cursing the crusades and the clergy who promoted them, -suggests that the Christians should turn Moslems, seeing that God is -on the side of the unbelievers (Gieseler, Per. III. Div. III, § 58, -note 1). - -[1671] Cp. Burckhardt, Civ. of the Renais. in Italy, Eng. tr. ed. 1892, -pp. 490, 492. - -[1672] Id. p. 333. - -[1673] Hardwick, p. 354, note. - -[1674] Cp. Hardwick, p. 361; "Janus," The Pope and the Council, p. 308. - -[1675] Burckhardt, p. 497, note. - -[1676] Villari, Life and Times of Machiavelli, Eng. tr. 3rd ed. vol. i, -introd. p. 115. Cp. Burckhardt, pp. 35, 226. - -[1677] As to its history see "Janus," The Pope and the Council, -p. 131 sq. - -[1678] Villari, as last cited, pp. 98, 108. - -[1679] It is noteworthy, however, that he did not detect, or at least -did not declare, the spuriousness of the text of the three witnesses -(Hallam, Lit. of Europe, iii, 58, note). Here the piety of Alfonso, -who knew his Bible by heart, may have restrained him. - -[1680] See the passages transcribed by Hallam, Lit. of Europe, i, 148. - -[1681] Villari, as last cited, pp. 98-101. - -[1682] Cp. Gebhart, Renaissance en Italie, pp. 72-73; Burckhardt, -pp. 458-65; Lea, Hist. of the Inquisition, i, 5-4. "The authors of -the most scandalous satires were themselves mostly monks or benficed -priests." (Burckhardt, p. 465.) - -[1683] Burckhardt, pp. 451-61; J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: -The Age of the Despots, ed. 1897, p. 359; Villari, Life of Machiavelli, -i, 153. - -[1684] See it well analysed by Owen, pp. 147-60. Cp. Hallam, -Lit. of Europe, i, 199. M. Perrens describes Pulci as "emancipated -from all belief"; but holds that he "bantered the faith without the -least design of attacking religion" (La Civilisation florentine, -p. 151). But cp. Villari, Life of Machiavelli, i, 159-60. - -[1685] Owen, p. 160. So also Hunt, and the editor of the Parnaso -Italiano, there cited. - -[1686] Below, § 4. - -[1687] Above, p. 361. - -[1688] Lea, ii, 271-72. Cp. pp. 282-84. - -[1689] Burckhardt, p. 502. - -[1690] Id. p. 500. - -[1691] Id. p. 502. - -[1692] Id. p. 503, note. - -[1693] Cp. R. C. Christie's essay, "Pomponatius--a Skeptic," in -his Selected Essays and Papers, 1902, pp. 131-32; Renan, Averroès, -pp. 345-352. - -[1694] Comm. in Aristot. de Gen. et Corr., lib. i, fol. 29 G. cited -by Ellis in note on Bacon, who quotes a version of the phrase in the -De Augmentis, B. v, end. As to Nifo see Nourrisson, Machiavel, 1875, -ch. xii. - -[1695] As to ribald blasphemies by the Roman clergy see Erasmus, -Epist. xxvi, 34 (ed. le Clerc), cited by Hardwick, Church History: -Middle Age, p. 378, note. - -[1696] Lit. Hist. of Europe, i, 142. Following Eichhorn, Hallam notes -vindications by Marsilio Ficino, Alfonso de Spina (a converted Jew), -Æneas Sylvius, and Pico di Mirandola; observing that the work of the -first-named "differs little from modern apologies of the same class." - -[1697] Cp. Ranke, History of the Popes, Bohn tr. ed. 1908, i, 58. - -[1698] Epist. above cited; Burigni, Vie d'Erasme, 1757, i, 148-49. - -[1699] Paul Canensius, cited by Ranke. - -[1700] This view seems to solve the mystery as to Perugino's -creed. Vasari (ed. Milanesi, iii, 589) calls him "persona di assai poca -religione." Mezzanotte (Della vita di P. Vanucci, etc. 1836, p. 172 -sq.) indignantly rejects the statement, but notes that in Ciatti's -MS. annals of Perugia, ad ann. 1524, the mind of the painter is said to -have been come una tavola rasa in religious matters. Mezzanotte holds -that Pietro has been there confounded with a later Perugian painter. - -[1701] Leonardo da Vinci, Frammenti letterari e filosofici, trascelti -par Dr. Edmondo Solmi. Firenze, 1900. Pensieri sulla scienza, 19, 20. - -[1702] Ib. 14, 22, 23, 24, 92. - -[1703] Ib. 36-38, 41. - -[1704] Some of the humanists called him unlettered (omo senza lettere), -and he calls them gente stolta, a foolish tribe. - -[1705] Ib. 44, 46, 47, 48, 58, 60, 63, etc. - -[1706] Ib. 45. - -[1707] Ib. 30. - -[1708] Ib. 57. - -[1709] Ib. 66. Cp. 67-69. - -[1710] Id. Pensieri sulla natura. 80-86. - -[1711] Shortly after Leonardo we find Girolamo Fracastorio (1483-1553) -developing the criticism further, and in particular disposing of the -futile formula, resorted to by the scientific apriorists of the time, -that the "plastic force of nature" created fossils like other things. - -[1712] Id. Pensieri sulla morale, passim. - -[1713] Ib. 7. - -[1714] Ib. 44, 45. - -[1715] Ib. 46, 47. - -[1716] Cp. Burckhardt, pp. 524, 541, notes; Villari, Life of -Machiavelli, i, 124. "It was easy to see by his words that he hoped -for the restoration of the pagan religion" (Id. Life of Savonarola, -Eng. tr. p. 51). - -[1717] Only a few fragments of it survive. Villari, Life of Savonarola, -p. 51. - -[1718] Carriere, Philos. Weltanschauung der Reformationszeit, 1847, -p. 13. - -[1719] Cp. Villari, Life of Machiavelli, i, 128-34. - -[1720] Cp. Perrens, Hist. de Florence (1434-1531), i, 258. - -[1721] Id. p. 257. Cp. Villari, Machiavelli, i, 132; Savonarola, p. 60. - -[1722] "Of the majority of the twenty-two languages he was supposed to -have studied, he knew little more than the alphabet and the elements -of grammar" (Villari, Machiavelli, i, 135). As to Pico's character, -which was not saintly, see Perrens, Histoire, as cited, i, 561-62. - -[1723] Cp. Greswell, Memoirs of Politianus, Picus, etc. 2nd ed. 1805, -235; McCrie, The Reformation in Italy, ed. 1856, p. 33, note. - -[1724] Greswell, pp. 330-31. - -[1725] Cp. K. M. Sauer, Gesch. der italien. Litteratur, 1883, p. 109; -Villari, Machiavelli, i, 138. - -[1726] Villari, Machiavelli, i, 133. - -[1727] Greswell, pp. 331-32. - -[1728] Discorsi sopra Tito Livio, i, 12. - -[1729] Istorie fiorentine, liv. i; Discorsi, i, 12. - -[1730] Discorsi, ii, 2. - -[1731] For another point of view see Owen, as cited, p. 167. - -[1732] In the Italian translation of Bacon's essays, made for Bacon -in 1618 by an English hand, Machiavelli is branded in one passage as -an impio, and in another his name is dropped. See Routledge ed. of -Bacon's Works, pp. 749, 751. The admiring Paolo Giovio called him -irrisor et atheos; and Cardinal Pole said the Prince was so full of -every kind of irreligion that it might have been written by the hand -of Satan (Nourrisson, Machiavel, 1875, p. 4). - -[1733] Burckhardt, pp. 499-500. Cp. Owen, pp. 165-68. It is thus -impossible to be sure of the truth of the statement of Gregorovius -(Lucrezia Borgia, Eng. tr. 1904, p. 25) that "There were no women -skeptics or freethinkers; they would have been impossible in the -society of that day." Where dissimulation of unbelief was necessarily -habitual, there may have been some women unbelievers as well as -many men. - -[1734] Owen's characterization of Machiavelli's Asino d'oro as a -"satire on the freethought of his age" (p. 177) will not stand -investigation. See his own note, p. 178. - -[1735] Discorsi, i, 56. - -[1736] As we saw, Polybius in his day took a similar view, coming -as he did from Greece, where military failure had followed on a -certain growth of unbelief. Machiavelli was much influenced by -Polybius. Villari, ii, 9. - -[1737] Cp. Tullo Massarani, Studii di letteratura e d'arte, 1809, -p. 96. - -[1738] Discorsi, i, 15. - -[1739] Id. i, 11, end. - -[1740] Villari, ii, 93-94. - -[1741] Burckhardt, p. 464; Owen, p. 180, and refs. - -[1742] Owen, p. 181. See the whole account of Guicciardini's rather -confused opinions. - -[1743] Though Italy had most of what scientific knowledge -existed. Burckhardt, p. 292. - -[1744] "A man might at the same time be condemned as a heretic in Spain -for affirming, and in Italy for denying, the reality of the witches' -nightly rides" (The Pope and the Council, p. 258). - -[1745] The Pope and the Council, pp. 249-61. It was another Spina -who wrote on the other side. - -[1746] F. Fiorentino, Pietro Pomponazzi, 1868, p. 30. - -[1747] Owen, pp. 197-98; Renan, Averroès, pp. 353-62; Christie, -as cited, p. 133. - -[1748] Cp. Owen, pp. 201, 218; Lange, i, 183-87 (tr. i, 220-25). He, -however, granted that the mass of mankind, "brutish and materialized," -needed the belief in heaven and hell to moralize them (Christie, -pp. 140-41). - -[1749] This principle, though deriving from Averroïsm, and condemned, -as we have seen, by Pope John XXI, had been affirmed by so high -an orthodox authority as Albertus Magnus. Cp. Owen, pp. 211-12, -note. While thus officially recognized, it was of course denounced -by the devout when they saw how it availed to save heretics from -harm. Mr. Owen has well pointed out (p. 238) the inconsistency of -the believers who maintain that faith is independent of reason, and -yet denounce as blasphemous the profession to believe by faith what -is not intelligible by philosophy. - -[1750] Owen, pp. 209, note. "Son école est une école de laïques. de -médecins, d'esprits forts, de libres penseurs" (Bouillier, Hist. de -la philos. cartèsienne, 1854, i, 3). - -[1751] Owen. p. 210; Christie, p. 151. - -[1752] Christie, pp. 141-47. - -[1753] Id. p. 149. - -[1754] Burckhardt, p. 291. - -[1755] Gebhart, pp. 59-63; Burckhardt, p. 211. - -[1756] Cp. Burckhardt, p. 291. - -[1757] Burckhardt, pp. 279-80; Villari, Life of Machiavelli, -pp. 106-107. - -[1758] Burckhardt, pt. iii, ch. xi. - -[1759] Dr. Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, -1895, i, 265. Cp. Renan, Averroès, Avert. - -[1760] Schechter, Studies in Judaism, pp. 213, 420-21. - -[1761] Notice of Bonaventure Desperiers, by Bibliophile Jacob -[i.e. Lacroix], in 1841 ed. of Cymbalum Mundi, etc. - -[1762] For a solution of the enigma of the title see the Clef of Eloi -Johanneau in ed. cited, p. 83. Cymbalum mundi was a nickname given -in antiquity to (among others) an Alexandrian grammarian called -Didymus--the name of doubting Thomas in the gospel. The book is -dedicated by Thomas Du Clevier à son ami Pierre Tyrocan, which is -found to be, with one letter altered (perhaps by a printer's error), -an anagram for Thomas Incrédule à son ami Pierre Croyant, "Unbelieving -Thomas to his friend Believing Peter." Clef cited, pp. 80-85. - -[1763] Origen, Against Celsus, vi, 78. - -[1764] The readiness of piety in all ages to invent frightful deaths -for unbelievers must be remembered in connection with this and other -records. Cp. Notice cited, p. xx, and note. The authority for this is -Henri Estienne, Apologie pour Hérodote, liv. i, chs. 18, end, and 26. - -[1765] So Charles Nodier, cited in the Notice by Bibliophile Jacob, -pp. xxiii-xxiv. The English translator of 1723 professed to see no -unbelief in the book. - -[1766] Perrens, Les Libertins en France au XVIIe siècle, 1896, p. 41. - -[1767] Notice historique in Bibliophile Jacob's ed. of Rabelais, -1841; Stapfer, Rabelais, pp. 6, 10; W. F. Smith, biog. not. to his -trans. of Rabelais, 1893, i, p. xxii. - -[1768] Rathery, notice biog. to ed. of Burgaud des Marets, i, -12. Jacob's account of his relations with his friends Budé and Amy -at this stage is erroneous. See Rathery, p. 14. - -[1769] Le Double, Rabelais anatomiste et physiologiste, 1889, pp. 12, -425; and pref. by Professor Duval, p. xiii; Stapfer, p. 42; A. Tilley, -François Rabelais, 1907, pp. 74-76. - -[1770] In the same year he was induced to publish what turned out to -be two spurious documents purporting to be ancient Roman remains. See -Heulhard, Rabelais légiste, and Jacob, Notice, p. xviii. - -[1771] Rathery, p. 23. - -[1772] Jacob, p. xix. - -[1773] As to this see Tilley, p. 53. - -[1774] See it at the end of the ed. of Bibliophile Jacob. - -[1775] Cp. Stapfer, pp. 24-25; Rathery, p. 26. - -[1776] Rathery, p. 30. - -[1777] Cp. Jacob, Notice, p. xxxviii; Smith, ii, 524. - -[1778] Rathery, p. 71; Stapfer, pp. 42-43. - -[1779] Stapfer, p. 53. - -[1780] Jacob, p. xxxix. - -[1781] Rathery, pp. 44-49. The notion of Lacroix, that Rabelais -visited England, has no evidence to support it. Cp. Rathery, p. 49, -and Smith, p. xxiii. - -[1782] Cp. Jacob, p. lx. Ramus himself, for his attacks on the -authority of Aristotle, was called an atheist. Cp. Waddington, Ramus, -sa vie, etc., 1855, p. 126. - -[1783] See the list in the avertissement of M. Burgaud des Marets -to éd. Firmin Didot. Cp. Stapfer, pp. 63, 64. For example, the -"theologian" who makes the ludicrous speech in Liv. i, ch. xix, becomes -(chs. 18 and 20) a "sophist"; and the sorbonistes, sorbonicoles, -and sorbonagres of chs. 20 and 21 become mere maistres, magistres, -and sophistes likewise. - -[1784] It is doubtful whether Rabelais wrote the whole of the notice -prefixed to the next edition, in which this attack was made; but it -seems clear that he "had a hand in it" (Tilley, François Rabelais, -p. 87). - -[1785] R. Christie, Étienne Dolet, pp. 369-72. Christie, in his -vacillating way, severely blames Dolet, and then admits that the -book may have been printed while Dolet was in prison, and that in -any case there was no malice in the matter. This point, and the -persistent Catholic calumnies against Dolet, are examined by the -author in art. "The Truth about Étienne Dolet," in National Reformer, -June 2 and 9, 1889. - -[1786] Epistre, pref. to Liv. iv. Ed. Jacob, p. 318. - -[1787] Cp. W. F. Smith's trans. of Rabelais, 1893, ii, p. x. In this -book, however, other hands have certainly been at work. Rabelais left -it unfinished. - -[1788] Jacob, Notice, p. lxiii; Stapfer, p. 76. - -[1789] So Rathery, p. 60; and Stapfer, p. 78. Jacob, p. lxii, says -he resigned only one. Rathery makes the point clear by giving a copy -of the act of resignation as to Meudon. - -[1790] A Discourse ... against Nicholas Machiavel, Eng. tr. (1577), -ed. 1608, Epist. ded. p. 2. - -[1791] Liv. iv, ch. xliii. - -[1792] Liv. iii, ch. xxiii. - -[1793] Liv. iv, ch. xlv-xlviii. - -[1794] Liv. iv, ch. xlix sq. - -[1795] Liv. iv, ch. xxxii. - -[1796] Prof. Stapfer, Rabelais, sa personne, son génie, son oeuvre, -1889, pp. 365-68. Cp. the Notice of Bibliophile Jacob, ed. 1841 of -Rabelais, pp. lvii-lviii; and Perrens, Les Libertins, p. 39. In his -youth he affirmed the doctrine. Stapfer, p. 23. - -[1797] Cp. René Millet, Rabelais, 1892, pp. 172-80. - -[1798] Liv. iii, ch. xxxvi. - -[1799] The description of him by one French biographer, M. Boulmier -(Estienne Dolet, 1857), as "le Christ de la pensée libre" is a -gross extravagance. Dolet was substantially orthodox, and even -anti-Protestant, though he denounced the cruel usage of Protestants. - -[1800] Wallace (Antitrinitarian Biography, 1850, ii. 2) asserts -that Dolet "not only became a convert to the opinions of Servetus, -but a zealous propagator of them." For this there is not a shadow -of evidence. - -[1801] Cp. Voltaire, Lettres sur Rabelais, etc. i. - -[1802] Cp. author's art. above cited; R. C. Christie, Étienne Dolet, -2nd ed. 1890, p. 100; Octave Galtier, Étienne Dolet (N.D.), pp. 66, -94, etc. - -[1803] Christie, as cited, pp. 50-58, 105-106; Galtier, p. 26 sq. - -[1804] It is to this that Rabelais alludes (ii, 5) when he tells -how at Toulouse they "stuck not to burn their regents alive like -red herrings." - -[1805] Christie, p. 80. - -[1806] Liv. iii, ch. xxix. - -[1807] Christie, p. 86. - -[1808] One of his enemies wrote of him that prison was his -country--patria Doleti. - -[1809] Procès d'Estienne Dolet, Paris, 1836, p. 11; Galtier, pp. 65-70; -Christie, pp. 389-90. - -[1810] Procès, p. viii.; Galtier, p. 78. - -[1811] Galtier, p. 101 sq.; Christie, p. 461. - -[1812] A modern French judge, the President Baudrier, was found to -affirm that the laws, though "unduly severe," were "neither unduly -nor unfairly pressed" against Dolet! Christie, p. 471. - -[1813] Concerning whom see Christie, as cited, pp. 29 01. - -[1814] Tilley, as last cited, p. 69. - -[1815] Christie, p. 317. - -[1816] Christie, as cited, pp. 465-67; Lutteroth, La Reformation en -France pendant sa première période, 1850, pp. 39-40; Prof. H. M. Baird, -Rise of the Huguenots, 1880, i, 240 sq. - -[1817] Perrens, Les Libertins, p. 43; Patin, Lettres, -ed. Reveillé-Parise, 1846, i, 210. - -[1818] Wriothesley's Chronicle (Camden Society, 1875), pp. 107-108. - -[1819] Nodier, quoted by Bibliophile Jacob in ed. of Cymbalum Mundi, -as cited, p. xviii. - -[1820] Cp. Brantome, Des dames illustres, OEuvres, ed. 1838, ii, 186. - -[1821] Bayle, Dictionnaire, art. Marguerite de Navarre (the First), -notes F and G. - -[1822] Bayle, note N. Cp. Nodier, as cited, p. xix, as to the -collaboration of Desperiers and others. - -[1823] Bayle, art. Ronsard, note D. - -[1824] Garasse, La Doctrine Curieuse des Beaux Esprits de ce Temps, -1623, pp. 126-27. Ronsard replied to the charge in his poem, Des -misères du temps. - -[1825] Bayle, art. Ronsard, note O. Cp. Perrens, Les Libertins, p. 43. - -[1826] MS. 1588. First printed in 1841 by Guhrauer, again in 1857 by -L. Noack. - -[1827] As before noted, he was one of the first to use the -word. Cp. Lechler, Geschichte des englischen Deismus, pp. 31, 455, -notes. - -[1828] Bayle, art. Bodin, note O. Cp. Renan, Averroès, 3e édit. p. 424; -and the Lettres de Gui Patin, iii, 679 (letter of 27 juillet, 1668), -cited by Perrens, Les Libertins, p. 43. Leibnitz, in an early -letter to Jac. Thomasius, speaks of the MS. of the Colloquium, -then in circulation, as proving its writer to be "the professed -enemy of the Christian religion," adding: "Vanini's dialogues are a -trifle in comparison." (Philosophische Schriften, ed. Gerhardt, i, -26; Martineau, Study of Spinoza, p. 77.) Carriere, however, notes -(Weltanschauung, p. 317) that in later years Leibnitz learned to -prize Bodin's treatise highly. - -[1829] Cp. Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, i, 66, 87-91. In the -République too he has a chapter on astrology, to which he leans -somewhat. - -[1830] République, Liv. iv, ch. ii. - -[1831] Id. Liv. iv, ch. vii. "Bodin in this sophistry was undoubtedly -insincere" (Hallam, Lit. of Europe, ii, 159). - -[1832] Cp. Perrens, Les Libertins. p. 43. - -[1833] Cp. Villemain, Vie de L'Hopital, in Études de l'hist. moderne, -1846. pp. 363-68, 428. - -[1834] Buckle (3-vol. ed. ii, 10; 1-vol. ed. p. 291) errs in -representing L'Hopital as the only statesman of the time who dreamt of -toleration. It is to be noted, on the other hand, that the Huguenots -themselves protested against any toleration of atheists or Anabaptists; -and even the reputed freethinker Gabriel Naudé, writing his Science -des Princes, ou Considérations politiques sur les Coups d'état, in -1639, defended the massacre on political grounds (Owen, Skeptics of -the French Renaissance, p. 470, note). Bodin implicitly execrated -it. Cp. Hallam, Lit. of Europe, ii, 162. - -[1835] Villemain, p. 429. - -[1836] Garasse, Doctrine Curieuse, pp. 125~26; Mémoires de Garasse, -ed. Ch. Nisard, 1860, pp. 77-78; Perrens, p. 43. - -[1837] Bibliophile Jacob, Introd. to Beroalde de Verville. - -[1838] Estienne's full title is: L'Introduction au traité de la -conformité des merveilles, anciennes avec les modernes: ou, Traité -préparatif à l'Apologie pour Hérodote. - -[1839] Apologie pour Hérodote, ed. 1607, pp. 97, 249 (liv. i, chs. xiv, -xviii.) Cymbalum Mundi, ed. Bibliophile Jacob, pp. xx, 13. - -[1840] The index was specially framed to call attention to these -items. The entry, "Fables des dieux des payens cousines germaines -des legendes des saints," is typical. - -[1841] Bayle, Dictionnaire, art. Castalion; Hallam, Lit. of Europe, ii, -81; Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, ii, 46-49. Hallam finds Castalio's -letter to the Duke of Wirtemberg "cautious"; but Lecky quotes some -strong expressions from what he describes as the preface of Martin -Bellius (Castalio's pseudonym) to Cluten's De Haereticis persequendis, -ed. 1610. Castalio died in 1563. As to his translations from the Bible, -see Bayle's note. - -[1842] Hallam, ii, 83; McCrie, Reformation in Italy, ed. 1856, p. 231. - -[1843] Even Stähelin (Johannes Calvin, ii, 303) condemns Calvin's -action and tone towards Castalio, though he makes the significant -remark that the latter "treated the Bible pretty much as any other -book." - -[1844] Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, p. 169. - -[1845] Burckhardt, p. 195. - -[1846] Prof. Fortunat Strowski, Histoire du sentiment religieux en -France au 17e siècle, Ptie i, De Montaigne à Pascal, 1907, pp. 19-23. - -[1847] "Du Vair ne songe pas au Médiateur; s'il y a dans son traité -des allusions à Notre Seigneur, le nom de Jésus-Christ ne s'y trouve, -je crois bien, pas une fois. Il songe encore moins aux pieux adjuvants -qui excitent l'imagination; pas un mot de l'invocation des saints, -pas un mot des sacrements" (Strowski, as cited, p. 78). - -[1848] Cp. Prof. Thorold Rogers, Economic Interpretation of History, -p. 83. - -[1849] In 1387 the Lollards were denounced under that name by the -Bishop of Worcester as "eternally damned sons of Antichrist." - -[1850] See the Repressor, Babington's ed. in the Rolls Series, 1860, -Part ii. - -[1851] Hook, Lives of the Archbishops (Life of Bourchier), 1867, -v, 294-306. - -[1852] He repels, e.g., Wiclif's argument that a priest's misconduct -sufficed to destroy his right to his endowments. Repressor, Babington's -ed. as cited, ii, 413. - -[1853] Hook, as cited, v, 309. - -[1854] Gardiner, Student's History, p. 330. Cp. Green, ch. vi, § i, -2, pp. 267, 275; Stubbs Const. Hist., iii, 631-33. - -[1855] Cp. Pauli, Pictures of Old England, Eng. tr. Routledge's -rep. pp. 332-36. - -[1856] Pauli, p. 332. - -[1857] See Arber's reprint. - -[1858] Cp. Souchay, Gesch. der deutschen Monarchie, 1861-62, iii, -230-31. - -[1859] On this cp. Souchay, pp. 234-39. - -[1860] See a good synopsis in Pünjer's History of the Christian -Philosophy of Religion, Eng. tr. pp. 68-89; and another in Moritz -Carriere's Die philosophische Weltanschauung der Reformationszeit, -1847, pp. 16-25, which, however, is open to Pünjer's criticism that -it is coloured by modern Hegelianism. - -[1861] Dr. Paul Frédéricq, Geschiedenis der Inquisitie in de -Nederlanden, 1025-1520, Gent, 1892-1897, ii, 4-9. - -[1862] Michelet, Hist. de France, vii--éd. 1857, pp. 125, 172. - -[1863] This name has many forms; and it is contended that Sabieude is -the correct one. See Owen, Evenings with the Skeptics, 1881, ii, 423. - -[1864] Cp. Hallam, Introd. to Lit. of Europe, ed. 1872, i, 142-44, -and the analysis in Prof. Dowden's Montaigne, 1905, p. 127 sq. - -[1865] Van Hoogstraten, in Frédéricq, as cited below. - -[1866] Dr. Frazer's assumption (Golden Bough, 3rd ed. pt. i, i, 224) -that magic assumes an invariable order of nature, is unsubstantiated -even by his vast anthropological erudition. Magic varies arbitrarily, -and the idea of a fixed "order" does not belong to the magician's -plane of thought. - -[1867] Maury, La Magie et l'Astrologie, 4e éd. pp. 214-16. - -[1868] "Judicial astrology ... which supplanted and degraded the art -of medicine" (Prof. Clifford Allbutt, Harveian Oration on Science and -Medieval Thought, 1901, App. p. 113). There is a startling survival -of it in the physiology of Harvey. Id. p. 45. - -[1869] Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim. - -[1870] Above, p. 385. - -[1871] Who, however, was no rationalist, but an orientalizing -mystic. Cp. Carriere, Die philos. Weltanschauung der Reformationszeit, -1846, pp. 36-38. - -[1872] Cp. Ranke, Hist. of the Ref. in Germany, bk. ii, ch. i -(Eng. tr. Routledge's 1-vol. ed. 1905, p. 129). The point is fairly put -by Audin in the introduction to his Histoire de Luther. Compare Green: -"The awakening of a rational Christianity, whether in England or in -the Teutonic world at large, begins with the Florentine studies of Sir -John Colet" (Short Hist. ch. vi, § iv). Colet, however, was strictly -orthodox. Ulrich von Hutten spent five of the formative years of his -life in Italy. - -[1873] Hamilton, Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, 1852, -p. 205. - -[1874] As to the general resentment of the money drain cp. Strauss, -Gespräche von Ulrich von Hutten, 1860, Vorrede, p. xiv, and the -dialogues, pp. 159. 363. Cp. Ranke, bk. ii, ch. i (Eng. tr. as cited, -pp. 123-26). - -[1875] See Ullmann, Reformers before the Reformation, passim. Even -the Peasants' Rising was adumbrated in the movement of Hans Böheim -of Nikleshausen (fl. 1476), whose doctrine was both democratic -and anti-clerical. (Work cited, ii, 380-81; cp. Bezold, Gesch. der -deutschen Reform. 1890, ch. vii.) - -[1876] See Guicciardini's analysis of the parties, cited by -E. Armstrong in the "Cambridge Modern History," vol. i, The -Renaissance, p. 170. - -[1877] Burckhardt, Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, -Eng. tr. pp. 476-77. - -[1878] See the sympathetic analysis of the book by Villari, Life of -Savonarola, Eng. tr. pp. 582-94, where it is much overrated. - -[1879] As to the education of the Florentine common people in the -fourteenth century cp. Burckhardt, pp. 203-204; Symonds, Age of the -Despots, p. 202. - -[1880] Cp. Armstrong, as cited, pp. 150-51. - -[1881] McCrie, Reformation in Italy, ed. 1856, pp. 28-30, 41. - -[1882] Id. pp. 54, 68. - -[1883] Id. p. 45, citing Reynald's Annales, ad. ann. 1530; Trechsel, -Lelio Sozzini und die Anti-trinitarier seiner Zeit, 1844, pp. 19-35. - -[1884] McCrie reasons otherwise, from the fact that the sack of Rome -was by many Catholics regarded as a divine judgment on the papacy; -but he omits to mention the pestilence which followed and destroyed the -bulk of the conquering army (Menzel, Gesch. der Deutschen, Cap. 390). - -[1885] McCrie, pp. 59-60. - -[1886] Id. p. 66. - -[1887] Id. pp. 112, 115. - -[1888] Id. pp. 89, 98, 215. McCrie thinks it useful to suggest -(p. 95) that anti-trinitarianism seems to have begun at Siena, "whose -inhabitants were proverbial among their countrymen for levity and -inconstancy of mind"--citing Dante, Inferno, canto xxix, 121-23. Thus -does theology illumine sociology. In a note on the same page the -historian cites the testimony of Melanchthon (Epist. coll. 852, 941) -as to the commonness of "Platonic and skeptical theories" among his -Italian correspondents in general; and quotes further the words of -Calvin, who for once rises above invective to explain as to heresy -(Opera, viii, 510) that "In Italis, propter rarum acumen, magis -eminet." The historian omits, further, to trace German Unitarianism -to the levity of a particular community in Germany. - -[1889] A. von Reumont, The Carafas of Maddaloni, Eng. tr. 1854, -pp. 33-37; McCrie, p. 122. It was not Protestantism that made the -revolt. The contemporary historian Porzios states that the Lutherans -were so few that they could easily be counted. Von Reumont, as cited, -p. 33. It was not heresy that moved the Neapolitans, but the knowledge -that perjurers could be found in Naples to swear to anything, and -that the machine would thus be made one of pecuniary extortion. - -[1890] McCrie, Reformation in Italy, p. 131. - -[1891] McCrie, pp. 143-44. - -[1892] Id. pp. 158-61. - -[1893] Id. pp. 161-63. This seems to have been one of the latest -instances of enslavement in Italy. As to the selling of many Capuan -women in Rome after the capture of Capua in 1501, see Burckhardt, -p. 279, note. - -[1894] McCrie, pp. 140-43. - -[1895] Domenico Orano, Liberi Pensatori bruciati in Roma dal XVI -al XVIII Secolo, Roma, 1904. Giordano Bruno is 77th in the list; -and there are only eight more. The 85th case was in 1642; and the -last--the burning of a dead body--in 1761. - -[1896] Orano, p. 13. - -[1897] Signor Orano gives the name as Buzio, citing the 1835 Italian -translation of McCrie, and pronouncing Cantù (ii, 338) wrong in making -it Mollio. But in the 1856 ed. of McCrie's work the name is given -(pp. 57-58, 168-69) as John Mollio. Cantù then appears to have been -right; but the date he gives, 1533, seems to be a blunder. - -[1898] McCrie gives this name as Tisserano. - -[1899] Orano, p. 6; McCrie, pp. 169-70. - -[1900] McCrie, p. 212; Orano, p. 33. - -[1901] Orano, pp. 15-16. McCrie, p. 165, says he was strangled; -but the official record is "fu mozza la testa." - -[1902] Orano, p. 22. As to Carnesecchi's career see McCrie, pp. 173-79; -and Babington's ed. of Paleario, 1855, Introd. pp. lxv-lxvi. - -[1903] McCrie, p. 164. See Trechsel, Lelio Sozzini, p. 35, as to -Baldo Lupetino. - -[1904] As to whom see McCrie, pp. 81-84, 179-82, and the copious Life -and Times of Aonio Paleario, by M. Young. 2 vols. 1860. - -[1905] Marini, Galileo e l'Inquisizione, Roma, 1850, p. 37, note. - -[1906] Babington's ed. p. 46 sq. - -[1907] It was afterwards unearthed, however; and Babington's ed. (1855) -is an almost facsimile reprint, with old French and English versions. - -[1908] Cp. McCrie, pp. 114-17. - -[1909] Cp. McCrie, Ref. in Italy, ch. v; Ref. in Spain, ch. viii; -Green, Short Hist. pp. 358, 362. - -[1910] Huss, in his youth, at first turned from Wiclif's writings -with horror. Bonnechose, The Reformers before the Reformation, -Eng. tr. 1844, i, 72. - -[1911] Cp. Krasinski, Histor. Sketch of the Reformation in Poland, -1838, i, 58. - -[1912] Krasinski, Sketch of Relig. Hist. of Slav. Nations, ed. 1851, -pp. 26-27. - -[1913] Neander, ix, 242 sq.; Hardwick, pp. 426-27. Militz effected -a remarkable reformation of life in Prague. Neander, p. 241. - -[1914] See the very intelligent survey of the situation in Kautsky's -Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation, -Eng. tr. 1897, p. 35 sq. - -[1915] Kautsky, p. 42. - -[1916] K. Raumer, Contrib. to the Hist. of the German Universities, -New York, 1859, p. 19; Dr. Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the -Middle Ages, vol. ii, pt. i, 223-26; Bonnechose, i, 78; Mosheim, -15 Cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § 6; Gieseler, Per. iii, Div. v, § 150; -Krasinski, as cited, pp. 31-33. - -[1917] Krasinski, Sketch, p. 33; Kautsky, p. 43; Maclaine's note to -Mosheim, as last cited; Rashdall, pp. 225-26, 254. The exodus has -been much exaggerated. Only 602 were enrolled at Leipzig. - -[1918] Many of these were of great beauty and value, and must have -been owned by rich men. Krasinski, Sketch, p. 34. - -[1919] Hardwick. p. 433. Jerome caused the bull to be "fastened to -an immodest woman," and so paraded through the town before being -burnt. Gieseler, iv, 114, note 15. - -[1920] Bonnechose, ii, 122; Gieseler, as cited. - -[1921] See Mosheim's very interesting note; and Gieseler, iv, 104-105. - -[1922] Krasinski, p. 51. - -[1923] For an account of the devices of Catholic historians to explain -away the Council's treachery see Bonnechose, note E. to vol. i, -p. 270. The Council itself simply declared that faith was not to be -kept with a heretic. Id. p. 271; Gieseler, p. 121. - -[1924] Bonnechose, ii, 118-20. Cp. Krasinski, p. 37. - -[1925] Kautsky, pp. 48-49. - -[1926] Id. p. 51. - -[1927] Id. p. 52. - -[1928] Krasinski, p. 65. - -[1929] See their principles stated in Kautsky, p. 59. - -[1930] Æneas Sylvius, who detested the Taborites, declared them to -have only one good quality, the love of letters. Letter to Carvajal, -cited by Krasinski, p. 93, note. - -[1931] Kautsky, pp. 59-67. - -[1932] Id. p. 76. - -[1933] Kautsky, pp. 78-82. See further the account of Helchitsky's -book in Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You, ch. i. - -[1934] Hist. of the Prot. Church in Hungary (anon.), Eng. tr. 1854, -p. 17. - -[1935] Id. p. 19. - -[1936] Id. pp. 23, 28. - -[1937] Id. pp. 24, 32, citing the chronicler Thurnschwamm. - -[1938] Id. pp. 29-31. - -[1939] Hist. of the Prot. Church in Hungary, p. 34. - -[1940] Id. p. 37. - -[1941] Id. p. 58. - -[1942] Id. pp. 69-70. - -[1943] Id. pp. 45, 73. - -[1944] Id. p. 45. - -[1945] Called Blandvater in the History above cited, which is copied -in this error by Hardwick. - -[1946] Schlegel's note to Mosheim, Reid's ed. p. 708. - -[1947] Cp. Mosheim, last cit. - -[1948] Hist. of the Prot. Church in Hungary, p. 86. - -[1949] Wallace, Antitrinitarian Biog. ii, 257-60. Schlegel, as -cited. Biandrata later gave up his Unitarianism, turning either Jesuit -or Protestant. He was murdered by his nephew for his money. Wallace, -ii, 144. - -[1950] History cited, p. 109. As to the persecutions see pp. 108-15. - -[1951] Id. pp. 128-29, 132. - -[1952] Id. p. 134. - -[1953] Krasinski, Hist. of the Reformation in Poland, 1838, i, 29-30. - -[1954] Id. pp. 30-34. - -[1955] Hist. of the Reformation in Poland, p. 38. - -[1956] Id. i. 40-42. - -[1957] Id. p. 45. - -[1958] Id. pp. 55-56. - -[1959] Id. pp. 47-50. - -[1960] Id. pp. 65-66. - -[1961] Id. p. 67. - -[1962] Hist. of the Reformation in Poland, i, 91-98. - -[1963] Id. pp. 111-16. - -[1964] Id. p. 134. - -[1965] Id. pp. 139, 345, following Wengierski; Wallace, -Antitrin. Biog. ii, Art. 41. - -[1966] Krasinski, pp. 143, 344, note. - -[1967] Id. i, 163. - -[1968] Id. p. 173, note. - -[1969] Id. pp. 176-77. - -[1970] I.e., Peter of Goniond, a small town in Podlachia. - -[1971] Krasinski, i, 346-48; Mosheim. 16 Cent. sect. III, pt. ii, -ch. iv, § 7; and Schlegel's and Reid's notes. - -[1972] Cp. Mosheim, chapter last cited, § 15 sq. - -[1973] Krasinski, i, 357. - -[1974] Wallace, Antitrin. Biog. ii, 181-82. - -[1975] Krasinski, pp. 357-60. - -[1976] Id. p. 363. - -[1977] Krasinski, Ref. in Poland, ii, 93-94; Rel. Hist. of -Slav. Nations, p. 188. - -[1978] Lutteroth, La Reformation en France pendant sa première période, -p. 2. - -[1979] A. A. Tilley, in vol. ii of Camb. Mod. Hist. The Reformation, -ch. ix. p. 281. - -[1980] Prof. H. M. Baird, Hist. of the Rise of the Huguenots, 1880, -i, 33. - -[1981] Id. i, 35. - -[1982] Tilley, as cited, p. 281. - -[1983] Lutteroth, pp. 14-16. - -[1984] Tilley, p. 282. The translation was notable as a revision of -the Vulgate version, which was printed side by side with it. - -[1985] Lutteroth, pp. 3-4; Baird, i, 79. - -[1986] Michelet, Hist. de France, tom. x, La Réforme, ch. viii. - -[1987] Lutteroth, p. 9. - -[1988] Michelet. éd. 1884, x, 308; Baird, i, 80, note. - -[1989] See Baird, i, 91, note, as to the dates, which are usually -put a year too early. - -[1990] Baird, i, 95-96, and note. - -[1991] Id. p. 132. - -[1992] Michelet, x, 314; Baird, i, 133-37. - -[1993] Lutteroth, p. 15; Michelet. x, 337. - -[1994] Other such outrages followed, and did much to intensify -persecution. - -[1995] Erasmus had said that one pamphlet of Béda's contained "eighty -lies, three hundred calumnies, and forty-seven blasphemies" (Michelet, -x, 320). - -[1996] Baird, i, 143-44; Michelet, x, 321-26. - -[1997] Michelet, x, 338-39. - -[1998] Baird, i, 149. - -[1999] Cp. Tilley, p. 285. - -[2000] Lutteroth, p. 17; Michelet, x, 340 (giving the text of a -contemporary record); Baird, i, 173-78--a very full account. - -[2001] See Baird, i, 176, note, as to the authenticity of the -utterance, which was doubted by Voltaire. - -[2002] Michelet, x, 342; Baird, i, 169. - -[2003] Cit. by Baird, i, 24, note. - -[2004] Baird, i, 221-22. - -[2005] It is endorsed by Professor Clifford, Lectures and Essays, -2nd ed. p. 335. - -[2006] Hist. de la Civ. en France, 13e édit. i, 18. - -[2007] See the case well made out by Buckle, -ch. viii--1-vol. ed. pp. 311-13. - -[2008] See above, p. 348. - -[2009] Stubbs, Const. Hist., 3rd ed. ii, 469, 471, 510. - -[2010] Cp. Froude, Hist. of England, ed. 1872, i, 173; Burnet, -Hist. of the Reformation, Nares' ed. i, 17-18. Henry, says Burnet, -"cherished Churchmen more than any king in England had ever -done." Compare further Shaftesbury, Miscellaneous Reflections, in -the Characteristics, Misc. iii, ch. i, ed. 1733, vol. iii, p. 151; -Lea, Hist. of the Inquisition, as cited above, p. 316. - -[2011] Rev. Dr. J. H. Blunt, The Reformation of the Church of England, -ed. 1892, i, 72-100. Wolsey was more patient with Protestant heresy -than Henry ever was, though on his death-bed he counselled the king -to put down the Lutherans. - -[2012] Cp. Burnet, as cited, pref. p. xl, and p. 3; Heylyn, Hist. of -the Ref. pref.; Blunt, i, 293-94. In 1530 the king had actually -repudiated his debts, cancelling borrowings made under the Privy -Seal, and thus setting an example to the Catholic King Philip II in -a later generation. - -[2013] Heylyn, as cited, and i, 123-27, ed. 1849; A. F. Leach, English -Schools at the Reformation, 1896, pp. 5-6; J. E. G. De Montmorency, -State Intervention in English Education, 1902, pp. 62-65. - -[2014] The subject is treated at some length in The Dynamics of -Religion, by "M. W. Wiseman" (J. M. R.), 1897, pp. 3-46; and in The -Saxon and the Celt, pp. 92-97. - -[2015] Bishop Stubbs, Const. Hist. of England, 3rd ed. iii, -638. Cp. Bishop Creighton, The Age of Elizabeth, p. 6; Hallam, -Lit. of Europe, i, 366. - -[2016] Ranke, History of the Popes, Bohn tr. 1908, p. 60; Hardwick, -Church History: Reformation, ed. 1886, p. 250. - -[2017] Much of this has never been published. Most of it is in a -MS. Codex of the City Library at Frankfurt. Extracts in Tentzel's -Supplementum Historiæ Gothanæ, 1701, in the Narratio de Eobano Hesso -of J. Camerarius, 1553, etc. See Strauss's Ulrich von Hutten, 2te -Aufl. 1871, p. 32, n. (ed. 1858, i, 44) et seq. - -[2018] Eccles. Hist., bk. i, ch. iv. - -[2019] Strauss, Ulrich von Hutten, as cited, pp. 33-35; Bezold, -Gesch. der deutschen Reformation, 1890, p. 226. Bezold describes -Mutianus as "der freigeistige Kanonikus zu Gotha," and points out, -concerning his universalism, that "the historic Christ thus slips -through his fingers." - -[2020] Bezold, as last cited. "Here is the skepticism kept in the -background by Mutianus and Celtis, popularized in the rudest way." - -[2021] Briefe, ed. De Wette, iii, 60. - -[2022] Karl Hagen, Deutschlands lit. u. relig. Verhältnisse im -Reformations-zeitalter, 1868, ii, 110; letter of Capito to Zwingli, -Ep. Zwinglii i, 47; F. C. Baur, Kirchengeschichte, iv, 450; Trechsel, -Die protestantischen Antitrinitarier vor Faustus Socinus, 1839-44, i, -13-16, 33; Wallace, Antitrinitarian Biography, 1850, i, art. 3, 4, 5. - -[2023] Schlegel's note to Mosheim, Reid's ed. p. 689; Baur, iv, 450; -Trechsel, i, 13-16. - -[2024] See a good account of him by Beard, Hibbert Lectures on The -Reformation, p. 204 sq. - -[2025] For an impartial criticism of their language see Henderson's -Short Hist. of Germany, i, 321-23. Cp. Baur, Kirchengeschichte, iv, -73-76; A. F. Pollard in Camb. Mod. Hist. ii, 192-95; Beard, Hibbert -Lect. on The Reformation, p. 200; and Kautsky, Communism in Central -Europe in the Time of the Reformation, Eng. tr. 1897, pp. 117-28. - -[2026] Kohlrausch, Hist. of Germany, Eng. tr. p. 397. - -[2027] To the same effect Menzel, Gesch. der Deutschen, Capp. 391, 492. - -[2028] Pollard, as cited, p. 175. - -[2029] Id. p. 178. - -[2030] Id. pp. 179, 193. - -[2031] Id. p. 193. - -[2032] Id. p. 192. - -[2033] Ranke, as cited, pp. 459-64. - -[2034] Id. p. 461. - -[2035] Cp. Michelet, Hist. de France, x, La Réforme, ed. 1882, -pp. 104, 332. - -[2036] Cp. Burckhard, De Ulrichi Hutteni Vita Commentarius, 1717, i, -65. For a general view see Ranke, pp. 126-39. - -[2037] Jakob Marx, Die Ursachen der schnellen Verbreitung der -Reformation, 1847, § 12. - -[2038] Prof. J. M. Vincent, in Prof. S. M. Jackson's Huldreich Zwingli, -1901, p. 37. - -[2039] Cp. Ullmann, Reformers before the Reformation, i, 19; ii, -passim; Mosheim, 15 Cent. Pt. ii, ch. ii, § 22; and Bonet-Maury's -thesis, De Opera Scholastica Fratrum Vitæ Communis, 1889. - -[2040] Burton, History of Scotland, iii, 399-401. But the end in -view was probably, as Burton half admits, the recruiting of the -Church. Cp. Cosmo Innes, Sketches of Early Scotch History, p. 134 sq., -and Scottish Legal Antiquities, pp. 129-30. - -[2041] Menzel, Cap. 492. - -[2042] Menzel, Cap. 492 (ed. 1837, p. 762). - -[2043] Ranke (p. 466) becomes positively lyrical over the happy lot -of the peasant who received Luther's Catechism (1529). "It contains -enduring comfort in every affliction, and, under a slight husk, -the kernel of truths able to satisfy the wisest of the wise." Such -declamation holds the place that ought to have been filled by an -account of economic conditions. - -[2044] Bishop Stubbs, Const. Hist. of England, iii. 627. The bishop, -however, holds that in the time of Lollard prosperity the ability to -read was widely diffused in England (p. 628); and it seems certain -that in the first half of the sixteenth century printing multiplied -enormously. Cp. Michelet. Hist. de France, x, ed. 1884. p. 103 sq. - -[2045] Cp. Willis, Servetus and Calvin, 1877, bk. ii. ch. i; -Audin, Histoire de Calvin, éd. abrég. ch. xxiv-xxvii; and essay on -"Machiavelli and Calvin" in the present writer's Essays in Sociology, -1903. vol. i. - -[2046] Werke., ed. Walch. viii. 2043 (On Ep. to Galat.), cited -by Beard. - -[2047] Id. viii, 1181 (On 1 Cor. xv). Cp. other citations in Beard, -pp. 161-65. - -[2048] Green, Short History, ch. vi, § v, p. 315. - -[2049] Cp. Stäbelin, Johannes Calvin, 1863. ii, 282-83. - -[2050] He was educated at Basel and Berne and at Vienna University, -and of all the leading reformers he seems to have had most knowledge -of classical literature. Hess, Life of Zwingle, Eng. tr. 1812, pp. 2-7, -following Myconius and Hottinger. - -[2051] Chr. Sigwart, Ulrich Zwingli, der Charakter seiner -Theologie, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Pico von Mirandula, 1855, -pp. 14-26. Prof. Jackson, Huldreich Zwingli, p. 85, note, states that -Sigwart later modified his views. - -[2052] So states Melanchthon, cited by Jackson, p. 85, -note. Cp. pp. 201, 390-92. - -[2053] Cited by Jackson, p. 316. - -[2054] Id. p. 295. - -[2055] Id. p. 361. - -[2056] Id. p. 361, note. - -[2057] Id. According to Heylyn, the Earl of Warwick countenanced -the Zwinglians in his intrigues against the Protector Somerset; and -their views were further welcomed by other nobles as making for the -plundering of rich altars. Hist. of the Reform. of the Ch. of Eng., -ed. 1849. pref. p. vii. But Heylyn appears to identify the Zwinglians -at this stage with the Calvinists. Cp. p. x. - -[2058] Henry, Das Leben Calvins, ii, Kap. 13, and Beilage 16 (Appendix -not given in the English translation); Stähelin, Johannes Calvin, -1863, i, 399-400. - -[2059] Cp. Calvin's letter to Viret, July 2, 1547 (Letters of Calvin, -ed. Bonnet, Eng. tr. 1857, ii, 109), where it is alleged that in the -two pages "the whole of Scripture is laughed at, Christ aspersed, -the immortality of the soul called a dream and a fable, and finally -the whole of religion torn in pieces. I do not think he is the author -of it," adds Calvin; "but as it is in his handwriting he will be -compelled to appear in his defence." - -[2060] Stähelin, i, 400. Henry avows that Gruet was "subjected -to the torture morning and evening during a whole month" -(Eng. tr. ii. 66). Other biographers dishonestly exclude the fact -from their narratives. - -[2061] Cp. Calvin's letter to the Seigneury of Geneva, in Letters, -ii. 254-56. - -[2062] Henry, Life of Calvin, Eng. tr. ii, 47-48. Gruet's fragment can -hardly have been the De Tribus Impostoribus, inasmuch as Calvin makes -no mention of any reference to Mohammed in his fragment, whereas the -title of the other book proceeded on the specification of Mohammed -as well as Jesus and Moses. The existing treatise of that name, -in any case, is of later date. Of the famous treatise in question, -which was not published till long afterwards, Henry admits that it -"professes to show tranquilly, and with regret, but without abuse," -the fraudulent character of the three revealed religions. Concerning -Gruet's essay he asks: "What are all the anti-Christian writings of the -French Revolution compared with the hellish laughter which seemed to -peal from its pages?" For this description he has not a line to cite. - -[2063] For instance, one man was accused of having blasphemed against -a storm which terrified the pious. - -[2064] Dändliker, Geschichte der Schweiz, 1884-87, ii, 559; above, -p. 2. - -[2065] Mark Pattison, Essays, 1889, ii, 37. - -[2066] Dändliker, as cited, endorsing Roget. Cp. Hallam, Lit. of -Europe, i, 306, and Hamilton, Discus. on Philos. and Lit., 2nd -ed. p. 497, as to the "dissolution of morals" in the Lutheran world. - -[2067] Mosheim, 14 Cent. sec. iii, Pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ 38-41; Audin, -Histoire de Calvin, chs. xxix, xxx. - -[2068] Histoire de la vie, moeurs, actes, doctrine, constance et mort -de Iean Calvin, jadis ministre de Geneue, receuilly par M. Hierosme -Hermes Bolsec, docteur médecin à Lyon. Lyon, 1577. - -[2069] The reprint of Bolsec's book prepared by M. L. F. Chastel -(Lyon, 1875) appears to be faithful; but the Catholic animus shown -deprives the annotations of critical value. - -[2070] Stähelin, ii, 293-301. - -[2071] Stähelin, ii, 293. Arminius pointed to this letter as a proof -that Melanchthon had abandoned his early predestinarianism (Declaratio -of 1608, xx. 2; Works of Arminius, ed. Nichols, i. 578). But of course -Melanchthon had previously guarded himself in his Loci Communes (1545) -and elsewhere. (Id. pp. 597-98.) - -[2072] Stähelin, ii. 304. - -[2073] Latinized name of Miguel Servedo, alias Reves, born at Tudela in -Navarre in 1511, son of Hernando Villanueva, a notary of an Aragonese -family, of which Villanueva had been the seat. The statement of -De la Roche that Servetus was born in Aragon, though long current, -is now exploded. - -[2074] De la Roche, Mémoires de Littérature, cited in An Impartial -History of Servetus, 1724, p. 27. - -[2075] Christianismi Restitutio, h.e. Totius ecclesiæ apostolicæ -ad sua limina vocatio in integrum, restituta cognitione Dei, fidei -christianæ, justificationis nostræ, regenerationis, baptismi, Coenæ -Domini manducationis. Restituto denique nobis regno coelesti, Babylonis -impia captivitate solutâ, et antichristo cum suis penitus destructo, -1553. Of this book De la Roche (1711) knew of no printed copy, having -read it solely in MS. Perfect copies, however, are preserved in Vienna -and Paris; and an imperfect one in Edinburgh University Library has -been completed from the original draft, which has matter not in the -printed copy. It has been pointed out that the book is not absolutely -anonymous, inasmuch as it has at the end the initials M. S. V.--the -V. standing for the name Villanova or Villanovanus, which he bore -as a student at Louvain and put on the title-pages of his scientific -works; and Servetus is actually introduced as an interlocutor in one -of the dialogues. - -[2076] It is to be remembered, however, that he pronounced all -Trinitarians to be "veros Atheos." History of Servetus, p. 131. - -[2077] "Mihi ob eam rem moriendum esse certo scio." - -[2078] Melanchthon, Epist., lib. i, ep. 3; McCrie, Reformation in -Italy, p. 96; Trechsel, Lelio Sozini, 1844, pp. 38-41. - -[2079] Willis, Servetus and Calvin, 1877, p. 117. - -[2080] See the careful account of Dr. Austin Flint, of Now York, in -his pamphlet, Rabelais as a Physiologist, rep. from New York Medical -Journal of June 29, 1901. - -[2081] Willis, p. 53. - -[2082] Letter to Farel, Aug. 20. 1553 (Letters, Eng. tr. ii, -399). Cp. Henry, ii, 195-96. - -[2083] Id. ch. xix. See the letter of Trie, given in Henry's Life -of Calvin (Eng. tr. ii, 181-85), with the admission that Trie was in -Calvin's counsels. Henry vainly endeavours to make light (pp. 181-82) -of Calvin's written words to Farel concerning Servetus: "Si venerit, -modo valeat mea autoritas, vivum exire nunquam patiar." Still, -it must in fairness be remembered that Trie, by his own account, -persuaded Calvin, who was reluctant, to his act of complicity with -the inquisitors of Lyons. Cp. Bossert, Calvin, pp. 160-64. - -[2084] Willis, ch. xx. Cp. pp. 457, 503. The defence of Calvin in -Mackenzie's Life (1809, p. 79) on the score that he was not likely -to communicate with Catholic officials does not meet the case as to -Trie. And cp. p. 83. - -[2085] Ten years after the death of Servetus, Calvin calls him a -"dog and wicked scoundrel" (Willis, p. 530; cp. Hist. of Servetus, -p. 214, citing Calvin's Comm. on Acts xx); and in his Commentary on -Genesis (i, 3, ed. 1838, p. 9) he says of him: "Latrat hic obscoenus -canis." And Servetus had asked his pardon at the end. - -[2086] White, Warfare of Science with Theology, 1896, i, 113; History -of Servetus, 1724, p. 93 sq.: Willis, Servetus and Calvin, p. 325. - -[2087] Wallace, Antitrinitarian Biography, i, 430. - -[2088] See Stähelin, Johannes Calvin, ii, 300-308. - -[2089] F. A. Cox. Life of Melanchthon, 1815, pp. 523-24; Willis, -pp. 47, 511. - -[2090] Table Talk, ch. 43. Cp. Michelet's Life of Luther, -Eng. tr. 1846, pp. 195-96; and Hallam, Lit. of Europe, i, -360-65. Michelet's later enthusiasm for Luther (Hist. de France, x, -ch. v, ed. 1884, pp. 96-97) is oblivious of many of the facts noted -in his earlier studies. - -[2091] Bayle, Art. Gribaud; Christie, Étienne Dolet, 2nd -ed. pp. 303-305. Wallace, Antitrinitarian Biography, ii, Art. 18. - -[2092] Benrath, Bernardino Ochino of Siena, Eng. tr. 1876. pp. 268-72, -287-92. - -[2093] McCrie, p. 230; Audin, ch. xxxv; Benrath, Bernardino Ochino, -p. 297. - -[2094] Cp. Pusey, Histor. Enquiry into Ger. Rationalism, 1828, p. 14 -sq.; Beard, p. 183. - -[2095] Stähelin, ii. 337. Biandrata went to Hungary, where, as we saw -(p. 421), he turned persecutor, and then Protestant. - -[2096] Mosheim, 16 Cent. sec. iii, pt. ii, ch. iv, § 6; Audin, -pp. 394-99; Aretius, Short Hist. of Valentinus Gentilis, Eng. tr. 1696; -Stähelin, ii, 338-45; Wallace, Antitrinitarian Biography, ii, Art. 20. - -[2097] See the Historical Account of his life and trial in the Harleian -Miscellany, iv, 168 sq. - -[2098] See Stähelin, ii, 293, 304, etc. - -[2099] Cp. Menzel, Geschichte der Deutschen, 3te Aufl. Cap. 417; -A. F. Pollard, in Cam. Mod. Hist., vol. ii, ch. vii, p. 223; The -Dynamics of Religion, pp. 6-8. - -[2100] See Beard, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 189-90, 196. The same avowal -was made in the eighteenth century by Mosheim (16 Cent. sec. iii, -pt. ii, § 5). - -[2101] F. A. Cox, Life of Melanchthon, 1815, p. 544, citing Adam, -Vitæ philosophorum (p. 934). Cp. pp. 528-29. - -[2102] K. von Raumer, as cited, pp. 32-37. - -[2103] Id. pp. 42-52; Pusey, as cited, p. 112. - -[2104] Dändliker, Geschichte der Schweiz, ii, 556-59, 622 sq., 728-29. - -[2105] See the extracts in Beard's Hibbert Lectures, pp. 340-41. - -[2106] Menzel, Geschichte der Deutschen, Cap. 417. - -[2107] Cp. Hamilton, Discussions in Philosophy and Literature, 1852, -pp. 493-94, note. - -[2108] Mosheim, Reid's ed. pp. 625-26. Such solutions were common in -papal polity. Id. p. 767. - -[2109] Bishop Schuster, Johann Kepler und die grossen kirchlichen -Streitfragen seiner Zeit, 1888, p. 178 sq. It is noteworthy that -Kepler's mother was sentenced for witchcraft, and saved by the -influence of her son. Johann Keppler's Leben und Werken nach neuerlich -aufgefundenen MSS., von G. L. C. Freiherrn von Breitschwert, 1831, -p. 97 sq. - -[2110] "There is much reason to believe that the fetters upon -scientific thought were closer under the strict interpretation of -Scripture by the early Protestants than they had been under the older -church" (White, Warfare of Science with Theology, i, 212). Concerning -the Protestant hostility to the Copernican system and to Kepler, -see Schuster, as cited, pp. 87 sq., 191 sq. - -[2111] White, as cited, i, 129. - -[2112] Id. i, 213. - -[2113] Id. p. 147. - -[2114] Menzel, Cap. 431; Dändliker, Geschichte der Schweiz, 1884, -ii, 743. The cantons of Glarus, Outer Appenzell, St. Gall, and the -Grisons formally rejected the Gregorian Calendar. Id. ib. Zschokke -(Des Schweizerlands Geschichte, 9te Ausg. 1853, p. 179) implies that -the Protestants in general ignored it. Ranke (Hist. of the Popes, -Bohn tr. 1908, i, 337) mentions that "all Catholic nations took part -in this reform." - -[2115] Blunt, Ref. of the Church of England, ed. 1892, ii, 76. Of the -twenty-six cathedrals in the reign of Henry VIII, thirteen had been -monastic churches, and these were "razed to the smallest possible -dimensions as to number and endowments." Id. p. 77. - -[2116] Strype's Memorials of Cranmer, ed. 1848, ii, 89. - -[2117] Blunt, i, 160-61. - -[2118] Original Letters relative to the English Reformation, Parker -Society, 1816, i, 66. - -[2119] Bishop Burnet (Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, Art. 18) -has given currency to the pretence that the words "saved by the -law" are meant to exclude the sense "saved in the law," the latter -salvation being allowed as possible. That there was no such thought on -the part of the framers of the Article is shown by the Latin version, -where the expression is precisely "in lege." Burnet prints the Latin, -yet utterly ignores its significance. - -[2120] Book II of the Utopia was written at Antwerp, during his six -months' stay there on an embassy. - -[2121] Bk. ii, sec. "Of the Religions" (Arber's ed. pp. 143-47; -Morley's ed. pp. 151-53). - -[2122] Green, Short History, ch. vi, § 4; 1881 ed. p. 311. Compare -Green's whole estimate. Michelet's hostile criticism (x, 356) is -surprisingly inept. For the elements of naturalism in the Utopia see -bk. ii, sections "Of their Journeying" and "Of the Religions." - -[2123] Cp. T. C. Grattan, The Netherlands, 1830, pp. 231-43. - -[2124] Who, as it happened, avowed that "religion was almost extinct" -in Europe at the time of the rise of the Lutheran and Calvinistic -heresies. Concio xxviii. Opera, vi, 296, ed. 1617, cited by Blunt, -Ref. of Church of England, ed. 1892, i, 4, note. - -[2125] Cp. The Works of Arminius, ed. by James Nichols, 1825, i, -580, note. - -[2126] Id. p. 581 note. - -[2127] Cp. Schuster, as cited, pp. 191 sq., 202 sq. - -[2128] Nichols's Arminius, i, p. 233. - -[2129] Hallam, Lit. of Europe, ii, 406-416; Pattison, Isaac Casaubon, -2nd ed. pp. 447-48. As to Casaubon's own intolerance, however, see -p. 446. - -[2130] Hallam, ii, 411, 416. - -[2131] Beard, Hibbert Lectures, p. 298. - -[2132] Bayle, Dictionnaire, art. Viret, note D. - -[2133] Calvin, scenting his heresy, warned him in 1552 (Bayle, -art. Marianus Socin, the first, note B); but they remained on -surprisingly good terms till Lelio's death in 1562. Cp. Stähelin, -Johannes Calvin, ii. 321-28. - -[2134] Cp. the English History of Servetus, 1724, p. 39, and Trechsel, -Lelio Sozzini und die Antitrinitarier seiner Zeit (Bd. ii. of Die -protestantischen Antitrinitarier), 1844, pp. 38-41. - -[2135] Cited by Trechsel, p. 42, note. - -[2136] Cp. Bayle, art. Ochin; Miss Lowndes, Michel de Montaigne, -p. 266; Owen, French Skeptics, p. 588; Benrath, Bernardino Ochino -of Siena, Eng. tr. 1876, pp. 268-72. McCrie mentions (Ref. in Italy, -p. 228, note) that Ochino's dialogue on polygamy has been translated -and published in England "by the friends of that practice." (In -1657. Rep. 1732.) - -[2137] Above, pp. 458-59, Sermons (orthodox) by Ochino were published -in English in 1548, and often reprinted. - -[2138] D'Ewes, Journals of Parliament in the Reign of Elizabeth, -1682, p. 65. - -[2139] See above, p. 459. - -[2140] The Scholemaster, Arber's rep. p. 82. - -[2141] E.g., work cited, pt. ii, Max. 1, and Max. 6, -end. Eng. tr. 1608, pp. 93, 128. - -[2142] Mark Pattison, Essay on Joseph Scaliger, in Essays, Routledge's -ed. i, 114. - -[2143] When Pattison declares that Italian curiosity had bred "not -secret unbelief but callous acquiescence" he sets up a spurious -antithesis; and when he generalizes that in Italy "men did not -disbelieve the truths of the Christian religion," he understates -the case. He errs equally in the opposite direction when he alleges -(ib. p. 141) that in the France of Montaigne "a philosophical -skepticism had become the creed of all thinking men." Such a difference -between France and Italy was impossible. - -[2144] See McCrie, Reformation in Italy, ed. 1856, pp. 96-99. - -[2145] Trechsel, Die protestantischen Antitrinitarier vor Faustus -Socinus, i (1839), 56; Mosheim, 16 Cent. 3rd sec. pt. ii, ch. iv, § 3. - -[2146] Hallam, Lit. of Europe, ii, 82. - -[2147] Art. Acontius, in Dict. of National -Biog. Cp. J. J. Tayler. Retrospect of the Religious Life of England, -2nd ed. pp. 205-206. As to the attack on latitudinarianism in the -Thirty-nine Articles, see above, p. 460. - -[2148] Bacon, Adv. of Learning, bk. i; Filum Labyrinthi, § 7 (Routledge -ed. pp. 50, 63, 200). - -[2149] Cp. Zeller, Hist. de l'Italie, pp. 400-12; Green, Short -Hist. ch. viii, § 2. - -[2150] McCrie, p. 164. It was said by Scaliger that "in the time -of Pius IV [between Paul IV and Pius V] people talked very freely -in Rome." Id. ib. note. "It was even considered characteristic -of good society in Rome to call the principles of Christianity in -question. 'One passes,' says P. Ant. Bandino, 'no longer for a man -of cultivation unless one put forth heterodox opinions concerning the -Christian faith.'" Ranke, Hist. of the Popes, Bohn, tr. ed. 1908, i, -58, citing Caracciolo's MS. Life of Paul IV. - -[2151] Hallam, ii, 116. - -[2152] Under the alternative titles of The Examination of Men's Wits -and A Trial of Wits. Rep. 1596, 1604, 1616. - -[2153] Carew's tr. ed. 1596, p. 15. - -[2154] Id. p. 17. - -[2155] Id. p. 19. - -[2156] According to Henri Estienne, Postell himself vended strange -heresies, one being to the effect that to make a good religion there -were needed three--the Christian, the Jewish, and the Turkish. Apologie -pour Hérodote, liv. i, ed. 1607, pp. 98-100. - -[2157] Published at Antwerp. It was reprinted in 1582, 1583, and 1590; -translated into Latin in 1583, and frequently reprinted in that form; -translated into English (begun by Sir Philip Sidney and completed by -Arthur Golding) in 1587, and in that form at least thrice reprinted -in blackletter. - -[2158] Ed. 1582, p. 18. Eng. tr. 1601, p. 10. - -[2159] Or even in modifying philosophic doctrine, save perhaps -as regards Descartes, later. Cp. Bartholmess, Hist. crit. des -doctr. relig. de la philos. moderne, 1855, i, 21-22. - -[2160] See Owen, Skeptics of the French Renaissance, pp. 631-36--a -fairer and more careful estimate, than that of Hallam, Lit. of Europe, -ii, 111-13. - -[2161] Essais, bk. ii, ch. xiii, ed. Firmin-Didot, vol. ii, 2-3; -King Lear, i, 2, near end; Les Amants Magnifiques, i, 2; iii, -1. Montaigne echoes Pliny (Hist. Nat. ii, 8), as Molière does Cicero, -De Divinatione, ii, 43. - -[2162] "Our religion," he writes, "is made to extirpate vices; it -protects, nourishes, and incites them" (Essais, liv. ii, ch. xii; -éd. Firmin-Didot, ii, 464). "There is no enmity so extreme as the -Christian." (I quote in general Florio's translation for the flavour's -sake; but it should be noted that he makes many small slips.) - -[2163] Owen was mistaken (Skeptics of the French Renaissance, -p. 414) in supposing that Montaigne spent several years over this -translation. By Montaigne's own account at the beginning of the -Apologie, it was done in a few days. Cp. Miss Lowndes's excellent -monograph, Michel de Montaigne, pp. 103, 106. - -[2164] Éd. Firmin-Didot, ii, 469. - -[2165] Miss Lowndes, p. 145. Cp. Champion, Introd. aux Essais de -Montaigne, 1900. - -[2166] Essais, liv. ii, ch. xii; liv. iii, ch. v. Ed. cited, i, 65; -ii, 309. - -[2167] For a view of Montaigne's development see M. Champion's -excellent Introduction--a work indispensable to a full understanding -of the Essais. - -[2168] Liv. ii, ch. xi. - -[2169] Cp. the Essais, liv. iii, ch. i (ed. cited, ii, 208). Owen gives -a somewhat misleading idea of the passage (French Skeptics, p. 486). - -[2170] Miss Lowndes, Michel de Montaigne, p. 131. Cp. Owen, p. 414. - -[2171] He was consistent enough to doubt the new cosmology of -Copernicus (Essais, as cited, i, 615); and he even made a rather -childish attack on the reform of the Calendar (liv. iii, chs. x, xi); -but he was a keen and convinced critic of the prevailing abuses in -law and education. Owen's discussion of his opinions is illuminating; -but that of Champion makes a still more searching analysis as regards -the conflicting tendencies in Montaigne. - -[2172] Liv. i, ch. liv. - -[2173] Liv. i, ch. xx, end. - -[2174] Liv. i, ch. xxii. - -[2175] Liv. ii, ch. ix. - -[2176] Liv. ii, ch. xvii. Ed. cited, ii, 58. - -[2177] Id. p. 59. - -[2178] Liv. iii, ch. xiii. Ed. cited, ii, 572. - -[2179] Cp. the clerical protests of Sterling (Lond. and -Westm. Rev. July, 1838, p. 346) and Dean Church (Oxford Essays, p. 279) -with the judgment of Champion, pp. 159-73. Sterling piously declares -that "All that we find in him [Montaigne] of Christianity would be -suitable to apes and dogs...." - -[2180] Liv. i, ch. xxii. Cp. liv. iii, ch. xi. - -[2181] Below, § 5. - -[2182] Liv. iii, ch. xi. - -[2183] Liv. iii, ch. xi. - -[2184] Cp. citations in Buckle, 3-vol. ed. ii, 18, note 42 -(1-vol. ed. p. 296); Locky. Rationalism, i, 92-95; and Perrens, -Les Libertins, p. 44. - -[2185] As to Henri IV see Perrens, p. 53. - -[2186] Not, as Owen states (French Skeptics, p. 569), the sister of -Francis I, who died when Charron was eight years old, but the daughter -of Henri II, and first wife of Henri of Navarre, afterwards Henri IV. - -[2187] Cp. Prof. Strowski, De Montaigne à Pascal, as cited, p. 170 -sq., and the Discours Chrétien of Charron--an extract from a letter -of 1589--published with the 1609 ed. of the Sagesse. - -[2188] Cp. Sainte-Beuve, as cited by Owen, p. 571, note, and Owen's -own words, p. 572. - -[2189] Owen, p. 571. Cp. pp. 573, 574. - -[2190] Bayle, art. Charron. "A brutal atheism" is the account of -Charron's doctrine given by the Jesuit Garasse. Cp. Perrens, p. 57. - -[2191] Owen (p. 570) comes to this conclusion after carefully collating -the editions. Cp. p. 587, note. The whole of the alterations, including -those proposed by President Jeannin, will be found set forth in the -edition of 1607, and the reprints of that. One of the modified passages -(first ed. p. 257; ed. 1609, p. 785) is the Montaignesque comment -(noted by Prof. Strowski, p. 195) on the fashion in which men's -religion is determined by their place of birth. "C'est du Montaigne -aggravé," complains M. Strowski. And it is left unchanged in substance. - -[2192] "The first ... attempt made in a modern language to construct -a system of morals without the aid of theology" (3-vol. ed. ii, 19; -1-vol. ed. p. 296). - -[2193] Cp. Owen, pp. 580-85. - -[2194] Buckle, 3-vol. ed. ii, 21; 1-vol. ed. p. 297. - -[2195] E.g., the preface to the first edition, ad init. - -[2196] E.g., liv. ii, ch. xxviii of revised ed. (ed. 1609, p. 399). - -[2197] See the biog. pref. of Labitte to the Charpentier edition, -p. xxv. The Satyre in its own turn freely charges atheism and -incest on Leaguers; e.g., the Harangue de M. de Lyon, ed. cited, -pp. 79, 86. This was by Rapin, whom Garasse particularly accuses of -libertinage. See the Doctrine Curieuse, as cited, p. 124. - -[2198] It had to be four times reprinted in a few weeks; and the -subsequent editions are innumerable. Ever since its issue it has been -an anti-fanatical force in France. - -[2199] Cp. Ch. Read's introd. to ed. 1886 of the Satyre, p. iii. (An -exact reprint.) The Satyre anticipates (ed. Read, p. 281; ed. Labitte, -p. 227) the modern saying that the worst peace is better than the -best war. - -[2200] De Thou, T. v, liv. 98, p. 63, cited in ed. 1699 of the -Satyre, p. 489. De Thou was one of the Catholics who loathed the -savagery of the Church; and was accordingly branded by the pope as -a heretic. Buckle, 1-vol. ed. pp. 291, 300, notes. - -[2201] M. Labitte, himself a Catholic, speaks of Garasse's "forfanterie -habituelle" and "ton d'insolence sincère qui déguise tant de mensonges" -(Pref. cited, p. xxxi.). Prof. Strowski (p. 130) admits too that "Il -ne faut pas trop s'attacher aux révélations sensationelles du père -Garasse: les maximes qu'il prête aux beaux esprits, il les leur prête -en effet, elles ne leur appartient pas toutes. La société secrète, -la Confrérie des Bouteilles, ou il les dit engagés, est un invention -de sa verve bouffonne." But the Professor, with a "N'importe!", -forgives him, and trades on his matter. - -[2202] Owen, French Skeptics, p. 659. Cp. Lecky, Rationalism, i, 97, -citing Maury, as to the resistance of libertins to the superstition -about witchcraft. - -[2203] Doctrine Curieuse des Beaux Esprits, as cited, p. 208. This is -one of the passages which fully explain the opinion of the orthodox of -that age that Garasse "helped rather than hindered atheism" (Reimmann, -Hist. Atheismi, 1725, p. 408). - -[2204] Mersenne ascribed the quatrains to a skilled -controversialist. Quæstiones, pref. - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of Freethought Ancient -and Modern, Volume 1 of 2, by John M. 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