760 See the account of these proceedings, and of the very remarkable speech of Postumius, in Livy, x.x.xix. 8-19. Postumius notices the old prohibition of foreign rites, and thus explains it:-"Judicabant enim prudentissimi viri omnis divini humanique juris, nihil aeque dissolvendae religionis esse, quam ubi non patrio sed externo ritu sacrificaretur." The Senate, though suppressing these rites on account of the outrageous immoralities connected with them, decreed, that if any one thought it a matter of religious duty to perform religious ceremonies to Bacchus, he should be allowed to do so on applying for permission to the Senate, provided there were not more than five a.s.sistants, no common purse, and no presiding priest.
761 Val. Max. i. 3.
762 See Dion Ca.s.sius, xl. 47; xlii. 26; xlvii. 15; liv. 6.
763 Joseph. _Antiq._ xviii. 3.
764 Tacit. _Annal._ ii. 85.
765 Tacitus relates (_Ann._ xi. 15) that under Claudius a senatus consultus ordered the pontiffs to take care that the old Roman (or, more properly, Etruscan) system of divination was observed, since the influx of foreign superst.i.tions had led to its disuse; but it does not appear that this measure was intended to interfere with any other form of worship.
766 "Sacrosanctam istam civitatem accedo."-Apuleius, _Metam._ lib. x. It is said that there were at one time no less than 420 aedes sacrae in Rome. Nieupoort, _De Ritibus Romanorum_ (1716), p. 276.
767 Euseb. _Praep. Evang._ iv. 1. Fontenelle says very truly, "Il y a lieu de croire que chez les payens la religion n"estoit qu"une pratique, dont la speculation estoit indifferente. Faites comme les autres et croyez ce qu"il vous plaira."-_Hist. des Oracles_, p. 95.
It was a saying of Tiberius, that it is for the G.o.ds to care for the injuries done to them: "Deorum injurias diis curae."-Tacit. _Annal._ i. 73.
768 The most melancholy modern instance I remember is a letter of Hume to a young man who was thinking of taking orders, but who, in the course of his studies, became a complete sceptic. Hume strongly advised him not to allow this consideration to interfere with his career (Burton, _Life of Hume_, vol. ii. pp. 187, 188.) The utilitarian principles of the philosopher were doubtless at the root of his judgment.
_ 769 De Divinat._ ii. 33; _De Nat. Deor._ ii. 3.
770 "Quae omnia sapiens servabit tanquam legibus jussa non tanquam diis grata.... Meminerimus cultum ejus magis ad morem quam ad rem pertinere."-St. Aug. _De Civ. Dei_, vi. 10. St. Augustine denounces this view with great power. See, too, Lactantius. _Inst. Div._ ii.
3.
_ 771 Enchirid._ x.x.xi.
772 This is noticed by Philo.
773 The ship in which the atheist Diagoras sailed was once nearly wrecked by a tempest, and the sailors declared that it was a just retribution from the G.o.ds because they had received the philosopher into their vessel. Diagoras, pointing to the other ships that were tossed by the same storm, asked whether they imagined there was a Diagoras in each. (_Cic. De Nat. Deor._ iii. 37.)
774 The vestal Oppia was put to death because the diviners attributed to her unchast.i.ty certain "prodigies in the heavens," that had alarmed the people at the beginning of the war with Veii. (Livy, ii. 42.) The vestal Urbinia was buried alive on account of a plague that had fallen upon the Roman women, which was attributed to her incontinence, and which is said to have ceased suddenly upon her execution. (Dion. Halicar. ix.)
775 Pliny, in his famous letter to Trajan about the Christians, notices that this had been the case in Bithynia.
776 Tert. _Apol._ xl. See, too, Cyprian, _contra Demetrian._, and Arn.o.bius, _Apol._ lib. i.
777 St. Aug. _De Civ. Dei_, ii. 3.
778 Instances of this kind are given by Tertullian _Ad Scapulam_, and the whole treatise _On the Deaths of the Persecutors_, attributed to Lactantius, is a development of the same theory. St. Cyprian"s treatise against Demetria.n.u.s throws much light on the mode of thought of the Christians of his time. In the later historians, anecdotes of adversaries of the Church dying horrible deaths became very numerous. They were said especially to have been eaten by worms. Many examples of this kind are collected by Jortin. (_Remarks on Eccles. Hist._ vol. i. p. 432.)
779 "It is remarkable, in all the proclamations and doc.u.ments which Eusebius a.s.signs to Constantine, some even written by his own hand, how, almost exclusively, he dwells on this worldly superiority of the G.o.d adored by the Christians over those of the heathens, and the visible temporal advantages which attend on the worship of Christianity. His own victory, and the disasters of his enemies, are his conclusive evidences of Christianity."-Milman, _Hist. of Early Christianity_ (ed. 1867), vol. ii. p. 327. "It was a standing argument of Athanasius, that the death of Arius was a sufficient refutation of his heresy."-Ibid. p. 382.
780 Socrates, _Eccl. Hist._, vii. 30.
781 Greg. Tur. ii. 30, 31. Clovis wrote to St. Avitus, "Your faith is our victory."
782 Milman"s _Latin Christianity_ (ed. 1867), vol. ii. pp. 236-245.
783 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 248.
_ 784 Ep._ xl.
785 "An diutius perferimus mutari temporum vices, irata cli temperie?
Quae Paganorum exacerbata perfidia nescit naturae libramenta servare.
Unde enim ver solitam gratiam abjuravit? unde aestas, messe jejuna, laboriosum agricolam in spe dest.i.tuit aristarum? unde hyemis intemperata ferocitas uberitatem terrarum penetrabili frigore sterilitatis laesione d.a.m.navit? nisi quod ad impietatis vindictam transit lege sua naturae decretum."-Novell. lii. Theodos. _De Judaeis, Samaritanis, et Haereticis_.
786 Milman"s _Latin Christianity_ vol. ii. p. 354.
_ 787 Demonomanie des Sorciers_, p. 152.
788 See a curious instance in Bayle"s _Dictionary_, art. "Vergerius."
789 Pliny, Ep. x. 43. Trajan noticed that Nicomedia was peculiarly turbulent. On the edict against the hetaeriae, or a.s.sociations, see _Ep._ x. 97.
790 All the apologists are full of these charges. The chief pa.s.sages have been collected in that very useful and learned work, Kortholt, _De Calumniis contra Christianos_. (Cologne, 1683.)
791 Justin Martyr tells us it was the brave deaths of the Christians that converted him. (_Apol._ ii. 12.)
792 Peregrinus.
_ 793 Ep._ x. 97.
_ 794 Ep._ ii.
795 Juvenal describes the popular estimate of the Jews:-
"Tradidit arcano quodcunque volumine Moses; Non monstrare vias, eadem nisi sacra colenti, Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos."
_Sat._ xix. 102-105.
It is not true that the Mosaic law contains these precepts.
796 See Merivale"s _Hist. of Rome_, vol. viii. p. 176.
797 See Justin Martyr, _Trypho_, xvii.
798 Justin Martyr, _Apol._ i. 26.
799 Eusebius expressly notices that the licentiousness of the sect of Carpocrates occasioned calumnies against the whole of the Christian body. (iv. 7.) A number of pa.s.sages from the Fathers describing the immorality of these heretics are referred to by Cave, _Primitive Christianity_, part ii. ch. v.
800 Epiphanius, _Adv. Haer._ lib. i. Haer. 26. The charge of murdering children, and especially infants, occupies a very prominent place among the recriminations of religionists. The Pagans, as we have seen, brought it against the Christians, and the orthodox against some of the early heretics. The Christians accused Julian of murdering infants for magical purposes, and the bed of the Orontes was said to have been choked with their bodies. The accusation was then commonly directed against the Jews, against the witches, and against the mid-wives, who were supposed to be in confederation with the witches.
801 See an example in Eusebius, iii. 32. After the triumph of Christianity the Arian heretics appear to have been accustomed to bring accusations of immorality against the Catholics. They procured the deposition of St. Eustathius, Bishop of Antioch, by suborning a prost.i.tute to accuse him of being the father of her child. The woman afterwards, on her death-bed, confessed the imposture. (Theodor.
_Hist._ i. 21-22.) They also accused St. Athanasius of murder and unchast.i.ty, both of which charges he most triumphantly repelled.
(Ibid. i. 30.)
802 The great exertions and success of the Christians in making female converts is indignantly noticed by Celsus (_Origen_) and by the Pagan interlocutor in Minucius Felix (_Octavius_), and a more minute examination of ecclesiastical history amply confirms their statements. I shall have in a future chapter to revert to this matter. Tertullian graphically describes the anger of a man he knew, at the conversion of his wife, and declares he would rather have had her "a prost.i.tute than a Christian." (_Ad Nationes_, i. 4.) He also mentions a governor of Cappadocia, named Herminia.n.u.s, whose motive for persecuting the Christians was his anger at the conversion of his wife, and who, in consequence of his having persecuted, was devoured by worms. (_Ad Scapul._ 3.)
803 "Matronarum Auriscalpius." The t.i.tle was given to Pope St. Damasus.
See Jortin"s _Remarks on Ecclesiastical History_, vol. ii. p. 27.