CHAPTER IV
[1] The Farmer"s Calendar, given in the accompanying _Book of Readings_ (R. 14), ill.u.s.trates very well the G.o.ds and sacrifices for one phase of Roman life. Petronius, in his Satires, says, "Our country is so full of divinities that it is much easier to find a G.o.d than a man."
[2] "The chief objects of pagan religion were to foretell the future, to explain the universe, to avert calamity, and to obtain the a.s.sistance of the G.o.ds. They contained no instruments of moral teaching a.n.a.logous to our inst.i.tution of preaching, or to the moral preparation for the reception of the sacrament, or to confession, or to the reading of the Bible, or to religious education, or to united prayer for spiritual benefits. To make men virtuous was no more the function of the priest than of the physician." (Lecky, W. E. H., _History of European Morals_, chap, iv.)
[3] Seneca (4-65 A.D.), the tutor of the Emperor Nero, and the Greek freedman Epictetus (d. 100 A.D.) both expounded Stoicism at Rome during the first Christian century, and the _Thoughts_ of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180 A.D.) represents one of the finest expositions of the application of this philosophy to the problems of human life.
[4] See Proverbs, x.x.xi, for a good statement of the ancient Hebrew ideal of womanhood.
[5] This collective term is applied to the first five books of the Old Testament, and includes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These five books form a wonderful collection of the historical and legal material relating to the wanderings and experiences and practices of the people.
[6] Chapter 1 of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew gives, in detail (1-16), the genealogy of Jesus, concluding with the following verse:
"17. So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations."
[7] To many of these churches he wrote a series of epistles. These const.i.tute a little more than one fourth of the New Testament. See accompanying _Book of Readings_ (or Romans, I, 1-17) for the introductory part of Paul"s Epistle to the Romans.
[8] "Its missionaries were Jews, a turbulent race, not to be a.s.similated, and as much despised and hated by pagan Rome as by the mediaeval Christians. Wherever it attracted any notice, therefore, it seems to have been regarded as some rebel faction of the Jews, gone mad upon some obscure point of the national superst.i.tion--an outcast sect of an outcast race." (Adams, G. B., _Civilization during the Middle Ages_, p. 39.)
[9] "Starting from an insignificant province, from a despised race, proclaimed by a mere handful of ignorant workmen, demanding self-control and renunciation before unheard of, certain to arouse in time powerful enemies in the highly cultivated and critical society which it attacked, the odds against it were tremendous." (Ibid., p. 41.)
[10] "It is not easy to imagine how, in the face of an Asia Minor, a Greece, an Italy the Roman split up into a hundred small republics; of a Gaul, a Spain, an Africa, an Egypt, in possession of their old national inst.i.tutions, the apostles could have succeeded, or even how their project could have been started. The unity of the Empire was a condition precedent of all religious proselytism on a grand scale if it was to place itself above the nationalities." (Renan, E., _Hibbert Lectures, 1880; Influence of Rome on the Christian Church_.)
[11] In Acts xxv, 1-12, it is recorded that the Apostle Paul, accused by the Jews and virtually on trial for his life before the provincial governor Festus, fell back on his Roman citizenship and successfully "appealed to Caesar." (See footnote 3, page 57.)
[12] "The miracle of miracles, greater than dried-up seas and cloven rocks, greater than the dead rising again to life, was when the Augustus on his throne, Pontiff of the G.o.ds of Rome, himself a G.o.d to the subjects of Rome, bent himself to become the worshiper of a crucified provincial of his Empire." (Freeman, E. A., _Periods of European History_, p. 67.)
[13] In 319 and 326 the clergy were exempted from all public burdens, and only the poor were to be admitted to the clergy. In 343 the clergy were exempted "from public burdens and from every disquietude of civil office."
In 377 all clergy were exempted from personal taxes. (See R. 38.)
[14] From the Roman world the idea has spread, through the Greek Catholic Church, to Greece, parts of the Balkans, and Russia; through the Roman Catholic Church to all western Europe and the two Americas; and through the Protestant churches which sprang from the Roman Catholic by secession, and the Mohammedan faith, to include almost all the world. Only among uncivilized tribes and in Asia do we find any great number of fundamentally different religious conceptions.
[15] Paul to the Romans (x, 9) stated the fundamentals of belief as follows: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that G.o.d hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
[16] M. Boissier. _La Fin du Paganisme_, vol. 1, p. 200.
[17] _Justin Martyr_ (105?-167), a former Greek teacher and philosopher, continued to follow his profession, wear his Greek philosopher"s garb, and held that the teachings of Christianity were already contained in Greek philosophy, and that Plato and Socrates were Christians before the coming of the Christian faith.
_Clement_ (c. 160-c. 215), the successor of Pantaeus as head of the catechetical school at Alexandria, held to the harmony of the Gospels with philosophy, and that "Plato was Moses Atticized."
_Origen_ (c. 185-c. 254), a pupil and successor of Clement, and the most learned of all the early Christian Fathers, labored to harmonize the Christian faith with Greek learning and philosophy, and did much to formulate the dogmas of the early Church.
_Saint Basil_ (331-379) tried to allay the rising prejudice against pagan learning, and to show the helpfulness to the Christian life of the Greek literature and philosophy.
_Gregory of n.a.z.ianzus_ (c. 330-c. 390) was filled with indignation and protested loudly at the closing of the pagan schools to Christians by the edict of the Emperor Julian, in 362.
[18] _Tertullian_ (c. 150-230) had been well educated in Greek literature and philosophy, and had attained distinction as a lawyer.
_Saint Jerome_ (c. 340-420) was saturated with pagan learning, but later advised against it.
_Saint Augustine_ (354-430), the master mind among the Latin Fathers, was for years a teacher of oratory and rhetoric in Roman schools, and had written part of an encyclopaedia on the liberal arts before his conversion. Many others who became prominent in the Western Church had in their earlier life been teachers in the Roman higher schools.
[19] Dreaming that he had died and gone to Heaven, he was asked, "Who art thou?" On replying, "A Christian," he heard the awful judgment, "It is false: thou art no Christian; thou art a Ciceronian; where the treasure is, there the heart is also."
[20] The knowledge of Greek remained alive longer in Ireland than anywhere else in the western world, being known there as late as the seventh century. Greek was also preserved in parts of Spain for two centuries after it had died out in Italy.
[21] In the West there was no other great city than Rome. At the period of its maximum greatness, in the first century B.C., it was a city of approximately 450,000 people.
[22] After many struggles and conflicts between the Bishops of Constantinople, Alexandria, and Rome, the Bishop of Rome was finally recognized by the second great Church Council, held at Constantinople in 381, as the head of the entire Church (Canon 3), corresponding to the Emperor on the political side of the dying Empire. The separation of the eastern and western churches was rapid after this time. (See Map, p. 103.)
[23] The word _pagan_ as applied to unbeliever ill.u.s.trates this progress of the Church, being derived from the Latin _paga.n.u.s_, meaning countryman, villager, rustic.
[24] See the accompanying _Book of Readings_ for a drawing and detailed explanation of the monastery of Saint Gall, in Switzerland (R. 69). This was one of the most important monasteries of the Middle Ages.
PART II
CHAPTER V
[1] The period from the reign of Augustus Caesar through that of Marcus Aurelius (31 B.C.-192 A.D.) was known as "the good Roman peace." No other large section of the western world has ever known such unbroken peace and prosperity for so long a time. Piracy ceased upon the seas, and trade and commerce flourished. The cities and the great middle cla.s.s in the population were prosperous. Travel was safe and common, and men traveled both for business and pleasure. The Christian State within a State had not yet taken form. Literature and learning flourished. The law became milder.
The rights of the accused became better recognized. A certain broad humanity pervaded the administration of both law and government. There was much private charity. Hospitals were established. Women were given greater freedom, larger intellectual advantages, and a better position in the home than they were to know again until the nineteenth century. It was the Golden Age of the Empire. Toward the close of the period the Christian Father, Tertullian, wrote: "Every day the world becomes more beautiful, more wealthy, more splendid. No corner remains inaccessible.... Recent deserts bloom.... Forests give way to tilled acres.... Everywhere are houses, people, cities. Everywhere there is life."
[2] Slavery in Rome came to be much more demoralizing than ever was the case in the United States. Instead of an ignorant people of an inferior race, the Roman slave was often the superior of his master--the unfortunate captive in an unsuccessful war against an oppressor. The holding of such educated and intelligent people in slavery was far more degrading to a ruling people than would have been the case had their slaves been ignorant and of inferior racial stock.
[3] The Roman State had come to be essentially a collection of cities.
Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Corinth, Carthage, Ephesus, and Lyons were great cities, judged even by present-day standards, throbbing with varied industries and a strong intellectual life. In addition there were hundreds of other cities scattered all over the Empire, each with its own munic.i.p.al life, while on the frontier were stockaded villages serving as centers of trade with the barbarian tribes beyond.
[4] Chief among the new ideals that sapped the old Roman strength must be mentioned the new Christian religion, with its doctrine of other- worldliness and its system of government not responsible to the Empire.
Another influence was the rise of a super-civic philosophy, derived chiefly from the writings of Plato (see footnote 1, page 42), which held that certain men could be above the State and yet by their wisdom in part direct it. The two influences combined to undermine the resisting strength of the State.
[5] Not only was the future of western European civilization settled there, but that of North and South America as well. Had Saracenic civilization come to dominate Europe, the Koran might have been taught to- day in the theological schools of Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, and Valparaiso, and the Christian religion been the possession only of the Greek and Russian churches, while our literature and philosophy and civilization would have been tinctured, through and through, with oriental ideas and Mohammedan conceptions.
[6] It is hard for us to imagine what happened, for the Indians we know to-day represent a much higher grade of civilization than did the German invaders. If we could imagine the United States overrun by the Indians of a hundred and fifty years ago, as the German tribes overran the Roman Empire, and becoming the rulers of a people superior to them in numbers and intellect, we should have something a.n.a.logous to the Roman situation.
[7] As allies, citizens, soldiers, colonists, and slaves the Germans had long been filtering into the Roman world, and the Roman world was in part Germanized before the barriers were broken. These German-Romans helped to a.s.similate the Germans who came later, much as Italian-Americans in the United States help to receive and a.s.similate new Italians when they come.
[8] "The historical importance of the mere fact that it was an organic unity which Rome established, and not simply a collection of fragments artificially held together by military force, that the civilized world was made, as it were, one nation, cannot be overstated.... It was a union, not in externals merely, but in every department of thought and action; and it was so thorough, and the Gaul became so completely a Roman, that when the Roman government disappeared he had no idea of being anything else than a Roman.... It was because of this that, despite the fall of Rome, Roman inst.i.tutions were perpetual." (Adams, G. B., _Civilization during the Middle Ages_, 2d ed., p. 30.)
[9] A Germanic king, when he feared no Roman general or emperor, could usually be made to stand in awe when a Christian priest or bishop appealed to Heaven and the saints, and threatened him with eternal h.e.l.l-fire if he did not do his bidding.
[10] The Church, it must be remembered, maintained its separate system of government and kept up the old forms of the Roman law. It had also its courts and its exemptions for the clergy, and these it forced the barbarians to respect. During half a dozen centuries it was the chief force that made life tolerable for myriads of men and women, and almost the only force upholding any semblance of humane ideals.
[11] Clotilda, wife of the heathen Clovis, was a Burgundian princess and a devout Christian, who had long tried to persuade her husband to accept her faith. In 496, during a battle with the Alemanni, near the present city of Stra.s.sburg, Clovis vowed that if the G.o.d of Clotilda would give him victory, he would do as she desired. The Alemanni were crushed, and he and three thousand of his chiefs were at once baptized.
[12] Draper, John W., _Intellectual Development of Europe_, vol. II, pp.
145-46.