A notable attempt has been repeatedly made for example, by the famous Dr. Coward, by Dodwell, and by some other more obscure writers to prove that the Fathers of the Greek Church, in opposition to the Latin Fathers, denied the consciousness of the soul during the interval from death to the resurrection, and maintained that the soul died with the body and would be restored with it at the last day. But this is an error arising from the misinterpretation of the figurative terms in which the Greek Fathers express themselves. Tatian, Justin, Theophilus, and Irenaus do not differ from the others in reality, but only in words. The opinion that the soul is literally mortal is erroneously attributed to those Greek Fathers, who in truth no more held it than Tertullian did. "The death" they mean is, to borrow their own language, "deprived of the rays of Divine light, to bear a deathly immortality," (in immortalitate mortem tolerantes,) an eternal existence in the ghostly under world.18 The con
15 They feel, as Novatian says, (De Trinitate, 1,) a prajudicium futuri judicii. See also Ernesti, Excurs. de Veter. Patrum Opinione de Statu Medio Animor. a Corpore sejunctorum. In his Lect. Acad. in Ep. ad Hebr.
16 E. g., see Ambrose, De Paradiso.
17 Adv. Hares., lib. v. cap. v.
18 See this point ably argued in an academic dissertation published at Konigsberg, 1827, bearing the t.i.tle "Antiquissimorum Ecclesia Grsecte Patrum de Immortalitate Anima Sententia Recensentur."
They held that the inner man was originally a spirit [non-ASCII characters omitted] and a soul [non-ASCII characters omitted]
blended and immortal, that is, indestructibly united and blessed.
But by sin the soul loses the spirit and becomes subject to death.
that is, to ignorance of its Divine origin, alienation from G.o.d, darkness, and an abode in Hades. By the influences flowing from the mission of Christ, man is elevated again to conscious communion with G.o.d, and the spirit is restored to the soul. "Si rest.i.tuitur, manet [non-ASCII characters omitted] fit autem [non-ASCII characters omitted]; si non rest.i.tuitur, manet [non-ASCII characters omitted], fit autem [non-ASCII characters omitted], quod haud differt a morte."
cordant doctrine of the Fathers as to the intermediate state of the dead was that, with the exception of a few admitted to Paradise, they were in the under world waiting the fulness of time, when the world should be judged and their final destination be a.s.signed to them.
As Tertullian says, "const.i.tuimus omnem animam apud inferos seguestrari in diem Domini."
Finally, the Fathers expected that Christ would return from heaven, hold a general day of judgment, and consummate all things.
The earliest disciples seem to have looked anxiously, almost from hour to hour, for that awful crisis. But, as years rolled on and the last apostle died, and it came not, the date was fixed more remotely; and, as other years pa.s.sed away, and still no clear signs of its arrival appeared, the date grew more and more indefinite. Some still looked for the solemn dawn speedily to break; others a.s.signed it to the year 1000; others left the time utterly vague; but none gave up the doctrine. All agreed that sooner or later a time would come when the deep sky would open, and Christ, clothed in terrors and surrounded by pomp of angels, would alight on the globe, when:
"The angel of the trumpet Shall split the charnel earth With his blast so clear and brave, And quicken the charnel birth At the roots of the grave, Till the dead all stand erect."
Augustine, representing the catholic faith, says, "The coming of Elias, the conversion of the Jews, Antichrist"s persecution, the setting up of Christ"s tribunal, the raising of the dead, the severing of the good and the bad, the burning of the world, and its renovation, this is the destined order of events."19 The saved were to be transported bodily to the eternal bliss of heaven; the d.a.m.ned, in like manner, were to be banished forever to a fiery h.e.l.l in the centre of the earth, there to endure uncomprehended agonies, both physical and spiritual, without any respite, without any end. There were important, and for a considerable period quite extensive, exceptions, to the belief in this last dogma: nevertheless, such was undeniably the prevailing view, the orthodox doctrine, of the patristic Church. The strict literality with which these doctrines were held is strikingly shown in Jerome"s artless question: "If the dead be not raised with flesh and bones, how can the d.a.m.ned, after the judgment, gnash their teeth in h.e.l.l?"
During the period now under consideration there were great fluctuations, growths, changes, of opinion on three subjects in regard to which the public creeds did not prevent all freedom of thought by laying down definite propositions. We refer to baptism, the millennium, and purgatory. Christian baptism was first simply a rite of initiation into the Christian religion. Then it became more distinctly a symbol of faith in Christ and in his gospel, and an emblem of a new birth. Next it was imagined to be literally efficacious to
19 De Civ. Del, lib. xx. cap. 30, sect. 5.
personal salvation, solving the chains of the devil, washing off original sin, and opening the door of heaven.20 To trace the doctrine through its historical variations and its logical windings would require a large volume, and is not requisite for our present purpose.
Almost all the early Fathers believingly looked for a millennium, a reign of Christ on earth with his saints for a thousand years.
Daille has shown that this belief was generally held, though with great diversities of conception as to the form and features of the doctrine.21 It was a Jewish notion which crept among the Christians of the first century and has been transmitted even to the present day. Some supposed the millennium would precede the destruction of the world, others that it would follow that terrible event, after a general renovation. None but the faithful would have part in it; and at its close they would pa.s.s up to heaven. Irenaus quotes a tradition, delivered by Papias, that "in the millennium each vine will bear ten thousand branches, each branch ten thousand twigs, each twig ten thousand cl.u.s.ters, each cl.u.s.ter ten thousand grapes, each grape yielding a hogshead of wine; and if any one plucks a grape its neighbors will cry, Take me: I am better!" This, of course, was a metaphor to show what the plenty and the joy of those times would be. According to the heretics Cerinthus and Marcion, the millennium was to consist in an abundance of all sorts of sensual riches and delights. Many of the orthodox Fathers held the same view, but less grossly; while others made its splendors and its pleasures mental and moral.22 Origen attacked the whole doctrine with vehemence and cogency. His admirers continued the warfare after him, and the belief in this celestial Cocaigne suffered much damage and sank into comparative neglect. The subject rose into importance again at the approaching close of the first chiliad of Christianity, but soon died away as the excitement of that ominous epoch pa.s.sed with equal disappointment to the hopes and the fears of the believers. A galvanized controversy has been carried on about it again in the present century, chiefly excited by the modern sect of Second Adventists. Large volumes have recently appeared, princ.i.p.ally aiming to decide whether the millennium is to precede or to follow the second coming of Christ! 23 The doctrine itself is a Jewish Christian figment supported only by a shadowy basis of fancy. The truth contained in it, though mutilated and disguised, is that when the religion of Christ is truly enthroned over the earth, when his real teachings and life are followed, the kingdom of G.o.d will indeed cover the world, and not for a thousand years only, but unimaginable glory and happiness shall fill the dwellings of the successive generations of men forever.24
The doctrine of a purgatory a place intermediate between Paradise and h.e.l.l, where souls not too sinful were temporarily punished, and where their condition and stay were in the power of the Church on earth, a doctrine which in the Middle Age became practically
20 Neander, Planting and Training, Eng. trans. p. 102.
21 De Usu Patrum, lib. ii. cap. 4.
22 Munscher, Entwickelung der Lehre vom Tausendjahrigen Reiche in den Drei Ersten Jahrhunderten. In Henke"s Magaz. b. vi. ss. 233 254.
23 See e. g. The End, by Dr. c.u.mming. The Second Advent, by D.
Brown.
24 Bush, On the Millennium. Bishop Russell, Discourses on the Millennium. Carroll, Geschichte des Chiliasmus.
the foremost instrument of ecclesiastical influence and income was through the age of the Fathers gradually a.s.suming shape and firmness. It seems to have been first openly avowed as a Church dogma and effectively organized as a working power by Pope Gregory the Great, in the latter part of the sixth century.25 No more needs to be said here, as the subject more properly belongs to the next chapter.
It but remains in close to notice those opinions relating to the future life which were generally condemned as heresies by the Fathers. One of the earliest of these was the destruction of the intermediate state and the denial of the general judgment by the a.s.sertion, which Paul charges so early as in his day upon Hymeneus and Philetus, "that the resurrection has pa.s.sed already;" that is, that the soul, when it leaves the body, pa.s.ses immediately to its final destination. This opinion reappeared faintly at intervals, but obtained very little prevalence in the early ages of the Church. Hierax, an author who lived at Leontopolis in Egypt early in the fourth century, denied the resurrection of the body, and excluded from the kingdom of heaven all who were married and all who died before becoming moral agents.
Another heretical notion which attracted some attention was the opposite extreme from the foregoing, namely, that the soul totally dies with the body, and will be restored to life with it in the general resurrection at the end of the world; an opinion held by an Arabian sect of Christians, who were vanquished in debate upon it by Origen, and renounced it.26
Still another doctrine known among the Fathers was the belief that Christ, when he descended into the under world, saved and led away in triumph all who were there, Jews, pagans, good, bad, all, indiscriminately. This is number seventy nine in Augustine"s list of the heresies. And there is now extant among the writings of Pope Boniface VI, of the ninth century, a letter furiously a.s.sailing a man who had recently maintained this "d.a.m.nable doctrine."
The numerous Gnostic sects represented by Valentinus, Cerinthus, Marcion, Basilides, and other less prominent names, held a system of speculation copious, complex, and of intensely Oriental character. That portion of it directly connected with our subject may be stated in few words. They taught that all souls pre existed in a world of pure light, but, sinning through the instigation and craft of demons, they fell, were mixed with darkness and matter, and bound in bodies. Through sensual l.u.s.ts and ignorance, they were doomed to suffer after death in h.e.l.l for various periods, and then to be born again. Jehovah was the enemy of the true G.o.d, and was the builder of this world and of h.e.l.l, wherein he contrives to keep his victims imprisoned by deceiving them to worship him and to live in errors and indulgences. Christ came, they said, to reveal the true G.o.d, unmask the infernal character and wiles of Jehovah, rescue those whom he had cruelly shut up in h.e.l.l, and teach men the real way of salvation. Accordingly, Marcion declared that when Christ descended into the under world he released and took into his own kingdom Cain, and the Sodomites, and all the
25 Flugge, Geschichte der Lehre vom Zustande des Menschen nach dem Tode in der Christlichen Kirche, absch. v. ss. 320-352.
26 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 37.
Gentiles who had refused to obey the demon worshipped by the Jews, but left there, unsaved, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and the other patriarchs, together with all the prophets.27 The Gnostics agreed in attributing evil to matter, and made the means of redemption to consist in fastings and scourgings of the flesh, with denial of all its cravings, and in lofty spiritual contemplations. Of course, with one accord they vehemently a.s.sailed the dogma of the resurrection of the flesh. Their views, too, were inconsistent with the strict eternity of future h.e.l.l punishments. The fundamental basis of their system was the same as that of nearly all the Oriental philosophies and religions, requiring an ascetic war against the world of sense. The notion that the body is evil, and the cause of evil, was rife even among the orthodox Fathers; but they stopped guardedly far short of the extreme to which the Gnostics carried it, and indignantly rejected all the strange imaginations which those heretics had devised to explain the subject of evil in a systematic manner.28 Augustine said, "If we say all sin comes from the flesh, we make the fleshless devil sinless!" Hermogenes, some of whose views at least were tinged with Gnosticism, believed the abyss of h.e.l.l was formed by the confluence of matter, and that the devil and all his demons would at last be utterly resolved into matter.29
The theological system of the Manichaan sect was in some of its cardinal principles almost identical with those of the Gnostics, but it was still more imaginative and elaborate.30 It started with the Persian doctrine of two antagonist deities, one dwelling with good spirits in a world of light and love, the other with demons in a realm of darkness and horror. Upon a time the latter, sallying forth, discovered, far away in the vastness of s.p.a.ce, the world of light. They immediately a.s.sailed it. They were conquered after a terrible struggle and driven back; but they bore with them captive a mult.i.tude of the celestial souls, whom they instantly mixed with darkness and gross matter. The good G.o.d built this world of mingled light and darkness to afford these imprisoned souls an opportunity to purge themselves and be restored to him.
In arranging the material substances to form the earth, a ma.s.s of evil fire, with no particle of good in it, was found. It had been left in their flight by the vanquished princes of darkness. This was cast out of the world and shut up somewhere in the dark air, and is the Manichaan h.e.l.l, presided over by the king of the demons. If a soul, while in the body, mortify the flesh, observe a severe ascetic moral discipline, fix its thoughts, affections, and prayers on G.o.d and its native home, it will on leaving the body return to the celestial light. But if it neglect these duties and become more deeply entangled in the toils of depraved matter, it is cast into the awful fire of h.e.l.l, where the cleansing flames of torture partially purify it; and then it is born again and put on a new trial. If after ten successive births twice in each of five different forms the soul be still unreclaimed, then it is permanently remanded to the furnace of h.e.l.l. At last, when all the celestial souls seized by the princes of darkness have returned to G.o.d, save those just mentioned, this world will be burned. Then the children
27 Irenaus, Adv. Herres., lib. i. cap. 22.
28 Account of the Gnostic Sects, in Moshelm"s Comm., II. Century, sect. 65.
29 Lardner, Hist. of Heretics, ch. xviii. sect. 9.
30 Baur, Das Manichaische Religionssystem.
of G.o.d will lead a life of everlasting blessedness with him in their native land of light; the prince of evil, with his fiends, will exist wretchedly in their original realm of darkness. Then all those souls whose salvation is hopeless shall be drawn out of h.e.l.l and be placed as a cordon of watchmen and a phalanx of soldiers entirely around the world of darkness, to guard its frontiers forever and to see that its miserable inhabitants never again come forth to invade the kingdom of light.31
The Christian after Christ"s own pattern, trusting that when the soul left the body it would find a home in some other realm of G.o.d"s universe where its experience would be according to its deserts, capacity, and fittedness, sought to do the Father"s will in the present, and for the future committed himself in faith and love to the Father"s disposal. The apostolic Christian, conceiving that Christ would soon return to raise the dead and reward his own, eagerly looked for the arrival of that day, and strove that he might be among the saints who, delivered or exempt from the Hadean imprisonment, should reign with the triumphant Messiah on earth and accompany him back to heaven. The patristic Christian, looking forward to the divided under world where all the dead must spend the interval from their decease to the general resurrection, shuddered at the thought of Gehenna, and wrestled and prayed that his tarrying might be in Paradise until Christ should summon his chosen ones, justified from the great tribunal, to the Father"s presence. The Manichaan Christian, believing the soul to be imprisoned in matter by demons who fought against G.o.d in a previous life, struggled, by fasting, thought, prayer, and penance, to rescue the spirit from its fleshly entanglements, from all worldly snares and illusions, that it might be freed from the necessity of any further abode in a material body, and, on the dissolution of its present tabernacle, might soar to its native light in the blissful pleroma of eternal being.
31 Mosheim, Comm., III. Century, sects. 44-52.
CHAPTER II.
MEDIAVAL DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.
THE period of time covered by the present chapter reaches from the close of the tenth century to the middle of the sixteenth, from the first full establishment of the Roman Catholic theology and the last general expectation of the immediate end of the world to the commencing decline of mediaval faith and the successful inauguration of the Protestant Reformation. The princ.i.p.al mental characteristic of that age, especially in regard to the subject of the future life, was fear. "Never," says Michelet, "can we know in what terrors the Middle Age lived." There was all abroad a living fear of men, fear of the State, fear of the Church, fear of G.o.d, fear of the devil, fear of h.e.l.l, fear of death. Preaching consisted very much in the invitation, "Submit to the guidance of the Church while you live," enforced by the threat, "or you shall go to h.e.l.l when you die." Christianity was practically reduced to some cruel metaphysical dogmas, a mechanical device for rescuing the devil"s captives from him, and a system of ritual magic in the hands of a priesthood who wielded an authority of supernatural terrors over a credulous and shuddering laity. It is true that the genuine spirit and contents of Christianity were never wholly suppressed. The love of G.o.d, the blessed mediation of the benignant Jesus, the lowly delights of the Beat.i.tudes, the redeeming a.s.surance of pardon, the consoling, triumphant expectation of heaven, were never utterly banished even from the believers of the Dark Age. Undoubtedly many a guilty but repentant soul found forgiveness and rest, many a meek and spotless breast was filled with pious rapture, many a dying disciple was comforted and inspired, by the good tidings proclaimed from priestly lips even then. No doubt the sacred awe and guarded peace surrounding their precincts, the divine lessons inculcated within their walls, the pathetic prayers breathed before their altars, the traditions of saintly men and women who had drawn angelic visitants down to their cells and had risen long ago to be angels themselves, the strains of unearthly melody bearing the hearts of the kneeling crowd into eternity, no doubt these often made cathedral and convent seem "islands of sanct.i.ty amidst the wild, roaring, G.o.dless sea of the world." Still, the chief general feeling of the time in relation to the future life was unquestionably fear springing from belief, the wedlock of superst.i.tious faith and horror.
During the six centuries now under review the Roman Catholic Church and theology were the only Christianity publicly recognised. The heretics were few and powerless, and the papal system had full sway. Since the early part of the period specified, the working theology of the Roman Church has undergone but few, and, as pertaining to our subject, unimportant, changes or developments. Previous to that time her doctrinal scheme was inchoate, gradually a.s.similating foreign elements and developing itself step by step. The princ.i.p.al changes now concerning us to notice in the pa.s.sage from patristic eschatology as deducible, for instance, from the works of Chrysostom, or as seen in the "Apostles" Creed" to mediaval eschatology as displayed in the "Summa" of Thomas Aquinas or in the Catechism of Trent are these.
The supposit.i.tious details of the under world have been definitely arranged in greater subdivision; heaven has been opened for the regular admission of certain souls; the loose notions about purgatory have been completed and consolidated; and the whole combined scheme has been organized as a working instrument of ecclesiastical power and profit.
These changes seem to have been wrought out, first, by continual a.s.similations of Christianity to paganism,1 both in doctrine and ceremony, to win over the heathen; and, secondly, by modifications and growths to meet the exigencies of doctrinal consistency and practical efficiency, exigencies repeatedly arising from philosophical discussion and political opposition.
The degree in which papal Christianity was conformed to the prejudices and customs of the heathen believers, whose allegiance was sought, is astonishing. It extended to hundreds of particulars, from the most fundamental principles of theological speculation to the most trivial details of ritual service. We shall mention only a few instances of this kind immediately belonging to the subject we are treating. In the first place, the hierophant in the pagan Mysteries, and the initiatory rites, were the prototypes of the Roman Catholic bishop and the ceremonies under his direction.2 Christian baptism was made to be the same as the pagan initiation: both were supposed to cleanse from sin and to secure for their subject a better fate in the future life: they were both, therefore, sometimes delayed until just before death.3 The custom of initiating children into the Mysteries was also common, as infant baptism became.4 When the public treasury was low, the magistrates sometimes raised a fund by recourse to the initiating fees of the Mysteries, as the Christian popes afterwards collected money from the sale of pardons.
In the second place, the Roman Catholic canonization was the same as the pagan apotheosis. Among the Gentiles, the ma.s.s of mankind were supposed to descend to Hades at death; but a few favored ones were raised to the sky, deified, and a sort of worship paid to them. So the Roman Church taught that nearly all souls pa.s.sed to the subterranean abodes, but that martyrs and saints were admitted to heaven and might lawfully be prayed to.5
Thirdly, the heathen under world was subdivided into several regions, wherein different persons were disposed according to their deserts. The worst criminals were in the everlasting penal fire of Tartarus; the best heroes and sages were in the calm meadows of Elysium; the hapless children were detained in the dusky borders outside the grim realm of torture; and there was a purgatorial place where those not too guilty were cleansed from their stains. In like manner, the Romanist theologians divided the under world into four parts: h.e.l.l for the final abode of the stubbornly wicked; one limbo for the painless, contented tarrying of the good patriarchs who died before the advent of Christ had made salvation possible, and another limbo for the sad and pallid resting place of those children who died unbaptized; purgatory, in which expiation is offered in agony for sins committed on earth and unatoned for.6